Gospel Story Finder

When I was nine years old, we lived in Fillmore, Utah. One rainy day, my mom, my two sisters, and I left for Kanab, Utah, to help my great-granny. We were on a winding road where you can’t see what is coming toward you until it is right there. The rain started pouring so hard that it was even harder to see. We had to keep driving because there were no places to pull over. I asked Mom if I should say a prayer. She said yes, so I did. I asked Heavenly Father to let the rain slow down until we got across Bear Valley. After a few seconds, the rain came down only very lightly and almost stopped. When we turned onto Highway 89, the rain picked up again, but we could see. We felt good about continuing our trip.
This year, we moved to Price, Utah. It started raining really hard while we were trying to load the moving truck. I went into my empty bedroom and asked Heavenly Father to let the rain quit until we were finished. It did quit, and we even had some sun. I told my parents what I had done, and Mom cried and hugged me because she remembered about Bear Valley, too. It didn’t rain again until we left Fillmore with all our things loaded.
I have a strong testimony of the power of prayer. I know that Heavenly Father listens to children. I will be a deacon soon, and I know I will need to use prayer constantly to help me fulfill my duties. And I know that He will be there and will listen to me.Kass Esplin, age 11Price, Utah

When President Spencer W. Kimball underwent surgery years ago, he was wheeled from the operating room to the intensive care room. The attendant who pushed the gurney which carried him stumbled and let out an oath using the name of the Lord. President Kimball, who was barely conscious, said weakly, “Please! Please! That is my Lord whose names you revile.”

There was a deathly silence; then the young man whispered with a subdued voice, “I am sorry.” (See The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [1982], 198.)

Perhaps an oft-repeated scene will bring closer to home your personal opportunity to reach out to rescue. Let us look in on a family with a lad named Jack. Throughout Jack’s early life, he and his father had many serious arguments. One day, when Jack was seventeen, they had a particularly violent quarrel. Jack said to his father, “This is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. I’m leaving home, and I will never return!” So declaring, he went to his room and packed a bag. His mother begged him to stay, but he was too angry to listen. He left her crying at the doorway.

Leaving the yard, Jack was about to pass through the gate when he heard his father call to him: “Jack, I know that a large share of the blame for your leaving rests with me. For this I am truly sorry. I want you to know that if you should ever wish to return home, you’ll always be welcome. And I’ll try to be a better father to you. I want you to know that I’ll always love you.” Jack said nothing, but went to the bus station and bought a ticket to a distant point. As he sat in the bus watching the miles go by, he thought about the words of his father. He realized how much love it had required for his father to do what he had done. Dad had apologized. He had invited him back and had left the words ringing in the summer air, “I love you.”

It was then that Jack understood that the next move was up to him. He knew that the only way he could ever find peace with himself was to demonstrate to his father the same kind of maturity, goodness, and love that Dad had shown toward him. Jack got off the bus, bought a return ticket to home, and went back.

He arrived shortly after midnight, entered the house, and turned on the light. There in the rocking chair sat his father, his head bowed. As the father looked up and saw Jack, he rose from the chair, and they rushed into each other’s arms. Jack often said, “Those last years that I was home were among the happiest of my life.”

Here was a boy who overnight became a man. Here was a father who, suppressing passion and bridling pride, reached out to rescue his son before he became one of that vast “lost battalion” resulting from fractured families and shattered homes. Love was the binding band, the healing balm. Love—so often felt, so seldom expressed.

Rebecca Johnson, blonde and 17, checked off a long list. Everything was nearly ready for the seminary pageant in Cardston, Alberta, Canada: the sets, the props, the music, the costumes, the actors—well, almost all of the actors. Rebecca winced when she looked down at the cast list. Tracy Watson, who played the lead female role of Lucy Mack Smith, was sick. The pageant was scheduled to open the following night, and there wasn’t time for a replacement to learn Tracy’s part.
“When I walked in that night,” Tracy later explained, “Brother Wilcox took one look at me and asked what was wrong.
“I was really sick. I told him I felt weak, that I was drained. He asked if I was going to make it through the pageant. I just didn’t know.
“‘You might just have to find a new Lucy Mack,’ I said.”
Tracy paused in telling the story, her eyes moist.
“Then Brother Wilcox and another Melchizedek Priesthood holder gave me a blessing.
“During the blessing I had a good feeling come over me. It’s hard to explain. I didn’t feel weak anymore. I felt strong.”
The following night the pageant opened its first performance that year in the Cardston Second and Third wards’ cultural hall. After months of work, preparation, and study, the cast and crew of over 100 seminary students were ready, including Tracy.
An opening prayer was said. The house lights dimmed. From high up on scaffolds light crews flooded a corner of the hall with bright spots. A piano started playing softly in the background. Two narrators, playing checkers, introduced the audience to the story.
“Why that’s an old revival song! Those camp meetings, remember those days?”
“Yes, that’s how it was when the Church got started, wasn’t it?”
One of the narrators rose, picked up a coat and an old Bible, moved toward a camp scene on the stage, and sat in the congregation.
“As I recall,” the narrator said, “it was in about 1820 in upper New York State when it all began.”
The preacher in front of the congregation came suddenly to life, bringing his fist down hard on the pulpit, and began to preach a fiery sermon. The Smith family was in the congregation.
It was the prelude to Joseph Smith’s first vision and the beginning of the Restoration. The pageant dramatized early Church history, moving from the First Vision, to the publishing of the Book of Mormon, to the Kirtland period, and finally to Carthage Jail, and was centered around the life of Joseph Smith.
Don Schiedler, who played the role of Brigham Young, later explained the purpose of the pageant and its dramatization of Church history. “We take what we learn in seminary and put it into action in the pageant,” he said. “When you put history or the scriptures into a play, it brings it to life. Portraying just a small part of what Brigham Young did is something I’ll remember all of my life.”
Besides studying the historical background for the pageant in seminary classes, the members of the cast were asked to do outside research on the characters they played. This extra involvement in the characterization of great men in Church history had a strong effect on several of the students.
After a performance Marlin Hogg talked of his role as Hyrum Smith. “It’s a good feeling,” he said, “to put yourself in the place of such a great man.”
Marlin stopped and loosened his tie that had been styled after one popular during the 1800s.
“I never realized until the pageant that the things Hyrum and Joseph endured together were incredible. While playing Hyrum’s part I tried to feel some of the courage and faith he had to have to endure the jails and persecution—what he must have gone through. I had to build myself up to reach his stature, even just a part of it. You can’t try to feel what he felt and be what he was and not be changed by it.”
Jack Stone, who was in charge of the first seminary pageant several years ago in Cardston, told of another student who had been changed by the annual event.
“One student,” Brother Stone said, “who had become inactive and dropped out of seminary, asked to be in the pageant at the last minute. We had a few extra costumes and there were several crowd scenes, so we put him in those. That year the pageant was on the Book of Mormon. As we sang the finale, the entire cast came down on the stage. It was the part in the Book of Mormon where Christ visits the people in America after his resurrection. We sang ‘I Know That My Redeemer Lives.’ It was a touching scene. I remember looking over at the boy and seeing tears stream down his cheeks. He’d been changed because of his involvement.”
Members of the cast and crew are not the only ones affected by the pageant. The students involved this year created enough interest in Church history for a special adult class to be held in the seminary, and the pageant played to a full house at all three of its performances.
Rod Brandham, Porter Rockwell in the pageant, told of this year’s pageant’s effect on him and on the audiences it played to.
“The pageant is centered around the Prophet Joseph Smith and the sacrifices he made for the gospel. When you’re on the stage during the scenes where he is persecuted and jailed, and especially after his death at Carthage, you can hear some of the audience crying and it almost makes you cry. You have to fight hard to hold it inside until the performance is over, until the final song.”
Rod hesitated, clearing his throat.
“I love that man for what he did.”
At the end of every performance, the entire cast came on stage and sang “Praise to the Man” as a tribute to the man whose greatness and courage some of the students had discovered or rediscovered in the pageant. After the second verse, the audience joined in the singing, and there were few dry eyes.

Page 104: President Henry B. Eyring, First Counselor in the First Presidency, told a story about his father searching for church one Sunday while he was visiting Australia. As he searched, he prayed at each street intersection to know which direction he should walk. Soon he heard singing and knew that the Holy Ghost had helped him find his way. Think of a time when you felt the Holy Ghost. How did it make you feel?

Dillon has a terrible problem: his greatest talent is also his greatest fear. “I love to sing,” the 16-year-old Tongan says, “but not in front of people. I get too scared.”
Imagine his mixed feelings when the Church in Tonga announced auditions for vocalists to record a Tongan version of the Old Testament seminary soundtrack. He was both excited and scared to death.
Three songs on the soundtrack require a male vocalist. After Dillon had sung the song for which he was auditioning, the producer surprised him by asking him to sing another of the songs on the soundtrack. As nervous as he was, he did it, and the producer said, “We found our boy.”
Much to his excitement—and dismay—Dillon was offered the opportunity to record all three songs.
Dillon, a member of the Nuku‘alofa Tonga Stake, excels in school. He’s one of about 10 percent of Tongan students selected to attend the government school. He also enjoys seminary. “He wakes us up early so he can get to seminary,” his mother, Malenita, says.
But singing is what he loves—though his family didn’t even know he could until he was asked to sing a solo during a Primary program one year.
“Dillon’s always been shy,” his mother says.
He did so well in the Primary program that he was asked to sing during a conference of the Nuku‘alofa Tonga Stake. After that he was hooked.
He told his mom, “One day I’m going to use my talent for God.” After he was chosen to sing on the soundtrack, he told her, “Mom, I used my talent.”
Dillon’s older brother, Sione, says he tries to encourage Dillon to sing. “I would love to have the talent he does,” he says. “Everybody wants him to share it.”
“I like it when he sings,” says his sister, Pea.
“I want to sing like him some day,” says his nine-year-old brother, Paula.
Dillon is grateful for his family’s support. “I love my family,” he says. “I’m sure that with their help, I can make my weakness a strength.”
As Dillon worked with the sound crew to record the songs, he struggled with one note. “I couldn’t hit it,” he says. “We rehearsed for hours.”
Finally, exhausted and discouraged, he went home that night, knowing that the next morning he’d have to record the song.
“I went straight to my room and prayed to my Heavenly Father to help me,” he says.
All he could think about was how important the soundtrack would be to the 50,000 members of the Church in Tonga, as well as thousands of others who speak Tongan around the world.
“It was one of the longest nights of my life,” he says.
After a long night of prayer and a little bit of sleep, Dillon walked into the recording studio and hit the note.
“Hallelujah,” he remembers saying. “I was happy.”
One of Dillon’s favorite scriptures is Joshua 1:9: “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”
Dillon put that promise to the test, and he learned it was true. “I tried my best. I put my best effort and heart into the songs so the listeners will be able to feel the Spirit.”
As Dillon grows out of his fear and into his talents, he recognizes he has received a lot of help—not only from his family but from his Heavenly Father.
“I know,” he says, “that God answered my prayers.”

The group also delivered 10 desktop computers and a new laptop and monitor to the Seventh-day Adventist Church-run Kauma High School. The computer lab at Kauma High School had earlier been destroyed by fire.
Elder Tune and President Kendall expected to drop the computers off at the door of the school but were delighted to find that the entire student body was gathered to express their sincere thanks. The students further gladdened the visitors’ hearts by singing in their beautiful harmonic voices “Joy, Joy, My Heart is Full of Joy”.
“The feeling there was so powerful, it was almost overwhelming,” Elder Tune said. “We felt so much love and yes, we felt hearts full of joy.
“The Kauma High School principal, Tekemau Ribabaiti, is a wonderful, energetic man who is 78 years of age and still contributing so much. He was thankful for the computers, but even more so, he was touched that we would come so far to visit.”
Principal Ribabaiti told his students, “These people come with their hearts. We can feel their love. We are grateful for the computers, but we are more grateful for their hearts.”

John Hunter knew that his father, President Howard W. Hunter of the Pasadena (California) Stake, was no sports fan. Still, his father seemed unusually preoccupied that autumn evening in 1959 as he quietly stared at the players, almost unseeing, throughout the Brigham Young University–University of Utah football game. Howard Hunter could not tell his son that he was reflecting on an interview he had had with President David O. McKay a few hours earlier.
President Hunter, visiting in Salt Lake City for general conference, had not been surprised by the message he had received asking him to come to President McKay’s office between sessions that day. He had been working on a project for the First Presidency and assumed that the President wanted a report.
But President McKay’s greeting was astounding: “Oh, I’m glad you’re here, because tomorrow you’re going to be sustained as a member of the Council of the Twelve.”
“I was shocked at the call,” President Hunter remembers, even though he had broad experience in Church leadership positions. He had been a stake president for nearly ten years and had previously served as a bishop for almost seven years. He was also chairman of the regional council of stake presidents in Southern California.
Howard Hunter listened as President McKay told him how much he would enjoy his new calling and how it would change his life. Then President McKay asked him not to share the news with anyone but his wife until his name could be presented for a sustaining vote in conference the next day.
Clara May Hunter [Clairel was seventy-two kilometers away in Provo at that moment, visiting John and his wife, Louine, who had recently given birth to the Hunters’ first grandchild. Elder Hunter telephoned to tell “Claire” the news, but after he got the words out, there was silence on the line as both were overcome by emotion.
“I went to the afternoon session and sat down, and the weight of the responsibility started to rest down on me. I got so nervous I couldn’t sit there, so I got up and started to walk. I don’t know where I went,” President Hunter remembers, but the time was spent thinking about how the new calling would affect him.
It would mean giving up his law practice and the life he and Claire had built in Southern California during nearly thirty years of marriage. But, along with thinking of the sacrifices they would have to make, President and Sister Hunter also thought of the covenants they had made in the temple to serve the Lord at all costs. “We expected to honor the commitment we had given,” he says.

My introduction is something said in my presence by one of these valiant missionaries. “As I look back on my life,” he said, “I can hardly imagine a barefoot surfer from Hawaii completing his third mission. But when I felt the warm embrace of the Savior, I wanted to serve Him, and I changed.” Yes he did!
Stanley Y. Q. Ho told me that until he was 30 years old he did nothing but “hang around the beaches at Waikiki.” Then he found the gospel, he married a Latter-day Saint girl, and he changed. Since then he has fulfilled many callings, including bishop and stake president. Now, Elder Ho and his beloved Momi, who is responsible for so many of the changes in his life, have served three full-time missions.

Bridging the gap between two stakes, between groups of friends, between the unsure and the self-assured, between the host ward families and youth, and even between here and hereafter played a major part in the combined Reading Pennsylvania and Wilmington Delaware stakes youth conference. Instead of visiting a local college campus as they had done in the past, the youth conference committee elected to try something a little different—a bed-and-breakfast approach. Some of the youth approached the new plan with apprehension, but as things fell into place, they couldn’t have been more pleased.
“The reason we went along with the bed-and-breakfast idea was the economy of it,” Heather Segely, 16, of the Allentown Pennsylvania Ward said. “We all had a vote. I thought, Oh, no, I don’t want to stay with somebody. I liked the dorms. It was kind of a tradition.”
But midway through the conference, Heather changed her mind. “Since everyone else voted in favor of the idea, I went along with it. I’m really glad I did because I’m having the best time. The host families are wonderful. Everyone seems to like where they are staying. It’s good for a group of youth to get together in one house, then you get to know ten people instead of one roommate.”

When we started our pirate band, there were six of us: Jason, Kyle, Joel, Jeremy, Marv, and me. We made swords out of sticks and borrowed bright-red bandannas to tie around our heads. And we rolled our pant legs to our knees, wore patches over our eyes, and painted tattoos on our arms with watercolor markers.
Brother Rogers’s huge backyard was a jungle of cornstalks, cantaloupe and watermelon vines, apple and peach trees, and berry bushes, so we met there to make our plans for raiding and plundering everyone along Piccadilly Street.
“Do we share the loot?” Jason wanted to know.
“Sure,” I said, sounding as gruff as I could. “That’s what pirates do. We’ll bring the stuff back here and divide it up evenly. Any more questions?”
For a while everyone was quiet, then Joel asked, “Where are we going first? Who are we going to raid? And what are we going to plunder?”
I hadn’t thought much about that.
Jason spoke up. “Maybe we ought to look around first and see what there is to raid and plunder.”
“Good idea,” I agreed. “We’ll split up and meet back here in fifteen minutes. But don’t let anybody see you or follow you back here to our hideout.”
We all nodded, straightened the bandannas on our heads, adjusted the patches over our eyes, checked our swords, and sneaked out of the cornfield.
“Wow! What a gang of cutthroats!”
We all jumped and whirled around. Marv tripped over a cornstalk, and Jason and Jeremy dropped their swords. Joel jabbed me in the back, and the patch over my eye slipped down and covered my mouth.
Brother Rogers was hoeing the weeds around his cantaloupes. He leaned on his hoe and grinned. “I heard some dastardly deeds being planned in there,” he said, nodding toward the corn, “but I didn’t dare go in for fear I’d be taken hostage and put up for ransom.”
“Now we’ve been caught,” Joel grumbled. “We got caught before we even got started.”
“You’re not going to tell on us, are you, Brother Rogers?”
Brother Rogers took off his straw hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “Do you pirates have a hideout?” he asked.
“We figured on using your cornfield,” Marv muttered.
“Oh, an old cornfield isn’t any place for a pirate hangout,” Brother Rogers said. “You need a place where you can really hide and plan. I think I know just the place. Come with me.”
We followed Brother Rogers to the corner of his lot behind some thick berry bushes. Almost hidden by the bushes was a little shed. I’d seen it before, but I’d never paid much attention to it.
Brother Rogers pushed through the bushes, opened a little door, motioned for us to follow, then ducked inside the little shed. At first we wondered if Brother Rogers was going to hold us hostage, but we finally followed him.
For a little while we had to just stand still while our eyes got used to the dimness. The place was full of rusty tools, boxes of newspapers, and battered buckets and cans.
“This used to be my three boys’ clubhouse!” Brother Rogers explained. “It’s a little dusty, and there’s some junk in here that needs to be cleaned out, but it could be fixed up into a right good pirate hideout.”
“You mean you’d let us use it?” Kyle asked.
“Sure.” Brother Rogers grinned. “No other gang of pirates has asked for it yet. You’ll have to promise not to do any raiding or plundering around my place, though.”
“Would you get some of our loot?” I asked, not sure I wanted to trust Brother Rogers with our pirate plans or to give up any of our treasure.
“No, you can keep the loot.”
The others in the gang looked at me and nodded. I started for the door. “Well, let’s get going, then, and find out what there is to raid and plunder.”
“Wait a minute,” Brother Rogers called after us. “Are you good pirates or bad pirates?”
“Shoot,” Kyle said, “I thought all pirates were the same.”
Brother Rogers shook his head. “No,” he answered slowly. “It depends on how you raid. If you raid to do good, then you’re good pirates.”
“But what’s the sense of raiding and plundering to do good?” I wanted to know.
Brother Rogers thought for a long time. “Pirates are always looking for treasure, aren’t they?” We all nodded our heads. “Well, if you’ll raid and plunder to do good, you’ll find some treasure.”
“Oh, come on, Brother Rogers,” Jason said. “There isn’t any treasure around here. You’re just kidding us.”
Brother Rogers shook his head. “You mark my word—you pirates go on your first exploration, looking for good things to do, and before you’re finished today, you’ll have found some treasure.”
When we left, we weren’t sure that Brother Rogers knew what he was talking about. But since he’d offered to give us a hideout, we decided to give his way a try.
“What are we looking for?” Kyle grumbled, swinging his sword at a branch.
“Hey, look!” Jeremy pointed down the street at Tiffany and Tami Mason, who were walking our way. We crept into the bushes on the opposite side of the street and watched them approach.
“I wonder where they’re headed,” Marv whispered.
“They’d better watch it when they go past the Bailey place,” Joel said. “Old Ripper will scare the daylights out of them.”
Ripper was the Bailey’s German shepherd, and he was more bark than bite. But if you didn’t know that and he came charging up to you with his teeth bared and growling, you were likely to jump right out of your skin.
From where we were, we could see Ripper’s ears prick. As Tiffany and Tami approached, laughing and talking and not worrying about a thing, Ripper made his move.
“Now, Pirates!” I sang out.
Jerking the bandannas down over our foreheads and holding our swords high, we charged across the street, swinging our swords.
When Tiffany and Tami saw Ripper coming, they were so scared that they just froze. And Ripper was concentrating so hard on Tiffany and Tami that he didn’t notice us. He had charged around the Bailey’s chain-link fence and was only about five yards from Tami and Tiffany when we cut him off.
When old Ripper saw us pirates with our swords out and heard our pirate yells, his bark changed into a surprised yelp. He tried to stop, but he slid right into us. He didn’t waste any time getting turned around, though. And he didn’t stop running until he was clear around the Bailey’s house and under their back porch.
Tiffany and Tami stood wide-eyed with their mouths open. We grinned at them, and Marv made a little bow and announced, “The Piccadilly Street Pirates just wanted to make sure that you made it safely to where you were going.”
I liked the sound of that name. I puffed out my chest and said, “Yes, we’re the Piccadilly Street Pirates, and it’s our work and mission to go about spreading good.” Bowing to the two girls, I turned and shouted, “Let’s go, men.” And before Tiffany and Tami could say a word, we were gone.
“Hey, that was kind of fun,” Jason said as we hid in some bushes in my front yard.
“But we can only scare Ripper once,” Joel complained. “Now what do we do?”
“That,” Kyle said, pointing across the street to Sister Ballard’s garden. Sister Ballard had been in her garden most of the morning, pulling and hoeing weeds. But she had gone inside, leaving the last few rows of beans and peas unfinished. “Let’s finish weeding her garden,” Kyle said.
“Doesn’t seem like pirate’s work to me,” Joel grumbled.
“Let’s give it a try,” I said. “Maybe this will be as much fun as chasing old Ripper.”
We sneaked out of the bushes, crept across the street, and began to work. Because there were six of us, finishing the garden didn’t take long, and it was fun creeping up and down the rows and whispering to each other. When we finished, we gathered the weeds into a pile.
“When we do things,” Kyle said, “people need to know that pirates did it.”
“I know,” I said, “Wait here.” I ran across the street to my house for a notepad and pencil and scribbled a note: “The Piccadilly Street Pirates have struck again!” I put the note on top of the pile of weeds and jabbed a stick through it just as Sister Ballard started coming out her side door.
“Hide!” I commanded. We pushed behind the lilac bushes growing beside her house and watched. Sister Ballard pulled on her gloves, adjusted her straw hat, then walked right past the pile of weeds, picked up her hoe, and started for the rows of beans and peas!
We giggled as she began searching for weeds. She looked hard, scratched her head, and looked some more. Finally she saw our pile of weeds. When she read the note, the biggest, happiest smile spread across her face.
“The Piccadilly Street Pirates!” we heard her exclaim. “Well, that’s the best thing that’s ever happened on Piccadilly Street!”
She went into the house, and before we could slip away, she returned with a bulging bag. She set it by the weeds, then went back into the house. We looked at each other, then, making certain that no one was watching, rushed over to the weed pile. Taped to the bag was a note: “Treasure for the Piccadilly Street Pirates.” We snatched the bag and skedaddled. Safely away, we opened the bag and found chocolate chip cookies!
“Let’s go back to the hideout,” Marv said, “and eat our treasure.”
We headed for Brother Roger’s shed, but on the way we noticed that dogs had knocked over the Hansens’ garbage cans and scattered the trash, so we cleaned things up for them. Down the street Sister Wheeler had been trimming her bushes and hadn’t yet picked up the branches, so we gathered them and hauled them to the curb.
We dashed here and there, doing little good turns on the sly. And wherever we went, we left a note stuck someplace that said, “The Piccadilly Street Pirates have struck again!”
By the time we reached Brother Roger’s place, we were laughing and shouting and waving our swords like conquering heroes.
“Well, the pirates have returned.” Brother Rogers grinned as he saw us. “I finished just in time. Come in and see if you approve of your pirate den.”
“Wow!” I shouted as we filed inside. All the junk had been taken out, and the board floor had been swept. Brother Rogers had put an old table in the middle, with boxes and buckets around it for chairs. The two windows were covered with burlap sacks so that no one could peek in. There were nails pounded in the wall where we could hang our swords, and Brother Rogers had even made a big pirate map of the neighborhood and tacked it on one wall.
“We’re pirates for sure now!” Jason whooped.
“Thanks, Brother Rogers,” we all chimed in.
“And how was your raiding and plundering?” he asked with a wink.
“We saved Tiffany and Tami from Ripper.”
“We picked up the Hansens’ spilled trash.”
“We gathered branches at the Wheelers’ and hauled them to the curb.”
“We weeded part of Sister Ballard’s garden, and we even got some treasure!” I shouted, holding up the bag of cookies. “We’ll share them with you. And since we’re using your hideout, Brother Rogers, we’ll make you an honorary member of the Piccadilly Street Pirates.”
“I’ve always wanted to be a pirate,” he told us. “I’ve just been waiting for the right band to join.”

“This was a once in a lifetime experience to be part of a team of like-minded people, freely giving of their time and enjoying being part of the community,” reflects David Cook about his experiences serving as a volunteer for the Commonwealth Games held in Birmingham this past summer.
David is a member of the Church and worked within a team of 14,000 other volunteers who were critical to the successful operation of the games.
His role, experiences, and feelings along with other volunteers in the games who are also members of the Church living in the greater Birmingham area are shared below.
David Cook, Coventry Stake
David was selected to assist in the interview process from September through December of 2021, to pare down over 40,000 applicants to the 24,000 who were eligible for an interview. After reviewing applications and a 30-minute interview, 14,000 individuals were finally selected to receive one of over three hundred roles as a volunteer. He later provided training for specific roles at the games’ venues and looked after the welfare of the volunteers.
He says, “I interviewed amazing people, I served with amazing people. I worked with amazing people.”
David recalls that those applying for roles as volunteers often expressed the sentiment, “The games are an opportunity for me to give something back to the city that has helped me so much and that I have enjoyed. It has meant so much to me.”
According to David Cook, there were over 6,000 athletes and officials at the Games. “We all agreed that this was a ‘once in a lifetime’ experience as the games happen every four years and could occur in any Commonwealth country. It is unlikely that they will be in Birmingham again in my life.”

Cleave to your spouse. Just months after we were married, my husband and I moved halfway across the country from our parents. As a result, we couldn’t turn to our parents for help with every little thing. We were forced to do what the Lord counsels—to “cleave” to our spouse and “none else” (D&C 42:22). To “cleave” means to be steadfast, to adhere, to hold fast.
In those early years of marriage we struggled to get used to military life, to each other, to long separations, and in time to a baby. But we weathered those storms and held tighter to each other, and our love grew strong despite the storms.
Since everything else should support our marriage and our desired goal of exaltation, we do not cleave to material things, careers, or volunteer work, although each needs our attention occasionally. Sometimes we have even temporarily put aside the tasks associated with a Church calling because our marriage needed our attention.
Our moments of cleaving are sometimes brief. They are often combined with other tasks, like driving to and from a leadership meeting or doing grocery shopping together without children. Just as we look for opportunities to be with our children, we also look for opportunities to be without them.
Other moments of cleaving are planned. The advice to have a weekly date is inspired. It doesn’t have to be expensive; it doesn’t even have to be out of the home. It does need to be without children. It is our time to nourish our relationship and keep our love healthy and alive.
With all the many voices that attempt to thwart our efforts to gain exaltation, we know anything that tries to break apart the marriage is not of God. Our marriage has survived because we have tried to follow the counsel to cleave to each other and to serve God.—Becky E. Ludlow

“Come on, Jennie. You’re an old slowpoke,” Tobie called good-naturedly to his little sister who ran to meet him every day after school. She could hardly wait to go to school with him and whenever Tobie declared that it wouldn’t be any time at all until she would be old enough, her eyes sparkled with anticipation.
Most afternoons were so quiet that Jennie and Tobie could hear birds singing or wild geese honking overhead. But today there came a new and different sound. Tobie looked in the direction of the strange, rumbling noise and saw a group of men coming toward them, raising a cloud of dust as they traveled.
Quickly Tobie pulled his sister back into the bushes and warned her not to make a sound. A crooked line of tired soldiers soon came into view, shuffling by slowly like the ragtag end of a beaten army. Several mules were pulling old, creaky wagons filled with injured men who moaned hoarsely every time the wheels jounced over stones in the road. As the strangers passed, Tobie noticed ragged and torn uniforms, bandage-wrapped heads, crutches made of broken tree limbs, and sallow, staring faces, some not much older than his own. The men who could walk were silent as they trudged along, their eyes fixed on the dusty road before them.
When the last marcher disappeared around the bend, Tobie grabbed Jennie’s hand and they ran to their farmhouse among the trees. Mother was coming from the barnyard with a basket of eggs she had just gathered. “What’s wrong children?” she asked.
They told her about the men, and when Father came home from the fields later for their evening meal he listened carefully to their news. The previous day, a neighbor had told him that British troops had taken over the nearby city of Philadelphia after a victorious battle near the Birmingham meetinghouse several days before.
When Tobie described their woebegone appearance, Father knew the bedraggled men belonged to General Washington’s defeated army. Apparently the surviving soldiers were looking for a place to rest and care for their wounded companions.
“I’m sure we have nothing to worry about,” Father said. However, when bedtime came the doors were bolted securely and his rifle was placed within easy reach.
The next day was Saturday and Tobie got up early to help with the chores. Jennie stayed so close to her brother that he called her his “little shadow.” It was nearly noon when they saw a man approaching the garden where they were picking tomatoes. The boy pushed his sister behind him and grabbed a hoe that was lying on the ground. Trying to sound brave, he asked gruffly what the man wanted.
The stranger looked sadly at the two children and, probably thinking of his family so far from Pennsylvania, sat down wearily on an old tree stump. “Don’t be frightened,” he said, “I just need a drink of water and a place to rest for a while.”
Tobie put down the hoe and hurried to bring some water from a bucket near the pump. Looking more closely at the man’s ragged clothing, he could tell that the tall, thin figure was a soldier in the Continental army.
Jennie ran to the kitchen for her mother. When they returned, the soldier tried to get up but the effort was too much. “Ma’am, I sure hope I didn’t scare the young’uns,” he said, motioning to Tobie and Jennie.
Mother looked at the man’s tired, bearded face, and tears came to her eyes. “We’re glad you’re here,” she said. “We want to help you.” And within minutes she was busily cooking food for the hungry stranger.
As they watched him eagerly eat every crumb of food from the plate, he told them about his children in Virginia. When he finished eating, the soldier talked of the men who had passed by the farm the day before. “There will be thousands like them,” he said, “coming to camp in the hills of Valley Forge. They have very little food and many are sick or wounded. A few stronger ones like myself have come searching for help from the surrounding farms. Others are cutting logs to build huts for shelter. There is no way of knowing how long we’ll have to stay, perhaps all winter.”
Later when Father came home and heard about the suffering of the men in the army, he and the soldier rode toward the place where General Washington’s troops were struggling to build a camp, while Mother began searching for pieces of cloth that could be used for bandages for the wounded men. Tobie and Jennie laid clean straw on the barn floor and placed buckets of cool water inside the door.
As dusk crept over the rolling Chester County hills, Father returned with some of the wounded men. Before long they were lying on the comfortable straw, eating hot soup and having their dirty bandages replaced with clean strips of cloth. As the tired and homesick soldiers thought of their own children so far away, they smiled at Jennie and Tobie.
By nightfall all were cared for, quiet fell over the barn, and the weary family returned to the house. They were preparing for bed when suddenly they heard the sound of horses’ hooves followed by a knock. Cautiously, Father opened the door.
A man stood in the doorway—a quite different-looking soldier than those in the barn. “May I come in?” he asked quietly.
There was something about this man who walked so very straight and tall that thrilled Tobie. A long black cloak almost covered a threadbare officer’s uniform. An aide, holding the bridle of a beautiful white horse, stood outside while the stranger visited in the kitchen.
“I understand that some of my men are sleeping in your barn,” he began. “Did you give them permission to stay there?”
After he was told of the day’s events the tall soldier was quiet for several moments. Then he said, “For my men and myself, I am grateful to all of you. Thank God there are so many good people in this great land of ours.” And before anyone could answer he bowed to Mother, shook Father’s hand and left.
It wasn’t until the next morning that the men in the barn learned of their commander’s visit the night before. They were grateful that in spite of his many concerns during this trying period he came himself to see after their well-being. But no one could have guessed then that the night visitor, Gen. George Washington, would soon become the first president of the United States.

The fictional character Mary Poppins is a typical English nanny—who happens to be magical. She blows in on the east wind to help the troubled Banks family of Number 17, Cherry Tree Lane, in Edwardian London. She is given charge of the children, Jane and Michael. In a firm but kind manner, she begins to teach them valuable lessons with an enchanting touch.
Jane and Michael make considerable progress, but Mary decides that it is time for her to move on. In the stage production, Mary’s chimney sweep friend, Bert, tries to dissuade her from leaving. He argues, “But they’re good kids, Mary.”
Mary replies, “Would I be bothering with them if they weren’t? But I can’t help them if they won’t let me, and there’s no one so hard to teach as the child who knows everything.”
Bert asks, “So?”
Mary answers, “So they’ve got to do the next bit on their own.”

When we were in South America, in Uruguay, a woman there told us that she had only been a member of the Church for a year or two but that she had brought 92 people into the Church. She went to the market to get her food for the day, and there she would spend a little time with other women whom she had met before, and she would say to them, “Have you heard the Mormon elders from America? Well, you had better listen to them. They have a great message that will change your life. Ninety-two people had listened to her, and she had contacted the missionaries, and they had baptized them.

One young woman remembers how her visiting teacher shared a spirit of caring, concern, and friendship with her. She had moved into a new ward at the end of her last year of law school and found herself to be the youngest member there by about 30 years. “Feeling uncomfortable and not knowing anyone,” she recalls, “I drifted into semiactivity. I would appear and disappear in Church like a shadow without exchanging words with anyone.
“In the next few weeks there appeared at my door a vibrant, good-humored, white-haired lady who announced she was my visiting teacher. I received visits from her on an almost weekly basis, many times with other sisters of the ward in tow so that I might become acquainted. [Before long] I was no longer a shadow in Church. [My visiting teacher introduced] me into a vast army of friends. After having been away from [this ward] for several years, I still count its members [as] some of my most cherished friends.”8

I had a friend in the fourth grade named Victor. I’d sometimes spend the night at his house, but it was different than at other friend’s homes. Victor had not only learned to love himself, but he had learned to love others.
I remember one time when we were at both ends of a flight of stairs in his house playing catch with a soft ball. He was at the top, and I was at the bottom. I would have to tell him when I was going to throw the ball to him and where it was going. My friend Victor was blind.
We played for quite some time, laughing and having a lot of fun. The ball would hit him in the head or the shoulder, and we’d laugh and laugh. Once I said, “Okay, it’s coming right now.” Both his hands flew out just at the right time, and he caught the ball. We were both so excited, we just couldn’t believe it.
Time went by, and for a while we had a lot of our classes together. But they became fewer. By the time we reached junior high school, I didn’t see him very much because he was in special classes.
Then student body elections came up, and Victor wanted to run for president. The day came when everyone who was trying for an office gave speeches. It was finally Victor’s turn. This was his chance, and I hoped so much he would make it. A woman whispered something in his ear. Was it a vote of confidence or directions on how to get to the podium?
Victor finished his speech and walked back to his chair. The crowd cheered for him so loudly it nearly knocked him over. He didn’t promise world peace or anything. He just spoke with great confidence. A few days later, the election results were announced. Victor had won! I was so happy I cried for him.
Sometimes I would go home at night and ask Heavenly Father if he would let Victor have my eyes, if only for one day, just so my great friend, our president, could walk down the halls at school without getting smashed into and knocked around. But I guess Heavenly Father knew Victor was doing all right because Victor never once let his blindness stop him.
As a member of the Church, I have sometimes let the things I can see get in the way. I’ve let them stop me from doing what I should do. Victor taught me this great principle: It’s not the things you look at in life—it’s your attitude, or how you look at them, that counts. I was so blind that Heavenly Father had a blind friend teach me to see.

“If those clouds get any darker, I’ll need a light to work by,” grunted the older man who worked alongside Lao Moy. He was placing a low-power explosive into a crack in a mammoth-size granite boulder.
Twelve-year-old Lao Moy wiped the rock dust from his eyes and squinted into the wintry heavens. The sharp wind that knifed down through the cottonwood canyons of the Wasatch Mountains cooled the sweat on his face. He thought of the high winds he and his father Chen had experienced on the clipper ship that had brought them to America from their ancestral home in China seven years ago.
Lao Moy’s father had been a fisherman on a sampan in Canton when a terrible wharf fire took the lives of Mother, Grandfather, and his baby sister Sze. Then the lure of gold in a strange, far-off land called America tempted Chen in the summer of 1855 to leave China for the goldfields of California. Perhaps, he thought, I can do better by Lao Moy there.
But Lao Moy was to discover at a very young age, along with his father, that the Lord makes the rain to fall on the just and the unjust. What little gold Chen was able to earn as a mine worker was stolen by his rough, bad-tempered employers. Then had come that awful night when a half-dozen drunken men had broken down their shanty door and killed him.
Lao Moy stared at the cloud shadows drifting across the canyon walls like a vulture’s wing. He gritted his teeth and his eyes filled with tears. The bitter memory of his father’s death lodged once again in the depths of his heart.
The immigrant’s youthful eyes shifted to Mosiah Twiggs, the big, bearded Mormon who had rescued him that fateful night. Waves of love and gratitude rolled up the shores of Lao Moy’s sore heart and washed away his tears.
Mosiah, too, had been ensnared by dreams of gold, so he left the Salt Lake Valley settlement in ’49 to fall prey to the same misfortune that had beset so many others—empty pockets and broken dreams.
After his father’s death, Lao Moy had agreed without misgivings to return with Mosiah to Salt Lake City, feeling a loyalty to the soft-spoken stranger who had risked his life to save someone he didn’t even know.
It had been a hazardous journey by wagon from the goldfields of California to the Salt Lake Valley, and they had encountered countless perils. But Mosiah’s promise that the God of Israel would protect them had planted the seeds of a testimony in the boy’s heart. Lao Moy wondered about this man who dutifully paid 10 percent of his earnings to his church for tithing.
Yet standing in the way of Lao Moy’s spiritual progress was that old bitterness born in the goldfields. It crouched like a great beast over his peace and challenged his moments of newfound joy. He had long wished to rid himself of it, to strike out against it, but something or someone always seemed to stand in the way.
Mosiah gazed curiously in the direction of the boy’s unbroken stare. “Autumn leaves die beautifully, don’t they, Lao Moy?” he said, his face lifted into the leaf-spattered wind.
“Yes,” answered Lao Moy, his hurtful thoughts suddenly scattered by his guardian’s grand vision. Autumn was indeed a beautiful time of year, especially in the canyons. Lao Moy’s eyes raced up the huge, yellow red chasms with renewed excitement. He loved these mountains. Mosiah had told him many times about them. How the erosion of long ages had cut deep canyons. How huge glaciers, descending with unyielding power, had broken loose and carried countless boulders, many of goliath size, down the immense mountain furrows. It was these isolated blocks, called erratics, that provided the supply of building stones for the Salt Lake Temple.
In these canyons, Mosiah, Lao Moy, and many other faithful Saints worked tirelessly to divide the boulders with hand drills, wedges, and low-power explosives. The rough blocks were then transported by oxteam—four yoke required for each block—and every trip was a difficult three- or four-day journey to the temple site some twenty miles away.
Mosiah touched Lao Moy’s shoulder and brought him out of his reverie. “I’m going to set off the blast, Lao Moy,” he cautioned, and then shouted a warning to the nearby workers. Mosiah lit the fuse and sprinted with Lao Moy for cover.
Two other workmen held a team of oxen. One of them was fourteen-year-old Corey Atwood. Corey, a tough, stout boy, had long taken pleasure in cruelly funning Lao Moy because of his broken English, his long queue (braid), and his quiet and obedient ways. It was often Corey who kept Lao Moy’s bitterness alive, but the Chinese boy had held it all inside, even when the troublesome Corey had once grabbed Lao Moy’s queue and threatened to cut it off with a knife.
The blast erupted like the sound of cannon fire over a Virginia cottonfield, and the big piece of granite split in two. Cheers went up, and Mosiah scrambled up the rocks to view his accomplishment. Lao Moy started up, too, but was soon held fast by Corey, who held onto his queue.
“What’s the matter, Lao Moy,” he chuckled, “somebody got your tail?”
Suddenly something exploded inside Lao Moy with no less force than Mosiah’s dynamite blast. He turned and struck Corey in the face so hard that the big boy was lifted off his feet and thrown backward in front of the team of oxen. The wide-eyed Atwood looked as surprised as Lao Moy. He wiped at the blood on his mouth and started to lift himself up when a clap of thunder suddenly boomed. As the already spooked oxen lurched forward, Lao Moy sprang for Corey and rolled him out of the path of pounding hooves and grinding wheels.
For a long moment the two boys just lay there, staring at each other. Finally, a smile broke across Corey’s dusty, blood-smeared face. Lao Moy smiled back, and all the old bitterness in his heart seemed to melt away like ice in a summer sun. A new peaceful feeling assured him it would not return.
Lao Moy was forty-five years old when the Salt Lake Temple was finally dedicated on April 6, 1893; Mosiah, seventy-six; and Corey Atwood, forty-seven. Corey sat close beside Lao Moy as President Wilford Woodruff offered the dedicatory prayer. A friendship had grown between them, a friendship as strong as the temple granite they had helped to cut. And like that granite, it would last forever.

At the time, the temple was quiet and functioned in ‘phase two’, limiting operations for live ordinances by appointment only. When tighter lockdown restrictions were announced, it was apparent that the temple would soon close. With this in mind, and not knowing when the temple would reopen, a few couples quickly moved up their plans to get married and be sealed the day before the temple closed its doors.

“We continue to pray that the temple will again fully open. The temple is a place where visitors and patrons come to feel peace and closeness to God,” said President Martin. “Even during this time of closure, we knew that people have missed coming to the temple, even to walk the grounds. We would see them come to the closed gates, spend a few minutes, and then leave.”

In his talk “Go Forward in Faith’ at the April 2020 general conference, Russell M. Nelson said, “Brothers and sisters, during times of our distress when temples are closed, you can still draw upon the power of your temple covenants and endowment as you honor your covenants. Please use this time when temples are closed to continue to live a temple-worthy life or to become temple worthy.”1

During their first few weeks, the Martins, McKechnies and Hoyles participated in virtual training with the First Presidency and members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. (Prior to COVID-19, the training was held in person at Church headquarters in Salt Lake City with only temple presidents and matrons in attendance. Following the training, presidents and matrons would return home and share what they had learned with their presidencies, assistant matrons, and others.)

Sister Martin explained, “Being able to train together in this setting was a tremendous blessing. We were able to get to know each other … an opportunity that may not have occurred if the temple was fully-functioning and busy.” They felt a spirit of unity, she said.