Gospel Story Finder

One thing that happens in Anne of Green Gables is that the main character has to cut off her hair after trying to dye it. I recently cut my hair short too, but for a different reason. My mom and I read in the newspaper that you can donate hair for wigs for people who are sick or don’t have hair. A couple of women in our branch had cancer and lost their hair, and I have an uncle and a cousin with a medical condition that makes their hair fall out. Thinking of them made me want to help. So I grew my hair out for more than a year and cut off nine inches to donate. Now some of my friends are donating their hair too!

This wasn’t the first time William faced such a choice. Just a few years earlier, when he was 18, William’s music career was just taking off. Then came the choice to set it aside for two years to serve a mission. For William, standing up for the right plays an even bigger role in his life than music—and that’s saying something.
Trained as a classical pianist, William displayed incredible talent as a performer and composer early on. He didn’t come from a musical home, but his parents recognized his interest in piano at the age of four, and from then on music became his refuge, creative outlet, and almost constant companion.
He began performing publicly at age 12 and was well known for his talent in his hometown of Phoenix, Arizona, by the time he was 18. That’s when William faced his first major choice between right and wrong.
“I was very into music in high school, and I always just thought a mission was not for me,” William says.
Then he was asked to play the piano in sacrament meeting at his cousin’s ward. He says at the time he wasn’t feeling the Spirit strongly in his life and was only going to Church out of respect for his parents. He says, “I showed up, and I remember seeing a couple there, and they were just glowing. I couldn’t stop looking at them, they were so happy.”
William overheard the couple discussing how they had just been sealed in the temple the day before. He says, “I was just awestruck by how happy they seemed and how righteous they looked. I thought to myself, ‘I want that; I want to marry a righteous girl in the temple.’”
But given the current strength of his testimony, William had doubts about the possibility of his goal. “I thought, ‘How will I ever do that? Someone like that would only want a returned missionary.’ And right when I thought that, it hit me. It was overwhelming. All of a sudden, music didn’t matter; my career didn’t matter; nothing mattered. And I knew for sure that’s what I had to do. I needed to go on a mission, and I’d be blessed if I did.”
William says he recognized the change that had taken place in him by the music he was drawn to. “After that meeting, after that incredible, spiritual experience, I got in my car, and I had this rock music blasting. That music felt so disruptive, so loud and just ugly and wrong. That was the experience that changed my life.”

I don't know how I can possibly convey to you, dear students, the feelings that enter my heart as Sister Hammond and I return to this remarkable campus.
Almost everything has changed since that incredible Fall of 1951. There were really only two structures of any significance here then, the old Gym and the Spori building.
I was completely intimidated by the ponderous size of the student body, a whopping 384 eager bodies, scattered through the four academic levels. Some of you might smile at my timidity, until I reveal to you that there were only six of us in my graduating class from high school. My children were very impressed with the fact that their father was the salutatorian of his graduating class- then they found his yearbook.
Although slightly nervous with the prospect of entering college, I still felt great surges of exhilaration and anticipation because I had come to play basketball! I live for basketball! After a rather remarkable high school career, Ricks College gave me a scholarship to do the thing that I loved most - play ball. Nothing could have been better! I was on top of the world!
That summer I had worked on a section crew for the Union Pacific Railroad swinging a spike mall and shoveling gravel. I felt strong and healthy, besides the pay was good and I had saved nearly every penny that I had earned - more than $1500.00.
It was in late October. Another athlete and I had found part-time work loading beets onto railroad cars at a facility just south of Rexburg. We had finished our shift, jumped on his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and started back toward town. I sat behind him on the bike. The night was stormy, windy and cold. Rain with intermittent snow blew into our faces making it extremely difficult to see anything ahead of us. Then it happened!
A car traveling south on Highway 91 began a left turn at the Lyman junction. It was not his fault. He could not see us. We slammed head-first into the grill of that car. Still to this day, I sometimes see in my minds eye those two head-lights getting closer, closer and closer and hearing that horrible mind-shattering crash.
As though from a sling-shot, I was catapulted over that car. My right foot was thrust through the wind-shield, nearly cutting the foot off. Then, I flew more than seventy feet through the air, finally landing on my back in the middle of the highway. I tried to get up! I wanted to run! Frantically, my arms lifted my body slightly up from the wet pavement, but it was no use, my pelvis was broken and my back and legs battered and twisted. I slumped back down. I was cold. I began to slip in and out of consciousness.
At the hospital the doctors debated whether to amputate my injured foot or try to save it. An inspired priesthood blessing was given by my father and my bishop. In that blessing, I was told that my foot would heal and that eventually, I would be able to walk and run again. Following the blessing, my wonderful mother informed the physicians that she would not allow them to amputate, that they were to sew the torn foot together and the Lord would do the rest. I am so grateful today, for the power of the priesthood and the absolute faith of a mother. In the days that followed, the reality of my horrible situation became shockingly apparent.
For two months I lay, virtually immobile, in a hospital bed in St. Anthony, Idaho. Just before my eighteenth birthday in mid-December I returned home. Christmas that year was not a happy one. My basketball scholarship was revoked. I had missed a full semester of school. All the money I had saved was gone. The prospect of six months on crutches had left me discouraged and miserable.
But, miracles do happen! The tender mercies of Jesus Christ are extended to His children! In the succeeding months my mangled foot did heal! I returned to Ricks in the Fall of '52' and actually I played ball on the Junior Varsity team. I met a beautiful girl who changed the entire prospect of my life. She encouraged me to serve a mission, assuring me that she would wait faithfully for those two and half years while I preached the gospel to the Spanish-speaking people in Texas and New Mexico.
My whole attitude changed in the mission field! Out of tragedy and pain, depressed, and beaten there emerged in me an inner Spirit of excitement - a desire to move forward and upward, to learn, to progress, and to accomplish something of worth to the Lord and to His Church. The Holy Ghost came into my life. I discovered that I loved to teach the gospel. I found immense joy in my interaction with the Mexican people.
After returning home, that wonderful girl, who by the way had waited faithfully, and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple. And so began our journey in life together, not without its bumps, but an UPWARD journey of joy and gladness.

Harriet and her parents recently moved from their home near Melbourne to the countryside near Mornington, farther down the peninsula. Moving can be difficult for any teen. Even though Harriet had lived in several wards, moving was still a little scary and intimidating. But it has all worked out. “My new seminary class is just the ward group. We meet every day during the school year at 6:30 a.m. At first, I was really nervous, but somehow I just fit in. For an activity, we went on a fishing trip. The theme was becoming fishers of men. Before I went on the trip, I hadn’t seen any of the group. I didn’t even want to go. But everyone was really nice and talkative, especially Naomi and Leirosa. Then Young Women just grew. Some others moved in about the same time, and now we have a big group.”

The first time Kirby Orme of the St. Charles Second Ward really talked to Brandy Easton, he told her the story of Helaman and the 2,000 warriors.
Interesting, she thought, but strange timing. For one thing, she didn’t know Kirby well. For another, she and some friends had just stopped by.
“Somebody asked him about the Book of Mormon,” Brandy says. “And he told us his favorite story. You can’t help but be drawn into it. I was really impressed with that.”
Brandy wanted to hear more. And she liked Kirby’s family. There was something different about them.
“They were so close and they did so many things together. I wanted that for me,” she says softly.
A short time later, Brandy heard some anti-Mormon statements. She went to the Ormes to ask if the things she had heard were true. They gave her a Book of Mormon and bore their testimonies. Kirby’s younger brother Jared also answered a lot of questions over the phone.
“Something was guiding me on. I knew I was doing something right for the first time in a long, long time,” Brandy explains. The Ormes could sense the Holy Ghost at work.
“I knew she was feeling the Spirit,” Jared says. “I knew she would be fine.”
Brandy started taking the discussions. “My parents raised me with strong values, so much of what I was learning was already familiar.” But some things “didn’t make sense at first. I would go home crying, go in my room and pray, trying to understand.”
Finally one night she re-read Moroni 10:4–5 [Moro. 10:4–5]. “I felt calm, though the world seemed in a whirl. The promise came true—the Lord told me the Book of Mormon is true.”
Brandy told her parents she wanted to be baptized. “They said if I felt it was right, I could be. I told them I knew it was right. Before, when I made a mistake, I’d think, oh well, that’s life. Now I try to be an example to others.”
And her example has helped bring one of her best friends, Brandee Carter, into the Church. But that’s another story.

On the night of June 20, 2000, several colleagues and I were working late in the executive offices of then Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho. We were making final preparations for an unexpected and historic assembly on our campus the next morning and the announcement by President Hinckley that Ricks College would become a baccalaureate-degree-granting institution and take on the name of Brigham Young University–Idaho. As an administrative team we were just beginning to realize the monumental nature of the responsibility and challenges that were before us.

As we walked out of the building that night, one of my colleagues asked, “President, are you scared?” As best as I can recall, I answered something like this: “If I thought we had to execute this transition relying exclusively upon our own experience and our own judgment, then I would be terrified. But we will have help from heaven. Because we know who is in charge and that we are not alone, then no, I am not scared.” And we who serve at BYU–Idaho unitedly testify that there has been help from heaven, miracles have occurred, revelations have been received, doors have been opened, and we have been greatly blessed as individuals and as an institution.

In early January, I spoke with my branch president about receiving a recommend and eventually entering the temple. I was eager to achieve this goal.
In August, I obtained a limited-use recommend and was able to visit the baptistry with the youth of my branch. I was baptized for my two uncles and maternal grandfather. I also started taking the temple preparation class in anticipation of receiving my endowment. Until then I continued visiting the temple and participating in baptisms.
Finally, on November 2, 2019, I entered the temple with my fiancée, and we walked out as husband and wife, sealed together for time and eternity. Words cannot express the spirit that attended this great occasion. My wife and I continued to attend the temple. We had many precious and sacred experiences until the worldwide temple closure in 2020 due to COVID-19.
Sister and Brother Mncwabe (center) on the day of their sealing, with family members.
Photograph courtesy of the Mncwabe family

My third example highlights the importance of recognizing and accepting the will of God in our lives. Several years ago there was a young father who had been active in the Church as a boy but had chosen a different path during his teenage years. After serving in the military, he married a lovely girl, and soon children blessed their home.

One day without warning their little four-year-old daughter became critically ill and was hospitalized. In desperation and for the first time in many years, the father was found on his knees in prayer, asking that the life of his daughter be spared. Yet her condition worsened. Gradually this father sensed that his little girl would not live, and slowly his prayers changed; he no longer prayed for healing but rather for understanding. “Let Thy will be done” was now the manner of his pleadings.

Soon his daughter was in a coma, and the father knew her hours on earth were few. Fortified with understanding, trust, and power beyond their own, the young parents prayed again, asking for the opportunity to hold her close once more while she was awake. The daughter’s eyes opened, and her frail arms reached out to her parents for one final embrace. And then she was gone. This father knew their prayers had been answered—a kind, compassionate Father in Heaven had comforted their hearts. God’s will had been done, and they had gained understanding. (Adapted from H. Burke Peterson, “Adversity and Prayer,” Ensign, Jan. 1974, 18.)

The intimidating part of preparing to be with you this morning is shared in a very brief story of an experience Sister Banks and I had while touring one of the missions in the southern part of the Philippines several years ago. After one of the zone conference meetings, the mission president’s wife, who was a local Filipino sister, came to me and with some hesitation said, “I hope I will not offend you, President, but I thought perhaps you would like to know you were using some words we don’t use or understand here in the Philippines.”

I assured her that she would not offend me and that I would appreciate her sharing with me what she meant. The Philippines is often referred to as an English-speaking country, but that is true only to a certain extent. The sweet wife of the mission president, Sister Amistad, then proceeded to tell me, “President, you used the word photograph today. In the Philippines, we really don’t understand what photograph means. What you really mean is ‘picture.’” Then she said, “Another word you used throughout the meeting was bashful.” (I had invited the missionaries to participate with me and not be bashful.) She said, “I went home and looked up in the dictionary what bashful meant, and what you really meant is ‘shy’ and ‘timid.’”

I thanked her for sharing this with me and asked her in our meeting the next day if she would write down all the words I used that would not be understood by the Filipinos. She hesitated at first, but with my encouragement she said she would. The next day she produced another 20 words, and I have tried to adapt my vocabulary accordingly.

The intimidating factor I mentioned earlier is that I really believe I have lost much of my vocabulary in the many years I have been gone in trying to learn to converse in understandable terms with the wonderful people we have been blessed to live with throughout the world.

I can promise you that by sharing your time, effort, and ability you’ll leave yourself and others richer. This year I gave my mom a certificate for helping with the spring cleaning. After a full day of scouring walls, scrubbing floors, washing windows, and ironing curtains, I told her it would be much easier just to buy a nice present. “Yes,” she said, “but it wouldn’t be appreciated as much.” And I knew that it wouldn’t be my last “gift certificate” after all.

A few years after Henry Bennion Eyring became president of Ricks College (now Brigham Young University–Idaho), he was offered a high-paying, prestige-filled job in southern California.
“It sounds like a great opportunity,” President Spencer W. Kimball told him as Henry described the offer and its benefits. “If we ever needed you, we would know where you were.”
Henry had expected President Kimball, his uncle, to ask him to stay on at Ricks. Instead, it became obvious that Henry and his wife, Kathleen, were to pray and fast about their decision, which they did. Within a week, the Spirit whispered to Henry that he would have the privilege of staying at Ricks College “a little longer.”
He called Jeffrey R. Holland, then Commissioner of the Church Educational System, and told him that he had turned down the job offer. That evening Henry received a phone call from President Kimball.
“I understand you’ve decided to stay,” said President Kimball.
“Yes,” replied Henry.
“Do you think you’ve made a sacrifice?” asked President Kimball.
“No,” said Henry.
“That’s right!” President Kimball assured him. With that, President Kimball ended the conversation.

Later as he related the story of his conversion, I realized that Alex’s pain and sorrow had been difficult, but they also helped him become humble enough to bend his knees and ask for help. Alex explained: “One night when my burdens were too heavy to carry, I remembered the words of a good friend who had reminded me that I could always pray for help. That night I decided to give it a try. There was not another door open to me, and since my mom had taught me how to pray, I kneeled down and closed my eyes. As I started to plead for help, the most wonderful feeling came over me. I’ll never forget that feeling; I felt the pure love of Christ. I felt that my problems were taken away from me. My desperate feelings haven’t come back since, and I have been blessed with a testimony of Jesus Christ. My heart was changed, and I desired to follow Jesus Christ.”

As a young girl, my grandmother Chasty Olsen Harris was tending some children who were playing in a dry riverbed near their home in Castle Dale, Utah. Suddenly she heard a voice that called her by name and directed her to get the children out of the riverbed and up on the bank. It was a clear day, and there was no sign of rain. She saw no reason to heed the voice and continued to play. The voice spoke to her again, urgently. This time she heeded the warning. Quickly gathering the children, she made a run for the bank. Just as they reached the bank, an enormous wall of water, originating with a cloudburst in the mountains many miles away, swept down the canyon and roared across where the children had played.
8. The eighth purpose or type of revelation consists of those instances where the Spirit impels a person to action.
This is not a case where a person proposes to take a particular action and the Spirit either confirms or restrains. This is a case where revelation comes when it is not being sought and impels some action not proposed. This type of revelation is obviously less common than other types, but its rarity makes it all the more significant.
Except for this type of impelling revelation, my grandmother and the children she was tending would have been lost in the river.

The words from Jacob 5:62, “Wherefore let us go to and labor with our might” described Bishop Musaka’s efforts as well. He drove to the Church on the weekends, rolled up his sleeves and labored diligently. He knew his members, understood their needs, and worked alongside them. As the bishop is also president of the priests quorum, he made sure that the priests were not left behind, and he invited them to work.

Brother Bonabol was among those who took heed of the bishop’s call. He took the responsibility to ensure there was food enough to provide for the members. He saw it as his priesthood duty, and he fulfilled it with honor.

Sister Omondi used to exercise every morning, running from her home to Uthiru. Then she thought there was something more she could do. She contacted Brother Vidonyi, who informed her there was work to be done in the shamba. That is how her morning run was alternated with work at the shamba.

Ward members who previously worked there had little training in planting, so Sister Omondi taught them how to dig and plough. She explained her experience this way: “I doubted if the groundnuts (peanuts) would grow, but they did and despite growing the potatoes in the wrong format, they caught root.” Sister Omondi’s main responsibility was to water the plants and she learned her duty and acted in her appointed office with strict obedience.

As much as it was a learning opportunity for Brother Omondi, he also taught others. The soil at the church was not foreign to him and he understood what would flourish best in the shamba.

Sister Mahindi was concerned about her daughter’s illness but she trusted that she could take her mind off of that. She felt that by busily working at the shamba, things would get better—and they did. She gained comfort and peace as her daughter recovered.

Bishop Mukasa made it possible for the members to irrigate the plants. He made sure there were enough pipes to use as they still waited for the water sprinklers. He described, “As the plants need water to be nourished, the members also need nourishment from the holy scriptures.” The plants couldn’t go a day without water, just as members shouldn’t go a day without studying their scriptures.

Missionaries also managed to bring investigators to come work in the shamba. What a privilege those investigators were given to receive the restored gospel at the same time they received food from the garden in which they had worked.

Finally, the day came when the rewards were quite visible and abundant. The Mountain View Ward members’ hard work proved itself. There was an abundance of food, ranging from bananas to mboga to beans and they are about to harvest the maize. It was clear that the members’ aim wasn’t for instant gratification. They understood that in all harvests, some blessings don’t come until later, so they chose to be patient with the sweet potatoes and cassava.

As I worked in the shamba and saw it progress, I noted the change in myself. If the plant tamed by the Master came out as He desired, can I also involve the Lord and allow Him to guide me to reach my potential and live within my privileges? My lesson from the shamba is a resounding, “Yes!”

Young Women in the Scotch Plains Ward, Morristown New Jersey Stake, went out on a limb for scripture study. What started out as a project for the “Experiment upon the Word” program has turned into a growing tradition.
Each girl set a goal for personal scripture study and wrote it on a piece of fruit made from construction paper. For each week that she reached her goal, every girl put a leaf on the tree, which is now loaded with them!
“Reading the scriptures has helped me in my life. It has made me feel more peaceful, and it has given me more faith in the gospel,” says one Beehive.
“Experiment upon the Word” has ended, but the girls in Scotch Plains are still adding leaves to their tree and building testimonies that are firmly rooted in the scriptures.

While my family and I were saying family prayer, I felt something I had never felt before. I felt this feeling when my mom was praying for a visitor of ours to be guided and protected. The feeling was warm and good. I felt that Heavenly Father would help me in my life and that He loves me. Lately I’ve been tempted with bad thoughts about the Church, but after feeling this good feeling, I feel good. I feel I have my own testimony now. I know the Church is true. I know Joseph Smith translated the golden plates and that they are the words of Heavenly Father. I felt the Holy Ghost tell me that, and I know it’s true.
Alex M., age 7, Utah, USA

In 1837, two years after being ordained an Apostle, Elder Heber C. Kimball was sitting in the Kirtland Temple when the Prophet Joseph Smith whispered to him that the Lord wanted him to go on a mission to England. He would be the first missionary sent outside North America.
“The idea of such a mission was almost more than I could bear up under. I was almost ready to sink under the burden which was placed upon me,” Elder Kimball said. But he accepted the call and went to England—even leaping from the boat upon his arrival in Liverpool. “The moment I understood the will of my heavenly Father, I felt a determination to go at all hazards, believing that He would support me by His almighty power, and endow me with every qualification that I needed” (see History of the Church, 2:489–90).
Elder Kimball’s mission opened the door to much success in England over the next several years, as thousands of people accepted the gospel and became a great strength to the Church.

Others, like Brother Thach, risk capture and death by traveling from Vietnam in the south, northward through Cambodia to neutral Thailand. With Brother Thach was his wife, Minhdan, three-year-old daughter, Minhvan, and a nephew, eight-year-old Khaivien. Brother Thach says, “Khaivien’s father was unable to pay the price to get his wife and six children out of Vietnam. He asked me to take the boy. Even though it meant giving up their oldest son, he and his wife felt that at least one of their children should have a chance at freedom.”
The journey through Cambodia was arranged with the help of a “guide” who charged Brother Thach one and one half taels of gold, approximately equivalent to his entire earnings for eighteen months. Brother Thach worked hard to save the money, accumulating the funds secretly so as not to arouse the suspicions of the authorities. Finally prepared, after selling the family’s meager possessions to relatives and friends, the group left on a moonless night in March, 1981, praying that they would be successful in their venture.
Brother Thach knows that their prayers were answered. Although they were Vietnamese citizens, he and his wife shared a Cambodian heritage and assumed the identity of Cambodians for their journey. “We were not always successful,” he recalls. “For instance, my wife dressed like a Cambodian woman, but one day we were questioned by someone who wondered why her sarong looked Vietnamese and not Cambodian. Even though the two countries have the same cultural background there is a difference in the style of sarong and in the way that it is worn. We gave some excuse or other, and we were allowed to go on our way.”
They were stopped several times by soldiers, but each time a small miracle occurred and they were free to continue. “One time,” says Brother Thach, “we were stopped at a checkpoint where there were two soldiers on guard; one of them Cambodian and the other Vietnamese. For some reason the Vietnamese soldier turned away and didn’t talk to us. The Cambodian soldier asked to see our identification papers. I decided to tell him the truth—where we were from and where we were going. He let us go. I’m sure we would have been detained had the Vietnamese soldier challenged us.”
The family also escaped other potential dangers—being attacked by robbers or getting caught in military skirmishes—as they made their way by overloaded and ancient buses, bicycles, ox-drawn cart, and railroad train to Batdambang south of the Thai-Cambodian border.
The train carrying them had to make frequent stops while repairs were made to railroad tracks damaged by land mines. Brother Thach explains, “To clear the tracks, the train crew would unhook the locomotive from the passenger cars and use it to push ahead a weighted freight car to set off any unexploded mines. Then they would repair the track. This took so long to do each time that all of us on the train were afraid we would be stranded without food.”
Brother Thach says that at one repair stop, “I left the train and prayed that the Lord would help me find food for my family. They had not had anything substantial to eat for some time. After walking for about two kilometers I came to a village. I went to a house at the edge of the village and asked a lady if I could buy some food from her. She cooked a pan of rice, packed it in a banana leaf, added a pinch of salt, and gave it to me.” He paid her and took the rice back to his wife and the two hungry children, not forgetting to thank the Lord.
The family finally arrived at the refugee camp in Batdambang, but because it was located in Cambodia, Brother Thach requested that they be transferred to safer refuge at Panat Nikom, Thailand, where they arrived in May, two months after leaving Vietnam. From Thailand, they relocated to the United States where Minhdan Thach was baptized. She now serves as a Relief Society counselor in the Taylorsville 40th (Vietnamese) Branch, Taylorsville Utah Central Stake. Brother Thach, second counselor in the branch elders quorum presidency, is now an electronic test technician with a national engineering and research company with a manufacturing plant and offices in Utah.

To demonstrate the kind of inner strength I am talking about, I would like to share the story of Susanna Stone Lloyd, who at the age of 26 left England in 1856 and traveled to Utah alone. The only member of her family to join the Church, Susanna was a member of the Willie handcart company. Like so many other pioneers, she endured life-threatening hunger, illness, and fatigue.
Upon arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, Susanna borrowed a mirror to make herself more presentable. Despite her best efforts, she recounts: “I shall never forget how I looked. Some of my old friends did not know me.” Having sold her own mirror to an Indian for a piece of buffalo meat, she had not spent much time looking at herself. Now she did not recognize her own image. She was a different person, both inside and out. Over the course of rocky ridges and extreme hardship came a deep conviction. Her faith had been tried, and her conversion was concrete. She had been refined in ways that the very best mirror could not reflect. Susanna had prayed for strength and found it—deep within her soul.
No matter our circumstances, who of us can afford to waste our life in front of the mirrors of self-pity and discouragement? Yes, as the Apostle Paul admonished, we all need to examine ourselves from time to time. We all need to repent, recognize our weaknesses, and more fully come unto Christ. Like Susanna, we may have to sell our looking glass in order to cross the plains of pain, sorrow, and discouragement. But as we do, we will discover God-given strengths that we may not have otherwise known.

Many years ago, on an assignment to the beautiful islands of Tonga, I was privileged to visit our Church school, the Liahona High School, where our youth are taught by teachers with a common bond of faith—providing training for the mind and preparation for life. On that occasion, entering one classroom, I noticed the rapt attention the children gave their native instructor. His textbook and theirs lay closed upon the desks. In his hand he held a strange-appearing fishing lure fashioned from a round stone and large seashells. This, I learned, was a maka-feke, an octopus lure. In Tonga, octopus meat is a delicacy.
The teacher explained that Tongan fishermen glide over a reef, paddling their outrigger canoes with one hand and dangling the maka-feke over the side with the other. An octopus dashes out from its rocky lair and seizes the lure, mistaking it for a much-desired meal. So tenacious is the grasp of the octopus and so firm is its instinct not to relinquish the precious prize that fishermen can flip it right into the canoe.
It was an easy transition for the teacher to point out to the eager and wide-eyed youth that the evil one—even Satan—has fashioned so-called maka-fekes with which to ensnare unsuspecting persons and take possession of their destinies.