Gospel Story Finder

Julia’s heart pounded as she peeked into the empty room. The Primary classroom, with its half circle of folding chairs and dusty chalkboard, looked exactly like hers at home. But Julia’s stomach flip-flopped as she walked through the door. Things might look the same, but Julia knew they weren’t. Today she was a visitor.
Julia sank into the chair farthest from the door. She loved everything about her family’s summer visits to see cousins and grandparents, except for being a visitor in a different ward. Singing Primary songs and learning about the Savior was nice, but she didn’t like sitting by herself and not knowing anyone.
Julia also didn’t like listening to the other kids talk and laugh together while no one even looked at her. To her, it felt like no one cared if she came or not. It was like being invisible—Julia, the amazing invisible visitor!
Julia twirled her long blonde braids and wished she were back home with her own Primary teacher, Sister Johansson, and her best friend, Hanna. “Maybe this time will be different,” she told herself as she adjusted her glasses and smoothed her skirt one more time. “Maybe if I try really hard, I can make it different.”
Julia jumped as the door opened. Three girls stepped into the room, talking excitedly. Two boys followed. Julia took a quick breath and forced her mouth into a smile.
“Hi!” she burst out. Suddenly everyone’s eyes were on her. Julia’s face got hot.
“Uh, hi,” mumbled one of the girls.
“Are you new?” another girl asked.
Julia cleared her throat. “No, I’m just visiting my grandma.”
“Oh.”
Everyone chose a seat. Julia’s smile faded when she realized that each chair was taken except the one next to her. No one said a word to Julia. She stared at her hands. “The amazing invisible visitor strikes again,” she thought. A tear slid down her cheek.
A week later Julia’s heart seemed to float as she hurried down the hallway at church. It was so good to be home! When she walked into her classroom, Hanna was already there.
“Hi, Julia! I’m so glad you’re back!” Hanna said.
Julia sat down next to Hanna. Soon they were laughing and talking. Julia had just started to tell Hanna all about her week with Grandma when a tall, slender girl with reddish-gold hair appeared in the doorway. Julia watched the girl slip into the chair farthest from the door and sit by herself.
“She must be a visitor,” Julia thought. “Boy, am I glad it’s not me this time!” The girl raised her eyes to look around and then stared down at her hands. Julia’s heart twisted as no one said a word to the visitor. “I wish being the visitor didn’t have to be so hard,” she thought. “It should be different!” Last Sunday flashed through her mind for a moment as she remembered being the sad, invisible visitor. She blinked. Wait a minute—she could make it different this time!
Julia stood up. “Hi,” she said with a smile. She crossed the room and sat down in the chair next to the girl. “Are you visiting today?”
The girl looked up with wide eyes, and then her face lit up. “Yes, I’m visiting my aunt. Are you visiting too?”
Julia shook her head. “No, but I know how it is,” she explained. “I’m Julia. What’s your name?”
“Ella.”
“Want to come over and sit with Hanna and me?”
Ella grinned and nodded. As the two girls moved back across the room, Julia felt warm inside. “No invisible visitors allowed!” she thought. “Not if I can help it!”

Elder Kikuchi served in Japan as Executive Administrator from 1978 till 1982 and was there when area conferences were held in many places in Asia and the Tokyo Temple was dedicated. Then came another transition: leaving Tokyo—once the strange city but now home—and leaving their homeland itself, the Kikuchi family moved to Salt Lake City to adopt a new language and a new culture. One simply needs to imagine departing his or her native country to understand what an adjustment such a move must involve.
“The English is difficult,” says Sister Kikuchi, who now serves as a Relief Society music director and a visiting teacher, “but we are having a very happy experience here.”
The Kikuchi children—Sarah, nineteen; Renah, sixteen; Ruth, fourteen; and Matthew, ten—have endured the difficulty of leaving Japan and learning a new language. They now attend the same English-speaking schools as their many friends.
“We were homesick at first,” says Elder Kikuchi, “but we are now settled.” Then, with a smile, he adds, “But we do miss sashimi [raw fish].”

In November 1975, seven years after their baptism, Gerard was called as president of the France Paris Stake, the first stake organized in France. Three years later, he and Annie came to a turning point in their lives. Gerard was unhappy with the corruption he saw in the company where he worked, and he began looking for another job. At that time, the Church’s distribution center for France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal was in Grenoble, France, and the center needed a purchasing manager. To be hired for that position, however, Gerard would have to be released as stake president and move to Grenoble at a reduced salary.
During his interview with a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, Gerard expressed his willingness to abide by any counsel he received. “If I shouldn’t be released as stake president, we won’t move,” he said. “I have given my resignation, but I will stay and find another job. We have a year’s food storage; we can manage.”
He was released as stake president and accepted the position in Grenoble. The family lived with Gerard’s mother for a time while they built a new home. About a year and a half later, when their new home was almost finished, Gerard received the assignment to find a new location for the distribution center in the Paris area, which he found in Torcy. The family moved again, never having lived in the home they had built in Grenoble. However, they had been in the area long enough for Gerard to serve as district president.
In Paris he was called as a regional representative. Annie reflects on one experience they shared during those years: “My husband often had to be away all weekend to participate in stake conferences. One conference Saturday the alarm clock rang very early. Half asleep, I became aware of Gerard’s presence at the edge of the bed as he knelt to pray. He stood up and asked how I was feeling. I told him I felt fine. After a moment, he came back to ask about my plans for the day. He kept questioning me and even asked if I would like him to postpone his departure. Puzzled and completely awake by then, I decided to get up. When I got out of bed, I was overcome with dizziness and could not stand. My husband delayed leaving for a few hours until I had recovered. I’ve always appreciated his sensitivity to the whisperings of the Holy Ghost.”
In 1988, Gerard was called to preside over a new mission in the Mascarene Islands, with headquarters on Reunion. When he and Annie and four of their seven children arrived, they found home and office to be a missionary apartment with only an old typewriter and little else. They moved temporarily into the apartment and went to work.
Annie quickly accepted her own role as a missionary. “One day,” says Gerard, “she saw a lady in the supermarket whom she had met at a parents’ meeting. The lady had been impressed by Annie, but had never dared ask about her name tag. At the store, the woman took the opportunity to ask. She was baptized one month later, and the following year she received her temple endowment.”
In 1991, when the family returned from their missionary service, the Europe/Mediterranean Area was organized, with offices in Thoiry, France. Brother Giraud-Carrier was asked to move there and set up a Materials Management office.
In November 1993, he was given his current calling—patriarch of the Switzerland Geneva Stake. At the time, Sister Giraud-Carrier was serving as Relief Society president of the Jura Ward, Geneva Stake—her third assignment as Relief Society president. She has also served in ward and stake presidencies of the Young Women and Primary. Their three oldest children have served full-time missions.
Reflecting on the 25 years since he and his wife met two elders in front of a movie theater, Brother Giraud-Carrier says, “Throughout our Church experience, we seem to have been always beginning. Each assignment we have received has been a beginning for us. We have been privileged to preside over a new stake, a new mission, and a new department in a new area of the Church. Perhaps now, with my calling as patriarch, our beginning days are over.”
Perhaps. But given their pioneering spirit, Gerard and Annie likely have many more beginnings ahead of them.

I wish you could meet the marvelous young man who came to us from Bolivia, arriving with no matching clothing and shoes three sizes too large for him. He was a little older because he was the sole breadwinner in his home, and it had taken some time to earn money for his mission. He raised chickens and sold the eggs door-to-door. Then, just as his call finally came, his widowed mother faced an emergency appendectomy. Our young friend gave every cent of the money he had earned for his mission to pay for his mother’s surgery and postoperative care, then quietly rounded up what used clothing he could from friends and arrived at the MTC in Santiago on schedule. I can assure you that his clothes now match, his shoes now fit, and both he and his mother are safe and sound, temporally as well as spiritually.

One family stands out in my mind. My friend had been the recipient and observer of kindly acts of service by her neighbor. Tenderly and efficiently she saw her care for the sick, notice the shy, cheer the downhearted.

One day, while she was attending a lecture, a mother sitting near her rose hurriedly to take a child out who had become ill. As my friend went to see if she might be of assistance, there was another woman there already. Her manner of helping was quiet and quick, knowing just what to do, and it reminded my friend so much of her neighbor that she finally asked if, by chance, she knew her neighbor, only to find that they were sisters. In that family they had learned the meaning of service. By its selfless nature, service within a family increases spirituality and strengthens bonds of love.

I suffered a tremendous collapse in my own life. Before my eyes, my beautiful, funny, full-of-life eight-year-old son was killed in an automobile-pedestrian accident. I held his body as his blood spilled out on the roadway and his spirit slipped away and returned to his heavenly home. I pleaded with my Heavenly Father to let him stay, but that wasn’t in my son’s life plan.
I was lost in the dark, overwhelmed with the burden of my grief. I was weary, unable to rest, as the problem of mortality clouded my eyes. I came to know that a broken heart is a true physical feeling. Where once I had a heart, there was now only a dark hole that was raw and painful.
I believed that I should just be strong enough to get over it. Many people had suffered more. But like the miners, trapped by the unmovable rock that held them captive, I could not lift the burden of my grief.
My rescue came when I was on my knees in the depths of grief over my son’s death. Like the miners as they entered the capsule, I was at a pivotal point: should I try to overcome my challenges with my own strength and knowledge, or should I reach out to my Heavenly Father and ask for help?
Oppressed by the weight of my grief, I decided to turn to God. As I appealed to my Father in Heaven, I told Him how weary I was and asked Him to please lift the burden of my grief. Before I stood again, the weight of my sorrows was lifted from my shoulders. I still had to work through the pain and loss, but the unbearable load was gone.
It was there that I came to know that the Savior stands by our side, waiting to lift us, waiting only for us to ask Him, waiting for us to lay our burdens upon His shoulders, waiting for us to put our hand in His so that He can rescue us.

My parents investigated the Church in Germany during World War I, even though no missionaries were allowed in the country at that time. My mother first heard about the gospel from a cousin of mine, older than I, who was disowned by her family because she had joined the Church. Father permitted mother to attend meetings, taking my brother and me with her, but he would have nothing to do with Church himself. Then a fellow worker gave him a Book of Mormon and told him about the Church. Father read the book, studied the gospel, and began attending church with us.
When the branch president suggested baptism to my mother, she told him that she and the children were ready, but she wanted to wait for her husband. Father said, “I am ready, too.” But mother told him he wasn’t ready because he still smoked a pipe. Father broke his pipe into three pieces and threw it into the fire. As a jeweler and watchmaker he had been accustomed to working at a high table, smoking a long pipe that reached to the floor, so it really was an effort for him to give it up.
Since baptisms were illegal at the time, we arranged to meet some Saints at a street car depot at night and go to the river for the baptismal ceremony. On the appointed day, I came home from school so ill I could not eat my supper. When the time came to leave, I felt worse, and mother said I should wait and be baptized later. I insisted that I wanted baptism now and would not wait any longer. We rode the street car for about an hour to get to the Chemitz River, then walked through the park to where the baptism would take place.
By the time we got off the street car I was feeling so bad that I could not talk or walk. My father and some of the brethren took turns carrying me. When we arrived, we found a policeman on guard, but he was sitting against a tree, asleep. Barbed wire was strung across the path leading to the river, but some of the brethren held the wire apart while we crept through. We found the river frozen over, but the brethren broke the ice, and then I was asked if I still wanted to be baptized that night. It was about midnight. I nodded, for I still couldn’t talk, and I was the first of eleven people (three children and eight adults) to be baptized. It must have been the impact of the cold water, but when I was immersed, I felt as if a thick shell was being peeled off me. I was able to climb up the embankment by myself and I felt well again. Mother and some sisters helped me dry and dress. Afterward, I sat on a little folding stool to be confirmed.
Following the baptisms, we returned as we had come, along the narrow path and through the barbed wire fence, past the policeman who was still asleep. A big bright moon made the night seem almost day, and as we walked back to the street car depot we sang hymns of praise to our Father in Heaven.
Sometime after the war was over, the missionaries returned to Germany, and one Sunday morning a new missionary from America who couldn’t speak our language came to our home for dinner. My parents spoke some English, since they had lived in Liverpool, England, for four years. In the evening we all went to sacrament meeting, and the new elder was asked to speak. I remember feeling sorry for him, knowing that he knew no German, and I wondered what be would say. He didn’t have time to copy a talk from one of the other elders who had been there awhile.
But he spoke for over an hour. He told the Saints to go to America because another world war would come which would be worse than the one we had just been through. This was a terrible thing to hear, because the suffering of the recent war was still vivid in our memories. On the way home from the meeting I asked my parents what language the missionary spoke. I knew it wasn’t German and I knew it wasn’t English, although I didn’t understand English; yet I understood every word he said. My father said I should never forget that experience for I probably would never hear anything like that again. This elder had spoken in tongues.
From that day my parents spoke of little else but plans for emigrating to America. My father went first, and about a year later he sent for my mother, my brother, and me. My mother was at first denied permission to leave Germany, because she had heart trouble, but she insisted my brother and I go; six months later she was permitted to join us.
Everything the missionary had predicted came to pass. My sister, who did not accept the gospel and who still lives in Germany, told us about the events there that transpired as the elder had prophesied.

“How many of you would like to have a ‘perfect day’?” the bishop asked the congregation. Many members raised their hands—some high, some low. A few kept their hands in their laps.
“That’s fine,” the bishop nodded. “Larry,” he asked one of the ward members, “would you like to have a ‘perfect day’? Would you please come up here to the stand? George and Ruth? Paul? Matthew and Joan? John and Helen? Ben and Carol?”
He called their names slowly, pausing briefly between each one. Many hands fell back into their owners’ laps; only a few remained held high.
“Is there a widow who would like to live a ‘perfect day’?” the bishop asked. There was a moment of silence as he looked over the congregation. “Grace, how about you?”
When those whose names he had called had reached the stand, he turned to them. “Which day would you like to be your perfect day? Tuesday? … Thursday?”
The disbelief and the embarrassed smiles on their faces showed that none of them had really expected to have to make a real commitment. Some nodded their heads yes. Others stood motionless. After several seconds, someone suggested Thursday because it would give them more time to prepare.
Smiling, the bishop said, “That’s fine. Thursday you will have a ‘perfect day.’ And since we do not have any speakers planned for sacrament meeting next Sunday, we’d like you to report your ‘perfect day’ to us.”
He turned back to the congregation. “Is there anyone else who would like to have a ‘perfect day’?” James, a teachers quorum member with a happy smile, raised his hand. He was included.
The bishop then told the congregation, “Your responsibility as ward members is to pray that they accomplish their assignment.”
How does one live to make a day perfect? That question passed through the minds of those who had accepted the bishop’s challenge. Throughout the week, whenever ward members got together, the subject of the bishop’s “perfect day” challenge came up. We were eager to hear the reports.
Sunday finally came.
Grace, a widow with short brown hair and shining eyes, was first. Her day hadn’t gone exactly as planned, she told us. She awoke with a terrible head cold—the first time in more than three years she had been ill. In revising her plans for the day, she decided to put together a scrapbook about her mother’s life, something she had been thinking of doing for a long time. Grace asked her sister to help, and they worked together to reconstruct their mother’s life story in pictures and words. It took most of the day, but the end result was a cherished scrapbook.
Grace found that her activities on that day opened up a new avenue to her. Her patriarchal blessing had said that she would work on her family history. “Because I didn’t understand family history, I just couldn’t get really interested in it,” she confessed. “But after doing my mother’s book, I decided to do one about my husband who died recently.”
She has since compiled histories of her husband, her son, and her daughter. “By cleaning out all the boxes of treasures and mementos I had been storing for years, I’ve found enough information to do the temple work for many of my ancestors,” she says. “I can see my work is just beginning. And I’m happy to do it.”
James’s goal for the day was much different. He planned to be obedient to his parents—to immediately and cheerfully do what he was asked. “It seems as if your mother always wants you to do something when your friends come over to play or when you in the most exciting part of a book,” he said. “Sometimes I stopped and told myself to do it now. At the end of the day, I was able to do it as soon as she asked. It gave me a good feeling,” he concluded.
Paul, a fifteen-year-old with a delightful sense of humor, also took the bishop’s challenge seriously. Though scripture study was not a part of his daily routine, he decided to begin the day by reading the scriptures. “I didn’t know why it was so important to me to read the scriptures that day, but it was,” he explained. “Several times Wednesday night I woke up, feeling sure that I had overslept. Finally, when my alarm went off, I reached for my Book of Mormon.”
He read for about forty-five minutes. “Reading the scriptures seemed to set the tone for the entire day,” he said. “It’s not always easy to get along with school friends, teachers, and your family, and my ‘perfect day’ was not different. I made some mistakes, but I did a lot better than I do most days.
“It also helped me to be much more aware of my blessings, of the things I should be doing, and of my mistakes,” he added. “Often during the day I wondered what I could do to be better.”
That question—What can I do to be better?”—was asked by others who had accepted the bishop’s challenge. Many of them found the answer in serving others.
George found attempting to live a “perfect day” a great challenge. “Even though I didn’t have exactly the kind of day I would have liked to have,” he said, “it made an impact on my life. I’d never even thought of trying to live a ‘perfect day’ before.”
Ruth, George’s wife, experienced an improvement in their relationship as a result of her “perfect day.” “By trying to keep my day perfect,” she said, “I realized some of the habits I had gotten into. For instance, I would suddenly get angry at George for some silly, insignificant reason. Now I’m working on correcting that.”
Recognizing faults and taking steps to overcome them was something each of those who accepted the bishop’s challenge experienced. Larry said, “Like many returned missionaries, I had fallen down in my study habits. There always seemed to be so many other things to do. So when I received this assignment from the bishop, I decided that I needed to regain that closeness to the Lord I had felt on my mission.”
Things didn’t work out quite as Larry had planned; a painful tooth ache spoiled his “perfect day.” “Still,” he says, “I don’t feel my day was a failure. I tried hard to live perfectly—in spite of my circumstances.”
For John, “Every day is a perfect day for me because of my wife Helen. To share my life with her is one of my greatest blessings. For me, a ‘perfect day’ is being together with her. We enjoy each other’s company, and we’re the best of friends.
“We start the day together in prayer and scripture study, and although we go our separate ways to work, we are spiritually together throughout the day. We like to surprise each other by putting a note expressing our love for one another in our lunch sacks.
“After work, we get home, have our evening meal, share in the chores, and then visit with each other and discuss our day’s activity, and plan for the coming day. A special activity for us each week is attending the temple, and this past week we went on our ‘perfect day.’ It’s wonderful to kneel together at the altar, holdings hands, and reliving our marriage covenants as we perform sealing work for others.”
Temple work featured in the “perfect day” for Ben and Carol. When Ben retired a couple of years ago, he and Carol accepted callings as temple workers. “The bishop’s assigned ‘perfect day’ happened to be one of the two days in the week that we serve in the temple.
“I serve as a supervisor at the temple, and I was really touched when, in a prayer meeting, the brother offering the prayer asked that the Lord watch over me, as supervisor, and bless me with a special day. He didn’t know about our ‘perfect day’ assignment, but his prayer was very meaningful to me.
“What a special place to be for a ‘perfect day.’ We were there in the Lord’s house, doing the Lord’s work, side by side with wonderful brothers and sisters, helping others on the road to the celestial kingdom.”
Matthew told the congregation that in his family’s discussion of a “perfect day,” “we came to understand the need to perfect ourselves a little each and every day. For some months, my wife Joan has been very ill, and her illness has affected the entire family. We have come to rely upon the Lord more and to daily seek his guidance, and we have come to better recognize and understand the power of the priesthood. For our ‘perfect day,’ we agreed that we continually need to be supportive of each other, and to live worthy of the blessings we receive.”
After hearing the reports of those who had accepted the “perfect day” assignment, I asked the bishop why he had issued the challenge.
“I’ve always thought about living a ‘perfect day,’” he said. “But we have so many outside influences and pressures in a regular day that we can seldom focus on the spiritual and idealistic. And we often speak about the impossibility of living a ‘perfect day’ or a perfect life. But I had a strong feeling that the time was right for the ward members to try.
“I think we discovered that we can make things a little more perfect regardless of our circumstances. None of the ward members involved in this assignment had to make an investment in money, but they did have to make an investment in time, and give of themselves.
“Many of us in the ward, not just those who had committed themselves to the challenge, also tried to live a ‘perfect day.’ As a result, we became more aware of the challenges involved in perfecting ourselves and tried harder to live worthy to have the Lord’s Spirit be with us.”
Though the bishop’s “perfect day” challenge did not cause instant changes in our lives, it helped us along the road to perfection—something we all hope to achieve.

When I was given the assignment to speak in the priesthood session of general conference, I immediately thought of a wonderful Primary teacher. Her great desire was to prepare us to be worthy of receiving the priesthood. She grilled us on the requirements then in place for graduation from Primary—memorize the names of the members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and the Articles of Faith. She also made us a promise—if all of us could recite the thirteen Articles of Faith by memory, we could choose the place and go on an outing for our last class.
We decided on a special spot we liked to hike to on the rocky slopes just above the first dam at the entrance of Logan Canyon, in northern Utah. There was a small, flat space in these rocky cliffs that had a natural fireplace where you could cook hot dogs and roast marshmallows. When we chose the location, however, we did not consider our teacher, who was older and certainly not the athletic type. If we had thought about it more carefully, it might have occurred to us that she would have a difficult time making the hike. Her promise was her bond, however, and she gamely followed us.
First we climbed up the small hill. In our day there were no power lines to prevent access. With some help our teacher made it up the hill. Once over the top we dropped down into a rocky ridge to a place we called “Turtle Back.”
After we arrived, it took our teacher a little while to catch her breath. By the time we prepared to sit down and eat, she had recovered enough to teach us our final lesson. She told us how she had enjoyed teaching us in Primary for the last two years. She complimented us on how we had mastered the Articles of Faith. She could call out the number of any one of them, and we could quote it back to her. Then she said memorizing the Articles of Faith would mean nothing more than a lot of words unless we understood the doctrines and principles contained in them. She encouraged us to study the gospel doctrine taught in each of the Articles of Faith. She explained that the doctrine found in the Articles of Faith was divided into sections.
The power of our teacher’s words has been a source of inspiration to me because of the emphasis she placed on gospel study. The scriptures guide us to a standard of truth by which we can judge the knowledge we are receiving, whether it be true or false. True doctrine comes from God, the source and foundation of all truths. The teachings and concepts of true doctrine are found in the gospel of our Lord and Savior. False teachings come from Satan, the father of all lies. His desire is to pervert, change, and alter revealed truths. He wants to deceive us so some of us will lose our way along the journey back to our heavenly home.
My Primary teacher instilled in me a determination to study the doctrines of the kingdom. She taught me to seek the deep meaning contained in these simple Articles of Faith. She promised me that if I would invest in learning these sacred truths, the knowledge I acquired would change my life for the better, and I testify to you that it has.
After my teacher’s wonderful lesson on that mountain in Logan Canyon, we noticed that we had stayed a little longer than we had planned. The evening was drawing to a close, and we realized we had a problem.
My teacher had struggled to arrive at our special spot, but returning presented a major challenge for us. This only compounded the poor selection of a place for our outing. The climb back was difficult for us, but even more so for a person of her age.
As we struggled to help her back up the hill, two policemen appeared. The Primary president had sent them out to find us, fearing we were lost. The drama of the event and the lessons taught made it an unforgettable experience in my life.

I stood on the step of the train and hugged my father good-bye. “Have a nice time in Wales, Hetty,” he said.
“I will,” I answered, smiling.
The spring of 1910 was one I would never forget. I had been baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints just a short time before, and now I was going on a trip all alone from Bristol, England, to Wales to visit my Aunt Nell.
“Hetty”—Father caught my hand—“don’t forget to say your prayers.”
I squeezed his hand. “I won’t, Father.” But as I turned to go, I added under my breath, “I hope.”
I had a hard time remembering to say my prayers at night. Before the missionaries visited our home, I had sometimes said a little prayer before going to sleep that started, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” But the missionaries taught us that prayer was actually talking to Heavenly Father. I wasn’t used to that—and I wasn’t always sure I had anything important to tell Him. But at Aunt Nell’s house there would be lots to tell Him. I didn’t think that I’d forget there.
That night I didn’t forget. I thanked Heavenly Father that the train hadn’t derailed and that Aunt Nell had been there to meet me. I thanked Him for the lovely green Welsh hills and for the pastures filled with sheep.
The next night was different, though. I spent all day exploring the hills with Aunt Nell. I was so tired at the end of the day that I fell into bed and went right to sleep.
“Oh, dear,” I thought the next morning. “I forgot to say my prayers. Well, I’ll say them tonight.” But we spent all day visiting Aunt Nell’s relatives in the nearby village, and the same thing happened that night. And the next.
The next morning, Aunt Nell surprised me. “Hetty,” she said, “how would you like to go into the village by yourself today and buy something for me?”
“I’d love to!”
She gave me some money and told me where to find what she needed. Then she said, “Now, remember—don’t stay too long. A fog often comes in from the sea in the late afternoon. If that happens, you might not be able to find your way home.”
I told her that I’d be careful. Then I skipped off. I had to go over a bridge, walk down a long lane, and cross two fields to get to the village. The fields were surrounded by high hedges. They had stiles, or steps, in them that allowed people but not animals to go through. After I crossed the last stile, I went straight to the village store, made my purchase, and turned toward home.
“Hetty!” someone called. I turned back and saw some of Aunt Nell’s cousins playing on their doorstep. “Can you stay and play?”
“Well …” I hesitated. The sun was still high in the sky. It wouldn’t hurt to stay a little while. “OK,” I said, “but not long.”
“Not long” turned into “too long.” The sun was getting low in the sky when I started back to Aunt Nell’s. I crossed the first field just fine, but as I entered the second field, the fog came rolling in. I walked around and around the field, but I couldn’t find the stile.
Finally I stopped and stood shivering in the thick, damp fog. My father’s words echoed in my head: “Don’t forget to say your prayers.” I knew I needed Heavenly Father’s help, but how could I pray to Him after I’d been disobedient?
I knelt in the wet grass. “Heavenly Father,” I whispered, “I’m sorry I’ve been forgetting to say my prayers. And I’m sorry I stayed too long in the village. But please help me find my way.”
Just then, a horrible “Eeee-Aaaa!” sounded right by my ear. Terrified, I leaped up and stumbled away from that awful noise. And there, right in my path, was the stile! In an instant, I climbed up and over it. Then I ran down the lane, heading straight for a lantern bobbing towards me. It was Aunt Nell! I threw myself into her arms.
“There, there,” she soothed, and she took me home. That night I knelt and thanked Heavenly Father for helping me, and I promised to never again forget to pray.
The sun was out the next morning. I asked Aunt Nell to go for a walk with me. We crossed the bridge, walked down the lane, and came to the stile. I took a deep breath and climbed it. As I reached the top, I looked down into the field and saw the answer to my prayer. There, tethered near the bottom of the stile, was a donkey.
I laughed.
“What is it?” Aunt Nell asked.
“Oh, I’m just happy,” I answered. And I was. I’d found out for sure that Heavenly Father loves me and answers prayers—sometimes in unexpected ways. He might even use a donkey to do it.

Phil’s successes are all the more impressive for the fact that he’s a hemophiliac. “I’ve learned to look at it as a blessing to me,” Phil said. “It’s a mechanism the Lord uses to humble me.” Because of the illness, Phil has attended special camps for the handicapped, an experience that has helped him gain sympathy for other people’s problems. He tells of making friends with one fellow named Frank, who didn’t seem to be handicapped at all—in fact, Frank won the camp wrestling contest. Then one night as they were getting ready for bed, Phil discovered that his friend had wooden arms and wooden legs. “He had so much self-esteem that it really lifted me above my own problems,” Phil said. Phil also noted that his illness has provided him with an opportunity to witness the power of the priesthood through blessings and anointings during particularly trying times.

Harold Connolly had broken his left arm several times. It was only two-thirds the size of his right arm. To exercise and build up the smaller arm, he began throwing the hammer back to Boston College’s regular throwers. Soon he was tossing it back farther than they were throwing it, so he entered the event. He later broke the world record and won a gold medal. He made himself the strongest where he was the weakest.

While my father attended LDS High School, he worked and lived in the home of President Joseph F. Smith. He wrote in his life history about President Smith:
“Most great men that I have known have been deflated by intimate contact. Not so with the prophet Joseph F. Smith. Each common everyday act added inches to his greatness. To me he was a prophet even while washing his hands or untying his shoes.”
My father tells of one experience in which the prophet taught him a practical lesson late one night as he entered the Beehive House. Again quoting from my father’s life history:
“I walked with guarded steps through the office, then into the private study to the door at the foot of the steps that led to my bedroom. But the door would not open. I pushed and I pushed to no avail. Finally I gave up and went back to a rug that I had noticed in the hall with the intention of sleeping there until morning.
“In the darkness I bumped against another partially opened door and the collision awakened the prophet. He turned on the light and, seeing who it was, came down the stairway and inquired concerning my difficulty.
“‘The door is locked that leads to my room,’ I explained. He went to the door and pulled instead of pushed, and the door opened. Had he been disturbed by my foolish blunder I would not have been surprised, for I had robbed him of a precious night’s sleep by a thoughtless act. He only smiled and stopped to inquire of a strange stable boy what I had stumbled into. I pointed to the half open door at the other end of the hall.
“‘Let me show you something.’ He took time at midnight to explain, ‘When in the dark, never go groping with hands parted and outstretched; that permits doors to get by your guard and hit you. Keep your arms in front, but hands together; then you will feel with your hands and not your head.’ I thanked him and moved to my quarters. He waited until I reached the rear stairway and then he retired.”

I clipped an article written by Jay Evensen from the Deseret Morning News. With his permission, I quote from it:
“How would you feel toward a teenager who decided to toss a 20-pound [9-kg] frozen turkey from a speeding car headlong into the windshield of the car you were driving? How would you feel after enduring six hours of surgery using metal plates and other hardware to piece your face together? …
“… The victim, Victoria Ruvolo, … was more interested in salvaging the life of her 19-year-old assailant [attacker], Ryan Cushing, than in … revenge. … She insisted on offering him a plea deal. Cushing could serve six months in the county jail and be on probation for five years if he pleaded guilty to second-degree assault.
“Had he been convicted of first-degree assault—the charge most fitting for the crime—he could have served 25 years in prison. …
“According to an account in the New York Post, Cushing … made his way to where Ruvolo sat in the courtroom and tearfully whispered an apology. ‘I’m so sorry for what I did to you.’
“Ruvolo then stood, and the victim and her assailant embraced, weeping. She stroked his head and patted his back as he sobbed, and witnesses … heard her say, ‘It’s OK. I just want you to make your life the best it can be.’”

One day, while driving along a road in California’s Sequoia National Park, I noticed a turnout for Moro Rock. I’ve always enjoyed hiking, climbing, and exploring, so I decided to check it out.
At the turnout, a short 10-minute hike takes you to a large granite outcropping overlooking a huge river valley with sky-piercing peaks in the distance. I quickly made my way past throngs of other people on the trail. After a few quick turns, I was standing on the summit. The view was great, but I was disappointed because there were metal railings everywhere! I couldn’t really explore the location like I wanted to.
I thought I was an experienced hiker, so I found the railings to be a little offensive to my sense of what was safe. In some cases, the placement of the railings seemed so arbitrary, and the straight lines of the railings prevented me from following along the curves of the rock. In a few places, the railing seemed to stop short of what would be an interesting spot to look over. For a moment I considered crossing over the barriers, but as I read the warning signs, I decided I’d better stay inside the railings.
A few months later, I noticed a news article about two people who fell off the rock and died. I immediately thought, “How could anybody die at Moro Rock with all those railings around?” Then it struck me: they had gone outside the railings!

I was seven years old when my foster sister, Patty Lou, came to live with us. My younger brother and sister and I were anxious for this new baby. Mom and Dad said that she needed a new family. We knew about foster children—they were newborn babies our neighbors brought home until a good family adopted them. We were excited to be a foster family, too.
But the baby our parents brought home was not what we expected. For one thing, this baby was nine months old, a lot bigger than a newborn. She had brown hair and big, dark eyes, but she never smiled. And even though she was old enough to sit up and crawl, she couldn’t do either one—she could only lie there and stare at us.
We three kids stared at her, too. Patty had a large red birthmark on her face that covered half of her cheek, nose, and lip. I had a birthmark on my leg, a light brown one, but Patty’s was different and it was hard not to stare at it.
Mom explained, “Even though Patty is still a baby, she has had a rough start already. We don’t know why, but her family neglected her and left her alone in her crib for many hours every day. They didn’t play with her or hold her or love her. As long as she lives with us, we are going to take care of her and show her lots and lots of love. I think that’s what she needs, don’t you?”
Overnight, our lives changed. The old crib that was gathering dust in the garage was put up in my brother’s bedroom, and suddenly there were bottles and diapers and baby toys all over the house.
At first, Patty just watched us with her pretty dark eyes, but it wasn’t long before she smiled for the first time. She started to coo and kick her legs, and soon she could sit up, propped up by piles of pillows and one of us sitting close enough to catch her if she toppled over.
I loved to entertain her in sacrament meeting with little toys and games. Other times, my brother and sister and I made funny faces to make her laugh. We were quickly learning to love our little foster baby.
I soon noticed how people stared at Patty in stores or restaurants. I didn’t like it, especially when someone was mean to her. I had learned in Primary that we should love everybody, no matter what they looked like on the outside. I had angry feelings inside, but my Primary teacher told us a story about Jesus and some people who had a disease called leprosy. Even though other people were mean to the lepers and called them names, Jesus loved them and blessed them. I knew that He loved Patty, too, and I tried to be kinder to everyone.
One day, I saw my parents looking at the newspaper and talking about Patty. They showed me that there was a picture of Patty in the paper, along with a little story that told about Patty’s need to be adopted. I read, “Patty is looking for a real family who will love her and take care of her.”
I noticed that Dad was very quiet and Mom had tears in her eyes. Patty had lived with us for almost a year, and it was hard to think of her going to live with anyone else.
Not long after that day, Mom dressed Patty in her prettiest outfit and put a ribbon in her brown hair. She told us, “There is a young couple who want to come and see Patty and take her on an outing to the zoo. They might want to adopt her, so I want everyone on their best behavior.”
I felt hot tears sting my eyes, and I ran to the bedroom I shared with my sister. I didn’t want to see the people who might take Patty away. I couldn’t pretend that I was happy that she might be adopted. I cried long and hard. By the time I came out of my room, Patty was on her way to the zoo.
Our family seemed to walk on tiptoe in the days that followed. We knew the adoption agency would call to let us know what this young couple had decided, and we jumped every time the phone rang. Finally one night the call came. The look of relief on my father’s face was clear—Patty was staying.
I bundled Patty up and put her in the stroller. While she waved her hands at all the neighbors, I pushed her happily around the block. I didn’t even mind when a group of kids pointed their fingers at her birthmark and started to laugh. I stopped the stroller and gave her a big hug. I was so happy, I thought I would burst!
Patty was our one and only foster baby. We put in our own application to adopt her, and she soon became an official part of our family. We changed her name to Patricia Lin and waited for the day we could go to the temple as a family to be sealed to her forever.
I remember waiting in the children’s room that wonderful day in the St. George Utah Temple, all four of us dressed in sparkling white. A temple worker came to take us to the sealing room at the top of a long staircase. As we entered the beautiful room and saw our parents and grandparents gathered around the sacred altar, little Patty called out, “Hi, Grandpa!” I remember how the Spirit flooded our hearts and made us all cry tears of joy. Patty was now part of our eternal family, just as if she had been born to our parents. We were a “real” family at last!

I was standing in the foyer waiting for church to begin when he walked in. He came right over to me, called me by name, and asked, “Do you know why I’m here?”
His pointed query took me off guard. Who is this guy? He looks familiar, but I sure don’t know him. And why should I know why he’s here? “No,” I answered, feeling a little awkward.
“I’m here because of you,” he said bluntly.
That got my attention. Though there was a vague familiarity, I couldn’t remember ever meeting him before. I had no idea who he was, yet he was standing there saying he was at church because of me.
My face must have revealed my incredulity. “We have the same P.E. class at college,” he explained. When I graduated from high school, I decided to go to a community college near my home just outside Los Angeles. He was in my gym class with about 100 other guys.
“I’ve been watching you,” he said.
Watching me? What does he mean by that?
“I noticed right off that you were different,” he continued. “You never swear. You don’t lose your temper. You don’t smoke. You never tell dirty jokes or even listen to them. You’re never involved in all the filthy talk that goes on. I really admire you. You’re exactly the kind of person I want to be,” he said. “So I started asking around about you. I found out your name, that you’re a Mormon, and that this is where you go to church. That’s why I’m here.”
There are probably a dozen words I could use to describe how I felt at that moment. I just tried to live the way I’d always been taught, and I probably hadn’t done that especially well. I was preparing to go on a mission, but I certainly wasn’t perfect. And he’d been watching me. That was the scary part. Had I done anything I should be ashamed of? I hoped not.
He stayed for church, and over the next few weeks he took the missionary lessons and was baptized. A year later, just before I left on my mission, he left on his. He served faithfully, returned, and was married in the temple. He is one of the happiest and most peaceful persons that I know.
I take no credit for his conversion. I was just a Mormon kid trying to live the standards I’d always been taught and believed were right. It wasn’t really me he was watching—it was those standards. But today, every time I read the Savior’s admonition to “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matt. 5:16), I remember the day he walked up to me and said, “I’m here because of you.”

One wintry day when I was eleven, Dad took me into the foothills between Blackfoot and Idaho Falls, Idaho, to buy a riding horse. We chose a coal-black yearling that fought and reared and was really wild. I was told that when he was roped by the cowboys, it was the first time he had ever been touched by human hands. We named him Champ.
I learned that Champ had royal blood running in his veins. His grandfather was the incomparable Man o’ War, the most famous thoroughbred racehorse of all time. Dad and I trained him patiently, and Champ and I became the best of friends and partners. He was the greatest animal I had ever seen. He was swift and strong, and no local horse ever came close to winning a race with him. As I saw the qualities he had inherited from his famous grandfather, it really made me think about my own potential as a child of God.
In 1948 we moved from Idaho to Moses Lake, Washington. The wide open spaces of the Columbia basin were perfect horse country. There was nothing beyond our farm for several miles in some directions. Range cattle ruled over the territory they had grazed on for generations. Now we were putting up fences around part of their range and growing lush and tempting alfalfa, potatoes, and corn. Our fences were good but not always good enough to keep out the white-faced red Herefords. That job fell to Champ and this eager twelve-year-old who had seen western movies about cattle drives by rugged cowboys.
Champ and I had memorable drives of our own, chasing away the cattle that invaded our fields or even grazed suspiciously close, Together we learned some tricks of the cowboy’s trade, such as singling out one animal and cutting it from the herd. We developed an extraordinary oneness. Sometimes I would ride without saddle or bridle. It was just Champ and me in perfect unison, racing at breakneck speed. Even at those speeds, without artificial harnessing of any kind, we were in complete control. Just a touch on his neck would turn him. A shift in my posture would slow him down or speed him up. He was totally obedient, completely responsive.
Champ was a good-looking horse with classic markings. He won first place at the county fair, and many people offered to buy him. But he wasn’t for sale.
One Sunday after sacrament meeting, I went out to feed Champ and he was gone. Searching for a black horse at night was not easy, and morning brought no comfort. There was no hungry, thirsty Champ at the corral gate. We searched all over the farm and far beyond with no success. It appeared that Champ had been stolen!
Heartsick and unwilling to accept the obvious, I asked my cousin Kay Lybbert to lend me a horse and go with me into the wastelands beyond our farm in search of Champ. I had caught glimpses of wild horses in this country, scattered bands of mares and colts, led by dominant stallions.
We rode for hours into rocky and treacherous lands. We were tired, hungry, and discouraged and were talking of turning back, when we thought we saw a shape on the horizon. We pushed on and eventually rode over a ridge and saw a herd of about fifteen wild horses. They were startled. Their nostrils were wide, pumping cool air into deep lungs. Heads high, tails flying, muscles tensed, they burst away in wild flight. To our amazement and joy, the magnificent Champ was before them all, leading the herd, as wild and elusive as the first day I saw him as an unschooled yearling.
I have often thought about that most vivid picture. Champ was rightfully mine. We had been the best of companions. We had had great times together. He had been a disciplined and precious soul. But now he was undisciplined, out of control, and determined to stay that way. Though he was their visible leader, he was really under the control of the group of wild horses with whom he had accepted company.
We were off on a race, not on the manicured track where his grandfather had won fame, but across wild and rugged lands where a tired horse burdened with a rider could stumble and fall. At stake was the future of my beloved Champ.
I doubted our ability to stick with the wild horses, because we had been traveling half a day and they were fresh. But somehow we turned them eastward and stayed close. In time we slid over a steep hill down into Mae Valley within sight of our own fences. The herd soon thundered past our place, the steam from their bodies rising above them in a cloud. With the help of neighbors, we were finally able to channel Champ into our corral, safely behind secure barriers.
Dad was the first to get to Champ. He called him by name and approached gently, moving without disturbing gestures or sounds, easing up to him, and putting his arms around the horse’s quivering neck. I watched him give Champ an embrace that only a horse lover would understand. We were all relieved that this prized animal was back where he belonged once again, and where he was loved, protected, and cared for.
Children, honor your father and mother. Follow the Savior, your Master. Listen to them. Learn from them, and stay faithful. They have given you a noble heritage, just as Champ’s parents gave him one.

Equally important in shaping and influencing his life was his mother, Lucy Mack Smith. Although this strong woman gave occasional leadership, her primary role appeared to be support to the family. She gave birth to eleven children and endured faithfully as all but four preceded her in death. During her life, she watched three of her children and one grandson die as a result of ruthless mob violence and persecution.

Lucy prepared herself early in her marriage to raise a prophet. On one occasion she became seriously ill, and the doctors said she would die. Lucy records that she “made a solemn covenant with God that if He would let me live I would endeavor to serve him according to the best of my abilities.” After a voice assured her that she would live, she told her mother, “the Lord will let me live, if I am faithful to the promise which I made to him, to be a comfort to my mother, my husband, and my children” (Lucy Mack Smith, History of Joseph Smith, by His Mother, Lucy Mack Smith, ed. Preston Nibley, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1979, p. 34).

She gave continual encouragement, support, and strength to her son, Joseph the Prophet. His mother was the first person with whom young Joseph shared some of his momentous experiences of the Sacred Grove. Years later, he shared with her the joy and relief he felt when the Lord allowed others to view the sacred plates of gold. Lucy wrote that “Joseph threw himself down beside me, and exclaimed, … ‘you do not know how happy I am: the Lord has now caused the plates to be shown to three more besides myself. They have seen an angel … and they will have to bear witness to the truth of what I have said, for now they know for themselves, that I do not go about to deceive the people, and I feel as if I was relieved of a burden which was almost too heavy for me to bear” (Lucy Mack Smith, History, p. 152).

Her determination to testify to the restoration of the gospel may have led her to dictate her well-known History of Joseph Smith. This was a major undertaking in her day. The book’s importance to the Church today is immeasurable! It contains many details of the Prophet Joseph’s life that might never have been known otherwise. It stands as a monument to the devotion of Lucy Mack Smith and her family.

Like great parents of all ages, Lucy turned to prayer for divine help to sustain her family. During the march from Ohio to Missouri known as Zion’s Camp, Joseph and Hyrum were seriously ill with cholera, and their lives were almost taken. At one point, “Hyrum sprang to his feet and exclaimed, ‘Joseph, we shall return to our families. I have had an open vision, in which I saw mother kneeling under an apple tree; and she is even now asking God, in tears, to spare our lives. … The Spirit testifies, that her prayers … will be answered’” (Lucy Mack Smith, History, p. 229).

Illustration by Chris Wormell
During a trip to see our extended family one summer, our 12-year-old, high-mileage minivan died and coasted to a stop. We were stuck. Fortunately, we were only five miles (8 km) from the small town of Limon, Colorado, USA.
The local mechanic gave us bad news. Our transmission needed to be replaced, and we would need to wait at least five days for parts. We were short on cash but did have our tent and some camping gear, so we opted to stay in the local campground.
Hundreds of miles from family and friends, we contemplated how we might get to a store to buy the groceries we’d need to survive. We decided to look up the local branch president in hopes of finding transportation. We called President Dawson, and within half an hour we received two calls from members of the small branch’s Relief Society. We happily discovered that one family lived within a block of the campground; they came to meet us within a few hours of our call.
Over the next week, the love and care we received from that small branch on the windy plains of Colorado overwhelmed us. The family who lived close by invited us to their home for dinner that first day, and we enjoyed a great evening of conversation with the parents while our children played with their daughter. The next morning we hitched a ride with another member to go shopping for food and supplies for our stay.
The generosity of branch members continued beyond our original request. They picked us up for church on Sunday. They helped us make memories at the town’s historic train museum. Our children took shelter in their homes during a passing hailstorm. One of the members even employed my husband for a few days to help us pay for car repairs.
Every evening, members of the small branch fed us and entertained our children in their homes. Toward the end of our stay, another family took us to their ranch, where our children learned to ride horses.
When we left Limon a week later, we left with prayers of thanks for a new group of dear friends who took us in and made us feel at home in Limon.