Gospel Story Finder

When I was nine years old, we had a family home evening lesson on safety. My mom taught us about stranger danger and what to do if we were ever in harm’s way. I didn’t think much about the lesson until about six months later. I was jogging home when a man driving a dark car stopped and yelled at me to get in his car. I was scared and worried that he would hurt me if I didn’t get in his car, but then I remembered the family home evening lesson. I ran in the other direction away from the car and the man drove off. I told my mom what had happened and she called the police. Mom told me that she had prayed that day for my protection, and she had felt inspired to plan the lesson on stranger danger. My mom and dad are Jesus’s helpers. They are two of the shepherds who are here to protect and watch over me. I am grateful for them.

Even though Elder David O. McKay’s daughter Lou Jean was very ill, he had to travel out of state for a stake conference.
Elder McKay: I’ll be back as soon as I can.
Not long after he left, Elder McKay received a telegram saying that he needed to come home right away. When he stepped off the train at home, his father was there to greet him.
Elder McKay: Is Lou Jean still alive?
Father: Yes, but she’s worse than when you left.
A doctor and a nurse stayed at Elder McKay’s house all night. Other family members came to help for several days, but Lou Jean grew only worse.
On Sunday, Elder McKay sent his sons Lawrence and Llewelyn to church while he and his wife, Emma Ray, stayed home to care for Lou Jean.
Elder McKay: Son, will you ask the Sunday School president to have the Sunday School classes pray for Lou Jean today?
Son: Yes, Father.
Elder McKay’s son obeyed. He noticed that at 11:00 the requested prayer was given.
When Elder McKay’s sons returned home, they received good news.
Elder McKay: Well, boys, Lou Jean is going to be all right! At 11:00 this morning she finally relaxed and fell into a calm sleep.
Son: Father, that’s when the Sunday School prayed for her!
Elder McKay: Heavenly Father has rewarded the faithful prayers of many people who love us. We must show Him our gratitude.

In 1838 the Saints in Missouri were ordered to leave the state or be killed. In October of that year, while meeting with the state militia (army) to resolve some problems, many Church leaders, including the Prophet Joseph Smith, were arrested for crimes they had not committed.
Towards evening I was waited upon by Colonel Hinkle, who stated that the officers of the militia desired to have an interview with me and some others. … I immediately complied. … Instead of being treated with … respect … , we were taken as prisoners of war, and treated with the utmost contempt.
Myself and fellow prisoners were taken to [Far West]. … I found my wife and children in tears, who feared we had been shot. … I was then obliged to take my departure. … My [wife] wept, my children clung to me, until they were thrust from me by the swords of the guards.
The prisoners were taken first to Independence, Missouri, then to Richmond, Missouri, where they were jailed while awaiting trial.
[We] were brought … for trial, charged with … high treason … , murder, burglary, arson [setting fires], robbery, and larceny [a kind of stealing]. …
Those of us who had been sentenced thereto, were [moved] to Liberty jail. …
After we were cast into prison, we heard nothing but threatenings, that, if any judge or jury, or court of any kind, should clear any of us, we should never get out of the state alive. …
Those who have not been enclosed in the walls of prison without cause … , can have but little idea how sweet the voice of a friend is; … and when the heart is sufficiently contrite, then the voice of inspiration steals along and whispers,
“My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment. …
“If thou art called to pass through tribulation; …
“If thou art accused with all manner of false accusations … and thou be dragged to prison, and thine enemies prowl around thee like wolves for the blood of the lamb;
“And if thou shouldst be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon thee; … and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after thee, know thou, my son, that all these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good.
“The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?
“… Thy days are known, and thy years shall not be numbered less; therefore, fear not what man can do, for God shall be with you forever and ever.” (D&C 121:7; D&C 122:5–9.)
In April 1839, after being in prison for about five months, the prisoners at Liberty jail were transferred to Boone County, Missouri, for another trial. They escaped with the assistance of the sheriff and the guards and fled to Illinois to join the other Saints who had been driven from Missouri.
(See History of the Church, vol. 3, pages 188–189, 193, 209, 215, 242–243, 293.)

Now Paula had the skills and the knowledge to start helping others. She became a peer counselor at her school, helping her friends work through their problems. She helps others see the good in themselves and those around them.
“Looking for the good in others is the real basis of what I think Jesus meant when he taught about brotherly love,” says Paula.
Through peer counseling Paula found that drugs and alcohol are often at the root of people’s problems. Consequently, she immersed herself in her school’s Drug-Free Youth program. But she didn’t stop there. She found that awareness was only one part of the solution. She felt that removing people from dangerous situations could eliminate some of the most damaging problems. So she joined the Safe Ride program at her school. The organization gives rides home to teenagers who find themselves in compromising situations.
“We’re as close as the phone,” she says. “No one has to stay in situations involving dangerous activities, drugs, alcohol, or moral violations. We give them a way to escape.”

Joseph’s own life experience united temple and school. During the fall of 1835 and the winter of 1836, while he was engrossed in final preparations for the house of the Lord in Kirtland, Joseph read and studied as never before, including at the Kirtland Hebrew School, where he was a strong and assiduous student.

Joseph’s journal for November 11, 1835, records: “Attended school during school hours.” And then: “Returned home and spent the evening around my fireside, teaching my family the science of grammar.”105 The next day, Joseph gathered Church leaders to impart soaring instructions about the endowment of power, the solemn assembly, and the washing of feet. “You need an endowment, brethren,” he said, “that you may be prepared and able to overcome all things.”106 The Prophet then predicted: “All who are prepared and are sufficiently pure to abide the presence of the Savior will see him in the solemn assembly.”107 A staggering promise. And then, the very next day: “Attended school during school hours.”108

And so it went throughout that memorable winter—soaring heavenly disclosures and stirring prophetic teachings, interwoven with the joyful labor of language study.

On November 20, 1835, Oliver Cowdery returned to Kirtland from a trip to New York. He brought with him, Joseph recorded, “a quantity of Hebrew books for the benefit of the school. He presented me with a Hebrew Bible, lexicon, and grammar, also a Greek lexicon and Webster’s English lexicon.”109

Joseph was delighted. He could hardly wait to dig in. He spent the next day “examining [his] books and studying the Hebrew alphabet.”110 Six days later, he was “much afflicted with [a] cold,” so he “spent the day in reading Hebrew at home.”111

On December 22: “Continued my studies. O may God give me learning, even language, and [endow] me with qualifications to magnify his name while I live.”112 The next day, Joseph’s thirtieth birthday, he celebrated “in the forenoon at home studying the Greek language.”113

On January 4, 1836, Joseph held an evening chapel meeting “to make arrangements for a singing school”114—the ancestor, I suggest, of the BYU School of Music.

On January 19, Joseph hailed the Hebrew school’s progress:

The Lord blessed us in our studies. . . . It seems as if the Lord opens our minds in a marvelous manner to understand his word in the original language, and my prayer is that God will speedily [endow] us with a knowledge of all languages and tongues, that his servants may go forth for the last time to bind up the law and seal up the testimony.115

Two days later, Joseph received a sequence of heavenly visions, one of which is now canonized as section 137 of the Doctrine and Covenants.116 Then the very next morning, he was back at school, though apparently slightly distracted. He and his classmates gathered at the usual hour but spent some time marveling at the previous evening’s manifestations and visions.117

All of this happened, I should note, before the group’s Hebrew instructor, Joshua Seixas, had even arrived in Kirtland.118

Joseph clearly relished his studies. “My soul delights in reading the word of the Lord in the original,” he enthused on February 17, “and I am determined to pursue the study of languages until I shall become master of them, if I am permitted to live long enough.”119 That last clause hints at troubling premonitions.

In any event, this season of language study and temple preparation was never one of irenic calm. Joseph agonized over the temple’s cost and the burden of preparing the Saints for the manifestations to come. On January 30 he recorded:

I returned to my house being weary with continual anxiety and labor in putting all the authorities in [order] and in striving to purify them for the solemn assembly according to the commandment of the Lord.120

On March 27, the day of the temple dedication, Joseph offered the prayer whose text he had previously received by revelation121—a prayer that President Nelson has urged us to study today.122 At the dedicatory services, the heavens parted and the veil drew back.123 A week later, on Easter Sunday, April 3, Joseph and Oliver Cowdery saw the resurrected Savior and received keys of power from Moses, Elias, and Elijah.124 Between these Pentecostal outpourings, the Hebrew school wrapped up its work. On Tuesday, Joseph “attended school”—the final session with Professor Seixas.125 In the evening, the Saints gathered in the temple for sacred ordinances. “The Holy Spirit rested down upon us,” Joseph recorded, “and we continued in the Lord’s house all night, prophesying and giving glory to God.”126

If I may use a personal example:
Some years ago when our first son was about a year old, I was the source of some seemingly unnecessary suffering. We were attending college, and one evening I had been playing with my boy on the floor. I left the room to study, and as I closed the door behind me he apparently reached for me, raising his hand up behind his head, and his finger went into the hinged side of the door. When I closed the door he suffered a rather severe injury to his finger.
We rushed him to the emergency room at the hospital, he was given a local anesthetic, and a doctor came in; he assured us that it could be repaired. Almost paradoxically, at that point the only thing my one-year-old wanted was to be held by his dad. As long as he could see me he resisted any efforts to bind him for the delicate surgery. When I left the room he calmed down, and the doctor was able to proceed.
During the process I was anxious and would draw close to the open door and look around the corner to see how things were proceeding. Perhaps by some unseen sense, as I would peek noiselessly around the corner, which was located behind him and to the side, his head would come up and he would strain to see if I was there.
On one of those occasions, as I saw him with his arm pinned out from his side—his head arched, searching for his father—the thought came to my mind of another Son, His arms stretched out, nailed to a cross, searching for His Father, and to my mind came the words, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” What was a very traumatic moment in my life suddenly became very sacred.
As I have pondered that event with my own son so many years ago, it has provided new insights and perhaps even deeper understanding of the magnitude and magnificence of the Atonement. I have a deeper appreciation of what a Father was willing to allow His Son to go through for me and for each of us. I had a new personal insight into the depth and breadth of the Atonement. I could not imagine that I would willingly have let my son suffer even in this small way; and our Father “so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son.”
Although we have never discussed it, my son, too, would have the opportunity to appreciate the passage where the Savior explains, “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me.”
Although I would not suggest that anything here can approach the holy Atonement, the scar on my son’s hand is continually before him, and he has the opportunity, if he chooses to take it, to use his scar as a reminder of scars in the palms of the Savior—suffered for our sins. He has the opportunity to understand in his own way the love the Savior has for us in willingly being scarred, bruised, broken, and torn for us.

“I wondered how this new program would bring sisters together if we met in smaller groups, but I was willing to try it,” writes Richelle Pearce of the Shadowbrook Ward, Kaysville Utah South Stake. “I make bread a couple of times a week, so after making the proper arrangements, the Relief Society leaders invited anyone who was interested to come to my home for an activity.
“The next Thursday five sisters showed up at my door. They were from all different stages of life: one new mother, one working mom, one senior sister, and two with large families like mine. What happened over the next two hours was a testimony to me of the inspiration of this program. The sisters not only learned how to grind wheat and make bread, but they also talked, laughed, shared ideas, and really connected. By the time they left with their bread and wheat flour, I knew this program could bring sisters together in a wonderful way.”

About this time, Sam began to feel a strong attachment to the nearby Las Vegas Nevada Temple. At first he appreciated it simply because it was beautiful. But as he learned more about the purpose of temples, he came to love it for the blessings it brings to people’s lives. This interest soon grew to include all the temples of the Church. Sam began filling a binder with pictures of the world’s temples and a file with diagrams and information about their design, history, and construction. By the time he had filled the binder, he knew that he wanted to build temples of stone someday. In the meantime, he would build temples of cardboard.

6. Soon after arriving home from World War II, I had “promises to keep” (Robert Frost, “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening,” in The Poetry of Robert Frost, ed. Edward Connery Lathem [1969], 225)—meaning going on a mission now. I grew tired of waiting for the bishop. And in some early ark-steadying, I went to the bishop’s home and said I had saved the money and wanted to go, so let’s “get this show on the road.” The good bishop hesitated, and then said he’d been meaning to ask me about going.
Years later, I would learn from that bishop’s devoted ward clerk that the bishop had felt I needed a little more time with my family after having been away so far and for a tenth of my life. Hearing this, I chastised myself for having been too judgmental. (See Bruce C. Hafen, A Disciple’s Life: The Biography of Neal A. Maxwell [2002], 129–30.)

When New Year’s Eve arrived, I was at the office quite late, writing calling cards. Mr. Wadsworth came in and pleasantly remarked that business was good, that it never rains but it pours, or something to this effect. He referred to my having kept the books of the Sandy Smelting Company without compensation, and said a number of complimentary things which made me very happy. He then handed me a check for one hundred dollars which double compensated me for all my extra labor. The satisfaction enjoyed by me in feeling that I had won the good will and confidence of my employer was worth more to me than twice one hundred dollars.

Wouldn’t you get a little nervous if your high school counselor suddenly and unexpectedly called you into the office?
You’d especially be nervous if you were Richard Aballay, a senior at a Catholic seminary in New York City. Richard had seen the LDS commercials on TV, had contacted the missionaries, and was baptized. He hadn’t yet mentioned it to anyone at the school, where boys are preparing to become Catholic priests.
“How are you doing in your subjects?” the counselor began politely on that fateful day in late October.
“Fine,” said Richard, cautiously.
Then the counselor jumped to his real concern. “Are you affiliated with another church?”
“Yes.”
“Which one?”
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
“Why?”
“I have come to know the Savior better in this church. I know this church is doing more for me. It is the church of God.”
As the counselor began to lecture, warning Richard that being a member of a different church was grounds for dismissal, Richard thought how easy it would be to say he’d made it all up. Then he could finish his senior year in peace.
“But I couldn’t do that,” Richard said later. “You can’t deny the truth when you have it.”
By the next day it was official: Richard had to leave.
The following week was torment, Richard said. But with much prayer, his family was able to find space for him in another good school.
“From that experience,” Richard says, “I have learned that the Lord will never abandon me.”
In fact, it gave Richard the chance to tell more people about the gospel, since his classmates wanted to know why he would leave school for his new beliefs.
Being dismissed from school is not the only challenge Richard has faced. He’s grown up in the Bronx, a borough of New York City. It’s not an easy place to live.
“I know for a fact that if it weren’t for the gospel, I would probably go into something crazy,” he says. “The inner city is hard. But I know the greatest blessing in my life has been the priesthood.
“Ever since I was first ordained a deacon, I noticed a great change. I just felt like the Lord was with me. And I had a confidence—I could walk into my school where kids were doing bad things, and I could say no. It helps keep me straight. I’m always saying to myself, ‘I want to honor the priesthood.’”
The gospel has helped him in other ways, too. One is that since he joined the Church, Richard has been able to overcome a speech impediment. Before receiving the Holy Ghost, “I could not say a word in public,” Richard said. Now he blesses the sacrament, talks in church, and has taken roles in two road shows. “It’s like it says in Ether 12:27. My weakness became a strength,” he says.
Richard also used to party a lot. But, after the last bash, he said, “I saw things there and I didn’t feel right. For some funny reason I knew I didn’t belong there.”
He left the party and vowed to become more involved in things like service, schoolwork, studying the scriptures, listening to good music, and not to watch so much television.
“It’s hard,” he says. “I’m a teenager. I like to keep up with things going on outside. I don’t want to be a social hermit. But I feel that if I’m going to go on a mission, and if I’m going to get married in the temple, and if I’m going to receive callings, I know I have to be worthy.”
Many of his friends think this is a strange road to take. They also think it’s a little weird that he decided to attend BYU, a school where there aren’t many Hispanics. “I like a challenge,” Richard explained.
That decision is typical of him. “I don’t care what other people think of me. It’s what my Heavenly Father thinks of me, it’s what my mom thinks of me, it’s what I think of myself,” he says.
Even though it sometimes seems that his trials have increased since he joined the Church, Richard says, “I know God really has his hand working in my life. You have to go through a lot to learn what’s good and what’s bad, and to appreciate what you have instead of wanting more.”

A few weeks after I arrived in Germany as a missionary, my trainer and I knocked on the door of an older woman, who agreed to let us teach her.
During our first lesson, we invited her to read a scripture aloud. Through thick glasses, she read with great difficulty, stumbling over the words. And her responses to our questions were short. We weren’t sure how much she understood.
We asked her to read certain passages in the Book of Mormon before our next visit. When we came again, she had read them but didn’t seem to understand them. We wondered if she might have some challenges with learning. We wondered if we should go on teaching her. But we kept going.
At our next visit, we were surprised when she said she wanted to be baptized. Then, as we continued teaching her, we noticed that her reading actually got better. Her answers to our questions were still short but seemed better and surer.
I was soon transferred to a different city, but my trainer wrote to me later to say that this woman had been baptized and was supported by the branch members. If you had asked us weeks earlier who of all our contacts was most likely to be baptized and find a place in the Church, she would not have been at the top of our list.
...
My companion and I weren’t sure whether the woman we were teaching in Germany was very likely to get baptized. We didn’t know her heart, but God did. I’m glad we felt prompted to keep teaching her.

It is also important to recognize that the Church is a church of action, not just words. An example of how the youth of the Church can function in espousing good causes was demonstrated in 1970 in the Salt Lake Valley. A black congregation had great difficulty in completing their chapel. They approached the leaders of our church for assistance. It was felt that this was a wonderful opportunity for our Aaronic Priesthood-age young men and women to band together and raise funds for others in need. Literally thousands of young Mormon men and women engaged in projects from washing cars to babysitting to mowing lawns in order to raise thousands of dollars to assist their neighbors. At the conclusion of the drive, a wonderful banquet was held with representatives from the various bishop’s youth committees and the black congregation. There was no marching, carrying of banners, or loud oratory; but rather, in an orderly, enthusiastic spirit, under the direction of their own organizations, these Latter-day Saint youth demonstrated how other Mormon youth can go about espousing a good cause—this one appropriately designated as “Operation Good Samaritan.”

As the elders approach the home of their scheduled appointment, Elder Burton says, “I think we should sing here. It will be a good time to do it, and I know she’ll feel the Spirit.”

On a recent tour of this mission, Elder Richard H. Winkel of the Seventy challenged the missionaries to sometimes sing to their investigators. “Elder Winkel promised us our investigators will feel the Spirit. We don’t sound great when we sing, but the Lord blesses the people listening and allows the Spirit to come through. We really like doing it, and it has caught on in our mission,” Elder Burton says.

Elders Burton and Paventy are greeted warmly by the investigator, a middle-aged woman whose daughter joined the Church in Hawaii. The mother saw how her daughter changed and wanted to know why. The daughter called the mission home and requested the missionaries visit her mother. A few weeks earlier they did, and here they are for another discussion.

Before they leave, the missionaries do ask if they can finish with a song. They sing “Love Is Spoken Here.” No, they’re not the world’s best singers. But they’re right. You can feel the Spirit.

With deep admiration I have studied the experiences of the prophet Nephi, especially admiring the perseverance and discipline with which he built a ship. I have come to appreciate that there was a wise purpose for the Lord to command him to do so.
When President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) visited Guatemala in 1997, his counsel that especially penetrated my heart was the simple encouragement to hold family home evening. Moved by our prophet’s words, my wife, four children, and I met and set a goal that we would “build a ship called family home evening.” We knew the effort it would require but also realized that the Lord had a wise purpose for asking us to do so.
Years and hundreds of home evenings later, our family home evening ship has grown with our family. And we have experienced just what President Hinckley promised. From these small gatherings—held regularly and with perseverance—something wonderful has come. Love for parents has grown. Love between brothers and sisters has increased. And our love for Heavenly Father and the Savior has been magnified. Appreciation has come into our hearts for what is simple and good. (See Gordon B. Hinckley, “Some Lessons I Learned as a Boy,” Ensign, May 1993, 54.)
Rony Saúl García Méndez, Guatemala

Let me tell another story from my family. My mother didn't come from a very religious home. She married my dad when they were 19 and 20. My dad had stopped going to church when he was 14 and my mother was not a member of the Church. But in their neighborhood near their small apartment they became friends with another young couple who had both just joined the Church. Keith and Margaret Miller were on fire with the gospel and the scriptures. They loved to talk about how happy they were and what they were learning. They shared these things with my parents as they socialized and finally invited my parents to hear the missionaries.
My parents came into the gospel just before I was born. Keith and Margaret's encounter with the restored gospel and with the Savior created something that did not exist before—a desire on the part of their friends, my parents, to have religion and truth guide their family. It drastically changed my parents' trajectory. Now they have lived more than 50 years in the gospel. And their encounter with Jesus Christ and his gospel changed everything about my own life. How thankful I am that when Keith and Margaret felt joy, they expressed it by creating a friendship that hadn't existed before. They were creators of eternal friends.

In the tearful days after a wildfire devastated entire neighborhoods in California’s Sonoma County in October 2017, Elder Ronald A. Rasband of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles traveled to affected communities to be with the Latter-day Saints.
He was on a mission of ministering. He and Sister Melanie Rasband comforted fire-weary members in their meetinghouses and at the edges of their charred homes.
And wherever he went, members came forward to shake his hand. It was a gesture of appreciation. They thanked the Apostle for his support. But each handshake communicated a common sentiment: “I sustain you.”
This means that just as members deeply impacted by the Santa Rosa fires offered sustaining support to Elder Rasband, members worldwide can be lifted even as they lift each member of the Twelve.

The New Era has been a tremendous help to us missionaries. Recently our six-elder district got together with a stack of old New Eras and cut out all the pictures and photographs that depict the youth of the Church throughout the world engaging in fun, clean, activities. Our labors have resulted in a very useful and colorful display that introduces to the world the programs outlined by our Father in heaven for strengthening the youth of Zion. The New Era is a missionary in and of itself.

Okay, here’s the scene. You’re the wide receiver for your high school football team. The team’s only been in existence for two years, and thanks largely to you, your team made it to the state finals. One more win, and you’re state champions.
Problem is, the final game is against a team that has won three state championships in the last six years. Their record this season is almost perfect. They’re known as one of the best teams in the state.
The game is close, and the fourth quarter ends in a tie, 14–14. The game goes into overtime. Each team will start on the ten-yard line and have four downs to score. Ball possession will go back and forth until someone doesn’t score.
The other team gets the ball first. They score a touchdown, plus the extra point. It’s 21–14. Now it’s your team’s turn. On the fourth down, your team scores. It’s 21–20. Everyone expects a kick for the extra point and another tie. But you have a plan. You talk to the quarterback, another receiver, and the coach. Together you decide to try for a two-point conversion. That will give your team 22 points, the win, and the state championship.
The ball is hiked. The quarterback looks for an opening. You’re in the end zone. The quarterback throws the ball. It’s an easy pass. If you catch it, the state championship is yours. If you drop it, you score nothing, and the other team wins.
You drop it!
Can’t you just taste the agony? But it really happened to Jake Brian. Jake was an 18-year-old senior at Fremont High School in Weber County, Utah. His team, the Silverwolves, made it to the state championship play-offs in only their second year but wound up losing to Salt Lake City’s Skyline Eagles after Jake’s dropped pass.
Was Jake devastated? Did it ruin his life? Does he sit in his room all the time and watch video of the game over and over, beating himself up for dropping that pass? No, he does not.
Jake is an accomplished athlete. Football wasn’t his first sport. It wasn’t even his second. Basketball and baseball occupied those two spots. But in his second year of playing football, he caught 73 passes for 1,155 yards and scored 16 touchdowns, besides leading his team to the state finals. Of course, Jake doesn’t take all the credit himself. He describes Olin Hannum as “probably the best quarterback in the state, and we had a really good offensive line.”
Still, some folks think Jake was one of the most important factors in the success of the team. Moments after Jake dropped the pass and was agonizing over the play, Coach Blaine Monkres told Jake, “You didn’t cost us the state championship. You’re the one that got us to the state finals!” Teammates made similar comments.
And so did the many cards and letters he got. Members of the community wrote to console him, and they focused on the great season he had, telling him one dropped pass didn’t cancel out everything he had already done. One letter writer said he had dropped a pass in a similar situation back in 1932, so he understood. People sent cookies and pies. Jake was flattered by all the attention, but he admits, “I was surprised so many people were thinking about me.”
So when all is said and done, is winning everything? “At times it seems like it is,” Jake says. “You always want to win, but it isn’t everything.” Jake has moved on. He is attending Snow College in Ephraim, Utah, where he has a partial scholarship to play football. After football season, he’ll be serving a mission.

The steps Jack and Kit Regas outlined for putting on a winning roadshow in “It’s Showtime ’76” in the October New Era were right on. I know because our youth put on a winning roadshow last April following those same steps. However, there is one glaring omission—shadow leadership! For our winning roadshow, a 16-year-old Mia Maid wrote the script and dictated original music and words to a musician. A 17-year-old Laurel choreographed all the numbers. These girls then directed 48 young people (half of them boys) to the most rewarding and exciting experience of their lives.
Marilyn OlsenYoung Women president, Farmington Seventh Ward Farmington, Utah