Gospel Story Finder

One who listened and who followed was Elder Randall Ellsworth. While serving in Guatemala as a missionary, Randall Ellsworth survived a devastating earthquake, which hurled a beam down on his back, paralyzing his legs and severely damaging his kidneys. He was the only American injured in the quake, which claimed the lives of some eighteen thousand persons.
After receiving emergency medical treatment, he was flown to a large hospital near his home in Rockville, Maryland. While Randall was confined there, a television newscaster conducted with him an interview that I witnessed through the miracle of television. The reporter asked, “Can you walk?”
The answer: “Not yet, but I will.”
“Do you think you will be able to complete your mission?”
Came the reply, “Others think not, but I will.”
With microphone in hand, the reporter continued, “I understand you have received a special letter containing a get-well message from none other than the President of the United States.”
“Yes,” replied Randall, “I am very grateful to the President for his thoughtfulness; but I received another letter, not from the president of my country, but from the president of my church—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—President Spencer W. Kimball. This I cherish. With him praying for me, and the prayers of my family, my friends, and my missionary companions, I will return to Guatemala. The Lord wanted me to preach the gospel there for two years, and that’s what I intend to do.”
I turned to my wife and commented, “He surely must not know the extent of his injuries. Our official medical reports would not permit us to expect such a return to Guatemala.”
How grateful am I that the day of faith and the age of miracles are not past history but continue with us even now.
The newspapers and the television cameras turned their attention to more immediate news as the days turned to weeks and the weeks to months. The words of Rudyard Kipling describe Randall Ellsworth’s situation:
The tumult and the shouting dies—
The Captains and the Kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
(“Recessional”)
And God did not forget him who possessed a humble and a contrite heart, even Elder Randall Ellsworth. Little by little, the feeling began to return. In his own words, Randall described the recovery: “The thing I did was always to keep busy, always pushing myself. In the hospital I asked to do therapy twice a day instead of just once. I wanted to walk again on my own.” When the Missionary Department evaluated the medical progress Randall Ellsworth had made, word was sent to him that his return to Guatemala was authorized. Said he, “At first I was so happy I didn’t know what to do. Then I went into my bedroom and I started to cry. Then I dropped to my knees and thanked my Heavenly Father.”
Randall Ellsworth walked aboard the plane that carried him back to the mission to which he was called and back to the people whom he loved. Behind he left a trail of skeptics, a host of doubters, but also hundreds amazed at the power of God, the miracle of faith, and the reward of determination. Ahead lay thousands of honest, God-fearing, and earnestly seeking sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father. A modern-day Paul, who had overcome his “thorn in the flesh,” had returned to teach them the truth, to lead them to life eternal. From Elder Ellsworth, they heard God’s word. They learned His truth. They accepted His ordinances.

Children, you are a force for good in this world. You have a great impact on your parents and all the adults around you. Your expressions of love and your approach to life often make us think of the Savior’s teaching that we need to become as little children. When our five children were young, it was often a struggle to get all seven of us together for family home evening. Then one day, our ten-year-old daughter said, “Dad, rather than giving the lesson first, why don’t we play a game first?” And she was right! That change was what our family needed to eagerly gather together.

Tim Connors took a big bite of his after-school peanut-butter-and-banana sandwich and considered his problem. The Caped Avenger doesn’t really exist, not even in books. How can I do a book report on a book that doesn’t exist?
He wished he’d been paying attention in class. Then when the teacher asked who his favorite character was, he wouldn’t have blurted out, “The Caped Avenger.”
“Tell us about the Caped Avenger,” said the teacher.
“He fights evil,” Tim said, “and has lots of adventures—like the time the mad scientist had a laser gun pointed at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.”
“Sounds serious,” said the teacher. “What did the Caped Avenger do?”
“He went up on top of the Capitol dome and set up a special mirror to reflect the laser back at the bad guy,” Tim explained. That adventure was one of his brother Mikey’s favorite Caped Avenger stories.
“Boy,” said Norman with a sly grin, “I’d sure like to see that book. Why don’t you bring it in, Tim?”
“I think everyone would like to see it,” the teacher agreed. “Bring it in tomorrow and do a book report on it, Tim.”
Now Tim understood why Norman had grinned. Norman knew that there was no such book and that the Caped Avenger was just a character in the stories Tim told Mikey at bedtime. Norman knew, too, that Tim would be too embarrassed to tell his teacher. If he did, the whole class would laugh at him.
Tim looked at his sandwich. As usual he’d eaten the crusts first. The round, white sandwich looked a little like the spaceship whose occupants the Caped Avenger had foiled when they tried to take over the earth. Mikey hadn’t liked that story as well as the one in which the Caped Avenger had captured the dragon that ate all the ornaments off the Christmas tree. Tim had told his brother that story last year after Mikey had accidentally broken a whole box of glass ornaments.
Carefully Tim bit the sandwich into a rectangle so that it looked like a white book with brown pages. If the Caped Avenger were real, he’d probably consult his book of magic spells to find out how to turn wicked witches into toads—or sandwiches into books for boys who needed them for book reports! Or maybe the Caped Avenger would merely write the book himself. …
Write the book himself! “I’ll do it!” said Tim. “That’ll show Norman.”
When Mom and Mikey came home from the store, Tim was hard at work, cutting out magazine pictures that would illustrate a new Caped Avenger story.
“What’s it about?” asked Mikey, looking at the pictures of a big explosion, an airplane, and a scientific laboratory. “And where are you going to get pictures of the Caped Avenger?”
Tim paused. He shuffled the pages of the notebook that already had some pictures taped in it, just waiting for the story. Mikey was right. There were no pictures of the Caped Avenger in magazines or anywhere else. Tim knew exactly what he looked like, but he also knew that he could not draw such a daring hero. Suddenly he brightened. “The Caped Avenger has a new cape,” he explained. “It makes him invisible.”
Mikey’s eyes grew big. “Please, Tim, tell me the story.”
“Not right now, Mikey. I have to write the whole story for a book report for school tomorrow.”
The title page was beautiful. THE CAPED AVENGER AND THE BOMB and BY TIM CONNORS were in big, bold letters. But writing the story would have been much easier for the Caped Avenger than it was for Tim. Words that fit together in his mind seemed to get muddled on the way to the paper. His notebook pages became so smudged and sticky that he kept crumpling them up and starting over.
Tim was still struggling with his book when Mikey sadly went to bed without a story. Tim felt bad. He wished that he could just tell Mikey the story without having to write it down. Telling stories was easier.
Tim sat up straight. He ran upstairs, rummaged in his closet, then tiptoed into Mikey’s darkened bedroom. “What are you doing?” Mikey asked sleepily.
Tim put something on the dresser. “Telling you a story. It’s about how the Caped Avenger saved the world when the bad guys stole plutonium. They said they’d blow the earth’s crust apart unless the government gave them eighty spaceships.”
“Wow!” exclaimed Mikey happily.
Being careful to speak clearly, Tim launched into his story. By the time the Caped Avenger had been thanked again by a grateful nation, Mikey was asleep.
Tim took his tape recorder off Mikey’s dresser and carried it downstairs. He rewound the tape and played it back. “Silent and invisible, the Caped Avenger crept past the guards into the secret laboratory,” said his voice. He turned it off and picked up his pencil. Smiling, he wrote it all down, listening to a sentence or two at a time. There would be a book to take to school after all. Tim and the Caped Avenger had won another victory!

A young father bore witness to me of a great blessing that had come to him and his family. He was awakened one night by a voice that clearly told him to get up and go downstairs. He heeded the warning, and in going into the kitchen he found one wall engulfed in flames. Hurriedly he awakened his family, called the fire department, and with the help of his family fought the fire, keeping it down until the fire department arrived and put it out.
There was no question in his mind that this warning was a manifestation of the protection the Holy Ghost can give to those who keep their lives in harmony with the Spirit.

At the same time, we must stand against those who speak contemptuously of sacred things, because the certain effect of that offense is to offend the Spirit and so create contention and confusion. President Spencer W. Kimball showed the way to stand without being contentious as he lay on a hospital gurney and asked an attendant who, in a moment of frustration, took the name of the Lord in vain: “‘Please! Please! That is my Lord whose names you revile.’ There was a deathly silence, then a subdued voice whispered: ‘I am sorry’” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [1982], 198). An inspired, loving rebuke can be an invitation to unity. Failure to give it when moved upon by the Holy Ghost will lead to discord.

by Daniella Pilgrim and Marleen Van Laere
The youth of the Antwerp Branch in Belgium wanted a goal to work toward. They came up with the idea and presented it to their leaders. They wanted to earn their way to the Swiss Temple and do baptisms for the dead.

With a little help from the leaders of the branch, they faithfully put in hours organizing barbecues, dances, movies, and family home evenings. They were indeed blessed financially, but as the Lord stated that all things are spiritual, additional blessings came to the youth. Without knowing the full effect, they played an important role in missionary work by fellowshipping investigators, and through these same activities created more unity and love among the members of the branch.

The departure date was set, letters written, and reservations made. After the bus trip, the first thing the group of 25 youth and 11 leaders wanted to see was the temple itself. Many had tears in their eyes, for it was the first time they had seen the temple.

The group spent two days doing baptisms. The night before their return trip, they held a testimony meeting, which was one of the highlights of the trip. Testimonies were borne by group members of the truthfulness of the gospel and the joy they felt in doing temple work. The meeting was closed with the group singing, “The Spirit of God like a Fire Is Burning.”

The group returned home safely with wonderful memories of the temple.

This story happened in Zimbabwe.
“I love to see the temple. I’m going there someday,” sang Ryan.
“Going there today!” said Ryan’s older brother Roy.
Momma folded some clothes and put them in a travel bag. “We’ll begin today, but it will take us two days to get to the temple in South Africa,” she said.
Ryan and his family had waited a long time to go to the temple. And now it was finally time! They would be gone for a whole week.
“Momma, tell us again about Tawananyasha,” Roy said.
Momma smiled at the boys. “Tawananyasha is your older brother. He died when he was only one. But he is still a brother to you, just like Tafadzwa and Tatenda. Papa and I love all five of our sons.”
Ryan smiled as he thought of Tawananyasha. It felt good to know that their parents loved them all.
“That’s why we’re going to the temple,” Momma said. “To be sealed together as a family forever!” She zipped up the travel bag. “Now get your things. It is temple time!”
Roy helped Ryan carry their travel bag outside. Papa joined them, carrying a box of food Momma had prepared for the trip. Tafadzwa and Tatenda carried their bags too. Soon the whole family started walking to the church. A bus was waiting for them there to take them to the temple.
Ryan climbed up on the bus and sat next to Roy. Three other families from their ward were also loading the bus. When everyone took their seats, the bus set out on the long drive to the temple.
Ryan and Roy looked out the window. It was the rainy season, so everything looked green and beautiful. They passed fields and roadside stands where people sold tomatoes, bananas, and potatoes. They even saw monkeys on the road! Ryan wondered what other animals might be hiding in the tall grass and trees.
Soon day turned into night, and the bus drove on. It was a long ride, but Ryan and Roy didn’t complain. Ryan fell asleep thinking, It is temple time!
As they reached the city, everyone on the bus watched out the windows. Who would see the temple first?
“There it is!” Roy said.
Finally, the time came to go inside the temple. “It is temple time!” Roy whispered to Ryan as they walked inside. They changed into white clothes. Then the boys sat in a waiting room with the other children for a while.
Soon a nice temple worker took the children to join their parents. They walked into a room that had a soft table in the center for people to kneel at. It was called an altar.
“Welcome to the sealing room,” the worker said at the front of the room. “Today I will use the priesthood to seal each family together forever.”
Ryan and Roy watched as the other three families were sealed. Then it was their turn.
Ryan and his brothers knelt with his parents around the altar. The sealer invited one of their friends to represent Tawananyasha. Roy looked at Momma and Papa as he placed his hands on theirs. He saw tears sliding down Momma’s cheeks, but she was smiling big.
When the sealing was over, Ryan gave Momma a hug. “You look like angels,” she whispered to her sons.
“It feels like an angel is with us,” Roy whispered back. “I have a special feeling in my heart.”
“Me too,” said Ryan. It felt amazing to be in the temple with his forever family!
Because of the priesthood, we can be with our families forever!
Illustration by Rachel Hoffman-Bayles

While swimming in Provo River, the teenage Tom Monson saw a crowd of vacationers shouting frantically that a member of their group had fallen into the river and was likely to drown in the whirlpools toward which she was being swept. At just that moment, she thrashed her way into Tom’s view. He swam to her side, took her in tow, and made his way to the bank.
“They were very generous in their gratitude and credited me with saving her life,” Brother Monson would later report. “But I think I just happened to be in the right place at the right time in order to give help.”

Boy Scouts from the Elk Grove First and Third wards of the Sacramento California South Stake organized an ice cave freeze-out, an event they hope to hold annually. The winter camp was held at the 7,000-foot level on Echo Summit between Sacramento and South Lake Tahoe.
The group backpacked two miles on snowshoes to the main campsite. There they were taught basic snow survival techniques and how to build several kinds of snow shelters by experienced leaders. These shelters served as sleeping places for the Scouts during the nights when temperatures dropped to 15°F.
The Scouts were surprised to find very little spare time for fun or horseplay as nearly every available minute was spent in preparing and serving food, building snow shelters, learning survival techniques, or just staying warm by the fire. The Scouts found that the Boy Scout motto, “Be Prepared,” is more than just a motto. They found that extensive planning and preparation were essential for a comfortable snow camping experience.

Ben woke up at five that morning, anxious about his first day of work. After shaving and taking a shower in the bathroom adjoining the guest bedroom, he got dressed in the gray work slacks and shirt he had bought, purposely made dirty, and washed the day before. No use looking like a new worker, he had reasoned. Besides, his future father-in-law had suggested that he try to dress as much like the others as possible. They’re all good boys, he had explained to Ben, but sometimes they can make it rough on people who are different from themselves. Try to fit in, to be as much like them as possible, and you won’t have any trouble.
He sat in the bedroom and watched the clock move slowly to six. Then, deciding he probably wouldn’t wake up the others if he were quiet, he padded silently down the hall through the large dining room with the massive oak dining table into the large kitchen and then out on the patio. Sitting down at a table overlooking the swimming pool, he watched the Southern morning spread across the lush green mountains—a contrast to the elephant-hide browns of his Wyoming hills.
Kim’s father was the next one up. He came out on the patio to sit with Ben. “How’d you sleep?”
“Fine.”
“Good,” he said, brushing a large hand over his bald scalp. “No one else is up. I guess breakfast is up to me.”
“No, don’t bother. I can wait. It’s still early.”
“I’d better warn you,” he said with a smile, “Kim likes to sleep in, so if you’re marrying her with the idea of having her fix you breakfast, you’d better think it over.”
Ben grinned, “I hadn’t even thought about it.”
“I suppose not. You’re both too much in love to be very practical. If you’d been practical, you both wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone who lives 1,500 miles from your homes. I can’t understand it,” he teased. “I sent Kim to Ricks College, after she joined your church, to get an education. Instead she got you.”
“I reckon she got a good deal,” Ben grinned, purposely adding his cowboy drawl. “They say a good man is hard to find.”
“Yes, that’s what they say,” he said, suddenly serious, “and I think Kim has found a good one. Let me get you some orange juice and me some coffee … that is, unless you can convert me in the next five minutes.”
In a few minutes he was back with a tray. He set it down and returned with two slices of toast and a file of paper work he constantly carried around with him.
“Are you worried about today?” he asked Ben.
“I guess a little.”
“I’m in an awkward position too, you know,” he said with a grin. “It’s true you’re going to marry my only child, and that I got you a job at the plant, and that I hope someday you’ll take it over and run it so I can retire—but I wouldn’t want anyone accusing me of being partial to you.”
“I’m not afraid of hard work,” Ben said seriously.
“I’m sure you’ll do well,” he said, pushing the file folder away from him. “In a way I was serious about not playing favorites. I’ve told one of my supervisors to put you wherever he needs you. I don’t plan to interfere. You’ll be on your own. Is that acceptable with you?”
“It’s the way I’d prefer it,” Ben said firmly.
A few minutes later, Kim came out, still wearing a robe over her night gown.
“Kimberly,” her father gently scolded, “you shouldn’t be out here with just a robe on.”
“Why not? It’s very modest.”
“Seeing a woman before she’s done herself up can be a rude shock. Maybe Ben will change his mind about marrying you.”
“Daddy,” she drawled with a purposely thick Southern accent, “you’re such a tease.”
“I think she looks good—even in the morning,” Ben defended.
“See there, smarty?” Kim lightly countered. “He thinks I’m a natural beauty, a regular Southern rose.”
“Okay, Rose,” her father concluded, lovingly touching her arm, “how about cooking us some breakfast?”
“Slave driver,” she protested with a smile and a hug.
While Kim cooked bacon and eggs, her father huddled over his stack of reports.
“Paper work!” he growled, shaking his head in disgust. “It’s all I ever do. You know, when I was your age and just starting out, it was fun. I had my own small welding shop, and I did all my own work. If it hadn’t been for the development of nuclear power, I suppose I’d still be in that little shop. When we first got into fabricating fuel rods for nuclear reactors, I never dreamed there’d be so much red tape. It’s been 15 years since I’ve welded. All I do now is push papers.”
After breakfast, Ben left for work. Kim’s father said he would work at his office at home. “Besides,” he said half seriously, “they seem to get more done when I’m not around.”
Ben went to the main office and filled out the forms for his employment. He was issued a film badge which would monitor the dose of radioactivity he would be exposed to.
A supervisor gave him a tour of the plant. It seemed like something from science fiction. Operators stood behind lead-lined partitions and manipulated remote-controlled mechanical arms and fingers, loading small pellets of plutonium into the eight-foot-long rods and then welding the ends shut. The rods were then ready to be shipped.
After the tour, they went to a cafeteria for a break.
“What do you want me to do?” Ben asked, sipping his root beer.
“We’ll put you on checking the X rays of the welds,” the supervisor said, taking a long sip from his cup. “You know, this company’s been good to us. This was a poor area before, but now there’s jobs. Our kids get good medical care. We can send ’em away to college if they want. Most of us own shares in it. We sort of think of it as our company.”
They walked back to the plant, to where the X rays of the welds were inspected. The supervisor showed Ben an X ray and pointed out a white patch which indicated a welding flaw. “The contract says that all welding flaws will be repaired but, to tell you the truth, when we signed the contract, we didn’t really know what we were getting into. We’ve found out that even when a flaw shows up on the X ray, it doesn’t make the weld any less watertight. So when it’s a small flaw, we just let ’em go through.”
“Oh,” Ben said.
“Fact is we can’t make a profit unless we reject fewer than 5 percent of the welds.”
“But what about the X rays?” Ben asked. “There’s still the record of the flaw on the X ray.”
“You’re pretty smart, aren’t you,” the supervisor said, walking to a desk. “I’m going to show you one of the most important tools in this place. It’s made us a profit.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a black felt-tip pen.
Ben looked at the pen for several seconds and then it dawned on him what the supervisor was showing him. “You mark the X ray so the flaw isn’t visible?”
“You catch on fast. That’s what we do. C’mon here. I’ll show you how it’s done.” With one small mark, the flaw on the X ray disappeared. “Now all you have to do is sign it.” Ben signed his name.
Before he left, the supervisor introduced him to Jesse Colson, a hard-boned, tough-talking man who also checked X rays. Then the supervisor left.
“Just do what I do, and you won’t have no trouble,” Jesse glumly suggested.
One day during his second week of work, he had just put one of the X rays on the reject pile when Jesse stopped him.
“What are you doing?”
“Rejecting it. Look at it for yourself.”
“I don’t need to look at it. Let it go through.”
Ben looked up at Jesse’s hard face. “We can reject up to 5 percent.”
“Why bother to put the welders to all that extra work, when we can fix it right here.” Jesse took out his pen and made a small mark, covering up the flaw. He dropped it in the pass box. “If you’re about to reject more than two a week, you talk to me about it first,” he demanded.
On Sunday, Ben attended the Gospel Doctrine class with Kim. Several questions were asked, and since nobody else seemed to volunteer, Ben answered. Finally, near the end of the class, the teacher broke into a broad grin and quipped, “I see we have somebody here who has all the answers. What am I doing here teaching the class? This Yankee friend of Kim’s ought to be.”
On the way home Kim leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed happily.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“You. You’re handsome and smart and good. Do you know what one of the elderly ladies told me today after Sunday School? She said that you looked to her like the next bishop.”
“She shouldn’t have said that,” Ben said firmly. Still, he was flattered. She could be right, he thought to himself.
Monday after work, he stopped by the library and checked out a book dealing with nuclear reactors. After retiring to his room for the night, he stayed up past midnight studying the design of a nuclear power reactor. He wanted to know what happened to the fuel rods after they left the plant, and, even if he wouldn’t admit it, he wanted to know what would happen in a reactor if a fuel rod leaked through one of the welding flaws that he had passed.
Wednesday he was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting. He spent several hours during the week in preparation. Once he caught himself thinking, how would a future bishop give this talk?
After he had given the talk on Sunday, several people came up and complimented him. One of them was the elder’s quorum president, who also asked him if he would accept an assignment to be a home teacher. Ben accepted the assignment.
What had started as a little annoyance grew as the days passed. Every time he signed his name to pass a weld which should have been rejected, his guilt grew.
He talked with Kim’s father one night about it. “Did you know that some of the welds that have flaws are being passed?”
“Are they?” Kim’s father said with little interest.
“Don’t you think that’s important?”
“Not really. The work we turn out is the best in the industry.”
“But I have to sign my name even when I know there’s a flaw.”
“Don’t worry,” his future father-in-law advised, “it’s only red tape. In business, you have to take shortcuts.”
Ben had assigned to him a teacher as a companion for home teaching, but by the time Ben thought about it, his companion was on vacation, and it was the last of the month. That Saturday afternoon, he took Kim with him. They visited three of the four families assigned to him and idly chatted about weather and gardens.
“You’ll have to show me where this other family lives,” Ben said, showing Kim the name and address of the last family.
“Oh, why did they have to give you him?” she asked. “He never comes out to church.”
“Do you know where he lives?” Ben asked, looking at the name, Zeke Stone.
“Oh, Ben, do we have to go there? It’s up some country road. Who knows how to get there, and he won’t even care if we go or not.” She leaned close to him. “C’mon, let’s go swimming.”
“Okay,” he said.
Two days later, he got a phone call from the elder’s quorum president about his home teaching. “How’d you do?”
“Got ’em all,” Ben said, resolving that next month he really would visit Zeke Stone, the man who lived in the hills.
That week they sent out their wedding announcement. It showed a picture of the Washington Temple.
The next Sunday, after sacrament meeting, the elder’s quorum president asked if he could talk with Ben for a while. Kim agreed to wait for him, whispering into his ear, “I just know it’s about the vacancy in the elder’s quorum presidency.”
The quorum president and Ben found an empty room and sat down opposite each other on folding chairs. The president was a big man, a farmer, one who had a hard time conducting quorum business, always a little self-conscious about his lack of schooling. He began with prayer.
“You know, I was out shopping for groceries yesterday and I saw Brother Stone.” Speaking softly, almost apologetically, he continued, “Well, I asked him how he liked his new home teachers and he said he’d never seen you.” The president cleared his throat and fumbled with his clipboard. “Now I’m not very good at records, but I’ve written down here that you visited him. I must have made a mistake, don’t you think?”
Suddenly he looked into Ben’s eyes, and Ben knew that he knew that there had been no mistake. Ben felt the sweat pouring down his arms. He covered his mouth with one hand and looked down at the floor. He felt tears streaking down his face, and it seemed that there was a fist inside his throat. He swallowed hard and whispered, “Could I get a drink of water?”
“Sure, son,” the president answered gently.
Ben rushed to the fountain and let the cool water rush over his face and mouth. Pulling out a handkerchief, he wet it and wiped his brow.
He turned around. The quorum president stood to his left a few feet away, and Kim stood on his right. They both seemed to want to come closer to help him, but neither knew what to say.
“I’ve lied to the Lord,” he agonized. “We never visited Zeke Stone. We went swimming instead.”
The president cleared his throat and said quietly, “We all make mistakes. It takes a big man to admit he’s done wrong.”
Ben turned to Kim. “Appearances … I’m tired of putting up appearances. Covering flaws, pretending they’re not real. Pretending to be something I’m not. I need to worry about my own repenting.”
Suddenly Kim ran into his arms and held him close to her.
The quorum president touched his shoulder. “It was partly my fault. I should’ve showed you how to get there. It’s not easy to find.”
“Can we go up there now?” Ben asked.
“Sure we can. Let’s go now.”
They drove Kim home and then headed out of town. They followed the highway for a few miles, then turned onto a county road, and then followed a rutted dirt road. At one point the road veered sharply upward, crossed railroad tracks, and then sunk rapidly downward.
“I’d hate to hit that going fast,” Ben observed.
Then they turned off the dirt road onto a path. The thick growth of bushes and trees closed in around them as they continued, and the branches slapped at the sides of the car as they passed.
Suddenly they were out of the green tunnel and into a clearing near the top of the hill.
Zeke Stone was working his garden. He was an old man, wearing faded bib coveralls and a tattered hat to shade his face. A battered pickup truck stood beside a small weather-beaten house. There was no screen door on the house, and chickens roamed in and out the door. A large dog came running and barking toward them. The quorum president honked his horn and got out to greet Brother Stone. The dog’s paws landed on his chest as he gave his greetings.
“Look at that!” Brother Stone shouted with delight. “I got visitors from the Church.” He called his dog away from them.
They all stood by the garden and talked. Ben listened with admiration to their talk, loose, full of laughter and good feelings.
Brother Stone loaded them down with freshly picked corn and tomatoes. Then he invited them over to the shady part of his house, where he had set up two car seats outside. Going inside, he brought out a banjo, a jar of homemade grape juice, and three cups. While they sat and drank, he tuned up his banjo and played.
The quorum president tapped his feet, chuckling at the endless variations of “Cripple Creek,” while Ben merely sat and smiled.
“You unhappy?” Brother Stone asked Ben.
“No sir.”
“Then loosen up. You look like a Yankee.”
Monday morning at work, Ben rejected welds which were outside the tolerances set in the contract. By ten o’clock, there were ten rejected X rays on his desk.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jesse snarled when he discovered the rejected welds. “You can’t reject all these.”
“Look at the X rays.”
Suddenly Ben was being pulled to his feet by his shoulders, and then found himself staring into Jesse’s clenched fist.
“Jesse, let go of me,” Ben said quietly.
He dropped his hold. “Change the X rays.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Then get out of here! I’m warning you! All I got to do is make one phone call for my friends and you won’t make it out of here in one piece.”
“I won’t be part of a lie,” Ben said firmly.
“Then quit, walk out while you still can.”
Ben stood, squared away to fight if he had to, his mind racing at what choice to make. Finally he said, “Okay, Jesse. I don’t belong here anyway.”
As he turned to walk away, Jesse called after him, “If you ever tell anyone about the way we work here, you’ll regret it.”
That evening Kim and Ben went to the meetinghouse to be interviewed for temple recommends. The wedding was less than a week away. Ben was elated to answer one of the bishop’s questions, “Are you honest in your dealings with your fellowmen?”
Over the next few days, he tried looking for other work, but there wasn’t anything else—or else people in the town, hearing about what they considered his betrayal of the company, wouldn’t talk to him about a job.
And at night, Ben and Kim’s father seemed to be constantly dueling, either about the company or else about Kim’s affection. Ben was careful to limit these discussions to times when Kim was not in the room, for he hadn’t told her yet about the circumstances which led to his quitting.
“Doesn’t it bother you that you’re sending defective fuel rods out of your plant?” Ben asked one evening in the office at home.
“What makes you a sudden expert on nuclear power?” his future father-in-law countered.
“Okay,” Ben admitted, “I’m not an engineer. But why bother to do the X rays at all then?”
“Because it’s in the contract.”
“And why is it in the contract?” Ben pressed.
“Red tape. It’s just another form to fill out.”
Finally, having looked for work and failed, Ben asked Kim the inevitable question one morning three days before the wedding. “What would you think about us going back West after we’re married?”
“You’ll find work. I know you will. You haven’t asked Daddy to help you.”
“I don’t want his help,” Ben answered sharply.
“Why didn’t you stay at the job you had?” Kim asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“We’ve got to talk about it. If I’m going to be your wife, I’ve got to know what’s wrong. You and Daddy hardly talk to each other anymore. What’s wrong?”
“Okay, Kim, I’ll tell you. They’re covering up their mistakes. Some of the fuel rods are being passed with defects in them. It violates their contract.”
“That can’t be true. Daddy would never let that happen.”
“He knows, Kim. I told him. He says it isn’t important.”
“Then it isn’t important,” Kim defended.
“It’s dishonest.”
“Ben, I won’t have you talking like that about my father.”
“Kim, what do you want for a husband? A cardboard cutout that you can prop up smiling for all social occasions? I can’t be like that. You’ve either got to decide between your father or me, but you can’t have both of us.”
She stormed away from him. He went to his room and started packing slowly, hoping that there was a way to get around the problem, hoping she would come in and apologize, hoping that her father would apologize, trying to remember what the bishop had said about marriage in the interview.
A few minutes later, Kim did knock on his door. He opened it quickly.
“There’s a phone call for you,” she said.
He went to the hall phone to answer it. Kim followed him.
“My name is Porter. I’m from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I wonder if I could talk to you for a few minutes … unofficially. I’m staying at the motel just outside town …”
He put the phone down. Kim stood across the hall from him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Somebody from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Kim, they must know about the welds. Tell your father.”
He ran into his room and got his suitcase and ran out to his car.
“Where are you going?” Kim cried.
“Do you think I’ll have much chance of staying alive in this town? Everybody’s going to think I told the authorities. I’m leaving town as soon as I can.”
He drove around to the back of the motel and walked inside, finally finding the room number given by the man on the phone.
“Thank you for coming,” the man said. “It’s about your job as an inspector of the X rays. Was there anything strange about the inspection procedures?”
“Are you going to close the plant?” Ben asked.
“Oh no, nothing like that. There have been a few complaints, and we just wanted to check around.”
“There were some irregularities,” Ben said as he began to explain his experience.
When he was finished, the man thanked him and stood up to show him to the door.
“What will you do now?” Ben asked.
“There’s a plane being sent from Washington with several men like myself. We’ll conduct a thorough review of the plant’s operation. You’ve been most helpful. I’ll keep our little talk unofficial, but it will be useful in our review.”
Ben ran into the motel office to use a pay phone. He called Kim. “Did you tell your father?”
“Yes, but he’s not doing anything. He’s just sitting there, like he’s in shock.” With urgency in her voice, Kim said, “He wants to see you.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in a minute.”
As Ben drove through the sleepy town, he had the feeling that it was a time bomb, set to blow up in his face.
Kim met him at the door and told him that her father was in his office. Ben found him, idly gazing out the window.
“There’s a group of government inspectors coming here. Isn’t there anything you want to do … to prepare for them?”
He turned to face Ben. “Do you still love my daughter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why don’t you marry her?”
“I can’t stay in this town.”
“Then take her out West. I guess there’s worse things than Wyoming, aren’t there?” he said with a smile.
“She won’t go with me,” Ben said glumly. “She loves you too much to leave.”
“Let me look into that,” Kim’s father said confidently. “Tell me, what do you think I ought to do about my company?”
“I think you ought to cooperate with the inspection, find out what’s wrong, and then run it the way it should be run.”
He studied Ben intently, then banged his fist on his desk, smiled and said, “I’m going to do that.”
They were interrupted by a phone call from a secretary at the plant. It was a short call and when it was over, Kim’s father said simply, “They’ve arrived.”
“I’m worried about some of the guys at the plant. I bet I’m not very popular with them now.”
“Tell me their names and I’ll call and explain things to them.”
Ben gave him Jesse’s name, and he called the plant and asked to speak with Jesse Colson. After several minutes delay, Kim’s father asked, “What do you mean he left? Where did he go? Well, did anybody leave with him? Listen, I want the name of every man that left. You get hold of those men and tell them I want to speak with them!”
He hung up, turned to Ben and said, “They left work.”
“I’m leaving town now.”
“No, let me speak to them.”
“Tell Kim I’ll call her when I get to Wyoming,” Ben said as he ran out of the office to his car.
He turned onto the highway. A few miles out of town, as he rounded a curve, he saw a car parked ahead of him at the side of the road. Suspecting trouble, he turned into a country road. He saw the car start up, pull a U-turn, and head after him.
They both raced down the road, dust billowing up after them, so that it became difficult for Ben to see how far the car was from him, but, on a curve, he turned back and saw that the car was gaining on him.
Then he realized that he’d been on the road before and that if he made the proper sequence of turns from county road to county road that it would lead to Brother Zeke Stone.
A few minutes later with a plan in mind, Ben raced up the steep slope of the railroad crossing and bumped across the tracks. Once over the tracks, he slammed on his brakes. As the car came to a stop, he jumped out, ran for the thick foliage, and waited for the other car.
As he had expected, the car had raced up the steep slope. It wasn’t until the driver was starting down the other side that he saw Ben’s car parked in the middle of the road. Ben could see that the driver was Jesse. He slammed on his brakes and veered to the left, just managing to miss Ben’s car.
Jesse bounded out of his car, swearing about nearly getting killed. He ran to the car to see if Ben was inside and then yelled to two others, “Burn it!” Then Jesse went to his car and pulled out a rifle, looked around, and picked up a CB mike.
Ben turned around and fought his way through the foliage, heading parallel to the road so that he would cross the lane which led to Brother Stone’s place. After about half an hour, he had made it there.
Brother Stone was outside in his garden. Ben ran up to him out of breath and scratched from his trek through the woods.
“What’s wrong?” Brother Stone asked.
Ben explained, and then asked, “Can you take me to another town so I can catch a bus back home?”
“Sure I can,” Brother Stone said slowly. First he went to his well and filled his radiator with water. “Water leaks a mite,” filled his left rear tire with air, “Tires leak a bit too,” and started the pickup running. Then he walked slowly to his house. Ben followed after him, trying to get him to move faster, expecting any minute to see Jesse burst through the clearing with his rifle blazing.
Brother Stone stood in the doorway and scratched his head. “Now let me see. If we drive down there, we’re going to pass by ’em, and they’re going to look inside, and they’re going to see you, and then they’re going to stop us. How are they going to tell it’s you? Because you look like a Yankee. But we’re going to fool ‘em, aren’t we?”
Ben ended up with a faded pair of coveralls, a pair of crusty old boots, and a checkered long sleeve shirt.
Brother Stone examined the effect critically. “One more thing,” he said with a wry smile. He went to a shelf and pulled down a large brown jug.
They started down the lane. From the lane they turned onto the road, heading opposite the direction of the railroad tracks. Even so, as they turned one corner, there were three cars and a pickup parked off the side. Four men stood idly by, waiting to walk into the woods. One of the men had a dog.
Brother Stone continued going at the same slow pace. Calmly he directed Ben, “Now, pick up the jug, and tip it up like you’re going to take a drink, and so it covers your face. It’s only water, you know. I threw the other stuff away when I got baptized.”
When they were past, Brother Stone chuckled softly, “They didn’t pay us any attention at all. Son, you’re officially a hillbilly.”
When they arrived at the town 40 miles away and Brother Stone stopped in front of the bus depot, Ben was at a loss to express his thanks adequately. Finally he thrust out his hand and said, “I’ll never forget this.”
“Just a sweet ride in the country. There’s nothing to thank me for.”
Ben asked him if he’d phone Kim and tell her he was safe. Then he was gone. Several seconds later, Ben realized he was still holding the jug.
He walked inside and went to the ticket counter. Setting the jug on the counter, he asked the attendant, “When’s the next bus north?”
The man looked at him critically and demanded, “You got any money?”
Ben looked down at his clothes, then to the jug, then to the man, and burst out laughing.
Regaining his composure finally, he fished into the front pocket, pulled out his wallet, and showed the man some money.
Ben bought a ticket, sat down, and waited. He gazed blankly at the floor, going over in his mind the events of the past few weeks, wondering if he’d ever see Kim again.
A man sat down beside him and whispered, “Mind if I have a drink from your jug?”
Ben nodded absently.
The man took a drink and spat it out. “What’s that?”
“Water,” Ben answered.
The bus was on time. Ben found the first empty row and sat down. He wanted to be alone.
A minute later, as the bus headed down the narrow two-lane road, someone was standing next to him. “Excuse me, I believe you’re sitting in my place.”
He looked up and saw Kim standing there. In shock, he stood up so she could sit beside him.
“What’s in the jug?” she asked suspiciously.
“Water. Kim, why are you on this bus?”
“Because Brother Stone phoned and told us where you were, and because this bus goes through our town one hour before it gets here, and because Daddy is happier now than I’ve seen him for a long time because he’s got a job of rebuilding to do, and because he told me that if I let you go I was a fool—‘That boy is honest and I’d trust him with anything’—and because my mother is riding in the bus four rows back …”
“Your mother is riding on a bus?” Ben asked incredulously.
Kim nodded her head. “And because I love you, and I’ll stick with you even if you want to raise rutabagas in Iceland. Basically I’d say that’s why I’m on this bus.”
He carefully set his jug on the floor, leaned over and kissed her.
A few seats back he could vaguely hear the sound of a woman clearing her throat nervously several times.

The story is told of a group of men who were talking about people who had influenced their lives and for whom they were grateful. One man thought of a high school teacher who had introduced him to Tennyson. He decided to write and thank her. In time, written in a feeble scrawl, came the teacher’s reply:
“My dear Willie:
“I can’t tell you how much your note meant to me. I am in my 80s, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely and like the last leaf lingering behind. You will be interested to know that I taught school for 50 years, and yours is the first note of appreciation I have ever received. It came on a blue, cold morning, and it cheered me as nothing has for years.”

When I arrived, I joined a fraternity. A majority of the fraternity were also Church members, some of whom were returned missionaries. After a while I began to notice that the returned missionaries just seemed to “have their act together” in a way that the others, in my opinion, didn’t. I had not been raised with the notion of serving a mission, although as I got to be an older teenager my parents began to mention it. My father had not served a mission because of World War II. His medical school training went right through the war.
As I spent more and more time in Salt Lake and got to know the returned missionaries, somehow I was able to perceive that these missionaries had gotten more out of life and were further down the road in a very positive way than others of the same age. They were directed. They had goals. They had a feeling for who they were that others didn’t seem to have. In my view, they had social skills that I thought were an advantage. That was what got me started thinking about a mission. At first, it was entirely for the wrong reasons, for selfish reasons.
Even within this group there were some returned missionaries whose stories about their missions made me feel hesitant about service. Their stories were about how hard it was or how cold it was or how primitive the circumstances were. I was basically reluctant to do anything cold or difficult. But other returned missionaries took me aside and said, “Whit, let me tell you what it is really like, how wonderful it is.”
Nobody who was a returned missionary said, “Don’t go.” They all told me to go, but a few of them delighted in telling me the hard parts. I decided to listen to these others who said, “That’s just the way he talks. He had a great experience, and look what he became. You’ll have a great experience too.”
At the same time I had an experience that was very important to me. I used to go down to a local gym to work out. One time when I was down there in the late morning, I noticed Elder Marion D. Hanks of the Seventy. We were the only two in the gym, and he struck up a conversation with me.
After a little small talk, I asked him if I could ask a question.
“Sure, please go ahead,” he said. He was very friendly, very warm.
“I’m trying to decide whether to go on a mission.”
He said, “What are the things that you are thinking about? What are the considerations?”
I said, “Really just one, and it is a question about the amount of time it would take.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
At this point in time I thought I wanted to be a doctor. My father was a doctor, and I wanted to be a doctor. This was before I knew much about organic chemistry.
I said, “I’m 19 now and still have three years of college and then time as an intern and a resident. I expect to be drafted into the military (it was during the Vietnam conflict) plus a mission. You add all of these things up, I’ve got 14 or 15 years to go before I get to real life. If I do all of these things, I won’t get to real life until I’m 33 or 34 years old. That seems like a very late start.”
He said, “Well, that’s an interesting question. You should know that I did not serve a mission. I was in the military during World War II and was not able to serve a mission, but I’ll tell you how I think you should answer the question.”
He asked me, “How old are you now?”
I said, “I’m 19.”
“How old will you be in 14 years if you don’t do any of those things?”
I answered, “I’ll be 33.”
He again asked me, “How old are you now?”
I said, “I’m 19.”
“How old will you be in 14 years if you do all of those things?”
I said, “I’ll be 33.”
Then he asked me. “When you are 33, what would you rather have done? None of those things, half of those things, or all of those things?”
I saw immediately the wisdom of his response, and it just penetrated me. I saw how it fit with what I had seen in the returned missionaries on campus. I decided then and there I was going to serve a mission.
That was the best decision I have ever made, because everything good in my life has come from that decision. I don’t believe my wife would ever have been willing to consider marrying me if I had not been a returned missionary. I think her decision to marry me was the best thing that has happened in my life. Our experience together across the years, raising a family and being involved in Church service, our community involvement, my professional involvement, all of those things have been influenced by that mission.
I am so grateful for the example of returned missionaries—for the way they dressed, for the way they talked, the way they worked, for the light in their lives, which was immediately evident to me. I could see the difference in the way they dressed, spoke, and carried themselves, in the way they behaved. It was discernible. I could see it, and I wasn’t looking for it. It was simply that I began to perceive something that I hadn’t noticed before, and I learned that the Lord blesses those who do the things He asks them to do. He blessed me, and He blesses everyone who goes on a mission and then stays in essentially a modified missionary lifestyle after that. I’m grateful for that.
Those two experiences—watching returned missionaries and having a chance (well, maybe not a chance) meeting with Elder Hanks. That was the turning point in my life. My parents wanted me to go on a mission and were delighted when I did. And I think it helped my younger brothers to see me go.
Young men, look forward to serving a mission. It is hard; it is work, but there is nothing about it that you can’t do. You’ll love the experience. Doing hard things is good for us, and missions aren’t so hard that you can’t do them. They just require something of you. You have to grow up a little, and I promise you that if you will prepare yourself for a mission in every way—intellectually, physically, and spiritually—keeping yourself clean and ready to go, you’ll have a tremendous experience, and you’ll be grateful.

Then there is that other promise—that they shall have “great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures” (D&C 89:19). I think of an experience once told me by one of our Sunday School teachers. One Sunday while they were discussing the Word of Wisdom, someone asked what was meant by hidden treasures of knowledge.
The teacher stuttered and stammered and was saved by the bell. He told the class that they would consider the matter the following Sunday.
During the week he pondered the question but felt that he could not come up with an answer. Near the end of the week, he had lunch with a colleague. The man told him that at one time while traveling, he found himself passing a Latter-day Saint Church building. He concluded to go in to see how the Latter-day Saints worshiped.
The man reported that it was a peculiar kind of service—that one after another stood up in the congregation, told of their experiences, expressed their gratitude, and then almost without exception testified that they knew that God lives, that Jesus Christ is His Son, our living Redeemer. The man drove up the highway that afternoon, saying to himself, Surely these people have knowledge hidden from the world.
Ponder that thought for a moment.
The Lord has given us a key to health and happiness—and has given it with a promise. It is a pillar of eternal wisdom. It is better to obey than to rationalize and sacrifice.

This incident was shared by Lucile F. Johnson of Orem, Utah: “There was an attractive lady whose company everyone sought and enjoyed. She was a delight to be around because she seemed to love life and people to the fullest. One day I said to her, ‘You are such a joy to all of us. What is your secret? Can you tell me?’
“‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘One word changed my life.’
“‘And what was that word?’ I queried.
“‘Malignant!’ Startled, I heard this explanation: ‘The doctor said that word to me and told me I had a limited time to live. I had a choice. I could make everyone miserable or I could try to make others happy. On my knees I realized that I had one day at a time just as everyone else has. I was able to see things I had never seen. My husband, my children, each person took on a beauty you can’t believe. I know that life is a gift whether it be a day or a year and I intend to enjoy my gift to the maximum.’”

When I moved to Colorado, everything was different and strange to me. I was so lonely. My family eased some of the loneliness, but I still felt hollow inside. I figured it was because I was hours away from the friends I had known since I was two. That wasn’t the only reason, though. I had not been saying my prayers every night or relying on the Lord as I should.
School started, and I made some new friends who had high standards, but I was still lonely. They weren’t close friends I could talk to like those I had left behind, so I wallowed in self-pity, frustration, and tears many times that year.
One night, after I had managed two fouls and a pass in the wrong direction at a ward basketball game, I went home, buried my head under my pillow, and sobbed. I sobbed all the way through my homework until my brother, who was at college, called. My dad had him talk to me.
I told my brother about how I felt, and he suggested that I read this scripture: “Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” (Joshua 1:9).
My brother and I then made a deal that we would each try to help those we met at school who might need a friend. I decided to become a friend to others instead of feeling sorry for myself. The feeling of making someone else’s day better was wonderful.
Though I still miss my old friends, whenever I need a shoulder to lean on, I know I can turn to my family and to Heavenly Father. They are my best and closest friends.

Elsewhere in the West Indies Mission, 17-year-old Curfew Ali of the Arima Branch in Port of Spain, Trinidad, explains to Mark Mangray, also 17, that even though she earns only a little money, she pays 10 percent of her increase as tithing and contributes to fast offerings too. “That way, I know the Lord is free to bless me,” she says. She talks to Mark about tithing settlement and how great it feels to be able to declare that she has paid a full tithing.
Mark looks at a blank donation slip, reads it, and says, “You’re right, Curfew. I’m bringing my tithing to church tomorrow.”

Shortly after Ka Po was baptized, the sister missionaries encouraged her to take an institute class. It was held early Saturday mornings, and Ka Po remembers how hard it was to wake up and get to class on time.

A classmate called Ka Po every Saturday morning to wake her up and encourage her to attend class. One day the classmate gave the responsibility of calling to King. That was the beginning of their friendship.

Ka Po says, “Church activities helped us know more about each other.” Their first date was a dance practice for young single adults.

Ka Po and King dated for four years. King helped Ka Po share the gospel with her grandmother and brother. Then on the night he proposed, he met Ka Po in the playground of the school where she was attending night school. She had just finished a big exam and was exhausted, but she felt wonderful when he asked her to marry him and gave her an engagement ring.

They were married in the Hong Kong China Temple. Ka Po says, “I will never forget the day we were sealed in the temple. It was so beautiful and amazing that we could be together for eternity. I could not stop crying, and my heart was so full I couldn’t speak. I love the temple and the great blessing that we can go to the temple in our own country.

“Our temple marriage will influence not only us, but it can influence our children and their children. It is so important that we have the same purpose and goals on earth. I love the gospel, and I love my eternal spouse.”

It sometimes gets really cold and snowy where we live. Sometimes we even get to stay home from school and ride our sleds down a big hill next to our home. One day, when we were getting ready to put on our snowsuits, hats, and gloves, my mother said it was too cold and windy to go outside. I felt grumpy because we had to stay inside. I started complaining, and my mother said, “You need to go up to your room and find something good to do with your time.”
When I got to my room, I thought about what the Savior would want me to do. I decided to memorize the Articles of Faith. When I came downstairs after a few hours, I told my mother, brother, and sisters that I was sorry for being grumpy and that I had memorized each of the Articles of Faith. They were so surprised! I recited each one for them and felt very good that I had put my time to good use.
I think the Savior was happy that I decided to learn more about Him with the extra time I had that morning. I am grateful that He has given me a family and the scriptures to help us learn more about our Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

Everybody’s doing it! And the nice thing about it is that nearly everybody can do it. I’m talking about cross-country skiing or ski touring.*
The basic technique is fairly simple, it comes fast, and the satisfactions are immense. If someone had suggested to me two years ago that I should trade a Saturday of Alpine skiing for something called ski touring, I’d have said, “Sorry, no way.” But then one late spring day, on our final run, I took the ill-fated little fall that turned into months in a cast and strict orders to stay off the slopes for a year. In desperation I bought a pair of those skinny little touring skis, found someone to show me the basics (it took about 30 minutes), and I was off and running. Remembering my early days of Alpine skiing (about the first ten years or so), I kept expecting some agony. But there wasn’t any. I could do it right off the bat. The only thing that has proved any problem at all has been deciding on where to stop for lunch—and how to stop, period. Straight striding and running is a snap, if you don’t mind working a little.

Somewhere near your home there is a vacant corner lot. Although adjoining yards may be well tended, a vacant corner lot somehow is always full of weeds.
There is a footpath across it, a bicycle trail, and ordinarily it is a collecting place for junk. First someone threw a few lawn clippings there. They would not hurt anything. Someone added a few sticks and limbs from a nearby yard. Then came a few papers and a plastic bag, and finally some tin cans and old bottles were included.
And there it was—a junkyard.
The neighbors did not intend it to be that. But little contributions from here and there made it so.
This corner lot is like, so very much like, the minds of many of us. We leave our minds vacant and empty and open to trespass by anyone. Whatever is dumped there we keep.
We would not consciously permit anyone to dump junk into our minds, not old cans and bottles. But after lawn clippings and papers, the other things just don’t seem all that much worse.
Our minds can become veritable junk heaps with dirty, cast-off ideas that accumulate there little by little.
Years ago I put up some signs in my mind. They are very clearly printed and simply read: “No trespassing.” “No dumping allowed.” On occasions it has been necessary to show them very plainly to others.
I do not want anything coming into my mind that does not have some useful purpose or some value that makes it worth keeping. I have enough trouble keeping the weeds down that sprout there on their own without permitting someone else to clutter my mind with things that do not edify.
I’ve hauled a few of these away in my lifetime. Occasionally I’ve tossed these thoughts back over the fence where they came from, when it could be done in a friendly manner.
I’ve had to evict some thoughts a hundred times before they would stay out. I have never been successful until I have put something edifying in their place.
I do not want my mind to be a dumping place for shabby ideas or thoughts, for disappointments, bitterness, envy, shame, hatred, worry, grief, or jealousy.
If you are fretting over such things, it’s time to clean the yard. Get rid of all that junk! Get rid of it!
Put up a “no trespassing” sign, a “no dumping” sign, and take control of yourself. Don’t keep anything that will not edify you.
The first thing a doctor does with a wound is to clean it out. He gets rid of all foreign matter and drains off infection—however much it hurts.
Once you do that spiritually, you will have a different perspective. You will have much less to worry about. It is easy to get all mixed up about worry.
Somewhere there is a message in the protest of a man who said: “You can’t tell me worry doesn’t help. The things I worry about never happen.”
Many years ago I was taught a lesson by a man I admired very much. He was as saintly a man as I have ever known. He was steady and serene, with a deep spiritual strength that many drew upon.
He knew just how to minister to others who were suffering. On a number of occasions I was present when he gave blessings to those who were sick or otherwise afflicted.
His life had been a life of service, both in the Church and in the community.
He had presided over one of the missions of the Church and looked forward to the annual missionary reunion. When he was older he was not able to drive at night, and I offered to take him to the reunions.
This modest gesture was repaid a thousandfold.
On one occasion when we were alone and the spirit was right, he gave me a lesson for my life from an experience in his. Although I thought I had known him, he told me things I would not have supposed.
He grew up in a little community. Somehow in his youth he had a desire to make something of himself and struggled successfully to get an education.
He married a lovely young woman, and presently everything in his life was just right. He was well employed, with a bright future. They were deeply in love, and she was expecting their first child.
The night the baby was to be born there were complications. The only doctor was somewhere in the countryside tending to the sick. They were not able to find him. After many hours of labor the condition of the mother-to-be became desperate.
Finally the doctor arrived. He sensed the emergency, acted quickly, and soon had things in order. The baby was born and the crisis, it appeared, was over.
Some days later the young mother died from the very infection that the doctor had been treating at the other home that night.
My friend’s world was shattered. Everything was not right now; everything was all wrong. He had lost his wife, his sweetheart. He had no way to take care of a tiny baby and at once tend to his work.
As the weeks wore on his grief festered. “That doctor should not be allowed to practice,” he would say. “He brought that infection to my wife; if he had been careful she would be alive today.” He thought of little else, and in his bitterness he became threatening.
Then one night a knock came at his door. A little youngster said, simply, “Daddy wants you to come over. He wants to talk to you.”
“Daddy” was the stake president. A grieving, heartbroken young man went to see his spiritual leader. This spiritual shepherd had been watching his flock and had something to say to him.
The counsel from this wise servant was simply: “John, leave it alone. Nothing you do about it will bring her back. Anything you do will make it worse. John, leave it alone.”
My friend told me then that this had been his trial, his Gethsemane.
How could he leave it alone? Right was right! A terrible wrong had been committed, and somebody must pay for it.
He struggled in agony to get hold of himself. It did not happen at once. Finally he determined that whatever else the issues were, he should be obedient.
Obedience is a powerful spiritual medicine. It comes close to being a cure-all.
He determined to follow the counsel of that wise spiritual leader. He would leave it alone.
Then he told me, “I was an old man before I finally understood. It was not until I was an old man that I could finally see a poor country doctor—over-worked, underpaid, run ragged from patient to patient, with little proper medicine, no hospital, few instruments. He struggled to save lives, and succeeded for the most part.
“He had come in a moment of crisis when two lives hung in the balance and had acted without delay.
“I was an old man,” he repeated, “before finally I understood. I would have ruined my life,” he said, “and the lives of others.”
Many times he had thanked the Lord on his knees for a wise spiritual leader who counseled simply, “John, leave it alone.”
And that is my counsel to you. If you have festering sores, a grudge, some bitterness, disappointment, or jealousy, get hold of yourself. You may not be able to control things out there with others, but you can control things here, inside of you.
I say, therefore: John, leave it alone. Mary, leave it alone.
You may need a transfusion of spiritual strength to be able to do this. Then just ask for it. We call that prayer. Prayer is powerful, spiritual medicine. The instructions for its use are found in the scriptures.
One of our sacred hymns carries this message:
Ere you left your room this morning,
Did you think to pray? …
When your soul was full of sorrow,
Balm of Gilead did you borrow
At the gates of day?
O how praying rests the weary!
Prayer will change the night to day;
So when life gets dark and dreary,
Don’t forget to pray.
(Hymns, no. 31.)
All of us carry excess baggage around from time to time, but the wisest ones among us don’t carry it for very long. They get rid of it.
Some of it you have to get rid of without really solving the problem. Some things that ought to be put in order are not put in order because you can’t control them.
Often, however, the things we carry are petty, even stupid. If you are still upset after all these years because Aunt Clara didn’t come to your wedding reception, why don’t you grow up? Forget it.
If you brood constantly over some past mistake, settle it—look ahead.
If the bishop didn’t call you right—or release you right—forget it.
If you resent someone for something he has done—or failed to do—forget it.
We call that forgiveness. It is powerful, spiritual medicine. The instructions for its use are found in the scriptures.
I repeat: John, leave it alone. Mary, leave it alone. Purge and cleanse and soothe your soul and your heart and your mind.
It will then be as though a cloudy, dirty film has been erased from the world around you; and though the problem may remain, the sun will come out. The beam will have been lifted from your eyes. There will come a peace that surpasseth understanding.
A great significant message of the gospel of Jesus Christ is exemplified by the title given to Him: the Prince of Peace. If we follow Him, we can have that individually and collectively.
He has said: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:27.)
If you, my brother or sister, are troubled, there is at hand, not just in Gilead, a soothing, healing balm.
Consider this:
“If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.
“If ye love me, keep my commandments.
“And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever;
“Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
“I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” (John 14:14–18.)
I bear witness of Him who is the Great Comforter and as one authorized to bear that witness testify that He lives. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.