Gospel Story Finder

Even though Carrie Peters of the Newport-Gwent Ward, Cardiff Wales Stake, has struggled with poor health, she chose to use her projects to develop her abilities and the talents of others.
Carrie organized a ward entertainment night, attended by more than 100 people. The event turned out to be such a great missionary tool that she organized a show for the Tregwillym Lodge elderly home the next year.
Her performers delighted listeners with Broadway songs and ended the program with the hymn “I Believe in Christ” (Hymns, no 134). Carrie’s living testimony of this song touched many hearts that night. She had just been discharged from the hospital 48 hours before the performance. It’s no surprise Carrie has since been called as her ward’s cultural arts specialist.

“I know when I joined the Church, I too expected everyone to be perfect. It was quite a shock to realize that they weren’t. I began to hear talk, rumors, and criticizing. Then a nonmember friend who had been coming to Church with me regularly commented on some of the backbiting. She said she didn’t think that Mormons were allowed to act that way. The only thing I could think of as an answer was to explain that we all have faults, but I’m not concerned about the faults of others. It is more important for me to do what I know is right and be a good example. In this way I may encourage others to live the gospel more fully. No feelings were hurt with this explanation, and I did not prejudice her against anyone else in the ward.”
Fiona EssonRichmond, British Columbia, Canada

This magazine is a treasure to read. When I was a teenager, I used to lightly glance at each issue of the magazine, occasionally finding an article or Q&A that interested me. Then I’d put it down after reading the poster and cartoons. Now that I’ve left home, I recently started a subscription to the New Era because many of the topics addressed still apply to me. I am filled with desires to do good while reading it. I wonder how much happier and more productive my teen years might have been if I had taken time to read through each issue. Although I liked it, I didn’t fully realize it as the positive influence that it is. I’m thrilled to be reading it again.
Alexander S., Montana

Eulogia Diaz de Sanchez was baptized in October 1960. A parish priest tried to persuade her to renounce the Church and return to the parish, but she was too sure of the testimony she had gained to be dissuaded.

I grew up in Norway. The nearest temple was in Stockholm, Sweden, an 8- to 10-hour drive away. Needless to say, any trip to the temple took careful planning and deliberation. Our stake planned two visits to the temple for the youth each year; several wards would rent a bus and go to the temple for a weekend. It was fun to go with other youth, but my family and I wanted to go to the temple together sometime.

So one year we decided to go to Stockholm during our summer vacation. It was a great experience, and it soon became a pattern for our summers. We would camp at a campground close to the temple. Each morning we would get up early for a baptismal session with other families from Norway who had come to the temple. Afterward we would play football and go swimming at the campground.

These summers are sacred memories for me now. Although we didn’t live close enough to the temple to go there each month, it was always a special occasion when we could go. And even though the car ride was long and tedious, the Lord blessed us for our sacrifice. The spiritual experiences I had at the temple helped me develop my love for the temple and its ordinances. They also brought us closer together as a family.

Twenty-three-year-old Tom Monson, relatively new bishop of the Sixth-Seventh Ward in the Temple View Stake, Salt Lake City, was unusually restless as the stake priesthood leadership meeting progressed. He had the distinct impression that he should leave the meeting immediately and drive to the Veterans’ Hospital high up on the avenues of the city. Before leaving home that night he had received a telephone call informing him that an older member of his ward was ill and had been admitted to the hospital for care. Could the bishop, the caller wondered, find a moment to go by the hospital sometime and give a blessing? The busy young leader explained that he was just on his way to a stake meeting but that he certainly would be pleased to go by the hospital as soon as the meeting was concluded.
Now the prompting was stronger than ever: “Leave the meeting and proceed to the hospital at once.” But the stake president himself was speaking at the pulpit! It would be most discourteous to stand in the middle of the presiding officer’s message, make one’s way over an entire row of brethren, and then exit the building altogether. Painfully he waited out the final moments of the stake president’s message, then ran for the door even before the closing prayer had been said.
Running the full length of the corridor on the fourth floor of the hospital, the young bishop saw some extra activity outside the designated room. A nurse stopped him and said, “Are you Bishop Monson?”
“Yes,” was the anxious reply.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “The patient was calling your name just before he died.”
Fighting back the tears, Thomas S. Monson turned and walked back into the night. He vowed then and there that he would never again fail to act upon a prompting from the Lord. He would acknowledge the impressions of the Spirit when they came, and he would follow wherever they led him, ever to be “on the Lord’s errand.”

This summer the older girls in our ward Primary went swimming at the local pool for activity day. Every girl came, and one brought a friend from another church. They were polite and courteous to each other and everyone around them. That alone would have made me proud, but the girls’ next actions were such that I’m sure Heavenly Father was proud, too.
A short while later, a man carrying a baby suddenly cried out, “I’ve lost my wedding ring!” With the baby in his arms, he could not find it by himself. Fortunately, he was standing near our girls. They instantly stopped playing and let the water settle. Within seconds, one of them spotted the ring and dove to get it for the man. He was very grateful.
Neither the woman nor the man asked to be taught by missionaries right then and there. But if they come into contact with the Church again, perhaps they will remember the examples set by the activity-day girls.

“Blast that girl!” said Arnie to himself. “Blast me, too! And blast everything that has to do with that stupid art show.”
He glanced upward towards heaven. “Why?” he asked. “Why on the day before the biggest art show of my life does she have to come to my school? What did I do wrong? What did I do to deserve this?”
Not receiving any answer, Arnie looked down at the pad he held in his hand. The beginnings of a little boy playing in the sand were sketched lightly in blue. Oh, yes, the picture would be a good one, one of his best. It would make a nice finale to his entry in the contest. But it was nothing compared to Jana Lee Smithy’s paintings in oil!
Arnie grimaced. If only she had arrived two days later! Then the judging would have been over and the art student-of-the-year award would have been his. After that Miss Jana Lee could have been the best art student in the school; it wouldn’t have mattered. But no. There she was. And she was brilliant.
Arnie threw down his pencil and groaned audibly. He glanced around the small park where he drew many of his sketches and collected ideas. What a waste of a beautiful day! But how could he be content to turn in just four drawings? Jana Lee Smithy was going to show four completed oil paintings, each a vision of color and light. When her paintings were unveiled in the morning and the school compared hers to his slight “sketches,” Arnie knew how his classmates would react. “Well,” they would say, “Arnie’s not quite as good as he makes out to be, is he?” And people would nod in assent and then never stop talking about what a genius Jana Lee was.
Arnie looked at the small boy who was unknowingly modeling for his sketch. Hurriedly and quietly the boy was building himself a castle. Tiny hands moved quickly and knowingly through the granules of yellow dirt. Wary of sand too dry or sand too wet, the boy’s small fingers gathered piles of sand together and molded them into turrets and walls. Broken twigs served as posts and pillars and flags for the castle.
Arnie wasn’t sure what everything the boy made was, but it was certainly immense. When Arnie began his drawing, the little fellow had just begun the main building. Now stables, dogs’ houses, an armory, and finally a great wall had been formed. The child was amazing. Or, thought Arnie, he would be until something better came along. Then the castle would be merely a trifle, something to be forgotten—like Arnie would be after tomorrow.
Arnie frowned and looked at his drawing. Despite its unfinished quality, he felt tempted to just leave it as it was. Nothing could help him now. Numbers of drawings couldn’t change the quality of Jana Lee’s work. Finally, discipline got the better of him. He picked up the blue pencil and finished the final details of the picture.
After another 45 minutes the picture was finished. Arnie smiled at the little figure in the drawing. The contentment on the child’s face was contagious, and Arnie grinned. It was a futile effort, he knew, like the sand castle whose immortality would lie in the little boy’s heart rather than in the park. But, like the child, Arnie felt a glow at having done a good job. The glow wasn’t big enough to fill the emptiness he felt at being a failure, but it was nice nonetheless. He gathered up his pencils and put them in their case. Carefully, he stood and, with a nod to the little boy, headed for home.
By the time Arnie reached his street, the slight high that finishing the drawing had given him was gone. Even the coziness of the familiar, flower-lined path that led to his front door had no effect. There’s not much that can make a failure happy, he reflected. The sounds of family that echoed in the air didn’t help, either. In fact, the thought of seeing his hopeful mother, proud father, and admiring sister made him want to hide. They’d all had such high hopes for him. And now he was letting them down. Arnie stood on the doorstep for a second trying to decide whether or not to tell them that he’d seen the winning entries, halfway hidden behind Mr. Olsen’s desk, and they weren’t his. Arnie shook his head. He didn’t want their sympathy. He opened the door.
“I’m home,” he called.
Sheryll, his sister, bounded past him on her way to the kitchen. “You don’t say?” she laughed over her shoulder. “I never would have guessed.”
Arnie grimaced at her. Sisters. Freshmen. Two deadly ingredients when combined. He put his supplies down on the floor and headed for the stairs. His mother’s voice caught him two steps up.
“You’re not going to leave your things here in the hall, are you?” He turned around and looked into his mother’s warning brown eyes. Arnie grinned sheepishly.
“Me?”
She nodded. “My visiting teachers are coming over tonight.” Arnie looked knowingly at her. “Not,” she said, raising her voice as well as her eyebrows, “that that should make any difference.”
“Of course not, Mom,” Arnie replied. He gathered his things up and took them with him to his room. Carefully, he put the drawing on his desk and his kit on the floor. Shutting his door carefully behind him, he made his way to the bathroom where he washed his hands. As he did so, he tried to smile in the mirror. It didn’t do any good. His brown hair looked unruly, his eyes dim, and his face ruddy. What a depressing sight! If my eyes looked any redder … He shrugged off the thought. What had he to complain about? He wasn’t hoping to make a living with his face, just his hands.
“Which,” he said to the face in the mirror, “are proving to be betraying assets.” Arnie went down to dinner.
As the family took their places after the prayer, Arnie’s father looked over the mashed potatoes at his son.
“So, are you ready for tomorrow, Arnie?” he asked. Arnie choked on a pea.
When his coughing had subsided he replied, “About as ready as I’m going to get, Dad.”
“Then you should be plenty ready,” said his mother.
“What were you doing this afternoon?” asked Sheryll.
“I was drawing at the park.” Arnie looked down at his plate. “I thought one more piece might help me in the contest.”
“That smacks of overkill,” said his father.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Arnie.
“Besides,” said Sheryll, “everybody in school knows how good he is. All my friends like his stuff. One more drawing will be …”
“One more drawing,” interrupted Arnie. “Enough. Isn’t there anything else to talk about?”
His mother looked at him with concern. “Are you feeling all right, Arnie?”
“Just nerves, dear,” said his father. But still, even as he spoke, Mr. Wells looked at his son with a searching look.
Arnie ducked his father’s gaze and stuck his fork into his mouth. Oops, he thought as his father’s look changed to one of amazement. I should have put something on the fork first.
“Arnie, if there’s anything …”
Frustrated, Arnie stood up. “May I be excused? I’m finished. And I’ve got to mount this last drawing.”
He could see by the surprised looks on the faces of his family that they were amazed by the sudden outburst. He continued, “I’ll be in my room.” Arnie backed out of the room and fled up the stairs.
“Well, at least they only doubted my sanity,” Arnie said to himself as he shut and locked the door behind him. “They don’t have to doubt my abilities until tomorrow.”
He looked forlornly at the drawing on his desk. “Ah, friend, if you only knew what humiliation you will face tomorrow, you wouldn’t smile so much.”
The little boy grinned at him happily. The scripture in 2 Nephi flashed into Arnie’s mind. “And men are, that they might have joy” (2 Ne. 2:25). Arnie frowned. Well, he thought, joy certainly hasn’t been my cellmate these last few hours! What’s there to be joyful about? Instead of a talent made out of silk, I get one made of a sow’s ear. And I’m supposed to be happy! He shrugged and set about making the results of his poor talent presentable.
When he finished, Arnie put his five entries on his bed and looked at them one at a time. Each of them was pleasant to look at. The laughter and light in them was enough to make any viewer smile. Each drawing represented a lot of effort. It was a pity that they would go to waste. Arnie shook his head and readied himself for bed.
After placing the five drawings and his books near the door, Arnie knelt to say his nightly prayer. “Heavenly Father,” he began. But his mind went numb. Arnie had always trusted his Father in Heaven, but this night he found it difficult to bare his soul. Before, he’d always known of his worth as a child of God. He’d never had any reason to doubt. But now, Arnie wasn’t everything that he thought he was. It was a little difficult to explain to Heavenly Father that things were different and that Arnie wasn’t quite the person he thought he had been.
Finally, after many minutes of silence, only one thing came to his mind. “I don’t understand,” he said softly, “why I am what I am. But I must be of some importance, despite my faults. Help me be happy.”
Arnie paused, then closed his prayer. He climbed slowly into bed, and after tossing and turning for a long while, drifted into sleep.
The next morning dawned much too early for Arnie’s likes. I’m not any happier, he thought, than I was last night. But he did feel a little more distanced from the despair than he had felt the night before. His drawings, as he looked at them one more time before leaving the house, didn’t look quite as inelegant as they had seemed. Still, they weren’t going to win any awards. Arnie still wasn’t quite good enough to be what was expected.
Despite Sheryll’s chatter in the car, Arnie maintained a stony silence on the way to school. Luckily, his lively sister was so excited about the competition, the weather, and her best friend’s new boyfriend, that it would have been impossible for him to have said anything had he wanted to. Finally, the ride was over. He said good-bye to his father and sister and escaped down the hall to the art department.
Voices could be heard behind the wood door as Arnie approached. He really didn’t want to see anybody just yet and was about to turn away when the door opened.
“Ah, Arnie,” said Mr. Olsen. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Arnie smiled weakly.
Mr. Olsen beamed at him. “I was just going to take Jana Lee down to where she’ll be hanging her paintings. But maybe you can show her.”
Great, thought Arnie, now I’m a glorified hall monitor.
Mr. Olsen continued. “Since you and Jana will be hanging your works next to each other, that should I make things easier for all of us. That’ll be all right, won’t it?”
Arnie nodded.
“Good.”
Arnie sighed and turned around. He heard the sound of Jana Lee’s feet behind him.
“Wait a second, Arnie,” she said as she reached his side. Arnie turned to give her one of his pained looks. But when he saw her he stopped.
Jana Lee smiled and adjusted the paintings which had started to slip. But that wasn’t what stopped him. It wasn’t the paintings either, though they were as magnificent as ever. It was something that he saw in her eye, something that he recognized. Her eyes were as red-rimmed as his own.
Why? he thought. What had she to worry about? When she was ready, they headed towards the library. Neither said another word, though Arnie saw her looking at him once as he glanced at her.
As Arnie thought about what he had seen and what it meant, something occurred to him that he had never thought of before. In the parable of the talents, different talents were given to the servants: five talents, two talents, and one talent. Arnie had always just assumed that some people were five-talent people and some people were two-talent people. But what he knew when the image of Jana Lee’s overworked eyes sank deep into his heart was that most people started out with both talents and potential for talents. Just because you didn’t have five talents the first day didn’t mean you couldn’t have them—if you worked. Didn’t the Lord say, “Well done, thou good and faithful servant” to the man who began with two talents? He had started with two and had come away with four. He had done good work.
Arnie was also a worker. Perhaps, today, Arnie had two talents. But, as he thought back, he’d only begun with one. Perhaps next time, at the next competition, Arnie would have a five-talent art like Jana Lee. She, as he saw in her eyes, had worked for hers. He, as he knew in his heart, could work for his. And with that revelation, being pleased with his own work, Arnie was, for the first time in a long time, content.
He and Jana Lee reached the wall where they would hang up their works. After he helped her with the paintings, Jana Lee helped him with his drawings. When they reached the last one, that of the boy in the sand, Jana Lee smiled.
“This one’s really good,” she said. “Who was the model? He’s got such a knowing look on his face.”
“I don’t know who he was,” replied Arnie. “But he was a smart kid. And he built a great sand castle.”

My favorite thing to receive in the mail is the Friend. Every month I read the whole thing. Last spring my third-grade teacher said it was important to read your favorite books and magazines again because you notice and learn things you missed the first time. In the garage I found a file cabinet with Friend magazines dating back to before 1980, when my oldest sister was born. I pulled out a stack and began to read them every day during my snack time.
This summer I was reading issues from 1993, the year I was born, when I recognized a story I had heard before. My dad had borne his testimony in sacrament meeting the month before and had told a story about some ancestors from his family history. I showed the story to him. It was the same story! (“Faithful Elizabeth” by Jenny Hale Pulsipher, August 1993). I felt that the Friend was really my magazine and that now I had two reasons for 1993 to be my favorite year!
I have read over 20 years’ worth of Friend magazines, many of them more than once, and I still look forward to each one every month.Cedar Ben Nye, age 9Wexford, Pennsylvania

Once again, the best way to learn any good skill is by practicing it. Our youth enjoyed role-playing different situations to think about how to act most appropriately. We also loved going out to eat as part of the dating academy experience. Our children learned how to act in a restaurant, order a meal, calculate the tip, and pay the bill by actually doing it when they were with us.

The moon was big and round and bright, just as it should be on the night of the Moon Festival. I held my glowing paper lantern higher, hoping that the Old Man in the Moon would see me amid the other children. The whole park gleamed with brilliant Chinese lanterns.
I dashed up the hill to where my parents and sisters sat on a blanket, nibbling moon cakes. My eldest sister, Mei Lai, was gazing at the moon. I knew that she was probably dreaming about that boy who took her to the dance last Saturday. That’s a girl for you! I thought. I’m glad that I’m not a girl.
Not that Mei Lai didn’t have a right to think about love tonight. Everyone thought about love during the Moon Festival, or Mid-Autumn Festival, the proper name that my sister preferred to call it. On this night the Old Man in the Moon supposedly wove an invisible red thread around couples who would one day get married.
Even I was thinking about love. But not that kind. I was thinking about how I could love my neighbors. My Primary teacher had told us last Sunday that we should, and ever since then, I had been wondering how I could ever do it. I couldn’t think of any neighbors in our apartment building that I even liked—especially not that new boy down the hall! Why, he didn’t even speak Chinese! The first time I saw him, I just kept looking at his eyes. I had never seen such blue eyes, except maybe on TV.
Once I had tried talking to him in the English that I was learning in school. “Where are you from?” I asked.
Looking at me oddly, he lifted up his nose and declared, “I’m an Aussie.”
Whatever an Aussie was, I certainly didn’t know. I went home and asked Mei Lai, who knew English well.
“An Aussie is someone from Australia,” she told me.
My mother’s voice interrupted my thoughts. “Sun Ling, it will soon be time to go home.”
“Oh, let me run once more through the park.”
“Well, you be careful with that lantern. Remember that you have a lighted candle in it.”
“I will.” As I sprinted down the hill, I looked up at the Old Man in the Moon to see if he was still watching me and my glistening paper lantern. I ran and ran, with my eyes turned upward toward the beautiful full moon.
Suddenly—CRASH! Was it a wall? No, it was a body. Another person and I tumbled over and over each other. It was the Aussie. When we finally stopped, we raised our tousled heads and looked at each other. I blurted out, “What are you doing here? This is a Chinese holiday!”
It was a good thing that he couldn’t understand my Chinese. I indignantly grabbed my lantern, which miraculously lay unharmed on the grass. In my mind I grumbled, Even if I wasn’t looking where I was going, it wasn’t really my fault. After all, he’s the one who doesn’t belong here.
A sizzle and a flare made us both jump up. His colorful paper lantern was in flames. My mother’s words flashed through my mind, “Be careful with that lantern.”
I looked at him. Then I cocked my head in amazement. Out of those blue, blue eyes tears were dribbling! It had never occurred to me that an Aussie could cry too.
The boy’s lips began to quiver, and he said, “My dad gave me that lantern.”
I didn’t understand all his words, but I understood what he meant. And I felt awful! I tried to remember how to say I’m sorry in English, but all my words came out in Chinese.
Suddenly, in Chinese, he said, “I’m sorry too.”
I blinked with surprise. Why he knew some Chinese words after all. He smiled at me. I smiled back.
The next day I strode into the house, banging the door happily behind me.
“What’s that huge grin for?” Mei Lai asked as she stirred vegetables and pork together in the wok.
“Oh, I’ve been learning to love my neighbor. Jim’s my friend now.”
“Who’s Jim?” she asked
“He’s the Aussie I told you about,” I replied, peering over the sizzling wok. I perched on a tall stool. “Do you know what? Before he came here, Jim had never even heard of moon cakes. So I gave him one with an egg-yolk center. When he bit into it, he sort of shriveled up his nose and tried to smile. I could tell that he didn’t like it.”
“So, do you think he’s still your friend?” Mei Lai laughed.
“Well, I did let him try a lotus-seed moon cake after that, and he ate every bit of it and smacked his lips.”
“I’m glad that you gave him something he likes,” said Mei Lai.
“I did give him one other thing that I hope he likes. I gave him my Book of Mormon.”
“Your Book of Mormon!” exclaimed my sister. “Whyever did you do that?”
“Well, because it’s the most special thing that I could share with a friend,” I answered.
“But how do you expect him to read it?” she said. “He doesn’t even read Chinese.”
“Joseph Smith translated the characters of the Book of Mormon from another language. Maybe God will give Jim the gift to translate too.”
“Look,” Mei Lai explained, “Joseph Smith was a prophet. Not everyone receives the gift to translate another language.”
I looked at my sister intently. “Mei Lai, I’m still glad that I gave the Book of Mormon to him.”
It was the week before Christmas. Someone knocked at our door, and Mei Lai opened it to blond-haired Jim. My friend didn’t see me sitting in the corner, so he spoke in English to my sister. “I read your book,” he said, holding up a blue book with Chinese characters of the Book of Mormon engraved on it.
“You read it!” she gasped. “But—but you don’t know Chinese, do you?”
“No. What I meant to say,” Jim explained, “was that my tutor read it to me. He comes every day to teach me Chinese, and so we have been reading it together. In fact, my tutor was wondering if he could get a copy of his own. Also, would it be possible to get a copy in English for my father?”
My sister finally closed her mouth from her astonishment. She smiled, motioning to me.
Jim turned and saw me. “Oh, Sun Ling,” he said in halting Chinese, “this book you gave me is very interesting. I am curious to find out more about it. Can you help me?”
“I’ll be happy to help you,” I replied slowly to make sure that he understood my words. “I can think of no better way to love my neighbor from Australia.”

One who listened and who followed was the Mormon missionary Randall Ellsworth, about whom you may have read in your daily newspaper or watched on the television set in your home.
Six months ago, while serving in Guatemala as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Randall Ellsworth survived the devastating earthquake which hurled a beam down on his back, paralyzed his legs, and severely damaged his kidneys.
After receiving emergency medical treatment, Randall was flown to a large hospital near his home in Rockville, Maryland. While confined there, a television newscaster conducted with Randall an interview which I witnessed through the miracle of television. The reporter asked, “Can you walk?” The answer, “Not yet, but I will.” “Do you think you will be able to complete your mission?” Came the reply, “Others think not, but I will.”
With microphone in hand, the reporter continued: “I understand you have received a special letter containing a get-well message from none other than the president of the United States.” “Yes,” replied Randall, “I am very grateful to President Ford for his thoughtfulness; but I received another letter, not from the president of my country, but from the president of my church—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—even President Spencer W. Kimball. This I cherish. With him praying for me, and the prayers of my family, my friends, and my missionary companions, I will return to Guatemala. The Lord wanted me to preach the gospel there for two years, and that’s what I intend to do.”
I turned to my wife and commented, “He surely must not know the extent of his injuries. Our official medical reports would not permit us to expect such a return to Guatemala.”
How grateful am I that the day of faith and the age of miracles are not past history but continue with us even now.
The newspapers and the television cameras directed their attention to more immediate news as the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months. The words of Rudyard Kipling described Randall Ellsworth’s situation:
The tumult and the shouting dies;
The Captains and the Kings depart:
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
Rudyard Kipling’s Verse, Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1946, p. 327.
And God did not forget him who possessed an humble and a contrite heart, even Elder Randall Ellsworth. Little by little the feeling in his legs began to return. In his own words, Randall described the recovery: “The thing I did was always to keep busy, always pushing myself. In the hospital I asked to do therapy twice a day instead of just once. I wanted to walk again on my own.”
When the Missionary Committee evaluated the amazing medical progress Randall Ellsworth had made, word was sent to him that his return to Guatemala was authorized. Said he, “At first I was so happy I didn’t know what to do. Then I went into my bedroom and I started to cry. Then I dropped to my knees and thanked my Heavenly Father.”
Two months ago Randall Ellsworth walked aboard the plane that carried him back to the mission to which he was called and back to the people whom he loved. Behind he left a trail of skeptics, a host of doubters, but also hundreds amazed at the power of God, the miracle of faith, and the reward of determination. Ahead lay honest, God-fearing, and earnestly seeking sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. They shall hear His word. They shall learn His truth. They shall accept His ordinances. A modern-day Paul, who too overcame his “thorn in the flesh,” has returned to teach them the truth, to lead them to life eternal.

After high school, David studied business at Utah State University. He graduated, found a job at a Salt Lake City department store, and was put in charge of hiring new employees. That’s when he met his sweetheart, Ruby Olson.

After spring term at the University of Utah, Ruby was hired to work at the store where David worked. He soon asked her to lunch. They dated for a year and were married in the Salt Lake Temple on 4 September 1930. Elder Haight said, “Ruby and I were married the right way, sealed in the temple with its divine covenants and commitments that promote trustworthiness, faithfulness, devotion, and dedication.”4 He and Ruby enjoyed 74 years of marriage. They have 3 children, 18 grandchildren, and 78 great-grandchildren.

Then one day my sister came to visit with her two beautiful little daughters. It was one month before my 24th birthday. Time was running out, and I knew I needed to decide what I was going to do with my life. That day one of my nieces fell asleep in my arms. As I watched her sleep I realized that someday I would have children and they would ask me, “Daddy, why didn’t you go on a mission?” At that moment I made my decision.
My decision was not easy for my mother to accept. She and my father were separated, and I was the only child at home with her. Still, I knew that what I was doing was right, so I filled out my papers and sent them in. When my call to serve in the Honduras Comayaguela Mission came, my mother was so upset she became ill. But in time, she began to accept my decision, and she even helped me prepare to leave.
On the day I left for the Missionary Training Center, I gave my mother a priesthood blessing. And as I served I began to understand the Lord’s promise: “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say” (D&C 82:10). How great was my joy when the calling I had so long dreamed of holding was finally mine—that of full-time representative of the Lord and His Church. How great was my joy when one year into my mission I received word that my mother had accepted the truth and had been baptized. How grateful I am that I took a leap of faith.

If you’re not wild about the thought of graduating as the only member of the Church in your class, you can always do what Tammy Shick of the Ridgeway Branch, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh Mission did. She helped convert two of her classmates.

But her missionary work didn’t stop there. She also gave a class presentation on the Book of Mormon and presented a copy to her non-LDS teacher. Then there was her senior paper, written on Church history.

Tammy is currently at Utah State on scholarship, majoring in Aerospace Engineering.

I used to index, but I stopped. This challenge encouraged me to resume service. [I found that] as soon as I engage in indexing, the Lord helps me stay calm, and patient, and I see difficult-to-decipher names light up. I feel joy in doing this service and want to do it over and over again. Thank you for the encouragement. Some of you (consultants) have the gift of motivating others to go further and contribute to this work. I am blessed and grateful to have you as brothers and sisters in Christ.

Each of us remembers with affection the teachers of our youth. I think it amusing that my elementary school music teacher was a Miss Sharp. She had the capacity to infuse within her pupils a love for music and taught us to identify musical instruments and their sounds. I well recall the influence of a Miss Ruth Crow who taught the subject of health. Though these were Depression times, she ensured that each sixth-grade student had a dental health chart. She personally checked each pupil for dental health and made certain that through public or private resources, no child went without proper dental care. As Miss Burkhaus, who taught geography, rolled down the maps of the world and, with her pointer, marked the capital cities of nations and the distinctive features of each country, language, and culture, little did I anticipate or dream that one day I would visit these lands and peoples.

I took my Friend to Scout camp in New Mexico. My family and I went there for a week so my dad could learn more about how important Scouting is for young men in the Church. I met Sister Margaret S. Lifferth. She was very kind to me. I was able to show her where her name was in the June 2009 Friend.
Sister Lifferth served as the first counselor in the Primary general presidency from 2005–2010.

On 8 October 2024, 31 young single adults from Papua New Guinea arrived in Tonga to attend the Nuku‘alofa Tonga Temple for the first time. The group included two full-time missionaries serving in the Papua New Guinea Lae Mission and most of the others have received or are waiting to receive mission calls.
They were warmly welcomed at the airport with traditional candy leis by former Lae mission leaders, Sitiveni and Kilisitina Fehoko (2016–2019), as well as several returned missionaries who served in Papua New Guinea.
After receiving their own endowments, the young adults lovingly performed proxy baptisms, initiatory, and endowments for their grandparents and other ancestors. They finished their temple service with a final sealing session, linking and uniting generations with eternal sealing power.
The young single adults had researched family names in anticipation of doing temple work for their deceased relatives.
In the evenings, they were met by Elder Sione Tuione, an Area Seventy as well as former mission leaders in New Guinea including Isileli and Milika Fatani, (Papua New Guinea Lae Mission 2019–2022), Mosese and Akanesi Naeata (Papua New Guinea Port Moresby Mission 1997–2000), and the Fehokos who offered powerful messages of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and eternal families.
The Fatanis and Fehokos provided delicious Tongan feasts and local wards hosted dances each evening, which the young adults loved.
The young adults also enjoyed an afternoon of sightseeing and shopping. Several of them received dental care at the Church’s dental clinic at Liahona High School.

In conclusion may I leave you a story. It is fiction, but in principle it is true. Can you imagine two young people at a time when the moon is full and the roses are in bloom and a sacred love has matured between them? Johnny says to Mary, “Mary, I love you. I want you for my wife and the mother of our children. But I don’t want you or them forever. Just for a season and then goodbye.” And she, looking at him through tears in the moonlight, says, “Johnny, you’re wonderful. There’s nobody else in all the world like you. I love you, and I want you for my husband and the father of our children, but only for a time, and then farewell.”
That sounds foolish, doesn’t it? And yet isn’t that in effect what a boy says to a girl and a girl says to a boy in a proposal of marriage when given the opportunity of eternal union under “the new and everlasting covenant,” but, rather, they choose to set it aside for a substitute that can last only until death comes.