Gospel Story Finder

One class was really difficult for Yvette—computers. The computer terminals and commands were all in English, and that made the class hard for her. She didn’t believe she could pass the class, even if she did study, so she didn’t study. She thought that if she just prayed and prayed and prayed, Heavenly Father would help her. But she found out that wasn’t so. She took her test and didn’t pass. She learned she has to study in order for Heavenly Father to help her succeed. After that, she studied and prayed and did much better in computer class. “I have to do my part,” she says.

Marriage affects how people live financially, socially, emotionally, and even spiritually.
Amy Byerly of Walpole, Massachusetts, was concerned about the lifestyle changes marriage brings. Talking with Bart, her soon-to-be husband, about her concerns lightened the burden. She also turned to the scriptures, and in Mosiah 2:41, she read: “I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell with God in a state of never-ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true; for the Lord God hath spoken it.”
“This scripture puts things into perspective for me,” Sister Byerly says. “Even if my lifestyle changed, I could still be happy if I was faithful. Also, it taught me that having an eternal family was much more important than all the fun things I did while I was single.”
Sister Byerly believed that Heavenly Father would help her in her marriage. “Knowing that God approved of our marriage helped me deal with any fears I had,” she says. “I knew I could be happy despite a lifestyle change.”

Retired couple, Peter and Phyllis McLennan are helping Tasmanian communities and families by cleaning, painting and restoring markers in cemeteries in the state’s northeast.
Awarded the Australian Citizen of the Year award by the Dorset Area Council, this Scottsdale couple tells how a local cemetery with hundreds of unmarked graves sparked a desire to honor the pioneers who gave life to this Tasmanian community.
The McLennans often visited the cemetery in Scottsdale where Peter’s ancestors are buried. They discovered, through plot maps dating back to the 1850s, hundreds of infants’ unmarked graves in the grassy areas between headstones.
“We thought of the pioneers who had settled their community, forging the path for others to follow. They had no doctors, no services. It was normal for a family to have four or five children who didn’t live more than a year or two,” Peter laments. Yet, here they lay without so much as a marker to be remembered by. “We thought it was sad that these people weren’t recognized.”
The McLennans approached the council, who, in time, saw the validity of the project. “It’s something we do together,” explains Phyllis. With a grant, the McLennans proceeded to create plaques for these plots to mark the graves.
They begin with a concrete paver, onto which is mounted a stainless-steel plaque with the name, birthdate, and death date of the deceased. The pavers are then recessed in the lawn so gardeners can mow over the top. Roger McLennan (Peter’s brother) of the Historical Society comes up with the birth and death certificates to verify the dates.
The McLennans also use their own funds to restore headstones in need of cleaning and repairs. After receiving permission from relatives, they have a system to brighten the lettering to make it legible.
ABC Television recently interviewed the couple about their service to the community.
Phyllis and Peter have worked on this project in six different cemeteries for two years and will continue to volunteer their time and means to this work. “There are a couple more cemeteries further out that need work on headstones.”
Both at age 76, Peter and Phyllis have been members of the Church for nearly 48 years. Phyllis serves as the organist in the Tamar Ward of the Devonport Stake.
“We are very close,” says Peter. “We’ve been told we’re joined at the hip. Not that we have to keep an eye on each other!”
When asked what this project has meant to them, Peter says that they “had the ability, time, and means to do something lasting and important.”

I received my mission call a week before the civil war that broke out on 18 December 1998, in Congo-Brazzaville, my home country. I was 28 years old. I had to answer the Lord’s call which was extended to me through His servant, President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910-2008). I walked for 224 miles to get to the neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo—the country in which I was called to serve my mission.
As we serve our fellow men, challenges can be turned into opportunities to grow. As I read the Book of Mormon and pondered over the scriptures, I came to discover that the Lord helped Nephi at all times. That gave me hope that the Lord would also help me if I made righteous decisions to serve Him through a full-time mission. In this experience, I moved forward freely, in spite of obstacles, with my mission call letter from President Hinckley, our then prophet. I felt the presence of Lord’s Spirit throughout my journey into the mission field.

At first, Bernard Lefrandt refused to listen to the two American missionaries who came to his home in The Hague, Netherlands, in 1950. It was an uncharacteristic response for a man whose hospitality was well-known throughout his native Indonesia. But Bernard—or Bert, as friends in several countries came to know him—believed he already had a God who had preserved his life innumerable times. Bert had been saved from the wild animals he hunted in island forests, from enemy soldiers when he was dropped behind enemy lines in World War II, and most recently from assassins’ bullets when he was blacklisted in Indonesia. Bert’s God had even spared the lives of his wife and children in a refugee camp. How, then, could he turn to a new one?
The missionaries first came to the Lefrandt’s home in the Netherlands at the end of 1950; the family had moved there in 1948. Nora, a deeply spiritual woman, felt impressed by their message of God’s goodness and a restored gospel. God’s mercy had helped Nora and her family through almost insurmountable difficulties. She accepted the Book of Mormon as well as the challenge to read it. But when Bert learned of the missionaries’ visit, he stubbornly refused to have anything to do with either the elders or the book Nora read so intently.
Nora finished the Book of Mormon on her own. At the close of another solitary lesson with the missionaries, she felt the Spirit so overwhelmingly that she wanted to be baptized. But she also wanted to wait for her husband, whom she had noticed reading the Book of Mormon when he thought she was asleep. Late at night, he would turn on the dim light and read until two or three in the morning, pretending to have slept well the next day. Nora patiently waited for him.
Bert continued to read the Book of Mormon in secret, and even started covertly listening from the next room to the missionary discussions. When he finally consented to talk to the elders in person, he became known as a “very hard” investigator, constantly demanding biblical proof of every doctrinal point and requiring a year of discussions.
Meanwhile, Nora and her daughter, Bertie, were baptized. Wanting to share her joy with those nearest her, Nora wrote to friends in New Guinea, telling them of her new Church. Only a few days later, she received a letter from them—the letters had crossed in the mail. Her friend told of a fisherman in New Guinea who had discovered a strange book in the sea, a Book of Mormon. Did the Lefrandts know anything about this book or about Joseph Smith? Surely, the book was a book of God, their friends wrote. They encouraged the Lefrandts to find out what they could about the Mormons.
It was there that Bert finally gave up his resistance to the higher truths of the gospel. One day during a discussion with the elders, Bert set his Bible on the table and rested his hand on it. “I don’t know what else to ask you,” he said. Within a year of Bert’s baptism in March 1952, he was called to be the president of The Hague Branch.

I had always believed that Church callings come from our Heavenly Father and that they help us progress spiritually. But I really didn’t have a testimony of this until I had a special experience several years ago.
I had just spent a year in Utah as a high school exchange student. After I returned to Japan, I received my first calling in the Church—president of our Mia Maid class. In a letter to my host family in Utah, I wrote about my calling.
A couple of weeks later I received a letter from my host “father.” He wrote:
“I didn’t tell you then, but one month before you left for home, our bishop told me, ‘We want to assign Kazuko to be class president of the Mia Maids. How long will she be here?’
“I told him that you would be leaving the following month. So they didn’t give you the calling.”
I found it remarkable that the same calling the bishop in Utah had been inspired to extend to me was given me when I came back to Japan. It made me realize that God knows about me no matter where I am—in Utah or Japan or anyplace else. I believe he knew that particular calling was what I needed then in order to grow.
I have received various callings since then. When I look back on them, I am amazed to find that each calling was somehow necessary at that time in my life to strengthen a weakness.
I have learned to accept any calling that comes to me, even if it seems difficult. I know that it comes from Heavenly Father, who knows me.

Thank you for publishing the article “Ten Things to Know Before You Go” (July 2002). I am currently dating someone who will be serving a mission in less than six months. He is very prepared spiritually but not in other areas. For example, his mom still does his laundry and cooks all his meals. He relies on her for many things. He knows he will have to learn how to do the laundry etc. for his mission, but he procrastinates learning to do so. When I read him the article, it hit him that it is essential to learn soon. Thank you for helping me with this problem and for helping others realize what to prepare for.
Name WithheldProvo, Utah (via e-mail)

Third, we can come to know the Lord and trust Him as we serve others. I share the following story with permission from Amy Wright, who came to understand the principle of serving even amid a terrifying and life-threatening illness. Amy wrote:
“On October 29, 2015, I found out I had cancer. My cancer has a 17 percent survival rate. The odds weren’t good. I knew that I would be in for the fight of my life. I was determined to give it everything I had not just for myself but, more important, for my family. In December, I began chemo. I was familiar with many of the side effects of cancer-fighting drugs, but I did not know that it was possible for someone to be so sick and still be alive.
“At one point, I declared chemotherapy a human rights violation. I told my husband that I was done. I quit! I was not going back to the hospital. In his wisdom, my sweetheart patiently listened and then responded, ‘Well, then we need to find someone to serve.’”
What? Did he miss the fact that his wife had cancer and couldn’t take one more bout of nausea or one more moment of excruciating pain?
Amy goes on to explain: “My symptoms gradually worsened to where I generally had one or two ‘OK’ days a month [when] I could somewhat function as a living, breathing human being. It was those days when our family would find ways to serve.”
On one of those days, Amy’s family distributed chemo comfort kits to other patients, kits filled with items to cheer and to help relieve symptoms. When Amy couldn’t sleep, she would think of ways to brighten someone else’s day. Some ways were big, but many were just small notes or text messages of encouragement and love. On those nights when her pain was too great to sleep, she would lie in bed with her iPad and search for ordinances that needed to be completed on behalf of her deceased ancestors. Miraculously the pain would subside, and she was able to endure.
“Service,” Amy testifies, “saved my life. Where I ultimately found my strength to keep moving forward was the happiness I discovered in trying to relieve the suffering of those around me. I looked forward to our service projects with great joy and anticipation. Still to this day it seems like such a strange paradox. You would think that someone who was bald, poisoned, and fighting for [her] life was justified in thinking that ‘right now it is all about me.’ However, when I thought about myself, my situation, my suffering and pain, the world became very dark and depressing. When my focus turned to others, there was light, hope, strength, courage, and joy. I know that this is possible because of the sustaining, healing, and enabling power of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.”
Amy came to trust in the Lord as she came to know Him. If she had leaned even a little to her own understanding, she might have rejected the idea that she serve. Service enabled her to withstand her pain and afflictions and to live this scripture: “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.”

I don’t know how Randy made it into the 10th grade, but there he was the next year when we registered.
Sam Boushelle had moved to town that summer. I’d met him at church the Sunday before classes started, and we’d talked about the ward and girls and sports. But I completely forgot to warn him about Randy Herrman. Sure enough, when I got to English class on Monday morning, there was Sam, and right behind him was Randy, looking smug with a fresh year and a fresh victim in front of him.
I flopped into the desk in front of Sam and tried to explain the predicament he was in. Sam looked at me with a suspicious frown, and then turned around to face Randy. Sam nodded slightly and looked back at me.
“Seems like a nice enough guy,” Sam said.
“Just wait.”
And sure enough, I heard Randy’s whisper during the first pop quiz about a week later.
For a minute, Sam ignored the voice behind him. Then he tore a sheet of paper out of his notebook and began writing furiously. Randy waited for a second and then tried the ear-flipping thing, but Sam just shook his head and laughed and kept scribbling. Finally Sam stopped writing, folded the paper up and handed it back to Randy. Then he went back to his work.
Randy read the note and his faced turned the color of a thundercloud. He crumpled the note up, thought about throwing it, but then stuffed it into his shirt pocket. It was obvious that Randy was mad, but he didn’t pester Sam anymore.
After class I pulled my backpack on and stood up.
“You coming?” I asked my friend.
“No, you go on. I need to talk to Randy.”
I looked back at the little, dark figure of Randy Herrman, leaning back in his desk and resting his head on the back of his chair. He had his eyes closed, like he was having a nice dream and didn’t want to wake up. He was probably wondering where he could dispose of Sam’s body.
“Your funeral,” I said softly.
I didn’t see Sam again until lunch. We met near the pop machines and then went through the cafeteria line, piling our plates high with rubbery spaghetti and red sauce. We paid and found seats as close to the cool kids as we dared.
“So, you’re still alive,” I asked finally. I was dying to know what had happened.
“Yep,” said Sam. He started twirling his fork in the spaghetti.
“Well?”
Sam smiled and moved his fork to a new spot on the plate. “I think he just needs a little help.”
“I’d say.”
“No, I mean he needs a little help with schoolwork.”
I was skeptical. “So what did your note say?”
“Nothing much. I just told him I couldn’t help him during a test. But I did offer to work with him after school.”
I laughed. “He’ll work you over after school.”
Sam shook his head. “I don’t think so. I told him that if we studied together a couple of times a week, he could most likely get good grades on his own.”
“I bet he jumped at that,” I said, with a good dose of sarcasm.
Sam pinched his chin. “Ah, he complained for a while. But eventually he agreed to give it a try. He says nobody’s ever offered to help him before.”
I swallowed with guilt.
“You’re putting me on,” I said. I was incredulous.
“No, he’s actually interested,” added Sam. “We’re meeting tonight at my place to study.”
Sam twirled his fork until he had a mass of pasta the size of a pool ball. Then he forced it in his mouth. “He wants to,” he said, between chews, “get into the Air Force,” another chew, “after school.”
“Huh?”
“And he can’t get in without good grades.”
I was floored. All the time I’d been afraid and avoiding Randy Herrman, he’d been searching for help. I’d helped him cheat. Darren had ignored him. But Sam had taken a chance and found a way to serve his brother.
“I feel like a … I feel like a,” I couldn’t find the word.
“Why? You didn’t know what Randy needed?” said Sam.
“No, and I didn’t bother to find out.”
Sam smiled and shrugged. “It’s no big deal. Come over tonight and we’ll both get to know Randy.”
After lunch, I walked back to class with a weird mix of feelings running through me. For the first time in years I wasn’t afraid of running into Randy. That was a relief, I reasoned. But I couldn’t believe how blind I’d been. It’d taken Sam only seconds to do what I should have done years ago.
I closed my locker and told myself I wasn’t going to let that happen again.
I walked to biology. Under the glowing fluorescent lamps and amid the moving mass of 10th-grade students, I told myself I was ready to begin again.
I can do well here, I thought.
I just need to find a way.

In 1976 Elder Robert C. Oaks, then a colonel in the United States Air Force, was a member of the Incidents at Sea negotiating team. They were guests at a dinner hosted by the Leningrad Naval District. About 50 senior officers of the Soviet Union and the United States were present as the host led the group in toasts before dinner. They stood for the first toast and raised their glasses, most of which were filled with Russian vodka. Brother Oaks had pink lemonade in his glass, which was immediately noticed by the admiral leading the toast. He stopped and demanded that Brother Oaks fill his glass with vodka, stating that he would not proceed until he had done so. Brother Oaks declined, explaining that he was happy with what he had in his glass.

A significant tension began to build, and even his own team members, most of whom were senior to him, were growing uneasy over the impasse. Brother Oaks’s Soviet escort hissed in his ear, “Fill your glass with vodka!” Brother Oaks uttered the shortest prayer of his life: “God, help me!”

Within seconds the Soviet interpreter, an army captain with whom he had previously discussed religion, whispered to the host admiral, “It is because of his religion.” The admiral nodded his head, the tension immediately diffused, and the program moved on.

Elder Oaks had decided years before that he would never drink alcohol, and so in the moment of trial he did not have to make this choice again. Elder Oaks was convinced that more harm would have come to him if he had compromised a tenet of his faith than the harm that would have come from drinking the vodka. Incidentally, adhering to his religious principles did not hurt his career. After this incident he went on to become a four-star general.

A couple of years ago my family and I moved. The first few weeks that I attended church and Mutual, I felt alone. But I prayed every day that I would be able to make new friends and feel a part of my new ward. Little by little I have come to love and appreciate this ward. I had to be the one to initiate friendships. I had to start the conversation. I had to fully participate in classes and listen to what others said. With Heavenly Father’s help, I now have close friendships with people I never pictured being friends with.
Leah V., 16, Colorado, USA

My seminary teacher used the article “Extra Strength” (Jan. ’02) in one of her lessons. That very day, a friend from school was asking me questions about the Church while we were in the weight room. I tried to answer him the best I could but didn’t feel my words were very influential. But I felt impressed to do as the young woman in the article did. The following day I gave my friend the new For the Strength of Youth and told him it contained the guidelines written for teenagers to follow. It felt good to have done this small missionary effort.
Marek de SavignyDunrobin, Ontario, Canada

At nineteen, I was keeping books and acting a policy clerk for Mr. Henry Wadsworth, the agent of Wells, Fargo and Company. My time was not fully employed. I was not working for the company but for the agent personally. I did the same as I had done in Mr. White’s bank—volunteered to file a lot of bank letters, etc., and to keep a set of books of the Sandy Smelting Company, which Mr. Wadsworth was doing personally.

To emphasize the truth of the above quotation from 1 Chronicles, I will remark that my action so pleased Mr. Wadsworth that he employed me to do the collecting for Wells, Fargo and Company, and paid me twenty dollars a month for this work in addition to my regular compensation of seventy-five dollars from the insurance business. Thus I was in the employ of Wells, Fargo and Company, and one of my day dreams had become a reality.

After my childhood challenges, I am confident that Heavenly Father knew exactly what I needed to enable me to trust my eternal companion. He placed many steadfast examples of fatherhood in my life. These included my righteous grandfather, who loved the Lord, and a diligent home teacher who—understanding my family’s financial limitations—took me on as a student at his art studio and inspired me to follow in his footsteps professionally. In my young adult life, heavenly healing was also delivered through the unexpected blessing of gaining a righteous stepfather, who was patient with my hesitancy to trust a father figure and who continually showed me kindness.
A watercolor painted by the author of her husband and daughter. She was inspired to pursue art by her home teacher—one of the father figures in her life.

At 16, after being a paper boy for five years, I was somewhat surprised when the manager of circulation asked me to be the assistant manager and act as the supervisor of all the newspaper boys in the city. It was quite an honor because of my youth, and I remember how grateful I felt to the Lord. I saw it as a direct blessing from the Lord in allowing me to grow and obtain additional development.
I worked as the assistant manager for about two years, and I will never forget the great challenge that then came to me. I had been paying my tithing regularly during that time and certainly believed in the principle, but I did not have as sure a witness of that principle as I was about to attain.
One Saturday afternoon after finishing work, the manager told me that starting a week from the following day, on Sunday, it would be necessary for me to work every Sunday morning. The manager was an inactive member of the Church at the time, and he knew that I was not going to react favorably to the suggestion. But he was quick to tell me that even though I would miss priesthood meeting and Sunday School, I could find some other means of attending meetings, and thus it would not be all that serious to skip those meetings. He then attempted to entice me by telling me that my pay would be increased by 30 percent, thinking that this might change my mind about the principle of not working on Sunday.
I remember how strongly those words fell upon my heart, but I also remember my response: “I am quite certain that I cannot work on Sunday.”
“Well,” he said, “you will have to work on Sunday or I will find another assistant manager.”
I left the office rather teary-eyed that day. I remember asking the Lord why I should lose my job as a result of the Church. I had been working hard to save enough money to support myself on a mission, and now I was going to lose my job unless I were willing to work on Sunday.
I talked to my father to ask his counsel, and all he would tell me was, “I am sure you will do what is right, whatever that may be.” I was left with the weight of the decision. I spoke later to my bishop and asked him what to do, and his advice was the same as my father’s. However, he added that if I decided to work on Sunday, there might be some possibility of my attending another ward for priesthood meeting as the neighboring ward was holding them in the afternoons at that period of time in the city where I lived. After talking to these two men, the feeling came over me that there was no way to resolve this matter except by finding out what the Lord would have me do.
The following Saturday I went in and announced to the manager that I would not work on Sunday. He informed me that since that was my choice, I would have one week and no longer as the assistant manager, and then I would be replaced by a young man who was “really willing to work.”
I left work that day with a very heavy heart, realizing that in five or six days I would be without a job. In one more year I was to go on my mission, and I did not yet have sufficient funds to support myself. I prayed much that week.
The following days at work seemed very long, and there were very few words spoken between my boss and me. I waited for the next Saturday, which was to be my last day.
Friday finally arrived. As I was finishing work that evening, the manager approached me and said, somewhat emotionally, “Gene, you are right in what you are doing, and I am wrong in asking you to work on Sunday. I have found a young man of another religion who is willing to work on Sunday, but I still want you to be my assistant manager. And by the way, that 30 percent increase will be given to you anyway, even though you will not be working the seventh day. You are a very good young man.”
My young friends, I will never forget the feeling of gratitude that came over me at that moment. I will also never forget my feelings that month as I paid more than an honest tithe and faithfully attended to my responsibilities on Sunday.

Dad got us a job mowing the lawn of our meetinghouse. We used an old push lawn mower. At that time, the Church was just beginning to buy power lawn mowers. But my father, who had a calling in the stake, said, “We don’t need a power mower. My boys will take care of it.” Some parts of the lawn were very thick and hard to mow, so we attached a rope to the front of the mower. One brother pulled on the rope while the other pushed the mower. People laughed as they went by and saw us doing this, but it worked!

Partway through my mission in Arizona, USA, I was hit with my first panic attack. I talked to leaders, asked for help, and prayed a lot. But the help I needed did not seem to come. I felt alone and afraid. I was even told I might have to go home.
One day my mother called. She asked, “Can you keep going?” I responded with, “I don’t know. I really don’t know.” Then my mom said, “Can you do one more month?” I said, “I don’t know.”
“What about one more week?” she asked. “I don’t know,” I said again. “What about one more day?” she asked. “I. Don’t. Know,” I said.
Then she asked, “Can you do one more minute?” Finally I said, “Well yes, of course.” She told me, “Then just do that. Go minute to minute, until you can get to an hour. Then let it progress, slowly. Don’t rush. Just let God take over. I promise you’re going to be OK.”
I trusted in her words. I have now been out for almost 21 months. I still struggle with mental health sometimes. But I also experience a lot of joy. And I have faith that as I go step by step, minute by minute, I can do this through the power of the Lord and His infinite Atonement. Struggles with mental health are real. But as we turn to Christ, we can do hard things.
Elder Rhett Turley, Arizona Mesa Mission

When I was growing up and would have frustrating times, my Dad would always say: “Well, just remember this will pass, it won’t continue forever.”
I found myself in the midst of one of those times recently, wishing that some of my problems would go away and some of my dreams would come true. But neither seemed to be happening. I began to wonder if sometimes things did continue forever. I wondered why some prayers seemed to go unanswered and why some blessings were withheld.
While visiting my parents I found some answers in the corn patch.
It was Saturday and the vegetable garden needed to be irrigated. Since I was home, I volunteered for the assignment.
“Water everything but the corn,” Dad had said as I headed for the ditch with my shovel. I wondered what Dad had against corn.
“Are you sure it doesn’t need any water?” I asked. He decided to come and check. We walked out to the garden together and looked at the corn, which was about 60 centimeters high. The leaves were wilting and had begun to droop from the heat.
As usual, we had planted the garden at our family home evening in the last week in May. A frost had come a few days before the end of the month, and then summer weather had begun.
This year Dad had planted peas, beans, corn, potatoes, and squash. Our garden was growing according to the usual schedule this year. Everything had been watered two or three times since it had been planted, except for the corn. It was getting close to July, and still Dad hadn’t watered it.
“I guess now it’s time to water it,” Dad said as he inspected the droopy leaves. Then he explained to me why he had waited so long.
“If you water corn when it first starts to grow, it’ll shoot right up. But it won’t develop a root system to support its height, so it won’t be good for much of anything.”
As he left me, I began thinking about what he had said. He was disciplining the corn so it would be well developed and there would be a balance between the roots and the stalk.
I looked at my own life and thought how much I was like the corn. Crying for water before I’d developed my roots.
I remembered a talk Elder Neal A. Maxwell gave at Ricks College. He talked about being “grounded, rooted, and established.” Maybe the Lord was allowing me to go a little while without water so I would become grounded and well rooted in the gospel. Perhaps there were roots of patience that I had not established. I could work on tolerance and love. I thought of many areas of my life where my roots were shallow.
I have learned not to mind so much the dry spells in my life because I know the Master Gardener will send water in His own due time. And when it comes it will be, as Elder Maxwell calls it, the Malachi measure: “there shall not be room enough to receive it.” (Mal. 3:10.)

Photograph by Leslie Nilsson
We were all excited for Agatha’s birth in 2015. She would be my parents’ first grandchild. Everything went well until the day she was born. She was a large baby, I suffered complications, and the doctor was late getting to the hospital. When he finally arrived, he had to use forceps to remove her. By then, she had suffered neonatal asphyxia.
When they put Agatha on my chest for a moment, I thought it was so I could say goodbye. Nurses then whisked her away for neonatal intensive care. I found out later that her Apgar score, used to assess a newborn’s overall condition, was only 2. A score of 7 to 10 is considered normal.
Scans showed a large white spot on Agatha’s brain, revealing significant damage from lack of oxygen. Doctors told us that if she lived, she would suffer serious cognitive and physical disabilities and likely have epilepsy.
When my family learned how gravely ill Agatha was, my parents and in-laws were given permission to enter the neonatal intensive care unit at different times to see Agatha and say goodbye. My father and father-in-law, unbeknownst to one another, each gave her a blessing. My husband also gave her a blessing. That Sunday we organized a family fast for her.
Agatha spent 11 days in the hospital before we could take her home. For several months, she underwent tests and procedures. She couldn’t swallow, she lacked reflexes, and she suffered convulsions. They told me she would never move her head, never walk, and never speak.
Over the next year, we continued to pray and fast for Agatha, and we took her to a physical therapist to help her learn to move. The left side of her body had been especially affected by her asphyxia. She could move her right hand but not her left hand. Doctors told us that progress would be slow. But after only a few sessions, she could move both sides of her body equally. The therapist said it was a miracle. Because she learned so quickly, he wondered why we had brought her in the first place.
Every small improvement brought us happiness. Soon Agatha began to move her head. Then she began to sit up. When she started to smile, we knew that our faith and prayers were being answered. And when she said “Mama” for the first time, I felt great joy.
We received our biggest miracle at her annual checkup. A magnetic resonance image (MRI) showed no white spot on her brain. Her doctor couldn’t believe it.
“This scan looks like it came from a different child,” he said, comparing the new image with the original image taken after she was born. He requested a second scan, asking, “What is going on here?”
Today, Agatha has no cognitive or physical disabilities, and she no longer takes medication for epilepsy. Her school knows her as an intellectually advanced child.
We attribute Agatha’s healing to what my father calls “a perfect triangle”: faith, fasting and prayer, and priesthood blessings from righteous men. We know that the Lord loves us, we know He has power, and we know He gives us His power to exercise here on earth. We are grateful that He healed Agatha.

Sister Anglesey had left her home and her faith 30 years earlier. She had long known something was missing in her life but felt overwhelmed just to walk back into church. She eventually mustered the courage to attend a temple open house. As beautiful as that visit was, Tammy later confided to me, “All I could see was an experience I would never have. No sealing, and no [endowment].” Still, prompted by that visit, she dressed for church one Sunday, only to park her car and watch others walk into the building. Overcome with anxiety, she simply drove home, changed her clothes, and wept alone. An inspired bishop later sent her a note inviting her back to church. I met Tammy on a ministering visit just after her temple endowment. She had been away from the Church for 30 years! She had spent Sundays sitting alone in a church parking lot. But the Lord brought her home and restored her to His light, love, and joy.