Gospel Story Finder

When I was seven, I learned one of the greatest lessons of my life. We were studying the environment in school. We discussed pollution and ways we could help decrease its terrible effects on the world. We talked about the oceans and how, even in little ways, we could change some of the things we do at home to make the world safer for all creatures.
I was still pretty young then, but I really took what we had been learning to heart. To me, the environment is a very important thing. The more I learned about why we should conserve our natural resources, the more I wanted everyone else to know the same things and think they were just as important as I did. I became a seven-year-old warrior fighting in the everyday battle to save Mother Nature.
One day, I came home from school having just finished drinking a soda. We had a recycling bin, which we used regularly, and with my newfound enthusiasm for caring about the environment, I went straight to toss my empty bottle in.
“Stop,” my mom said over her shoulder. “Our recycling company doesn’t allow us to recycle green plastic.”
I was shocked. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. The recycling companies were supposed to be the heroes; why would they say we could recycle some things and not others? It didn’t make any sense to me. Disappointed, I dropped my bottle in the trash and headed back toward my room.
At that moment, I had an impression I’d never had before. Coming from a family that was not very religious, we had never had family prayer or even knew what prayer was, other than what we had seen on TV. But right then that was exactly what I felt I needed to do: get on my knees by my bed and pray about it. So I slipped into my room and, not really knowing how to begin, gave it a simple try.
“God,” I started quietly, “this is Ace. Thank you for the environment. Please let us recycle green plastic bottles in this area. It’s really important.” I closed with an “amen” and waited. I didn’t know what to expect. Although I wasn’t visited by angels or struck by lightning, I did feel something I had never felt before. As I sat there, I felt good. I felt like I wasn’t alone in the room anymore, although there clearly wasn’t any other person I could see. Something told me that what I had just done was right.
Life continued the same as it always had. In fact, by the next afternoon I had been so involved in usual things at school that I had mostly forgotten about the green bottle episode and the prayer.
When I got home, I went back to my room, but before long my mom called my name and asked me to come to the kitchen. When I did, I saw that she had a letter in her hand. She explained that it was from the recycling company stating that now we could recycle green plastics in addition to other things.
She handed me the letter. I looked it over, but I couldn’t believe it. The same feeling I had had the day before came rushing back to me. It was an answer.
That was an experience that has never left me. Every time I think about it, I’m still amazed that it could have happened at all. And it was this experience that, three years later, helped me to feel the truth of the gospel when the missionaries came knocking at our family’s door. It was the same feeling.

One Sunday, my two youngest children, Johanne and Joshua, made sure that I was available to help them distribute Pass-Along Cards from the Ensign to the neighbors. Passing out these cards has become a missionary project for them since that day.
While visiting a neighbor another day, I noticed The Lamb of God video on his table. I asked him about it, and he told me that my children had given him a pass-along card. He is reading the Book of Mormon now.

When Elder L. Tom Perry was 11, his Primary teacher helped the boys in his class get ready to receive the priesthood and graduate from Primary.
As a reward for memorizing all 13 Articles of Faith, she let them choose a place for a special outing. The boys and their teacher hiked to the top of a rocky hill to cook hot dogs and roast marshmallows. Their teacher told the boys that she was proud of them for memorizing the Articles of Faith. She also said that they should learn more than just the words. Then she taught them a lesson about what the Articles of Faith mean.
This experience inspired Elder Perry to study the gospel as he grew up. (See “The Doctrines and Principles Contained in the Articles of Faith” from the priesthood session.)

First, let’s focus on the comforting power of the Holy Ghost. When I was just a young girl, I became seriously ill. Each day the illness became increasingly severe. Nothing the doctor recommended helped. At that time the dreaded disease of polio was raging in almost epidemic proportions in the land. It was taking the lives of many, and those who didn’t die were often left crippled. Polio was everyone’s worst fear in those days.

One night my illness became critical, and my father and grandfather administered to me using consecrated oil, and through the power of the holy Melchizedek Priesthood, which they held worthily, they called upon God for healing, help, guidance, and comfort. And then my parents took me to a doctor in another town who immediately sent us to Salt Lake City—two and one-half hours away—with the admonition to hurry. I overheard the doctor whisper that he was certain it was polio.

When we finally arrived at the hospital in Salt Lake, there were medical personnel waiting for us. They grabbed me from my parents’ arms and whisked me away. Without a word of good-bye or explanation, we were separated. I was all alone, and I thought I was going to die.

Following the painful diagnostic procedures, including a spinal tap, they took me to a hospital isolation room, where I would stay all by myself with the hope that I would not infect anyone else, for indeed I did have polio.

I remember how very frightened I was. It was dark and I was so sick and so alone. But my parents had taught me to pray. I got on my knees, and I knelt beside the railing in the criblike bed and asked Heavenly Father to bless me. I was crying, I remember. Heavenly Father heard my prayer even though I was only a child. He did. Heavenly Father sent His comforting power, which enveloped me in quiet love. I felt the power of the Holy Ghost, and I was not alone.

We went to church in Port Harcourt from Omoku, our hometown. It was about two-hour drive. We did this every Sunday until sometime in 2001 when the Port Harcourt West Stake Presidency authorized me and family to stay back and worship in Omoku under the supervision of the Rumueme Ward. We reactivated some members of the Church who resided in our town and surrounding towns, two of whom were old schoolmates at the university. We started worshipping in my one-room apartment and later moved into a three-rooms flat in the city center where, on the 9th of January 2005, the Church was officially organized with me as the first branch president and my wife as first counsellor in the Relief Society. We had 36 members of our branch.

Later when he married and began raising a family, a sense of humor helped him deal with three children (and one wife) who possess a weakness for stray animals. Although he himself was raised in a family that believed animals belong in a barn, dad has survived over the years any number of dogs, cats, guppies, goldfish, turtles, lizards, rabbits, chickens, frogs, toads, chameleons, mice, rats, hamsters, guinea pigs, gerbils, parakeets, and one foul-tempered cockatiel named Doosey. I remember one winter when I brought home two full-grown cats and asked if I could keep them.
“Are they males?” he asked.
“Sure,” I said. “Their names are Sam and George.”
That convinced him. “All right, but they have to stay outside.”
That spring Sam and George had 13 kittens between them. And they didn’t stay outside either!

Mrs. Chen looks like she could use some help.
Let’s carry her grocery bags!
You have a lot of vegetables in here!
I’m making vegetable soup tonight. Maybe I could make some for your family too.
Sounds tasty!
Thanks!
Matt and Mandy keep helping Mrs. Chen each week. She shares fun stories from her childhood.
Once when I was your age, I got stuck in a tree!
My dad got a ladder to help me down.
Matt and Mandy share stories too. Helping others leads to friendship!

Because of its political stability, Ivory Coast—with about 14 million inhabitants—attracts immigrants from nations throughout Africa. Christophe Mvomo was not one of those who came hoping for a better life, but he found one nevertheless.
In his native Cameroon, Christophe, an excellent student, was selected to attend a Catholic seminary. Upon graduation, he was asked to become a Catholic seminary teacher in Ivory Coast, where most people practice ancient local religions. About 30 percent of Ivorians are Christian.
After arriving in Abidjan, Christophe learned that many young people were responding favorably to missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He grew curious when several young men, including three with whom he was acquainted, were called as full-time missionaries for the Church. Christophe had questions about this new church, and he decided to “straighten out” those who were spreading its message.
“Originally his idea was to prove the Church wrong,” recalls Sister Grace Mackay, who was then serving a mission in Abidjan with her husband, Theron. “But he had sincere questions right from the start, and he was willing to learn.”
During his visits with Elder and Sister Mackay, Christophe heard answers to questions he thought had no answers. The beauty of the plan of salvation rang true, and the meaning of the Atonement became clear.
“I became converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when I was still a full-time teacher at a luxurious and selective Catholic seminary school,” Brother Mvomo wrote in his journal. “To live in accordance with my newfound faith, a year after I encountered the Church I resigned my teaching post. I lost all the privileges and other advantages inherent in my nine-year tenure.”
The challenges that followed tried Brother Mvomo’s faith and perseverance. “My wife, a grammar school teacher, divorced me,” he recalls. “Three times thieves broke into my apartment and stole all my belongings. My beautiful car was [wrecked] by a friend. Suddenly I found myself in desperate circumstances but resolved and committed to the Lord.”
In July 1993 Brother Mvomo was called as second counselor in the mission presidency. He has served well and with distinction, and he has continued to endure his challenges, which were lightened when he found a new teaching job.
“I know my Savior lives and died for me—for all of us,” Brother Mvomo says, noting that heaven’s blessings far outweigh earth’s trials. Out of gratitude for the Savior and His gospel, he says, “I must do all I can for Him.”

One of these enduring frontierswomen, Lucy Hannah White Flake 1 received her basic education in the home from her schoolteacher mother. The eldest of eight children, she also assumed many responsibilities in caring for the younger children. Lucy was baptized in the Missouri River at a time when the ice had to be broken to perform the ordinance. Then, along with her parents, she walked every step of the way from the Missouri River to the Valley of the Great Salt Lake, arriving there in August 1850.

Lucy spent her childhood in Cedar City, Utah. There, at the age of sixteen, she met William Jordan Flake, and they were married in 1858.

After years of hard work and many disappointments, William found a ranch he could buy in what is now called Snowflake, Arizona. There the Flakes lived in a four-room adobe dwelling called the “White House.” For many years this house served as a courthouse, post office, meetinghouse, and school. Lucy eventually bore thirteen children—nine sons and four daughters—five of whom died in childhood.

Sister Flake made her life tolerable by her many religious activities and by the pleasure of doing for her family. She was an officer and teacher in the Primary, Sunday School, and religion class, and had been stake president of the Primary for five years at the time of her death in 1900 at the age of fifty-eight. Among the activities that she chronicled one spring were whitewashing her home; gardening and irrigating; gleaning wool from carcasses along the trail over which sheepmen were, by this time, making a seasonal circuit to and from the Salt River Valley, and picking, washing, and cording it to make a mattress; sewing, including making underwear, shirts, and carpet rags; tending her grandchildren; and feeding her husband and growing children. On one occasion she set down in simple detail her morning tasks, which were typical of pioneer women generally:

“I will just write my morning chores. Get up, turn out my chickens, draw a pail of water, water hot beds, make a fire, put potatoes to cook, brush and sweep half inch of dust off floor … , feed three litters of chickens, then mix biscuits, get breakfast, milk besides work in the house, and this morning had to go half mile after calves. This is the way of life on the farm. …”2

Seventeen-year-old Brandon Frampton shared an experience about simply saying thank you.
“At my high school, I usually eat in the cafeteria. Every day I get in line, buy my lunch, eat, and leave. One day I felt impressed to say thank you to the lady who was serving me my lunch. I didn’t think much about it at the time, but later I learned that because of my remark she had a much better day. I still always say thank you, and I have noticed others doing the same now. Everyone can make a difference.”

While on a flight to Peru a few years ago, I was seated next to a self-proclaimed atheist. He asked me why I believe in God. In the delightful conversation that ensued, I told him that I believed in God because Joseph Smith saw Him—and then I added that my knowledge of God also came from personal, real spiritual experience. I shared my belief that “all things denote there is a God” and asked him how he believed the earth—this oasis of life in the vacuum of space—came into existence. He replied that, in his words, “the accident” could have happened over eons of time. When I explained how highly improbable it would be for an “accident” to produce such beauty and order, he was quiet for a time and then good-naturedly said, “You got me.” I asked if he would read the Book of Mormon. He said he would, so I sent him a copy.

“I come from a big family,” Céline, a Laurel in the Sarcelles Branch, Paris France East Stake, explains. “Maybe that’s why I care so much. And I come from a little neighborhood where everybody knows everybody, so we’re always trying to help each other.”
When she was younger, Céline would go to summer camp, as most French children do. “They would offer a week of training in first aid, and I would always sign up.” The classes were usually held at the local Red Cross. “At the end of the course, the monitors would always ask if anyone would like to attend some Red Cross meetings and see a little bit how it works,” Céline continues. “So I went for about two months, to see what it was like, and I joined. I started getting more and more training and passing more and more tests.”
Now she’s as qualified in first aid as the sapeurs-pompiers, the firemen French people generally call when there’s an emergency.
“My desire from the first was to be able to help other people, to bless Heavenly Father’s children, to be prepared in case of an accident,” Céline says. Her Personal Progress program helped her refine that desire. “I set the goal to learn first aid before I turned 19,” she says.
She met her goal but found she wanted to share what she was learning.
“I didn’t think of it as a talent until I got into it and saw that it comes quite naturally to me,” she continues. “Before, I had asked myself, What can I do to help others? For me, first aid is a way of doing that.”
Not only does she help by being trained herself; she is also training others. She has taught first aid at Mutual activities, Super Saturdays, youth conferences, and girls’ camps. She also mans a small Red Cross center in the basement of a local housing complex. There she teaches CPR, answers the phone, and attends to cuts and bruises of neighborhood children. They come to her as much for a hug as for a bandage.
“I’m in my final year of high school,” Céline says. “And first aid is helpful there, too. Even in school, people fall down, break a bone, or have some kind of sickness. Someone might even have epilepsy and go into a seizure. All around me are a lot of people who don’t know how to react. But me, I know what to do. I’ve developed my skills for exactly that reason.”

I’ve also learned that the more good you do, the closer the Holy Spirit is to you. I often help people on the street if they are carrying lots of things. Recently, I saw this woman carrying some items on her head. I didn’t know the woman or anything about her, but I walked up to her and asked if I could help. She accepted, so I took some of the things she was carrying.
When we got to her house, I found out that she is a baker. At that time, I was not working, and I needed a way to save up some extra money. She didn’t know that I needed work. Out of the blue, she told me that she wanted someone to help her bake bread in exchange for pay. She offered me specific times that fit perfectly in my busy schedule. I don’t think it was a coincidence but a blessing from God for helping others. To me, this was Heavenly Father saying, “My boy, I see the good that you’ve been doing!”

“Three days?” Dad asked, sitting with me across the desk from Ed Flores, Coronado High’s assistant principal. “I hate to see him get behind.”
Mr. Flores adjusted his glasses and studied the suspension referral so he wouldn’t have to look at Dad or me. “If he was so worried about his studies,” Mr. Flores answered tersely, “he shouldn’t have picked a fight with Tanner Briggs. Tanner has a broken nose and a lower lip that will take a couple of stitches.”
Dad twisted nervously in the chair. “JD usually doesn’t pick fights. Now he’s not gonna let somebody push him,” Dad added quickly. “But he’s …”
“Dad, he’s not changing his mind,” I muttered, leaning forward in my chair. I hated dragging Dad in here. He was self-conscious around teachers and principals because he had dropped out of high school when he was 16 and settled for a GED a month before enlisting in the Marines.
“Is this other kid a troublemaker?” Dad questioned. “Because if he is, that would sure explain things. My boy’s a good student.”
Mr. Flores cast me a tired, impatient glance. “Joseph must be a real scholar,” he said, unable to keep the bite of sarcasm from his tone.
“JD,” I corrected warmly. I had already explained three times that I didn’t use Joseph Dale, my first and middle names.
Mr. Flores ignored my correction and studied my clothes—faded jeans, a sweatshirt with a rip under the left arm, and tan suede-laced boots. I wasn’t exactly the picture of preppy scholarship. What Mr. Flores obviously didn’t understand was that I was a good student and that I carried a 3.84 GPA. “Perhaps when you return Monday, you can hit the books rather than the first guy who bumps into you in the hall.”
Dad and I didn’t speak again until we were in the car. “Do you want to talk about it?” Dad questioned, keeping his eyes on the road as he lit a cigarette and opened the window a few inches. He knew I didn’t like his smoking, and he usually didn’t smoke while I was in the car. But he was nervous after his encounter with Mr. Flores. Mom had tried to get Dad to stop smoking, but all he committed to do was not bring it into the house. When Mom died, even that changed.
Slumping down in the front seat, I gazed out the window. “It was the regular ‘new kid’ stuff,” I answered tiredly. “If it hadn’t been today, it would’ve been tomorrow or next week. He tried to start something yesterday in P.E. I couldn’t tuck tail and crawl out.”
Dad looked over at me. “Your mom didn’t ever like you fighting. Maybe I shouldn’t have taught you to fight.”
“Then I’d have the broken nose and sewed-up lip.”
I knew Dad was having second thoughts, wondering if we should have moved from Mesa, Arizona, to Albuquerque, New Mexico. An old buddy from his Vietnam days had invited him to work in his machine shop here, so we had picked up and moved. “It’s no big deal, Dad. Now I’ll be home to help you finish moving in.”
“I wish you had a friend or two. Just somebody to hang around with. Since your mom died, you’ve been too much of a loner.” He rubbed his chin with the back of his hand. “Are there Mormon kids here?”
I laughed and shook my head. “If there are, they make themselves scarce. I don’t need anybody to hang around with, Dad. Like you said, I’m a loner. That suits me fine.”
“Maybe we should find a Mormon church,” Dad said. “You could make friends there. Your mother always wanted that. I should’ve done that much for her.”
“Dad, the Mormon kids aren’t interested in me. I’m not one of them.”
I stared out the window. The last time we were in a church was at my mother’s funeral, two weeks after I turned 13. Mom had always been active, and I’d gone with her. But after she died we moved from our old ward, and I never went back. I knew I should go to church—that Mom would want me to—but I’d grown accustomed to being alone. It was easier that way.
Monday at lunch I wandered by myself to the cafeteria, found an empty table, and ate my lunch while I finished a geometry assignment.
“There’s a corner spot on the patio,” someone spoke to me. I looked up to face a guy about my height but 20 pounds lighter. His blond hair was shaved to the skin around his ears and was thick and straight on top. He had three gold studs in his right ear. “I’m Bo Kramer. Some of us hang out there.”
I wiped my mouth with a napkin and nodded down at my open geometry book. “I have some homework to do.”
“I heard about your trouble with Tanner Briggs. He needed someone to rearrange his face.” Bo looked me over and raised his brow. “I didn’t take you for a brain, Chugg.” He smiled. “Sure you don’t want to join us?”
I considered the offer and shook my head. Bo frowned, turned and walked away. I watched him go, knowing that I didn’t belong to Bo Kramer’s crowd any more than I belonged with the Mormons. I’d face Coronado High on my own.
A week later I stepped into one of the rest rooms. Bo and a group of his buddies were there hanging out. Ignoring the sullen glares, I began washing my hands as Bo and a friend opened a can of snuff.
As I was getting ready to leave, a young freshman kid charged through the door. He was inside before he realized who was in there. Startled, Bo hid his can of dip. The kid froze a few steps inside the rest room. He gulped and wet his lips.
“I just needed to …” He nervously cleared his throat. “I just needed to, uh, um, wash my hands. But I’ll, you know, come back later.”
“Don’t run off, big guy,” Bo said, walking over to him and putting his arm over his shoulder. “We were wondering when you’d show. What’s your name?”
“Tyler,” he answered, his voice breaking as I snatched a paper towel and began drying my hands. Tyler glanced in my direction. To him I was one more of them.
Bo laughed, holding the tobacco. “Tyler came in for his noon-hour buzz,” he announced. “Have a pinch, Tyler. It’ll grow hair on your chest.”
Tyler’s face paled as he stared down at the open can. “I don’t use it.” His protest was a mere whisper.
“What’s that?” Bo blared. “Speak up, big guy.”
Tyler shook his head and tried again. “I don’t use it.”
Bo mocked surprise, looking about the group with his mouth hanging open. Jabbing a thumb in Tyler’s direction, he gasped, “The kid don’t use the stuff.” Turning on Tyler, he growled, “Take some, kid, before I stuff the whole can in your mouth.”
Tyler looked sick, his face ashen and his thin, tight lips pressed together. He shook his head. Bo wasn’t smiling anymore. “One pinch won’t kill you.”
“It’s against my religion,” Tyler managed to squeak. “I’m a Mormon.” His breath came in short, anxious wheezes.
Bo snorted dryly while the others laughed. “I don’t care if you’re Mormon. They ain’t gonna kick you out of church for one little pinch.”
“He said he didn’t chew,” I spoke for the first time, still holding my wadded-up paper towel.
Genuinely surprised that I had spoken, Bo and his friends turned their gazes from Tyler to me. Bo studied me for a moment and then took a step away from Tyler in my direction. “Are you a good little Mormon too, Chugg?”
I couldn’t remember the last time I had ever admitted being LDS. I hadn’t exactly denied it, but I certainly hadn’t looked or acted so that anyone would ever accuse me of being one. “Maybe not such a good one, but I’m Mormon,” I answered evenly. “And I don’t use the stinkin’ stuff, either.”
I turned to Tyler and said, “Wash your hands.”
I knew Tyler didn’t want to wash his hands just then, but he did. Too flustered and nervous to grab a paper towel, he charged for the door, his hands still dripping soapy water. I followed him out, but he disappeared down the hall without saying a word to me.
The next day in the cafeteria I was eating when someone stopped at my table. I looked up to see Tyler. He pointed at the empty chair across the table from me. “You saving that for somebody?”
I hesitated a moment. “Nobody’s fighting over it.” Tyler set his tray on the table and sat down.
“I want to thank you.” He grinned. “I was in a bit of a hurry yesterday. I thought it was all over for me.”
We both started eating without speaking. “Are you really Mormon?” Tyler asked after a moment’s lull. I looked across the table at him. He was staring at me intently. “Or was that just something you said as a joke? I mean, I guess I just wasn’t …” He didn’t finish his sentence.
I rolled my tongue around in my mouth. “You don’t think I look Mormon?” I asked, keeping my face stony serious.
He flinched slightly. His mouth twitched and he permitted himself a reluctant, worried smile. “Well, you don’t exactly look like you’re expecting your mission call.”
I stuffed the last quarter of my hamburger in my mouth and chewed slowly without taking my eyes from Tyler. “Why should I kid? I’m not 19 yet.”
It was as though I’d told the funniest joke in the world because Tyler busted out laughing. “You are Mormon, aren’t you?”
His laugh was comfortably contagious. I could feel my face muscles loosen, and in a moment I was smiling. “Don’t expect me in sacrament meeting next Sunday, though.”
“Maybe we’re in the same ward. Which ward are you in?”
“How would I know? I haven’t been to church for years.”
Tyler and I were as different as a house cat and a junkyard dog, but we talked. I told him about our move from Arizona. He talked to me about his dad, how he worked on old cars as a hobby. He had fixed up a ’49 Buick Roadmaster and entered it in car shows. He was working on a ’51 Mercury now. Although I preferred being alone, Tyler was so unassuming and so uninhibited in his conversation that I really didn’t mind him hanging around.
The following day at lunch he spotted me as I was coming out of line and waved me over to his table. He had a couple of friends with him, and he invited me to sit down and join them.
“This is JD,” he said, introducing me. He turned to me a bit embarrassed. “I don’t know your last name.”
“Chugg.”
“This is Mick and Tyson,” Tyler went on. “They’re in my ward.” Turning to Mick and Tyson, he added, “JD’s waiting for his mission call.” While Mick and Tyson’s mouths dropped open, Tyler looked across the table at me, winked, and then grinned.
I couldn’t pass up joining in the joke. “Yeah,” I sighed, raking my fingers through my long hair,”it should be here any day now. That’s why I shaved and cut my hair. You should have seen me before.”
Lunch with Tyler became a regular thing. Sometimes he had other friends there. Sometimes he didn’t. It didn’t make any difference to him. Since he was a freshman and I was a junior, we didn’t have classes together. But he discovered that he lived three blocks past me, so we started walking home together.
About three weeks after the confrontation with Bo, Tyler was absent from school a day. I ate in the cafeteria alone. I had done that hundreds of times in Mesa, but for the first time in a long time I felt a tinge of loneliness. Of course, I didn’t admit that to myself right then, but I knew it was different not having Tyler’s friendly chatter.
“Were you ditching school yesterday?” I accused Tyler the next day.
“My dad let me go over to Santa Fe with him to look at an old Dodge truck he might buy. Did you miss me?” He grinned.
“I barely made it through the day,” I retorted sarcastically. “I almost had to leave school early just because you weren’t around.”
Tyler was suddenly serious. “I was going to invite you to go with us. I think you would have liked it. And I’d like Dad to meet you.”
“It’s nice to invite me now that you’re back,” I grumbled playfully. “Some friend you are. Why didn’t you invite me two days ago when I could have at least turned you down?”
“You’re pretty studious. I didn’t figure you’d want to leave school.”
He was serious. I could feel it. He really had wanted me to be with him. And he really had worried about my studies so he hadn’t asked. I continued to joke with Tyler, trying to make him feel like a jerk for not inviting me. But it was a cover-up on my part.
The following Sunday I came down with a good case of the flu. For the next couple of days I stayed in bed, aching, shaking, and coughing.
On Tuesday afternoon there was a knock at the door, which I ignored. But whoever was there was persistent. The longer they knocked, the more stubborn I became. I was not going to answer that door. Finally the knocking stopped, and I assumed they had given up. A moment later, I heard the door knob turn and the front door creak open.
“JD, are you awake?” Tyler called.
“I wondered who was banging on the door,” I said. “Can’t you take a hint?”
“I knew you were in here. What, did your dad tell you not to let strangers in while he was away?”
“Yeah, and you’re as strange as they come.”
“I brought you something.”
“Well, you’ve already woke me up. This better be good.”
Tyler came down the hall to my bedroom with a brown paper sack in one arm and his other one loaded with books. He dropped the books on the floor.
“Where’d they come from?”
“I got them out of your locker. I checked with each of your teachers and collected your homework.”
“Some pal you are,” I joked, rolling my eyes. “I stayed here to get away from the work, and you drag it home to me.”
“I didn’t want you to get behind. But I did bring some other stuff.” He opened the sack, pulled out three oranges, a carton of milk, and a bag of corn chips. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted.”
I laughed. “Well, I guess if you’ll leave the food I’ll let you leave the books too.”
He then reached over and rubbed the week’s growth of beard on my chin. “How long you been growing this?”
“Almost a week.”
“You look a little on the rough side. You know the bishop’s going to make you shave before your mission.”
“You and your mission,” I grumbled. “One of these days I ought to show up at church, walk up to your bishop and say, ‘Hi, bishop. I’m the new prospective missionary Tyler’s been telling you about.’”
Tyler smiled. “I’d like that, JD. I’d like that a lot.”
After he left, I thought of what he’d said, and I knew he really wanted me to be there in church. Just like he had wanted me to be in Santa Fe with him and his dad.
Wednesday afternoon I shaved. That evening Dad trimmed my hair. When I returned to school Thursday I found Tyler sitting with Mick and Tyson in the cafeteria. I took a chair across the table from them.
“Gosh,” Tyler gasped. “JD really must have gotten his mission call! They probably called him to the Coronado High Student Gang Mission. When do you report, JD?”
I felt my cheeks color.
I sighed. “The bishop told me I couldn’t accept.”
“Why? Are they closing down the mission because there’s too much violence at Coronado?”
Feigning disappointment, I shook my head. “The bishop said I’d have to return the call because I’ve missed church one too many times.”
“Man, I should have picked you up Sunday.”
“I knew it was your fault,” I accused, smiling all the time. “When you see the bishop, tell him you’re the reason I had to pass this mission call up.”
Tyler’s smile slowly disappeared. He became serious. “Maybe you’d better go to church and tell the bishop yourself.” He shrugged, and the faint traces of a smile flickered across his lips. “I’d like that, JD.”
After years of being a loner, I realized that Tyler, in his kind, innocent way, had shown me what it was like to belong. Ever since Mom died, I had thought off and on about returning to church. But this was the first time I felt as though I really wanted to be there. I shrugged.
“Well, Tyler, maybe I’ll show up one of these first Sundays. Now keep in mind I only said maybe.”
Tyler’s face exploded into a genuine grin of triumph. “Maybe is good enough for me. I guess that means I’ll see you Sunday, JD?”
I tried to scowl, but deep down I knew I was going to be there. And when I arrived, I knew Tyler would be there with me.

By then, running had become a way of life. She challenged herself more, pushed herself harder, and then, in 1978, faced the two greatest challenges of her life. One challenge was to run completely across the United States. The other was to accept the message of the Mormon missionaries.

Standing on the steps of the Los Angeles City Hall on 12 March 1978 she knew she was facing “the greatest challenge of my life” both spiritually and physically. “It was my greatest ambition, but I felt so apprehensive. Would I really be able to do it? What lay ahead of me? Was I strong enough? Had I prepared properly? I wished I’d had enough sense to have stayed at home.”

Then the clock struck nine and she was off. Followed by two vans, Mavis ran fourteen hours a day, starting at 4 A.M. and stopping only for meals. She ran through thirteen states, through four time zones. She took six million footsteps, one at time. She wore twenty-five pairs of shoes in rotation, and had repairs made forty times.

The weather, almost systematically, hit her with every variation. For four weeks she slogged through intense heat. For the next four weeks, she struggled through gale-force winds—that literally blew her off her feet more than once—and bitter cold, staggering along under the weight of two tracksuits, a soft, flat cap with no visor, gloves, and a lightweight jacket the wind can’t blow through. Then it rained without stopping for seven days. One raincoat would keep her dry for exactly one hour; she wore two. Together, they kept her dry for four hours.

The weather was not her only challenge. “The traffic was frightening,” she exclaimed. At one dangerous stretch, cars were whizzing past every seven seconds. She stopped running only one day—the thirty-third—when shin splints made it impossible to continue. The next day, teeth gritted and literally dragging her right foot, she was back on the road.

“I prayed often for courage to bear the pain,” she remembers. “I didn’t ask God to take it away, but just to help me bear it.” She prayed often throughout the journey: “‘Please God, give me the stamina to fight the wind, the endurance to continue the distance I need to go, the willpower to keep going.’ At no time did I ever doubt that I would finish the distance, but I can assure you that there were times when I didn’t know how I could finish the day or even the next hour. And then I prayed, in the words of John Henry Newman’s beautiful hymn, ‘Please, God, I do not ask to see the distant scene. One step enough for me.’” (“Lead Kindly Light”, No. 112).

Finally the weather relented, and “the last two days were the most beautiful imaginable.” She trotted into New York and landed at the city hall just before noon on May 20, the only woman in history to have run from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic Coast across the U.S.. Exhilarated from the run, after sixty-nine days, two hours, and forty minutes, she was surprised that it was over, “It came too suddenly,” she said.

Was it worth it? “Yes! I grew beyond my wildest dreams. I learned that nothing is impossible if you’re prepared to work hard enough. Age is irrelevant. There are no barriers and no handicaps. And you must do it yourself. No one can run for you. I also learned that failure is important. From it we learn discipline, patience, perseverance, and the ability to accept disappointments.”

Orson’s great faith and natural ability were demonstrated through the numerous assignments he filled for the Church and the Prophet Joseph Smith, whom he revered and loved. Faithful, ambitious, and aggressive, Orson was called as an apostle on February 15, 1835, after which he performed successful missionary service in the United States and in Canada. While serving in Canada he was challenged to a debate by a Presbyterian priest. Reluctantly he agreed. The debate began and lasted until dinner. His record follows:
“After two hours, the forces were again drawn up in battle array. The enemy’s fire soon became less and less spirited, until, at length, under a well-directed fire from the Spirit of God—the enemy raised his hand to heaven and exclaimed, with affected contempt, ‘Abominable! I have heard enough of such stuff.’ I immediately rejoined, ‘Gentlemen and ladies, I should consider it highly dishonorable to continue to beat my antagonist after he had cried enough,’ so I waived the subject. The priest did not appear to think half so much of his scurrilous books, pamphlets and newspapers, when he was gathering them up to take away, as when he brought them upon the stand. Their virtue fled like chaff before the wind. About forty persons were baptized into the Church in that place (Scarborough) immediately after the debate.”3

I know from experience the troubled mind of such a young person. When I was preparing to go on my mission, some surprising forces tried to discourage me. One was my dentist. When he realized my appointment was so I could be a missionary, he tried to dissuade me from serving. I had not had the least notion that my dentist was against the Church.

The interruption of my education was also complicated. When I asked for a two-year leave of absence from my university program, I was informed that it was not possible. I would lose my place at the university if I did not return after one year. In Brazil, this was serious since the only criterion for admittance in a university program was a very difficult and competitive examination.

After repeatedly insisting, I was reluctantly informed that after being absent for one year, I could apply for an exception on extraordinary grounds. It might be approved or not. I was terrified at the idea of retaking that difficult admissions test after two years away from my studies.

I also was especially interested in a young woman. Several of my friends shared that same interest. I thought to myself, “If I go on a mission, I’m running a risk.”

But the Lord Jesus Christ was my great inspiration not to be afraid of the future as I strove to serve Him with all my heart.

Remember the challenges that I thought I faced prior to my mission? My dentist? I found another. My university? They made an exception for me. Remember that young woman? She married one of my good friends.

But God truly blessed me richly. And I learned that the blessings of the Lord can come in ways different from how we expect. After all, His thoughts are not our thoughts (see Isaiah 55:8–9).

Another principle I learned from working was the principle of paying tithing. My family did not have very much money, but my parents paid us a small amount for the work we did. I learned from my parents and from my Church leaders that the Lord required only that I recognize that all these things came from Him and that 10 percent should be returned to Him.
It always gave me great satisfaction to fill out the envelope and give the small amount of tithing I owed to the Lord. The few nickels and dimes I gave as a young boy set a pattern that was easy to follow when I later received more money for my work. I still felt that same powerful feeling of satisfaction in knowing that by paying my tithing, I was doing what the Lord wanted me to do.

There is a better gift, but it will take effort now. My dad, when he was a boy, must have tackled the rowboat problem and lots of others. That was part of the equipment he needed to become a scientist who would make a difference to chemistry. But he also made a difference to me. Our family room didn’t look as elegant as some. It had one kind of furniture—chairs—and one wall decoration—a green chalkboard. I came to the age your boy or girl will reach. I didn’t wonder if I could work the math problems; I’d proved to my satisfaction that I couldn’t. And some of my teachers were satisfied that that was true too.

But Dad wasn’t satisfied. He thought I could do it. So we took turns at that chalkboard. I can’t remember the gifts my dad wrapped and gave to me. But I remember the chalkboard and his quiet voice. His teaching took more than knowing what I needed and caring. It took more than being willing to give his time then, precious as it was. It took time he had spent earlier when he had the chances you have now. Because he had spent time then, he and I could have that time at the chalkboard and he could help me.

And because he gave me that, I’ve got a boy who let me sit down with him one year. We rowed that same boat up and down. And his teacher wrote “much improved” on his report card. But I’ll tell you what improved most: the feelings of a fine boy about himself. Nothing I will put under a Christmas tree for Stuart has half the chance of becoming a family heirloom that his pride of accomplishment does.

The Cantos’ fifth child, Pedrito, was born in a clinic in Quevedo, high in the Andes Mountains near the equator. The boy seemed normal at first, but after two days his bowels had not yet purged their prenatal waste and he was screaming with pain.
His alarmed parents dared not wait even until morning to seek the advice of a specialist, for sudden death had already claimed two of their other children. At three months, Nancy Julema, their third child, had died of an unknown illness. Two years later, their fourth child, one-year-old Juan Carlos, had died of bronchial pneumonia in the arms of his mother on the way to medical help in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The heartbroken mother had gotten off the bus at the next town, but no bus or taxi driver would give her passage back home with the dead child. Finally, in desperation, she had pretended that the child was asleep and hitchhiked a ride part way on a gas truck and then on to Quevedo in a private car.
So, fearing the worst, Pedro Cantos wrapped his newborn son in a blanket, kissed his wife good-bye, and left by taxi for Guayaquil, 175 miles away. As the miles widened between them, the hearts of the parents were as one as they prayed for the life of this child.
When father and son finally arrived at the hospital, the doctors quickly diagnosed the problem as a congenital bowel obstruction, and they immediately made a surgical opening into the colon for drainage.
After three days Pedrito was out of immediate danger. His father returned home to Quevedo, borrowed some money to help pay for the treatment in Guayaquil, and sent his wife back to the hospital to be with their sick baby.
Nancy Cantos and her baby son remained in Guayaquil a month—a sorrowful month for the family. They were given little hope for Pedrito’s recovery, and they didn’t know how or where they could get more money for his care.
Although Pedrito finally grew well enough to come home, he remained ill and feverish. He cried out in pain, unable to sleep or eat. Only forced feedings kept him alive.
At three months, he suffered a severe heart attack. The Cantos then learned that their baby had a serious congenital heart defect. With open-heart surgery he might recover; without surgery he could not possibly live beyond age ten.
And he would always be ill.
Open-heart surgery! But that would cost thousands of dollars. It was impossible!
The saddened parents returned home with their baby. They faced a constant struggle to keep him alive. One day he would seem a bit better; the next day he would be worse again. They had to take him to Guayaquil every two or three weeks for medication and treatment—a financial hardship on their limited income.
In the meantime, they prayed constantly. And their answer came in a dream.
One night when Pedrito was almost ten months old, Nancy dreamed that she saw through her kitchen window—instead of the usual array of crowded buildings—a beautiful, spacious lawn extending as far as she could see. In the distance a man was digging in the earth. She approached him and asked, “What are you doing?”
“I’m planting herbs to cure the illnesses of man,” he replied.
Then Nancy saw an unusual tree nearby. “What is the purpose of that tree?” she asked.
“The tree holds the cure for Pedrito’s illness,” replied the stranger.
“Tell me,” she asked eagerly, “how can I give the tree’s medicine to my child?”
Before the stranger could answer, Nancy saw a man in the distance, standing at the window of a house, looking at her. Immediately he and another man, both dressed in white, left the house and approached her.
Frightened, Nancy ran trembling into her own house and bolted the door. They came to her barred window, looked in at her, and asked, “Why are you afraid?”
“Because—because I’m here alone with my sick child.”
“But do you not know that bolted doors and barred windows cannot keep us out?” they asked kindly. “We were sent by God to help you because of your faith and your diligence in studying the Bible and seeking the word of God.”
Instantly they were inside the house, and Nancy woke up.
The dream remained vivid in Nancy’s thoughts, yet she told no one.
A week later, two missionaries knocked on the Cantos’s door. That evening they gave Nancy, Pedro, and their two older sons, Cesar and Fernando, the first discussion.
Before they left, the elders gave the family a Book of Mormon, after first marking for them the passages they had been discussing about Christ’s visit to America. They also felt inspired to underline the passages relating to Lehi’s dream about the tree of life—something they had never done before.
Later, as Nancy Cantos read the account of Lehi’s dream, she became excited. It was so similar to her own! She knew in her heart that this was the answer to their prayers.
Eagerly she read the passages to her husband and told him about her dream. He, too, believed this was their answer. “If we obey God’s commandments and hold to the iron rod, our baby will be healed,” he told his wife.
The Cantos could hardly wait for the next discussion.
One night when the elders came to the Cantos home, Pedrito was unusually ill. The elders felt prompted to discuss the principle of priesthood administrations. The family eagerly sought a blessing for Pedrito, who was so thin you could see the bones under his skin. Up until then, he had been unable to tolerate any food except milk. He could neither walk nor talk, and he rarely slept more than an hour or two at a time.
The elders administered to the child and left the house with a strong feeling that he would recover.
From that time on, Pedrito began to improve. The Cantos family were baptized, and the welfare services missionaries helped Sister Cantos get Pedrito started on solid foods. He began to gain weight, and for the first time in his life, he slept through the night. He also learned to walk and talk. The frequent, costly trips to Guayaquil were no longer necessary.
Then, suddenly, Pedrito became ill again. His temperature was dangerously high, and his parents took him back to Guayaquil. The doctors told them that he would have to remain in the hospital at least five days. They also told the Cantos that if Pedrito were to live, he would have to undergo open-heart surgery right away.
But to everyone’s surprise, Pedrito was well enough to leave the hospital the next day.
Back in Quevedo, the welfare services missionaries helped the Cantos apply for help with the cost of the surgery. The doctors told the Cantos that they would have to go to the United States or Brazil for the surgery. But a member of the Church, who had recently had a family member operated on for a similar problem, told them about another doctor—Dr. Oswald Bonilla, a heart specialist in nearby Quito.
Although his calendar was full for several months, Dr. Bonilla agreed to see Pedrito in two weeks. But complications kept Dr. Bonilla from seeing Pedrito immediately. Sister Cantos had been taking a tailoring class so that she could earn money to help pay some of their medical bills. As the day for the appointment with Dr. Bonilla approached, she learned that her final examination was scheduled for the same day.
Dr. Bonilla graciously postponed the appointment for another two weeks. This time, a bus strike kept them from meeting with him. Finally, after six weeks, they stood before Dr. Bonilla.
Electrocardiograms, x-rays, and many other tests revealed that Pedrito was too weak to endure surgery. “It will take at least eight or nine months to build him up sufficiently,” Dr. Bonilla told the worried parents. The doctor ordered another series of tests.
Three days later, just before Pedrito was taken in for the new tests, two young men in white shirts and dark suits told Dr. Bonilla, “We would like to give the child a blessing.”
“You have five minutes,” the doctor said, and he left the room.
Later that afternoon he whistled in amazement. The test results showed such a remarkable improvement in Pedrito that Dr. Bonilla decided to schedule the surgery immediately.
“It was worse than we thought,” Dr. Bonilla told the parents and the elders and sisters who had waited with them during the five anguish-filled hours of the surgery. “You keep praying, though, and Pedrito will live.”
Pedrito did live. He recovered rapidly. Soon he was running and playing like any other little boy. And Pedrito’s struggle for life has wrought other miracles. Dr. Bonilla and his assistant, Dr. Lopez, were touched by this display of faith and by the miracle they saw when the elders administered to Pedrito. They decided not to charge for the surgery.
Many of Sister Cantos’s family have accepted the gospel, and members of Brother Cantos’s family are anxiously waiting for the missionaries to come to a remote area where they live so that they, too, can be taught the gospel.