Gospel Story Finder

Jane has a gift for connecting with people worldwide. She recalls being interested in the news as a nine-year-old. Later, as she travelled Asia with her parents and talked to all kinds of women on public transportation, she overheard her father ask her mother, “How does she know her? . . . Who is she talking to now?”

Ifoni had a solid testimony reinforced by some rather miraculous events in his childhood. At eight, while he was playing at sword fighting with a very real and very sharp machete, Ifoni’s eye was cut and damaged. The doctor said he would never see with that eye again. His father and his bishop gave him a priesthood blessing, asking, if it was the Lord’s will, that his eye be healed. Three months later, sight returned to his eye, even though the scar remains. He was also nearly electrocuted when electricity was first brought to his family’s village. Again he was given a priesthood blessing, and his life was preserved. Now, as a teen, he has no doubts about the power of the priesthood. “When I received the Aaronic Priesthood,” Ifoni says, “my mother encouraged me to stay faithful to the Lord’s power. It’s so important to stay clean and be worthy of the Aaronic Priesthood.”

Although the relationship between Erroll and his father today is as close as it ever was, pressure from both sides of the family was to continue right up to the day of the scheduled baptism. “I remember my feelings on that day,” Brother Bennett now says. “We had gone through a lot of pressure, and we knew what we had to do. Yet somehow I felt I needed a final confirmation, a last indication from the Lord that all was well and that we should proceed.
“I remember going up the side of the mountain near my home where I like to jog, and privately pouring out my feelings to my Heavenly Father. I asked for confirmation, perhaps some message that I was about to take the right step. Halfway down the mountain on the way home, I offered the same prayer again.
“As I drew near my home, there was a car parked outside. It belonged to Gabriel Vaianui, a member who had been inactive for about ten years, attending church only intermittently. Gabriel had been at the market and had overheard someone say that Erroll Bennett had decided not to join the Mormon Church after all. He had then driven over to my home immediately to find out for himself.”
Erroll recognized Brother Vaianui as the messenger he had sought and promptly asked him, “Gabriel, should I be baptized today?” Without hesitation, the answer came: “Erroll, whatever you do, you must be baptized. Do not turn your back on the Church.”
Brother Bennett now speaks gratefully of Gabriel Vaianui’s counsel. “It was just what I needed—that little extra to give me the courage I lacked.”
The baptisms went ahead as scheduled, and afterwards Erroll Bennett had time to think. No one called from the soccer club with congratulations or criticism, and by the end of that quiet evening he had made his decision. It was no good agonizing over an elusive compromise, and there was little point in training if he wasn’t going to play on Sundays. The following day he would talk to Napoléon Spitz and withdraw from active soccer, leaving his position open to some other hopeful.

Ludwig van Beethoven, world-famous composer
Was told by his first violin teacher that he would never be successful.

“Mom, I don’t think I want to go to school today.”
“Of course you don’t. You never do.”
“Maybe I’m sick today. You know something? I think I have a headache. I really do. I think I’ll stay home today.”
“Laurie, I am counting to three. One …”
“Mom, you only count to three for little kids. I’m in high school.”
“Well, sometimes I forget. Come on, get out of bed.”
I crawled out of bed. There’s something futile about trying to get out of going to school when you’re too tired to make up a good excuse. At least Mom hadn’t noticed my messy room.
When I entered the kitchen for breakfast, my brother Jon was putting six or seven peanut butter sandwiches on his plate.
“Look, Laurie!” he said. “Guess how many I’ve got?”
“Oh, about 952,” I said. I got out the cold cereal and started to read the newspaper.
“Can I read the comics?” Jon asked.
“I guess so.”
“Jon!” Mom said it so loud that Jon dropped his peanut butter and jelly sandwich on Bugs Bunny. “Jon! What are you doing with all that junk on your plate?”
Jon grinned sheepishly. “I guess I’m eating,” he said, as he tried to get his sandwich off the paper.
“Don’t take so many at once. I just came up to remind you that your room needs cleaning.”
I was reading something about how the governor wanted some bill passed or something. I knew I would probably get yelled at about my room too.
“And yours, young lady …”
I looked up and said, “I know. I’ll clean it up when I get home from school.”
I finished my breakfast and went downstairs. Then it hit me like the shock of running through the sprinklers: the algebra test! No wonder I didn’t want to go to school.
It was the start of a glorious day.
My first period class was gym. I put on my green bag that is generally termed a gym suit and started out the door to run around the track. You see, our teacher finds it necessary that all young teenage girls become physically fit, and running is supposed to be very good at aiding in the achievement of this goal. I do not find running around the track in my gym suit a time when I feel particularly ravishing. So of course when I emerged from the school door, Dave and his friends were walking across the street. Of all days they picked this one to be late for school! There I was, standing in my lovely apparel.
I couldn’t turn around and go back in the door because everybody was pushing to get out and it was too crowded. I couldn’t jump under a rock because there wasn’t a rock in sight for 50 yards. I would have cried, but that would have made my mascara run. There I was with no alternative but to run with the crowd to the track and pretend I couldn’t hear Dave laughing.
The algebra test was terrible. It had lots of questions like, “If Harold can get to school in 7/8 of an hour riding his bike and in 1 3/5 hours walking, and the sum of the minutes it takes for him to walk to school and ride his bike home 17 times is the same as the number of yards from Harold’s house to the school, please set up an equation that will give you 1/3 of the distance of the round trip.” I’m not sure if that was it exactly, but we had a problem something like that. I missed about half the problems.
Then in history Mr. Crispin called on me to give three ways that the Industrial Revolution affected the West. I started to talk, but I really didn’t know what to say, and after making a fool of myself for two minutes, I was invited to sit down.
To finish it off, my English teacher, Mr. Drake, thought we were all spoiling for some intriguing activity for the night and assigned us five pages of grammar in our workbooks. That, added to history and biology, gave me so much homework that I was afraid I would have to take two trips to the bus just to load up my scholastic supplies for the evening.
When I finally got home, I opened the door and threw my books on the floor.
“Laurie, would you mind running over to Mrs. Jacobson’s house to get a pan that she borrowed from me?”
What a greeting!
“Why don’t you make Jon go?” I asked. “I’m tired.”
“Jon is playing with Brian.”
“Why can’t Mrs. Jacobson bring it over herself? She’s the one who borrowed it.”
“Mrs. Jacobson is getting old, and she can’t walk very far at a time.”
“You know,” I said, “that would make a good algebra problem! If it takes Mrs. Jacobson three hours to bring a pan to Laurie’s house, and two hours for her to return to her house empty-handed—”
“Laurie! Go on over to Mrs. Jacobson’s house right now.”
I decided it was useless to fight the taskmaster, so I turned around and walked to Mrs. Jacobson’s house.
I rang the doorbell, and she invited me in. She told me to sit down, so I picked a green sofa and collapsed into it. Mrs. Jacobson brought out a tray of cookies.
“I just made them,” she said. “Have one!”
“Thanks,” I said, and bit in, tasting rye. I hate rye! When Mrs. Jacobson went in to get the pan, I stuffed the cookie under the cushion.
I don’t know for sure why I did it. I think it was mostly that I don’t get along with rye, but it was partly that I had to wear a green gym suit when people could see me, that Mr. Crispin called on me in the middle of class, that I had tons of homework, that a teacher would actually give a test on how much 1/3 of the round trip was, and finally that Mom would make me come to some old lady’s house just for a pan on a day like this. I was tired of the conspiracy against me.
When Mrs. Jacobson came back with the pan, she asked me if I’d like another cookie. I told her no, thanks, I was on a diet. Then she said she had some skim milk in her fridge, and would I like some? I told her that I wouldn’t really care for any and that I had to get back to do my homework.
When I got home, I started to feel guilty about what I’d done. It really wasn’t fair to take out my frustrations on some nice old lady’s rye cookie and couch. What if Mrs. Jacobson found the cookie?
I felt guilty about it all the next day. By the time I got home, I had a stomach ache, and all my internal organs were yelling at me for worrying. However, I can’t just say, “I guess I will quit worrying now.” When I’m worried, I have to do something to make the problem go away. I knew what I needed to do. I had to get that cookie out from under that green sofa before Mrs. Jacobson found it. I started forming all sorts of plans to get the cookie back.
I could sneak in during the middle of the night and steal the cookie. But if I did that, I might wake her up, and she would get scared thinking I was a burglar coming to steal her skim milk or something. I could get my best friend Julie to ring the doorbell and pretend to take a survey while I ran in the back door and retrieved the cookie. I could tell Mrs. Jacobson that I needed service hours and that I would clean her house for her. At last I decided on an easier plan.
I rang the doorbell, and Mrs. Jacobson answered it. She opened the door and just stared at me for a minute. Then she suddenly hugged me. I hate to be hugged.
“Oh it’s you, angel dear!” Oh heavens, I thought. Don’t tell me I’m dead already.
“I’ve come to visit.”
“Oh bless your heart! Come in, dear.” I hate being called dear.
“Sit down,” she said, pointing to the familiar green couch. I decided to really ham it up.
“Oh my,” I said, trying not to laugh, “I’m so tired. Could I have a glass of water?”
“Why of course you may,” she smiled, and she turned to do my bidding. As soon as she was in the kitchen where she couldn’t see me, I began my task frantically.
I took out the plastic bag I had stuffed in my pocket and lifted up the cushion, revealing about four major pieces of a rye cookie.
I was sweeping the smaller crumbs into my bag when I heard her coming back. I pushed the bag into my pocket and tried to fix the cushion. I turned around quickly to see her looking at me with a nervous smile.
“I see you’ve noticed how dirty my couch is. I must have the cleaning lady vacuum it.”
“Oh, I wasn’t looking at the dirt …” Suddenly I realized that that hadn’t sounded too good. “What I mean is, I, uh, was looking at how well it is made. It’s certainly very nice.”
“Thank you. Here’s your water, dear.” (I wished she wouldn’t call me that.)
I stayed for about ten minutes, and we talked about her cat and how the dear thing should have kittens any time now and how warm the weather was. I must say I was relieved when I was safe at home with the cookie crumbs in my garbage can.
It was some weeks later when I decided to visit Mrs. Jacobson again. I’d been thinking about how awful I was to put the cookie under the couch and what a hypocrite I had been to get it back. She was really quite a nice old lady. I decided to go visit her just one more time.
Once I got there, I didn’t know what to say. What did I have in common with a 70-year-old lady? I didn’t want to spend half an hour talking about cats again.
I tried to think of a question to ask her. It occurred to me that maybe she wasn’t sure what to say to a 16-year-old girl. I asked her how she’d met her husband. She said she had a job in a department store where her husband used to buy things.
Then she asked me about school, and I told her about our gym suits and how embarrassing it was to go outside wearing one. She smiled, and we really had a good time. We didn’t talk about the weather but about things we were both interested in. We talked about the mountains and how pretty they are. I told her about how I planned to go to college and major in psychology. When I went home, I was glad that I had gone.
I rarely had a chance to talk to someone who listened so well and seemed to be interested in me. It seemed my friends liked to talk only about clothes. My mom listened to me, but she was always reminding me to clean my room and sit up straight—and have I brushed my teeth?
It was two years ago that I first visited Mrs. Jacobson. Since then I have gone many times to visit her. She often tells me stories about when she was young. She dropped out of school after eighth grade to help her mother with her younger brothers and sisters. She had a job once, living on a farm. She helped the lady with cleaning, cooking, and taking care of the children all day long, all week, for a dollar a week.
We had Mrs. Jacobson over for Christmas dinner last year. I now have someone to visit with when I feel depressed, like the other day when I went out with Dave and I spilled spaghetti all over and felt like climbing under the table. I told Mrs. Jacobson about that, and she told me about how once when she was dating her husband, he came to visit her one evening. She thought he was coming a half hour later than he did. He came to the door while she was in her room. Mrs. Jacobson’s sister invited him in to sit down and started to go up the stairs to announce that he was there. Mrs. Jacobson came out of her bedroom door, intending to go downstairs and borrow a necklace. She started singing a song and was halfway down the stairs when she saw the young man grinning up at her. I guess everybody does things like that sometimes.
I think Mrs. Jacobson is glad when I visit her. She lives all by herself, and I don’t think she has much to do besides watch soap operas. Her eyes are getting bad, and she can’t read very well anymore.
Yesterday I went to visit Mrs. Jacobson. I walked in and sat down on the green sofa. She asked me to wait just a minute, and she went into the kitchen. She returned with a tray of cookies. I bit in and tasted rye. I smiled and ate the whole thing.

In school we earn a “100% ticket” when we get 100 percent on our morning schoolwork. The tickets go into a treasure chest. At the end of the month you get a treat if one of your tickets is drawn from the chest. One day I found a 100% ticket on the floor. I gave it to the teacher, and she asked me to try to find the owner. I asked around the class, but nobody claimed it. The teacher said I could have the ticket because I did the right thing by bringing it to her instead of putting it in the chest when I hadn’t earned it. I felt good inside for doing the right thing.

When President David O. McKay (1873–1970) and his wife, Emma Ray, visited Tonga in 1955, the Saints treated them like royalty. This was the first visit of a Church President to the islands. During their short visits to Tongatapu and Vava‘u, they held meetings with the members and felt of their love and devotion as Tongans performed music and dances and gave speeches and feasts. During President McKay’s visit to the Saints in Vava‘u, he was inspired to reveal that he had seen a vision of “a temple on one of these islands, where the members of the Church may go and receive the blessings of the temple of God.” One member recorded the Tongans’ response: “The entire congregation burst into tears.”1

Elders M. Russell Ballard and D. Todd Christofferson attended the installation ceremony for the new bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Salt Lake City and welcomed him to the community.

A bit of humor is found in an account of a conversation between author Mark Twain and a friend. Said the wealthy friend to Twain, “Before I die, I plan to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I will climb to the top of Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud.”
Replied Twain, “Why don’t you stay home and keep them?”

After 15 months I was reassigned to the American Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa. I was selected as the first Black Marine security guard ever to serve in South Africa. In each place I was assigned, I was handpicked because of my standards. Interestingly, U.S. president Bill Clinton phoned to ask me to accept the South Africa assignment. Those were some of the reasons I received many recognitions and awards.

Overcoming Homesickness. Elder Cristhian Rolando Escalante Romero of Ecuador, attending the Guatemala MTC: “Since I am so far from home, letters take a long time to get here. But my companion strengthens me by being by my side. My MTC president gives me advice as if I were one of his grandchildren; I love him so much. And Jesus Christ nourishes me.”

Some time ago, I was assigned to preside over a regional conference in La Paz, Bolivia. La Paz is high in the Andes mountains, at an elevation of approximately 12,000 feet. Members came to the conference from small towns and villages scattered throughout the area of La Paz and the Altiplano.

Great sacrifice and commitment were required for some of these members to attend the meetings. Prior to the leadership training session, I stood in front of the stake center and greeted the brethren as they gathered. I greeted one older brother who told me through an interpreter that he lived a long way from La Paz. I noticed that his shirt was a different color from about the middle of his chest down. The upper portion of his shirt was white, while the lower portion was a brownish-red color.

I learned that he and three of his companions, all Melchizedek Priesthood holders, had taken more than eight hours to travel to these meetings. They had walked most of the way and had to ford two rivers where the brownish-red water came up to their chests. When they came to the main road to La Paz, they flagged down a truck and stood in the back of it for the last two hours to the stake center.

I could hardly believe that anyone would have such commitment, faith, and courage. When I expressed my deep concern for this dear brother, he said, “Brother Ballard, you are an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. I would walk as long as required, ford as many streams as required, to come and hear from you what the Lord wants me to do as a priesthood leader in the Church.”

This response brought tears to my eyes. We embraced one another in the special brotherhood of the priesthood of God. I also learned that they had not had anything to eat, nor did they have any place to stay that night. Through the goodness of the Saints of La Paz, they were taken care of during the conference weekend.

As my friend and I boarded the jumbo jet in Seoul, South Korea, we nodded hello to the grandmotherly Korean woman seated in the aisle seat. My friend and I then squeezed past her into our own seats, my friend in the center seat and I by the window.
We had been airborne only a few minutes when I heard the soft tones of a hymn. I recognized it as “How Great Thou Art,”1 which is familiar in many Christian denominations and which I had recently memorized.
I looked around discreetly to determine where the sound was coming from. As I did so, I noticed that the Korean woman in our row had her hand in a small hymnal—printed in Korean characters—from her Protestant church.
I quickly changed seats with my friend and quietly joined in the woman’s song, to our mutual delight. She spoke no English, and I neither speak nor read Korean. But I do read music.
So, as she turned the pages of her hymnal, I would look at the first line of notes and nod if I recognized the hymn. Then I would hum a pitch, and we would start singing, she in Korean and I in English. She would sing the melody, and I would sing the harmony.
We were soon joined by passengers in the rows in front, behind, and to the side of us. For the better part of an hour, our impromptu choir sang several standard Christian hymns in our native tongues. The language barrier was dissolved by the music and by the fact that we knew Whom and what we were singing about. Our spirits united in song.
Before the flight attendants served dinner, our final hymn was “Silent Night”2—and it was only mid-October.
Since that experience, I have thought just how unusual, yet wonderful, it was that a group of strangers should unite their voices in hymns on a jetliner high above the Pacific.
I still get a lump in my throat every time I sing “How Great Thou Art” and “Silent Night.” I cannot sing those hymns without thinking of that Korean woman and the gift of music that allowed us to share our common faith in our Savior, Jesus Christ.

The most effective missionaries, member and full-time, always act out of love. I learned this lesson as a young man. I was assigned to visit a less-active member, a successful professional many years older than I. Looking back on my actions, I realize that I had very little loving concern for the man I visited. I acted out of duty, with a desire to report 100 percent on my home teaching. One evening, close to the end of a month, I phoned to ask if my companion and I could come right over and visit him. His chastening reply taught me an unforgettable lesson.

“No, I don’t believe I want you to come over this evening,” he said. “I’m tired. I’ve already dressed for bed. I am reading, and I am just not willing to be interrupted so that you can report 100 percent on your home teaching this month.” That reply still stings me because I knew he had sensed my selfish motivation.

I have a friend who will be baptized soon. She saw past my imperfections and looked to the Church. I was trying my hardest to be the perfect example, but there is only one who is—Jesus Christ. You just need to be the best person that you can be, and the Lord will bless you.
Cristina Belshe, 16Carlton, Oregon

As I went into surgery a few years ago, I was still conscious when the doctors and nurses were standing around me waiting, I said to the specialist, “There are numerous people full of faith who are praying for you this morning.” He quietly replied, “I’ll need their prayers.” It is my firm conviction that the numerous prayers were heard, that his hand was steadied and guided, that his judgment increased, and that as a result of the blessings of the Lord, healing followed and my voice returned to a satisfactory extent. The skeptic might have other answers.

Gil Dodds, a U.S. runner, felt that moment of absolute fatigue, pain, and agony when his legs felt like lead in a crucial race. As he fought off the desire to quit, he prayed earnestly, “Lord, you lift my legs and I’ll put them down.” He won the race.

Our hymns can work their miraculous effect even when the chorus of voices is few and even when hardly a sound can be heard. I felt this a few months ago as I participated in a musical performance that was unique in my church experience. I had been invited to speak at the Great Basin LDS Deaf Conference, hosted by the Salt Lake Valley (Deaf) Ward of the Salt Lake Park Stake. Over three hundred deaf brothers and sisters were in attendance. The members of the stake presidency and I were almost the only adults in the congregation who could hear and who attempted to sing audibly. The rest of that large assembly sang with their hands. Hardly a lip moved, and hardly a sound was heard except the organ and four faint voices from the stand. In the audience, all hands moved in unison with the leader as the audience signed, “The Spirit of God like a fire is burning!” (Hymns, 1985, no. 2). As we sang together, the Spirit of the Lord descended upon us, and we were made ready for prayer. Our sacred music is a powerful preparation for prayer and gospel teaching.

One morning, as soon as all six canoes were loaded and launched, the group met in the middle of the lake. The girls held on to the gunnels of neighboring canoes as maps were unfolded and the course for the day discussed. According to the map there seemed to be two choices. Either they could paddle across the lake, unload, and hike across a 120-rod portage, or they could stay in their canoes and attempt to paddle up a small stream to the neighboring lake.
To the girls there seemed to be no question—anything to get out of unloading the canoes and portaging. Stake President Hennebry, who along with his counselors were accompanying the girls as priesthood advisers, pointed out some potential problems. Nobody in the group had been this way before. No one was absolutely sure that the stream on the map would be wide enough to handle a canoe. The portage was steep and difficult, but it was a sure thing. It was the group’s decision. They would take a vote.
The thought of missing a long, hard portage was enticing. The majority was willing to take a chance on what seemed to be the easier route, the stream.
When the first canoe reached the mouth of the stream, it was blocked by a beaver dam. “No problem,” said Andrea Miles, Karen Johnson, and Ganine Conner, “we’ll pull our canoe over the dam and scout on ahead and see what the stream looks like.”
It was deceiving. Because of the beaver dam, the stream widened into a pond and looked at first like it was going to be the easy route everyone hoped it would be. All six canoes were lured in, and they followed the twisting, curving stream. Another beaver dam was crossed, then another. The stream was getting so narrow that the canoeists could hardly fit a paddle between the edge of the canoe and the bank.
The stream became shallow, and the girls had to get out and walk. At first, everyone tried to keep her shoes dry, but as one by one they slipped off of dry footing and into the sticky mud, they gave up and tried to wade. The mud was waist deep, and they had to tow the canoes behind them. The sucking, gooey mud pulled at each leg with every step. They abandoned any hope of staying clean and dry. But where was the next lake? Wouldn’t it be around the next curve, or the next? Finally their leaders said that it was hopeless. The stream was becoming nothing more than a swamp, and still the lake was nowhere in sight.
Tired, muddy, and discouraged, the girls turned their canoes around and started back the way they came. Only it was harder getting out than it had been getting in. They had broken the beaver dams during their entrance, and the water had drained out of the ponds leaving them high, but certainly not dry.
After slogging through a mile or so of mud, the last canoe was again back at the starting point. After rinsing off and climbing back in their canoes, the group gathered for a moment of thought. They had wasted the whole morning in a useless attempt to find an easy way. Now they would have to turn around and take the long portage, the trail so clearly marked that would take them to the next lake. The comparisons to life were only too obvious. As the girls tried to clean up a bit, rest, and eat lunch, they were subdued as they thought about their experience. Slowly, they began to draw analogies to their own lives.
Sister Rice, the Young Women president said, “Much of the time we think we can gamble and take the easy way, but it often gives us nothing but grief. We became mired down so we could hardly move, but we repented of our decision and turned around. It was hard just getting back to where we had started from. If we had been wise, we would have taken the ‘straight and narrow’ way, the portage, and been ahead.”
Later at the last night fireside, President Hennebry again reminded the girls of their experience. “You’ve experienced something you can relate to life. But on this trip you can remember the experience without remembering the pain. Satan has a map which marks what seems to be the easy way that will still get you where you want to go. It’s an attractive lie. Just like our experience in the swamp. At first the barriers were easy to cross, but it made it so much harder to come out. In life if you find that you have chosen the wrong stream, no matter how hard it is, repent and come back.”
The lesson on making decisions was a valuable one. The girls learned from it and remembered. Throughout the rest of the trip, if anyone jokingly asked, “Hey, there’s a stream on this map. Do you think we ought to try it?” they would be shouted down with a loud, “No, thanks.”
After returning the canoes to the outfitter, washing their faces in the luxury of hot running water out of a tap, and combing their hair in front of a real mirror, the Summiteers spread out a map and mentally retraced their route.
When their fingers stopped at Gebeonequet Lake and the stream that went nowhere, they made a resolve. On future canoe trips and in their own lives, they would follow the correct paths. And because of their associations with fine leaders and advisers and by relying on their Heavenly Father, they knew that their feet would be guided as was promised in the scriptures.
“I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do unto them, and not forsake them” (Isa. 42:16).

Such a call of duty—a much less dramatic call but one which nonetheless helped to save a soul—came to me in 1950 when I was a newly called bishop. My responsibilities as a bishop were many and varied, and I tried to the best of my ability to do all that was required of me. The United States was engaged in a different war by then. Because many of our members were serving in the armed services, an assignment came from Church headquarters for all bishops to provide each serviceman a subscription to the Church News and the Improvement Era, the Church’s magazine at that time. In addition, each bishop was asked to write a personal, monthly letter to each serviceman from his ward. Our ward had 23 men in uniform. The priesthood quorums, with effort, supplied the funds for the subscriptions to the publications. I undertook the task, even the duty, to write 23 personal letters each month. After all these years I still have copies of many of my letters and the responses received. Tears come easily when these letters are reread. It is a joy to learn again of a soldier’s pledge to live the gospel, a sailor’s decision to keep faith with his family.

One evening I handed to a sister in the ward the stack of 23 letters for the current month. Her assignment was to handle the mailing and to maintain the constantly changing address list. She glanced at one envelope and, with a smile, asked, “Bishop, don’t you ever get discouraged? Here is another letter to Brother Bryson. This is the 17th letter you have sent to him without a reply.”

I responded, “Well, maybe this will be the month.” As it turned out, that was the month. For the first time, he responded to my letter. His reply is a keepsake, a treasure. He was serving far away on a distant shore, isolated, homesick, alone. He wrote, “Dear Bishop, I ain’t much at writin’ letters.” (I could have told him that several months earlier.) His letter continued, “Thank you for the Church News and magazines, but most of all thank you for the personal letters. I have turned over a new leaf. I have been ordained a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. My heart is full. I am a happy man.”

Brother Bryson was no happier than was his bishop. I had learned the practical application of the adage “Do [your] duty; that is best; leave unto [the] Lord the rest.”

Years later, while attending the Salt Lake Cottonwood Stake when James E. Faust served as its president, I related that account in an effort to encourage attention to our servicemen. After the meeting, a fine-looking young man came forward. He took my hand in his and asked, “Bishop Monson, do you remember me?”

I suddenly realized who he was. “Brother Bryson!” I exclaimed. “How are you? What are you doing in the Church?”

With warmth and obvious pride, he responded, “I’m fine. I serve in the presidency of my elders quorum. Thank you again for your concern for me and the personal letters which you sent and which I treasure.”