Gospel Story Finder

I remember a while ago, my companion and I were ministering in a family with people of various ages (at the time it was called home teaching). My companion would give the lesson from the First Presidency monthly message, and I would focus on the children, tailoring the lessons to their needs and level to make sure they understood. One day at the end of one visit, one of the parents expressed his gratitude for the fact these visits had a different meaning to their children—and even more meaning to the parents because we were meeting the needs of everyone in their home.

The first lesson was learned when we were newly married and had very little money. I was in the air force, and we had missed Christmas together. I was on assignment overseas. When I got home, I saw a beautiful dress in a store window and suggested to my wife that if she liked it, we would buy it. Mary went into the dressing room of the store. After a moment the salesclerk came out, brushed by me, and returned the dress to its place in the store window. As we left the store, I asked, “What happened?” She replied, “It was a beautiful dress, but we can’t afford it!” Those words went straight to my heart. I have learned that the three most loving words are “I love you,” and the four most caring words for those we love are “We can’t afford it.”

A word of caution may be in order here, however. A friend of mine named Doug lost his father in an automobile accident when he was about thirteen years old. Though he knew they meant well, it was difficult for him to hear his friends whose parents were still living say, “I know exactly how you feel.” The fact is they probably didn’t, and consequently their well-intentioned remarks sounded hard. A simple “I’m sorry” would have been more appropriate. Furthermore, Doug felt oppressed by those people who felt it was their duty to get him to “talk about it” every time they associated with him. Once he felt the concern and sympathy of his friends by their simple expressions of sympathy, he preferred to introduce the subject himself.

Several young women sit in a living room on a Sunday evening, talking about the gospel, as they are all wrapped up in patchwork quilts. The scene doesn’t seem so unusual until you know it’s the middle of summer in Utah, and it’s very warm outside.
One of the young women comments on the situation. “It’s not that the house is cold or anything,” she says. “We’re all wrapped up in our blankets because it’s just comforting.”
It’s comforting because these quilts have become a big part of their lives. Each young woman earned the squares on her quilt and stitched the final product together. The quilts have a very special meaning because of the growth each young woman went through as she collected squares for a year and sewed her quilt together.
When the leaders of the ward introduced the quilt project, they gave each young woman an unused pizza box with two quilt squares inside. Some of the young women were confused and not sure if they would ever have enough squares to make a quilt.
“When I got the two squares in a box, I thought, ‘How am I supposed to make a quilt out of two squares?’ ” says Maren M., 16.
But over the next year, the young women gained more squares. They earned a square for each Young Women lesson they attended and for special occasions like holidays, camp, and New Beginnings. They got squares for finishing Personal Progress value experiences and for reading the Book of Mormon. On her birthday, each young woman was given a large block with a picture of her favorite temple.
“When our leaders explained the whole project to me, I did not want to sew a quilt, so I was just going to put it off,” says Katie W., 13. “Then I started getting the quilt squares every week, and I was so excited because they were so cute. Then it built up into this huge pile.”
“Two quilt squares at a time didn’t seem like anything,” says Abby M., 14. “They were just two little squares of fabric, and I didn’t think much of it. But slowly as I’d take them home from church and put them in my box, the pile just grew and grew and became a stack. Then before long, it was already time to sew them together.”
Most of the young women in the ward had never used a sewing machine before and had no idea how to sew a quilt. So each young woman received help from a mother, grandmother, or Relief Society sister.
“I got to go up to Idaho and work with my grandma on it,” says Mikayla S., 14. “I don’t get to see or talk to her very often, so it was really nice to go up and work on something with her. I also learned that I like to sew.”
Mikayla wasn’t the only one who found a new talent in sewing. “I didn’t know how good I’d be at sewing, but I knew my grandma would be there to help me,” Abby says. “It actually just came naturally. It was a cool skill that I figured out I could do, and it was fun.”
Since making their quilts, some of the young women have even used their sewing skills for other projects. Maren made pillows for the young women she was in charge of at camp. Katie made headbands as Christmas gifts for her friends at school.
In addition to learning how to sew, the young women learned other lessons.
“I learned patience, because I’m not very good at sewing, and I had to be patient with myself and my imperfections,” says Amanda W., 16.
Madison S., 15, learned how to be humble and ask for help with her quilt. “That happens a lot in our lives,” she says. “We don’t know how to do everything we want to do, and we have to ask Heavenly Father and our leaders and those who have gone before us how they did it and how we can then do it. It’s really helpful to me.”
During the project, the young women also had the opportunity to strengthen their testimonies through the experiences that the squares represented.
“It’s the squares on the quilt that represent my testimony,” Katie says. “That’s how it is in my life. You can’t just expect a testimony to come all at once. You have to wait; you have to get it one piece at a time. It comes slowly, but in the end it builds up a big, beautiful blanket—or a big, beautiful testimony.”
Abby agrees with that. “My quilt is like my testimony,” she says. “It’s like the quilt squares are all the little parts that come together and make me all of the things that I value in life, all the things that I treasure.”
All of the young women treasure their quilts and the experiences that led them to finish the quilts. It’s a reminder of what they have accomplished.
“My favorite square would probably be the Book of Mormon challenge because that was the first time I read the Book of Mormon all the way through,” Mikayla says.
Like Mikayla, each of the young women can point to her favorite squares and remember the experiences that go along with them. Those experiences will help the young women as they look to the future.
“I sleep with my quilt every night,” Katie says. “Every night before I go to bed, I look at the temple, and it reminds me that that’s where I need to end up.”
Many young women put the temple image in the middle of their quilts to remind them the temple is their focus.
“Going to the temple is one of my biggest goals,” Amanda says. “The temple is the first thing I notice when I see my quilt. I think it gives me a sense of direction.”
Maren says that when she sees the temple on her quilt, it reminds her of how she wants to go there. “It helps me to remember to dress modestly when I get ready for school and to make good choices as I go throughout the day,” she says.
The young women are all glad they accomplished this project, and they look forward to the things that they will accomplish in the future as they continue to progress and gain the pieces that will make up their lives.

Most people are glad to get away from home for a couple of weeks when they get a vacation. I’m glad to come home. Concert dates can keep our performing group away from home for months at a time. That’s probably why I felt so relaxed being back in Salt Lake, standing in line with a girl I liked, ready to see a movie I thought I’d rave about.
It was a popular space science fiction film, and the line was long. Waiting gave us time to talk but also time to think. My mind wandered to parts of section 88 in the Doctrine and Covenants. Section 88 [D&C 88] talks about the judgment day.
Verses 108 through 110 [D&C 88:108–110] talk about a great revealing that will take place, during which our actions will be shown to all. These verses even mention that our thoughts will be unveiled and imply that our life’s journey will be recreated to prove that the judgment is just.
I had heard people describe this as an epic motion picture on a giant screen, but that thought had never really been clear to me before. Now the thoughts came rushing to me. If a movie were made of my life, would I be half as excited to see it as the one I was standing in line to see now? Would I want to take a girl I liked to see it? Would I take my bishop? My friends? Would I invite the Savior?
What started as a simple thought evolved into deep reflections about my life and the motion picture I would make. The concept remained in my mind long after the true film ended and I had driven my date home. In fact, I kept thinking about it for weeks. I couldn’t get rid of the concern I felt wondering what type of movie it would be.

When I was a senior in high school, I was on the varsity cheerleading team. Every day at practice, the girls on my cheerleading team talked about what was going on in a daytime soap opera on television. I had never watched it and knew that it was a show with low morals. However, I felt left out every day at practice as the girls excitedly talked about the show. The Spirit whispered to me not to watch it, but I desperately wanted to be included in their conversations, so I started watching.

It didn’t seem so bad to me. I rationalized that it wouldn’t affect me. I knew that I wasn’t going to do the bad things that I saw the characters do. I got hooked and watched the show every day. When I went to Brigham Young University, I arranged my class schedule so I could watch it every day. I never missed an episode.

I got married and had my first baby. I put him down for a nap every day during the show so I could watch it.

As the years passed, the Spirit whispered to me many times that I should stop watching that show. But I refused. I was so involved with the characters and their lives. It was my way to relax, so I continued watching. I was convinced that it was not hurting me.

Nineteen years after high school, I was still watching the show every day. At general conference, Sister Sheri L. Dew, then Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, was speaking about walking away from the world and things that are unholy. She then said, “I invite each of us to identify at least one thing we can do to come out of the world and come closer to Christ.”2

When she extended that invitation, I felt a tremendous outpouring of the Spirit, and I heard the words in my mind, “You have to stop watching that show now!” It was so powerful; it was like a smack to my face. I knew in that instant that I could not ignore this prompting any longer. I felt an urgency to never watch the show again. I realized that not one character was doing anything virtuous or honorable. I was inviting trash into my life every day. I committed to the Lord, right then and there, that I would never watch it again.

It was not easy! Nineteen years of habit and addiction was hard to break. Monday came and it was time for the show to start. I walked over to the TV remote. I wanted so badly to turn it on. I remembered my commitment to the Lord that I wouldn’t watch it ever again. I walked away.

Then I thought about my favorite character and wondered what might happen to her and walked back to the remote. I knew I needed God’s help, so I got down on my knees and prayed for strength to be able not to watch it. I thought of my promise to Heavenly Father, and I walked out of the room. I chose to follow the promptings I had received from the Holy Ghost and to honor my commitment.

That scenario repeated itself every day that week and into the next. Every day, I knelt and prayed and pleaded for strength to not watch, and every day I chose Jesus Christ and walked away from a television show that was immoral. I received strength to overcome from the power the Savior offers through His Atonement.

After some time of doing this, a miracle occurred. I completely lost all desire to watch the show, after watching it daily for 19 years. It was amazing! I also lost the desire to watch all the questionable shows I had been watching, so I stopped completely.

My conscience became sharpened, and I recognized evil for what it was. I honestly wanted to avoid any appearance of evil (see 1 Thessalonians 5:22). I was not desensitized to it anymore.

But the most amazing thing that happened was that I felt the influence of the Holy Ghost magnified in my life beyond anything I had experienced before. My spiritual progress accelerated tremendously! All those years I had thought I enjoyed the companionship of the Holy Ghost, but I had been experiencing only a sliver of what I might have. I realized that watching those shows all that time did affect me. I had missed so many years of having a stronger companionship with God. When I used my agency to give up unholy, worldly things, the Spirit was free to come to me in much greater measure, and what an incredible difference that has made in my life to strengthen, comfort, and guide me.

We tend to hold on so tightly to things of no worth—things that actually hold the door closed to the blessings that God wants to bring into our lives. Why do we trade the powerful, enabling influence of the Spirit for the fun or the popular? Maybe watching a television show is not a big deal or a huge sin, but it kept me from having the Holy Ghost in great abundance in my life and slowed down my spiritual progression.

I am so thankful that the Lord didn’t give up on me but patiently kept asking me to give up something unholy so He could fill my life to overflowing with His influence.

At times it is better to leave some things unsaid. As a newlywed, Sister Lola Walters read in a magazine that in order to strengthen a marriage, a couple should have regular, candid sharing sessions in which they would list any mannerisms they found to be annoying. She wrote:
“We were to name five things we found annoying, and I started off. … I told him that I didn’t like the way he ate grapefruit. He peeled it and ate it like an orange! Nobody else I knew ate grapefruit like that. Could a girl be expected to spend a lifetime, and even eternity, watching her husband eat grapefruit like an orange? …
“After I finished [with my five], it was his turn to tell the things he disliked about me. [He] said, ‘Well, to tell the truth, I can’t think of anything I don’t like about you, Honey.’
“Gasp.
“I quickly turned my back, because I didn’t know how to explain the tears that had filled my eyes and were running down my face.”
Sister Walters concluded, “Whenever I hear of married couples being incompatible, I always wonder if they are suffering from what I now call the Grapefruit Syndrome” (“The Grapefruit Syndrome,” Ensign, Apr. 1993, p. 13).
Yes, at times, it is better to leave some things unsaid.

“How could you not tell me how horrible it is?” I wrote to Elder Newman, one of my instructors at the Missionary Training Center. When I arrived in the mission field 20 years ago, it was hard, and I was hating it. I would stick it out because I wasn’t a quitter, but I would never tell anyone it was the best 18 months of my life.

Elder Newman wrote back: “I’m sorry you feel that way, Sister Betz. Actually, Elder Bradford and I tried to tell you. All of you. We always do, but no one ever wants to believe it. Don’t worry. It will get better. And by the time you get home, you’ll be glad you went.”

I decided to make the best of it. After all, I was sure Heavenly Father wanted me to come, and I couldn’t deny the Spirit I had felt when I had approached Him with my decision to serve a mission. Many of my friends had served missions or were serving, and they seemed to have insights into the gospel that I felt I was missing. Every one of my missionary friends told glowing stories of people whose lives were touched by the gospel and of miracles they witnessed on a daily basis. They all said that serving a mission was the greatest thing they had ever done, and their experiences had helped me choose to serve.

Yet there I was in northern Germany with jet lag, a senior companion who was almost as green as I was, and cool weather in June. We were soaked to the skin at least twice a day and generally looked like we had been dragged through large puddles. Riding bikes didn’t make matters any better. We lived at the top of one of the few high hills in northern Germany, and our investigators, it seemed, all lived at the top of another. Most discouraging, however, was my awareness that I had not yet learned to recognize the subtle influence of the Spirit. I worried that I was doomed to failure as a missionary. And I hadn’t even been in Germany two months yet.

Incredibly, however, I came to find out that Elder Newman was right. It did get better. None of the hard stuff went away, but I learned to see and savor the good times.

Elder Newman was right. By the time I left Germany, my heart had expanded to include an entirely new world full of people, ideas, traditions, and customs—not to mention spiritual impressions—that will remain inscribed on my heart forever. I learned to love, to give, and to suffer for people I had once thought of as strangers.

“One day, after listening to a conference message, I had the impression that I needed to talk to the pharmacy technician at the store,” says Hannah Rawhouser, also of Arizona. “The voice inside me said, ‘He is a good person. You need to invite him to a Church activity.’”
The next time Hannah was in the drive-through, she looked for him, but he wasn’t there. Still, the prompting persisted.
“A few weeks later, I pulled up again, and there he was. With the expectation that my time would be brief, I went directly to the matter at hand. ‘Do you go to church?’ I asked. He paused with surprise and then said yes. I handed him my business card. ‘Call me sometime,’ I said and drove away. ‘Well, I did my part,’ I thought. ‘Now I won’t have any more nagging feelings.’”
To her surprise, he called the next day and introduced himself as Greg Eiselin. “He told me later that, because we are both young and single, he thought I was asking him for a date,” she says. “But we ended up talking about religion for three hours, and he began learning about the Church.” Today Elder Eiselin is serving a full-time mission in Montana, USA.

In November 1950 Tumuaki Cowley wrote the history of the New Zealand Mission for his missionaries. He told of a convention that was called for representatives of certain tribes of the Maori race in March 1881. Many problems were discussed at the meeting, but the problem of greatest concern was the need to decide which church the Maoris should join so there would be a unity of religious belief among them.
Those attending the convention could find no answer to this great problem, so it was agreed that the matter should be decided by Paora Potangaroa, the wisest chief and the most learned man they knew. His immediate answer was just one word, “Taihoa” (wait). He wanted three days to think about the problem.
For three days Paora Potangaroa fasted and prayed for direction. Then he went before the people and said, “The church for the Maori people has not yet come among us. It will come soon. You will recognize it when it does, for its missionaries will travel in pairs. They will come from the rising sun. They will visit with us in our homes. They will learn our language and teach us in our own tongue.”
At this time the missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had not yet taught the Maori people, although a few missionaries had been teaching the gospel to Europeans living in New Zealand.
In that very year, 1881, W. M. Bromley of Springville, Utah, was sent to preside over the New Zealand Mission. Before leaving home, he was told that the time had come for the missionaries to take the gospel to the Maori people.
When Tumuaki Cowley returned to New Zealand as mission president, he adopted the words Kia Ngawari as a slogan for all the Saints there. He had the phrase printed on little signs that could be taken into every home. Each talk Tumuaki Cowley gave ended with these stirring words. There is no exact translation for them in English. Some say the meaning is “be sincere”; others, “be loving and kind.”
Today the Maoris sing a song that has this slogan for a title. It was written in honor of Tumuaki Cowley, and as they sing it they remember him with special love.
Kia Ngawari!

In the summer of 1925 Amelia joined Muriel at Harvard for summer school. In 1927, she was accepted as the supervisor of girls’ work at Boston’s Denison House. A year later she was a full-time social worker, helping young girls from Italian, Chinese, Armenian, Syrian, and Russian-Jewish homes.
One spring day in 1928 Amelia received a long-distance telephone call. When she hung up, she whirled around and let out a happy cry.
“What is it, Amelia? Is something wrong?” one of the teachers asked in alarm.
“No, everything’s right. It was Mrs. Fredrick Guest. She’s flier from New York,” Amelia explained, “and she wants me to come to meet her for an interview about me becoming the first woman to fly across the Atlantic. Just think, me!” Amelia raced upstairs to pack.
The interview was a success. Reports of Captain Charles Lindbergh’s first solo flight across the Atlantic from Long Island to Paris made the year before were studied carefully. Weather conditions were closely observed. The plane, a trimotored Fokker monoplane, was tuned to perfection and in June of 1928 Amelia boarded the airplane Friendship for the journey. The pilot’s name was Bill Stultz and Lou Gordon was the mechanic.
Twenty hours and forty minutes later the Friendship landed in Wales, England, after an exciting flight that had been hampered by storms, fogs, and radio failures.
When Amelia returned to America the following month, she discovered that she was famous. A book company wanted her to retell her experiences, audiences wanted to hear her speak, and a large monthly magazine wanted Amelia to be its aviation editor. Amelia accepted some of the offers and succeeded in persuading thousands of people that air travel could be safe and fun.
People everywhere enjoyed listening to her tell about her daring experiences. Her slender body, topped by a mop of closely cropped hair became familiar to millions.
In 1931 Amelia married George Palmer Putnam, a publisher who had interviewed her before her flight across the Atlantic. And in April of 1932 Amelia was eager to try another major flight. She had flown over one thousand hours in the preceding two years, but she wanted a new challenge. She decided to fly the Atlantic Ocean alone, in spite of the warnings of her friends and family.
On May 20, 1932, she climbed into her Lockheed Vega and took off from Harbor Grace, Newfoundland. The flight was torture. Heavy rain and fog enveloped the plane. Then ice began to form on the wings. Raw gasoline, leaking from a broken gauge, flooded the floor and made sickening fumes. Amelia began to fear that fire might break out at any time. Suddenly, the plane began to dive. The ice had weighted the wings too heavily. Amelia tried everything she’d learned from her past flying experience, and, finally, one hundred feet above the Atlantic, she pulled the plane up.
Hour after hour the plane droned on. Then a patch of green appeared. Ireland! Amelia had made the flight in fourteen hours and fifty-six minutes, becoming the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic.
Before returning to America, she was entertained by European royalty. King George V and Queen Mary of England, Belgium’s King Albert, and dignitaries from several other nations decorated her.
America welcomed her home with more honors. She received the Distinguished Flying Cross from Congress and the National Geographic’s premier gold medal. Cheering crowds greeted her everywhere she went.
Now Amelia was more determined than ever to convince everyone that flying was safe. In 1935, she flew her new Lockheed Vega from Honolulu to Oakland, California, a distance of twenty-four hundred miles. She flew nonstop from Los Angeles to Newark, New Jersey, cutting two hours off the previous record for that flight.
In the fall of 1935 Amelia took a position with Purdue University as counselor in careers for women. The young people loved her and she became the idol of the campus.
Purdue honored Amelia with a variety of special gifts, including a Lockheed Electra, a plane that would seat ten passengers.
“I’m so overwhelmed with all this,” Amelia exclaimed. “It doesn’t seem possible! I’ll have to repay you for all of these gifts.”
Amelia soon decided that the logical way to repay everyone was to make a truly spectacular flight. She began making plans to fly completely around the globe, following an equatorial route. By March of 1937 all was ready. Amelia took off with Captain Manning as navigator. But trouble with the landing gear sent the Lockheed Electra back to California for repairs after the second stop. When the plane was repaired, Amelia and a different navigator, Fred Noonan, flew across the continent to Miami, Florida. Meeting with reporters, she said, “I have a feeling that there is just about one more good flight left in my system, and I hope this is it. After it is over, I plan to give up major long-distance flights.”
At about six o’clock on the morning of June 1, 1937, Amelia climbed into the Electra at Miami Airport. The plane zoomed across South America, over Africa, and on over Asia. Amelia and Noonan were eagerly welcomed everywhere they landed.
Setting down at Lae, New Guinea, Amelia and Noonan prepared for their final long flight. Their route was to take them to Howland Island, twenty-five hundred miles away in the Pacific, back to Honolulu, and then on to California. America was planning a gala homecoming.
The first few hours after takeoff from Lae were ideal. Then trouble began. It seemed as though nature threw all her obstacles at the two fliers—rains, fogs, and squalls pelted the aircraft.
Then, when the Lockheed should have been close to Howland Island, the Coast Guard picked up Amelia’s frantic message. “Cannot hear you. … Please take a bearing on us and answer. …” The small aircraft was having radio trouble and could not hear the Coast Guard. A final message came. “Circling … cannot see island. … Gas is running low … running north and south. …”
Then silence.
A nation mourned the loss of a brave lady and her copilot whose watery grave and its location still remain a mystery. But Amelia would have chuckled at the numerous earthbound monuments built in her honor since her disappearance. For her true monument is the sky.

For example, my older sons, who grew up when the Beatles were popular, wanted to follow the current fashion fads. Now, I don’t like fads, have never liked them, and probably will never like them. But I decided to let them win—with moderation. Why?
Because I felt that I was winning in all of the areas that really mattered. My sons could be classified as “good boys.” They went to early morning seminary (6:25 A.M.), attended Church meetings regularly, paid their tithing, were average in Scouting, made above-average grades, served as my home teaching companions, were faithful in their priesthood assignments, and fulfilled their chore responsibilities around the home.
The only negative thing they wanted to indulge in, in my estimation, was some of the fashion trends. But compared to everything they were doing that was right, or at least satisfactory, style, in my opinion, was not really significant.
Did it corrupt them? No. Because at the same time, they were doing all the important things. Both of the older boys have completed full-time missions now and still look like missionaries today, several years after they returned.

In 1945, Cynthia Mallory obtained a summer job at a tourist lodge in southern Utah as a way to earn enough money to help her through her third year of college. Several of her fellow workers, also college students, were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When they invited her to join a weekly discussion group to talk about religion, Cynthia, who was not a member of the Church, accepted because she had let her spiritual life give way to other interests during her years away from home. The group was small, led by a seminary teacher working for the summer as a tour bus driver.
She listened to the discussions and was fascinated by them but had no thought of changing religions—until they discussed the Holy Ghost. Cynthia walked to a grassy open space near the lodge, where she determined to test the promise made to her that if she would pray to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ to know the truth, she would be answered through the power of the Holy Ghost. It was dark, but the lights from the lodge made her feel safe as she knelt in the shadows to pray. Even before she finished asking the question, a light seemed to be turned on within her. The answer came clearly: what she had heard about Jesus Christ was true!
The direction of Cynthia’s life changed in that moment. She knew what to do: she would be baptized. She was exhilarated to realize that, guided by an unseen hand, she had made her first independent decision. Sensing the Savior’s approval and love, she resolved to keep his commandments.
Today, Cynthia remains devoted to the Lord and his gospel. Her testimony, strengthened by the Holy Ghost, is an ever increasing source of joy.

“You can work in here,” said Brian Kelly, managing editor of the New Era magazine, as he pointed through an open door into a small cubicle that was once a storage closet. “There is a stack of old magazines in the corner. Spend the first couple of weeks reading through them and jotting down ideas. Get the feel of the magazine; then we’ll see if you can write something.”
So saying, he turned and left. My first-day-on-the-job smile was wearing thin around the edges as I slammed myself into a creaky swivel chair, trying not to glare after Brian as he retreated down the hall. “Me, see if I can write? After a couple of weeks?” I muttered to myself. “After all, I was selected for this internship over many other applicants. My English professors have all said I have natural ability. I can slam out a news story before deadline better than anyone at the student newspaper. See if I can write? I’ll show him.”

Finishing this monologue, I positioned a typewriter directly in front of me and pulled out some clean paper. Just one problem. Nothing to write about. After a few false starts at heart-rending fiction and preachy tomes, I finally took a handful of magazines from the old issues stack and started reading.

The next two days convinced me that writing for the New Era was going to be a snap. The fiction was positive in tone, evoked a happy ending, and was populated by the sort of adolescents teenagers wish they were, i.e., clever, witty, involved, and never boring. The articles were glib, fast, and seldom complicated. And it took me only two days to complete that in-depth analysis of New Era style, not two weeks.

Wednesday morning I reported to Brian that I was ready for my first assignment.

“Uh, how about an article on scripture marking?” he said, after I had blurted out how prepared I was to take the New Era by storm. “Seminary students are studying the Old Testament this year, and an interesting piece on scripture marking would really help them out.”

Simple. I spent the afternoon in the church office library researching scripture marking and the next day wrote up a concise, seven-page article outlining different methods of scripture marking, their advantages and drawbacks. Early Friday morning I presented it to Brian.

“Nice information,” he said, as he handed it back to me. “Now try writing it so the youth out there will read it. Inject some of yourself into it, get some anecdotes in somewhere, liven it up, pull the readers through. I almost went to sleep reading it myself.”

The next two weeks were among the most trying of my life. Livening up a subject with the inherent deadness of scripture marking seemed a task suitable for Dr. Frankenstein, not me. Injecting myself into the controversy of shading versus underlining was something I didn’t quite know how to do. And anecdotes! Ever heard a good story about cross-referencing?

I had come up short against “New Era style,” and although I thought I understood it, I didn’t know how to produce it. The magazine’s style was different from other writing I had done. The New Yorker has its style, so does Time, McCalls, Good Housekeeping, and True Confessions. Each magazine requires a different type of writing. What worked at the student newspaper was definitely not going to work at the New Era.

Fortunately for me, I managed to master “New Era style” (or at least begin to master it) during a two-week struggle with endless drafts of the scripture-marking article. Unfortunately, some people who want to publish in Church magazines don’t have two weeks as a magazine staff member in order to get the hang of it. What follows might be called a short course in New Era style, or “How to get something published in the New Era without developing ulcers.”

4. Now you’re ready to start writing. This article itself is a pretty fair example of how to get into subject matter for the New Era. Don’t attack something head-on. Get into the subject matter by means of an anecdote or story. Set a scene. Paint word pictures. Avoid straight declarations—lure the reader on.

The first draft of the scripture-marking article began with a paragraph detailing the virtues of a well-marked set of scriptures. The final, published version began with a true short story from my own experience about how a set of marked scriptures would have saved me from embarrassment. Both served the same purpose, but the anecdotal beginning was more interesting and readable.

But be cautious. Don’t just throw in stories. Be sure they have a place. The anecdote I used at the beginning of the scripture-marking article commented on most of the benefits of scripture marking that were outlined later in the piece. In fact what you have just read has already outlined how to write for the New Era. I’m just going into it in more detail now.

Two weeks and eight drafts after that Friday morning in Brian’s office, an article titled “But It Was in Amos Last Time I Looked” was sent off for final approval before publication. Finally.

We had just moved to Maryland. A big semi truck came to our new home to deliver all of our things. My sister and I were outside, playing in the front yard and watching the moving people unload the truck. We listened to them when they said, “Stay on the porch.”
Suddenly our van came crashing out of the truck, and three men were hurt. Mom was really afraid that we were hurt, because one of the moving people came inside to ask her to call 911 and told her that someone had been run over. But we were OK because we were on the porch. The moving people said, “It was a good thing that you listened to us. You could have been hurt really badly.”
I’m glad that I’m obedient. I want to obey Heavenly Father, and I know that I get blessings when I do.Amy Pearson, age 5, and her sister, Rachel, age 3Eldersburg, Maryland

Another General Authority, Rulon S. Wells, a kindly and pleasant elderly gentleman, came to our home one time after a stake conference. He stayed for supper and afterward accompanied me while I milked the cows. He leaned on the corral fence and we chatted.
Elder Rulon S. Wells

Afterward, since I had recently obtained a driver’s license, I was able to drive him back to Salt Lake City in our old Model T Ford touring car. When Elder Wells ordained me a seventy before I went on my mission, I was thrilled to learn that he had been ordained a seventy by Brigham Young.

On July 26, 1847, their third day in the valley (the second having been the Sabbath), Brigham Young, with members of the Twelve and some others, climbed a peak about one and a half miles from where I now stand. They thought it a good place to raise an ensign to the nations. Heber C. Kimball wore a yellow bandana. They tied it to Willard Richards’s walking stick and waved it aloft, an ensign to the nations. Brigham Young named it Ensign Peak.
Then they descended to their worn-out wagons, to the few things they had carried 2,000 miles, and to their travel-weary followers. It was not what they possessed that gave them strength but what they knew.
They knew they were Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ. They knew that the priesthood had been delivered to them by angelic messengers. They knew they had the commandments and the covenants to offer opportunity for the eternal salvation and exaltation for all mankind. They were sure that the inspiration of the Holy Ghost attended them.
They busied themselves plowing up gardens, putting up shelters against the winter soon to come. They prepared for others already on the prairie following them to this new gathering place.
Those Brethren on Ensign Peak knew that they were to live ordinary lives and keep the image of Christ engraven in their countenances (see Alma 5:14).
We are as much a part of this work as were those men who untied that yellow bandana from Willard Richards’s walking stick and descended from Ensign Peak. That bandana, waved aloft, signaled the great gathering which had been prophesied in ancient and modern scriptures.

A true story from the USA.
“Let’s go!” shouted Lauren as she passed the driveway.
Marcie put on her helmet. “I’m coming!”
Marcie pedaled her bike down the sidewalk toward her friends. She loved to play all kinds of games with Lauren and Cassidy. But most of all, she loved riding her bike with them.
As the girls biked down the sidewalk, the neighbor’s dog, Rocket, started following them.
“Oh no,” Cassidy said. “We need to take him back home!”
But the dog didn’t want to go home. They called for him to stop, but Rocket just kept going. No matter what they did, he ran around and wagged his tail. He was having fun!
As the girls followed Rocket, Marcie realized that the houses looked less and less familiar. She was getting farther and farther from her street. Marcie didn’t know anyone who lived in these houses!
Where are we going? Marcie thought. Will I be able to find my way back?
Marcie tried not to worry and kept biking. But the feeling came back. Something was telling her that she should go home.
Marcie stopped her bike on the sidewalk. She said in a loud voice, “Maybe we should go back now!”
“We need to get Rocket home!” said Cassidy. She and Lauren kept biking after the dog.
Marcie still felt strange. Why was she feeling so worried? Did her friends feel it too?
Maybe this feeling is just for me, Marcie thought. Was it from the Holy Ghost? She had been baptized and confirmed a few months ago, and Mom and Dad had taught her about listening to the Holy Ghost. They said He would speak to her with feelings in her heart or thoughts in her mind. She knew He would guide her if she listened.
She felt the feeling again. This time it was stronger. Don’t follow that dog.s
“I’m going back,” Marcie called to her friends.
“OK!” Lauren said.
Marcie turned around and rode back the way she came. When she got home, she left her bike on the lawn and went inside. Mom was busy in the kitchen.
“Hi, Mom,” Marcie said. “I came home. I felt worried inside.”
Mom stopped. “What happened?”
“I felt a warning feeling while I was riding my bike with my friends. So I came home,” Marcie said. “I think it was the Holy Ghost.”
Mom gave her a hug. “I’m glad you listened to that feeling.”
Marcie felt good inside. “Me too.”

In 1991, my beloved husband, Gilberto, lost his life in a truck accident in Pôrto Alegre, Brazil. His death was a shock. We had all been happy and healthy. We had even recently rejoiced in Gilberto’s baptism. The rest of the family—Gisele, Pablo, and I—had been members of the Church for some time.
Unfortunately, the children and I did not overcome our loss very quickly. Days ran into nights and into days again, and nothing seemed to lessen our pain or our sense of abandonment.
Then we learned that we would not be able to get an insurance settlement because we lacked the necessary documentation. We had to sell our house and all the furniture because we could no longer make the payments. Three months later, we were able to buy a small apartment. But it seemed as if nothing could cheer us.
We spent three very unhappy years in that apartment. The school where I worked became more unpleasant with each passing day. The children were having problems at school, too. They were persecuted by the other students for being members of the Church. Rather than improving, life seemed to become more unbearable. We began to lose hope and even stopped going to church.
After a time, we decided to move to a city in another state. We felt that by moving to Florianópolis, we might be able to leave our grief behind.
We arrived with the modest funds we had received from the sale of our apartment. But everything was very expensive, and we soon became discouraged. Then, during Easter vacation in 1994, we went to look at a new house in a place called English Beach. We went only out of curiosity, not expecting to like it much and certainly not realizing the blessings Heavenly Father had in store for us there.
We arrived at the house and met the owner, a man from Argentina who needed to return to his country. He was ready to sell for any amount, as long as the money was available immediately. It was a wonderful house, very large and very beautiful. We knelt down and thanked our Heavenly Father for such a wonderful blessing. We felt guilty for having had so little faith in him. But the house itself was only the beginning.
Two months later, we met the LDS missionaries in the area and learned where church meetings were held. Soon we were attending regularly. The members were very concerned about us. They showed us that we were members of a large family—the family of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Day by day, we grew happier.
With the arrival of spring a few months later, the rental rates in town went up, and it became very expensive for the branch to stay in its quarters. So the branch began to meet in our home. We opened our home to the branch, and the branch opened their hearts to us.
When we came to Florianópolis, there were few members. Now our little chapel is full. Both of my children have been called as stake missionaries. I serve as the organist and teach in the Relief Society. Our family is planning to go to the São Paulo Temple to be sealed.
Today, I know that even in our most desperate times, there is a purpose to our trials. We realize now that it was necessary for us to come to English Beach, and our years of struggle taught me that there is no greater happiness than doing the Lord’s work. Now I know that even though my husband was taken from us, our Heavenly Father has not abandoned us. He will always provide.

The river is spread with wisps of morning mist, and a girl with golden hair lies in her sleeping bag, her head propped in her hands. She looks for a long time as the tide flows out. Dragonflies dart in and out of the mist and a light breeze mumbles in the tules across the river. The smell of rich earth, wet reeds, and slow water hangs over her like a summer incense. Above the drowsy hum of insects, a fish now and then makes an indolent plop somewhere, and the water is brown and silver in the morning.
After a while the girl lays her head down and dozes with the others.
With no alarm clocks to make the sun an enemy, the girls slept late that morning on the Sacramento River Delta, and when they awoke, they still felt like the inhabitants of a dream.
The dream began in Danville, California, where the Mia Maids and Laurels of the Danville Ward, along with their adult leaders, met one morning under cloudy skies to load suitcases, sleeping bags, water skis, and supplies into their cars. Later, as they rolled through the lion-colored hills of a California summer, the sun seared away the clouds and burned its seal of approval onto their horizon.
There was magic in that solar endorsement because from that moment the world’s rotation appeared to slow. The three-day adventure seemed to last weeks, and contrary to all previous experience, the more fun the girls had, the longer the days lasted. It was as if time were being poured from a cruse of sunshine that could never run dry.
When they arrived at Bethel Island, the girls poured out of the cars to inspect the small summerhouse that was to be their vacation home. Behind the house was a high levee, and they poured over that also to discover a stream whiskered with docks, the warm, brown tide flowing out. They were happy to learn that this stream was just part of an 1,100 mile spiderweb of interconnecting tidal waterways that they proceeded to christen collectively “The River.” During the next three days the river became the setting for a thousand watery adventures.
The most prevalent adventure was waterskiing. Some girls performed as if they were born on skis, others as if they were likely to die on them. Some cut graceful furrows with slalom skis. Others gouged furrows with their faces; but they kept trying, and eventually everyone got up. They skied and skied under the opulent sun till everyone was bright pink and then bright red. And even then they kept on skiing.
One day they took a trip to the Meadows, a gentle backwater slough where tall, shady trees line a sandy beach. The sky there was blue enough to swim in, and the trees stood out against the sun like negatives of themselves. They nosed the boat into shore alongside tall houseboats and jumped out for a lunch of submarine sandwiches. Afterwards they lazed and floated under the sun and went exploring in the boats through green corridors of smooth water.
They glided under a high railroad bridge where unknown urchins in cut-offs clung like spiders, leaping off now and then as if on filaments of silk.
They nosed up to tangled blackberry thickets that hung over the water, picking and eating the huge berries by the handfuls.
They played king of the hill atop a giant inner tube, splashing like dying stunt men into the white cushion of reflected clouds.
They frolicked like otters among patches of water lilies.
They stood rooted in air, earth, and water, groping with their toes for freshwater clams in the luxurious mud, water to their chests. They skittered frisbees along the shallows, swam with slow, lazy strokes in the deep, and napped on the cool sand of the shore, and when they had done everything once, they started all over again. After all, they had forever. They were Californians, and the sun was their birthright. It stood still for them as if they were so many Joshuas, as if the day, the summer, and their youth would never end.
Once, in the quiet shade of the bank, Bishop Alan P. Johnson could be seen in earnest conversation with a new girl in the ward, as intent as if she were the whole Church.
Late that afternoon they returned home, towing skiers all the way. It was a fitting exit, but by no means to be compared with their entrance that morning, when they had walked on the water—thanks to a sandbar right smack in the middle of the broad Sacramento River the girls had splashed along apparently on the surface of the waves.
They spent another day on a small sandy island in the middle of a channel, boating and sunning. Some of the beginners tried their hand at skiing and hit the water like naval artillery, kicking up fountains of water and flying skis.
“I know what you did wrong,” a helpful friend on the bank called to a casualty. “You forgot to close your eyes!”
She watched as her friend tried again, this time performing a beautiful belly flop and skipping on the water like a lopsided stone. “That was better!” the coach on the shore said. “She remembered to close her eyes that time.”
Another sadistic onlooker chimed in with a word of shouted advice: “Whatever happens, don’t let go!”
When they weren’t skiing or boating, some of the girls became artists, creating lofty-towered sand castles on the beach and then watching the tide lay seige to and finally overwhelm their ramparts.
On the way home that day the girls jumped out of the boat several hundred yards from their home dock and let the tide carry them in.
One day on the river the girls visited the town of Locke, constructed originally by the Chinese laborers who built the levees and now occupied by their descendants. Here the girls explored the streets of two-story, tic-tac-toe wooden houses and mysterious passageways that were neither streets nor alleys.
Meanwhile, back at the house, there was both work and resting to do in between the playing. Three times a day the girls cooked delicious meals and then handled the cleanup efficiently. One night when a Mia Maid was called to help with the dishes, she said quietly to a friend, “Actually, it’s not my turn, but I’ve got to get over the habit of complaining,” and she went to wash the dishes. When she was gone her friend sat in silence for a moment. Then she sighed and said, “I haven’t helped wash the dishes yet. I guess I should go help even though they didn’t assign me,” and she went. Soon an assembly-line sudsfest was underway, accompanied by a spirited medley of folk songs and so much all-purpose hilarity that several more unassigned girls joined in just for the fun of it.
One evening the group dined on mouth-watering fried catfish donated by a neighbor lady. Later that night they visited the good woman and sang her a song of appreciation. Not content to leave it at that, the girls used their talented toes the next day to find her a sackful of clams for fishbait.
At night the girls filled the bedrooms, the sun room, the sun deck, the combination kitchen-dining-living room, and spilled out over the levee onto the dock, where they slept with the gentle rocking of the waves and the murmur of the moving water. A few girls even slept in the boats that were moored to the dock. These outdoor dwellers were treated to a huge moon that rode above the tules and made the river into a highway of gold, not to mention the sun that rose each morning on a tide of cricket and bird songs to burn away the mist.
“Wow! Did you see that sunrise?” one ecstatic girl asked her sleepy companion after the sleeping bags had been put away.
“Yeah,” her more prosaic friend replied. “I woke up and took a look and said, ‘Well what do you know, there’s the sunrise,’ and then I went back to sleep.”
As with any group of Mormons totaling more than one, there were some meetings too. Their first night on the river the girls enjoyed a talent night that included readings, songs, and even some magic. The second night there was a family home evening in which the girls shared ideas on the importance of being a child of God. They expressed their love for the Savior and nodded quietly, as one young lady said, “Whenever you build a wall between yourself and another human being, you build a wall between yourself and Jesus Christ.”
There was plenty to do in spare moments: sleeping, fishing off the dock, writing letters, writing in journals, scripture study, gab sessions, sailing a little two-girl boat with a sail like another white cloud under the sky, and a lot more, including first aid treatments for sunburns. And sometimes they just dived off the dock or sat watching the tide flow in or out, ceaselessly, day and night.
At least as warming as the sun was the love these young women showed toward one another. Whenever a girl was seen standing shyly apart, a kindly arm would appear around her shoulders to draw her in, When there was disagreement, it was settled by discussion rather than argument. There were no cliques, no in-groups or out-groups, no social outcasts, no cruel jests or biting sarcasm. When it was mentioned to one of the girls that they seemed surprisingly free from backbiting, she said, “How can there be backbiting? We know that there shouldn’t be.”
Another girl explained, “I’m trying to learn how to love other people. I’m learning to do things for them, to stop thinking ‘want’ and start thinking ‘give’.”
Two of the girls in the very thick of the action on the three-day adventure were nonmembers, and they appeared to be loving every minute of it. That’s not surprising considering the missionary record of the Danville young people. Half the Laurel class consists of converts introduced to the gospel by the young people of the ward. The previous year there had been ten baptisms attributed to the efforts of the young men and women, and the work was going on. They talk openly to their friends about the Church, knowing what an important gift they have to offer.
“A lot of kids at school say they don’t know who they are,” one girl said. “Well, we know who we are!”
The last evening of their stay on the river, the girls had a testimony meeting. One of the girls brought a roll of tissue and set it in the center of the group in easy reach of anyone with leaky eyes. More than one needed it as they bore testimony of the gospel and their love for the Lord and one another. A nonmember girl stood with tears in her eyes to tell of her love for the Mormon girls and their leaders although she hadn’t yet gained a testimony of the gospel. A girl who had been in the ward only a week and in the Church only a few months told how she had come on the trip homesick for her old ward and fearing loneliness and rejection. But in three days she had come to feel she had known these girls all her life.
The next morning, as four girls debated the best way to get four suitcases, four sleeping bags, four pillows and four overnight bags into the trunk of one Volkswagen, the group took their leave of the river. They said good-bye to each other as if they were not to meet again for a long while, although they were merely taking a short drive back to the same city. But they were saying good-bye not so much to one another as to a wonderful experience that would soon pass from the full color of the present to the black and white of memory.
But the color hasn’t all faded yet. There is still a girl skiing at sundown, golden in the silver wake, flinging curtains of glittering spray as she leans into each turn. There are the girls in bright bathing suits singing Mormon Tabernacle Choir songs as passing boaters look at them and wonder. There are the bright orange life preservers as the girls float with the pull of the tide.
There is the duotone image of a young girl sitting on the sun-deck in a quiet moment, reading the Book of Mormon and thinking.
And above the images, the color, the splashing and laughter and sunshine and delicious river smells is the reality that is the foundation of all the joy these young people find in life. As one young lady said, “In my last interview the bishop asked me what I had learned this year. I think what I’ve learned this year is that without the gospel nothing else in this whole world really matters.”