Gospel Story Finder

I was born into a poor family, and early in my life I had to work. This has been a great blessing to me. When I was twelve years old, I had to go to evening school because I worked ten hours during the day. Many times on the way to school I would sleep on the bus or train. Sometimes I would even fall asleep during class. However, upon arriving home late at night, I would always find my loving parents waiting for me.

At that time all I wanted in life was to become a successful man, which to me meant having many material possessions, comfort, and a life of ease. With this as a goal, I went on working and studying.

After I was baptized into the Church, I came to understand the true meaning of success. Being successful means to be a servant of God, serving our fellowmen, being truly committed to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and keeping the commandments of God.

Iren was having fun visiting Taiwan. His grandfather, his Yéyé, took him and his little sister, Ila, to the zoo and on a ferry ride to a small island. They went to beautiful gardens filled with mango trees and orchids. And they visited a mountain where monkeys tried to steal their food! The monkeys made Ila nervous, but Iren thought they were awesome.
Yéyé wanted to teach Iren and Ila about where their family came from. He took them to meet all of their relatives and to restaurants to try new foods. Iren had been practicing with chopsticks. He was getting really good.
One day Yéyé took Iren, Ila, and their parents to a special place. It was a big building with large, open doors and shiny wooden floors. Before they went in, Iren and his family took off their shoes. “This is a place where you have to be reverent,” Mom said. “Just like at our church.”
“Is this a church?” Iren asked. It sure didn’t look like any church he’d ever seen. The building’s colorful roof had curled-up edges. People in dark blue robes walked quietly through the doors.
“Sort of,” said Mom. “It’s a Buddhist temple. But people don’t get married or sealed here, like in our temples. It’s a church building for Yéyé’s religion. He comes here to learn the teachings of Buddha and to help people.”
Dad added, “Do you remember the earthquake in Taiwan we saw on the news a month ago? Yéyé and the other volunteers at this temple all helped after the earthquake was over.”
“What did they do?” asked Ila.
“I think they brought water to people and cleaned up rubble,” said Dad. “They also helped people who lost their homes find a place to stay.”
“Whoa,” said Iren. He grinned at Yéyé. “That sounds like a lot of work!”
When they went in the temple, Iren noticed how quiet and peaceful it was. He looked around and saw a large wooden statue. Ila and Iren stopped and stared.
“Is that Buddha?” Ila asked.
Mom nodded.
Yéyé said something to Dad in Chinese, pressed his hands together, and bowed in front of the statue of Buddha three times.
“Yéyé is teaching us how he shows respect for Buddha,” Dad said, his voice just above a whisper.
Iren scrunched his eyebrows together. “Isn’t that … ?” He tried to remember something he’d heard before. “Isn’t that worshipping idols?”
“Buddhists don’t actually worship Buddha,” Dad said. “Buddha was a great teacher, and they visit his statue to remember what he taught.”
“When people bow here, they’re showing respect—sort of like shaking hands,” Mom whispered. “Yéyé bows to show respect for Buddha and what he taught.”
Mom put her arms around Iren and Ila. “And do you know what?”
“What?” Ila asked.
“These are all God’s children. He loves them. He loves what they’re doing to help each other.”
Iren looked over at Yéyé and all the other people sitting quietly. He felt warm and good inside and knew what Mom said was true. Iren said a little prayer to Heavenly Father: “Thank you for helping me meet more of Thy children.”

Photographs by Richard M. Romney
Aidan Troutner, 18, from Timpview High School in Provo, Utah, figured he could race well at the Nike Cross-country Nationals (NXN) in Portland, Oregon. But no one figured he really had a chance to win the individual championship—until it came to the final sprint.
Aidan entered the meet, he says, “under the radar.” Several other runners were predicted to win. “But that’s one of the goals I had this season, not to worry about other people so much, just to focus on my own time and training, improving myself. The Lord gives us talents, but He expects us to put in the work.”
And Aidan had worked, hard. Training and competing from June through November had enabled him to win first place in both the Utah 5A high school championship and the Southwest Regionals.
“I had confidence in myself, because I knew I was prepared,” he says. “The Lord expects us to act, not to be acted upon [see 2 Nephi 2:13].”
He also knew that a couple of other Latter-day Saints were running, too. “So, just before the race began, we gathered together for prayer. We asked Heavenly Father to help everyone run to the best of their abilities. We said our prayer, then the starting gun went off and we were on our way.”
Aidan followed the strategy his coach had mapped out with him. He stayed in 4th position through most of the race. Then, with about 600 meters to go, he made his move. “It wasn’t until then that I realized I could really win it,” he remembers. “With 200 meters left, I took the lead and cruised to the finish line.” He had paced himself, and he had finished strong.
Aidan received a lot of recognition for his performance. “One of the greatest blessings I had was the number of people I got to talk to about the gospel,” he says. “Especially after the race, people wanted to know more about me, what I was doing after high school, and where I was going to college. I told them I’m going on a mission and then I’m going to BYU. It was an amazing blessing to talk to people who didn’t know much about the gospel.”
Aidan also finds that running has reinforced gospel principles for him.
“We had a lesson just last Sunday about self-reliance,” he says. “One of the key things we talked about was that self-reliance implies that you do it yourself, but in truth, we can’t do anything without our Savior Jesus Christ. That’s the way we become truly self-reliant—to rely on Him to ease our burdens. As applied to running, that means I couldn’t have done this by myself. I needed the help of teammates, coaches, and my family, just like each of us needs the help of the Savior.”

When I was young, my family immigrated from Tonga to the United States. My father was a boxer when we lived in Tonga, and he started training me to box after we arrived in the States. His master plan was that I would be the heavyweight champion of the world someday. He taught me not to be scared. You can’t be scared in the boxing ring if you want to succeed. My father may not have been active in the Church at that time, but he taught me so much about facing difficulty and having courage in the face of fear.
Learning to box uniquely prepared me for my profession. I went to Brigham Young University on a football scholarship. And even performing what most people regard as probably the scariest thing to do on a football field—catching a punt—I always did it calmly. I was never really afraid. In fact, I loved the challenge of football.
My father anticipated that I would have a professional career in sports—it turned out to be in football, not boxing. But I think my training helped me both to have faith and to look forward with faith and hope in uncertainty.
Vai’s father celebrates his son’s touchdown on the field.
Photograph by Mark Philbrick / BYU © BYU Photo

I have prayed for guidance regarding a personal experience I might share with you, and again and again I have felt impressed to share with you the following. I pray you will hear the message that is intended.

A few years ago I was having some serious medical problems. I scheduled myself into a hospital for some routine presurgery testing. I’m not sure I even told Jeff I was going in for the tests. To begin, they injected an iodine dye into my vein prior to taking X-rays, and I had a severe allergic reaction. I went into anaphylactic shock. All my bodily functions stopped. Three doctors and two nurses worked frantically to revive me. At one point during this struggle I came to enough to hear one of the nurses read my pulse which was slower then my father-in-law’s had been when he went into a coma and died.

I knew I was dying, and I knew I needed someone with absolute faith. I called out for my husband and fell unconscious again.

It dawned on them that they should have called him anyway, but they simply had been preoccupied with my condition. A nurse ran to a phone to call him. All she said to him was, “We are doing all we can for your wife, and now she wants you.”

In less time than it takes to get to the hospital, he arrived and bolted into the emergency room rather than wait outside as someone had suggested. With his usual confidence (which I have silently watched develop as his relationship with the Lord has deepened), he sort of shoved three doctors and two nurses aside and announced, “I don’t know whether any of you are LDS, but I am going to give my wife a blessing.” Midway through that blessing I opened my eyes, saw his face, and thought I had never seen anything so beautiful. And I told him so. (Later he told me this was the only evidence he had found of any brain damage.)

I add my personal witness that prayer, including priesthood prayer, is the proof of our faith. And the proof is rewarded by the Holy Ghost (and holy power) which Nephi said “will show unto you all things what ye should do” (2 Nephi 32:5). There are miracles of faith, and we should have faith in the miraculous.

Elder and Sister Kearon acquired that sacred knowledge after the birth of their first child, Sean.
During Sister Kearon’s first pregnancy, the couple learned early on from ultrasound scans that their baby boy had “a difficult heart anomaly, a life-threatening condition,” says Elder Kearon. “We spent the rest of the pregnancy tracking down the best doctors, cardiologists, and cardiac surgeons equipped to address his particular problem. We found a world-class team in London, and they were confident they could fix the problem.”
Surgeons operated on Sean when he was 19 days old. The surgery was long and painstaking. Afterward, says Elder Kearon, “Sean’s little heart could not restart. So, we lost him. His death was exquisitely painful. This was not the result we had fasted for, prayed for, and pled for, but we knew that heaven’s hand was in that experience.”
Sister Kearon says, “God led us through those months of pregnancy and the beautiful, brief life of our son in a way that, at the end of it, we knew we had done everything we could for him. That was a tremendous comfort.”
Healing came from an increased understanding of the Savior’s Atonement and Resurrection that Sister Kearon gained from an in-depth study of 1 Nephi and 2 Nephi. “In the grief of our loss, I felt like I was spinning in a black hole,” she says. “And yet, time after time, that free fall was arrested by the rock of the Atonement of Jesus Christ—because it is true. His grace, His living reality, make even the most painful losses bearable and hopeful.”
Healing came from the birth of the couple’s three daughters. “They brought healing with them,” Elder Kearon says. “They are the most beautiful light in our lives, our greatest treasures.”
Healing came from the words of inspired Church leaders, including a general conference talk by Elder Lance B. Wickman, in which Elder Wickman shared the pain of pacing deserted hospital corridors as his own little boy lay dying of a childhood disease. “Elder Wickman teaches that ‘believing is seeing’ and that faith is trust in the Lord,” says Elder Kearon. “His talk was enormously valuable to me because of his clear understanding of such an experience. This was magnified by the number of times I read it and listened to it.”

Fifty-one years ago I heard William J. Critchlow Jr., then president of the South Ogden Stake, retell a story concerning trust, honor, and duty.
“[Young] Rupert stood by the side of the road watching an unusual number of people hurry past. At length he recognized a friend. ‘Where are all of you going in such a hurry?’ he asked.
“The friend paused. … ‘The King has lost his royal emerald! … Everyone is searching, for the King has offered a reward … to the one who finds it. Come, we must hurry.’
“ ‘But I cannot go without asking Grandmother,’ faltered Rupert.
“ ‘Then I cannot wait. I want to find the emerald,’ replied his friend.
“Rupert hurried back to the cabin at the edge of the woods to seek his grandmother’s permission. …
“But his grandmother shook her head. ‘What would the sheep do?’ she asked. ‘Already they are restless in the pen, waiting to be taken to the pasture, and please do not forget to take them to water when the sun shines high in the heavens.’
“Sorrowfully, Rupert took the sheep to the pasture, and at noon he led them to the brook in the woods. There he sat on a large stone by the stream. ‘If I could only have had a chance to look for the King’s emerald!’ he thought. Turning his head to gaze down at the sandy bottom of the brook, suddenly he stared into the water. What was it? It could not be! He leaped into the water. … ‘The King’s emerald!’ he shouted.
“With shining eyes Rupert ran to his grandmother’s hut to tell her of his great find. ‘Bless you, my boy,’ she said, ‘but you never would have found it if you had not been doing your duty, herding the sheep.’ And Rupert knew that this was the truth.”

I recall speaking with a young man who first came to this community while in military service. One Sunday he wandered through Temple Square. Conversations begun here eventually led to his baptism.

Four or five years later I was interviewing him to become an elders quorum president. He told me of his childhood as an orphan, pushed from one place to another, of the loneliness and desolation of his life, of all opportunities for education and growth foreclosed against him. Then he came into the Church and received first one assignment and then another, each just a little beyond his capacity at the time; but as he served, his capacity increased.

And now he was prepared for a major responsibility. His entire life had changed. Today he is an officer in the Church, a valued employee in a position of responsibility, a good husband, an exemplary father, an excellent neighbor.

My father passed away in April 2013. As I prepared to speak at his funeral, I realized how blessed I was to know and love his favorite scriptures. He shared them in family gatherings, and he read them with me when I needed counsel, guidance, or strengthening of my faith. I heard him share them in talks and assignments. I not only knew them, but I can still remember the sound of his voice and the spiritual feelings I had as he shared them. Through sharing scriptures and feelings, my father helped me to establish a firm foundation of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
My father particularly loved the account of the Savior’s visit to the people of Nephi. This sacred account is of the resurrected and exalted Lord Jesus Christ. He had drunk of the bitter cup and suffered all things so that we would not suffer if we would repent. He had visited the spirit world and organized the preaching of the gospel there. He had risen from the dead, and He had been with and received commandments from the Father to share scriptures with the Nephites that would bless future generations. He was exalted and had all of His eternal power and capacity. We can learn from every detail of His teachings.
In 3 Nephi 11, we read how the Savior descended out of heaven to teach the Nephites that He was Jesus Christ, whom the prophets testified would come into the world. He declared that He was the Light of the World and that He glorified the Father in taking on the sins of the world. He invited the people to come forth to put their hands into His side and to feel the prints of the nails in His hands and in His feet. He wanted them to know that He was the God of Israel, who was slain for the sins of the world. The people joyfully responded, going forth one by one until they had all seen and felt that it was truly He of whom it was written by the prophets that should come.
Jesus taught the Nephites about the importance of repentance, about becoming as a little child, and about the need to be baptized by one having His authority. He then taught much of the doctrine that we are studying this year in the New Testament.
In 3 Nephi 17, we read that Jesus told the people it was time for Him to go unto the Father and also to show Himself unto the lost tribes of Israel. As He cast His eyes on the multitude, He noticed that they were in tears, looking steadfastly upon Him as if they would ask Him to tarry a little longer.
The Savior’s response to the Nephites was both touching and instructive. He said, “Behold, my bowels are filled with compassion towards you.”
I believe that His compassion was much more than a response to the people’s tears. It seems that He could see them through the eyes of His atoning sacrifice. He saw their every pain, affliction, and temptation. He saw their sicknesses. He saw their infirmities, and He knew from His agonizing suffering in Gethsemane and on Golgotha how to succor them according to their infirmities.
Similarly, when our Savior, Jesus Christ, looks upon us, He sees and understands the pain and burden of our sins. He sees our addictions and challenges. He sees our struggles and afflictions of any kind—and He is filled with compassion toward us.
His gracious invitation to the Nephites followed: “Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy.”
And the people came forth “with all them that were afflicted in any manner; and he did heal them every one as they were brought forth unto him.”
In 1990 we were living in the small town of Sale, in Victoria, Australia. We were happily busy with family, Church, and work commitments. On a beautiful summer Saturday just before Christmas, we decided to visit some parks and a favorite beach. After enjoying a wonderful day playing as a family, we packed everyone into the car and headed home. While driving, I momentarily fell asleep and caused a head-on car accident. After some moments of recovery, I looked around the vehicle. My wife, Maxine, had a badly broken leg and was struggling to breathe. She had a broken sternum. Our three daughters were in shock but thankfully appeared to be OK. I had some minor injuries. But our five-month-old son was unresponsive.
Amid the stress and confusion of that accident scene, our eldest daughter, 11-year-old Kate, said with urgency, “Dad, you need to give Jarom a blessing.” After some struggle, my daughters and I managed to get out of the car. Maxine couldn’t be moved. Carefully I picked Jarom up; then, while lying on the ground on my back, I gently placed him on my chest and gave him a priesthood blessing. By the time the ambulance arrived about 40 minutes later, Jarom was conscious.
That night I left three family members in the hospital and took a hushed taxi ride home with two of my daughters. Through the long night, I pled with Heavenly Father that my family and those injured in the other vehicle would recover. Mercifully, my prayers and fervently offered prayers by many others were answered. All were healed over time, a great blessing and tender mercy.
Yet I continued to have deep feelings of guilt and remorse for causing such a terrible accident. I would wake during the night and relive the horrific events. I struggled for years to forgive myself and to find peace. Then, as a priesthood leader, while assisting others to repent and helping them to feel the compassion, mercy, and love of the Savior, I realized that He could heal me.
The Savior’s healing and redeeming power applies to accidental mistakes, poor decisions, challenges, and trials of every kind—as well as to our sins. As I turned to Him, my feelings of guilt and remorse were gradually replaced with peace and rest.
President Russell M. Nelson taught: “When the Savior atoned for all mankind, He opened a way that those who follow Him can have access to His healing, strengthening, and redeeming power. These spiritual privileges are available to all who seek to hear Him and follow Him.”
Brothers and sisters, whether you are carrying the burden of unresolved sin, suffering because of an offense committed against you long ago, or struggling to forgive yourself for an accidental mistake, you have access to the healing and redeeming power of the Savior Jesus Christ.
I testify that He lives. He is our Savior and Redeemer. He loves us. He has compassion for us, He is filled with mercy, and He can heal you. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

When I was five years old, my mother helped me to learn about boundaries when she said to me nearly every day, “Jimmy, don’t go near the quicksand,” which was just a couple hundred feet away from our house. Well, guess what Jimmy and his young friends would do? We would go there. As we walked closer to the quicksand, one of my friends walked onto this rather wet, darker looking sand. It looked almost like the rest of the sand. At first his feet wouldn’t move, and we all laughed. And then they sank a little deeper into the quicksand, and he panicked. He couldn’t get out of the quicksand, and he started screaming. The rest of us ran as fast as we could go to a cowboy’s house, screaming at the top of our voices. He immediately grabbed a rope and ran with us back to the boy, who was now up to his waist in the quicksand. He quickly lassoed the boy, and we held the rope while he put out a log and climbed onto it to pull the boy out of the quicksand.
We learn that when we cross over the Lord’s boundaries, we are often caught in a quicksand of sorts. The ways of the world are often like that quicksand, and they can be so destructive. They seek to divert us from the Lord’s boundaries—His commandments. These worldly ways—drugs, drinking, smoking, living together without marriage, some of the music, and on and on—
Seem very enticing,
Appear to be the normal way of life,
Seem to be accepted by everyone, and
Are extolled in television, on the movies, over the Internet, in videos, et cetera. These things lead us outside the boundaries the Lord has set. When followed, they bring despair and devastating health, financial, and other problems.
The boundaries of the Lord are set forth in your For the Strength of Youth booklets and are clear and a great blessing to everyone who follows them. We go forth as missionaries and as members to help people find and value the commandments or boundaries of the Lord. If it is done with “the heart and a willing mind,” or in other words anxiously, happily, and enthusiastically, like President Hinckley as he goes forth across the earth, it will make us different, appreciative, and thankful for each opportunity that we take.
Third, young and, yes, old alike, begin with the end in mind. Where do you want to be at 19 years of age or at retirement? On a mission? Make that decision even this very night. I promise you that it will change your life and others’ as God directs you on your mission. All He requires is “the heart and a willing mind.” You can do so much good that it will astound you as you are changed and as you see others changed.
In a testimony meeting in Bari, Italy, you can imagine my surprise when a young man stood up and said, “If it hadn’t been for the missionaries, I wouldn’t be here today.” He then went on to tell how his mother and grandparents had been found in Paris, France, by Elders Ben Walton and James Paramore 30 years earlier. After many meetings, the family was baptized. Now this son was on a mission. I later learned that over the years more than 170 people had been baptized by that family. I had been privileged to serve a mission, and those two and a half years were crucial to my testimony. I cannot thank God enough.
I testify God lives, that His Son is the Redeemer of this earth, and that this gospel will bless all mankind everywhere. May we all:
Trust in God and His Son.
Live within the boundaries they have given.
Begin with the end in mind with “the heart and a willing mind.”
Remember the Lord said, “For them that honour me I will honour” (1 Sam. 2:30). May this be our journey, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

“But you’re never a stranger to other members of the Church,” said Kerri Wade, 14, Mia Maid first counselor in the Sapulpa Ward. “That’s one of the neat things about being a member. You can instantly share some common feelings.”

She told about being the only Latter-day Saint in a private school run by another church.

“Some of the kids were talking about football, and they mentioned Brigham Young University. Then one of them turned to me and said, ‘Those Mormons are all so weird.’ I asked him if he had ever met one. He said no. And I said, ‘You’ve met one now!’ I think it shocked him.

“Another guy kept staring at me the whole year long, like I should look funny or act funny. We got to be pretty good friends after a while. Finally, the last day of class, he said, ‘Know what? Ya’ll are just ordinary people.’ That was really nice.

“My bishop said that I’m an example 24 hours a day. If I do something wrong, others may judge the Church by me. I have to be careful, which is good, because I should be careful anyway.”

My mom gave a family home evening lesson on loving our enemies. She taught me and my brothers and sisters what it means to love those who “despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matt. 5:44).
I remembered that lesson the next day at school when I noticed that a bigger boy who was always trying to bully or tease me didn’t have a lunch. My sister had helped me pack a huge lunch the night before, and I had two sandwiches. So I took my extra sandwich and some other things in my lunch and offered them to the boy. I was happy that he took the extra food, and he seemed glad that I had offered it to him. He is not mean to me anymore, and I am much happier at school.
I am glad that I listened to the family home evening lesson. My mom and dad are, too. They said that they are proud of me for listening to the Spirit and doing a kind and brave thing even though it seemed a little scary.

Jenny has suffered from multiple sclerosis for almost 50 years. Lockdown meant Colin was not able to get out and about, so he had to look for other ways to serve. He feels God prepared him, as shortly before lockdown began, Colin was decorating for a member when a neighbour approached him for advice.
He offered his help with painting for her and in return, she offered him donations to give to the soup kitchen where Colin had been volunteering. Soon after that, she contacted Colin to say she was moving away to be nearer her son.
Colin felt strongly he should visit to thank her for her donations. During the visit, he felt impressed to ask her what her maiden name had been and was amazed to find it was Pearson and that they were related through his grandmother’s line.
This, together with a ward goal to find 20 names to take to the temple, spurred Colin to ask a sister who had previously helped him with his family tree, to see if she could find more names for him, not expecting to find that number. As lockdown began, the searches began, and the sister was able to find around 2,500 names to submit to the temple. Research on the Pearson line was quite miraculous as the family had travelled down to the Midlands from Lancashire on the canals, having children in Birmingham and Coventry before settling in Wolverhampton. Extra names added to familysearch.org led to very successful research.
As the sister found the names, Colin meticulously compiled several books of remembrance for all the families. While being unable to serve the living, he has had a very special time serving his ancestors by reconnecting with them. This is particularly poignant as Colin never knew his father. This made passing on the information to his children and grandchildren especially important to him. He now has many books containing “records of [the] dead” (D&C 128:24), all thanks to lockdown.

“Before I tracked the time I spent, I thought it was going to be really hard to take time out and read the scriptures—but after realizing how much time I spent on social media, taking 10 minutes out of that felt super easy! I could read at lunch or right before seminary started.
“After I had read the scriptures, I was a lot more aware of what I looked at on social media. If I stumbled across something bad, with bad language or a negative message, I noticed it and tried to avoid it way more than before. I also noticed that my prayers were a lot more sincere and that I was receiving more answers to them. This is definitely something that I hope to continue for a lot longer!”
Izzie J., 16, California, USA

While in South America, I was touched by the sacrifices made by many of our Saints to have their families sealed to them for eternity. I shed tears of gratitude as I heard some of the experiences recounted.
One of our stake presidents brought his family to the Sao Paulo Temple from Lima, Peru, normally a nine-day bus ride, but, because of bus strikes and other problems, the journey took them fourteen days of travel.
Upon their arrival at Sao Paulo, the family went to the first session they could, and the sealing ceremony was performed. Then they immediately prepared to leave. The temple president asked them if they were staying the night. The father replied that the family had to leave immediately since they did not have sufficient money for lodging and food. He said they would have to travel several days without food as it was. The family was then persuaded to stay the night and have breakfast before their departure. That represents the spirit of sacrifice of many of our Saints worldwide.

When I was in high school, I found it necessary to support myself. I suppose I was about sixteen, and I went to Globe, Arizona, the big mining camp, and there secured a job milking cows twice a day for a dairy. In those days we had no machines, and we milked with our hands. I milked between eighteen and twenty-eight cows twice a day, separated the cream, bottled the milk, washed the cans and bottles, fed the cattle, and cleaned the manure. For all of this, I received my meals, a cot in a bunkhouse, and $47.50 a month.
I was now on my own. No one was there to check up on me. When I received my first paycheck, I asked myself, “Should I or should I not pay my tithing?” I sent my dairy check home to the bank and received a receipt and a checkbook. I numbered the checks on the book and my first check was made out payable to the bishop.
The Lord has promised that if boys and girls and their parents are faithful in paying their tithing, he will pour out great blessings upon them. I know he keeps the promise.

I don’t like that George Bacon! Yesterday he dipped my braids in black ink, and today he pulled out my hair ribbon.
This evening George Bacon walked by my house, playing softly on his harmonica.
George came calling tonight. We had a lovely visit. After he left, I found his handkerchief in the corner of a chair. I wonder if he means for me to keep it.
George and I are to be married tomorrow! Mother will let me borrow her beautiful gold pin to wear.

When the faces of two young men appeared in the upper portion of the door to our home in Colombia, we thought they were standing on something in order to see through the door. They were not; they were just very tall! Our three-year-old son, Pablo Ezequiel, looked up at them with astonishment. Within days they were his best friends.
Our family—Ludy, my wife; Erika; Yesica; and little Ezequiel—was looking for the Lord. We were living some gospel principles already: we prayed at mealtime, we prayed as a family, and we did family activities. Our lives were based on our family union. The appearance of those two “large angels,” as Ezequiel called the elders, confirmed our practices of strengthening the family and focusing on God.
Using the scriptures as their guide, Elders Fa and Fields taught us the path. We had been asking the Lord where we should worship. The Book of Mormon and the restored gospel gave the answers to each of the questions we had over the years in our family discussions. The answers fit perfectly, and we soon became members of the Church. One year later we made covenants and were sealed together as an eternal family in the Bogotá Colombia Temple.

President Spencer W. Kimball also recognized the benefits of taking on a challenging goal. He told this story of a goal he made when he was 14:

“When I heard a Church leader from Salt Lake City tell us at conference that we should read the scriptures, … I walked to my home a block away … and I read the first chapters of Genesis. …

“I found that this Bible that I was reading had in it 66 books, and then I was nearly dissuaded when I found that it had in it 1,189 chapters, and then I also found that it had 1,519 pages. It was formidable, but I knew if others did it that I could do it.”

That amount of reading wasn’t easy for a teenager, but nevertheless President Kimball persevered and completed his goal. As an adult, he said, “I have always been glad I read the Bible from cover to cover.”

President Kimball benefited from taking the time to think through the logistics of his goal. Even though it sounded daunting, the information prepared him to succeed. As was the case with President Kimball, reaching for and achieving a challenging goal at a young age can bring feelings of confidence and satisfaction to serve us throughout life.

Several years ago I made a presentation to a group of 20 managers in a large computer company. After the presentation, I asked them to describe a person in their organization who they felt was blocked and frustrated in his or her career. We heard about 20 different people who had specialized in a narrow area, and in many cases the company no longer needed the specialty. The managers were surprised that they had such a pervasive problem. But I was not surprised, because we had found that problem in dozens of organizations.