Gospel Story Finder

Jane was happy. Today was the big race. Jane had practiced for the race with her brother Ben every day.
“I'm so excited!” Jane said.
Ben did not look excited.
“What’s wrong? Are you nervous?” Jane asked Ben.
“Yes,” Ben said. “Can Dad run for me?”
“This race is only for children,” Mom said.
“I will cheer for you,” Dad said.
Jane put her arm around Ben.
“This will be fun,” Jane said. “You will do great.”
Jane and Ben got in the car. Mom and Dad drove them to the race.
Jane and Ben stood at the starting line. Jane was excited. Her heart beat fast.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.
“On your mark. Get set. Go!”
Jane started running. Many children ran. It felt good to run fast.
Jane looked for Ben. She could not see him. He was in last place.
“Come on, Ben!” Jane said. “You can do it!”
Jane ran back to Ben. Jane held Ben’s hand. Jane and Ben ran together.
Jane was slower now, but she was happy. She loved to help Ben.
Jane and Ben finished the race together.
“Thank you,” Ben said. “You ran slow for me.”
“That is OK,” Jane said. “We are still winners!”

When our last grandchild was born, Sister Swain and I were invited in for the delivery. When our daughter-in-law's siblings came to the hospital to see their sister and first niece, they were all so quiet and reverent. Each one seemed to sense that something was different about that occasion, that it was sacred. They all spoke in hushed tones and no one had asked them to. Maybe the same hush and reverence occurred as the shepherds entered the stable where the Christ Child was born.

The Salas Family: Second-Generation Leaders. Alfredo Salas, president of the Buenos Aires West stake, is an example of what is happening today in Argentina as a result of parents who have sacrificed old ways to adopt the vision of their new faith. “My parents joined the Church when I was 11,” says President Salas. “I grew up attending a little branch in Bahía Blanca.” When the seminary program was introduced, he wanted to attend, but his parents, already sacrificing to send him to school, were concerned it would interfere with his studies. To alleviate their concerns, he and his brother studied extra hard. To go to seminary, they would get up at 5:00 A.M. and run several blocks to catch a bus. After the bus ride, they ran eight blocks to the chapel. Then, to arrive at school on time, they ran the eight blocks back to the bus, which carried them back to their neighborhood, and then ran all the way to school. “This sacrifice cemented my testimony,” he reflects.

With the backing of his parents, a mission followed, which greatly deepened his testimony. When he returned, he faced a new dilemma because of his limited finances: whether to finish his schooling or get married. The choice was not easy. Nevertheless, he chose to marry, and it took seven more years before he finally received his degree in computer science. At age 26 he was called as a bishop and served in that calling during the final two years of his schooling. He subsequently went on to earn a master’s degree in business administration. As a result of his parents’ emphasis on learning, today President Salas is doing well as country manager of a computer programming company, and he is able to devote time to Church service.

I had never before used that experience in a talk—never thought of it.
I wanted to fix it in my mind before speaking of it in conference, so I located a daughter of Emery Wight. She agreed to meet me at their old home and show me the field her father would have been plowing that day.
One of my sons took me there early one Sunday morning. He took a number of pictures.
It was a beautiful spring morning. The field was newly plowed, just as it had been those many years before. Seagulls were feeding in the newly turned soil.
That quickened memory, remembering that conversation, is not uncommon to me. It reaffirms the truth of the scripture—one, incidentally, I memorized in my youth—
“Neither take ye thought beforehand what ye shall say; but treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man.”4
There follows a promise to those who treasure up knowledge:
“Whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”5

Not long after his baptism, Junior was visiting another ward’s fast and testimony meeting with his father. He felt impressed to bear his testimony for the first time in public. “I wanted to see if I could bear my testimony in front of everyone. I couldn’t. Then Dad stood up and helped me, and I could.” Junior’s testimony is simple and strong. “I know that God lives. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet.”

Early in my professional life, Sister Homer and I were asked to accept a change in job assignment. At the time, it seemed to us a huge decision. We studied, we fasted, and we prayed, but an answer was slow to come. Eventually, we made a decision and pressed forward. As we did, we felt settled and soon learned that it was one of the best decisions we had ever made.

As a result, we have learned that answers are sometimes slow to come. This can be because it is not the right time, because an answer is not needed, or because God trusts us to make the decision ourselves. Elder Richard G. Scott once taught that we should be grateful for such times and made this promise: “When you are living worthily and your choice is consistent with the Savior’s teachings and you need to act, proceed with trust. … God will not let you proceed too far without a warning impression if you have made the wrong decision.”22

On June 5, 1932, Elder Widtsoe came to Naples to baptize me, but a revolution had started in Sicily, and the police at Palermo refused to let me leave the island. The following year, Elder Widtsoe asked me to translate the Joseph Smith pamphlet into Italian and to have 1,000 copies published. I took my translation to a printer, Joseph Gussio, who took the material to a Catholic bishop. The bishop ordered the printer to destroy the material. I sued the printer, but all I received from the court was an order to him to return the original booklet.

When Elder Widtsoe was released as president of the mission in 1934, I started correspondence with Elder Joseph F. Merrill, who succeeded him. He arranged to send me the Millennial Star, which I received until 1940 when World War II interrupted the subscription.

In January 1937, Elder Richard R. Lyman, successor to President Merrill, wrote that he and Elder Hugh B. Brown would be in Rome on a certain day. I could meet them there and be baptized. However, the letter was delayed because of war conditions, and I did not receive it in time.

From then until 1949, I was cut off from all news of the Church, but I remained a faithful follower and preached the gospel of the dispensation of the fulness of times. I had copies of the standard works, and I translated chapters into Italian and sent them to acquaintances with the greeting, “Good day. The morning breaks—Jehovah speaks!”

On February 13, 1949, I sent a letter to Elder Widtsoe at Church headquarters in Salt Lake City. Elder Widtsoe answered my letter on October 3, 1950, explaining that he had been in Norway. I sent him a long letter in reply in which I asked him to help me to be quickly baptized, because I felt that I had proven myself to be a faithful son and servant of God, observing the laws and commandments of his kingdom. Elder Widtsoe asked President Samuel E. Bringhurst of the Swiss-Austrian Mission to go to Sicily to baptize me.

On January 18, 1951, President Bringhurst arrived on the island and baptized me at Imerese. Apparently, this was the first baptism performed in Sicily. Then, on April 28, 1956, I entered the temple at Bern, Switzerland, and received my endowment. At last, to be in the presence of my Heavenly Father! I felt that God’s promise had been fully fulfilled—the day had come indeed when the source of the book was known to me and I was able to enjoy the effects of my faith.

In celebrating the organization of the Young Ladies’ Retrenchment Association, the predecessor to the Young Women organization, the Provo Utah Edgemont South Stake held a program using the theme “Apples and Aprons.”
The theme came from the girls’ service activity that involved making aprons for missionary work. Each ward selected a different color of checked gingham, and each girl used her own pattern to make an apron with a pocket. Placed in the pocket was the girl’s written testimony along with her photograph and address. The aprons were sent to the missions presided over by members of the stake. They went to Denmark, Mexico, Argentina, and California.
The girls wore their aprons to the get-together, where they participated in activities that were common 116 years ago when Brigham Young organized the Retrenchment Association. These included a spelling bee, a cake walk, and jumping rope. Refreshments were also typical of that earlier time: milk, homemade bread, jam, honey butter, and apples. Raquel Lambert, one of the stake Young Women, said of the experience, “It encouraged us to be proud of our heritage, spread the seeds of our religion, and make new friends.”

Illustration by Jennifer Tolman
“Help. … Help!” The faint cry persisted every couple of seconds. It was my first day at the care unit, and already I was needed.
It was in the summer of my sophomore year that I decided to apply for the Hospice of the Valley Teen Volunteer Program. Once accepted, I attended numerous hours of training and orientation. However, no amount of class time could properly prepare me for the job I was undertaking. No one could properly describe the forlorn expressions I would see as I entered each room, the faces of critically ill or dying patients. No one could accurately explain the stale smell that would engulf me as I opened the door to the care home. But most of all, no one could tell me about the overwhelming joy that came with each visit.
That afternoon as I turned the corner, the cries of help reached my ears. I didn’t even have time to think. It was an impulse to follow the plea.
I walked in to see a woman slightly raised from her bed, arms outstretched. I asked her what she needed, ready to call the nurse for pain medication or maybe to get the nursing assistant if she required the restroom. To my surprise, all she wanted was comfort, attention, a friend.
I was amazed at how quickly I felt at ease. We talked as if we were old friends, laughing and catching up on the past. I couldn’t help but smile as her face lit up with joy.
Then she said something I’ll never forget. “I can tell by your voice that you are a very pretty girl.” This seemed like a rather unusual thing to say to someone. Did she not think my face was pretty? But as I looked at her closer, I realized that she couldn’t see my face. She was blind.
That’s when my heart dropped. Here was a woman in a strange place, getting treatment from complete strangers she couldn’t even see. And I had been thinking about the smell. I had no idea that my cheery voice and undivided attention was bringing so much color into her life. For that, I would smell anything.
I walked out that day with a new attitude. This woman had taught me a valuable lesson. No matter what problems we may be facing, all around us are opportunities to forget ourselves and help another. When those chances come our way, we must make the effort to open our ears and turn our hearts to the ones who seem to be reaching out and calling, “Help.” We may just find a new friend.

Prior to coming to BYU, I spent several years on the faculty at Harvard Business School, where I had the opportunity to teach and interact with many amazing professionals.

I loved the Savior and I loved my students, and although I was not free to speak as candidly as we are blessed to do here at BYU, I took the opportunity to regularly speak of matters of eternal importance and to model Christlike attributes.

I was trying my best to be, as Paul admonished us, “an example of the believers.”3 And if I’m being honest, I thought I was doing pretty well. But the Lord knew I could do better.

One night after a conference, I went out with several colleagues. As the evening progressed, someone noticed I wasn’t drinking—which prompted the usual inquiry: “Abigail, are you a Mormon?”

As I responded in the affirmative, a nearby colleague dropped his drink and exclaimed: “Really? I would have never guessed!” He continued with dubious amazement: “But you’re not a fully practicing Mormon, right?”

At this point I was feeling a little bit humiliated and confused. What about me had screamed “not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ”? I dressed modestly, kept the Word of Wisdom, used clean language, and faithfully attended my worship services—all common litmus tests for an outsider questioning our faith. Beyond that, I had been trying to express my discipleship in the way I lived, in the way I loved, and in the way I served. Where had I gone wrong?

Befuddled, I affirmed my devotion to my faith and invited my colleague to ask me any question he liked. I had lived outside of Utah for most of my adult life, and this was not my first time being questioned about beliefs. I fully anticipated the usual litany of personal questions: “Have you ever smoked?” “Were you chaste before marriage?” And the one that always makes me laugh: “Do you wear ‘special underwear’?”

But none of these were on the quiz that night. Instead, my colleague looked at me earnestly and asked, “Do you do genealogy?”

Defeated, I feebly and honestly had to admit, “Well, not very much.”

My colleague then informed me that he had once known a devout member who had explained the importance of genealogy in the context of eternal families and temples. While I attempted to save the moment by sharing my own convictions on these revealed truths, my colleague soon lost interest, and I knew that I had missed an important opportunity. My actions—or inactions, in this case—had spoken louder than my words. It was impossible to accurately convey the depth of my convictions when they were so starkly juxtaposed against my lackadaisical negligence to an inspired prophetic invitation.

What this colleague had once supposed about members of the Church of Jesus Christ was weakened rather than strengthened by my example.

As we got off the bus, we saw a tent belonging to a bedouin family. Farther from the road, two or three children were watching a flock of sheep grazing there on the hills outside Bethlehem. Our tour group was finishing a two-week stay in Israel, and we had come to Shepherds’ Field for a testimony meeting.
As we sat on the rocky hillside and looked in one direction, we could see Bethlehem. If we looked slightly to the left in another direction, we could see Herodion, a fortified mountain atop which Herod the Great had built a luxurious palace complete with pools, gardens, and two hundred white marble steps. We had visited it earlier in the day. Now, looking at it, I felt as if it represented all the material successes one could ever wish for. On the other hand, the village of Bethlehem seemed to symbolize everything I had learned about Jesus during our visit to the Holy Land.
I looked back and forth, from Bethlehem to Herodion. The question came to me: Which am I choosing? Of course I want to follow the Savior. But are my day-to-day decisions and actions taking me in a different direction?
As we sang Christmas carols and shared testimonies, I thought of how easy it is to make the wrong things our first priority. How easy it is to expend a lot of time and worry on things that are unimportant in an eternal frame of reference. How easy it is to pretend that material possessions are forever! And how difficult it is to remember that Jesus said, “No man can serve two masters.” (Matt. 6:24.)
The question would not go away: Which direction am I going? Then, over and over again, almost like a prayer, I heard the words of the shepherds: “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem.” (Luke 2:15.)
I have thought of that experience often since returning home—the sun dropping behind the Judean hills, the flock of sheep nearby, and the peace I felt as I recommitted myself to worry less about the things of the world and to seek more diligently the kingdom of God.
Sometimes still I can hear the shepherds from that long-ago night on a hill far away, saying, “Let us now go even unto Bethlehem.” And I remind myself to choose wisely. Herodion lies in ruins, but Bethlehem remains.

But they would tell more than this story when they talked of Catherine. Born 7 January 1855, sixteen months after her parents, who were pioneers, arrived in Salt Lake, Catherine was seven years old when her family was called to help settle Saint George in southern Utah. Catherine remembers that first Christmas in southern Utah. In her stocking, she found a few pieces of molasses candy, some raisins, and a slice from an apple that her mother had brought all the way from Salt Lake City. Her father carved thirteen dolls, and an artistic neighbor painted hair and faces on them. That Christmas, Catherine and twelve other little girls had dolls.

To the west of our home was our garden plot. Part of the garden was in potatoes. One day my father said to my sister and me, “There are more potatoes than we can use. If you would like to sell some, you may do so.” My sister Alice and I dug some up and hauled them down to a hotel and sold them. When we showed the money to our father, he asked what we were going to do with it. We said we would divide it before buying some things we wanted. Then he questioned, “What about your tithing?” He said, “The Lord has been good to us. We planted and cultivated and harvested, but the earth is the Lord’s. He sent the moisture and the sunshine. One-tenth we always give back to the Lord for his part.” My father made no requirement; he merely explained it so convincingly that we felt it an honor and privilege to pay tithing.

“All I ever hear anymore is Jessica this and Jessica that or ‘Isn’t that great about your sister?’”
Kris Douglas was irritated with all the attention her twin sister, Jessica, was receiving. It seemed like everyone was delighted to support Jessica in her ballet, but when Kris had a big tennis match, no one showed up to watch. It hurt her feelings. At dinner that night, when Jessica was excited about her upcoming solo dance performance, Kris stomped out saying that she would not be able to make it to the performance. She said she had a meeting with the tennis team she couldn’t postpone.
This scenario is set in the first of ten episodes in a new seminary videotape called “I Will Lead You.” The series involves the members of the fictitious Douglas family as they learn to apply the teachings in the Doctrine and Covenants in dealing with the difficulties in their lives. At the end of the first episode, Kris realized that she was feeling jealousy but that Jessica was her sister and needed her attention and support at the performance.
Kris left her meeting and hurried to the auditorium in time to wish her sister good luck before the curtain rose.
For the first time, the seminaries have produced a videotape instead of a filmstrip to go along with the year’s course of study. Each episode presents a dilemma common between family members or between friends. As characters confront their problems, they learn the best ways to react by following the truths they know from the scriptures.
Lisa Griffiths, who plays the role of Kris Douglas, learned some valuable lessons when she had to put herself in her character’s shoes. When Lisa went to audition for the part, she had her confidence shaken. “I asked myself, What am I doing here? My application, where I was supposed to list my experience and training, was blank. I prayed very hard that if I needed to do the role because there was something I had to give to the character or that she had to give to me, I would know how to read the script.”
When Lisa got the part, she told her roommates, “I had the best acting coach—the Lord. That must have been it, because I certainly was not as experienced as the others.”
Lisa said that in some ways she is like Kris, but in others she isn’t. She knows a lot about her character and can anticipate what Kris might do in different situations. “Kris always seems to know how to phrase things or how to subtly get the message across. I can feel it, but verbalizing it is hard for me.
“She has incorporated the scriptures into her life. She really tries to apply what she is reading to what she is doing,” Lisa said when she described Kris, almost as if this fictional character were a close friend. “She does start to resent the fact that she is always the good one and her twin sister gets a lot of attention for the rebellious things she does. She focuses on herself for a little while until she straightens it out.”
Lisa applied the lesson she learned from playing the part of Kris to her own life. “I learned to check where my focus was. I was pulling on some natural feelings. I have a sister who is a performer. She’s fantastic, and I look up to her in so many ways. I have felt the role before of the younger sister that doesn’t get the attention sometimes. There have been times I have let that get to me, so I knew that what Kris was feeling really happens—that you really do get jealous. I can see when my focus was on myself, when I wasn’t applying things I had learned in church, things didn’t work out. I still have to do that kind of checking.”
Lisa is a little embarrassed to remember that she and her friends used to laugh a little at the filmstrips they watched in seminary. That made her want to perform so that her character was believable. “I wanted to make this character real so that at least one person who watched it would stop and say, What is she really saying? What is she really wondering about? The whole cast set that as a goal.
“I did make fun of the filmstrips when I was in seminary,” said Lisa. “We had little jokes about what they were wearing and their hairstyles. I can remember when the wardrobe lady was dressing me and doing my hair. I thought, Now I know why we laughed. I would laugh sometimes at myself while I was doing it. It was a humbling experience. There is a message behind what the characters are wearing and how their hair looks. There is a message or a mood behind it all.”
Kris talked about the most difficult part of the video for her. “The hardest scene for me,” said Lisa, “was when I was sitting on the porch with my grandfather and we are looking at the stars. He’s saying how lonely it feels when he looks up there. Kris sees it as the Lord saying He is there for people and that He loves you no matter what. That was a hard scene for me because I believed what I was saying, and I was very worried that it would come across sappy or trite to high school students watching it. There are times we do feel alone, but there are times when we’ve got to know that we really are not. The Lord is there for us.”
Learning that each of us has to rely on guidance from our Heavenly Father is the whole purpose of the “I Will Lead You” videotape. And that guidance is contained in the scriptures. Lisa said, “I learned to read my scriptures every day to get something out of them to hold onto. That was the idea of the films. Sometimes you can’t handle it all. You just don’t have the answers. It doesn’t make sense, and it doesn’t seem fair. You have to remember that even if you don’t feel the Lord, his hand is there and he is leading you.”

Before I was baptized, I decided to invite my friend Thomas to church. He said OK, and we went to sacrament meeting and then to Primary. When everything was done, we went home.
I thought that next time I needed to invite every member of Thomas’s family to come to church. On the next fast Sunday, I decided to fast for Thomas and his family. In the morning when I got up, I prayed to Heavenly Father that all of Thomas’s family would agree to come to church. I didn’t eat breakfast or lunch. I took the sacrament but had nothing else to eat or drink. During the day, I prayed about four times for Thomas and his family.
That night we went to the chapel to hear the Christmas Devotional broadcast from Salt Lake City, but the satellite dish wouldn’t work, so we sang Christmas hymns and bore testimonies instead. I got up and bore my testimony for the very first time, and I asked everyone to pray for my friend and his family. A couple of Sundays later, he and his family did come to church, and his mom is now taking the missionary discussions. I think prayer and fasting work.

In the Bamburi Branch of the Kenya Nairobi Mission, Relief Society sisters donated the money they would have spent on an activity and instead purchased kitchen utensils and other items the branch needed. After thoroughly cleaning the local meetinghouse, the sisters of the ward assembled for a time of reflection on the creation of Relief Society in 1842, using and discussing resources from Daughters in My Kingdom: The History and Work of Relief Society.
“The thought of being part of this worldwide organization of Relief Society is special,” said Irene Kioi, second counselor in the Relief Society presidency. “It gives me the assurance that [Relief Society] is ordained of God and not men.”

One group of friends found an unusual way to reach out to each other. They came from different family situations and backgrounds, but they all cared about each other and wanted to strengthen their friendship.
One of their friends was having a particularly hard time at home. She told them she sometimes wished she could disappear but kept her feelings hidden behind a smile because she was worried that others would judge her.
Her friends wanted her to know that she was safe with them and that the world was a better place because she was in it. So they came up with a plan: they would wear safety pins. Each of them wore a safety pin on their clothes each day to remind her, and each other, that they were committed to creating a safe, secure, trustworthy friendship—and that they wanted each other to stick around.
Years later, this young woman still remembers her safety-pin friends and is grateful for the security she felt knowing that they cared about her.

When the bell rang at the end of class, Brian turned around in his desk. “Hey, Chris, have you seen the ads for the latest video game?”
Chris grinned. “Yes, it looks awesome!”
“Do you have it?” Brian asked.
Chris shook his head. “It’ll take me forever to save enough money. But I wish I could play it right now!”
Chris really wanted the new video game. His mom had seen the game and said it was OK for him to get, but he had to buy it himself. But he knew it would be months before he could afford it.
“Guess what?” Brian said. “I got it yesterday!”
Chris’s jaw dropped. “No way!”
Brian nodded. “Do you want to come over tomorrow and play it?”
Chris nearly jumped out of his chair. “Sure I do! That’d be great!”
As soon as Chris got to Brian’s house the next day, they settled in front of the TV. Chris couldn’t stop smiling as he earned points and advanced level after level.
But after a while, Brian put down his controls. “Let’s go outside,” he said.
Chris reluctantly put down his own controls and followed Brian out the back door. They played tag and then hide-and-seek. Chris was hiding behind some bushes when he realized that Brian was taking a long time to find him.
“Where is he?” Chris thought.
Chris left his hiding place. After a minute, he smelled smoke. Was something burning? He followed the smell around the corner of the house and stopped in his tracks. Brian stood in front of him, smoking a cigarette.
Brian smiled and held out a cigarette toward Chris. “Here. It’s fun,” Brian said.
Chris stared at the cigarette. “No,” he said.
Brian puffed on his cigarette. “Tell you what,” he said. “If you smoke with me, we’ll go back in and play the game some more.”
Chris felt like time had slowed down. He thought about how much he wanted to play the game and then he thought about the long months it would take him to save his money for his own copy.
But then Chris thought about the cigarette and what it would mean to smoke it. He thought about the promise he had made to the Lord to never smoke.
Chris stood up straight. “No. I won’t do it for anything.”
Brian looked stunned. But Chris turned away and walked home. When he got there, he sat down on the sidewalk in front of his house. He felt a little sad, but he was proud that he had the strength to make the right choice.

Marie: It’s surprising how easily others will be influenced by a positive example. At my high school graduation some of my friends were trying to talk me into going to a party where there would be a lot of drinking. I told them, “No, I’ve made a commitment in my life,” and explained to them why I wouldn’t go. Afterwards, their response surprised me. They said, “You know, you’re right; let’s do something else instead.”
Through this experience I learned that it is important that we don’t give the impression to others that we think we are better than they are, but that we convey to them instead, “We accept you as you are, even though we don’t agree with everything you do. We love and respect you and would like you to love and respect us also.”

Brigham Young Academy experienced one financial crisis after another following the Lewis building fire. By the mid-1880s, the school was in dire straits. The faculty and staff received only one-third of their salary in 1885.9 Conditions became so desperate that Zina Young Williams appealed to President John Taylor for help. You may remember my retelling of her story at last year’s annual university conference and President Taylor’s response that her father, Brigham Young, had appeared to him in the night and had assured President Taylor that all would be well, “that Christ himself was directing, and had a care over [the] school.”10 At the time, everyone, including Karl Maeser and Abraham O. Smoot, was buried with debt. Brother Maeser became so discouraged that he decided to leave the academy and join the faculty of the University of Deseret. As Elder Perry mentioned last evening, Brother Maeser told his wife and daughter to pack the household goods and personal belongings. For two days Sister Maeser and Eva sat on the trunks waiting to move. On the third day the daughter finally asked when they would be leaving for Salt Lake City. Brother Maeser replied: “I have changed my mind. I have had a dream—I have seen Temple Hill filled with buildings—great temples of learning, and I have decided to remain and do my part in contributing to the fulfillment of that dream.”11

Karl Maeser stayed for another six or seven years until the new building was completed. He was the intellectual and spiritual architect who laid the foundation for today’s magnificent institution. George Brimhall, a student of both Dusenberry and Maeser, described the impact that Karl Maeser had on him in the following words: “Judge Dusenberry showed me the road to higher education, but Karl G. Maeser showed me the way to a higher life.”12