Gospel Story Finder

Kam Fung stopped to peer through the gateway on the border between China and Macau. When Papa was away, it was lonely fishing in the South China Sea in the small boat with only Mama and her two brothers.

Today Papa had promised to return from visiting his sick mother in Canton. Kam Fung watched hopefully for the familiar figure with shoulders slumped from many years of carrying heavy loads. Her own shoulders ached now under the weight of the long pole balancing two large baskets of fish. If Papa only knew what lay hidden under the fish, she thought, he might hurry home faster.

Kam Fung was about to hurry on to the market when she caught sight of her father. His shoulders were even more stooped than she had remembered, and his face more haggard than she had ever seen it. As Papa passed through the gateway, Kam Fung set down her pole and baskets of fish and ran toward him. “Oh, Papa, we have missed you!”

He smiled tiredly and took her hand. “I have missed you too. I hope you have been selling a lot of fish in the market.”

“Oh yes, Papa! But I know that I can sell these twice as fast if you help me.”

He laughed, but it seemed a little sad.

“Is Grandmother not well?” she asked.

“I’m afraid that she will not live much longer. Maybe I will visit her again soon.”

Papa picked up the pole and shouldered the fish baskets. “We will not talk of it now. We have fish to sell. Besides, I know that my brothers in Canton will take good care of her.”

As they dodged through the market crowded with people buying squawking chickens, live snakes, and apples from America, Kam Fung again thought of her secret hidden under the fish.

Papa began slapping the fish out onto the little platform where their family usually brought their daily catches. Before he had finished unloading, people began examining the fish.

“This is a nice plump one,” said one woman. “How much?” The woman was already loaded down with a chicken stuffed into a pink plastic bag, a huge watermelon, and a sack overflowing with green vegetables.

Kam Fung plopped the fish onto the pan of a caddy-stick scale to weigh it and moved the weighted string along the stick to balance it. Out of the corner of her eye Kam Fung could see Papa reaching for the last fish in the bottom of the basket and pulling out a plastic sack, instead.

Peering inside, he asked, “Why are you carrying books in the fish basket?”

“It is the Bible, Papa,” exclaimed Kam Fung, as she handed the fish to the customer. “Don’t you remember that before you left for Canton, we passed by a Christian church offering Bible classes. You told me that you read the Bible as a small boy with your family in China. Then, when Bible reading wasn’t allowed for a long time in China, your family got rid of your Bible. You said that you wished you could remember some stories about Jesus.”

Shrugging vaguely, Papa pulled a book out of the sack. “Kam Fung, this isn’t the Bible. It’s a Book of Mormon.”

“But it talks about Jesus. I know. I already ready part of it,” she said.

Papa shook his head. “This is only an American book. I had some American boys try to give me one of these when we first came to Macau. I told them that it sounded like a good story made up in the head of an American and that I wanted no part of it.” He reached into the sack again and pulled out another book, and then another, and another. “Kam Fung, there are six copies of the Book of Mormon in here. How did you ever get six?”

Kam Fung looked down sheepishly. “Well, Papa, yesterday I was dashing across the street with my load of fish. I wasn’t looking where I was going and crashed right into two Chinese missionaries on bikes. We all fell down in a heap. Their books spilled out, and all my fish came down on top of them.” Kam Fung couldn’t help giggling. “The books came up smelling pretty fishy. I told them that I didn’t think anybody else would want to have their books smelling of fish but that I knew my papa would want to read one and that he was really used to fish smells.”

Papa wasn’t smiling. “I don’t want one, let alone six.”

Kam Fung said wistfully, “I thought that you would want to give them to your brothers and mother in China.”

“My mother bought another Bible a few years ago,” Papa replied, “and that’s all she needs.”

A huge gust of wind almost blew away his last words. A pole loaded with wet clothes plopped heavily on top of him.

Kam Fung stifled her laughter. “Oh, Papa, are you OK?”

He was still sputtering under the wet clothes when someone raced by their booth, yelling breathlessly, “There’s a typhoon headed this way! The other end of the market’s already closing up.”

Raindrops were starting to fall as Kam Fung and Papa rushed home. She hoped that the fishing boat, where she had lived all her life, would be safely anchored. But when they reached the familiar inlet of the South China Sea, her home was nowhere in sight.

Papa pursed his lips with worry. “We’ll have to take the sampan to find them. Your brothers aren’t that expert in handling a boat in a storm, and they may not realize how serious their situation is.”

Papa started the engine as Kam Fung clambered into the craft beside him. The sea was rolling angrily, but Kam Fung was never afraid when Papa was handling a boat. She could barely see the outline of the island of Tanzao. It seemed to bob up and down before her eyes. None of the few boats thrashing about looked like her home. She hoped that their fishing boat had not been forced out into the open sea.

Then she heard Papa yell above the wind and the motor, “I see them! They’re coming in!”

Mama ran out onto the deck as Papa pulled the sampan up beside the rolling fishing boat. She lowered a rope for securing the sampan to the larger boat.

Kam Fung felt herself sighing as Papa caught the rope. But she also felt something else. It was the powerful tremor of a gigantic wave roaring toward them. Without glancing up, she knew that it would engulf them. The sampan was capsizing! Kam Fung felt as if she were rolling in slow motion into the swirling sea.

The frightened girl was certain that Papa would come and scoop her out of the water, but no strong arms came. Thrashing wildly, she tried to escape the surging waves that threatened to envelop her and sink her to the depths. Thrusting her head above the foaming water, she gulped for air. The boat! Where is it? She suddenly glimpsed it between two waves. It was so far away—and it was slipping farther away with each forbidding wave! Then the sea grabbed her and pulled her under again.

Kam Fung opened her eyes, but nothing registered at first. Finally she could focus on Mama, who was leaning over her with a damp cloth. Kam Fung gradually became aware that she was lying on her own bed in their boat, and she jerked in panic and sat up. “Where’s Papa?”

“I’m right here,” he said soothingly and took a step toward her. Mama gently laid her back down.

“Everything’s going to be OK now,” said Papa. “For a while we thought that we’d lost you in that terrible sea—”

“And then it was like a miracle,” interjected Mama. “We found you battered against some rocks on shore. At first we thought that you were dead. But somehow Papa knew all along that you weren’t.”

“And it may have been a miracle, too,” said her brother Lung Fai as he held up a bright pink plastic bag. “I watched you capsizing,” he continued, “and couldn’t figure out why you kept clinging to a plastic bag. Now I think I know. We found your bag, still tightly knotted, washed up on the shore not far from you.” Lung Fai held up a soggy copy of the Book of Mormon. “I’ve already read a few pages,” he said. “There’s some reason that you were supposed to have these books.”

Soon Kam Fung was able to eat some of her mother’s rice soup. She could tell by the sound of the rain and the waves that the worst of the storm was over.

Kam Fung watched as Papa picked up one of her books. “I might read one of these books just for curiosity’s sake,” he said casually. He opened the front cover, looked at it in surprise, then set it down and opened another. “People’s pictures are inside the books, with words written in Chinese.” When he opened the sixth one, his eyes widened and he drew in a sharp breath. His words spilled out excitedly. “I know this man! He’s my cousin!” He rushed to Mama and jabbed his finger at the picture. “That’s the son of my mother’s oldest brother. My uncle and his family went away many years ago, after the big war, and my mother has wondered for years about her brother and his family. Look! Here’s an American address. Now I can tell my mother the happy news.”

Papa began reading his cousin’s words out loud: “I never knew when I was still living in China that I could find such a wonderful thing as the true gospel of Jesus Christ and its teachings about how we can live together forever as a family. I only hope that some of the people I have left behind may come to know this important message. I know that the Book of Mormon you are holding has been sent from God to help us. …”

Papa fell silent. Then he slowly turned to the first chapter of First Nephi and began reading.

I received a letter from Elder Mortenson who served in Buenos Aires, Argentina:
“Six months before I left my mission you spoke at our mission conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I felt the Spirit resting upon me so strongly that afterwards I was urged by the Spirit to seek a promise from you. I struggled forward and said to you, Can you look me in the eye and promise me that I can baptize those 10 people?’ I don’t even know if those were my exact words, but those words express the desire I had then. You see, I had not baptized a single soul, and my mission was soon to be over. You looked me in the eye and promised with a voice of certainty that should I be faithful to the utmost and work with all my heart, might, mind, and strength, ‘you will baptize 10 people.’ In my heart I knew you could not be lying, and I knew that I had received the promise that I sought.

“I worked with all my heart and with all my might and mind and strength, and my mission ended two years of faithful endeavor. The Lord did bless me, and the promise was fulfilled. For nearly two years I had baptized no one. The last Saturday of my mission, my companion and I entered the waters and opened the doors of God’s kingdom for 15 beautiful and repentant children of our Father in heaven.”
The promise by me was an easy thing and could have been made by any priesthood leader. Elder Mortenson caught the vision of total selfless service and self-denial, and he achieved his goal.

Mama had said that if I helped cut and spread peaches until they were all out to dry, Papa might bring me a surprise from Salt Lake. I told him I hoped it would be cloth for a pink dress and a hair ribbon. However, Papa insisted that brown or gray was more practical than pink; but I saw him wink at Mama when he said it. I was tired of the bolt of brown cloth we got last year for our dresses and for my brothers’ shirts. Mama thought it was a nice mulberry color, but to me it always looked brown.
Too soon summer was over and the Virgin Ward Primary had started again. Our Primary president, Sister Stratton, announced, “We have been encouraged by Sister Eliza R. Snow to have a fair in January to celebrate the twentieth birthday of Primary in our ward.”
Brother Stratton agreed to show the boys how to notch water willows to build little log cabins. Our teacher, Sister Isom, said that she would teach us how to sew a fine seam so we could make our own dresses when we grew up. “You may make doll dresses or piece quilt blocks. Some of you girls may even want to make aprons.”
Excitedly I drew in my breath. My mind flashed back to a sunset walk with Sister Stratton and her two little girls, Artie and Persis. The sky was turning pink. As it became pinker and pinker, we girls, holding hands, skipped to where the pasture grass stopped, and tumbled laughing in the sand at the river’s edge.
“Just look, we’re in a pink world,” Artie exclaimed.
The pink was not only in the west, but drifting clouds picked up the color in the east and north and south as well. Swallows skimmed the pink sky in their silent search for insects, and the shallow trickle of the Virgin River rippled pink. With upturned faces we looked and looked.
Settling herself on a smooth boulder, Sister Stratton looked up in rapture. “Oh,” she said softly, “how wonderful—how gloriously wonderful!”
“Mama, Heavenly Father is the One who makes the sky so pretty at night, isn’t He?” Persis asked.
“Yes, dear, and how thankful we should be for eyes to see. Eyesight is a precious gift.”
“I’m glad I’m not a mole in a hole,” Artie said thoughtfully.
“Sister Stratton, wouldn’t be fun to have something to wear the color of the sky?” I asked.
“Oh, Mary Ann, that would be lovely. I think I would have a gathered apron to tie around my waist when we come home to Sunday dinner—a long pink checkered apron.” Then she arose and, brushing the sand from her skirts, said, “Speaking of dinner, come along, girls. Your father will soon be in from the field, powerful hungry.”
Light-footed we pattered beside her. No one would think by her lively step that she had a dozen children. Actually, Artie made thirteen, because she came to live with the Strattons when her own mother died. Sister Stratton had room in her big heart for everyone, including me. Persis and Artie were like my sisters, since I was the only girl in our family, surrounded by a whole troop of brothers.
“I feel happy as a meadowlark,” Persis said. And to show that she did, too, Sister Stratton burst into song and we joined in:
Days of summer glory, days I love to see,
All your scenes so brilliant, they are dear to me.
Let your thot’s be ever, pure as yonder sun,
Gentle as the breezes when the night comes on.
Meadow, field and mountain, clothed in shining green,
Little rippling fountains, thro’ the willows seen,
Birds that sweetly warble all the summer days,
All things speak in music, their Creator’s praise.
Deseret Sunday School Songs, no. 169.
(Sing with Me, no. G-22.)
Suddenly I was snapped out of my reverie by our Primary chorister’s voice. “Children, we will now sing no. 169, ‘Summer Time.’” That’s funny, I thought, we’re going to sing the very song that was running through my mind.
After the song Sister Bradshaw played the harmonica and we danced the Danish slide-off. Then Sister Stratton brought out a dishpan full of molasses cookies, and the new Primary season had really and truly begun.
I could hardly wait to get home to tell Mama about the Primary fair and what I wanted to make for our president. “Sister Stratton will be so surprised to have a pink checkered apron made by me. Then she’ll remember our sunset walk every time she wears it.”
Patting my shoulder, Mama said, “We’ll go to the co-op now and find the material.”
Mama helped me cut out the apron and I folded it neatly in my sewing box along with needles, thimble, and thread ready for the next Primary day. How to keep Sister Stratton from seeing it puzzled me, but I needn’t have worried. She wasn’t there. Persis said her mother was ill.
Sister Stratton wasn’t at Primary the next week, nor the next. Finally Brother Stratton took her to St. George to be under a doctor’s care, and Persis’s older sister Mary had to take care of the family.
I guess the Primary children worked harder than ever preparing for the fair, because everyone wanted to please Sister Stratton. I finished my apron and could hardly wait for her to see it. Besides making doll dresses and little quilts, some of the girls braided doll rugs. The boys made spool wagons in addition to the little water willow log cabins. We were going to have a scrumptious display.
It was on the first Primary day in January that we finally learned something about Sister Stratton’s illness. Sister Gibson told the children that our beloved president had gone blind. I almost couldn’t stand it. I thought of that day at the river and how thankful she was to have eyes to see with. I remembered the times she told the Primary children how beautiful their smiles were. I thought of the fair and how anxious we were to have her see what we had made. A lump as big as a quince arose in my throat as we started the opening song:
Jesus bids us shine with a clear, pure light,
Like a little candle, burning in the night, …
In this world is darkness, so we must shine,
You in your small corner, and I in mine. …
—“Jesus Bids Us Shine,” Deseret Sunday School Songs, no. 183
I almost bawled when they sang “In this world is darkness,” thinking how it must be for Sister Stratton. Then Lucy Jepson recited a piece about the great, wide, beautiful, wonderful world and I broke down. I couldn’t help it.
Sister Bradshaw put her arms around me. “What’s the matter, Mary Ann?” she asked.
“Oh, Sister Bradshaw, Sister Stratton won’t ever be able to see the beautiful world again.”
“I know, Mary Ann; it’s truly sad. But perhaps you’ll feel better after our lesson today,” she said.
The lesson was about Jesus anointing the eyes of the blind man so he could see. After the lesson we were asked to fast and pray for Sister Stratton.
Fast and testimony meeting was the next Sunday, January the sixth, twenty years to the day since Eliza R. Snow and Zina D. Young organized the first Primary in Virgin in 1881. Most of the testimonies were about that first Primary, and I almost wished I had been born sooner. Then Bishop Beebe prayed for Sister Stratton, and the Primary children were asked to stay after meeting.
When we knelt together Sister Gibson said, “Heavenly Father delights in the prayers of little children. Mary Ann, will you please lead us?” Since we always took turns praying in Primary anyway, I was not usually afraid, but this time it was different. When I bowed my head I sobbed and sobbed, and I tingled all over. Finally I gained control.
“Oh, Heavenly Father,” I pleaded, “please heal Sister Stratton because we love her so much and because she loves us so much. Bless her so she can see our smiles and all of the things we made for the fair and the wonderful world and pink sunsets. Please. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
The Primary fair was the following Saturday and Sister Stratton was there. Standing before us, she said, “Your smiles are as beautiful as those of angels.” She could see! Tears streamed down her cheeks as she continued, “Dear precious children, a wonderful thing happened to me. As I sat by a west window late Sunday afternoon, a feeling of peace came over me. And then, out of the mist of darkness, there came a gentle light, growing brighter; and I saw a sky full of gold-fringed pink clouds and I knew the sun was setting. Over and over I said, ‘Thank you, Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the precious gift of sight.’ And then I learned that at that very hour, you, my precious Primary children, were on your knees praying for me.”
We rushed into her arms and she hugged us, one by one. And then she saw and enjoyed the things we had made. “They are just beautiful,” she said. She enjoyed our singing, reciting, and our dancing, and I just knew it was the happiest birthday party the world had ever seen. Last of all I gave her the pink checkered apron.
“Oh, Mary Ann. Mary Ann!” she cried. “You must have caught a pink cloud right out of the sunset to make this for me.” And we laughed happily together.
I dearly love our Heavenly Father for listening so tenderly when children pray.

One of greater childhood determination was Steve Alford, who plays for the Dallas Mavericks team in the National Basketball Association. He remembers telling his eighth grade counselor, as she completed a career path form for him, that he was going to be an NBA player. She responded, “I can’t put that answer down.” Steve Alford replied, “Then leave it blank, ‘cause that’s what I’m going to do!” And he did.

“Serving a mission in Brazil was a great turning point in my life,” declared Elder Sorensen. “When I was twenty and had just completed two years of college at the University of Chicago on an academic/athletic scholarship, I had doubts about my going on a mission. When I returned home that summer, Mom said to me, ‘Well, now you can prepare for your mission.’”
Elder Sorensen told his mother that he had changed his mind and didn’t think that he would serve a mission. “I’ll never forget the hurt look on Mom’s face,” he recalled, “after I told her my decision. She didn’t scold me, but afterward she privately cried and prayed.
“I didn’t go back to school in Chicago that fall. With the help of Mom and Dad and a wise and understanding bishop, I accepted a mission call to Brazil and left for South America in 1940.
“It wasn’t very long after I arrived in the mission field and began studying the scriptures regularly that my testimony really began to grow. Since then it has never wavered but has grown stronger. I’m grateful to the Lord and my parents for guiding me at that very important crossroad.
“Children, listen to your parents. They love you more than anyone else does, except your Father in Heaven, who has an even greater capacity to love. If you follow their good teachings and example, you will always be happy that you did. And remember to follow the counsel and guidance of Church leaders, particularly your bishop.”

I was making a poster for my homework and I got frustrated that I couldn’t draw what I was trying to draw, so I threw my pencil. My Mom suggested that I could read to calm down. I was going to read my favorite book, but then I felt like I should read the Friend instead. I read Matt and Mandy. It helped me feel better because Matt was having a bad day, but he tried to remember he was a child of God. I read it eight times, and I got a warm feeling. I know that Heavenly Father knows me and all my problems. If I will listen to the still, small voice, He will comfort and help me. I know I am a child of God.

Sunday, July 2, 1972, at the close of testimony meeting, he stood with the congregation of his home ward. Tears filled his eyes as he sang, with them “The Star Spangled Banner.”
In the afternoon there was a visit to family members.
And in the evening, as he sat in the home of a beloved daughter, his head bowed quietly forward, and he died.
There was no suffering. “He was here one minute, and gone the next. It was very peaceful,” the family reported.
So ended the mortal life of a prophet of God.
For President Joseph Fielding Smith it was an appropriate last day on earth: joyful worship with his brothers and sisters in the gospel; nourishing and enjoying the family circle; a quiet, happy acceptance of the Lord’s call to further service.
It had been that way all his life.
That quiet end seems, in fact, like a personal benediction, a final earthly blessing from his Maker in appreciation for a life lived, in every respect, as life should be lived.
Joseph Fielding Smith carried an unmatched heritage, and the responsibility that goes with it, when he entered this life on July 19, 1876. He was of the lineage of prophets. His great-great grandfather had the inspiration to record, “It has been borne in upon my soul that one of my descendants will promulgate a work to revolutionize the world of religious faith.” His great-grandfather, Joseph Smith, Sr., was the first to receive, and accept, the Prophet Joseph’s testimony, was one of the eight witnesses to the Book of Mormon, was ordained first patriarch to the Church, died a martyr’s death from exposure in the expulsion from Missouri. Joseph Fielding Smith’s grandfather, Hyrum, stood constantly beside his brother Joseph; was a counselor in the First Presidency; was second patriarch to the Church; and died at Joseph’s side as together they sealed their testimony. His father, son not only of Hyrum but also of one of history’s most remarkable pioneer women, became sixth president of the Church, the first president to be born in the Church and spend his entire life under its influence. For eighteen years as president he led and built and loved the Church and its people.
This kind of blood flowed in the veins of President Joseph Fielding Smith. But others have had noble blood and have failed to honor it. As he so often said, each man must earn his own testimony; each man at the judgment will stand responsible for his own work.
It was Joseph Fielding Smith’s own testimony, his own devotion, that led to his call to the apostleship at age thirty-three and that sustained him through sixty years as an apostle and two and one-half as president and prophet of the Church.
It was his own gentle kindness and human warmth as well as firmness in the gospel that made him so loved in Europe during the first dark days of World War II and later in the Far East, South Pacific, South America, and wherever else he traveled, blessing the Saints, opening missions, and building the Church.
It was his own scholarship and hard work that produced twenty-four books of gospel interpretation and teaching and that brought him recognition as perhaps the leading gospel scholar of this dispensation.
It was his own profound commitment to genealogy and temple work that led, during his long service as president of the Genealogical Society, to the Church’s accumulation of the world’s greatest collection of genealogical records.
And it was his own receptiveness to the inspiration of the spirit that led him, as newly ordained president and prophet, to choose two great men as counselors through whom and with whom he led the Church in its most astonishing period of profound change and growth. Here was a ninety-three-year-old man ordained president of the Church, the oldest man ever so chosen. The outlook was for a short, quiet ministry without innovation or progress. Instead, the Church literally spurted ahead. Eighty-one stakes were organized during the two and one-half years of his ministry—compared to the ninety-eight years it took to organize the first hundred stakes. Even more impressive during those two and one-half years is the long list of far-reaching organizational and program changes that prepare the Church for more rapid growth in the future.
So Joseph Fielding Smith was his own man—and the Lord’s. But what sort of man was he, really?
The president of the United States, Richard Nixon, found his friendship a “profound experience” and called him a “devoted and inspirational leader.” So did countless others. And so he was. But what else was he, away from the pressure of his high office?
He was a man who loved his family with a depth only possible to one who fully understands the eternal nature of family ties. Because he loved them, he taught them, and because they loved him, they responded. All five of his sons served missions for the Church; all eleven of his children married in the temple.
He was a man who found joy in the company of children. On the last day of his life, a mother asked him to touch her infant; she remembers his happy, loving smile as he caressed the child. Last year as he left general conference, a little girl ducked under the ropes and ran to President Smith. He picked her up and held her close. Reproved later by her parents who feared she might have become lost in the crowd, the child replied, “I wasn’t lost; I was in the arms of the Prophet.”
He was a man of quick, gentle humor, much of it directed at himself; he never took himself too seriously. He referred to his typing as the “biblical system—seek and ye shall find.” He described the duets he so often sang with his late wife, the great contralto Jessie Evans Smith, as “do-its; I have to do it whether I want to or not.” His personal secretary and longtime associate, Brother D. Arthur Haycock, recalls how the students at BYU had seemed to enjoy a recent talk and duet so greatly some had tears in their eyes. To this President Smith quickly responded, “I can understand that. My singing is enough to make anybody cry.”
He was a man who respected—and cared for—the physical body as a tabernacle of the spirit. Because of that care, he spent not a single day in the hospital in all his ninety-six years.
He loved athletics, both as participant and spectator. He still played a respectable game of handball in his seventies and credited regular exercise for his excellent health and longevity. One of the warmest, most human memories of him goes back to a Saturday session of general conference when he slipped away during the closing song to watch his son play football at the University of Utah.
With all the tradition and continuity his longevity brought to the presiding councils of the Church, he was a modern man, attuned to the times. His personal zest for living never let him become old-fashioned—unless strict personal morality and steadfast devotion are old-fashioned. His life spanned the period from the ox cart to the jet plane and lunar landings—and, indeed, in his eighties, he took delight in an occasional ride in a National Guard jet fighter.
More than all else, he was a man of God—not only at the pulpit, but in the circle of his family or the privacy of his room. As President Harold B. Lee said of him, “He sought no honors of men. His purpose in life could well be penned in one sentence—his was an ‘eye single to the glory of God in bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.’”
He was his father’s tenth child; a “tithing child.” He gave his life, as all honest tithes are given, joyfully, without reservation, fully, to the Lord.

This story happened in the USA.
Ryan closed the last envelope and grinned. His birthday was almost here, and he couldn’t wait to invite his friends to his party! Mom had helped him make invitations with rocket ships and stars. He was sure it would be the best birthday ever.
The first friend Ryan wanted to invite was Chad. Chad was really nice, and Ryan always had fun with him. Sometimes Chad stumbled over his words, and he wasn’t very good at sports. But Ryan didn’t mind. Chad was good at other things. He liked to make tiny origami animals by folding paper. One time he made Ryan a little bear. Ryan kept it on the dresser in his room.
Ryan walked to Chad’s house and gave him an invitation. “It’s for my birthday party on Saturday,” he said. “I hope you can come!”
Chad smiled big. “Thank you. I’ll b-be there.”
Before Ryan left, Chad showed him his new origami. He had deer, chipmunks, squirrels, and owls—a whole forest of tiny paper animals. It was so cool!
Next, Ryan found Ty and Braden at Ty’s house. He gave them each an invitation.
“Who else is coming?” Ty asked.
“I’m inviting Alex, Matt, Jacob, and Chad.”
“Ugh,” Braden said. “Why are you inviting Chad? He’s weird.”
Ryan froze. “Because he’s my friend.”
“Well, he’s not our friend,” Ty said. “If Chad’s coming, I’m not.”
“Me neither,” Braden said.
Ryan walked back home. He didn’t know what to do. He wanted Ty and Braden to come to his party, but he also wanted Chad to come.
When he got home, he told Mom what happened.
“I’m sorry they feel that way,” Mom said. “It sounds like they haven’t given themselves a chance to get to know Chad. What do you think you should do?”
Ryan was quiet for a minute. Mom and Dad had taught him that when he needed help, the Holy Ghost could guide him. They said it was like a quiet voice you could feel in your heart.
Ryan said a silent prayer. Heavenly Father, what should I do?
When he thought about Ty and Braden, he felt nervous and a little sad. But when he thought about inviting Chad, he felt calm and happy. He knew the Holy Ghost was telling him that inviting Chad was a good choice.
On Saturday, Ryan helped Dad set up games to play in the backyard. Mom set out Ryan’s favorite snacks, popcorn and pretzels. One by one, Ryan’s friends arrived.
Ty and Braden didn’t come. But Ryan had lots of fun with his other friends. Chad even showed them how to make origami. They all went home with their own paper animal.
It really was the best birthday ever! Ryan felt happy and grateful.
Ryan gave Chad a high-five. “Thanks for coming!” he said. “I’m glad we’re friends.”
Chad smiled back. “Me too.”
How did the Holy Ghost help Ryan?
Illustrations by Colleen Madden

After my parents were married, one of Dad’s first callings was to teach a family history class. During this time he became personally committed to doing family history work. His law office calendar had many afternoons blocked off to go to the Los Angeles public library to do genealogical research. He started preparing six-foot-long (1.8 m) family group sheets, which he bound in sturdy ledgers.
Dad would also gather data and connect with our relatives. He sent hundreds of letters to his relatives as he discovered who they were. He peppered our family vacations with visits to cousins, aunts, and uncles. From this I learned of the good that can be done when you sacrifice a pleasant day of vacationing.

My family used to live in a big house, but everything changed when we moved to Hanoi. We lived in a very small apartment, about 30 square meters. Living in a narrow space with three other people in my family was hard.
But I’m grateful that God can help make good things come from any situation. During that time, I was able to be an interpreter at church and for my parents. I could pray every day, I passed the sacrament, and I welcomed people investigating the gospel. I know that God has blessed me and guided me to do those things.
Through all the challenges at that time, my faith became stronger day by day. Many people don’t know about the gospel in my country, so I’m a young pioneer. I have a desire to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with people to help them have a happy life forever with Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father.

When our daughter, Emi, was a little girl, she liked to watch my every move as I got ready for church. After observing my routine, she would comb her hair and put on her dress, and then she would always ask me to put on some “shiney.” The “shiney” she referred to was thick, gooey cream that I used to prevent wrinkles. As requested, I would put it on Emi’s cheeks and lips, and she would then smile and say, “Now we are ready to go!” What Emi didn’t realize is that she already had her “shiney” on. Her face glowed because she was so pure and innocent and good. She had the Spirit with her, and it showed.

Haroon remembered the excitement of the day the announcement was made that the language would be written with the same alphabet he used to study English. Airplanes had dropped leaflets all over the city to tell the people the good news.
People began learning to read and write Somali at once.
Three months later Haroon’s father, who was a clerk in a government office, told him, “Next week I must pass a literacy test in Somali in order to keep my job.”
That same week Haroon and three of his friends sat at a sidewalk cafe sipping a spicy beverage. Jama ran up to them, waving the first edition of the Somali daily newspaper.
“Just look at this!” he shouted. Proudly he read the name “Xiddigta Oktoobar (October Star).”
Soon five heads were bent over the pages, sounding out familiar words that looked strange in print.
Radio Mogadishu began broadcasting literacy lessons daily. Everyone in town was learning to read now. Classes started all over the city.
In August of 1974 the literacy campaign was taken to the nomads in the bush country. All schools, except technical schools and the senior classes, were closed for the year. Students fourteen years and older were sent into the bush to teach the nomads to read and write Somali.
Thousands of students were assigned to various sections of the nation. Haroon was one of these. He had stepped up to the official handing out the supplies. “Nabad miyaa,” he greeted.
“Haah waa nabad weeya,” came the cheerful answer. “Here is what you’ll need, Haroon: a blanket for cold bush nights; a folding blackboard that is used as box for the eraser, pens, pencils; a textbook; and a class register. Nabad gelyo. Llaah ha ku barakadeya (Go in peace with God’s blessing).”
Haroon began with great confidence, but he found the nomad chief was not interested in learning anything from a city youth who knew nothing about camels. Only the children and some women attended classes—sometimes.
Haroon longed for the comforts of his father’s house, especially plenty of water for showers. He longed for a chance to talk with friends, for most of the men here ignore him.
Just when he felt especially low in spirit, he met Osman, a former schoolmate, traveling with another group of nomads. Osman was bubbling with enthusiasm about the literacy campaign and all that he was learning from the nomads. “I even helped load the camels for this move,” he said with a grin. “I’d never touched a camel before. And do you know what?” Osman continued, stroking the flank of the animal near him. “This animal actually obeyed my command to get up after we had put on its load.”
After they parted, Haroon thought about Osman’s words and obvious enjoyment of his experience. I guess I’ve just been thinking of one part of the president’s challenge. I think I know so much the nomads should learn that I haven’t thought about learning anything from them. He softly repeated the president’s words, “Haddaad taqaan bar, haddaadan aquoon baro.” (If you know, teach; if you don’t know, learn.)
That night he moved closer to the men around the campfire. He was captivated by the stories Chief Abdi told of Somali heroes of the past. Just before he fell asleep, he thought, I ought to write those stories in Somali. But the next day there was no time for classes nor for story writing, for the clan had to move to find more pasture.
Haroon tried to be helpful. By the time they got settled in their new location, he was feeling as though he were almost a part of the group. However, he was also feeling sick with a fever. He did not complain, but when Chief Abdi heard about his sickness, he was concerned. He sent a young man to find a special plant that was used for a fever medicine. To Haroon he said, “Perhaps you want to return to your father. Life in the bush is hard.”
But Haroon was determined to remain, now as eager to learn as to teach. After his recovery, when the chief observed Haroon’s genuine desire to learn of the nomadic way of life, he became more friendly. He ordered his people to attend classes.
Sometimes in the afternoon when the youths gathered under the spreading branches of an acacia tree, the camels shared the shade. It was very different from the classroom in the city where Haroon had studied English. Here the blackboard hung on a tree. And the strong, acrid odor of camels hung on the dusty air.
Some of the nomads were keen students and helped others. Little children chanted the alphabet as they herded goats. They wrote the letters in the dust while goats nibbled whatever they could find.
One evening when the full moon shone over the settlement, Haroon read to the group a story the chief had told some weeks earlier. The men sat enthralled, realizing in a way for the first time that these marks could tell a familiar story.
Chief Abdi was thoughtful as Haroon finished. “That is good, Haroon,” he said. “If we write our history, our children will not forget. I must learn this writing also.”
Chief Abdi became an earnest pupil, and with his constant encouragement, others came more regularly.
Later in Mogadishu, there was a big celebration when Haroon and thousands of other boys and girls returned to the capital after eight months among the nomads. Crowds lined the streets to welcome them and to celebrate the completion of one more phase in the fight against illiteracy.
The schools opened and these youths returned to being students again. But there was a difference. The experiences in the bush had changed them and increased their appreciation and understanding about some of the problems their country was facing. Many now had a growing respect for the skills of the nomads who could survive in the harsh desert. They also had a greater appreciation for the Somali nomadic culture of their ancestors.
Six months later Haroon was walking home from school one day through the noisy city streets when he suddenly caught the strong, unmistakable scent of a herd of camels. Memories rushed into his mind. Then he saw the herd come around the corner at the end of the block. They jostled each other as cars and taxis honked their horns. A bushman was bringing a herd to the slaughterhouse. Haroon went to talk to the nomad and found he knew Chief Abdi’s clan very well.
The man handed Haroon a letter showing signs of being carried many days in the folds of the man’s skirt. Haroon opened it and read greetings from many in the clan. It was written by the hand of Chief Abdi himself. He thanked Haroon for teaching him and his people.
Haroon was happy to know that Abdi was also following the president’s words: “If you know, teach; if you don’t know, learn.”

These events seemed quite unimportant to us then. Even today few attach any significance to them. I, like others, just acknowledged them as part of my adviser’s experience and merely shared them with my family. I realized how important they are, however, when my wife and I later attended the American Fork High School graduation ceremonies. They were held in the community tabernacle, and an estimated 1,200 people attended.
During the program Scott Squires, an articulate senior class president, began to address the audience. He described the graduating class as a group who dreamed important dreams and cared about important things. As an example of their character he described the events of the tournament game in which Scott participated, telling that members of the graduating class were those who cared unselfishly. He was not from our ward and was a witness because his ward’s team was to play a later game. He obviously was impressed because he retold the story weeks after it happened. Unwittingly he made Scott’s gift available to more people because of his telling. Now, many others were to be uplifted.
I tried to gauge the reaction of the audience to this story, but found I could not get a clear indication of what they thought. Afterwards, though, standing on the lawn talking with friends, more than once I heard comments about “that nice story.” Scott’s gifts to us were carried beyond our quorum and ward to our community. As I rode home that night, I reviewed all that has happened this last year and knew how great his gifts have been.

When I was almost eight years old, my father, a doctor, died of an ailment he caught from one of his patients. A few months later, my mother left my little brother and sister and me in the care of her parents and went away to attend a university so she could earn enough money to support us. But the stress of her husband’s death, combined with the stress of leaving her children affected her health very seriously, and she was placed in the care of a nurse. I didn’t see her for many months.
I had lost my father, and for a time, I lost my mother, too. I was very unhappy and did not do well in school. I didn’t learn how to write cursive, and to this day I can hardly write in cursive except my own signature. My spelling was terrible,and my math was worse. My teacher would have the class pass their arithmetic papers forward one seat to be corrected; then we had to announce the results out loud. On a 20-problem exercise, I’d usually get 15 or 16 wrong answers. I believed I was the dumbest boy in the room. I remember one occasion when some classmates threw snowballs at me and called me stupid.
Mother recovered, and when she was able to take care of us, we moved to Vernal, Utah, where Pearl Shaffer became my fifth-grade teacher. What she did for me can never be repaid. She had confidence in me, and as a result I regained confidence in myself. She helped me to learn. By the time I finished my fifth-grade year, I was competing with the better students.

I first met Sally Pilobello in the Philippines in 1972 when I was sent there as a health missionary. I learned that she and her husband had lost their first baby when the baby was five months old. Sally had other children, but she now was pregnant with another and asked me, “What can I do to have a healthy Mormon baby?” I thought of her courage and faith as she responded to truth and adopted some new habits and traditions. Soon people in the neighborhood were sharing the news: “Mormon baby is coming!”

On 20 January 1973, Sarah Pilobello was born—a healthy, beautiful “Mormon baby.” Her mother’s pioneer spirit had enabled her to do things she had not done before—to add more truth to what she already knew. Sally used to smile at me and say, “Sister, you can never teach an old dog new tricks.” Then she’d pause and add: “But Sister, I am not a dog!”

In 1984 I received a letter from eleven-year-old Sarah—“Little Melon” to her family and friends: “I’m sorry that I have not written for a long time because every time I’m going to start my letter my playmates are insisting me to play with them. Now I firmly decided to write to you. We are glad that Mommy is doing what the family preparedness program of the welfare missionaries taught them. We now purify our water and have a balanced diet. That is why we grow faster than the other children. The temple is now being made and I hope I’ll see you there. I love you. Little Melon.”

I also received a letter from her mother, my dear friend Sally: “I want to express my gratitude for the things I have learned which are making such a difference in my family. I realize now that some of the things my mother taught me—things her mother taught her—were not correct. But the truths I’m learning will now be taught to my children, and to their children, and to the generations to come. We will not be damned any longer by ignorance. ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free!’ As they say, it is never too late to learn and change. God must love us dearly to allow us to have so much truth.”

The news was heartbreaking. Doctors informed the family that their father had cancer and would live only a few more months at best. Medical science could do no more.
One of the grief-stricken sons was a nuclear engineer, an expert on what man can do through the miracles of technology. But in this situation, technology was helpless.
In a spirit of fasting and prayer, Richard Scott and his four brothers gathered in a circle and gave their father a priesthood blessing in which he was promised a full recovery. The blessing was fulfilled.

The 49 Montgomery Alabama Stake youths piled out of their vehicles. Rakes, shovels, and axes were unloaded from auto trunks as they began to tackle the weeds, leaves, and debris around the old Magnolia chapel. They were continuing a tradition of service for the Church that stretches back nearly 80 years to the night of Saturday, May 8, 1897, when Henry McCoy and Grover Surginer passed a group of riders hurrying through the dark, wooded lane. The men’s faces were covered, which caused the pair to wonder.
“I recognized one of the horses, though. It belongs to John Garrett,” one of them commented as they continued to the bowery erected for the conference sessions being held in Magnolia.
When the men got to the crossroads where the bowery was located, they discovered that the seats, made of planks and sawed blocks, had been heaped together and ignited. The two men quickly put out the blaze.
The next day the members met again in conference despite the blackened ends of the seats. For them, persecution was nothing new. The missionaries had been tarred and feathered before and had eggs thrown at them. Converts reaped the ire of relatives and neighbors alike, but they didn’t quit. Service to the Church has continued into modern times.

For a long period after I converted to the gospel, I didn’t have a clear answer to the question “Why am I given trials?” I understood the part of the plan of salvation that says we will be tested. However, in reality, when it came to this question, I did not have a conviction that was powerful enough to adequately answer it. But there came a time in my life when I too experienced a major trial.
When I was 30 years old, I was visiting the Nagoya mission as part of my work. After the meeting, the mission president kindly arranged for the elders to drive me to the airport. However, as we reached the intersection at the bottom of a long hill, a large truck came barreling down from behind us at great speed. It rammed into the rear of our car and propelled it forward more than 70 feet (20 m). The terrifying part of all of this was there was no driver. The rear of our car was compacted to half its original size. Fortunately, both the elders and I survived.
However, on the following day, I began experiencing pain in my neck and shoulders and developed a severe headache. From that day, I couldn’t sleep and I was forced to live each day with both physical and mental pain. I prayed to God to please heal my pain, but these symptoms lingered on for about 10 years.
At this time, feelings of doubt also began creeping into my mind, and I wondered, “Why do I have to suffer this much pain?” However, even though the kind of healing I sought was not granted, I strove to be faithful in keeping God’s commandments. I continued to pray that I would be able to resolve the questions I had about my trials.
There came a time when I found myself struggling with a few additional personal issues, and I was agitated because I did not know how to cope with this new trial. I was praying for an answer. But I didn’t receive an answer right away. So I went and talked with a trusted Church leader.
As we were talking, with love in his voice, he said, “Brother Aoyagi, isn’t your purpose for being on this earth to experience this trial? Isn’t it to accept all the trials of this life for what they are and then leave the rest up to the Lord? Don’t you think that this problem will be resolved when we are resurrected?”
When I heard these words, I felt the Spirit of the Lord very strongly. I had heard this doctrine countless times, but the eyes of my understanding had never been opened to the extent they were at this time. I understood this was the answer that I had been seeking from the Lord in my prayers. I was able to clearly comprehend our Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation and understand anew this important principle.
Let’s now consider that rear-end collision in Nagoya. I could have died in that accident. Nevertheless, through the Lord’s grace, I miraculously survived. And I know that my sufferings were for my learning and for my growth. Heavenly Father schooled me to temper my impatience, to develop empathy, and to comfort those who are suffering. When I realized this, my heart was filled with feelings of thankfulness toward my Heavenly Father for this trial.

The oldest of ten children, Marion was born to George S. and Artemesia Redd Romney on September 19, 1897, in Colonia Juarez, Mexico. He attended school and worked on the family farm until revolutionary activities in northern Mexico forced the American colonists to leave their homes in 1912. His father could not accompany the family, so 14-year-old Marion was put in charge of taking them safely to Texas.
On the way, armed members of the rebel army stopped them and searched the wagon. They took the family’s 20 pesos, the only money they had. Then they “drew their guns … and pointed them towards the wagon. As I looked up the barrels of the rifles, they seemed very large to me, and I suppose this was one of the most exciting moments of my life. … They did not shoot, however, and I lived to tell the story.”
From Texas, the Romneys moved to California, then to Idaho, where Marion’s father taught school for three years. Finances were tight. Young Marion couldn’t even afford a coat. Yet tithing was always paid. Marion never forgot the cold day he had to trudge to the bishop’s to deliver the tithing. He said later that it would never again be that hard to pay.
Marion’s father became president of Ricks Academy, and the family moved to Rexburg, Idaho. At Ricks, Marion played on the football team and the championship basketball team. He also met the most beautiful girl he had ever seen, Ida Jensen, just hired by his father as a teacher.
But Marion had been saving his money, and resolved to serve a mission. His father could not afford to help him, but he accompanied his son to the bank where Marion borrowed the rest of what he would need. Elder Romney served an outstanding three-year mission in Australia, and returned to pay the loan in full.
He continued school at the University of Utah and resumed his courtship of Ida. They were married September 12, 1924. They had four children, but two died in infancy.
Marion studied and worked at the same time to support his family. He would go to school during the day, work at the post office from 3:00 to 11:00 P.M., sleep, then get up at 5:00 A.M. to study until he left for school. He followed that schedule for three years, also making time each day to study the Book of Mormon.
He was admitted to the bar and practiced law in Salt Lake City for 11 years, holding a variety of city and county offices and serving in the state legislature.
He also served in Church positions, including three years as bishop and three years as a stake president. In 1941, he was called as an Assistant to the Quorum of the Twelve. His first assignment was as assistant managing director of the welfare program. Ten years later, he became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve. He continued directing the welfare program until he was called to the First Presidency, where he served from 1972 to 1985, first as a counselor to President Harold B. Lee, then as a counselor to President Spencer W. Kimball. When President Kimball died in November 1985, President Romney was called as President of the Quorum of the Twelve.
In addition to being known for his contributions to the welfare program, President Romney was known for loving the scriptures.
One night his son was lying in the upper bunk bed as they read aloud alternate paragraphs from the last chapters of Second Nephi. President Romney heard his son’s voice break and thought he had a cold. As they finished, his son said, “Daddy, do you ever cry when you read the Book of Mormon?”
“Yes, son,” he answered, “sometimes the Spirit of the Lord so witnesses to my soul that the Book of Mormon is true that I do cry.”
“Well,” he said, “that is what happened to me tonight.”
As he was promised in the priesthood blessing when he was an infant, President Romney did have a great mission to fulfill. And his love, his example, and his lifetime of service to the Church, including 47 years as a General Authority, show that the promise was indeed fulfilled.
President Marion G. Romney, president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and former member of the First Presidency, died at his home in Salt Lake City on Friday morning, May 20, 1988, of causes incident to age. He was 90.

I remember the summer before entering college having the chance to go to Monument Valley to work on the first high school built there for the Navajo people. As I was about to leave home, my father asked me if I was going to take my Book of Mormon. I hadn’t thought to, but I paid heed to his question. I remember lying in my bunk late at night at the construction site and feeling the spirit and power of the Book of Mormon.

I remember as a young missionary in the Great Lakes Mission coming to that great knowledge and absolute testimony that the Book of Mormon was another witness of another nation that Jesus is the Christ and that this Church is true. From those experiences there burns in my heart today that divine witness of the message of the Book of Mormon, of Christ as our Savior and Redeemer, and of the Restoration of His Church in these latter days.