Gospel Story Finder

“He little intended his last joke with her to turn out as it did. By the way of amusement, he had been telling her before we came to the last canyon, Emigration, that her wagon was going to tip over, in fact, he knew it would. She said that if it did she would tell Brigham. And sure enough it did tip clear over and lifted on the bows. It was a very hard canyon for men to drive down. Riley was awfully surprised. He was only a boy and was terribly frightened. No one worked harder than he to get it righted. With the help of the men in the camp he got it up into the road which was very sideling [steep]. It looked pretty dilapidated with the bows all smashed down, but did very little damage to the contents and as it was our last day before entering the Valley, he managed very well. Riley never heard whether she told Brigham or not.”

One day the two of us were riding from Salt Lake City to Morgan, Utah, in a small old truck on a narrow road. It was a big adventure for me, a little boy who had never been on a trip in an automobile before nor traveled very far from home.
My brother had explained to me that we would be traveling quite fast and that it would be dangerous if a tire should blow out. Lincoln had me hold tightly to his arm, instructing me that if a tire should blow out, he would try to keep the steering wheel steady. He asked me to help him by holding on to his arm with all of my strength.
The next hour, as we drove along the road and up the canyon to Morgan, was one of the most exciting times of my life. It was the first time that I ever remember feeling really necessary—really important. We didn’t have a flat tire, but my wonderful big brother had made his little brother feel needed.
I have since traveled to many places around the world, but I remember that trip with my brother and the lesson he taught me as well as I remember any travel adventure.

I really like science and math. I also play the organ and piano and I like to draw with charcoal. I’m a Nordic ski jumper. I’ve been doing it since I was nine—so about seven years now. I used to train for freestyle skiing right next to a Nordic jump. I thought that the jump looked really fun. So, I asked my mom if I could try it. I really liked it from the day I started. Now I’m on the USA Nordic Women’s Junior National Team. As soon as you jump, it’s like flying!

I have many regrets about the last four years of my life. I was raised in the Church, and many family members and friends have set good examples for me. Despite these blessings, I was not watchful enough, which caused a series of problems in my life.
It started when I was about 13 and became addicted to media. I watched endless TV and acted as if I would die without video games. My media addiction led to another problem: I didn’t have any good friends because I had not made enough of an effort to befriend the boys in my quorum. In an attempt to find friends, I looked in the wrong places and became part of an online chat group. In this group some people posted pornography. Because of the weakness that had come from my other problems, I was easily ensnared by pornography.
I tried to justify my behavior by making excuses: it’s not hurting anyone; it can’t be that wrong. I hated viewing pornography from the first time I saw it, but I became hooked. I wanted to be a good member of the Church, but I had made a series of mistakes and did not correct them in the right way for a long time.
It took me one and a half years to see my bishop. He helped me overcome the desire to view pornography. Over time I also began to make friends with the people in my ward, stake, and seminary class. I am 17 now, and only recently have I been able to feel free. Only in the last few months have I conquered my addiction to media, sincerely prayed daily, and regularly read the scriptures.

During the message I delivered at general conference in October 1975, I felt prompted to direct my remarks to a little girl with long blonde hair who was seated in the balcony of this building. I called the attention of the audience to her and felt a freedom of expression which testified to me that this small girl needed the message I had in mind concerning the faith of another young lady.
At the conclusion of the session, I returned to my office and found waiting for me a young child by the name of Misti White, together with her grandparents and an aunt. As I greeted them, I recognized Misti as the one in the balcony to whom I had directed my remarks. I learned that as her eighth birthday approached, she was in a quandary concerning whether or not to be baptized. She felt she would like to be baptized, and her grandparents, with whom she lived, wanted her to be baptized, but her less-active mother suggested she wait until she was 18 years of age to make the decision. Misti had told her grandparents, “If we go to conference in Salt Lake City, maybe Heavenly Father will let me know what I should do.”
Misti and her grandparents and her aunt had traveled from California to Salt Lake City for conference and were able to obtain seats in the Tabernacle for the Saturday afternoon session. This was where they were seated when my attention was drawn to Misti and my decision made to speak to her.
As we continued our visit after the session, Misti’s grandmother said to me, “I think Misti has something she would like to tell you.” This sweet young girl said, “Brother Monson, while you were speaking in conference, you answered my question. I want to be baptized!”
The family returned to California, and Misti was baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Through all the years since, Misti has remained true and faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Fourteen years ago, it was my privilege to perform her temple marriage to a fine young man, and together they are rearing five beautiful children, with another one on the way.

This summer, my family and I went to Don Arc Beach to join a family reunion. Many of my cousins, uncles, and aunties were there. The beach lies next to a fishing village.
It was low tide when we got there, and I looked around for seashells. I saw something with needlelike things around it. When I went to pick it up, a voice came to my mind and told me to never touch it. I called my brother Ariel and showed him the small, black thing. He told me to not touch it because it is poisonous.
I realized that the voice I heard in my mind was the still, small voice of the Holy Ghost. He warned me, and I obeyed His voice and was OK. It was a good thing that I obeyed it, because if I had touched that sea creature, I would have been poisoned.
Ninianne Emrys Abraham Sojor, age 10Iligan City, Philippines

The last night of Joseph’s life on earth he bore a powerful testimony to the guards and others who assembled at the door of the jail of the divinity of the Book of Mormon, also declaring that the gospel had been restored and the kingdom of God established on the earth. It was for this reason that he was incarcerated in prison, not for violating any law of God or man.
It was late at night when the prisoners tried to get some rest. At first Joseph and Hyrum occupied the only bed in the jail room, but a gunshot during the night and a disturbance led Joseph’s friends to insist that he take a place between the two of them on the floor. They would protect him with their own bodies. Joseph asked John S. Fullmer to use his arm for a pillow while they conversed; then he turned to Dan Jones, on the other side, and whispered, “Are you afraid to die?” And this staunch friend answered, “Has that time come, think you? Engaged in such a cause I do not think that death would have many terrors.”
Joseph replied, “You will yet see Wales, and fulfill the mission appointed you before you die” (History of the Church, 6:601).

The next day I was to sing at our family reunion. I knew that my mother was going to be there. I wanted to make her proud. After dinner, they announced that I was to sing. I remember being so nervous and turning my head to find my mother looking at me, giving me that certain look of encouragement that I needed.
As I was singing, my throat tightened, and I felt as if my vocal chords had just tied in a knot. It was so hard to sing. I looked at my mom, and I’ll never forget her smile and the nod she gave me. I remember thinking that was better than any command performance I had ever dreamed about. After singing, I sat down beside her and she reached under the table and held my hand.
I’ve learned so much from my mother about being a parent and a friend. Because we took the time to communicate and bridge that gap in our relationship, my mother is my best friend. I’m ready for anything, knowing that my mother is always going to be there for me.
A note from Dianne Francis, Suzanne’s mother: Suzanne wrote this to help other young people see they miss out if they don’t have a close relationship with their mom and dad. Talking helped us realize we were best friends, that we loved each other and enjoyed being together. This knowledge is particularly meaningful to me now, since Suzanne was killed in an automobile accident a few weeks after she wrote this.

Almost 22 years ago, our daughter Jessica was two and a half years old. We were living in Provo at the time. Due to early labor complications with our third child, Robert, Soni was hospitalized. Our two children, Jaren and Jessica, went to Rexburg to stay with grandparents. While in Rexburg, Jessica was involved in a serious accident. When we heard about the accident, waiting for more news was unbearable. We pleaded for help in the hopes that some divine miracle might intercede.

Our Jessica died a few hours after the terrible accident. In some way I think I can empathize with Jairus.

Less than 24 hours, after Jessica died, Soni delivered Robert. Now we had an 8 week premature baby to take care of and a daughter to bury. It seemed like nothing in our once perfect lives was right. The following days and weeks for Soni and I were numbing. There was extreme sadness, great frustration, and at times almost complete despair. We needed help! We had kind friends and a loving family that blessed us, but it was not enough. The lasting help we really needed and longed for came from a loving Father in Heaven and the Comforter. In our despair, we became completely aware of our need for the Savior and we obtained a greater understanding of the plan of salvation. I still think of Jessica every day. Now her memory is a constant reminder of wonderful days to come. Because of Jesus Christ, the daughter of Jarius lives and so does Jessica.

Soni's and my experience with Jessica's death has become one of my most difficult blessings. I became a better man who was more acquainted with a loving Father in Heaven and Savior. I better understood Their Plan of Salvation, exaltation, and happiness for me and my family. I know They live, love, and want us to return home. I testify that if we remember to be humble and rely wholly upon the merits of Christ, we will find strength and assurance to overcome our trials and, more importantly, return to live with Him.

In another instance, a Young Women teacher had a blind girl in her class whose participation was limited because she could not study in the usual way. The teacher would go to the girl’s home and read out loud while the girl translated her personal progress book into braille. The work took two years. The teacher also encouraged the other girls in the class to help. Under her direction, they went to the blind girl’s home and read to her from the manual until it was translated into braille.
The Master’s touch through that teacher reached out and blessed not only this girl but many others who are blind, because the braille translation is available at the general offices of the Young Women organization.

When I was called to the Quorum of the Seventy, Sister Afton Pedigrew, one of my faithful Primary teachers, was at a meeting at which I spoke. She told me, “If someone had told me thirty years ago that Ronnie Rasband would someday be a General Authority, I wouldn’t have believed it.” But tears were flowing from her eyes, and I could hear a quiver in her voice as she complimented me in her sweet way and said as my Primary teacher that she was proud of me. There were tears in my eyes, too.

One of the most dramatic examples of God's patience with our mistakes and His hope for our growth is when Joseph Smith lost the 116 pages. You all know that when Joseph asked if Martin Harris could take the pages, God told him no. He told him no several times. Finally, God let them have their way, with strong warnings about keeping the pages secure. Well, Martin lost the pages. When Joseph heard the news, he cried out in great agony: "All is lost! All is lost! What shall I do? I have sinned-it is I who tempted the wrath of God. I should have been satisfied with the first answer which I received from the Lord; for he told me that it was not safe to let the writing go out of my possession."[14]

Imagine how Joseph felt when he learned that God had foreseen his mistake. Keith R. Perkins writes, "The Lord had anticipated this event by at least twenty-four hundred years; many prophets had labored in part so that Joseph could repent and continue his work of translation. I know of no other example that shows better the Lord's foreknowledge and his love for us as individuals."

"The Lord had commanded Nephi to make two separate records: the large plates, primarily a political history, and the small plates, a religious history, 'for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not.' (1 Ne. 9:5; emphasis added.) Mormon was surprised to find the small plates of Nephi as he was abridging the records, but he, like Nephi, was impressed to keep the small plates separate, even though he did not know why. 'And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me, according to the workings of the Spirit of the Lord which is in me. ... The Lord knoweth all things which are to come; wherefore, he worketh in me to do according to his will.' (W. of M. 1:7; emphasis added.)

"Two separate records had been kept by the prophets for almost five hundred years, not only so that the Lord's covenant with Nephi, Jacob, Enos, and others could be fulfilled, but also because of the Lord's great love for Joseph Smith. The existence of the second record made it possible for the Prophet to 'repent of that which thou hast done which is contrary to the commandment' of God. (D&C 3:10.)"

This experience lasted for three months. Joseph gave the manuscript to Martin Harris on June 14, 1828. He was not able to resume translating until September 22, at which point the angel Moroni returned the Urim and Thummim to him. His mother reports Joseph's words: "The angel seemed pleased with me, and he told me that the Lord loved me for my faithfulness and humility." Think of what Joseph learned from this experience, although it temporarily halted the progress of translating the Book of Mormon.

Another scene is quickly before us. A grieving young father and his two children sit alone after a makeshift dinner. The children have been staying with Grandmother while their mother has slowly slipped away in a lingering illness; now they and their father are home again after her funeral. The little girl drops off to sleep and is carried to her bed. The little boy fights off sleepiness until he finally asks his father if tonight, just tonight, he can sleep with him in his bed. As the two lie silently in the dark, the lad speaks: “Daddy, are you looking at me?”

“Yes, son,” the father replies, “I am looking at you.”

The boy sighs and, exhausted, sleeps. The father waits a time and then, weeping, cries out in the dark: “God, are you looking at me? If you are, maybe I can make it. Without you, I know I can’t.”

It’s amazing how the Lord works. I had been going through a phase in my life where I had no self-worth, thought I was ugly, and didn’t think I had any talent. When the April New Era came, I sat down to have lunch and decided to read it while I ate. I flipped through the pages to Q&A, because that is the first thing I read. There was my answer. The Lord had sent it to me through the New Era, because He knew I always read it. Thank you for doing such a good job on the New Era. It is surely an inspired work of the Church.Name withheld

When I was young my parents were faced with changing the long-standing religious traditions of their families. My parents moved from rural Ohio to the city of Flint, Michigan, a new place. My father found a mechanic in the dealership where he worked who wasn’t rude and didn’t smoke, drink, or swear. He found him to be friendly and helpful, and he wondered why. This man told my father it was because of his church.

My life was forever changed by the gospel of Jesus Christ when my parents invited two young men to our home. I remember the day they drove up in their American Motors Rambler and walked up to our house. They sat on the couch and pulled out a large flannel board and proceeded to teach us the gospel. My brother and I sat on the floor and watched as the missionaries placed cutouts of people and other figures on the flannel board. We would watch these flannel-board cutout characters slowly curl down, and we snickered and laughed as they fell to the floor. My father had to nudge us with his foot to keep us quiet. I had no idea that that moment was the beginning of a change that would forever affect our beliefs, our way of life, and our previously held notions and traditions. Life changed for us. We began attending church a couple of days a week. New terminology entered into our life.

I went to something called Primary and attended classes called CTR, Targeteers, and Blazers. There were things called sacrament gems and two-and-a-half-minute talks. We went to progressive dinners, bazaars, and ice cream socials. There were road shows and gold and green balls. Some of these traditions of the Church have changed over time, but the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ remains a constant. My family had to rethink our priorities, rethink who we were, and change the way we did things. We made covenants with the Lord as we realigned our lives with this newfound gospel. My life was forever changed and set on a different trajectory, one other than where it could have headed.

Have you ever wondered how it might feel to go through life deaf, blind, or confined to a wheelchair? The youth of the Pleasant Grove 19th Ward in Utah recently found out when they participated in a “Handicap Awareness Week.”
“I can’t even get through the door into the bathroom!” exclaimed one girl who tried a few turns in a wheelchair. Getting a drink of water from the fountain was also difficult.
The youth listened to speakers and voluntarily took on disabilities of their own while participating in different activities. Experiencing handicaps first-hand helped the youth develop a new-found compassion for their disabled brothers and sisters. But they were also consoled. “We were actually relieved to realize that one can have lots of fun even with a serious disability,” said one participant.

My two-year-old son, Brian, was playing in the sandbox with his friend Scotty. Suddenly, sand was thrown, feelings were hurt, and Scotty started crying. I started toward the sandbox to initiate a parent’s perennial patching up, but before I had taken two steps, Brian reached out and hugged Scotty. Tears stopped as quickly as they began, hurt feelings were mended, and friends were reconciled. Then they both continued playing as before.

I am certain my enthusiasm for this opportunity is based on my own experience. As I turned 21 years old, my bishop invited me to visit him in his office where he issued me a call to serve a mission. He said he felt strongly that the Lord wanted me to go. When I shared this news with my father, he was equally adamant, but against me serving a mission. He reassured me that the Lord did not expect his daughters to go on missions. So what was I to do? Should I side with my ecclesiastical leader or my father? I considered weaseling out of the controversy altogether, leaving my father and the bishop to duke it out. But I had this persistent, nagging feeling that I needed to find out for myself. I went to my knees and poured out my heart to God like I had never done before. I expected an answer by the time I stood up, but nothing came. Weeks went by. I tried fasting--serious fasting--like I had never done before. Still no answer. Anyway that's what I thought. When I finally recognized the answer, I realized the Spirit had been telling me what God wanted me to do all along the way; I simply hadn't known what to look for.

For me the answer was yes, serve a mission.

I will now share two stories wherein angels communicated love to mortals. At one point in his life Parley P. Pratt remained captive for months in a Missouri dungeon. He was very discouraged. After fasting and praying for a number of days, Elder Pratt experienced a powerful answer to his prayer. He wrote:

A personage . . . stood before me with a smile of compassion in every look, and pity mingled with the tenderest love and sympathy in every expression of the countenance. . . . A well known voice saluted me, which I readily recognized as that of the wife of my youth, who had for near two years been sweetly sleeping where . . . the weary are at rest.20

This personage, as an angelic messenger, delivered her message to Elder Pratt and then departed.

One day in the summer of 1969, a young missionary in Chuncheon, Republic of Korea, handed a pamphlet on the purpose of life to the man at the post office who distributed the foreign mail. The young elder probably had no idea what a chain of conversions he had begun.
Neither did the postal worker who accepted the pamphlet. Cho Joong Hyun did not know why his civil service job had taken him so far from his home in Suncheon, near the southern tip of the Korean peninsula. Only later would he come to understand that he had to be in that place at that time to receive the pamphlet.
This small incident would lead to the conversion of his entire family, as well as many others they would later influence. But those conversions would not come easily. “It took more than 20 years to get all of my family baptized,” he says. Through his efforts, his parents and his brothers and sisters and their spouses and children have come to enjoy the blessings of the gospel.
Cho Joong Hyun’s own conversion was difficult. The pamphlet given to him by the missionary was “really good,” he says, in that it provided answers about the purpose of life that he had never been able to find in the Christian church he formerly attended. Still, he did not think an unknown American church could be taken seriously, so he tossed the pamphlet into a drawer and forgot it for a time.
He forgot it until early one morning when, awakening after another evening of drinking and billiards with friends, he lay thinking that he ought to change his life. Then he remembered the pamphlet that gave him answers.
The first Sunday he attended a Latter-day Saint meeting, he was not impressed. The rented building was small, and the congregation at Sunday School, he recalls, consisted of the missionaries, their cook, a grandmother and two children, and a couple of college students.
But the answers supplied by that pamphlet, along with the humility and testimony of the young elders, kept him talking to the missionaries, even though he was wary of their Church. He remembers arguing with them about religion. When they quoted scriptures from the Book of Mormon, he thought to himself, “These guys are really good at making this up. It sounds like the Bible.” They gave him a Book of Mormon with Moroni 10:3–5 printed by hand in the front of it, carrying the promise that the reader would learn of the truth of the book through the Holy Ghost. Remembering the story of Joseph Smith, Cho Joong Hyun went to his favorite spot in the mountains to offer his personal prayer. But he received no immediate answer.
Then one day as he sat in a library reading the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants, he clearly heard a voice speak to him saying, “These are true, and they are mine.” He looked around to see if anyone else had heard the voice. Tears streamed down his face as he realized the message had been for him alone.
After his baptism and confirmation in 1969, the world changed for Joong Hyun. People and things that had seemed disagreeable before no longer did. He saw beauty around him, even though nothing was different. He spent time going door-to-door with the missionaries sharing his testimony.
He had to put his missionary work aside for a time while he served in the military during the Vietnam War. But he began trying to share the gospel again when he returned home to Suncheon in the mid-1970s.
There were no other Church members in the city. One way he tried to change that was to give copies of the Book of Mormon to people he met. “I thought I needed to share this true and precious book,” he says. Little came of that, however. His greatest impact as a missionary would be with his own brothers and sisters.
His youngest sister, Cho Sungja (Korean women retain their birth family name after marriage), recalls that at first her brother simply held family home evenings with his brothers and sisters and taught gospel principles. But eventually he introduced them to missionaries.
His youngest sister accepted the gospel readily. She felt the Holy Ghost testify to her of the truth of Joseph Smith’s First Vision. Members of another faith had shown her a scripture in the book of Revelation that they said warned against adding to the words of that book (see Revelation 22:18–19). But as she opened the Book of Mormon one day to read in 2 Nephi 29, some of the verses in that chapter told her of the need for additional revelation (see vv. 11–14), and again she felt the Spirit testify that it was true.
Her father was against her joining the Church, but finally, in answer to her prayers, he gave his consent. She was baptized and confirmed in 1976, at age 16.
Like her pioneering elder brother, Joong Hyun, Sungja wanted to share the gospel she had found. She shared it freely with friends at school, and eventually five of them were also baptized and confirmed.
Sungja’s next oldest brother, Cho Yong Hyun, had listened to the missionaries with his siblings. Their parents were busy running the family restaurant, and Joong Hyun, the second son, was frequently charged with caring for his younger brothers and sisters. His siblings all learned to love him and trust his judgment. “I really respected my older brother, so when he first introduced the gospel to me, I could accept it,” Yong Hyun says.
But Yong Hyun’s conversion was not based on his brother’s testimony alone; he received his own strong witness of the truth, and once a member, he dedicated himself to serving faithfully.
That dedication led him, while he was a college student, to want to serve a mission—a choice his father opposed. But Yong Hyun won his father’s consent by promising to be a better student when he returned, and he kept that promise.
Father and son would clash over the Church again some years later when Yong Hyun was offered a position with the Church Educational System. He was doing well in his job with an oil refining firm at the time, but he accepted the Church position and has served as CES coordinator in the Gwangju area of southern Korea since 1986. His father opposed the change, considering it unwise for his son to leave a good position with a prestigious firm to work for a relatively unknown church that had started in America. His father said later that he had cried bitterly over Yong Hyun’s decision and had come close to disowning him. Fortunately, the rift was healed.
All of the Cho brothers and sisters will say that their father was the hardest opponent to their studying and living the gospel. He could be demanding and, in his traditional role as head of the family, expected obedience.
But some of the siblings also had their own reservations about the Church. The second daughter, Cho Gil Ja, had doubts centered in part on why her older brother was asked to give so much service to his church without being paid, as ministers were in other churches. She dated, married, and was raising her own young children before she finally heeded her brother’s request to listen to the missionaries.
When they asked her to read the Book of Mormon, she became absorbed in the reading and finished the book in three days. She heeded Moroni’s admonition to pray about its teachings and received a strong confirmation that they are true. At that point, she says, “I felt there must be something I could do for God.” The impression she received in answer to this desire was that she too should attend church and serve.
Gil Ja had learned service by example. Her mother always lived by that principle, serving Church members even before she became one herself.
Her mother had come to love the members of the Church and the sister missionaries who wanted to teach her. But it was difficult to give up her traditional religion. In her closet she had a small statue of Buddha to which she prayed each day. The turning point in her conversion came after she dreamed that she was praying to her Buddha when it began to cry tears from its painted eyes and slowly turned its back on her. She understood that the dream meant it was time for her to follow a new religious path.
Three years after her baptism and confirmation, her husband—by then the lone member of the family who was still outside the Church—finally consented to listen to the gospel and was converted. After he joined the Church, he became a changed man, his children say—sweeter, kinder, more tolerant.
Some 26 years after Cho Joong Hyun’s baptism, all of his family were at last members of the Church. It was a high point for the family when their mother and father were sealed in the Seoul Korea Temple. A touching moment for the entire family came at a later gathering when the Cho children sang to their father the lullaby he had sung to them when they were small.
Their mother served faithfully in the Church until the end of her life. Even in the hospital, suffering from stomach cancer, she was a missionary to the young woman in the next bed, introducing her to the gospel.
Her sons and daughters carry on the tradition of service. There are two President Chos in the family. Yong Hyun, the CES coordinator, has served in a variety of priesthood leadership callings through the years and is currently president of the stake in Gwangju. Cho Joong Hyun, who led the way into the Church for his family, has also served in a variety of leadership roles in Suncheon, including district president. He is currently president of the Suncheon Branch. Cho Gil Ja has served for more than 16 years as president of the Relief Society in the ward and stake. Other brothers and sisters in the family are active in their own areas as well, and all are married to active members.
Seven of the Cho children and grandchildren have served as missionaries so far, and still others are preparing to serve. Several of the children and grandchildren have married returned missionaries. Now the fourth generation of Chos is beginning to be reared in the Church. Their days have not been free of life’s difficulties, but blessings have come through their obedience.
The missionary who handed that pamphlet to a young postal worker nearly four decades ago could not have known what would grow from the small seed he planted. But the harvest has been plentiful—and it may be only beginning.