Gospel Story Finder

When I was a boy, my mother had to go to work at Garfield Smelter to help support her seven children. She worked the graveyard shift as much as she could, I’m sure, to be with us during the day. I don’t know when the poor woman slept. One Saturday morning, she got off work about 7:00 or 8:00 A.M. She went to bed for a couple of hours and then got up. She had invited all her relatives to dinner. There must have been 35 or 40. She decorated the tables and arranged the chairs and put all the dishes and silverware out. She cooked and baked all day long. The dirty pots and pans and dishes stacked up.
Everyone came to dinner, and after dinner all the dirty dishes were brought into the kitchen. The food was cleared and stacked on the table and cupboards; then the kitchen door was closed, and the family began to visit. It was about 8:00 P.M.
I remember standing all alone in the kitchen. In my young mind, I thought, Mother worked all night; she has worked all day to get this dinner. When everyone leaves, she will have to do the dishes and put the food away. It will take two or three hours, and that’s not fair. Then I thought, I will do them.
I washed the dishes. We didn’t have an electric dishwasher; ours was a manual dishwasher, and that night I was manual. I used a half-dozen dish towels. I was drenched from head to foot. I put the food away, cleaned off the table and drainboards; then I got down on my hands and knees and scrubbed the floor. It took about three hours.
Then I heard the chairs shuffling, and everyone left. The front door closed, and I heard my mother coming to the kitchen. I was pleased and thought she would be. The door swung open, and even at the age of 11, I recognized that she was startled. She looked around the kitchen, looked at me, and then there was a look I didn’t recognize at the time. I do now. It was something like “Thanks. I am tired. I think you understand, and I love you.” And she came over and hugged me. There was a light in her eye and a warmth in my heart. I learned it is a wonderful feeling to turn on the lights in our parents’ eyes.

When Cheryl suddenly lost her husband, Mick, she was devastated. As her first Christmas without him drew closer, the loneliness grew. Thankfully, her ministering sister Shauna was there. Shauna and her husband, Jim, invited Cheryl on many holiday outings. They noticed Cheryl’s worn coat and decided to do something about it. A few days before Christmas, Shauna and Jim brought Cheryl a Christmas present: a beautiful new coat. They were aware of Cheryl’s physical needs for a warm coat but also of her emotional needs for comfort and company. They stepped up to fulfill those needs as best they could and set a beautiful example of how we too can keep watch over our flocks.3

Many years ago a couple of fellow airline captains and I decided to fulfill a boyhood dream of restoring an antique airplane. Together we purchased a worn-down 1938 Piper Cub and started the work of returning it to its original form. The project was a labor of love. It had special meaning for me because I had learned to fly in a similar airplane when I was a young man.
This airplane was first built only 35 years after the Wright brothers made their famous first flight. Just thinking of that makes me feel very old.
The engine did not have an electric starter; as you were priming the engine from the cockpit, someone else on the ground would grab hold of the propeller and hurl it with might until the engine would run on its own. Each engine start was a moment of excitement and bravery.
Once the plane was airborne, it became clear the Piper Cub was not built for speed. As a matter of fact, when there was a strong headwind, it seemed as though we were not moving at all. I remember flying together with my teenage son, Guido, above the autobahn in Germany, and sure enough, the cars below passed us comfortably!
But, oh, how I loved this little plane! It was the perfect way to experience the wonder and beauty of flight. You could hear, feel, smell, taste, and see what flying was all about. The Wright brothers expressed it this way: “There is [nothing] equal to that which aviators enjoy while being carried through the air on great white wings.”1

Shortly after the Pacinis moved their growing family to New York, Rosalene went into preterm labor. The doctors considered surgery to deliver the baby because his heart rate kept dropping. But when his heartbeat normalized, the family went home relieved.
At a follow-up appointment a few days later, the doctor couldn’t find a heartbeat. Their baby boy was delivered a few hours later—stillborn.
“Losing my baby was heart-wrenching,” Rosalene says. “I have never felt as empty as I did after they took his little body from my arms.”
The family flew to Utah to bury him next to Rosalene’s mother. For weeks after, Rosalene couldn’t bear to leave and move on with life.
“I think I understand a little how Elizabeth wondered if she could go on,” Rosalene says. “But she did. We may all find ourselves in that place at some point in our lives. But we can’t stop. We move forward by relying on our Savior more than we did before, and eventually we recognize the miracles that have surrounded us all along.”

For many years I have been haunted by an experience that occurred in my own life. I was working in a community where a full-time seminary was operated adjacent to the local high school. Part way through one school year, a teaching vacancy occurred at the seminary because of a health problem experienced by one of the teachers. I was invited to assume several of his classes each day over a period of time until a replacement could be found. In most respects it was a delightful experience and one that carries fond recollections for me. In one of the classes, however, there was a young man who proved to be a real challenge. He was in his final year of high school. He was bright and talented. It was obvious that he was popular with the other students and had a considerable influence with them. However, his conduct in the seminary class was generally disruptive. He sought for attention and usually got it as a result of his misbehavior in class.
In my desire to establish an atmosphere in the class where we could discuss and learn about things of a spiritual nature, I was repeatedly frustrated by the antics of this young man. He craved the attention of the other students. Several private consultations with him brought no improvements. In our interviews he was amiable enough, but he reverted to his disruptive behavior as soon as the next class convened.
I spoke with the counseling staff at the high school across the street from the seminary and learned from them that the young man came from a single parent home and that he was a constant problem in his classes at the high school, even though his aptitude test scores showed above average ability and talent.
There finally came a day when I knew I must do something decisive if I were to maintain some sense of order and direction in the class. After a typical outburst I invited the young man to step outside the classroom with me. There I told him that I could no longer sacrifice the opportunities of the other students in order to accommodate his whimsical behavior. I told him that he was no longer welcome in the class until he could control his conduct and contribute to the spiritual atmosphere necessary in a seminary classroom. He spun on his heel without comment and left the building. I never saw him again.
His mother called me that afternoon and expressed her displeasure and distress over what I had done. She warned me that the expulsion of her son from the seminary class would come back to haunt me.
The mother’s prediction has been correct. I have never been able to completely free my mind of that experience. Within a week or two of these events, my work was changed, and I was moved to another part of the country. I have no idea whether the young man ever returned to seminary. I don’t even remember his name now because it has been more than 20 years. I have sometimes wondered if there is a father of a large family out there somewhere who blames his estrangement from the Church on the action of an unsympathetic seminary teacher many years ago.
I am sure I have learned some things in the intervening years that would have helped me handle the situation more competently. Perhaps there are some things I could have done that I did not do to help the young man change his attitude and conduct. I am sure there were. However, as I look back upon those experiences, I recall vividly the concern I felt for the other students in the class and the intense desire I felt to somehow bless their lives. As my mind runs back over that episode, I inevitably come to the same dilemma I faced the day when I invited the young man to leave the seminary class. In addition to my responsibility for his spiritual opportunities, what was my responsibility to the other class members whose opportunities were being jeopardized by the conduct of the young man? What were his responsibilities?

Sacred music is an important part of any Church gathering and when the committee coordinators looked for someone to conduct a special choral item for this event, Sister Adele Wi Repa from Auckland Henderson Stake’s West Harbour Ward was the first person who came to mind.
“I had a giggle when Brother and Sister Smith said that,” Adele says, “because I don’t think they knew anyone else! But I felt very grateful and privileged.”
Adele’s first task was to find the right song for the occasion. She searched the internet for suitable sheet music, but it soon became clear that she needed to arrange the song herself. To allow the choir time to learn her composition, Adele gave herself one week, and stopped working on the song at the end of that week despite her concerns that it wasn’t quite finished yet. The result of her effort was a beautiful arrangement of the well-loved hymn, Joseph Smith’s First Prayer.

I was born in a small southern Mississippi town in 1950. My father was a career army officer. As a result, although not completely due to his career, I became the product of a broken home. It was not until my teens that I became aware of this. It was a traumatic period in my life.
My parents were strict, and I often was denied opportunities that many youth take for granted. One privilege I was allowed was to attend a local Baptist church where I gained an independence of thought and action. I felt I was somebody and had something to contribute to the world. I became a youth minister and had hopes of gaining a scholarship so I could attend a ministerial school. But the deteriorating conditions at home and diminishing faith in my religious beliefs changed that. I had increasing questions about life. I suppose at this point I simply felt sorry for myself.
At 17 I left home. All I took with me was the memory of ruined yesterdays and a fear of uncertain tomorrows. I left in anguish and bitterness. Later I joined the United States Air Force. The first place they sent me was to Vietnam. This was a startling contrast to the sheltered environment I had experienced as a child. Needless to say, rather than helping to find peace and remedy my doubts, the futility and endless agony of life there served only to create more questions and to reinforce my defeatist attitude. I began to doubt there was a God or that there was any dignity or purpose in life. Was life just the means to an uncertain end? Where and why did it all begin? I found myself wishing that I had never been born.
I left Vietnam physically well, but I was almost spiritually dead. However, something inside seemed to urge me to give God another chance, and I did in hopes that he would do the same for me.
Upon my arrival in Misawa, Japan, I went to a Baptist missionary, but he was unable to answer my questions. He encouraged me to rely on faith, but I could no longer live on the innocent faith I had as a young man. The reality I found in the world as an adult was simply too great. I had to find the answers and I had to find them now.
I was becoming desperate, so a friend asked me to accompany him to the Far East Conference of the Southern Baptist Convention in Shimoda, believing that these learned men would be able to answer my questions satisfactorily. Enroute to the convention, my friend made what he later determined was a great mistake. We stopped in Tokyo to see his friend, Bill Head, whom he had met in Thailand. Upon meeting Bill for the first time, I realized that he was different. Without him even saying a word I knew that he had something that I wanted. He radiated confidence, peace of mind, a love for life, and a love for people. He seemed to know who he was and where he was going. He had the answers I needed so desperately.
I asked him why he was unique. Bill replied, “I am a Mormon.” He gave me some pamphlets to read, and I took them with me to that convention in Shimoda. I read the material. At first the Joseph Smith account seemed ridiculous, preposterous, almost absurd. I wanted to believe that God spoke to men today. I wanted to believe that the heavens were not closed and that God was real. I wanted to believe that he lived and cared about his children and had not left us alone to drift aimlessly through life for some mysterious end. I also knew that if ever the world needed another witness of Jesus Christ it was now. But because it was so new and because it had been such a long time since God had manifested himself to the ancients, I was skeptical.
The next morning I attended a seminar at the convention. The seminar’s purpose was to discuss the anti-Christ ideologies. The first religion they attacked was not communism or some other godless ideology, but Mormonism. They had decided among themselves that Mormons worshiped Joseph Smith and ignored the fact that the formal name of the Mormon church was The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If that name implied anything, it implied that Mormons were Christians of the highest degree, for they were the only people I had found who claimed the name of Jesus Christ. It wasn’t the Church of Joseph Smith, John the Baptist, Paul, Mary, John Wesley, or Martin Luther. It was the Church of Jesus Christ.
I felt the Mormons were being misunderstood so I attempted to defend them. Now I probably made somewhat of a fool of myself in the minds of those learned people, but in the process of this defense, a still, small voice said, “You’d better find out more so you can do better next time.”
I left the convention that day and returned to Tokyo. I found Bill and told him I wanted to learn more. He introduced me to a young couple, the Fredericks, who taught me the missionary discussions in two days. During that glorious two-day period the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle in my mind fell together and I found myself and my true identity.
“I am a child of God!” I exclaimed to myself. “I began with him. There is purpose and dignity to life, and a great destiny beyond!” I began to realize for the first time that I didn’t have to doubt, worry, be confused, or tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine because there is a prophet of God and twelve apostles on the earth today, just as there was anciently in the Church of Jesus Christ. I had found his Church!
Less than two weeks later, on August 12, 1970, I was baptized in Kunsan City, Korea. I know that the gospel is true. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that we are sons and daughters of God.
Since my conversion I have been reunited with my family and ordained an elder in the Lord’s Church. I am currently serving as a missionary in the Idaho Pocatello Mission. Like Bill, now that I am converted, I am strengthening my brethren.

Let me share an experience about responding to prophetic words from the life of President Russell M. Nelson:
In 1979, five years before his call as a General Authority, Brother Nelson attended a meeting just prior to general conference. “President Spencer W. Kimball challenged all present to lengthen their stride in taking the gospel to the entire world. Among the countries President Kimball specifically mentioned was China, declaring, ‘We should be of service to the Chinese. We should learn their language. We should pray for them and help them.’”
At age 54, Brother Nelson had a feeling during the meeting that he should study the Mandarin language. Although a busy heart surgeon, he immediately secured the services of a tutor.
Not long after beginning his studies, Dr. Nelson, attending a convention, unexpectedly found himself sitting next to “a distinguished Chinese surgeon, Dr. Wu Yingkai. … Because [Brother Nelson] had been studying Mandarin, he began [a] conversation [with Dr. Wu].”
Dr. Nelson’s desire to follow the prophet led to Dr. Wu visiting Salt Lake City and Dr. Nelson traveling to China to give lectures and perform surgical operations.
His love for the Chinese people, and their love and respect for him, grew.
In February 1985, ten months after his call to the Quorum of the Twelve, Elder Nelson received a surprise phone call from China pleading for Dr. Nelson to come to Beijing to operate on the failing heart of China’s most famous opera singer. With the encouragement of President Gordon B. Hinckley, Elder Nelson returned to China. The last surgical operation he ever performed was in the People’s Republic of China.
Just two years ago, in October 2015, President Russell M. Nelson was once again honored with an official declaration, naming him an “old friend of China.”

For Denice, persistence is not a natural quality. Oh, she has talent, lots of it. In fact, when Denice was only two she followed her sister into gymnastics—the routines, the moves, they all came easy to her and it was fun. But getting to a point where she could compete with the best was hard work. Cassie never objected to training long hours, skipping parties, missing her friends. But for Denice it was different.
She complained about having to practice every night. Her dad said she didn’t have to go and for six months Denice played with her friends, instead. No gymnastics.
In the end Denice missed the competition, the limelight, and asked to go back—this time for good. “I think one of the things Denice loves about gymnastics is showing a crowd what she can do,” says Cassie.
And that love of performance is apparent as soon as you meet her. So is her distaste for practice. In a way it is charming, that she cannot fake an attitude. Denice grumbles all the way up to the bars; then she grabs a hold and her eyes focus. She turns professional. She seems to relish each movement that defies physical law—to know that she can do something so wonderful, so fascinating for the people watching.
But even with that love of performance, there have been difficulties. “It’s hard because Cassie is always one step ahead of her,” says Robby, their mom. “What Denice doesn’t realize is that she is actually a better gymnast than Cassie was at her age. But Cassie always gets to move first.”
“I feel competition to do as well as Cassie, but I have realized that I can do some things as good as her,” says Denice. “Some things I can do even better. That makes me feel equal.”
And in time she has found something of her own that has helped—a relationship with her Heavenly Father. “It’s become important in my life. I always pray before a meet and I haven’t been hurt yet. And I know if I stick to the standards of the Church, if I don’t give them up, He will help me out when I need it.”

by James Wright
While attending Brigham Young University, I had a dream that grandpa had died and I had not recorded his life story on tape. I couldn’t sit still until I had arranged to go to San Francisco and record all those stories he had told my brothers and sisters.
Ever since we were kids, I remember visiting grandpa on the weekends and listening to the stories he would tell about life in the old days and about all our relatives whom we had never met.
It was the last week of April that I finally made it to see grandpa. I remember the day well. It was then, for the first time, that I started to take grandpa’s stories seriously.
He started out by saying that he was born in Lockport, Illinois, and that his father and grandfather were both from Lockport. Great-great-grandfather was a volunteer in the Civil War. I was fascinated by the stories and was glad they were finally being preserved.
I walked away from grandpa’s apartment that day feeling I had met the real Edward Lewis Wright. He had worked hard, lived hard, and played hard. He had managed to support a wife and raise six children while working in the steel mills. As I drove back to Provo to begin a new semester at BYU, I had plenty of time to think about my interview with grandpa. Having worked as a sound engineer, I decided I would process the tape. That is, I would run it through the compressor and the equalizer to take out all the background noises. I thought I would then make copies of the interview and send one to each member of the family.
It was while I was equalizing the tape that the idea for the song came. It didn’t take long before I was doodling with my pen, playing with words and phrases, slowly putting the ideas into a poem. I wrote the words first, and then the melody came. The song was titled, “Like a Man.”
I remember playing the song to grandpa. I put his voice at the beginning and then the music faded in as his voice faded out. When dad heard it, he proclaimed it the family song, and it has remained such. I made copies of the song for most of the relatives, and everybody got a good taste of their own history.
I am now working on a whole series of songs about my family and its history. I guess the reason I wrote the song is to give, in some small way, a fitting tribute to my grandfather. I love him and am grateful he has shared his life with me. I hope I have managed to preserve his story for my future children and grandchildren.

I rummaged through the old, dusty bin, angel in hand. I’d crocheted the angel’s head and body, but I needed yellow yarn to complete the halo and wings, and I wasn’t sure if I had any.
I’d learned to crochet when I was 11, but then I went about a decade without picking up a hook. It was only during the pandemic that crocheting had become a hobby again, and I’d gotten ambitious; I was trying to complete a full set of Nativity figures before Christmas.
Just as I was about to give up, I caught sight of a yellow swath of fabric. I tugged at the material, unearthing a large, uneven blanket. It had giant, gaudy stripes of clashing colors: orange, pink, navy blue, and yellow all crocheted together in a nauseatingly bright pattern.
The stripes were all different sizes. The stitches were loose and inconsistent. But the blanket still made me smile as I recognized it from my early years of crocheting. My focus and motivation had given out long before the project was complete, and it had been sitting in this pile of unfinished projects for years, unused and unseen.
I picked up the loose, untied end of the blanket and pulled. The blanket had never been fastened off, so I could undo several stitches at a time just with a quick tug.
I hesitated before unraveling it more. The blanket was outdated and overly bright, but it made me a little bit sad to think that I was undoing everything my young fingers had worked so hard to create. But, I realized, crocheting this blanket all those years ago had kept the material right where I needed it, now available and ready to be used for this better purpose.
So, I unraveled. I pulled and pulled until the yarn piled in a tangled heap on my lap, and then I began to crochet. My far-more-skilled hands turned the clumsy, childlike stitches of my blanket into intricately patterned angel’s wings.
As I worked, an odd thought entered my mind:
My testimony is like this little angel.
While the thought made me smile at first, the longer I thought about it, the more I realized it was true. My testimony, like my little blanket, had at first been a simple, childlike construction. Then came the unraveling, as certain things tested my faith. The loose, clumsy stitches that had formed the basis of my testimony felt like they were being pulled apart.
And finally, there was reconstruction. When I’d stopped holding so tightly to what I’d had before, started trusting the Savior, and allowed my testimony to grow and change, it had formed into something far more beautiful, something more profound and significant than what I’d been able to create as a child.
Emeritus General Authority Seventy Elder Bruce C. Hafen explained this concept when he described what he called the “simplicity beyond complexity”1—essentially the idea that if we work through the difficult questions in our lives, we will receive a new, stronger kind of simplicity. He explained that “our tunnels of ambiguity are there to teach us, not to torment us. … It is by faith that we consciously choose to grow through the complexity that lets us see with our eyes and our hearts wide open.”2
The longer I thought about it, the more I realized that not only my testimony, but my life had followed this pattern. It didn’t happen all at once, but slowly, gradually, I had transformed. Through Christ, I had changed. Through Christ, I had weathered adversity and become something new.
This crocheting project started out as just a quarantine hobby but ended up being the perfect reminder of the influence of Christ and the celebration of new life. Because that is what Christ offers us: a chance to be made into something entirely new. We celebrate the baby in Bethlehem because we know that that baby grew up to be someone who could offer us the opportunity to grow and change and be made whole.
As President Thomas S. Monson (1927–2018) said: “As you and I walk the pathway Jesus walked, we will discover He is more than the babe in Bethlehem, more than the carpenter’s son, more than the greatest teacher ever to live. We will come to know Him as the Son of God, our Savior and our Redeemer.”3
While Christ’s birth was a miraculous and wondrous event, my Christmas celebration is deepened and enriched by remembering exactly why the angel’s tidings brought such “great joy” (Luke 2:10). As the angel also prophesied, “[Mary] shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus: for he shall save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
As we celebrate the birth of Christ, we can also remember the hope for new life and second chances that He brings to us. Christmas is a wonderful time of traditions and giving, and it can also be a time for strengthening, or even rebuilding, our testimonies. We can allow the Lord, with His skill and wisdom, to make us into something better than we could have imagined.
Alison Wood is an editor for the Liahona and YA Weekly. She loves good books, pickleball, playing the violin, and her husband. She has a deep belief in the gospel and the blessings it brings.

When I began attending therapy the following year, I was able to start working through my thoughts. My therapist pointed out that I had a tendency to be an all-or-nothing type of person. I believed that either I had to be perfect at keeping the commandments or I wasn’t strong enough. And I realized I had decided that because I couldn’t feel God in my life, He didn’t exist. But looking back on my life, I knew that couldn’t be true. And so I realized the issue was me, not God.
Ever since I was little, I had engraved into my mind this idea that if I wasn’t perfect, I would never be good enough. Of course, because no one is perfect, I found myself swimming in a sea of insecurities. I was uncomfortable with the idea that I could be worth something. It was because of this that I always felt like I didn’t measure up and didn’t deserve anyone’s love—including God’s.
For a while, I had tried to combat my loneliness and feelings of inadequacy by trying to be everything. I busied myself with every activity I could find to keep my mind off the real issues in my life. And I spent an excessive amount of time considering others’ needs as a way to avoid having to focus on my own. I tutored, played tennis, baked for all my friends and neighbors, and became a teaching assistant. I also worked part-time, took a lot of classes, and was the president of multiple clubs and groups on campus.
To those looking from the outside, I was the girl who had it all together. What they couldn’t see was that inside, I was desperately searching for something to make me feel good enough. But always trying to do more and more only brought added confusion into my life as to who I was and who I wanted to be.
Toward the end of my freshman year I realized how badly paralyzed I had become by my feelings of worthlessness. I had allowed myself to be so overwhelmingly insecure that I denied myself all the amazing things life offered and was becoming numb to my own life.
I stepped back and wondered why, despite doing so much, I still felt nothing. This sent me into a dark depression. What do you do when you feel absolutely abandoned by God?
Anxious to move forward but feeling empty as I wondered how God really felt about me, I realized that something inside of me needed to change. This realization started me on the path to feeling God’s love for me.
At first, I didn’t know how to start; that task alone felt daunting. But over the next year, I relied on the Lord and His infinite goodness to get me through each day. I found so much strength and peace of mind in reading the messages of prophets, pondering the temple covenants I had made, setting even just 10 minutes aside each night to read the scriptures, and communing with Heavenly Father in prayer throughout the day.
As I did these things, I began to see His hand in my life. I didn’t know who I was or what path in life to choose. I didn’t know what path could ever make me feel good enough. But I soon realized that what I really needed was to know who I was to God.
I am now in my last semester at university. Among all the stresses of being a student, employee, daughter, sister, and friend, I have realized that knowing my worth and understanding how God feels about me are vital to my success in all that I do.
There are still many unknowns about my future, and that’s OK.
For me, knowing that I don’t have to be perfect right now helps get me through each day. I know that God is aware of me. I also know that even when I can’t feel His love, He still is patiently working with me.
Over the past few years of this struggle, God has helped me discover qualities and talents in myself that I would have never noticed before. Most importantly, in time, through personal revelation and daily efforts to understand God’s will for me, I’ve learned how He feels about me. I’ve been able to draw liberally on the Savior’s power and the blessings of His Atonement in my life. This has helped me to feel God’s love and know that I am His beloved daughter.
In reading the messages of the prophets, I was touched when I read these words from President Russell M. Nelson: “Feelings of worth come when a woman follows the example of the Master. Her sense of infinite worth comes from her own Christlike yearning to reach out with love, as He does.”
He also noted, “[A woman’s] self-esteem is earned by individual righteousness and a close relationship with God.”1 From this, I have come to understand that who I am is more than the combination of the things I do or say. I am an eternal being with an extraordinary calling to lead with love and compassion, just as the Savior did. And that understanding transcends anything my depression may try to tell me.
Even now, I still find myself sometimes forgetting what God’s love feels like and what lasting joys there are in the smallest and most ordinary moments of life. But the miracle of Christ’s Atonement is that it is not only for repentance; His grace also enables us to get through each day and to love ourselves. I forget that fact a lot, but it is still true.
There is no escaping that we are prone to human nature and that these moments of divine clarity and inspiration may not always feel so true. So to help us, we can write down and look back on the times when we have felt God’s love. We can keep trying to seek ways to feel that love. Our daily worship and continued efforts to deepen our personal holiness will not only strengthen our relationship with our Heavenly Father but also increase our personal happiness and self-esteem. Christ can magnify these efforts to help us become who our Father in Heaven wants us to be.
I am determined to keep trying because I have hope in Christ. I know that life will continue to get better and that I will grow as I rely on Him. Once I discovered how infinite God’s love for me was, I was able to find greater strength each day to push past heartbreaks and overcome my feelings of inadequacy and my need for perfection.
When I find myself falling back into my insecurities, I remember that God thinks that I am funny, kind, giving, and beautiful. Most of all, I remember that He sees me trying.
President Thomas S. Monson (1927–2018) declared: “God’s love is there for you whether or not you feel you deserve [it]. It is simply always there.”2 I am so grateful for this truth. In our deepest struggles, we can see God’s glory in helping us move forward. He is always cheering us on.

Carlitos wiped the tears from his eyes. His mamá had been sick for many months. At last Papá had convinced her to go to the city, many kilometers from their small village in Chile, and see a doctor. After many tests, the doctor said that Carlitos’s mamá had cancer.
Mamá refused to feel sorry for herself. “I still have much to do,” she said.
One day, two young norteamericanos (North Americans) appeared at the door of their small home. “We are from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” one said in halting Spanish.
Mamá listened intently and occasionally asked questions. She accepted the young men’s message immediately. “It is the truth,” she said.
Despite the disease that caused her much pain, Mamá was determined to be baptized and confirmed.
On Saturday morning the family traveled to the small meetinghouse where Elder Metzer baptized her. She shivered as she stepped from the baptismal font.
“Mamá, you are cold,” Carlitos said and wrapped his arms around her waist. “You must go home and get warm.”
Mamá shook her head. “It is not enough. I will stay until I am confirmed. How can I be cold when the gospel warms me?” She was confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Mamá was not content with just that. She was determined that Papá and Carlitos learn of the restored gospel as she had. “If you will pray, you will know the truth of which the missionaries speak,” she told them.
The elders taught them the gospel of Jesus Christ. Papá would have to give up his cigarettes. Carlitos listened to the elders’ teachings and felt peace wrap around his heart. He began to understand the warmth that Mamá had described.
Within a month Papá had stopped smoking. Shortly afterward both Papá and Carlitos were baptized and confirmed. A few weeks later Papá received the Aaronic Priesthood. Carlitos would have to wait three more years before he could receive the priesthood.
Mamá was very weak, but she always managed to go to church and visit those in the village who were sick.
“We are members of God’s Church, but it is not enough,” Mamá told Papá and Carlitos one night.
“What must we do now?” Carlitos asked. He loved learning about the gospel and wanted to live it in every way.
“We must be sealed in the temple,” Mamá said.
The temple in Santiago was the closest one to their home. But they did not have enough money to travel there. Any extra money Papá earned went to buy medicine for Mamá.
So Mamá started a temple jar. She placed it by the door. The coins she collected grew until the family had enough money to make the trip. In the temple their family was sealed for time and all eternity.
Mamá glowed with happiness. “It is enough,” she said.

“I hated this challenge and didn’t want to do it. I thought of several people, but I got so nervous that I talked myself out of each one. Yesterday morning I knew I’d better get moving. Then something funny happened.
“I go to ballet on Saturday. As we trudged into the dressing room after class, sweaty and tired, I mustered all my courage, took a deep breath, and said to no one in particular, ‘What do you know about Mormons?’
“Tanya, who’s never serious about anything, replied, ‘Are Mormons those guys who ride bikes wearing white shirts and name tags?’ She smacked her forehead, giggling. ‘The guys wear the shirts, of course, not the bikes!’
“‘Some Mormons do that,’ I eagerly explained, ignoring her joke. ‘The ones who are full-time missionaries.’
“‘I see them every so often.’ Tanya giggled again and rolled her eyes. ‘So you’re one of them. Weird.’
“I flopped down on the nearest bench, my face beet red, and pulled off my slippers. I wished I’d never said a word! Then someone tapped me on the shoulder. ‘Virginia?’
“I jerked about in surprise. It was Eva, the best student in the class. I didn’t think she knew I existed.
“‘Are you a Mormon?’
“‘Y—Yes,’ I stammered, not sure what to expect.
“‘Good! I’ve seen those missionaries, too, but they never stop at our house. I’ve always wanted to talk to them.’
“My heart thumped wildly. ‘I can arrange it for you,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘Wednesday evening, say, at my house?’
“Eva smiled. ‘Sounds good. I’ll bring my mother, too, if that’s all right.’
“So they’re coming to our house this Wednesday for dinner and the first discussion!”
“Sometimes people we’d never think of as potential investigators turn out to be interested,” Sister Searle said.
“As a continuing class challenge,” Virginia proposed, “can everyone help friendship Eva and her mother?”
“That’s a great idea!” Sister Searle exclaimed, and the other girls nodded enthusiastically.

When I was a young boy, our family was terribly poor. Father had no job because he was going through law school at the University of Utah. He had a wife and three young sons. Grandfather and Grandmother knew that we would have no Christmas if we did not come down to the farm in Millard County. So all of our family took the train from Salt Lake to Leamington, Utah. Where the money came for the tickets, I will never know.

Grandfather and Uncle Esdras met us at the railroad crossing in Leamington with a team of big horses to pull the open sleigh through the deep snow to Oak City. It was so cold that the huge horses had icy chin whiskers, and you could see their breath. I remember how old Jack Frost nipped my nose, and the extreme cold made it hard to breathe. Grandmother had heated some rocks and put them in the bottom of the sleigh to help keep us warm. We were wrapped and tucked into some heavy camp quilts with just our noses sticking out. Accompanied by the tinkle of bells on leather straps on the harnesses of the horses, we musically traveled from Leamington over the 10 miles (16 kilometers) to Oak City, where our beloved grandfather and grandmother lived. So many dear ones were there that we could hardly wait to arrive. When we got there it was warm and wonderful and exciting.

In the corner of the living room was the Christmas tree, a cedar cut from the hillside pasture. It was already partially decorated by Mother Nature with little berries that helped give it a strong smell. Our decorations were popcorn strings made by pushing a needle and thread through popcorn. The strings had to be handled carefully or they would break and strew popcorn all over the floor.

We also had paper chains to put on the tree, made by cutting up old Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs, with the paper links pasted together with flour paste. The sticky flour paste got all over our hands, faces, and clothes. I wonder why they didn’t put sugar in it! With cream it could also have been served for mush.

I do not remember any presents under the tree. Under the tree were popcorn balls made with strong, homemade molasses. When we bit into the popcorn balls, it felt like they were biting back.

On Christmas Eve we all gathered around the woodstove, enjoying the warm comfort of the fire and the pleasant aroma of the burning cedar wood. One of the uncles gave the opening prayer. We sang carols and hymns. One of our aunts read of the birth of Jesus and of the “good tidings of great joy” (Luke 2:10). “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). Grandfather and Grandmother then told us how much they loved us.

The next day was Christmas, and we had a glorious dinner. But before we ate, we all got down on our knees for family prayer. I was so hungry. Grandfather prayed for the longest time. You see, he had much to pray for. He prayed for moisture because there was a drought in the land, and the crops had been meager. The fall grain had been planted in the dusty ground. What harvest there was could not be sold for much because of the low prices caused by the Great Depression. The taxes on the farm were delinquent because there was no money to pay them. He also prayed for our large family, his cattle and horses, pigs and chickens, turkeys—he prayed over everything.

During Grandfather’s long prayer, my youngest uncle became restless and gave me an irreverent pinch, hoping that I would shout to make things more exciting.

For dinner we had a huge tom turkey stuffed with delicious dressing. There was no celery in the dressing because we had only the ingredients that could be produced on the farm. But the dressing had plenty of bread, sage, sausage, and onions. There was an abundance of potatoes and gravy and pickles, beets, beans, and corn. Because Grandfather could trade wheat to the miller for flour, there was always fresh baked bread. To stretch the food, we were encouraged to take one bite of bread for every bite of other kinds of food. We had chokecherry jelly and ground-cherry jam. For dessert we had pumpkin and gooseberry pie. It was all delicious.

As I look back on that special Christmas over a lifetime, the most memorable part was that we did not think about presents. There may have been some handmade mittens or a scarf given, but I do not recall any presents. Presents are wonderful, but I found that they are not essential to our happiness. I could not have been happier. There were no presents that could be held and fondled and played with, but there were many wonderful gifts that could not be seen but could be felt.

There was the gift of boundless love. We knew God loved us. We all loved each other. We did not miss the presents because we had all these glorious gifts. It made me feel so wonderful and secure to belong and to be part of all that went on. We wanted nothing else. We did not miss the presents at all. I never remember a happier Christmas in my childhood.

Also let us remember that through any illness or difficult challenge, there is still much in life to be hopeful about and grateful for. We are infinitely more than our limitations or our afflictions! Stephanie Clark Nielson and her family have been our friends for more than 30 years. On August 16, 2008, Stephanie and her husband, Christian, were in a plane crash and subsequent fire that scarred her so horrifically that only her painted toenails were recognizable when family members came to indentify the victims. There was almost no chance Stephanie could live. After three months in a sleep-induced coma, she awoke to see herself. With that, the psyche-scarring and horrendous depression came. Having four children under the age of seven, Stephanie did not want them to see her ever again. She felt it would be better not to live. “I thought it would be easier,” Stephanie once told me in my office, “if they just forgot about me and I quietly slipped out of their life.”

But to her eternal credit, and with the prayers of her husband, family, friends, four beautiful children, and a fifth born to the Nielsons just 18 months ago, Stephanie fought her way back from the abyss of self-destruction to be one of the most popular “mommy bloggers” in the nation, openly declaring to the four million who follow her blog that her “divine purpose” in life is to be a mom and to cherish every day she has been given on this beautiful earth.

“Hush, little baby, don’t say a word,” Mama sang to baby Charlie. The harsh wind howled and blew red dirt through the cracks of the one-room log cabin. Rachel’s whole family couldn’t fall asleep that night. The clock hands pointed straight up to midnight as Papa got up to start a fire and Mama gazed at the dark sky out the window. Rachel closed her eyes tight and tried to fall asleep. Then she heard her mother whisper to her father.
“Look at all this dirt. I miss the green grass and pretty flowers at our old home,” she said. “Remember when I used to pin flowers to my dress? I miss that.”
Rachel missed the flowers at their old house too. Their new cabin didn’t have any flowers growing nearby. In fact, Rachel had noticed only a few little white flowers in all of southern Utah! Mama said they were called sego lilies. Maybe I can find one of those little white flowers tomorrow for Mama! she thought, just before falling asleep.
When sun shone through the window near Rachel’s bed, she knew it was time to get up. She pulled on her dress and tied a ribbon in her hair. She swept the kitchen floor without being asked.
“Thank you for your help, Rachel,” Mama said. “What would I do without you?”
While she did her chores that morning, Rachel tried to think of places she could find a flower for Mama. There has to be at least one flower out here, she thought. But I may have to look everywhere to find it.
She had just finished hanging clothes on the clothesline when she saw her friend Sarah walking toward her. Rachel told Sarah about her plan. With their bonnets tied under their chins, they searched everywhere for something beautiful.
They looked under the wagon. Nothing. They searched through the sagebrush. Nothing. They looked near the edge of the stream. Still nothing.
“Maybe we can find something over there.” Rachel pointed to the field her father was plowing.
The girls walked toward the field. Rachel ran her eyes along the edge from one sagebrush bush to the next. Suddenly she spotted a small white flower. It had three white petals and a purple center. Rachel gasped. It was a sego lily! “Look, Sarah!” she said. “Isn’t that pretty?”
Rachel gently picked the little flower from the red dirt and showed it to Sarah.
“It’s perfect!” Sarah said.
“Mama!” Rachel shouted as they ran toward the cabin. “Look what we found!”
Mama looked up from washing clothes, and Rachel gave her the flower. “Now you have a beautiful flower to pin on your dress.”
“Oh, Rachel. It is beautiful!” her mother said. As she admired the delicate sego lily, tears came to her eyes. She pulled Rachel in for a tight hug. “Let’s put it in some water to keep it fresh.”
As she finished her chores, Rachel kept glancing up at the sego lily. She felt happy every time she looked at it.
In her prayer that night, Rachel thanked Heavenly Father for creating the beautiful flower to grow in the desert. She told Him how happy she was that she found it. Then she climbed into bed. When Papa kissed her goodnight, he said, “What a wonderful surprise, Rachel. You made your mother very happy.”
Then Mama smiled and kissed Rachel on the cheek. “Thank you for finding me a beautiful flower. It reminded me that you’re the most precious gift of all.”

Stake President John D. Jury explained that the camp was established, “because of the need for the young men of our widespread stake to come together for a major camping and hiking experience—to feel the strength of numbers greater than the usual minority status they have in so many of their other associations. I also wanted to allow them to appreciate the beautiful creations that Heavenly Father has blessed us with here in Tasmania. I wanted them to gain an appreciation of the hardships encountered by our forefathers who settled this area and also to practice the skills learnt in Scouting.”
“Our preliminary work involved sending two of the brethren to the island to examine the campsite, the facilities, sea and land transport, and to make recommendations. Then leaders in the stake met at a central location and worked out the details of the basic plan.”
Sixty-eight excited Tasmanians climbed off of the ferry for their adventure on Maria Island. Many had never seen or met the people from the other wards. They also brought many of their nonmember and non-Scout friends. And they had many good leaders, including their stake president and several bishops and fathers, in addition to their Scoutmasters and other priesthood leaders.
The wind was whistling in from Darlington Bay as the boys tried to put up their tents. They struggled alone and in pairs until they quickly learned that it required more help and cooperation than pairs could muster. With many hands and backs bent to the task the tents came up, one by one, and now they stayed up. Pegged tight against the Tasmanian soil, they withstood the stiff sea breezes that are not all that far from Antarctica.
As they were laying out camp and putting up their tents, the boys noticed their wild animal hosts, who quickly established themselves as wonderful combinations of curiosity and nuisance. The emus, wallabies, and kangaroos were everywhere.
Emu watching became one of the full-time chores because they were big and hungry and were not very fussy about what they ate. They quickly earned the moniker, “walking vacuum cleaners.” And then the reason for all of the extra gear became clear: if it wasn’t sealed in a box, tin, billy, or barrel it would be eaten by an emu.
Cries like “There’s an emu in your drum (barrel) eating all your tucker,” “Hey boys, an emu has his head in your grub box,” or “An emu has someone’s bread,” (a whole loaf), or “Watch that wallaby” were a constant part of camp life, especially at mealtime.
From the beginning brushes with emus, the boys were ecstatic about the wildlife on Maria Island. Most of them had never seen kangaroos in the bush, and the emus, wallabies, and all the bird life made every outing and every meal an adventure. One hundred and twenty-nine species of birds live on the island, including some rare birds endemic to Tasmania. Emus, Cape Baron geese, native hens, flame and scarlet robins, white-backed magpies, sea eagles, parrots, and the raucous-sounding kookaburra, which delighted everyone with unbelievable vocal techniques, were pure pleasure to observe and classify.
Listening to the birds was even more fun than watching them. Every morning the camp awoke to a special symphony provided by the local aviary company. Native hens began the first movement by setting up a racket of calls, clucks, and cries. Song birds of all sorts warbled and trilled their beautiful melodies from antiphonal perches in the trees around the camp. Cape Baron geese squawking and chuckling in their cello-like voices added a baritone harmonic presence to the symphony. Arias were freely added with the crescendoing, hyena-like cries of Tasmania’s laughing jackass, the kookaburra. This almost perfect, but loud, symphony suddenly became complete as the deep bass tom tom tom drumming tones of the emu joined in. The emus seemed to sense when the symphony needed their strong rhythmic accompaniment. The same orchestra seemed to go all out to give a wonderful hour-long concert every morning just after daybreak.
Besides the wallabies and kangaroos, other marsupials living near the Scout camp included the potoroo, ring-tailed possums, echidnas, and wombats. The famous Tasmanian devils have never been sighted on Maria Island.
This information alone allowed the boys to sleep easier at night, although many still felt sleeping was the biggest problem at the camp.
“The nights were really bad. The possums were out in force raiding tents and rubbish bins all night. In the whole camp the worst thing was trying to get to sleep. There was one rock that seemed to follow me all night, and between that and the wind and the cold I didn’t sleep much,” said Stephen Szekely, of Launceston.
“The possums through the night gave me the willies because we had to keep bashing them out of our food box and a possum got in our tent and climbed up our tent pole. We broke our torch (flashlight) trying to get him out of there. Then the emus got in our tent and dunged all over Heath’s, Andrew’s, and my sleeping gear. But the kangaroos were great; they weren’t pests like the emus,” said Geoffrey Jones, a nonmember from Glen Huon.
Skinks, frogs, and snakes were also part of the environment. Blue-tongued lizards and white-lipped whip snakes seemed to be created just for the Scouts to observe.
After camp was organized many of the boys walked the few yards to the woodlot for firewood. Captain Scott, the island ranger and caretaker, hauled in large trailer loads of wood, which the boys attacked with zeal and a wide assortment of hatchets and axes. It sounded as if they were chopping stone. The axes actually rang as they glanced off the tough wood. There was never the dull “thunk” sound one hears when chopping a pine log. Australian gum trees make a wonderful fire, but they are very tough and stringy. The wood is hard and dense and easily wears out axes and choppers alike. Most of the trees on the island are varieties of the eucalyptus and include blue gums, stringy bark gums, and white gums.
The boys helped plan and cook their own meals and spent the most amount of time and creative energy on “tea,” the evening meal. Peas, carrots, parsnips, onions, potatoes fried, bully (corned beef), skim milk, and pudding started the week’s teas, and the same kind of robust fare continued every night.
The meals were cooked over open fires in blackened pots and long-handled frying pans. After tea was over and the dishes were cleaned up and put away, the various patrol fires were ringed with boys and leaders. They sat on logs with their arms clasped around their knees, “yarning” about the gospel, cricket, the bad drought in Tasmania, and whether or not any of the political parties would accept Dick Smith’s offer of a one-million-dollar donation to stop the building of the Franklin Dam. American sports also interested them. “What about you, Brother Kelly? Do you like to play gridiron?” they would ask.
Of course this much talk made for more hunger, and so before it was bedtime a spot of cocoa or a cup of hot Milo was welcome. A few went in for more exotic treats.
“We’re having chocolate banners. They’re beautiful. You take a Cadbury’s block and put it in a split banana and then put it in foil and set it in the fire,” said Matthew Sayers.
The young men also enjoyed singing songs around the campfires at night. They sang many folksongs familiar to other English-speaking Scouts, but their favorites seemed to be those with a particular Australian flavor, like “Advance Australia Fair,” “Botany Bay,” and “Gundagai”:
There’s a track winding back
To an old-fashioned shack,
Along the road to Gundagai;
Where the blue gums are growing
The Murrumbidgee’s flowing,
Beneath that sunny sky;
Where my daddy and mother
Are waiting for me,
And the pals of my childhood
Once more I will see,
Then no more will I roam
When I’m heading right for home,
Along the road to Gundagai.
Two taxing bush walks or hikes climaxed the boys’ stay on the island. The first was a long hike east from camp on a track that runs across a narrow part of the island, around the old convict cement works, and up along Fossil Cliffs above Fossil Bay. Here the trail climbs inland through forests of gum trees and across rocky scree slopes. Most of the boys reached the summit, the twin peaks of Bishop and Clerk. Perched on the rocky summit 630 meters above the sea they ate their boiled eggs, sandwiches, biscuits (cookies), and oranges while they drank in the magnificent vistas of Freycinet Peninsula to the north and Cape Bernier to the south.
Wednesday’s 26-kilometer walk to Chinaman’s Bay and back was tougher than the hike up Bishop and Clerk. Everyone brought their bathers (swimming trunks) and a towel, plus lunch. It took several hours slogging along the soft sandy road that followed the shoreline to reach the white beaches of Chinaman’s Bay. The boys showed amazing stamina as they not only kept up but often overtook their leaders.
As four young Scouts passed him, Brother Pash described the feelings of many of the adults when he said, “It’s disgusting, it is, to see little blokes catching us up that way.”
After some very icy swimming (the Tasman Sea carries too much of the Antarctic chill for the less hardy souls), everyone began the long walk back to camp in time to hike down to the ferry dock, meet the afternoon boat, and buy a fizzy (soda pop).
Thursday’s activities included a treasure hunt that lasted several hours and figured as the high point of the trip for many of the boys. Patrols used clues provided by leaders to guide them from point to point around the island. Because the clues were written very subtly the boys’ powers of observation were sharpened, and whether they had to identify the bleached bones of a beached whale or an old cabin used by one of the early penal officers, they gained a new appreciation for the island and its inhabitants.
Wide games (for getting acquainted), softball, cricket, chess, and fishing took up their share of time as did some service projects for the ranger. Most agreed that it was a wonderful camp, but by Friday men and boys alike were ready to go home.
Geoffrey Swanton, 13, summed up the feelings for many when he said, “The camp was a good experience for me. I think the hikes to Bishop and Clerk and Chinaman’s Bay did me good. I’m glad came. The food was good, but there was not enough of it. I reckon the wildlife here is some of the best in Australia. You could pat the wallabies and observe other animals quite close up. The historic value of the island is good and there was always something to do. I wouldn’t mind staying a little longer, but I need a good shower, a good feed-up, and some sleep at home.”
Though everyone had his favorite activities, most agreed that the most successful part of the whole camp was the wonderful associations that were forged in the warm glow of campfire conversations, in the hot dust of the island’s trails, and in the friendly warmth of patrol and tent group prayers.
“At first the camp appeared boring, but by the second day things became all right. I hardly knew anybody from the other patrols at first, but by the end of the camp I had made many new friends,” said David Scott, from Launceston.
“The camp drew us all a lot closer to our leaders, and it made us all work as a group in order to eat or have activities. The camp succeeded. It brought the young men and leaders together and helped to unify the stake Scout force,” said Matthew Parsons, from Glenorchy.
Every leader enjoyed his associations with the young men of the camp. They seemed pleased when the boys wanted to tell them about their troubles and hopes for life.
“I’ve enjoyed getting to really know the boys I’ve been called to watch over. It has helped me to know their strengths, and this camp really opened up the lines of communication between us,” said Bishop Triffith, Devonport.
The young men left the camp with new friends, better associations with their priesthood leaders, and in many cases stronger interests in the gospel of Jesus Christ and the Scouting program. The first all-Tasmanian LDS Scout camp on Maria Island was over, and everyone agreed that it had been a smashing success.

Soon I had brought many names to the temple, but I still questioned if my ancestors on the other side of the veil were accepting these ordinances. I wondered if I was making a difference.
So I prayed for reassurance. And the next time I went to the temple, as I was finishing a sealing for one of my ancestors, the temple sealer turned to me with tears in his eyes. He told me that he could feel my ancestor’s excitement in receiving the ordinance.
I knew that God had answered my prayer and that my proxy work was indeed making a difference.

Sometimes we are unwise and even cruel in our unwillingness to accept change in others. I recently learned of a man who raised his family and pursued his professional life in a small country town. He was not without his problems but was a good man with a great heart who loved the Lord and the gospel. Mistakes, even small ones, are not soon forgotten in some neighborhoods, however; and he never seemed to be “allowed” to grow, blossom, develop, and change into what he could become.

As a missionary serving overseas, he had made a remarkable contribution. The mission president said he had done more to bridge the cultural gap between the two countries than any other adult American was able to do. Yet when his mission was over, he returned to the small town; and without malice or evil intent but with the insistent burden of memory, his neighbors did not invite him or let him be the man he had become, but rather seemed quite prepared to see him as the less attractive man of an earlier period.

Because of their expectations, he completed the last years of his life much less happy and much less involved and surely much less productive to the kingdom than he had been for that one glorious period where people in a new land and in a different time allowed him to change and to be what he really wanted to be and, in his heart, really was.