Gospel Story Finder

Elder Hunk was the talk of the mission. Never had a missionary swept an area as he had. There had been talk of closing that area, but single-handedly Elder Hunk had swelled convert baptisms until conservative estimates ran in the thousands. His picture was on the cover of the Church News under the caption “Wonder Missionary,” and he was being compared to missionaries in the early days of the Church.
“How do you do it?” asked his mission president.
“Dexter. Dexter. How do you do it?” questioned his seminary teacher, Brother Larsen.
A classmate poked Dexter in his ribs, “Hey, wake up.” Brother Larsen patiently repeated his question. “How can we be member missionaries?”
Dexter looked up. “I dunno,” he said.

8. Having virtually no quantitative skills, I was seldom if ever able to help our children with math and scientific subjects. One day our high school daughter Nancy asked me for “a little help” regarding a Supreme Court case, Fletcher v. Peck. I was so eager to help after so many times of not being able to help. At last a chance to unload! Out came what I knew about Fletcher v. Peck. Finally my frustrated daughter said, “Dad, I need only a little help!” I was meeting my own needs rather than giving her “a little help.”
We worship a Lord who teaches us precept by precept, brethren, so even when we are teaching our children the gospel, let’s not dump the whole load of hay.

Thanks to Scout training and quick thinking, a tragedy was averted in Charlotte, North Carolina. Todd Smith of the Charlotte Second Ward saved the life of a five-year-old after the youngster was hit by a car.
The child was riding a tricycle when a slow-moving car hit him and knocked him unconscious. Todd saw the accident and after telling his mother to call for help, he ran to the little boy. Todd found that the child’s tongue was blocking his throat. Todd cleared the child’s air passage and helped stop the bleeding from a head wound. Todd also prevented anyone from moving the child until the rescue squad arrived, in case there were any back or neck injuries.
Todd received a Medal of Merit and was honored for his quick action.

I come from a small city in eastern Colombia. It was there that I was taught about the Church and was baptized, and it was also there that the desire to go on a mission was born. I was the only member of my family to accept the gospel.
I remember going out with the missionaries almost every night to help them in the work and at the same time to gain experience in the field. When the missionaries asked me where I wanted to serve my mission, I told them, “Anywhere but Venezuela.” My response was such because this was a time of great tension between my country and Venezuela, and I had little love or appreciation for the Venezuelan people.
Time passed, and I had my interview with the mission president. One of his questions was, “Brother, will you go where the Lord calls you?”
I responded without hesitation, “Yes, President.”
He then leaned forward, looked me in the eyes, and said, “And if the Lord calls you to Venezuela?” I knew then that the president knew my thoughts. After a short time I was able to tell him that I would go where the Lord sent me, but still inside of me I felt as if I could not accept those people.
Finally the day arrived when the mailman brought the large white envelope containing my mission call. I opened it. I was called to serve in the Venezuela Mission. That night I knelt and asked the Lord not to make me go to that country. After talking to him for some time, I said that I needed his help. I got up, turned on the light, and began to leaf through the Doctrine and Covenants. I stopped in the 53rd section. There was the answer from the Lord to me:
“Behold … I have heard your prayers; and you have called upon me that it should be made known unto you, of the Lord your God, concerning your calling. …
“Take upon you my ordination, even that of an elder, to preach faith and repentance and remission of sins, according to my word, and the reception of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of hands;
“And also to be an agent unto this Church in the place which shall be appointed by the bishop. …
“And again, I would that ye should learn that he only is saved who endureth unto the end.” (D&C 53:1, 3–4, 7.)
I closed the book and knelt once again, this time in the spirit of humility. The tears burned my cheeks, and in my prayer I asked the Lord to forgive me for telling him his will.
Now I was ready to head for Venezuela, this time in a white shirt and tie. I met many people who needed to be saved, and I had to fight for them. I learned to love them with all my heart, persons who today have gone to the temple, who are the leaders of the Church in Venezuela, and others who are missionaries themselves.
I received a great deal of love and satisfaction from the Venezuelan people, and I came to learn why I was sent to that part of the Lord’s vineyard. My greatest blessing came shortly after being released as a missionary when I saw my own mother enter into the waters of baptism. I know the joy that the Lord promises to those who bring others into his kingdom. I know that this is the work of Jesus Christ because I have felt his direction. I know that it is for us to bring the message of the restoration to the millions who are waiting. And I know that one of the best ways to do this is to serve a full-time mission wherever the Lord would have us go.

I didn’t always pay attention. After hearing the sacrament prayers every week since childhood, I had started to tune them out. If there was something I found more interesting to think about, I’d let my mind wander.
But then one Sunday as I bowed my head to take the sacrament, I noticed my hands. They had many scrapes from various sources. One was caused by a bicycle crash on a night my parents had told me not to go out, and another scratch was from falling down stairs because I was careless. My hands had several marks caused by things I had done.
Some marks had been there longer than others, but I knew that most of them would heal with time.
As I gently touched the scrapes on my hands, I thought of the wounds on someone else’s hands and how those scars are so vital for us. Jesus Christ went through intense suffering for our spiritual well-being.
I realized that just as my body had physical scars it was trying to heal, my spirit was also pocked and scarred by careless things I had done. Heavenly Father knew we would hurt ourselves spiritually on earth, so he sent his Son to help us heal our wounds.
As I started to listen more intently to the sacrament prayers, I realized that by taking the sacrament and renewing my covenants, the Savior could wipe away the inward bruises on my soul. Through the years, I had been unpleasant to my family, ungrateful to my Young Women leaders, and imperfect in other ways. My soul was blemished from its original perfection. I knew the formula for healing physical wounds, but the way to heal spiritual scars hadn’t seemed so obvious until I listened closely to the prayers: “… keep his commandments which he has given them; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them” (D&C 20:77).
I can be healed through the atonement of Jesus Christ.
I’m thankful for what my slightly scarred hands remind me of when I reach out to partake of the sacrament. Each Sunday I commit to try to keep myself from getting more inward scrapes during the next week, and I remember that the wounds I have on my soul can be healed as I keep the commandments and listen to the Holy Ghost.

The sixth annual Super Challenge was freckled this year with sunshine, laughter, headaches, dirt, sunburn, shaving lotion, sore muscles, jokes, learning, and testimonies. In the summer of 1976, 225 Glendale and Los Angeles youth made their plans to invade Santa Catalina Island for a youth conference they called Super Challenge. They and their 50 adult leaders were all members of the Glendale California Stake. It was the youth steering committee, consisting of Julie McGuire, Sal Palilla, Jeff Harrison, Kim Slight, Renelle Gubler, Tina Tittle, and Eric Torgeson, who spent hundreds of hours of planning to come up with all the zany and fruitful things they did. The theme of the conference, “A Generation of Excellence,” was emphasized in the first hours when two competing groups spelled excellence in human figures on the hillside.
In addition to workshops and seminars given by stake leaders, Bishop Vaughn Featherstone had sent a specially prepared 20-minute tape on his book A Generation of Excellence from which the theme was taken. The young people were counseled to “cover up cesspools and plant new gardens,” to act as though the Savior were at their side, and to enrich their lives by becoming excellent.
At a three-hour fast and testimony meeting on Sunday, 69 young people stood and bore their testimonies. Four of them were nonmembers.
The rest of the weekend was filled with basic football, crab-ball soccer, speed croquet, boat racing, swimming, rock throwing, volleyball, and treasure hunting.
The waiters at meal times were “celebrities:” the person at the table who was the most blonde, the one whose birthday was closest to July 4, etc. When the lot fell to “the tallest,” special guest speaker and BYU basketball coach, six-feet-six-inch-tall Frank Arnold, accepted the honor and served his table with the flare of a French maître d’.
What a happy time! The leaders could see it in every face, and they were sure of it the night they heard noises outside and looked to find the hillside dotted with young people singing, “I Am a Child of God.”

At one time, Ben, Jr., and Brad, my two oldest boys, belonged to a Japanese Scout troop because our ward didn’t have a Scout troop. One day the Scoutmaster took the boys on a hike in the Zion Narrows in southern Utah. Their progress was slower than anticipated. Concerned that the park officials whom they had checked in with would be worried about them, the Scoutmaster asked my sons and a couple of other boys to hike ahead by themselves and let the park officials know that everyone was OK. The boys took a wrong turn into a dead-end canyon and didn’t know what to do. The other boys were not Latter-day Saints, but they turned to Ben and said, “Maybe you’re the one who ought to pray for us to help us get out of here.” After he offered a prayer, Ben said, “Let’s go,” and they turned and walked out without any problem. How grateful I was that my children had learned to pray, that they had faith in that prayer, and that our Father in Heaven would help them find their way safely out of the canyon.

Pierre’s idea for a choir of homeless men never got off the ground in Paris because he didn’t stay in Paris. His older brother and sister had moved to Montréal, and he visited them frequently. In April 1995 he moved to Québec to get married. His engagement didn’t work out, but Pierre fell in love with Canada and decided to stay. He set up a successful dental lab and, of course, began volunteering.
“On my second day here,” he says, “I inquired at the tourist office where I could volunteer.” By coincidence, the tourism officer was a volunteer at l’Accueil Bonneau, a homeless shelter, and told him how to find it. “I arrived in time for lunch, and they gave me an apron,” he recalls. “I started to serve lunch to the homeless. For more than a year I did this.”
But the same frustrations he had felt in Paris resurfaced, and so did his idea. He typed a flyer and handed out 600 copies to the men in the food line. It offered employment to “singers, even beginners, for part-time work. Men only. Any age. Any nationality. Must love to sing. Musical knowledge not necessary.” Thirty men expressed interest, but at the first rehearsal only 3 showed up. However, 7 came the next day. The day after, 12 showed up. Pierre taught them four Christmas carols from the LDS hymnbook.
The metro was an inspired and logical location for their performances. “If the mountain won’t come to you, you must go to the mountain,” says Pierre. “Thousands and thousands of people come to the metro.”
Residents of Montréal are accustomed to seeing homeless people on the street, but they were not prepared for what they encountered in the metro station at 7:30 A.M. on 17 December 1996. It was an unforgettable experience for the performers and the commuters. “I couldn’t see the faces of the spectators,” Pierre explains, “because I was conducting, but I could see the faces of my friends in the choir. Their faces changed. People crowded around us. Several missed their trains to listen longer. One woman began to cry, and her sobs filled that improbable event with incredible emotion. It was like a tide coming in. People were crying, singing with us, putting money in the hat to the cadence of the melody, clink, clink. They started to make a line to put money in the hat. It was a wonderful experience.”
That first concert brought in more money than they had expected. The next morning the choir earned even more. “But the greatest pay the men received,” says Pierre, “was when people came directly up to them, spoke to them, and shook their hands. This meant much to men who had spent their lives digging in garbage cans, begging, or even stealing simply to survive.”
The choir sang every day that Christmas season except Sundays. The money they earned allowed all of them to spend the holiday in more comfortable circumstances. A few were able to visit relatives. Some hadn’t seen their families in years.
“After the last performance,” Pierre recalls, “I asked my friends, ‘Do you want to keep going with this choir, or do you want to stop now and start it up again next Christmas?’ ‘Keep going,’ they insisted.”
After the choir’s first subway concert, the media quickly learned about them. Two days later they were invited to introduce the weather forecast for a large television station, and the next morning articles appeared in most of the Québec newspapers. This unexpected free publicity allowed the choir to sign contracts for concerts at festivals, schools, churches, banks, and other television stations.
“The media,” says Pierre, “has helped give us a voice for our message that life is beautiful, that it is really worth living, and that we should never give up. Everyone deserves a second chance, and no one should be excluded, even if he or she is different.”

It is also important to recognize that the Church is a church of action, not just words. An example of how the youth of the Church can function in espousing good causes was demonstrated in 1970 in the Salt Lake Valley. A black congregation had great difficulty in completing their chapel. They approached the leaders of our church for assistance. It was felt that this was a wonderful opportunity for our Aaronic Priesthood-age young men and women to band together and raise funds for others in need. Literally thousands of young Mormon men and women engaged in projects from washing cars to babysitting to mowing lawns in order to raise thousands of dollars to assist their neighbors. At the conclusion of the drive, a wonderful banquet was held with representatives from the various bishop’s youth committees and the black congregation. There was no marching, carrying of banners, or loud oratory; but rather, in an orderly, enthusiastic spirit, under the direction of their own organizations, these Latter-day Saint youth demonstrated how other Mormon youth can go about espousing a good cause—this one appropriately designated as “Operation Good Samaritan.”

Immediately after the shock of the eruption, even with the uncertainty of not knowing what was going to happen, the young people of wards across Washington jumped wholeheartedly into helping other people. Calling committees checked to see that ward members were safe; teachers and priests quorums and the young women organized to help clean chapels and homes. Volcanic ash started flying as young volunteers got out their shovels and brooms and started the cleanup.
“The youth in my ward were helping even as families started leaving the chapel the morning of the eruption,” said Bishop Terry Brandon of the Yakima Fourth Ward, Yakima Washington Stake. “The teenagers comforted the children, talked with them, and in many cases scooped the young ones into their arms and delivered them safely to waiting cars and their parents. Breathing was uncomfortable, and the falling ash was irritating their eyes, but these youth didn’t care about that.
“Then early the next morning I began receiving phone calls from teens wanting to help anyone who needed it, so we organized a cleanup force. They spent eight, nine hours at a time in the grittiest, dirtiest mess you’ve ever seen helping other people, in addition to the efforts spent in cleaning up their own homes. They took a lot of initiative themselves. All of them helped clean up the stake center.
“It was such a spiritual uplift to work alongside such cheerful youth during a depressing, messy week of cleanup. We have a fine generation of young people here with goals and ideals that just won’t let them be defeated. When we didn’t know if we’d be able to hold church the next Sunday, I was determined we should, just so I could let them know how I felt towards them. I’ve never seen a finer group of young people,” said Bishop Brandon.

Mary Fielding Smith remained faithful to the end of her life. She paid tithing, even in her poverty. When someone inappropriately suggested she not contribute a tenth of the potatoes she had grown that year, she responded, “You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Would you deny me a blessing? … I pay my tithing, not only because it is a law of God, but because I expect a blessing by doing it.”2 She established a farm in the Salt Lake Valley and taught her children the gospel. President Joseph F. Smith later said, “She taught me honor, and virtue, and truth, and integrity to the kingdom of God, and she taught me not only by precept but by example.”3

Mika always looked forward to dance class. She loved listening to the music. She loved practicing her butterfly skip and getting it just right. And she especially loved it when the whole class moved together. When they did that, it was like the dancers were all the same. It felt like she wasn’t the only one with Down syndrome.
Today they were learning a new dance step. Mika watched her teacher leap into the air. She watched the other girls try. Some figured it out right away. Mika tried over and over, but she just couldn’t get it right yet.
“Will you help me, teacher?” Mika asked.
The girl next to her looked at Mika. Then she leaned over to her friend. “Why does she talk like that?” she whispered. Both girls turned and looked at Mika.
On the way home from class, Mika was quiet the whole way.
When they got home, Mom was kneading dough in the kitchen. She had flour on her cheek. Sometimes that made Mika laugh. But today she just dropped her bag to the floor and sank into a chair at the table.
“How was dance?” Mom asked.
“Terrible,” Mika said. “I asked for help, and a girl said I talk funny. Then she stared at me.” Mika looked down. “I don’t want to go to dance anymore.”
“Oh, Mika!” Mom said. “I’m so sorry. Dad and I love watching you dance. We’re so proud of how hard you work!”
Mika felt tears starting to come. “I don’t like the Down syndrome in me. I don’t like that my face is different. I wish it wasn’t so hard for me to learn new things. I even have to practice talking!”
Dad sat down by Mika and put his arm around her. “Mika, we love you so much. We wouldn’t change one thing about you.”
But Mika just shook her head and buried her face in her arms. “I don’t want to be different. I want my Down syndrome to be taken out of me!”
Mom and Dad were quiet for a few moments.
“I have an idea,” Mom said. Mika peeked out over her arms. “Why don’t you pray and ask Heavenly Father how He feels about you?”
Mika thought about that. She liked saying prayers. Slowly, she nodded. “Can you write down the question so I’ll remember what to ask?”
Mom wrote the question down. Then Mika took the paper and went to her room to pray.
When she came into the kitchen a few minutes later, Mika’s face was lit up like a light bulb. “Heavenly Father answered!” she said.
“What did He say?” Mom asked.
“He said, ‘Mika, I love you just the way you are,’” she said. “And He said it with a LOUD voice!”
The next week at dance, Mika didn’t worry about what the other girls thought about her Down syndrome. Instead, she noticed another girl, Sara, who looked sad. Sara was having a hard time learning some of the new moves too.
When Mika got home, she decided to write a note to Sara. She drew lots of hearts. Mom helped her with the spelling.
“Dear Sara,” Mika wrote. “You’re a great dancer. I want to be your friend. I am happy you are in my dance class.”
Mika couldn’t wait to give Sara the note. She wanted Sara to feel happy and loved at dance too.

I met my wife, Melinda, during my sophomore year of college, about six months after I had returned from my mission. I knew immediately that I wanted to marry her. Melinda, however, did not have the same experience. It wasn’t until five years later that she finally received an answer that it would be “OK” if she married me.
During those five years, I had one of the more difficult trials of my life. I knew whom I was supposed to marry, and the Spirit urged me on, but I couldn’t seem to reach that goal.
Shortly after I graduated, Melinda decided to go on a mission—in part, I am convinced, to get away from me. There were times while she was on her mission when I was miserable because I focused on what I didn’t have. However, I was studying the scriptures and praying daily, serving in the Church, and striving to do the things that brought the Holy Ghost into my life.
One early, very cold Sunday morning in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA, while I was driving to a Church meeting, I thought, “I should be really miserable right now. Nothing seems to be going the way I want. But I’m not miserable. I feel unbelievably happy!”
Now, how could I be happy if I was going through what, for me, was a difficult trial?
The answer is found in Galatians 5:22–23: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.”
Because I was doing the things that brought the Spirit into my life, I felt God’s love. I felt joy and peace. I could suffer long and still be happy.
Having love, joy, and peace in our lives, our families, and our marriages does not come from having a big house, nice cars, the latest clothing, career success, or any of the other things the world says bring happiness. In fact, because feelings of love, joy, and peace come from the Spirit, feeling them doesn’t have to be connected to our temporal circumstances at all.
Please understand that I am not saying that we will always be happy or that our temporal circumstances never affect our happiness. In fact, if we do not taste the bitter, we cannot know the sweet (see Doctrine and Covenants 29:39; see also Moses 6:55).
We need to struggle at times. Furthermore, some physical and emotional conditions can cause us great suffering and make it very difficult for us to feel the Spirit. But if we are striving to have the Spirit in our lives and are trusting God, we can, in general, be happy.
I testify from personal experience that this is true. Since my experience while Melinda was on her mission, I have noticed that if I am doing the things that bring the Spirit into my life, including choosing to believe and accepting that things will work out as God intends, I am usually happy (see Jacob 3:2).1

One night Sister Linda S. Reeves’s daughter came home feeling upset. Sister Reeves asked what was wrong. Her daughter told her that at a friend’s house, she had accidentally seen bad pictures on television. The pictures made her feel bad inside, and she wished she could get them out of her mind.
Sister Reeves told her daughter that through our Savior’s Atonement she could feel relief and stop hurting. Together they knelt and prayed that Heavenly Father would help her feel better. (See “Protection from Pornography—a Christ-Focused Home” from the Saturday morning session.)

What you do when you are alone is generally a good indication of the kind of person you really are. The same is true when you find yourself to be the only Latter-day Saint in a crowd of people who are not members of the Church.
Although it may be tempting to rationalize that no one knows you’re a Mormon, that no one will ever know if you decide to relax your standards, don’t give in! Someone is always watching you, and if you have the courage to be a good example, you may guide someone else who is searching for the truth.
Years ago, when I was in the military, my family and I were stationed at Charleston Air Force Base in South Carolina. There we met Willis Hepworth, who was serving in the navy. Willis taught us some important lessons about being a good example even when there are no family members or Church acquaintances nearby.
Willis was active in the Church and had been involved in its youth programs. He had musical talents and had participated in a variety of activities.
When he graduated from high school in Magna, Utah, he had decided to join the navy. One of Willis’s naval assignments was aboard a minesweeper operating off the east coast of the United States. As far as he knew, there were no other Church members among the crew.
When the ship put into port at New Bern, North Carolina, for repairs, Willis looked up the address of the local branch and attended services. He found out that the next Saturday there would be a dance at the branch. Excited at the prospect of going to a dance, Willis asked two of his shipmates, Kenneth Kinzel and John Archer, to go with him. The two liked the idea of going to a social function where there would be some single girls, so they accepted the invitation.
They attended the dance and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. Ken was particularly impressed that they had such an enjoyable time without drinking and without the other activities usually associated with “hitting the beach.” He wanted to know more about a church that would sponsor that kind of activity and asked Willis how he could learn more. Willis contacted the missionaries. They taught Ken and John, and in a few weeks both were baptized.
After his baptism, Ken wanted his parents to know about the gospel. “I doubt that my parents would ever be interested in becoming Latter-day Saints,” he said. After all, his father held a prominent position in his own church.
But when Ken was home on leave, he asked his parents if they would be willing to have the missionaries tell them about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Being the fine, open-minded people they were, they agreed. Later, Ken had the privilege of baptizing and confirming them. They later became temple workers.
Don Dewey, a nonmember, was one of Ken’s friends stationed aboard a sister minesweeper. He wanted to discover the inconsistencies in the Church’s doctrine so that he could point out to Ken the error of his decision to be baptized. So when the three men returned from sea, Don decided to join Willis and Ken at sacrament meeting in Charleston.
But Don never did find the inconsistencies he sought. Instead, after months of intensive study, he also chose to become a member of the Church.
One night shortly after his baptism, Don was tending the ship’s engines and reading the Book of Mormon in his spare time. Burt, one of the crew, came up behind him and asked what he was reading.
“It’s the Book of Mormon,” Don replied.
“Are you Mormon?”
“Yes, I am.”
Burt ground out his cigarette and said, “So am I.” He had been brought up in the Church but had stopped participating when he joined the military. Don convinced him to join the others at sacrament meeting the next Sunday. But began the process of repenting and getting his life back in order.
Just before Don was released from military duty, he wrote to my wife and me.
“As you know,” he said, “I am the only member of the Church in my family. I had been saving part of my paycheck so that when I get out I would be able to pay cash for a new car. But now I’ve decided to use the money for something better—to support myself on a mission.”
Ken also decided to serve a mission. After their missions, both Ken and Don were married in the temple, and both have served faithfully in many Church callings.
We asked Ken and Don what it was about the gospel and the Church that attracted them most. Without a moment’s hesitation, they each said that it was Willis’s life, his example.
What if Willis had thought no one was watching him? If he had abandoned his beliefs, would Ken and Don and their families be members of the Church today? Where would Burt be? What would have happened to Ken’s parents? And how about others who also joined the Church because of Ken’s and Don’s efforts?
This great cycle of service, conversion, and good works was generated by Willis’s quiet yet powerful, consistent example as a righteous young Latter-day Saint. Willis was willing to face the challenge of living up to his standards, even when he found himself alone and when he may have thought no one else was watching.
The truth is, people do watch. Your friends and associates, both within and outside of the Church, watch you all the time. They look for the light the Lord said that you should be to the world.
May each of you be blessed to be strong in setting a proper example, even—and maybe especially—when you think you are all alone.

My career brought joy, growth, and satisfaction through trying to serve Him and His children. After I retired, the world and my career field moved on without me. Some days, in “down” times, I have wondered if I really did any good during those years—if my offering was worthy of the great promises I was given.

During one of those times, I felt this answer: reread your patriarchal blessing. As I read it, pointed questions came to my mind: “Did I not give you this blessing as I promised? Did this not come true in your life? And this?” I saw clearly how the Lord has fulfilled blessings He promised me. I felt assurance that things I had offered humbly and willingly were acceptable and also an admonition that I am not done yet—there are still more opportunities to serve.

As he was growing up, Douglas L. Callister often accompanied his father and grandfather as they fulfilled Church assignments such as visiting members, presiding at meetings, or speaking at firesides. “They wanted their posterity to see them in the context of honoring the priesthood,” says Elder Callister, “and as we drove to and from their assignments, they would always share their experience and testimony with me.”
That caring tutelage has played an important role in preparing Elder Callister to serve in the Second Quorum of the Seventy. “A life-altering experience for me,” says Elder Callister, “was that training that came from those generations of family members who were willing to teach me.” Elder Callister continues to teach his own posterity just as his own father and grandfather taught him.

“How can I get on the bus with the rest of the choir? A ‘III’ on my solo—the most horrible, embarrassing thing that ever happened to me in all my 18 years! How can I ever face anybody again?”
As a senior in high school, I had looked forward to my solo at the state high school music festival as just about the most important event of my life. I had faithfully toiled through all the necessary preparation, including voice lessons and long, hard hours of practice. I had gone the extra mile—and then some. I was ready to savor the fruits of my labor. If I needed any additional assurance of success, I had even lent my music to some girls who had forgotten theirs and was thus in line for a reward as a good Samaritan. Most important, I prayed for help just before my turn to perform, and I knew the Lord wouldn’t let me down.
I couldn’t believe it when I was given a “III” instead of a “I” or at least a “II.” I was crushed and humiliated. Fighting back angry tears, I came to the conclusion that the Lord had deserted me. I returned to Pocatello bearing my disappointment and bitterness like crimson banners. I would not be comforted. I didn’t want to be comforted.
The next Sunday was the Primary children’s program in our ward, and I led the children in singing some of the songs. The children sang so beautifully that for a moment I forgot my pain in the warmth of the experience, but afterward the feelings of shame and betrayal returned. The following day I was surprised to receive a letter from my high school choir director’s wife.
“Dear Judy,
“You most certainly turned in a performance today! I looked at the people as the children sang, and they were enthralled. Not one of the girls who got better ratings on their solos could ever dream of making those kids sing the way they sang for you. When you were leading them, you forgot all about yourself and relaxed, and you looked radiant. I could hear you singing along with them, and it was lovely.
“I know it’s hard for you, but please try to believe that your talents far outweigh the more obvious ones that the world makes so much of. I have grown fond of you in the last year, and it really hurts me to see you disillusioned and unhappy. The Lord loves you and has many wonderful things waiting for you. It will be a shame if you are too blinded by your own desires to recognize them when they come. Please have faith in those who love you and believe them when they tell you that the things that seem to matter the most sometimes turn out to matter least.
“I’ll never forget how proud I was of you today or how you thrilled me and all who were there with the beautiful way you handled the children. I have already forgotten what ratings those soloists received, but I will never forget a young lady whose sweet, loving spirit can make children sing like angels.
“Judy, today you rated a ‘I.’“Love, Mona”
I will be forever grateful for that good sister. Her wise letter taught me some important things that day 11 years ago. It taught me that everything is more beautiful when done for others. It taught me that service is more important than recognition. It taught me the importance of waiting and trusting. It taught me that no contests are held to judge the most important talents of all.
But in the end I learned more from her than I did from her letter. By reaching out, unasked, to a troubled young girl, she taught me that when she signed her letter “Love, Mona,” it wasn’t just a formality, it was a whole approach to life.
I have tried to live up to the rating she gave me that day.

It occurred when this most treasured, little son was nearly three years old. One day, suddenly and without warning, he stopped breathing and fell to the floor, apparently lifeless. My husband was not home, and I called my ten-year-old daughter, Nancy, to get help as I carried him to the bedroom. As I worked to revive him, I literally, cried out unto the Lord. I begged him to spare our only son. I promised that I would dedicate myself to training him up to be an instrument in the hands of God if he would be spared. The police arrived with their emergency equipment. I continued in fervent, vocal prayer to the Lord, petitioning him to restore our little boy. The doctor arrived. Just as a stimulant was to be injected directly into his heart as a final emergency measure, he cried. My prayers had been answered, but I was to receive further testimony of this in a most unexpected way.
The next morning, our son climbed on his daddy’s knee. “I was sitting on the lap of Jesus,” he said. Then he went on, “He looked into my eyes. I was so happy. I wanted to stay there with him, but he told me I had to go back home to you.” Even now, twenty-four years later, our son remembers vividly the reciprocal love he experienced during his brief “step out of time.” He is vigorous and well, living with his lovely wife and a little son of his own as he continues to serve the Lord.

Derek was born with serious physical handicaps. In his five years on earth, he knew little of the world of those who run, play hide-and-seek, skip rope, or feel free of pain. But he knew how he could feel better. When things were tough, when he suffered and those around him were weary and discouraged, he would hold up his arms and ask, “Let me hold you?” In his innocence, he knew he could kindly lift others—even while he endured hardship.
It is important to develop the attribute of kindness even if we feel we are too shy or too busy. For some, like young Derek, it requires little forethought; for others who have not developed the natural inclination to be kind, it demands a greater effort.