Gospel Story Finder

Melinda Moody, 17, of Tempe, Arizona, won the 1972 Piano Concerto Contest sponsored by the Phoenix Symphony Guild and was honored by performing the Prokofiev Piano Concerto #1 with the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra.
As a winner, she was eligible to compete in another guild contest in which she won a full scholarship for the summer to the Music Academy of the West in Santa Barbara, California. There she studied piano with Jerome Lowenthal, noted concert artist. Melinda hopes to be a concert pianist herself.

Abigail sat quietly during sacrament meeting. Today she felt sad. She was thinking about how she hadn’t been nice to a girl at school. Abigail felt even worse because she had been baptized a few weeks earlier. She remembered how good she felt on her baptism day.
“I wish I could get baptized again,” Abigail thought. “Then I could feel good again.”
She thought about one of her favorite Primary songs: “I know when I am baptized my wrongs are washed away, and I can be forgiven and improve myself each day.”*
Abigail remembered that by fixing her wrong actions and taking the sacrament, she could be clean again—as clean as she was after her baptism! Abigail planned to apologize to her classmate. She smiled and prepared to take the sacrament.

I always wanted to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. I knew my parents had testimonies because they had read the book and prayed about it. Having never read all of the Book of Mormon, I couldn’t say the same.
I had started attending church when I was small. My faith grew, and I was baptized as an adolescent. I had read several parts of the Book of Mormon that contained beautiful and interesting things, and I had heard the testimonies of my parents and others who said the book was true. But I knew I needed to obtain my own testimony.
In seminary, I set a goal to pay attention to what I was being taught and to spend more time studying the scriptures. During my last year in seminary, we read the Book of Mormon. I started to pray more, to read more, and to pay closer attention. I took careful notes in my seminary notebook.
Eventually, there came into my heart the simple but profound witness of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true. I felt in my heart that this knowledge was something precious.

Irony may involve not only unexpected suffering but also undeserved suffering. We feel we deserved better, and yet we fared worse. We had other plans, even commendable plans. Did they not count? A physician, laboriously trained to help the sick, now, because of his own illness, cannot do so. For a period, a diligent prophet of the Lord was an “idle witness.” (Morm. 3:16.) Frustrating conditions keep more than a few of us from making our appointed rounds.

In July 1993, Alla, Alex, and I were sealed as a family in the Stockholm Sweden Temple. As we knelt at the temple altar, surrounded by friends, including Reid and Donna Johnson, the temple president and matron, the warmth of our initial conversion came to us again. We had been like cold, wet, miserable, lost kittens; but in the Church we had found shelter, warmth, and nourishment. The gospel had helped us open our frozen hearts and closed eyes and begin to see truth and to love.
We spent a week at the temple doing proxy work, including the work for Alla’s deceased grandparents, and we discovered we have a lot of work yet to do in the temple. The happiness we feel as members of Christ’s Church has not peaked. The longer we serve in the Church, the more happiness we seem to experience. It has been an unexpected and wonderful surprise to know true joy.

Several years ago I was assigned to reorganize a stake presidency. At the Sunday session of the conference, the wife of the newly called stake president related this story. She stated that she had been raised in a good Christian home. Her parents gathered their family together every day to read and study the Bible. As they read about the prophets of old, she asked her parents why there were no prophets on the earth today. They didn’t have an answer that satisfied her, nor did her teachers or her religious leaders.

One day, as a university student, she noticed two young men wearing white shirts and ties. She could read the name “Jesus Christ” on the black name tags they wore. She spoke to them and asked if they were ministers. “Yes, we are! We are missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

“Then may I ask you a question?” she said. “Does the Lord love the people today as much as He loved the people of olden times?”

“Yes, He does!” was their reply.

“Then why do we not have prophets on the earth today?”

Can you imagine the excitement of two young missionaries being asked a question like that? They said, We do. We do have prophets on the earth today. Can we tell you about them?”

Illustration by Toni Oka
It was October 1838, and Lucy Mack Smith grasped the hands of her sons Hyrum and Joseph before her sons were taken away. Government leaders had ordered the Saints to leave the area. Several Church leaders had been arrested by soldiers, and an illegal court martial ordered them to be shot. Lucy wondered if she would ever see her sons alive again.
What could possibly help a mother endure a trial like this? Years later, Lucy would look back on this time and recall that she was strengthened by a message of comfort received “by the gift of prophecy”: “Let your heart be comforted concerning your children; they shall not [be] harmed by their enemies.”1
This experience gave Lucy and her family feelings of “consolation, that surpassed all earthly comfort.”
The Smiths and many other Latter-day Saint families were driven out of Missouri. After finding refuge in the neighboring state of Illinois, Lucy and Joseph Smith Sr. tried to find information about their sons but found no answers. The Spirit again spoke peace to Lucy’s soul, telling her that Hyrum and Joseph would arrive the following evening.
Bishop Edward Partridge, who was with Lucy when she received this revelation, expressed doubt: “I have always believed you before; but I cannot see any prospect of this prophecy being fulfilled; but if it is so I will never dispute your word again.”
Asleep that evening, Lucy saw a vision of her weak and hungry sons traveling over the prairie. Lucy got ready for them to come home—and they did indeed arrive the next day. They described a journey that matched exactly what she had seen. After that, Bishop Partridge said that he would forever acknowledge Lucy “to be a true prophetess.”

Nearly 30 years ago I drove to Utah for the first time. I had been living a very unchristian life but wanted to change. I just didn’t know how.
The evening of my second day in Utah, I stopped at a motel in a small town in southern Utah. As the lady in the office gave me a room key, I asked if she was a Latter-day Saint. She pleasantly replied, “Yes, I am.” Beaming, she added, “Have you read our wonderful book, the Book of Mormon?” Both startled and enticed, I told her I had not.
“There’s a copy in your room,” she continued. “There is nothing exciting for you here in town, so you might as well get acquainted with this wonderful book.”
I thanked her and took my luggage to my room. Once there I saw a maroon paperback titled the Book of Mormon on the nightstand.
I casually opened the book near the center and read a few verses, but my mind went blank. I did not understand anything. Disappointed, I put down the book and left my room, feeling empty. I drove around until I found a bar—a dark, ugly place. I went inside and instantly felt miserable, lonely, and hopeless. I stood there for a few minutes and then turned around and strode out, determined to never again waste a moment of my life in any bar.
Invigorated, I returned to my motel room and picked up the Book of Mormon. I knelt before the Lord, whom I knew little about, and pleaded with Him to have mercy on me. I asked Him to forgive me for the mess I had made of my life and to help me to understand what I read in the Book of Mormon, to know if Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and to know if the Mormon Church was for me.
I opened the book reverently and read the first verse I saw: “I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell” (2 Nephi 33:6). My heart burned and my tears fell. The words stood out with a wonderful light of hope—a light of Jesus Christ beckoning me to come unto Him.
Weeping, I again knelt in prayer, begging the Lord to lead on. Then I opened the book again and began reading the first chapter of 1 Nephi. I was filled with awe at the unmatched power, purity, and truth of the words and testimony of Nephi. I read until 2:00 the next morning, the Lord opening my understanding as I read.
Six months later I was baptized a member of this wonderful, true Church. I know the Lord blessed me to find and read the Book of Mormon—the book that established my faith and testimony in Jesus Christ.

John Martin is one who had to wait until he was 18 to get baptized. Unlike most of these recent converts, however, some of John’s family—his dad, grandmother, and some cousins—are members of the Church. With their support and the help of two friends in the Danville Second Ward, Adam Broderick and Matt Peterson, John started going to church a couple years before he was baptized.
John ran on the cross-country team with Adam, who encouraged him to read the Book of Mormon. At school, John occasionally talked to Matt about the Church. One summer, they invited John to attend youth conference.
After the conference, John’s friends invited him to church. He went and kept going because “it was a good atmosphere, and I learned a lot,” John says. “They also talked about values I believed in, like not drinking or swearing.”
That summer John was working at a grocery store until 10 p.m. each night. Before and after work, he’d read the Book of Mormon for an hour or two. He thought, “There’s something to this book, because it gives me a good feeling.” During that summer, he and Matt would talk about verses they liked.
The day before school started, John began taking the discussions, with Matt there to support him. At the first discussion, the missionaries invited John to be baptized. Though he wanted to say yes, his mom objected. But he was allowed to attend church and seminary, where they studied the Book of Mormon that year.
The Book of Mormon is the foundation of John’s testimony. He says, “The missionaries told me that if I have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, everything else falls into place.” John has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon, so he believes the Church is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet.
A month after he turned 18, John was baptized. About 100 people were there, including his friends in the ward and relatives from as far away as Michigan.
In addition to the gift of the Holy Ghost, John has noticed some other blessings: “Since I’ve been interested in the Church, things have gone well, like school and family and deciding everyday things. Most things have improved.”

Way back in 1969, I was in South America. I flew from Argentina to Santiago, Chile. The Andes mountains were dry. There was no snow. The grass was burned. Chile was in the midst of a devastating drought.

The people pleaded for help in bringing moisture.

We dedicated two new buildings on that visit. In each of those dedicatory services we pleaded with the Lord for rain upon the land. I have the testimony of many who were in those meetings that the heavens were opened and the rains fell with such abundance that the people asked the Lord to shut them off.

Jessie’s family gathered in the living room. She wondered what they could be meeting about. Her family had been living in their new house for six months now, and they were happy there. They had moved from Japan, where her dad had been sent to work for a few years. Jessie liked Japan, but she was happy to be back home in the United States.
Jessie liked her new school, her ward, and her friends. She liked being able to speak the same language as people around her.
“Your mother and I have some very exciting news,” Dad said, smiling. “My work has offered me a new job.”
“Cool,” Aaron said. “That’s great!”
“It is,” Dad said. “It means we get to move again!”
“Move? Move where?” Jessie exclaimed.
“To Venezuela,” Mom said.
Jessie felt her stomach drop.
“But it’s not fair!” she said. “We just moved back! We can’t leave.”
“I know we just moved back to the United States and you’ve made friends,” Dad said. “But your mother and I have prayed about this, and it feels like the right step for our family.”
Jessie wasn’t so sure. Moving was hard. And scary. What if no one at the new school liked her? What if she never saw her friends here again? Thinking about all the changes she would have to make made her feel nervous.
“Jessie, why don’t you pray about the move?” Mom said. “Ask Heavenly Father to let you know that everything will be OK.”
That night Jessie knelt by her bed and prayed to Heavenly Father. She waited a few minutes and didn’t get an answer. Discouraged, she went to sleep.
In the morning Jessie told Mom that Heavenly Father didn’t answer her.
“Sometimes it takes a little longer to get His answers to our questions. But He will answer. You just need to be patient,” Mom said.
When moving day finally arrived, Jessie was nervous. She still hadn’t received an answer from Heavenly Father, even though she had been praying to Him every day for two months.
Jessie was worried that Heavenly Father hadn’t heard her. But she tried to be patient, like Mom had said.
On the first day at her new school, Jessie shyly walked into her classroom. Her teacher had her sit by a girl named Allison.
At lunchtime Allison came up to Jessie. “Hey, Jessie, can I sit with you at lunch today?” she asked.
“Sure!” Jessie said, excited that she wouldn’t be alone.
Over the next few weeks Jessie and Allison became great friends. One day while they were playing, Allison turned to Jessie and said, “I’m so glad you moved here. I didn’t have many friends before you came. I have a lot of fun with you.”
Jessie got a warm feeling inside. She liked her new school and her new ward. She liked her new house. And most of all, she liked being Allison’s friend. Heavenly Father had been listening after all! He knew she would be happy in Venezuela.
“I’m glad I moved here too,” Jessie said. And she was.

Joseph F. and his wife Julina welcomed their first child, Mercy Josephine, into the family. She was only two and a half years old when she passed away. Shortly after, Joseph F. recorded: “It is one month yesterday since my … darling Josephine died. O! that I could have saved her to grow up to womanhood. I miss her every day and I am lonely. … God forgive my weakness if it is wrong to love my little ones as I love them.”

Now, third, after the individual and family have used all their resources, then the Church is called in to assist. Let me go back to one thought that came to me. I just talked to a young man the other day, and he said that in his family a grandfather had been very critically ill, had been bedfast and the family tended him during those long hours and, as it were, the man had to wear a diaper. The family changed the diaper regularly. Is that more than he would have done for them? No. We must not forget our family members.

Thank you so much for the story “Jimmy Was the Answer” in the May 1995 issue. I had exactly the same problem. After reading the story, I was deeply moved and I found the answer immediately. Praying is the best way to communicate with our Heavenly Father, and I know that he will always be there listening whenever and wherever we pray wholeheartedly.
Sam TsaiHsinchu, Taiwan

Brothers and sisters, I testify that God hears every prayer we offer and responds to each of them according to the path He has outlined for our perfection. I recognize that at roughly the same time so many were praying for the restoration of my health, an equal number—including me—were praying for the restoration of my wife’s health. I testify that both of those prayers were heard and answered by a divinely compassionate Heavenly Father, even if the prayers for Pat were not answered the way I asked. It is for reasons known only to God why prayers are answered differently than we hope—but I promise you they are heard and they are answered according to His unfailing love and cosmic timetable.

“Let me ask you a question,” Dad said. “Do you remember when you asked me if you could go to the train tracks with some friends last week?”
“Yes,” Matt said. There was a field a few blocks from his house that had train tracks in it. Matt had never been there before.
“When you asked me, you wanted me to say that you could go, right?”
Matt nodded.
“But how did I answer your question?”
“You told me that I couldn’t go,” Matt said.
“Even though that wasn’t the way you wanted me to answer your question, I still answered it,” Dad said. “Every time you pray and ask Heavenly Father for something, He listens and answers you. But sometimes we think He doesn’t answer our prayers because He doesn’t answer us the way we want Him to.”
“Why doesn’t He answer us the way we want?” Matt asked.
“Matt, even though I said no the other day, does that mean I don’t love you?” Dad asked.
Matt shook his head.
“Why do you think I told you that you couldn’t go?” Dad asked.
Matt stared out the window for a moment and then looked at Dad. “I guess it’s because you know that the train tracks are dangerous and that I might get hurt if I play on them.”
“That’s right,” Dad said. “You didn’t realize it, but I did. Heavenly Father also sees things that we don’t. That is why He sometimes gives us answers that are different from what we want.”

After the first few visits to a particular sister, Kathy discovered that this sister didn’t know how to read but wanted to learn. Kathy offered to help her even though she knew it would take time, patience, and constancy.

While announcing a high school __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ game, he was introduced to his first wife, June Dixon. After 46 years of marriage, June passed away. Two years later Elder Oaks married Kristen McMain.

Many years ago I attended a large gathering of Church members in the city of Berlin, Germany. A spirit of quiet reverence permeated the gathering as an organ prelude of hymns was played. I gazed at those who sat before me. There were mothers and fathers and relatively few children. The majority of those who sat on crowded benches were women about middle age—and alone. Suddenly it dawned on me that perhaps these were widows, having lost their husbands during World War II. My curiosity demanded an answer to my unexpressed thought, so I asked the conducting officer to take a sort of standing roll call. When he asked all those who were widows to please arise, it seemed that half the vast throng stood. Their faces reflected the grim effect of war’s cruelty. Their hopes had been shattered, their lives altered, and their future had in a way been taken from them. Behind each countenance was a personal travail of tears. I addressed my remarks to them and to all who have loved, then lost, those most dear.

While there, I had the opportunity to perform ordinances on behalf of my uncle who had died of cancer. When I was being baptized for him, I thought about the blessings he would receive through this temple ordinance. I was so happy, and I recognized what the temple president told me when I had come to the temple for the first time and had been a little bit confused. He told me, “Brother, you may not understand all of what you are doing right now, but a day will come when you will feel you have done great things here.”
I got my answer. It has taken me four years to understand by visiting the temple for the second time.