Gospel Story Finder

My first account is a cautionary one, reminding us that not every maternal effort has a storybook ending, at least not immediately. That reminder stems from my conversation with a beloved friend of more than 50 years who was dying away from this Church he knew in his heart to be true. No matter how much I tried to comfort him, I could not seem to bring him peace. Finally he leveled with me. “Jeff,” he said, “however painful it is going to be for me to stand before God, I cannot bear the thought of standing before my mother. The gospel and her children meant everything to her. I know I have broken her heart, and that is breaking mine.”

Now, I am absolutely certain that upon his passing, his mother received my friend with open, loving arms; that is what parents do. But the cautionary portion of this story is that children can break their mothers’ heart. Here too we see another comparison with the divine. I need not remind us that Jesus died of a broken heart, one weary and worn out from bearing the sins of the world. So in any moment of temptation, may we “behold [our] mother” as well as our Savior and spare them both the sorrow of our sinning.

Six years ago our family was traveling at night just outside the city of Oxford. As is often the case with young children, we needed to stop, so we found a service station with an array of shops and restaurants. With precision, we filed out of the car, visited the services, and filed back in, resuming our journey.
Fifteen minutes later our eldest son asked a significant question: “Where is Jasper?” Jasper sits on his own at the back of the car. We assumed he had fallen asleep or was hiding or playing a trick on us.
As his brother inspected the back of the car more closely, we discovered our five-year-old son was not there. Our hearts filled with dread. As we made our way back to the service station, we pleaded with Heavenly Father that Jasper would be kept safe. We called the police and informed them of the situation.
When we anxiously arrived, more than 40 minutes later, we found two police vehicles in the car park, lights flashing. Inside one of them was Jasper, playing with the buttons. I will never forget the joy we felt in being reunited with him.
As this incident with Jasper has played in my mind over the years, I have reflected on the divine identity and importance of God’s children, the redemptive power of Jesus Christ, and the perfect love of a Father in Heaven, who knows you and me. I hope to bear witness of these truths today.
For the record, Jasper is witty, affectionate, intelligent, and rambunctious. But the key to this story is he is mine. He is my son, and I love him more than he will ever know. If an imperfect, earthly father feels this way about his child, can you imagine how a perfect, glorified, loving Heavenly Father feels about you?

Like many people, Elder DeMoine and Sister Joyce Findlay knew little of the disease until they were called as a missionary couple to help coordinate the Church’s involvement with the Measles Initiative in Ivory Coast. The Measles Initiative is a movement to immunize 200 million children in Africa sponsored by the Red Cross, UNICEF, CDC, WHO, and other agencies.
During their service, the Findlays witnessed the members in Ivory Coast volunteer by the hundreds, working long days to ensure the success of the campaign. Church members with medical training helped at vaccination sites, others knocked on countless doors to promote the campaign through education, and still more helped to gather families and children together. Even Primary children helped by submitting drawings for the campaigns. By contributing to the remarkable turnout, the Saints hoped to “show President Hinckley that they would do their best to support this unique opportunity.”
Still, providing the life-saving medicine was no easy task. Due to civil unrest, all full-time foreign missionaries, including Elder and Sister Findlay, were evacuated in November 2004 before they could complete their initial campaign. The campaign was postponed until August 2005, at which time they returned to finish the job.
This time Elder and Sister Findlay met with the partnering agencies to determine their needs and to identify ways in which the Church could best use its funds and resources. It was decided that the Church would support the Measles Initiative by providing volunteers; producing printed materials such as posters, fliers, and stickers; and supplying the Red Cross with megaphones, uniforms, and batteries. The Ministry of Health was enthusiastic about the Church’s participation and designated it an official partner in the campaign, announcing on television all the contributions the Church made.
From there, Elder and Sister Findlay set out to help organize the campaign. Ten-year-old Roseline Dekaye’s artwork was chosen to be featured on the printed materials. Her drawing was also used in both the Tanzania and Malawi campaigns.
Working under the direction of stake presidents in the area, Elder and Sister Findlay recruited the regional welfare committee as their working group. This committee coordinated volunteers from every one of the 23 wards and branches in Ivory Coast.
One of the main responsibilities of the member volunteers was to ensure that the general population knew where vaccination sites were located. To do so, many were up at 6:30 a.m. knocking on doors, educating their neighbors about the dangers of measles, and inviting them to bring their children to get vaccinated. They often took the time to physically show the people where to go, at times bringing groups to the vaccination site. The full-time missionaries wanted to help as well, so they stuck campaign stickers on their bags and encouraged their contacts to take their children to be vaccinated.
Hundreds of vaccination sites were set up in the capital city of Abidjan alone, with locations including health units, the village chief’s home, and a parking lot. Some sites were just small plastic-covered shelters beside the road.
During the first few days the people came in masses. Children filled the lines—some were accompanied by parents, but most came on their own. When the people stopped coming to the fixed vaccination sites, the teams gathered up their materials and walked through busy markets and neighborhoods looking for unvaccinated children to vaccinate on the spot.
With the help of more than 700 Church members, the measles campaign in Ivory Coast was a huge success. Vaccinating nearly 8 million children, workers met 87 percent of their goal in a country so politically divided that 50 percent is considered a good campaign success rate.
In all, members donated 40,000 hours of volunteer labor. They could be seen everywhere wearing their colorful badges, and they became quite popular and well known. In all but one of the health districts, members were the only mobilization volunteers. The health districts were grateful for their help and asked if they could contact the Church for help in future campaigns.

G. K. Chesterton in an essay entitled “A Piece of Chalk” wrote of going into the countryside in the south of England to draw with his colored chalks—only to find, ruefully, that he was missing the color white. Being too far from a store to remedy the situation, he felt his expedition ruined until he suddenly realized that the rock upon which he sat was, in fact, white chalk. (In Robert K. Thomas, ed., The Joy of Reading, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1978, pp. 35–40).
There, in a Sussex meadow, he was “sitting on an immense warehouse of white chalk.” For him to think he had no chalk was like a chemist in the middle of the ocean looking for salt water to perform experiments or someone in the vast Sahara searching for sand to fill an hour glass. Many times the solutions to our problems await only our discovery that we already have the key to the answer. The need is for us to learn to use it effectively.

One Sunday afternoon when I was in eighth grade, I was playing touch football. We have been counseled by prophets to keep the Sabbath day holy, and I’m sure someone had told me that playing sports was not a good Sunday activity. But I was playing football anyway. Another player elbowed me in the mouth and gashed my lip. I had to get stitches. From that day forward, I committed to never play sports, work, nor do anything else on Sunday that was unholy. I have successfully kept that commitment to this day.

A second example:
Imagine that a few weeks later, you attend another meeting with your elders quorum (or high priests group or Relief Society). The quorum president makes a few announcements and turns the time over to a teacher. Then the teacher walks to the front of the room and says, “Today’s lesson is chapter 17 in the Wilford Woodruff book.” He opens the book to the first page of the chapter and starts reading.
As the teacher reads about the blessings we can receive in the temple, someone in front of you raises his hand. It’s Brother González, who was sealed to his wife and children a few months ago. After keeping his hand in the air without acknowledgment from the teacher, Brother González finally gives up. The teacher continues reading.
A few pages later the teacher begins reading a statement that really inspired you when you studied the chapter last night. You raise your hand, only to lower it a minute later. The teacher reads on as your heart burns with a testimony that you have not been permitted to share.
You look around at your brethren in the quorum. Some are reading along. Others are staring at the floor, glancing at their watches periodically. A few are struggling to stay awake. No one raises his hand.
By the time the teacher has read the entire chapter, his time is almost up. He bears his testimony and concludes the lesson a little bit earlier than he needs to. Someone says a prayer, and everyone files out of the room.

“Hi, Mom,” Tanner called as he took off his shoes and hung up his backpack.
“Hi, Tanner,” Mom said as she looked up from washing the dishes. “How was school?”
Tanner liked school, so when Mom asked him that question, his answer was usually the same.
“Good. How was your day?”
“It was fine,” Mom said softly.
Tanner wasn’t so sure. Mom didn’t sound very happy. And she wasn’t smiling like she usually did when he came home from school.
“Is something wrong?” Tanner asked.
“No, nothing’s really wrong,” Mom said. “I’ve just had a bad day.”
“I’m sorry,” Tanner said. He gave Mom a big hug, hoping it would help.
Tanner walked to the pantry and began to look for a snack. While he looked, he thought about some bad days he had had—like the time someone stole his scooter, or when he crashed his bike and skinned his knee. “I guess moms can have bad days too,” Tanner thought.
Tanner wondered what he could do to help Mom feel better. He thought of a few things that made him smile—frogs, video games, and spaghetti—but he was pretty sure Mom didn’t care very much about any of those things.
After grabbing a handful of crackers, Tanner had an idea. He walked across the kitchen and stood next to Mom. “Mom,” he said, “what was the best part of your day?”
Mom stopped washing the dishes. Tanner could tell she was thinking hard about his question. A big smile spread across her face. “You are,” she said. “You are the best part of my day.”
Tanner smiled too. Mom seemed happier. He was glad he could help make her bad day better.

My first visit to Queenstown as a newly appointed alternate high councilor in the Durban South Africa Stake was to be the beginning of many unforgettable experiences. Those experiences would lead me to understand better how our Heavenly Father touches the hearts of his children of all races and how he extends his love and protection to those who try to serve him.
Queenstown is located in the eastern part of the Cape Province, surrounded by mountains and situated between states inhabited by the blacks of the Ciskei and Transkei. I was assigned to Church units in East London, on the coast; Queenstown; Sada and Cimezile in the Ciskei; and Illinge in the Transkei.
As a recent immigrant from Harare, Zimbabwe, I served at first as a companion to Brother Dennis Raubenheimer on these visits. He was familiar with the areas we covered because he had served in the district presidency.
The Queenstown Branch has a unique meetinghouse—a funeral parlor provided rent-free by the owners, who have no affiliation with the Church. It has wood-paneled walls, soft lighting, special pews, and an organ. The final speaker in sacrament meeting is usually interrupted by the clanging of bells from the church next door. The noise sometimes continues for several minutes, and the speaker must decide whether to be silent for that time, or to speak louder than the noise. Branch meetings begin at 7:00 A.M. on Sunday so those who will be visiting the outlying branches in the black states will have time to travel.
After that first visit to Queenstown, Brother Raubenheimer and I departed for Ilinge, where we met with branch president Augustine Mjiba and the more than seventy Saints there. They met in a rented school classroom with a corrugated metal roof and a dirt floor. They share the building with another religious group, which uses African drums to lead its singing. But in spite of the interruptions by the drumming and singing, we felt the Spirit in abundance and experienced a warmth and love for the Saints who meet in such conditions.
Our next visit to Queenstown included stops at the Sada and Cimezile branches.
Church members at Sada met in a school building similar to the one at Ilinge, except that the floor is of pine strips. President Headman Gquola greeted us with his beaming smile as we arrived. Once again, each member of the sixty-strong branch stood in line, awaiting their turn to greet us eagerly with a handshake.
In these branches we use translators because the majority of the Saints can not understand English any more than we can understand their native Xhosa. (This handicap is being overcome, as high council members have been instructed by the stake president to learn that language.) The singing in these branches is a delightful experience. One has to hear the unique harmony and volume of their singing to appreciate fully the joy of their pure, resonant voices.
After a most uplifting meeting with the Sada Saints, we traveled to Cimezile on a winding gravel road. One has to be constantly alert to hazards such as wandering sheep and goats on these roads, as well as the perils of crossing rocky river beds; on one occasion, the muffler was ripped from the exhaust system of my car.
In Cimezile I met one of the most spiritual families that I have ever known, Wilson and Judith Nqunqa and their eight children. Brother Nqunqa had done the high-quality stone work of the outer walls of their typical rondavel African home. Pictures of the Church president and General Authorities and posters with the words to our hymns line the walls of their spotlessly clean home.
Brother Raubenheimer remarked that in their humble home, where even the children spoke in soft tones, the reverence and spirit we experienced was as it might have been in the house of the Lord.

Brad’s approach to football illustrates this attitude. The summer before his sophomore year he had the man who makes his artificial legs throw together a makeshift kicking leg out of a wooden block on the end of an old “fishing leg,” a sort of plastic peg leg that Brad uses for swimming and showering. He then hit the practice field with an armful of footballs, his family, and half the neighborhood kids to help retrieve balls. Then he kicked and kicked and kicked and kicked, and when the kids had become tired of it and gone home, he kicked some more while his father held for him. He kicked, and learned to allow for wind, and kicked, and got his timing down, and kicked some more. Even with the ad-libbed leg, his aim was deadly.

That fall he was suited up and kicking field goals and PAT’s for the sophomore team, with a brand-new, made-to-order kicking leg. This year, as a junior, he was the starting place kicker for both the varsity and junior varsity teams.

“He’s a real competitor,” his football coach says. “He’s always emotionally ready to play. He’s a hard worker, and he has a good positive attitude. Those things are important for any position.”

Brad’s entry into the football scene wasn’t an easy one. He had to miss several games his sophomore year because of a rule dispute about artificial limbs, and he had to earn his assignment in the face of some talented competition.

“The kids on the team don’t look at Brad as someone who’s handicapped; they just think of him as a valuable player,” his coach emphasizes. “He’s the best kicker on the team. He had to compete with another very fine kicker for the position, and Brad just plain beat him out. He’s the best kicker I’ve had in my years of coaching. I’ve always made it clear to Brad that he’s got to make the team on his own. He’s not going to play just because he’s handicapped. He’s got to be the best, and he is the best.”

Three serious operations followed in very short order. There were only a few who knew about them and they were sworn to secrecy. Her pattern of life in the hospital was always the same. With her careful planning, she would attend church on Sunday, the operation would be performed early Monday morning. By Tuesday, she was trying to get out of bed. By Wednesday she would be up moving around, trying to regain her physical strength. Thursday would find her helping the nurses assist others who were in the hospital. Friday she would spend trying to convince the doctor that she was ready to go home. By Saturday morning the doctor would give up in despair and discharge her. Sunday she would be back in church looking radiant. No one would ever suspect that she had just gone through major surgery. After the meeting I would rush down to take her home to get her some needed rest. And as I would come close to her I would hear her say to someone else in need, “Now don’t worry about a thing. I’ll have dinner ready for you and at your home on Thursday night.”

About this time, Sam began to feel a strong attachment to the nearby Las Vegas Nevada Temple. At first he appreciated it simply because it was beautiful. But as he learned more about the purpose of temples, he came to love it for the blessings it brings to people’s lives. This interest soon grew to include all the temples of the Church. Sam began filling a binder with pictures of the world’s temples and a file with diagrams and information about their design, history, and construction. By the time he had filled the binder, he knew that he wanted to build temples of stone someday. In the meantime, he would build temples of cardboard.

My career brought joy, growth, and satisfaction through trying to serve Him and His children. After I retired, the world and my career field moved on without me. Some days, in “down” times, I have wondered if I really did any good during those years—if my offering was worthy of the great promises I was given.

During one of those times, I felt this answer: reread your patriarchal blessing. As I read it, pointed questions came to my mind: “Did I not give you this blessing as I promised? Did this not come true in your life? And this?” I saw clearly how the Lord has fulfilled blessings He promised me. I felt assurance that things I had offered humbly and willingly were acceptable and also an admonition that I am not done yet—there are still more opportunities to serve.

May I share with you a personal experience to illustrate how humbling this can be? I was employed by a major corporation for almost twenty-five years. During those years I developed a personal friendship with a fine business associate from Texas. Our careers paralleled each other very closely. A few years ago, he presented me with a most unusual gift, which I shall always cherish. It was a large, molded bronze, personalized coat of arms. He said, “I have been observing you for many years and have created an original coat of arms using symbols which I believe represent the four most important values to which you have committed your life, namely, your church, your family, your profession, and your quest for personal development.”

Naturally, I was surprised, deeply impressed, and flattered. As the significance of this gift settled upon my mind, the thought of someone quietly taking mental notes of my actions, attitudes, and values fired my imagination. I realized the weighty responsibility each of us has to demonstrate accurately the principles and priorities to which we are committed. It was like a mini-foretaste of Judgment Day!

I thought of the scripture in Revelation in which John saw the books opened, “and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.” (Rev. 20:12.) It was a most sobering experience.

When I was young, I was overly dependent on my older sister. For example, I was a fussy eater, and when we went to visit our grandparents, I was constantly faced with being offered food I didn’t like. When the plate was passed to me, I would turn to my sister and ask, “Collene, do I like this?”
If it was familiar and she knew that I didn’t like it, she would say, “No, you don’t like that.”
If it was something we hadn’t eaten before, she would say, “Just a minute,” and taste it, and then tell me if I liked it or not. If she said that I didn’t like it, no amount of coaxing could get me to eat it.
Just as I needed to rely on my own taste buds and stop denying myself good food just because my sister told me that I didn’t like it, we must all feast on the fruit of our own testimony and not the testimony of another person. We also need to increase our ability to receive personal revelation.
We do this when we place our faith in our Lord and Savior, repent of our sins, read and really think about the scriptures, pray, look for ways to help others, and share the gospel with others. During general conferences and at many other times, we will be taught by the Lord’s prophets, seers, and revelators. When we follow the counsel of the Brethren, we prepare ourselves to go to the temple, where we receive more power to overcome the sins of the world and to “stand in holy places” (D&C 45:32).

I was able to go to the temple when I went on my mission to Cochabamba, Bolivia. I began preaching the gospel in October 2000. A few months later my companion and I visited the temple with the youth from the ward where we were serving. I took my disk and was able to provide 599 names for ordinance work.
While I served as witness, my companion baptized the young people on behalf of my ancestors. What great joy I felt. The Spirit was with me, testifying of the truthfulness of what we were doing. I could feel my ancestors’ happiness and gratitude.
But there were other ordinances that still needed to be done. Because there were so many names, I turned them over to the temple. But I kept the names of my great-grandparents and their children, and later that month my companion and I, with the help of other missionaries, performed the work for them.
I am grateful to my Heavenly Father because, although I was far from my country and perhaps thought that I would baptize only the living, I was also able to participate in the work of redeeming the dead.

The desire to help another, the quest for the lost sheep, may not always yield success at once. On occasion, progress is slow—even indiscernible. Such was the experience of my longtime friend, Gill Warner. He was a newly called bishop when Douglas, a member of his ward serving in the mission field, transgressed and was deprived of his Church membership. Father was saddened; Mother was totally devastated. Douglas soon thereafter moved from the state. The years hurried by, but Bishop Warner, now a member of a high council, never ceased to wonder what had become of Douglas.
In 1975 I attended the stake conference of Brother Warner’s stake and held a priesthood leadership meeting early on Sunday morning. I spoke of the Church discipline system and the need to labor earnestly and lovingly to rescue any who had strayed. Gill Warner raised his hand and outlined the story of Douglas. He concluded by posing a question to me: “Do I have any responsibility to work with Douglas to help bring him back to Church membership?”
Gill reminded me later that my response to his question was direct and given without hesitation. I said, “As his former bishop and one who knew and loved him, I would think you would wish to do all you could to bring him back.”
Unbeknownst to Gill Warner, Douglas’s mother had, the previous week, fasted and prayed that a man would be raised up to help save her son. Gill discovered this when, following the meeting, he felt prompted to call her to report his determination to be of help.
Gill began his odyssey of redemption. Douglas was contacted by him. Old times, happy times, were remembered. Testimony was expressed, love was conveyed, and confidence instilled. The pace was excruciatingly slow. Discouragement frequently entered the scene; but step-by-step Douglas made headway. At long last prayers were answered, efforts rewarded, and victory attained. Douglas was approved for baptism.
The baptismal date was set, family members gathered, and former bishop Gill Warner flew to the city where Douglas lived and performed the ordinance.
Bishop Warner, through the love of his heart and with a sense of responsibility to a former priest in the Aaronic Priesthood—even the quorum over which he presided—went to the rescue, that not one would be lost.

Sometimes what we must give up is not a possession but a cherished dream. Growing up in Taiwan, I had always dreamed of going to school in England. After receiving a university degree and studying in the United States, I returned home and made arrangements to continue my studies in England. At this same time I received a calling in the Relief Society. At first I planned to accept the calling for a short time—just until I left for England. Then after much consideration, I decided to postpone my studies abroad for a year.
It was during this year when I was “sacrificing” my studies in England that an amazing blessing came into my life. One day as I was walking by a bulletin board at church, I saw a notice that the Church’s Translation Department was seeking to hire a Chinese language supervisor. I felt the Holy Ghost prod me to apply, but I hesitated. The year was almost up, and it was time for me to go to England. But the Spirit encouraged me, and I applied and was hired. For me, working as a language supervisor for the Church is not just a job. It is a great privilege and blessing. But I could never have received this blessing if I had not been willing to give up my dream of studying in England.

Several months ago, a stake president and I visited a sister in his stake and her young adult son. After years away from the Church, wandering difficult and unfriendly paths, she had returned. During our visit, we asked her why she had come back.

“I had made a mess of my life,” she said, “and I knew where I needed to be.”

I then asked her what she had learned in her journey.

With some emotion, she shared that she had learned that she needed to attend church long enough to break the habit of not coming and that she needed to stay until it was where she wanted to be. Her return was not easy, but as she exercised faith in the Father’s plan, she felt the Spirit return.

And then she added, “I have learned for myself that God is good and that His ways are better than mine.”

It is significant to note just what took place at the time of the passing of President Harold B. Lee. President Romney had been called to the hospital and as they talked, President Lee, realizing that he might be incapacitated for some time, said to President Romney: “President Tanner is away, and I want you to take over and carry on the affairs of the Church.” President Kimball, who came in later, offered his services to President Romney. However, immediately upon the announcement of President Lee’s passing, President Romney turned to President Kimball and said: “You, as the president of the Quorum of the Twelve, are now in charge. I am at your disposal and prepared to do anything I can to help.”
This was entirely in keeping with the order of the Church and is a great example of how the Church is never left without a presidency and how smoothly it passes from one to another. Immediately President Kimball, as president of the Twelve, became the presiding authority of the Church.

Alexandria had not seen her homeland for twenty-nine years. During those years, however, she had corresponded with her parents and one sister. Although she wanted to visit them, she was repeatedly denied a travel visa. Finally, in 1972, she was granted permission to visit her family. The reunion was bittersweet: her mother and two of her sisters had passed away, and her aging father was blind. Still, it was good to be home again with her father, her sister Katrina, and her relatives and close friends.
On one occasion the family visited the cemetery where Alexandria’s mother was buried. Overcome with emotion, Katrina fell upon the grave and wept. Alexandria knelt beside her and explained that death was not final, that their mother still lived in spirit, and that in time they would be with her again. Katrina was puzzled, but the look in her eyes expressed hope, so Alexandria explained the plan of salvation as simply as she could. Katrina listened intently, then turned to her father, who had been listening too. “Papa, do you believe what she says?” He nodded yes as he shed tears. Alexandria bore her testimony and saw a glimmer of enlightenment register on their faces. Never had they spoken of such things before. A seed of truth had been planted.