Gospel Story Finder

During the time I was a teacher in the Aaronic Priesthood, I was called to be president of the quorum. With the urging and assistance of a dedicated and inspired quorum adviser, I worked diligently to ensure that each of the young men attended our meetings regularly. Two of them were a particular challenge, but with our perseverance and love and a little persuasion, they began to attend meetings and participate in quorum activities. However, as time passed and they left the ward to pursue education and employment, each of them drifted back into inactivity.
Over the years I have seen each of these two dear friends at various functions. Whenever I do, I place a hand on their shoulder and remind them, “I’m still your quorum president, and I won’t let go. You mean so much to me, and I want you to enjoy the blessings which come with activity in the Church.” They know I love them and that I’ll never ever give up on them.

A sister in the United States was gone from the Church for many years. Her story of coming back includes powerful lessons for parents and family members who anguish over loved ones who step away. She wrote:
“I could list a myriad of reasons for why I walked away from the Church, the gospel, and in a way, my family. But they really don’t matter. I didn’t make one big decision to leave the Church—I probably made a thousand choices. But one thing I have always known is that my parents did make one big decision, and they stuck to it. They decided to love me.
“I couldn’t possibly know how many tears have been shed, how many sleepless nights, nor how many heartfelt pleading words of prayer have been uttered on my behalf. They didn’t call me out on my sins; rather, they called out to me in my sinfulness. They didn’t make me feel unwelcome in their home and at family gatherings; any of those feelings were of my own doing. Instead, they continued to welcome me. They must have seen my light dim over time. But they knew that the person I was back then was just a shadow of who I was yet to become.
“Just as my path away from the Church was complex, so was my way back. But one thing that was not hard about coming back was the feeling of being back home where I belong.”

These powerful truths were life-changing for my friend Jen,12 who as a teenager caused a serious car accident. Though her physical trauma was severe, she felt exquisite pain because the other driver lost her life. “Someone lost their mom, and it was my fault,” she says. Jen, who just days before stood and recited, “We are daughters of our Heavenly Father, who loves us,”13 now questioned, “How could He love me?”
“The physical suffering passed,” she says, “but I didn’t think I would ever heal from the emotional and spiritual wounds.”
In order to survive, Jen hid her feelings deeply, becoming distant and numb. After a year, when she was finally able to talk about the accident, an inspired counselor invited her to write the phrase “I am a child of God” and say it 10 times daily.
“Writing the words was easy,” she recalls, “but I couldn’t speak them. … That made it real, and I didn’t really believe God wanted me as His child. I would curl up and cry.”
After several months, Jen was finally able to complete the task every day. “I poured out my whole soul,” she says, “pleading with God. … Then I began to believe the words.” This belief allowed the Savior to begin mending her wounded soul. The Book of Mormon brought comfort and courage in His Atonement.14
“Christ felt my pains, my sorrows, my guilt,” Jen concludes. “I felt God’s pure love and had never experienced anything so powerful! Knowing I am a child of God is the most powerful knowledge I possess!”

The Lord gives us truth when we live righteously. Sometimes it comes in response to an urgent, sincere prayer for help when we need guidance. I remember one night in the mission field, after kneeling in prayer with my lovely wife, having thanked the Lord for the blessings of the day, I had a strong impression that one of the missionaries was in trouble. I tried to think who it could be but could not. I excused myself from my sweet companion and went up onto the flat part of our mission home roof. All night long I labored, reviewing in my mind each companionship, everything I knew about every missionary, and pled with the Lord that he might let me know where that missionary was that needed help. Finally, as the dawn began to break, I was impressed to know in which part of the mission he lived. That, of course was all I needed. I went there and through appropriate interviews found and helped the individual the Lord wanted to help. Yes, God answers prayer and gives us truth when we live obediently and exercise the requisite faith.

A Church member gives a refugee mother a special quilt that belonged to her adopted son.
Photograph by Marc Marriott
To help you see the divine in each person, ask yourself, “If the individual were a family member or a loved one, how would my view of this person change?”
This question became very personal to one Latter-day Saint woman when her Relief Society held a baby shower for a refugee mother in their community.
Her Relief Society presidency contacted a local refugee resettlement agency to find a mother they could help. Once they had been connected with a mother and her family, the presidency visited the home to ask how they could be of the most help. (An important part of the principle of humanity is honoring a refugee’s agency by asking how they would like to be helped and then sincerely listening.)
The Relief Society president suggested a baby shower, explaining it as a way to celebrate a new child and give gifts that the baby and mother may need. The refugee family agreed that would be helpful to them.
As the ward began planning the shower, one sister found she had a special “soft spot” for those who must come to a new home after her experience adopting a baby from Guatemala. During the long process of adoption, this sister had kept busy by making a quilt for her new baby. As she compared the experience of her own adopted son to this new refugee baby, she wanted to connect with the family by giving them the quilt she had made.
At the baby shower, this woman explained her connection to the refugee mother, describing how her young son also had to come to a new home and how they had loved wrapping him in the quilt when he arrived. The woman gave the refugee mother the quilt and said, “I hope that your new baby will love it too.”

Because of our financial needs, my father expected me to help earn money for the family. I wanted to serve a mission, but when I turned 19 years old, he asked that I wait one year to serve my mission so I could continue working to help my family. When I turned 20 years old, he asked that I wait another year to serve.
Just before I turned 21 years old, he wanted to request that I wait one more year. But my mother told him, “Let him go serve, and it will bless us.” This really happened. Before my mission, only a younger brother and I had worked to help support the family. As soon as I went on my mission, two more of my brothers and my two oldest sisters started working, so my family did better financially.

When I was six years old I learned a valuable lesson. My father had traded his farm for an interest in a general merchandise store in Driggs, Idaho, and he was to be the store manager. Father had been managing the store just a short time when he received a bulk shipment of candy packed in wooden pails. One morning I went into the storeroom and found all the pails had been opened so that the candy cases in the front of the store could be filled.
All that luscious-looking candy was such a temptation that I helped myself to several kinds and then filled my pockets. But to leave the store, I had to pass through the front part where my father was working. He spotted my bulging pockets and, putting his arm around my shoulder, took me into the back room and talked to me about the importance of being honest.
Then Father asked me to empty my pockets, explaining that he owned only half of the store and that whenever any member of his family took anything from the store it must be paid for. If things were just taken without being paid for, we would actually be stealing from his partners.

I am conscious, my brethren and sisters, that concluding this meeting will be President Kimball. Prior to the meeting I told him that I had three talks of varying lengths prepared. During the singing I received a note from him asking that I use the longest version.
I was reminded of an experience we had in Colorado when we were reorganizing a stake. The meeting was nearly over, there were about ten minutes left, and neither of us had spoken. The stake president announced me. President Kimball leaned over and said, “Please, you take all of the time.”
I bore a one-minute testimony and returned to my seat. As the stake president was announcing President Kimball, I noticed him writing a note. As he stood, he handed it to me. On it were five words, “Obedience is better than sacrifice.” And so, obediently, I proceed.

CARMA MILLER: I'd like to share one more story from long ago, but with implications for each of us. Had this story not occurred, it's likely our own stories would be different.

In 1847, the same year the pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley, Jacob Spori was born in a small village in the Swiss Alps. Jacob entered college at the age of 16, and three years later, he graduated with honors in German, French, math, history, music, penmanship, drafting, geography, religion, psychology, and the natural sciences.

Jacob was soon widely recognized for his excellence as a thinker and teacher. He was honored in national publications, invited to serve on a prestigious church council, and elected by a landslide vote to the town council.

By age 30, Jacob and his wife, Magdalena, were the parents of two children, owned a large home, and were important members of their community. From all appearances, Jacob was successful, yet he felt unsettled. His fine mind began to question his life's purpose and its relationship to his religious culture. This was particularly dangerous because his family, employment, and social standing were completely intertwined with the Swiss Reformed Church.

And then Jacob heard something that astounded him. God's great kingdom of the future had been restored to the earth and was being established in America's Far West. Jacob was not naïve and understood the consequences of such an event. He wrote: "Many terrible things were being said about this people, the Mormons. I fully expected this, knowing that all the powers and lies of darkness would be rushed to the battle once God initiated the restoration of all things." Nevertheless, Jacob was baptized. His testimony was bright, and his devotion never faltered, although his wife had no interest in his newfound religion. As soon as he joined the Church, Jacob lost his community status. His teaching was questioned, he underwent an intense investigation, and his teaching contract was canceled. During the next election, he received less than 10 percent of the vote.

Jacob desired to go to the Zion he had sought for many years. Going meant leaving his wife and children behind. Magdalena stood to lose the family fortune if she went with Jacob, so she and the children moved into her parents' home, and Jacob left for Zion. By staying, Magdalena faced the ridicule of relatives and friends after Jacob left. She steadily refused their pleadings to divorce him, and although she could not see the truth of the gospel, she recognized that his faith had made him a finer man.

Zion contrasted sharply with Jacob's sheltered academic life in Switzerland. As an immigrant who did not speak English, it was impossible to find work in academics, languages, or writing. Fortunately he was strong and energetic, so he shoveled snow, laid railroad track, and did farm and sawmill work. This created a new humility, and later, as a missionary, Jacob introduced himself simply as a woodchopper, never mentioning his education or teaching experience. Jacob was often lonely and depressed, missing his wife and children terribly, but he considered himself rich and blessed for having found the gospel.

After five years in Utah, Jacob accepted a call to serve in the Swiss-German mission. His first month was spent becoming reacquainted with his wife and children. Because of Jacob's extraordinary ability with languages, he was reassigned to serve as the first LDS missionary in the Middle East. Through a series of events involving a severe injury when their oldest daughter fell from a swing, Sister Spori witnessed the power of the gospel, and she was baptized and confirmed just a week before Jacob left for Constantinople (now Istanbul), Turkey. The trip was difficult, and he tormented himself with guilt that he'd been too long away from his family and had now left them again. Letters from home were difficult as Magdalena wrote of her own doubts and of her worry for their injured child.

In Turkey, Jacob forced himself to focus on his missionary work, and peace came as he taught the gospel in five new languages he'd learned: Turkish, Armenian, Syrian, Hebrew, and Arabic. Six months later, news arrived that their 10-year-old daughter, Katharina, had died from her injuries. Jacob managed to accept her death and continue working. He was sent to Israel, where he performed the first baptism in Palestine and assisted in the formation of the first LDS branch there. Jacob served faithfully, and, after 2 ½ years of service, earned enough money to return home.

Within two months of Jacob's return, the family left Switzerland forever. They came directly to Rexburg, Idaho, a small settlement established only five years earlier. Magdalena, 8 ½ months pregnant, said the hardest trip of her life was the final 25 miles to Rexburg, jolting across lava beds in a hay wagon with no springs. The Sporis lived temporarily in the tithing granary where Magdalena delivered their fifth baby.

Jacob was chosen as principal of the new Bannock Stake Academy, founded in late 1888. He had no doubt he'd been called to Rexburg to build the kingdom. Jacob Spori clearly understood your future when he articulated this prophetic statement 128 years ago: "The seeds we are planting today will grow and become mighty oaks, and their branches will run all over the earth."[9]

As you may have expected, the fledgling Bannock Stake Academy struggled, and Jacob honored his sacred duty to keep it running. Through the great personal sacrifice of Jacob and subsequent leaders, the Bannock Stake Academy became Ricks College and, ultimately, BYU-Idaho.

When my wife and I were serving in the Europe East Area Presidency living in Moscow, Russia during the COVID-19 period, we had more time to ourselves than before. Not knowing what more could happen during this crazy time, we made sure we had some extra food in our home that would last us for several months. Part of this modest storage was chocolate, and especially these Merci boxes with small sticks of many different flavors. They were often on sale in the supermarket close to our home, so we stocked up!
At the end of each day, that usually would be filled with Zoom meetings, we would play a few games of Skip-Bo and eat some of the chocolate. We quickly learned that we needed to bridle our passions and restrict ourselves to just a few sticks of chocolate instead of eating the whole box.

This early morning boat launch is such a time. The stars have faded, but dawn has yet to tint the eastern horizon. On Tarawa, Kiribati’s most populous atoll (a low coral island encircling a lagoon), the few electric lights have long since blinked out. And with no wind to move the waters of Tarawa’s lagoon, the small, five-meter craft seems frozen in place, embraced on all sides by silent anticipation.
At the craft’s helm, Tune (pronounced toon-AY) gazes intently ahead. His 16-year-old friend and ward member, Moretekai Ataia, is at the bow, watching the water carefully. Though their destination, Abaiang Atoll, is several hours away, they are alert. Shoals extend right and left, and Tune must maneuver the boat safely between them until he passes the reef at the mouth of the lagoon. Once into the deep water of the ocean, he can increase his speed and steer directly toward Abaiang.
Moving into the lush landscape, they follow a familiar path to their destination—a maneaba (meeting place) in a clearing near the home of an elderly couple named Tamton and Taake Ruata. This maneaba serves as the meetinghouse for the Tabontibike-Abaiang Branch of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Tune has brought Moretekai with him today to visit Tamton and Taake and other members of the Church on Abaiang.
The Saints in Kiribati have great respect for the priesthood, and wherever Tune goes on Abaiang, he is received with gladness. It soon becomes apparent it wasn’t whim that brought him to Abaiang. He was drawn to the island by prayer—reeled in like one of his tuna. He thought he was just visiting, perhaps finding an excuse to go fishing. But the real reason he came was to give Aritaake Moutu a priesthood blessing.
“Ever since I joined the Church, I’ve depended on priesthood blessings,” Sister Moutu says. “I had a problem with one of my legs before I joined the Church. Now whenever it gives me trouble, I ask for a blessing, and I’m always healed. This morning I was praying for someone to come and give me a blessing because my husband is not on the island to give me one.” She smiles at Tune. “That’s why you came.”
“It’s always like that,” Tune says. “She lives on this isolated island in the middle of nowhere. She and her family have their challenges. There are few jobs; most people live off what they can grow and get from the sea. There are no doctors or nurses on Abaiang. The Saints here depend a lot on the Lord. And the Lord takes care of them.”
“Yes, we have our challenges,” Sister Moutu says, “even after joining the Church. But we don’t notice them as much now.”
It is time to return to Tarawa. Tune knows he needs to get back before the tide pulls too much water out of Tarawa’s lagoon, leaving parts of it too shallow for his outboard motor. But before he and Moretekai leave, Tune gives Aritaake the priesthood blessing she prayed for.

“I actually struggled for months to know the right time. I pondered and prayed every night. A few months later, my bishop asked if I had my patriarchal blessing. I said no, and he said, ‘OK! Let’s do an interview after church today!’ After talking with my bishop, I felt ready to receive my patriarchal blessing. I realize now that my bishop’s question was an answer to those prayers I felt weren’t being answered.”
Makaya S., Texas, USA, received blessing at 15

David dove off the boat ramp into the deep, green water, down and down, looking for the happiness he’d always found when swimming in the pond. The pond was on his grandfather’s land, and he was staying with his grandparents, at least for now. He burst through the surface and gulped down the warm June air. The cows, which had followed him to the pond, looked startled at his sudden appearance from under the water, as if they hadn’t seen him do this a thousand times before. They were lined up on the wooden ramp like a row of animal bathing beauties on a diving board.
David chuckled at them and rolled over onto his back, remembering how it was when he was only five and his mother was teaching him to swim. He had clung to her, scared but excited, until she finally went under the water and he went under with her, holding his breath for the first time. When they came up, he was laughing so hard that he couldn’t stop.
“What’s so funny?” she’d demanded. “You—your hair was going straight up!” It was the first of many days spent at the pond, giggling and splashing and laughing.
That summer his grandmother had planted yellow willows along the banks. Now they had grown up tall, just like David. On one side of the pond, his grandfather had given the willows a haircut, cutting their weeping branches off evenly six feet above the dusty path. On the other side, the willows were long and trailing, their leafy tips dipping into the green water. David caught some of these with his toes as he floated by on his back. He pulled them along with him for a little while, shaking the leaves higher up on the tree. He hadn’t found what he was looking for; he knew that he wouldn’t now. Even the combination of the warm sun and the cool water wasn’t enough to make him happy again.
Still floating, he looked straight up into the open sky and squinted at a passing bird. He could hear his grandfather working with his hoe. Even though he was eleven years old, his grandfather still stayed close by when he was swimming. He wondered how much longer he and Dad would stay with Grandpa. They had come to the farm as soon as school was out for the summer, because Dad knew it was David’s favorite place.
When his mother was still alive, the pond was the best place in the world. But Mom had died in the spring, and he missed her so much that his head ached from it. He wanted a whole family with a father and a mother. The sky suddenly blurred as if he were under water again. He desperately wanted to feel better, but he didn’t know how.
“Shoo, you moos!” He waved his arms. “Go on, move!” The cows lumbered off, settling down under the willows. He climbed onto the ramp and lay there, making a wet silhouette on the boards, and thought of his mother. She had been the only member of the Church in the family. He had gone to Primary, and Dad had listened to the missionary discussions, but neither he nor his dad had been baptized.
After she died, Dad talked with him about joining the Church. “Davy, I’ve decided to be baptized. I’d like you to be baptized with me, but you are old enough to decide for yourself.”
“I’ve already decided. I don’t want to be baptized with you.” David turned away so he wouldn’t see the disappointment in his father’s face. He didn’t know then—or now—exactly why he answered the way he did. He wasn’t sure of anything.
“All right,” Dad had said, “but will you think and pray about it while we’re at Grandpa’s? You know that if you’re baptized, we can go to the temple next summer and be sealed together as a family.”
David knew about the temple. He had learned about it in Primary, but all that he cared about now was that Mom was gone, that she wouldn’t swim and laugh with him again.
Dad was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on a Saturday afternoon, and the smile on his face as he came up out of the water was one of a very few that David saw anymore.
He was still thinking about that rare smile, when a bee buzzed close to his ear. He sat up. His swim trunks were nearly dry, and the planks of the boat ramp were getting hot in the sun. He remembered Grandpa telling him the story of building the boat ramp on the little pond.
“When Grandma and I were first married and bought this farm, Davy, there was no ramp, just a pond. Grandma said that she wanted to swim but that she wasn’t going to get her feet muddy getting out of the water—you know your grandma. So I went up to the lake to see how it was done, then came back and built Grandma the boat ramp.”
“Is that when the neighbors started to tease you?”
“Yes.” Grandpa laughed, remembering. “They wanted to know when I was going to bring my yacht up to our watering hole. But it didn’t matter. I loved your grandma so much that I would do anything for her. I still do.”
Now Grandpa’s words repeated themselves inside his head: “I loved your grandma so much that I would do anything for her.” Did Dad love Mom that much? He thought about his father’s plan to go to the temple next summer. Yes, he loved her enough to study and pray about the Church and then be baptized. What about me? he wondered. Do I love Mom that much?
The tune to a Primary song came into his head. Its last few words floated like a whisper into his heart: “A family is forever.”
He bowed his head and put his hands in his lap, praying for the first time since Mom died. “Heavenly Father, please help me to know what to do. Please help me to feel better. Please help me!”
Suddenly he was warm all over, with a feeling that started somewhere near his heart and spread out to his fingers and toes. He felt reassured and relieved, just as he had when he was learning to swim and felt Mom’s arms around him. There was something else too. He knew the gospel was true, and he wanted to be baptized and go to the temple the next summer with Dad. He would tell him tonight.
All at once he jumped up and took a joyful flying leap off Grandma’s boat ramp, making a gigantic splash in the pond. He rose quickly to the surface, breaking through the water with a grin on his face. The cows looked at him in surprise, as if they had never seen him do it before.

One group of friends found an unusual way to reach out to each other. They came from different family situations and backgrounds, but they all cared about each other and wanted to strengthen their friendship.

One of their friends was having a particularly hard time at home. She told them she sometimes wished she could disappear but kept her feelings hidden behind a smile because she was worried that others would judge her.

Her friends wanted her to know that she was safe with them and that the world was a better place because she was in it. So they came up with a plan: they would wear safety pins. Each of them wore a safety pin on their clothes each day to remind her, and each other, that they were committed to creating a safe, secure, trustworthy friendship—and that they wanted each other to stick around.

Years later, this young woman still remembers her safety-pin friends and is grateful for the security she felt knowing that they cared about her.

Many years ago, a non-Mormon scholar, told an interesting story on the BYU campus in Provo. It deeply impressed me with the strong connection between the first and second generations of pioneers and the present generation of young people and converts in the Church.

Before World War II, the respected musician Bruno Walter was the conductor of the famous Vienna Symphony Orchestra. This symphony was a unique musical organization with a spirit and unity and synergism that produced glorious music, powerful and unmatched by any other symphony.

When the Nazis took over Austria, the conductor fled to America. It was not until 1947 that he was finally able to return to Austria. Upon his return, his first priority was to visit his treasured Vienna Symphony.

As he approached the concert hall where they were rehearsing, he could hear the strains of their glorious music. Mr. Walter said that if he had been anywhere on the face of the earth and had heard that magnificent sound, he would have been able to identify it as coming only from his beloved Vienna Symphony. When he entered the concert hall, to his amazement, he discovered that although the exquisite musical quality was still there, not a single one of the musicians playing with the symphony then had played with it before the war, when he was its conductor. All of them were new, but the quality and powerful spirit of that remarkable orchestra remained unaltered.

Here’s a letter from one of these young ladies that gives an idea of what it’s all about:

Good things are happening at Phanat Nikhom. Some of us had a very special experience yesterday that Sister Edmonds asked me to write and share with you. We were walking down a road in the Holding Center. In the distance we saw a small group of people walking toward us. A little girl bolted out from the group, running toward us with outstretched arms. She stopped. She was so very cute. I bent down to take her in my arms and give her a big hug. I held her, and we tried to talk to her while the rest of the group joined us. We talked with the mother in Cantonese and learned that these were Vietnamese who just arrived three days ago from another camp. The little girl was five years old and had never seen Westerners before, yet, as her mother said, she so joyously welcomed us. Later we were talking with a Catholic father who is a wonderful man working in these camps. I said, “It’s easy for us to feel so strongly about these wonderful people, these refugees.” I told him about the experience we had just had with the little Vietnamese girl. He stopped me. He said, “That proves my point about you girls. She wouldn’t have done that to volunteers from any of these other fine agencies. She could see that you are different.”

And with this our lovely representative finishes:

I am so happy that I can be here sharing with these precious people. I’m glad the light of the gospel helps us to be different. Thank you for your prayers and support.

It is important for all of us to remember that we can learn both from the teachings of the Brethren and from the examples of their lives. Given the majestic vision of the future growth of the Church articulated by the Prophet Joseph Smith, please now consider the power of his personal example in the performance of routine and mundane but necessary tasks. George A. Smith described in his journal the reaction of the Prophet to the daily challenges of the march to Missouri.
“The Prophet Joseph took a full share of the fatigues of the entire journey. In addition to the care of providing for the Camp and presiding over it, he walked most of the time and had a full proportion of blistered, bloody and sore feet. … But during the entire trip he never uttered a murmur or complaint, while most of the men in the Camp complained to him of sore toes, blistered feet, long drives, scanty supply of provisions, poor quality of bread, bad corn dodger, frouzy butter, strong honey, maggoty bacon and cheese, etc., even a dog could not bark at some men without their murmuring at Joseph. If they had to camp with bad water it would nearly cause rebellion, yet we were the Camp of Zion, and many of us were prayerless, thoughtless, careless, heedless, foolish or devilish, and yet we did not know it. Joseph had to bear with us and tutor us, like children.”12

Ever since my conversion at age 14, I have wanted to serve a mission. I would watch the missionaries as they worked; I saw that they were clean-cut and spiritually minded and that they wore name tags inscribed with their own names as well as the name of the Church. Each missionary was special, but they were all uniformly dressed and they all wore that same black tag.
When I was 21, I was called as a missionary to serve in my own country, in the Peru Trujillo Mission. I can clearly remember the night each missionary arose one by one to receive his or her name tag from our missionary training center president. I could feel the Spirit, and my heart pounded with joy.
“Elder Augusto Sánchez!” I heard my name, and with a quick jump, I rose to receive the badge that would, for the next two years, identify me as a full-time servant of the Lord. I cried as the president attached the tag to my left pocket and sealed the moment with a warm clap on the back. I felt I had to lift my left shoulder higher, because really, the name tag was heavy—I was carrying a great responsibility.
Now I am in the mission field, and it is a great privilege to be in the ranks of those who are called by God and who are trying to do His will and not our own.
I know that if I remain worthy, the Lord will inscribe His name on my countenance and on my heart—as well as on my name tag.

A Relief Society sister who had moved to Texas to continue her education and then was moving again wrote to me this summer. She told of her experience with the sisters in her ward, of their quick action, willing hands, warmth, and kindness. But it wasn’t what they did that prompted her letter; it was why. They loved her, and she could feel it. As they shared with her, multiplying their gifts, she too was strengthened in charity. Listen to her story, because it represents all of you and your quiet goodness:
“As I write these words, I have to squint at my computer screen and keep blinking away tears of gratitude. From the first day I attended the Austin Fourth Ward, I was touched by the spirit of love and caring I felt in the Relief Society. These sisters are very diverse. There are converts and lifelong members, native Texans and Mountain West transplants. They are married, divorced, and single, some with sufficient means, others with very few resources. Yet it doesn’t seem to make any difference.
“I can’t tell you of the untold kindnesses they’ve done for me. They aren’t earthshaking events, but an accumulation of small blessings: stopping by my apartment to take my dog for a walk, offering to take care of some mending, tracking down packing boxes for me, and including me in their personal prayers. This Sabbath day, the words of the hymn ‘As Sisters in Zion’ [Hymns, no. 309] keep running through my mind. I want you to know that the sisters are indeed ‘build[ing] up his kingdom with earnest endeavor,’ and ‘comfort[ing] the weary and strengthen[ing] the weak’” (letter from Katherine Boswell, 11 Aug. 1996).

That’s the scripture Elder King shared with our daughter several years back. She had a knack for business and organization…and we thought she’d be a fantastic business major. She took the beginning Accounting class in college and did not like it at all. So, her dad asked her, “What do you have a passion for?” She said it was music-dance-theatre…but worried there was no future for her in it. Well, she tried out for that specialized BFA program, got accepted, then sang and toured with BYU-Provo’s Young Ambassadors performing group. Singing and dancing on New York City’s Broadway was not her ultimate destiny. But she graduated in that field and has found great joy teaching piano and voice lessons to many young people. A different path—but she trusted…and it worked out for her in a wonderful way.