Gospel Story Finder

When we got married, I found out that even in a small home like ours, there is tons of stuff to do. You can’t imagine how much stuff! In the beginning, I wasn’t really helping out. I did some little things, but Jackie was doing most of the work. She is very caring and giving. One day she became upset, and I’m like, “What’s wrong?”

I grew up thinking that girls were supposed to do all the housework. I quickly learned that was not realistic. Jackie was very busy and under a lot of pressure with her job. While I’m under a lot of pressure too, I realized that I should start doing more to help.

I started sweeping the floors and washing dishes. Then I learned how to use the washing machine. I put notes on it to help me remember. Seriously! I have a sticker to help me know which washing powder to use. These things have now become my habit.

It’s been good since I started doing things in the house. It has made Jackie happier.

Figuratively, all of us need to transform ourselves into modern Captain Moronis in order to win the wars against evil. I know a very faithful young deacon who transformed himself into a modern Captain Moroni. Inasmuch as he has sought to follow the counsel of his parents and Church leaders, his faith and determination have been tested every day, even at his young age. He told me one day he was surprised by a very difficult and uncomfortable situation—his friends were accessing pornographic images on their cell phones. In that exact moment, this young man had to decide what was most important—his popularity or his righteousness. In the few seconds that followed, he was filled with courage and told his friends that what they were doing was not right. Moreover, he told them that they should stop what they were doing or they would become slaves to it. Most of his classmates ridiculed his counsel, saying that it was a part of life and that there was nothing wrong with it. However, there was one among them who listened to the counsel of that young man and decided to stop what he was doing.

This deacon’s example had a positive influence on at least one of his classmates. Undoubtedly, he and his friend faced mockery and persecution because of that decision. On the other hand, they had followed the admonition of Alma to his people when he said, “Come ye out from the wicked, and be ye separate, and touch not their unclean things.”

In late September 2005, a group of Saints from the island of Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia made a journey west to the Manila Philippines Temple. This trip, which took them thousands of miles from their tiny island in the Pacific, was the first temple excursion from the island of Chuuk.
The group consisted of three sisters and two families from the Mwan and Mechitiw Branches of the Namoneas Chuuk District. They were accompanied by Elder Gordon and Sister Jerry Stewart, a senior missionary couple.
They spent four days doing temple work for themselves and for their ancestors. Members of the group expressed gratitude for the rare opportunity of receiving their temple blessings and felt it worthy of all their sacrifices to be able to do so. “I may someday be able to buy another little boat, but I will probably never have the chance to go to the temple again,” said Simion Anap, president of the Mechitiw Branch.
As part of the trip, President Anap’s family reunited with their daughter, Tersy, as she completed her mission in the Philippines Manila Mission.

Monika Bohler, 15, raised her hand. “I have a friend I usually meet on the way to school,” she said, and then told how her friend had asked her one day what she thought of religion. “I belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Monika replied, and told her the story of Joseph Smith.
“She wanted to know how both God and Christ could appear to Joseph Smith, because she had always been taught that the Father and the Son are one person,” Monika continued. “I explained our belief about the Trinity, but she wanted scriptural references. That night I went home and got out my seminary material, and the next day I had a list of scriptures to give to her. Now we talk about religious ideas all the time. I’m glad I had studied the New Testament so that I could talk to my friend.”

It’s important to be thoughtful of your friends’ frames of reference, too. Remember that LDS culture, beliefs, and even language can be very foreign to people who are not familiar with it. A little Muslim girl, for example, was invited to go to Primary with her friends. When she got home, she quickly announced to her mother that she was never going back to the Mormon church. “Why not?” inquired her mother. “Because it’s haunted,” the girl replied.

“What do you mean it’s haunted?” her mother asked. “What makes you think that?”

“They told me so,” she said. “They said there was a Holy Ghost there, and that you could feel the spirit all around.”

Her friends didn’t drop her just because she was scared, though. They continued extending invitations to her, and, most important of all, they continued being her friend. When she was 19, she decided to embrace the gospel and was baptized.

In addition to the summer farm work, Franklin’s father kept him busy at home. To make sure he didn’t run out of jobs around the house and to develop his sense of responsibility, his father had coops and runs for fifty chickens built in the backyard. Franklin had to feed and water the chickens, keep the coops clean, and gather the eggs. Since there were more eggs laid than the family needed, he was allowed to sell the extra eggs and keep the money. Brother Richards said, “I’m grateful that I had a father and mother who taught me the joy of working, the value of spending less than I made, and the importance of paying my tithing.”
Back then tithing was paid to the bishop’s storehouse, sometimes in kind, meaning eggs, wheat, or other farm produce. During 1908, when Franklin was only eight years old, he paid $7.50 in tithing on earnings of $75.00. He still has the bishop’s storehouse receipt. In those days $75.00 was a large amount of money. It represented a lot of hard work.

By age nineteen, she had saved enough money to go to Chicago, Illinois, where she studied at the Chicago Art Institute under the great John Vanderpoel. Several times during her three-year course she had to go home to earn more money by working in the fields or in the classroom. But Minerva always returned to her studies. With characteristic confidence, Minerva once confronted Mr. Vanderpoel, asking why he criticized her work so harshly when so many classmates were doing much poorer work. She later recalled, “I shall never forget the disappointment on the man’s face when he answered in a choked voice, ‘Can it be possible you do not understand; those other students are not worth it, they will eventually leave school, but you—ah, there is no end’” (“Miss Kohlhepp’s Own Story,” Pocatello, Idaho, 1917).
By 1912, she had finished her course at the Art Institute and returned west to earn more money. During this period she was courted by two young men—calling off a wedding with one wealthy suitor when she learned that he didn’t want to be married in a Mormon church. The other young man, not a Church member either (she knew no Latter-day Saint young men), was Herman Teichert. Herman was a gentle cowboy whose favorite activity was chasing wild horses on the desert by moonlight. In April 1915, however, she left Herman behind, telling him to marry someone else, and went to the Art Students’ League in New York City.

Thwaaack! The aluminum arrow slammed into the 2.5-inch bull’s-eye, dead center. With methodical precision, the archer nocked another shaft and sped it into the same dark disk of the target so closely to the first arrow that the fletchings were crushed. Luck? Robin Hood?
No. Kevin Sant, 25, mild-mannered super-archer. Without parallel in recent years in inter-collegiate archery competition, Kevin has swept four collegiate matches in a row—four gold medals in four meets. His category, bare bow, prohibits him from using the technical regalia designed to improve the performance of the archer. Kevin fires with just the bow, the arrow, and gloves. He fires a 50-pound Bingham bow, which he hand finished himself in two weeks of painstaking labor. He was introduced to archery at Weber State College just three years ago.
During 1976 he competed in matches with different universities throughout the nation. Ranges and rules for matches varied, depending upon the size of the facilities and the desires of the officials. Archers may fire at distances ranging from 18 meters to 60 yards. (At 18 meters, the bull’s-eye is only 2.5 inches in diameter.)
Kevin and his teammates represent their school without any financial support. All participation is voluntary and self-supported. But he does enjoy excellent facilities at the University of Utah and has the advantage of an outstanding coach, Duane Erickson, 16-year veteran of the sport and national champion in 1963. Kevin’s coach was once reputedly capable of hitting a coin tossed into the air at 18 meters.
Kevin is a former member of his elders quorum presidency in Ogden Stake and is now instructing the 10th elders quorum of the Salt Lake City University First Stake.

A few weeks after my 18th birthday, my parents called my sister and me downstairs to talk. They told us that my dad’s sister, Charlotte, was in the hospital and was probably going to pass away.
Unfortunately, being in the hospital was a fairly common occurrence for her, but we could all feel this really was the last time. She was on life support after an accident. A few days later, my dad was on a plane from Georgia, USA, to California to say goodbye to her. And just days after that, my mom, my sister, and I were flying to California for her funeral. She was only 38.
Despite this major tragedy in my life, I was uncomfortably emotionless at the news of her death. I had hardly known my Aunt Charlotte—I had met her only once in person, so we had simply been social media friends. She had struggled with anorexia and other mental health issues throughout her life that had caused her to feel she needed to distance herself from our family. I didn’t have any contact with her until I was about 16, and when she did come into my life, it was awkward for me as a teenager.
What I did know about my aunt was that she loved yoga and wanted to become a yoga teacher. I knew that she wanted nothing more than to be a mom. And I had always heard about how she had a personality so big that it couldn’t be contained.
I couldn’t help but feel that the whole situation seemed so unfair. She was finally managing the chronic pain she had developed during her struggles with anorexia. She had moved to California and become a yoga teacher. It seemed like just when Charlotte was finally getting her life back on track and I finally had the opportunity to get to know her, she died.
It didn’t make any sense to me.
In the April 2021 general conference, Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke about this infuriating unfairness. He said: “Some unfairness cannot be explained; inexplicable unfairness is infuriating. Unfairness comes from living with bodies that are imperfect, injured, or diseased. Mortal life is inherently unfair.” 1
I felt this very deeply with Charlotte. She had spent most of her life at war with her brain and her body and it had nearly taken her several times, but she was finally starting to get better. All I could think was, “How could God take her back when she seemed to be getting out of the woods? Why, after surviving all her near-death experiences, was it a freak accident that took her life?”
Elder Renlund’s later words struck a deeper chord with me. He said: “Do not let unfairness harden you or corrode your faith in God. Instead, ask God for help. Increase your appreciation for and reliance on the Savior.” 2
My faith had been tested only a few times up until this point in my life, but I struggled with being able to understand this unfairness for years—from when Charlotte died in 2018 until the April 2021 general conference. Although I had always believed in Heavenly Father’s plan for us, this experience had shaken me.
But thanks to that general conference message—given on Easter weekend, appropriately—now I know, like Elder Renlund, that “all that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and that by His authority families can be joined together forever.” 3
During this Easter season, the fifth since Charlotte died, I’m grateful for the knowledge that her death isn’t the end. Because of the events of Easter weekend, because of the Resurrection, hope is not lost. I feel confident Charlotte is continuing on the path she started just before her earthly life ended. I know that when other members of my family join her one day, she will be waiting there to welcome them home.
For me, Charlotte is a tangible reminder of the Atonement and Resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ. I may never know why she was taken from this earth so young. But what I do know is that because He lives, one day she will too. When that day comes, I will finally get to build a relationship with the person she was becoming before her death.

On this week’s discussion board, I asked if people would share experiences of kindness. Laura’s story is a great example of someone being sympathetic, considerate, and helpful. Laura wrote, “I have a young adult son who has a disability. Chad loves to attend our neighborhood gym twice a week. The owner has taken a special interest in Chad. He personally trains him free of charge. The staff loves to get Chad’s movie requests each week and they have them ready for him to watch in the theater while he does his cardio. But the owner has gone above and beyond—he has given my son his cell phone number so they can text each other during the week. Believe me—my son sends a lot of messages. This Christlike man is a true and loving friend to my son.”

In my last semester at BYU, one of my professors was Steve Albrecht. If students in his class were married, he asked that their spouse attend class with us.
In his class one day, he taught us a simple principle. He said, “As you leave BYU and start earning money, except for a home and education, don’t buy anything unless you can pay cash for it.”
After class that day, my wife and I talked about this principle of money management. We felt his words were inspired. We laid hold of them, and we promised to follow them.
Not long after graduation we moved to Cincinnati. Excited to be earning a salary, we rented a townhome and went shopping for a washer and dryer. At the appliance store I remember standing in front of a new, shiny, white washer-and-dryer set. They were beautiful! Of course we didn’t have the cash to pay for them. If we were going to buy them, we would have to use credit. As we stood there, Jennifer looked at me and I looked at her, and we both knew we couldn’t buy them unless we paid cash.
So, heads hanging low, we drove down to the secondhand store. There we bought a used green washer and a yellow dryer for $25 a piece. We made a pact that as soon as they stopped working, we would buy that new washer-dryer set. Wouldn’t you know it, but that old washer and dryer worked for ten years! Because we laid hold upon Professor Albrecht’s words, we have lived debt free ever since. What a tremendous blessing has come to us as a result.

Before my days at WordPerfect, I had the opportunity to play on a basketball team with Hall of Famer, Charles Barkley. We were teammates on the United States team that competed in the 1983 University Games held in Vancouver, Canada. When we played together, I witnessed Barkley’s skills as a basketball player firsthand. Today, he is well-known for his unapologetic banter. I, however, remember Barkley fondly for a time he did not say a word. During a particular exhibition game, Barkley made a rare mistake. The coach pulled him out, and Barkley sat near me on the bench. Stomping over, the coach did not hold back as he yelled at Barkley for the mistake. He then continued to yell some more at Barkley. Charles took it all and didn't say a word. And, later, when the coach put him back in the game, he made the necessary adjustments and played well. That’s the value of humility, of being coachable. I was impressed with how well he responded to the criticism. When someone chastises us, we have the opportunity to choose our response and be teachable or not. We can take it, learn from it, make the needed changes, and hopefully avoid similar conversations with the coach in the future.

Hamilton (Montana) Ward
Last June, 46 young men and women of the Hamilton Ward made a trip to the Cardston Alberta Temple to do baptisms for the dead. It was the largest youth temple turnout in ward history. On their way to the temple, they stopped at Glacier National Park, and in Cardston they visited the Remington-Alberta Carriage Centre, home to the largest collection of horse-drawn vehicles in North America.
But the real reason for the trip was the temple. The youth performed more than 300 baptisms for the dead, with all the names prepared for temple ordinances and provided by Hamilton Ward members.
In the several months leading up to the trip, the ward held classes and activities to assist the youth in learning about family history.

Scott and Brodie Te Hira didn’t know that they were being taught about the gospel by their friends—at least, not at first. They just knew they were getting together with friends in the Cairns, Australia, area to participate in a dance program every Friday night. The group performs free of charge for tourists in the area.
In order to participate, dancers must pledge to stay drug and alcohol free. Scott and Brodie liked the spirit they felt among the dancers so well (many of them are LDS) that they started to ask questions. The rest, as they say, is history.
Scott and Brodie aren’t the only ones who have joined the Church as a result of their participation. Sisters Kelly and Lisa Bell, as well as four others, have now joined the Church.

The second experience is in the village of Aotearoa. The carvings over the whare (or hale or fale) Hawaiikiroa were getting old and rotting. They were the original carvings done in New Zealand from 1961 to 1963 and then brought to PCC in 1963 when the whare and PCC were originally built.

Totara trees were cut and sliced and prepared to the correct size and carved in the traditional Maori pattern by a Maori master wood carver and five others who worked under him. A Maori master wood carver not only knows how to use the tools and to cut and carve the wood, but he also knows the history of his tribe and his ancestors because the carvings tell of the genealogy of his ancestors, so the whole Maori whare in all the designs and carvings and painting tells the history of the tribe in the story of their ancestors.

Each traditional Maori whare in New Zealand of the different tribes tells the story of their family and ties in the history of each family’s common ancestors of the tribe. The history goes all the way back to their common ancestor, and each whare is the named for the common ancestor.

I also attended the early morning ceremony in the Maori village where the Maori people dedicated the refurbished whares in a traditional way. Of course, speeches were given back and forth between the Maoris here in Laie and the Maori people overseeing the village at the PCC and the wood carvers and missionaries and all those who participated in the restoration work. This was to express thanks to all those workers and leaders, missionaries and prophets who had come before and who made the building of this place possible and also for those of us at the PCC being the beneficiaries of the great gift of craftsmanship and knowledge and abilities of the wood carvers and missionaries in their labor and efforts in the construction work. Expressing the thought of the Maori saying, “We warm our hands on the embers of the fires we never built.”

Speeches and traditional chants were given by the Maoris in the Maori language, but being here in Hawaii at the Polynesian Cultural Center, there is always deference given to the Hawaiian Culture. They are the host culture and invite all the other islands depicted at the PCC to use a portion of native Hawaiian land to house and demonstrate their culture.

Cy Bridges (the director of protocol at PCC) gave his speech in Hawaiian, reciting his genealogy all the way back to Hawaiiloa, who is the common ancestor of the Maori and Hawaiian and all of the Polynesian people.

I offer this as profound conviction born in the fiery crucible of life’s experience. Our second son, Adam, entered our lives when I was far away in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam. I still have the joyful telegram announcing his birth. Adam was a blue-eyed, blond-haired little fellow with an impish personality. As he turned five years old, Adam eagerly looked forward to starting school. Then a common childhood illness blanketed our southern California community, and Adam contracted the disease. Aside from concern for his comfort, we were not worried. He even seemed to have a light case. Suddenly one morning he did not arise from his bed; he was in a deep coma. We rushed him to the hospital, where he was placed in intensive care. A constant cadre of devoted doctors and nurses attended him. His mother and I maintained a ceaseless vigil in the waiting room nearby.

I telephoned our dear stake president—a childhood friend and now a beloved colleague in the Seventy, Elder Douglas L. Callister—and asked if he would come to the hospital and join me in giving Adam a priesthood blessing. Within minutes he was there. As we entered the small, cramped space where Adam’s lifeless little body lay, his bed surrounded by a bewildering maze of monitoring devices and other medical paraphernalia, the kind doctors and nurses reverently stepped back and folded their arms. As the familiar and comforting words of a priesthood blessing were spoken in faith and earnest pleading, I was overcome by a profound sense that Someone else was present. I was overwhelmed by the thought that if I should open my eyes, I would see the Savior standing there! I was not the only one in that room who felt that Spirit. We learned quite by chance some months later that one of the nurses who was present that day was so touched that she sought out the missionaries and was baptized.

But notwithstanding, Adam made no improvement. He lingered between this life and the next for several more days as we pleaded with the Lord to return him to us. Finally, one morning after a fitful night, I walked alone down a deserted hospital corridor. I spoke to the Lord and told Him that we wanted our little boy to return so very much, but nevertheless what we wanted most was for His will to be done and that we—Pat and I—would accept that. Adam crossed the threshold into the eternities a short time later.

Frankly, we still grieve for our little boy, although the tender ministering of the Spirit and the passage of the years have softened our sadness. His small picture graces the mantel of our living room beside a more current family portrait of children and grandchildren. But Pat and I know that his path through mortality was intended by a kind Heavenly Father to be shorter and easier than ours and that he has now hurried on ahead to be a welcoming presence when we likewise eventually cross that same fateful threshold.

Time passes. The hand of a bride becomes the hand of a mother. Ever so gently, she cares for her precious child. Bathing, dressing, feeding, comforting—there is no hand like Mother’s. Nor does its tender care diminish through the years. Ever shall I remember the hand of one mother—the mother of a missionary. Some years ago at a worldwide seminar for mission presidents, the parents of missionaries were invited to meet and visit briefly with each mission president. Forgotten are the names of each who extended a greeting and exchanged a friendly handshake. Remembered are the feelings that welled up within me as I took in my hand the calloused hand of one mother from Star Valley, Wyoming. “Please excuse the roughness of my hand,” she apologized. “Since my husband has been ill, the work of the farm has been mine to do, that our boy may, as a missionary, serve the Lord.” Tears could not be restrained, nor should they have been. Such tears produce a certain cleansing of the soul. That boy continues to be very special to me, as he does to her. A mother’s labor sanctified a son’s service.

I was born in Australia and lived in the community of Byron Bay, located on the eastern seacoast. I remember the great ships that used to sail up the coast of Australia. Very often they would come into port at Byron Bay. During storms, though, the ships would have to put out to sea again to avoid getting smashed against the rocky beaches or wooden piers.
When I was about seven or eight years old, I had an experience that had a tremendous impact on me. My father came bursting into the house very late one night. Outside, there was a blinding rainstorm, and a large ship—one of the largest to sail along the coast—was struggling to get out to the open sea. Its crew members had been celebrating in town and had delayed returning to the ship to prepare it properly for sailing. As a result, the coal-burning vessel didn’t have enough steam to sail out of port and away from danger.
My parents bundled my brother, sister, and me up in our oilskin coats, and we went down to the harbor to watch the crew frantically trying to sail to safety. The sea was rough. The waves were high. Hundreds of townspeople roused from their beds had gathered on the shore to watch and pray that the ship would make it.
I remember that the ship was all alight as it tossed on the waves. We knew that dozens of crew members were in the hold, shoveling coal into the engine’s furnaces, attempting to get up enough steam to sail to safety. It was an awesome and frightening sight to a little boy.
Suddenly a cheer burst from the crowd. The ship was obviously clear of the pier, and we watched as her bow turned seaward. It looked as though she would make it to the open sea. She went for a short distance; then, because she didn’t have sufficient steam, she lost the struggle. The waves beat too heavily against her, and that great ship swung around, raced straight up onto the beach, and splintered against the rocks. She never sailed again.
I’ve never forgotten that night. It’s as vivid in my memory today as it was when it happened so many years ago. I believe that I am a General Authority today because of the lesson that I learned that night—to prepare myself so that I can head in the proper direction with sufficient strength.

Accepting church callings gives us an opportunity to try new things, despite our fears or feelings of inadequacy. When I turned 10, my Stake President (who happened to be my father) called me into his office. He extended a calling to me as the Stake pianist. I had been playing the piano since age five and I felt very comfortable behind the piano. This was a calling that was never scary to me. So as a Freshman student here at BYU–Hawaii, when my Bishop called me into his office I was totally confident that he’d give me the calling of the ward pianist. Imagine my surprise when he extended a calling that I least expected- a Sunday School teacher. I remember my heart racing and feeling so inadequate that I thought, “maybe he’s got the wrong person.” My father always taught me that a calling is from the Lord and that I should always willingly accept any call. So I kept all my fears to myself and smiled and accepted the call. I was terrified (with English as my second language) I wasn’t sure I’d be able to teach and express myself in a way that I would be understood. I’d never prayed so hard in my life as I did preparing for that first lesson but as I came to know and love the people I taught, it wasn’t as scary as it seemed. My love for the Lord and for my fellow students cast out the fear of teaching and speaking in English. And I can also honestly say the same today, that my love for all of you and for this University is stronger than my fear of speaking before this large group.

Jeff Rebutar of the Pasig Philippines Stake thought he was prepared for retirement. After working into his late 60s, he had enough rental income to support him and his wife without governmental help.
Then his wife had a stroke. Medical bills piled up, and inflation ate into their income. Strapped for money, Brother Rebutar took the Church’s course “Starting and Growing My Business for Self-Reliance.” After some trial and error, he created a cleaning mixture that could be used in homes and workplaces.
“The training course and monthly meetings were helpful in getting started,” Brother Rebutar said. “I had to do something to provide for my family, so I kept at it. After some early business success, I became the informal group leader for others. There’s nothing like actually getting some experience with a new business. We learn by doing, not simply by attending a meeting.”