Gospel Story Finder

Danilo zoomed out of his apartment. His tiya, or aunt, was babysitting him. And they were going to the park!
His little sister, Rosamie, held Tiya’s hand as they walked along. But Danilo didn’t need to hold Tiya’s hand. He knew the way! He ran ahead and circled back, pretending to be flying at the speed of light as he raced around them.
When they got to the park, Danilo knew where he wanted to go to.
“Follow me!” he said as he ran to a place on the trail where trees grew overhead. It looked like a leafy green tunnel.
“Stay where I can see you,” Tiya reminded Danilo.
Pretty soon they came to a spot where a dirt path branched off and headed down to the river. Danilo had never gone that way before.
“I’m going down here,” Danilo called to Tiya as he started sliding downhill.
“You can stay there for a minute, but then come back up,” Tiya called after him. “I’ve tried that path before, and there’s not a good way to walk along the river down there.”
But Danilo was already at the water’s edge. He could see a small strip of dirt running next to the water. That way seemed fine to him. Maybe Tiya just didn’t know what she was talking about. Danilo kept walking along the water. Tiya and Rosamie kept walking along the path above.
Soon Danilo noticed that the hillside was getting steeper. He could still hear and see Tiya and Rosamie, but they were getting farther away. The ground became sticky with thick mud.
“Oomph!” Danilo pulled himself on top of a big rock. When he looked ahead, all he saw was the river. He felt his stomach do a little flip. There wasn’t any more trail. And he wasn’t sure he could climb up the hill by himself. He was stuck!
“Tiya?” he called, looking up. Tiya looked down the hillside and gave him a little smile. He felt his cheeks get hot. “Um … can you help me?”
With a kind look in her eyes, Tiya nodded. She picked up a long stick and held it down to him.
“Grab this,” she said. “I’ll pull, and you can climb back up to us.”
Danilo grabbed the stick and started walking uphill. It was hard! His knee scraped against a rock. His elbow hit a low-hanging tree branch.
Finally he took Tiya’s outstretched hand, and she pulled him back onto the trail. He brushed the dirt off his clothes and shook the leaves from his hair.
“Thanks,” he said. “Sorry I didn’t listen to you.”
Tiya put her arm around his shoulders and gave him a squeeze. “I love you, Danilo. I want you to be safe.”
Danilo nodded. With a smile, he pointed forward. “Let’s keep going! On the trail, this time.”

Shortly after becoming a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I began to hear warnings, from Church leaders encouraging members to prepare for difficult times, including those caused by natural phenomena. My situation as a student at the time, made me think that it was not something important to do and that I could think about it later.
A few years after I became a husband and father, we planned to create a reserve, little by little. In recent months, the Presidency of the Caribbean Area has encouraged us to focus on the need to prepare, not only with storage, but also with an emergency backpack.
We were able to observe how we were blessed and saved from the hurricanes in 2020, while some of our Caribbean brothers and sisters suffered from its effects. So, in 2021, we decided not only to say preparation was a good thing, but we decided to act.
In 2020, we had taken steps to assemble our emergency backpack. We relied on the list provided by the Area, as well as the documentation that state services made available to us.
However, despite our best efforts, we were unable to build our backpack. As I said before, we were thankful that no major hurricane hit us that year.
In 2021, we wanted to be obedient and set an example for our children. We now have emergency backpacks for the whole family, and we are aware that we are one of the “pioneers of emergency backpacks.”
Our local leaders, branch president, elders quorum president, and Relief Society president have relayed the information to our branch members and regularly encourage us to pack our backpack and let them know if we are having trouble doing so.
As a ministering brother, I take the time to ask the families that I minister to, “How are you doing with preparing your emergency backpack? Do you know how to prepare it? Do you need help to do it?” A simple way to teach how to do it is to show visual aids with objects that we could put in backpacks.
I can testify to the hard work this has required, and also to the blessing of the sweet feelings of serenity and security that we now feel.
I know that the Lord, in his omniscience, “knowing the calamity which should befall the inhabitants of the earth” (D&C 1:17), has inspired our Church leaders and even our political representatives to insist on this important preparation and to show us what to do.

Twenty years ago I attended a sacrament meeting where the children responded to the theme “I Belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” These boys and girls demonstrated they were in training for service to the Lord and to others. The music was beautiful, the recitations skillfully rendered, and the spirit heaven-sent. One of my grandsons, who was 11 years old at that time, had spoken of the First Vision as he presented his part on the program. Afterward, as he came to his parents and grandparents, I said to him, “Tommy, I think you are almost ready to be a missionary.”

He replied, “Not yet. I still have a lot to learn.”

Through the years that followed, Tommy did learn, thanks to his parents and to teachers and advisers at church, who were dedicated and conscientious. When he was old enough, he was called to serve a mission. He did so in a most honorable fashion.

Jackie Biggs, 17, from the Syracuse First Ward, said the discussions at the conference had helped her understand ways in which she could improve her relationship with her parents. “Sometimes it seems like lessons don’t apply, but this one did. Sometimes I forget my parents are human, too.”

Jackie’s sentiments reflected feelings a lot of others shared, both during a testimony meeting and during an early morning seminary session.

“After the seminary lesson on parent-child relationships, my mother (who, as stake Young Women president, was at the conference) told me that she loved me,” Sherry said. “My back was to her and I didn’t hear her for sure. I thought maybe I was just wishing. Then turned around and saw her.”

What would you do in the following situations?
It’s Christmas eve, but instead of singing carols and reading the Christmas story from the Bible, you’re huddled in an upstairs room while armed men search the lower portion of the house for goods they need. As the men leave, one of them shoots his gun toward the upstairs room where you are hiding.
A rebel group is on its way to the town where you live. It quickly becomes clear that your life and the lives of all your friends and family are in danger. Quickly you dress in warm clothes and shoes. With a small blanket strapped to your back, you and your family wait breathlessly for instructions on what to do next.
A nonmember friend reads some literature she was given at her church. At school she confronts you by saying, “I’m afraid that if you keep going to your church, you’re going to go to hell.” She says some other things that make you feel uneasy about your beliefs and about your friendship with her. What she thinks about the Church will depend a great deal on what you say to answer her questions.
Obviously the first two situations are somewhat different from the last. But is the last scenario any less perilous?
“I think that today our challenges are more spiritual than physical,” says Candace Wagner, a Laurel from Dublan, Mexico. “We have to face difficult temptations and problems our ancestors never dreamed of.”
Candace’s ancestors were among the first to join the Church. Her forebearers crossed the plains to Utah and then immigrated to Mexico. Many of them faced persecution for their beliefs. She also knows something about what it feels like to be on the defensive about the Church. She was the one being confronted by a nonmember friend at her school in McAllen, Texas, where her family lived until recently.
“A friend of mine had read some things about Joseph Smith that weren’t very favorable,” says Candace. “She came to me and asked me about them. My mom and I looked up the scriptures they had quoted in the article to see what they really said.”
After much study and prayer, Candace had her answer. She knew for herself that the Church was true. She was ready to speak calmly to her friend about the gospel.
“Opposition can make you stronger,” she says. “But so can this environment.”
When Candace refers to “this environment,” she is referring to the “Mormon Colonies” in Mexico where she now lives with her family. The colonies were established in the late 1800s by Latter-day Saint settlers from Utah, and they have been home to Candace’s friends and various family members almost continuously since that time.
The LDS community is well known in the area, and the youth are busy from morning to night with school, seminary, and Church programs. Both colony towns, Juarez and Dublan, are quiet and peaceful most of the time. Many of the temptations and challenges youth face in other places simply don’t exist here.
“It’s fun not to have to worry about things like peer pressure, since there’s not as much of that here,” says Brandon Hatch, a priest from Dublan. “It’s a lot easier to do what’s right because most of your friends are doing it too.”
And even though living in a small community can sometimes make you feel that you don’t have enough privacy, most of the youth agree that it’s nice to live in a place where everyone is concerned enough about you to want you to do the right things. It really is an ideal place to live the gospel.
But it hasn’t always been that way.
During the Mexican Revolution, it was Candace’s great-great-uncle, Anson Bowen Call, who hid in that upstairs room while Mexican revolutionaries searched the house. When they didn’t find all they wanted, one shot his gun in the direction of the room in anger and frustration.
“One of the guards shot into the room where we were,” wrote Anson, who was 15 years old at the time, in his journal. “A piece of flying glass cut my head over my right eyebrow. When I saw the blood running down over my eye, I thought I had been shot and felt the back of my head to feel the hole where the bullet had come out. But there was none, much to my relief. … It is a Christmas Eve I won’t ever forget.”

In the final story, Verinda, a vibrant young Apache girl, was accepted into the Indian Student Placement Service. She later gave this testimony:
“When I first participated in this program eight years ago, I got off the bus with only the clothes on my back and a few small possessions in a shoebox. I came from a humble home. My people are humble. But you have opened your hearts unto me. For that I am thankful. Now I can go home with a brand new suitcase of clothes. But that is not my wealth. I am wealthy because that which is inside of me is as precious as all of the wealth in this world. I have a testimony of the gospel. I know that Jesus is the Christ and that God lives and answers prayers. I now have a goal—something I can strive for.”

When I was a branch president in Nigeria, a young sister who was a convert expressed her desire to serve a mission. Her father, not a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, strongly disagreed with her plan. Our branch council discussed the situation. We decided it would be appropriate for the branch presidency to visit her father.
The visit was initially unsuccessful until I felt inspired to share with her father the story of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac, as described in Genesis chapter 22. Abraham is an example of trust and faith in God. Even though Isaac was Abraham and Sarah’s only son, born when they were both old, when the Lord asked for a sacrifice Abraham willingly obeyed.
As Abraham was about to sacrifice his son, an angel intervened. “Lay not thine hand upon the lad,” he said, “neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me” (Genesis 22:12). The word fear in that verse means “to feel reverence and awe for [God] and to obey His commandments.”1
The father was touched by this reminder of Abraham’s obedience. He said he never expected that he could be asked to do something similar, albeit not of the same magnitude. He accepted to have his daughter serve and to support her financially for 18 months.
The sister served honorably. When she returned, she married a man in the same branch. They still serve faithfully in the Church and have three children. All of her siblings have become members of the Church. Her brother also served a mission. And her youngest sister is married to my youngest brother.
When I think back about this father’s decision, I am impressed. He let his first child, a convert to a faith different from his, serve a mission. I am also reminded of the blessings his family received as more of his children became members of the Church. Today they are happily married to worthy spouses, faithfully living the gospel of Jesus Christ. The father never joined the Church, but surely his sacrifice, like Abraham’s faith in God, is “counted … to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:6).

After our marriage, surgical treatment was necessary to help make it possible for me to bear children. I was afraid of the surgery because during my teens I had suffered problems with my heart; even though I had been given reassurances by my doctor, I feared anesthesia, thinking it might somehow affect me adversely. The night before the operation, my husband stayed at the hospital with me and we read the Book of Mormon together. As I started to feel the effects of the medication I had been given, I prayed to the Lord to help me control my fear. These words of Mormon came into my mind: “Know ye not that ye are in the hands of God? Know ye not that he hath all power?” (Morm. 5:23).
Awakening after the operation was an unpleasant experience. I could not talk. I heard my husband’s voice and wanted to speak, to thank him for his support, but I could not. My physical faculties were so limited that I thought about Alma the younger when he fell down, chastised by an angel, and spent two days unable to talk or move (see Mosiah 27:10–23; Alma 36:5–23). I remembered that Alma was born to a new life at that time, repenting to fulfill his important mission, and I realized that I was suffering through my own experience to fulfill the important mission of being a mother, to participate in providing bodies for our Heavenly Father’s children.

Going to MIA is no longer an interstate situation for Church members in Aiken, South Carolina.
The 23 youths of the Aiken Branch, Columbia South Carolina Stake, are no longer traveling to Augusta, Georgia, for their weekly Aaronic Priesthood MIA meeting.
To celebrate their new meeting place closer to home, the group held an opening social to initiate their building as classroom, cultural hall, and chapel for all future meetings.
The youth enjoyed games and food, as well as joining in for a dance.

Dot Todman, 18, knows that’s true.
“I grew up with a good friend named Kelly,” Dot explains. “I always knew she was a Mormon, but I didn’t know what Mormons were or anything about them. Kelly moved away, but we kept in contact. Then this year I was on a school choir trip, and we arranged to meet again.
“We were just talking, catching up on our lives, and then somehow religion got brought up. I told her I didn’t feel the church I was attending was right for me. It was kind of like a spiritual kindergarten.
“She said, ‘In our religion, you’d be surprised. It goes all the way up to university level.’ That intrigued me. I asked her to write to me, to tell me about it in her own words.
“I waited for her letter. I waited and waited. In the meantime, another LDS friend of mine tried to get me in touch with the missionaries. But I didn’t want to talk to them until I’d heard from Kelly.
“Finally I called her. She said, ‘Are you still interested?’ She sent me a letter and bore her testimony, and that opened the door.”
Dot found the light she’d searched for, and it grew brighter and brighter. She joined the Church and is now a member of the Barrie Ward, sharing the gospel herself. But Kelly made a discovery, too. She discovered that others were searching for the light she already had.

I recall reading a story written by John Burroughs, the famous American naturalist, containing a most touching experience. As I remember, the details went like this: His brother was rather timid, somewhat below the average in those powers and qualities that insure worldly success. He was the kind of man that is “so often crowded to the wall.”
This brother had his plans for going west. Somehow that land of the West would be different. There he might leave the causes of his failure behind. He kept his suitcase packed continuously, ready to go at a moment’s notice—whenever he really firmly made up his mind to go.
John Burroughs told how once he actually started and got as far as White Pigeon, Michigan. There his courage gave out and he came back. Still he kept his suitcase packed, but the end of his life’s journey came before he was ready to go west again.
It was not really the West on the map that he was longing to visit. What he longed for was the dream of a far greater freedom. The dusty suitcase he left behind him was evidence of what had consoled him through the years of his long defeat. It meant for him that his dream was waiting to become a reality somewhere. At any moment he could break away and find what he had never found before.

At the birth of each of my children, during those precious, solemn moments when I held them for the first time, I felt the whisperings of the Spirit teaching me of their unique qualities. When these impressions first came, I doubted. But as my children grew, the truths suggested at their births were verified. I feel wonder for a God who would thus offer counsel to me as he, our Heavenly Father, transferred his precious children to a new father’s earthly care.

“When I was a small child, we moved a lot. In fact, we moved fourteen times during the first ten years of my life. I was often afraid at night, and I remember my father holding my hand until I fell asleep. He was so kind and understanding,” said Michael.
The son and daughter of this General Authority were both smiling as they recollected this childhood memory one afternoon during an interview at Brigham Young University.

Teenagers from the priests quorum of the Kansas City North Ward are brightening the lives of some elderly inner-city residents by helping repair their homes. Since last winter, the group has rebuilt steps and added porch railings to several older residences.
“It was hard, grueling work at times, and my toes nearly froze,” said David Nielsen, one of the young men. “But it makes me feel good to help people who can’t keep up their homes just because they are elderly or too sick.”
The boys came up with the idea when the group’s leader, Matt Kessler, read about the Metropolitan Lutheran Ministry’s need for volunteers to help weatherize inner-city homes for the disadvantaged. The following Sunday in priesthood meeting he suggested the young men volunteer. The priests decided it would be a great service project. They contacted the ministry, which provided them with home referrals for the group to get started. A local lumber company provided the materials for the project.
Most of the boys had little or no experience in carpentry before the project began. Brother Kessler taught them the basic skills they required and supplied the tools the young men used. Most of the work was done by hand. “The project gives the boys an opportunity to serve people and see another part of life which they are not accustomed to,” said Brother Kessler. “We also wanted them to know how to build something when we finished.”

Several years after the difficult trial the Alvarez family faced, I witnessed how another faithful family dealt with great adversity. Several members of the Quero family had died in a terrible car accident. Brother Abraham Quero lost his parents, two sisters, his brother-in-law, and his niece in that accident.
Brother Quero showed an admirable attitude when he said the following:
“This was the time to show loyalty to God and to acknowledge that we depend on Him, that His will must be obeyed, and that we are subject to Him.
“I spoke to my brothers and gave them strength and courage to understand what President Kimball taught many years ago, that ‘there is no tragedy in death, but only in sin’ (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Spencer W. Kimball [Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society course of study, 2006], 18) and that the important thing is not how a man died but how he lived.
“The words of Job filled my soul: ‘The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord’ (Job 1:21). And then from Jesus: ‘I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live’ (John 11:25).
“This was one of the most spiritual experiences we had as a family—to accept the will of God under such very difficult circumstances.”
In both of the experiences that these good families endured, pain and sorrow left because of the light of the gospel, which filled them with peace and comfort, providing the assurance that everything would be well.

It was shortly after noon on Sunday, 6 April 1952. The morning session of the 122nd Annual General Conference had just concluded. With no premonition or forewarning, Bishop Richards received word from President Henry D. Moyle, Counselor to President David O. McKay, that the President wished to see him at his office. When Bishop Richards arrived there, President McKay told him he had been chosen to fill the vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve occasioned by the death of Elder Joseph F. Merrill on February 3. Recounting the experience, Elder Richards said, “I wept and the President wept, and we hugged each other, and then we went over to the afternoon meeting.”

Eye Care 4 Kids CEO Joseph Carbone fits Israel M. for new glasses.
The nonprofit foundation Eye Care 4 Kids offers free eye exams and discounts on glasses and contacts to children who wouldn’t otherwise have access to it. The foundation has eight clinics in Utah, Nevada, and Arizona, does vision screenings in California, and has made several international outreach trips.
Siblings Anel M., 16, and Israel M., 12, have received eye exams, glasses, and contacts from the clinic. Donations to the Light the World Giving Machines help make that possible.
“Every single time we’ve been in, they’ve always been really friendly,” Anel says. “When we’ve been to other places, the glasses are really pricey, and right here they’re affordable. My family isn’t the type of family that has a lot of money, and these are necessities.”
Anel M. gets fitted for glasses.
“The glasses have really helped me,” Israel says. “I couldn’t really see that good, and I can finally see the mountains and the sky.”

My brother Joseph had a stroke when he was a baby. He is really special. At school, he follows me, and I watch so that no one pushes him down. Then I walk him down the stairs to his classroom. The kids in his classroom help him out, too. He can’t read yet. He can count to about seven or eight. He doesn’t really know the alphabet. He needs help opening some things, so I open them. I help him a lot because I love him.

As a 13-year-old, I had an opportunity to spend a few days at a vacation home that belonged to one of my friend’s parents. Three of us young men, full of excitement, traveled by train for several hours with his family to get there. When we arrived, we found a small lake within walking distance of the vacation home.
One day, the three of us decided to go swimming in the lake. An elderly neighbor, seeing where we were headed, warned us that some parts of the lake had deep spots that could be dangerous. Ignoring his warning, we jumped into the water. I was a beginning swimmer but felt reassured because I could touch the bottom of the lake.
We had been in the lake for a long time when I inadvertently drifted into one of the deep spots. I suddenly felt as if the water were swallowing me. I couldn’t feel anything solid beneath me, and I desperately flailed my arms and legs to try to stay afloat. I felt I was in great danger, and I felt guilty for not heeding the earlier warning. I prayed for help from God. I prayed with all my heart.
The neighbor who had warned us was still near the lake. When he realized I was in difficulty, he ran to the shore. He tried to reach out to me with a tree branch, but I was too far away. He motioned for me to swim toward a large tree near the edge of the water. “Just look at the tree!” he said. “Keep moving toward the tree.”
Fixing my sight on the tree, and making a huge effort, I fought my way in that direction. Finally, I could touch the bottom. I gained a firm foothold and, knowing I was free from danger, made my way out of the lake. Breathing deeply, I dropped to the ground. The man and my two friends gathered around me and made sure I was all right.
When I was in trouble in the water of that small lake, the man on the shore called, essentially, “Look to the tree, come toward me, and live.” As I made every effort to move toward him, I eventually found a place where I could stand on my feet and move to safety.

My wife likes to tell the story of a friend of hers who, when she was a little girl, was left an orphan. She scarcely knew her mother. As she grew, she wondered about her mother: what kind of a girl, what kind of a woman was she?

One day she came across her mother’s old report card. The teacher had noted on that card, “This student is excellent in every way.”

When she read that, her entire life changed. She recognized that her mother was a woman of excellence. Her whole attitude changed. She took on the aura of excellence herself and became a remarkable woman in her own right. She married a man who is recognized in many communities, and their children have distinguished themselves for their excellence.