Gospel Story Finder

I urge you to do what a missionary companion of mine did. He had run away from home as a teenager, and someone had placed a Book of Mormon in a box he carried with him in his search for more happiness.
Years passed. He moved from place to place across the world. He was alone and unhappy one day when he saw the box. The box was filled with things he had carried with him. At the bottom of the box, he found the Book of Mormon. He read the promise in it and tested it. He knew it was true. That witness changed his life. He found happiness beyond his fondest dreams.

Riiiing!
Tony grinned as he stood up from his desk. It was finally time for recess!
Other kids ran past him toward the playground, but Tony hung back. He was waiting for Sean. Sean was new to Tony’s class. Maybe they could play together.
“Hey, Sean!” Tony said. “Do you like basketball?”
“Like it? I love it!” Sean said.
“Awesome.” Tony grinned. “Come on. Let’s play!”
Tony and Sean spent the whole recess dribbling, passing, and shooting hoops.
“That was fun!” Tony said as they walked back into the classroom. “You’re really good.”
“Thanks,” Sean said. “It’s fun to play with someone who likes basketball as much as I do!”
Every day after that, Tony and Sean played basketball together at recess. They practiced different plays they made up and perfected their dribbling. Tony loved the swoosh the basket made when the ball fell through the net.
“Here you go!” Tony called. He passed Sean the ball. Sean caught it and jumped to score. Tony noticed a flap hanging down from one of Sean’s shoes.
The basketball bounced off the rim of the hoop. “Oh, almost,” Tony said. “Good try!”
“Thanks,” Sean said. “I think I could play a little better if it weren’t for my shoes.” He laughed as he lifted up his shoe for Tony to see. “I’m going to get some new ones as soon as my dad finds a new job.”
Tony smiled. “But if you get new shoes, you’ll beat me every time!” he teased. “I won’t stand a chance!”
As Tony walked home from school that afternoon, he thought about Sean walking home with a shoe that was falling apart. Tony knew it wouldn’t only be hard to play basketball in those shoes. With the weather changing, Sean’s feet would be cold! Tony wondered if there was something he could do to help.
“Ready for bed?” Dad asked Tony later that night.
“Yeah,” Tony said. “I was just thinking. You know my friend Sean, who I play basketball with at recess? His shoes are wearing out. He needs to wait until his dad gets a job before he can get some new ones. I’d really like to help him out somehow.”
“That’s a great idea,” Dad said. “Why don’t we say a prayer? I know Heavenly Father will help you know what you can do.”
Tony nodded and knelt down with Dad to pray.
The next morning as Tony was getting ready for school, he noticed something in his closet. It was a pair of extra tennis shoes from his older brother! Tony hadn’t worn them yet because they were still a little too big. He had forgotten all about them!
I wonder if these will fit Sean, Tony thought. He put the shoes in his backpack, zipped it up, and hurried off to school.
“Hey.” Tony walked up to Sean and held up the shoes. ”I found these in my closet. They don’t fit me, and I wondered if they might fit you.”
“Wow. Thanks so much!” Sean slipped them on and tied the laces. “They fit great!”
Tony felt happy. He knew Heavenly Father had heard his prayer to know how to help his new friend. “Race you to the basketball court!”

My late father, Claude Roy, passed away in 2015, not long after being baptized. By then, my mother, siblings, and I had been members of the Church for some time, but for decades my father remained adamantly unwilling to join.
Over time, he said, “my heart hardened, and I became irritated by visits from my children and grandchildren and wanted to isolate myself from my family. Tensions grew in my house, and my relationship with my wife became strained.”
Around this time, he began to retrace his Canadian aboriginal ancestors, who were descendants of the Mi’kmaq and Huron-Wendat nations. After reaching out to the Mi’kmaq community near where he grew up, he was invited to a powwow, a Native American ceremony.
During the evening of the powwow, the high chief opened his arms and asked the children to come to him so he could bless them. The discourse that followed on the importance of family and descendants struck my father like thunder.
In that moment, he said, “I saw my family holding out their arms to me while I turned my back on them. I was filled with an overwhelming, indescribable sadness as though my heart was breaking in pieces. I knew in that moment that the Lord had used the words of my ancestors’ tribe to soften my heart. I knew I had to turn to my Heavenly Father and repair the damage I had caused my family.”
Dad began to make peace with our family, asking forgiveness from each family member. With the example of his wife and children, he began to pray and read the Book of Mormon. Having read many histories about the American continent, he felt drawn to the Book of Mormon. Its veracity was confirmed to him immediately.
“Surrounded by my family, I was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” he said. “That was the most beautiful day of my life! I testify of the power of a loving example. For 36 years, my wife kept her faith and was a Christlike example to me, though my heart had hardened. Then, one weekend changed everything for me.”

Cole Negebauer, a priest in the Shiloh Ward, knows all about being nervous to perform such a sacred ordinance. When he was asked to baptize his younger sister, Corie, he had been a member for only three years. His own baptism and the baptism of his parents and younger brother were still fresh in his mind, and he remembered how important it was to him.

So when it came time to baptize his sister, he was more than a little nervous about doing it right. The baptismal prayer isn’t a long prayer, but like the sacrament prayer, it must be said word for word. “I prayed about it a lot. I prayed that I’d not be nervous and that I’d be able to remember the words.”

It helped. But like Dan, Cole was in for a surprise when his family arrived at the church the day of the baptism. “It was packed,” he says. “We had to move into the chapel.”

When the important moment came, though, as Cole recited the words “having been commissioned of Jesus Christ,” he learned that when you’re acting worthily in the name of the Lord, you’re not alone. “I felt calm. I could feel the Holy Ghost there with me. It felt right. I knew I was doing something Heavenly Father wanted me to do.”

To Cole, blessing the sacrament and baptizing are important, but there’s more to holding the priesthood than that. Holding the priesthood means living right and being an example so he can perform those ordinances worthily.

“Some of my friends at school don’t understand why I don’t do some of the things they do, like watching R-rated movies or drinking and stuff like that. It’s hard to explain the priesthood. But they know I won’t do those things. Some think it’s cool. Some think it’s weird. But everybody knows.”

Honoring the priesthood has helped Cole prepare for his mission. Through Cole’s example and friendship, one friend and his two brothers were baptized. Another friend is playing basketball every week with some of the young men in the ward.

“I’m glad I have the priesthood and can use it more than just every Sunday,” he says. “It has strengthened my testimony. It’s given me confidence to do what’s right.”

Another time, Elder Hales was at a stake conference. He was not feeling well. He planned to go home right after the meeting. But after the closing prayer, Elder Hales felt like he should stay and shake hands with everyone. When one young man came to shake his hand, Elder Hales felt like he should give him a special message. Later the stake president told Elder Hales that the young man was going through a hard time. Getting to talk to Elder Hales was a special experience for him. Elder Hales knew that the Holy Ghost had told him to stay and to talk to the young man.

The summer wind rustled the long grass as it gusted across the vast, rolling plains of northern Montana, whistling by the gray, unpainted, weather-worn boards of the small house. The house sat almost alone out there in that great expanse of land with the mighty Missouri River gliding by in the middle of its journey to its rendezvous with the Mississippi. Occasionally one of the loose boards on the house would rattle a bit as a particularly strong gust would hit it, and the flapping could be heard inside.
It was Sunday, but except for a few rather puny creations of man, the great, sweeping plains and grass looked much as they had for many hundreds of Sundays, and other days of the week as well. There was a certain feeling of changelessness to this immense land.
Inside the lone, sparsely furnished house, propped up on the old chipped and rusted hospital bed to which he was confined, was old Pointing Iron, once a great warrior of the proud and magnificent Sioux nation. Now he was confined by age and frailty to this small, one-room wooden shack.
His eyes wandered around the walls of the room, not noticing the pasteboard that served not only as a covering for the walls but as the wallpaper as well. It was the same in most of the Indian homes on the reservation. Instead, he would let his gaze roam around the walls, stopping to gaze upon some old, faded picture or memento out of his past, and memories of long ago events would flood back into his alert mind. Pointing Iron didn’t know how old he was, nor did anyone else who knew him, but his memory went back to many of the happy times of his people. He had seen many snows in his lifetime.
Brother Pointing Iron hadn’t forgotten what day it was, and he looked forward with anticipation to the time when the sun would approach midday. As midday drew near, he reached out his once powerful arms and attempted to straighten the blanket and the worn quilt that covered his weakened body. Then his gnarled hands went up to the two straight braids of beautiful gray hair that hung well below his shoulders. It was important that they fall neatly in place and that his head be held proud and erect, however hard it might be to hold it there.
He waited now for what he knew was to come. Shortly there was a sharp knocking, and as the door creaked open, two young men in dark suits entered, glad to be sheltered from the wind.
Brother Pointing Iron anxiously reached out his hand and warmly shook the hands of the two missionaries who had come on a special errand to his humble home. Not many words were exchanged, as Pointing Iron could speak very little English and the elders knew almost nothing of the Sioux tongue, but there was a communion of the spirit that all of them felt.
The elders did, however, have a hymn book in the Sioux language, so while one of them selected some music, the other moved an old, rough, wooden chair, held together mostly by wire, into the center of the room. He then very carefully unfolded two clean, freshly pressed handkerchiefs and laid them on the seat of the chair. A small, clean plate was produced and placed on the handkerchiefs. On the plate he put a small morsel of bread and beside it a small glass of clear well water. Now all was in readiness for the meeting to begin.
The elder had opened the hymn book to page 25, and the three of them sang, as best they could, “Sweet Hour of Prayer,” after which one of the missionaries offered the invocation. Then the senior companion knelt and repeated the blessing on the bread. As the plate was handed to Brother Pointing Iron, his trembling hand reached out and picked up the small piece of bread, which represented to him the sacrificed body of his beloved Savior, and the tears flowed slowly down his wrinkled, weather-beaten cheeks.
After the water had been blessed and given to Pointing Iron, the elders once again opened the hymn book, and they all joined in singing, “Israel, Israel, God Is Calling.” Then the junior companion offered the benediction. The chair was cleared off and put back in its place by the wall, and the meeting was over. Once again Pointing Iron’s covenants had been renewed. The elders lingered, reluctant to leave that special spirit they felt so strongly in that old wooden shack on the Montana plains.
Finally they shook the hand of their loved brother and said their good-byes. They stepped once again out into the brisk prairie wind, but somehow the wind didn’t seem to be so much of a bother to them anymore.
This was a cherished weekly Sabbath day assignment and they gladly carried it out until the brave old warrior, Pointing Iron, left this mortal life and was placed to rest in the great old Indian cemetery at Chicken Hill.

Missionary work was also the emphasis in camp. Chris Johnson had been instrumental in introducing the gospel to her best friend and her friend’s family. Chris had yearned for her friend to grow in the gospel until she could bear her testimony to a group. In a small testimony meeting with the Adventurers, Chris said, “I do have a strong testimony. I love the Book of Mormon with all my heart. Missionary work strengthens you so much. “Then Chris heard her friend bear her testimony for the first time. “She told me that she loved me, and she trusted me. She said she knew she is a child of God. I’ve waited so long to hear that.”

The answer is one that Latter-day Saints would hardly call coincidence. In a little known note to the Manuscript History of the Church, Joseph named his doctors: “Smith, Stone and Perkins” of Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire, 8 kilometers from the Smith home.

These were not the ordinary, poorly trained country physicians so commonly found in those days. Nathan Smith, graduate of Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sole founder of the Dartmouth Medical School, later to found three additional New England medical schools, was also president of the New Hampshire Medical Society and had, prior to treating Joseph Smith, accepted the position of the first professor of medicine and surgery at Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut. He had delayed moving to New Haven so he could care for the victims of the 1813 typhoid epidemic in the communities surrounding Hanover, New Hampshire.

Cyrus Perkins was Nathan Smith’s former pupil and a graduate of the Dartmouth Medical School. Perkins had later returned to the area to become the professor of anatomy and join his former teacher in a medical practice.

Stone was very likely also a former student of Smith’s: earlier class rolls of the Dartmouth Medical School lists several Stones.

Even more significantly, Nathan Smith was one of early America’s greatest medical men and had, on his own, devised an operation for osteomyelitis as early as 1798 that he published in 1827 but that was not used for two generations. In other words, generations ahead of his time, he was the only man in America who could have saved Joseph Smith’s leg.

Without a college education, Nathan Smith apprenticed himself to a country physician for three years, then began his own practice in Cornish, New Hampshire. Dissatisfied with his preparation, he applied to the newly founded Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts three years later. He became its fifth graduate and returned to his country practice in 1790.

Now he felt his mission included raising medical standards and proficiency among his colleagues as well. He petitioned Dartmouth College trustees to establish a medical school and spent a year in Edinburgh, Scotland, accumulating equipment, books, and clinical experience. His opening lecture in 1797 was the beginning of Dartmouth’s medical college.

For thirteen years, he single-handedly taught anatomy, chemistry, surgery, remedies, and the theory and practice of medicine, until the New Hampshire legislature allowed Perkins to join him as professor of anatomy in 1810.

Neither one received a salary for the teaching: tuition fees and their joint medical practice made up their income. Since Dr. Smith had trained many of the physicians in upper New England, he was consulted on many difficult cases, which meant travelling as much as 160 kilometers on horseback over rough dirt roads. He routinely invited ten to twenty of his medical students along on these trips as part of their training.

This pattern was repeated in Joseph Smith’s case. After Dr. Stone had unsuccessfully performed two operations on Joseph’s diseased leg, his mother insisted on another opinion and requested a “council of surgeons.” Nathan Smith, his partner, Cyrus Perkins, and medical students from Dartmouth came to do the necessary surgery.

At first an amputation was suggested: Lucy Mack Smith instead asked for the experimental operation of removing only the diseased bone. Her description of the procedure is accurate and parallels the description of the operation found in early Dartmouth medical student notebooks.

The operation was successful, and Joseph’s wounds healed. The fact that a wound with the exposed shaft of bone healed so readily is truly miraculous; however Nathan Smith had achieved an unusual record of good results—he never described amputation following his operation. Joseph used crutches for three years but his life and his leg were spared.

After the epidemic and the operation, both Nathan Smith and Joseph Smith left New Hampshire, Nathan Smith to become a professor at Yale Medical School and Joseph to return to Vermont for three years before moving to Palmyra, New York, where he eventually began his great work.

It is hard to call it an accident—a boy plucky enough to refuse amputation despite two unsuccessful operations; a mother who requested the experimental procedure, not knowing Nathan Smith was the only surgeon in the United States who had such a successful experience treating osteomyelitis; and the undramatic conjunction between the right man and the right time.

Summer Saturdays are special times for my brothers and me. After eating an early lunch, we usually take a large jug of water and drive with our dad to the Gila Indian Reservation a few miles south of our home in Tempe, Arizona, to look for dust devils. There, on dry fields that don’t have any crops growing on them, giant swirling columns of dust regularly form and march across the landscape. We like to run into them and release colored balloons or smoke bombs, while our dad takes pictures of them. These pictures help him understand how whirlwinds are created and how they grow and finally disappear.

My husband and I went to Sweden on a work trip years ago, and we were able to attend the Stockholm Sweden Temple. It was a beautiful experience, but what impressed me the most was the dedication of the local Church members. The Stockholm temple was the only temple for many surrounding countries. The members in this region would arrange to take a week off for necessary travel and would stay at the temple, performing the work for deceased relatives and savoring the feeling of being closer to Jesus Christ. The members’ faith and devotion were inspiring. They were gaining all the blessings of the temple and coming closer to Jesus Christ by assisting Him in His sacred and glorious work. Although it may have seemed inconsequential to these faithful members, the offering of weeks of their vacation time as a modern form of sacrifice was inspiring to me and was representative of their appreciation for the covenants we make in the temple.

I recently went with priesthood leaders to visit the homes of four women in Honduras. These sisters and their families were in need of priesthood keys and authority, priesthood ordinances and covenants, and priesthood power and blessings.
We visited a dear sister who is married and has two beautiful children. She is faithful and active in the Church, and she is teaching her children to choose the right. Her husband supports her Church activity, but he is not a member. Their family is strong, but to enjoy greater strength, they need additional priesthood blessings. They need the father to receive the ordinances of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost and to have the priesthood conferred upon him. They need the priesthood power that can come through the endowment and sealing.
Our next visit was at the home of two single sisters, women of great faith. One sister has a son preparing for a mission. The other sister is receiving treatment for cancer. In times of discouragement and despair, they remember the Savior’s Atonement and are filled with faith and hope. They both need the additional blessings and power available through temple ordinances. We encouraged them to join the future missionary in their home in preparing to receive those ordinances.
Our last visit was at the home of a sister whose husband recently died in a tragic accident. A recent convert to the Church, she had not understood that she could receive her own endowment and be sealed to her husband. When we taught her that these blessings could be available to her and her deceased husband, she was filled with hope. Knowing that through temple ordinances and covenants her family can be sealed together, she has faith and determination to face the trials ahead.
This widow’s son is preparing to receive the Aaronic Priesthood. His ordination will be a great blessing to her and her family. They will have a priesthood holder in their home.
When I met these faithful women in Honduras, I could see that they were striving to keep their families active in the gospel. They expressed gratitude for covenant-keeping ward members who tenderly watch over them and help support their temporal and spiritual needs. However, each of these sisters had needs that had not been fully met.
In each of the three homes we visited, a wise priesthood leader asked each sister if she had received a priesthood blessing. Each time the answer was no. Each sister asked for and received a priesthood blessing that day. Each wept as she expressed gratitude for the comfort, direction, encouragement, and inspiration that came from her Heavenly Father through a worthy priesthood holder.
These sisters inspired me. They showed reverence for God and His power and authority. I was also grateful for the priesthood leaders who visited these homes with me. When we left each home, we counseled together about how to help these families receive the ordinances they needed to progress on the covenant path and strengthen their homes.

At the time I initially read this First Presidency message, I naively thought my impression of that principle was because I had given a blessing to the daughter of a family I home taught, hoping that a dramatic recovery would spark the family back into activity. When the little girl ended up in the hospital that same day, I thought the absence of the miracle would somehow bless their lives more than if she had been miraculously healed. However, little did I suspect the extraordinary experience among the challenges that the Lord was already engineering.
About a month later my expectant wife, April, and I went to an ultrasound appointment to see whether we were having a boy or a girl. We learned that we were having our third son. We also learned that there were severe physical complications afflicting his body. He was missing large portions of his brain, his skull wasn’t properly shaped, and the doctors weren’t even sure if he would survive till delivery. During the ensuing weeks it seemed that every time we received additional information it was bad news. I still remember sitting in a room in the Brewster Building, across the street from the Wilkinson Center, when my wife called to tell me the latest update: Our son didn’t have a right eye. Thinking back to what my mission companion had said, I certainly felt like things were much worse than one degree colder.
With faith, and in order to pray more specifically and effectively for our unborn son, we decided on his name early. Previously we had waited until we actually saw our children to make sure they matched their names. We chose the name Caleb, after the Old Testament Israelite who was a companion to Moses and Joshua and who was noted for his “fearlessness in the face of overwhelming odds.”4
Caleb survived his birth, though it became quickly apparent that he would be very much like a newborn throughout his entire life. He would never walk. He would never talk. He would never feed himself or be able to so much as hold his head up on his own. When we asked how long we might expect him to live, the doctor replied, “Take him home and never bring him back to the hospital. We can’t do anything for him. He has a few weeks to a few months—outside chance of a year, possibly two.”
I remember being terrified as we walked out of the hospital with our little boy to take him home. The number of machines and medical equipment we needed to sustain his life was overwhelming. The possibility of losing him was a constant fear. Simply feeding him required extraordinary effort because he needed to eat every three hours. The process to eat took one hour to complete. This involved waking up throughout the night: start the pump, sleep for an hour, stop the pump, sleep for two hours, start the pump, sleep for an hour, and so on. We wondered how we would keep ourselves alive, let alone our fragile son.
Thankfully, the Lord blessed us with many miracles in what seemed like a hopeless situation. Angels in the form of ward members, family members, friends, and medical personnel came to our aid. We literally had meals brought in for three months. We had a competent and caring nurse, a doctor who made house calls, and family and neighbors who prayed mightily on our behalf. We could feel heaven’s hand upon us. I felt angels walked our hallways and sat in Caleb’s room. Our three-year-old son told us that sometimes he saw Jesus peeking in our windows.
In Caleb’s baby blessing I promised him that he had completed his task on earth by being born and that he could now rest for a time. But this was not the plan for Caleb and his mother. In some kind of pact with heaven that I have yet to fully understand, Caleb and April bargained with heaven to do a greater work. God had matched them up perfectly—Caleb with his fearlessness in the face of overwhelming odds and April with her mother’s love and daring optimism.
April purposefully chose hope and trust in the Lord. To her core she is happy and optimistic. With God’s help she took what could have been a terrifying trial and reshaped it. She took a corner of heaven and pulled it right down into our home, opening it up for all to enjoy. Every day became a celebration with Caleb. She made him a birthday cake after his first week, cupcakes for his second week, cookies for his third week, and so on. She celebrated everything about Caleb, for every day was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the boy who was sent home without hope.
In what might have looked like a burdensome task to others, caring for Caleb became a privilege. Though his body was misshapen and broken, his spirit was whole, noble, and great.5 Being in his presence was healing and heavenly. I love my wife and thank her, Caleb, and Heavenly Father for making the time with Caleb not only possible but powerful. It was indeed heaven on earth.
Even his missing eye was a blessing. It became his distinctive feature. People were drawn to him, especially children. They would often ask, “Where is his eye? What happened to him?”
I would usually say that Caleb was a pirate or that a bear had eaten his eye. But my wife would explain that in our family, a wink meant “I love you.”
Before Caleb was born, we told our boys that he would only have one of his eyes. They were concerned for their brother.
“Don’t worry,” April would say. “He will just wink at us every day!”
Caleb was never able to tell us he loved us with words, but he told us every day with his wink. His little wink was a daily message of love from heaven. He brought the love of God and the Light of Christ into the lives of all who knew him. His winking eye was a sweet reminder of his deep love for all of us.
There were times when I thought Caleb would live a long time. He had so often successfully battled sicknesses and surgeries, illnesses and infections. He had been to the hospital many times but always came back to us. We loved having him in our home. “Caleb could have quickly returned to heaven but, instead, he brought heaven to us for seven years.”23
Twenty-five days ago, in the timing of the Lord, Caleb slipped peacefully away while being held in the arms of his mother and surrounded by his family. He had spent a courageous day fighting with his might against a vicious infection brought on by pneumonia. The wonderful doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel at Primary Children’s Medical Center had done all they professionally could to keep Caleb alive. His body was simply too worn out.
I have heroes in my life: Joseph Smith, Captain Moroni, Ammon, and others. On that day, my wife was my hero. As she bravely and tenderly leaned down to hug Caleb, she whispered in his ear, “I love you, Caleb. I am so proud of you. If your body is too tired, it’s okay. You can go back. You can return to Heavenly Father.”
For over seven years her love and God’s will allowed Caleb to be a significant part of our earthly experience. But in the very moment when it was needed, her heart changed. She could let him go. She trusted God because she knew God. She knew that God understood her personally, in a way that few others could, for God had also lost a son. And through the Atonement of that Son, God can do miracles. He can forgive a sinner. He can save a lost soul. He can heal a broken heart.
At a stake conference not too long ago, I had an interview with a visiting General Authority. He learned about Caleb as part of our discussion. After he acknowledged the hard work it took to care for Caleb, I thought he would then encourage me to keep it up and to faithfully persevere in the service and sacrifice I was providing. Instead, his next four words entirely transformed my relationship with Caleb. He simply said, “You are being exalted.”
All this time I had thought that we were taking care of Caleb. But in reality, God, through Caleb, had been taking care of us. God was making a miracle where I hadn’t expected one. He was performing a miracle on me, on my wife, on our kids, and on all those who came in contact with Caleb. Having Caleb in our home was an honor and a privilege. It was also a sacred experience.

Iya Gopela, 17, has been a member for two years. She talks about her conversion. “I was a housekeeper for the sister missionaries. I admired the American sisters because they treated me just like a sister and made me feel I mattered to them. Both of them tried to share the gospel with me, but I wouldn’t let them. I guess I got nervous when they spoke English so well. But then the Filipino sisters taught me in Tagalog. I needed to be taught in my own language.
“I felt so happy when I was baptized, overwhelmed by the feeling that the Church is true. Since then I have grown a lot. Reading the scriptures and praying, I feel relieved to know that God is with me. I’m not scared. When things are going well, living the gospel makes them even better.” Iya, like many of the LDS youth throughout the Philippines, is the only Church member in her family.

When I was called as the stake president of the Mesa Arizona Maricopa Stake, Elder W. Mack Lawrence, at the time a General Authority Seventy, invited my wife and me into the stake president’s office and extended the calling. I dutifully accepted. Then he invited us to enter the high council room and prayerfully consider men to recommend as my counselors. As I entered the room, I saw pictures of all the stake presidents who had previously served in the stake since it was organized, and my heart sank. They were great leaders both in the Church and in the community.
I looked at my wife and said, “Kathleen, I don’t think I can do this. I’m not in their league.”
She said, “Don’t talk to me about it. You had better talk to Elder Lawrence.”
To my surprise, when I told him that I didn’t think I could fulfill the calling, Elder Lawrence responded, “Well, I suppose you’re right.”
But then he said, “You can’t do it, Brother Andersen, but the Lord can. He has the power to do His work, and if you will be worthy and work hard, He will do it. You will see.”
And He did.

Now let us go from lessons to lifelines. Years ago, while waterskiing with a friend, Bruce, we found ourselves in trouble as a thunderstorm with high winds moved over the lake so quickly that we had no time to seek the shore. A large wave broke over the motor, and the boat slid backwards into the water. Our swamped boat continued to float just under the surface with only the windshield visible above water. We held onto the side of the submerged boat as we waved for help to other boaters making their way to shore in the storm. As luck would have it, the first boat to arrive held three young boys—so young I was surprised to see them navigating a boat on their own. They moved in as close as they could and immediately shut off their motor. This was a mistake. Again and again they attempted to throw us a rope, but they were not strong enough and the wind prevailed. When they couldn’t restart their motor, they, too, were in trouble. I remember saying as I shivered in the water, “I hope those kids don’t drown because they stopped to help us.” Just a few minutes later two larger boats appeared, and we were encouraged when we saw they both had adult occupants. About the same time, the wind began to subside almost as quickly as it had begun. One man threw a towline to the boys, called out a few instructions, and headed for the dock. As they were being towed, the boys whooped and hollered—obviously enjoying the adventure more than we were.

A man in the other boat threw Bruce a line. He said he’d seen our boat go under and had immediately altered his course to help us. Gratefully we collected the floating items from our boat and passed them to our rescuers. A short time later we were headed to shore in their boat—towing a windshield attached to a submerged boat—and definitely not whooping.

I think of that ill-fated trip when I see children in trouble, particularly those riding the waves in troubled homes. I know the importance of a line thrown to a child by a concerned adult inside or outside the family circle.

“What are you doing, Grandpa?”
At first, I didn’t think he heard me. He was lying under the great elm in our backyard, his head resting on his arms, his eyes closed. Then he blinked.
“What are you doing?” I tried again.
Grandpa didn’t answer right away. Grandpa was like that. He seemed to think a lot about what he was going to say before he actually got around to saying it. “Taking pictures,” he finally drawled.
That was something else that Grandpa did a lot, too—say things that didn’t seem to make sense, except to him.
“You don’t have a camera,” I observed.
“Do too.”
“Where?”
Grandpa tapped his forehead with a long, crooked finger.
I sprawled on my back next to Grandpa. It was a hot day, but the shade of the elm and a cool breeze made me forget that.
“The camera’s in here,” Grandpa said again, pointing at his forehead.
“Well, I don’t have a camera in my head, Grandpa.”
“Sure you do. The trick is knowing how to take pictures with it. Close your eyes.”
I obeyed, certain that at any minute Grandpa would start laughing and tell me it was all a joke.
“Now, breathe in,” he instructed. “Like this.” Grandpa closed his eyes and sucked an enormous amount of air into his lungs, like a thirsty man guzzles water.
I copied him as best as I could. “That makes me kind of dizzy, Grandpa.”
“Good. Maybe it’ll clean out that dusty attic in your head. Now smell.”
“I don’t smell anything.”
“Well, don’t expect it to come up and bite you on the nose. Do it like this.” Again Grandpa closed his eyes and began sipping in air, slower this time, and through his nose, tilting his head this way, then that. A smile crept across his face.
I followed Grandpa’s lead. This time, I detected the faint smell of freshly cut hay. “Hay,” I pronounced, feeling as if I had accomplished a great feat. “But when do we get to the picture-taking part?”
“Now don’t let the pigs out of the pen until you have the slop ready, lad. We’ll get to that in a minute.”
We had never owned pigs, and I didn’t have the slightest idea what slop was, but Grandpa’s message was clear enough.
“Now,” Grandpa continued, “listen.”
“To what, Grandpa?”
“Just listen.”
I tried. I really did. But there wasn’t anything to hear—at least in my mind. “No one’s talking, Grandpa. There’s nothing to listen to.”
“Son,” Grandpa said softly, “most of what’s worth hearing in this world has little to do with talking. Now, try again.”
I closed my eyes tightly and concentrated. No voices. No words. Nothing. Then I started to hear things. A breeze gently shook the tree, and the leaves above me whistled softly. A robin cheerfully called a greeting. A cricket strummed its one-note song in the woodpile. Sounds tumbled through the grass to me. “Now I see what you mean!” I exclaimed. “There are lots of things to hear, aren’t there, Grandpa?”
“If a man has the ears to hear with, there’s plenty,” he agreed. “Ready for the next part?”
I pulled my shoulders back and wriggled deeper into the grass. “Ready.”
“Feel,” Grandpa whispered.
This time I didn’t ask what Grandpa meant; I just got down to the business of feeling. I soon discovered there was plenty to feel too. The grass—like tiny, green feathers, it gently tickled my bare feet and arms. The wind—it laughed and danced over my face, kissing my cheeks and spinning away. The sun—tiny flecks of heat dribbled through the leaves, leaving warm prints on me like footsteps on a sandy beach.
I revealed these wonders to Grandpa, who listened and nodded with a shadow of a smile etched on his face.
“Ready for the most important part?”
I quietly nodded.
“Good. Now I want you to see.”
“There’s too much to look at, Grandpa,” I protested.
“I didn’t say anything about looking,” Grandpa replied. “I’m talking about seeing. Some people spend their whole lives looking at this and that, and never really see anything. Once you take your first picture with that camera inside your head, you’ll know what I mean.”
For the next few minutes I squinted at the elm overhead. At first, I didn’t see anything—at least, not anything I hadn’t seen a hundred times before. Then, very slowly, colors and shapes started appearing. It was just like those pictures in children’s magazines, with animals hidden in the drawings. You stare and stare, then wham! there’s a turkey hidden in someone’s shoe, or an upside-down pig in the chimney.
At that moment I understood what Grandpa meant by seeing. The edges of the leaves sliced pieces from the sky like tiny cookie cutters; the brown, wrinkled arms of the elm reached toward heaven in silent prayer; the blur of brown sparrows hopscotched like daredevils through the tree.
“Now put it all together,” Grandpa whispered in my ear. “The smelling, the hearing, the feeling, the seeing. Roll it together into one big picture.”
I took a deep breath, smelled the air, heard the leaves gently rustle like giggling children, felt the breeze tickling my skin, and saw the whole picture come together in one big splash of color.
“Click!” said Grandpa. “You just took a picture. A mighty fine one too! Anytime you want it, it’ll be there. Ten years, twenty years—it doesn’t matter. When you want that picture, it’ll be there for you. And you will want it. Someday when you’re feeling down, all you’ll have to do is remember it and it’ll pop right back into your head just the way it is now—the elm, the leaves, the smell of the hay, the feel of the grass prickling at your neck, the whole thing.”
I lay quietly, listening to Grandpa’s words until they faded away on the wind, wondering where they went and if anyone else would ever hear them. “Grandpa?” I finally asked, “do you have any pictures of Grandma? I don’t remember her so well.”
“Lots,” he replied simply. “A man can never have too many pictures of the ones he loves.”
The wind began to blow stronger, spinning around the tree as if confused about where it was heading. The elm, bending ever so slightly, guided the swirling air through its branches.
“I believe it might rain this afternoon,” Grandpa observed.
A distant rumble of thunder rolled over the cornfields in confirmation.
“And if I’m not mistaken,” Grandpa continued, sitting up, “when we were doing all that smelling, I smelled fresh-baked apple pie coming from the general direction of your mom’s kitchen. Interested?”
As Grandpa and I headed inside, it felt good knowing that there was a picture of all this inside my head, a picture I could remember any time I wanted.
And I did remember it, just as Grandpa said I would: the huge, solid elm, the canopy of leaves overhead, the pillow of grass beneath me, the sounds and smells—and one more thing. Something Grandpa had not mentioned was in the picture as well—the best thing in it: Grandpa himself. He was there, too, whenever I wanted to remember him: solid, kind, patient, knowing everything about everything, and taking the time on a warm afternoon to show a young boy how to take pictures with the camera inside his head.

We went on a hike with our Scoutmaster last summer, and he reserved one night for each of us to be alone and talk to our Father in Heaven. He told us we could pray to him, just like Joseph Smith did, and get an answer. The next morning we were back on the trail again, with our Scoutmaster urging us over “just one more hill,” and “just around the next bend,” and repeating his slogans like, “When you see a man on a mountaintop, remember he didn’t fall there,” or, “Make your mind tell your body what to do. Don’t let your body tell your mind what to do.” One of the best things about our Scoutmaster is that he’s not afraid to let us see him make a mistake or two. It lets us know he understands when we flub it. One time we lined two maps up crookedly and ended up climbing the mountain next to King’s Peak. We still laugh about that, and we named the mountain “Troop 112’s Mistake”. But the thing I appreciate the most about our Scoutmaster is that he’s my dad. For more than 10 years now I’ve been sharing him with three older brothers, a younger sister, and a troop of Scouts. But that’s not hard to do because my dad has always saved part of himself for me. That’s why he’s the best Scoutmaster I know.

I received a special gift last Christmas that brought with it many memories. My niece gave it to me. It had been among the things I had left in our old family home when I moved out after I was married. The gift was this little brown book I hold in my hand. It is a book that was given to LDS servicemen who entered the armed forces during World War II. I personally viewed the book as a gift from President Heber J. Grant and his counselors, J. Reuben Clark Jr. and David O. McKay.
In the front of the book, these three prophets of God wrote: “The incidents of the armed service do not permit our keeping in constant personal touch with you, either directly or by personal representation. Our next best course is to put in your hands such portions of modern revelation and of explanations of the principles of the Gospel as shall bring to you, wherever you may be, renewed hope and faith, as likewise comfort, consolation, and peace of spirit.”
Today we find ourselves in another war. This is not a war of armaments. It is a war of thoughts, words, and deeds. It is a war with sin, and more than ever we need to be reminded of the commandments. Secularism is becoming the norm, and many of its beliefs and practices are in direct conflict with those that were instituted by the Lord Himself for the benefit of His children.
In the little brown book, immediately after the letter from the First Presidency, there is a “Prefatory Note to Men in the Service,” titled “Obedience to Law Is Liberty.” The note draws a parallel between military law, which is “for the good of all who are in the service,” and divine law.
It states, “In the universe, too, where God is in command, there is law—universal, eternal … law—with certain blessings and immutable penalties.”
The final words of the note focus on obedience to God’s law: “If you wish to return to your loved ones with head erect, … if you would be a man and live abundantly—then observe God’s law. In so doing you can add to those priceless freedoms which you are struggling to preserve, another on which the others may well depend, freedom from sin; for truly ‘obedience to law is liberty.’”
Why did the phrase “obedience to law is liberty” ring so true to me at the time? Why does it ring true to all of us now?
Perhaps it is because we have a revealed knowledge of our premortal history. We recognize that when God the Eternal Father presented His plan to us at the beginning of time, Satan wanted to alter the plan. He said he would redeem all mankind. Not one soul would be lost, and Satan was confident he could deliver on his proposal. But there was an unacceptable cost—the destruction of man’s agency, which was and is a gift given by God (see Moses 4:1–3). About this gift, President Harold B. Lee said, “Next to life itself, free agency is God’s greatest gift to mankind.” Then it was no small thing for Satan to disregard man’s agency. In fact, it became the principal issue over which the War in Heaven was fought. Victory in the War in Heaven was a victory for man’s agency.
Satan, however, was not done. His backup plan—the plan he has been executing since the time of Adam and Eve—was to tempt men and women, essentially to prove we are undeserving of the God-given gift of agency. Satan has many reasons for doing what he does. Perhaps the most powerful is the motive of revenge, but he also wants to make men and women miserable like he is miserable. None of us should ever underestimate how driven Satan is to succeed. His role in God’s eternal plan creates “opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11) and tests our agency. Each choice you and I make is a test of our agency—whether we choose to be obedient or disobedient to the commandments of God is actually a choice between “liberty and eternal life” and “captivity and death.”
This fundamental doctrine is clearly taught in 2 Nephi, the second chapter: “Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself” (2 Nephi 2:27).
In many respects, this world has always been at war. I believe that when the First Presidency sent me my little brown book, they were more concerned about a greater war than World War II. I also believe they hoped the book would be a shield of faith against Satan and his armies in this greater war—the war against sin—and serve as a reminder to me to live the commandments of God.
One way to measure ourselves and compare us to previous generations is by one of the oldest standards known to man—the Ten Commandments. For much of the civilized world, particularly the Judeo-Christian world, the Ten Commandments have been the most accepted and enduring delineation between good and evil.
In my judgment, four of the Ten Commandments are taken as seriously today as ever. As a culture, we disdain and condemn murder, stealing, and lying, and we still believe in the responsibility of children to their parents.
But as a larger society, we routinely dismiss the other six commandments:
If worldly priorities are any indication, we certainly have “other gods” we put before the true God.
We make idols of celebrities, of lifestyles, of wealth, and yes, sometimes of graven images or objects.
We use the name of God in all kinds of profane ways, including our exclamations and our swearing.
We use the Sabbath day for our biggest games, our most serious recreation, our heaviest shopping, and virtually everything else but worship.
We treat sexual relations outside marriage as recreation and entertainment.
And coveting has become a far too common way of life. (See Exodus 20:3–17.)
Prophets from all dispensations have consistently warned against violations of two of the more serious commandments—the ones relating to murder and adultery. I see a common basis for these two critical commandments—the belief that life itself is the prerogative of God and that our physical bodies, the temples of mortal life, should be created within the bounds God has set. For man to substitute his own rules for the laws of God on either end of life is the height of presumption and the depth of sin.
The main effects of these depreciating attitudes about the sanctity of marriage are the consequences to families—the strength of families is deteriorating at an alarming rate. This deterioration is causing widespread damage to society. I see direct cause and effect. As we give up commitment and fidelity to our marriage partners, we remove the glue that holds our society together.
A useful way to think about the commandments is they are loving counsel from a wise, all-knowing Heavenly Father. His goal is our eternal happiness, and His commandments are the road map He has given us to return to Him, which is the only way we will be eternally happy. How significant are the home and the family to our eternal happiness? On page 141 of my little brown book, it states, “Indeed our heaven is little more than a projection of our homes into eternity.”
The doctrine of the family and the home was recently reiterated with great clarity and forcefulness in “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” It declared the eternal nature of families and then explained the connection to temple worship. The proclamation also declared the law upon which the eternal happiness of families is predicated, namely, “The sacred powers of procreation are to be employed only between man and woman, lawfully wedded as husband and wife.”
God reveals to His prophets that there are moral absolutes. Sin will always be sin. Disobedience to the Lord’s commandments will always deprive us of His blessings. The world changes constantly and dramatically, but God, His commandments, and promised blessings do not change. They are immutable and unchanging. Men and women receive their agency as a gift from God, but their liberty and, in turn, their eternal happiness come from obedience to His laws. As Alma counseled his errant son Corianton, “Wickedness never was happiness” (Alma 41:10).
In this day of the Restoration of the fulness of the gospel, the Lord has again revealed to us the blessings promised us for being obedient to His commandments.
In Doctrine and Covenants 130 we read:
“There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—
“And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated” (D&C 130:20–21).
Surely there could not be any doctrine more strongly expressed in the scriptures than the Lord’s unchanging commandments and their connection to our happiness and well-being as individuals, as families, and as a society. There are moral absolutes. Disobedience to the Lord’s commandments will always deprive us of His blessings. These things do not change.
In a world where the moral compass of society is faltering, the restored gospel of Jesus Christ never wavers, nor should its stakes and wards, its families, or its individual members. We must not pick and choose which commandments we think are important to keep but acknowledge all of God’s commandments. We must stand firm and steadfast, having perfect confidence in the Lord’s consistency and perfect trust in His promises.
May we ever be a light on the hill, an example in keeping the commandments, which have never changed and will never change. Just as this small book encouraged LDS servicemen to stand morally firm in times of war, may we, in this latter-day war, be a beacon to all the earth and particularly to God’s children who are seeking the Lord’s blessings. Of this I testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

When we received a letter calling us to serve a full-time mission from 2016 to 2019, we did not know in which mission. With my wife, Lucie, we started to think about where it could be. Then we decided to wait for the assignment letter from the First Presidency to know the place. Later, the letter arrived, and I was on trip for my assignment as an Area Seventy. I asked Lucie to wait and to not open the letter until I returned home so that we could read it together.

When I returned home, we went in our bedroom to open the letter. We read it and learned that we had been called to serve as mission leaders in Democratic Republic of the Congo Mbuji Mayi Mission. As we discovered the place, we stopped reading the letter and we did not even finish it. We were kind of upset and many questions and concerns came to our mind in few minutes. We thought about our three children who were 14, 11 and 7 years old. We thought about their school, the change of life conditions, a new area with a new local language that none of us could speak. We were overwhelmed and stuck. Suddenly we look each other, and I suggested that we pray.

Our prayer was not to change the place to serve. We went on our knees and I did pray our Heavenly Father sincerely about our concerns and feelings.

After the prayer, we felt peace, confirmation, and comfort that it is about the Lord’s work. All fears and concerns had been replaced by an assurance and understanding and with the desire to serve God. We stood up and we finished reading the letter.

We then decided to start preparing ourselves and our family for the move to serve the mission. We went on mission and the Lord was in charge until the end of our three years of mission service.

About the time I was baptized into the Church, Elder Melvin J. Ballard visited our stake conference. He told the story of his recent visit to South America where he, in company with Rulon S. Wells and Rey L. Pratt, had begun missionary work. I didn’t know then that thirteen years later I would sit in Elder Ballard’s office and that he, as an apostle of the Lord, would set me apart to be a missionary in South America. Much less did I then realize that many years of my life would be spent in that great land and that I would see the Church there grow from just a few hundred members to hundreds of thousands of members.
Elder Melvin J. Ballard