Gospel Story Finder

Before I was a General Authority, I had an extremely frightening experience while flying from Reno, Nevada, to San Rafael, California, with a friend in his twin-engine Aztec airplane.
When we left Reno, the weather was a little cloudy, and my friend was somewhat worried about it. Because of his concern, we landed at the Lake Tahoe airport to get a second report on the weather. It did not indicate that the weather was too bad, so we continued our flight to San Rafael.
Our destination was an airport in the northern part of San Francisco Bay. As we approached the Bay area, the clouds became increasingly low and dense. We tried to stay under the clouds so we could see the water and keep our bearings. But suddenly we flew into dense clouds and could see nothing.
When you fly into such clouds, you become totally disoriented. You do not know whether you are flying straight, sideways, or upside down. You lose your sense of forward motion, and it takes a few minutes for the pilot to orient himself from visual flying to instrument flying. At 180 miles an hour, you move a long distance in that few minutes and can get into serious trouble very quickly. Unfortunately, my friend had not flown entirely on instruments for two years.
My friend struggled intensely and was near the point of panic as he tried to recall all that he had learned about instrument flying. I knew very little about instrument flying, so I could not help him. All I could do was put my hand on his shoulder and tell him to take a deep breath and get hold of himself. The only instrument that I could read was the altimeter. I said, “We are now at 500 feet. Don’t make any quick moves; just think it out, and you can pull us through.”
It seemed an eternity before he finally made radio contact with Hamilton Air Force Base. He said to the people there, “I am in trouble; please help me.” The air traffic controllers had us on their radar screen and immediately began to help my friend regain control of the plane. They told us where we were and started to give us instructions to help guide us to safety.
When my friend heard the voice from Hamilton Tower, he regained a sense of confidence that enabled him to gain control. But he knew that the plane was completely out of control and that our chances of pulling out of this danger were marginal. We could easily go the wrong way. The foothills, buildings, towers, and bridges were not far away. At one point we dropped to only 200 feet. We must have been flying upside down at one time because the maps and other items in the visor above my head fell into my lap.
At the peak of this crisis, an instant replay of my entire life flashed through my mind. I thought of my wife, my seven children, my parents, my business partners, the 37 priests whom I was the adviser to, and many other things. I prayed fervently all through this crisis and made a commitment more deep and more sincere than ever before in my life. I began, “Heavenly Father, guide us out of this thick, dense cloud, and help my friend remember all he knows about instrument flying.” And then I said, “In the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the holy priesthood, bless my friend that he might regain control.” My prayer continued. I committed to Heavenly Father that if He would help us, I would place my life in His hands. I promised Him that I would be what He wanted me to be.
Finally, we saw the lights on the runway. The white line in the center of the runway was a most welcome sight.

And in a way, she has. Sage’s story has been published throughout the United States. “Since the articles started coming out, we get letters from all over the country,” Michael says. One was from a lady dying of cancer; she had cut a picture of Sage from a magazine and put it where it could be easily seen. “Now when I hurt,” she wrote, “I look at that and say, ‘You foolish woman, what have you got to be sad about?’”

Fifteen-year-old Jennifer Openshaw then, now 30-year-old Jennifer Bowden, thought about where she wanted to be in 15 years when the time capsule was buried.

“I was hoping I’d be married and be a mom,” she says.

Check. Her husband sends her a smile from a nearby table as her children, Samuel and Emma, giggle on the Jeppsons’ swing set.

“I also knew I wanted an education,” she continues.

Double check. Jennifer has a master’s degree in dietetics from Utah State University.

What has stayed the same is her strong testimony of the gospel. She pauses thoughtfully to consider where the last 15 years have taken her. “If my younger self could see me, I think she’d be pleased,” she says.

Illustration by David Habben
I go to a school run by one of the churches in my country. Some time back I was chosen by my classmates to be our class counselor. One day as I was planning what to teach, I came across a Church booklet about the law of chastity. I decided to teach my classmates about chastity and asked the full-time missionaries for booklets, which I gave out during the lesson.
After my lesson, many students wanted to know more about the Church, so I taught them and gave them more Church materials, including the Book of Mormon. I did not know that this was not approved by the head teacher.
One day she called me to her office and asked me which church I went to. When I told her, she asked why I was giving out the Church’s “Bible” to the students. I told her that I gave them only to those who asked for them.
After a long talk about the Church, in which she made it clear that she believed it was not the Church of God, she told me, “I know that you have no parents, but I am very sorry—you will have to leave my school because you will convert many of my good students to that church of yours.” She told me to choose between the Church and my education.
She called an assembly and told the school that I was not allowed in school anymore because I belonged to the Mormon Church and that any other students following me would have to leave.
After the assembly, she asked what I had decided: my church or my education. I felt the Spirit telling me to stand for what I know: that the Lord has restored His true Church. I shared my testimony with her as I was leaving. She told me to return the following week to pick up a letter showing that I no longer went to the school.
When I came the following week, she had changed her mind! She wasn’t making me leave the school anymore. I was very happy, mostly because I had stood for what I knew to be true.
This experience taught me to always stand for what we know to be true. The Lord will always be there for us. If I had denied the Church, the students would have said that what I was teaching them was not true, but now they know that I know the truth.

Grant was only six weeks old when his father, H. Grant Heaton, was called to preside over the Southern Far East Mission. Unlike most children in the United States, Grant spoke his first words in Chinese. His little sister, Lisa Lee, who was born a year and a half after the family moved to Hong Kong, also learned Chinese first.
The mission home was filled with happiness until March 1958, when Grant was three years old. One day his neck became stiff, and there was pain in his chest. Soon he could not walk on his legs. President and Sister Heaton asked the missionaries to fast and pray for their son, but still his condition grew worse.
Grant’s father gave him a special blessing before taking him to the hospital. After tests, the illness was diagnosed as paralytic polio. The doctors said Grant would soon need an iron lung to help him breathe. Polio is not common among the Chinese, however, and the only iron lung in the country was being used by a British sailor.
By the end of a week in the hospital, Grant was completely paralyzed. Only his eyes moved, and the little body that had seemed healthy just a week before was quickly wasting away.
One morning Sister Heaton was with Grant. It was so hard for him to breathe that she thought surely he would soon return to our Heavenly Father. Two men came to the hospital that morning. They represented the Chinese Saints who had held a special fast and a prayer meeting the day before.
Both men had been members of the Church less than a year and neither held the priesthood, but they wanted to help. They asked permission to pray for Grant. Sister Heaton readily agreed and bowed her head to join them. She felt the faith of these humble Chinese men as they knelt beside Grant’s bed and prayed that this little boy’s health might be restored.
As they rose to their feet and left the room, Grant’s mother followed them down the hall. She thanked them and then went to the refrigerator where special food for Grant was stored.
Just as she opened the door, a familiar little voice called from down the hall and she turned around quickly to see Grant coming toward her.
“Look, Mommy,” he exclaimed with a happy smile. “I can walk!”
The doctors were amazed, but when the polio symptoms did not return, they let Grant go home. President and Sister Heaton and the missionaries gratefully acknowledged the power of the Lord and the faith of the Chinese Saints in behalf of their son.
Grant is now eighteen and lives with his family in Salt Lake City, Utah. He doesn’t remember his illness in China. His strong legs that helped him make the football team and wrestle for his high school don’t remember either!

The day after Mother’s Day, eight-year-old Eric and his mom went to the local pharmacy to buy some medicine. Eric walked around the pharmacy while his mother purchased the medication. When they got back in the car, Eric asked if he could talk to his mom for a minute.
“Sure,” Mom said, reaching to turn the car’s key.
Eric grabbed her hand and said, “Don’t go. Can we talk right here?” Mom shifted in her seat to listen.
Eric told her about a boy in his school class named Josh.* Josh’s mother had died of cancer during the previous Christmas holidays. Ever since then, Josh was often very sad at school. Sometimes his dad even had to come and take him home from school because he couldn’t stop crying.
Mother’s Day had been very hard for Josh. He had brought a stuffed bear to school the next day and had hugged it for comfort all the time. During recess, he had taken the bear to the playground. Some of the bigger kids took Josh’s bear away from him. They teased him by throwing it back and forth, and the bear ripped apart. Eric felt bad because he knew Josh’s family might not be able to buy him another bear. While in the pharmacy, Eric had seen a bear just like Josh’s. He wanted to spend his money to buy it for Josh.
Eric and his mom went back into the pharmacy and bought the bear. Eric took it to school in his backpack the next day. Mom told Eric not to give the bear to Josh until she had made sure it was OK with their teacher. The teacher told Eric’s mother she would be glad to arrange for Eric to give the bear to Josh.
That evening, Mom asked Eric how it went. He said their teacher had asked the two of them to stay in for a few minutes while the rest of the class went to recess. She asked Josh what had happened to his bear the day before. Josh’s first words were “Eric didn’t do it.”
She said that wasn’t the reason she’d had them stay in and then explained that Eric wanted to give him another bear. The bear went from backpack to backpack for safekeeping. Eric said Josh almost cried when he gave it to him. Eric said the best feeling of all was to see Josh smile. As Josh left for the day, he gave Eric a big high-five.

We learn of the dedication which was given to the seminary program in its very beginning by reading from a diary of John M. Whitaker, one of the early instructors of the seminary program. In April of 1915 he was employed as an instructor in the Granite Seminary with a salary of $1,500 per year. He found little to work with as he assumed his new position. His diary records:
“I had to start without the least scratch, or outline, and I thought out many approaches to the new problem before me. I had taught several years at the University of Deseret. But there I knew my course well, but to commence a course now, where here-to-fore the Bible alone had been the guide, and to meet the need of the hour when students of the age coming into high school and junior work, with strict outlines and supervision, with everything before them and now coming from the discipline of high school requirements, into religion class work where they could come if they desired or remain away, … but to take religion which was frowned down upon during the week days, only for Sundays, was a task too great to undertake alone. So I did as I have always done when presented with a task, went in humility and prayer to my Father in Heaven and in my simplicity told him my problem and asked for inspiration, guidance, wisdom and courage for the task before me. … I was unknown to most of the Faculty and students of the Granite High and so during the summer I thought out how best to make a beginning.”
He became enthusiastic about the beginning of the year in teaching at Granite High School and looked forward to registration day, on September 3, 1915. A crowd of students was on hand, and his journal entry describes the event: “Commenced a very important period of my life and one that will, I am sure affect the destiny of thousands of the youth of Zion, if the plans maturing in my mind blossom into fruition” (quoted in Lyman Clarence Pedersen Jr., “John Mills Whitaker: Diarist, Educator, Churchman” [master’s thesis, University of Utah, 1960], 167).
His diary records events step-by-step which led to the tremendous success he had in carrying forward this program over the years. Significant is the statement of the late S. Dilworth Young, one of the Seventy, who was one of Brother Whitaker’s earliest seminary students: “Had Elder A. Theodore Tuttle been clairvoyant, he would have seen in the year 1914 a fourteen-and-a-half-year-old stripling entering the first seminary instituted by the Church. Across the street from Granite High School a building had been constructed—one room in size—a teacher employed, and the school opened to students. I was that stripling. There died yesterday the third teacher of that particular seminary. The teacher was John M. Whitaker.
“I should like to make a short tribute to Brother Whitaker. He likely did not know the profound influence he had upon me as a boy, as I studied minutely under him and Guy C. Wilson before him, the detail of the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants. I look back upon it now, realizing that there was where I got my first detailed knowledge of these standard works. Could I have enough influence I would see to it that every boy and every girl in the Church had a like experience under a man of faith” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1960, 80).
The service of John M. Whitaker is an example of thousands of instructors who over the years have devoted their lives to building testimonies in hundreds of thousands of young people who have availed themselves of the opportunity of taking advantage of seminary classes.

I wanted to share the light the gospel brought to my life, so exactly one year from the date of my baptism, I sent in my application to serve a full-time mission. Hoping that my father’s heart had softened, I told him about my decision. His reaction was unexpectedly angry. I sat quietly in my room all night, and after work the next day, I was too scared to come home. I was still working when my father came into my workplace. After a long silence he finally asked, “Do you really want to leave all of these things—your home, your friends, your education, your work—only to go someplace you don’t even know?” I said, “Yes.” After that, we did not talk until the day I left for my mission. That day came 10 short days after I received my call to serve in the Utah Salt Lake City Temple Square Mission.

“Work goes faster if we work together,” said Vanessa Kaiser (10) of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. “And if we all work together, we have time to play together.” Last summer Vanessa’s family had job cards that told each person what his job assignment for the week was. The jobs were changed weekly—except for the job of tending Katelyn (1). That job goes to whomever Katelyn is happiest with each day.
Each child has his favorite jobs. Vanessa likes to vacuum the stairs, iron, and take care of the family’s two dogs, Cotton and Sandy. Jessica (12) likes to cook and tend Katelyn. Jonathan (8) prefers dusting, and Kenneth (5) vacuuming. Mostly they like to get their work done so that they can play.
Last winter they built an ice rink in their backyard. First they packed the snow down with a toboggan; then they sprinkled the snow with water to form layers of ice. When the ice was thick enough, they went skating. But soon they learned to use their slippery slide as a luge run. Sliding down it on a rubber mat, they’d fly across the iced backyard into a soft snowbank.
The family has a “basement business” to make money for a “magnificent” vacation. They make personalized boot clips (used to clip pairs of boots together so that they don’t get separated) and magnets out of plastic tiles. Jonathan and Kenneth peel the protective coating off the tiles and brush them clean. Mom, Jessica, and Vanessa engrave the tiles with people’s names or initials, bevel the edges to make them smooth, then bend the tiles to make boot clips or attach magnets to the tiles’ backs.
In all things the Kaiser family works together. Their father, Walter, owns a photo finishing lab. Their mother, Nancy, helps with the bookwork, and the children help clean the office. Then Dad helps out at home. “Whenever Mom says there’s nothing in the house to fix for dinner, Dad somehow finds a way to make a wonderful dinner. He’s a great cook,” Vanessa said.
Vanessa loves talking to Jessica about things that Jessica has already done. For instance, last winter Vanessa went to Winter Camp, a winter survival training course held in February for all fifth graders. Before she went, Jessica told her all about how fun it was to build “quinzhee” shelters out of snow and to play the survival games. It made Vanessa really excited about going and helped her not to be nervous about the unknown.
Jonathan likes to play with Vanessa because she’ll take the time to work on his projects with him. Jonathan loves to build and create things. Vanessa’s favorite project with Jonathan was building a tricky course, much like a miniature golf course, out of Legos and Zaks and then blowing balls of crumpled up facial tissue through the maze of paths.
Sometimes after a hard day, Vanessa will go to her room and find her bed turned down and a note on her pillow. It will be from Kenneth. “He’ll print some letters on it and tell me that it says ‘I love you. You have been so nice to me today.’” It means a lot to Vanessa.
But Kenneth isn’t the only one who writes secret notes to make others feel better. “I do bookwork for my husband,” said Mom. “When it’s payroll, I have a busy, long night. But sometimes when I go down to my work after the kids have gone to bed, I find nice notes that Vanessa has left for me.”
Vanessa sets an example not only at home, but at school too. One day her class was drinking something that is against the Word of Wisdom. Vanessa passed it up and politely explained why she couldn’t drink it. Another time she told some children who were using bad language on the playground that she didn’t like those words and that they upset her. The other children respected her feelings and stopped using the offensive language.
Recycling has also become one of Vanessa’s major concerns. After her class did a project on it, Vanessa helped her family become involved. “Now every time I want to throw something away,” her mother said, “she says, ‘I can recycle that at school.’”
“If we don’t do something now,” said Vanessa, “we’ll have so much garbage that we won’t know what to do with it.”
Vanessa is a joy to her family and friends, and they bring her joy too.

After a few years of conducting meetings in and around Kotpad, I moved to northern India, where I began to sell books from the Evangelical Christian literature society. I came across a book called Is Mormonism Christian? Something about the book intrigued me, and I decided to read it.
The book had a lot of criticism toward the Mormons and their beliefs. Even so, many parts of the book intrigued me, especially their concept of the Godhead, the components of their worship, and the history of polygamy. However, what interested me the most was that their church was named after Jesus Christ. I was curious to know more.
One day while praying, I felt inspired to investigate the Mormon Church. I learned that Salt Lake City, Utah, was the Church’s headquarters. I decided to write a letter and addressed it to “Men in charge of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.”
In 1959, in response to my letter, Brother Lamar Williams from the Church Missionary Department sent me Joseph Smith’s testimony, the Articles of Faith, and the Book of Mormon. I studied them all and was convinced of their truthfulness. However, there were no missionaries or members to teach me in India.
Then in January 1961, Elder Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles visited Delhi. I spent three days traveling with him to the Taj Mahal at Agra and to Dharamsala. I was like a sponge soaking up all the gospel lessons he taught. On the final day of his visit, I was ready for baptism. On January 7, 1961, I was baptized by Elder Kimball in the Yamuna River; Sister Kimball was the official witness, though there were many curious onlookers. I was confirmed that evening.
Those three days when the Lord’s Apostle taught me without any interruptions have been some of the best days of my life. Parting was sad because he had become my special Mormon friend.

I had just turned eight, and it was getting close to my baptism date. I asked my mom if I could invite my second-grade teacher to my baptism. My mom said, “Of course.” I wrote my teacher an invitation and gave it to her. She said she would love to come but had a family commitment on the same day. Even though she wasn’t there for my baptism, I felt happy that I had invited her. Maybe it would make her curious about my beliefs.
Paige G., age 9, Texas, USA

Let me tell you of an important event that we have had in the Church in the last few months. Not too far from Church headquarters, in Idaho, there was a great tragedy. A great earthwork dam collapsed. There were 17 miles of water backed up in the canyon behind the dam. All of that was loosed on the valley below. It was a beautiful, quiet, sunny Saturday morning. Just below in the valley were two or three little communities—7,800 people in all. A few miles farther down the valley were another 25,000 to 30,000 people, almost all of them Latter-day Saints. All were going about their work, getting ready for Sunday.
The first place the water hit was the Wilford Ward area. It was washed away, all of it: all of the houses, all of the barns, all of the fences. The ward chapel was completely destroyed. The ward was gone, just like that.
Then the water hit Sugar City. The same thing happened. Sugar City was gone. The stake center stood and a few of the houses, but they were terribly damaged. The water broke into the wall of the stake center and picked up all of the benches and just tore the inside of the building out. Then it broke out the other wall and went on its way.
In all, 790 homes were destroyed. Many of them vanished without a trace. Some places you could see a cement foundation. Another 800 homes and many businesses and churches and schools were badly damaged.
Now you are wondering about the people, about the 25,000 Latter-day Saints, all in the face of this flood that Saturday morning. Very few died by drowning. Only six. That is a miracle. An expert said that 5,300 should have perished.
But only six died by drowning. How could that be? They couldn’t just run upstairs and get on the roof and be safe, because the houses were washed away. They couldn’t just run up on the hill—most of them had several miles to go before they reached safety. Then how were they saved? There was a warning. It was only a short one. Some of them only had a few minutes. But there was a warning. And Latter-day Saints pay attention to warnings. If we are living righteously, we are easily warned. And so, the word went out just before noon that the dam was beginning to crumble. Those who heard obeyed the scripture. Let me read another verse or two from the Doctrine and Covenants.
“Behold, I sent you out to testify and warn the people, and it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor.” (D&C 88:81.)
And that is what happened in Idaho. Some of them heard, and they began to warn their neighbors. Now how did they do that? Call them on the telephone? “It’s a beautiful day today, a nice day for a ride. Do you think you would like to go over to Rexburg some time this afternoon and visit the college? It’s up on the hill. Oh, you are too busy. Well, you think about it, and I’ll call later this afternoon.” No! no! That isn’t the way it was! If they got them on the phone they didn’t speak, they screamed: “The dam is breaking! Get your children! Get to high ground!” They ran from neighbor to neighbor. And they knocked on the door, and if no one would open, they kicked the door down or smashed in the window to warn them.
Only six drowned. What about them? One was a fisherman just below the dam. He had no warning. Two people heard the warning but didn’t believe it. They were found in their car, but they had moved too late. Three others heard the warning but went back to get some of their possessions. Latter-day Saints pay attention to warnings.
There are pages of miracles that took place individually. One young man was in town when he heard the warning. He knew that his parents were not at home out on the farm, but his little sister was there, and she was sick in bed. When it was all over, she had been saved.
One father was at the college in Rexburg doing some work that Saturday morning; someone knocked on his door and said, “Turn on your radio; I’ve heard that the dam is breaking.” He thought of his wife and the boys out irrigating on the farm. And he had the car. There was no time for him to go. When it was all over with, his wife and his children were there with him, warned and rescued by the neighbors. Now there is a great message in this.

Stringy orange chunks went skittering across the road. Nothing was left of the carefully-carved pumpkin face except a lonely candle stuck in the pulpy mess near my feet.
“C’mon, throw yours,” Mike said, wiping his hands on his pants.
“Do it!” Jeff urged.
Kevin pushed my shoulder. “Hurry up! Smash it, and let’s get out of here.”
My friends stood in a circle around me. The pumpkin felt smooth and cold in my hands. It was heavy, even though the stringy insides had been pulled out and holes carved for a silly face. I remembered how long it had taken me to clean and carve my own pumpkin at home, scooping out the slippery seeds and carefully slicing out sections for its eyes, nose, and mouth.
But this pumpkin wasn’t mine. I had grabbed it off a porch tonight after trick-or-treating, then waited impatiently for house lights to blink off one by one. It wasn’t my idea to smash the pumpkins, but my friends said it was great fun. They had each swiped one too.
“Everyone does it,” Mike had said. “It’s a Halloween tradition. Nobody can see you—it’s too dark out. Just hold the pumpkin up as high as you can and smash it on the road.”
“It doesn’t hurt anyone,” Kevin added. “It’s just an old pumpkin. It’ll be rotten soon anyway.”
They were right. It was great fun. My pumpkin-smashing sent chunks flying farther than anyone else’s. I laughed out loud when some gooey pieces splatted on Jeff’s pant legs. Jeff pushed me backward into some pumpkin mess on the road. Mike grabbed a pumpkin chunk and plopped it on top of Jeff’s costume wig. Soon pumpkin pieces were flying everywhere.
A porch light switched on suddenly, and a man’s voice growled from the lit doorway. “Hey you boys! What’s going on out there?”
A small figure in pajamas, clutching a teddy bear, stood by the man’s side. “Daddy, where’s my pumpkin?” asked a tiny voice. “Did the boys break my pumpkin?”
We raced through neighborhood yards until we were safely out of sight, finally crouching behind shrubs to see if anyone was following us. “Watch out! Over there!” But it was only a tree shadow stretching its long black body over the ground toward us. The wind moaned and sighed. Clawlike branches scratched unearthly noises against rooftops. I gulped deep breaths of cold night air and tried to steady my trembling legs. This was scary—but exciting too!
We listened for police sirens or neighbors yelling for us to come out. A dog howled faintly in the distance. An airplane droned in the dark overhead. But there were no footsteps, no searching flashlights, no angry voices. We were safe. We laughed, patting each other on the back. This had been easy!
But something followed me as I walked home. Something invisible wrapped its long, icy fingers around my head and invaded my ears. It was sneakier and more chilling than any make-believe Halloween ghost.
It was a tiny voice crying over a pumpkin—the one I had smashed.
The voice chased me all the way back to my house. I quietly climbed the front steps and sat down in the dark shadows. My own pumpkin scowled at me from the porch railing as if it knew that I had smashed one of its relatives. For fun. Because “everyone did it.”
The front door opened, and Dad poked his head outside, whistling for our dog. “Hey, kiddo, did you have a good time trick-or-treating? Did you get any candy for your old dad?”
I handed him my bag full of treats. “Here. Take what you want. I’m not hungry.”
Dad sat down beside me. He pulled a sucker out of the bag, unwrapped it, and pointed it at my pumpkin on the railing. “You know, Son, in a way you’re a little bit like that pumpkin over there.”
“Sure, Dad,” I said. “I have an empty space where my brains should be.”
Dad rolled the sucker over his tongue. “There’s nothing wrong with your brain—when you use it,” he said, picking at some pumpkin goo still clinging to my pants. “I meant that there’s a ‘candle’ inside you, too—a bright spark that lights up your face and makes you who you are. It’s a pure, clear, beautiful light that’s inside every person. Maybe it shines a little less when they do something they’re ashamed of, but it never goes out completely.” He gently turned my face toward his. “Your light looks a little dim tonight.”
“It’s a wonder it didn’t go out like a smashed pumpkin,” I said. “A broken pumpkin just lying in the road, waiting for a car to run over it. A pumpkin that didn’t even belong to me.”
I stood up and walked over to the railing. My hands circled the perfectly-decorated pumpkin that had taken me a whole hour to clean and carve. I picked it up and started down the front steps.
“Where are you going?” Dad asked.
I turned to face him. “A little voice is calling me,” I choked out.
Dad studied his sucker. “A voice?”
“Of a little boy in pajamas.”
Dad smiled. “Follow that voice,” he said. “Your light is getting brighter every second.”

About a year after my father’s baptism, he became very ill. Early one Sunday morning, he called my mother, my brothers, my sisters, and me to his bedside. There, he looked at me and said, “My son, I hope you will serve a mission.” After saying these words, he died.

My father’s dying words impressed me so deeply that I did wear the “uniform” of a full-time missionary. I served in the Philippines Quezon City Mission.

For Pele Mika Ah Lam of Samoa, there’s another important consideration about time that she lives by: “I make the most of it wherever I am.”
Pele grew up in a village where families—including her own—live off the land. Running water and electricity are never a given, and the homes are simple and beautiful. Education is not easy to pay for. “Our whole family helps support each other with education costs,” Pele says. “It’s the Samoan way.”
After working hard and getting top marks in school, Pele was accepted to attend the National University of Samoa. She chose to study accounting, mathematics, and computing. She also made room in her schedule for institute classes.
Along the way, Pele participated in another activity that would change her life in the near future, though she didn’t realize it at the time. For fun, every Friday evening she met with other Church members attending the university to discuss the gospel and learn new skills. These activities varied from week to week with one exception: on the last Friday of each month, they had a standing tradition of learning how to cook a different meal.
“I paid close attention,” Pele says. “I didn’t want to waste a chance to learn something new.”
That decision would yield big dividends in the future.
The cost of a university education can be a major obstacle to nearly anyone. For Pele, when her funding ran out, she had to leave school. She had worked hard, however, and learned all she could while there—including how to cook many different meals.
As a wife and as a mother of young children, she thought hard about how she might use what she had learned to help support her family. Throughout her life, Pele has been taught to believe in God and to work hard.
“I decided to start my own business,” she says. “I now run a barbecue and salad stand, cooking food that I learned how to make while going through school!”
Because of her business success, Pele makes enough money to take care of her immediate family, as well as help care for her parents and siblings.
“Our family believes that ‘faith without works is dead’ [James 2:20],” she says. “We have faith in God and believe that He will help us in every way. But we have to do our part.”
Pele still lives life on “island time.” She rises and retires with the sun and embraces the simple, peaceful Samoan lifestyle. And she understands and lives the following truth: “Time flies on wings of lightning; we cannot call it back.”1
Because Pele is trying to make the most of the time she has, God has prospered her and her family, and they have found joy even in the midst of challenges. She has a strong testimony, a successful business, and a bright future.
“We are very blessed,” she says.

In early 2020, within a day of each other, Gordon Matenga and Brandt Shortland were appointed district court judges for their respective New Zealand regions.
Both men are of indigenous Maori heritage and both had also served as acting chief coroners, but these are only some of the many parallels in their lives. It turns out, Gordon Matenga and Brandt Shortland are longtime friends with so much more in common.
They are both members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and have known each other since they attended Church College of New Zealand (CCNZ).
“I lived in Dinsdale, Hamilton . . . so I was a day student since 1977,” Gordon recalls. Brandt, who is a year older, enrolled in 1978. “That’s when we first got to know each other.”
It was a teacher at CCNZ, Brother Jim Kingi, who first planted the seed in Gordon’s mind that law could be a career for him. He didn’t know then that Brandt would eventually choose a similar path.
In his final year, each was elected CCNZ’s student body president, Brandt in 1980 and Gordon in 1981. They went on to serve full-time missions for the Church in Australia—Brandt in Perth and Gordon in Brisbane.
After his mission, Brandt enrolled at Waikato University to study social sciences. When Gordon returned, he signed up for pre-law at Waikato, where he and Brandt did a Maori paper together.
From there, Brandt gained a law degree at Victoria University, and Gordon finished his studies at the University of Auckland. They reunited in Hamilton in the early stages of their respective law careers.
The parallels continued.
In 1996, Gordon became the first Maori coroner in New Zealand, and a decade later, he was appointed full-time coroner for both the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions. That same year, 2007, Brandt left a thriving law practice in Hamilton to accept his own full-time coroners’ role in the Te Tai Tokerau (Northland) region.
As coroners, they’ve each had to “manage the impact of dealing with death on a daily basis,” Brandt says. “On top of that . . . dealing with grieving whanau (families) in the rawest of times is a tough ask.” He coped by keeping himself physically fit and attending church regularly. “I have been lucky,” he adds, “with a whanau that keep my feet on the ground.”
Gordon remembers a difficult call regarding a 3-year-old who had drowned in a paddling pool. “I immediately went outside, emptied out [my own child’s] paddling pool and put it away.” But Gordon says it was only when the details of a case mirrored his own life somehow that it could affect him this way. “Otherwise, I didn’t find it that difficult . . . because of our knowledge of the plan of salvation. I knew that death is a part of life.”
Over the years, both have also served in various Church leadership roles. When they became district court judges, each had to be released as the first counsellor in his respective stake presidency.
“Everyone is entitled to be equal before the law,” says Gordon, “. . . to be represented.” Brandt says it’s about balancing human compassion with the requirements of the law. “I’d like to be remembered for being fair and respectful to all who appeared in front of me.”
These days, the friends don’t get to see each other as often as they’d like, but they continue to appreciate and support each other from afar. “Brandt has an uncanny ability. . .to remember people’s names,” Gordon says, “and he can talk to anyone . . . people warm to him. I admire that because it’s not one of my strengths.”
“[Gordon] has always been calm and measured in . . . all that he does,” Brandt says. “He has been a faithful servant. He has outlasted the trials that should have taken his life.” On top of all that, Brandt adds, “He is a great musician who loves to sing.”

War in the Persian Gulf
Maureen Clark, 14, Farragut Ward
I was at church on Wednesday night for Mutual. I remember someone came in and yelled, “The war’s started.” A bunch of people started crowding into a room where there was a television. I was shocked and scared. My friends and I went into the meetinghouse library and started looking up the signs of the last days in the scriptures and what would happen before Christ comes. We read about the wars that would happen. We started getting a little shaky, but time calmed us down.

I was attending a track meet, and there were about a dozen fellows who had qualified to represent their schools in the mile run at this invitational. As the gun was fired, those young men, who had trained hard for this vigorous race, took off. Four of them were running in a bunch so close together that it looked to us as if they might trip each other. Suddenly one fellow spiked the shoe of the boy running in front of him. As the spiked runner went to take his next step, his shoe flew off.
I wondered what this boy who had been leading the race would do. He had several choices: He could have grabbed the boy who had spiked him and done something to get even. He could have run over to the coach and yelled, “So this is what you get. I’ve trained half my life for this, and now on the big day, look what happens!” He could have said to his mom and dad, “Look what that guy did to me!” Or he could have sat down and cried.
But he didn’t do any of these things; he just kept running. This happened on the first lap, and I thought he would quit after that lap. But he kept running every step of the way. The cinders came up through his sock into his foot, but he said nothing. He just kept running. He finished the race, and I thought, “What a boy!” He said nothing. He simply finished the job he had to do.

I had so many questions about the Church growing up, but I never felt like I could voice them out of fear of being judged. And as a young adult, I had even more questions.
When I began attending institute, I was focused more on my unanswered questions than on my faith and the truths I did know. And when the COVID-19 pandemic hit and stress and anxiety consumed me, I struggled to feel the Spirit. Hoping to feel something, I decided to kneel and say a prayer for the first time in months. Before I said a word, tears filled my eyes as I was enveloped in a strong feeling of love. I pleaded with the Lord to answer all my questions, lighten my burden, and bring me peace.
Soon after that prayer, my institute teacher sat with a classmate and me and asked us what young adults need, as he was hoping to create classes that would address the most common struggles and questions. It was comforting to know how much he wanted to help, and I opened up about how I had been feeling. As we talked through the afternoon about our needs as young adults in the Church, I found an answer to my prayer in my classmate’s words.
I realized that I wasn’t the only one with questions and that they weren’t anything to be ashamed of, like I had previously thought.
I felt spiritually uplifted after that conversation, and I was confident for the first time that Heavenly Father cared about my questions and that He would help me find answers in time.

I received one of those blessings just a few weeks ago. Since general conference falls on a weekend that would normally include the fast and testimony meeting, I fasted and prayed to know how I should still obey the commandment to care for those in need.
On a Saturday, still fasting, I woke at 6:00 and prayed again. I felt impressed to look at the world news. There I read this report:
Tropical Cyclone Pam destroyed many homes as it made a direct hit on Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu. It killed at least six people in Vanuatu, the first confirmed from one of the most powerful storms ever to make landfall.
“Hardly a tree stood straight [as the cyclone] bellowed across” the Pacific island nation.
World Vision’s emergency assessment team planned to view damage after the storm died down.
They advised residents to seek shelter in sturdy buildings such as universities and schools.
And then they said: “‘The strongest thing they’ve got is cement churches,’ said Inga Mepham [from] CARE International. … ‘Some of them don’t have that. It’s hard to find a structure that you’d think would be able to withstand a Category 5 (storm).’”
When I read that, I remembered visiting little homes on Vanuatu. I could picture in my mind the people huddled in homes being destroyed by winds. And then I remembered the warm welcome to me of the people of Vanuatu. I thought of them and their neighbors fleeing to the safety of our cement chapel.
Then I pictured the bishop and the Relief Society president walking among them, giving comfort, blankets, food to eat, and water to drink. I could picture the frightened children huddled together.
They are so far away from the home where I read that report, and yet I knew what the Lord would be doing through His servants. I knew that what made it possible for them to succor those children of Heavenly Father was fast offerings, given freely by the Lord’s disciples who were far away from them but close to the Lord.
So I didn’t wait for Sunday. I took a fast offering to my bishop that morning. I know that my offering may be used by the bishop and Relief Society president to help someone in my neighborhood. My small offering may not be needed near where my family and I live, but the local surplus could reach even as far as Vanuatu.