Gospel Story Finder

Like the Li family, the Wu family has also traced their family line back to the emperor. In doing so, they discovered that the Wu children were part of the 150th generation since the emperor. The story caught the attention of the media, and in 2005, Wilford Wu, then 19, was selected to represent the young people of Taiwan during an annual ceremony at the traditional tomb of the Yellow Emperor.
For the Wu family, members of the Ching Hsin Ward, Taipei Taiwan West Stake, family history has been a family effort. Brother Wu, Chi-Li and his wife, Shirley, did much of the research, and Wilford and his older sister, Camilla, have helped organize it and participate in temple ordinances for more than 3,000 of their ancestors.
Working together has helped bring the Wu family closer together. They say it has also helped them feel a special connection with their ancestors.

Seth loved going to church. He enjoyed singing in Primary and learning about Jesus. Seth knew attending church was important. It was one way to show Heavenly Father how thankful he was for the gospel.
One Sunday morning, Seth was getting dressed for church. Mom and Dad appeared in the doorway.
“May we talk to you, Seth?” Dad asked as he and Mom sat down on the bed.
Seth finished buttoning his shirt. “Sure.”
“Do you remember how far Dad has to drive to get to work?” Mom asked.
“Yes, it takes forever,” Seth said.
“Mom and I have been praying about it,” Dad said, “and we’ve decided it’s time for us to move closer to my job.”
“Where is our new house going to be?” Seth asked. “Will I be able to ride my bike to Aunt Spring’s house?” Aunt Spring lived just a few blocks away, and Seth couldn’t wait until he was old enough to ride over to play with his cousins.
“No,” Dad said. “I’m sorry. Our new house will be too far away for that, but our family and friends can come visit us and we can visit them.”
“Oh,” Seth said quietly.
“This will be a big move,” Mom said. “You’ll make new friends, and we’ll live in a new neighborhood. It’s important for our family so that Dad can be home more.”
Seth knew his parents wanted the best for him and his little brothers. “I guess it’s all right if we move.”
Dad gave him a big hug. “We’re glad you agree.”
Several months later, Seth’s family began packing boxes. Seth was excited. His new house had a big backyard, and there was a playground down the street. Seth was also looking forward to going to kindergarten.
Just one thing worried Seth. How would he learn about Jesus? They would live too far away for him to go to church.
“What’s wrong, Seth?” Mom asked, noticing the gloomy look on his face.
“I don’t want to move anymore,” Seth said as his eyes filled with tears.
Mom put her arms around Seth. “I know it’s hard to move away from your friends and cousins.”
“It’s not just that. How will we get to church?” Seth asked.
“Our new church will be right down the street,” Mom said.
“But I don’t want a new church, Mom. I like our church.” Seth knew there were a lot of good churches, but he knew The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the only true church.
Mom smiled. “After we move, we’ll go to a new building on Sundays. We’ll have new teachers and meet new people, but it will still be The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And we’ll learn the very same lessons.”
Seth smiled. He was happy he could still go to the same church and learn about Jesus.
Soon Seth and his family were busy unpacking boxes in their new house. Seth picked out the clothes he wanted to wear for church the next morning.
“Are you sure church is going to be the same?” Seth asked Mom.
“Absolutely,” Mom said. “Don’t worry, Seth. When we get to church tomorrow, listen for the Spirit to tell you if we’re at the right church.”
Seth awoke early the next morning, excited to go to Primary. He asked Heavenly Father to help him know if he was at the right church. Then, Seth got ready to go.
At church, Seth heard someone playing a familiar song on a piano. Seth felt a warm, happy feeling. He was glad to still be able to attend the true church, even after moving far away.

Receiving gospel ordinances and keeping covenants had a dramatic influence on Diana’s family. Diana and her younger brother, Emmanuel, were the first to join the Church. Before that time, Diana says, her family argued a lot. She knew her parents wanted the best for her and her brothers, but they were strict.
“We felt more fear than love for my dad,” she says.
Several months after she was baptized, her father and older brother, Richard, joined the Church, followed more than a year later by her mother.
“My father changed,” Diana says of her father’s conversion. “When we did things wrong, he would talk to us about it. We had fewer arguments. There was more harmony in our home.”
Covenanting to follow Jesus Christ had drawn them closer to Him and to each other. They had a common purpose: to become an eternal family. A year after Diana’s mother was baptized, the family was sealed in the temple.
“It was a beautiful experience,” Diana says. “I can’t explain how I felt when we walked into the sealing room and saw my parents there. I didn’t want to leave.”

Let me make one more point about your education. I have a friend who had a hard time choosing a career. In college he majored in accounting and worked part-time in an accounting firm. By the time he graduated he had decided he didn’t really want to be an accountant, so he applied to law school. He attended law school for just one week, found he didn’t like law, and withdrew. Then he enrolled in a master’s program in educational psychology. He lasted a full quarter in that program before dropping out. Next he entered a master’s program in marketing and completed that degree but could see no place for himself in the job arena of marketing.

By that time he had a military obligation and spent four years in the air force. As he completed that assignment he applied to the doctoral program at the Harvard Business School and was accepted. In his first year there he discovered organizational behavior and finally found a field that he enjoyed. Since then he has become an outstanding researcher and teacher in the field. When people hear that story they comment on all of the false starts. But the important thing is that no matter what programs he was involved in, he worked hard and received excellent grades. As a result, his academic record qualified him for admittance to Harvard. The moral: Even if you don’t know where you’re going, do your best work in order to keep your options open.

When I was a young child, my father was not a member of the Church and my mother had become less active. We lived in Washington, D.C., and my mother’s parents lived 2,500 miles (4,000 km) away in the state of Washington. Some months after my eighth birthday, Grandmother Whittle came across the country to visit us. Grandmother was concerned that neither I nor my older brother had been baptized. I don’t know what she said to my parents about this, but I do know that one morning she took my brother and me to the park and shared with us her feelings about the importance of being baptized and attending Church meetings regularly. I don’t remember the specifics of what she said, but her words stirred something in my heart, and soon my brother and I were baptized.
Grandmother continued to support us. I remember that anytime my brother or I was assigned to give a talk in church, we would call her on the telephone for some suggestions. Within a few days a handwritten talk would arrive by mail. After some time her suggestions changed to an outline requiring more effort on our part.
Grandmother used just the right amount of courage and respect to help our father recognize the importance of his driving us to the church for our meetings. In every appropriate way, she helped us to feel a need for the gospel in our lives.
Most importantly, we knew Grandmother loved us and that she loved the gospel. She was a marvelous example! How grateful I am for the testimony she shared with me when I was very young. Her influence changed the direction of my life for eternal good.
Both Grandmother Whittle and Jeanene loved me enough to share their conviction that the ordinances of the gospel and serving Father in Heaven would bless my life. Neither of them coerced me or made me feel bad about the person I was. They simply loved me and loved Father in Heaven. Both knew He could do more with my life than I could on my own. Each courageously helped me in loving ways to find the path of greatest happiness.

While walking down the hall of the Provo 24th–27th Ward chapel in the Provo Utah North Stake, my attention was drawn to a bulletin board on which was located an eye-catching photograph of a pyramid of young Scouts. A closer look indelibly impressed upon my mind the potential impact of Scouting, leaders, and parents, for drawn to the picture of each boy in the pyramid was a line, and at the end of the line appeared names of places both far and near, including Spain, Mexico, Oregon, Thailand, England, Arkansas, and Tahiti.
A desire to investigate further brought me to the home of the former Scoutmaster, Rex Craig, who told me that he had taken the picture in June 1970. At that time he had called members of the troop together to inform them that they had been selected by the YMMIA general superintendency as one of the top 50 troops in the Church with a ranking of #11. (In a later year their troop achieved a #3 rating.)
At the time, Brother Craig had 23 boys in his troop. All of the boys except one went on to achieve the rank of Eagle (the remaining boy lacked only two merit badges), and to date all but two have gone on to serve the Lord in the mission field.
When I asked how he accounted for this kind of activity, he said there were a couple of reasons: The boys were basically good, and, in general, there was excellent support from the homes and the bishopric. But he felt there was one other ingredient that contributed to the success; that ingredient was the application of the program of the Church in which leaders work together to build men. In this case it was the Scoutmaster and the deacons quorum adviser. He handed me a letter that he had received from William Jones, a deacons adviser who had served during the time the boys were in Scouting. The special ingredient is described therein. The letter reads:
“Dear Brother Craig:
“As I prepare to leave Utah, I feel it appropriate to express my feelings and impressions of Troop 194, both as a deacons quorum adviser and as a worker on the troop committee.
“You know of my deep respect for you as a man, but I need to expand this to include your unique role as Scoutmaster. The activities have often taxed your time to the limit, but time was still found to meet the sincere needs of both Scouts and parents, even a ‘confused committeeman’ on occasion. Many felt that after your son became an Eagle Scout your enthusiasm would die. On the contrary, each boy in Troop 194 has, in turn, become a son to you and achieved the Eagle rank. I know personally of the great love each boy has for you.
“As a deacons adviser I owe you much for assisting me in making the priesthood such an integral part of each boy’s life. In no other place is cooperation more important, and I personally feel that in no other area is it more present than in our ward. Because you were with us on Sundays and you allowed me to play an active role in Mutual and on campouts, every boy became our concern and gave the program a true completeness.
“I was privileged to work with a choice group of men, but my greatest joy came from the obvious source—the individual boy. I shall never forget my first outing with the boys to Silver Lake. I was critical and tried to oversee 20 active Scouts. I failed, of course, but by the second go-round things began to focus and I watched the patrol leaders function. I saw characteristics in boys then that will someday make them fine men and our future leaders. Clean speech, honesty, and other principles that were taught in priesthood lessons came alive as I watched our boys.
“Troop 194 has no perfect boy. We have had and will continue to have loud, fidgety, curious, active creatures called boys to love, appreciate, train, and say good-bye to as they head into future challenges, better prepared for having been a boy in our ward.”
In response to my question as to how this relationship between priesthood and Scouting could produce such good results, Brother Craig said, “Everything I’ve ever read or been taught in the scriptures seems to say, ‘Seek the best; cease to be idle; gain knowledge in thy youth; love thy neighbor; do your duty to God; obey; be loyal’; and the list goes on and on. It doesn’t take long to see that a boy’s time seeking, learning, obeying, competing, challenging, promising, and excelling is well spent. It’s not easy, and the boy isn’t happy 100 percent of the time. But he is growing, and he thinks a lot about life now and in the future, and in the end he feels like he’s done something. Though his Eagle badge is important to him, he soon realizes it is just a training step. He knows within himself, here was a challenge. He took it, and he conquered it. Even though it often meant ridicule, sacrifice, and even doing something he thought he could never do, he did it. If you want to see desire and courage, you just watch a boy who reaches the age of 12 and can’t swim. He may struggle, fail, fight, and fail. With determination he will try again, fail again, sometimes cry, but always pick himself up and go on. in the end he knows that he has succeeded at something he thought to be impossible.
“In case anyone should think that our goal in Scouting is to become the top troop in the Church, or 100 percent Eagles, or be awarded the most badges at a court of honor, let me straighten him out. There is only one goal and that is to return the best spirit and strongest character possible to our Father in heaven. This is our goal in priesthood and in Scouting. Scouting offers some tools to practice the principles taught in priesthood.”
Another look at the picture impressed upon my mind the impact that parents, leaders, and the gospel have had upon a closely knit group of boys and, in turn, the impact they are having upon the world: Italy, Taiwan, California, Belgium—Tenderfeet, Eagles, missionaries.

Isaac Ernsten pulls on a pair of rubber gloves while one of the other young men in the quorum helps tie a hospital gown over his white shirt and tie. They all put on surgical masks and make sure they have both the sacrament trays before they walk into the hospital room. The man in the bed is one of many who has requested that the young men bring the sacrament to him.
Each Sunday, patients in the Salt Lake Regional Medical Center who can’t make it to church have church brought to them by the young men from the Salt Lake Emigration Stake. During the months of January and July, it’s the responsibility of the young men from the 21st North Ward.
“In church, some people take the sacrament just because it’s a part of the sacrament meeting,” says Isaac, a priest who helps bring the sacrament to hospital patients. “These people have to request that the sacrament be brought to them. I think it means a lot to them. Some of them are so happy to see us when we get there. I can tell that they really want the sacrament.”
Most of the young men will admit that sometimes it makes them a bit nervous to be around people who are seriously injured or dying, but they feel it is their duty, and they enjoy doing it. And even though the man in the hospital bed does not feel well, he is happy to see them come in.
The stained glass windows around the small chapel glow with the bright light from outside. The hospital branch uses a chapel that was built by the Catholic Church when the hospital was known as Holy Cross Hospital. More than half the congregation is made up of the young men from the 21st North Ward, and there are fewer than a dozen of them. Others in attendance include the branch presidency, Relief Society presidency, a few patients who feel well enough to leave their beds, and some hospital staff.
It takes one deacon only a few minutes to pass the sacrament to everyone. Then the young men put on the sacrament meeting program. They give the talks, offer the prayers, and fill in wherever else they are needed.
“In our home ward, preparing the sacrament can sometimes become routine,” says Abe Daris, a priest who has helped prepare, bless, or pass the sacrament at the hospital since he was a deacon. “Not that it should be routine, but here it is something more. It makes me realize how important the sacrament is. Even if there are only one or two members who show up, it’s still important enough for a whole quorum to help out a branch president and conduct a sacrament meeting. It’s important that members renew their covenants every week and feel the Spirit.”
After the meeting, the young men visit the individual rooms of people who have requested the sacrament. “That’s my favorite part,” Abe says. “It makes me realize how important the sacrament is to people. When we come with the sacrament, they just light up, and they’re so excited.”
All of the priesthood holders can remember specific people and experiences in the hospital that strengthened their testimonies. Abe remembers a woman who was very ill. “She had a lot of trouble breathing,” he said. “She couldn’t talk at all and could barely move. Even though we couldn’t communicate verbally, we could see in her eyes that she was happy to receive the sacrament. We smiled at her, and she smiled back. We could feel the Spirit and knew she appreciated it. It’s hard to explain. You had to be there.”
One of Abe’s brothers, Jeremiah, a teacher, remembers helping a woman who couldn’t move to take the sacrament. “I had to hold the sacrament water out and pour it into her mouth,” he says. “That was probably one of the more memorable experiences. I was helping someone who couldn’t do it for herself. She was really happy to get the sacrament. I’m sure she was glad I was there.”
Before they bless the sacrament and pass it to the patients, Simon Williams, one of the teachers, enjoys visiting. “There are all sorts of people there. Sometimes we visit new mothers, and sometimes we visit older people,” he says. “When you are in a hospital, I think you have a lot of time to think about life. People start thinking about what they’ve done in the past and start thinking more about Heavenly Father and the gospel. I think taking the sacrament for the people in the hospital can mean more for them than for many people because a lot of the people in the hospital are going to have some pretty big changes in their lives.”
Each week as the young men give service in the hospital, they receive something themselves. One thing they all agree on is that their assignment has given them a greater understanding of the importance of the sacrament. “A lot of times in my home ward I don’t really take the chance to think about what the sacrament means because I’m focused on passing it,” Simon says. “Sometimes we take the sacrament for granted. But it really stands for something amazing.”
The youth feel it is their duty to serve others. But no matter how much they give, they say they are the ones who are rewarded most. “We have such a good time doing it that it’s not really like it’s a sacrifice,” Abe says. “When you’ve been given so much, you have to serve and help other people. This has just been another way for us to give back, and not only to help other people, but to grow ourselves. Our duty to God is to serve Him by serving other people.”

One special moment for the choir occurred December 28 during a rehearsal at the Jerusalem Center, the first rehearsal with David Shallon, director of the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra. The choir sat facing the draped front wall of glass in the auditorium, and Mr. Shallon had his back to the windows as he worked with the choir. Partway through the rehearsal, someone pulled open the drapes, giving the choir a view of the old city in the daylight. As Mr. Shallon turned to look, he gave an audible gasp and paused for a moment with his hands together under his chin as he and the choir absorbed the wondrous view. It was a stirring moment for both choir and director.

Remember that Heavenly Father answers our prayers in the way that is best for us. It may not be the answer that we want, but it is always the right answer. I remember my Primary graduation. Back then, we wore bandalos (felt bands worn around the neck and that emblems and awards were attached to), and my Primary teacher told me that I needed to wear mine. I couldn’t find it! My mother told me to pray about it, so I knelt and asked Heavenly Father for help. I soon received my answer. The Spirit told me to look underneath my dresser drawer. When I reached up under it, I found my bandalo caught on a sliver of wood. I never would have looked there if I hadn’t prayed for help. We need to always remember that if we ask, we shall receive (see Matt. 7:7–8). If we ask Heavenly Father for guidance, the Spirit will whisper to us what we should do.

Since 1929 the government in Mexico has been trying to improve the lives of children through what is currently known as the National System for the Integral Development of the Family (DIF). Operated on federal, state, and city levels, DIF has been instrumental in strengthening families and helping low-income individuals. Now the Church has teamed up with DIF to continue improving the lives of children.
Luis Camarillo, area welfare manager for the Mexico North Area, has seen the problems children in his area face and wanted to help those children. He and others started to look at problems children faced in the area and found that many suffered from two things.
“Nuevo Leon State has no street children; however, it has children suffering from abuse or who are abandoned,” Brother Camarillo said.
Brother Camarillo and other members found out about DIF’s efforts to help the children through a local foster-care program and decided that they would like to assist DIF. He contacted Dr. Alejandro Alberto Morton Martínez, the child and family protection director at DIF, and offered to partner with the group to help the program. Since then, members have been working with Dr. Morton on the foster-care program.
Thanks to offers from the Church and the State of Utah’s foster-care system, the DIF and others involved have been able to receive valuable training on the topic of foster-care.
“A couple of service missionaries came down here to Monterrey from Utah and provided basic training to about 50 potential trainers,” Brother Camarillo said.
Through Humanitarian Services, Brother Camarillo, Dr. Morton, and several others have been able to travel to Utah to receive intensive training from the Utah Department of Children and Family Services. The training covered the basics of how to set up and keep a foster-care system functioning and also offered participants field experience. While in Utah, the participants visited with the Church Welfare Department and LDS Family Services.
Although the foster-care program in Nuevo Leon is still progressing, the training Brother Camarillo and others have received thus far has already started to pay off.
“Because of the training, DIF has improved the recruiting and selection process of potential foster families,” Brother Camarillo said. “The children are expected to have better experiences … than others placed in families who were not recruited applying the new process learned through the Church.”
Thus far the experience of working with DIF has been a good one for everyone involved, including Brother Camarillo. “It is hard to find an organization whose members are as committed to doing good as are those working for DIF,” Brother Camarillo said. “It has been a wonderful experience working with such an organization.”
In addition to helping start the foster-care program, Brother Camarillo has helped orchestrate several humanitarian and service projects with DIF, in which wheelchairs, medical equipment, and furniture were donated.

A young woman wrote: “President Hinckley quoted Joshua 1:9 [Josh. 1:9] in one of his talks. It says, ‘Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.’ Sometimes my friends want me to be someone else and I don’t want to be someone else. I want to be myself, and what I am afraid of is that I might lose them, and I don’t want to lose them. When the prophet read this scripture, it was like he knew what I was feeling. I felt like somebody had answered my prayers. Whenever friend troubles happen to me again, I know what to do and think, because I have those words in my mind that I will never forget, never!”

That one sentence, “It was worse than I ever anticipated,” contains an agony of heartbreak. What it meant was that her mother forbade her to reenter her childhood home. Her husband told her she must choose between her family and her faith; weeping in anguish, she refused to deny her testimony, and he abandoned her and her four little girls. Elizabeth found work in a woolen mill, laboring with the baby in a basket by the loom, and managing to support them all. Seeing her undefeated, William returned and took all four children to London. Under the law, there was nothing she could do to stop him or reclaim them.

The gospel literally rescued me from despair. Before, I was lost in every sense of the word. My parents and brother and grandmother were gone, but I felt as though I were gone too. After their deaths I no longer knew who I was. Now I have found my identity. I know that I am a child of God and that He knows me and loves me. As I was sealed to my parents, grandmother, and brother, my grief turned to joy with the assurance that we can be together forever.

As a young woman, I had planted myself upside down. My halfhearted efforts at attending church, paying tithing, and having regular prayer and scripture study had slowed my spiritual growth almost to a halt. In high school it became clear that I would need to choose between my current direction and the Lord’s direction. I then decided to replant myself, try my best, and rely on the Lord’s care.
With all my strength I began pushing up toward the Son, working my way past feelings of doubt, anger, insecurity, and selfishness. It wasn’t long before I realized how much Heavenly Father loves me, how much He has blessed me, and how much He wants me to reach my full potential as His daughter. I was given nourishment from Young Women leaders, bishops, seminary teachers, and friends. My righteous desire, however, was not without trials and tears. In His loving mercy, Heavenly Father gave me a push here and there when I felt that I could push no more. He helped me grow from my setbacks and successes. No sunflower, after having sensed the light of the sun, would bury itself back in the ground. I too could sense the light of the Son, and I would no longer hide myself from His goodness and joy. I would “follow the Son, with full purpose of heart” (2 Nephi 31:13).

I wasn’t exactly nervous to join elders quorum because I felt like I knew what to expect. I also knew everyone in my ward’s elders quorum. They were my friends’ dads and men I already looked up to as mentors. I knew they were happy to help me understand things, so it wasn’t nerve-racking to join them in elders quorum.
What was a little nerve-racking was contributing to the lessons. At first it was hard to think that I could offer anything to men who had so much more life experience and so much more wisdom than I did.
Elders quorum is definitely different from priests quorum. Instead of a bunch of guys your age, you’re suddenly with adults. The first couple of times I went, I didn’t really say anything. I worried that I was too young and didn’t know enough to contribute.
But the more I’ve been going, the more comfortable I’ve become, and the more I’ve come to realize that no matter how old you are, everybody has something to contribute. Everyone has different experiences with the gospel and everyone has different levels of understanding of different principles.
One time we were talking about the Savior’s Atonement, and I raised my hand. I just told how thanks to His Atonement, Jesus Christ not only frees us but can also help us become closer to Himself and to God. I talked about my relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and how it has been strengthened as my understanding of the Atonement has grown. After class, a man came up to me and thanked me for my comments. He told me he had never thought about things the way I had said them and really appreciated my insight.
In elders quorum, you don’t just learn from a teacher; you also learn from the Spirit and everyone else in the quorum. All that perspective helps you gain greater insight into the things that you are taught. And that helps you be a better servant of the Lord. For example, since I’ve become an elder, I’ve started liking ministering a lot more! I think I take it a little more seriously because I know that when I’m a missionary in a few months, I’ll be visiting people and sharing the gospel with them just like I do when I minister. Instead of just sitting there and letting my companion do everything, I’ve started preparing for our visits. I make sure to speak up. I know it’s good preparation for my mission, but it has also made ministering become more meaningful to me. I now have a greater appreciation for the people in my ward and the people I minister to.
You don’t need to be intimidated by elders quorum, but you can definitely look forward to hear more wisdom about the topics you’re learning about. You can look forward to becoming a better teacher, leader, and servant of the Lord. And that is so cool!

My great-great-grandfather Israel Stoddard accepted an invitation to join the Church in 1842. Then he accepted another invitation to join the Saints, and the family moved from New Jersey to Nauvoo. When President Brigham Young extended an invitation to follow him west, they accepted.

As the family crossed the Mississippi River, they looked back and watched as their home was burned. Because of exposure to harsh elements and hardships their mother died, five weeks later the infant baby died, and shortly thereafter the father passed away. As my grandmother wrote, “This left five Stoddard children homeless and almost penniless but not friendless as the Saints were good to them.”

This invitation took the lives of the parents and their small child; however, it bound them together eternally.

When my wife was a young girl, her grandpa took the grandchildren with him to the farm to put powder on the potatoes to kill the bugs. It was fun doing it together. What’s more, they got to ride the old workhorse after they were finished.
It was fun to help get the cows into the barn so they could be milked. Although the children didn’t do much milking themselves, they watched and heard the milk splatter into the bucket. Sometimes a well-aimed squirt would fill the open mouth of a waiting cat. The children laughed even more when Grandpa squirted the warm milk toward their open mouths, and the giggles increased when he missed and splashed their faces.
The children helped harvest the corn and, when canning started, they helped the adults cut off kernels. Everyone had a feeling of accomplishment and they felt secure just knowing that they were adding to their year’s supply of food.
After the children had helped with the picking and pickling of cucumbers, they received a reward of some large ripe ones to cut open, hollow out, and sail as boats down the ditches.

I remember the first time Jenni walked into my seminary class and said hi to me, her new teacher. She had a very difficult time speaking, her words were slurred and hard to understand, and she limped and hobbled as she tried to make her legs carry her body toward her desk. During Jenni’s first week of “main-streaming” in my class, she seemed content to be mostly ignored by her classmates, who appeared to be struggling to figure out how to interact with her.
Jenni would try to speak, but very few students could understand her. She had a difficult time keeping her nose wiped, and sometimes she would drool and soil her shirt. The students in my classroom were unaccustomed to the needs and actions of someone like Jenni, so most of them distanced themselves from her both physically and socially and, as a result, proceeded to politely ignore her.
However, they weren’t aware that inside Jenni’s deformed body was a keen mind, a heart of gold, and an indomitable spirit crying out to be heard, to be understood, to be accepted, and to be loved. She wouldn’t be ignored, politely or otherwise.
I’ll never forget the day when Jenni asked me if she could say something to the class. I wondered what she wanted to say to everyone, but I never expected her to deliver the message she did.
“I neeeeed a frrriennnd,” she stuttered. “I neeeeeeeed sommeonne toooo ssiitt bbyy mmee attt lllunnch.”
As she finished her last word, a hush settled over the class. Jenni stood erect and, rather than doing the socially acceptable thing and taking her seat, waited for a volunteer. Finally, from the back of the classroom, Treasure raised her hand and said, “I’ll be your friend, Jenni.” Jenni responded by asking, “And sit by me at lunch?”
Treasure responded, “And sit by you at lunch.”
“Every day?” asked Jenni.
“Every day,” answered Treasure.
This conversation relieved the class and also gave Treasure’s friend Wendy the confidence to raise her hand and tell Jenni that she would also be her friend and sit by her at lunch every day. The “miracle of Jenni” had begun!
The next day Treasure and Wendy sat by Jenni at lunch and then helped her through the school parking lot to the seminary building. I noticed as the days turned into weeks that Treasure and Wendy began to translate Jenni’s words when we couldn’t understand her.
As the students began to see what a beautiful, intelligent person Jenni was, they began to invite her to activities, to pick her up, to help her with her difficulties. On one occasion, Jenni excitedly told me she had a date with a young man named Kurt. “He’s so cute!” she told me. This led to other dates, more recognition, and more fun.
Often during class when someone would be sharing their feelings and begin to weep, Jenni would, unannounced, get up and walk over to this person and put her arm around them and hold them. This would touch the class, and soon we would all be weeping. Jenni would often bear her testimony to the class. She would express her gratitude for her many blessings, especially her family, and then share her firm faith in Jesus Christ.
The months turned into years, and soon it was time for Jenni to graduate from seminary. I remember the love I felt for her as she awkwardly walked up to receive her diploma, and I realized all over again how she had blessed my life. As the ceremony and the meeting ended, I encountered Jenni’s mother at the back of the chapel. Her eyes watered as she said something like this: “You’ll never know what you’ve done for my little girl.”
I replied, “Oh, not me. Look around,” as I pointed to Jenni’s classmates. “They’re the ones.”
Jenni’s classmates helped her realize what a wonderful person she is. They’re the ones who included her in their circle of friends and helped her feel like she belonged. They’re the ones who saw through her disability to the special needs of her heart—a young woman wanting to be accepted and understood. They’re the ones who came to see into the beauty of her soul, the ones who helped perform a modern-day miracle—the miracle of Jenni.

A man I know was in a terrible car accident when he was a teenager. He was lucky to survive, and because of the wreck, had to undergo extensive plastic surgery on his face. After a year of operations, the work was finally done, and his life returned to normal.
When he went back to school, his friends immediately noticed that his nose didn’t look quite the same as it had before the accident. They promptly nicknamed him “rubbernose.”
“They called me rubbernose all the time,” he recalls, “just teasing of course. Naturally, I laughed right along with them, never complaining, never asking them to stop. But every time they called me that, it hurt. I’ve never forgotten it.”

One day I saw my oldest son, Wilford, preparing a tithing envelope. He was probably around five years old at the time. Wilford didn’t earn any money, so I wondered why he was paying tithing. When I asked him, he told me he was actually paying a fast offering.
Wilford didn’t have much money of his own. But he was still excited to pay a fast offering.
I was impressed by this act of kindness. I asked him why he had decided to do this.
Wilford answered, “I don’t need anything. But I know others do.” He knew his money would help people. He was very happy about that.
This simple experience taught me a good lesson: children are really in tune with the Spirit and have a natural Christlike love. Wilford had something he didn’t need and knew it would be helpful to other people. He was willing to make the sacrifice.
Saving money is good. But my young son taught me another lesson through his example. By listening to the Spirit, we can bless the lives of others when we share what we have.