Gospel Story Finder

During the difficult economic conditions of postwar Germany, opportunities for education were not as abundant as they are today. But I always felt an eagerness to learn. One day, while I was out on my bike delivering laundry, I entered the home of a classmate of mine. In one of the rooms, two small desks were nestled against the wall. What a wonderful sight that was! How fortunate those children were to have desks of their own! I could imagine them sitting with open books studying their lessons and doing their homework. It seemed to me that having a desk of my own would be the most wonderful thing in the world.
I had to wait a long time before that wish was fulfilled. Years later, I got a job at a research institution that had a large library. I remember spending much of my free time in that library. There I could finally sit at a desk—by myself—and drink in the information and knowledge that books provide. How I loved to read and learn!

One day the sister missionaries knocked on my door and my mother answered. I remember her telling them, “Well, I am not interested, but my daughter would be. Wait, I will get her.”
When I started to talk to them, I could feel the Spirit telling me to listen. After a few months of listening and learning, I knew that this was what I had been looking for. Even though it didn’t feel like it to begin with, my decision to be baptized helped me to come not only closer to the Lord and but also closer to ending my ongoing battle against loneliness.

Clearly, serving a mission for the Church puts us in a concentrated learning mode for persistent daily selfless service, where your own ministry becomes the Lord’s ministry, a ministry that carries you to many of the "least of these, my brethren." Our daughter, Emily, when serving in Austria, wrote home the following:

Sister Hopkins and I were asked to go sit with our non-member friend, a manic-depressive lady who gets so stricken with depression and anguish over her immoral behavior, when in her panic spells . . . she wants to commit suicide. We sat with her for eight hours. Part of the time she was thrashing, weeping and wailing in her bed, in the gall of bitterness. She felt that she had ruined her life and that of her family and that everyone would be better off if she were dead. I could feel my heart bleeding real blood for her and I was filled with the desire to do anything to help her.
We reviewed all of the usual wonderful doctrines about the atonement, forgiveness, her [own] worth, etc., but none of that seemed to help. Then we asked if we could sing for her. As we sang the beautiful German hymns, one after the other, in two-part harmony, the sweetest, most comforting spirit filled the room. She closed her eyes, and peace shown in her face. We felt, for that last hour we were with her, that this little room that we were in together was lifted up to heaven. This beautiful woman—even with puffy eyes and sweaty hair—who [had] been so scared by the cruelties of this earth, was picked up and cradled in the arms of the Lord (emphasis added).

As a single parent, my mother had many things to do, but she always took time to help me, comfort me, or simply listen to me. Knowing that she was always there was invaluable, and I want to give that to my own children in the future.
When my mother remarried, her new husband chose to become the father of my older brother and me. Soon afterward, a little sister joined our family, but I have never felt the slightest difference in the affectionate and loving way he has taken care of us all as his own. Thanks to his attitude, my older brother and I have been able to grow up in a strong and unified family with the priesthood in the home. The day we were sealed as a family was very special. His loving example has taught me that a father isn’t just something you are—it’s something you become.

I entered BYU as a freshman in the fall of 1976. I remember vividly the first devotional of that semester, held on September 7, 1976. I cannot remember if I skipped my class before the devotional that morning, but I did arrive very early to make sure I had a good seat. The speaker was the prophet, President Spencer W. Kimball. I was excited to hear from him. I was beginning my first year at BYU, with a mission coming up for me sometime in 1977. I was anxious for the message that would bless me personally. I am positive that I prayed that his talk would touch me and provide needed guidance.
The university president was President Dallin H. Oaks. After he introduced the student body to President Kimball, he lowered the two microphones that were on the pulpit at that time, and President Kimball stood where—or very close to where—I am standing this morning. He had an additional microphone attached to his glasses because of the very soft voice he had after surgery on his vocal cords. President Kimball began speaking about marriage and divorce—not the topic I was expecting. His message was a landmark message at the time and was later published as a pamphlet for use throughout the Church.1 I still have my copy of that talk. I must admit, ­however, that, at the time, it was not the talk I wanted to hear. Marriage seemed so far into the future for me—and it was, by the way.
Looking back, I wish I had processed and reacted differently than I did. I should have been willing to receive whatever the prophet of God felt directed to teach me and applied that teaching in my life. This was the prophet of God, after all, and he was speaking to the world through the audience of BYU students.

Although you will not find the label I’ll use for one of the roles of the Holy Ghost in scripture, I think it’s appropriately descriptive. The Holy Ghost is a nudger. Elder Robert D. Hales was more eloquent in his description of this role when he stated, “I remind all of us that the Holy Ghost is not given to control us. Some of us unwisely seek the Holy Ghost’s direction on every minor decision in our lives. This trivializes His sacred role. The Holy Ghost honors the principle of agency. He speaks to our minds and our hearts gently about many matters of consequence.”[47] Let me share a moment in my life when I felt his nudge and how my response to that nudge is the reason my children send me t-shirts with BYU emblazoned on them when they can’t think of anything else to get me for my birthday.

While serving a mission in Argentina, my parents told me that they’d received a letter from BYU asking if I was returning to BYU after my mission. If I was, I needed them to mail the letter back to BYU. I’d decided prior to leaving on my mission that I wouldn’t return to BYU because it made more financial sense to live at home and attend a university that was close to where I lived. As result, I told my father not to bother sending the letter back to BYU.

When I returned home from my mission, I only had a few weeks before school began, so I went to the university I planned to attend to sign up for classes. While standing at a counter selecting my classes, I suddenly felt unsettled. I felt nudged. I was familiar with that nudging. I had experienced it often in the mission field. As a result, I didn’t register for any classes and returned home. Later that night, I announced to my family that I hadn’t signed up for any classes because it didn’t feel right. I told them that I felt like I was supposed to return to BYU, but I couldn’t because I’d told them not to mail back that letter. My younger sister, who had followed my example and attended BYU, said, “Well that’s not quite right. I know you told Dad not to mail the letter back to BYU, but I went ahead and mailed it anyway. BYU thinks you’re starting school in a week.” And so that’s what I did.

The long-term consequences of that nudge are such that I wouldn’t be standing here today if I hadn’t felt it and had faith to follow it. As you live your lives, be sufficiently worthy and willing to accept the Holy Ghost’s occasional nudges because such nudges are consistent with your Father in Heaven’s personalized plan for each of you. As a latter-day apostle once declared, “Ignore or disobey these promptings, and the Spirit will leave you. It is your choice – your agency.”[48]

After I was baptized, the Church became my world. I loved being at church with the other members. I remember many times being there on Saturdays with the deacons, cleaning the chapel and preparing it for Sunday. I also participated in Mutual activities. From seeing the missionaries in Primary and at home, I decided early in my life to go on a mission. When I served my mission, I was very happy. I served two years in the west of Mexico.

Children, obey the Lord’s commandments. Decide now to go on a mission and to marry in the temple. If you decide in your minds and hearts now, while you are young, to do these things, you will be good missionaries, good spouses, and good parents. I believe that what the world needs most is good mothers and good fathers guiding their families.

Children, keep away from those things that would separate you from Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ—things like lying, stealing, using drugs, violating the Word of Wisdom, doing whatever the prophets have taught us are wrong.

Be careful in choosing your friends. Good friends help us to do good things; bad friends influence us to do bad things.

Prepare now for a mission. Keep yourself morally clean. If you keep yourself clean and worthy in every way, if you take the sacrament worthily every Sunday, you will be very powerful missionaries and later you will be leaders in the Church.

I love the children of the earth. With the power and authority that I have as a General Authority, I bless you that you can gain all the blessings that your parents want for you. Where you live is not important, nor the color of your skin or your eyes or your hair. Everyone on earth is a son or daughter of God, and He wants us to return to Him as clean and innocent and worthy as we were when we were born.

The youth also took to heart a great lesson from the conference about self-reliance. “I gave the youth a worksheet to fill out and watched them wait for pens,” Bishop Leung Wo recounts. “I told them that they should have come prepared with their own pens—that is part of being responsible. They need to learn to take care of their own needs.”
Fifteen-year-old Faleapuna L. brought a pen but discovered that he couldn’t both share it with others and complete the worksheet himself. He said, “I brought a pen today, but it wasn’t enough. I learned that I need to have a pen for myself and a couple of spares to share with others.”

When I started teaching at BYU-Idaho about seven years ago, I would occasionally play basketball at the I-Center with students. And, looking like a student myself back then, I more than once had a conversation that went something like this in between games when students would discover that I was a faculty member:

Student: “Whoa, I thought you were a student. What classes do you teach?”
Me: “Parenting (and other classes). You should take the class.”
Student: [awkward pause] “Yeah, maybe I’ll worry about that when I have kids.”
Me: “So you’re saying that you are willing to spend thousands of dollars and at least four years of your life learning to become the best _____ (fill in the blank) you can be, but when it comes to the most important work you’ll ever do and the purpose of your creation, you're just going to wing it?”
Student: “Well…that’s not totally what I meant.”
Me: “Well, that’s what it totally sounds like, dude!”

Brethren, the time to start preparing for fatherhood was yesterday. But since that is not an option, how about today? Why not begin by seeing most everything you do in your life now as fatherhood preparation? This focus will give more purpose into the important things you are already doing such as your educational, professional, romantic, and other pursuits. A fatherhood focus will also provide both the wisdom and the strength to eliminate those things in your life that are unnecessary, distracting, or self-centered.

Before I joined the Church, my life was full of unhappiness. Following my parents’ divorce when I was seven years old, my father went to prison. My mother was an alcoholic and lost everything that was important to her. I was sent to live with a foster family.
Because of these things, I grew up a lot faster than many of my peers. I never quite felt that I could find my place, and consequently I was constantly in a state of rebellion. When I was still very young, I began smoking and doing other things that I now understand are contrary to the Word of Wisdom. I was certain I was doomed to fail in life.
The one thing I did find happiness in was helping people—whether it was cleaning alongside them or listening to their life stories. I desperately wanted people to know they could depend on me. One year I went on vacation and met an elderly woman I decided to serve by listening to her. She was a Christian and started to talk to me about religion.
I had never really believed in God. At times, when I had thought that maybe He existed, I blamed Him for the troubling things I had experienced. But as this woman described the importance of faith in God, I found myself intrigued. Before I left, she said something that was particularly interesting: “The Mormons follow God’s commandments.”
I had never heard of the Mormons, so I went home, got online, and searched. I arrived at Mormon.org and ordered a free copy of the Book of Mormon. Missionaries delivered it a few days later.
I wasn’t sure I could start to believe in God, but the missionaries helped me discover that I could not only believe in Him but also know Him. As I began to pray and study the Book of Mormon, I found myself on a beautiful journey of finding happiness. I quit smoking. I stopped blaming God and started thanking Him for the good things in my life. I came to know that His Son had suffered for my sins and for all the pain I had ever felt. On October 28, 2007, I was baptized into His Church.
If I hadn’t personally experienced the change from disillusionment to happiness, I wouldn’t believe it is possible. Today I love my calling in Primary and am grateful to have had the opportunity to help organize a service project at a young single adult conference in Poland. To be able to regularly help others through Church service has added to the happiness I have found in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Everything I do now, I do with pure love because of Jesus Christ. I believe that life is beautiful and that even when we have challenges, if we follow the Savior, we won’t be lost.
The woman I met was right: having faith in God is crucial. We cannot find our place in this world if we don’t know Him. I am grateful to finally have a place where I know I belong.

Our best hope is that they will follow our example of humbly seeking to know if the choice they are considering will draw them nearer to God or away from Him. If they do what we have done and pray in faith, light and truth will come to them. And if they obey, not only will more truth come, but they will have learned how to build their lives on a foundation of truth.

The teenager most likely to have that happy experience will have been given earlier, in childhood, the chance to gain self-discipline enough to persist in obedience even when at first no good result seems to come. I know now why my mother had me weeding on my knees for what seemed like hours in a wet garden with rows that seemed to stretch to the horizon while the weeds broke off in my hand with roots still in the ground. I know now why she smiled so happily when she saw me trying to dig those roots out with my fingers in tearful frustration. She knew something about teenage years that were coming and what it would take in dogged persistence to build a foundation on light and truth. I don’t necessarily recommend weeding or hard labor for little children, but I offer the thanks to my mother now that I was not wise enough to give when I was in the garden.

Soccer may be Raphael’s sport of choice, but volleyball is most definitely his game. And he is really good at it. He is so good, in fact, that he played in the final game of the high school volleyball nationals. “That,” Raphael says, “was one of the three happiest days of my life.”
It was a friend who introduced Raphael to volleyball. In 2001 a teammate on his soccer team in Recife pointed out that some private high schools offer volleyball scholarships. At the time, Raphael was trying for a soccer scholarship but found his physical skills kept him from playing at the level the coaches wanted. But he seemed to have an unexplored talent for volleyball. “So I played volleyball until I got good at it,” he says. He became so good that he was able to secure a full scholarship to a private high school.
At school, he played in the Recife city championships, then in the regionals in northeast Brazil, one of the most important tournaments in the country. But his success didn’t end there. Not long afterward, he was asked to join the Pernambuco State team to prepare for the national high school tournament. His team won almost all of its games, losing only in the final match. He has the medals to show for it.
“As a volleyball player,” he says, “I’ve learned to play as a member of a team. One person can’t win alone. You have to look out for one another and help one another.”
In the same way, the Church has taught him to play as a member of the Lord’s team. “The Church has taught me to teach and care for others, to always watch for when people need help. There’s no better place to learn to live the gospel than in the Church. The Lord wants all of us to practice the gospel. That’s why I’m going on a mission.”
Raphael will be giving up a college athletic scholarship to do so. Recruited by several schools, he was tempted to accept a scholarship from one of them. But at this point in his life, he would rather serve on a mission than serve on a volleyball court. He knows he is making the right choice.
“As much success as I have had in sports,” he says, “I want to do better as a missionary. I feel that no matter where I go, I can do well—if I let the Lord coach me.”

Another blessing, the Memphis teens say, is good friends. Jonathan Stambaugh of Collierville High School says, “A couple of years ago I didn’t go to seminary and didn’t really like church. I only hung out with guys on the baseball team, and even though it was fun, it felt empty. Then I started hanging out with Church friends, and things were so much better. My Church friends help strengthen my testimony.”
Jonathan is putting his chances at major league baseball aside for a mission. He says, “I would rather be a good guy than a good baseball player, because, without the gospel, nothing has a point.”

I recently learned about the experiences of a man in Zimbabwe named Sabbath Sibanda Maturure. Born in Shurugwe in what he describes as “an ordinary African hut,” he was the seventh of eleven children. Like three of his sisters, he was crippled from birth. At an early age he blamed God for his handicap and refused to attend the Christian church to which his parents were devoted.
When he was seven, he and his sisters were sent far away from home to attend a school for the disabled. Lonely for his mother, whom he could visit only once a year, he became even more bitter. “Life was terrible,” he remembers. “There was just no hope.”
His bitterness grew when his only two friends—his mother and another handicapped child at the school—died. “There really wasn’t anything left for me—not one ray of hope anywhere. Life was completely without meaning. God was totally unfair and not worthy of my worship or respect.”
But after he was befriended by some Christians who urged him to read the Bible, his heart began to soften. As the years passed, he found work, was married, and had two daughters.
In July 1985 a man who “looked honest, humble, and loving” came to his home and introduced himself as Elder Boyd Lake. Elder and Sister Lake, a missionary couple from Oakley, Utah, had met Sabbath’s wife, Susan, at work, and she had asked them to visit her husband. “Anything that is about Christ makes our lives more sweet,” says Sabbath, “so I welcomed Elder and Sister Lake to our home.” Their message sounded so good that the Maturures invited the Lakes to meet all of their friends at the handicapped center where they worked. And Sabbath and Susan began studying the Book of Mormon.
After several visits from the missionaries, Sabbath became ill. But a priesthood blessing helped to restore his health. He was impressed by the power of the priesthood and the teachings about home evening, fast offering, tithing, and chastity. “I also learned about the eternal family, whereby if we believe and are worthy, we can be married in the temple and be sealed forever as husband and wife and family.”
On 2 August 1986, Sabbath was baptized by the branch president, and Elder Lake baptized Susan and one of their daughters. “What joy we received in our home to be in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—a church that the Lord himself restored!” says Sabbath. Three weeks later, a third daughter, Helen Happiness, was born. (The baby was named in honor of Sister Lake, whose first name is Helen.)
For the Maturure family, Elder and Sister Lake were instruments in the hands of the Lord in working a mighty miracle. How could the Lakes have guessed before they left their home in Utah that they would have such a rich experience in faraway Zimbabwe?

I remember an experience that a young man went through during the years when he was in college. This young man was a good member of the Church. He told me that he was once invited to a costume party in the house of one of his classmates. Everyone was very excited to go to that particular party. The friend claimed that his college professors were also invited to attend, especially some of them who were very nice and friendly toward the students. All of this seemed very inviting and secure. So the young man accepted the invitation to go to the party. When he arrived there, he realized that the atmosphere was not exactly what he had expected. There were students drinking, smoking, using drugs, and doing other horrible things in every corner of the house. He said that he became very concerned about what was happening and began to think about how he could leave the situation.

The party was at a location far from his own home. He had gotten a ride with friends, and so he had no way to return home on his own. At that very moment he prayed silently unto the Lord, asking for help. After some pondering, he felt that he should walk outside the house. He followed his feelings and stayed outside the house until the party ended. That decision went unnoticed by his friends, who were all involved in that atmosphere and only regrouped when it was time to leave. During the ride home his friends talked about all the horrible things that had happened during the party.

This young man felt very uncomfortable with the whole situation. It was not easy for him to bear it, but the next day he went to sacrament meeting and partook of the sacrament. In that moment he felt calm, peaceful, and certain that he had made the correct decision. In that moment he realized what it means to grasp the iron rod and not let go, even in the midst of the mists of darkness. He understood clearly what Nephi taught his brothers when he said that “whoso would hearken unto the word of God, and would hold fast unto it, they would never perish; neither could the temptations and the fiery darts of the adversary overpower them unto blindness, to lead them away to destruction” (1 Nephi 15:24).

Imagine what might have happened if that young man, simply out of shame, had not been strong enough to continue holding onto the iron rod. As a result of this and other decisions in his life, that young man married a wonderful young woman in the temple, formed a special family, and went on to be very successful in his life in everything he has done. He serves faithfully in the Church and seeks to be a good example to his children.

More rescue teams came and helped the wagon trains into Utah. Referring to his nightly camps Barnard said: “We would clear away the snow and pile some logs up and set them on fire. They would burn all night and helped to keep us from freezing.” Ascending Big Mountain he found snow drifted 20 feet deep in places. “We had to cut channels as much as ten feet deep,” he said. But what made this final part of the trip so difficult for the teenager was that “I had no shoes or boots on; my feet were in rags.”
On December 13 at 4 P.M. Barnard and his family stepped from Brother Newman’s wagon into the tithing yard in Salt Lake City. Barnard felt both pleased and humiliated—pleased to be safe and alive but humiliated to walk down the city’s streets dressed in ragged clothes and with flannel rags wrapped around his painful feet. No doubt he recalled then the fancy broadcloth suit and silk hat he donned 18 months before when leaving England for Zion. Utahns, he noticed, “wept like children to see our pale, emaciated, and careworn bodies, for we were quite worn out and had but little strength left.”
What had happened to Barnard’s work boots? They had succumbed to his appetite! While trapped by Wyoming snows Barnard had cut off strips from his worn-out boots and chewed the leather to ease the sharp hunger pains in his stomach—for as his biographer points out, “who can be hungrier than a 16-year-old trying to do the work of a man?”

That night at home I told Mom that the whole team would be going to Baltimore to see the Orioles’ doubleheader the following Saturday. That was our reward.
“Oh, Billy. I’m sorry. We’re going to your grandmother’s next weekend.” Gran was getting ready to move to the retirement community near our home. “I know you’re disappointed,” Mom went on, “but she called and asked if we’d help by cleaning out her attic.”
Well, I slumped off to my room and thought about how rotten it was to miss out on the Orioles games. I mean, people call me Billy-O because I’m such an O’s—that’s what we call the Orioles—fan. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me.
But happen it did, and the next Saturday I was where I didn’t want to be—at Grandma’s old house in the country.
When I went up into the attic with Mom to go through old boxes, I found some neat stuff. I was so busy looking at things that I almost forgot about the Orioles game. Then I found the box.
“Hey, Mom, look at this! It’s scrapbooks full of news clippings about the Orioles! Sherm Lollar, Stan Benjamin, Howie Moss, Kenny Braun. I’ve never even heard of these guys. They aren’t on any of my baseball cards.”
Mom said, “Let me see, Billy.”
“Wow! This stuff is from the 1940s, Mom. And everything’s written by the same person, Stats McGillicudhay.”
Mom looked at the scrapbooks, opening each book in turn. She smiled as she ran her fingers up and down the yellowed newspaper clippings. “I think you’d better ask Gran about this later.”
I wasn’t sure what Gran would know about baseball, but it was her house, so maybe she’d know something about where it all came from. I set the box aside, and we kept on sorting things—old clothes over there, books over here, and so on. Every now and then Dad came up and carried another box away. I held on to the baseball box.
Finally we finished and went down to one of Gran’s great dinners—fried chicken, potato salad, apple pie—the works!
After dark, Gran and I sat on the porch, watching fireflies.
“Gran, who was Stats McGillicudhay?”
“What? Where’d you hear that name, Billy?”
I told her about the scrapbooks in the attic, and she laughed softly. She was quiet for a long time before she said, “I lived in Baltimore when I was a girl. My grandfather took me to many baseball games every summer. The Orioles were in the old International League then. I loved baseball—the heat, the sounds, the smells, the hot dogs, the soda pop, and, of course, the game itself. Most of all, I loved the special time I spent with my grandfather.
“In high school I wrote for the school paper, but it wasn’t fashionable for girls to write about sports. That was a boy’s-domain-only in those days. So I wrote articles about books, records, and dances under my name, and slipped in baseball articles under the pen name of Stats McGillicudhay.
“I used the same pen name to write baseball stories for the local paper, too, and kept on writing them clear through college. Then I married your grandfather and, what with the farm and my kids, I never got around to even going to another baseball game, much less writing anything. In fact, living so far out in the country, I hardly ever even saw a game on TV.”
I could hardly believe it. My grandmother had been a sports writer! I told her all about our Little League season, and she really listened and understood everything.
“Billy,” she said, “next summer when I’m in the retirement community, maybe they’ll let me write about the Little League games for the Bridgeville Times. I’d like that. It would make this move easier for me if I had something to look forward to.”
That was two weeks ago. Today I got a letter from Gran. In it were tickets to the Orioles’ three-game series with the Blue Jays next week. She said that she had the seats next to mine and that if Mom or Dad would take us, I could explain to her any changes in the game since she last saw one.
Yeah, I can do that.

Back in November of 2003, I was attending a professional conference in Philadelphia. Between sessions, I took a walk to revisit some of the places I knew from my childhood. During my walk, I was surprised to witness the completion of the Philadelphia Marathon that was being held that day. I was drawn to the final mile or so of the marathon route where I witnessed thousands and thousands of spectators lined up on both sides of the street loudly cheering every runner that went by. It takes a long time to finish up a marathon. From the time the first place runner finishes to the time the last place runner comes in can be many hours. I spent a little more than an hour observing what was going on during that final mile or so. During that time, I saw thousands of people festively cheering as every runner struggled down the last few blocks gasping for breath. Every runner was made to feel that he or she was a hero, a man or woman of worth, accomplishment, and value. And I am sure that hardly anybody knew anybody. They just cheered unconditionally.

Sometimes I think that we worry too much about questions concerning others that no one should worry about at all, or at the very worst, should only be addressed by their good bishop, stake president or in other sacred situations. You see, as the runners in the marathon were passing by, nobody in the cheering crowd asked if they were worthy enough to be appreciated.
Nobody asked if on their missions they were Assistants to the President.
Nobody inquired if they came from a large family or a small one.
Nobody asked if they bought their clothes at The Gap or at D. I.
Nobody worried if they came from an active family or an inactive one.
Nobody asked if they got their Eagle or their Young Woman’s Medallion.
Nobody posed any questions concerning the political affiliations of their parents.
Nobody inquired if they could have gotten into BYU-Provo or what their ACT was.
Nobody asked if they had been in the popular group in high school. Nobody asked. . . . Yet the cheering went on and on.

Those people were celebrated for one simple reason. They were celebrated because they are our fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters here on this earth. Like the rest of us, they struggle, they worry, they do good deeds and bad ones. They ponder, plead and pray. And right then as they were finishing the marathon, right then they were successful in at least one thing, at least one very difficult endeavor. At least one success in the midst of their many failures and insecurities. At least one. That’s why they were celebrated.

While I am over in England, let me tell you about Lady Spenz. Lady Spenz had her title by virtue of her husband having been a member of the House of Parliament in England. She had a rather large home, her husband was deceased, and she decided to let out some of the downstairs apartments so that she might receive additional income. Along came two Mormon missionaries to rent the room, and they decided that Lady Spenz should have a touch of the gospel. They started teaching her; and after about the third discussion, on a night so quiet that you could hear a pin drop, she was reading in her living room and she could hear through the floorboards the two missionaries downstairs praying, never dreaming for a moment that Lady Spenz was listening. The missionaries prayed, “Heavenly Father, please bless Lady Spenz that she might recognize the truth that we are trying to give her, that she might be acted upon by the gift of the Holy Ghost, that she might come into the waters of baptism, that she might be united with her wonderful husband some day.” Well, you can guess the effect of that prayer on this lovely lady, who is now a member of this Church and who thanks the Mormon missionaries for coming into her home and bringing that kind of a blessing.

Sherman and Austin are two of many chimpanzees living at the Yerkes Regional Primate Research Center in Georgia. They, too, have learned to communicate with humans by means of sign language. Taking it one step further, however, they have now begun to converse with each other by this means. Located in separate rooms with a small opening between them, Sherman will use his computer keyboard to ask Austin for a certain food. Austin will read his request and then proceed to fill his order, choosing from among as many as fifteen different delicacies, such as orange drink, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and candies. These chimpanzees are now at the point where they are asking each other for specific tools to help them reach food in hard-to-get-at places.