Gospel Story Finder

We all knew President Spencer W. Kimball as a man of love. He thought of love as a way to overcome even unknown offenses. Such an incident occurred with one of his neighbors. This neighbor would go out and talk to President Kimball whenever he saw him in the yard, until one day the neighbor’s wife said, “You mustn’t do that. The only time President Kimball is alone is when he is in the yard, and then you go over and impose yourself upon him.” After that, the neighbor stayed in and just watched President Kimball through the window.

A few weeks passed before President Kimball rang the neighbor’s doorbell and handed him a casserole. “What’s this for?” the neighbor asked. “I don’t know,” replied President Kimball. “I’ve come to make amends for whatever I’ve done to offend you. You never come and talk to me anymore, so I decided I must have done something wrong.”

Clay said quietly, “I ran the marathon today. Twenty-six-point-two miles. It was a killer.”
“You should have told us!” Mom said. “We would have come to cheer you on.”
He looked at me. “I thought about what you said about praying. The whole time I was praying that God could help me understand why Ryan died and help me know that he wasn’t gone for good. Near the end of the race, I was the only one in front. I don’t even remember passing the other runners. It was like Ryan was running next to me, saying, ‘Go for it. You’re gonna win. Listen to your feet; keep up the rhythm; keep up the pace.’ And I won. I think I understand now. Ryan was like a sprinter. His race was quick, over in a few seconds. The rest of us are going for distance, though we don’t know when our own race will end.” His eyes filled, and he rubbed them with the back of his hand.
His voice dropped. “Ryan’s alive. His spirit is still alive.”
Elder Martin turned to Clay. “You’re right. You will see him again and be with him.” His eyes shone.
Elder Weiss said, “Hey, Clay, you’ve inspired us to start running every morning. What if we come by here on our way and pick you up? We can do some running together, and you can give us some pointers.”
Clay nodded. His breathing had slowed. He looked more healthy and alive than he’d looked for a long time. “Yeah, sure. That’d be okay.”
I watched the elders pedal away, smiling and talking like brothers, their long coats flapping behind them, ears already red with cold. Even though they wore dark suits, they seemed as bright as our flowers against the dull sky. Part of the pattern was becoming clear to me, and I knew those two young men would be connected to our family forever.

At 15, I wanted more than just about anything to play football. There were just a few problems: I was small and slow and had played football only occasionally with the kids in my neighborhood.
But I found that there was one thing I could do well by practicing over and over again—I became a kicker. All summer long I practiced kicking extra points and field goals, sometimes 200 in a day. By the end of the summer I was consistent, and I did become my school’s designated field-goal kicker.

One morning my telephone rang very early and, as I picked it up, I recognized the soft voice of President Kimball on the other end of the line. After saying hello, I heard him in his faint voice say, “Marvin, I have something I want to talk to you about. Do you mind if I come up to your office and we visit?” I said, “President Kimball, if you’d like to talk to me, I “ll be right down to your office. Would you like me to come?” And he gently said, “Would you be good enough to do that?”

Courteous, friendly, and willing to be the servant of all, it was his leadership style to never demand or use the influence of his mighty calling to take the lead in what people would do or how they would respond to him. I would have you know that on this occasion he could have said, “Marvin, this is President Kimball. Come down to my office right away.” Certainly he had the power, authority, and right to ask me to meet with him under any and all circumstances, but I still have ringing in my ears what he said when I volunteered to come to his office: “Would you be good enough to do that?” He had the kind of approach, humility, mildness, and love that would inspire all of us to sustain and support him and love him under all conditions.

When I was 14 or 15 years old, I worked for my father in the family dry cleaning business during what free time I had. That summer, business was slow. So I said, “OK, I want to read the entire Book of Mormon—from the first page to the last.” And I did. The reading excited me.
In the edition of the Book of Mormon I had, Moroni’s promise was printed on one of the opening pages. That promise struck me. If someone read the book and then asked God, He would answer (see Moro. 10:3–5). I had heard the promise before, but in that moment the Holy Ghost impressed it upon my heart.
After finishing the last page of the book, I knelt in a small private room at work and prayed to Heavenly Father. And through the Holy Ghost I received the testimony I sought. From the tip of my toes to the last hair on my head, I felt that the Book of Mormon was the word of God and that Joseph Smith was a prophet.

Watoy paused under the colorful Filipino flag outside his school before heading inside.
“Good morning, class,” his teacher said. “It’s time for our morning prayer.”
All around him, Watoy’s friends each touched their foreheads, chests, and shoulders to form the shape of a cross. Then they recited the prayer they always said at the beginning of class. As usual, Watoy didn’t join them. Instead, he closed his eyes, bowed his head, and said his own silent prayer. He prayed about different things each time, the way he was taught to pray at home and in Primary.
When he finished and looked up, he saw that his teacher was watching him with a confused expression on her face.
“May I talk to you after school?” she said.
Watoy swallowed and nodded. Was he in trouble?
When classes had ended for the day, Watoy’s teacher walked over to him.
“I see that you never cross yourself or recite our morning prayer,” she said. “Will you please tell me why?”
Watoy breathed a sigh of relief. His teacher wasn’t upset, just curious! He thought about how to answer.
“Well,” he began, “in my church, when we pray, we talk to Heavenly Father about many different things. And the cross reminds us of when Jesus died. But Jesus is not dead. He lives!”
His teacher thought about this for a moment and then nodded slowly.
“Thank you for sharing this with me,” she said.
As Watoy walked to football practice, he felt warm and good inside. He liked teaching others about Jesus Christ.

It is important for each deacon to be guided to a spiritual awareness of the sacredness of his ordained calling. In one ward, the lesson was effectively taught pertaining to the collection of fast offerings.

On fast day, the ward members were visited by deacons and teachers so that each family could make a contribution. The deacons were a bit disgruntled, having to arise earlier than usual to fulfill this assignment.
The inspiration came for the bishopric to take a busload of the deacons and teachers to Welfare Square in Salt Lake City. Here they saw needy children receiving new shoes and other items of clothing. Here they witnessed empty baskets being filled with groceries. There was no money exchanged. One brief comment was made: “Young men, this is what the money you collect on fast day provides—even food, clothing, and shelter for those who are in need.” The Aaronic Priesthood young men smiled more, stepped higher, and served more willingly in filling their assignments.

In June of the following year, Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum were arrested and taken to Carthage. Dan Jones was among those who accompanied them and was locked in jail with them. On the last night in Carthage, when apparently the others had gone to sleep, Joseph Smith whispered to Dan Jones, “Are you afraid [to die]?” He replied, “Has that time come, think you? Engaged in such a cause, I do not think that death would have many terrors.”

To this Joseph responded with the last words of prophecy he is known to have spoken: “You will yet see Wales and fulfill the mission appointed you before you die.”1

The next day the Prophet asked Brother Jones to deliver a letter to Orvil H. Browning of Quincy, Illinois, requesting that Mr. Browning represent Joseph and Hyrum in their forthcoming trial. While Brother Jones was leaving the jail and walking through the mob, his life was threatened. As he rode off on horseback, bullets flew about him, but none touched him. In his haste to get away, he lost his direction and thereby avoided a mob who might have killed him. He finally reached Quincy and there learned of the shooting of Joseph and Hyrum that sultry afternoon of 27 June 1844. He never got over his love for the Prophet. He never flinched in his loyalty to the cause to which Joseph Smith had dedicated his life.

My parents made family time a priority when my two sisters and I were children. Now that we’re adults, this continues as part of our family culture. The time we spend together is fun and filled with traditions such as races and games, with events including a tortilla toss and bubble-blowing competition.
Growing up, I gained confidence spending time with my family and felt I was vital. I felt my contributions were wanted and needed. However, shortly after I returned from my mission, spending time together changed. The reason: my older sister married a few months before I returned home.
I was happy for her and excited to have a brother for the first time. But I noticed my parents started to treat my younger sister and me differently. I felt that because I was not married, I was pushed aside and treated like a child. Eventually, I spoke with my parents about the changes in our family. We concluded that our individual situations have nothing to do with our worth. Everyone is essential in our family, regardless of age, gender, financial situation, talents, or marital status.
My mind opened to the idea that our Heavenly Father loves and appreciates us as individuals. Heavenly Father wants us to establish and nurture strong family relationships, but our individual worth does not come from our family. Because we are beloved children of God and part of His family, our worth is infinite and eternal. Jesus Christ demonstrated this by giving His life for each of us. (See Doctrine and Covenants 18:10–11.)

Mike* started gambling when he was still in high school—only a few dollars here and there. By the time he was in college he had graduated to all-night poker games. As a young adult, Mike joined the Church but returned to his old habits. And later, when he was married with two children, his problem with gambling had only grown.
He mortgaged the family’s New England home, lost his children’s college funds, and couldn’t even pay the utility bills because he used all his family’s money to pay gambling debts. Along with his compulsive gambling came compulsive lying to cover up his habit and his debts. Mike’s gambling problem eventually led to divorce and the loss of his children’s trust.
Mike’s case is an extreme one, but not uncommon. His children, Kristen and Amber, now 21 and 18, know the devastating effects of gambling—and lying to cover up the problem—on a family. “It’s a plague,” says Kristen. “Stay away from it like you would the plague.”
Although their dad is now seeking help at Gamblers Anonymous, the years of heartache his gambling caused are difficult to forget. “It’s even hard to trust him now,” Amber says.

I served a mission in South Africa, where, as with other missionaries, I told many people that if they prayed they would soon receive an answer from heaven telling them our teaching is true. They could ask directly if the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and if so, the restored gospel came through the Prophet Joseph.

My companion enjoyed his time when he could listen to music, it did not have to be Mo Tab. I had determined that I would use the Sunday night when he disappeared into his head phones to test the promise, the promise that I had been making to others. I had entered the mission field due to the prompting of great parents and good church leaders. I remember when I was 14 my Bishop, John Adams asked me if I was going on a mission. That day I told him yes, so nothing else mattered, I had made a promise. I would go.

I clearly remember that night in the mission field in great detail. I placed a pillow under my knees.
I knelt down; my companion was lost in his music, so I began to pray out loud. I explained to my Heavenly Father that I needed to know if the promise I was giving to others was valid. I told Him that I had faith in Christ as Moroni instructed. I had a sincere heart; I really wanted to know. I had real intent, I told Heavenly Father that if it were not a valid promise, I would go home. I told Him I would not get off my knees until I received a yes or a no.

I am so very grateful that Heavenly Father was kind to me. He might have even chuckled a little bit over my demand to know.

I cannot express what happened after that. What I can express is that without any doubt I was given an answer from Heavenly Father that The Book of Mormon is as it claims to be. It is the word of God, Joseph Smith is a prophet. The promise I had been giving to others is valid. I do not remember how long I had prayed before the answer came, nor do I know how long it lasted but I cannot deny the sweetness of that answer.

For the past 20 months, our family has been blessed with the privilege of having a very special baby.
Little Paxton, our grandson, was born with a very rare chromosomal deletion, a genetic disorder that distinguishes him, literally, as one in hundreds of millions. For our daughter and her husband, an uncharted, life-changing journey began when Paxton was born. This experience has become a crucible for learning special lessons tied to the eternities.
Shortly after precious Paxton was born, we knew Heavenly Father would bless us and teach us special lessons. As his father and I put our fingers on his tiny head in the first of many priesthood blessings, the words came into my mind from the ninth chapter of John: “That the works of God should be made manifest in him.”
God’s works are definitely being made manifest through Paxton.
We are learning patience, faith, and gratitude through the balm of service, endless hours of intense emotions, tears of empathy, and the prayers and expressions of love for dear ones in need, especially Paxton and his parents.
As described in Mosiah, we have witnessed the Savior’s pure love given to Paxton’s family, which love is available to all: “And now it came to pass that the burdens which were laid upon Alma and his brethren were made light; yea, the Lord did strengthen them that they could bear up their burdens with ease, and they did submit cheerfully and with patience to all the will of the Lord.”

“Our family home was on the foothill of a solitary mountain that was a moving force all of my young life. I could see it from my bedroom window and felt a certain security in its closeness. I had climbed its bald dome with my family, with Church groups, and with a gang of kids. Then one day—driven by desire to go to the mount, like Moses, to commune with God, to consider who I was and what I was going to do about it—I set out alone to climb that peak. I was 16, and this day my aloneness on that mountain was exhilarating. It was a most spectacular spring morning at sunrise when I made my way to the top.

“With fascination I sat looking down at the houses I knew so well and at their people beginning to stir with the sun. I watched the achingly familiar scenes as an extension of myself. I followed the paths of my life from home to a friend’s house, to the church on the corner and the school down the hill and to the neighborhood store. Finally, I let myself look upon our own house, the scene of my most tender times, my most important learnings. Almost in panic and with a wrench of my heart, I felt childhood slipping from my grasp.

“Everywhere I looked was someone who had touched my life. At 16 I was the sum of them—parents, school friends, storekeeper, Church leader. My heart flooded with a new awareness. Suddenly I realized I had some debts to pay. I vowed that I would try to be useful. I knew I needed the help of God, and when I turned to him, my soul filled with an awareness that he lives, that he cares even about a little person sitting on a mountain thinking she can make a difference in the world. When I came down off the mountain the world seemed beautiful, and I was glad to be alive.”

Many examples coming into the Relief Society general offices are showing that this is happening. Gail McHardy, Relief Society president in the Houston Branch, St. Robert Missouri Stake, made coming up with ideas a matter of prayer with her counselors. “The Spirit was certainly there to help us,” she said during a telephone conversation.

Then, with the support of the branch president, she presented the ideas to the sisters in the ward. She was surprised when the most popular activity was a class in American Sign Language. Another sister in the branch had taken sign language courses and agreed to teach the classes.

“The branch president has agreed to let them sign with the choir soon,” Sister McHardy said. She added that one sister had recently returned to Church activity and by participating in the class “she felt much more a part of Relief Society.”

Julius Tirazona, another member of the local security detail for Elder and Sister Bednar, found it refreshing to see a lighter and carefree side of Elder Bednar as he joked around with those traveling with him. “I remember fondly when Elder Bednar was speaking in Tarlac,” he recalled. “Sister Bednar suddenly joined him on the stand to react to what he said and before she sat back down, she kissed Elder Bednar on the lips.” The members of the congregation gushed and cheered, which prompted Sister Bednar to stand up again and apologize, to which Elder Bednar humorously replied: “‘You don’t apologize because you kissed your spouse,’ Elder Bednar told her with a smile.”

A wonderful example of a physical building anchored to a firm foundation is that of the Salt Lake Temple. The groundbreaking for that temple took place in 1853. Using blocks of granite stone cut and hauled from a nearby canyon, work proceeded slowing but steadily on the 32-foot deep foundation until the approach of Johnston's Army in 1857. At that point the Saints buried the foundation of the temple to make the area look like a plowed field.

After peace was restored and work resumed, the dirt was removed. But at that point, cracks were discovered in a few of the foundation stones. The prophet Brigham Young had the entire foundation removed. After much discussion and with the guidance of the Lord as to how the foundation should be designed and built, it was redone based on that new design. When asked about all the additional work required, President Young replied, "When the Temple is built I want it to stand through the millennium [along with] many other temples that will yet be built." What a wonderful example of building on a firm foundation.

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.

We have some sense of the rejoicing that is going on in Quito, Ecuador; Harare, Zimbabwe; Belém, Brazil; and Lima, Peru, both with members and missionaries, based on what happened in Bangkok, Thailand, a year ago when that temple was announced. Sister Shelly Senior, wife of the then-president of the Thailand Bangkok Mission, David Senior, emailed family and friends to say that after she and her husband had listened to President Monson announce that temple, there had been “12 sleepless hours and lots of tears of happiness.” They called their mission assistants at 11:30 p.m. and informed them. The assistants called all the missionaries. The report came back that the “whole mission was awake in the middle of the night jumping on their beds.” Sister Senior humorously admonished family and friends, “Please don’t tell the Missionary Department!”

On an August night three years ago, the Thornton family was in Roseburg, Oregon, at a baseball game. Before making the two-hour drive home to Reedsport, they stopped at a park to eat. The weary family then climbed back into their van that was stuffed with baseball equipment. At 11:30 P.M. the van pulled into their driveway, and the sleepy riders crawled out only to discover that six-year-old Greg wasn’t with them. Everyone panicked!
“Our focus wasn’t on anything except where he might be,” said LaRee Thornton, Greg’s mother. “We called 911, and it put us right through to the Roseburg police. My husband, Steve, started explaining the situation, and they said, ‘It’s OK. He’s right here.’ A Good Samaritan had found Greg alone at the park, shaking with fear. The man had wrapped him in a blanket and taken him to the police station.
Everyone wanted to go back to Roseburg to get Greg, but only Mom and Dad went; the rest of the family stayed at home, prayed, and waited. “It was 2:30 A.M. when we got back,” Mom continued. “Everybody had stayed up. Nobody wanted to sleep alone in their bedrooms that night, so we all slept in the living room together. Now we always want to make sure we know where everyone is. We’re kinder to each other and appreciate one another more.”

I was an inexperienced priest in a large ward. My bishop called me on the phone one Sunday afternoon. When I answered, he said, “Do you have time to go with me? I need your help.” He explained only that he wanted me to go as his companion to visit a woman I did not know, who was without food and who needed to learn how to manage her finances better.

Now, I knew that he had two seasoned counselors in his bishopric. Both were mature men of great experience. One counselor was the owner of a large business, who later became a mission president and a General Authority. The other counselor was a prominent judge in the city.

I was the bishop’s newly called first assistant in the priests quorum. He knew that I understood little about welfare principles. I knew even less about financial management. I had not yet written a check; I had no bank account; I hadn’t even seen a personal budget. Yet, despite my inexperience, I sensed that he was deadly serious when he said, “I need your help.”

I have come to understand what that inspired bishop meant. He saw in me a golden opportunity to prepare a priesthood holder. I am sure that he did not foresee in that untrained boy a future member of the Presiding Bishopric. But he treated me that day, and all the days I knew him over the years, as a preparation project of great promise.

He seemed to enjoy it, but it was work for him. On our return to my home after we visited the widow in need, he parked the car. He opened his well-worn and heavily marked scriptures. And he gave me kindly correction. He told me that I needed to study the scriptures and learn more. But he must have seen that I was weak and simple enough to be teachable. To this day I remember what he taught that afternoon. But even more, I remember how confident he was that I could learn and be better—and that I would.

He saw beyond the reality of who I was to the possibilities that lie inside someone who feels weak and simple enough to want the Lord’s help and to believe that it will come.

Bishops, mission presidents, and fathers can choose to act on those possibilities. I saw it happen recently in a fast meeting as a deacons quorum president bore his testimony. He was about to become a teacher and leave his quorum members behind him.

He testified with great feeling in his voice of the growth in goodness and power in the members of his quorum. I’ve never heard a person praise an organization more wonderfully than he did. He praised their service. And then he said that he knew that he had been able to help the new deacons when they felt overwhelmed because he had felt overwhelmed when he came into the priesthood.

His feelings of weakness had made him more patient, more sympathetic, and therefore better able to strengthen and serve others. In those two years in the Aaronic Priesthood, it seemed to me, he had become seasoned and wise. He had learned that he was helped as a quorum president by a clear and vivid memory of his own needs when he was two years younger. His challenge in the future in his leadership and ours will come when such memories fade and grow dim through time and our success.