Gospel Story Finder

Now I have a message that I hope to have inspiration to convey to you brethren. And I would like to tell of a little incident that happened to a great member of the Church in Germany, Karl G. Maeser, a great educator, a doctor of education, a man of great dignity and wisdom. It was he who founded Brigham Young University.
Under the direction of President Brigham Young he went to Provo, with the simple instruction that he was to found the university and to teach not even the multiplication tables without the Spirit of God. Beyond that, Brigham Young said, “Good luck and God bless you.” Brother Maeser had been converted here in Europe. This man of great dignity and prestige was a very humble man, and his attitude seems to me to characterize what we should be as holders of the priesthood.
I mention two incidents: On one occasion he was going with a group of young missionaries across the alps. They were crossing a high mountain pass on foot. There were long sticks stuck into the snow of the glacier to mark the path so that travelers could find their way safely across the glacier and down the mountain on the other side.
When they reached the summit, Brother Maeser wanted to teach the young elders a lesson. He stopped at the pinnacle of the mountain and pointed to those sticks that they had followed. And he said, “Brethren, behold the priesthood of God. They are just common old sticks, but it’s the position that counts. Follow them and you will surely be safe. Stray from them and you will surely be lost.” And so it is in the Church. We are called to leadership positions and given the power of the priesthood. And we are just common old sticks, but the position we are given counts. It is separate and apart from us, but while we hold it, we hold it.

“Hi, Mom,” Ben called as he rolled his bike into the garage. “Hi, Ben,” Mom answered. Closing the recycling bin, she turned to look at him, and her smile faded. “Where’s your helmet?” she asked.
Ben slid his bike into its place. “I don’t need it anymore.”
Mom’s eyebrows went up. “Ben, what is our family rule about helmets?”
Ben took a deep breath and slowly repeated: “If you’re riding your bike, you wear a helmet.”
Mom looked steadily at Ben until he squirmed. “But, Mom!” he protested.
“Please go inside. We’ll talk about it in a minute.”
Ben went in and sat down at the table. Pretty soon Mom and Dad joined him. “So, Ben, tell me about your helmet,” Dad began.
“Dad, I don’t need it anymore. I’m a great bike rider now.”
“You are a good bike rider,” Dad said. “But helmets aren’t just for beginners. I’ve been riding a bicycle for many years. Do I wear a helmet?”
“Yes, you do,” Ben admitted. “But the kids at school think only babies wear helmets.”
“Oh,” Mom said. “So it isn’t cool to wear one?”
“No, it’s not!” Ben exclaimed.
“Ben, do you know why we have the helmet rule?” Dad asked.
“To make me look stupid?” Ben answered with a wry smile.
Dad chuckled. “No. For exactly the opposite reason. It’s to help keep that brain of yours safe.”
“As a matter of fact,” Mom added, “every rule, whether it’s a family rule or one of Heavenly Father’s commandments, is given to help us be safe and happy.”
“But having kids make fun of me for keeping the rule doesn’t make me happy,” Ben complained.
Dad thought for a moment. “Sometimes we have to be obedient even when other people make fun of us for it. I know that in the long run you’ll be happier because you obey.”
Mom looked Ben in the eyes. “Ben, this wasn’t the first time you went riding without your helmet, was it?”
Ben’s shoulders drooped. “No,” he admitted.
“Thank you for being honest,” Dad said. “Your Mom and I both feel that it is very important that you obey our family rules. You’ve broken this one. What do you think a good consequence would be?”
Ben was quiet for several long moments. “Maybe a time-out from my bike?” he said at last.
Dad nodded. “That sounds fair. I think maybe it should be long enough to help you remember the rule. How about until the end of summer?”
Ben groaned.
“OK,” Mom said. “When school starts, you get your bike back.”
As the sunny days of August went by, Ben often looked wistfully at his bike hanging on the garage wall. “Next time I’ll obey the rule,” he told himself. He remembered what Mom had said about obedience helping people be happy. “Well,” he thought, “It’s true that I’ll be happy when I can ride my bike again, even if someone makes fun of me.”
When school began, Mom helped Ben lift the bike down. First he checked the tires and oiled the chain. Then he picked up his helmet, adjusted the fit, and snapped it onto his head. It felt great to be riding again!
One bright sunny afternoon in December, Ben was riding home from school. When he came to an intersection he stopped and looked carefully both ways. But a young lady who had just learned to drive turned right without looking or stopping. The bumper of her car struck Ben’s bike and sent him flying headfirst into the sidewalk.
A neighbor who saw the accident called Mom. As she ran down the street, she heard a siren and saw the ambulance. “Ben!” she shouted.
“I’m here, Mom.”
Two paramedics were checking Ben. “Your son is going to be just fine,” one of them said. “He was wearing this, and it saved his life.” He handed her Ben’s helmet. There was a big dent in it.
Mom gave Ben a long hug. “I’m glad you were wearing your helmet today,” she whispered.
“Me too,” he said. “Obeying the rules really does help keep me safe and happy.”

When Heber J. Grant was a young man, he worked for an insurance agent, Mr. H. R. Mann. He treated Heber like a son.
Mr. Mann: Heber, why don’t you go to the baseball game this afternoon and then come tell me about it during supper?
Heber: Thanks, Mr. Mann!
Besides working for Mr. Mann, Heber earned money writing greeting cards and wedding invitations. He stayed at the office late into the evening, spreading his greeting cards on his large office desk to let the ink dry.
On New Year’s Eve, Mr. Mann’s partner, Mr. Wadsworth, found Heber still busy at the office writing greeting cards.
Mr. Wadsworth: Heber, what on earth are you doing?
Heber: Getting my cards ready to sell tomorrow.
Mr. Wadsworth: You are the only one I’m going to give a New Year’s present to. You seem to enjoy work while most of the other boys watch the clock to see how soon they can leave.
Heber: Wow! A hundred dollars?
Heber later said that knowing he had earned the confidence of his employer meant much more to him than the money. It inspired him to succeed in business and in the community.
As prophet, he taught young people to be hard workers too.
Heber: Be inspired with a desire to labor and learn, and you will achieve success in the battle of life.

While living in Winter Quarters, she and her brother went down the Missouri River to purchase provisions and clothing. They had two wagons, each having two yoke of oxen. Camping for the night, they discovered in the morning that their two best oxen were gone. Young Joseph and his uncle spent the entire morning looking for the lost animals. They found nothing. Disheartened, he returned to tell his mother. Their situation was desperate, terribly so. As he approached, he saw her on her knees praying fervently, speaking with the Lord about their problem. When she arose to her feet, there was a smile on her face. She told her son and her brother to get their breakfast and she would look around. Following a little stream of water, and disregarding the words of a man who was in the area, she went directly along the bank of the river.
Pausing, she called to her son and brother. She pointed to their oxen, which had been tied to a clump of willows growing in the bottom of a deep gulch. The thief, who had tried to misdirect her, lost his prize and they were saved.

Mary’s faith imprinted itself in her son’s boyish heart. He never forgot it. He never doubted her closeness to the Lord.

Emotionally and spiritually, I was about ready to hit rock bottom, but I wouldn’t admit it to myself. Nor would I face the fact that I was the cause of my own troubles. I kept thinking that I’d be okay. I kept trying to ignore the consequences of my actions. I blamed others for the growing emptiness and discontent I felt.
Activities with one group of friends were pulling me away from the Lord, my family, my testimony, and my prayers. I didn’t feel worthy to pray. The prayers I did offer were hollow. I knew they wouldn’t make it past the ceiling. I was also pulling away from my best friend, Ann. But she wouldn’t let go.
She stopped by to see me one day after school, and we went outside to talk. She pointedly asked, “How are you?”
“Good,” I shot back a bit defensively, conscious of my poor choice of grammar, which matched my rebellious mood.
“Just how good are you?” she pushed.
Without thinking I blurted out a phrase I had picked up from my new group of friends. “Good enough for who I’m for!”
Often, instead of doing their best, they did just enough to get by. “It’s good enough for who it’s for,” was their common cliche.
As soon as my words escaped my lips I wanted to recall them. They echoed through the emptiness I felt.
“Are you really?” Ann queried.
The words stung bitterly as questions raced through my mind. “Who was I really for? And what was I good for? Was I still for the Lord?” It didn’t even seem like I was for myself anymore. It was time to take a good hard look at myself. Now when I look back on that confrontation, I thank the Lord for a friend who wouldn’t allow me to push her away. Our conversation caused me to reflect upon where I was and who I was for. It caused me to begin to make some major changes in my life.
I decided I would be for the Lord. I would work for his cause and to fulfill his purposes. Now I know who I’m for, but I’m still working on being good enough for who I’m for.

The glacier glows from deep within, pulling scarce light from a gray day and turning it an eerie blue. Mostly, the glacier is dirty white. But from parts of the vertical face comes faint, cold blue fire. “Ice blue” is a real color.
At the glacier’s foot a shallow lake of ice melt is dotted with an occasional miniature iceberg. A stream of glacial water tumbles into the lake with a distant, dull rumble. It’s the only sound you hear until—
Splash! “Whoop!” Someone has just jumped into the lake. Or fallen. Or been pulled. Youth of the Juneau Alaska District are holding their annual games on the sandy shore. Relays rage back and forth across a shallow inlet. Put on hip boots, wade-run through thigh-high ice water, take off the boots and hand them to a teammate for the return trip. Splash! Someone else has tried to run too fast. Again, a sharp intake of breath and “whoop!”
Soon, a stout rope is drawn across the same inlet and the teams take sides, muscles straining, heels dug into the sand. Rhythmic chants of “pull … pull … pull” echo across the lake. Inch by inch the losing team is drawn toward the incredibly cold water.
Incredibly, too, some of the youth who didn’t get wet in the relay or tug-of-war give berserk yells and wade into the bone-chilling water for the sheer daring of it. Afterward, when everyone has dried off and is back at the chapel warming up, the kids explain. It’s not insanity, just enthusiasm.

“Hey, Willard, we’ve got a favor to ask of you,” I mentioned one afternoon as we were changing the oil in Brad’s car. “We’re in charge of a dinner over at the church this weekend.” I shrugged and felt my cheeks turn red. “The kids in the ward are putting on a dinner for some senior citizens. Now I don’t mean that we think you’re a senior citizen or anything like that,” I quickly added, “but we wanted you there. Will you come?”
Willard looked up. His eyes went to each one of us, and then he stared down into the car’s engine. For a long time he didn’t speak. Slowly he pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped his hands. A feeble smile on his lips. “The last time I was in church was when my wife died. That’s been more than three years. And it was a lot longer before that. There have been times when I wanted to go back, but I couldn’t think of a good enough reason. And there’s nobody there I know.”
“You’ve got an excuse now. We’re having good food. And you know us. We’ll be there,” I pointed out.
“Why would you want me to go to a nice, fancy dinner with you?” he asked without looking at us.
For a moment I didn’t answer, pondering the question. “Because you’re our friend,” I answered simply.
He shook his head. “I don’t know if I could. People would stare. They’d wonder why—”
“You’ll be with us,” Brad spoke up. “The whole time. We promise.”
We all waited, holding our breath. Willard thought for a long time. Finally his face softened into a smile and he said, “Well, I’ll think about it.”
The night of the dinner I was nervous. Brad had promised to bring Willard while Chris and I helped get things ready at the church.
“Did you invite anyone tonight?” Brother Loder asked as I was carrying food from the kitchen to the serving table in the cultural hall.
“Willard Watts.”
Brother Loder sighed. “When are you going to get over this Willard Watts idea?” He smiled and shook his head. “The day you get old Willard inside this church I’ll buy you the biggest meal you’ve ever had in your life.”
Just then Chris and Brad came through the doors on the far side of the cultural hall with Willard between them. Brother Loder had his back to them so he didn’t see them approach until they were right behind him. When he turned around, his jaw almost dropped to the floor he was so surprised.
“Brother Loder,” I started out, “I’d like you to meet a good friend of ours, Brother Watts.”
For a moment Brother Loder could hardly speak. Then he held out his hand and greeted Willard. “I’ve heard a lot about you,” he stammered. “The boys here have talked about you a lot.” He looked at the three of us and then back to Willard. “I guess I can believe everything they’ve told me.”
Willard nodded his head. “They’re good boys. I think you can believe what they say.”
As Brad and Chris led Willard away, Brother Loder turned to me and muttered, “I would have never believed it. I guess I owe you a big dinner.”
I shook my head and struggled to control my emotions. “Forget it,” I smiled. “Some things you don’t do to win a meal.”

As a father I was blessed to see great futures in God’s kingdom for my daughters as well as my sons. When I prayerfully sought guidance, I was shown a way to help my daughters recognize the trust God had placed in them as servants who could build His kingdom.

When my daughters were young, I saw that we could help others feel the love of those beyond the veil, throughout the generations. I knew that love comes from service and inspires hope of life eternal.

So we carved breadboards on which we placed a loaf of homemade bread and went together to deliver our offering to widows, widowers, and families. The legend I carved on each of those breadboards read, “J’aime et J’espere,” French for “I love and I hope.” The evidence of their unique spiritual gifts appeared not just on the boards I carved but more clearly as we distributed them to those who needed, in the midst of pain or loss, reassurance that the love of the Savior and His Atonement could produce a perfect brightness of hope. This is life eternal for my daughters and for each of us.

Now, you may be thinking, “Brother Eyring, are you saying that I have to learn how to carve?” The answer is no. I learned to carve only with the help of a kind and gifted mentor, then-Elder Boyd K. Packer. What little skill I achieved can be attributed to his great gift as a carver and his patience as a teacher. Only heaven can provide such a mentor as President Packer. But there are many ways you can shape children’s hearts without carving wooden boards or height boards for them.

For example, new communication technologies allow sharing messages of faith and hope across the miles that separate us, instantaneously and at little or no cost. My wife helps me do this. We begin by talking by telephone with grandchildren or children we can reach. We ask them to share stories of their personal successes and their service rendered. We also invite them to send photos of those activities. We use those photos to illustrate a few paragraphs of text. We add one or two verses from the Book of Mormon. Perhaps Nephi and Mormon wouldn’t be very impressed by the spiritual quality of our content or the limited effort required to create what we call “The Family Journal: The Small Plates.” But Sister Eyring and I are blessed by the effort. We feel inspired in selecting the passages of scripture and the brief messages of testimony we write. And we see evidence in their lives of their hearts being turned toward us and to the Savior and upward.

There are other ways to reach out; you are already engaged in many of them. Your habits of family prayer and scripture reading will create more lasting memories and greater changes of heart than you may realize now. Even apparently temporal activities, such as attending an athletic event or watching a movie, can shape a child’s heart. What matters is not the activity but the feelings that come as you do it. I have discovered a good test for identifying activities with the potential to make a great difference in a young person’s life. It is that they suggest the activity out of an interest they feel has come to them as a gift from God. I know that is possible from my own experience.

When I became a deacon at the age of 12, I lived in New Jersey, 50 miles (80 km) from New York City. I dreamed of being a great baseball player. My father agreed to take me to see a game played in the old and storied Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx. I can still see the swing of the bat as Joe DiMaggio hit a home run into the center field stands with my father sitting beside me, the only time we ever went to a major league baseball game together.

But another day with my father shaped my life forever. He took me from New Jersey to the home of an ordained patriarch in Salt Lake City. I had never seen the man before. My father left me at the doorstep. The patriarch led me to a chair, placed his hands on my head, and pronounced a blessing as a gift from God that included a declaration of the great desire of my heart.

He said that I was one of those of whom it had been said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”6 I was so surprised that a perfect stranger could know my heart that I opened my eyes to see the room where such a miracle was happening. That blessing of my possibilities has shaped my life, my marriage, and my priesthood service.

From that experience and what has followed it, I can testify, “For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God.”7

By the Lord revealing to me a gift, I have been able to recognize and prepare for opportunities to exercise it to the blessing of those I love and serve.

God knows our gifts. My challenge to you and to me is to pray to know the gifts we have been given, to know how to develop them, and to recognize the opportunities to serve others that God provides us. But most of all, I pray that you will be inspired to help others discover their special gifts from God to serve.

I promise you that if you ask, you will be blessed to help and lift others to their full potential in the service of those they lead and love. I testify to you that God lives, Jesus is the Christ, this is the priesthood of God, which we hold, and God has prepared us with special gifts to serve Him beyond our fondest hopes. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

When the Civil War erupted, Louisa felt a need to do her part. In 1862, she moved to Washington, D.C., and served as a nurse in the Union Army. She worked hard and got very little sleep because of her concern for the wounded soldiers. She became a trusted friend of many of the young patients. However, after only a few weeks at the hospital, Louisa became very ill with typhoid fever. Her father arrived in time to take her back home, where fresh air, rest, and her mother’s care helped her to recover. Later Louisa compiled the letters that she had written to her family from Washington about the suffering soldiers into a book called Hospital Sketches.

Brent Jones started it, but it was his little brother Scott who got the rest of us involved. Brent and his friends were graduating from Viewmont High School in Centerville, Utah, and soon they’d all be leaving on missions. They wanted to do one last thing together as a group. So Brent asked his dad Clarence, an avid backpacker, to take them to the Wind River Mountains in Wyoming. That was two years ago.
Brent’s younger brother Scott tagged along on that outing and made his father promise that he and his friends could have a similar trip the next year.
Then Scott’s friends added something new. They invited all of their dads, too. I’m one of those fathers. And by the time all the invitations were extended, there were 20 of us going to the mountains—five dads, eight sons, one son-in-law, and six friends.
Backpacking is nothing new to the Joneses. In that family the boys start hiking when they turn eight. But taking a group of 20 into the Wind Rivers would mean a lot of preparation. Such a trip isn’t just a holiday; it’s also a matter of survival.
“Great,” Scott Jones’s friends joked. “It’ll make our dads tougher.”
They soon found out it would make the boys tougher, too, not just in terms of physical endurance, but in terms of long-range planning and organization.
“I made up a menu,” Clarence said. “But I wanted the boys to have the experience of putting the trip together, so I told them they had to collect the money and buy the supplies.”
Each person’s pack would weigh 40 pounds, including tent, sleeping bag, fishing gear, and other essentials—like food!
Based on a budget of $20 per person (which included gas money for transportation as well), the Jones boys and their friends organized menus, assigned cooking groups, and packed the food in plastic bags marked with the day each meal would be eaten.
Before they left, the backpackers studied their route. Brother Jones, familiar with the trails in the Wind Rivers, only promised this: “It’ll be a character builder!”
The first day’s hike was tough, rising 2,000 feet in 10 miles. The trail was good, but mostly uphill. Blisters, sore feet, and aching muscles were common.
But the payoff was getting to the 10,500-foot plateau where the wilderness landscape is magnificent. Stately pine trees, distant rugged peaks, grassy meadows, rivers, streams, cliffs, and huge boulders formed the panorama.
“The beauty there is something you don’t find on the freeways,” said Dean Layton. “We had to earn it. We were just climbing a trail until we got the first ten miles behind us. Then we saw the real beauty.”
“It’s so untouched,” Dave Hill said, “so close to what I imagine creation looked like after the sixth day. You almost feel you shouldn’t talk, so you won’t destroy the sacredness of the environment.”
“You know it didn’t happen accidentally,” Joseph Nelson said.
Brother Jones kept us moving from one adventure to another—another stream to fish in; another lake to camp by; another panoramic vista; and at different times, storms rolling across mountain ridges, their lightning silhouetting black trees against a black sky.
But it wasn’t just the beauty of the place that made our trip delightful. It was the shared experience between fathers and sons. When you have the opportunity to be together and depend on each other for days at a time, there’s no bluffing, no phoniness. You see each other as you really are.
For example, this was the first time Ryan and Merrill Layton had been together, one-on-one, on an extended trip.
“I’m not sure how well I knew Ryan until we went on this trip,” Merrill, the father, said. “My son really is as ‘laid back’ as everyone says he is. He doesn’t take little things too seriously or let things bother him too much. It’s a great attribute, and I’m glad I got to see him in that light.”
“We learned that we can count on each other,” Rich Layton said of his trip with his father. “We’re close, but this was just one more experience to bond our relationship together.”
My own sons, Joseph, Jonathan, and Joshua, told me they learned more about me just by sharing a tent and talking. They told me about experiences they’ve had growing up; I told them about mine. We weren’t only tentmates and trail partners, we became closer as father and sons.
I think the Joneses knew these kinds of things would happen when they invited us. Like I said, they’ve been backpacking for years. In fact, the Jones boys have written letters about it.
Brent, now serving a mission in California, recalled his first trip—to Yellowstone—when he was eight years old:
“We missed our camping spot so we had to hike on. We ended up hiking 18 miles, and when we finally set up camp, we needed water. You told me I was the only one left with enough strength to go half a mile to get the water. You don’t know how important you made me feel.”
And Scott gave his father a letter at Christmas last year, thanking him for the “expeditions” over the years.
“I can’t think of anything better to do than to spend a week with you in the wilderness,” he wrote. “Every time I go I learn something new about you and myself.”
And Paul Jones told his father that “these trips are part of the cement that bonds us so closely together. They put us in an environment where a father and son feel close to each other and to Heavenly Father, too.”
The Jones boys feel that backpacking with their father, though not an official activity, is one of the best “Church” activities in which they can be involved. There’s no award given at the end of the trail. But the rewards are memories, the kind of memories that help build relationships; and closeness, the kind of closeness you experience when someone cares enough to spend time with you.
That being true, a lot of us think keeping up with the Joneses is an ideal thing to do.

I was grateful for that school year to end. The summer was a welcome escape from my old friends who didn’t understand why they saw less and less of me. I knew that the less I saw of them the easier it would be to begin repenting. Some of them didn’t care. Some hated me and my new religion. Some were very hurt and just didn’t understand. But I understood, and I knew that I would always be different.
I caught hold of the gospel and hung on tight. I worked furiously to catch up in knowledge with my friends who had been raised in the Church.
I tried to be perfect because I was convinced that I could never escape my sins. I thought that by knowing all of the answers in church and receiving awards in seminary I could somehow make up for all that I had done. I remember thinking at the time that I could never be free from my haunting past. I accepted that fact and resolved to be perfect in order to compensate.
One of the hardest steps of repentance (at least for me) was to forgive myself. Like the scripture that asks how we can love God whom we have not seen when we hate our brother whom we have seen (see 1 Jn. 4:20), how can we grow closer to Him when we hate and refuse to forgive ourselves?
For four long years I struggled. To everyone around me I seemed spiritual and well versed in the scriptures. Others told me how far I had come and how well I was doing, but only I knew the black that lined my heart. I had forsaken my past sins, and I was sure that God was pleased with my new life. But I felt that he was holding my past over my head, waiting for me to fall again.
Finally, in despair and confusion, I asked for a blessing. Words cannot express the peace that entered my heart as I received this personal revelation: I would receive the comfortings of the Holy Ghost and know that I was in good standing with Heavenly Father.
How could that be? My mind didn’t understand it, but my heart accepted it. So I believed it.

There are also other people you can follow to find happiness. When I was eleven years old, my Primary teacher was Sister Esther Geis. The boys in our class knew Sister Geis loved us because she made us behave. In those days, we had Primary on a weekday after school. Across the street from our ward was a big empty field. We boys liked to play marbles in that field, and sometimes we forgot when it was time for Primary. Sister Geis would walk across the street and get us. Once she told my father, “Your son should shape up.” My father talked to me, and I did start behaving better.

To supplement his discharge pay of 80 pounds sterling, William found work as a butcher. He was hired at good wages by none other than his former employer at Maldon, Mr. Blaxall, the man who fired him years before for joining the Latter-day Saints. William returned to Maldon and worked for about a year, during which period he had two pressing goals: emigrating to Zion and “selecting me a wife.” At first he dated his employer’s wife’s sister, Lucy Gipp, but their romance cooled when she would not join the Church. Mr. Blaxall once took William aside and offered to set him up in a good meat business if he would relinquish Mormonism and marry Miss Gipp. William told him, “I could never do that because I know Mormonism is true, and I would never marry a nonmember of the Church.”
Early in 1862 the seaman met and fell in love with Elizabeth Gentry, the attractive, 16-year-old daughter of the branch president in Maldon. Her mother had joined the Church in 1853, Elizabeth in 1854, and her blacksmith father the next year. Brother Gentry and William, converts the same year, had served together as priests at preaching services around Maldon before William’s navy service.
When William and Elizabeth became engaged, they counseled with traveling elder Francis M. Lyman about immigrating to Zion. Elder Lyman, later a member of the Council of the Twelve, advised the couple to join the emigrating company he was then organizing. They agreed. The Gentrys felt sad to have their teenage daughter leave them, but they too planned to emigrate as soon as their funds would allow it. Before departing, William introduced his fiancée to his family. “They all treated us kindly,” he recalled, “but expressed their sorrow that we were led away by such a disreputable people.”
The couple joined other emigrating Saints at London and then the group traveled to Liverpool and boarded the old sailing ship William Tapscott, which had been specially chartered by Church emigration agents. For the voyage the vessel received one of the largest Latter-day Saint companies ever to emigrate together across the Atlantic, numbering 800 souls from the British Isles, Denmark, and Sweden. “It was an interesting sight,” William reported, “to see the Saints boarding the ship with all kinds of tin utensils tied in bunches and some were carrying their straw mattresses on their heads, while others were loaded down with all kinds of parcels and lunch baskets. Some had old pieces of furniture … or some old picture of great-grandparents.”
William thought it remarkable how quickly the large crowd, divided into shipboard wards headed by specially appointed presiding elders, became orderly. “I do not think the same number of non-Mormons would have settled down to such order,” the veteran of shipboard life observed. “Nothing but the Spirit of the Lord would produce such harmony.” The ship cleared Liverpool docks on May 13, 1862.
Ward teachers were assigned to each family, and Elder Lyman requested William to be responsible for the welfare of seven emigrants, including Elizabeth. The seaman obtained their rations, arranged for their food to be cooked, and performed other needed services. The slow, six-week voyage, characterized by rough seas and much seasickness, ended at Castle Garden in New York. The company passed health inspections, then boarded trains for St. Louis. Because the American Civil War then was escalating, “we were routed and changed about a number of times. At one place we were hustled on board of a freight train. The cars had been loaded with hogs and they had not been swept or cleaned out, thus we were choked with the dust and could taste it for days afterwards.”
At the Missouri River they transferred to a small steamboat. It arrived near Council Bluffs very late at night, and passengers and baggage were unloaded helter-skelter in the darkness. At daybreak the weary travelers located their scattered luggage, then assembled at the Church’s emigration campground. There they were organized into companies of tens, fifties, and hundreds by Church emigration agent Joseph W. Young. William, being a military veteran, was named captain of the guards.
Wagons and teams had to be readied, baggage loaded, food supplies purchased and packed, and teamsters trained. While this outfitting was underway, the camp was struck by a violent storm with high winds, torrential rains, and vivid lightnings. Cattle broke loose and stampeded, doing great damage. Lightning killed at least two Saints and badly injured several others. Floods washed gullies ten feet deep in places. During the storm William, as captain of the guards, was called on to help a sister give birth under a collapsed tent—and both mother and son remained his lifelong friends in Utah. The company needed two or three days to recover from the storm, and many Saints never found boxes and bags washed away by the flash floods.
A Brother Cooper, noticing William’s skill with cattle, hired him to break his teams to yoke and then drive them to Utah. In return William and Elizabeth were promised free transportation. A few days later, however, their employer announced that he did not intend to go to Zion but wanted them to help him farm nearby. When William refused, he and Elizabeth were ordered out of the wagon and left without food or water.
Elizabeth wept bitterly. William’s thoughts focused on his 50-foot rope that Cooper had taken. Then, with his fiancée following to calm him down, William hiked the half hour to Cooper’s evening camp. When he approached the cow to which his rope was tied, Cooper “drew a beeline on me with his old Yorker.” Without hesitation, William cut loose the cow, coiled his rope, then marched up to the disagreeable man and announced: “Mr. Cooper, I am going to lay off my religion and give you a licking so you won’t forget me.” Which he did.
Fortunately for the stranded couple, Elders Lyman and Charles C. Rich rode in from the West and found them that evening. They arranged for Elizabeth to ride to Utah with a family named Wardell for 40 dollars. Elder Lyman, however, asked William to return to Florence to help with the D. F. Kimball freight train. The fiancé agreed to this separation reluctantly:
“I think this was the greatest trial I ever underwent—to leave my betrothed and go back. However, I submitted and kissed my girl good-bye and gave her a half sovereign, all the money I had in the world, and jumped in the buckboard and off we went, I with a sorrowful heart and a mind full of reflections as to the outcome of it all. Brother Rich found I was in tears and told me to cheer up and have faith and all would be well.”
At Florence the freight train was being fitted out by young men William had met aboard the William Tapscott and by some young Utahns dressed in fringed and tasseled buckskins—“rough looking Saints they seemed to me,” he said. But after hearing one of the Utahns pray, the Britisher became convinced of these frontiersmen’s faithfulness. William received three assignments to perform during the trip to Utah: drive four yoke of cattle, stand guard half of every night, and grease every wagon every 60 miles. For his labors he would receive 30 dollars per month.
His first night in camp provided the other men with a good laugh then and for years after. William, preparing for bed, reached in his bag for what he thought were duck sailor overalls and instead he held up “some sort of ladies’ unmentionables trimmed and adorned with lace.” His comrades roared. He had taken his sweetheart’s bag by mistake instead of his own! But perhaps the seaman had the last laugh: while the freight company members slept on hard ground every night for three months, William rested comfortably in his sea hammock, slung each night between two wagon wheels. On rainy nights he simply covered himself and hammock with canvas.
Day by day the scenery and travel grew increasingly tiresome. Near Chimney Rock some of the cattle became diseased and died, forcing the company to double team the wagons and make shorter drives each day. William began to think he would never get to Utah and rejoin Elizabeth. He became particularly depressed when the company passed places on the plains strewn with bleached bones upon which messages—including declarations of love—had been written by previous companies. “I began to worry that someone would pick up a rib with ‘Miss E. Gentry loves someone or married someone or is to be married to someone.’”
Cattle continued dying, so the company was forced to send for assistance from the valley. Finally one October Saturday, William’s company descended the hills above Salt Lake City, awed by a beautiful sunset across the Great Salt Lake and by the splendid square-blocked city stretched out below them. As they approached the city, an occupant of a nearby cabin called and waved to William. It was Sister Wardell, the woman with whom Elizabeth had traveled to Utah! William hurried to her, but his anticipation was instantly crushed. She informed him that Elizabeth no longer loved him and planned to marry a local polygamist! “This was like a bolt of thunder to me,” he recalled. Heartsick, the young man continued with the company to the valley floor, then returned that night to the Wardells. The woman tried to persuade William to marry her daughter, but he was not interested. “I formed a resolution that I was going to have the ‘love of my youth,’” he said.
Friends from Maldon lived in Centerville, so early the next week William hiked 12 miles to locate them. He arrived at night, and “to my great joy the girl of my heart was found lying asleep on an old home-made lounge and looking fine although almost in rags. She awoke, and her joy was unbounded.” Elizabeth then explained that the Wardell woman had tried to marry her to her own son. That failing, the mother turned the girl out and kept all the clothes and bedding until Elizabeth’s 40-dollar fare was paid in full. The woman then had made up the story about Elizabeth’s loss of affection for William, hoping the navy veteran would marry into the Wardell family.
William returned to Salt Lake City and drove his freight team to Springville where he received his three months’ wages. Then he walked back to Salt Lake, paid off the 40-dollar debt, obtained his and Elizabeth’s belongings, and then got a ride back to Centerville. Two weeks later the engaged couple were married. It was a joyous celebration, William remembered, thanks to neighbors who “came with their old-fashioned squash pies and ground cherry tarts, and … sweet cake and roasted all their roosters, and had roast pork and roast bear and lots of other good things.”
Hard work brought the young couple a fine brick home and prospering meat business in Salt Lake, enabling them to pay for the immigration of Elizabeth’s family in 1867. But the next year the Woods gave up home and career to fill a difficult colonizing mission to Arizona. They returned destitute four years later and took up residence in a tumbledown dugout within sight of their former home. When asked her reactions to this strange turn of fortune, Elizabeth told her husband, “I am glad you filled your mission, and would rather be in this dugout with your mission filled, than in that fine house with your mission unfilled.”
William again left his prospering business and a growing family in 1880 to fill a proselyting mission to his home country. Near the end of that otherwise successful mission he reported:
“I preached the Gospel to my dear ones, my father, mother, brother, and sister, and although none of my own kindred have obeyed, they had to acknowledge they could not confute the doctrine, and they feel to-day that I am not what they judged me to be twenty-seven years ago. When a boy … I obeyed the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They would then say, ‘I believe William is a fool, or he is crazy to join such a deluded people,’ and at the same time say ‘What a pity such a good boy should leave his father, mother, and all to follow after such things.’ They forgot the blessings which Christ promised should follow all who would take up the cross and follow him. … All my dear relations have treated me with marked kindness, as they have any of the Elders that called upon them at the time. I know God will bless them for that.”
Six years after he returned from his mission, his beloved Elizabeth gave birth in her 42nd year to their 13th baby, but within days both mother and baby died. William later remarried, and he and his families went on to gain prominence in Canada where the Wood name became linked with extensive ranching and meat packing interests. William’s son Edward J. served for many years as a stake president and temple president in Alberta.
The year before William died, he wrote up his impressive life story, hoping his example as convert, sailor, pioneer, and missionary might teach young people in the Church that “should their lot be cast away from where they have been taught the gospel … never to yield to any invitation that leads to intemperance or immorality. Always petition the Lord, whether you are called by the servant of God to preach the Gospel or surrounded by the horrors of war—never forget to offer a silent prayer to your Eternal Father. He will not forget you.”
In his youth William Wood received a specific promise by the Spirit that the Lord would be bound to help him if he did what the Lord asked. On his deathbed William acknowledged that during his adventurous life that promise had been generously fulfilled.

Illustration by Violet Lemay
Sundays were always the same since I came to my new adoptive family when I was younger. Mom did my hair, and I got to wear a pretty dress. Then Mom made sure everyone was ready for church. I loved going to church! My teachers were nice, and the kids in my class were friendly. I loved to learn about Heavenly Father and Jesus. Most of all, I loved the music. Singing songs always made me feel happy.
But one Sunday we sang a song I hadn’t heard before. As the other children sang, “I am a child of God, and He has sent me here, has given me an earthly home with parents kind and dear,” I felt sad. My first parents hurt me and my sisters. I started to think that maybe I wasn’t a child of God.
After church I ran to Mom and asked, “Mom, am I a child of God?”
Mom pulled me into her arms and told me that I’ve always been a child of God and that He loves me very much.
With tears running down my face, I asked, “Then why wasn’t I born to parents kind and dear?” Mom said she didn’t know why, but that she and Dad loved me and were glad I was in their family. That made me feel warm and happy inside. I knew what Mom said was true.
Now I love to sing “I Am a Child of God.” I am grateful for my new parents who are kind and dear, and I know that everyone is a child of God.

While the formal classroom may be intimidating at times, some of the most effective teaching takes place other than in the chapel or the classroom. Well do I remember that about this season, some years ago, members holding the Aaronic Priesthood would eagerly look forward to an annual outing commemorating the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood. By the busload the young men of our stake journeyed ninety miles north to the Clarkston Cemetery, where we viewed the grave of Martin Harris, one of the three witnesses of the Book of Mormon. While we surrounded the beautiful granite shaft which marks his grave, Elder Glen L. Rudd, then a high councilor, presented the background of the life of Martin Harris, read from the Book of Mormon his testimony, and then bore his own witness to the truth. The young men listened with rapt attention, touched the granite marker, and pondered the words they had heard and the feelings they had felt.

At a park in Logan, lunch was enjoyed. The group of young men then lay down on the lawn at the Logan Temple and gazed upward at its lofty spires. Beautiful white clouds hurried by the spires, moved along by a gentle breeze. The purpose of temples was taught. Covenants and promises became much more than words. The desire to be worthy to enter those temple doors entered those youthful hearts. Heaven was very close that day. Learning what we should learn was assured.

Sometimes the least likely prospects turn out to be the most receptive. Sherilyn Oakey and some friends were feeling crestfallen one day because a friend had just refused a gift subscription. “Well, I’ll take it,” a voice behind them said. They looked and then they had to look again. The voice belonged to one of the most anti-Mormon students in the whole school. She hasn’t shown much interest in the Church yet, but she now reads and enjoys the New Era.

Once I received a text from my Young Women leader that really changed my perspective. My brother had just gotten married and I had posted a few pictures on Instagram. My leader said:
“I’ve been thinking about you. I see comments that people make on your Instagram. They say things like ‘you’re gorgeous,’ and ‘you look so perfect.’ Jill, please remember, NO ONE is perfect, and you don’t have to be.”
Then she talked about the things that really matter and wrote:
“Being ‘gorgeous’ has nothing to do with how you look but with who you are. Look up 1 Samuel 16:7. Don’t pay too much attention to what people say about how you look. Listen to those who care about your heart.”
This was the best advice I have ever received. It made me think about how important it is to remember the things that really matter and to not get consumed with the things that don’t matter. And it also helped me to not let things like people’s comments about my looks affect how I view myself, but instead to listen to the people who care about my heart.

First you’ll have to have a desire to quit. I’m a convert, and before I joined the Church I had this problem myself. After being baptized, I got a strong feeling of meekness, so I pulled the swearing down to zero. But my resolution started wearing thin as I continued being exposed to the world. At that point I had to remind myself that our Savior was always with me. I was his host, and I resolved to do my best not to offend him by my language.
Jeffry Adams, 17Salt Lake City, Utah

Elder Betteridge has a passion for team sports—when it came time for one of his sons to start playing football for their local club, he was disappointed to learn that they only played matches on Sundays. He persuaded the club to allow him to put together a new team and to join a Saturday league. He took on the role as the team’s manager for six years, running training sessions and matchday responsibilities alongside his many other work, Church and family commitments.

Two sister missionaries from the United States had come to my grandmother’s home one day and gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon. They thought she had no interest in the Church, for she answered their questions with nothing more than a simple nod and a yes. But when they returned the next day, they found she had begun reading the book and could answer everything they asked her. A few days later she became one of the first converts in El Salvador. She was faithful all of her life.