Gospel Story Finder

Some things in life have useful parallels. Losing a mobile phone might help us empathise with someone who loses their laptop but rarely are our experiences exactly the same, and there is always a uniqueness to our emotions, coloured by our attachment to what is lost. When it comes to the death of a spouse, no previous life experience, including the loss of other loved ones, quite prepared me for the overwhelming effects of such an event. But this is my story – a brief overview of how grief affected me and how I tried to manage it. Your experience will differ, but be assured that life soon vanishes away, hence the pressing need to love others and let them know of that love while today lasts.
My beloved wife, Ethel, and I enjoyed 37 years of a wonderfully happy marriage. At least that’s how I saw it. I hope she did too! Even her previous survival of cancer on two occasions and her significantly declining health over three years did not prepare me for what seemed an awful, sudden separation upon her death in 2021.
After her passing, the feelings of grief were intense and devastating. I was very fortunate. I had married an exceptional woman. We had many great shared memories. We had three daughters who lived nearby. I had a supportive Church community. One or two trusted friends were willing listeners, with whom I could share my innermost thoughts – though I felt awkward doing so. Even then, none of these, not even the sum of them, seemed to ease the immeasurable sorrow I felt.
Initially, the grief came in what seemed like never-ending torrents and, as time passed, later became waves (just as painful) that would crash onto me without warning. Bumping into someone, seeing a dress in a shop, hearing a piece of music, watching a grandchild that Ethel had never lived to see – all of these and more would bring on the tears. Nearly four years after Ethel’s departure, the frequency of intense grief has decreased, but the unpredictable onset of weeping for her continues with similar intensity. I wouldn’t have it any other way, though. Love does that to you.
I felt like an incomplete person. Ethel had been my 24/7 support group! Now part of me was missing. As time passed, it only reinforced how settled my past had been. Now I felt disconnected from reality. I was living in some kind of dream, mainly a nightmare, save for the saving, divine light that I felt holding onto me. But even that didn’t erase feelings of not wanting to carry on. A loving bishop visited and said how well I was doing just getting out of bed and getting dressed. That heartened me. Some days I didn’t even manage that.
Some of my confidence was gone. Talking about how I felt was difficult – what if I suddenly burst into tears? I worried about appearing weak. I worried about burdening others with my grief. I sat and worried that I worried too much! My physical existence was severely disrupted too. Going to bed between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. had become the norm. It seemed that when the rest of my world had gone quiet, I could then fully grieve over my loss. It was my time with Ethel – precious and painful.
I had never received professional counseling before. I had always thought – erroneously – that I should be able to resolve my own problems by myself. But I struggled so much that I took up the offer from a local hospice. The counseling proved helpful, but after five sessions, I felt we had gone as far as we could, and I took a break.
Six months after Ethel died, then at nine months, then at two years, I wrote down my feelings. Keeping a daily journal has been a source of comfort. Between nine and twelve months after Ethel’s passing, I decided to ‘get back out there’ by joining a social group and a travel group. That lasted about a month before I realised my heart wasn’t ready. I felt the impression to attend the temple regularly. Despite the initial pain, this proved a great strength to me.
There was a lot of ‘ice breaking’ – attending the first ward activity alone, the first holiday alone. Despite my best efforts, after eighteen months, I felt I was treading water. A Church friend asked me: "What is your greatest fear?" I answered: "That I will always feel the way I feel now." I have great faith that I will be with Ethel again, but I also knew she would want me to be happy. I had to try to move forward, accepting false starts and setbacks.
I sought more help and contacted a bereavement support group. Six video sessions with a counselor named Emma were transformative. I learned to open up and to be more vulnerable.
The impact of those willing to listen and love me has been significant. The light of human compassion striving to convey the pure love of Christ is a wonderful power.
As time progresses, I still sometimes struggle to understand what I truly feel and want. My relationship with my Heavenly Father and my Saviour has become deeper. The companionship of the Holy Ghost has been a lifeline. Even with this, I sometimes feel lost. But I can learn to wait. I don’t have to make every decision now. Feeling like a ship on the ocean with no visible landmarks doesn’t mean I can’t still sail onward and take bearings as I chart new waters.
At times, there seemed no way out of the pain. Having now experienced some brighter days, I know that there is a way out, a way forward. So, when the clouds engulf me again, I tell myself that there is a way – I just can’t see it yet.
I grieve not only for my own loss but for that of my children. In some ways, that hurts more. I feel helpless that I cannot bring back their mother’s presence. But I can live in a way that honours her. We can laugh and cry together as we cherish the wonderful times we shared.
This has been the most difficult period of my life. I remember that two years after Ethel’s passing, I could say, for the first time, that I felt ‘light and happy.’ That feeling didn’t last a day, but it was evidence of possibilities to come. Sometimes these small mercies carry us through.
No matter what the future holds, I will always love Ethel. I am not looking to ‘move on,’ but I can ‘move forward’ with her still present in my life. Our decision to put our love of God first helped us enter marriage on a firm foundation, and I believe it can help me going forward. I am grateful to the Lord for what I have learned through this unique, challenging journey, and I am grateful for the light of hope I continue to have, both for this life and for a glorious reunion.

I am an American exchange student in Bateman’s Bay, Australia. I am the only Latter-day Saint in the town, and the nearest branch is 100 miles away, so I don’t get to church very often. I wrote to my mother and told her how much I miss the Church, and to help me out, someone is sending me the New Era every month. I love the New Era. It’s brought me so much closer to the Church, even though I’m the only member for miles. The New Era has motivated me to start reading the Book of Mormon, and I can hardly wait to get home and participate in the Young Women activities.
Lisa MatsonBateman’s Bay, Australia

It was 11 p.m. when I heard my father’s car door close outside. He was home a little early tonight. Dad was a college professor with a full load of night classes to teach, so his normal arrival time wavered somewhere between 11:30 p.m. and midnight. And since I left for my early-morning seminary class before sunup, I usually only saw him for a few flurried minutes each night. That is, if I saw him at all.
Tonight I was brushing my teeth when he popped his head through the bathroom doorway. “How are you?” he asked. Through a mouthful of toothpaste I mumbled a response, then asked how his day had been.
“Great,” he said boisterously. “The plane got in a few hours ago, and the bus dropped us off at the school. After that I came right home.”
Plane? Bus? Was I missing something? He must have noticed my vacant stare, because he quickly added, “I was at a conference in Indianapolis all week.”
He was? Why didn’t I know about this? I realized with a pang of shame that my father had just spent five days on the other side of the country, and I hadn’t even noticed he was gone.
As my sister and I got older, it seemed like the whole family got busier until we were, as Mom liked to say, “like ships passing in the night.” We barely had time to blurt out “good morning” before we rushed in separate directions. But even with our classes and after-school activities, my sister and I couldn’t compete with Dad at being busy. His workday was longer than anyone else’s. Even when he was home, he spent hours at the computer, writing textbooks and revising lecture outlines.
Because Dad wasn’t a member of the Church, we only saw him on Sunday mornings over our bowls of breakfast cereal. By the time the rest of the family came home after our Church meetings, he had usually disappeared to his office at the college to get more work done.
I had always thought my family was a regular busy family, and I figured that feeling out of touch with my dad was just a part of such a high-speed life. Until that night over the bathroom sink, I never really considered the idea that we might be too busy.
A few weeks later, the missionaries from our ward came to my house for dinner. Dad, of course, was missing in action, but after we had eaten, the missionaries began to ask us some questions about Dad’s feelings toward the Church. Had he ever taken the discussions? Had he read the Book of Mormon? Did he ever come to Church with us? My mother and I answered the questions as best we could. Then the elders said that they’d really like the chance to teach my father the gospel, and they wanted to enlist our help.
Although I was usually enthusiastic about thinking up ways to help share the gospel with my father, I leaned back into my chair and frowned. “What can we do?” I asked skeptically. “We hardly ever see him.” I explained to the missionaries about Dad’s overly hectic schedule, and they nodded understandingly.
Finally one of the missionaries, who also had a nonmember father, said, “My dad was the same way when I was in high school. He was such a workaholic that I felt like I never saw him, and we just drifted farther and farther apart. I got even busier after I joined the Church.
“I just decided,” he went on, “that it was important for my dad to know that I loved him, that my joining the Church didn’t make me love him less. Since I didn’t see him very often, I started leaving him notes. Nothing special. I just wrote a quick note telling him that I loved and appreciated him, and I made sure I put it where he’d find it.”
“Did it work?” I asked skeptically.
He smiled and shrugged. “Why don’t you find out for yourself?”
It was a challenge I couldn’t refuse. That night, after I was in my pajamas and Dad still hadn’t gotten home from work, I pulled out a pad of sticky notes and wrote a quick message: “Dear Dad: I hope you had a good day. I love you.” I signed my name at the bottom and stuck the note to his computer screen, knowing Dad almost always made a stop at his computer before he finally got to bed.
The next morning when I plodded into the bathroom still half asleep, I noticed a piece of yellow paper clinging to the mirror. “Dear Melody,” it read. “Thanks for the note. I love you too. Love, Dad.”
I smiled, something I rarely did at 5:30 in the morning.
For the rest of that year before I went away to college, I left notes for my father a few times a week. Nothing elaborate, just a few lines to tell him what was going on in my life, to wish him a good day, to tell him I loved him. He almost always responded with another note attached to my bathroom mirror or my bedroom door.
As the weeks went on and our note exchange became a regular thing, it became easier to put into words how I really felt about my dad. I realized that even though I didn’t spend as much time with him as I wanted to, I really did love him. And I realized that even though he worked a lot, he really loved me too. Having a true friendship made us more eager to do things with each other, too, like trips to museums or into the city on Saturday afternoons.
Over the years I kept a few of the sticky notes from Dad. I even taped one to the mirror in my dorm room at college just to make it feel like home. When I finally went back home for Christmas, I noticed that Dad had done the same. A piece of yellow paper with the words “Dad, I love you. Melody” was firmly attached to the top of his computer desk.
My father never joined the Church. But when he died suddenly several years ago, the yellow sticky note was still on his computer desk, right where it had been for five years. In the weeks after his death, I felt grateful that I had found a way to communicate with Dad even when we were both at our busiest. I didn’t have to wonder whether he knew that I loved him. I knew that he looked at my words every day.

Christmas that year was a memorable one. I took the bus to Saigon, where the members met together for the first time in ten years in Viet Nam. The meeting was in a park. There were nearly one hundred people there. We had ice cream and cake. Later, at our table, brethren holding the priesthood broke bread and poured water into small glasses for the sacrament. We bowed our heads and prayed silently. Our joy was full.

On Monday, Mommy helped Thea find her stuffed teddy bear. “Thank you!” Thea said. On Tuesday, Daddy buckled Thea safely into the car. “Thank you!” Thea said. On Wednesday, Mommy pulled Thea in the wagon. “Thank you!” Thea said. On Thursday, Daddy helped Thea cross the street. “Thank you!” Thea said. On Friday, Mommy shared a slice of apple. “Thank you!” Thea said. On Saturday, Daddy gave Thea an ice-cream cone. “Thank you!” Thea said. On Sunday, Mommy taught Thea about Jesus. “Thank you!” Thea said. Thea was thankful all week long!

For about a year I played the role of the mother of the house. I loved my family, and I wanted to take care of them, but I sometimes wondered, “Why do I have to stay home and watch the little kids, fix supper, and do the laundry?” I was only in junior high school. In those moments when I would start to cry, I’d see my father. He tried so hard to make our home happy. All day he would work hard and then come home and listen to our problems and our complaints and smile and say he loved us. I never once heard him complain or break down in front of us. He knew the whole family depended on him. If he broke down, the family would also. But if he were strong, the family would follow.
I remember those days and all the pain and testing we went through. Looking at pictures that were taken then, I can still see the pain when I look into the eyes of those in the photographs.

The Evans family was finally moving out of the house on our homestead farm in New Mexico.
“I wish they’d hurry and leave so we can move in,” Ed said as we watched from the barn roof. No one but Papa had seen the inside of the house.
“I wonder if they’ll leave anything,” Caroline said.
“Probably not.”
“The Caldwells found all sorts of good things left in their house,” I put in.
“Like what?”
“A table and some fruit jars.”
“And a pretty good harness in the barn.”
“Don’t forget the stove. They left a good stove,” I added.
“The oven has to be propped up,” Caroline reminded us.
“It’s still good.”
By the time the Evanses had finished loading their belongings onto the wagon and started out the gate, it didn’t seem likely that anything could be left. We slid down the smooth board and ran to look inside. The house was completely empty except for one thing.
“A high chair!” Caroline exclaimed. “Look at that. Georgie can have a high chair.”
“But we don’t even have a table,” I complained.
“Papa will make us one,” she said. “Let’s go ask him.”
After we moved our things from the dugout, Ed said, “Now I get to sleep in the barn.”
“Me, too,” I said.
“Nothing doing,” Mama warned. “The barn’s for animals, not children.”
“Papa promised,” Ed told her.
“It’s all right, hon,” Papa told Mama. “The loft’s clean and warm and close enough so that we could hear them call if they needed us.”
“Well, it is pretty crowded in here,” Mama relented a little. “Just one room for the seven of us.”
“Please, mama,” Ed coaxed.
“Please,” I echoed.
“I guess it won’t hurt to try it,” she conceded, and we started out the door.
Frank grabbed my legs and shouted, “I wanna sleep with Dora! I wanna sleep with Dora!”
“Let him come, Mama. I’ll take care of him.” She knew I would too.
“Watch him, then, so he doesn’t fall down the ladder,” she cautioned.
“I don’t fall down ladders.” Frank said indignantly. “I climb down.”
So the three of us moved into the barn.
Papa began to make some furniture, first a table and then a long bench. Georgie would use his high chair. He built a stretched-out sofa, too, and Mama sewed cushions for it. In the barn Papa was working on some chairs with woven seats.
Every day Papa put a bucket down the well, hoping to bring up water, but the best he could get was damp sand on the bottom of the bucket.
“Don’t try the well till I get there,” Ed called down from the loft to Papa, when he heard the door shut after milking.
“Me, too,” I yelled and scrambled down the ladder.
One day the bucket made a splash when it went down. “There’s water,” Papa announced and pulled quickly on the rope to bring up a dripping pailful.
“Water!” Ed shouted.
“Water!” I echoed.
It was a race to the house to tell Mama, and she was so excited she said, “Let’s celebrate. I’ll make pancakes for breakfast.”
“Hurry then,” Papa said. “We have to get the pipe and sucker rods in.”
“What are sucker rods?” Ed wanted to know.
“They’re wooden poles to suck the water out of the ground.”
“Where do you put them?” I asked.
“First, we put a big pipe down to the bottom of the well. Then we put the sucker rods, one at a time, inside the pipe and push them as far as they’ll go into the sand.”
“What if they aren’t long enough?” Ed asked.
“We’ll fasten another one onto the first. They’re made so they can be screwed together.”
“Then will the water come up?”
“Yes, as soon as we build a windmill to run the pump.”
“What if it pumps water all over and makes a mud hole?”
“It won’t. We’ll have it fixed so we can turn if off.”
“What if the wind doesn’t blow when we want water?”
“We’ll have a storage tank. The pump will fill it up when the wind’s blowing, and we’ll use the water when we need it. I saw a galvanized tank in the Sears Roebuck catalogue. I’d better send off for one right away.”
“Pancakes are ready,” Mama announced, and we sat up to the table to eat them.
“Anyone want to go with me to look for a Christmas tree?” Papa said one day in December.
“I do!” Ed shouted.
“Me, too,” I declared.
Caroline had just spread out her paper dolls to play with while the little boys were having their naps, and she didn’t want to pick them up just yet, so she shook her head.
“Where can you find a Christmas tree?” Mama asked. “I haven’t seen any pine trees growing around here.”
“Don’t know,” Papa said. “Maybe we’ll have to use a cactus.”
“A cactus Christmas tree?” Ed sounded disappointed.
“Why not!” Papa said. “Think how pretty it would be with paper chains and popcorn strings.”
“I guess so,” Ed conceded.
“I’ll pop the corn while you’re gone,” Mama offered. “We’ll string it when you get back.”
We tramped around in the warm sunshine, trying to imagine it was winter and that Christmas was nearly here. Although we learned to expect some snow every year, it wasn’t really very much when compared with what we had in Utah. This year December seemed more like March.
We could find nothing on our property that would do, so we started down the road to the sand hills. This definitely was not Christmas tree country. We decided there was no use hunting for a green tree and began to search for something else.
“Look at this,” Ed said, pulling a spiky round bush from next to the fence where it had tumbled in the wind.
“Not bad,” Papa said. “Not bad at all.”
I found another like it but not so squatty. “Look!” I exclaimed.
“That’s even better,” Papa said.
Once we began to look, we found a whole little forest of tumbleweeds along the fence line and finally selected one that was nearly cone shaped. Papa carried it on his shoulder, and we sang “Silent Night” as we walked home in the desert twilight.
The “tree” was suspended from the ceiling in the corner, where Frank and Georgie could see but not touch. We draped it with popcorn strings and chains made from the bright Christmas paper our purchases were wrapped in at Younger’s General Store.
We didn’t receive many gifts that first Christmas in New Mexico. Our stockings contained an apple, an orange, a handful of nuts, and a peppermint stick.
Each of us had one package, and inside was a napkin ring carved by Papa. Tucked inside the ring was a paper Mama had decorated with pretty writing and flowers painted around the edge. It read: “Coupon for part interest in a place of our own. To be redeemed for a deed in seven years.”
It was the best gift of all—the gift of hope. I put mine in the box where I kept my precious things. (To be continued.)

After the completion of his mission, “life was not easy,” says Prince.
“We were still struggling as a family to put meals on the table, but that did not affect my faith in Jesus Christ.”
A former mission friend suggested that he try to move to America to study.
But in order to do that, he needed to secure a study visa. “When I went to apply for my visa the first time it was rejected because I did not have strong enough family ties to prove I would come back to Kenya after my schooling,” he says. “I was determined. I felt this was my opportunity to excel in life and somehow improve life for my family. So, I tried a second time. Again, my application was rejected.”
Undeterred, Prince decided to give it one more go.
On the way to the embassy to submit a third application, he stopped in at his older brother’s office, who had agreed to provide a bank statement to bolster his case.
His older brother asked someone to prepare a drink for Prince, and after a few minutes he was presented with a cup of tea.
“I told my brother, who was not a member, ‘you know I do not take tea.’
“He apologized and laughed and asked the lady to prepare drinking chocolate for me. I responded, ‘Do not worry, just give me the documents and I will rush to the embassy.’
“But,” says Prince, “he insisted.”
Prince waited while the hot chocolate was prepared, drank it, got the document, and left.
He was walking past the Kenya Cinema—only a few meters away from the American embassy—when he heard a blast.
That blast was the sound of gunshots.
“If I had left only three minutes earlier, I would have been caught in the middle of the August 1998 terrorist attack on the US embassy,” says Prince.
“Those extra three minutes waiting for the hot chocolate to be prepared saved my life.”
More than 200 people died in terrorist attacks in East Africa that day, “but I feel I was protected personally because I lived the Word of Wisdom,” says Prince.
“I can testify that if I had thought that drinking tea was a small commandment, I am not sure I would be alive today.”
Prince saw the very real promises contained in section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants come into play: “And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angels shall pass by them . . . and not slay them” (verse 21).
In the end, Prince never went to America. He discovered that “the Lord had great plans for me here in Kenya,” he says.

I began taking sewing classes, and I had another wonderful teacher. She believes in God but belongs to a different religion. In one of the classes, the gospel came up, and when she asked me what religion I belonged to, I replied that I was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She seemed confused at the name, and I clarified, “People also know us as Mormons.” She immediately got excited and said, “I love the Mormons!” with a smile on her face.
She continued, “I can tell you’re a Mormon,” and she began to list the reasons why. I was happy that she noticed I strived to live the gospel. She asked me a little about baptism in the Church. As I explained it, she said right away, “I can’t get baptized into your church because I was raised in a different religion.” In hearing her tell me about her beliefs, I learned a lot about what I could share with her. I felt the quiet but firm feeling to give her a Book of Mormon, and I knew it was the Spirit speaking to me.
I obtained a Book of Mormon, grabbed a sheet of paper, and wrote her a short but sincere dedication with my phone number on the other side, in case she had questions. I put the paper in the book, wrapped it up, and put a bow on it. I gave it to her the next class. She was thrilled to receive it and thanked me.
All week I wondered how she had reacted to opening the gift—if she liked it or not. The next class I arrived a little late and was surprised with her reaction as I entered the room. She hugged me and said emphatically, “I loved it, loved it, loved it! The book you gave me is lovely, beginning at the introduction when it talks about the plates. It is so true! It has lovely scriptures. I started reading, and I’m halfway through. I can’t stop reading it!”
Hearing so much excitement, the rest of the class turned around to see what was going on. One of my classmates, whom I had been talking to about the Book of Mormon, asked if this book brought peace. My teacher replied, “It made me want to weep, not from sadness but from being blessed.” She couldn’t stop smiling and hugging me.
I felt very happy. At that moment, I came to understand that we cannot judge who is ready to receive the word of God. We cannot know how open a person’s heart is. If God inspires us to share, we need to take action because He knows better than we do.

Like other prospective missionaries, Lohran Saldanha Queiroz had to make a choice to serve a mission or not. But besides deciding whether to give up school, work, family, and friends for two years, Lohran had another tough choice: serve a mission or have the opportunity to play professional football in Brazil?
Lohran, a member of the Barra da Tijuca Ward, Rio de Janeiro Brazil Jacarepaguá Stake, has football in his blood. His father, Milton, is known simply as Tita throughout Brazil. He has played professionally in five countries, won many titles, been a top scorer in the state, and played on the national team.
Tita noticed his son’s ability early on. “I grew up with a football always close by,” Lohran remembers. “My father has always encouraged me. I started accompanying him to his practices when I was three or four and have been around professional players ever since.”
Formal training began for Lohran at age 6 in Mexico, where his father was playing football at the time. By age 12 he was playing in elite competitions back in Brazil. And when he was 17 Lohran played in the junior league—the fast track to professional recruitment. Lohran seemed destined for football stardom. But his 18th birthday was quickly approaching, and he started thinking more seriously of missionary service.
Lohran explains the dilemma: “I wanted to be a football player, and I wanted to be a missionary. They expect a player to go straight from the junior team to the professional league. To stop playing for two years and then expect to be hired at 21 is almost unthinkable.”
At age 17 Lohran made some decisions that led to what he calls the beginning of his conversion. He set goals to read the Book of Mormon daily, fast, and pray. He attended Mutual, firesides, and other Church activities more often. And when he began working regularly with the missionaries, he found a love of the people he visited and prayed for. He wanted them to have the blessings of the gospel. His desire to serve a mission began to grow. But when would it be best for him to serve? And what would happen to his football career after a two-year interruption?
Lohran sought to learn God’s will through fasting and prayer. That very week, he noticed the recently delivered issue of the New Era magazine in his home, and he began thumbing through it. He was attracted to the article “Ice Dreams,” about ice skater Chris Obzansky, who interrupted a promising skating career to serve a mission at age 19, losing the opportunity to compete in the 2006 Winter Olympics.
One passage in particular caught Lohran’s attention: as Chris was in sacrament meeting listening to his Young Men president talk about his own mission call, the Spirit told Chris, “You need to serve a mission when you’re 19, or you’re going to have a tough life.” Chris said, “The message was so clear I actually turned around to see if someone was there. The feeling came back 10 times stronger, and I knew I had to go on a mission.”
Lohran smiles. “When I read that, I felt it had been written for me. Age 19 is the age prescribed by the Lord. I realized that was the answer I needed, and it was like an enormous weight was taken off my back.” The time for Lohran to serve a mission was now. He talked to his bishop, made the necessary preparations, and never looked back. “It was not even difficult to make the decision of leaving football behind,” he says, “for I knew it was the right time to do it.”
Lohran served in his country’s capital, in the Brazil Brasília Mission. He was known as “Elder Happy” because of his contagious enthusiasm. “I am exceptionally happy serving people, sharing with them what I know is true,” he says. “It is so gratifying to see people change their lives after learning the gospel.”
Like all missionaries, though, he experienced his share of hardships. “Obviously, missionary life is not all fun,” he says. “There are difficulties, moments of weakness and loneliness, but all that is next to nothing compared to the treasures of a mission. These are years I’ll never forget, that I’ll always have in my mind and, more important, my heart.”
A few months ago he finished serving a successful mission. Now that he’s home, he has joined a football team in Rio de Janiero and believes more chances to continue his football career will come his way. With faith he says, “I am now waiting for the opportunities to come, opportunities that our Heavenly Father will bless me to enjoy.”

When I was young, I once told my dad after church, “I don’t know if what I’ve been taught is true.” I expected him to be disappointed—but instead he smiled and said, “Good. I don’t want you to believe because someone told you to. I want you to find out for yourself.” That moment taught me something important: Questioning isn’t the end of faith—it’s often the beginning of a real relationship with God.

But there have been lives lost in fires in homes not equipped with detectors. That’s why the fire department will give the detectors away free. The problem is getting them distributed and installed correctly. The fire department was so pleased when nearly 200 volunteers, young people and their leaders attending the combined Shreveport Louisiana Stake and Longview Texas Stake youth conference, offered to install smoke detectors as a service project.
These youth-conference-attending teens were excited to participate in service that had such immediate and personal contact with the people they were sent to help. Besides installing the warning voice of the smoke detector, the youth wanted to distribute another type of warning call, an invitation to come unto Christ. With that in mind, they each wrote their testimonies of Christ on a sheet of paper enfolding a small picture of Christ. To each person they visited, they would give this precious gift also.
First, the teens and their leaders were divided into small groups of between six and eight. They were instructed in the way to correctly install the detectors. They listened as Captain Jimmy Hall of the Shreveport Fire Department assured them that at least one of the detectors they would install that day would save someone’s life. “You are going to make a difference,” he said as they gathered their tools and headed for their assigned cars.
At first, the groups delivered detectors to those families who had requested them. A small article had run in the local paper encouraging those without detectors to call the fire department. Each group also canvassed the surrounding neighborhood.
“One of the homes where we put in an alarm had a fire last month. It had burned some cabinets in the kitchen,” said Jeffrey Loftin, 15, Brownlee Ward, Shreveport Louisiana Stake. “The project was really personal. Talking to the people was the best. It made me feel like a missionary.”
At first, some people were a little frightened to see a bunch of teenagers gathered outside their doors. “A lady answered the door,” said Melissa Carrell, 16, New Boston Ward, Shreveport Louisiana Stake. “She was scared of us because we were a bunch of kids. But she let us in. She appreciated what we were doing.”
Spreading their testimonies of Christ was a thrilling experience for most of the youth conference participants. They live in a part of the United States where many things are misunderstood about the Church. They often attend schools as one of only a few members. They are constantly having to explain that they are believers in Jesus Christ. “In striving to live my Young Women values,” said Jennifer Malone, 15, Longview Third Ward, Longview Texas Stake, “I’m also striving to teach people the gospel in my own way. I give out copies of the Book of Mormon left and right because it just seems that if I can, I should spread the gospel. It makes me beam with joy when I say that I know, without a doubt, no questions in my mind, that the Church is true.”
Handing out their testimonies with pictures of the Savior offered them a chance to talk to people about their beliefs. In nearly every case, the people listened respectfully to the things these teens talked about. And they spoke of their love for their Savior Jesus Christ. “The Savior’s suffering in the Garden of Gethsemane,” said Kimberly Hester, 16, Marshall Ward, Longview Texas Stake, “helps me to understand that He knows exactly how I feel. I’m grateful for everything He’s done for me and how my prayers have been answered.”
This was the first youth conference Chris Windham, 14, of the Nacogdoches Ward, Longview Texas Stake, had attended. He had fun at the dances, listened to the speakers, and filled up on good food. But his strongest memory might be when his group came to the final house as they installed their last smoke detector. It was Chris’s turn to talk to the homeowner and explain their purpose. Each group member had taken a turn being the one to handle the screwdriver, hold the ladder, or do the talking.
At this house, it was Chris’s turn to talk. He reached for a picture of Christ. It was supposed to have someone’s testimony written in the accompanying paper. But they had run short, and the paper was blank.
Chris handed the picture to the man they had just met. He said, “I don’t have a written testimony to give you with this picture of Christ.”
He paused. The adult leaders, who were standing behind him, glanced at each other. What was Chris going to do?
As Chris said later, the Spirit was urging him to tell this man what he believed. So, without hesitation, Chris bore his testimony with power and conviction to someone he had just met. “I know that Christ lived, and that He suffered and died for us. …”
As Chris spoke, tears sprang to the eyes of the man listening. He carefully held the picture of Christ, with head bowed, and listened to the words of a 14-year-old boy.
For a few days, the LDS youth in these two stakes didn’t feel so few in numbers. They were a force for good, and they pulled strength from being together. They bore their testimonies, in writing and in testimony meeting.
Melanie Paul, 16, Coushatta Branch, Shreveport Louisiana Stake, said about their written testimonies, “These are going to people who may change their lives. I stressed the influence of Jesus Christ in my life. They may never get another chance to hear a testimony from a member of the Church. When you start writing, you aren’t just saying empty phrases. It’s true.”
This group also wanted to take sides against a chorus of bad influences. “The advertising is all aimed at kids our age,” said John Daniels, 18, Queen City Ward, Shreveport Louisiana Stake, “encouraging us to smoke, to drink, to do other things. We need someone on the other side, warning us, telling us where we can go wrong and how to avoid it.”
The voice of warning against the vices of the world may not be as loud and strident as a smoke detector, but for those with ears to hear, it is just as compelling, a voice of warning that may save someone’s life eternally.

Today, let me share a discovery that happened because of a sample group of rabbits.
In the 1970s, researchers set up an experiment to examine the effects of diet on heart health. Over several months, they fed a control group of rabbits a high-fat diet and monitored their blood pressure, heart rate, and cholesterol.
As expected, many of the rabbits showed a buildup of fatty deposits on the inside of their arteries. Yet this was not all! Researchers had discovered something that made little sense. Although all of the rabbits had a buildup, one group surprisingly had as much as 60 percent less than the others. It appeared as though they were looking at two different groups of rabbits.
To scientists, results like this can cause lost sleep. How could this be? The rabbits were all the same breed from New Zealand, from a virtually identical gene pool. They each received equal amounts of the same food.
What could this mean?
Did the results invalidate the study? Were there flaws in the experiment design?
The scientists struggled to understand this unexpected outcome!
Eventually, they turned their attention to the research staff. Was it possible that researchers had done something to influence the results? As they pursued this, they discovered that every rabbit with fewer fatty deposits had been under the care of one researcher. She fed the rabbits the same food as everyone else. But, as one scientist reported, “she was an unusually kind and caring individual.” When she fed the rabbits, “she talked to them, cuddled and petted them. … ‘She couldn’t help it. It’s just how she was.’”
She did more than simply give the rabbits food. She gave them love!
At first glance, it seemed unlikely that this could be the reason for the dramatic difference, but the research team could see no other possibility.
So they repeated the experiment—this time tightly controlling for every other variable. When they analyzed the results, the same thing happened! The rabbits under the care of the loving researcher had significantly higher health outcomes.
The scientists published the results of this study in the prestigious journal Science.
Years later the findings of this experiment still seem influential in the medical community. In recent years, Dr. Kelli Harding published a book titled The Rabbit Effect that takes its name from the experiment. Her conclusion: “Take a rabbit with an unhealthy lifestyle. Talk to it. Hold it. Give it affection. … The relationship made a difference. … Ultimately,” she concludes, “what affects our health in the most meaningful ways has as much to do with how we treat one another, how we live, and how we think about what it means to be human.”

Let us conclude where we began: a compassionate caregiver, extending herself in kindness with a nurturing spirit, and an unexpected outcome—healing the hearts of animals over whom she had stewardship. Why? Because it was just how she was!

The Tabernacle, 1874
The First Presidency was informed that a Missouri militia leader from the days of Mormon persecutions there was coming to Utah. Immediately President Young’s counselor, Elder George A. Smith, paid tribute to the visiting general at a Sunday meeting in the Tabernacle.5 Then the First Presidency took General Alexander Doniphan on a special train trip to Provo, Utah for a tour and a sumptuous meal. Why was he given this honored treatment? Elder Smith gave the answer in his Tabernacle sermon:
“During a long career (by the Church) of persecution, people occasionally present themselves like stars of the first magnitude in defense of right, who are willing notwithstanding the unpopularity that may attach to it, to publicly protest against mob violence, murder, abuse, or the destruction of property and constitutional rights, even if the people who are being abused … have the nonpopular name of Mormons.”
In Missouri General Doniphan proved himself to be such a “star of the first magnitude.”6 He served as the Church’s attorney during much of the Missouri period. When elected to the state legislature, he helped develop two new northern counties as refuge places for the Saints. Then, as a militia leader, he refused to obey General Samuel D. Lucas’ infamous order to murder Joseph Smith, and warned General Lucas:
“It is cold blooded murder. I will not obey your order. My brigade shall march for Liberty tomorrow morning, at 8 o’clock; and if you execute these men, I will hold you responsible before an earthly tribunal, so help me God.”7

I had always wanted a dirt bike. Both of my brothers-in-law had bikes and went riding a lot. I wanted to go with them. I bought my bike during the winter, so I didn’t have a chance to ride it right away. While the snow was on the ground, I would go out in the garage and sit on it and dream about riding.
I had heard a lot of horror stories about people getting hurt while riding. As I sat on my bike in the garage, I thought about difficult situations I might get into. I decided that as much as I loved that bike and as nice looking as it was, if I found myself in a situation where it was a choice between my life or saving my bike, the bike would be gone.
Summer came and I had the chance to go riding. My brother-in-law and I went biking in a gravel pit that was near a local reservoir. It had some nice hills. I was playing follow the leader with him. I was down below watching him as he went up a hill. He stopped at the top and was kind of looking off in the distance. He didn’t turn around and say anything, so I started up the hill much faster than he had taken it. When I got to the top, I gunned it and got a little air. The problem was that about as soon as I made it to the top, I could see that there was a drop-off. I had a split second to act. As soon as my front tire hit, I laid the bike down. The bike skidded over the cliff. The momentum carried me over as well, but I was able to grab on to the edge. My legs were dangling, and I was running in air, but I was able to pull myself up.
After my heart slowed a little, I looked over the edge and there was my bike, 30 feet down. I thought it was going to be demolished. I went down and picked it up. I kick started the engine, and it seemed fine. The only damage was bent handlebars and a broken mud flap. But when I looked back up the little cliff, I realized that if I had tried to stay on my bike, I could have been seriously hurt.
That really drove home to me how grateful I was for having made my decision ahead of time. I had already visualized what I would do in the safety of my garage. So when the moment of danger came, I reacted just as I had imagined. I let the bike go and saved myself from injury.

Clint was speechless.
So was everyone else in the congregation for that matter. The warm, tender, emotion-filled quietness was so thick we could practically touch it. It wasn’t uncomfortable. In fact, no one wanted to disturb it. So we sat in silence at Clint’s missionary farewell, while he tried desperately to blink back his tears.
Some people might have been surprised to see Clint, the student-body officer, the lead singer in the band, the enthusiastic basketball player, unable to speak, but it didn’t surprise me at all. I’d seen him at a loss for words more than once.
In fact, he was like that when I first met him. I was about 11 years old, and that summer I’d become a close friend of his sister Lisa. My first contact with Clint came when I called their house to ask Lisa if she wanted to go on a bike ride, and Clint wasn’t exactly verbose then.
“Hi there,” I said. “Is Lisa home?”
“Umph,” a voice said.
“May I speak with her?” I asked, wondering if her dog Clancy had accidentally knocked the phone off the hook and was growling at it.
“Umph,” said the voice, and the grunt was followed by a crash that sounded like the phone had been dropped. Soon Lisa picked up the receiver and greeted me.
“Have you got a Neanderthal butler or what?” I asked.
“Nah—that’s just my brother,” she told me. “He isn’t very articulate today, or any other day really. You know how big brothers are.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. But I really didn’t. All I had was a big sister, and she certainly didn’t have any problems talking on the phone.
When the summer was over, Lisa and I returned to our cross-town schools. We kept in touch, but as far as I knew, her big brother had slipped into oblivion.
He suddenly emerged from it one day several years later when my older sister Karen brought him home—her latest crush. Surprise! Over the last several years, he’d grown tall and thin, and had dark blond hair that just sort of drooped over his head. I’d never noticed his deep, dark brown eyes before. And his vocabulary had improved too. “Lisa and I are old friends,” he said with a smile as Karen began to reintroduce us.
I heard his voice around the house a lot after that, and I was glad. Of all the people my sister dated, he was definitely my favorite. He took the time to drive my friends and me to the beach, he’d visit me at the ice cream parlor where I worked, and he was there to softly console me when I didn’t make the freshman cheerleading squad. And he didn’t just do it to make points with Karen either. He genuinely liked the mischievous adolescent that I was, and he wasn’t embarrassed to show it around his high school friends.
He started coming to our church for the right reasons too. A number of the boys in town would attend just because they were smitten by the local LDS girls. But not Clint. Sure, sometimes he would come to our meetings with Karen, but he began coming with his other LDS friends too. Sometimes he’d even come on his own. “I like the feeling I get there,” he said to me one day. “I know there’s something to this.”
I knew there was something to it too, and I prayed, really prayed, that he would discover what it was.
Clint learned a lot about the gospel. He admired the people in the Church. He read the Book of Mormon, felt of its spirit, and he knew it was true. He had one problem though. Although he could easily talk to everyone around him, when it came to conversing with the Lord, he was speechless. Actually talking to someone he couldn’t see, and having that being respond directly was a foreign concept to him. He didn’t believe God would really pay personal attention to him.
It took a major upheaval in his high school world to help him understand just how important that heavenly communication is. Some of the players on his basketball team were suspended for using drugs, and most of the team, along with most of the school, were convinced that Clint had turned them in. His popularity at school took a nosedive, and he realized just how fickle a crowd can be. He needed to embrace something more solid—something more enduring. He couldn’t base his life on ever-changing popular opinion.
What could he base his life on? Clint decided that the Lord was the only one who could tell him. He drove his battered car up a canyon not far from his house, and, like the account he’d read of Joseph Smith, he dropped to his knees and began, for the first time in his life, to really, sincerely, inquire of the Lord.
After a while, Clint knew. He knew The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the true church of Christ on this earth and that he should be baptized. But that knowledge wasn’t given to him by a thunderous voice or by an angelic chorus. It came to him wordlessly, on a soft breeze that seemed to envelop him with warmth.
He was almost speechless when he called to tell me of his decision to be baptized. About a year later, he was speechless when he rose to thank the patriarch for giving him a wonderful patriarchal blessing. And now, here he was, speechless again as he stood at the pulpit of a chapel that was packed to the rafters with people wishing him well on his mission.
But the silence was a comfortable one. It wrapped us in the same feeling Clint had felt when he went out to pray about the truthfulness of the Church. The Spirit was touching us all.
Through his speechlessness, Clint taught me that some of the most beautiful emotions in this life aren’t communicated by words from mouth to ear, but are communicated by the Spirit from heart to heart.

Later that year we settled near the mine in Sudbury, Ontario. I remember lying awake one night after getting a letter from Sam. He wrote that his mom and he had let in a pair of Mormon missionaries that were knocking on doors enroute from Lethbridge to Cranbrook. Sam let them in because he knew a good LDS family, and he didn’t think it would hurt to learn more. He wrote that they were coming back on their return trip through town.
I fell asleep about then, thinking that our new house was quiet, peaceful, and that it was nice that my family was together under one roof. At that time, I was not afraid of anything, because I knew we’d pull through. We had before.
Something told me we were together forever.

When I was a teenager, I set the goal of getting a degree in sports. I prayed a lot, asking the Lord to make it so practices would be on Saturdays. However, my team’s practices were scheduled on Sundays. I had to make a choice: give up on my goal or skip church. Since both were important to me, I compromised. I would go to practices for two Sundays and then go to church on the third Sunday. Unfortunately, this little deviation from my faith led to sin, causing much suffering.
It did not take me long to realize my mistake. I asked to be on a different team. However, it was too late; the wrong had been done. I had half opened the door, and Satan had pushed it wide open. Eventually I gave up competitive sports.
I learned two valuable things. The first is that when we seek to compromise with the Lord, we are in great danger. The second is that I had made the mistake of believing my faith was strong enough that I could do without Sunday meetings. Our spirits need nourishment just as our body does. If we were to eat only one meal and then skip the next two meals, we could not remain in good health.
I love Sundays now. The Lord has blessed me in my studies and my health above measure.

On a dark December night 36 years ago, a Lockheed 1011 jumbo jet crashed into the Florida Everglades, killing over 100 people. This terrible accident was one of the deadliest crashes in the history of the United States.
A curious thing about this accident is that all vital parts and systems of the airplane were functioning perfectly—the plane could have easily landed safely at its destination in Miami, only 20 miles (32km) away.
During the final approach, however, the crew noticed that one green light had failed to illuminate—a light that indicates whether or not the nose landing gear has extended successfully. The pilots discontinued the approach, set the aircraft into a circling holding pattern over the pitch-black Everglades, and turned their attention toward investigating the problem.
They became so preoccupied with their search that they failed to realize the plane was gradually descending closer and closer toward the dark swamp below. By the time someone noticed what was happening, it was too late to avoid the disaster.
After the accident, investigators tried to determine the cause. The landing gear had indeed lowered properly. The plane was in perfect mechanical condition. Everything was working properly—all except one thing: a single burned-out lightbulb. That tiny bulb—worth about 20 cents—started the chain of events that ultimately led to the tragic death of over 100 people.
Of course, the malfunctioning lightbulb didn’t cause the accident; it happened because the crew placed its focus on something that seemed to matter at the moment while losing sight of what mattered most.

The world is grappling with an invisible enemy which has led so many countries to lock down and regular life seems to have ground to a halt. Ghana is no exception, as I found myself in one of the lockdown areas with school activities suspended.
Amidst all this turmoil, it is very astonishing to see how leaders and members of the Church are doing all they can to keep to their covenants and to continually trust in the Lord. Friday evenings happen to be when we meet as young single adults for the eternal marriage class. Due to the threat posed by COVID-19, and the directive to stay at home, our gathering as a class seemed impossible in this difficult time. With the continual inspirations from the Lord, the instructors resorted to the use of online platforms like Zoom and WhatsApp for us to continually study and interact with each other.
In one of our classes, we discussed the topic of money and marriage. A lot of insights and experiences were shared on the platform to help us continue to know what the Lord wanted us to do. I felt this great peace of mind and I realized in a very subtle feeling that indeed God loves us and will continue to direct us towards the right paths no matter what the challenges may be. The discussion that evening was the only thing that ran through my mind that day until I went to sleep.
I realized from this experience that regardless of the circumstances we find ourselves in, we can continually do what we know to be right, share our testimonies to the people we can reach out to, and be a light that signals hope in the lives of people.
The world may be in despair, lives may be at a standstill, our faith may be challenged and pushed to the core, but one thing I know and believe in is that the redeeming and merciful alms of the Lord are not far from us and He will succor us in this time as He did for those in times past.