Gospel Story Finder

The annual crop of sugar beets isn’t the only thing that makes Sugar City, Idaho, a sweet place to be. A small group of boys in the senior class at Salem High School in Sugar City, who are all priests in the Sugar City Idaho Stake, decided that they would make Valentine’s Day special for all the girls at their school.
The boys got a red rose for every woman and girl in the school and arranged with the principal to present them at a special Valentine’s Day assembly during the last hour of school on February 14. Not a single girl knew about the assembly ahead of time, since all the boys talked about their plans in code, calling it “Project A.”
It’s an idea that the girls fell in love with.

That summer I went to Japan to stay with the family of our foreign exchange student for five weeks. During my stay, I went four weeks without going to church. Finally, in the very last week, we stopped by the Tokyo Japan Temple to take pictures. In a strange country where the language and customs were so foreign to me, it was the most comforting feeling to finally be in a familiar place. The Spirit there was so strong.
That Sunday we found a ward building, and I attended church. It was amazing to experience sacrament meeting and Sunday School in Japanese, but what hit me most was when I went to Young Women. Seeing those few Japanese girls rise and say the theme, I realized that the gospel was just as strong halfway across the world as it was at home. I knew that many of these members didn’t have the support from friends and family that I did, but they still believed. Again, I felt at home.

My first job out of college was working for a major airplane manufacturer. While there, I learned that to make airplanes that were safe, the company had specifications for every part. The parts had to be certified as meeting all standards, including shape, size, material, and tolerances.
If a part met the standards, it would be placed in inventory for building an airplane. If it didn’t meet the standards, the part would be rejected and returned to the supplier. Suppliers of parts were careful to understand and meet all of the requirements, including the tolerances.
Would you willingly ride in an airplane made with substandard parts? Of course not! You would want the parts to exceed the standard. Some people, however, appear to be willing to embrace substandard behavior in their lives. But only by knowing, understanding, and living the doctrine of Christ can you adopt the behavior needed to qualify for exaltation.
Tolerance is a word that is heard frequently in society today, usually in the context of tolerating or accepting other people’s cultures or behavior. Sometimes it is used by people wanting acceptance to do something without consideration of its impact on society or others. My purpose is not to talk about that definition but to focus on the engineering definition of the word and its application for us.
Tolerance is used to define acceptable variations from a defined standard. In a manufactured part, the tolerance might be specified to be five inches long (13 cm), plus or minus a thousandth of an inch (0.0025 cm). Another part might be defined to be made of a certain material that is 99.9 percent pure, like gold bars. The Lord has set tolerances to help us qualify for exaltation.
Standards for salvation are called commandments, which are given by our Father in Heaven. These standards apply to all parts of our lives and at all times. They are not selectively applied at a certain time or in a certain situation. The commandments define the tolerances required to qualify for exaltation.
There is a judgment that, in a sense, is like the certification process for a plane part. Just as there are qualifying tests for aircraft parts, our Father in Heaven has a judgment to determine if we will be certified. It is to our advantage to know and meet the standards within the tolerance the Lord has set.
You will remember that the ten virgins in the Savior’s parable were invited to the wedding feast. When the bridegroom arrived, five had oil and were able to enter. The other five came late and could not enter. (See Matthew 25:1–13.)
Regarding this parable, Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said: “The arithmetic of this parable is chilling. The ten virgins obviously represent members of Christ’s Church, for all were invited to the wedding feast and all knew what was required to be admitted when the bridegroom came. But only half were ready when he came.”1
The first five virgins met the standards, and so must we.
God created us in His own image. The plan for us on this earth is to obtain a body, have experience, receive ordinances, and endure to the end. Standards have been established and tolerances set that we need to live to qualify for exaltation. God has promised that we can be exalted, but He has also said, “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise” (D&C 82:10).
In God’s plan of salvation, we are being molded, shaped, and polished to become like Him. It is something each of us has to experience individually.
“For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).
God has established what we must do and the standards we must meet. Something quite remarkable is that He gives us the moral agency to decide whether to accept and meet those standards. However, there are consequences to our decisions. He gave us agency, but He does not give us the authority to change the standards or the consequences of our decisions.
Because there are standards and because we have agency to choose, there is a Final Judgment, at which time each of us will be reviewed to see if we meet the standards—in other words, to see if we have lived within the standards and tolerances God has defined. His judgment will be final.
The doctrine of repentance allows us to correct or fix defects, but it is better to focus on meeting God’s standards than to plan on invoking the principle of repentance before the Judgment. I learned this lesson when I was young.
As a teenager I spent my summers working on my grandfather’s ranch in Wyoming, USA. It was a sheep and cattle ranch of more than 2,000 acres (810 ha), plus additional rangeland. The ranch operation required a lot of equipment. Because the closest repair center was far away, my grandfather taught us to carefully maintain the equipment and to inspect everything before we left the ranch house. If we had a breakdown, it was usually miles from the ranch house, and that meant a long walk.
It didn’t take long for me to learn the law of consequences. It was always better to avoid problems than to take a long walk. The same is true with the commandments of our Heavenly Father. He can tell the difference between someone who truly is striving to become like Him and an individual who is pushing the edges but trying to stay just inside the acceptable limits.
There are those in the world today who are striving to dismiss or change the standards established by God. This is not a new phenomenon.
“Wo unto them that call evil good, and good evil, that put darkness for light, and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (2 Nephi 15:20).
We must not be deceived or give heed to those who would attempt to convince us that God’s standards have changed. They have no authority to change the standards. Only the designer, Heavenly Father, can change the specifications.
All of us easily recognize how ridiculous it would be for a supplier of airplane parts to listen to some uninformed individual who promotes making changes to the specifications or tolerances of a part. None of us would want to fly in an airplane manufactured with such a part.
Photo illustration by Thomas Lammeyer/Hemera/Thinkstock
Likewise, no one would accuse an airplane manufacturer of being unthoughtful or intolerant when it rejects such parts. The manufacturer would not allow itself to be intimidated or bullied into accepting parts that could not be certified. To do so would jeopardize its business and the lives of the passengers who might fly in its airplanes.
The same is true with God’s laws and commandments. His standards are fixed, and no one can change them. Individuals who think they can will be greatly surprised in the Final Judgment.
Our Heavenly Father is the designer of the plan of salvation. He has put in place all that is needed for us to qualify to return to His presence. The standards are set, known, and easily available to each of us.
The Savior has said that all of us are capable of meeting the standards. The Word of Wisdom is evidence of this, indicating that it is “given for a principle with promise, adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints, who are or can be called saints” (D&C 89:3; emphasis added).
The Savior also teaches that we will “not be tempted above that which [we are] able to bear” (D&C 64:20), but we must “watch and pray continually” (Alma 13:28).
You have the power, “for the power is in [you], wherein [you] are agents unto [yourselves]. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward” (D&C 58:28).
You can meet the standards and tolerances. You have the capacity to qualify for exaltation.
We learn the standards by attending church and by studying and acting on the doctrines found in the scriptures and in the words of modern prophets.
The greatest source of guidance is the promptings that come from the Holy Ghost, who will teach us all things we must do (see 2 Nephi 32:2–3). With the aid of the Holy Ghost and the Light of Christ (see Moroni 7:16–18), we can know right and wrong. We can be guided throughout our lives. We can feel in our hearts and have thoughts come into our minds that can give comfort and guidance. This is true even for children.
God has promised that He will help us as we strive to meet His standards. Just as we wouldn’t willingly fly in an airplane made with substandard parts, we shouldn’t accept or practice substandard behavior. Only by knowing, understanding, and living the doctrine of Christ can we qualify for exaltation.

If you want to learn to lengthen your stride, you could probably get some good suggestions from Sherri Jensen, a 15-year-old sophomore at the Kaiserslautern American High School in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Sherri recently won the cross-country championship, Germany Region, for the American high schools, coming in first of the 83 competitors. Later she traveled to Wuerzburg, Germany, for the European Cross-Country Invitational where runners from Italy, Spain, Turkey, Greece, the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Benelux countries competed. She again finished first.
Sherri attends early morning seminary before her high school classes, is first counselor in her Mia Maid class in the Kaiserslautern First Ward, Germany Servicemen’s Stake, and enjoys sharing the gospel with friends.

I wish every adult leader in the Church could have been in attendance to share the spirit of that testimony meeting. With deep emotion, one lovely girl spoke of her reaction when it was discovered that her father had cancer. How she prayed and prayed that he be healed, then came to the realization that her prayers were selfish—that our loving Father in heaven was in control and that she should submit to his will. She evidenced a very mature outlook on life, something that some of us as adults never experience in a lifetime of living.

We are the parents of six rambunctious boys. Over the past 17 years, we have learned that the Spirit often uses our own experience as parents to teach us how Heavenly Father works with His children.
Several years ago, Jessica heard our boys playing upstairs. As she listened more closely, she heard the distinct sound of a writing utensil scribbling on a wall.
She called, “Boys … is someone coloring on the wall?”
After three seconds of silence, the culprit called back, “Nooooooo.” She then asked him to bring down the writing utensil.
“OK, Mama,” he said, skipping up to her and willingly, even happily, giving her a pencil.
He kept his other hand, which was holding a permanent marker and was in plain view to Jess, hidden behind his back.
After sitting with this little boy, listening to him, correcting him, and trying to help him, she had this clear impression:
“Why do I sometimes try to hide my own sins and shortcoming from an omniscient, loving Heavenly Father?”

I wandered through the crowd at my California high school. I’d just finished taking my geometry final, and I was trying to clear my head of angles and parallelograms to get ready for the Spanish final that was coming up next. My overtaxed brain was just starting to conjugate a particularly tough verb when three students I didn’t recognize walked up beside me.
“If you’re going to be a Mormon, why not be a good one?” one girl spat out.
“What?” I answered timidly.
“We saw you at the dance on Friday!” the girl retorted.
I quickly scanned my memory trying to figure out what I had done to convince them I wasn’t a good Mormon. I had been at the school dance last Friday. I had worn a dress that was stylish but modest. I was with a group of friends, and we had danced and had a nice time and gone home.
“So?” I asked in bewilderment.
“Mormons don’t dance!” another student accused.
I had to chuckle as my mind’s eye surveyed my bedroom at home. At that very moment my bed was piled high with yards and yards of pink taffeta fabric. I was in the midst of sewing my ball gown for a dance festival in Salt Lake City. Ten thousand youth from all over the country would be gathering for the event. Of course Mormons dance!
I happily told them of the event and also told them about the great stake dances that were held every month at the church with up-to-date music, and no smoking, alcohol, or drugs to interfere with the fun. I even told them how Brigham Young instructed the pioneers to pull out their fiddles and organize dances from time to time when the wagons were pulled into a circle at night while crossing the plains. I told them that members of the Church like to enjoy life and that dancing can be a natural part of that.
Three stunned accusers now stood with their mouths open. I invited them to the next stake dance and told them how to get there. One pulled out his notebook and took down directions.
The anger on their faces had been replaced by understanding smiles. As they walked away, my mind went back to my seminary lesson from that morning. It was from Matthew 5:16—“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” Wow, it was true! I realized that for good or bad, I am an example to the world around me of what members of the Church say and do. My experience proved that people were watching me and judging the Church by my actions. Before I headed to my Spanish final, I said a silent prayer of thanks to Heavenly Father for His help in that discussion and asked for the strength and conviction to always be a good representative of His Church.

At one time Thomas worked with both President Brigham Young and United States President James Buchanan to clear up a misunderstanding that could have resulted in a war between the Saints and the government. Soldiers had been sent to Utah. With Thomas Kane’s help, however, a solution was found before there was any bloodshed. President Wilford Woodruff later told him: "You were an instrument in the hands of God, and you were inspired by him to turn away … the edge of the sword."

Eventually we felt prompted to move again—this time to Alnwick, the most northerly branch of the Church in England.
On our first Sunday in Alnwick we walked into the rented rooms used for meetings and were greeted by a lively group of teenagers. ‘You’re going to be our next branch president,’ they told Paul, explaining that their parents had been praying for someone to move in. ‘That’s not how things work,’ Paul smiled. But three months later, following the departure of the missionary couple who had been serving in leadership, Paul was called as branch president. He served for six and a half years.

I offer this as profound conviction born in the fiery crucible of life’s experience. Our second son, Adam, entered our lives when I was far away in the jungles and rice paddies of Vietnam. I still have the joyful telegram announcing his birth. Adam was a blue-eyed, blond-haired little fellow with an impish personality. As he turned five years old, Adam eagerly looked forward to starting school. Then a common childhood illness blanketed our southern California community, and Adam contracted the disease. Aside from concern for his comfort, we were not worried. He even seemed to have a light case. Suddenly one morning he did not arise from his bed; he was in a deep coma. We rushed him to the hospital, where he was placed in intensive care. A constant cadre of devoted doctors and nurses attended him. His mother and I maintained a ceaseless vigil in the waiting room nearby.

I telephoned our dear stake president—a childhood friend and now a beloved colleague in the Seventy, Elder Douglas L. Callister—and asked if he would come to the hospital and join me in giving Adam a priesthood blessing. Within minutes he was there. As we entered the small, cramped space where Adam’s lifeless little body lay, his bed surrounded by a bewildering maze of monitoring devices and other medical paraphernalia, the kind doctors and nurses reverently stepped back and folded their arms. As the familiar and comforting words of a priesthood blessing were spoken in faith and earnest pleading, I was overcome by a profound sense that Someone else was present. I was overwhelmed by the thought that if I should open my eyes, I would see the Savior standing there! I was not the only one in that room who felt that Spirit. We learned quite by chance some months later that one of the nurses who was present that day was so touched that she sought out the missionaries and was baptized.

But notwithstanding, Adam made no improvement. He lingered between this life and the next for several more days as we pleaded with the Lord to return him to us. Finally, one morning after a fitful night, I walked alone down a deserted hospital corridor. I spoke to the Lord and told Him that we wanted our little boy to return so very much, but nevertheless what we wanted most was for His will to be done and that we—Pat and I—would accept that. Adam crossed the threshold into the eternities a short time later.

Frankly, we still grieve for our little boy, although the tender ministering of the Spirit and the passage of the years have softened our sadness. His small picture graces the mantel of our living room beside a more current family portrait of children and grandchildren. But Pat and I know that his path through mortality was intended by a kind Heavenly Father to be shorter and easier than ours and that he has now hurried on ahead to be a welcoming presence when we likewise eventually cross that same fateful threshold.

Although I acted as if I didn’t care, I really did want to win. After all, the opportunity to be the high school Homecoming queen only comes around once in a lifetime. And, it seemed to me, this was my one and only chance to be considered royalty.
When my name was announced as one of the three nominees, I was surprised. I wasn’t a cheerleader, and I wasn’t dating the quarterback. I’d created my own niche in school—doing activities that weren’t necessarily in the spotlight.
This would be a crowning accomplishment to have in my high school years, I thought. Royalty, huh? I could get used to that title.
The winner would be announced at halftime of the Saturday afternoon football game. The day before the game, I was sitting in my seminary class. People around me were predicting who would be crowned queen. Still wearing my facade of apathy, I took a deep breath, reminding myself that I’d survive even if I didn’t win. And remember, I told myself, it doesn’t matter if I’m royalty or not.
My heart pulsing heavily, I looked up at the teacher, hoping to divert my attention from the Homecoming chatter. Behind him on the bulletin board hung the same Mormonad poster that had been on my bedroom wall for years.
“It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice.”
My heart soared as I read again, but understood for the first time, how to look at life. Homecoming queen or not, I could concentrate on a more important thing—to be nice. If I did that, I would always be royalty in a more important, eternal sense.
Saturday came quickly, but halftime did not. The sun shone brightly on the brown October day, my 17th birthday. When the time approached, my dad escorted me to the field as the spectators watched us girls teeter out in our high heels. The announcer began, “We’d like to announce our Homecoming queen, …”
My mind wandered as I reminded myself of Friday’s realization. No matter how important or unimportant I might be, I could be royally nice to those with whom I came in contact. When I came back to reality, they were crowning the girl next to me as queen.
As I walked off the field, I smiled inside and out.
Although I’d missed my chance to be a high school queen, I hadn’t missed my opportunity to recognize my royal beginnings. We have a noble birthright, and that can’t be changed. I also realized that I should care whether I was royalty or not in a spiritual sense. Apathy has no place in our royal relationships with our Heavenly Father.
Unlike the Homecoming queen contest, it’s entirely up to us to accept the royal gifts and blessings our Father in Heaven offers to us. The Lord has crowned us all with eternal importance, and one way we can honor this noble birth is by treating others with the respect and consideration they deserve and letting that be more important to us than worldly honors.

Stephanie Kinderman, 15, of Wilmington, Delaware, has earned an unusual kind of recognition. Her mother, Deborah, writes:
“Three years ago her dad left. We are divorced now. At the time, Stephanie was the oldest of six children and only 12 years old herself. During this last three years, she has cared for her younger brothers and sisters while I have had to be gone to school or work. She has accepted this responsibility without complaint, recognizing the necessity due to our financial situation. Often she has had to sacrifice social events and activities for the welfare of the family. She is very talented at the piano, but her studies were interrupted and her opportunities limited because of our circumstances.
“Stephanie is a beautiful, talented girl and mature beyond her years. She has displayed leadership in her family equal to any organization president. Many of the things that could have come to her in life, she has sacrificed for our family. She will never receive a certificate or award for what she has done, but her achievements are surely equal to any of those who do. She attends seminary, is a member of the Band Front at school, plays Church basketball, and participates in all of her Mutual activities, but above all, her greatest accomplishment is what she has done for her family.”

The journey to her parents’ home some five hundred miles away seemed impossible. The distance was disheartening, and she had no provisions. To make matters worse, it was winter. But those fears were nothing compared to the thought of traveling alone through a war zone. Alexandria remembers sitting alone in the snow, hungry and weak, with cold tears on her cheeks. She was inconsolable until, remembering her mother’s prayers, she decided to offer her first: “Help me. Help me find my way home.” She wasn’t sure her prayer had been heard, but she nevertheless began the dangerous trek.
The winter days passed slowly. As if in answer to her prayer, someone along the way gave her a map. That spark of hope kept her going, from farm to farm and town to town, day after day. At dusk she pleaded with strangers for a place to sleep—floor or barn, it didn’t matter, as long as it was inside, so she wouldn’t get caught—and shot—for breaking curfew. Food was so scarce that she had nothing to eat but the meager scraps of stale bread and potato peelings that she scrounged from scrap buckets after her hosts had retired to bed. At first light she would resume her journey, often with her clothing wet because of the damp, leaking barns in which she had slept.
Late one afternoon, after an unusually long walk in deep snow, Alexandria was exhausted and knew she would not reach the next town on her own before curfew. She was afraid because she had learned that German soldiers were in the area. Suddenly, three horse-drawn hay wagons driven by German soldiers appeared on the narrow road. As Alexandria hid nearby, she got an idea. If she hopped onto one of the wagons without being seen, she could make it to the next town before dark. The last wagon passed, and she put her desperate plan into action. Running with all her strength, she managed to grab a pole attached to the back of the wagon and climb aboard.
Alexandria rode in relative comfort until, a few miles later, the wagons came to an abrupt halt. She froze with fear. At the sound of approaching footsteps, she closed her eyes and said a silent prayer. “Please help me, dear God!” The footsteps came closer, then stopped right next to her. Alexandria lifted her head to look into the compassionate eyes of a young soldier who motioned for her to remain still. Then he turned to rejoin his comrades without making his discovery known. The company moved on, and Alexandria safely reached the next town.
“I know Father in Heaven was watching over me and was helping me,” she says, her eyes misty with emotion.
After weeks of traveling, Alexandria arrived home, thin and weak but overjoyed to see her family again.

When I was 14 years old, two missionaries knocked at our door. They began teaching my family about the true nature of God. In the visits that followed, they taught us how to pray. They also taught us about the Restoration and the plan of salvation. After the third or fourth visit, most of my family stopped listening to the missionaries, except for my 17-year-old sister, Dina, and me. We both felt the witness of the Holy Ghost in our hearts and received the spiritual confirmation that the message was true.
My sister and I obtained a copy of the Book of Mormon and began reading it. Every day after school, we raced home to get to the book first. While the first one home was reading, the other one impatiently waited until mealtime, ate in a hurry, and then took her turn reading until bedtime. Such was the excitement we felt.
We started attending church, and soon we asked to be baptized. Our father gave his permission, but our mother was hesitant. It took one more month before she signed the permission slip. On the day of our baptism, the rest of our family went to church for the first time. Mother felt the Spirit. After hearing our testimonies, she asked the missionaries to start teaching her again. A few weeks later, Mother and our younger sister and brothers were baptized.

The “bus sisters” who come all the way from Utah to be in pageant are almost a legend. This year, six buses started out from Salt Lake City. Only three hours later one bus broke down, which meant a crowding of the girls all the way to Palmyra. It warmed my heart to learn of the pioneer stoicism and fortitude these girls displayed. “Rest stops would take two hours,” said bright-eyed Nancy Cox from the Lynwood (Oregon) Ward. “It was really crowded on the bus until someone finally bought some little kids’ chairs to sit on in the aisles.” What did they do to relieve the monotony and keep discouragement at a minimum? “We sang a lot and prayed. I feel very close to all the girls on my bus,” said Nancy. No doubt “Come, Come, Ye Saints,” with its trek-to-Salt Lake origin, was a favorite.

Once when Ryan was giving a talk at an elementary school, one student asked him how it feels to be handicapped. Ryan answered by asking, “Well, how does it feel to be human?” What Ryan couldn’t say in that particular situation was that the Church has really helped him. “I think a lot of disabled people get preoccupied thinking, ‘I can’t do this, and my life is just going to be a waste.’ Isn’t it 1 Samuel 16:7 that says the Lord looks not on the outer appearance, but on the heart? That’s rather important to me.” [1 Sam. 16:7]

One evening at Christmastime, my wife and I visited a nursing home in Salt Lake City. We looked in vain for a 95-year-old widow, whose memory had become clouded and who could not speak a word. An attendant led us in our search, and we found Nell in the dining room. She had eaten her meal; she was sitting silently, staring into space. She did not show us any sign of recognition. As I reached to take her hand, she withdrew it. I noticed that she held firmly to a Christmas greeting card. The attendant smiled and said, “I don’t know who sent that card, but she will not lay it aside. She doesn’t speak but pats the card and holds it to her lips and kisses it.” I recognized the card. It was one my wife, Frances, had sent to Nell the week before.
We left more filled with the Christmas spirit than when we entered. We kept to ourselves the mystery of that special card and the life it had gladdened and the heart it had touched. Heaven was nearby.

My friend Donna grew up desiring to marry and raise a large family. But that blessing never came. Instead she spent her adult years serving the people in her ward with unmeasured compassion and counseling disturbed children in a large school district. She had crippling arthritis and many long, blue days. Yet she always lifted and was always lifted by her friends and family. Once when teaching about Lehi’s dream, she said with gentle humor, “I’d put myself in that picture on the strait and narrow path, still holding to the iron rod but collapsed from fatigue right on the path.” In an inspired blessing given just before her death, Donna’s home teacher said the Lord “accepted” her. Donna cried. She had never felt her single life was acceptable. But the Lord said those who “observe their covenants by sacrifice … are accepted of me.” I can envision Him walking the path from the tree of life to lift Donna up with gladness and carry her home.

Mylea Moua’s cousins make fun of her for going to church. Some of her close family members discourage her church attendance. Her friends at school wonder why she would ever want to be a Latter-day Saint.
Mylea’s challenges are not unique in the Twin Cities Second (Hmong) Branch of the Anoka Minnesota Stake. Many of the youth have less-active parents and nonmember family members who mock their religion. It would be easy for Mylea, a Mia Maid, to just quit coming to church. “A lot of Hmong people ask ‘How can the Church help you?’ They reject it,” she says. “I don’t really care what people think, because how I feel makes me happy. But I feel bad for them because they don’t have the gospel.”
Unlike many of the older Hmong generation in Minnesota, Mylea and the other youth feel it’s possible to be both Hmong and LDS. “I do the best I can and try to be a good example,” she says.

When I was a young missionary in northern England in 1922, opposition to the Church became very intense. It became so strong that at one time the mission president asked that we discontinue all street meetings, and in some places tracting also was discontinued.
My companion and I were invited to travel to South Shields to speak in sacrament meeting. The invitation said, “We feel sure we can fill the little chapel. Many of the people over here do not believe the falsehoods printed about us. If you’ll come, we’re sure that we’ll have a great meeting.”
We accepted this invitation and fasted and prayed sincerely about what to say. My companion had planned to talk on the first principles of the gospel. I had studied hard in preparation for a talk on the Apostasy.
When we arrived, we found a wonderful spirit in the meeting. My companion spoke first and gave an inspirational message. I then responded, talking with a freedom I had never before experienced in my life. When I sat down, I realized that I had not even mentioned the Apostasy. Instead, I had talked about the Prophet Joseph Smith and borne my witness of his divine mission and to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
After the meeting, several nonmembers came forward and said, “Tonight we received a witness that Mormonism is true. We are now ready for baptism.”
This was an answer to our fasting and prayers, for we prayed to say only that which would touch the hearts of the investigators.