Gospel Story Finder

A special dimension of both trust and love is found in genuine friendship. A true friendship, one of life’s most precious possessions, expresses unqualified love but also demands absolute trust. Few true friendships are ended by a lessening of affection, but far too many are seriously damaged when trust is breached. Think of this example of true friendship that was enveloped in both love and trust: Willard Richards felt this way about the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Elder Richards of the Quorum of the Twelve was jailed with Joseph and Hyrum Smith and Elder John Taylor in the Carthage Jail. Because of the threats on the life of Joseph, the jailer suggested moving the men into a cell, where he thought they might be more safe. Joseph asked Elder Richards if he would go with him into the cell. Listen to Willard Richard’s reply:

“Brother Joseph, you did not ask me to cross the river with you—you did not ask me to come to Carthage—you did not ask me to come to jail with you—and do you think I would forsake you now? But I will tell you what I will do; if you are condemned to be hung for treason, I will be hung in your stead, and you shall go free.” Joseph said, “You cannot.” [Elder Richards] replied, “I will.” [HC 6:616]

What a blessing to have such a friendship based on love and absolute trust.

In 2018, Latter-day Saint Robert Opiyo joined the only ice hockey club in East-Central Africa, the Kenya Ice Lions. At the time, there were fewer than 30 ice hockey players in all of Kenya, and 17 of them (15 men and 2 women) were members of the Ice Lions team.
Today, there are over 40 adult players and 40 youth players who practice at least twice a week. Robert used the skills he learned on his mission in Melbourne, Australia, as one of the team’s executive members.
The Ice Lions trained at a hotel ice rink that was two-thirds the size of a regulation ice hockey rink. In October 2018, the team was sponsored to travel to Toronto, Canada, to play against two amateur Canadian teams.
Prior to their first match in Toronto, they trained without a goalkeeper. In a news interview in Toronto, the Ice Lions’ captain explained: “We didn’t have goalie equipment, and nobody can take that risk to be a goalie without the proper gear. So, what we used to do was set up a rubber toy penguin and we used to put it at the center of the goal and to score you had to hit the penguin above the belly.”
Due to challenges during the COVID-19 period, the team slowed down on activities and are now getting back on their feet. They often get support from individuals and groups who donate funds for their ice time and equipment that are used in the community.
Brother Opiyo dreams of the Olympics someday but is also content to be part of this pioneering endeavor. “Slowly more people hear about our desire and want to help us get there,” he said. “I’m grateful to have been a part that set the foundation for future generations.”

I have always loved the story of the son of King Louis XVI of France because he had an unshakable knowledge of his identity. As a young man, he was kidnapped by evil men who had dethroned his father, the king. These men knew that if they could destroy him morally, he would not be heir to the throne. For six months they subjected him to every vile thing life had to offer, and yet he never yielded under pressure. This puzzled his captors, and after doing everything they could think of, they asked him why he had such great moral strength. His reply was simple. He said, “I cannot do what you ask, for I was born to be a king.”12

In 1946 Henry was enjoying his success and work at Princeton. He had won numerous honorary doctorates and most major awards in chemistry. Given his diligent scientific work with world-renowned scientists, he had an excellent opportunity to be considered for a Nobel Prize.
At about this time Henry received a call from A. Ray Olpin, president of the University of Utah, inviting him to be the dean of the graduate school there and continue his research in chemistry. His wife, Mildred, left the decision up to Henry, but she reminded him of a promise he had made to her years earlier. Henry had promised to move his family closer to Church headquarters when the boys got older. When Henry turned down the offer, Mildred, who had grown up in Utah, asked him to pray about his decision and gave him a letter to read when he arrived at his laboratory.
Upon reading the letter, in which Mildred expressed her disappointment, and after praying and pondering, Henry called President Olpin, saying he would accept the position after all to build up the university’s science department. His apparent sacrifice in leaving Princeton turned out to be a blessing for him and his family. One such blessing was Hal’s willingness to follow his father’s example when he faced a similar crossroads years later.

During this holiday season, I’m reminded of a story about my grandma that my mom has shared with us many times.
It was Christmas Eve, and my mom was about 12 years old. She and her mom and sisters were traveling across town to visit family, and it was raining hard outside. Grandma had a tradition of making plates upon plates of Christmas goodies for family friends and loved ones. The car was full, traffic was crazy, and everyone was trying to rush home for the holidays or get their last-minute shopping done.
In the middle of it all was a homeless man with a shopping cart full of cans. He started to cross the street at a red light, and all of a sudden the whole cart fell over. Cans were everywhere! It seemed as though the chaos of Christmas went silent. My mom wondered why no one was helping. An outburst of horns began to honk, as if to tell the man to get out of the way.
To my mom’s surprise, her mom got out of the car and quickly began helping the man pick up his cans. Then other people followed. It was pouring rain, and my grandma was wet when she returned to the car. As they sat in the backed-up traffic, my aunts, mom, and grandma all had a wonderful idea to rush out of the car and give the man a plate of Christmas goodies. In that moment, as my grandma gave the man the Christmas gift, my mom’s heart was touched with the reminder of the true meaning of Christmas.

One year after Mohamed Turay had joined the Church in Caldwell, Liberia, the 1989 war broke out. As rebels moved closer to Caldwell, he saw people in his community leaving. He had a dream in which a bomb fell near his home. Finally, after seeing an article in the newspaper describing how people were being beheaded, Mohamed knew he and his family were in danger and he resolved to flee Caldwell. Mohamed believed the dream was a warning from God. “It was a blessing for my family,” said Mohamed. “A serious blessing.”
“Come,” he told Abie, his wife. “Today, we’ll not sleep here.” Mohamed took Abie and their children to the border where they would be safe. But he had to return to Caldwell to make final arrangements for their departure. Just hours before rebels took the city, Mohamed managed to escape and join his family.

One year, after our sheep had come off of the forest up by the Whitney Reservoir up in the Mirror Lake area, we received a telephone call that said that there were several sheep that were still high above Bug Lake. My cousin Herold and I put our horses in the trailer and we went up past Oakley, Utah. When we got up there we unloaded our horses. As we got to the north side, almost to the top, the snow was almost to the chest of our horses. We could barely get them over the top. The sheep were on the south side of the hill. When we got to the sheep they were not our sheep. We looked at them, and it would have been impossible to get them off and get our horses off also. So, we rode down and called the owners and told the owners where they were. The owners then hired a helicopter to go back up to those sheep.

Why hadn't those sheep come off the hill? They had become separated from the flock and the sheepherders hadn't gathered them. Sheep always pull to the highest point when they are not herded. Matthew 18:12 says: "How think ye? If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them go astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray?" The Savior has asked us to seek after the one that is lost. What if the one that is lost is a part of your family? How much is it worth to you?

In conclusion, I would like to leave you with an illustration that I hope will summarize what I have attempted to share with you today. It was 17 years ago this month that I graduated from Brigham Young University with a doctorate in counseling psychology. I value the many things I learned in my philosophical and clinical training, and I’m grateful for the experiences I had with fellow students, faculty, staff, and others, but the one academic experience I treasure the most occurred during the very last hour of my graduate school experience.

In my particular discipline we were required to conduct original research in an area of our choice, formally write up the study in a doctoral dissertation, and then defend our work before an examination committee. The results of this exam determined whether we would pass or fail. I looked forward to defending my dissertation. I had worked hard and had been greatly blessed by studying my particular topic. I had also received tremendous help from the professors on my committee and felt confidant that I could adequately defend my work.

The first 15 minutes of the examination went quite smoothly. The questions were straightforward, and I felt I answered them well. I began to feel the excitement of having achieved a goal I had been working toward for several years. The next set of questions were more difficult, as we began to discuss some of the debatable parts of my work. I still felt fairly confident in my answers. Even though I realized that I would probably need to make some revisions, I felt I would pass. I wasn’t prepared for what happened next. One of the professors on the examination committee voiced his feelings that he wasn’t happy with the overall scope of my study. He didn’t know if he could give me a passing vote. After several more attempts to defend my work, I realized that this professor would not be convinced—and what he was saying appeared to be influencing the others. I began to lose hope.

At that critical moment, another member of my committee, Professor Richard N. Williams, asked the examination committee if he could make a few comments. For the next several minutes Professor Williams defended my work and he defended me. The spirit in the room changed dramatically. Differences were reconciled, a vote was taken, and I passed the examination and graduated—fulfilling the dream of a lifetime.

I hope each of you at some time in your life can have someone stand up for you, plead your cause, and rescue you as Professor Williams did. This experience helped me understand in a very meaningful way what is meant in scripture when the Savior is referred to as our “advocate with the Father” (D&C 110:4; JST, 1 John 2:1).

Some years ago, President Roy A. Welker of the German-Austrian Mission, one of the outstanding mission presidents of the Church, needed to assign a missionary to labor in Salzburg, Austria, to solve a problem in the branch there. Eight new missionaries were soon to arrive in the mission. He prayed that one of them would have the proper visa and currency to labor in Austria. He continued to pray and waited two weeks for an answer. The night before the eight arrived, the Spirit of the Lord whispered to the president the name of the missionary who should be assigned to Salzburg. The one whose name he received was the one who had the proper credentials to go to Austria. I was that elder.

The president’s patience not only helped solve a problem in the branch, but it also blessed me and our family in a way that I never could have foreseen. Shortly after I arrived in Salzburg, that part of the German-Austrian Mission was changed into the Swiss-Austrian Mission. Later, I was transferred to Zurich, Switzerland, where I met Brother Julius Billeter, a warm and friendly member who was a genealogist. He was acquainted with the genealogical records of my progenitors. He researched the names of 6,000 of my ancestors for whom temple work later was completed.

“I first heard about the Church from my best friend, Vera, who is 16. I was curious to know about her beliefs, especially why Latter-day Saints don’t drink tea and coffee and where my friend went for three hours every Sunday. I asked her to take me to church, and a month later I was baptized.
“At first I didn’t understand many things. Everything seemed to be strange and unusual, but I kept asking questions of friends and missionaries.
“Now, four months later, I reflect on the many ways I have changed since my baptism. The day of my baptism, I could feel the Holy Ghost, but I was very emotional, somewhat worried, and a little afraid. Now I can feel the peaceful, quiet influence of the Spirit, and I have what is most important—my faith in the Savior.”
Vera Terekhova,Vasiliostrovsky Branch,St. Petersburg Russia West District

Even though his young family lived in the city, President Hinckley’s father bought a farm out in East Millcreek. “My father believed that it was good for boys to learn to work when they were very young,” President Hinckley continued, “so on Saturdays in the early spring and in the fall, we would go out to the farm. And in the summer we would live there. I learned to live around animals and learned the lessons of nature—the beauty that is there and the penalties that come when nature is abused.

“We had large fruit orchards, and we learned how to prune trees. We built stilts that would put us about thirty inches off the ground, and then we could work up in the trees without ladders.

“In January, February, and March we pruned the trees, but we didn’t like it, because it was hard work. Yet we did learn something from it: You can determine the kind of fruit crop that you will have in September by the way you prune the trees in February. That was a great lesson, and it applies to people as well. You can pretty much determine the kind of adults you will have by the way you care for them as children.

Once I was just a girl from a tiny Japanese fishing village called Usa (pronounced “oo-sah”). I was likely to live out my life simply and traditionally in Japan. However, I am a very different person today because of very devout and dedicated missionaries. When I was fourteen, a classmate of mine invited me to attend a free English conversation class provided by American missionaries. They were unusually kind and considerate young men. They invited me to learn of their main reason for coming to Japan—to teach that God exists and loves us all.
However, for a fourteen-year-old girl raised in a predominantly non-Christian country, it was difficult for me to truly feel and grasp what God’s love was until I met one particular missionary, Elder Arnett. His powerful example impressed my teenage heart, soul, and mind, clearly personifying to me the loving nature of the God and the sacrificial devotion of the Jesus that he so earnestly taught me about.
Unlike today, with missionaries paying a flat fee for their expenses, missionaries at that time had to fund their service based on the local living expenses of their missions. Japanese missions were then among the most expensive in the world. Elder Arnett’s family had limited means, so he had to live very frugally. When his father passed away during his mission, Elder Arnett chose to stay in Japan to continue serving without interruption the people he had come to love. Elder Arnett did not say anything about his financial situation to me, but his companion told me that he had to limit his food expenses. For example, he divided his pasta into a daily portion using a rubber band.
Elder Arnett didn’t just talk about God’s love; he lived it. Moreover, not only did he teach me that there was a God but also that that God loved me. This became the most important and fundamental core of my testimony, and this core has helped me whenever I have experienced pain and suffering in my life.

I would like to share an experience that has had a profound impact on my life.
Seven years ago, my son Marc had an acute pain in the stomach area. It often woke him up late at night and we made regular trips to the medical clinic. The ultrasound examinations they performed on him did not provide any reason for the pain, and it continued until it began to seriously impact his schooling. The pediatrician suggested we put medicine in his bag and let the teacher give it to him when the pain got very bad.
One day, the teacher called me and was quite concerned because the pain was more excruciating than usual. He was going to send him to the hospital. Of course, I was very upset. The doctor prescribed some medicine and told my son to stay in bed at home because he could not walk. With tears in my eyes, I hurried to the pharmacy, not knowing if my son would live or not, his pain and moans were so bad.
When I got to the pharmacy, I saw a scene that greatly impacted me. There was a young mother there trying to purchase medicine for the baby she was holding that was about a year old and you could see that he was in very bad shape. Everyone in the pharmacy could hear the conversation between the pharmacy employee and the young mother when the employee told the mother that she did not have enough money to purchase medicine for both severe malaria and anemia. With tears in her eyes, the young mother said “my son must be hospitalized, and I only have 5000 f CFA, the last note I have left. If I buy two medications, my son will have nothing to eat to take his medication.” The employee could not help her. The young lady took one of her prescriptions and left sadly.
Listening to the exchange while standing in line, there was a battle going on in my head between two voices. One told me to buy the medicine for the young lady, while another dissuaded me from it, warning me of the risk of putting my own son’s life in danger without returning home with his medicine full.
After this internal fight of a few moments, another voice said to me: “She could be your daughter, or your mother. If you were in her place what would you have wanted someone to do for you?”
After thinking of this, I made my decision, to buy the drugs for the young stranger. I asked the guard who regulated the entries to call her back because she and her baby had left the pharmacy.
Before the mother returned, I asked the cashier to give her the entire medical prescription without mentioning my name or my presence, and I would pay the bill. The cashier respected my wishes and when the young mother asked for the identity of her benefactor, to offer thanks, she was simply told that she could return to her home.
I said a prayer within me: “May God strengthen your child and grant him healing”. After that, an indescribable deep peace and immense joy came into my mind. I was happy to see the lady leave with the medicine.
Given my now limited means, I bought a very small part of the medication prescribed for my son and went home with joy in my heart. I had arrived in tears at the pharmacy, but returned home joyfully, even though I was still feeling fear of knowing in what state I would find my son.
Imagine my surprise and joy when I returned home to see Marc sitting in the living room, quietly watching his favorite TV series called “Fireman Sam”. He was miraculously cured.
Later, becoming a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and studying the scriptures, I was able to understand that the miraculous healing of my son was certainly linked to the gesture I made towards the unknown. While I was giving love to someone else, God was working for me.
Today my son is 13 years old and has not felt his pain since that day at the pharmacy.
There is power in the love we give to our neighbor without expecting anything.

Many exciting changes have come to the Church thanks to inspiration received by President Russell M. Nelson. Two of these changes have had a direct impact on the Clarkson brothers from California, USA:
Young men can now be ordained to a priesthood office in January of the year they turn 12, 14, and 16.
Youth are eligible to obtain a limited-use temple recommend beginning in January of the year they turn 12.
For brothers Matthew (15), Andrew (13), and Isaac (11), these changes have brought new opportunities to serve and progress in the gospel of Jesus Christ—not just on their own but together.
In January 2019, Matthew, Andrew, and Isaac all experienced a day of firsts. Andrew says: “Matthew became a priest, I became a teacher, and Isaac became a deacon at the same time. None of us were at the ages where we would have advanced before.”
“On my first day being a priest,” Matthew says, “I broke the bread for the sacrament and blessed it. I was kind of nervous. My hands were shaking a little bit when I said the prayer, but it was really amazing.”
New to the Aaronic Priesthood, Isaac now has the chance to learn from his older brothers. “It was cool because I was with my brothers and some of their friends,” Isaac says. “I felt the Spirit when I passed the sacrament for the first time.”
Along with receiving the Aaronic Priesthood and passing the sacrament, Isaac also attended the temple to perform baptisms. His father baptized him first, but then came a surprise:
“I got to baptize my brother!” Matthew says.
“I never expected Matthew to baptize me,” Isaac says. “But he’s a priest now, so he could. It was really a cool experience. I could feel the Holy Ghost.”
Matthew, Andrew, and Isaac aren’t the only brothers in the Clarkson family. There are four more: Levi (9), Eli (7), Sam (4), and Titus (2), and a baby on the way.
When President Nelson invited the women of the Church in October 2018 general conference to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year, Matthew, Andrew, and Isaac, along with their father and younger brothers, decided to offer Mom their support. “We’ll read it with you!” they said. Every morning before seminary, they woke up to read together.
“When we took on this challenge, I thought it was going to take a lot of time,” Andrew says. “I worried that I wouldn’t have enough time to do everything I wanted to do, like play the guitar or hang out with my friends. But I realized that it just doesn’t work like that. The more I was into reading the Book of Mormon, the more time I actually seemed to have. I realized that if I keep up on reading the scriptures as much as possible, my life is balanced. I have more time in the day.”
Matthew was going through a hard time when the family started reading every morning. He says, “I wasn’t doing well in school. I struggled with my personal scripture study and my relationship with Heavenly Father, and I kept it all to myself. I didn’t talk about it with my parents.”
However, as Matthew spent more time reading the Book of Mormon, the gospel began to take first priority in his life. He also put more effort into school. He worked hard and got his grades up.
“I also realized how much Heavenly Father and my parents love me and how much they help me. And I have a greater testimony of Jesus Christ. He has helped me overcome bad habits and helped me get my life headed in the right direction. I’m so glad we took President Nelson’s challenge as a family. It changed my life.”
Accepting President Nelson’s invitation also strengthened Isaac’s testimony. “We circled the words God, Lord, Redeemer, Savior, and Christ every time we found them,” he says. “On the day we finished, I flipped through the Book of Mormon and saw all the words I had circled. I thought, ‘Man, that’s a lot!’ I had never noticed how many there were. I felt much more spiritual reading the Book of Mormon. I’m glad we did it.”
Matthew, Andrew, and Isaac are amazed that their family finished the Book of Mormon in just two months. “It usually takes us a year,” Isaac says. Together, they discovered the blessings of following the prophet’s invitation.
“If you do what you’re supposed to do,” Andrew says, “like building a relationship with Heavenly Father through prayer, scripture study, and staying fully active in the Church, life is so much better.”
These three brothers have helped each other progress in the gospel. They follow the prophet, who has called on members “to increase their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and in His Atonement, to … [make] and [keep] their covenants with God, and to strengthen … their families.”1

Ana’s boots slurped on the slushy sidewalk as she hurried to school, hugging a large paper bag against her coat. Her brown eyes were calm, but inside she was excited. Today her class was filling the Christmas box.
Ahead, waiting for her under the usual tree were Lem and Kyle. Pulling her coat around the bag, she lowered her eyes and kept walking. Whump! The expected snowball hit her arm. Splat! Another exploded on her shoulder.
“Tell the teacher,” Lem taunted.
Kyle threw another snowball, brushing her long dark hair and just missing her ear.
They knew she wouldn’t tell. Talking wasn’t one of her favorite things—not at school. At home Ana talked in a whirl of words that rolled off her tongue and spilled into the happy, noisy world of her family. But that was Spanish. The English they expected at school just refused to come out. For months she had attended this new school in near silence. A few snowballs wouldn’t make her talk now.
Entering the school yard, Ana opened the sack and took a last peek at her gift for the box. It was beautiful! She smiled, knowing how wonderful it would make someone feel. Two years ago, when her family had first moved from Mexico, someone had left a Christmas box on their doorstep. In it were oranges; a ham; hot chocolate mix; chewy caramels; and soft, white mountains of divinity, which melted into nothing on the tongue. Six homemade Christmas socks, one for each family member, were filled with surprises. And now she could share the same thrill with someone else.
Standing in the classroom door, Ana watched Mrs. Manning set a large, brightly wrapped box on the desk. Entering eagerly, Ana hung up her coat and pulled off her boots. She was sitting on a footstool, tying her tennis shoes, when Mrs. Manning said, “Everyone who has gifts for the box can bring them up now.”
Ana turned to watch as the others carried up their gifts. Elizabeth had a can of tuna; Marc, two cans of chicken noodle soup. Lorene brought a puzzle she had received on her birthday. “Only one piece is missing,” she said. Jean had some candy canes; Eric, a box of stuffing; and Neil, an obviously used stuffed animal. Most of the kids hadn’t brought anything. Ana’s eyes lost their sparkle.
Then Lem and Kyle went to the front of the class. Lem was flexing his arm muscles. “Look what we got for the basket,” Kyle shouted, commanding everyone’s attention. Opening his backpack, he unloaded a number of cans onto the desk. He barked like a circus announcer: “Spinach, lima beans, brussels sprouts, rutabagas, and parsnips. We cleaned out the cupboards of all the vegetables we can’t stand!”
Ana tried to imagine a family finding this box on their porch. She could picture the children pulling out can after can of vegetables and later putting the puzzle together to find a piece missing. It was wrong!
She jerked her shoelace and tied it too tight. She had spent a whole Saturday and four afternoons carefully layering papier mâché, paint, and finally crepe paper. They’ve never had a Christmas box, she decided.
“Ana, do you have something for the box in your bag?” Mrs. Manning asked.
Ana nodded and carried it up to the desk. Twenty-seven curious faces turned to see what she had brought. They were quiet as she gently tugged a star-shaped piñata from the bag. Then everyone was wowing and oohing and talking to each other.
“It’s beautiful, Ana!” Mrs. Manning exclaimed.
Ana had thought that she would feel proud and happy when the class saw her piñata. She didn’t. Instead, warm tears slid down her cheeks. She hadn’t cried when they moved here, even though it was her third new school in two years. She hadn’t cried when no one spoke Spanish, or when they laughed at her English, or when she decided not to try to be friendly with them anymore. But now the tears came.
Words came too. She tried to push them back, but they were too strong. “I made it,” she said clearly.
The class was instantly silent. Ana could talk!
“We come from Mexico. The first Christmas in our new country … , we are very sad. Then a box—a Christmas box—was left at our house. The note says, ‘Merry Christmas and a Happy New Country, from your secret friend.’ ‘Thank you,’ we shout to the night. ‘Thank you.’”
Mrs. Manning hugged Ana close, and everyone started clapping. A few kids chanted, “Ana talked! Ana talked! Ana talked!”
Ana brushed the tear tracks away and placed her piñata in the box with the vegetables.
Lorene raised her hand. “Mrs. Manning, could I take the puzzle home and bring something else tomorrow?”
“Me, too,” Marc said. “I think I can do better than soup.” A half dozen voices joined in, and heads nodded agreement.
“OK, class,” Mrs. Manning said. “We’ll keep the box here for another day. Anyway, I wanted to bake some cookies for it and didn’t get them done.”
Ana wore her boots home and carried her tennis shoes in the brown sack, even though the sun had dried the sidewalk and reduced snowmen to crusty mounds. Lem and Kyle were waiting as she, Jean, and Lorene passed the tree. Ana, laughing and talking so fast that her language mixed into “Spanglish,” was explaining how to make a piñata. The boys scraped some snow from under bushes to throw at them, but the giggling girls ran off together.

When Jane was a tiny baby, she had a soft pink blanket. When she became old enough to sit in a playpen, she kept her pink blanket with her. And when Jane grew old enough to have a big bed, she took her “bata” with her to bed. Something happened to Jane’s blanket; it became smaller and smaller and had holes in it. Finally there wasn’t even one thread of the blanket left, but by then Jane didn’t need her blanket anymore.

My name is Rachell. I live in a little town called Frannie, Wyoming. It is a farming community. There is a small grade school here, a post office, and a few small businesses. Frannie has a gas station that also sells a few groceries and other things.
I am the only girl in my school who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My closest friends at school are good people, but none of them belongs to the Church. Sometimes I have to stand up for what I know is right. Usually my friends respect me for it.
One Saturday about three months before I turned eight, I was playing with a classmate at her house. We played with dolls and then put in a movie to watch. I could soon tell that the movie wasn’t one I should watch because it had swear words in it, so we turned it off and decided to go to the gas-station-store for some bubble gum. I didn’t have any money with me, but I thought my friend had some.
When we got to the store, my friend took a package of gum, handed it to me, and whispered, “Take this.”
That’s when I found out that she didn’t have any money. “No!” I said.
“Just take it,” she insisted.
I tried to put the gum back, but again she said, “Take it!”
I felt nervous and scared and confused. I took the gum, and we left the store, pretending that we didn’t have anything.
I felt bad inside. What I had done was wrong. My friend wanted me to go back to her house, but I felt like going home. When I walked in the door, my mother was there, and I told her what had happened.
We talked about honesty and repentance and what Jesus Christ would want me to do. I wanted to make things right. Mom offered to go back to the store with me so that I could correct my mistake. I was a little afraid to go back, but the feeling that I needed to right my wrong was stronger than my fear.
When we got to the store, I told the lady who worked there what I had done, apologized, and paid for the gum. With tears in her eyes she thanked me for being honest. I was still shaky when I left the store with my mom, but I felt much better.
When it was time for me to be baptized a few months later, I felt good about the bubble-gum experience. I knew that even though my action had been wrong, I had done what Jesus Christ would want me to do by correcting my mistake. I felt clean inside.

When I was working in Lambda Delta Sigma, one of our national officers was a single girl named Diane. One of the young college women with whom Diane had been relating had a lot of problems, and she expressed her feelings to me like this: “Well, none of you have any problems. Diane is perfect and she has everything going for her.” As she said those words, I inwardly reflected on Diane’s life. She had lost her sister to cancer, and now her only living relatives were this sister’s two motherless children. Diane’s mother had passed away just a couple of years earlier, and her father had died when she was only a child. So Diane quit her job at the Church Office Building and took care of those preschool children full-time. She lost all her benefits, retirement, seniority—everything—in order to care for them. She mothered those children for a year and a half until her brother-in-law remarried and could again provide nurturing care for them in his own home. I thought, “This girl does not see at all what Diane is going through.” Sometimes we have a tendency to think, “I’m the only one that has a mountain to climb, the only one with a problem.” We need to know that others also have problems and that the purpose of this life is to be tested, to experience both joy and sorrow.

In 1980 I was a missionary serving in the Philippines Cebu Mission when I was transferred to a city called Ormoc. This district had normally shown steady growth, but for several months there had been very few baptisms.
I arrived in Ormoc on 28 October and met my new companion, Elder Alexander. The first few weeks were extremely slow for us. We had few teaching appointments and almost no referrals. In spite of working long hours and praying to find people to teach, we met with very little success. I remember praying for guidance and receiving confirmation that the Lord was preparing people for us to teach.
On 15 November Elder Alexander and I were tracting in the Barrio Isla Verde, a community on a small island in the Ormoc River. To get there we had to cross the shallow river some 23 meters on stepping-stones, which proved to be a feat in itself. However, the local residents traveled the path with ease.
While there, we met Petronilo and Andrea Ygonia and their grandson Allan Sueto Sungahid. They accepted our invitation to hold a family home evening in their home. That evening was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. After playing some games, we introduced a gospel message and bore our testimonies.
Our visits continued with this family for the next two weeks. It was exciting to watch as their countenances began to shine. By the end of November all three had committed to be baptized the following month.
I will never forget the teaching experience we had in the Ygonias’ home on 2 December. Brother Loa, the ward mission leader, came with us to a neighborhood meeting at the Ygonias’. More than 30 neighbors had accepted the Ygonias’ invitation to listen to the first discussion. As we bore testimony, the Spirit became so strong I believe everyone present was touched.
We explained that the warm, peaceful feeling each person was experiencing was the presence of the Holy Ghost. Prompted by the Spirit, we invited each person in that room to continue investigating the Church and commit to baptism. All 30 neighbors accepted the invitation.
Brother and Sister Ygonia, their grandson, and seven others were baptized in December. The work in Ormoc had begun to prosper once again, due in large part to the faith of this good family. Shortly thereafter I was transferred from Ormoc. Although I had spent only six weeks there, these weeks were some of the best of my life. Never had I worked harder for such a worthy cause. Never had I felt closer to the Lord. During the six weeks I served there, the Lord had allowed us to teach and baptize 9 souls, and another 30 individuals were preparing for baptism.

One of my students wrote of her service to 93-year-old Alma Nielson:

Alma lives alone, is 93 years old, and is nearly . . . blind. His wife died just one year ago, and his son, his nearest relative, is 65 years old and lives in Salt Lake. . . . A month ago I started taking a tape recorder with me [on my daily] visits with Alma and recording the stories he told me, without him knowing. I had hoped to transcribe the tapes in time to present them to him in book form for Christmas, with copies for his grandchildren. As the semester drew to a close, I realized that the time required to prepare the history before Christmas was much greater than the time I had available, since I work in addition to going to school. This final provided a way not only for me to complete the work but to solicit the help of my group members in making the book look good and flow well. . . . [We] took the book over to Alma yesterday and read it to him. He cried. He is very excited to be able to pass these stories on to his grandchildren.