Gospel Story Finder

My father also taught me to be honest about keeping the Sabbath day holy. As a young boy, I remember how he enjoyed playing baseball, but he never played a game on the Sabbath. I too loved this sport. My father asked me not to ever play ball on Sunday, and I promised to obey his wishes.
I kept that promise even though at one time I was offered a chance to try out for big league baseball. It was easier to let this opportunity go by when I thought of the example of my father and had so much respect for him.

As a new convert to the Church, I always like to help the missionaries in my ward. I’ve often seen that even when investigators aren’t comfortable with hearing the discussions, they are happy to participate in family home evening.

One time I invited the full-time missionaries and an entire nonmember family to my family home evening. Before they arrived, I fasted and prayed that the Spirit would be present and would open their hearts to the gospel. We watched a missionary video about helping families progress and developing trust. Afterward we shared our feelings about the video. The Spirit was so strong.

Now this wonderful family is willing to learn more about the gospel by meeting with the missionaries. We have all been invited to help with missionary work, and I have seen that family home evenings are an effective way to share with others the joy of having the gospel in my life.

Maria de los Angeles Vilca Zeballos, Peru

In 1992, just three years after Naume and I were married, we were struggling with the basic necessities of life. A friend?—Jerry D. Hymas from San Diego, California, USA?—taught me a self-reliance principle that has made a difference in our lives, even in times of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown, which we experienced from 2000 to 2008. Jerry said to me, “Eddie, here is a formula for financial success that has worked for me over the years and has enabled me to retire early. When you receive your paycheck, you (1) pay tithing, ten percent; (2) pay ten percent to yourself; and (3) save ten percent for emergency purposes.” Then he looked at me and said, “Never spend money you do not have.”
Naume and I have always paid our tithing and enjoyed the promised blessings, but we did not know about the other 20 percent he shared with me. Since then, Naume and I tried to the best of our ability to follow this model, and it has blessed us tremendously.
I recommend this to anyone, especially young adults and young couples. Navigating through life may seem daunting, but moving forward with faith and with a vision will help you reach your full potential. One has to have a financial plan. President M. Russell Ballard, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, promised, “When one learns to master the principles of setting a goal, he will then be able to make a great difference in the results he attains in this life.”1
For purposes of simplicity. here is what I would teach my grandchildren: I would teach them what to do with a dollar. I would teach them that their financial ability depends on what they do with a dollar. From the onset they would need to understand two challenges of life:
The development of their full potential.
The wise use of all their resources.
Most people, including myself, have gone through life saying, “If I had more money, I would have a better plan.” What I failed to grasp is that if I had a better plan, I would have sufficient money. While Jerry Hymas in 1992 taught me the plan of financial prosperity, this plan actually was taught by our loving Father in Heaven, in the Old Testament when He said, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
If you have a dollar never spend more than 70 cents. If my grandchildren—wherever they may be, or in any circumstance they may be in—if they could just grasp this principle, never spend more than 70 cents of each dollar which comes their way, through gifts or labor they will prosper. They will understand what the Lord said, “the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare” (D&C 104:17).
These principles will bless all of us: those who are currently employed need to plan for the future as well as those of us who are struggling in life and surviving hand to mouth. This concept would be a great blessing and help in being self-reliant. My suggestions on where to begin would be this:
Ten cents is for the Lord. Pay tithing. President Russell M. Nelson taught: “To develop enduring faith, and enduring commitment to be a full-tithe payer is essential. Initially it takes faith to tithe. Then the tithe payer develops more faith to the point that tithing becomes a precious privilege.”2 This life-changing teaching from the Lord’s prophet is very true.
Ten cents is forcapital. Put it somewhere where you cannot access it or use it. This could be for 10, 15, or more years. When I think of this ten cents, I am reminded of my mother. She would sift through very good ground nuts and maize and put some aside for seeds. She would fumigate—or we were made to believe, so that we would not be tempted to roast that maize and eat those ground nuts when we were hungry. Mother never used the seeds, even in the dire situations. She would rather have us go without than to eat those seeds. They were to be planted in the following rainy season and have them multiply. She would do the same in each harvest. She was never dependent on government handouts.
Ten cents helps to make sure that you would not buy anything in credit—except for a house. When one invests this ten cents, its having someone else use it with an interest to yourself. It’s not the amount that counts, it’s the PLAN!
Do this and watch the numbers change and fulfill your Heavenly Father’s blessing to you, be fruitful! In reality it is not more of what we will get, but what we are becoming. Our forebearers saw what they would become.
During the Great Depression in the United States of America, the Lord’s prophet, seer and revelator declared: “Our primary purpose was to set up, in so far as it might be possible, a system under which the curse of idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift and self-respect be once more established amongst our people. The aim of the Church is to help the people to help themselves. Work is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership.”3 This principle has blessed lives inside and outside the Church throughout the world.
My humble invitation to you is to rise and be fruitful.

I know of a wonderful man who grew up with love for the Church. But when he became involved in his business career, obsessed with ambition, he began in effect to deny the faith. The manner of his living became almost a repudiation of his loyalty. Then fortunately, before he had gone too far, he heard the whisperings of the still, small voice. There came a saving sense of remorse. He turned around and became the president of a great stake of Zion.

As some of you know, I was raised on a cattle ranch in Utah. President Brigham Young sent my ancestors to the little town of Vernon, Utah about 150 years ago to help settle the area. Our house sits 3 miles west of our town of about 200 people and was home to me for many years. It is a lonely, windy, and quiet place that is too hot and dry in the summer and too cold and dry in the winter but it is a place that I love. Our kitchen faces the low Vernon Mountains that are about 4 miles directly west of us. The evenings are often very quiet and very dark. When you go outside at night, the Milky Way galaxy is spectacular in the heavens above. One evening when I was about 15 or 16 years old, my family was eating dinner around our big kitchen table. While enjoying one of my mother's wonderful dinners, the darkness on the other side of the kitchen window suddenly disappeared as a very bright light lit the Western sky. Within the light was another even brighter object that slowly ascended above the mountains. Obviously, the entire family sat riveted as we watched this bright light permeate the darkness and rise into the heavens. I'm not sure what the other members of my family were thinking, but I had two thoughts that immediately came into my mind. Number one: This is the Second Coming of Christ, and the second thought was, "I'm not ready, and I'm in trouble." I will never forget the feeling and the thoughts that went through my mind at that time as I quickly examined my life and found myself lacking in too many areas. Fortunately, it was not the Second Coming of the Savior, but a rocket that was launched into the sky from the Nevada testing site.

At the very beginning of my talk, I mentioned an evening around the dinner table when we saw that missile shoot up into the sky and I thought that perhaps it was the Second Coming. I knew at that moment, that whether or not I was ready to meet the Savior was entirely up to me. As much as my parents, brothers, and sisters would have wanted to help me rise up to meet the Savior it would have been impossible for them to do so. I had been taught the gospel. I could not plead ignorance and I felt that in some ways I had procrastinated the day of my repentance. I understood, perhaps for the first time, the parable of the 10 virgins. I always wondered why the five who were prepared would not share their oil with the five that were not prepared. It sounded kind of selfish to me. I understand now that preparedness is an individual opportunity that we cannot share.

I remember reading several years ago of a man who had gone into the wilderness area of the state of Montana with a companion on a big game hunt. The hunters came upon a grizzly bear at rather close range, and one of the men fired at the bear and wounded it. In a rage the huge animal charged the hunters. One of them, in panic and in a desperate attempt to save himself, climbed into the lower branches of a small tree close by. The tree was not large enough to support the man’s weight and hold him beyond the reach of the bear’s powerful claws and jaws. Before his companion could destroy the bear, it had inflicted such serious injuries on the treed hunter that it was necessary to amputate both his legs in order to save his life.

Matthew, Andrew, and Isaac aren’t the only brothers in the Clarkson family. There are four more: Levi (9), Eli (7), Sam (4), and Titus (2), and a baby on the way.
When President Nelson invited the women of the Church in October 2018 general conference to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year, Matthew, Andrew, and Isaac, along with their father and younger brothers, decided to offer Mom their support. “We’ll read it with you!” they said. Every morning before seminary, they woke up to read together.
“When we took on this challenge, I thought it was going to take a lot of time,” Andrew says. “I worried that I wouldn’t have enough time to do everything I wanted to do, like play the guitar or hang out with my friends. But I realized that it just doesn’t work like that. The more I was into reading the Book of Mormon, the more time I actually seemed to have. I realized that if I keep up on reading the scriptures as much as possible, my life is balanced. I have more time in the day.”
Matthew was going through a hard time when the family started reading every morning. He says, “I wasn’t doing well in school. I struggled with my personal scripture study and my relationship with Heavenly Father, and I kept it all to myself. I didn’t talk about it with my parents.”
However, as Matthew spent more time reading the Book of Mormon, the gospel began to take first priority in his life. He also put more effort into school. He worked hard and got his grades up.
“I also realized how much Heavenly Father and my parents love me and how much they help me. And I have a greater testimony of Jesus Christ. He has helped me overcome bad habits and helped me get my life headed in the right direction. I’m so glad we took President Nelson’s challenge as a family. It changed my life.”
Accepting President Nelson’s invitation also strengthened Isaac’s testimony. “We circled the words God, Lord, Redeemer, Savior, and Christ every time we found them,” he says. “On the day we finished, I flipped through the Book of Mormon and saw all the words I had circled. I thought, ‘Man, that’s a lot!’ I had never noticed how many there were. I felt much more spiritual reading the Book of Mormon. I’m glad we did it.”
Matthew, Andrew, and Isaac are amazed that their family finished the Book of Mormon in just two months. “It usually takes us a year,” Isaac says. Together, they discovered the blessings of following the prophet’s invitation.
“If you do what you’re supposed to do,” Andrew says, “like building a relationship with Heavenly Father through prayer, scripture study, and staying fully active in the Church, life is so much better.”
These three brothers have helped each other progress in the gospel. They follow the prophet, who has called on members “to increase their faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and in His Atonement, to … [make] and [keep] their covenants with God, and to strengthen … their families.”1

For example, when the Richinses arrived in Jamestown, Tennessee, an eighty-five-year-old man, Mr. Miller, lived behind them. One day Mr. Miller walked over to the Richins’ apartment and asked if he could borrow their landlord’s ladder so someone could fix his leaky roof. But no one ever came to borrow the ladder. After several weeks Elder Richins put his work clothes on, picked up the ladder, and was halfway up to the roof when Mr. Miller came out of the house.
“What are you doing, preacher?” he called.
“I’m going to fix your roof.”
When he was through, Mr. Miller opened his wallet and pulled out a couple of twenty-dollar bills. “I want to pay you for the work.”
“I’ll tell you how you can pay me,” said Elder Richins. “Say thanks. That’s all the pay I want. We Mormon ‘preachers,’ as you call us, don’t take money for doing the Lord’s work.”
Mr. Miller insisted. But Elder Richins said: “No, I did it as a friend. I did it because we love you.”
“But I don’t belong to your church!”
“You’re still God’s child, same as the rest of us.”
Several weeks later a non-Mormon grocer told Elder Richins the rest of the story. Mr. Miller’s minister accosted him in the grocery store and reprimanded him for not attending church lately. The old man took the rebuke mildly, but got angry when the minister began criticizing his Mormon neighbors:
“Listen here,” he reportedly said, “don’t you ever say anything about that Mormon preacher. He fixed my roof after I had tried for months to hire somebody from your church to do it. But the Mormon preacher did it, and he did it by himself.”
“Yes”, returned the minister, “but what’d he charge you?”
“Oh, he won’t take money for doing the Lord’s work!”
That experience—and others like it—were talked about all over town, and people felt willing to invite the Richinses into their homes. The Richinses were the first missionaries in Jamestown for four months because antagonism had been so strong, but within three months, they had met every minister in town, and anti-Mormon propaganda ceased as they made friendly contacts with the radio station managers and other town leaders.

Last year I went on a hike with my dad and brother. We hiked deep into the canyon. We soon started exploring a side trail. We found large caves and great lookout points. We climbed higher and higher over loose rocks and steep hills.
After a while we were completely lost. We didn’t know which way to go to get to the bottom of the canyon. We got stuck in thick brush, losing sight of both the top and bottom of the canyon. I started to get really frustrated. I did not know where to go, and neither did my dad!
It was getting dark and cold, and we were far from getting out of the canyon. I knew that Heavenly Father knew which way to go.
I said, “If we want to get out of here, we need to pray!” So the three of us knelt down in prayer, asking Heavenly Father to lead us out of the canyon.
As we started to walk, a feeling told me that when I saw a straight tall tree, I should turn left. After I turned left, I saw our car. I knew that Heavenly Father helped us get out of the canyon. Heavenly Father answered our prayer, and we made it out safely—just as the sun was setting.
I am so thankful for the power of prayer and for Heavenly Father’s listening ear.

A few years ago, I spoke to a friend who had attended a church meeting earlier that day and enquired how it was. The response was negative; apparently the talks were poor and the meeting not at all edifying. Later that day I spoke to another friend who had attended the same meeting and I made the same enquiry. ‘It was wonderful’ was the response.
I have often pondered about the experience of these two friends. Both attended the same meeting and heard the same talks, yet one had left spiritually hungry, and the other completely nourished. It’s possible that the subject of the talks simply resonated more with my second friend. However, I imagine it was much more than that. My second friend had gone spiritually prepared to listen with an open heart and with a desire to act on that which they heard.
Certainly, those assigned to speak or teach should diligently seek the guidance of the Spirit in relation to the topic, the content, and the presentation of their instruction. My experience though is that those attending have at least equal responsibility to prepare themselves spiritually so that they can be edified and to possess a willingness to act on that which they hear.
When I read the Book of Mormon, I feel the great power of the words of Nephi, of King Benjamin, of Alma, Mosiah and others. At general conference, that same power is present from our prophet, President Russell M. Nelson and the other leaders and general officers of the Church.
Consider just a few instructions from general conference in recent years:
“But, my dear brothers and sisters, so many wonderful things are ahead. In coming days, we will see the greatest manifestations of the Savior’s power that the world has ever seen. Between now and the time He returns ‘with power and great glory,’ He will bestow countless privileges, blessings, and miracles upon the faithful.”2
“I am learning that Heavenly Father is more interested in my growth as a disciple of Jesus Christ than He is with my comfort. I may not always want it to be that way—but it is!
“Living in convenience does not bring power. The power we need to withstand the heat of our day is the Lord’s power, and His power flows through our covenants with Him.”3
“Nothing opens the heavens quite like the combination of increased purity, exact obedience, earnest seeking, daily feasting on the words of Christ in the Book of Mormon, and regular time committed to temple and family history work.”4
“The Savior loves to restore what you cannot restore; He loves to heal wounds you cannot heal; He loves to fix what has been irreparably broken; He compensates for any unfairness inflicted on you; and He loves to permanently mend even shattered hearts.”5
What wonderful instruction, edification, and invitations to act from these and the hundreds of other inspired talks. As we participate in general conference, either in person, through live streams, or reading or watching the talks afterwards, I invite each of us to spiritually prepare to be edified, and to be willing to act on that which we hear. Just as King Benjamin counselled the people of his time, so will the leaders of today guide us through these precarious and tumultuous times, building our faith in Jesus Christ and inviting us to make choices which will keep us safely on the covenant pathway.

I’d like to tell you of a man that I knew well when I was in the government. He was head of one of the largest drilling companies in Canada. He began social drinking and continued until his friends were telling him he was an alcoholic and encouraging him to leave it alone. I was talking to him one day (I knew him well) after he had greater control of himself. He said, “I wouldn’t believe that I was an alcoholic until I found myself in the gutter. And then I went to Alcoholics Anonymous.”
I said, “Would you come and talk to my M-Men and Gleaner group?”
He said, “I’ll be glad to tell anybody if I can help them.”
As he talked to them, he told them how he had become an alcoholic, and then he said, “No man, no matter how well-to-do he is, can afford to take the first drink of alcohol.” He was fortunate in that Alcoholics Anonymous made it possible for him to cure himself.

A neighbor once told me that as a missionary in earlier days he and his companion were walking along a ridge in the mountains of the South. They saw people gathering in a clearing near a cabin some distance down the hillside. They had come for a funeral. A little boy had drowned, and his parents had sent for the preacher to “say words.” The minister, who rode a circuit on horseback, would rarely visit these isolated families. But when there was trouble, they would send for him.
The little fellow was to be buried in a grave opened near the cabin. The elders stayed in the background as the minister stood before the grieving family and began his sermon.
If the parents had hoped for consolation from this man of the cloth, they were disappointed. He scolded them severely because the little boy had not been baptized. He told them bluntly that their little son was lost in endless torment, and it was their fault.
After the grave was covered and the neighbors had gone, the elders approached the grieving parents. “We are servants of the Lord,” they told the sobbing mother, “and we’ve come with a message for you.”
As the grief-stricken parents listened, the elders unfolded the plan of redemption. They quoted from the Book of Mormon, “Little children need no repentance, neither baptism” (Moro. 8:11) and then bore testimony of the restoration of the gospel.

Recently, as our small group of missionaries was traveling from the Ghana Accra Missionary Training Centre to our mission assignment in Lubumbashi, we met two women at the Kenya airport departure lounge. As newly trained missionaries having a great desire to teach, we approached and made acquaintance with them. After introducing ourselves, I had the opportunity to present the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is what we strive to share with everyone.
It was difficult for those women to give us much time to listen, or to accept an appointment, or even to take the pamphlets we offered them. But an idea came to my mind that we should not insist but rather that we should just bear simple testimony of the gospel.
Right before boarding the plane bound for Lubumbashi, one of those women approached and told me that she had been thinking about what I had said and was now aware that this message was important for her and her whole family. Her interest came about simply because of the testimony I had borne and the confidence that I had to say that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the only true Church here on the earth.
She also said to me that she had been asking herself two questions: “Why was this young missionary able to bear such a sure testimony?” “How can I also gain a testimony of these things myself?”
Apparently, my testimony had preoccupied her, and I immediately realized that just bearing our testimony influences many people to ponder and be converted.
This airport experience taught me that our testimony does not depend on eloquence—or the power of our voice—but it does depend on the conviction of our heart. That is why when we become converted, our testimony has power and affects those who listen to it.

One day I attended a conference with our one-year-old daughter. In the conference, an Area Seventy talked about the responsibility of parents to teach the gospel to their children. He then made a promise that left a huge impression on me. He said: “If, after everything you can do to teach the gospel, one of your children leaves the Church, they will still be blessed because of the memory of the things they experienced at home.”

The words of that Area Seventy filled me with hope because I had nieces and nephews who had left the Church. Years later my daughter, the same one-year-old I held in my arms during that conference, left the Church when she turned 17. She had met someone who was not rooted in the gospel, and they got married. She never went to church after that.

This was painful for me. I asked myself over and over what we did wrong. Her father and I always tried to keep the commandments and serve in the Church. We love our children and want the best for them. After many tears and questions, we finally concluded that children grow, exercise their agency, and don’t always believe the things they’re taught at home.

Unfortunately, my daughter’s marriage fell apart, and she still doesn’t want to come back to the Church. All I can do is remember the promise that she will remember and be blessed because of the things she was taught at home.

I continue to pray for my daughter. I love her with all my heart, and it hurts me to see her distanced from the Church. But I know that, despite my imperfections, the things I taught her are right and true. I know that Heavenly Father is just and loving and that He listens to our prayers. Without any doubt in my heart, I know that if I do my part, He will answer them in the moment He sees right.

A young boy and his parents are on the Brooklyn with other Latter-day Saints going to California in 1846. First a raging storm, the worst the captain had ever experienced, then the Doldrums, a part of the ocean so calm that the ship was motionless under a blazing sun, threatened their lives. Finally a wind came up and blew them toward Cape Horn, expected to be the most dangerous part of their journey.
Since leaving New York, we voyagers aboard the Brooklyn had seen nothing but ocean and sky day after day, week after week, month after month.
We were running out of food, and what we had was stale and wormy. We had to inspect every bite we ate for cooked or crawling insects or larvae. Rats multiplied faster than the cats could catch them. They nibbled away at the little food we had. Cockroaches and weevils devoured more of it.
The drinking water tasted terrible and was full of stringy slime. Each person was allowed only two cups a day.
As the calendar flipped from April to May, the Brooklyn came closer and closer to Cape Horn. In the Southern Hemisphere, it was nearly winter, the season of the most hazardous weather. Could the ship successfully round the corner and head north into the “peaceful Pacific”? Or would it be dashed to pieces and buried forever in the “graveyard of the oceans”? I wondered and worried.
The days were getting shorter and shorter. We hardly saw the sun at all and never got a glimpse of land.
Finally a wind came along from the east that carried the ship far enough west to clear the Cape. The date was May 4, 1846, exactly three months after the voyage began.
Everyone rejoiced that the most dangerous part of the trip had been so easy. Children romped and played on the deck, and the women celebrated by making bread, pies, cakes, and doughnuts. They weren’t worried about using up the last of the flour and sugar—we planned to stop in Valparaiso, Chile, to get more supplies. It couldn’t happen too soon to suit me!
The Brooklyn moved north, parallel to the coast of Chile. Still no land was visible, and one man wondered aloud if the captain really knew where we were. To prove that he did, he maneuvered the ship closer to the coast and pointed to a peak barely visible in the distance. He said it was Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Andes and not far from our landing place.
At last, after more than three months, we had actually seen some land. What a welcome sight! How I longed to step on solid ground again. I watched eagerly as we moved closer and closer to the steep mountain range and the city below.
But we never reached Valparaiso!
As we neared the port, the temperature suddenly dropped and a frigid wind whipped the sails. A raging gale blew us back toward the cape—so far south that we could see icebergs! Seamen fought for control of the ship as the fierce storm continued. Ice froze on the sails and the rigging. The masts were almost impossible to manage. A sailor was washed overboard and nearly drowned before he was rescued. Passengers were hatched below again.
Captain Richardson tried several times to land on the west coast of Chile. After three difficult days, he gave up going to Valparaiso and headed for some islands 360 miles out in the Pacific.
“The Juan Fernández islands,” Papa said. “One of them is called Robinson Crusoe’s island.”
“You mean the place where he was shipwrecked and lived all alone until he found his man Friday?”
“Well, that was a make-believe place, just as Robinson Crusoe was an imaginary man. The Juan Fernández are real islands where a real sailor, Alexander Selkirk, was put ashore after he had an argument with the captain of his ship. He lived alone for four years, waiting to be rescued. His experiences there gave Daniel Defoe the idea for his book.”
It might not have been Robinson Crusoe’s island, but a real island where an actual man was marooned sounded like an exciting place to visit!
The first thing we saw as we approached was a tall, green hump on the horizon. What a pleasant sight to see a color we’d almost forgotten. As we came closer, we could see rocky mountains covered with heavy forests. Wispy clouds wound around the tops of the peaks like ladies’ scarves blowing in the wind.
As we neared the shore, we had a closer view of the beautiful island. It looked like the Garden of Eden to me! All kinds of trees, shrubbery, ferns, and flowers were growing everywhere. Ripe fruit hung on some of the trees—peaches! How my mouth watered! Several natives stood on the beach, waving a welcome as we approached.
Even though we didn’t understand their words, their actions made it clear that we were welcome to anything we needed. Fruits and vegetables grew everywhere. We filled up on peaches, figs, and potatoes. The ocean and streams teemed with fish. Great spotted eels were caught and cooked. Some people refused to eat them because they looked too much like snakes. They didn’t go hungry, though. Goats, hares, and pigs provided other kinds of meat.
We splashed and bathed in the fresh water. Papa fished and gathered firewood; Mama washed the clothes and hung them on the bushes to dry. My friends and I rambled around the island, exploring tunnels and caves in the porous rock.
After five wonderful days, the Saints helped the crew load the Brooklyn with vegetables, fruit, meat, freshly salted fish, 18,000 gallons of fresh water, and plenty of firewood for cooking.
As we sailed away, Papa remarked, “God works in mysterious ways.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“He knew that we didn’t have enough money to buy the supplies we needed in Valparaiso, so He sent a storm to keep us from landing. Then He led us to this beautiful island where we could get food, water, and fuel at no cost.”
“It’s strange,” I said, “that something that seems terrible at the time can turn out to be a good thing.”
“That’s quite often the case,” Papa assured me.
When we left the Juan Fernández islands on May 9, I wondered what other surprises the “peaceful Pacific” might have in store for us.

At the conclusion of his mission, Chris decided that he could not return to the atmosphere at his former college. He thought that was also a decision to give up football, and he was willing to do it.
Just as Chris was completing his mission, his mission president contacted BYU about Chris. At first, becoming a BYU football team member didn’t seem like a possibility, but he was invited to try out. He received a full-ride scholarship but was redshirted a year. Once Chris thought sitting out a year would be horrible, but now it was a blessing. He was able to concentrate on his major, a difficult one, in manufacturing engineering and technology. He feels that the Lord has guided his life because at BYU he has had the opportunity to continue missionary work as a ward mission leader. Football will fall by the wayside. That’s fine with Chris. It no longer has his heart.

Finally, consider some more practical and spiritual kinds of lessons we have yet to learn from the Book of Mormon. As bishop of a BYU student ward, I found over and over that answers to spiritual struggles were there to be found in the Book of Mormon, but they did not sink in until we had prayerfully searched the scriptures to obtain an answer to our needs.

For example, I had one member in my ward who could not feel completely forgiven, even though she had sincerely tried. It occurred to us how Benjamin had counseled and commanded his people that they must impart of their substance to the poor in order to retain a remission of their sins from day to day (Mosiah 4:26). This turned out to be the answer. Giving offerings to the poor has long been a part of holy Israelite fast days on which they sought atonement for their sins. Perhaps here is a lesson we all should learn, a forgotten step in the repentance process, to remember the poor and the needy.

I was asked during a difficult pregnancy if I wanted to mentor a refugee single mother. And even though I am both a refugee and was for a time a single mother, I am embarrassed to admit that I said I couldn’t serve as a mentor. But this refusal didn’t sit well in my heart. The Spirit told me loud and clear that I had made the wrong decision. It took two months, but I repented, and by divine providence I was still able to be this woman’s mentor.

My new friend’s name was Speratha. I remember the very first time I met her. I walked into her simple apartment, and it was clean but entirely empty. She had no mattress or table or even a chair inside. As we sat on the floor to get to know each other, I learned that she had lost almost her entire family in the genocide in Rwanda. I will never forget what happened next. The Spirit brought to my mind my own empty apartment growing up. You see, when my family immigrated from Iran to the U.S., we initially planned to stay for only one year, but our decision to join the Church caused us to decide to remain permanently. Leaving an established life in Iran for the freedoms of America came with challenges, including, for a time, a lack of furniture. So when I saw Speratha’s empty apartment, I felt a kinship with her and remembered driving around with my parents looking for mattresses and furniture people had discarded on the side of the road that we could bring home.

At this very moment when my childhood flashed before my eyes, the Spirit whispered to my heart, “She is your sister,” and I felt a profound, instant love for her that I know could have only come from God. I remembered in that moment that we had also escaped a fraught political environment and were “brought by the hand of the Lord” to America24 and that once we were here, we were blessed by disciples of Christ who opened their hearts to us. I decided at that moment that Speratha was my sister, and I told her that.25

Speratha felt her Savior’s love through people who loved her and helped fill her home with furniture and her kitchen with essentials. Over the years this outpouring of love lifted her spirits and gave her a new family. During the pandemic, I worried she could not feel our love and support, and I was prompted that her heart would need a lasting, more perfect love. So I anonymously signed her up for Mutual, the dating app. Just kidding. I reached out to the missionaries and referred them to teach her about Jesus Christ. After seven months of study and prayer, Speratha decided to get baptized. Her heart was changed as she became a disciple of Christ. This was made possible because I repented and the love of God filled my heart—and then hers.26

“Did I ever tell you about the Missouri snake?” Grandpa asked.
“No,” said Emily. She sat down on the cool grass to listen.
“One day, my brother Lee and I were out playing by a rock pile, when we saw a snake, a great big one. Mom had told us to stay away from snakes because one might be poisonous, and we were scared. Lee and I started throwing rocks at it. We threw so many that we moved nearly the whole rock pile!” he said.
“Did you kill the snake?” Emily asked.
“I don’t know,” Grandpa Charles laughed. “We never did get brave enough to go and see.”

A second simple example addresses the finished quality of being temperate, which is defined as being self-restrained and using self-control. At the unfinished end of this particular spectrum resides eagerness for attention and recognition, as well as egoism, defined as seeking the welfare of oneself only and talking too much about oneself.

Fifteen years ago, as a young stake president, I was associated with a priesthood leader who was talented and charismatic and could touch many lives. As time passed, however, it became clear that being temperate was not a refined quality within him. He was at the other end of that spectrum and was egoistic, eager for attention and recognition, and too talkative. As his priesthood leader, I tried to help him fit into patterns that would reduce his vulnerability for the associated spiritual illness. I watched him struggle at length, then finally succumb to a spiritual illness, then lose his marriage, family, friends, testimony, and the gospel. Again, I wondered how crucial each of the early, simple but untaken steps were and where he could be now had he understood better his weakness and adjusted his choices to fit into them to reduce his vulnerability.