Gospel Story Finder

In my first semester of teaching we were studying 3 Nephi 11, and, as we had done all semester, the students were taking turns reading aloud verses from our assigned reading. As you know, chapter 11 of 3 Nephi records the appearance of the resurrected Savior on the American continents. As we approached verse 15, it was the turn of a young freshman girl to read. I hardly knew her voice since she sat in the back and was too shy to participate. She began reading:

And it came to pass that the multitude went forth, and thrust their hands into his side, and did feel the prints of the nails in his hands and in his feet; and this they did do, going forth one by one until they had all gone forth, and did see with their eyes and did feel with their hands, and did know of a surety and did bear record. [3 Nephi 11:15]

Then she paused. She could no longer read. There was silence in the class. The other students and I recognized that the peaceful spirit of the Holy Ghost was manifesting to her that what she was reading really did happen. Our Savior did appear in the Western Hemisphere. The Book of Mormon was true.

Several weeks later I was grading the final exams. I came to the exam of this young freshman girl. On the last page she had written: “Brother Farnsworth, thanks for asking me to read in 3 Nephi that day.”

One Saturday afternoon, my father and my brother set out from our ranch to gather a load of wood. My father told my younger sister Elaine and me to look after the ranch and to do our chores during his absence.
He instructed me to go down to our lower field and bring in the milk cows so that they would be in the barn ready for milking when he returned.
I had intended to ride my horse to bring in the cows, but I discovered it had left the barn and was with the cows in the lower field. The only other horse was a big black one that my father had told me not to ride. But, being lazy and not wanting to walk all the way out to the field and back, I decided I’d ride the horse “just this once.” I saddled him up, climbed on, and then tried to pull Elaine up behind me. But the Lord must have been watching over her, and we couldn’t get the horse to stand still long enough for her to climb on.
Promising her a ride on my horse when I returned, I went to get the cows. On the return trip the horse got its legs tangled in some wire farmers use to bale hay for storage and, in its panic to get loose, threw me off.
I was knocked unconscious by the fall, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting on my brother’s bed. Somehow I had walked back to the house, crossing through a number of fields and climbing over several fences. I had blood streaming down my face from a deep wound on the side of my head, and my left hand was bent back against my arm. I also had many scratches and cuts.
As I slowly realized the state I was in, Elaine came into the room crying. I asked her where she had been and she said, “I’ve been praying to Heavenly Father to tell Daddy to come home and take you to the doctor.”
My father said that at the same time this was happening, he was in the middle of cutting a piece of wood when he sensed that there was trouble at home. He stopped what he was doing and said to my brother, “Let’s go home. Something is wrong.” He arrived shortly after I regained consciousness.
I have always been so thankful for my sister and for her trusting and humble faith.

Let me conclude with this personal story to illustrate this final point.
I have a four-year-old granddaughter whose favorite activity is riding her bike, which still has her training wheels on it. Sometimes after work and on weekends, she and I will ride our bike throughout the community. We have traveled on our bikes to the shopping center, to the beach and throughout the streets of our community. Often we would spend hours on the bike and would return home when we were either hungry or it became dark. One day on our bike ride, I decided to bring her to this campus. This was her first trip on her bike to this campus. While riding, we stopped in the Little Circle and she turned to me and asked, “Tutuman whose school is this?” I was surprised that someone so young and who is only in pre-school would recognize that this represented an institution of learning. I replied with a simple answer that this was a school for big people to which she responded again with a child like curiosity, “so who goes to this school?” I thought for a moment then replied, “Well, your Tutuman and your Tutulady had gone here. And then I quickly remembered that there were others in our family as well. So I continued with great pride and gratitude, “Your mom came to this school, and all of your aunties. Your great grandparents also attended this school (that was when it was known as Church College of Hawaii). I then said to her, “Perhaps someday you and your sisters will come to this school.” Feeling satisfied with my answer and having no further questions, we hopped on our bikes and continued our ride.
I have often reflected on that day in the little circle with my granddaughter and our conversation. I was overcome with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and appreciation for the Lord’s direction in my life and for his influence upon my family and our special relationship to this University. I was a beneficiary of the passage, “behold, all things have been done in wisdom of him who knoweth all things” (2 Nephi 2:24).
The Lord knew what was best for my family and me. He had an eternal perspective, I had a limited view. I thought I was getting a college degree, which I did; but in addition to that he gave me a valuable treasure trove of life lessons learned that have helped me become whom I am today. From his eternal perspective, he always knows what is best. Of these things I know and testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I hated school. There was too much homework. It was too hard, and my grades were bad. I thought dropping out was the best thing to do, so I did.
With no high school diploma or GED, I couldn’t get a job. I couldn’t get into the armed forces. I was really having a hard time.
I decided to get my GED, and it took me seven years. Now I know that dropping out was a stupid idea.
Finish school. You’ll be glad you did.
Blake Combe, 25Orofino, Idaho

Doug usually nodded pleasantly and then hurried past the two-story building where many elderly people sat on the front lawn. The people were frail and sad-looking, and most of them just sat there in the sun or shade watching the cars and people go by.
One day as Doug was walking home from school, a white-haired man with faded blue eyes suddenly reached out his hands. The sudden movement frightened Doug, and without thinking he moved to the edge of the sidewalk and started running.
Later that night Doug was ashamed of himself. All those people looked lonely, and probably the old man only needed a helping hand to rise to his feet.
The least I could have done was to stop and ask what the man wanted, Doug thought.
The next morning when Doug went out to feed his dog, Fluffy, he found the chain broken and his dog gone. After thoroughly searching the neighborhood, Doug decided to ask some of the elderly people if they had seen his dog.
He hurried around the corner to the Old Folks Home. And there was Fluffy, wildly wagging her tail while the old man who had frightened Doug the day before patted her.
The boy sighed with relief. “Thank you for finding my dog,” he cried as he dropped down on one knee to cuddle his pet.
“No use trying to talk to him, son,” another elderly man called. “He’s from Russia and can’t understand what you say anyway. We call him Nick because we can’t pronounce his real name. He’s nearly one hundred years old!”
Doug was suddenly filled with a mixture of feelings. He was relieved to find his dog but even more unhappy with himself when he remembered how he had felt the day before about this lonely old man whom Fluffy seemed to like so well. He felt even worse when he learned that the man had no known relatives and had never received a letter nor had a visitor.
Doug reached out and squeezed the old man’s arm in gratitude and sympathy. Then he picked up Fluffy and carried her home so he wouldn’t be late for school.
“Dad, do you know any Russian people?” Doug asked at supper that night.
“Russian? No, I don’t,” his father replied, looking surprised. “Why?”
Doug explained how he had met Nick. “He found Fluffy for me, and so I want to do something for him. It must be lonely not being able to communicate with anyone! I’m going to find someone who can speak Russian and ask him to visit Nick,” Doug said with determination.
“I wish I could help you, son, but I can’t,” his father said. “We have people of Polish and Italian descent in town, but I’ve never met any Russian families.”
Two nights later Doug was doing his homework when he thought of checking the telephone book. He found several long and difficult names, but when he called their numbers, he found they were all of some other nationality. None of them knew anyone who could speak Russian.
Doug began to stop by to visit Nick for a few moments every afternoon on his way home from school. The old man always seemed delighted to see him and enjoyed looking at his school work. On Saturday afternoons Doug brought Fluffy with him. Nick just smiled and nodded to Doug, but he talked softly to Fluffy as he patted her. After that he sometimes saved a piece of meat from his lunch for the dog.
How do you go about finding a Russian? Doug wondered, as he left the lonely old man each day.
One afternoon as he returned home, Doug thought of going to the university for help. He knew they had instructors from all over the world who taught different languages. So Doug raced to his room and wrote a long letter explaining about his friend Nick. He addressed and mailed it to the head of the university.
After almost two weeks went by without an answer, Doug had given up hope. But one evening a telephone call came for him. A man who spoke with an accent explained that he was a Russian touring the country with a group of Russian educators. One of the professors had told them about Doug’s letter. The man said he would be happy to go with Doug to visit his friend on Saturday afternoon.
The frail old man was in his chair as usual when Doug and the Russian educator reached the Old Folks Home. Nick was watching for Doug and Fluffy to appear around the corner, and he looked disappointed when he saw the boy wasn’t alone.
Doug smiled at Nick and then proudly said to the tall man beside him, “This is my friend Nick.”
The man bowed slightly, cupped Nick’s trembling hand in his strong ones, and began to speak.
Nick just stared, not daring to believe what he was hearing. His lips trembled and his eyes filled with tears. Then words started to pour out.
Nick’s excitement and his distinguished guest drew a group of other men. One of them brought a chair for Nick’s visitor. Although they couldn’t understand a word being said, they were all smiling as they watched Nick’s faded eyes sparkle while talking and listening.
Nick told the Russian visitor that his correct age was one hundred three and that he had left Russia over seventy years ago. Nick explained he had never learned English because he was a carpenter and had always worked and boarded with emigrants like himself.
The visitor gave Nick several newspapers in his language. He also gave Doug a simple Russian dictionary so he and Nick could really talk together.
Doug lay awake a long time that night. He was too happy to sleep. Finally he got out the new Russian dictionary and looked at the strange new words.
It will be great to talk with Nick, he thought, but we really don’t need words to be friends!

A woman I know was married about 50 years ago in the temple. After she and her husband had had several children, his turbulent life led to their divorce and to his excommunication from the Church. Then she gave up her own Church membership and chose some thorny paths. Later her former husband passed away. I met her when her daughter brought her to my office to explore whether the mother could ever return to the temple.

After a peaceful conversation about how we can learn from experience without being condemned by it, we discussed the processes of repentance, rebaptism, and the restoration of temple blessings. Then I told her that the restoration ordinance would also restore her temple sealing. Was she ready for that?

The daughter spoke first. “I have bipolar disorder,” she said. “My son is bipolar. We know far more about that disorder than we used to, and we take medications that help. Looking back, I believe my father was bipolar, and that probably influenced many of the hard things in our family’s life. I don’t judge him now.”

The mother answered softly, “If I really can return to the temple someday, I will be ready for my sealing to be restored.”

As I watched them walk down the hall, I realized that the temple and Elijah’s sealing power are sources of reconciliation, turning not only the hearts of children and parents toward one another but also turning the hearts of wives and husbands toward one another. I later received a message that the mother was being rebaptized.

When the Manti Utah Temple was under construction some 120 years ago, George Paxman worked as a finish carpenter. He and his young wife, Martha, had one child and were expecting another.
While hanging one of the heavy east doors of the temple, George suffered a strangulated hernia. He was in terrible pain. Martha laid him in a wagon and took him to the town of Nephi, where she put him on the train and took him to Provo. There he died. Spurning marriage, she remained a widow for 62 years, supporting herself with needlework.
Now permit me to diverge from this narrative to say that when I was engaged to marry my wife, I gave her a ring. When we were married, I gave her a wedding band. She wore them for years. Then one day I noticed that she had taken them off and was wearing this little gold wedding band. It had belonged to her grandmother. The ring had been given her by her husband, George. The ring was the only thing he left in this life. One day in the spring, Martha was housecleaning. She brought all of the furnishings out to give the house a thorough cleaning. Upon shaking the straw from the mattress, she looked down, and the ring was gone. She looked everywhere most carefully. It was the only physical remembrance of her beloved husband. She raked through the straw with her fingers but could not find the ring. Tears fell from her eyes. She went to her knees and prayed that the Lord would help her to find the ring. When she opened her eyes, she looked down and there it was.
Now I hold it in my hand. It is too small for all of you to see. It is 18-karat gold, old and scarred and bent. But it represents faith, the faith of a widow who pleaded with the Lord in her extremity. Such faith is the wellspring of activity. It is the root of hope and trust. It is this simple faith that all of us so much need.

When I was 17, living in West Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, the missionaries taught my family about Joseph Smith’s First Vision. Young Joseph’s desire to communicate with God and know His will resonated deeply with my own desires.
As the missionaries taught us about living prophets and apostles, I asked, “There are Apostles today? Where are they?” They showed us a picture of President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), his counselors in the First Presidency, and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1980. This strengthened my sprouting testimony that God, who is the same yesterday, today, and forever, still needed prophets and apostles to guide His children in modern times.
Over time, both my parents and all 10 children were baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Since coming to know living prophets and apostles, my testimony of their sacred calling and keys has only grown stronger.

I wrote in my journal about band practice that Valentine’s Day. My friend Jill and I had to stay after school a half hour with the rest of the brass section because we couldn’t get the notes right to “When the Saints Come Marching In.”
We tried to phone home for rides, but only got answering machines. So we both had to walk the three miles. We hardly said anything the whole way. Over the last couple of blocks, it started to rain. We couldn’t run very fast because I had my trumpet case and Jill had her French horn case. When we got to Jill’s, she discovered she didn’t have her key, so we ran across the street to my house. We sat in my bedroom with our wet hair and clothes and griped about the day.
We each hoped someone would invite us to the Sweetheart Dance that night. Never mind that neither of us had a boyfriend; we thought someone secretly fascinated with us might make himself known and appear at the last moment. My friend Tara had been asked the week before, and we’d watched a bunch of girls get little bouquets of flowers all day at school. It was getting later, and no one called. We checked the messages on my family’s answering machine and then called Jill’s mother, who had finally gotten home, to ask if there was a message for Jill. The only messages were the two of us begging for someone to give us a ride home from school.
So we knew the dance was out. We were two mediocre band students with soggy hair and no romantic prospects.
Jill looked through my CDs and we played a couple of songs, but they were all about love and romance. I considered trying to see how many ways I could destroy a CD, but CDs are expensive and I only had four anyway.
So it’s no wonder we did what we did, even though there is no excuse for it.
It started when we wandered into the kitchen for a snack. Mom said, “Hi, girls. Sorry I wasn’t home or I’d have come to get you. How was school?”
I just threw her my don’t-ask look.
Mom gave us some leftover heart cookies she had made for Brandon’s kindergarten class. That’s when we saw Brandon’s blank animal valentines he hadn’t used because he wanted the Spiderman ones instead. Even now I don’t know why we took the valentines.
In my room we were feeling unloved and grouchy. We started writing on the valentines. One of them had a hippo on it. It said, “I like you a ton.” I wrote on the back “Weight Watchers, 7:30 P.M. on Tuesday” and signed it illegibly, giggling. Jill started laughing, too. She found one with a skunk on it that said, “Don’t be a stinker—be my Valentine.” On the back of it, she wrote, “Try deodorant and a fly swatter.”
Now we were really rolling. We wrote something mean on the back of every single valentine. We managed to twist every little animal into a negative label.
I’m sorry to say it was my idea to actually deliver the valentines. It was too bad the rain had let up, or it might have squelched the idea. We waited until after dinner and told my mom we would be back soon. Then we ran a few blocks away from our houses. We put each valentine on a porch, rang the doorbell, and ran. We hid behind a car or a tree, then laughed when someone came to the door and looked around with a puzzled expression, finally noticing the white envelope on the doormat. Then they would pick it up and take it into the house. I’m only glad we got tired after leaving eight of them.
At one house, a bunch of little kids answered the door and jumped up and down, hollering, when they found the valentine. We quit after an elderly woman had trouble stooping to pick up her delivery.
Jill went home and so did I, feeling more hollow as the night progressed. I’d started to wonder if the rude valentines had hurt anyone’s feelings. I hoped all the recipients had thrown them in the trash and gone back to watching TV or whatever it was they’d been doing. I thought about how I would have felt to get one of our valentines. I’d have been crushed.
The crummy day got crummier.
In the weeks that followed, Jill and I talked about it.
“Lauren, you know what? I wish we hadn’t done that.”
“I know,” I told her. “I bet that one lady had arthritis or something.”
“Yeah, and maybe her children have all moved away and no one writes to her or calls her,” Jill said.
“And then we go and leave a rude valentine on her porch. Bet that just made her day,” I added glumly.
We sat in silence for a while.
“How can we fix it?” Jill asked.
“I’ve thought about that a lot. But I don’t know. Do you remember whose houses we went to?”
Jill shook her head. “It was so random. We were just going wherever. I don’t know who those people were.”
“We wouldn’t have done it if we had known them.”
“But somebody knows them. They’re somebody’s kids or somebody’s grandmother.”
“Well, keep thinking. Maybe there’s a way to fix this.” But I knew we couldn’t undo the damage we’d done.
I prayed a lot more, all through March and then April. Jill and I both felt terrible. I didn’t write much in my journal. I just didn’t feel like it. My mom always told me I had a hyperactive conscience. But I thought it was better to have a hyperactive conscience than no conscience at all.
I went over and over what we’d done, and I couldn’t stop thinking about it.
The next time we had to stay after school to get a song right, we walked home together. We didn’t even call for a ride because we didn’t feel we deserved one.
On a boring Tuesday in May, I was drifting off in Mr. Bates’s history class when a folded sheet of looseleaf paper slid onto my desk. I popped awake.
I opened it.
It read: “Hey, cute stuff! Tried to call your house but got no answer last night. Do you want to go with me for dinner and a movie on Friday? Let me know after class.” It was signed “Nate Campbell.”
Nate Campbell? Talk about cute stuff!
I folded the note up and turned around to give Nate my most dazzling smile when I saw the name on the front of the note: “Shannon.” It might as well have said in red neon letters, “NOT YOU.” I turned down the wattage on my smile and passed the note to Shannon, two seats up.
Of course the note wasn’t for me. Shannon probably didn’t write mean things on valentines and deliver them to the elderly. A wave of embarrassment swept over me, and I kept fully alert for the rest of the day. Who knew what else I would do to humiliate myself before the day was out?
School ended for the summer, and we still hadn’t figured out how to repair the damage we might have caused by our rude valentines.
The summer passed, and I kept practicing my trumpet. We marched in the Fourth of July parade. I dropped my trumpet once, and some boys laughed and pointed at me. I had to run to catch up to the rest of the band. My face was already hot because of the temperature; afterward, it felt even hotter. My family was nice and told me how well I’d done, avoiding any mention of my klutziness.
The orthodontist put braces on me in July, and I decided I was being humbled by degrees.
I played with Brandon during the summer, and we built a zoo in the backyard with his stuffed animals in cages made out of overturned laundry baskets. We made tickets, and I popped popcorn for everyone who visited the zoo. Word got out in the neighborhood, and some of Brandon’s friends came three times.
I helped Jessica, my seven-year-old sister, set up a lemonade stand, and I counted change and went back and forth to the house to keep her in paper cups. She turned eight and was baptized just before school started again. My brother Stephen gave a short talk about the Holy Ghost, and my sister Emily gave a talk about repentance. And I thought about what I’d done on Valentine’s Day.
Dad baptized Jessica, and she came out of the water smiling and fresh.
I remembered my own baptism and wished I could go back in time. It wasn’t like I’d killed someone, but I was frustrated because I had deliberately done something hurtful I couldn’t undo. If I’d hurt someone I knew, I could have gone to them and told them how sorry I was. I decided that I really needed to think about what I was doing before I did it. What we did wasn’t such a huge thing, but it preyed on my mind.
After the baptism, I found a note on my pillow:
“Dear Lauren, It seems like you’ve been having a rough time lately. If you want to talk, I have two listening ears. I want you to know how proud I am of you. You’ve been a big help with your little brothers and sisters this summer. You’re a thoughtful, kind person. I love you very much. Love, Mom.”
The next morning, I waited until everyone else had gone out to play or work. Mom was busy doing dishes.
“Mom, thanks for your note. I needed it.” I took a breath as she turned around. She was smiling until she saw my face.
“Except I’m not really such a thoughtful person.”
Mom dried her hands with a towel and asked me, “Why not?”
I didn’t want to be too specific. “I just did something mean awhile ago.”
“Did you repent of it?” Mom asked gently.
I shook my head. “I’m still trying to figure out how.”
“Do you need to talk to the bishop about this?”
“No, it wasn’t that mean. I just did something mean to people I don’t know, so I can’t even tell them I’m sorry.”
Mom looked thoughtful. “That is a tough one. But being kind and considerate to your family and everyone you come in contact with may help. You really have been wonderful with the little kids.”
School started and I was lugging my trumpet back and forth again. We put on a concert, and Jill and I did pretty well. I don’t think I played any wrong notes when we played “When the Saints Come Marching In.” I think I had finally gotten it right.
Homecoming came and went. Jill got asked to the dance, but I didn’t. It really didn’t matter. I tended my brothers and sisters while Mom and Dad went out that night. We had a good time watching a Godzilla movie, turning the sound off and making our own subtitles and monster noises.
Jill and I made plans for Halloween. We had received an answer to our prayers, finally coming up with the best thing we could think of to repent for our meanness. We did some baking and targeted certain homes in our ward.
We headed for Sister Campbell’s first. She was living by herself in a tiny farmhouse in the middle of an apple orchard. We rang the doorbell and waited.
“Treat or trick,” we yelled, when she answered the door.
“What?” asked Sister Campbell. “Oh, girls, I wasn’t expecting anyone clear out here. I’m sorry, I don’t have a scrap of candy. But you’re welcome to the apples.”
“That’s okay,” we told her. “We’re reverse trick-or-treating. We bring you the treat.” She laughed and invited us inside. She told us about the things she used to do at Halloween.
“Some of us played terrible pranks.” Jill and I looked at each other. “We knocked over an outhouse while a boy was in it.”
“Oh, no!” I laughed, though I didn’t mean to.
“I felt awful about it,” Sister Campbell said.
“What happened? Did the boy get even with you?”
Sister Campbell giggled. “I’ll say he did. He married me.”
Next we visited the Shepherd family. They have seven kids, ranging in age from three months to 12 years. We offered to help paint faces on the kids and get them into their costumes. Sister Shepherd gladly turned over their Halloween preparations to us while she finished getting dinner ready.
We took some cinnamon rolls to Brother Baird, who walked with a limp. We helped him out to his porch. Then we covered him with a blanket so he could watch the trick-or-treaters. He laughed at the costumes and the excitement of the little kids.
Last, we left notes on some porches. One went to one of our Young Women advisers, thanking her for her wonderful lessons; one to the bishop’s family to thank them for loaning their dad and husband to the ward; and one to Julie Beck, a girl a year older than us who didn’t date much and was shy and quiet. We told her what a nice person she was and how good she was with animals, since she had two well-groomed cats and a parakeet.
We signed the notes legibly this time.
We came home empty-handed but full-hearted, in time to help pass out candy to the little neighborhood ghouls. Maybe we had canceled out our Valentine’s Day mischief. We both felt better about ourselves. We felt like we had repented.
I’ve got it all down in my journal. For a while, I didn’t have anything very good to write about. But I have been writing a lot more lately. Ever since Halloween, I’ve enjoyed holidays so much more.
And life in general.

My father always expected neatness around our farm. As a boy, I had as one of my jobs that of soaping and oiling the harness and hanging up the collars and bridles on the pegs in the harness shop. The surrey had to be washed, greased, and painted regularly—too frequently to suit me. I asked my father, “Why wash the buggy? It’ll just get dirty and dusty again after the first mile or two.” But I made no impression on him and had to do it anyway. And when I painted the buggy, it had to be perfect—no smudges or crooked lines.

I had to whitewash the fence and paint the rose trellis green. Then I had to paint the barn, the granary, and the harness shed. He insisted that everything be neat and clean and in good repair around the house and the farm.

Sis. Tew: One mother was having a horrible experience with her unruly son. He was doing everything wrong. She prayed for guidance and felt the answer was to tell her son that she loved him. For several days she thought about this, but because of his behavior she could not bring herself to say, "I Love you." One evening as she was downstairs doing laundry she walked by his room and saw that he was asleep. She thought, I can say "I love you" when he is asleep. She crept into his room and told him how happy she was that he was her son, and how much she loved him. It felt so good that she continued every night. As he would fall asleep she would go in and tell him how much she loved him. After several years he began to turn his life around, became active in the church, and began to prepare for a mission.
One day a neighbor came by to ask this mother for advice. She was struggling with one of her children. This mother tried to cheer her up. She said, "Just be patient and he will come around." The son overheard this conversation and said, "Mom, tell her the truth." "What are you talking about?" "Tell her how you came into my room every night and told me how much you loved me. I always pretended to be asleep and I would wait for you to come downstairs and tell me you loved me before I would fall asleep. That is what made the difference."
Something as small as saying "I Love you" changed a young man's life.

Spiritual strength frequently comes through selfless service. Some years ago, I visited the California Mission, where I interviewed a young missionary from Georgia. I recall saying to him, “Do you send a letter home to your parents every week?”

He replied, “Yes, Brother Monson.”

Then I asked, “Do you enjoy receiving letters from home?”

He didn’t answer. At length, I inquired, “When was the last time you had a letter from home?”

With a quavering voice, he responded, “I’ve never had a letter from home. Father’s just a deacon, and Mother’s not a member of the Church. They pleaded with me not to come. They said that if I left on a mission they would not be writing to me. What shall I do?”

I offered a silent prayer to my Heavenly Father: “What shall I tell this young servant of Thine, who has sacrificed everything to serve Thee?” And the inspiration came. I said, “Elder, you send a letter home to your mother and father every week of your mission. Tell them what you are doing. Tell them how much you love them, and then bear your testimony to them.”

He asked, “Will they then write to me?”

I responded, “Then they will write to you.”

We parted, and I went on my way. Months later I was attending a stake conference in Southern California when a young man came up to me and said, “Brother Monson, do you remember me? I’m the young missionary who had not received a letter from my mother or my father during my first nine months in the mission field. I’m the one to whom you said, ‘Send a letter home every week, Elder, and your parents will write to you.’” Then he asked, “Do you remember that promise, Elder Monson?”

I remembered. I inquired, “Have you heard from your parents?”

He reached into his pocket and took out a sheaf of letters with an elastic band around them, took a letter from the top of the stack and said, “Have I heard from my parents! Listen to this letter from my mother: ‘Son, we so much enjoy your letters. We’re proud of you, our missionary. Guess what? Dad has been ordained a priest. He’s preparing to baptize me. I’m meeting with the missionaries; and one year from now we want to come to California as you complete your mission, for we, with you, would like to become a forever family by entering the temple of the Lord.’” Then the young man put his hand in mine and asked, “Brother Monson, does Heavenly Father always answer prayers and fulfill Apostles’ promises?”

I replied, “When one has faith as you have demonstrated, our Heavenly Father hears such prayers and answers in His own way.”

Clean hands, a pure heart, and a willing mind had touched heaven. A blessing, heaven-sent, had answered the fervent prayer of a missionary’s humble heart.

No description of models for us to follow would be complete without including Joseph Smith, the first prophet of this dispensation. When but 14 years of age, this courageous young man entered a grove of trees, which later would be called sacred, and received an answer to his sincere prayer.

There followed for Joseph unrelenting persecution as he related to others the account of the glorious vision he received in that grove. Although he was ridiculed and scorned, he stood firm. Said he, “I had seen a vision; I knew it, and I knew that God knew it, and I could not deny it, neither dared I do it.”

Step by step, facing opposition at nearly every turn and yet always guided by the hand of the Lord, Joseph organized The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He proved courageous in all that he did.

Toward the end of his life, as he was led away with his brother Hyrum to Carthage Jail, he bravely faced what he undoubtedly knew lay ahead for him, and he sealed his testimony with his blood.

As we face life’s tests, may we ever emulate that undaunted courage epitomized by the Prophet Joseph Smith.

However, I think most of us would perhaps more identify with a "rank and file" member of the Church named Joseph Millett.

After serving a difficult but fulfilling mission to Canada, Brother Millett returned to his home with a strong testimony of the Lord and a peace borne of conversion in his soul. Years later, Brother Millett, now the father of a large family was suffering through very, very difficult times. In his journal he wrote:

"One of my children came in and said the Brother Newton Hall's folks was all out of bread, had none that day."I divided our flour in a sack to send up to Brother Hall. Just then Brother Hall came."Says I, 'Brother Hall, are you out of flour?' "'Brother Millett, we have none.'""'Well, Brother Hall, there is some in that sack. I have divided and was going to send it to you. Your children told mine that you was out.'""Brother Hall began to cry. He said he had tried others, but could not get any. He went to the cedars and prayed to the Lord, and the Lord told him to go to Joseph Millett.'"'Well Brother Hall, you needn't bring this back. If the Lord sent you for it you don't owe me for it.'"

That night Joseph Millett recorded a remarkable sentence in his journal:

"You can't tell me how good it made me feel to know that the Lord knew there was such a person as Joseph Millett."[38]

This is the peace of the Savior that can and must needs be in each of us continually. Not because we are entitled to it as bespeaks our conversion from the pre-mortal life, but from what we have become in the mortality we all experience now.

Erwin Oertli, a river guide and the oarsman for our raft, gripped the handles of long, wooden oars in knotted fists. The muscles in his arms tightened. There was a growing roar of fast water on rock. The current carried the raft around a bend toward a steep precipice of water. Oertli dropped the tip of an oar and pulled. The raft straightened. The air grew dense, cold, and wet with mist. He turned, smiling.
“This is a good one.” His voice was nearly drowned in the roar.
“It’s the only bad place on the whole river.”
The veins in his neck stood out.
“There are two rocks.”
The sound of the water changed from a roar to thunder.
“The first one is right in the head of the rapids in the roughest water. It’s not hard to miss, but the second rock comes up fast right behind it. You have to row left to miss the first and then hard to the right to miss the second one.”
The river dropped suddenly in front of the raft, looking more like a waterfall than a rapid. The front of the raft hung suspended in wet air and dropped, suddenly, breathlessly, angling down toward the river.
Screams mixed with the explosive sound of the river. Hands grasped desperately to a cord of rope that ran around the inside of the raft.
The raft hit the water, crashing. An engulfing wave, fringed with a thousand sparkling fragments that felt like ice, came up and over and into the raft from all sides, blotting out the blue sky, submerging it. It rose suddenly into the sun, on a high wave mountain, water running off the black rubber sides, and fell again, into an impossible depth, plunging down a steep canyon of water on a roller coaster ride. The water was a gray silk in the waves, and near the crests, edged with sky, it rose up like a white cambric lace.
Oertli, standing, hit the oars hard. The raft moved across the water, turning. He relaxed. The raft rifled past a grizzly turbulence where a boulder, covered with foam and spilling water, back-eddied a whirlpool.
He hit the oars a second time, hard, pulling and leaning, handling the raft with the skill of a master craftsman. The raft moved across the current, and the second rock, also hidden below a mound of the Kootenay’s gray water, swept safely behind.
When we were through the rapids, he leaned back and smiled.
“Good one, huh?”
No one disagreed.

I often saw young men passing by, dressed in a white shirt and ties, two by two. I thought they were Jehovah’s Witnesses.
And, since I was looking for the truth and didn’t know where to find it, why not try them? I said to myself.
When questioning them, they introduced themselves as missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
After two lessons, they invited me to attend sacrament meeting, and, miraculously, I finally felt inner peace. I finally felt at home because I had found the truth I was seeking.

Fourth, give your children the opportunity of having a joyful, happy childhood. The priesthood manual a few years ago quoted a story written in 1955 by Bryant S. Hinckley. It is as follows:
“‘Three hundred twenty-six school children of a district near Indianapolis were asked to write anonymously just what each thought of his father.
“‘The teacher hoped that the reading of the essays might attract the fathers to attend at least one meeting of the Parent-Teacher’s Association.
“‘It did.
“‘They came in $400 cars and $4,000 cars. Bank president, laborer, professional man, clerk, salesman, meter reader, farmer, utility magnate, merchant, baker, tailor, manufacturer, and contractor, every man with a definite estimate of himself in terms of money, skill, and righteousness. …
“‘The president picked at random from another stack of papers. “I like my daddy,” she read from each. The reasons were many: He built my doll house, took me coasting, taught me to shoot, helps me with my schoolwork, takes me to the park, gave me a pig to fatten and sell. Scores of essays could be reduced to “I like my daddy. He plays with me.”’
“Not one child mentioned his family house, car, neighborhood, food or clothing.
“The fathers went into the meeting from many walks of life. They came out in two classes: companions to their children or strangers to their children.
“No man is too rich or too poor to play with his children.” (The Savior the Priesthood and You, Melchizedek Priesthood Manual, 1973–74, p. 226.)

Dr. Heyerdahl—In very large measure that is true. You know, after we broke the huge oars, as big as telephone poles, that we used later on Ra II, I said to myself, There’s no way of making the big oars strong enough to resist the waves as long as the ropes are tied as we have them. We had huge ropes so strong that they would resist the sea; but they allowed the big oars to be broken. Suddenly I got an idea. How stupid! I said to myself. Suppose we were to use a weak rope at the bottom and a strong rope at the top, and then when great force was exerted, the smaller rope would break instead of the oars. We could then throw another rope around the bottom of the oar. It’s much easier to change rope than to mend a broken oar. When I returned and met the leading authority on Egyptian boat design, I said, “Look, this is a mistake. If I were to do it again, I would use a thin rope down below at water level and a thick rope at the top,” and I explained why. Then he said, “Oh, my heavens! Now I understand. On all the drawings of the ancient Egyptians I’ve noticed that they had a thick rope at the top and a thin one below. But I thought it was just the whim of the artist.”

To understand how this story turned out the way it did, you probably need to know Joe. And that’s not an easy thing.
In the small town of Oakley, Utah, if you ask the other teenagers about quiet, soft-spoken Joe Frazier, they say the same types of things: He’s … hmmm? … great to be around. He’s … hmmm? … funny. He’s … hmmm? … I don’t know … He’s just Joe.
Hmmm?
“Let’s put it this way,” says D. J. Glade. “You know how in high school it’s not cool to talk to the younger kids? Well, Joe talks to the younger kids. Joe talks to the older kids. Joe is friends with everyone.”
Come on.
“Serious.”
But then there was Joe, at age 16, lying unconscious in a hospital bed with an oxygen mask over his mouth, a bag dripping into a tube in one arm. The doctors didn’t know what was wrong. It was strange, sobering. And without exception, all of his friends thought, That could be me.
Joe Frazier had been sick for about a month and was getting progressively worse. The doctors were baffled. At first they thought he had a virus, maybe hepatitis. And then, on a July 1994 morning, he was in the kitchen, reached out for the counter, and was suddenly on the floor. His brother, Josh, picked him up and carried him to the car.
The following Monday, Joe was still in the hospital. His parents, Blake and Barbara, were told their son was in very serious condition, that he needed a new liver. The Fraziers’ insurance company did not cover the cost of the experimental surgery, and before Joe could be put on a national transplant waiting list the family would need to raise $125,000.
“We didn’t have time to sell our house or our cars,” says Barbara. “Joe hadn’t been sick in years, and now out of the blue they were saying the word transplant. It was overwhelming.”
The hospital suggested the Fraziers ask a handful of their close friends and relatives to help raise part of the money. The neighbors they asked to help got on the phone to other neighbors who got on the phone to others … well, you get the idea. All they had to say was “Joe is in trouble” and money started appearing. The first donations were from Joe’s brother and sister, Josh and Jamie, who emptied their bank accounts and dug under couch cushions and in the back of dresser drawers for any cash they could find.
Right away, the kids from Joe’s high school got together to brainstorm ways to raise the money. They gave $500 they were saving for their prom. And then they organized car washes, bake sales, a rodeo, and an enormous garage sale.
It was late one evening that week, as the teenagers collected items for the garage sale, that Sam Aplanalp, 15, realized something miraculous was happening.
“The football players were pulling things off a truck when a little boy rode up on his bike,” says Sam. “I know his family doesn’t have much money—and his bike was about all he had in the world—but he wanted us to have it. To help Joe.”
The next day at the sale, a loaf of bread fetched $400 and someone paid $25 for a root beer. At the car wash, 16-year-old Michelle Cooper and her friends washed a stranger’s car who, in payment, handed them two $100 bills. “I don’t know who he was,” Michelle says, tearing up at the memory. “But it taught me that deep down, people really do care.”
On Wednesday afternoon, only a day and a half after the call for donations had gone out, the phone rang in Joe’s hospital room. Barbara answered. It was Joe’s 14-year-old sister, Jamie.
“Mom, you’re missing a miracle,” she said. “I wish you were here to see what the people in town are doing. They’ve already raised $55,000!”
Teenagers from across the county, from all faiths and backgrounds, came together to help raise money and to pray for Joe.
“I don’t think any of us had ever prayed that hard or worked that hard,” says Michelle.
Jake adds, “But we learned where real joy comes from. Passing a test, winning a ball game, having a girlfriend makes you happy—but real joy comes from giving, from sacrifice.”
On the same Wednesday, Barbara and Blake met with their surgeon and told him that Oakley and the neighboring communities in their county had already raised $55,000—in 36 hours. Tears ran down the physician’s cheeks and Barbara recalls him saying, “You have renewed my faith. There really are human beings in the world.” The doctor, realizing the severity of Joe’s condition, had already put him on the transplant list. He said he would not let Joe die without a chance.
When Joe went into surgery the following Monday, the Fraziers had already received $135,000.
But Joe’s fight was not over. He was given only a 50 percent chance of making it through the eight-hour operation. And, says Barbara, “If he hadn’t received the liver that day, he would not have seen another sunrise.”
“The first day I remember is the 24th of July—five days after the surgery,” says Joe. “I remember going to the window to watch the fireworks.”
When Barbara told him what the community had done, Joe seemed strangely sad. “I kinda wish I’d been there to help,” he explained.
On a hot August day with thin clouds in the Utah mountains, the Fraziers’ Thunderbird slowed as it reached the turn into the Kamas valley. Sitting in the passenger’s seat, Joe could see the group of vehicles waiting for him at the intersection, where twisting Brown’s Canyon meets Highway 189.
The fire engine and the cars fell in behind Joe’s car, fender-to-fender. The parade stopped in Oakley, and Joe got out and hugged his mom. A dozen young kids who had donated their toys to the garage sale and who felt in some way they owned a little piece of Joe gathered close to him. And one little guy yelled, “Hey, Joe, how ya feeling?”
There wasn’t a dry eye when Joe smiled and said in a soft voice “fine” and “thank you” and that it was “good to be home.”
“Every street corner, every business, everything was covered with pictures of Joe,” said Barbara. “But when we got home, Joe asked me to get the collection jars out of the store and take his pictures down.
“And then he wanted me to make sure no one had given more money than they could afford.”
Maybe that selfless attitude is why everyone cared, why they did what they did. Who knows? But it’s definitely the reason, when you ask who is Joe Frazier, that all his friends say with love, He’s … hmmm? … he’s just Joe.

Another way to spread happiness with her talents began to develop after she had a conversation with one of her friends in the hospital. She and a fellow patient laughed at their thoughts of “how you know you’ve been in the hospital too long.” These quips soon turned into a coloring book Brittany drew called Life Is Full of Color. Each page has one of Brittany’s drawings and a humorous blurb, like, “You know you’ve been in the hospital too long when you can work your own IV pump” or “… when your room at the hospital is more decorated than your room at home.” The coloring book was published and is now being given to children in the hospital. Brittany hopes it helps them know they’re not alone in their trials.