Gospel Story Finder

This was an incredibly difficult experience, but it came with unexpected blessings. I truly believe that it’s because of my son’s parents that I was able to find my husband. Seeing their love and connection helped me realize what I wanted in a marriage, so when the right man came into my life, I was able to recognize the happiness we could have together and that we’ve since established.

The town where I live is very cold. To help the missionaries keep warm, I knitted a muffler with the help of my mom.
Mirai H., age 10, Hokkaido, Japan

Sharing the gospel is about people, not numbers. So what happened in Immokalee, Florida, began just as it should have, when Junior Reyes invited one of his friends to come to church.
Little did he know what he was starting.
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.
“Every time I’d go, I’d see the other branches and all the youth in the stake, but from our branch, it would just be me,” Junior says. “Finally, I said, ‘Why am I the only one here from Immokalee? I’ve got to open my mouth.’
“The way I was raised, I was taught not to be scared,” he continues. “When I talk to my friends about Jesus Christ and the restored gospel, I’m not afraid; I’m happy. I know what I’m telling them can help them make their lives better.”
So Junior invited his friend Wedner Daly to come to church. “I said, ‘You learn a lot of things and you get a lot of blessings, and it’s worth it.’”
Wedner accepted.
“I didn’t think anything special about it at first,” Wedner says. “I thought it would be like other churches. But when I got there, it was the day that everybody shared their testimonies, so I got to feel the Spirit when I first came. That was different for me. I had never been to a church where people shared their testimonies and felt great about their church. That’s one of the reasons that I liked it.”

Over the years, Gus and his father regularly visited Sister Joyce Miller, at the time a less-active member of the Church who was battling cancer.
“The thing I remember most about Gus as a young boy was that whenever I asked him to say a prayer, he would stand up and do it,” Sister Miller says. “A lot of young boys and girls roll their eyes when you ask them to do something like praying. Not Gus.”
Now the young man who stopped by was a deacon with a priesthood responsibility. “I wasn’t active when they first started visiting me,” Sister Miller continues, “but their visits meant everything. I wanted to come back to church, but I was smoking and didn’t want to go because I was afraid people would smell the smoke on me.”
“All I knew is we always went to Sister Miller’s house and had fun when we home-taught her. I didn’t think any different of her when I found out she smoked because we were already really good friends,” says Gus. “I was pretty impressed and proud of her when she did stop smoking because I have heard how tough it is to quit.”
When she did stop smoking, Sister Miller began going to church again. “I was so glad because I liked seeing her. I would be able to see a smile on her face and be able to tell she really liked being at church,” Gus adds.

When my wife and I were a young married couple, we tried repeatedly to establish a firm habit of reading the scriptures together every day as a family. When our oldest child was about seven years old, we finally made it a daily habit. Reading first thing in the morning, we continued faithfully from that time forward. Once the habit was established with the other children, the younger children were eager to participate as they became old enough. Often we had to read before 6:00 a.m. because of early-morning seminary.

I know a man who teaches his children at mealtimes. He has a habit of asking two or three gospel questions. He says he can always get the attention of his teenagers when he says, “I have a dollar question for you.”

What he has learned about our Father’s plan of salvation helped him when his beloved grandfather died suddenly. He was able to receive comfort and peace because of “the hope the gospel gives us.”

To stay united, the Balyejusas hold family home evening with scripture reading and a lesson each evening. When it’s Dan’s turn to give the lesson, he usually talks about repentance and forgiveness. Each Sunday afternoon, the missionaries come and give the family a special lesson. The elders are like big brothers to Dan, teasing and teaching and guiding him. Dan wants to follow their example and serve a mission himself someday.

Thank you so much for printing the article “My Brother” (Jan. 1996). When I read this, I just simply couldn’t hold back the tears. I knew of the love our Savior must have had for me; I just never really appreciated it before. I felt the Spirit so much, and I know my Savior does truly love me. I thank him for his sacrifice for me so I can someday return to him. Thank you again for printing this article. It meant a lot to me.
Stephney SegesmanBarstow, California

“What a great point! I want to write that down.”
“Stephen, this isn’t the time for phone games. Lexi is sharing something important.”
“Hey, I was only taking notes!”
“I can’t believe Brother Henderson embarrassed me like that in front of the whole class! And all I was doing was writing down what Lexi said!”
“This situation reminds me of when Captain Moroni wrote some very unkind things to Pahoran, even though we learn that Pahoran hadn’t done anything wrong.”
“Huh. You’re right. I love that story.”
“Please help me forgive Brother Henderson, like Pahoran forgave Moroni.”
See Alma 60–61.

This building on its east facade has the words “The House of the Lord.” The first time I walked just a few feet into the temple I had the feeling that I had been here before. In an instant, the thought came to me that what I recognized was a sense of peace beyond anything I had felt before in this life, but that I seemed to recognize and almost remember.

It was a cold, rainy day, and my friends and I were playing kickball. One of the players was a girl who gets teased a lot and does not have many friends. She didn’t have a coat although it was raining hard. She was soaked! It looked as if she had just jumped into a swimming pool! Her nose was red and she was shivering. I felt sorry for her, so I took off my coat and let her borrow it until recess was over. Even though I was cold on the outside, I felt warm and cozy inside.

Aleran loved to juggle. He juggled gold balls, silverware, furniture, chickens, and even small pigs. It was said that he could juggle eggs, skillets, and flaming torches so as to serve breakfast to his admirers as he finished!
In fact, Aleran spent so much time juggling that he neglected his duties as king. This left his Chief Adviser, Dorlin, to manage the kingdom alone.
“Your Majesty, this isn’t really my job,” Dorlin complained. But Aleran ignored him.
Years spun by. Dorlin did the best he could, but the king only juggled, and the kingdom fell into disrepair.
One day, however, a problem arose that Dorlin could do nothing about. He went to the king. “Your Majesty,” Dorlin said, clearing his throat. “The people grow concerned.”
“Why?” asked Aleran, taking a bite from each of the fruits he was juggling.
“They wish you to marry and provide an heir to the throne.”
Aleran nearly dropped a pomegranate. “Marry?” He knew that it was his duty to marry, but a wife might take time away from his juggling.
Slowly the king began to smile. “Very well,” he agreed, to Dorlin’s surprise. “But I will only marry a woman who can juggle as well as I can.”
Aleran felt quite sure that no woman could ever match him in juggling.
Dorlin, however, was not so easily turned aside from his purpose. He decided to hold a juggling banquet at the palace, to which only women would be invited.
Soon women from all over the kingdom set to work learning to juggle—all with the thought of marrying the king.
Merchants sold balls, fruit, torches, and cutlery. Physicians kept busy dealing with cuts, bruises, and burns.
Near the castle lived a young woman named Maria.
“Are you going to the banquet?” her mother asked. “You would make a fine queen.”
“And marry a man who has abandoned his kingdom for a hobby? I think not! Besides, I’d make a finer housekeeper. I wonder if the king has even thought about how he’s going to feed everyone coming to the castle to juggle.”
She presented herself at the castle kitchen the next day. The last housekeeper had left to practice juggling, so she was quickly hired. Without further ado, Maria began preparing meals for the king and planning for the banquet that was to come.
King Aleran soon noticed improvements at the castle. Meals were on time and wonderfully delicious. Sheets were mended and starched. Cobwebs disappeared. Even the hearthfires no longer smoked.
He smiled while passing Maria in the hallway, amazed at how easy she made the job look.
Maria frowned with disapproval as the king juggled while the kingdom went unattended.
When the day of the banquet came, hundreds of jugglers streamed into the great hall. The meal was served as the juggling began.
Maria and her helpers set the tables. They laid the silverware as knives filled the air. Maria’s calm figure was a point of peace in a frenzied crowd.
Someone juggled six live hens—with scarcely a squawk from the birds—while Maria served glazed chicken with plum sauce.
The salad was eaten while two women from a southern city tried to outdo one another juggling vegetables.
Balls, horseshoes, and all manner of strange objects flew through the air during the evening. At last, dessert—apple crisp—was served as the final juggler tossed flaming torches about.
The king was exhausted, yet relieved, for none of the juggling equaled his own skill.
“Your Majesty.” Maria placed his dessert before him.
He blinked, and his eyes followed her as she moved away.
“It’s a pity she’s not a juggler,” he murmured aloud. “But perhaps it’s just as well. I’d hate to see her skills wasted on something as unimportant as …” He did not finish, but a frown crossed his face.
The banquet ended. Reluctantly the crowd left, each juggler angry that she had not been chosen as queen. The king wandered the clean but empty halls for a time, then felt drawn to the kitchen. He poked his head around the door frame.
Plates, cups, and silverware flew by in the servants’ hands as Maria orchestrated the washing-up. The king had never seen anything like it. If juggling was keeping things in motion with a minimum of wasted movement, Maria was a master of the art.
“What brings you to the kitchen?” Maria asked calmly.
“You do,” Aleran declared. “You are the only worthy wife for me, for you can juggle an entire castle!”
“It is true that I can juggle the affairs of a castle,” Maria said, “but until you at least attempt to juggle the affairs of a kingdom, I must refuse your offer.”
She turned back to her work.
Late that night King Aleran paced his bedroom, troubled by Maria’s words.
In the morning he called for Dorlin. “Old friend,” he said, “could you teach me your skill in running the kingdom?”
Dorlin was relieved to answer yes.
If juggling had been a challenge, ruling wisely proved to be a greater one. It was fully two years before Aleran felt worthy to seek the hand of Maria again. By then he had the beginnings of a reputation as a wise ruler, and a just one.
Aleran sought Maria out in the kitchen garden, where she was peeling apples for pie. She gladly agreed to marry him, for much had changed in two years.
“I’ll never waste my time juggling again,” Aleran promised.
Maria looked shocked. She plucked an apple from her lap.
“Each apple is important,” she said. “Yet if I wasted all my time with the apples, the pie would never get made. However,” she added, smiling, “there’s no reason why I couldn’t have a little fun and make the pie.”
She tossed an apple into the air, then another and another.
Aleran watched, amazed, as she kept them all going smoothly.
“The trick with juggling,” Maria said gently, “is timing.”

Who would have known that what began as a lemonade stand fund-raiser for Help a Child Smile would evolve into a carnival organized and run by Lindsay Schoen, with more than $10,000 raised during the past seven years?
Her provide-a-service idea first began with a lemonade stand that became a fixture near her Fielden Avenue home. Lindsay had already decided she would donate the money from her little business to Help a Child Smile, a nonprofit charitable organization that provides trips and gifts for sick Canadian children.
“The year after I had my stand, I went to [Help a Child Smile’s] big fund-raiser and I gave them $50 that I had earned,” Lindsay says. “I thought it was really cool. I didn’t even know how much money I had because I just kept all the money I made in a little box. Then I counted it out and gave it to them. I thought it was pretty neat.” So did the people at Help a Child Smile.
During Lindsay’s sickness, Help a Child Smile had selected Lindsay’s family for an all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Lindsay had directly benefitted from people’s generosity, and now she wanted other cancer patients to experience the same thing she had.
That was when the grade-school businesswoman hatched the carnival idea. It was time to diversify, time to turn her lemonade stand into something a little bigger. Lindsay set a goal to make $100 at the first carnival, replete with a fish pond, a ring toss, and crafts table. She advertised the carnival by putting up posters on telephone poles around Port Colborne, and she sold tickets for 25 cents each. She even got people to donate some of the prizes, as well as food.
“I just didn’t know if anyone would come,” Lindsay says.
She couldn’t have been more wrong. By the end of that first carnival, the money she had made wouldn’t fit in her trusty box. “We made over $750,” Lindsay says.
Each year since, the carnival has been improved and upgraded. No longer is it held in the Schoens’ backyard. Instead, the front lawn of a water treatment plant hosts the pony rides, clowns, pie sale, and dunk tank—where Port Colborne’s mayor gladly agrees to let people try to knock him in the water. But since Lindsay knows the mayor personally, it wasn’t difficult convincing the politician he needed to participate. After all, he’d watched her struggle with the cancer she eventually beat.
“I didn’t mind getting knocked in the water,” says Mayor Neal Schoen, Lindsay’s dad. His Honor got wet all over again at Lindsay Schoen’s Seventh Annual Carnival, held last August. People pay for 25-cent tickets with a five-dollar bill, or they buy a lemon meringue pie for $100. After all these years, the people of Port Colborne seem to have the same vision Lindsay does, even if it does cause her to stress a bit.
“I just love doing the carnival. You can feel the Spirit when you do it,” Lindsay says. “And when I give the money to Help a Child Smile, I feel the Spirit so strong. It’s really cool.”
Funny how that works. Lindsay is doing her best to help some children smile, and it seems she’s the one doing all the smiling.

The Hull England Stake collected for a winter jacket appeal for help for refugees, to keep the refugees and asylum seekers warm over winter. One ward donated hampers to the charity Changing Lives on Your Doorstep. These were given to families in need. Another ward built and packed two hundred ‘happiness boxes’ to go to a charity whose focus is to provide nutritious food for children in poverty. Aberdeen Ward participated in cooking and serving meals to 100 people in the city, working alongside those of other faiths.

In another instance, at Young Men camp, he listened when someone got up and spoke about his patriarchal blessing. “I hadn’t thought too much about that,” he recalls. “A week later I went for my interview, and a month later I got my patriarchal blessing.”

While serving as Secretary of Agriculture of the United States in the Cabinet of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, I was invited to give the keynote address at the annual convention of the World Food and Agriculture Organization at Rome, Italy. Between sixty and seventy nations were represented at the great international conference.
Following the morning session, which included the address, an impressive luncheon was given in my honor in the International Banquet Hall, which was decorated with flags of many nations.
The customary cocktail hour preceded the luncheon. I noticed as the men held glasses in their hands that there was apparently no liquor being served but only soft drinks and fruit juices. I mentioned this to my host, Dr. Sen of India, and said, “Surely many of these men are used to their liquor, which is customary during the cocktail hour.” He said, “No, Mr. Secretary, today we honor you and respect your standards.”
Following the period of fellowship, we took our places at the banquet table. Here I was even more surprised to find that there was no coffee being served but again only soft drinks and fruit juices. I said to Dr. Sen, “Surely the men attending the luncheon expect to have their usual coffee.” He smiled very graciously and said, “No. Mr. Secretary, I am the host. You are the honored guest, and at this luncheon we honor you and respect your standards.”
And so it was at a luncheon attended by distinguished leaders from many nations. No member of the Church will ever have cause to be embarrassed by real men or women because of his or her standards. Again, it is rewarding to maintain the standards of the Church.

I’ve just started getting the New Era, and I think it is a fantastic magazine. Every time I receive one in the mail, I read it from cover to cover as soon as possible, I am not a member of the Church yet because of parental disapproval, and I find the New Era very uplifting when discussions between us come up, It has helped my testimony grow a lot.
Kim SmithJamestown, North Dakota

One who fulfilled in his life this admonition of the Savior was a missionary, Thomas Michael Wilson. He is the son of Willie and Julia Wilson, Route 2, Box 12, Lafayette, Alabama. Elder Wilson completed his earthly mission on January 13, 1990. When he was but a teenager, and he and his family were not yet members of the Church, he was stricken with cancer, followed by painful radiation therapy, and then blessed remission. This illness caused his family to realize that not only is life precious but that it can also be short. The family began to look to religion to help them through this time of tribulation. Subsequently they were introduced to the Church and baptized. After accepting the gospel, young Brother Wilson yearned for the opportunity of being a missionary. A mission call came for him to serve in the Utah Salt Lake City Mission. What a privilege to represent the family and the Lord as a missionary!
Elder Wilson’s missionary companions described his faith as like that of a child—unquestioning, undeviating, unyielding. He was an example to all. After eleven months, illness returned. Bone cancer now required the amputation of his arm and shoulder. Yet he persisted in his missionary labors.
Elder Wilson’s courage and consuming desire to remain on his mission so touched his nonmember father that he investigated the teachings of the Church and also became a member.
An anonymous caller brought to my attention Elder Wilson’s plight. She said she didn’t want to leave her name and indicated she’d never before called a General Authority. However, she said, “You don’t often meet someone of the caliber of Elder Wilson.”
I learned that an investigator whom Elder Wilson had taught was baptized at the baptistry on Temple Square but then wanted to be confirmed by Elder Wilson, whom she respected so much. She, with a few others, journeyed to Elder Wilson’s bedside in the hospital. There, with his remaining hand resting upon her head, Elder Wilson confirmed her a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Elder Wilson continued month after month his precious but painful service as a missionary. Blessings were given; prayers were offered. The spirit of his fellow missionaries soared. Their hearts were full. They lived closer to God.
Elder Wilson’s physical condition deteriorated. The end drew near. He was to return home. He asked to serve but one additional month. What a month this was! Like a child trusting implicitly its parents, Elder Wilson put his trust in God. He whom Thomas Michael Wilson silently trusted opened the windows of heaven and abundantly blessed him. His parents, Willie and Julia Wilson, and his brother Tony came to Salt Lake City to help their son and brother home to Alabama. However, there was yet a prayed-for, a yearned-for, blessing to be bestowed. The family invited me to come with them to the Jordan River Temple, where those sacred ordinances which bind families for eternity, as well as for time, were performed.
I said good-bye to the Wilson family. I can see Elder Wilson yet as he thanked me for being with him and his loved ones. He said, “It doesn’t matter what happens to us in this life as long as we have the gospel of Jesus Christ and live it.” What courage. What confidence. What love. The Wilson family made the long trek home to Lafayette, where Elder Thomas Michael Wilson slipped from here to eternity.
President Kevin K. Meadows, Elder Wilson’s branch president, presided at the funeral services. The words of his subsequent letter to me I share with you today: “On the day of the funeral, I took the family aside and expressed to them, President Monson, the sentiments you sent to me. I reminded them of what Elder Wilson had told you that day in the temple, that it did not matter whether he taught the gospel on this or the other side of the veil, so long as he could teach the gospel. I gave to them the inspiration you provided from the writings of President Joseph F. Smith—that Elder Wilson had completed his earthly mission and that he, as all ‘faithful elders of this dispensation, when they depart from mortal life, continue their labors in the preaching of the gospel of repentance and redemption, through the sacrifice of the Only Begotten Son of God, among those who are in darkness and under the bondage of sin in the great world of the spirits of the dead’ [D&C 138:57]. The spirit bore record that this was the case. Elder Thomas Michael Wilson was buried with his missionary name tag in place.”
When Elder Wilson’s mother and his father visit that rural cemetery and place flowers of remembrance on the grave of their son, I feel certain they will remember the day he was born, the pride they felt, and the genuine joy that was theirs. This tiny child they will remember became the mighty man who later brought to them the opportunity to achieve celestial glory. Perhaps on these pilgrimages, when emotions are close to the surface and tears cannot be restrained, they will again thank God for their missionary son, who never lost the faith of a child, and then ponder deep within their hearts the Master’s words, “And a little child shall lead them” (Isa. 11:6).

My dear brothers and sisters, my dear young friends, when the captain of a long-range jet passes the point of safe return, and the headwinds are too strong or the cruising altitudes too low, he might be forced to divert to an airport other than his planned destination. This is not so in our journey through life back to our heavenly home. Wherever you find yourselves on this journey through life, whatever trials you may face, there is always a point of safe return; there is always hope. You are the captain of your life, and God has prepared a plan to bring you safely back to Him, to your divine destination.