Gospel Story Finder

Last year on the first day of school, I met a new student. He made friends with boys who didn’t have good standards. They swore and sometimes made fun of other people. After a few weeks, I joined their group. My mom started to notice some changes in my attitude. I got into trouble with these boys, who I thought were my friends. My mom spent months telling me that if I wanted to make better choices, I needed to switch my friends. But I didn’t believe my mom. I got into a fist fight once. I didn’t feel very happy. I felt frustrated sometimes.
Fast forward four months. … One afternoon I read a story from the Friend called “Game Changer” (April 2017). When my mom and I were done reading the story, I felt in my heart that I needed to change friends or I would continue to have a bad last two months in school.
The next day I went to school and decided to sit away from my friends. I sat beside a girl named Olivia. We started talking, and it took one day to become friends. My mom prayed that I could make a new friend easily after we read the story in the Friend.
From this experience in my life, I’ve learned that your choice of friends affects your life a lot. Making new friends is not that hard if you make them with the right people. The Holy Ghost told me in my heart that I should sit at that different table, not tomorrow or in a week, but that day. I think Heavenly Father wanted to give me a new friend so that I could change. I’m thankful that I read the article in the Friend with my mom that day.
Harrison C., age 9, British Columbia, Canada

“Come in, Thad!” said the bishop, rising from his chair in the tithing house, where he ran the affairs of the United Order of Orderville. “Thank you for coming.” On his desk was a very strange-looking machine—a combination of gears, spindles, and reels, with a handle to turn them—attached to a wooden base on which “Peerless Easy Rope Maker” was printed in gilded letters. I had never seen anything like it.
The bishop came around his desk and shook my hand. “We ordered it all the way from Philadelphia,” he said, nodding toward the machine. “If you’re willing, I’d like you to learn how to use it to make rope from the flax and cotton we grow that aren’t good enough for our cloth factory.”
I tried to look calm and grown-up, but a big grin spread across my face in spite of myself. I had been waiting a long time for a real assignment in the Order. “I’ll do my best, Bishop,” I said.
The bishop patted me on the shoulder. “Thad, I’m sure you’ll be a good worker, just like your brother.”
That hurt. Everyone was always comparing me to my twin brother, Theo, and I usually got the worst of it. He was bigger than I was, had no freckles, and at thirteen looked more like a man than I did. He had already been given many important assignments. This was my first chance. I had to make the most of it.
The bishop handed me the machine. “Take it over to the harness shop, and Brother Spencer will give you any help you need. You will work under his direction.”
The machine was heavy, and it was a hot day and a long way to the harness shop. When I finally got there, I felt as if my arms were stretching. And maybe they were—Sunday Mom complained that my good shirt’s sleeves were getting too short. Anyway, at the harness shop Brother Spencer put the machine in a wheelbarrow and told me to take it to the cabinet shop and have a stand made to mount it on.
The cabinet shop was part of the carpenter area of the Order and was a beehive of activity. The carpenters’ goal was to have a new two-bedroom home completed every six days all summer. The rest of the morning I helped Brother Carling find, measure, mark, and saw the boards into the correct length and size, and drill the holes needed to mount the rope-making machine.
That afternoon we loaded it and its stand on a wagon and took them to the blacksmith shop to be bolted together. Brother Worth, the blacksmith, was a powerful man with huge arms and shoulders. He loved to sing and could be heard singing Church songs as he heated and hammered iron. He was not singing when I arrived but was loading his tools into a wagon. “I have to go up to the factory to help fix a breakdown, Thad. Leave your things, and I’ll send word when we can work on your stand.”
The water in the irrigation ditch looked cool and inviting as I headed back to the cabinet shop. I knew that the swimming hole would be full of my friends keeping cool and having fun. I wondered if running a rope machine would be the end of having a good time.
“Go join the boys for a swim,” Brother Spencer said when I arrived. “Tomorrow we’ll start learning how to make rope.”
At dinner I told everyone about the Peerless Rope Machine and my new job. Theo jokingly said, “You won’t be able to make a rope good enough to hold up a bed.”
Everyone laughed until Dad said, “That’s enough. Let’s kneel down and have prayer.” How good it was to hear Dad pray that I would become a good rope maker.
That night I dreamed that all the horses in town were tied up with my ropes. They broke the ropes and ran away, and someone was calling me to go find them. But it was just the morning call to get up and do chores.
After breakfast I hurried over to the harness shop. By the side of the shop was bundle after bundle of flax and cotton made into short pieces of twine. The machine was still at the blacksmith shop. Brother Spencer picked up a piece of twine and handed it to me. “What does a spinning wheel do to the fibers to make them into thread or string?”
That I knew. I had watched lots of wool being spun. “It twists all the fibers in the same direction,” I answered.
“Right! Has that been done to the cotton and flax we have here?”
“Yes, but they’ve put so many fibers together that I’d call it twine, not thread or string.”
“You’re observant, Thad. But the pieces of twine are short, just leftover bits. How are you going to make them longer?”
I spoke without thinking. “Just tie them together with a knot.”
“Think again. Would that make a nice smooth rope?”
“How else could I do it?”
“Watch! You untwist each end, then lay them together and twist them back together to make a simple, twisted splice. When it’s pulled tight, it will be almost as strong as any other piece of twine. Let’s try it.”
Brother Spencer made it look easy. I tried and tried, but it took a long time to get mine to go together and stay, Finally I could make a good splice almost every time. It wasn’t long until I had a mixed-up mess of newly spliced twine scattered around me.
When Brother Spencer came out to check on me, he said, “Good work, Thad, but where is the end? Find it and start winding what you have connected together into balls. When you get the machine, you will put the twine on the spools as you splice it.”
Early in the afternoon Brother Spencer sent me back over to the blacksmith shop and said, “If you can’t help there with the machine, go ahead and go swimming.”
I went swimming. The boys asked, “Thad, can you make a rope that we can hang from a tree to swing out over the water?”
“Sure!” I said. “That will be a good place to test the rope to see how strong it is and how well it lasts.”
On my way home I went back by the blacksmith shop, and there was the machine, bolted to its stand.
Brother Worth said, “The next wagon that comes by will take it over to the harness shop.” All the way home I hummed the song I had heard him singing. Tomorrow I would make rope.
We took the rope-making machine from the blacksmith shop the next morning and we put it close to the harness shop door so that I could work outside but move it inside easily at night.
Brother Spencer took a spool off the machine and handed it to me. “Fill it with twine.”
Round and round I wrapped the twine. One ball was soon used and then a second, and the spool wasn’t even half full. “Can I put some on a second spool?” I asked.
“Sure.”
I put two balls on the second spool. Brother Spencer watched me. “Go ahead and try to make a two-strand rope. Can you see which holes to thread it through on the tightener?”
“Yes—the ones marked with a two. There are also three holes marked with threes and four with fours.”
“You’re a smart young man, Thad. Now pull both strands over the take-up roller and tie them to the big take-up spool.”
Following his instructions, I threaded the machine and began turning the handle. At first the twine kept breaking, but we kept resplicing it, making adjustments, and trying again. After several failures, we finally got it right, and I saw real rope emerging on the take-up reel. “It’s working! It’s working!” I kept turning. Just as I got the feel for how it should be done, one of the little feed spools ran out of twine. My first attempt at rope making had ended.
Brother Spencer unwound the finished rope and handed me one end. We stretched it out, and it was at least twelve feet long! We again each grasped an end and pulled against each other. We couldn’t break the rope.
“There you are, Brother Rope Maker,” Brother Spencer said. “For the rest of today, make rope with just two strands. Tomorrow you can make some of three strands, and the next day four. Be sure to save samples so that you can see if you’re getting any better. Take this first piece home to show your family. I’m proud of you, Thad.”
That night I sat a little straighter next to Theo at the dinner table. It felt good.
The next two weeks, I untangled lots of cotton and flax twine, joined it together, and made it into rope. We got a long plank and put it up on saw horses so that I would have a good place to join the ends together. The pile of short pieces of twine got smaller and smaller, and my pile of finished rope got bigger and bigger. On Saturday I loaded what was done into the wheelbarrow and hauled it to the tithing office. There I turned it over to the clerk, who wrote up a receipt that read: “One wheelbarrow load of assorted sizes and lengths of machine-made rope of both cotton and flax. Quality excellent.”

Eric was different from the other children and he knew it. But he wasn’t sure whether he liked being different. He often thought about it when he woke up early in the morning and had to stay in bed and be quiet so he wouldn’t wake up his brothers. Sometimes he would turn on his lamp and read. Other times he would lie in the dark and listen to the cars and trucks whizzing by on the highway or to the roosters crowing. Then he would think about how far away the cars and the rooster were and why he could hear them so well in the morning, when he never even noticed them in the daytime while he played.
Sometimes Eric would think about his curly red hair and how the other children called him “Red, Red, the Fire Head” and how he had to share a room with his three brothers instead of having a room all by himself like his friend Andy Rogers. Those were times he didn’t like being different.
It wasn’t just his red hair and waking up early that made Eric different. And it wasn’t just having seven brothers and sisters when his friends had only one or two.
Eric was the only one in his school class who went to Primary and the only one in his neighborhood who couldn’t play boisterous games on Sunday.
Mostly, Eric decided, it wasn’t much fun to be different, but lately he was thinking about something else. In two weeks it would be his birthday and he’d be eight years old. Sometimes when he’d wake up in the mornings, he’d think about being baptized. He tried to imagine how it would be when he put on the white clothes and walked down the steps into the water. He could picture his dad standing in the water waiting for him and holding out his hand for Eric to take. This thought made Eric feel good.
One day on the way home from school Eric talked to Andy about being baptized. “Are you going to be baptized when you’re eight?” he asked his friend.
“I don’t think so,” Andy replied. “I don’t know much about those things.” Eric thought, I am different again!
Then Andy asked, “Will you be baptized when you’re eight?”
Eric looked at Andy for a moment and decided, Andy won’t tease me if I tell him about it because he’s a good friend. “Yes, I will,” Eric answered. “In two weeks it will be my eighth birthday. And that’s old enough to be baptized. I can hardly wait.”
Then an exciting idea came to Eric. “Andy,” he asked, “would you like to come to my baptism. My dad’s going to baptize me. I get to wear all white clothes and sit on the front row with my dad. You could come and bring your dad, too, if you’d like.”
When Eric’s baptism date finally came, his whole family went with him. Andy and Andy’s dad, Mr. Rogers, were there too.
Before the baptism all the people participated in a brief service. First there was a song and then a talk about Jesus being baptized and about the importance of following Him.
Jesus was different too, Eric realized. It was a very comforting thought.
When it was time to be baptized, everything happened just like Eric had imagined. But now he could really feel Dad’s strong hand reach out for his. He could feel the cool water pushing softly against his waist. For a few minutes Eric didn’t think of anything at all except the sound of his dad’s voice and the warmth of his dad’s hand and the cool water all around him.
After the baptism and after he and Dad had changed clothes, Eric shook hands with everyone and his mother gave him a tight hug. Then Eric and his dad walked to the back of the room to see Andy and Mr. Rogers, who were both looking pleased. Dad shook hands with Mr. Rogers and said, “Thanks for coming, Frank.”
Mr. Rogers waited a moment before he answered. “It was my pleasure,” he said. “It was a lot different than I expected. I’m glad we were here to see it.”
Then he turned to Eric and shook his hand. And Eric knew that something very important had happened not only to him but to Andy and his father too. And then Eric knew that in some ways it was good to be different.

—Click! A switch was flipped, and a tiny sewing machine light guided adroit fingers over a swatch of terrycloth. The cultural hall of the Irvine California Stake Center was lined with sewing machines, and the middle was filled with cutting tables. The young women were making bibs for a local home for abused children.
“When they told us they use about 350 bibs per day, I thought, Wow—this service project really will make a difference,” said Katheryn Clayton.

When I was young, my brothers and I liked to sleep outside during the summer. We would spread our sleeping bags on the porch, then find constellations in the stars and listen to crickets as we fell asleep.
One night my older brother Larry and I were out on the porch. We stretched out and looked up at the stars. Larry wasn’t usually very talkative, but that night he said he wanted to tell me some stories. He told me stories from the Book of Mormon, starting with Lehi and his family leaving Jerusalem.
I had heard stories from the Book of Mormon in Primary before, but when Larry told them, it was different. It felt more real. As I looked up at the stars and listened to my brother, I felt very warm and happy inside. Though I didn’t know it then, I was feeling the Holy Ghost telling me the Book of Mormon was true.
A few months later, I found a book of illustrated stories from the Book of Mormon at our house. When I started reading, I got the same warm, comforting feeling that I’d had when Larry told me the same stories.
Years later, when I was trying to decide if I had a testimony, I was a little disappointed that I had never had a big or strong answer. Did this mean I didn’t have a testimony? Then I remembered how I felt when my brother told me stories from the Book of Mormon, and I knew that I did know the Church was true.

I was born in Fiji. My parents were not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but they went to another church.
When I grew up, I married my wife, Anita. She was a member of the Church. She kept inviting the missionaries over to meet me.
One day I told them they could come to dinner for the next three nights. I said they had to use only the Bible to answer my questions. Their answers were perfect. On the third night, they asked me a question.
“If you had a grocery store, what would you call it?”
“I would call it the Wakolo Family Grocery Store because it’s my store,” I answered.
“Who should a church be named after?” they asked.
It was a great question. And I knew the answer with my heart and soul. The true Church would be named after Jesus because it’s His Church. And The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was named after Him!
I had just one more question: “When can I be baptized?” One week later, I was.
When I was baptized, I took upon myself Jesus Christ’s name. That means I became a member of His Church and promised to follow Him. I try my best every day to live as He did. I know that this is Jesus Christ’s true Church.

Years later when my childhood dreams of a mission were realized, I was called far away to New Zealand. There I first met the Maori people who have brought so much into my life by their simplicity, sincerity, and great faith.
One of my first assignments was to a Maori village called Judea, where the missionaries were helping in the construction of a small chapel. At that time I was trying to learn the Maori language. Each day I prayed to our Heavenly Father for help. And then one day I was surprised to be surrounded by Primary children. My prayer for help with the new language had been heard, and our Heavenly Father had inspired the branch president to send these children to help me. They followed me everywhere I went for weeks, talking to me in Maori. Their first lesson I shall remember forever:
Hei tito tito te ngeru me te whiro
Te kau peke runga te marama
Ka kata te kuri ki tana mahi pai
Ka oma te rihi me to punu.
The words sounded beautiful, but they were meaningless to a new missionary. I thought I was learning an old Maori war chant. What a surprise to me when I found out the children were teaching me “Hey, diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon. …”
How grateful I shall always be to those children of New Zealand for the wonderful blessing they brought to their new missionary.

Many years ago, I attended Arizona State University, majoring in Religious Studies. In the midst of our studies, we received a semester-long assignment to draft a lengthy research paper known as an exegesis. We were to take a few words of scripture, sometimes a full verse or more, and study the literary, linguistic, political, cultural, historical, and religious background of the verse, to understand, as best as we can in our day, the author’s intent at the time the verse was written.

I selected for my paper a familiar verse of scripture from the first chapter of Genesis that states: “God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” [7] Near the end of the semester, we turned in our lengthy papers. On the day they were handed back the papers were at the front of the lecture hall on a table in a large stack—and returned to us alphabetically. The professor called us up individually, one by one. My name was not called. I remember growing nervous—since my last name begins with the letter “B” I should have been one of the first students called up. I remember nervously wondering, “Where is my paper?” Finally, reaching the last paper on the table, our professor paused, holding it in his hands. He declared, “Now, we have a paper written from a most interesting perspective. We will now invite Mr. Bangerter forward to present and defend his paper during the remaining 40 minutes or so of our class.”

So, perhaps you can understand why I felt my heart pound within me as I stood and then walked down those steps to the front of the auditorium. It was not the presentation of the paper that gave rise to the concern, but the poignant questions I knew would follow. Those questions soon came as I completed my presentation, which as you can imagine, spoke from a theological perspective distinct to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the moments that followed, I felt the comforting, strengthening, and inspiring influence of God’s Holy Spirit wash over me. That day, in that moment, a calming sense of peace washed over me, filled my mind, calmed my pounding heart, and informed my witness that day. You see, within just a few minutes all questions, consuming the remainder of that class session, focused on our divine origin as children of God and our literal understanding of the doctrine of divine parentage and divine potential. I spoke that day from a position of truth, so the Comforter, whom the Savior promised God would send, [8] did come to me and did, in those moments, comfort my heart and my whole soul and did reveal what it means to know I am a child of God. [9]

One day in May the citizens of that last great earthly kingdom got together to visit their inheritance from the Moslem kingdom of Granada. The young men and women of the Granada Branch went to the Alhambra. They passed through the Pomegranate Gate, the woods, the Gate of Justice, the Court of the Cisterns, the Wine Gate, the Esplanade, and into the Alcazares, the royal palace of the Caliphs of Granada.
They found chamber after chamber of exquisite beauty. The walls and ceilings were decorated in a lacy filigree of plaster, as lovely as ivory. The plaster writhes and vibrates with flowers, leaves, Arabic poetry, Koranic quotations, and interweaving arabesques of pure design. Many walls are also bright with mosaic tile.
They passed through the court of the Myrtals where a long pool reflects a fantasy of arches and pillars and the Court of the Lions where 124 slender pillars surround a fountain supported by 12 stone lions who spurt water from their mouths. Reflected in the fountain, ornate archwork bursts from the tops of the pillars.
The young men and women explored a fairyland of courts, chambers, and patios with such intriguing names as the Hall of Secrets, Hall of the Boat, Hall of Kings, Court of the Cypresses, and the Royal Baths, each a wonderland opening onto other wonderlands.
Decorated as they are in the perishable medium of plaster, these halls were clearly not built as a monument to the ages, but as the tribute to present beauty—beauty that has defied the ravages of time and lingered down the ages as fresh and sweet as when birds first sang outside the windows of Caliph and courtiers.
For a long while the young people wandered through the cool halls and passageways where pillars grow in forests of airy delight, full of sunlight and shadow. Intricately carved stalactites of wood and plaster hang from ceilings as if from some enchanted cavern. Subtle breezes and silvery echoes, the hush of leaves and rippling waves of light eddy about pools of shadow and silence. Through lacy windows in the outside walls could be seen sun-wrapped Granada and the gypsy caves of Sacromonte. From geometric portals cut in domes high overhead, sunlight speared down in shafts of glory.
It was hard to imagine a palace more delightful than this, and yet a splendid melancholy seemed to brood over the whole scene, a delicious yearning for magical times past. There was, as the poet Angel Ganivet once said, a “profound sadness that emanates from a deserted palace, forsaken by its inhabitants, imprisoned in the impalpable thread woven by the spirit of destruction, that invisible spider whose feet are dreams.”
After sharing their testimonies and finishing their visit to the palace complex, the group passed through the palace of Carlos V and then into the military fortifications known as the Alcasabar, which rear their battlements on the brow of the hill. They climbed to the top of the Watchtower, whose bell was rung of old at times of alarm or celebration. Ringed all about by the wild and ancient sky, they gazed southward at the mounting Sierra Nevadas and all around them at the rose and alabaster glory of Granada. Rinsed and burnished and transfigured by the high, fierce Andalusian sun, it seemed to be a glimpse of the afterlife Muhammad had promised the devout.
Next the young men and women passed into the Generalife—the exquisite series of gardens on the slope above the Alhambra, a world of green and shadow rich in roses, oleanders, rhododendrons, and lofty cypresses, and everywhere the song of water.
The waters speak, and they weep
Beneath the white oleanders;
Beneath the rose oleanders,
The waters weep and they sing
For the myrtle in bloom
Above the opaque waters.
Madness of singing and crying,
Of the souls, of the tears!
These lines by Juan Ramón Jimenez capture the beauty and mystery of these beautiful gardens. Among the white buildings, the dignified towers, the hedges, and the flowerbeds are some of the world’s most beautiful fountains. They are not spectacular or large. They are not adorned with beautiful statuary. But in them is perfected the charm of the simple elegance of water, delicate and refreshing and musical, made by a people with a desert heritage who knew how to value water as something precious in its own right.
The youths wandered through a storybook realm of flowers and hedges and pools and pavilions, where caliphs once strolled in the cool of the evening. Symphonies have been written about the Generalife, but none is more beautiful than the place itself. The sun-entangled trees brought to mind the words of Federico García Lorca:
How hard it is for the daylight
To take its leave of Granada!
It entangles itself in the cypress
Or hides beneath the water.
Earthly days pass even more swiftly than earthly kingdoms, and the young people finished their visit to the Alhambra and returned to their homes.

One day when President Cowley and I were traveling, we arrived at the home of Brother Stewart Meha, a great and wonderful Maori man. He presided over his large family as a true father and leader. President Cowley and Brother Meha spent all afternoon sitting on the porch and talking about the Church and other interesting things.

When it came time for the evening meal, Brother Meha stood on his front porch and, in the Maori language, shouted out to all of his large family, “Haere Mai Ki te Kai.” Then he said, “Haere Mai Ki Te Karakia.” These phrases meant, “Come on home for supper, Come on home for prayer.”

Soon family members came from every direction. We all assembled in his home in the big front room. The room had very little furniture in it, and everybody gathered in a large circle. Brother Meha was at the head of the circle, President Cowley was on his left, and I was next to President Cowley. On Brother Meha’s right was a little child about eight years of age. All around the rest of the circle were the other children, with some adults in between.

Brother Meha said to the little boy on his right, “You start.” I bowed my head in anticipation of the little boy’s prayer. Instead of praying, he quoted a scripture, after first reciting the chapter and verse. Then the young person next to him recited a scripture with the reference. After about four scriptures had been given, I realized that we were going around the circle, with each person quoting a different passage of scripture. One youngster started to quote one that had already been used, and he was quickly corrected.

Eventually it was my turn and then President Cowley’s. Then Brother Meha prayed.

God offers us counsel not just for our own safety, but for the safety of His other children. An example from Church history is that of Reddick Newton Allred. He was one of the rescue party sent out by Brigham Young to bring in the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies. When a terrible storm hit, Captain Grant, captain of the rescue party, decided to leave some of the wagons by the Sweetwater River as he pressed ahead to find the handcart companies. With the blizzards howling and the weather becoming life-threatening, two of the men left behind at the river decided that it was foolish to stay. They thought that the handcart companies had either wintered over somewhere or had perished. They decided to return to the Salt Lake Valley and tried to persuade everyone else to do the same.
Reddick Allred refused to budge. Brigham had sent them out, and his priesthood leader had told him to wait there. The others took several wagons, all filled with needed supplies, and started back. Even more tragic, each wagon they met coming out from Salt Lake they turned back as well. They turned back seventy-seven wagons, which returned all the way to Little Mountain, where President Young learned what was happening and turned them around again. When the Willie Company was finally found and made that heartrending pull up and over Rocky Ridge, it was Reddick Allred and his wagons that waited for them.
While the record does not prove it, I am confident that Brother Allred prayed while he waited. I am confident that his prayers were answered. He then knew that the counsel to stand fast was from God. We must pray to know that. I promise you answers to such prayers of faith.

Finally, Jacob Spori and his wife and three children, Jacob, Magdalena, and Louise, and his sister Anna Clara left Bern for America. It was June, 1888. Their destination was Rexburg, Idaho. Jacob had been called to be the first principal of Ricks College, and the new school was getting ready to open.
Homes in Rexburg were scarce so the Spori family moved into an empty tithing granary. Their fifth child, Elizabeth, was born there 6 July 1888.
For the four years Jacob Spori was principal, he not only taught school, but was a friend of the families of the students. He would visit the homes of the Saints, especially when there was sickness there.
“At the time of the diphtheria epidemic in 1891,” his daughter recalls, “he went fearlessly to administer to the sick and comfort the bereaved.” Two of his daughters caught this dreaded disease, but he administered to them, believing they would be spared by the power of God. And they were.
After four years as academy principal Elder Spori asked for and received an honorable release from his work. He then turned to farming and began a project that was in later years a boon to agriculture in the area—he helped in the development of the canal on the Egin Bench, known as the Spori Canal.
Jacob Spori died in 1903—he was back teaching again, still doing the things he felt had to be done. His doctor had warned him that he suffered from diabetes and that he should stop working and rest more. Jacob’s reply was that he would rather “die working than die resting.”
Versatility and unwavering faith are two traits that characterize Jacob Spori’s life. He was a great educator, a student of languages, a missionary. He liked geology and mining, receiving his final degree in metallurgy when he was fifty years old. He became interested in medicine in Istanbul. Music was his great escape. He learned to play several different instruments. Science and agriculture were also parts of his life.
His life is well summarized in the words of his daughter: “He had such a burning testimony that he bore it whenever the opportunity presented itself. He used to tell us that nothing men can do will ever change the truthfulness of the gospel. All the seeming sacrifices he made seemed nothing to him compared with the peace and joy that came into his life when he joined the Church.”

Let me mention one personal experience that stays with me, an experience with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, which I first heard when I was 13 years old. I visited Salt Lake City then with my mother, who was a good musician and who wanted to hear that great organ and the choir. The memory of that sound has stayed with me; it was overwhelming.

I had the great opportunity, through the kindness of the choir itself, to lead it once, on June 27, 2007. They were at the Ravinia music center in Highland Park, Illinois, outside of Chicago. A few days prior to the concert, I received a call from the choir’s music director, Dr. Craig Jessop, who asked whether I would consider assuming the conductor’s podium at the end of the performance and lead the choir in an encore number. Never had I been asked to do something like that! I seized the occasion, and, after a brief lesson from Craig at the dress rehearsal, I got up and faced the choir with a tremendous feeling of awe and power and great satisfaction. There was silence as this marvelous choir was looking at and waiting for me. If that doesn’t give you something of an ego trip, I don’t know what would! I paused for a moment, and then I gave the downbeat, according to Craig’s instruction. All of a sudden, that vacuum of expectant silence was filled with this magnificent, overpowering sound, all in unison, all in harmony. I thought to myself, “I’m doing better with the Mormons than I am with the Catholics!” I have a lot harder time getting them to sing together!

God offers us counsel not just for our own safety, but for the safety of His other children, whom we should love. There are few comforts so sweet as to know that we have been an instrument in the hands of God in leading someone else to safety. That blessing generally requires the faith to follow counsel when it is hard to do. An example from Church history is that of Reddick Newton Allred. He was one of the rescue party sent out by Brigham Young to bring in the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies. When a terrible storm hit, Captain Grant, captain of the rescue party, decided to leave some of the wagons by the Sweetwater River as he pressed ahead to find the handcart companies. With the blizzards howling and the weather becoming life-threatening, two of the men left behind at the Sweetwater decided that it was foolish to stay. They thought that either the handcart companies had wintered over somewhere or had perished. They decided to return to the Salt Lake Valley and tried to persuade everyone else to do the same.
Reddick Allred refused to budge. Brigham had sent them out, and his priesthood leader had told him to wait there. The others took several wagons, all filled with needed supplies, and started back. Even more tragic, each wagon they met coming out from Salt Lake they turned back as well. They turned back 77 wagons, returning all the way to Little Mountain, where President Young learned what was happening and turned them around again. When the Willie Company was finally found, and had made that heartrending pull up and over Rocky Ridge, it was Reddick Allred and his wagons that waited for them. (See Rebecca Bartholomew and Leonard J. Arrington, Rescue of the 1856 Handcart Companies [1992], 29, 33–34.)

In this conference you will hear inspired counsel, for instance, to reach out to the new members of the Church. Those with the faith of Reddick Newton Allred will keep offering friendship even when it seems not to be needed or to have no effect. They will persist. When some new member reaches the point of spiritual exhaustion, they will be there offering kind words and fellowship. They will then feel the same divine approval Brother Allred felt when he saw those handcart pioneers struggling toward him, knowing he could offer them safety because he had followed counsel when it was hard to do.

While the record does not prove it, I am confident that Brother Allred prayed while he waited. I am confident that his prayers were answered. He then knew that the counsel to stand fast was from God. We must pray to know that. I promise you answers to such prayers of faith.

The elementary school in our area was having a program in the gymnasium for both parents and students. The students sat close together on the floor. The fifth graders were seated near the back of the room with students from the special education class who had physical and mental disabilities.
During the program, one of the older boys in that class began to cry loudly. Many in the room either ignored him or stared at him in embarrassment. Shanie Atwood, a fifth grader, leaned close to him and kindly began to rub his back. This calmed him, and soon he was quietly enjoying the program again.
Jesus would not have ignored the boy or given him unkind looks. He would have helped, and that is exactly what Shanie did. She was a Christlike example that day.

At BYU-Hawaii I was standing outside a religion class in the hallway and a student came out of his Book of Mormon class and said: “I hate that class.” I asked him “why, is it the teacher?” He said no, and then explained: “I can’t stand to read the Book of Mormon and to continue to live my life the way I am living it.” Sometimes reading the Book of Mormon is like a two-edged sword—you are either soothed and settled by the sweetness of the Lord’s spirit, or cut in the heart, for, as Nephi taught, “the guilty [take] the truth to be hard.”[45]

By the time Anna was two, her family was living above her father’s shop in a tiny building at Number 18 Camomile Street, London, England. Across the way stood a rank of hackney coaches. The old horses often waited for hours in the rain, and in the wintertime stamped their feet on the treacherous frozen cobblestones to keep warm. They were plagued by flies during the summer and developed harness sores from pulling their heavy loads.
There was one coal black horse there with a white flash on his forehead, and every day Anna watched him as she waited, nose against the glass, until her mother was free to take her across the street to see him.
Mary Sewell often held her daughter up so that she could feed an apple to the horse. As he ate, Anna talked to him while checking his bit or untangling a knot in his mane. The coachman was amazed that the child showed no fear.
Anna’s mother, a remarkable woman, taught her own children. She took Anna and her brother to the country each day and they returned, brown from the sun, carrying wild flowers and birds’ nests to study. To earn money to buy her children books, she wrote a reader called Walks with Mama and sold it for three pounds.
Anna was elated when the family moved to an old mansion called Palatine House at Stoke Newington, for there she was able to attend her first school.
One cloudy day when she was fourteen, Anna raced off to school in her usual hurry, forgetting her umbrella. After school that day it began to rain. At the gate Anna fell and sprained her ankle. Doctors in those days didn’t have the benefit of X-ray machines, and sometimes mistakes were made in the treatment of bones and ligaments. For the rest of her life Anna was crippled. At times she could walk a little, but much of the time she was an invalid.
The family’s move to Lancing, when Anna was twenty-five, enabled the family to keep a pony and carriage. Each day Anna drove her father to Shoreham to catch the Brighton train, and then in the evening she picked him up. During these drives Anna was unaware that she was laying up much information that she could use later in writing Black Beauty.
By the time Anna was fifty, she was virtually an invalid, but her diary reveals that she must have been a very busy one.
An entry dated August 21, 1877, reads: “My first proofs of Black Beauty are come—very nice type.”
This book that was thought over and lived with for so many years before being written comes to life in spare, direct, and truthful words. Anna’s Quaker background gave her great reverence for people and justice.
Although the book proved very popular with all age groups, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals showed little interest. But George T. Angell of Boston, founder of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, had been watching for a story to promote humane treatment of horses. After reading Black Beauty, he raised enough money to print 10,000 copies of the book. And he made an appeal to the readers of the SPCA magazine.
By the end of 1890, two hundred sixteen thousand copies of Black Beauty had been sold. Twenty years later the book was still selling a quarter million copies yearly.
Anna Sewell died a year after the book’s publication on April 25, 1878, of a painful lung infection. When the horse-drawn hearse arrived at the door, her mother looked down from an upstairs window and saw that the horses had bearing-reins [checkreins]. “Oh, this will never do!” she exclaimed and hurried to order the cruel, restricting reins removed. This loving mother thereby performed one more service for her daughter and for her daughter’s friends, the horses.

Picture a small, one-room apartment which is home for a family of six. The room is dirty and cluttered. The family has not been to church in years.

As the ward welfare committee discussed the family’s needs, there was a feeling of discouragement, for bishops, over the years, had helped the family often. In the discussion, a new idea began to dawn. Perhaps, if the committee called upon the resources of the Lord’s storehouse—the talents and skills of ward members—even this difficult situation could be assisted.

The committee first focused on future possibilities as well as immediate needs. As possibilities turned to reality, hope and optimism replaced gloom and depression. Filled with hope, the family committed to help improve their own situation. The committee also went to work. A hairstylist gave the family haircuts. A dentist volunteered, and for the first time in years, a mother was not embarrassed to smile. A new pair of glasses allowed this mother to once again read to her children. A financial specialist worked with the family in budgeting their funds. A three-year-old received much needed physical therapy.

Slowly the family began to believe their life could be different. The apartment, once dirty and disorganized, began to show signs of order and cleanliness. Curtains went up on the windows. Just a year later, invitations were extended by this family to an open house for their three-bedroom home.

A wounded family was found by the side of the road, a family suffering just as much as the traveler from Jerusalem in Jesus’ day. The family’s cries were heard, and their wounds were bound. The modern good Samaritans followed the divine injunction to “go, and do thou likewise.” Spiritual lives were also rescued. Today, this family is active in the Church and preparing to receive the blessings of the temple.

This question from Sister Yee reminded me of a lesson learned from my daughter. When she was small, Paige used to hate Band-Aids. Some kids run to their moms for a Band-Aid for every little owie, but Paige never wanted one. To her, needing a Band-Aid meant that she was really hurt. As long as I didn’t offer her one, she would bravely handle all the scrapes and cuts that came her way. But the minute I insisted that she needed a Band-Aid, she would get upset and, I believe, actually feel more physical pain.

Are we like this when we have need of the spiritual Band-Aid of daily repentance? Do we avoid repentance as much as possible, thinking that surely this little thing in our lives is not big enough to require repentance? Instead, let us become like the little child who quickly runs to our Father every time we have a tiny bump or bruise. Let us come to Him each night and morning and ask for His healing balm to bind up our wounds. Making repentance a daily practice will prepare us to receive ordinances and to make and keep covenants with our Savior.

Samuel Billings was only seven years old, but tonight he got to stay up late. His family was spending the Independence Day holiday in Independence, Missouri, with his grandparents.
Stretched out on the lawn on Grandma’s puffy quilt, Sam and Grandpa waited for the fireworks celebration to begin.
“Sam, do you realize that we are on the very spot our pioneer ancestors stood on the night the stars fell?” Grandpa asked.
“When the stars fell?” Sam was confused. “What do you mean, Grandpa?”
Grandpa smiled and began the story. Sam listened with wonder.
As Grandpa ended the story, the fireworks began. They were spectacular. But even better, Sam thought, was the memory of a miracle performed in the heavens long ago. Sam and Grandpa watched the sky, remembering.