Gospel Story Finder

Grandpa had a great desire to serve, and no matter what the job, he was dedicated to it. He served as stake clerk for many years. When the shaking of his hand became so severe that it became difficult to write, the stake president asked him if he would like to be released. Without hesitation and with a twinkle in his eye, Grandpa replied, “You know, President, it’s not writing I have a problem with. It’s fishing. Whenever I go fishing my hand gets to shaking so that I can’t tell if I’ve got a fish on the line or if it’s just me.” With that, Grandpa continued to serve in his position almost until his death.

After we got baptized, I was eager to have my mother’s temple work done but not my father’s work. The missionaries, however, encouraged me.

"It’s part of doing your part," they said. "Your father is also waiting for you to have his work done."

I told them I didn’t care. I was still upset with him.

"We have found the gospel," my aunt told me. "You need to forgive him and do his work."

Reluctantly, I accepted their counsel. A year after I was baptized, I took my parents’ names to the Guatemala City Guatemala Temple. It was a powerful, emotional experience. I was baptized for my mother and for several other people. Then our branch president prepared to be baptized for my father. I did not want to watch, so I began to leave.

After the branch president entered the font, I heard my father’s name during the ordinance. Immediately afterward, I felt the presence of my father. That experience left me feeling ashamed for not wanting to have his work done.

"Forgive me, Heavenly Father," I prayed as I began to weep. "I have been selfish."

When I returned to Nicaragua, I went to the cemetery where my father was buried. For the first time, I visited his grave and placed flowers on it. I asked him to forgive me, and I told him that I loved him. Then I wept again.

My father, like my mother, had been waiting for me to take his name to the temple, where Heavenly Father allowed me to have a wonderful experience. That experience cleansed my heart. In that moment, all of the pain and anger I had felt toward him went away.

For that, I am eternally grateful.

Whenever we seek for true testimony we come, finally, to ordinary men and women and children.
Let me quote from the diary of Joseph Millett, a little-known missionary of an earlier time. Called on a mission to Canada, he went alone and on foot. In Canada, during the wintertime, he said:
“I felt my weakness. A poor, ill-clothed, ignorant boy in my teens, thousands of miles from home among strangers.
“The promise in my blessing and the encouraging words of President Young to me, with the faith I had in the gospel, kept me up.
“Many times I would turn into the woods … in some desolate place with a heart full, wet eyes, to call on my master for strength or aid.
“I believed the Gospel of Christ. I had never preached it. I knew not where to find it in the scriptures.”
That didn’t matter so much, for, “I had to give my Bible to the boatman at Digby for passage across the sound.”
Years later, Joseph Millett, with his large family, was suffering through very, very difficult times. He wrote in his journal:
“One of my children came in and said that Brother Newton Hall’s folks was out of bread, had none that day.
“I divided our flour in a sack to send up to Brother Hall. Just then Brother Hall came.
“Says I, ‘Brother Hall, are you out of flour?’
“‘Brother Millett, we have none.’
“‘Well, Brother Hall, there is some in that sack. I have divided and was going to send it to you. Your children told mine that you was out.’
“Brother Hall began to cry. He said he had tried others, but could not get any. He went to the cedars and prayed to the Lord, and the Lord told him to go to Joseph Millett.
“‘Well Brother Hall, you needn’t bring this back. If the Lord sent you for it you don’t owe me for it.’”
That night Joseph Millett recorded a remarkable sentence in his journal:
“You can’t tell me how good it made me feel to know that the Lord knew there was such a person as Joseph Millett” (Diary of Joseph Millett, holograph, Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City).

As his love for the Maori people blossomed, Elder Cowley had even more of a desire to learn their language. Soon after rising, he would turn to his books. “I studied until noon and then had dinner and took a little rest,” he wrote. “The rest of the afternoon was also spent in studying.”5

Years later, Elder John Longden, an Assistant to the Twelve, told how Matthew, when he was only 17, was blessed to learn Maori. “He had only been out for two and one half months, and a district missionary conference was called. … Brother Cowley had an opportunity to speak. … He spoke for fifteen or twenty minutes in a fluent Maori tongue, so much so that it amazed the older Maori people in the congregation.

“After the meeting … the district president said … ‘How did you master this Maori language in such a short time?’ …

“Brother Cowley said, ‘When I came here I did not know one word of Maori, but I decided I was going to learn twenty new words each day, and I did. But when I came to put them together, I was not successful.’ By this time they were passing a cornfield, and Brother Cowley said, ‘You see that cornfield? I went out there, and I talked to the Lord, but before that, I fasted, and that night I tried again, but the words just didn’t seem to jell. So the next day I fasted again, and I went out into that cornfield, and I talked to the Lord again. I tried that night with a little more success. On the third day I fasted again, and I went out into the cornfield, and I talked to the Lord. … I told him that I had been called by this same authority to fill a mission, but if this was not the mission in which I was to serve to please make it known because I wanted to serve where I could accomplish the greatest amount of good.’

“That was the spirit of Brother Cowley. He said, ‘The next morning, as we knelt in family prayer in that Maori home, I was called upon by the head of the household to be mouth. I tried to speak English, and I could not. When I tried Maori, the words just flowed forth, and I knew that God had answered my prayer and this was where I should serve.’”6

Recently, some members of my family determined it would be fun to bicycle from Bozeman, Montana, to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in the United States. This 225-mile journey would take us three days, and we would cross the Continental Divide on three occasions. We determined that traveling through the mountain passes with good weather would be a wonderful experience that would help us appreciate God’s creations.

After careful planning and preparation, two of my sons and my only daughter and I set out on the first day to cycle to our overnight stop in Big Sky, Montana. The morning was perfect, and we expected a delightful journey. However, as we traveled along, dark clouds gathered and brought rain, which eventually became sleet and hail and made us extremely cold and wet and miserable. As we concluded day one of our journey and reached our overnight destination, I was reminded that life can be just like that day. Fortunately, we had prepared for all types of weather conditions; had we not done so, it would have been difficult to complete our journey that first day. At each stage of life’s journey, we should set out full of hope and optimism, but we should be prepared nonetheless to face opposition or hardship at some point.

I heard a recent experience that reminded me of such love. When all Church meetings were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a ministering brother accepted an assignment from his elders quorum president to bless and administer the sacrament to a sister he ministers to. When he called her to offer to bring the sacrament, she accepted reluctantly, hating to take him out of his own home in such a dangerous time and also believing that things would quickly return to normal.
When he arrived at her home that Sunday morning, she had a request. Could they walk next door and also have the sacrament with her 87-year-old neighbor? With the bishop’s authorization, he agreed.
For many, many weeks, and with very careful social distancing and other safety measures, that small group of Saints gathered each Sunday for a simple sacrament service. Just a few pieces of broken bread and cups of water—but many tears shed for the goodness of a loving God.
In time, the ministering brother, his family, and the sister he ministers to were able to return to church. But the 87-year-old widow, the neighbor, out of an abundance of caution, had to remain home. The ministering brother—remember that his assignment was to her neighbor and not even to this elderly sister herself—still to this day quietly comes to her home each Sunday, scriptures and a tiny piece of bread in hand, to administer the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
His priesthood service, like mine that day in the care center, is given out of love. In fact, the ministering brother recently asked his bishop if there were others in the ward he could care for. His desire to magnify his priesthood service has grown as he has served in the Lord’s name and in a way known almost exclusively to Him. I don’t know if the ministering brother has prayed, as I did, for those he serves to know of the Lord’s love, but because his service has been in the Lord’s name, the result has been the same.

President Russell M. Nelson taught that we should “learn to listen, and listen to learn from one another.”3 As you listen with the intent of learning about others, you will be in a better position to understand their needs and hear promptings about how you can care for those around you as the Savior would.

A story from Elder Holland illustrates the power of listening:
“My friend Troy Russell pulled his pickup truck slowly out of his garage. … He felt his back tire roll over a bump. … He got out only to find his precious nine-year-old son, Austen, lying face down on the pavement. … Austen was gone.
“Unable to sleep, unable to find peace, Troy was inconsolable. … But into that agonizing breach came … John Manning. …
“I frankly don’t know on what schedule John and his junior companion made visits to the Russell home. … What I do know is that last spring Brother Manning reached down and picked Troy Russell up off the tragedy of that driveway just as if he were picking up little Austen himself. Like the … brother in the gospel he was supposed to be, John simply took over the priesthood care and keeping of Troy Russell. He started by saying, ‘Troy, Austen wants you back on your feet—including on the basketball court—so I will be here every morning at 5:15 a.m. Be ready. …’
“‘I didn’t want to go,’ Troy told me later, ‘because I had always taken Austen with me. … But John insisted, so I went. From that first day back, we talked—or rather I talked and John listened. … At first it was difficult, but over time I realized I had found my strength in the form of [John Manning], who loved me and listened to me until the sun finally rose again on my life.’”4

Some time ago I received, without solicitation, a letter whose writer has given permission for me to share it:
“Dear President Hinckley:
“An hour ago I had a very special experience that led me to writing this letter. I was walking on my way home and a sudden feeling came over me that somewhere there is a young man who, except for money, qualifies to serve a mission for the Lord, and that I was to provide him with the necessary funds to serve a mission. I don’t have any idea who and where this young man is, but the feeling came over me that you would know, and I was to put the funds into your hands and see to it that he serves his mission. That left me in tears. I arrived home and asked my wife how she felt after I had told her of the experience that I had just had. [She], of course, consented.
“I am enclosing a check for $3,000, but the figure that came to my mind was $4,000. This is all the money that is available to us at present, but on January 27, we will send in another check for $1,000. I am still in my training as a physician. I have to work extra hours to earn a living for my wife and three daughters, and we do not have money for a down payment on a house. We have been trying for five years to save for a house, and the Lord has blessed us beyond measure.
“Three years ago, a similar feeling came over me, but as we thought about it we felt that the Lord was giving us a signal to be prepared to put at the altar what he requires of us. We decided then that once I am through with my training we will support as many missionaries as our finances will allow us. Tonight there was no doubt that the Lord has asked us to put that money on the altar.
“I am a convert to the Church, … and my wife was born under the sacred covenant. I left my home in Beirut [Lebanon] thirteen years ago. Since age eleven I dreamed of finding the true religion, and fifteen years later I found it. … I have missed death as a child on more than one occasion, but a divine power has saved me every time.
“When I came to America, … I was given no hope of gaining acceptance into a medical school simply because I was not a United States citizen. A voice within me whispered that I would be a physician one day.
“I have attended one of the best schools in the United States on a scholarship. I then went [to another medical school] for a reason totally unknown to me then. … A year later I was miraculously led to Church literature and joined the Church. Nine months later I met my wife, and we were married in the temple three months after we had met.
“As you see, I owe the Lord more than $4,000! He has given me my eyes, my hands to work and earn a living. …
“We … leave the money in your hands to [use] according to the inspiration of the Lord vested in you. … We love all those who labor in this great cause.
“May God bless us all in our service to him!
“Sincerely yours.”
He then signs his and his wife’s names.
That letter, better than any feeble words of mine, breathes the spirit of Christmas, exemplifies the Golden Rule, and speaks with eloquence of the love of Him who gave His life as a sacrifice for all.

I might mention here an experience of a young couple. This young lady and her husband (they had two children, a tiny girl and a baby two weeks old) graduated from college, and he had a business opportunity in Salt Lake City. So they moved to Salt Lake City.
They, of course, were active in the Church, and Bishop Bowles—it was in the Belvedere Ward—called them in the first week they were there. The bishop said, “We’re building a new building, and we need all the help we can get. Are you willing to serve?” They both said they were. And he said, “Would you like to suggest where you’d like to serve?”
That’s a little unusual in the Church, but she was happy for that. She was a teacher. She said she’d like to teach in the Sunday School or in the Young Women. So the following Sunday she was sustained as second counselor in the presidency of the Relief Society! Now, she protested and used the word shocked, and this is a quote: “That organization is for my mother, not for me.” She said she had no experience, and, I quote again, “I have no desire to learn.”
Well, the bishop prevailed, as bishops will, and she answered the call. They held Relief Society in a dismal room in the basement of the chapel because of remodeling and construction. It was in the furnace room. While the furnace was on, it was terrible, and when the furnace was off, it was intolerable. Her children caught cold. On at least two occasions she went to the bishop and asked to be released. On both occasions the bishop said he’d think about it.
Finally, she was in a very serious automobile accident. After some period of treatment, she was recovering at home. Part of the injury was a terrible laceration of her face. This became infected, and they called a doctor one Sunday night. He made preparation for some further attention, but he said, “I think we can’t touch this surgically; it’s too close to the nerve in your face.” He gave her what attention he could and explained how grave the situation was.
It was as the doctor was leaving that Sunday night when the bishop appeared at the door, after a long, busy day, as Sundays will be for a bishop. He said, “I was just on my way home from some interviews and saw the light on and wondered if there was trouble here.” This woman was in agony. When the bishop said, “Is there anything we can do for you?” she answered from her pain and with tears, “Yes, bishop. Now will you release me from the Relief Society?” He said he would pray about it. And when the answer came back, it was, “Sister Spafford, I still don’t get the feeling that you should be released from the Relief Society.”
This great and lovely woman, who for many years presided over our Relief Society in the Church, was tested in those early days of her life. I think that something like that may come to many of us, most of us, when we’re being tested, as it were.

Over the following days, the entire family of the deceased boy attended the chapel, while it was open, where they displayed incredible faith and were extremely grateful for the ward’s response.

A two-minute silence was also held for both boys during sacrament service that following Sunday, to which all members, family and the community were invited.

The next day, President Shorland was contacted directly by the family asking if they could attend to grieve collectively without the public or media representatives being present. He made the necessary arrangements. Time was spent in the chapel reading the messages and in a prayerful reflection. President Shorland said it had an “extremely spiritual impact” on him.

As a young single woman in my late twenties, I had been reviewing the direction of my life and considering some major changes. An unwelcome birthday had left me feeling older than I wanted to be; and, like many single members of the Church, I felt I had failed to reach some important personal goals. It seemed that I needed some specific direction from the Lord. So, for the first time in my life, I asked my priesthood leader to give me a blessing. This good man prepared himself by fasting, and suggested that I do the same. We met early one radiant Sunday morning.
As he spoke the words of the blessing, I listened intently for answers and solutions. But in that I was disappointed; the Lord had wisely left me to find my own way. Instead, he blessed me with what I really needed: an undeniable personal witness of his love for me. The blessing spoke of God’s specific awareness of my life and my problems. As examples of his constant influence were called to my mind, the Spirit confirmed the truthfulness of each. My heart overflowed with love and gratitude, springing from some untouched place deep within me. For the first time I had really experienced God’s love, and I could respond to him not only with my loyalty, but with my own love in return.
I have often pondered the effects of that experience. How could a knowledge of God’s love for me endow my life with such permanent strength? To me, the wonder of it was that God was so near, that he was completely aware of my most secret sorrows and fears—even my troubled midnight thoughts. I was not alone! His was a love that enabled me to “let go,” and to realize that even though my goals had not been achieved exactly as I felt they should be, God’s plan, whatever it was, would be better than my own.

April 14, 1832, was a snowy day in Mendon, Monroe County, New York. In spite of the cold, thirty-year-old Brigham Young went down into the waters of the river near his home and was baptized by Elder Eleazer Miller. Immediately after, at the river’s edge, he was confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ. Brigham Young had given his heart to a great cause, and he never wavered from the promises he made that day.
The story is told that shortly after his baptism, Brigham went to the man for whom he was doing some carpentry work and informed him, “I am not going to work for you any longer, sir; I am going to do something better—preach the everlasting Gospel!”
A few months later Brigham set out on foot with his brother to preach the gospel in Canada. They traveled over 250 miles in snow “a foot and a half deep with a foot of mud under it,” and in two months they converted 45 souls. Whatever the price, Brigham was willing to pay it in order to build up the kingdom of God on the earth. “I was as destitute of language as a man could be … ,” he said, “but I was so gritty that I always tried my best.”
Born in Whittingham, Vermont, on June 1, 1801, Brigham was the ninth child in a family with five sons and six daughters. Although he had only “eleven days schooling,” he was taught to read by his mother. He also learned to “make bread, wash the dishes, milk the cows and make butter.”
When Brigham was fourteen years old, his mother died and he was apprenticed to a neighbor to learn carpentry and painting. At sixteen, he was in business for himself.
Although the Youngs were a Bible-reading family and three of Brigham’s brothers became itinerant preachers for the Methodist Reformed Church, Brigham himself was not really converted to any church until he received a copy of the Book of Mormon from his brother Phinehas and studied it. Even then “I weighed the matter studiously for nearly two years,” he said, “before I made up my mind to receive that Book.”
In the fall of 1831 five elders from an isolated branch of the Church in Pennsylvania came to the neighborhood to preach. Brigham and his friend Heber C. Kimball listened to them and believed what they taught. Within a few months they were both baptized. Father Young, all Brigham’s brothers and sisters, and his ailing wife also became members.
A few days after his wife’s death in September 1832 Brigham left his two little daughters in the care of Vilate Kimball, Heber’s wife, and traveled to Kirtland to meet Joseph Smith. He later wrote, “Here my joy was full at the privilege of shaking the hand of the Prophet of God, and received the sure testimony, by the spirit of prophecy that he was … a true Prophet.”
And Joseph said of Brigham, “The time will come when Brother Brigham Young will preside over this Church.”
That time came all too quickly for Brigham, who developed a deep love for and loyalty to Joseph. Brigham followed the young Prophet unquestioningly through many difficult times, and at the Prophet’s call Brigham left his family again and again to preach the gospel in the eastern United States, in Canada, and in England. He was in Boston on June 27, 1844, the day Joseph and Hyrum were killed in Carthage, Illinois. Though rumors of the brothers’ deaths spread rapidly, it was not until July 16 that Brigham learned for certain of their martyrdom.
As President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Brigham Young gathered the other members of the quorum who were also preaching throughout the eastern states and returned with them to Nauvoo.
A conference was held in Nauvoo on August 7 and 8, and Brigham addressed the grieving Saints. Benjamin F. Johnson reported that “as soon as [Brigham] spoke I jumped upon my feet, for in every possible degree it was Joseph’s voice, and his person, in look, attitude, dress and appearance … ; and I knew in a moment the spirit and mantle of Joseph was upon him.”
As Brigham took over the leadership of the Saints, he knew they would soon have to leave Nauvoo. They had been driven from their homes before. Brigham himself had organized their move from Missouri to Illinois when Joseph was in Liberty Jail and the persecutions in Missouri were great. Because many of the Saints at that time were poor and ill, Brigham had had everyone sign a covenant stating that none would leave unless all could leave. Those with more would share with those who had less. Brigham made the trip several times to help others.
Now as he faced the task of moving the Saints from Illinois to the Rocky Mountains to once again escape their enemies, he showed this same concern for his people. In the spring of 1846 he left Nauvoo with an advance company. They established several settlements where crops were planted to help those who would follow. At Winter Quarters the Saints settled in to prepare for the trek ahead and to wait for spring. Here Brigham established schools, and within two months 538 log homes and 83 sod homes had been built. “Where the Saints do all they can,” he said, “the Lord will do the rest.”
Early the next spring Brigham Young led 143 men, 3 women, and 2 children across the plains, through the mountains, and finally down into the Great Salt Lake Valley. Almost immediately he began the journey back to Winter Quarters to help others prepare for the journey. On the way he passed companies of Saints led by Daniel Spencer, Parley P. Pratt, John Taylor, and Jedediah M. Grant.
The next spring Brigham Young left Winter Quarters once again for the Salt Lake Valley, this time leading a great company of “397 wagons, 1229 souls, 74 horses, 19 mules, 1275 oxen, 699 cows, 184 cattle, 411 sheep, 141 pigs, 605 chickens, 37 cats, 82 dogs, 3 goats, 10 geese, 2 beehives, 8 doves, and 1 crow.”
The remainder of Brigham’s life was to be spent in the West, where he directed the settlement of many towns and cities. He established schools, was governor of the territory, began work on the Salt Lake Temple, and saw the St. George Temple completed. During his presidency, missionaries were sent throughout the United States and Canada and to many other countries.
Brigham Young led the Church for twenty-nine years until his death on August 29, 1877, never forgetting the promise he had made to build the kingdom of God. “This is the business of the Latter-day Saints,” he once said, “and it is all the business that we have on hand.”
The year before the Prophet Joseph Smith was killed, he said of Brigham, “I can fervently say, may the Lord bless his way before him, and bless those that obey his teachings wherever they are with ears to hear and hearts to feel. He is worthy to be received and entertained as a man of God.”

When I was about 11 years old, a man came to our little town to teach at the Church academy. He played the violin a little, and we hadn’t had anyone there for a long time who had played the violin. My mother was impressed and picked up a little violin, I guess at some little rummage sale somewhere, and decided that I should learn to play the violin.
Even though I had never seen anyone play the violin in public, he came to our house and started giving me some little simple lessons on playing the violin. I was coming along fairly well by the time we graduated from the eighth grade in grammar school, and for the graduation exercises held in the high school I was asked to play a violin solo.
I’d carefully practiced the little number “Träumerei,” as I remember the name. My sister who was four years older than I and was then one of the popular girls in high school was my pianist. At the graduation exercises, Connie McMurray was the valedictorian. Girls are always smarter in school than boys. As she was giving the valedictory address, there was a little pedestal with a pitcher of water and a glass on it for the school board. The school board was on the stand, plus a little handful of us who were graduating from the eighth grade.
As Connie McMurray was giving her famous valedictory address, near the end of it we noticed the little doily under the pitcher of water on the pedestal was moving over a little bit towards the edge, and over it fell with the pitcher and glass of water! Connie McMurray fell in a dead faint.
In the scurrying around of cleaning the water off the stage and rearranging the chairs, they announced that we would now have the violin solo from David Haight. I walked over to the little old piano, and my sister came up from the audience. I took that little simple violin out of that wooden case as my sister sat down at the piano and sounded an A. I said, “Go ahead and play.”
She said, “David, you’d better tune it.”
I said, “No, no, I tuned it at our piano at home.” We had an old Kimball piano at home. You know, homes in those days—if you had a piano and books, that’s all you needed for the family. I had carefully tuned the strings by twisting those ebony pegs of that violin, but I didn’t know that all pianos weren’t the same. So as my sister said, “You’d better tune it,” I said, “No, no, it’s all tuned. I tuned it at home.”
So she went ahead and played the introduction, and then I came down on the first note. We were off about two notes.
As she slowed down, I said, “Keep playing,” because I couldn’t imagine anyone would take the time of a famous audience like I was playing to—you know, 100 people in that little high school auditorium. You wouldn’t hold up Carnegie Hall while you tuned your violin! That would be shop work. You would do that in the back room so that when you would start to play, why, you’d be all ready to play.
She slowed down. I said, “Keep playing.” We finished it, and she didn’t speak to me for days following that show.

“How high are we going, Dad?” Keith asked, skipping merrily along to keep up with his father’s long, quick strides.
“To the fourth floor,” said Dad with a smile when they approached the four-story bank building. Keith had been in the bank before but had never ridden its elevator.
“Elevators are magic,” Keith said.
“What do you mean?” asked Dad.
“Well, people go into them, and the doors close. Then when they come out, they are somewhere else.”
Father laughed. “I guess you’re right, son. An elevator is magic!”
Keith gripped his dad’s hand as they pushed through the big swinging double glass doors of the bank building. “How many elevators are there?” he asked.
“Only one,” Dad answered.
Keith was about to ask how people came back down if the elevator stopped working. But when he passed a door with the word STAIRS on it he decided he already knew the answer.
Dad stopped at some large shiny doors and pushed a little button that lighted up. The doors opened and some people stepped out. Keith wondered where they all came from.
Keith and his dad stepped quickly into the elevator. Dad pushed another little button stamped with a 4.
“What would happen if we didn’t stop at 4?” Keith asked, watching a row of numbers light up one at a time. Dad said that the fourth floor was as high as the elevator went. But Keith wondered if anyone had ever gone past there and had stopped on the roof or maybe even high above the clouds somewhere.
However, when the elevator slowed to a stop on the fourth floor, the door opened onto a long, narrow hallway. Then another thought came to Keith. “Dad, how far down does an elevator go?”
“It stops in the basement below the level of the ground,” Dad answered.
Keith wondered what would happen if the elevator didn’t stop when it got to the basement, but he didn’t say anything.
When his dad had finished with his business they returned to the elevator. Keith was still thinking about the basement when Dad pushed the button. Soon the elevator doors silently slid open. No one came out, so Keith stepped in.
Just then someone called to Dad and he stopped and turned to see who it was. Suddenly, the heavy doors closed, leaving Keith in the elevator all by himself. Keith yelled, “Dad!” and tried to open the doors, but they wouldn’t budge and he didn’t know about the special button that could be pushed to reopen them. Even if he had known, he was too short to reach it.
The elevator started moving, slowly at first, but then it picked up speed as down, down, down it went. Keith watched fearfully as the row of numbers lighted up again, one at a time—3, 2, 1. When the elevator didn’t slow down at 1, he was really afraid. But when the letter B lit up, the elevator finally came to a gentle stop.
Keith wondered what would happen next. He was so frightened that a big tear started to roll down his cheek. Slowly and quietly the doors slid open. Standing before him was a man in striped overalls, carrying a mop and a well-used bucket.
“Well, hello, there!” said the man, with a surprised look on his face.
“Hi,” Keith managed to say, stepping out of the elevator. “Who—who are you?”
The man’s surprised look slowly turned into a broad smile. “I’m Joe, the building custodian. Are you lost?”
“I guess I am, sort of. My dad’s up on the fourth floor and I’m down here. I want to get back to him.”
“Do you remember how your dad made the elevator take him to the fourth floor? I bet you could do the same thing,” Joe encouraged.
“But I can’t reach the buttons.”
“I see,” said Joe. “That is a problem.”
Then Joe held up the head of the mop. “Let me introduce you to this beauty. Her name is Liz, and she’s the queen of the basement.”
He put his head close to the head of his mop. “What did you say, Liz? That you want to visit the fourth floor, and that you’d like us to escort you?”
Joe bent down and whispered to Keith. “She means she wants us to go with her and help her punch elevator buttons. What do you think? Should we help her out?”
“You bet!” said Keith, grinning from ear to ear.
“OK, Your Highness. This way,” said Joe with a flourish and a bow to the mop. Joe picked up the bucket and, with Keith’s help, escorted Liz into the elevator. And up they went.
Dad was glad to see Keith. And after both of them thanked Joe for his help, Dad was introduced to Liz. He said he’d be honored to shake the queen’s hand, but since that didn’t seem possible, he’d just say, “Thanks.”
On the way down in the elevator, Dad asked, “Well, son, did you learn anything about elevators today?”
“Yep,” said Keith as he watched the numbers light up one at a time. “What goes up—comes down.”

In the fateful war year of 1942, I was inducted into the United States Army Air Corps. One cold night at Chanute Field, Illinois, I was given all-night guard duty. As I walked around my post, I meditated and pondered the whole miserable, long night through. By morning I had come to some firm conclusions. I was engaged to be married and knew that I could not support my wife on a private’s pay. In a day or two, I filed my application for Officer’s Candidate School. Shortly thereafter, I was summoned before the board of inquiry. My qualifications were few, but I had had two years of college and had finished a mission for the Church in South America.
The questions asked of me at the officers’ board of inquiry took a very surprising turn. Nearly all of them centered upon my beliefs: “Do you smoke?” “Do you drink?” “What do you think of others who smoke and drink?” I had no trouble answering these questions.
“Do you pray?” “Do you believe that an officer should pray?” The officer asking these questions was a hard-bitten career soldier. He did not look like he prayed very often. I pondered. Would I give him offense if I answered how I truly believed? I wanted to be an officer very much so that I would not have to do all-night guard duty and KP and clean latrines, but mostly so my sweetheart and I could afford to be married.
I decided not to equivocate. I admitted that I did pray and that I felt that officers might seek divine guidance as some truly great generals had done. I told them that I thought that officers should be prepared to lead their men in all appropriate activities, if the occasion requires, including prayer.
More interesting questions came. “In times of war, should not the moral code be relaxed? Does not the stress of battle justify men in doing things that they would not do when at home under normal situations?”
I recognized that here was a chance perhaps to make some points and look broad-minded. I suspected that the men who were asking me this question did not live by the standards that I had been taught. The thought flashed through my mind that perhaps I could say that I had my own beliefs, but I did not wish to impose them on others. But there seemed to flash before my mind the faces of the many people to whom I had taught the law of chastity as a missionary. In the end I simply said, “I do not believe there is a double standard of morality.”
I left the hearing resigned to the fact that these hard-bitten officers would not like the answers I had given to their questions and would surely score me very low. A few days later when the scores were posted, to my astonishment I had passed. I was in the first group taken for Officer’s Candidate School! I graduated, became a second lieutenant, married my sweetheart, and we have “lived together happily ever after.”
This was one of the critical crossroads of my life. Not all of the experiences in my life turned out that way or the way I wanted them to, but they have always been strengthening to my faith.

The old station wagon bumped and squeaked as Leonard and his mother crossed the cattle guard and started up the dirt road to the pasture. Outside the car, snow swirled wildly about, blurring the bleak white landscape and obscuring the road. Leonard’s mother leaned forward, peering intently into the storm. “If we lose this cow, Leonard, we’re giving up and going back to the city,” Mother stated. She turned the big car off the road, bumped through the field, and came to a stop.
Leonard’s stomach muscles tightened with anxiety. Mother had expressed the same feeling last spring when three newborn calves died one after another, and again last summer when Jiggs, their young white bull, dropped dead in the field. But she might mean it this time. He knew that mother really loved Lucy, a bony Holstein whose hooves had frozen as a calf; afterward she could only limp slowly to her feed and water. Last spring Lucy had given birth to a beautiful, healthy calf. Then a few days ago Uncle Jim had found Lucy floundering in an icy ditch and had pulled her out onto the bank, where she had lain ever since.
Leonard savored the warmth of the car for a moment, then pushed the heavy door open against the wind, which struck his face like a blow. He pulled his stocking cap down over his ears and pushed against the wind to the back of the station wagon. His mother released the latch, and Leonard pulled out an old wooden sleigh. He and his mother lifted a milk can full of water and a covered bucket of grain onto it.
“I’ll take some grain to the calves in the west field and come back for you,” Mother shouted as she turned back to the car.
Leonard nodded, picked up the rope tied to the sleigh, and started across the field. He kept his head down, following the trail to the gate. When he reached it, he could see Lucy’s black spots against the snow. Bales of hay formed a windbreak at her head. Lucy lay motionless, and Leonard wondered if she were dead already. A lump like a jammed-up sob arose in his throat. If only his dad were here, he would figure out some way to get her on her feet. The snow and cold had come too early. It was only November, and they weren’t ready. Since his dad’s death the year before, his mother had tried hard to run their little farm with only Leonard’s and his two sisters’ help.
As Leonard swung the gate open, Lucy slowly raised her head, and Leonard felt a warming relief. He hurriedly dragged the milk can from the sleigh, removed the cap, and poured some water into the pan near her head. The water was still slightly warm, and steam rose into the air. He poured the grain into another pan and hunched down beside Lucy. He brushed the snow from her back and stroked her furry flank. She looked at him with her gentle, unquestioning brown eyes and lowered her mouth to the water and drank. She moved her head toward the grain and snorted, sending a small dusty cloud into the air.
Leonard remembered how beautiful she had been as a calf, how starkly white and black against the green of the pasture behind the house. He remembered the pain in her eyes the morning her first calf was born and how the wobbly little creature had followed her and nuzzled her side for milk. That calf was big now and grazed with the other cows, and Leonard knew that Lucy was due to have another one in the spring. Her munching and swallowing now was a warm and homey sound against the wind that whined around them.
Feeling a peculiar kind of happiness in being near the cow, in hearing her eat, in knowing that she was still alive, Leonard didn’t think that he could stand living in the city. He remembered the long days spent at his grandmother’s house when he just sat on the front lawn and watched the traffic. He knew that kids did things in the city, but to him there seemed to be nothing fun to do. He didn’t want to leave the cows and the chickens and Ralph and George, the two huge labradors, or the wide fields and open sky, the pond, and his tree hut. There had to be a way to help Lucy somehow! After standing up and putting the can and bucket back on the sleigh, the worried boy patted Lucy’s head as she licked up the grain with her long pinkish tongue. Then he started back across the snow to meet his mother.
Later, back at the house, Leonard and his five-year-old sister, Susan, each carried a load of firewood into the house and dumped it behind the black stove. Jenny, his ten-year-old sister, and his mother were setting dinner on the table.
After the family had seated themselves at the table and the blessing on the food had been said, Susan asked, “How’s Lucy?”
“She’s still eating well,” Leonard said. “But if she doesn’t get up in another day or two, I don’t think she ever will.” He turned to his mother. “There just has to be some way we can get her on her feet! How about using the winch on the tractor?”
His mother sighed. “The tractor broke down before we finished the fall plowing. I really don’t know what we’d use. Maybe things are getting too hard for us to handle.”
“I love Lucy,” Susan said. “I’m going to pray for her. She’ll get up.”
Leonard smiled at his little sister, then at his mother. When she returned a faint smile, he felt a flicker of hope. “What about Uncle Jim’s tractor?” he asked.
“Maybe. But he’ll be out of town all week. By the time he gets back, it will probably be too late.”
Leonard ate in silence, still thinking about Lucy. Finally he said, “Why don’t we go down in the morning and try again to get her up? Maybe if we all encourage her, she’ll make the effort.”
The next morning Leonard and his two sisters climbed into the station wagon with their mother and drove down to the field. The gusting wind blew swirls of white snow off the fields here and there as they all helped to feed Lucy. The girls petted her thick winter coat and stroked her nose. After Lucy had eaten, more hay was spread around the cow to help her get her footing on the hard ground. Then everyone encouraged her to get up.
When plain coaxing didn’t work, Leonard found a smooth fence pole and wedged it under the cow’s side. Then he and Jenny found a rock to use as a fulcrum, and they began pushing down on the fence-pole lever while his mother pushed Lucy’s neck. Susan encouraged the cow by talking to her and wiggling her tail. The cow strained to raise her bulk. She kicked, but her legs only scraped against the ground beneath her. Lucy made a last struggle to rise, then flopped her head back down and refused to try again.
Leonard and Jenny lowered the pole. Susan let go of Lucy’s tail and sat down and laid her head on the cow as tears ran down her cheeks. Leonard’s mother sat on the grain bucket and put her chin in her hands.
Heartsick, Leonard looked off across the fields at the Uintah Mountains, their jagged peaks white against the blue sky. In the other direction the fields stretched far to the cedars and sagebrush beyond. He loved the expanse; it seemed to belong to him. He looked at his mother, sitting so forlornly on the bucket, and at his two sisters, gently stroking the animal’s side. “Maybe Susan had the solution,” he said softly.
His mother looked up at him, her eyes puzzled at first, then warm and comprehending. They all knelt on the spread hay, the wind gusting around them, and Mother spoke the words, explaining their need for the cow and how much they loved her. When Mother had finished, they all knelt silently a few moments longer.
“Let’s let her rest a few more minutes and try again,” Leonard said. “Then how about using two poles, one under her shoulders and one under her hips?” He looked at the cow again. “Her legs are more under her than they were when we started.”
He found another pole and a second rock. He and Jenny manned one pole, Mother and Susan the other.
“When I say ‘go,’” he directed, “start pushing, and shout to encourage her.”
“It would help if we had more people,” Jenny said.
“It would,” said Leonard, “but remember how Nephi had extra strength when he was holding onto Zoram. With the Lord’s help, we can do it.” He hesitated a moment, then shouted, “Go!”
The startled cow began to struggle. Mother and the three children pushed, wedging their poles a little farther under Lucy as she struggled. “Up, girl! Up!” they shouted, pushing and straining. The cow snorted and threw back her head and tried to dig her hooves into the ground. With a great heave the animal brought her legs under her, her back end and then her front end rising until she was standing. She swayed, and four pairs of hands steadied her. Lucy took a faltering step on her weakened legs, then another. Then she began to nibble the straw from one of the bales!
Leonard smiled across the cow’s back at his mother. She returned his smile, and he knew that she wouldn’t give up on the farm—not yet anyway. As the family knelt on the hay again in the thin winter sunlight, Lucy’s shuffling and munching provided a pleasant background to their prayer of gratitude.

“Me?” I asked, looking at the Young Women president in utter shock.
“Yes,” she said. “You’d only have to play one hymn each week for opening exercises. You can tell us ahead of time which one you choose, and practice during the week. Besides, it’s only for Young Women. You’re all friends anyway.”
“Well, I guess so. But I’m not making any promises,” was my response.
For as long as I could remember, my mother had been teaching me how to play the piano. But I was only to the point where I could study a piece of music one measure at a time and eventually memorize it.
For that first Sunday, I chose a piece in the key of C that looked fairly simple. I began practicing it, and it turned out to be quite a chore. But by the end of the week I had memorized the hymn and felt ready for Sunday. Unfortunately, with 20 girls singing and a director setting the pace, I was lost within the first three measures. I tried with all my might to catch up, but the song dragged on—a capella.
When the song ended, I buried my head into my folded arms through the opening prayer. At its conclusion I took a seat by my best friend who greeted me with a sympathetic pat on the back. I also received an affirmative thumbs up and a smile of encouragement from our Young Women president.
After class, she came over to talk to me. I figured she had realized her mistake and was going to let me sing each week rather than play. “So, what song will it be next week?” she asked. Silent groan.
The next week I spent every free second playing “Come Follow Me.” I was not going to make a fool of myself again. All this practicing did was slowly cause me to dislike the piano and dread the quickly approaching Sunday. However, I managed to master the hymn, and even practiced with my mom leading and my little sister singing. I was prepared.
Sunday came, and by the time we got to the part of the song “… the Savior said,” I was lost. Tears were forming in my eyes. I tried with all my might to blink them away, but couldn’t. It wasn’t fair. I had worked so hard—and for what? More embarrassment.
I finally decided there was only one thing to do. I looked very closely at the final measure through my tears. I wanted to play the last chord of the song, and I carefully placed my shaking fingers on each key while the young women warbled on without me. “With God’s own loved, begotten Son.” I attacked that last chord with all the power I could muster, then confidently bowed my head for the prayer.
Unfortunately, the prayer was delayed until everyone stopped laughing. I can see the humor in it now, but at the time I decided to never touch another piano key for the rest of my life.
Thankfully, I stuck with the weekly chore. As the Sundays went by, playing became easier. I used most of my free time to practice the piano, which helped me learn how to play without having to memorize the piece.
I still play a hymn each week and usually hit a few sour chords. Every day I sit down at the old piano and play all sorts of music. I have gained a talent that I love, but almost missed.
I’m so thankful that after my first catastrophic experience, I was convinced to stick with it and not give up. I think about the friendly smile from my supportive president, and realize my assignment to play each week was a blessing in disguise.

It was a lazy day in August. The sun was hot, and Tommy and Elija were lying on the ground near the creek, enjoying the shade of a big cottonwood tree. They had been assigned to watch the thirty head of cattle, which were grazing a half mile upstream.
“Herding cattle might be important,” said Tommy, “but it isn’t very exciting.”
Just then the cattle started to low. The boys heard them moving around as if they were frightened. “Something is bothering them,” said Elija. “Let’s see what it is.”
In a moment the two boys were running toward the cattle, but they stopped short when they saw a small band of Indians coming toward them. They had no way of knowing whether or not they were friendly. But Tommy knew that the Omaha Indians had given the Mormon pioneers permission to camp on their land for the winter and to use their water and their timber.
When the boys came within talking distance, a young Indian stepped forward and spoke to them in halting English. “Last night our enemies, the Iowas, attacked our camp. All of our men except Chief Big Head and I were on a hunting trip. The Iowas took our horses and all of our food. They wounded many women and children. Chief Big Head they left for dead. He will die if he does not get help.”
Tommy looked down on the willow bed that the Indians had made for their chief. What he saw made him want to close his eyes.
“I’ll go for help,” he said.
“I’ll go with you,” said Elija.
The young Indian put his arm across Elija’s chest to keep him from going. “You stay here till boy gets back.”
Tommy knew that Elija’s safety depended on his speedy return, so he ran almost all of the two miles to Winter Quarters.
He went at once to the home of his bishop and told him what had happened. “The Indians really need help,” he concluded, “and they’re keeping Elija with them to make sure I bring some back.”
Bishop Morley listened quietly; then he put his arm around the boy to comfort him while he thought about what to do. “We must find Brigham Young,” he decided. “He might be down at the ferry. You take my horse and ride down there as fast as you can. In the meantime I will look around here.”
The ferry was twelve miles away, and it took Tommy an hour to get there. When he arrived, he found Brigham Young and told him his story.
“We will help the Indians, of course,” Brigham Young said, “but our first concern is for Elija. You must get back to him as soon as possible. Take your wagon and ask Bishop Morley to take his. These two wagons should be enough to bring the badly wounded to Winter Quarters. I’ll meet you at my house.”
Bishop Morley was waiting for Tommy. They took the two wagons and went to get Elija and the Indians.
When they came to the small sad camp, Elija ran up and began talking to Tommy. “At first they were afraid I would run away,” said Elija, “but when I took off my shirt and wet it in the creek so I could cool the forehead of Chief Big Head, they knew I could be trusted.”
“I’m so glad you are all right,” Tommy said.
Bishop Morley and the young Indian helped Chief Big Head into Tommy’s wagon, and the boys started back to Winter Quarters. The other Indians who were badly wounded were put into the Morley wagon. The rest of the Indians walked beside it.
The sun was almost setting when the wagons arrived at the home of Brigham Young. He soon determined that the Indian chief would need special care. He turned to Tommy and said, “Please go and ask your mother if she could take Chief Big Head into her home and nurse him back to health.”
Tommy was off in a flash. He returned in a few minutes with his mother, who said, “Of course, I’ll take care of him.”
Brigham Young smiled and said, “You won’t be sorry. An Indian never forgets a kindness.”
The weeks that followed were anxious ones for Tommy and his mother. Chief Big Head was very sick and needed constant care. Either Tommy or his mother stayed day and night by his side. Then one day, without any warning, the Indian got out of bed. “Chief Big Head well,” he declared. “I must go to my people.”
That night he left Winter Quarters and took with him all of the Indians who had been staying there.

Some years ago while our family was eating dinner with another couple from our ward, we received a phone call from the emergency department of our local hospital. An official asked my husband, who was serving as stake president at the time, if someone from our Church could come see a 17-year-old youth who had suffered a serious head injury.
Upon arriving, my husband learned that the young man had fallen from a balcony onto a cement sidewalk 30 feet (9 m) below. He was unconscious and not expected to live.
My husband and the brother who ate dinner with us gave the young man a blessing. His family, who lived a thousand miles (1,610 km) away, was contacted and apprised of his condition.
Miraculously, after a few days of intensive care, the young man regained consciousness and began to heal. For four weeks his parents visited him daily in the hospital. Then they flew him home to Arizona, USA, so he could complete his recovery.
How marvelous it was to witness the healing power of the priesthood work in a way to give this young man a second chance at a healthy future. And how grateful I was for a husband and other ward members who are prepared to perform priesthood service and act with divine authority.
I felt deeply for the young man’s parents, who were so far from their son during his crisis. I was glad, however, to know that they felt somewhat reassured when they learned that their son had received a priesthood blessing and that Church members were glad to help.

April got to class just in time to see Miss Edwards hang the last car on the bulletin board.
“Good morning, April,” Miss Edwards said. “Are you ready for our next reading race?”
“Yes! I already have books picked out,” April said.
Reading races were one of April’s favorite things about third grade. In the last race, her paper frog had hopped to second place. This time she hoped her car would cross the finish line first.
That evening, April was reading when her older sister Annie sat down by her. “Want to play a game?” Annie asked.
“No, thanks,” April said. “I need to finish this chapter for the reading race.”
After a while, April took her reading record to Annie. “Will you sign me off for 10 pages?” she asked.
“Sure,” Annie said. “That’s a good start.”
The next day, April was surprised to see that more than half the class was ahead of her in the race. As she sat down at her desk, she noticed a thin book on Craig’s desk.
“Are you reading that for the race?” she asked.
“Yep. I’m in eighth place now,” Craig said.
April sighed. “I’ll never catch up when I’m reading books with so many more words on a page,” she thought.
“Wow, 15 pages!” Annie said as she signed April’s reading record that night. “Good job, Sis.”
But April didn’t feel very good. She had only read 11 pages. The next day there were still six cars in front of April’s. But she knew that wasn’t the reason her heart felt so heavy in her chest—it was because she was four spaces farther ahead than she should be.
That night she added two extra pages to her sign-off sheet.
“Thirteen tonight,” Annie said. She smiled at April. “Aren’t you almost done with that book?”
April’s eyes filled with tears. “Well, I haven’t really read that many pages. But the other kids are reading easy books with fewer words on a page. I’m still reading more than they are.”
“So you feel OK lying about it?”
April shook her head. She knew it wasn’t right to record extra pages.
Annie smiled kindly and handed April her sheet, unsigned. “I think you know what to do,” she said.
The next morning April pulled her car off the board and moved it backward.
“April?” Miss Edwards asked.
April took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Miss Edwards. I wasn’t truthful about how many pages I’ve read.”
“I see,” Miss Edwards said.
“I shouldn’t have cheated,” April said.
“April, you’ve given me an idea,” Miss Edwards said. “I know some students are choosing easier books so they can read more pages. I think we’ll start the race over today, and we’ll move forward by time spent reading instead of pages. How does that sound?”
April smiled.
“Thank you for being truthful, April,” Miss Edwards said. “You’ve helped me see that what’s important is that you are spending time reading books you enjoy, not how much you’re reading.”
April was glad she had told the truth. She felt even better that night when she found a note from Annie on her pillow:
Dear April,
I knew you’d do the right thing. Thanks for being such a great example!
Love, Annie