Gospel Story Finder

Doni hefted the shot easily in one hand and took her position at the end of the school’s playing field. She paused, balanced in her stance, the shot cradled against her neck. She pushed off, and with an explosion of air, released the shot. She watched it hit the turf and groaned in frustration. It wasn’t going anywhere.
It was Doni DeCory’s senior year, her last year of high school track. For two years she had held the South Dakota state championship in shot put. But during this, her senior year, when she was expected to take the title for the third consecutive year, she was falling apart.
“I wasn’t throwing anywhere near what I did in my junior year,” said Doni. “People were saying, ‘Come on, Doni, you’ve got to take the state record again.’ There was so much pressure. I just wanted to quit.”
Doni did quit—for a day. The next day, when she didn’t leave for practice, her mother asked why she wasn’t going. “Mom, it’s over with,” said Doni. “I can’t do anything. I’m not going.”
“Then I asked my mom what she thought about my quitting. She said, ‘It’s up to you. We’re not going to push you to do anything you don’t want to do. But think about it, Doni. Is this really you? Do you really want to quit?’ Then she left the room, and the decision was up to me.”
Doni thought about it, until an idea occurred to her. If she quit now, then she’d always want to quit when things got too hard. Her mother and dad had supported her since grade school in her schoolwork and in her sports. They came, not just to her games and meets, but to all her practices. They had always been there for her. Now when things were going so badly, she knew she could turn to them again for help.
Doni didn’t quit, but her throwing did not improve much. Her parents practiced with her, retrieving the shot over and over. It took time. Her mental composure returned; then her tosses lengthened. She peaked right when she was supposed to, at the state championships when she took the title for the third straight year.
Doni’s story could be like many others where a talented athlete overcomes discouragement and goes on to win. But Doni’s story is a little more complicated than that. No one in her little town of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, even knew how to coach her in shot put. Her mother and the running coach together would try to figure out suggestions for improvement by watching tapes. The odds of her doing well were very much against her. If Doni had said, “I can’t do it,” not too many people would have argued with her.
But Doni wanted to give it a try, and through her efforts and faith, the support of her family and friends, and her natural athletic ability she accomplished great things.

HI! My name is Brittany Scott. I want to tell you about Richie Tanner, a special member of our Primary class. What makes Richie special? Well, he’s developmentally delayed, or what some people call mentally handicapped. He looks like most ten-year-old boys, but he acts younger—like maybe a five-year-old. He doesn’t speak very clearly yet, and it takes him longer to learn things.
Richie and I are in the Valiant B class in the Monument Park Ninth Ward, Salt Lake Monument Park Stake. There are five children in our class: Steven Jones, Marcus Foulger, Michael Knudson, Richie, and me. Our teacher is Janet Fawcett. She’s great! She always tells Richie what a good job he’s doing when he listens quietly to the lessons. Sister Fawcett calls on Richie to say prayers and to answer questions. She treats him like everyone else, and she tries to help Richie learn the gospel, just as she helps us.
Richie hasn’t always been able to sit through a lesson. So our Primary has tried different ways to help him. He used to have a special teacher, Sister Neva Clayton, just for him. She would sit with Richie in our class and take him out in the hall if he got noisy or disrupted the class in some other way. But now Richie can sit in class all by himself, just like everyone else!
I’ve seen Richie make good progress: he talks better, he pays attention longer, and he sings in Primary programs. I hope that someday Richie will be able to give a talk by himself.
Richie’s brothers, Michael and Russell, and his sister, Anne, help him come to Primary. He really likes Primary, and he likes to be with all the Primary children because they let him know that he belongs there. Richie adds a lot to our Primary, and he always listens to the other children when they give their talks. He sets a good example for all of us.
Sometimes I wish that I could be more like Richie, because he’s so gentle, friendly, honest, appreciative, and sincere. Richie shows his love in special ways. He’s my friend! I hope that Richie thinks of me as a true friend too. Richie is one of the neatest boys I know!

I was nervous. I had been to Blythedale Children’s Hospital on a few previous occasions, and my youngest brother, Taylor, had been a patient there. But I was still nervous. Participating in a Young Women service project at the hospital was a new experience. The children at Blythedale are all preparing for or recovering from major surgeries. Many children there have cerebral palsy or other disabilities. I was worried about what to do, what to say, and how to act in these unfamiliar circumstances.
I first noticed Libby because she was the last to finish her “paper pizza,” the craft project we were doing with the children. All the other children had finished their projects. But not Libby. Her jet-black hair hung down over her face as she focused intently on her work. She sat in a wheelchair, hovering over her pizza and arranging the pieces to her liking.
“Can I help glue those pieces on?” I asked.
“Nope,” she replied matter-of-factly. “I can do it.”
My Young Women leaders were crinkling up newspapers and packing other supplies, but Libby continued to work, unrushed. I realized that Libby would need some help to finish, but she seemed intent on doing her project herself. I noticed that Libby didn’t have enough “confetti cheese” for her creation, so I searched under the tables to find more. I even had to pick through the newspapers that were in a large garbage can, but we finally found enough and Libby put the final touches on her masterpiece.
After placing the pizza neatly in her lap, Libby maneuvered her wheelchair around to join the “singing circle,” and I followed. We sat side by side, singing silly songs with all the other kids. Libby frequently reached over and clasped her arms tightly around my neck, bringing me close to her face. This display of affection surprised me, but I responded by placing my arm around her small neck and smiling. Libby didn’t sing many of the songs, but she seemed happy to sit with me, listening as I sang.
As I sat with her, I realized that Libby reminded me of my youngest sister, Lyndsey—especially her hands. Libby’s tiny hands had long, thin fingers, and her fingernails were all cracked and broken, obviously from being bitten.
“You know what, Libby?” I said. “You look a lot like my sister Lyndsey, who’s around your age. In fact, your hands look exactly like hers. She bites her nails just like you do!”
Libby looked up at me, biting her lip. Then she asked me an unforgettable question.
“Did your sister have to have her legs cut off, too?”
I froze. It felt like my heart ceased to pump for just a second. Lyndsey’s legs were strong; they climbed trees and rode bikes, jumped on beds and turned cartwheels. They ran barefoot through the grass in summer and skied down steep slopes of snow in the winter. But how could I say that to Libby?
Libby gazed at me calmly, waiting for an answer. I mumbled some response which she accepted and then moved on. After I answered her, I realized that Libby, like most people, wanted someone who could understand.
Singing time came to an end. Libby asked me to help her pull her braces over her knees, all traces of independence vanishing as the question was asked. As I pulled the rubbery braces over her feeble knees, she reached her slender arms around my neck and grasped me tightly in one last hug. Then she turned her wheelchair and pushed herself determinedly down the hall.
I watched Libby until she disappeared into her hospital room. I wanted to reach out and do something more for her, but I realized I had done all I could do that night. Our brief friendship is still special to me. On my trip to Blythedale I learned something I’ll never forget. We are two totally different people—different races, different lifestyles, and different challenges—yet we felt a love for each other.
I was only a 14-year-old girl, but I think I may have succeeded in making a connection with Libby, simply because I was willing to try. I hope she thinks so too.

The walk up the black paved road to the temple in American Fork, Utah, for Elizabeth (10) and Ethan (9) Ault is much shorter than the forty-mile walk on a rocky dirt road their great-great-great-grandfather took to work on the Salt Lake Temple. The Aults live just a few blocks from the new Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple. Every morning Ethan loves to see the sun shining on the temple’s stained-glass windows on his way to school.
Elizabeth and Ethan’s great-great-great-grandfather worked as a stonecutter on the Salt Lake Temple. Following his pioneer ancestor’s example of sacrifice, Elizabeth and Ethan’s Grandfather Ault donated all the grass for the Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple grounds, and his family volunteered to lay it. Elizabeth and Ethan got to help lay the sod (grass).
There are many steps to laying sod. Elizabeth helped smooth out the dirt with a rake, and sometimes she helped lay the sod on the ground. Ethan picked up scraps and piled them on a wooden pallet. Working in the sun can get hot and tiring, but they liked to help on the temple grounds because it made them feel good. “Even cleaning up the temple grounds was a privilege because it is the Lord’s house,” their mom, Connie, said.
Elizabeth felt especially close to the temple because the ground was broken to build the temple on the same day she was baptized. “I was so happy to have the temple ‘born’ on my baptism day. The temple makes me think of Jesus Christ.”
Ethan knows that temples are important for doing ordinances for the dead, including baptisms. He and Elizabeth were eager to go to the temple dedication with their brothers and sisters and their mom and dad.
Elizabeth shares her birthday with her great-grandmother, Grandma Cunningham. She also shares her name. Elizabeth is Grandma Cunningham’s middle name, and there is a special bond between them. When Grandma Cunningham moved out of her house, she gave Elizabeth one of her scripture sets. “Grandma is special, and she’s always reading the scriptures,” Elizabeth said. She remembers her grandma’s good example when she reads the scriptures.
When Ethan bears his testimony in sacrament meeting, he says that he is thankful for the scriptures and the temple. Both Ethan and Elizabeth share their testimonies almost every fast Sunday. Mom and Dad agree, “They’re a good example for the rest of us.”
The Aults worked on the temple grounds once a week, with help from volunteers. Originally just the Ault family and their relatives were going to lay the sod. But the project was so big that different wards and friends volunteered to help.
When the two children were not working at the temple, they helped at their dad’s golf driving range. He appreciates all that they do for him. But the children don’t just work—they love to rollerblade, ride their bikes, and play with their dog, Snowball. Ethan likes to play soccer with his brothers Eric (14) and Evan (12). He also plays right field on a baseball team called the White Sox. Elizabeth often goes to cheer him on. “They are good friends, and they watch out for each other,” Mother said.
Elizabeth likes to read—her favorite place to be is in her room, reading. But her best talent is singing. She sang in a school talent show and with a choir in stake conference. Her mother can’t remember a time when Elizabeth didn’t sing. She likes to sing in harmony with her mother. “Oh, What Do You Do in the Summertime?”* is Elizabeth’s favorite song to sing in Primary.
Ethan likes to draw pictures in his Primary class. Art is also his favorite subject in school. He likes to draw space shuttles and rockets. He also creates spaceships with plastic building blocks. Working with spaceships is good practice because he wants to be an astronaut. His neighbors have a telescope that he uses to get a closer look at the stars. When he sees stars sparkling in the sky, Ethan thinks of heaven and Heavenly Father.
Perhaps his love for stars and spaceships will take him to space in the future. For now, though, he and Elizabeth are content that they got to help landscape the Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple grounds. “Their” temple also sparkles and reminds them both of heaven.

Several months ago, when my wife and I were visiting another country for various Church assignments, I woke up early one morning and looked blearily outside our hotel window. Down below on the busy street, I saw that a roadblock had been set up with a policeman stationed nearby to turn cars around as they reached the barrier. At first, only a few cars traveled along the road and were turned back. But as time went by and traffic increased, queues of cars began to build up.

From the window above, I watched as the policeman seemed to take satisfaction in his power to block the flow of traffic and turn people away. In fact, he seemed to develop a spring in his step, as if he might start doing a little jig, as each car approached the barrier. If a driver got frustrated about the roadblock, the policeman did not appear helpful or sympathetic. He just shook his head repeatedly and pointed in the opposite direction.

My friends, my fellow disciples on the road of mortal life, our Father’s beautiful plan, even His “fabulous” plan, is designed to bring you home, not to keep you out. No one has built a roadblock and stationed someone there to turn you around and send you away. In fact, it is the exact opposite. God is in relentless pursuit of you. He “wants all of His children to choose to return to Him,” and He employs every possible measure to bring you back.

Our loving Father oversaw the Creation of this very earth for the express purpose of providing an opportunity for you and for me to have the stretching and refining experiences of mortality, the chance to use our God-given moral agency to choose Him, to learn and grow, to make mistakes, to repent, to love God and our neighbour, and to one day return home to Him.

He sent His precious Beloved Son to this fallen world to live the full range of the human experience, to provide an example for the rest of His children to follow, and to atone and redeem. Christ’s great atoning gift removes every roadblock of physical and spiritual death that would separate us from our eternal home.

Everything about the Father’s plan for His beloved children is designed to bring everyone home.

What do God’s messengers, His prophets, call this plan in Restoration scripture? They call it the plan of redemption, the plan of mercy, the great plan of happiness, and the plan of salvation, which is unto all, “through the blood of mine Only Begotten.”

The intent of the Father’s great plan of happiness is your happiness, right here, right now, and in the eternities. It is not to prevent your happiness and cause you instead worry and fear.

The intent of the Father’s plan of redemption is in fact your redemption, your being rescued through the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, freed from the captivity of sin and death. It is not to leave you as you are.

The intent of the Father’s plan of mercy is to extend mercy as you turn back to Him and honour your covenant of fidelity to Him. It is not to deny mercy and inflict pain and sorrow.

The intent of the Father’s plan of salvation is in fact your salvation in the celestial kingdom of glory as you receive “the testimony of Jesus” and offer your whole soul to Him. It is not to keep you out.

Does this mean anything goes with regard to how we live our lives? That the way we choose to use our agency doesn’t matter? That we can take or leave God’s commandments? No, of course not. Surely one of Jesus’s most consistent invitations and pleas during His mortal ministry was that we change and repent and come unto Him. Fundamentally implicit in all of His teachings to live on a higher plane of moral conduct is a call to personal progression, to transformative faith in Christ, to a mighty change of heart.

God wants for us a radical reorientation of our selfish and prideful impulses, the eviction of the natural man, for us to “go, and sin no more.”

If we believe the intent of the Father’s all-reaching plan is to save us, redeem us, extend mercy to us, and thereby bring us happiness, what is the intent of the Son through whom this great plan is brought about?

The Son tells us Himself: “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.”

Jesus’s will is the benevolent Father’s will! He wants to make it possible for every last one of His Father’s children to receive the end goal of the plan—eternal life with Them. None is excluded from this divine potential.

If you are prone to worry that you will never measure up, or that the loving reach of Christ’s infinite Atonement mercifully covers everyone else but not you, then you misunderstand. Infinite means infinite. Infinite covers you and those you love.

Nephi explains this beautiful truth: “He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.”

The Saviour, the Good Shepherd, goes in search of His lost sheep until He finds them. He is “not willing that any should perish.”

“Mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive.”

“Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you.”

He did not cast away the woman with the issue of blood; He did not recoil from the leper; He did not reject the woman taken in adultery; He did not refuse the penitent—no matter their sin. And He will not refuse you or those you love when you bring to Him your broken hearts and contrite spirits. That is not His intent or His design, nor His plan, purpose, wish, or hope.

No, He does not put up roadblocks and barriers; He removes them. He does not keep you out; He welcomes you in. His entire ministry was a living declaration of this intent.

Then of course there is His atoning sacrifice itself, which is harder for us to understand, beyond our mortal capacity to comprehend. But, and this is an important “but,” we do understand, can comprehend, the holy, saving intent of His atoning sacrifice.

The veil of the temple was rent in twain when Jesus died upon the cross, symbolising that access back to the presence of the Father had been ripped wide open—to all who will turn to Him, trust Him, cast their burdens on Him, and take His yoke upon them in a covenant bond.

In other words, the Father’s plan is not about roadblocks. It never was; it never will be. Are there things we need to do, commandments to keep, aspects of our natures to change? Yes. But with His grace, those are within our reach, not beyond our grasp.

This is the good news! I am unspeakably grateful for these simple truths. The Father’s design, His plan, His purpose, His intent, His wish, and His hope are all to heal you, all to give you peace, all to bring you, and those you love, home. Of this I am a witness in the name of Jesus Christ, His Son, amen.

Those first new green shoots popping up through powdery brown soil fill the gardener’s soul with joy—his love and care have paid off! There’s growth! And even if the gardener is not there to continue to watch the growth of the plants, his work lives on.
Such a gardener was Bruce Drennan, a young missionary whose love for the Lord and the gospel was no secret. He planted the seeds of testimony among friends, family, and the people of the small Aymara Indian village of Suriquina, Bolivia, where he and his companion Kevin Bons died after being overcome by carbon monoxide fumes from a faulty heater in their living quarters on December 22, 1981.
Many of those seeds he planted have been sprouting these past few years.
Everyone in his high school knew Bruce for his leadership as senior class president and his commitment to the Church. He had a way of injecting a big dose of fun and life into just about everything he touched. It might have been getting a bunch of friends together to take the local missionaries out to breakfast. Or planning the first senior class trip to Disneyland. Or yelling “Let’s be the nerd bus!” and herding kids onto the bus when arguments arose over who should go on which bus for a school trip. Or staying up all night to put together the program for a youth conference.
On top of all his activities, he still managed to keep a 4.0 grade point average and win a four-year scholarship to BYU. As one of his teachers wrote when Bruce was applying for a scholarship, “A room full of Bruce Drennans would put any teacher in seventh heaven.”
He was committed to going on a mission and influenced his friends to do the same. “He really encouraged me to go on a mission when I needed the encouragement at a certain time in my life,” said his friend Ed Belliston. “He was always a good example and brought out abilities in me that I didn’t know I had. After I left on my mission and I heard of his death, the memory of Bruce would get me fired up again. He made me work harder.” Dean Teach, another friend, told his friend Lisa Anderson that if it hadn’t been for Bruce, he wouldn’t have gone on his mission.
While in the Missionary Training Center, Bruce Drennan wrote a letter bearing his testimony to one of his good friends, Lisa King, who is not a member of the Church. That same day he wrote in his journal, “I wrote Lisa King today. In the letter I bore my testimony and told her why I’m going on a mission. I don’t know what she’s going to think, but I guess that it doesn’t matter too much if she thinks I’m a jerk.”
Though Bruce didn’t know it, that testimony he wrote to Lisa would be sent to hundreds of people after his death, attached to the flyleaf of copies of the Book of Mormon sent by relatives and friends in his stake. And his testimony that had touched so many people in Suriquina, Bolivia, would continue to touch lives.
When the news of Bruce’s death reached his hometown of Ukiah, California, it struck a nerve in the community. Bruce was well known and loved. Grace Jones, whose Church assignment is to work with the media in Ukiah, received many of the questions about what had happened. She decided to let people really know what Bruce was doing in Bolivia—preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“We had so many inquiries from newspapers and radio stations about Bruce, that we decided it would be a good idea to let others know what he had been teaching,” said Sister Jones. “Why not give out copies of the Book of Mormon in his memory during the remaining 18 months he would have been serving as a missionary? I discussed the idea with the stake presidency, and they approved it. And Bruce’s family accepted the idea wholeheartedly.”
So under Sister Jones’s direction and with Lisa King’s permission, Bruce’s picture and testimony were put in hundreds of copies of the Book of Mormon. His testimony continued to influence many people.
Wrote Bruce, “A missionary’s sole purpose in the Mormon church is to teach the gospel of Christ to all those who are willing and ready to receive it. I know that Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father appeared to a man named Joseph Smith and restored the gospel to the earth. I know that Christ and Heavenly Father live today and have a tremendous love for us. I know that we lived before this earth and that we came down here for a purpose. The Book of Mormon is an additional witness of Christ to the Bible. Both are the word of God. These things are so true; they are so very important. It is because of these things that I am going on a mission. I hope you can understand and will receive these things with an open mind and heart.”
Also included in the copies of the Book of Mormon were two excerpts from his journal. The first one was about a mission experience. “I had been praying about this meeting quite a bit, that we would have the Spirit with us and that the people would feel it. Upon teaching, I felt like I was helped out with the language. Some words just came to me without having to think. By the time we finished, it was dark and the room was full. There were probably 100 people there.”
The second journal excerpt was about the blessings. “I’m so grateful for the world we have. If I ever want to put myself in a spiritual mood, all I have to do is look for the beauty in the world. I feel so small and insignificant compared to the grandeur of the world. It is like God has to love us to have given us all that He has.”
Many wards in the Ukiah Stake asked if they could participate in the Book of Mormon project. Posters were made and put in the foyers of participating wards. When a referral card was filled out and returned to the stake or full-time missionaries, the name of the requesting person was embossed in gold on the hardback cover of a Book of Mormon for that person, with Bruce’s testimony and photo included. Over 500 copies of Bruce’s testimony were printed the first time, and more were later printed.
“It was overwhelming! We were printing names on books like you couldn’t believe!” said Bruce Bates, Ukiah stake mission president. The books were either given to the recipient by the person making the referral or by the missionaries.
Bishop Drennan, Bruce’s father, probably gave out more books than anyone else. Manager of a department store in Ukiah, he posted a copy of a newspaper article telling about the Book of Mormon project on the bulletin board at his store. Many of his employees asked for copies.
“A Catholic friend of Bruce’s was extremely cooperative in sending his friends copies,” added Bishop Drennan. “She looked up addresses and made sure people got the books. At first we decided to continue giving the books for the period of time Bruce would have been on his mission, but it’s carried on past that time. I think the whole situation has helped my wife and me decide to go on a full-time mission when we retire.”
Sister Drennan, Bruce’s mother, also shared the books with people. “Because of the circumstances, it was easier for us to do what we should be doing anyway, sharing the Book of Mormon with our friends and neighbors,” she said.
Bruce’s brother David, formerly student body president at Ukiah High School, now serving a mission in Spain, gave out several books, and one friend took the missionary discussions because of the gift. “There was a blessing that came along with the trauma of Bruce’s death,” said David. “It made me open up more about the Church. It became easier to talk to people about it.”
Twelve-year-old Matt McKell gave one of the books to his junior high school social studies teacher. “It scared me a little, but he said he knew the Drennan boys and that he would read it,” said Matt.
Lynn Budrow, then eleven, gave one to her fifth-grade teacher. “I told her it was from Bruce, and she said she really wanted it,” said Lynn.
Ken Morgan, custodian at Ukiah High School, gave five books to teachers and personnel at the high school. The librarian asked for two copies, one for herself and one to put in the school library. Ken’s wife works at an elementary school, where she gave ten books to teachers and parents.
“The Book of Mormon I received I’ll keep forever, even though I’m not Mormon,” said Mary Beth Morris, one of Bruce’s friends. “Bruce would write and tell me how many baptisms he was doing. I thought his mission was neat, because I knew he would do a good job at whatever he did. He was an example for a lot of people.”
Georgia Portlock in the Drennan’s ward gave out many books. “I love to talk about the Church, and it made me feel great to give the books to people,” she said. “At least they’ll have a copy of the Book of Mormon, and I don’t care if it sits on their shelf for a while. One day something will come up and they’ll read it and understand it. That’s what happened to me. My son gave me a Book of Mormon, and it sat on the shelf for ten years until I read it. When I did, it. was like I was burning up, and in three weeks I asked to be baptized.”
Sister Portlock sent a copy of the book with Bruce’s testimony to her granddaughter Sherry Siekert in Wisconsin. And a little while later, Sister Portlock got a call from Sherry asking Brother Portlock to come out and baptize her.
“I had been brought up hearing about the Mormons but not knowing anything about them,” said Sherry. “When I got the book, I started to read it—I’ve no idea what made me open the book. I just did. Two elders had come by before and left a pamphlet in the house, and I read it. Maybe that’s one reason I started to read the book.
“After I talked to the missionaries a while, I called my father in Chicago and said, ‘It all sounds so good to me. It’s like everything I’ve always wanted to know all my life.’ My father’s interested in the Church now, too.”
The gospel has had a great impact in Sherry’s life. “I don’t feel like I have to go out and do a lot of wild things to have fun. Fun is being with good friends and family now. I appreciate them more, and I’m not afraid of death anymore. I work in a nursing home, and when I see people dying, I feel like they’re going to something better. I’ve also found that if you stand by your standards and don’t let your peers pressure you into things you know are wrong, they’ll respect you more than if you’d just gone along. This last year since I’ve been baptized has been great.”
So Bruce Drennan’s missionary work continues on as his example inspires others to plant, nurture, and harvest. The impact of his testimony may never be fully measured.
Two flowering nectarine trees, the first of the kind in Ukiah, have been dedicated to Bruce at his high school, along with a plaque in his memory. “The trees here will grow and be strong, just as Bruce was strong,” said his friend Mary Morris.
Eugene F. Olsen, acting mission president of the Bolivia La Paz Mission at the time of Bruce’s death, wrote to Bruce’s parents: “Elder Bons and Elder Drennan were among the best missionaries in the entire mission. The fact that they were assigned to the Aymara program at all is in itself a high recommendation as only the very most dedicated and committed missionaries are called to that program because of the fact that the minimal supervision possible in these remote areas makes self-supervision and total dependability an absolute necessity.”
In a letter to Bishop and Sister Drennan shortly after Bruce’s death, Elder Mike Hanley of Bruce’s mission summed up the impact Elder Bruce Drennan had in the lives of a few—and continues to have: “I wanted you to know about the work in Suriquina, where Elder Drennan was working. In January, the elders in Suriquina had 25 baptisms. That was excellent for them. However, they did even better in February—they had 37. They were the highest baptizing companionship in all Bolivia. Suriquina is booming, and Brother and Sister Drennan, I know Elder Drennan planted some of those seeds. He made a big sacrifice, but these people will be grateful to him throughout eternity. He helped them receive the greatest gift they’ll ever have—the gift that’ll carry them to eternal life. I’m sure Elder Drennan is happy. We should be, too.”
“But if ye will nourish the word, yea, nourish the tree as it beginneth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root; and behold it shall be a tree springing up unto everlasting life” (Alma 32:41).

I still remember my anticipation. The night was warm. An uneven breeze puffed through open window screens but did little to cool the air or my excitement. My own room! My own room! The thought pulsed like a syncopated heartbeat.
Wayne, my oldest brother, was going on a mission, and I was inheriting his downstairs room. If someone had been offering me a gold mine, I could not have felt so rich.
I kicked my single sheet to the bed bottom and flip-flopped with pleasure. Just think, Wayne’s old room! I had always lived with my little brother, Chris. Even after moving to the new house, our room was upstairs, while Rog and Wayne each had their own separate rooms downstairs. Roger alone, Wayne alone, but Brad and Chris always lumped together like a compound word without so much as a hyphen.
It’s not that Chris wasn’t an A-number-one pal. He was always good at bed-to-bed spider jumps or deciphering the secret codes I thumped out on his headboard. It’s just that I was in seventh grade now. A man should have his own room.
“Hey, Brad,” Chris whispered. I hadn’t realized he was even awake. “I’m sure going to miss Wayne. Do you think he’s doing the right thing by leaving?” The wispy breeze stirred the patterned curtains I wouldn’t have to look at for two whole years. I took a final glance around. This upstairs room I would not miss. “Don’t worry, Chris,” I comforted. “Wayne is doing the right thing by leaving, all right.”
In the weeks that followed, my life began to change noticeably. I guess it had something to do with entering junior high school and starting to grow up. All I know is that those funny little marks on my face didn’t wash off, my moods cracked as often as my voice, and what self-image I managed to salvage was as shaky as a skinny kid on the high dive. And I became rebellious.
“Gross—I don’t want to take piano lessons any more!”
“But you’ve always liked piano. Just think how much piano may help you contribute on your mission.”
Everyone I met had the same advice.
“So what? I don’t care about grades.”
“You’ve always had good study habits. You need good grades for the future.”
Even then I knew they were right. These were sensitive years when I most needed the advice and instruction, but outwardly I rejected them.
“Cut your hair,” “Read the scriptures,” and on and on. “Be trustworthy,” “Be loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous …” “Why doesn’t everyone stop hassling me?” I’d complain.
“Go on a mission!” In family home evenings, quorum meetings, and bishop interviews, the message was the same: “Prepare while you’re young.”
Night after night I slumped slowly downstairs feeling pressured and picked on. “No one understands,” I’d moan to the blue plaster walls in Wayne’s old room, a room I was enjoying because my brother was out there “doing the right thing” on his mission. I needed that perspective—weekly letters, pictures, cassettes telling what he and his companions were busy doing , not loud lectures but quiet guides that shaped and influenced me.
Every transfer Wayne had found me in front of the big mission map Mom hung in the stairwell, trying to pinpoint where my big brother was now. You see, I was beginning to enjoy following Wayne.
I remembered Wayne playing the piano for family night, working in the garden, running, studying, and reading. I remembered his straight-A report card Dad would post on the refrigerator. I wondered if anyone had ever called him names or made fun of him. I wondered but finally realized that whether they did or didn’t, it had not changed Wayne’s actions. He chose what was right. He did what was best, regardless of what his friends in junior high might have thought or said.
Wayne never told me not to smoke, but I knew he hadn’t. He never wrote to say, “Don’t skip class, read dirty books, or yell at Mom and Dad,” but I knew he hadn’t. There were no flashy sermons or overbearing orations. Wayne was simply a quiet, constant example.
Exhortations are valuable. My parents’ direction is, and always has been, important. Respected Church leaders, teachers, and friends are heard. Their interest in my life is appreciated. Yet perhaps the one who reached me the most did it quietly, from half a world away while I lived in his old room.
Now, freshly back from my own mission, I am checking right back into Wayne’s old room. My upstairs room is now serving as half den and half toy box for visiting grandchildren. But I like it down here. The walls are the same blue. The wooden shelves and desk are the same ones that held my junior high books. Nothing has really changed except me. How can I ever repay Wayne for the subtle, positive influence he has had on me? How can I show my appreciation for so many who have guided me through their quiet examples? How can I thank Christ who gave the perfect example? What can I do?
“Oh, Brad,” my sister-in-law Moana calls. “Have you seen Janelle?” Mom had been tending my niece all morning.
From upstairs came Mom’s voice in answer, “Don’t worry, Moana, she’s here. Right here in Brad’s old room.”

Let me give you a personal example that probably won’t mean much to you, but it does to me because it was my life. Following my undergraduate years and one year of graduate work, earning a master’s degree at BYU, I taught for two or three years trying to save up enough money for further graduate work. I was married and we had our first child, so I knew that even with a fellowship it would be tight. During the summers of those teaching years, I took courses at local universities, filling in some gaps in my undergraduate education and strengthening my preparation for the graduate field I had chosen.

One summer in Seattle I was taking a class that was particularly demanding. I wasn’t exactly ecstatic over the teacher, and the material he used in the course seemed uneven and often unwisely chosen. But I jumped in and tried to ride the waves as best I could.

Just as a major midterm paper was coming due, my parents called and said they were coming to visit us. That was, of course, wonderful news. We needed a shot in the arm from our parents just as you do from yours. They had never been to the Northwest, and we wanted to show them everything. However, time was going to be a bit of a problem. I was teaching a full summer schedule and taking this class on the side. And like the iceberg and the Titanic in Thomas Hardy’s poem, my parents and this paper converged upon me at exactly the same moment. Now there’s no sense even discussing which option was most attractive to me. We had not seen my parents in more than eighteen months, and I’ve already told you how I felt about the class. Furthermore, the class was an optional thing I was doing. After all, this wasn’t the university at which I would be doing my graduate work, and certainly no one but I cared whether I did well in the class or not.

Well, as fate would have it, my parents arrived on a Friday, and my paper was due the next Monday. I had had the good sense to go to work on it reasonably early, so it wasn’t as though I had to do it all over one weekend. (I had tried that at BYU and found that it didn’t work very well.) So I had the paper virtually complete, except for one thing. I didn’t like it. It wasn’t right. I had to work more on it.

We set everything aside that Friday night and had a great time. My wife made tacos and enchiladas, the art for which my father said he would have banned me from the house had I not married her. We laughed and talked and had great fun. And then I had a decision to make. It was a kind of a missionary decision, if you will.

Saturday was a natural day to get up early, drive a couple of hours into British Columbia, meander back down the coast along the Puget Sound, and end up at the Seattle Center to enjoy all the remnants of the World’s Fair. That would leave Sunday for my duties as a bishop and then most of Monday to visit some other spots before they left Tuesday to see my brother in California. That just posed one problem. My paper.

Now I ask you to remember that this was not life-and-death, or at least it did not seem so to me. For all intents and purposes, I could have caved in on the course, and no one would have cared. But that somehow did not seem right to me. I was plagued, if you will, with “missionary feelings.” So I made a deal with my parents. If they would do all that I had outlined for Saturday with my wife, Pat, and our son, Matt, who was then two, but minus me, I would have my paper completely finished for the rest of their stay plus the promise of barbecued steak, tossed green salad, garlic bread and baked potatoes by the time they got back. With one proviso, of course—that my Dad leave me enough money to buy the steak.

Well, they were disappointed, and so was I, but it seemed the best thing to do. So they played and I worked. I wrote and rewrote and shouted and tore up papers and punched the typewriter and rewrote. It didn’t go as smoothly as I had hoped, but it went. I finally got it into what seemed reasonably acceptable shape and then threw myself (figuratively, of course) into the tossed green salad. Dad had left a dollar or two, Pat had found some steaks at the store, and I had started the coals on the grill, using part of the fury I was feeling over a paragraph that wouldn’t work. But the paper was finished and the food was on the table when they returned.

Now that isn’t much of a story except that it has made a great deal of difference in my life. When I got that paper back from a teacher I didn’t like much in a course I didn’t particularly enjoy, the professor had written just five words. I think it was all he had said to me during the entire term. “Publishable paper. See me sometime.” Well, the aftermath doesn’t really matter either except to say that this professor turned out to be, by sheer coincidence I suppose, a very close friend of a faculty member in my intended department at Yale. And then one thing led to another, and he wrote a note, saying, in effect, “You may want to consider this chap even if you haven’t heard of St. George, Utah.” There were other contacts along the way and other blessings that came, but my point is, again, sort of a missionary point. With that paper that summer in a remote setting—remote at least in terms of my ultimate plans—it made all the difference in the world for me to tract just one more door before calling it a day. To have done otherwise certainly would have been understandable and certainly would have been more enjoyable. But it has made a wonderful difference in my life to have demanded just a bit more of myself on that occasion.

Who would ever think that a valuable lesson could be learned from a bottle? Certainly not me, until one memorable spring. That particular spring was special to me because if all went according to schedule I would soon reach a goal for which I had been striving for almost three years—receiving my Eagle Scout badge.
In addition to the joy inherent in this event, even more happiness would result because I would be able to receive the award with my best friend. We had grown up together almost from infanthood and were like brothers. Our experience in the Scouting program was no different. We had advanced from the rank of Tenderfoot more or less simultaneously and looked forward to culminating our efforts at the same Eagle court of honor.
Only one thing stood between us and this great event—our Eagle boards of review. We would be interviewed individually by a board of two or three men chosen from the leadership of our Scout district. These men were to evaluate us on our attitudes about such things as the rank of Eagle, the Scouting program in general, our country, and our Eagle Scout service projects. The service project was to be an extraordinary act of service to our community and was the final requirement in the difficult climb to the rank of Eagle. To ensure that my project would be accepted by my review board, I presented it to a few of the district leaders before going ahead with it. They assured me that it would be fine.
Finally the long-awaited night came when my friend and I were to go before our boards of review. The wait to be called into one of the interview rooms seemed endless. All I could think about was how hard I had worked for my Eagle and the fact that, in only a few moments, I would know the result of my painstaking efforts—success or failure.
At last, after an eternity of ten minutes, I was called in. My friend followed shortly after me into a nearby room. After talking for a few minutes, the board asked me about my service project. We discussed it in detail, and I then was asked to step out while they deliberated. The wait to go into the interview was nothing compared to this.
The heavy silence in the hallway was finally shattered by the opening of the interview room door. I was asked, along with my parents and Scoutmaster, to come back into the room. The leader of the board began by praising me for reaching this most advanced step in the Scouting program. Now all of this praise was fine, but in the back of my mind I kept imagining him saying, “But …” or “However. …” Little did I realize that this nightmare would actually come to pass. After a few minutes of polite admiration, the board leader said, “However, we don’t feel your service project was quite involved enough to merit awarding you the Eagle badge.” Never before had I felt slammed so low so fast. I was deflated. I have no idea what they said from that point on. I felt nothing, thought nothing. I do remember, however, being very self-conscious as I burst into tears in front of Eagle candidates as I passed the room in which I had so anxiously waited earlier. I also remember hearing that my close friend, with whom I had worked side by side for three long years, passed his board of review with flying colors. He would be receiving his Eagle badge at the upcoming Eagle court of honor—without me. The feeling of depression and humiliation that I experienced cannot be expressed in words. What I had considered to be a very small step in the staircase toward the rank of Eagle, indeed, a step that I had taken for granted, turned out to be the one that kept me from reaching my goal. Would I be able to bounce back from this seemingly insurmountable failure? Well, if my dad had anything to say about it, yes.
A couple of days later, my dad asked me if I wanted to go for a ride with him in the car. At the time, I had nothing better to do so I decided “Why not?” I had no idea where we were going, but this information was soon revealed to me. As we came closer to the nearby bottling plant, I realized that this, for some strange reason, was to be our destination. We entered the building at the head of the bottle-making process. Dad pointed out to me the huge stores of sand from which the glass was made. We were fascinated as we watched the large drops of white-hot, liquid glass fall into the bottle molds.
He took me through the entire process, explaining what each piece of machinery did to the bottles as they progressed toward completion. Near the end of the process, Dad pointed out to me a machine that performed a task called “annealing.” The annealer was a device that applied tremendous pressure to each bottle to determine if it was strong enough to be deemed “safe for public use.” Many bottles broke under the pressure. Dad suggested that I might want to take one of the discarded bottles as a reminder of the trip. I remember thinking, “Dad, this has been a very interesting excursion, but is it really necessary for me to carry a bottle around for the rest of my life to remind me of it?”
Little did I realize the significance that this bottle would come to hold. On the way home Dad turned to me and said, “Craig, what you have just gone through with your Eagle board of review is like your annealing process. You have been put under extra pressure like the bottles. What comes of this experience is up to you. You can either break because of this pressure, or you can withstand it and bounce back. If you do bounce back, you will have not only caught up with your friend, but later in life, because of the extra strength you will acquire as you overcome this additional obstacle, you will probably even surpass him.”
After my dad told me this, I thanked him. I was truly grateful that he had given me something to ease the pain. But it wasn’t until several years later that I came to appreciate all that this experience meant. I realized that my father was special, very special. He was not only willing to take the time to show me through the bottling plant, but it took a good deal of creative thinking to come up with the idea. There are some fathers who, under the same circumstances, would simply have said, “That’s too bad son. I really thought you’d get it” or, “Well, I guess you’ll just have to give it another try. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for my golf game.”
The lesson I was taught at the bottling plant was, and still is, very valuable. Because of it, I went on to get my Eagle badge, and the discarded bottle I picked up that day has become one of my most treasured possessions. But more important is the lesson my dad showed me in simply noticing that his son had a problem and then setting out to help him solve it. And what a creative way of doing it! Because of the unusual, yet very effective method he used to teach me the lesson, I have remembered it for over nine years. I only hope that when I have children, I will be able to follow the example of my father and make the time to put first things first.

The second experience I would like to share involved our daughter Kelly.

Last June, our daughter Kelly was asked to help with the girls camp in her stake. She is a busy mother of four. With her husband serving in the bishopric, she wasn’t too anxious to go but she decided to accept the call because it was the ?rst camp for her oldest daughter.

A couple of weeks prior to the camp, the stake YW president and the camp director had gone to check out the camp site. They wanted to be sure they had everything they needed. They happened to run into a park ranger who told them among other things that their cell phones would not work there and they needed a satellite phone to communicate. He also gave them a number to call if they needed assistance from nearby help. Before the camp they acquired a satellite phone.

The day of camp arrived, June 26. A brother, who I will call Brother Dan, was recruited in a neighboring ward to help his wife bring all the equipment for their ward. I’m going to quote a lot from Dan’s own words as I share her experience. He was kind enough to write it up and share it.

All the participants, including a few men who had been asked to help set up the camp, met with their ward members early that day and left for the camp site. The camp was about an hour and a half away.

After Dan and his wife arrived with all of their ward’s equipment and they had ?nished their lunch, he was asked by one of the stake YW leaders to come and give a young sister a blessing. He was told at the time that he was the only man and priesthood holder in the entire camp. The other men who had been there earlier, had already left. He said he was somewhat nervous about giving this priesthood blessing alone with so little time to adequately prepare. He only had a few minutes to walk from his camp to where this young sister was located.

After he had given the young sister a blessing he returned to their camp area. The stake YW president came by to thank him and he says “perhaps she was inspired at that time to tell me... You can’t leave camp you’re the only Priesthood holder we have in the whole camp.” He hadn’t planned to stay but he had brought extra equipment and decided he could stay until other men arrived.

After our daughter arrived, she was helping to put up a large tarp or plastic cover, to provide shade over an eating area. She had been climbing trees to attach the cover. On the fourth corner she was about 10 feet up in a tree when the dried branches of the tree gave way and she suddenly fell, hit a table with her back and was thrown head ?rst onto the asphalt paved eating area.

I’m now going to share in Dan’s words what happened next.

A few hours after Dan had given the blessing to the young Sister, he wrote: “In our own camp, we had just started a ?re we would use to cook our dinners. Sister Harris, one of the stake leaders, came to the edge of our camp and quietly got my attention. She told me that someone had fallen out of a tree and also needed a blessing. Again, my heart began to race a little. As we walked she gave me scattered bits of what had apparently happened. It was clear that she was agitated. Her pace quickened. A moment later she sped up even faster. We were now running up the trail, past the stake camp and around a bend. There lying on the asphalt was one of the Young Women’s leaders. Other leaders were kneeling and standing at her side. Again I was not prepared for what I had been summoned to do. Not like earlier, this was different.

“I was expecting that someone might need a cast for a broken arm or maybe even a leg. No, that clearly was not the case. The condition of this young mother and the gravity of the situation hit me and I was afraid.

“I knelt on the ground above her head. Trying to process what I was seeing and all that was being explained by the others as to what had happened. It was immediately evident that she was in very serious condition. Her arms and shoulders were shaking violently. She was kicking her legs in the bushes to the side of the trail. We tried to isolate her head and movements so that she didn’t do herself further damage.

“The stake YW’S president was in the background, on a satellite phone talking to the 911 Operator. She relayed questions and answers and gave us instructions on what we needed to do to care for her as we waited for help to arrive. They told us that paramedics were on their way but It would be more than half an hour before they would arrive.

“The back of her head was a mass of bloody hair. Someone brought a bag of ice. We also put a cold compress on her forehead.

“Those at her side kept talking to her, each holding a separate hand. We had been instructed to keep this up and not let her lose consciousness. A nurse who was also there, kept checking her pupils, which were ?xed and dilated. She was not able to speak even with the constant dialog aimed at her. She just continued to kick and shake violently. All this time I sat there trying to summon inspiration and direction as to what I could possible say in a blessing.

“Judging from her condition, it appeared to me that someone’s life was in my hands. Thinking to myself, this is surely a job for someone else. There should be someone far better to carry this heavy burden. ‘Isn’t there another brother who could assist me,’ I asked? The question was met with empty, blank faced stares. One of the sisters asked, ‘Do you not want to give her a blessing?’ That wasn’t it. I explained that I can do it alone, but it would be nice to have someone by my side. I was still not ready to proceed. My mind was racing. In my heart of hearts I was still at a loss as to what I could and should say, what could I promise? Was I up to this? There was no one else.

“It took a few more minutes before I realized what I should have known all along. I did have someone by my side... He’s always by my side.

“I now resolutely said, ‘Let’s give her a blessing.’ I was still holding the cold compress on her forehead. I addressed her by name and then paused as the Spirit came into my heart. I knew that with the next six, seemingly simple words, that came out of my mouth I was stepping over a threshold into another realm. I would then be speaking the mind and will of the Lord. I proceeded, ‘In the name of Jesus Christ.’ I then declared the Priesthood authority by which I spoke in His name. Continuing, as the impressions came into my heart and mind, I blessed her with a peace and a comfort to come over her. Also, that the Lord was mindful of her and grateful for her service. I promised her that help was on the way.

“Almost unknowingly, I then commanded the elements of heaven and earth. The next impression came into my mind, and a split second later, came out of my mouth. ‘I bless you that you will recover from this accident.’ Nothing I had been seeing for the past twenty minutes or so suggested that this was a logical conclusion that I could make. The combination of those two phrases I had just pronounced, were so profound and out of character for me, I was struggling a bit with what I had just said. No simple man, of his own power, can make those commands. There was no denying the strong promptings as the Lord directed me. The blessing closed with the sealing of those blessings on her head, in the name of Jesus Christ.

Dan continued: “A collective, ‘Amen’ was pronounced by all those who were at Kelly’s side. Sister Witt, who was holding her right hand, immediately said, ‘Kelly it’s a miracle.’ She was looking at her face and was able to see that her pupils were no longer dilated and rolled back unresponsive. Sister Witt, once more, as she had been doing for nearly thirty minutes now, carrying on a one-way conversation with her friend, said ‘Kelly do you feel it? Do you feel the miracle that happened just as soon as he sealed those blessings on your head?’ Remarkably to us all, this time there was an answer. Kelly spoke. She answered ‘yes.’ This was the ?rst sound she had made since I had arrived. She was no longer shaking violently or kicking her legs. The ?rst portion of the blessing had come to pass just as soon as I closed.

Brother Dan concludes: “It is my most humble testimony that yes, a handful of people in a distant corner of Gods creations, were privileged that day to witness, and be a part of a miracle.”

Our daughter was taken by ambulance to the Park City Hospital and then transferred to the trauma intensive care unit at the Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City.

She had a large skull fracture and two places where her brain was bleeding. Other tender mercies were granted to her as she was treated in the trauma unit. She was released after a week in the hospital to go home to recuperate. Her brain bleeds and resulting hematoma did not require surgery. Over time she has recovered as promised with only a few issues still remaining. (No paralysis, no permanent brain damage.) Today she is a busy active mother and wife caring for her family.

One day my sister and I were playing outside with our friends. During the game one of our friends used Heavenly Father’s name in vain. My sister and I told her in nice voices that that was not a good word to say. Now all our friends know that we do not like saying that word. My sister and I felt warm and happy inside for setting an example of not using Heavenly Father’s name in vain.
Lucy and Eliza B., ages 5 and 6, Virginia, USA

I met Bill Forrest and Debbie Hutchings when we were students at Brigham Young University. Bill had returned from his mission. He and Debbie fell in love and were married in the Oakland California Temple. They established their home in Mesa, Arizona, and were blessed with five sons and two daughters. Bill and Debbie taught their children to love the Lord Jesus Christ as they loved Him. Their son, Elder Daniel Forrest, currently serving in the Mexico Oaxaca Mission, said, “Every morning without fail we were there at the table before school reading and discussing the scriptures.”

Their daughter Kara, now married with two children of her own, still vividly remembers her father driving her to early morning activities in high school. She said, “My dad enjoyed committing quotes, scriptures, and poems to memory, [and during those early morning drives] we would practice reciting them.” One of his favorite scriptures was “Remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, … [he] shall have no power over you to drag you down … , because of the rock upon which ye are built.”

On the Friday before Easter Sunday in the year 2000, exactly 10 years ago, Bill Forrest was serving as bishop of the Estate Groves Ward in Arizona. On his drive to work, only a mile (1.6 km) from home, his car was struck by a large gravel truck. Debbie and the children left home shortly after Bill and unexpectedly came upon the tragic scene. Bill had not survived the accident. The immortal spirit of this beloved husband and father had suddenly been taken home to Him who overcame death, the Son of God, whose glorious Resurrection they were to have celebrated together that Easter Sunday.

How did Debbie and her seven children (the youngest only 5) find the strength they needed? Kara, 15 at the time of her father’s accident, recently told me: “I am grateful to my [mother and father] for the ways that they taught me [about the Savior]. They opened the scriptures with me, prayed with me, and were examples of [the Savior’s] charity, love, and patience. … Easter [is] a tender time in my life each year as I reflect on the life, mission, and Resurrection of our Savior and am reminded of the life of my earthly father.”

Elder Daniel Forrest said: “I was 10 years old when my father passed away. It was a tough time. … My mother has always been an example of the Savior’s teachings. I carry with me my father’s name badge from his mission to Spain. [Two] of my favorite quotes from my father [are]: ‘Two men can do anything as long as one of them is the Lord’ and ‘The Savior must be our foundation. Without that we flounder.’”

Faith in Jesus Christ has filled the hearts of the Forrest children. On this Easter weekend, 10 years since their father’s passing, they miss him deeply, but the sting of his death is “swallowed up in Christ.” They know, because of the incalculable gift of the Savior, they can be with their earthly father and their Heavenly Father again.

April got to class just in time to see Miss Edwards hang the last car on the bulletin board.
“Good morning, April,” Miss Edwards said. “Are you ready for our next reading race?”
“Yes! I already have books picked out,” April said.
Reading races were one of April’s favorite things about third grade. In the last race, her paper frog had hopped to second place. This time she hoped her car would cross the finish line first.
That evening, April was reading when her older sister Annie sat down by her. “Want to play a game?” Annie asked.
“No, thanks,” April said. “I need to finish this chapter for the reading race.”
After a while, April took her reading record to Annie. “Will you sign me off for 10 pages?” she asked.
“Sure,” Annie said. “That’s a good start.”
The next day, April was surprised to see that more than half the class was ahead of her in the race. As she sat down at her desk, she noticed a thin book on Craig’s desk.
“Are you reading that for the race?” she asked.
“Yep. I’m in eighth place now,” Craig said.
April sighed. “I’ll never catch up when I’m reading books with so many more words on a page,” she thought.
“Wow, 15 pages!” Annie said as she signed April’s reading record that night. “Good job, Sis.”
But April didn’t feel very good. She had only read 11 pages. The next day there were still six cars in front of April’s. But she knew that wasn’t the reason her heart felt so heavy in her chest—it was because she was four spaces farther ahead than she should be.
That night she added two extra pages to her sign-off sheet.
“Thirteen tonight,” Annie said. She smiled at April. “Aren’t you almost done with that book?”
April’s eyes filled with tears. “Well, I haven’t really read that many pages. But the other kids are reading easy books with fewer words on a page. I’m still reading more than they are.”
“So you feel OK lying about it?”
April shook her head. She knew it wasn’t right to record extra pages.
Annie smiled kindly and handed April her sheet, unsigned. “I think you know what to do,” she said.
The next morning April pulled her car off the board and moved it backward.
“April?” Miss Edwards asked.
April took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Miss Edwards. I wasn’t truthful about how many pages I’ve read.”
“I see,” Miss Edwards said.
“I shouldn’t have cheated,” April said.
“April, you’ve given me an idea,” Miss Edwards said. “I know some students are choosing easier books so they can read more pages. I think we’ll start the race over today, and we’ll move forward by time spent reading instead of pages. How does that sound?”
April smiled.
“Thank you for being truthful, April,” Miss Edwards said. “You’ve helped me see that what’s important is that you are spending time reading books you enjoy, not how much you’re reading.”
April was glad she had told the truth. She felt even better that night when she found a note from Annie on her pillow:
Dear April,
I knew you’d do the right thing. Thanks for being such a great example!
Love, Annie

When McKay Hatch of Pasadena, California, and his friends started middle school at age 12, he was bothered by the increase in bad language. “I think what bothered me most,” says McKay, “was that they were using it every other word. It wasn’t just that they used a cuss word when they stubbed their toe. It was becoming part of their everyday language.”
McKay got up his nerve, spoke to his friends, and basically said that if they wanted to continue hanging out with him, they had to quit using bad language. He wondered if he would lose all his friends, but they stuck with him and cleaned up their language. McKay came up with the idea of starting a club—a No Cussing Club.
The first club meeting was held June 1, 2007, at the end of the school year. “A lot of people came,” says McKay. “I was surprised. We talked about what our goals were going to be and what we could do.” Since that simple beginning, McKay reports having members or branches of the club in all 50 states and in 35 countries. They now have T-shirts, wristbands, and a Web site.
The club wanted to have a cuss-free week in their city. McKay wrote to the city council, who agreed, and last year, March 3–7 was declared Cuss-Free Week. In March 2009, the county of Los Angeles, home to over 10 million people, is also going have a Cuss-Free Week, with McKay receiving the proclamation.
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing. At first, McKay almost quit because of negative response. Sometimes people would yell bad words at him. Or they would accuse him of trying to take away their freedom of speech. McKay points out that he isn’t making them do anything. He asks them to challenge themselves to improve. “I’m just trying to bring awareness about people’s language.”
McKay is often asked to talk at elementary schools. He tells the younger kids that their words become their thoughts, their thoughts become their actions, their actions become their character, and their character becomes their destiny. “I tell them it all starts with your words.”

My father was very fond of reading the Bible. He wasn’t a Catholic, but my mother was. She took us to the Catholic church from the time we were small. Then, in 1956, when I was twelve, the LDS missionaries came to our home. They were not only competent but very inspired in getting my mother and us children involved. Each time they came, they read something to us from the scriptures—almost always from the Book of Mormon—and the next time they came, they asked us to report on what they had told us and on what we had read. The three of us children still at home were baptized with my father and mother six months later.

When I was in nursing school we completed our study of death and dying by spending time with terminally ill patients in hospital. The assignment consisted of an entire eight-hour shift with that patient filling their psychological as well as physical needs. I can’t express how reluctant I was to face such a patient. I really felt I wouldn’t be able to do it. I even thought of telephoning the school to say I was sick, but my class grade depended upon completion of this assignment.
I felt very inadequate that day as I stepped onto the elevator of the hospital. A constant prayer had been in my heart and mind all through the night and was answered in part as the elevator ascended.
“Don’t be afraid,” the voice whispered.
I doubted back, “But what will I say? How do I talk of death to someone who isn’t a Latter-day Saint?” My mind continued, “I’m the only Latter-day Saint in my whole class … in the whole school. Some of the hospitals I work in don’t have a Latter-day Saint in them on the staff or as a patient.”
Once on the fourth floor, I looked at my patient’s medical chart. This was not our usual routine as we were to assess our patient personally before we ever went to their chart; it was part of the learning exercise. However, something told me to look at her chart before I entered the room. Everything checked out. “Eve Crisp. Terminal cancer—final phase.” But there in the corner under religious affiliation were the letters “LDS.”
Quickly I slipped into her darkened room. Her eyes dimmed by months of suffering brightened a bit as I took her hand in mine and introduced myself as Sister Cain.
We visited easily as I met her physical needs. I learned that my patient still had several children at home. She was only forty-seven years old. She spoke of the Church and a time that she had traveled to attend a general conference. It was one of her fondest memories. I mentioned the upcoming April conference broadcast that would be broadcast the following Sunday morning. She smiled.
Often during the day she would respond to the cries of a little boy down the hall who had been badly burned by saying, “Poor thing, he must be suffering so.” Her sympathy and compassion seemed overwhelming for one suffering so much herself. I marveled at her. The time came all too soon for me to leave. Before I left, I straightened her pillow and reached for her signal light on the bed sheet. As I placed it in her hand she held on to mine and answered the question I was unable to ask.
“The Lord is perfect. His plan for me is perfect and I know he loves me.”
I embraced her and moved silently out into the corridor. I took a deep breath before returning to the main desk to write a note on her chart. The note read: “Please see to it that Mrs. Crisp’s television is tuned to the LDS general conference on Sunday morning at six o’clock.” I then went to a report meeting and bore my testimony to a class of nonmembers that I could only hope would appreciate my remarks.
The following Monday, my supervising instructor called me from my class work into her office. Sister Crisp I was told had died that Sunday morning shortly after the television show she had been watching had ended. I shed tears for her that I would shed for no one else. She had taught me so much—“The Lord is perfect; his plan is perfect and I know he loves me.”

My mind has been much on this topic because of an experience our family has had in the last few months. Our daughter and her husband took a while to find each other and then, though they wanted children with all their hearts, over a number of years had difficulty realizing that dream. They prayed and they sought priesthood blessings and medical help, and eventually were thrilled to learn they were expecting twins.
Things did not go smoothly, however, and three and a half months before the babies were due to arrive, the mother-to-be found herself in the labor and delivery section of the hospital. The doctors at first were hopeful that they could stop the labor for a few more weeks. Quickly, however, the question became, would they even have the 48 hours necessary for medication to prepare the babies’ immature lungs to function?
A nurse came in from the newborn intensive care unit to show the couple pictures of the machines the babies would be hooked up to if they were born alive. She explained the risks for eye damage, for lung collapse, for physical impairment, for brain damage. The couple listened, humbled yet hopeful, and then, despite all the doctors could do, it was obvious that these babies were coming.
They were born alive. First the baby girl and then the baby boy—weighing less than four pounds together—were rushed to the intensive care unit and put on ventilators, with umbilical tubes and intravenous lines and constant attention. They can’t have too much light, they can’t have too much noise, their chemical balances need constant monitoring, as the hospital, with millions of dollars of equipment and many wonderful doctors and nurses, attempted to replicate the miracle of a mother’s womb.
There are multitudes of little miracles every day: a collapsed lung heals and then, despite the odds, continues to function properly; pneumonia is beaten back; more deadly infections invade and are overcome; IV lines go bad and are replaced. After two and a half months, the baby boy has gained two pounds and can breathe with an oxygen supplement. His ventilator is gone, he learns to eat, and his grateful parents take him home with monitors attached.
The baby girl keeps pulling her ventilator tube out, setting off alarms across the nursery. Maybe she wants to keep up with her brother, we think, but her throat closes off each time, and she just can’t breathe on her own. Her throat is so inflamed that at times the respiratory therapists have great difficulty reinserting the tube, and she almost dies. Her normal progress is stymied by her continued dependence on the ventilator.
Finally, after her baby brother has been home for two months, the doctors feel they are forced to suggest surgery for her—a surgery that will allow her to breathe by opening a hole in her throat, a surgery that might solve the stomach problems by opening a hole in her side, but a surgery that will impact her little body for many more months and maybe for the rest of her life. As the parents wrestled with this decision, a beloved aunt sent a message to all the family. She explained the situation—the critical issue of timing, the importance of getting off the ventilator—and suggested that we join our faith once again, and in prayer and fasting ask for one more miracle—if it was the Lord’s will. We would culminate our fast with a prayer the evening of December 3.
Let me read from a letter that was sent to the family the morning of December 4. “Dearest Family, Wonderful news! Blessings from the Lord. Our heartfelt thanks for your prayers and fasting in behalf of our little girl. Yesterday morning she came off the ventilator and has been off for 24 hours at this writing. To us, it is a miracle. The medical staff are still guarded about predicting the future, but we are so grateful to the Lord and to you. We are praying that this will mark the beginning of the end of her hospital stay. And we even dare to hope that she’ll be home for Christmas.”
She did make it home for Christmas, and both babies are currently doing “just fine.” Our family has had its own “parting of the Red Sea,” and we are prepared to testify that there is today, as there was yesterday and will be forever, a “God of miracles” who loves His children and desires to bless them.

Michael DeLoach of Hollister, Florida, won top honors nationally in team roping. He and his partner, Andy Mills, placed first in their event at the National High School Rodeo Finals held in Rapid City, South Dakota. They also helped the Florida contingent to outscore the two-time defending champs from Texas. This was the first time that a high school rodeo team east of the Mississippi had claimed overall top honors.

It was a cloudy day at the end of the summer. My friend Iveta and I were going to the older part of our city. We had been doing missionary work for quite a long time, finding members of the Church who had been converted before World War II. During the Communist rule in our small country of Czechoslovakia (now the Czech and Slovak republics), many of the Church members had died. But we had a list of names and went in search of the few remaining members of the Church.
We met a woman who told us her parents had been LDS before they passed away. We decided to visit her and ask what she knew about the Church—we thought she might be interested in the gospel, or would perhaps be able to refer us to others who had been related to Church members. When we got to her home we discovered that her grandmother was still living. She was so happy to see us—she was a Church member! She told us lots of stories about the Church before the war. Then she showed us an old picture of the Salt Lake Temple.
Her words gave me reason to think about my own life. Would I be able to distinguish the Spirit so easily after 50 years without contact with the Lord’s church? My heart was full of gratitude to Heavenly Father for leading us to this wonderful woman.
Doing missionary work in my spare time that summer taught me many great lessons. I now understand that the Lord will never forsake those who believe in him.

Armed with flashlights, my brother and sister and I jumped out of the minivan and followed Dad down the trail leading to Lava River Cave. “Have fun,” Mom called. She and my baby brother had enough snacks and books to last two hours, the time it took us to hike the cave last time.
This time we felt more prepared. Dad wore a helmet so he wouldn’t scrape his head on the roof of the cave, and all of us had jackets and good hiking shoes. Flashlights shining, we entered the cold, dark cave. We crawled on hands and knees through the narrow opening until it widened and we could stand and walk.
As we plodded forward, we passed other spelunkers (cave explorers). The deeper into the cave we went, the more we saw people giving up and heading for the surface, maybe too scared of the dark to continue. But I liked the mysterious cave, as long as we had flashlights.
After a while, my brother Paul whimpered, “My flashlight isn’t working.” It dimmed and went out. A few minutes later, Crystal’s flashlight weakened too.
“Follow me closely,” Dad instructed.
“Oh no,” I mumbled. Now my flashlight was going dim! We had been in the cave for two hours. We were supposed to be finished by now.
“Bad news,” Dad said nervously. “I think we’ve been walking in a circle.” On our last visit to the cave, Dad had brought a map, but not this time. We had thought we knew the way.
We made another circle through the cave, but we didn’t see any other people who could help us. I was scared Dad’s flashlight would go out too, and we’d be left alone in the dark.
Paul began to cry.
Then it dawned on me. “We should say a prayer!”
Dad smiled. “That’s the right thing to do. I’ll say it.”
As he prayed that we could find our way out of the cave safely, I felt a calm, peaceful feeling. Soon we heard voices and saw spelunkers coming toward us with flashlights and headlamps. “Need help?” they called.
Not only did they know the way out, but they also gave my sister another flashlight and my brother a piggyback ride to the surface. When I saw sunlight again, I was so tired and relieved I collapsed on the ground.
Mom stood nearby with a camera. “What happened?” she called. “I was starting to get worried!”
As we told her our story, Dad realized something: “Our cave adventure was a little like our life here on earth,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Crystal asked.
“Well, we needed a flashlight to find our way, just like we need the Holy Ghost,” he explained. “Also, we should try to be more prepared. Today, we should have made sure we had new batteries in our flashlights, and we should have used a map to guide us.”
“Like we need the scriptures,” I said.
“That’s right. And when we prayed for help, what happened?”
“People helped us,” Paul piped up.
Dad nodded. “We need other people, like prophets and teachers, to help us find our way.”
I smiled. Grateful to be headed home, I knew I’d be grateful to return to my heavenly home someday.