Gospel Story Finder

For example, Neal Jones, a science teacher, introduced me to the marvels of the universe. At the time when air travel was emerging, he invited his students to explore the possibilities of space travel and interplanetary communication.
In one intriguing discussion, we considered the prospects of flying to the stars and back. We calculated the distances and applied the rates of flight. We concluded that at 100 mph a pilot would grow old and die before reaching some of the heavenly bodies and returning to earth. None of us could foresee, as Mr. Jones could, the future wonders of rocket power, jet propulsion, and the like.
When Sputnik was launched, I thought of Mr. Jones’s classroom; when the moon landing occurred in 1969, I thought of Mr. Jones; and, when I learned of the Concorde reaching altitudes above 60,000 feet and speeds in excess of 1,000 miles per hour—I thought of Mr. Jones. He introduced me to the fascinating world of science and transfused in me a curiosity about the universe, and convinced me that “the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator” (Alma 30:44).

At the age of 50, my mother developed cancer. I recall our family prayers and our father’s tearful pleadings. He took her to Los Angeles in search of better medical care, but it was to no avail. I remember with clarity the return of my brokenhearted father as he stepped off the train and greeted his grief-stricken children. We walked solemnly down the station platform to the baggage car, where the casket was unloaded. We came to know even more about the tenderness of our father’s heart. This has had an effect on me all of my life.
I also came to know something of death—the absolute devastation of children losing their mother—but also of peace without pain, and the certainty that death cannot be the end of the soul.

Lisa stood with her elbows on the window sill watching for Grandmother’s little car. Her big eyes sparkled as she pressed her nose against the cool glass trying to get a better look.
“I wish she would hurry,” Lisa said out loud, leaving a large steamy spot on the window.
With her finger she drew squiggly lines through the steam as she thought about the pretty blue dress Grandmother brought her the last time she came. “I know she’ll bring me something as nice this time,” she said confidently.
Just then Grandmother’s car turned into the driveway. “Grandma’s here! Grandma’s here!” Lisa cried as she opened the door in welcome and ran to Grandmother’s open arms.
“What did you bring me?” she asked.
Grandmother smiled her usual happy smile and gave Lisa a big hug. “I didn’t bring you anything this time, dear,” she said.
Lisa pouted. Her shoulders drooped with disappointment. She wouldn’t even look at Grandmother.
“I’m sorry you’re so sad, Lisa,” said Grandmother. “Sometimes I bring you something and sometimes I don’t—but I love you all the time.”
Suddenly Lisa’s face broke into a smile. “I love you too,” she said, flinging her arms around Grandmother’s neck.
That afternoon when Lisa went upstairs to her room, she opened the drawer where she kept all her treasures. There were beads, pretty rocks, ribbons, bright bits of colored yarn, a little ball, and a small plastic turtle. And there in the corner of the drawer was Lisa’s favorite treasure—a sparkling earring.
Lisa picked up each of the treasures, and then she carefully put them down again as she thought and thought. It was hard to decide what to choose. She picked up the sparkling earring. It was especially beautiful. She was sure Grandmother would like it. But Lisa liked to wear it when she played house, so she placed it back in the drawer.
She picked up the little ball, the small plastic turtle, and one pretty rock and walked toward the bedroom door.
Grandma would like that sparkling earring better, Lisa thought again as she stopped and looked back at the drawer. Then she walked over to the drawer and exchanged the pretty rock for the sparkling earring.
Lisa hurried to find her grandmother.
“See, Grandma,” she said, smiling. “I have some presents for you. Now you’ll have toys in your purse for all your grandchildren to play with, and here’s a pretty earring for yourself.”
“Thank you,” said Grandmother, examining the sparkling earring. “It’s beautiful!”
Grandmother gave Lisa a special smile and a warm hug. Lisa smiled back with happiness as she said, “I won’t always give you presents when you come to see me, Grandma. But I love you all the time!”

Even today there are those preposterous stories handed down and repeated so many times they are believed. One of the silliest of them is that Mormons have horns.
Years ago, I was at a symposium at a college in Oregon. Present were a Catholic bishop, a rabbi, an Episcopalian minister, an Evangelical minister, a Unitarian clergyman, and myself.
The president of the school, Dr. Bennett, hosted a breakfast. One of them asked which wife I had brought. I told them I had a choice of one. For a second, I thought that I was being singled out for embarrassment. Then someone asked the Catholic bishop if he had brought his wife.
The next question came from Dr. Bennett to me: “Is it true that Mormons have horns?”
I smiled and said, “I comb my hair so that they can’t be seen.”
Dr. Bennett, who was completely bald, put both hands on the top of his head and said, “Oh! You can never make a Mormon out of me!”

In April 1847, Sam Brannan and three other men left San Francisco Bay in search of Brigham Young and the main body of the Saints. They did not know exactly where to find them, but most emigrants followed the same trail west. If Sam and his small company headed east along the trail, they would eventually cross paths with the Saints.
After stopping briefly to pick up supplies at New Hope, the men trekked northeast to the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains. People who knew the Sierras well had warned Sam not to cross them so early in the year. The mountain pass was still choked with snow, they said, which meant the journey could be a two-month ordeal.
Yet Sam was sure he could cross the mountains quickly. Urging their pack animals forward, he and his men hiked for hours up the mountains. The snow was deep but tightly packed, making it easier to find footing along the trail. The mountain streams ran high, however, forcing the men to risk dangerous swims or hazardous alternative routes.
On the far side of the mountain range, the trail led them along hulking granite crags to a view of a beautiful pine-wooded valley with a lake as blue as the sky. Descending to the valley, they found a few abandoned cabins at a campsite littered with human remains. Months earlier, a wagon train bound for California had become stranded in the snow. The emigrants had built the cabins to wait out a bad winter storm, but low on food and unprepared for the cold, many of them slowly starved or froze to death, while some resorted to cannibalism.1
Their story was a grim reminder of the dangers of overland travel, but Sam refused to let their tragedy frighten him. He was captivated by the wilderness. “A man cannot know himself,” he exulted, “until he has traveled in these wild mountains.”2

As a 16-year-old boy, Glen L. Rudd took between 800 and 900 pounds (360 to 400 kg) of chicken meat to the Pioneer Stake Bishops’ Storehouse in downtown Salt Lake City for his father.
He watched as the heavy delivery was lifted up on the loading dock of the familiar building. He had heard about what went on inside but had never seen it personally. He knew of the circumstances of many families in his stake; most of his friends’ fathers were unemployed because of the Great Depression.
But on that day he saw what was really happening. “I knew we were helping the poor, the people in need,” recalled Elder Rudd, a former member of the Seventy who spent 25 years managing Welfare Square—the outgrowth of that first storehouse.
As a young man, he realized that during the height of the Depression, when almost 70 percent of the men in his stake didn’t have jobs, the Church was offering help. At the storehouse was a coal and wood yard, a furniture workshop, a cannery and sewing center, and food—much of it donated by people like his father, who owned a poultry processing plant.
August 19, 2007, marked the 75th anniversary of the opening of that storehouse, the Church’s first. Today the Church operates 108 storehouses in the United States and Canada and an additional 29 in Latin America. There are storehouses in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
In addition, the Church runs 285 Employment Resource Centers, 44 Deseret Industries thrift stores, and 100 home storage centers around the world. Church members donated 623,153 days of labor to welfare facilities in 2006, and 239,410 people internationally received training and jobs with the help of Latter-day Saint employment efforts, according to information provided by Welfare Services.
“I have passed this place thousands of times,” said Elder Rudd, speaking of the Church’s first storehouse and its significance. “I have always had great feelings for it. This was the beginning.”
The storehouse began in early 1932, when then-stake president (later 11th President of the Church) Harold B. Lee (1899–1973) and his counselors met with bishops in the Pioneer Stake. “It was decided after a good discussion that they better do something and do it quickly,” Elder Rudd said. “It was decided that they would build a storehouse and learn how to fill it.”
Stake leaders obtained the free use of a building on Pierpont Avenue and volunteers got the facility ready. Members of the Pioneer Stake fasted on the day of the official opening and brought their contributions to the storehouse.
“It was an interesting thing that by the time it was finished, there was enough food and other items contributed to fill the storehouse,” wrote Elder Rudd in a report about the storehouse. “Also, there was a spirit throughout the stake like there had never been before—just plain brotherly love.”
The storehouse, which filled the same function as early tithing offices, operated under the same principles as modern Latter-day Saint storehouses. “Everyone was supposed to work. That was the aim of the Church, to help people help themselves,” Elder Rudd explained.
Elder Rudd said as commodity prices were very low in the 1930s, many farmers were unable to hire any help and most were harvesting what they could and letting the rest spoil. Storehouse officials—including President Lee’s counselor Paul C. Child and storehouse manager, Bishop Jesse M. Drury—assigned Fred J. Heath and other unemployed men to contact the farmers, and many men were sent onto farms along the Wasatch Front and as far away as Idaho to harvest crops that were then shared with the volunteers.
Trucks arrived at the storehouse filled with fruit and other produce. Much of the fruit was canned, Elder Rudd recalled.
He said at one point so many onions (which were donated in abundance) and canned goods were stored in the upper level of the storehouse that the ceiling started to buckle. Props were placed to keep the ceiling from collapsing. Onions were traded for other necessities. The storehouse provided help. No one was ever turned away, he said.
Soon the Salt Lake Stake asked if they could join with the Pioneer Stake storehouse, and four years later they moved the facility to a larger building. Other storehouses were established in the Murray and Liberty Stakes. In addition, employment offices were set up in all six stakes then operating in the Salt Lake Valley.
“[The Pioneer Stake storehouse] became the pattern for all other storehouses,” said Elder Rudd, “including the big storehouses built by the General Welfare Committee in 1938 and 1939, which were located on what has since been known as Welfare Square.”

Temple worship is as ancient as the hills. Whenever the Lord has had a covenant people upon the earth, He has always commanded them to erect temples or holy sanctuaries akin to the tabernacle (see Exodus 25), where He can come and dwell and instruct His children in the ways of righteousness. All sincere seekers of truth who enter these sacred edifices with a broken heart and a contrite spirit have the opportunity to make and keep sacred covenants that are both salvific and binding in nature.

In Doctrine and Covenants 109:8, we read about the special purpose of temples. Each temple serves as “a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God,” making temples the pinnacle of our worship.

My wife and I had the privilege of visiting the Accra Ghana Temple, thanks to the Temple Patron Assistance Fund. The whole process was an exercise in patience and faith. We learned to pray earnestly and wait on the Lord for the righteous desires of our hearts. Our prayers were answered when we got word from the Africa Central Area that our application had been approved. Our flight to and from the temple was safe and uneventful.

My wife and I got sealed for time and all eternity on 29 May 2024. It was an unforgettable experience—one that I will cherish for the rest of my life. After spending the day in the temple, I wrote that evening in my journal: “I felt a great outpouring of the Spirit today during Annet and my sealing ceremony. The blessings pronounced upon us are too great to fathom, yet we are grateful that the good Lord has deemed us worthy to receive the choicest blessings that heaven and earth has to offer. Eternal life is within reach.
“I am so lucky to have my wife as my eternal companion. Couldn’t ask for a better partner. She is my fellow traveler on the path that leads back home to our Father’s presence. I have a tangible witness of God’s love and mercy, and I’m excited to see what the future holds.”

What added to our joy as the opportunity we had to perform proxy work for my paternal grandfather and my maternal grandmother. There was a special presence in the air as my wife and I were baptized and endowed on their behalf. I know they are smiling down on us. I also had the singular privilege of performing the initiatory ordinances for ancestors of two members of my ward.

Some of the progenitors of our ward members lived in the 1700s. I feel a special connection to these individuals even though I do not know them. This must be the what the spirit of Elijah feels like with hearts turning to fathers and mothers—to our ancestors. I have a firm hope that the deceased individuals we did the proxy work for have been safely gathered into the fold on the other side of the veil. The gathering is truly the greatest work we can engage in right now, and it’s happening on both sides of the veil.

It was Friday night and football season at my high school. As drum major of the marching band, I was having a great time cheering with the band and directing stand tunes. Then things changed drastically when I heard a desperate cry: “Get help! Jeff has stopped breathing!”
I found Jeff, a tuba player, lying across a bleacher, slipping in and out of consciousness and gasping for breath. Suddenly the all-important football game faded from significance. My number-one priority was to get help for Jeff. Paramedics arrived, and it wasn’t until after Jeff was safely on his way to the hospital that I even thought about checking the scoreboard.
After the game I realized that too many times in my own life I have allowed myself to get so involved in a fun yet unimportant event of life that I failed to recognize someone’s spiritual cry for help. During the football game it bothered me to watch Jeff struggle for breath and hear the cheers and laughter of fans that had no idea that anything was wrong.

Sometimes that love comes in unexpected ways. Kristen was finishing a graduate degree and had recently given birth to her second child. She felt the other graduates had accomplished so much more and was reluctant to attend the graduation dinner. Her fears were confirmed when, at the dinner, the students were asked to list their professional accomplishments. Kristen recalled: “I suddenly felt embarrassed and ashamed. I had nothing to call myself, no lofty position, no impressive job title.” To make matters worse, the professor read the lists as he presented a diploma to each student. The woman ahead of Kristen had many accomplishments: she already had a PhD, was receiving a second master’s degree, and she’d even been a mayor! The woman received grand applause.
Then it was Kristen’s turn. She handed the professor her blank sheet, trying to hold back the tears. The professor had been one of her teachers and had praised her performance. He looked at her blank paper. Without missing a beat he announced, “Kristen holds the most critical role in all of society.” He was quiet for a few seconds, then declared in a powerful voice, “She is the mother of her children.” Instead of a few courteous claps, people rose to their feet. There was just one standing ovation that night; it was for the mother in the room.

Many exciting changes have come to the Church thanks to inspiration received by President Russell M. Nelson. Two of these changes have had a direct impact on the Clarkson brothers from California, USA:
Young men can now be ordained to a priesthood office in January of the year they turn 12, 14, and 16.
Youth are eligible to obtain a limited-use temple recommend beginning in January of the year they turn 12.
For brothers Matthew (15), Andrew (13), and Isaac (11), these changes have brought new opportunities to serve and progress in the gospel of Jesus Christ—not just on their own but together.
In January 2019, Matthew, Andrew, and Isaac all experienced a day of firsts. Andrew says: “Matthew became a priest, I became a teacher, and Isaac became a deacon at the same time. None of us were at the ages where we would have advanced before.”
“On my first day being a priest,” Matthew says, “I broke the bread for the sacrament and blessed it. I was kind of nervous. My hands were shaking a little bit when I said the prayer, but it was really amazing.”
New to the Aaronic Priesthood, Isaac now has the chance to learn from his older brothers. “It was cool because I was with my brothers and some of their friends,” Isaac says. “I felt the Spirit when I passed the sacrament for the first time.”
Along with receiving the Aaronic Priesthood and passing the sacrament, Isaac also attended the temple to perform baptisms. His father baptized him first, but then came a surprise:
“I got to baptize my brother!” Matthew says.
“I never expected Matthew to baptize me,” Isaac says. “But he’s a priest now, so he could. It was really a cool experience. I could feel the Holy Ghost.”
Matthew, Andrew, and Isaac aren’t the only brothers in the Clarkson family. There are four more: Levi (9), Eli (7), Sam (4), and Titus (2), and a baby on the way.
When President Nelson invited the women of the Church in October 2018 general conference to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year, Matthew, Andrew, and Isaac, along with their father and younger brothers, decided to offer Mom their support. “We’ll read it with you!” they said. Every morning before seminary, they woke up to read together.
“When we took on this challenge, I thought it was going to take a lot of time,” Andrew says. “I worried that I wouldn’t have enough time to do everything I wanted to do, like play the guitar or hang out with my friends. But I realized that it just doesn’t work like that. The more I was into reading the Book of Mormon, the more time I actually seemed to have. I realized that if I keep up on reading the scriptures as much as possible, my life is balanced. I have more time in the day.”
Matthew was going through a hard time when the family started reading every morning. He says, “I wasn’t doing well in school. I struggled with my personal scripture study and my relationship with Heavenly Father, and I kept it all to myself. I didn’t talk about it with my parents.”
However, as Matthew spent more time reading the Book of Mormon, the gospel began to take first priority in his life. He also put more effort into school. He worked hard and got his grades up.
“I also realized how much Heavenly Father and my parents love me and how much they help me. And I have a greater testimony of Jesus Christ. He has helped me overcome bad habits and helped me get my life headed in the right direction. I’m so glad we took President Nelson’s challenge as a family. It changed my life.”
Accepting President Nelson’s invitation also strengthened Isaac’s testimony. “We circled the words God, Lord, Redeemer, Savior, and Christ every time we found them,” he says. “On the day we finished, I flipped through the Book of Mormon and saw all the words I had circled. I thought, ‘Man, that’s a lot!’ I had never noticed how many there were. I felt much more spiritual reading the Book of Mormon. I’m glad we did it.”
Matthew, Andrew, and Isaac are amazed that their family finished the Book of Mormon in just two months. “It usually takes us a year,” Isaac says. Together, they discovered the blessings of following the prophet’s invitation.
“If you do what you’re supposed to do,” Andrew says, “like building a relationship with Heavenly Father through prayer, scripture study, and staying fully active in the Church, life is so much better.”
These three brothers have helped each other progress in the gospel. They follow the prophet, who has called on members “to increase their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and in His Atonement, to … [make] and [keep] their covenants with God, and to strengthen … their families.”1

Bryon Sorenson, now serving in the Oregon Mission, draws on his Playmill experience by asking people if he can come in and play their piano. Once inside, he plays LDS hymns and introduces the Church. Bryon baptized a talented young man named Randy Davenport who acted at the Playmill last summer. “I decided,” Randy says, “that if the Playmill could do for me what it did for Bryon, I wanted some of it.”

The Fayette group was led by Thomas B. Marsh and the Prophet Joseph’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith. Lucy had called the twenty adults and thirty children together and reminded them that they were traveling by commandment of the Lord, just as father Lehi had when he left Jerusalem. She then said that if they would remain faithful, they could expect the blessings of God just as Lehi’s people had.

The group traveled on the Cayuga and Seneca Canal to Buffalo, New York, where they planned to take a steamboat across Lake Erie to Kirtland. But when they arrived in Buffalo, ice blocked the harbor and further travel was impossible.

They experienced hardships, including hunger and sickness, while they waited for the ice to break. After several days, they put their belongings on a boat, and Lucy persuaded the group to ask the Lord to break the twenty-foot ice barriers that jammed the harbor.

No sooner had they finished praying than a thunderous noise exploded in the air. The captain cried, “Every man to his post!”

The Fayette Saints looked up to see the ice parting to make a passageway just large enough for their boat. When the boat entered the opening, the ice was so close on both sides of it that buckets were ripped from its waterwheel.

As soon as the boat passed through, the opening closed and no other boat could get through. Once again the prayers of the people had been heard! Because people on shore saw the ripping of the waterwheel, they thought that the boat would sink in the icy harbor. So when the Fayette Saints arrived in Kirtland, many people there were surprised to see them.**

My name is Ginger Lyn and I’ve always loved Christmas, but last year was the best one we’ve ever had.
It all started on Thanksgiving Day as our family knelt in prayer to give thanks for our blessings. We were all so happy that we talked about some of the things we could do to help others have that same happy feeling.
Together we came up with many ideas, but the best one of all was our plan for Christmas Day. What we like most is our large family, and the happiness the gospel brings to us. We decided to share both these blessings as our gift to others.
The Salt Lake Temple is only a short drive from our home, and going there was part of our plan. We decided that on Christmas Day, after opening our gifts and eating breakfast, we would clean up the house, fix a big dinner, and then go to the templegrounds and find someone to spend Christmas with us. Before going down to the Visitors Center on Temple Square to find our unknown guests, we would set the table with candles and our best silver and crystal, lay a fire in the fireplace all ready to light, and turn on the Christmas tree lights.
We pasted a picture of our family inside the cover of some copies of the Book of Mormon, wrote a message under each picture, and signed our names. These books were to be given to our dinner guests as we sat around the fire and talked in the evening.
We were excited about our plan, and we knew the Lord would help us. In all our family prayers from Thanksgiving until Christmas, we asked Him to prepare for us someone in need of our love who would be ready to hear the gospel.
Christmas Day finally came and we were all excited. It took us a lot longer to cook the dinner and clean the house than we thought it would. Because of this we arrived at the Visitors Center later than we had planned. We were afraid everyone would have eaten by then and we wouldn’t find anyone to share Christmas dinner with us. We talked with a number of people and invited several of them to our home. Some said they had already eaten and others looked a little puzzled and said, “No, thank you.” But we just kept asking because we knew that our Heavenly Father had prepared somebody for us. And sure enough, He had!
We found a father and mother from Michigan and their seventeen-year-old son. They were surprised at our invitation, but said they were very hungry and were just going to look in the phone book to find a place to eat. The father and mother had been to the Visitors Center before on another vacation, and on this visit they wanted their son to learn a little bit about the Latter-day Saint people. The father said, “There isn’t a better way for us to learn about your church and lifestyle than to go right into one of your homes. We’d be delighted to come!”
We also invited two young women who were on vacation from Australia to our home. They seemed excited too. They said they hadn’t eaten dinner and would enjoy being with a family at Christmastime.
We had a wonderful time on that Christmas night, eating and talking and answering questions about the Church. Before we said good-bye to our guests they thanked us over and over again. The Michigan family said they would always remember their Christmas dinner with us as a highlight of their trip, and before they left they took a picture of us around the Christmas tree.
The girls from Australia were a little teary as we gave them each a copy of the Book of Mormon with our picture inside the cover.
After the visitors had left, our family gathered in the kitchen to do the dishes. We agreed that the real spirit of Christmas had touched each one of us and that it had been the best Christmas ever. We learned, too, that we don’t have to wait for Christmas to have a Christ-like feeling—all we have to do is share the gospel with others and it can be Christmas every day of the year!

Swish! The basketball sank through the hoop as the final buzzer rang. Josh had made the shot! They had won the game! He jumped up and down and high-fived his teammates as the bleachers roared to life. “Go Lions!” all the parents yelled, and Josh smiled to hear his mom cheering loudest of all.
On the drive home, Josh couldn’t stop grinning as he replayed the game in his head. “Wow,” he thought. “I’m so lucky to be a part of this team. And my coach is really great too.” He thought of how Coach John always complimented every player and did funny cheers to get the team excited.
“And I’m glad Mom and Dad let me sign up this year,” he thought. They’d even come to his games. Sometimes he felt silly when Mom cheered so loudly, but he was secretly happy his family was there.
He started to list other blessings in his mind. He had a nice teacher this year who helped him with math. His family had just gotten a dog, and Josh found out he was pretty good at training animals! Just last week, he found out his Primary friends would be going to camp with him, and Josh couldn’t wait to learn some new sports there … The list could go on forever, Josh thought with a smile on his face. Heavenly Father had given him fun talents and loving family members and chances to try new things.
“Mom?” he said.
“Yes, Josh?”
“I just love being me! If I were somebody else, I would wish I were me!”
Mom laughed and squeezed his knee. “You are pretty great, kiddo!”
Josh turned to face her. “Thanks, Mom. Thanks for everything.” He grinned and settled back in his seat. Winning a basketball game was great, but just being himself was the best feeling of all.

Shortly after my call to the Presiding Bishopric, I received a letter from one of my uncles. “Dear Glenn,” it said. “I saw you on television last Sunday. Do you realize what an accomplishment it was to get your old sinner of an uncle to watch general conference?”
That summer he and my aunt celebrated their fiftieth wedding anniversary. After the reception I walked them to their car and said, “If you would like to meet me at the Salt Lake Temple, I would love to perform your sealing.”
A year passed. I arrived home late one night to find a message awaiting me: “Please call your uncle, no matter what time you get home.”
I called, and he said, “Glenn, I’m calling to collect on your golden wedding anniversary offer of a marriage sealing in the Salt Lake Temple.”
I asked, “Are you serious? When?”
He said, “In December. My bishop thinks I can be good enough by then.”
I sealed them to each other and then sealed two of their sons to them. After fifty-one years of marriage, my uncle and aunt received the great blessings of the temple, and the entire family cried.

“Well, believe it or not, I used to be his Primary teacher,” Sister Jensen explained.
“Oh.” Robby nodded. “I guess you could have been; you are old.” Robby blushed when he realized what he’d said.
Sister Jensen laughed heartily. “That’s true! He was a sweet little boy, just like you. You and he have a lot in common—his parents never brought him to church, either. I used to pick him up all the time. He even sat with me in sacrament meeting.
“When he was about your age,” Sister Jensen continued, “he decided to make choices that would help him the rest of his life. He had a little problem with angry words, and he decided that when he became upset, he’d say ‘How exasperating!’ I told him that was a good start but he also needed to fill his mind with good things. That way only good things would come out of his mouth.”
Robby traced on the floor with his other shoe. “Well, maybe when I’m a grown-up, I can do that, too,” he told her.
“But now’s the time to make important choices that will bless you throughout your life, including your choice of words.”
“How can words bless me?”
“When you are careful with the words you choose to say, you show others you care enough about them not to offend them. Choosing good words helps you gain more friends, and you’re also not offending your Heavenly Father. Besides, when you have good words inside, good actions often follow.”
Robby nodded that he understood, and he helped Sister Jensen gather up the rest of her teaching materials.
The next Sunday, Sister Jensen picked Robby up in time for sacrament meeting. The bishop was conducting, and he seemed to be having a difficult time with some of the announcements. Finally he put down the paper he was reading, smiled at the ward members, and exclaimed, “How exasperating!”
Robby giggled as Sister Jensen nudged his arm. He leaned over and whispered, “That’s what I’m going to say when I’m mad, too.”
“Good for you, Robby,” Sister Jensen said with a wink.
Later, in the Primary room, Robby again noticed his name on the yellow birthday board. “That’s funny,” he said.
“What’s that?” Sister Jensen asked.
“Last week my name seemed different.”
Sister Jensen looked puzzled. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“Well, last week my name looked out of place up there by the names of the church kids. But today it looks like it belongs.”
Sister Jensen put her arm around Robby, and he noticed tears in her eyes. “That’s because you do belong here,” she said.

As I read “The Beer Facts” in the March 1993 New Era, I couldn’t help but think back to a day when I was a caring and loving teenager. That was a time when I was president of my teachers quorum, a time I would buy gifts for my mother just because I loved her. I’m now 35 years old and a recovering alcoholic. As my wife and I strive to put our lives in order, I wonder whatever became of the young man I once was. What happened to my dreams of becoming a pilot? What happened to the spiritual growth in my life? That all ended the day I started “drinking for fun.” Through the wonderful law of repentance, I have a chance to gain forgiveness for my past mistakes. As my experiences show, following the Lord is the only way to true happiness.
Name WithheldUtah

Dear brothers and sisters, although he passed away 20 years ago, there are times I miss my father. Easter promises I will see him again.
When I was in graduate school in England, my father came to visit. His father’s heart knew I missed home.
My father loved adventure except in food. Even in France, noted for its cuisine, he would say, “Let’s eat Chinese food.” A long-serving patriarch in the Church, my father was spiritual and compassionate. One night, as emergency vehicles with loud sirens raced through Paris, he said, “Gerrit, those cries are the wounds of a city.”
On that trip, I felt other cries and wounds. A young woman was selling ice cream from a small pushcart. Her wafer cones were just the size for a single scoop of ice cream. For some reason, a large man confronted the young woman. Yelling and pushing, he tipped over her cart, spilling her ice-cream cones. There was nothing I could do as he crushed the cones with his boots. I can still see the young woman on her knees in the street, trying to save broken wafer pieces, tears of anguish streaming down her face. Her image haunts me, a reminder of the unkindness, uncaring, misunderstanding we too often inflict on each other.

One sister, after being criticized for having a large family and giving up a career outside the home, wrote: “I rocked my newborn baby into the night, overcome with gratitude. How would I have found the joy of having this child if prophets of God hadn’t lit my path and shown me that womanhood, motherhood, and wifehood were beautiful ways to serve that have brought me warmth of soul, closeness to my Father, and joy that sometimes seems to consume me?”

I remember when President Rufus K. Hardy, of the First Council of Seventy, passed away. I was walking along the street of one of the cities in New Zealand, and one of our native members came up—a lady. She said to me, “President Hardy is dead.” I said, “Is that so? Have you received a wire?” She said, “No. I received a message, but I haven’t received any wire.” She repeated, “He’s dead. I know.”

Well, I always believed them when they told me those things. When I got back to headquarters, I wasn’t there long when here came a cablegram which said that President Hardy passed away the night before. But she knew that without any cablegram. She told me about it.