Gospel Story Finder

For my sixth birthday, I got some money from my friends and family. I put some of it in my mission-fund bank account, and my mummy gave me some of it to spend. My sister and I went to the toy shop, and she saw a toy that she wanted but did not have any money. So I spent my birthday money and bought the toy for my sister. I love my sister, and I know that Heavenly Father is happy when we sacrifice for one another.

Then in February a new convert named Keith moved into our small branch. He had been a member for five months and had the enthusiasm of four new missionaries in one. When the college we attended announced a foster grandparent program involving a local rest home, Keith suggested that we, the only LDS students on campus, should join and be good examples. We talked about visiting two branch members who lived in the rest home, but we took no action.
Then one Sunday President Harrison gave a talk on faith. He said faith was putting your words and beliefs in action. That afternoon Keith and I decided to visit the sisters in the rest home.
Our first visit was a disaster. We visited each sister alone, and we didn’t really get beyond “How are you?” “Fine.” As we left we knew to things: first, they needed us; second, we could do better. And even though we spent much of the next Sunday afternoon driving the 150 miles home from district conference, Keith and I convinced Les Harrison, his sister LeAnn, and Portia (a nursing student) to visit the women with us.
We wheeled both sisters into a quiet corner. Keith read an article from a Church magazine, Les read a scripture, and Portia offered a beautiful prayer. We felt good about the experience, and the next Sunday we came with seven Young Adults and youth. With President Harrison’s permission, Les and Keith blessed the sacrament and passed it to the sisters. We then wheeled them into a small chapel in the rest home and sang a hymn. We took turns reading an article from the Church magazines, then a poem and a scripture. We had a closing hymn and prayer.
It was three o’clock before we left, and since we were all hungry, Les invited us to his house for soup and crackers. So that Sunday afternoon I was again in the branch president’s home—but this time it was very different from the Sunday I went there looking for someone to play ice hockey. During the week the seven of us were scattered about the town, and many of us were without families in the Church. But for two hours that Sunday afternoon, we sat around the table and talked with each other and Les’s parents, sharing jokes, stories, and the problems of being lone Latter-day Saints out in the mission field. It was truly an inspiring experience.
When I finally returned home at ten o’clock after several other meetings, I had no time left to work on my genealogy or write a letter to a missionary as I had planned. As I knelt for prayer that night, I realized there were more “dos” for the Sabbath than I could ever fit into one short day. I thanked my Heavenly Father for the special day he had set apart to bless us.

The privilege of serving the Lord on a mission is felt and demonstrated in many ways. One missionary had struggled with family problems since he was a boy. While still young, he was expelled from his home and went to live with another family who introduced him to the Church. The gospel gave him direction in life where his natural parents had not. A few years later, after becoming one of the best players on a college football team, he decided to serve a mission. Before leaving on his mission, he gave copies of the Book of Mormon to his friends at school. This included his team coaches, fellow players, and teachers. He distributed more than 200 copies before entering the Missionary Training Center.
The missionaries who looked upon a mission only as a sacrifice were often honestly dedicated to the Lord’s service. However, I found they had not experienced personal revelation and inspiration. They were usually less informed about the Savior. But as they studied their scriptures and came to know Him better, their hearts seemed to soften and enlarge. They began to more deeply feel His love and know of the importance of missionary work as a continuation of this love extended to others. Many of those who began by telling of their sacrifices left the Missionary Training Center talking about privilege.

Look in the backseat of the car Matthew Clawson drives to early-morning seminary, and you’ll find what at first seems to be a typical jumble of high school paraphernalia. There are some school books, various sheets of notebook paper, a pair of tennies, a sock or two, a crumpled burger wrapper, a soft drink cup, a sweatshirt, and a lacrosse stick.
A lacrosse stick? What’s that?
Some sort of dried fruit snack?
Something Matt picked up on a nature hike?
Guess again. As any sports fan on the East Coast of the United States, from New York to Maine, will tell you, the stick is the essential piece of equipment used in a sport called lacrosse—the oldest sport in the U.S., and one of the most popular sports in the East.
And it’s slowly catching on in other parts of the country. In fact, Matt’s older brother Jim helped spread lacrosse out West by being a key player in the establishment of a team at Brigham Young University. Back in the Yorktown New York Stake, a number of youth have been playing the fast-action game for years. Richard Stone, a priest in the Westchester Ward, has been playing since fourth grade.
The sport becomes a consuming interest among the boys who play. They take their lacrosse sticks, which are from three-to-six feet long and have small net pockets on one end, with them everywhere. They carry them around at school, they take them on vacation, and, sometimes to the leaders’ frustration, they even take them to church. But not on Sundays.
Tonight is activity night, and the Laurels and priests are meeting at the chapel in New Canaan, Connecticut, to go bowling. While they wait, a pickup game of basketball develops in the cultural hall. As the basketball players run up and down the court, Matt and his friend Mark Fuller are using their lacrosse sticks to whip a small rubber ball back and forth between the players. They seem unconcerned about the threat of a black eye or broken nose as the ball whizzes past them. They’ve watched Mark and Matt practice everywhere and have seen them play on the state championship team. They know the lacrosse players have complete control.
Mark and Matt, like many other lacrosse players in the area, have become enraptured with a sport that the Lamanites were playing long before the first Pilgrims ever set foot on the shores of New England. In those days, the playing fields were huge—sometimes covering several miles. The object of the game was, and still is, to pass the ball from player to player, using the sticks, and to get it in the opposing team’s goal. Sometimes the goals would be set in opposing tribes’ camps, and whoever scored first won whatever disputes the two tribes were trying to settle.
Today, though, the game is played on a field ten yards longer than a football field. A team has ten players: a goalkeeper, three defensemen, three midfielders, and three attackmen. The players wear helmets, padded gloves, shorts, cleated shoes, and jerseys. The game is not unlike soccer, but instead of advancing a large ball by kicking it, a ball slightly smaller than a baseball is passed from stick to stick.
“There’s a lot of action, and there’s never any dead time where nothing’s going on,” says Dean Phelps, a priest in the Wilton Ward. He gladly passed up baseball to play on the Scarsdale High lacrosse team, which also competes in the spring.
The LDS boys who play are definitely in the minority on their teams. Their teammates tease them about being LDS, but in a very good-natured way. They’ll ask the LDS players to bless the field before the game, or say a special prayer when someone gets injured, and they’re half serious. Last year, before Matt was a starter, the two players ahead of him were out because of sickness and injury. “Clawson,” the coach teased, “I don’t know if you prayed for the chance to play or not, but while you’re at it, you might pray for a little speed. You’re going to need it out there.”
It’s all in fun, though, the LDS players insist. “They really do have a lot of respect for us because we’re honest and we stick to our morals,” Mark notes. “They give everybody a bad time about something or other.”
While the players in the Yorktown Stake assert that lacrosse is their favorite sport, it has its down side as well. It’s nearly impossible to come away from a game without any bruises on your arms. It’s inevitable when players are blocking each other and their shots with sticks. And at times the drills during practice—running, throwing, catching, running, throwing, catching—can become very tedious. But they even see that as one of the sport’s assets.
“Lacrosse teaches us discipline that will help us on our missions,” says Rich, speaking for the LDS players in the Yorktown Stake who are very serious about their intent to serve. “You’ve got to work hard to play lacrosse, and I’m sure it will be the same way in the mission field. Sometimes practice is so monotonous; you do the same thing every day. But you just keep pushing and pushing. Then when it’s time for the game, you’re glad you had the practice. I’m sure it’s the same way on a mission. When it comes time to baptize someone, you’re grateful for the time and effort you put in, no matter how monotonous it might have seemed once.”
Dean agrees, and adds that the converse is also true—that mission preparation has helped his lacrosse. “Our school lacrosse program is pretty lax, and it would be easy not to work real hard, but the discipline I’ve learned through scripture study and going to seminary has helped me to stick with it and give it my all,” he says.
These young men will have no regrets when the time comes to trade their lacrosse sticks for a different set of “sticks”—the scriptures. They’re excited about carrying their scriptures around every day, even more diligently than they carry their lacrosse sticks around now.
Even though the mission field is still a way off for them, the LDS lacrosse players in New England are busy working hard and diligently to become good players and good missionaries. And you can be assured that they’ll stick with it.

Mia Maids Kate Hancock and Charmaine Davison, from the Sydney suburbs of Revesby and Gymea, have been friends since they were very young. Even though they live about 45 minutes apart, they go out of their way to do things together. They like the same music, they enjoy spending time together (especially at the beach), and sometimes they even like the same boys.
That closeness became even more precious last year when tragedy struck Kate’s family.
“My nephew, Ben Innis, died just before Christmas, and Charmaine helped me through it,” says Kate. “She always reminds me to go to the scriptures when I feel bad about it. She helps me remember that we know where he is and that he’s all right.”
But it was more than just Charmaine’s good advice that kept Kate going. It was also her willingness to listen, to sympathize, and to care that helped Kate through a very rough time.
“My grandfather had died some time previously,” says Charmaine. “I was just devastated. He died during school holidays, so I had heaps of time to read the scriptures. It helped me so much, and I knew it would help Kate, too.”
So now when Kate and Charmaine list the kinds of activities they like to do together, they not only include things like shopping, talking on the phone, and sports, but they also remember things like studying the scriptures and attending the temple.
“When you do temple work for a member of your family, and you feel really worthy to be there, it helps you feel closer to people who are gone,” says Charmaine. “It’s such a good feeling.”
And, not surprisingly, Kate couldn’t agree more.

When we consistently study the scriptures, it can change not only our perspective, but also the way we deal with problems. At the end of an especially tiring day, Susan Wyman of Canton, Georgia, was preparing dinner while balancing her baby on her hip and trying to entertain her active three-year-old. In the midst of the confusion, her toddler pulled a carton off the counter, splattering eggs all over the newly scrubbed floor. Sister Wyman says her normal reaction would have been anger—but this time she noticed the shock and remorse on her son’s face. She knew that he had not made the mess intentionally. She was able to calmly clean up and cope with his awkward attempts to help.
“Even as I did this,” she remembers, “I wondered where my patience had come from. The Spirit let me know that it was because I had risen that morning and studied the scriptures.”

A year after Carlos joined the Church, he and María decided their house was too small for their growing family. So Carlos designed and built a new, larger home. It is beautiful and spacious—with lots of room for children and friends. Nathalia is practicing the piano in the living room. Verónica is doing homework at the dining room table. Marcelo is outside playing with Alfie, their cocker spaniel. And Sandra and Andrea are giving their dolls a party. Guests are treated like family here. A barbecue, a covered patio, a trampoline, and a swimming pool are out back. The garden is full of vegetables, pineapples, and sugar cane. And the trees are heavy with fruit: bananas, oranges, guavas, avocados, and mangos.

Carlos dedicated their home when it was finished. “A spirit of love and happiness reigns here,” he says. “We’re trying to comply with what the Lord wants. And all these things have been added to us, just as the scriptures say.

“These are really unimaginable blessings,” he says. He shudders when he realizes how close he came to losing—or giving up—everything. “I have no time for my social clubs now. Instead, we have our family gatherings. And I give most of my time to the Lord. While I’m driving, I’m thinking about the members of the stake and their problems. There’s lots to do. I wasted forty years of my life. Now I need to give Him my time.”

“Carlos is the best member of the Church I know,” says Sister Roig. “He magnifies his callings, he loves the gospel, and he’s the greatest defender I know of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith.”

With the help of my family, we decided to start a Billion Graves assignment, taking pictures at the Anfield cemetery in Liverpool. Everything was okay because the headstones were clear, and it was easy to take legible pictures- although we had to deal with English weather, trying to avoid the pouring rain, something difficult to achieve. The cemetery was about 20 minutes from our home.
We then realised that the task was too big, as it was not close enough, so we searched for something smaller and closer to our home. That is when we started at St Chad’s cemetery which was just five minutes from home. Whenever it was not raining, we just ran to take pictures.
There was a lot to do, not because of the number of headstones, but because of the challenges we had when we got there. We needed gloves to remove the grass and dust the leaves off the headstones, to get clear pictures. We found loads of weeds to remove, even stinging nettles (Urtica dioica) and we got many stings on our arms. There were so many weeds and we even found trees growing from some of these headstones.
Many headstones were buried in the ground so that the names and dates were underground. That was when we started bringing small shovels to remove the soil and dig up the headstones to read the information we could not see. We took spatulas, brushes and knee pads, to help in this work. Our tool bag kept growing bigger each time.
At the end of a row of headstones, we found a whole family: all five of their children had died in the same year. When we got home, we did some research and found out there was a cholera epidemic in that same year in England. We could feel the grief of that mother who buried all her children.
One day we found 2 headstones full of names, but they were buried in the ground, so we started digging and it took some time to uncover both headstones. But as I was observing what we had just done, I realised that there was a gap between those gravestones. I checked with my shoe, and there it was another huge headstone that we needed to unbury as well.
There were lots of challenges to overcome, but as a family, we were also blessed to know that this assignment needed to be done, and we felt appreciation from the ones on the other side of the veil that their information could be available online. This was a reminder of the words of King Benjamin (Mosiah 2:17): “when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”
When I had served for about twenty months, we reached 10,000 pictures taken and I received a special shirt for that achievement from Elder and Sister Hoar, my Service Mission Leaders.
In my last month, my mum went with me during the Easter break. It was a sunny day, but there were some grey clouds threatening on the horizon. We started taking the pictures and we really wanted to take advantage of my mother’s time off from work, but the grey clouds started getting closer and darker. We prayed asking Heavenly Father for help to achieve our goal. And then, in a blink of an eye, there was some wind and the clouds moved, and it was sunny again. And it happened again, so we prayed once more, and we had sun a second time. We did this three times, and we had positive results from our prayers each time. We completed our goal: we finished that section, and we ended up taking 405 pictures on that day.
When we were going back to the car, instead of going through the path on the side, we decided to cross over the section which we had done before. It was then when my mum felt like someone was calling to be found and we were prompted to look down.
There it was, a small headstone, probably no more than 15 by 20 cm, with two names on it that we had not recorded. If my mother had not followed that prompting, we would have missed that couple.
That experience reminded me that sometimes the veil between this life and the life beyond becomes very thin. There are so many people in the spirit world that didn’t get the chance to have the gospel in their lives, and we are the ones who can help them. It has been an incredible opportunity for all our family to serve others on the other side of the veil and, as President Nelson said, “[Now is] the most crucial time in the history of the world, to help gather Israel” because “the worth of souls is great in the sight of God” (Doctrine and Covenants 18:10).
I am grateful for the opportunity I have had to serve as a service missionary, to help people on both sides of the veil and for the love of my family who helped me to serve.
Elder Flores uploaded 16,431 pictures to Billion Graves by the end of his mission.

One cold, rainy October day, Mette Hansen, a young mother in Copenhagen, Denmark, was riding her bicycle home from work when a car hit her. Her husband was out of the country on an assignment, and for five hours she lay in a hospital, unable to contact her two small children, who were at a day-care center. She pleaded with the Lord to let her children know she was all right and to give them peace and protection.
After Sister Hansen was treated, she arrived home at 10:15 P.M. to find that her tired children had walked home when she hadn’t picked them up. Because they didn’t have a key to get into the apartment, they had knelt on the doormat and said a prayer, then sat without talking for a little while.
“And then a nice thing happened to me,” her son said. “I felt a big, warm hand touching the top of my head, and I heard a friendly voice saying, ‘Your mother is well. … It will be a while before she comes home, and it will be dark outside, but just stay calm.’”
Over the years since that occurrence, Sister Hansen and her family have known that their Heavenly Father is only a prayer away. (See Tambuli, February 1988, page 12.)

“You’re it!” Mandy said. She tagged her little brother and then swam away. Mandy’s family was staying in a motel until they could move to their new home. It was fun eating ravioli warmed up in the microwave for lunch. And they got to swim in the motel pool almost every day!
But there was one not-so-good part about the motel. The motel manager’s office was right under their room, and the manager thought Mandy and her brothers and sisters were too loud. “How can I rent rooms when it sounds like a herd of elephants are over my head?” he asked Dad.
After lunch Mandy’s little brother Aaron jumped off the bed and hit the floor with a thump. Mandy winced and looked up at Mom.
“No jumping. Tiptoe, please,” Mom said.
But it was too late. The phone rang.
“Uh oh,” thought Mandy.
Mom picked up the phone. Mandy could hear her apologizing to the manager.
Mom’s shoulders sagged as she hung up the phone. “Edward and Mandy,” she said, “I need to put Aaron and Emily down for a nap. Will you please take Kristine and Daniel for a walk?”
As they started across the motel parking lot, Mandy spotted something small and brown on the ground.
It was a wallet. And it had money in it!
“Look, Edward!” she said, holding the wallet up high.
“We need to take this to the manager’s office right away,” said Edward.
Mandy felt her stomach clench. Why did they have to take it right now? Couldn’t Mom or Dad return it later?
But Mandy knew the right thing to do.
The children opened the office door and timidly stepped inside. The manager frowned. “Um, we found this wallet in the parking lot,” Mandy said. Her hand shook as she set the wallet on the counter.
A man who was standing at the counter looked over. “That’s mine,” he said. He quickly looked through the wallet. “And everything’s here. Thank you, kids!”
Mandy looked up at the manager. His frown was gone, and his eyes were twinkling.
After they left the office, Daniel asked, “Was that wallet magic?”
“Why do you think it’s magic?” asked Edward.
“Because it made the grumpy man happy!”
Edward shook his head. “The wallet wasn’t magic,” he said. “He was happy because we did the right thing.”
Mandy had a special feeling inside. She never knew choosing the right could make people so happy.
A few days later, Mandy and Dad went to pay the week’s bill. The manager smiled at Mandy. He had only called once since they found the wallet, and just to thank them for being honest. Mandy felt like she’d made a new friend.
“Choosing the right really is magical,” Mandy thought. She waved goodbye, and the manager waved back. “And he really isn’t so grumpy after all.”

In December 1967, Brother Ed Ka-mauoha was appointed to be the new headmaster at Sauniatu. For years, Sauniatu had been functioning as a school, but when he arrived, the future of Sauniatu was once again in question.
“There were real administrative questions about the efficiency and quality of the school,” he explained. Everyone in Samoa is required to take a standard government education test when they leave high school, and the Sauniatu scores were an average five points below the scores of students from the other Church schools in Samoa. In addition to the low test scores, it was costly to operate the remote school. Many of the students were from very poor families and could not afford to pay more tuition. Enthusiasm among students and teachers was low.
“I felt bad about the school,” he said. “As an administrator, I understood the problems, but I also understood what the tradition of Sauniatu means to the Saints in Samoa. I knew the place was not what it could be because it was not living up to President McKay’s 1921 blessing.”
Ed Kamauoha believed Sauniatu had a prophetic future yet to be fulfilled if each person living there cared. His mind remained restless and his wirey Polynesian body became charged with nervous energy as he began planning to meet the many requirements needed to make the students of Sauniatu self-sufficient and proud and to help the community of Sauniatu reap the promised blessings.
The projects he outlined for the betterment of Sauniatu were big projects. In many people’s minds, they were too big for a handful of teachers and a few dozen school children to handle. Yet Brother Kamauoha felt they could do it.
“Getting everyone to work on big projects is like starting a large machine. You just can’t let it idle; you have to really rev it up and keep it going,” said Brother Kamauoha.
He also felt that the students’ performance in school would improve and the morale among the teachers would also improve if they knew they had some control over their own future. “We had been waiting for others to help us at Sauniatu,” explained Brother Kamauoha. “I tried to teach the people that they had depended too much on outside help and assistance from others. I told them the Lord gives us brains and a pair of hands but they won’t help us unless we use them. And so we started building roads, and we did it by hand.”

Sue was extremely quiet as the family drove home from fast and testimony meeting. So quiet, in fact, that her father sought an opportunity within the hour to talk with her alone. To make a long story short, Sue was laboring under the illusion that she really didn’t have a testimony of the gospel. Two or three members that day had expressed “sure knowledge” that the gospel was true, and in tears Sue said, “Daddy, I can’t say that I know it’s true, and that troubles me.”
Sue’s dad was patient and understanding, for his mind was remembering clearly his teenage years of developing testimony.
“Sue,” he asked, “why do you pay tithing?”
“Because I know it’s a commandment from the Lord,” she replied promptly.
Sue’s dad then led her mind through a quick rerun of some basic principles, including the Word of Wisdom, the law of the fast, partaking of the sacrament, high moral standards, and prayer. To each of these Sue was able to relate positively and promptly. Soon she smiled at her father and said, “Gee, Daddy, I guess I do have a testimony of sorts about everything you mentioned. I suppose I could bear my testimony about the things I understand.”
And that’s the way it is with all of us. Sue had certainly felt a lack of security in this Church, which she loved, but not after her father had proven to her that she was on schedule with a developing testimony about many truths. Real security comes with a developing testimony. Hopefully, we’ll be spending much of our time here in mortality developing our testimony, improving our testimony, and sensing the wonderful security that comes with each new truth riveted securely in its place. We all have an urgent need for security.

When you want to do a stakewide service project but your stake covers a 75-mile area, what’s a ward to do? The Auburn California Stake solved the problem recently with their “Day of Impact.”
Each ward and branch chose a local project that would be completed on the same day. Afterwards, they met at a centrally located park for a barbecue, games, and story swapping. They talked about things like how they painted bleachers at a high school, built a concession booth by the football field at another high school, and weeded and cleaned yards and cemeteries. They also repaired broken headstones. They sanded and painted picnic tables at an elementary school and even restored a historical landmark—an old caboose.
Later, at a stake fireside, everyone was able to catch a glimpse of their work via video—leaders had filmed each project. Even though they had spent the day working apart, they felt a spirit of pulling together.

While I was a mission president in Texas, I was informed that a particular missionary had lost his testimony and wanted to go home. Some checking disclosed that doubts of the divinity of his call had been planted in the young man’s mind by an investigator. In an interview with the so-called investigator, I experienced special powers of discernment that enabled me to know that the man was a minister of another faith, posing as a college student and pretending to be an honest investigator of Mormonism. Confronted with the knowledge that had been revealed to me, he became confused and admitted his fraud. With the deceiver out of the way and the truth known, the missionary stayed and completed an honorable mission.

In contrast to the Thongchalerms’ large home is the simple wooden dwelling of Boonthom and Suwan Pamangkata and their six-year-old daughter, Suchitra.
Brother Pamangkata ekes out a living operating a pedicab, a passenger-carrying tricycle. He works about ten hours a day and would like to work more, but he has poor nighttime vision because of cataracts developing in both eyes. He used to have a pair of glasses to help him see better, but someone stole them. He can’t afford another pair.
Sister Pamangkata supplements the family income by cooking and cleaning for other people and by selling beautifully made crocheted items.
Brother Pamangkata studied Christianity in his youth, but there was no church available for him to join. As a married man, he met the LDS missionaries, who rekindled his interest in the Savior. Sister Pamangkata was impressed with the gospel message, but she was reluctant to be baptized. “But then, before my husband was baptized, he started living the Word of Wisdom. It helped him overcome the smoking and drinking that wasted a lot of our income. Seeing what the gospel did in his life helped my testimony develop, and I was baptized. Now, every day, I find strength in gospel principles.”

Our baseball team had seven boys and two girls, and we called ourselves the Sonoma Lions. During the summer months, we practiced and played three or four times a week in a big vacant lot after our chores were done. It was just for fun—at first.
Then one day my brother Ramie told me there was another team called the Crows a few streets away from ours. I rode my bike to their team captain’s house and asked him if the Crows would like to play with us at the end of summer.
Two days later, he rode his bike to my house and said his team would like to play against ours—and that the Crows would beat us.
“Oh yeah?” I said. “We’ll see about that!”
We practiced hard, determined to beat the Crows. The end of summer was getting closer, and we were getting excited. And then along came Forrester.
Forrester was 10, and he had some mental challenges. His family had just moved into the neighborhood.
Forrester showed up one day while our team was practicing. He was skinny and just kind of stood there, too shy to ask if he could be on our team. Nobody wanted him to ask, especially me. We didn’t need him to help us beat the Crows, and we were afraid he would make us lose.
I guess he could tell we didn’t want him to be a part of our group. He lowered his head and stood there looking at the ground, kicking at a little rock. Then he slowly turned and started walking away.
A thought came into my mind: “What would Jesus do?”
I realized the Holy Ghost had told me this because the words had come from somewhere deep inside me.
When I looked at Ramie and the other team members, I could tell they felt like I did—awful. So I hurried and caught up with Forrester and asked him to come back and play with us.
I saw a smile come into his eyes, and he looked surprised and happy at the same time.
At the big game between our team and the Crows we all played hard, including Forrester.
We lost the game, 12 to 10. But that was OK. Forrester was a good player and a good sport. He even scored one of our runs. When he ran across home plate, I was cheering and jumping up and down.
Mom and Dad said Heavenly Father cheers for us when we make good choices. And I know that inviting Forrester to join the Sonoma Lions was a good choice because it made me feel warm all over, just like the quilt Mom made me does on cold winter nights.

Another five years passed, and I came to stay at my parents’ home while I was changing employment. My father was the ward mission leader, and every afternoon the missionaries would visit him briefly to update and coordinate plans. One day they asked him, “Who is that young man there?”
He said, “That’s my older son.”
“Is he a member?”
“No.”
“We need to talk with him.”
But I said, “No, I’m not interested.”
Then one day my father agreed to let the missionaries teach a lady in our home. They came around 5:00 in the afternoon and began teaching her—and they knew that I was in the next room making a sandwich before leaving to see my friends. They taught about a boy prophet—Joseph Smith—and the First Vision. And from the other room, I listened.
When I eventually left the house, the Spirit started to work in my heart and some questions came into my mind: “Why don’t you do what the sisters taught this lady? Why don’t you study the history of Joseph Smith and ask the Lord if he was a prophet?” And I said to myself, “I’m happy. I’m doing good things. I don’t need it.” But the Spirit started to wrestle with me, and I decided not to see my friends that night. I went back home.
I asked my mom, “Where can I read the history of Joseph Smith?” She gave me her scriptures and showed me the Joseph Smith—History, and I read and prayed. I read the first paragraph, pondered, and asked Heavenly Father if what’s there is true. I did this with every paragraph until I completed the whole thing. My heart was anxious for an answer. I read and prayed all night, until 9:20 the next morning.
The Lord revealed to me that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I had a very sacred experience. As I finished praying, I promised that I would find the missionaries and be baptized because I had this sure knowledge.
I told the sisters, “I need to be baptized now.” They explained the lessons I needed to have and commitments I needed to make. But I said, “I don’t want to lose a single day with the knowledge that the Lord has given me that Joseph Smith was a prophet.”
The sisters called their zone leader. He agreed to an accelerated schedule for the lessons. He scheduled the baptismal interview and told me he’d also need to talk to the ward mission leader, and I said, “Don’t worry, I’ll talk with the ward mission leader. He’s my daddy. He’s been praying for years for me to be baptized.”
My baptism was an experience I will remember forever. What a sweet and wonderful feeling. I felt that I was a new man. I was clean. I felt so close to God, and I was very happy.

Sometimes the tables are reversed. A dear and cherished young friend, Wendy Bennion of Salt Lake City, was such an example. Just the day before yesterday, she quietly departed mortality and returned “to that God who gave [her] life” (Alma 40:11). She had struggled for over five long years in her battle with cancer. Ever cheerful, always reaching out to help others, never losing faith, she had a contagious smile that attracted others to her as a magnet attracts metal shavings. While Wendy was ill and in pain, a friend of hers, feeling downcast with her own situation, visited her. Nancy, Wendy’s mother, knowing Wendy was in extreme pain, felt that perhaps the friend had stayed too long. She asked Wendy, after the friend had left, why she had allowed her to stay so long when she herself was in so much pain. Wendy’s response: “What I was doing for my friend was a lot more important than the pain I was having. If I can help her, then the pain is worth it.” Wendy’s attitude was reminiscent of Him who bore the sorrows of the world, who patiently suffered excruciating pain and disappointment, but who, with silent step of His sandaled feet, passed by a man who was blind from birth, restoring his sight. He approached the grieving widow of Nain and raised her son from the dead. He trudged up Calvary’s steep slope, carrying His own cruel cross, undistracted by the constant jeers and taunting that accompanied His every step. For He had an appointment with divine destiny. In a very real way He visits us, each one, with His teachings. He brings cheer and inspires goodness. He gave His precious life that the grave would be deprived of its victory, that death would lose its sting, that life eternal would be our gift.

One reluctant young man who sang bass came to his first rehearsal because of pressure from his friends and parents. He said as he sat in his place, “I don’t know why I’m doing this” and “You are very lucky that I came.” Later in the session I was giving him some individual help (which is not uncommon for many members of the choir—these young people are not musical geniuses, they are just determined to do their best) and suggested that we simplify a section for him. But he said no. “Let’s sing it the way it was written. It’s more fun that way.”

We have not found it necessary, incidentally, to use music that is in the current pop styles. We have successfully ranged from hymns to anthems, to carols and to chorales. When the youth choir performs, other youth sometimes provide the accompaniments.

Our instrumental music program has also brought exciting results. We have young people studying violin, viola, cello, trumpet, French horn, and trombone. All of these have had the opportunity to play in Church functions—in performances ranging from solos to twelve-piece ensembles. We have also given some of our youth instrumentalists the opportunity to play accompaniment to certain choral numbers and occasionally, do preludes or postludes at meetings.

As a sidelight to our instrumental program, we’ve established a ward music scholarship fund. This fund, which was created and is maintained by member donations, is used to provide music lessons or instruments for students who are unable to afford them.

All of our efforts have been well rewarded. At the time of this writing, we have thirty-four young people ages 9 through 17 studying music. Another eleven have studied at least one year, but are presently not involved in the program.

There are two main reasons for our success: First, a view of the ward music chairman as an educator and organizer, not a performer (a nonmusician could be just as effective): and second, an emphasis on the fun and warmth and unity that arise from practicing and performing together. We’re able to learn, serve, associate, and have a great time all at once! That’s an unbeatable combination.

Ours is not a big ward. We have only thirty-six active youth ages twelve to eighteen. But the excitement of those involved in the program has spread, and of those thirty-six, only about six have never studied music. Being involved in the ward music program has become a prestigious thing to do among the youth. And, as one sister said after a youth performance.,“I could just see all the younger children sitting there clearly thinking, ‘Someday I’m going to be up there too.’”

Despite his health issues, John remains positive and is actively involved in his Lutheran Homes community, which provides church services and classes overseen by a full-time pastor. Soon after moving into the facility, John learned that the pastor would be away for a while and suggested that in his absence, the classes could be led by other residents — John was happy to lead one himself, if needed. The pastor took him up on his offer and John has since taught dozens of classes, which include a weekly broadcast (as his health permits) over an internal TV channel aired to hundreds of residents in the facility and its surrounding village.
Even as he grapples with physical limitations, John spends numerous hours a week preparing his lessons, sensitively referencing videos and other learning material from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Initially, the pastor reviewed each lesson before it was presented, but he now has no concerns about John’s teachings. In fact, John’s messages have seen several copies of the Book of Mormon placed with residents, many of whom have asked him to cover specific topics. He speaks fondly of one such request, which resulted in a 5-week course of instruction on grace.