Gospel Story Finder

As a child living in the suburbs of Taipei, Taiwan, I never knew about the missionaries. So the first time I came in contact with them, I was curious about their message. It didn’t take long before I was eager to follow their teachings and put the gospel into practice in my life. I felt that this was a way for me to find out if there really is a God.
Within a month, I had been taught the gospel and the commandments that are taught before baptism. Peace came to me through prayer, I received personal revelation from studying the scriptures, and I never missed a Church meeting. I decided that I should be baptized.
The biggest challenge I faced at that time were problems that had emerged in my relationships with some of my friends because they opposed my involvement with the Church. I prayed a great deal about these problems, but our relationships seemed to only get worse.
I invited my friends to my baptism, but they completely disregarded my invitation. I really did not know what to do. Before my baptism, I sat alone on the sofa in the foyer of the chapel, praying that my friends would miraculously appear so I could tell them about the positive changes I had made in my life and prove to them that I was making the right decision by being baptized.
My friends never showed up, but while I poured my heart out to God, I felt an impression. At that point, I felt great love from my Heavenly Father. I knew that He was there and had truly listened to my prayer.
I originally wanted to be baptized simply because of all the wonderful things happening in my life, but at that moment, I came to understand the purpose of my baptism.
The impression I received was like the voice of the Lord speaking tenderly and directly to me, saying, “You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. You just need to prove to me that you are willing to come unto me and stay true to my gospel for the rest of your life.”

Today, I’d like to introduce you to someone who calls me “Grandpa.” His name is Rockwell Devin Bennett. [SLIDE 4] There he is! With that middle name and cute face, you can imagine why he might be extra special to me. His siblings and parents call him “Rockwell,” but I like to call him “Rock Devin. ”Teacher and Learner When Rock Devin was six years old, he took me aside to talk. He was my teacher, and I was his learner. He proceeded to teach me a valuable lesson. I share his lesson with each of you today. It focuses on another word pair—fixed and growth. The lesson he taught me came from his schoolteacher, Miss Bothaina, and Rock Devin was passing it along to me. Miss Bothaina had likely read the book Mindset by Dr. Carol Dweck[JG1] .Rock Devin began his teaching by asking me a question: “Grandpa, do you know the difference between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset? ”I told him I did not know the difference. I then invited him to share with me the answer. He did so in a clear and fun way.

THE LEGO MISTAKE Let me share one last quick story about young Rock Devin. After Rock had taught me so well about growth and fixed, he gave me an example of how he applied his teachings in his own life. He brought over a yellow Lego car to show me. He is holding that model car in the photo. He told me how he had made a mistake while building this car. When he got to the end of the project, he realized he misplaced a piece during the construction. He thought, “I can’t go back now and fix it.” He knew it would take time and effort and a rereading of the instructions. But, with a sparkle in his eye, he told me he shifted his thinking to a growth mindset. He took the car apart to access the mistake he had made, made the correction, and rebuilt the car. In the end, it was as if he had not made a mistake in the first place. And you can see the beautiful end product in the photo. Will you think about the experience I just shared with you when you have some quiet time? It sounds to me a bit like the repentance process.

One day my English teacher was telling us how she thought Clinton Central didn’t welcome new students and left others out. A week later I received the October 1987 New Era. As I was glancing through it, the story “Everyone Belongs” caught my eye. While I was reading, all I could think about was how much this school in the story sounded like my own. Since I am a class officer, I felt I could try to do something.
I showed the story to my English teacher, who is also my freshman class adviser. While the class was doing the assigned homework, she read the story. I couldn’t help but notice a tear running down her face. When she had finished reading she said she thought we as a school needed to do something to make everyone feel as if they belonged. She had me take the story to Mrs. Pearson, who is in charge of the student council and to Mr. Thompson, who is in charge of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Clinton Central.
I know this article is going to affect many people at my school, and I can already see the efforts being made to include others by those who have read it.

Scheduling is the third principle of building. Achieving the goal of a schedule can only be accomplished through establishing goals, great coordination, strategizing, planning, collaborating financing and working to accomplish our goals. One of the remarkable stories about building to a schedule is the story of Prayer Rock near Cody, Wyoming. On a recent trip to the area with our Scoutmaster who grew up in Cody we went to the visitors’ center in that same city and learned the story of the early saints that settled in 1900. When the saints first arrived in the valley it became obvious that a canal needed to be dug and built in order for the saints to bring water to their new farms. They went to work immediately building the canal. The work was led by Byron Sessions, he would become the Stake President the following year. The work was backbreaking and they soon realized the work couldn’t be finished in a year; no food could be raised until they had water for irrigation. Serious discouragement plagued the camp. A special prayer was offered and soon a modern manna from heaven came to the saints in the form of an $80,000 contract to construct 23 miles of railroad. Half of the saints worked on the canal, the other half worked on the railroad making enough money to buy food for the saints. As the saints worked on the canal they came to a cliff with a very large rock directly in the canal right of way. President Sessions, who was superintendent of the canal construction, strategized that a large hole would be dug at the base of this rock and then with the help of explosions at the rocks base this would cause the rock to crumble and collapse into the hole. Safety began to be a major concern. Morning and evening prayers were held in camp for the safety of the men and the horses. The digging continued. It didn’t seem to be working. “One afternoon as President Sessions discussed the matter with the men working there,” his own son, Biney, expressed the discouragement that several of them were feeling: ‘We’ll never get this down. We just as well give it up.’ This seemed to anger his father, who said, ‘I prophecy in the name of Israel’s God that that rock will be in there tomorrow at this time.’ Jim George, one of the men working there, turned his back to President Sessions , pulled out his watch and said, ‘Let’s test him out.’ He said, ‘It’s just four P.M.’” The work continued the next day. They took their usual fifteen-minute break at 3:30 and had just begun working again when President Sessions called them up for another rest break, an unprecedented but quickly obeyed order. Then, without a powder blast, without so much as a tap from a hammer, “that rock began to split from top to bottom and landed right where we had all been busy working five minutes before. George, with the same watch, dumbfounded, said, ‘Five minutes to four.’” The standing half of the rock is still visible; the fallen half was buried in the outside bank of the canal which flows smoothly between the two halves. This was considered a miracle by the Wyoming saints – it was a miracle. As we set goals and work to meet schedules we need to do all we can to meet these commitments.

Vanessa—Bless these walls, so firm, and stout. Keeping want and trouble out. That’s what my Great Grandmother Gillman would pray for as a young mother living in the Midwest. They were right in the middle of “tornado alley” and she was absolutely terrified of any storm that would blow through. To the point where she would gather her girls under her bed and hide and cry. It’s probably no surprise that my grandmother, her daughter, grew up to be afraid of storms too. But when she had children of her own, she didn’t want to burden her kids with that same fear, and so as storms came in, she would bravely take her kids to the window to ooh and awe at the wonder of nature and sometimes even run outside with them to play in the rain. I’m so grateful for her wisdom and courage because as a result my mother grew up loving thunderstorms and so did I. I’m especially grateful for the lesson learned, that our outlook and actions can completely change how we experience storms in our lives.

It was past her bedtime, but Mia wasn’t in bed. She was sitting on the floor of her room, thinking about something Sister Duval had read in Primary: “The time will come when no man or woman will be able to stand on borrowed light.”*
“A testimony is like a light inside of us,” Sister Duval had explained. “And we each need our own. Then we can be strong when life is hard and Satan tempts us.”
Mia leaned her head against her bed. I want a testimony that the gospel is true, she thought. But how exactly did you get a testimony? She knew that praying was part of it.
“I’ll pray,” she decided. She would pray and wouldn’t stop until something happened to let her know the Church was true. She was ready to pray all night if she had to!
She got on her knees. “Dear Heavenly Father,” she whispered, “I want to know if the Church is true. I want to feel it in my heart and just know.”
Mia waited. She didn’t feel anything except for the soft feeling she usually felt when she prayed. What was she doing wrong? Where was her testimony?
She had been on her knees for what seemed like a long time when the door to her room opened a little and her dad peeked in.
“I saw the light under the door,” he said. “Are you up reading again?” Then he saw tears on Mia’s cheeks. He knelt down and put his arm around her. “What’s wrong?”
She was quiet for a minute. Then she asked, “Daddy, how do you get a testimony?”
Daddy hugged her tight. “That’s a good question. Wanting a testimony is one of the first steps.”
Mia felt the lump in her throat start to go away. She had taken the first step already.
“Getting a testimony doesn’t usually happen with one prayer. And even when you have a testimony, you need to keep working on it.”
“But where does a testimony come from?” Mia asked.
“A testimony comes from the Holy Ghost,” Daddy said. “Have you ever felt warm and good during family home evening or at church?”
Mia thought about that. “When you gave me a special blessing before school started, I felt good.” She thought some more. “And I always feel warm inside when I hear President Monson talk in general conference. And when I’m nice to my friends or when I’m reading my scriptures, I feel good then too.”
Daddy smiled. “Those feelings are the Holy Ghost speaking to you. He gives you those feelings when you do something that’s right or when you hear something that’s true.”
“I feel warm and happy now,” Mia said. “Is that the Holy Ghost?”
Daddy hugged her again. “Yes. He’s telling you that the things we’re talking about are true. And that’s how you get a testimony.”
When Mia went to bed later, she didn’t think she had a whole testimony yet, but she still had that good, warm feeling that what Daddy told her was true. She knew this feeling was just the beginning.
Mia snuggled into her warm blanket and closed her eyes. Just before she drifted off to sleep, she whispered, “Thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for helping me have a testimony. And thank Thee for my daddy.”

The story is told that toward the end of World War II an allied general came to the front lines one night to inspect his troops. As he walked along he would point out into no-man’s-land and say, “Can you see them? Can you see them?”
Finally, someone said, “General, we can see nothing. What do you mean?” He said, “Can’t you see them? They’re your buddies; they are the ones who gave their lives today, yesterday, and the day before. They’re out there alright, watching you, wondering what you are going to do; wondering if they have died in vain.”

Susie and Sammy were in their secret hideout behind the couch.
“I wonder where Susie and Sammy are,” said Mommy as she walked by. Susie giggled. Sammy giggled.
“Listen,” said Daddy. “I think we have mice in our house. Maybe we should get a cat to chase them away.”
Susie and Sammy giggled again.
A few minutes later, when Mommy put dishes out on the counter so that she could set the table for dinner, the doorbell rang. When she went to answer it, nobody was there. She stepped out on the front porch and looked around. She still couldn’t see anyone. When she returned to the kitchen, she had quite a surprise—the table was all set! “Now, who could have done that?” she asked. There was a giggle from the closet. “It must be mice,” Mommy mumbled to herself.
After dinner, Susie and Sammy excused themselves, Mommy went to do the laundry, and Daddy started to clear the table. The doorbell rang again. When he went to answer it, nobody was there. He looked all over the yard, but couldn’t find anyone. When he came back to the kitchen, the table was cleared. “Now, who could have done that?” asked Daddy. Another giggle came from the closet. “We really need a cat,” Daddy said to himself.
The next morning when Mommy was starting to make beds, the doorbell rang again. And again, nobody was there! “This is very strange,” she said. When she got back to the bedroom, both Susie’s and Sammy’s beds were already made. “This is very, very strange,” she said. “Is that a giggle I hear coming from under the bed? No. It’s probably just mice again.”
That night Mommy called to Daddy, “It’s time to get Susie and Sammy ready for bed. Will you help me?” Suddenly the TV went on, the radio went on, the doorbell rang, and the timer on the top of the stove started ringing. Mommy and Daddy went running. When they came back, Susie and Sammy were in their pajamas and in their beds, looking freshly scrubbed and pretending to be asleep.
“My, my!” said Mommy. “Wasn’t that a commotion?”
“What could have caused it?” asked Daddy.
Susie and Sammy started to giggle.
“Just those mice,” said Mommy winking at Daddy.
“We’d better get a cat,” said Daddy winking at Mommy.
“Meow! Meow! Meow!” Mommy and Daddy said, tickling and kissing Susie and Sammy. “Let’s keep these mice!”

At age 19, H. Ross Workman was engaged to be married and not planning on serving a full-time mission. Then one Sunday morning his stake president walked up to him as he sat in his car and said, “I’ve been inspired to call you to go on a mission. Will you go?” Caught by surprise but feeling the confirming influence of the Holy Ghost, young Ross said, “Yes.” When he told his fiancée, the girl he had dated through high school and become engaged to on graduation day, she cried but agreed to support him and delay the wedding.
The commitments made that day were a turning point in his life. He was born 31 December 1940 in Salt Lake City to Harley and Lucille Ramsey Workman. Following his mission to the southern states, he married Katherine Evelyn Meyers, his high school sweetheart, in the Logan Utah Temple. They are the parents of four children and have seven grandchildren. He earned degrees in chemistry and law from the University of Utah and has worked for more than 28 years as a patent attorney. He worked with the youth for many years and has served in several bishoprics, on a stake high council, and as a bishop, and was president of the Hawaii Honolulu Mission when called to the Second Quorum of the Seventy.

During my high school years I worked summers in the golf pro shop. It was obvious to me that with just a little more tournament experience and more hard work that I would be ready to make application to attend the Professional Golf Association tour qualifying school in Florida. Fame and fortune loomed just around the corner. At this time my good friends were all talking about preparing for their missions.
By the time I finished my Aaronic Priesthood ministry, my dad had completed his distinguished service as bishop. My goals included golf and college. My life was destined to be professional golf, or so I thought.
Our new bishop invited me to his office one Sunday. After the usual pleasantries, he recounted several incidents where bishops felt inspired to visit with individuals to help them correct the course of their lives. I wondered where the interview was going. My mind raced over the many practical jokes and a few of the dumb things I had done. Although I wasn’t an example of perfection, neither was I a rogue of immense proportions. With great humility the bishop explained that he felt inspired to tell me what the Lord wanted me to do with my life. At first I didn’t want to know what he felt the Lord wanted me to do, but the bishop’s sincerity made me feel he was really speaking for the Lord.
“David,” the bishop began, “it is far more important for you to serve the Lord in the mission field than it is for you to seek a career in golf.” He further said that he had prayed for direction in the matter and that he was certain that missionary service was what I needed to be about. In a very direct way, the Spirit readily confirmed to me that the bishop was, indeed, conveying to me the will of the Lord. How could I respond except in a positive fashion.
After two years of missionary service, I was surprised to find that golf was really not very important. It took an inspired bishop to help me understand the eternal implications of following the Lord’s plan, the great plan of happiness.

In 1993, with the vigor of my newly made attorney’s oath and the energy that came from my recent graduation from law school and passing the bar exam, I received an unanticipated assignment one morning as a brand-new lawyer. That morning I was summoned into my supervising partner’s corner office and assigned my first jury trial—I was only a few months out of law school. Pleadings were complete, discovery had already been accomplished, even pre-trial documents had been submitted.

I should have foreseen what was to come when I picked up the file to prepare for my first meeting with my newly assigned clients and read their name: “The Church of Soldiers of the Cross of Christ.” They were a faith-filled zealous group, deeply committed to their beliefs. I prepared anxiously during every waking hour over the days that followed. Just a week later, I arrived early at the courthouse, filled with nervous tension for the first day of trial when we would argue last-minute motions, conduct jury selection, and give opening statements. It all filled my mind and consumed my thoughts. You know the feeling, kind of like when you show up for a semester-long comprehensive organic chemistry or calculus final exam. Filled with those kinds of feelings, I exited the elevator on the 6th floor of the courthouse. I was immediately met by an angry bailiff. I recall the top of my head came to about the level of the big shiny badge on his uniform. As I looked up at him, he said, with great tension and angst in his quivering voice “Mr. Bangerter, the judge wants you in his chambers now. I will escort you.” Then I saw it. Lining the long courthouse hallway, on both sides, was church member after church member, shoulder to shoulder, and all dressed head to toe in white. They broke out in song singing, “Onward, Christian Soldiers!” as we walked between them. By this point, any confidence I had upon arriving at the courthouse was entirely gone, leaving behind a big empty space that seemed to fill my mind.

As we entered the judge’s chambers, I was greeted by a red-faced, clearly very bothered judge. He yelled, “Mr. Bangerter, what is your church during in my hallways?” My response was immediate. I had feared he would ask a hard question. I felt such relief that the answer came so clearly and easily. I blurted out, “Oh, your honor, it’s not my church, that’s my client. My church is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!” The Judge was disarmed by the candor and naivete of my reply; it seemed to melt his icy countenance. He then smiled and said softly, “Please, Mr. Bangerter, just tell them to leave the courthouse now and let me help you to know how you will do that.” He then got up from his chair, walked around his desk, and sat next to me. He said, “Go out to the hallway, thank them for their support. Ask them respectfully now to go on with their day and help them understand that their numbers would more likely intimidate the jury than endear the jury to them. Go down the stairway with them—lead them. Gather them again, and tell them you will update them every evening on the outcome of the day.”

That day, a judge who could have squashed me, instead took time to lift me. It worked; it worked just as he said it would. I got through that experience, but to this day, the clearest memory I have of that trial happened in the beginning with a judge kindly stepping down from his high position and sitting between me and the opposing attorney bringing peace to my heart and lifting me to accomplish something I did not think I could do.

I learned that day that whatever station or status we achieve in life, we can always take time to pause and lift another. This is God’s pattern. And so, He lifts us in the private times and in the public times of our lives to experience the reality of our own divine heritage.

It started in the late 1970s and early 1980s when I moved from Eleuthera, Bahamas to the capital of New Providence to live with my mother’s brother and his family.
We lived in a neighborhood called Mount Vernon and it was there that I met Marge and Larry McCombs and their two children, Mark, and Dienna. Our two families struck up an immediate friendship and we were soon invited to Church. Never mind the fact that my family was generations deep in the Seventh-day Adventist belief and I was attending a school they sponsored.
The moment I entered the rental home on West Bay Street that doubled as the meetinghouse and home for the missionaries, I felt the Spirit for the first time in my life and I was converted.
When my family saw how involved I was becoming in the Church they insisted that I stop attending. To honor my parents, exactly as The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was teaching me, I decided to continue my attendance with my family at the Seventh Day Adventist church on Saturday, and then also attend church on Sunday with the McCombs family. This worked for a little while but when I was about 14, my family put an end to my Sunday attendance. The Spirit was burning strong in my heart, and I was thankful for the McCombs, Church leaders and fellow students that continued to invite me to a seminary class.
After I turned 18 years old, I asked Larry to baptize me. I was baptized in their pool after a Sunday evening seminary class. Anton Ferrier, who was the branch president at the time, conferred the gift of the Holy Ghost upon me. It was a perfect day for the completion of the long-awaited blessing of baptism.
I then went on to attend Brigham Young University-Hawaii, without the support of my family. I did not hear from them for the next few years but as I reached out to them, forgiveness blossomed. My father sent money to help me complete my schooling towards a bachelor’s degree in social work and I continued to be blessed as I chose to serve in the Texas Corpus Christi Mission, Spanish speaking.
I have never regretted my decision in 37 years. I know this gospel to be true and it has continuously blessed my life. I notice the Lord’s hand in my life through people like the McComb family and others, and hope that my light of the gospel is bright enough to encourage others to feel the Savior’s love. I encourage you to look for those who share His love and then listen for the Spirit and trust your feelings, because this is where true joy can be found.

I have had many worthwhile experiences since coming to BYU, and I should like to introduce my remarks this morning by telling you of one of these.

A few years ago it was the privilege of many of us on the faculty to represent the Unified Church School System throughout the stakes of the Church at quarterly conferences and to explain what we were doing in the seminaries and institutes and at BYU. We would accompany the General Authorities to these quarterly conferences. What golden hours they were, to spend hour upon hour with the Brethren in their automobiles, talking about the gospel and the challenges and problems of the Church.

On one occasion I went with President A. Theodore Tuttle, of the First Council of the Seventy, up to a stake in Idaho. He told me something about this stake on the way. He said, “I don’t expect to see too much activity here. This stake is one of the poorer stakes of the Church, so far as attendance is concerned. It is a farming community, and the young people are moving out. Primarily the members are older people. The stake is getting smaller all the time; in fact, we have considered combining it with another stake.”

Therefore I was not too surprised when it came time for us to meet with the stake presidency that only one member of the stake presidency was there. However, we began our meeting, and in time all four of them were there.

Then, in the evening, when it came time to have our stake priesthood meeting, there were only seven people present—including Brother Tuttle, myself, and four members of the stake presidency. The stake president turned to Brother Tuttle and said, “What shall we do?”

Brother Tuttle said, “We will go ahead.”

So we did, and we had the opening song and the prayer. By this time there were eleven people there. The stake clerk got up to call the roll. He called the roll—four of the stake presidency, two on the high council. Then he called for the presidency of a priesthood quorum to stand. One man stood up. He said, “I am the only one here.”

Brother Tuttle got up from his seat, went over and stood next to the stake clerk who was calling the roll, and looked over at the man. He said, “Brother, how many is one?”

The man said, “Pardon me. What did you say?”

“How many is one?”

The man stood there, slightly flustered, and did not reply. The seconds turned into about a half-minute or so. I felt a little bit embarrassed. I was about to raise my hand and volunteer the answer, because, although I had not had very much math, I knew enough that one is one.

But before I could get my hand up, someone far wiser than I in the audience raised his hand. Brother Tuttle acknowledged him, and the man stood up and said, “It depends. Sometimes one is a multitude.”

Brother Tuttle said, “Thank you,” and sat down.

I have thought of that experience many times. I am not sure I know exactly what Brother Tuttle was trying to teach, but he taught me something. Since that time, whenever I pick up a biography or an autobiography of a great man or woman, whenever I read the scriptures and study the lives of the prophets and the life of the Savior, I am reminded of the statement of that good brother: “Sometimes one is a multitude.”

I grew up in a very loving family, and my whole life was centered around the gospel of Jesus Christ. I was first assistant in the priests quorum, and I served a mission. Shortly after returning home from my mission, I was arrested for a very serious crime. I was sentenced to 15 years in prison and excommunicated from the Church. As I sit here thinking of the many mistakes I made in life, I am now getting my life back together. Each month I receive the New Era, and I learn from each article I read. I use them in my daily walk in life, and they help me and lift me in times of despair.
Name Withheld

President N. Eldon Tanner related the following experience:
“A young man came to me not long ago and said, ‘I made an agreement with a man that requires me to make certain payments each year. I am in arrears, and I can’t make those payments, for if I do, it is going to cause me to lose my home. What shall I do?’
“I looked at him and said, ‘Keep your agreement.’
“‘Even if it costs me my home?’
“I said, ‘I am not talking about your home. I am talking about your agreement; and I think your wife would rather have a husband who would keep his word, meet his obligations, keep his pledges or his covenants, and have to rent a home than to have a home with a husband who will not keep his covenants and his pledges.’”

In Ephraim’s mind the winter, the cold, the flutelike sound began to dissolve. It was summer, July. The sun burned hot and bright in the sky. There was the spicy, warm smell of hot sagebrush. A lizard with a gray body and bright blue sides sat motionless on a rock with only his transparent eyelids moving.
Sweat streaked Ephraim’s face. He had arrived in Salt Lake Valley a few weeks before and was building his first home. There was a strong frame of thick pine poles. Next to the frame, piles of yellow-brown adobe bricks were stacked neatly. They were good, strong bricks made from fine clay, the finest in the valley.
To help him build the walls, Ephraim had hired a bricklayer. They had finished laying the brick walls waist high when they heard the carriage coming. The lizard vanished beneath the rock.
Brigham Young leaned forward in his carriage. His shirt and trousers were gray with dust.
“Brother Hanks, how thick are you building the walls?”
“Eight inches, President Young.”
Brigham licked his lips, moved his eyes slowly over the building frame and partially finished walls, over the stacked pile of bricks, and then directly into Ephraim’s eyes. Ephraim felt their deep, blue embracing power. Brigham’s lip curled up and a broad smile spread across his face.
“Double that,” he said. “Make those walls 16 inches thick.”
Before Ephraim could ask questions President Young disappeared behind a cloud of dust. The dust settled slow in the still, hot air.
“Sixteen-inch walls,” the bricklayer exhaled. “That’s crazy. That’s twice as many bricks. We’d have to tear everything down, start over. We’d even have to build new frames. Most people only build six-inch walls. Sixteen inches is crazy.”
The bricklayer looked down at his hands and then took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. It left a dark streak.
“You’re not going to do it are you, Eph?”
“Sixteen-inch walls,” Ephraim repeated the words. Silent, he watched the dust settle. The lizard came from under the rock and sat motionless in the sun. Ephraim tasted the hot air.
Sixteen-inch walls, why? He thought of the work already put into the house. It would take two more weeks just for brick with 16-inch walls. Was President Young just throwing advice out of the top of his hat?
Ephraim squatted down and drew a circle in the gray soil. The hot stillness was intense. He could hear the bricklayer’s breathing. Anger came into him suddenly. He took a handful of soil in a tight fist.
“No. I will not do it.”
His muscles tensed. The veins stuck out on his arms.
Then he relaxed his hand. The soil sifted through his fingers.
“Have I come this far for nothing? Nauvoo, the Mormon Battalion? I’ve followed him here. I won’t stop now.” He exhaled softly.
“Sixteen-inch walls,” Ephraim smiled and looked at the bricklayer. “Maybe President Young is just throwing advice out of the top of his hat, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. The Lord chose him to lead, and I’m gonna follow.”
A week after the house was finished, the rain came. After a month of no rain, it came in hard driving waves from fierce, black clouds. At first it pocked the earth with small craters, the dry soil unable to hold it, and the water rolled off, cutting little, growing furrows. Then the furrows snaked down and met with a hundred more furrows until the dry wash beds filled with angry, gray water. The floods came out of the canyons, newborn rivers, covering, fanning out, ripping, and tearing.
Then the rain stopped, and the sun sent warm, orange radials down from a rift in the clouds. Most of the new houses along the foothills were gone, clothing, furniture, everything not carried to high ground, lost beneath alluvials of mud and rock.
But in the orange glow the 16-inch walls still stood.

Once a friend named Ellen Nussey, whom Charlotte had known at school, came to visit for a few days. After walking through the moors with Charlotte and realizing how isolated her friend’s parish home was, Ellen asked, “What do you do with yourself around here?”
“Oh, we’ve plenty to keep us busy,” Charlotte answered. “We teach Sunday School and visit the sick to help father. During the day we help Tabby, our cook, with the food preparation and Aunt Branwell with the housework. The best part of each day is spent by ourselves in our own special part of the moors. In the evenings we … well, we write stories.”
“How exciting!” Ellen replied. “What kind of stories do you write?”
“One night a long time ago we were sitting by the fireplace waiting for it to get dark,” Charlotte said. “Aunt Branwell never let us waste candles until it was dark enough to really need them, so we began to tell stories. We made up some countries along with our favorite heroes, and we’ve been writing little stories about them ever since.”
So began the love of writing by three young sisters who were to be found each evening sitting in front of a candle with pens in hand.

(Shayla) My brother Clint has always been a runner. He did cross country in high school and recently ran the San Antonio Marathon. We always thought he was a little crazy but in the last few years more members of the family have taken up running. My brother Wyatt just finished his first half Ironman triathlon and my other bother Kelly will be running one in August.
My mom and I decided that we wanted to join the running club and set a goal the first of this year to run a 5K. We trained the last few months and on July 4 in Lander, Wyoming, we accomplished our goal. It was a lot of fun and felt really good crossing the finish line. I’m not saying that all of you should start running, but set a goal to accomplish something that takes some time, make a plan to achieve your goal, then go for it. Going from sea level to 5,300 feet made running more difficult for my mom, but I’m so proud of her! I’m so glad we followed through with our goal and learned that we can do hard things.

I was born and raised in Korea in a loving family, and I joined the Church while in my teens. I would like to share the experience of my conversion with you.
My classmate and I were working together in the school library just after winter vacation when he asked me if I was interested in going to church with him. I asked him what kind of church he was talking about, and he told me it was near our school. He said it was a lot of fun, and there were many girls. I was 16 at the time, and that description of church appealed to me. I decided to go. I had gone to a Presbyterian church for a couple of years in elementary school, and I had good memories of church.
My friend and I went to a Saturday activity, and everyone came to greet me and welcome me. I was impressed that they would be so kind to welcome a small guy they didn’t know. I went to church the next day, and I was introduced to the missionaries.
The missionaries taught me about basic gospel principles, about Jesus Christ, and about the Restoration of the gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith. All the lessons I was taught were reasonable and logical, and I was impressed by eternal progress and the plan of salvation. I had often thought about why I was here on earth and what things were waiting for me after death. It was comforting to know that if I would do all I could for myself, the Savior would do the rest.
Two months later I wanted to be baptized and confirmed, but I needed permission from my parents. They were Buddhist, but they trusted me. I decided it would be best to ask my mother first, so I asked the missionaries to come to my home during the day. Before I went to school, I told my mother that she might have some foreigners come to ask her something and that she should just say yes. And then I ran out the door to school. When I returned, my mom said she had two handsome American visitors. She said they spoke wonderful Korean, and she was so impressed that she said yes. So I got permission from my parents to join the Church.

One weekend I had the opportunity of attending a stake quarterly conference in Idaho. As a group of Primary children stood before the congregation and sang “I Am a Child of God,” I noticed three young Primary members on the front row singing but saying nothing vocally. They were deaf; they sang with their hands. No one heard them audibly, but we received their message. They touched my spirit deeply, and it was my privilege to tell them in front of the members of that stake that our Heavenly Father heard them. Even though vocally they had said nothing, they transmitted a memorable message. In moving silence they taught of the spirit, they taught of the mind, and they taught of the heart. They had not given up singing just because they had no voice. They had been taught to carry on.