Gospel Story Finder

I was called to Central America. After several months in the mission field, I realized what a blessing had come to me in that call. While I was helping to find people who loved the Lord, I was also walking in places where much of the Book of Mormon may have happened. This was a second witness to the testimony of my grandfather, who had learned to love the Book of Mormon the first time he got his hands on one in the 1920s. His father was a salesman and trader who traveled widely in Mexico. My great-grandfather had told his children stories of ruined cities and highways in the jungle, and my grandfather had always wanted to know who the people were who built them.

Since my mission, I have had the opportunity to visit many of those ruined cities in Mexico and Central America. I have read what experts say about those places and about the history and greatness of their people. I am very grateful for the added knowledge I have received.

But I have never been more sure of the Book of Mormon than I was that day when I asked the Lord if it was true and He answered me just as Moroni promised. I only wish I had asked sooner. My Heavenly Father wanted me to know the truth for myself all along, and I might have been able to share it with my friend.

In Australia, when players turn 20, they are old enough to play professionally in an adult league. Even when Will was 18, offers came in left and right. He was a prime recruit. One team offered him a contract worth 1.5 million Australian dollars—an offer not made often to players his age. But that wasn’t what Will saw in his immediate future. Will had decided to serve a mission.
When Will had to announce whether he was going to serve a mission or accept a rugby league contract, the decision was easy for him. “I set a mission in my mind and heart while I was in my youth, and I promised myself that I wouldn’t let the worldly desires take over me,” he says.
The world may ask, What about the money? the contracts? getting to play rugby professionally—his lifelong dream? How would his life have been different had he accepted a professional contract? “It would have helped out my family financially. It would have set my future as well for the next few years,” he admits.
So why didn’t he accept the offer? “A mission is something the Lord requires of me, of young males in the Church,” he says. “It’s a way to say thanks to the Lord for everything He has done for me in my 19 years here on earth. And at the end of the day, I don’t think I would have been as happy if I had stayed. I made the choice to serve a mission because footy will always be there.”

When I was seven years old, I was diagnosed with cancer.
During the next year, I went through several rounds of chemotherapy and eventually a big surgery. The surgery left me cancer free until my freshman year of high school, when it came back and spread to my liver, where it remains to this day.
Through this whole process, I’ve become a stronger person as I’ve grown closer to my Savior. There were times when I felt like He was very close to me, telling me to keep fighting because my journey here on earth was not even close to done. These experiences strengthened my testimony of Christ.

While on his mission, Brother Khanakam first met a newly called lady missionary, Sumamaan Srisarakham. Three years after his mission, he made contact with her again through a mutual friend, and they began a correspondence. When they started talking of marriage, Sister Srisarakham prayed for guidance and felt as though “the Savior’s hand was on my head confirming my decision to marry and have a family.” Currently, Sister Khanakam serves as the district Relief Society president and teaches a Primary class in the Chiang Mai Branch.

“What we do within the four walls of our home is most important to us and to those we can influence for good,” says President Khanakam. “For example, a neighboring couple has been taking the missionary discussions and now permits their son to attend church with us. This has come about because they liked what they saw in us as a family. As a family, as Latter-day Saints everywhere, we can perfect our lives through living the gospel.”

I think dinosaurs are terrific! My mom says I’ve been crazy about them ever since I could talk. I can’t always visit the museum or library when I want to, so I go on lots of pretend dinosaur hunts. Then I make a museum in the backyard. When my family and friends visit my museum, I tell them all about these wonderful animals.
Other prehistoric creatures roam my backyard too. I dig holes in the dirt and fill them with water so the woolly mammoths and sabertoothed tigers can have a drink at my tar pit.
One day my backyard games turned into the real thing. I was digging a tar pit in the garden when my shovel clanked on something buried underground. I bent down to see what it was and I came up with a hard brown rock about the size of my fist.
I couldn’t wait to show somebody what I had, and I ran into the house calling, “A fossil! I found a fossil!”
“Take that dirty dog bone back outside,” Mom said.
So I did. I pulled some picnic benches together and set up my museum workshop. I knew just what to do because I had watched the scientists through the glass wall at the Page Museum. The equipment I needed was under the kitchen sink: a scrub brush, a towel, a container for water.
I went to work cleaning my discovery. With the brush and water I scrubbed off most of the garden soil. I dried it with a towel. It was smooth and dark brown with two bumps on one end. The other end looked like it had been broken.
It was a wonderful fossil. I played museum with it until dinnertime. This time when I took it into the house Mom didn’t say no. And the next morning she told me she had looked at my fossil while I was sleeping. “I’m sorry I called it a dog bone,” Mom said. “It really does look rather unusual.”
Then she called the page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, California. She described what I had found in the backyard, and the man asked her to bring it in for him to examine.
So the next Saturday our family drove to the museum. We met the man my mom had talked to on the phone. I showed him my fossil. He showed it to another man, and I thought he said, “Bison.” Then he looked at me and said, “I think you’ve found something, son.”
The man took us into a room on the other side of the glass wall. There were rows and rows of big gray drawers. He pulled open a drawer and brought out a fossil that matched mine and another one that was longer than my arm.
“You have found part of a rib bone of a Bison Antiquus,” he said. “This long one is what the entire bone looks like.”
He told me that the Bison Antiquus is an extinct relative of our American buffalo and that an ancient Indian tribe used to hunt the Bison Antiquus in what is now Southern California. I closed my eyes and tried to picture all this happening in my own backyard thousands of years ago.
“Before you leave, be sure to take a look at the skeleton of the entire Bison Antiquus in the exhibit area,” the man said.
My mom asked him what we should do with my fossil. And he said to take it home and save it, because someday I might be a paleontologist who studies fossils.
We said good-bye and he shook my hand. “Keep up the good work,” he told me.
And I have. I still play museum in my backyard. Sometimes friends come over to help me dig because they heard about my fossil on the six o’clock television news. But mostly I play with my little brother, Jeff.
The other day Jeff found something in the dirt, and I knew it was a fossil. We showed it to Mom and she promised to take us back to the museum soon. I wonder what this fossil is. It sort of looks like it came from a sea animal.
When I grow up I want to learn all about prehistoric animals. Then when I find a fossil, maybe I’ll have a real museum and can figure out what it is all by myself.

Illustrations by Steve Kropp
I had been a member of the Church for only one month when I paid my first full tithe. I was the only member in my family, and tithing was complicated for my family to understand. My mother discouraged me from paying tithing and wanted me to give her the money instead.
One day before work, I realized that there was no food in the refrigerator and I’d have to buy something to eat. I didn’t have any money with me, so I asked my mom to lend me money for lunch. She refused and said I didn’t have money because I had paid my tithing.
I went to get my Book of Mormon and told her that this book would give me my nourishment for the day—my spiritual nourishment. I opened it in front of my mother and found 100 pesos (enough to buy some lunch) tucked inside. It was a miracle—I hadn’t put that money in my scriptures. I learned a great lesson: although challenges and temptations are everywhere, I will always be blessed as I pay a full tithe and keep the commandments.

It can be easy to find fault when someone else is struggling with self-control. But God would have us help, not hinder. Elder Marvin J. Ashton (1915–1994) told the story of a woman in a Relief Society presidency who, frustrated by home pressures, lost her temper in a presidency meeting. Afterward, embarrassed, she called to apologize.

“Her friends in the presidency were generous and told her not to think another thing about it. Still she wondered if they might think less of her, now that they’d seen her at less than her best. But that evening the doorbell rang around dinnertime, and there stood the other members of the presidency with dinner in hand. ‘We knew when you lost your cool this morning that you must just be worn out. We thought a little supper might help. We want you to know we love you’” (“The Tongue Can Be a Sharp Sword,” Ensign, May 1992, 20).

Imagine having the opportunity to share the gospel with people from 11 different countries at the same time! That’s what Mark Fletcher was able to do during the summer. He was selected as a youth ambassador for the city of Phoenix and given the opportunity to visit Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. Everywhere he went, with city officials, at camps, and in social gatherings, Mark was recognized as a Latter-day Saint and often answered questions about his standards.

Then similar youth ambassadors from 11 countries gathered in Phoenix, and Mark was able to talk about the Church with them as well. It was great to follow his brother’s example of missionary work in Brazil by sharing his testimony with youth from all over the world.

I know what it is to have such a friend. My husband, John, was kind and thoughtful and romantic in our courtship. Then even when he was going to school full time, working full time, and we had three children under the age of four, he continued to be kind and thoughtful and romantic with me. He has shown this by helping me in my busy roles. He bathed the children every night. He scrubbed the kitchen floor. He was also my window to the world—keeping me abreast to what was happening out there. He provided for us. He encouraged me as a mother. He supported the children in plays, concerts, athletic events, and papers they had to write. He would give me moments of rest—on walks or weekend getaways, taking me to the temple or occasionally on his travels. When I come home tired at night, he makes cheese toast and other such delicacies, so I don’t have to cook. He is my muse and my editor in my writing and talks. He prays for me and gives me priesthood blessings. He is a help suited for me in every way.

I know a little girl who was born with very serious cleft lips and a cleft palate. She had to have the first of a series of many surgeries on the second day of her life. Moved by a genuine compassion for those who experience this same challenge, this girl and her parents seek to give support, understanding, and emotional assistance to others who face this difficult reality. They wrote to me recently and shared: “Through our daughter’s challenge, we had the opportunity to meet wonderful people who needed comfort, support, and encouragement. Some time ago, our daughter, who is 11 years old now, talked with the parents of a baby with the same challenge. During this conversation, our daughter momentarily took off the mask she was wearing due to the pandemic so the parents could see that there is hope, even though that baby still has a long way to go in the next few years to fix the problem. We feel very grateful for the opportunity to extend our empathy to those who suffer, as the Savior does for us. We feel we ease our pain every time we relieve someone else’s pain.”

Norberto and his family were brought into the Church through an uncle they call “Ton Ton.” Ton Ton bought their family a subscription to Etoile in 1985, and so when he visited the family in 1991, they already had an idea of what the Church was about. Ton Ton said, “The Church has now come to Madagascar. Let’s go find it.”

They found the meetinghouse, but the first time they attended, Norberto’s father, Elie, couldn’t go. He still had responsibilities with the young men’s group in another church. His mother, Esther, came home from that first meeting and told her husband, “We’ve found the right church.” He went with them the next week, and they all accepted the gospel. Norberto was only a baby at the time, but he was baptized when he turned eight, even though he was afraid to go under the water.

Meredith sat on the stone steps of the old gray house on Avenue Molière in Brussels, Belgium. The sky was gray, and an occasional brown leaf drifted down from the sycamore trees that lined the median. Meredith looked at the gray and black connected houses and thought about how October would be at home in Vermont: The hills would be blazing with red maples and yellow birches, orange pumpkins would be sitting on the front porch, and the sky would be a deep, vibrant blue.
Her parents seemed thrilled to be here, but in the three days they’d been here, Meredith had felt nothing but sad and lonely and homesick. Her father said that wherever they were was home as long as they were together, but this dark, somber city didn’t seem like home to Meredith. The streets and sidewalks were made of square, gray stone too bumpy for her skateboard. And her favorite TV shows were in French. So far, she knew only the little French that her father had taught her.
As Meredith rested her chin in her hands, a tear rolled down her cheek. She was startled when the door behind her opened. A girl near her age, wearing a pleated skirt and a bright red sweater, stepped out. “Bonjour (Hello),” the girl said, smiling.
“Bonjour,” Meredith answered. Then the girl said something in French that Meredith didn’t understand. “Anglais (English),” Meredith said flatly.
“Très bien (Very good)!” The girl smiled broadly. “I would like to practice my English. My name is Yvette, and I’m eleven years old.” She sat down next to Meredith.
“Je m’appelle (My name is) Meredith. I need to practice my French, too, but I don’t know much.”
“Do you live in my building?”
“Oui (Yes),” Meredith replied.
“Are you busy? Could we do something?” Yvette asked.
“No, I’m not busy. It’s such a gloomy day, though. What could we do?”
“What is ‘gloomy’?” Yvette asked.
“Dark and cloudy and gray.”
Yvette laughed. “Meredith, if we wait for the sun to shine in Brussels, we will never do anything. Have you seen the Grand Place and the Palais de (Palace of) Justice?”
“No, I haven’t seen much of anything yet,” Meredith said. “We’re still unpacking.”
“Oh, you must see them. We can ask our mothers.”
“Is it far?” Meredith asked.
“Not far. We walk to Avenue Louise and then ride the tram. You will need some money for the tram.”
Meredith’s mother was a little worried about the excursion until Yvette’s mother came and introduced herself and reassured her that it would be easy and safe.
Soon the two girls were walking along the cobbled stones.
“Is everything gray here?” Meredith asked as she looked around her.
Yvette was thoughtful. “Well, not everything. There are other colors, but you have to look for them. See those leaves?” Yvette pointed, and Meredith saw a bright red vine growing along a gray wall.
Meredith looked at Yvette. “And you’re colorful in your red sweater.”
“Merci (thank you),” Yvette laughed.
On the tram, Meredith laid down her coins and said merci when the conductor handed her a ticket. Yvette put a card from her pocket into a little square machine until it clicked, then took it out again. As they sat together on the red vinyl seats, Meredith looked at Yvette’s happy face. “You speak English very well,” she said.
“Merci beaucoup (Thank you very much). My father taught it to me. Sometimes at church I speak with the American missionaries in English, but I am glad I met you so that I can practice every day.”
“American missionaries? What church do you belong to?”
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
“That’s a long name,” Meredith said.
“People just call us Mormons.”
“I’ve heard of that back in Vermont. And I think I’ve seen those missionaries—young men in suits.”
“Oui,” Yvette said. “Young women, too, sometimes. And older couples.”
After they left the tram, they walked down narrow streets lined with shops and restaurants with tables outside beautifully set with linens and silver. When they stepped into the square of the Grand Place, Meredith stared. It was big—it covered a whole city block—and the buildings were enormous, the tower of the Town Hall reaching high into the sky. Some buildings were trimmed in gold, and flower boxes with bright geraniums decorated the windows. People were walking in all directions over the square stones, and in the center were dozens of containers of flowers for sale.
The girls looked in the shop windows at the beautiful lace and the rows of chocolates. At one place, Yvette told Meredith, “In this house, above the restaurant, the great writer Victor Hugo lived.”
Meredith looked up at the windows. “You mean people actually used to live in these buildings?”
“Yes,” Yvette said, smiling. “That one was the baker’s house. It is almost as large as the king’s house—food is important.” They both laughed. On another little street, Yvette bought waffles for them both.
As they approached the Palais de Justice, Meredith could see that it was huge. But it wasn’t until they were standing at the bottom of the steps by pillars as big around as three people could reach, and looking up at the roof far above, that she really felt its enormity. Statues of men much bigger than life stood on each side of the stairs.
“I think that this is the biggest building in Europe,” Yvette said.
“Why is it so big? What’s it for?” Meredith asked.
“It is for justice.”
“You mean it’s a courthouse?” Meredith thought that the square stone building on the corner of Main Street at home would fit on the porch of this building.
“Yes, that is it, a courthouse.”
“But why is it so big?”
“Maybe if you are a criminal, it makes you feel small and humble, sorry for your crime. Come on, we will go up the steps and look some more. Then we will go to the Sablon.”
By the time they reached the cathedral that Yvette had called the Sablon, Meredith’s feet ached from so much walking over the uneven stones. They opened the big door quietly and sat down on the high-backed chairs. In the loft behind them, in a clear, beautiful voice, a woman was singing words that Meredith couldn’t understand. A few people walked around in the church. Marble statues stood at the front, and a pulpit of beautifully carved wood was in the middle.
Meredith looked around at the stained glass windows, their bright colors glowing with the light, at the high, vaulted ceiling, and at the lovely white statues. “Do Mormons have beautiful churches like this?”
Yvette looked around thoughtfully. “No, our churches are very plain.”
“So what do you look at when the sermons are dull?” When Yvette laughed, Meredith added, “Maybe they’re never dull.”
“Yes, they are, sometimes,” Yvette said, “but it is more the feeling you have inside yourself when you’re there—you just feel happy and loving. That is the beautiful part.”
Meredith nodded, and they sat quietly for a few minutes, resting and listening to the singing. Meredith was thinking about how happy she’d been with Yvette. Yvette was friendly, and she knew how to make things fun. “Is it your church that makes you so happy?” Meredith asked.
Yvette smiled. “I think so.” She paused. “Come with me to church. Then you can see for yourself.”
“Maybe I will,” Meredith said. “I’m glad you found me on the steps this morning.”
“Moi, aussi (Me, too).”
As they walked again along Avenue Molière, Yvette put her arm through Meredith’s. A small shaft of sunlight came through the clouds and brightened the red vines they’d seen earlier.
Meredith smiled at Yvette. “Thank you for teaching me where to look for the beauty in Brussels. I know I’m going to like it here now.”

One day my friend was over, and we were playing with my hamster, Nibbles. We built him a house out of building blocks. My friend said that he needed a car. So she went in my room and put him in my doll’s car and ran down the hall, pushing him in the car.
The next thing we saw was Nibbles lying in the middle of the hall. He was hurt badly. He had fallen out the back of the car. I picked him up and ran crying to my mom. My friend went home.
Mom said that he was probably going to die soon. At dinner, I was still crying. I hardly ate anything. After dinner, I went to my room and said a prayer that Nibbles would be all right. When I woke up the next morning, he was OK. At that moment, I knew that Heavenly Father had helped my hamster live. He is still alive today. Heavenly Father can help you, too.
Rebecca Dawn Bingham, age 9Layton, Utah

While that companion has his or her agency, you also have your own agency to choose to be obedient. You should do everything you can to follow mission rules and schedules. Your good example will always work better than anger. For example, when I served my mission, we had one hour every preparation day for emailing. I had some companions who would go significantly over their allotted email time. I would use my time, pay the internet café, and then quietly sit next to my companion until she was done. I noticed that although I never got mad at my companions or told them they were going over our time limit, they would usually start using less time and trying to be more aware of the rules. It’s amazing how powerful a righteous example can be for a missionary who might be struggling.

Perhaps only couples who have been childless can understand the heartbreak, frustration, and envy that can develop in nine and a half years of a childless marriage. My husband’s patriarchal blessing had promised him children, but mine did not even mention marriage. We had asked for and received priesthood blessings twice—one from my father, who was our bishop, and one from our stake president five years later. The first promised children “in the Lord’s good time”; the second that we would lose no opportunity for a rich, full life.
Time passed. My husband received his Ph.D. in June 1975, and with it came a job offer from Brazil. We put all our belongings in storage and flew to Brazil with two suitcases, a bag of books, and a violin to begin our new life.
There are many children in Brazil—most are loved. The poorest father will tell you proudly how rich he is in children. But some are put up for adoption, and we knew adopting a child would be easier here than in the United States. In spite of our eagerness to adopt a child, however, we always felt “not yet” when we spoke of it.
Some weeks after arriving in Brazil—partly because of the different language and customs, but mostly because of an empty house—I became homesick. It was an aloneness I had never felt before. The feeling continued to oppress me until, one day, I suddenly felt a sweetness enter our home. With the sensation came the feeling that a spirit child was there with me. Though I could not see him, I sensed that he was as anxious as I was—excited, expectantly waiting. And then he said to me distinctly, though the words were never audibly spoken, “I will be born in February.”
February was the month of Carnival. Everything simply stopped, and all of Brazil was a gigantic festival for a week. We did not participate—we found ourselves chaperoning a Church youth conference instead. The last weekend in February was our district conference. Then the month was over and there was no child, even though we had prayed earnestly that we would be guided to find him. The speakers at the conference only intensified the pain we felt by their references to the importance of having children.
Thursday night following conference, a sister who works in the children’s hospital came to our home, greatly excited. There was a baby boy in the maternity hospital, and the social worker would save him for us till noon the next day. We were at the hospital by 7:30 A.M. We had had a sleepless night and had prayed fervently that we would have no problems—we had already had sufficient experience to know how difficult adoption could be. The social worker was very kind, but the natural mother had changed her mind and had taken the child home early that morning.
Then she hesitantly said, “We have another boy here. Would you like to see him?”
It seemed like we climbed a million stairs going to the nursery. Then they showed us a clear plastic crib containing a very wrinkled little baby. His tiny face turned to ours, and he looked at us with intensely blue eyes. We knew for a surety that this baby was for us.
By noon all the paper work with the juvenile court was done, and at 6:00 P.M. I went to get our son and took him home. We discovered that he had been born February 7, but since he weighed only two kilograms at birth he had stay in the hospital for nearly a month. As it was, when he came into our lives he weighed only 2.2 kilograms and was too weak to cry. We worried that we would lose him.
That Sunday was fast day, so we fasted for him, and Larry gave him a priesthood blessing. That very day he started waking up for meals, and two days later he managed a feeble cry and rolled himself over. Six months later he was a smiling, giggling, 6.8-kilogram, 68.5-centimeter normal baby boy.
We wait for the Lord’s “own good time,” and sometimes we find it very hard. We get frustrated and angry; we cry, hope, envy—I even felt resentment during those nine years. But when the gift is given, we understand.
Like Abraham and Sarah, (Gen. 12:5) like Jacob and Rachel (Gen. 30:1), like the parents of Samuel (1 Sam. 1:20) and John the Baptist (Luke 1:13), my husband and I have felt the greatness of God’s giving. And watching this tiny, growing gift from God, we pray that we, like them, will be equal to His trust.

Francoise watched quietly as her friend Hilda marched in the St. Nicholas parade. Hilda wore a large miter-shaped hat with a design of stars and snowflakes cut out in it. She carried a big horn that she blew often and loud.
Hilda waved as she passed Francoise, but Francoise did not wave back. Instead she frowned at Hilda and the other children in the parade.
Unhappy thoughts tumbled through Francoise’s mind as the St. Nicholas parade came to an end. Why did my father have to come here to Switzerland? Why didn’t he stay in France? They don’t celebrate Christmas here in this country the way they should!
Hilda ran to meet Francoise. “Didn’t I tell you it would be fun?” she exclaimed, speaking very fast in German. “You should have worn the hat I made for you and marched in the parade with us.”
Francoise didn’t say anything.
“Well,” Hilda asked after a few silent moments had passed, “didn’t you like the parade?”
“It is not how we celebrate Christmas in France,” Francoise mumbled.
“I know. But I wanted you to see how we celebrate here in Switzerland.”
Silently the two girls walked to the bus stop. Hilda put her big hat and her horn on the bench and sat down.
“You know,” Hilda said at last in French, trying to make Francoise feel better, “I’m glad there are so many ways to celebrate Christmas. In our country we have many customs from Germany, Italy, and France.”
Francoise sat down beside Hilda. “I think there should be only one way to celebrate Christmas, and I like our way best,” she insisted. “All of this about St. Nicholas is wrong. It is Christkindli who brings gifts.”
“He may bring gifts to your house, but it is St. Nicholas who comes to my house,” Hilda replied. “Anyway it doesn’t really matter. Christmas is Christmas!”
A big gray bus soon sputtered to a stop and the girls climbed into it. Neither of them spoke during the ride home, but mixed-up thoughts kept turning around in Francoise’s mind. What did Hilda mean by “Christmas is Christmas”? Of course Christmas is Christmas, and that is exactly why it should be celebrated in the right way as we’ve always done.
When Francoise arrived home, she sat in front of the Christmas tree and stared at Christkindli on top. “Now this is how Christmas should be,” she said out loud.
“What do you mean?” a voice asked.
“Oh, Mama,” Francoise gasped as she turned and saw her mother in the doorway. “You frightened me. I thought I was alone.”
“What were you talking about when you said, ‘This is how Christmas should be’?”
“I was talking to myself about Christmas. Hilda has a star on top of her tree, and St. Nicholas comes to her house instead of Christkindli. They don’t recite Christmas poems when they open their presents. And—well, they just do everything wrong.”
“Wrong?” Mother questioned.
“Yes. Everyone should celebrate Christmas the way we did when we were home in France,” Francoise insisted.
“But Francoise,” her mother explained, “although we still speak French, our home is here now. We are Swiss people. And besides, from the stories my father used to tell me, we do not celebrate Christmas at all as they used to do in France. Christkindli isn’t even a French word, you know. Many Swiss people have Christkindli in their homes at Christmas.”
Francoise felt bewildered. She stared at the tree for a moment and then spoke, “Well, maybe our way of celebrating is different from the old French way, but still I think it’s the right way.”
“Why should our way be right and Hilda’s way be wrong?”
Francoise started to answer, but she couldn’t think of anything to say. A big lump formed in her throat. She felt there must be some reason for her beliefs, but she couldn’t think of a single one.
“Well, we all celebrate the birth of Jesus; so shouldn’t we celebrate it in the same way?” Francoise asked.
“Why?”
Again Francoise couldn’t answer. She only shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.
“Christmas should be a time of love, and love can be shown in many different ways,” Mother said gently as she patted Francoise and left her alone to think about the events of the day.
Maybe it is I who have been wrong and not Hilda, Francoise decided.
Just then the doorbell rang, and Francoise went to answer it. But when Francoise opened the door, no one was there. Instead, on the step was a colorful box filled with tirggel, a delicious Christmas cookie. A tiny blue card tucked between the tirggel said, “Froehliche Weihnachten! From whoever brings presents!”
Francoise looked all around, but she could not see who had left the cookies.
“Who is it?” Mother called.
“Only a box of tirggel,” Francoise answered.
“That is my favorite Christmas treat,” Mother said as she entered the room. “Do you know who left it?”
“It must have been Hilda.”
“How nice,” Mother smiled as she tasted a cookie.
Francoise wanted to smile, but she couldn’t. She thought about the way she had acted at the parade and on the way home. She must have made her friend sad by not marching in the parade with the hat Hilda had made for her.
Then Francoise remembered what her mother had said about Christmas being a time to show love. And that was just what Hilda had been trying to do.
Slowly Francoise tasted a cookie. It was delicious.
“These are good,” she said.
“If we were still in France, we might never have tasted tirggel. And you’d never have had a friend like Hilda either,” Mother replied.
Francoise thought very hard. She had been selfish and she felt awful. “Christmas is Christmas,” Hilda had said, and looking at the cookies, Francoise knew exactly what she could do.
“I’m going to celebrate Christmas the right way,” Francoise decided, and she hurried to her room.
She took colored pencils and paper and wrote out her favorite Christmas poem. Then she drew pictures around the edges of the poem and framed it neatly in heavy colored paper.
Her legs couldn’t carry her fast enough to Hilda’s house, but soon she found herself knocking at the front door. When Hilda answered the door, Francoise handed her the poem.
“Thank you for the tirggel,” Francoise said. “And now here is something from our Christmas tradition. We always read our favorite Christmas poems when we exchange gifts. I guess if we put the tirggel, Christkindli, St. Nicholas, poems, and parades all together, we’d have a lot of Swiss Christmas traditions.”
Hilda laughed. “Yes, after all, Christmas is Christmas!”
“I know what that means now,” Francoise said softly. “Christmas isn’t German or French or Italian or English or even Swiss. Christmas is Christmas, and Christmas is love no matter where you are.”

One Saturday my wife and I realized that we did not have enough money to take public transportation to church the next day, and there was no way to make a cash withdrawal. Our tithing was in a donation envelope ready to be given to the bishop. We began to talk about how we would travel to church. If we used the tithing money to pay for transportation, we felt that the Lord would understand; however, we decided that it was not right.
The other possibility was to not go to church, and again we thought that the Lord would understand since we had never missed before. However, if that happened, we would not be able to take our tithing to the bishop, so that possibility was also ruled out.
Trying to be faithful, we decided to leave earlier than usual and walk to church. We left on that beautiful Sabbath day for the chapel, which was about three miles (4.8 km) from our home. For our four children (the oldest was six), it was like a party, and they enjoyed running and playing along the way.
When we reached a certain point on a wide and dangerous street, I heard the Spirit tell me, “You should cross now.” I told my wife, and she responded that it was dangerous because that part of the street began to curve, blocking our view of oncoming cars. I responded that I felt we should cross there, so we quickly crossed, my wife and I each taking two children. Just as we stepped onto the sidewalk, a car stopped on that side, and the driver asked, “Are you going to church?”
The driver was a brother who did not belong to our ward, but I had met him before because I had visited his ward. We responded affirmatively, and he offered to drive us there. As we got in the car, the brother explained that he never took this route and he was only passing that way because his business partner had lost the keys to the office and he was taking his keys to his partner.
I thought to myself that this hadn’t happened by chance. The Lord knew we needed transportation to go to church. Our tithing was in my pocket, and it provided us the opportunity to teach our children about the blessings that come from paying tithing. We arrived at the chapel earlier than ever but happy and grateful. We participated in all the meetings and did not tell anybody about what had happened.
Summers in São Paulo are very hot, especially at midday, when our Church meetings ended. We were preparing to return when someone came up and asked us, “Do you have someone to take you back?” We responded that we didn’t, and he said to us, “Do you want me to take you?” We accepted his offer, and my wife and I looked at each other with emotional smiles.
More than once the Lord had given us a great blessing for our obedience.

Elder Craig Proctor and his companion had to wait for every appointment with Julieta Villanueva Bulan Ledesma, a 5-foot nutrition graduate from Philippine Women’s University and mother of four (a girl and three boys), who had a fierce determination to resist the efforts of the two towering missionaries in converting her to the Church.
She found all the excuses to make them wait expecting that, by taxing them to the limit of their patience, they would be exasperated with her. One time, she started to wash a huge bundle of clothes when the two came for another appointment, hoping that they will get the message and leave her alone, not to return anymore. But, Elder Proctor and his companion were not to be discouraged and, at that time and other times, they held fast to their positions in the battle of the long wait. And, then, the moment long awaited by the diminutive Julieta came. The persistent Elder Proctor was transferred. At last, Julieta thought, the battle of nerves was won by her.
There was no apparent reason for Julieta to shy away from the missionaries. Her husband was then 1st Counselor in the Bishopric under Bishop Robert Evans of Makati I Ward. She was, in fact, already active in Church, serving an assignment as non-member Home Making Teacher under the guidance of Sis. Doris Scott, President of the Makati Ward Relief Society.
She was like any other member, attending Church functions and services, but the thought of baptism was still farthest from her mind. She was determined to remain in the faith she was born into. And, that was that, until …
During an unguarded moment, she saw her husband alone in her room, kneeling in fervent prayer, and a very strong feeling tugged at her heart, knowing that her husband was beseeching the Lord to show her the way and the light.
On July 20, 1974, two years, five months and one week after her husband was converted to the Church, Julieta was baptized at the Quezon City chapel. Elder Proctor was there, and great joy was in their hearts as her husband immersed her in the baptismal font.
Autumn of 1975, on October 1 to be exact, Bro. Craig Proctor stood impatiently at the doorway of his home at Oneida Street in Salt Lake City, waiting … This was the longest wait ever. He was expecting the arrival of two close friends from the Philippines, and the minutes ticked on like days.
And then, two familiar figures came into view. His heart leaped with joy as he ran towards them with tears in his eyes. His two friends from the Philippines also cried unashamedly as they embraced him on the street.
For Bro. Proctor, the missionary who waited and waited, another chapter in his book of life had been written.—P. Ocampo, Jr.
Editor’s Note: On October 6, 1975, Bro. Jacinto L. Ledesma and Sis. Julieta were sealed for eternity in the Salt Lake Temple.

I love that the new Children and Youth program lets me set goals for myself and work on them with my family. One of my goals is to put on a scripture play every Sunday with my younger brother Sam.
One time we chose Daniel in the lions’ den. It was fun planning it. But then our little brother Michael, who is four, said, “Can I do the play with you?”
At first we said no.
But Michael started to cry.
So I said, “Sam! Come to the basement.”
Sam and I went down to the basement. Sam said, “Michael can’t be in the play. He can’t memorize his lines!”
But I had an idea. I said, “Let him join the play. Listen, he could be a lion! You can’t have Daniel and the lions’ den without a lion. Let’s go get him!”
On Sunday, the day of the show, we took our spots and started the show. We did a very good job. Michael did great roaring.
I know the Spirit was with me when I said Michael could be in the play. This experience taught me that if someone seems sad or lonely, we should include them. I hope you try the new Children and Youth program. I know it will help you be more like Jesus too!

During her first year at school, when she lived with four roommates, Fleur had a hard time finding time alone to pray and study scriptures. “There wasn’t much privacy to pray, unless I got in the dorm early. The other option was to pray in the bathroom. It wasn’t the greatest place, but it was private.”

Fleur makes time for gospel study because, she says, “reading the scriptures daily for seminary helps me to live Church principles away from home.” Fortunately, this year Fleur has her own room, making it easier for her to pray and study.