Gospel Story Finder

This is the best hiding spot!
What’s that?
I don’t know. Let’s open it!
Wow!
It’s like a hidden treasure!
Free candy!
But I think it belongs to someone.
We should return it.
Yeah. I bet it’s from the snack stand.
We found this under the bleachers. Is it yours?
Yes! A few days ago, someone broke in and stole all our candy.
Thanks for being honest and bringing it back!
Do you think this is how superheroes feel?
I don’t know. But I want to feel like this all the time.
Yeah. It’s even better than candy.

Another thing his uncle had told him that he believed was that by studying and doing the good things taught in the Book of Mormon, a person could get closer to God than by any other means, short of personal prayer or dying. Elias had given the boy a copy of the book, one that Elias had been presented as a young missionary while living in Nauvoo. The book had helped to ease Simon’s lingering sorrow over his parents’ deaths, and he had read it faithfully, pondered its contents, and prayed about its truthfulness.
One day when Simon had emerged from his secret place of prayer, he told his uncle that he experienced “a feeling that was as warm as the down comforter Mother used to wrap around me on cold winter nights.” He said that he knew the Book of Mormon was true and that he would one day be reunited with his parents in the world to come.
“Now that you know the truth,” Elias had counseled him, “you have a duty to Heavenly Father and to yourself to live it. It won’t always be easy to stand firm against the opposition that may come. But let the winds of adversity blow you forward, never down.”

This became clear to me some years ago when, as a young father, I needed to purchase some temple clothing. When I entered the store, my attention was drawn to a sign on the counter that read “For Latter-day Saints Only.” The message jolted me. In my mind, an argument ensued. “Why does it say ‘For Latter-day Saints Only’?” I asked myself. “Why doesn’t it say something like ‘For Endowed Church Members’?” Why does it raise this issue of being a “Latter-day Saint”?

The years since have tempered my impetuous nature. That argumentative encounter of long ago has become a treasured, defining moment. The experience taught me that just being a member of this Church is not enough. Nor is merely going through the motions of membership sufficient in this day of cynicism and unbelief. The spirituality and vigilance of a saint are required.

Rachel peeked around the wheel of the covered wagon and whispered, “Psst, Mary Ann!”
When her friend did not respond, she spoke louder: “Mary Ann, come here!”
Mary Ann was sitting on an old quilt tending her baby brother. She looked up. “I can’t come there,” she said. “My mama told me not to move off this quilt until she was through cooking the biscuits.”
Rachel made her way to the quilt, which was spread on the ground under a shady tree. They were traveling west with their families in a wagon train. They had left Missouri with everything they owned loaded into the wagons. Rachel was ready to cry as she sat down on the quilt.
“I’ve looked and looked,” Rachel groaned. “It’s gone!”
“What’s gone?” Mary Ann asked.
“I’ve lost my knitting!” Rachel said. Rachel was a very good knitter. She kept a ball of yarn in her apron pocket and knitted as she walked behind the wagon. “I had a stocking almost half done. Mary Ann, what will I do?”
“Now, calm down,” Mary Ann said in her best motherly voice. “Stop and think. Where did you have it last? Did you look in your little wooden trunk? Sometimes you put it in there.”
“I looked everywhere,” Rachel said. “My last ball of yarn and my metal knitting needles are gone. My papa traded a whole pound of nails for those knitting needles in St. Louis. He’ll never forgive me for losing them.”
“I’m sure he will understand,” Mary Ann said. “But I’ll help you look in your wagon tonight after supper.”
The girls searched the family’s wagon together, but they didn’t find Rachel’s knitting.
“How can I tell Mama and Papa?” Rachel asked.
“Tell us what?” a voice asked.
The girls whirled around. There was Rachel’s father, standing next to the wagon checking the level of the water barrel.
“Oh, Papa,” Rachel sobbed. “I am so careless, and I have done such an awful thing. I’ve lost my metal knitting needles, my yarn, and a half-finished sock.”
Rachel’s father put his arms around her. “That is sad, but it’s not the end of the world.”
The following Saturday when the wagon train stopped for the night, it was announced that they would camp there until Tuesday to give the horses and oxen a chance to rest, and to let the men make repairs to the wagons and harnesses.
Rachel tried to keep busy. She helped her mother cook. She washed clothes in the nearby stream. She helped Mary Ann with her little brother. Rachel sighed. “If I had my knitting, I could have had that stocking almost finished,” she told her friend.
“Never mind,” Mary Ann said. “When we get to the Salt Lake Valley, you can get some new needles and yarn.”
“I hope so,” Rachel said sadly.
“Rachel, please come here,” her father called. “I have a surprise for you.” He was standing near the campfire with his hands behind his back. He brought out one hand. “I whittled a new pair of knitting needles for you,” he said. “They are not as sturdy as the metal ones, but I think they will do. They are made of alder wood, and they are quite straight and smooth.”
Rachel squealed with delight. “Oh, Papa, they are beautiful!”
Then he brought out his other hand from behind his back. He was holding a ball of red yarn.
“Yarn! Where in the world did you get it?” Rachel asked.
“Sister Davis donated it. She said it was just taking up space in her sewing basket.” Her father smiled. “And here is a bit of green yarn that Sister Harper found, and a small ball of yellow from Sister Rogers.” He hugged his daughter. “Everyone felt so bad about you losing your knitting that they all found what scraps of yarn they could so that you could continue knitting the rest of the trip.”
“This is wonderful,” Rachel said. “I must tell everyone how much I appreciate it.” Rachel started off, but she turned around quickly and went back to her father. “Thank you so much for the knitting needles, Papa. I will take very good care of them.” Rachel ran off to show all the ladies of the wagon train the wonderful gift she had received.
As they walked along with the wagons, Rachel knitted and knitted. At night, Rachel held her needles and yarn safely in her pocket. “I’m not taking any chances with this knitting,” she told Mary Ann. “It is too special.”
The day finally came when they looked down into the Salt Lake Valley. They were relieved to have arrived before winter. The nights were getting colder and they knew that snow would not be long in coming.
“Did you finish the sock?” Brother Carter asked Rachel as he led his horses down the steep mountain trail.
“I did,” Rachel said. She pulled out her knitting to show him her finished work.
“Well, now, that is a most unusual stocking,” he said.
“I know.” Rachel laughed. “Papa called it ‘quite remarkable.’”
The knitted stocking had wide and narrow stripes in many different colors. Rachel looked at it thoughtfully. “It’s one of a kind,” she said. “There will never be another like this. I am going to hang it on the mantle at Christmastime when we get a house built. It will be my most unusual, quite remarkable, one-of-a-kind Christmas stocking!”
Rachel enjoyed hanging up her special Christmas stocking for many years. It was a colorful and happy reminder of her trip across the plains, and the generosity and kindness of her fellow travelers.

At the time, there were only two Aaronic Priesthood bearers in the Immokalee Branch: Junior and another young man named Jorge Caceres. Jorge was born in the Church but had become discouraged because for a long time he had been the only Aaronic Priesthood bearer in the branch. So Junior, a convert, was the only one who went to stake firesides.
Today there are 26 active young men in the branch—and one of them is Jorge Caceres, the one who had previously been discouraged about having no other young men with whom to associate.
“I became friends with Junior, too,” Jorge says, “Then when he started inviting his friends to church, I became friends with them. Every week new people kept coming.”
And Jorge noticed something. “Once they started getting to know the Church, they changed.” The gospel was changing them; getting to know Christ was changing them. “When I saw that, I started to take church more seriously. I worked on my own testimony, and now I know the Church is true.”

“We’re number one!” shouted the cheerleader at a high school football game. I admired her straight teeth and perfect smile. I watched as she laughed and talked to the girls and flirted with the boys.

“It must be glorious to be her,” I thought, reflecting on my own loneliness. My father’s job required us to move every three to five years, so it was hard for my sister and me to form lasting friendships.

The cheerleader had a reputation for dressing immodestly and going to drinking parties. Watching her, I began to ache for the popularity that I thought she represented. I wanted friends so badly that for one fleeting moment I wondered if I should lower my standards to become like her.

While my sister and I drove home, I was wallowing in self-pity, and I prayed in my heart to Heavenly Father. I asked Him to tell me the secret that would take away my loneliness and insecurity. Although I wasn’t a Church member at this time, I had a strong faith in God.

Immediately came into my mind the idea, “Stop thinking about yourself.”

“That’s the secret?” I thought disappointedly. “How can that help me to become popular?”

Later that week, I read about charity in 1 Corinthians 13. It helped me understand that Heavenly Father was trying to teach me to have charity toward others rather than focus on how they were treating me. I took the characteristics of charity listed there and put them to work. When I did this, I found that my whole school experience changed. Here are some of the valuable things I learned.

I tried to become more patient with people at school. One boy teased me during gym class, but I tried to meet his ill will with kindness and smiles. Eventually he stopped teasing me. By the end of the year, we became good friends.

I had always admired a girl in my class who was friendly to everyone, no matter how popular or unpopular they were. I began to follow her example and look for opportunities to show kindness to others.

My sister and I were jealous of the talents of a basketball player in our school, and we used to make cutting remarks about her. I decided to start rejoicing in her victories instead. I also began to develop my own talents. When I did these things, I lost my bitter burden, and I was much happier.

I sometimes thought I was better than some people because I lived higher moral standards. When I thought about the Savior, who was meek and loved all people, I decided to change my attitude. As I tried to be humble and kind, people began to make the effort to be my friend.

I loved the Lord and had high moral standards. I decided that compromising these standards would make me unhappy.

Once, a teacher made a comment that hurt my feelings. Rather than reacting, I asked her if she was having a hard day. She admitted that she was and then apologized. Those comments had come from her personal problems and had nothing to do with me.

One thing my Latter-day Saint friends taught me was that gossiping and spreading lies is evil. I tried to avoid gossip and changed the subject whenever someone started to say unkind things.

I began to see the good in people and be optimistic. When I made this attitude change, people began to feel uplifted around me. This made them want to associate with me more often.

When my sister became seriously ill and lost her ability to walk normally, many of her friends abandoned her because she walked funny. I saw her heartbreak, and I realized the importance of sticking with people through tough times.

When I practiced charity in my relationships, I developed many true and lasting friendships. My loneliness disappeared, and I realized popularity was nothing compared to the real treasure of friendship and respect that comes from living gospel principles.

I am thankful for a Father in Heaven who took the time to teach a sophomore in high school the secret of gaining friendships that would last.

The story is told that in ancient Rome a group of women were, with vanity, showing their jewels one to another. Among them was Cornelia, the mother of two boys. One of the women said to her, “And where are your jewels?” to which Cornelia responded, pointing to her sons, “These are my jewels.” Under her tutelage, and walking after the virtues of her life, they grew to become Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus—the Gracchi, as they were called—two of the most persuasive and effective reformers in Roman history. For as long as they are remembered and spoken of, the mother who reared them after the manner of her own life will be remembered and spoken of with praise also.

“The missionary work of the Church is a panorama of more than a century of service and privations and hardships and sacrifices. The closer one is to the program, the more completely one can understand and appreciate it. When my grandfather Heber C. Kimball left for his mission, he and Brigham Young left their families destitute and ill and they themselves needed help to get into the carriage which took them from their homes. As they started off they raised themselves … and waved back to their weeping wives and children. Thousands of people came into the Church as a result of those missions, and tens of thousands have been benefited indirectly and are now enjoying the blessings of the gospel because of those sacrifices. To one who did not understand, such devotion and sacrifice on the part of those men would have been considered foolhardy and silly. But to the Young and Kimball families it was a mark of great faith. And to the thousands who will, through the eternities, call the names of those missionaries blessed, the privations and sacrifice were not wasted.”—President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball (1982), 253.

Let me answer from my own experience. In 1963 I was called to preside over the Scottish Mission. When I arrived, I made a tour of all the branches and could see that the members, many of whom were new converts, were still learning the patterns of the gospel and why we do things the way we do. I realized that what these branches needed was the example of members who were well seasoned in Church experience—priesthood and Relief Society knowledge and operating procedures. I thought of the vast numbers of healthy retired people sitting in rocking chairs on sunny patios when they still had many years of productivity in them. I could visualize how successful we could be in Scotland if we had some of those experienced retired couples in some of our branches. What a help they would be!

So I wrote to some of our retired friends in California, encouraging them to come on a mission and suggesting that they indicate on their missionary applications that they would enjoy serving in Scotland. Seven couples responded to my encouragement.

In addition, as a mission president I submitted my request to the Missionary Department for couple missionaries. Since assignments for missionary service are made by inspiration through the Brethren, there was no guarantee that these couples from California would be able to serve with me. However, to our mutual joy, these seven couples were assigned to the Scottish Mission, and we put them to work in these branches. Their influence was just as successful as I had hoped it would be. What a wonderful resource they were!

Early during my freshman year of high school, I accepted my seminary teacher’s challenge to read the Book of Mormon cover to cover. Now, a month before my 15th birthday, I knelt by my bed and took Moroni’s challenge to heart:
“I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts” (Moroni 10:3).
I began to ponder how the Lord had been merciful to me that school year and counted the many ways my life had been blessed. I had earned better grades than ever. I had developed skills in both football and track, and next year’s seasons looked promising. I had made some exceptional friends who showed me through their example the way I should try to live my life.
I pondered on all I had read about that year in the Book of Mormon—the courage of Nephi, the conversion of Alma, the faith of Helaman’s 2,000 warriors, the sorrow of Mormon as his people destroyed themselves through sin. I asked myself if I believed what I had read and concluded that I did believe and that applying what I read had helped me to have a successful freshman year.
Then I put the final part of Moroni’s promise to the test:
“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true” (Moroni 10:4).
I prayed. In my prayer I told Heavenly Father that I had finished the Book of Mormon and that I believed it was true. I hesitated a moment and then asked the question that had weighed on my mind for weeks, “Is this book true?”
Barely after I finished expressing those words, I felt a surge of warmth and love spread through my body, beginning at my head and washing through to my toes. It was the same feeling I felt when I decided I wanted to become a missionary, when I received the gift of the Holy Ghost, and when I heard prophets testify of Christ in general conference.
Not every year of high school went as smoothly for me, but my testimony of the Book of Mormon and the experience of getting a direct answer to my prayer helped me to overcome challenges and provided a foundation of faith for the rest of my life.
The Book of Mormon is true. God answers our prayers. I pray that that testimony will always be mine.

On a trip to Japan it was my privilege to attend a sacrament meeting of the Naha Branch on the island of Okinawa. I was so impressed with the quality of the sacrament service and the reverence and dignity exhibited by the Aaronic Priesthood that when I was called to speak I asked one of the young men to join me at the pulpit. I asked him, “How do you feel knowing that you hold the priesthood of God?” Not tall enough to see over the pulpit, he raised on his toes so he could see the congregation, then with deep emotion responded: “It’s the greatest honor of my life!”

I was just finishing my farm work when Mom called. The cows had been taken to the pasture, and the rabbits, chickens, pigs, and horses were all fed. The three cans of milk were on the trailer ready to be taken to the dairy.
I was fifteen years old then, and it was 1936, one of the hard years for our big family of thirteen. One of my brothers was on a mission, and eight of us were in school. The rest were home keeping Mom busy.
Mom said, “Jay, I’ll have to keep you out of school today so you can get a ride to the PFE shops where your father is working. I must get this letter to your father. It’s very important or I wouldn’t ask you to do it.” The Pacific Fruit Express shops were repair stations for railroad engines and cars. My father worked there to help support the family financially.
Mom handed me the envelope. It must have been a very important letter to justify keeping me out of school even for one day. “I’m sorry to do this, Jay,” she said, “but there isn’t any other way to get this letter to him.” She couldn’t telephone Dad because there were no telephone lines to our farm.
The place where Dad worked was about twenty-four kilometers away. I walked three kilometers to the highway in the beautiful, early summer air and soon had a ride to the next town. After walking through town, I got another ride that brought me to the dirt road leading to the gate of the PFE shops. I stepped out of the car, thanked the driver, and began the twenty minute walk to the gate, surveying as I walked the place Dad had so often talked about—the place that made him so dirty and so tired, the place of work that Mom had said was so important to our large family.
With new understanding I thought, This is why Dad is only with us evenings and Saturdays and Sundays. This is why it’s Mom who teaches us how to milk cows, to stack hay and grain, to irrigate the crops, to harness the team and make fences, to build hen houses and all the other things that must be done on a farm. This is also why Mom is so good at teaching us the gospel and telling us Bible and Book of Mormon stories while we work with her. Dad was here. And his work was important and hard.
As I came to the gate, I could see large buildings on both sides of the many railroad tracks. The noise of the railroad cars banging into each other as they were hooked together was loud. There was also noise from steam engines, signal bells, horns, and men working with air hammers and other railroad equipment.
Suddenly a loud siren sounded, and all the other noise went away. It was noon—lunch time. Men appeared from all over and I could hear hundreds of voices. How will I ever find Dad in all of these people? I wondered.
I went through the gate and walked toward the closest work area I saw, thinking I might find someone there to ask for directions. There were big stacks of materials and equipment around an open area. As I looked across the clearing, I recognized Dad immediately. I stopped and stood still and it felt as if there were not another person in sight. In a world of our own, it felt as if it were just Dad and me, and I will always be grateful for what I saw. Dad was sitting on the ground with his back to one of the stacks of materials, his legs stretched out, and his hat by his side. With his lunch box between his knees, hands folded in his lap, and head bowed, he was speaking thanks to God for what He was giving him—and for many other things, I’m sure because of the time it took and the feeling I had as I saw him praying. I stood silent and watched intently while the message sank deep within me: There’s nobody here for him to prove anything to. Dad really does believe. When he finished and looked up, he saw me at once. A humble smile spread over his face, and as I approached him tears filled his eyes. “Well, Jay, it’s so nice to see you,” he said. “Come and sit down, son.”
To this day, I don’t know what the message was that I delivered to Dad, but I’ve never forgotten the one he gave me.

Recently I had the privilege of meeting with some missionaries in Stuttgart, Germany. We talked of the urgency of our work and examined ways to improve the effectiveness of their proselyting efforts. We discussed the challenge by President Kimball for missionaries to become eight times more effective in obtaining teaching opportunities. As one group of elders returned to their apartment following the meeting, one of them said, “If the prophet of the Lord says we can do it, we can. We’ll find a way.” And they did! They studied, prayed, and worked. By the close of their next week’s proselyting period the five companionships had given more than 200 discussions. Each pair of missionaries met their goal, to be eight times more effective.

I used to have a hard time reading, and I was really self-conscious about it. I wouldn’t read in class because it was hard for me to sound out some of the words, and I was afraid to read out loud because the kids in school would tease me because I couldn’t understand what I was reading. It was hard for me to make friends, too, because my family moved around a lot. Then my family moved to Oregon, USA.
One of my new neighbors quickly became one of my best friends. He encouraged me to go to church. The guys there didn’t tease me like the kids in school did. They took it upon themselves during church to help me read the scriptures. They spent the time to help me learn to read the words I couldn’t sound out. Slowly, they gave me the courage to read out loud. From that day on I would read even if it would take half the class time for me to read what the teacher asked me to read.
I was blessed with these great guys who took me under their wings. They didn’t have to do this for me, and they could’ve stayed silent, but following the Spirit, they made a choice to help me and made a difference in my life. We too can make a difference in others’ lives; we just have to be willing to listen to the Spirit to guide us to those people who are in need of help.

Are there some specific things that you could use some help with right now? When my neighbor saw my broken fence and fixed it, he knew that I needed help. But other needs aren’t as easily determined without asking. Gently ask or suggest ways in which you might help. For example, I was concerned that the financial provisions for my family were in order, but didn’t quite know how to go about determining whether or not they were. One day my bishop, who is a certified public accountant, came to see me. “If you’d like me to,” he said, “I’d be happy to review your financial affairs with you and your wife.” I was grateful for his tact, and relieved to learn after his review that things were as we wished them to be.

Sometimes people rejected the prophets because they were jealous of them and their power.

In the Book of Third Nephi when Nephi was ministering with great power, “they were angry with him, even because he had greater power than they” (3 Nephi 7:18). The people even saw Nephi raise his brother from the dead; “and the people saw it, and did witness of it, and were angry with him because of his power” (3 Nephi 7:20).

When Thomas Marsh came back to the Church after his disaffection, he explained what happened:
“I must have lost the Spirit of the Lord out of my heart. …
“I became jealous of the Prophet … and overlooked everything that was right, and spent all my time in looking for the evil; … I thought I saw a beam in Brother Joseph’s eye, but it was nothing but a mote, and my own eye was filled with the beam; … I got mad and I wanted everybody else to be mad. I talked with Brother Brigham Young and Brother Heber C. Kimball, and I wanted them to be mad like myself; and I saw they were not mad, and I got madder still because they were not. Brother Brigham Young, with a cautious look, said, ‘Are you the leader of the Church, Brother Thomas?’ I answered ‘No.’ ‘Well then,’ said he, ‘why do you not let that alone?’”2

I had gone to a certain house several times and had been rejected and warned not to come back again, but I was prompted to go again and again. And then as I was attempting to walk past that house, I was prompted to go in and try again to make contact. I used the big brass knocker on the English door without any response. I could see a lady in the front room knitting, and I made considerable noise with that knocker. She did not come out, and I went around to the back door. There was no knocker on that door so I used my walking stick, and I knocked with considerable vigor; in fact, it echoed through all the house.

Very soon the lady came out, and her coming out reminded me of my early days on the farm when I teased a sitting hen off the nest. (I see some of you have had farm experience.) You know that a setting hen when she is teased off the nest comes off with her feathers going in the wrong direction, with her beak in perpetual motion, and this woman reminded me of that.

I apologized and said, “I am sorry to have interrupted you and have insisted upon an interview, but, my dear sister, I have come over six thousand miles to bring you a message which the Lord wants you to have. He sent me here to give you that message. I am going back to Canada in a few days, and I must tell you what the Lord wants you to know.”

She said, “You mean the Lord sent a message to me!”

I said, “That is right, he did.”

I told her of the restoration of the gospel, the organization of the Church, and the message of the restoration. She was quite impressed by what I told her. And I said when I left, “I am sorry to have disturbed you, but I could not refuse to carry out the message and the mission that was given to me when I came here. When we meet again, and we will meet again, you are going to say, ‘Thank you for coming to my back door. Thank you for loving me enough to carry the message of the Lord to me. When you left I could hardly contain myself. I was worried, disturbed, and wondered what it was all about. I finally went to the mission home, got some literature, studied, and became a member of the Church with my family.’”

Ten years later I was in England again, this time as a soldier, and at the end of the meeting a lady came up with two grown daughters. She said, “I do thank God and thank you that you came to my door with that message many years ago. I and my daughters joined the Church and we are going to Utah in a short time, and we thank God that you had the courage, the fortitude, and the faith to come to me with that divine message and to leave it with me in the name of the Lord.”Elder Hugh B. BrownOf the Council of the Twelve

Joyce Baggerly of Provo, Utah, considers herself a member of the Lord’s kingdom on earth who happens to be single. “Being single in a mostly married church has never been a problem for me,” she says. “I would rather be married, but I’m not, so I do the best I can with what I have.”
When she moves into a new ward, she finds the executive secretary and requests an appointment with the bishop, and she makes sure the membership clerk requests her records.
“I introduce myself to the Relief Society president and request a visiting teaching assignment. The first fast Sunday, I bear my testimony of Jesus Christ and express how much I love the Savior. I attend every activity the ward has,” she says. “On the rare occasion when I come home from a meeting where I feel ignored, I say a prayer that I might be able to go again with the same cheerful countenance I usually have on Sunday and that I can keep that smile until I am accepted.”

Although the path to eternal marriage has been just as straight for Vynohradars’kyi Ward members Petr and Adalina Mikhailenko, the road has been much longer. The Mikhailenkos were among the first families to join the Church in Ukraine, having been baptized in 1993—just two years after the first branch was established in Kyiv.
Despite this, distance from a temple and other factors kept the couple from being sealed for many years. Undeterred, they remained committed to each other and to their dream of an eternal marriage.
“I waited patiently for the temple,” Brother Mikhailenko says. “There was never a thought to leave the Church. The path has always been clear.”
After President Thomas S. Monson dedicated the temple in August 2010, the couple’s eagerness to be sealed couldn’t be contained. “We came so early on the day we were to be sealed that the temple was not open yet,” Sister Mikhailenko says.
The couple wasn’t alone. Many fellow ward members came to the temple that day as well, excited to share in the Mikhailenkos’ joy.
“The sealing was wonderful,” Sister Mikhailenko says. “There was a feeling like you never really loved your spouse like you love him at that moment.”
The feeling of love has persisted since that day. “There is an absolute difference in our relationship,” Brother Mikhailenko says. “We have been married for a long time, but there is now a different feeling. We want to do more for each other, and we do it with more love.”

Her question didn’t exactly startle me, but it was unexpected. While waiting for others to join us to perform temple sealings, we spoke of this and that—about the snow, the chandelier—and then, after a moment, the young woman turned to me and asked, “How long have you been a sealing officiator?”
“I’m beginning my 19th year,” I said.
“And what have you learned?” she asked.
I had no reply at first. I’d never thought that question through.
I searched my mind for possible answers. I thought of saying, “I’ve learned how perfect people can seem here in the temple.”
I thought of answering, “I have learned to appreciate the ordinances themselves—their simplicity, their antiquity, their profundity.”
But I knew she was asking for the essence of my experience. And suddenly I found the words to express what I knew.
“I’ve learned that the basis of eternity is the family,” I said. “The essential purpose of the Church and all that we do is to make it possible for families to be together forever.”
She sat motionless, her eyes meeting mine.
“The ordinances performed in the temple empower people,” I said. “They make eternal family relationships possible. In the temple, I find that family and love are synonymous. That’s what I’ve learned.”
Sensing a need, I turned the question back to her. “What have you learned?” I asked.
Her lip trembled for a moment. “I’ve learned that what you are saying is true,” she said finally. “Family is what the Church—and the temple—are all about. That’s why I’m here—for my family.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“My father was good to me, but my mother died when I was tiny,” she said. “They were never married. When I was 13, my father died. And then I found the gospel—or it found me.”
Her face brightened. “A few months ago I got back from my mission and began the temple work for my father and mother. I was sealed to them for eternity. For the first time, I am whole. Knowing I am sealed to my family gives me a place to be. The day I was sealed to my parents was, for me, the beginning of eternity. I feel so happy when I am here in the temple.”
I looked into her smiling face. Through my tears, I could see hers. Now each time I go to the temple, I think of that sister’s face and of the eternal blessing it is to be sealed to our families forever.