Gospel Story Finder

The Saturday night following the Thanksgiving holiday, I found myself alone in my off-campus apartment. I didn’t have much to do, so I flipped through the channels on the TV until I came across a movie that had just started.
It didn’t take more than a few minutes for me to realize that the movie was inappropriate. For a minute I thought, “What’s the big deal? No one is around. After all, it’s on TV, so all of the worst parts must be edited out.”
The Spirit, however, prompted me to turn off the TV. I decided to read a book instead.
About half an hour later I heard a knock at the door. It was a member of my elders quorum, who told me that one of the young women he home taught was sick and needed a blessing. He had spent the past 30 minutes calling around and knocking on doors, trying to find someone who was home and able to help him. Finally, he had come to my door. I agreed to help and quickly changed into Sunday dress.
While we were walking to her apartment, I asked him how ill she was. All he knew was that he had received an urgent call from the young woman’s roommate, requesting that he come right away.
When we arrived at the apartment, it was apparent that she was not well. She had a high fever and looked pale. Her roommate said she had been sick for several hours, was weak, and was unable to eat because of an upset stomach.
I had assumed that I would anoint her with oil, but the brother from my elders quorum asked me to give the blessing instead. I felt inadequate and was not sure what I would say. I had not had time to mentally prepare to give a blessing, but I silently prayed that God would direct my words.
After the anointing, I addressed the young woman by name and pronounced the blessing. I found myself making promises of restored health and providing words of comfort that were not my own. I then closed the blessing. As we opened our eyes, I saw a huge smile on the young woman’s face, and she thanked us for the blessing. She soon recovered and was able to return to her studies and finish the semester.
As I reflect on that experience, I feel great gratitude for the opportunity to hold the priesthood. The experience lasted only about 10 minutes, and I am sure the ill young woman has since forgotten about it. But it has had a lasting impact on me.
I am grateful for the whisperings of the Spirit, which prompted me to avoid temptation and to remain spiritually ready. Additionally, I am grateful the Spirit directed the brother from my elders quorum to my apartment.
Most of all, I am grateful for a kind and merciful Heavenly Father, who strengthened me in my inadequacies, guiding my words in the blessing and then fulfilling the words He had me speak. I know that as we remain worthy, we will have the Spirit to guide our path so that we can be ready to serve those around us.

I can still remember my mother speaking softly to me one Saturday afternoon when, as a little boy, I asked her for permission to do something I thought was perfectly reasonable and which she knew was dangerous. I still am amazed at the power she was granted, I believe from the Lord, to turn me around with so few words. As I remember them, they were: “Oh, I suppose you could do that. But the choice is yours.” The only warning was in the emphasis she put on the words could and choice. Yet that was enough for me.

Her power to warn with so few words sprang from three things I knew about her. First, I knew she loved me. Second, I knew she had already done what she wanted me to do and been blessed by it. And third, she had conveyed to me her sure testimony that the choice I had to make was so important that the Lord would tell me what to do if I asked Him. Love, example, and testimony: those were keys that day, and they have been whenever I have been blessed to hear and then heed the warning of a servant of the Lord.

Early in the morning today I went to the municipality offices in Dombo Tombo, and while we were in line a woman dropped a $20 note on the ground. I saw it fall and told her about it. She picked it up and said, “Thank you.”
Many of the other people in line said to me, “You are stupid. You are foolish. Why didn’t you take the money and buy your own things?”
But I said, “No, I shall never do that because I am a child of God.”
When the others calmed down, an older man who was standing behind me said quietly, “Do you go to church? It seems as if you are a good girl.”
And I said, “Yes, I go to church.”
And he said, “What is the name of your church?”
I said, “It is called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you want to, you can come to the Dombo Tombo Hall on Tuesday nights at 5:30 P.M. or on Sunday at half past ten and I will meet you there.”
And the man said, “Oh, yes! I will come!”
So I am very happy about what I did today.

When I was a small boy, each December my father would take us all across the street to the home of Bishop Duncan for tithing settlement. The bishop did not have an office in the ward building, and so he had to conduct business in his home. We would all sit in his living room and, one by one, he would invite us into the dining room. Our tithing might be 25 cents, or maybe 50 cents, but it was a full tithing. He wrote out a receipt and recorded the amount in the ward record. The amount may have been so small that it cost more to record it than it was worth. But it established a habit which continued through all of these years. With the payment of tithing have come innumerable blessings as the Lord has promised.

“My Young Women leaders had challenged me to finish reading the Book of Mormon by November,” says Sierra Hoffman, a Mia Maid from Albany, Oregon. “I was in the middle of it when President Hinckley gave the challenge to all members to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year.”
She could have simply finished from where she was. And she did. Then, after completing her leaders’ challenge, Sierra turned back to 1 Nephi in late November and started reading again—this time to meet President Hinckley’s reading challenge. She read each night, sometimes for several hours.
“The spirit that filled my room and my heart as I read was amazing!” she says. “Passages that I had never noticed before stood out and touched me deeply. Verses that had confused me before made sense. Tears would fill my eyes as I read about the Savior visiting the Americas.”
Sierra also noticed a change in her 10-year-old brother as he, too, began reading from the Book of Mormon daily. He became more loving, kind, and respectful. Just as President Hinckley promised when he made the challenge, there was a greater feeling of the Spirit of the Lord in the Hoffman family’s home.

“Hush, now,” Mom said. “You can tell your Popsicle stories in the order of your return. Benjamin, that means that you’re first.”
“OK,” said Benjamin, jumping up. “Well, I ate my Popsicle while walking down the sidewalk and trying to think of something to do. When it was gone, I sat down on the curb to think some more. I was sitting across from Mrs. Taylor’s house. I remembered about Mr. Taylor dying last year and about Mom and Dad saying what a hard time Mrs. Taylor’s been having trying to do everything by herself. I wished that I could help her. Then I noticed that her garden patch was full of weeds—and I got my idea. I went over and asked Mrs. Taylor if it was all right, then used my stick as a tool to dig weeds out of her garden!”
Mom hugged Benjamin. “I’m proud of you,” she said. “What a great idea! I know that it made Mrs. Taylor very happy.”

It was a beautiful, clear day, and 28-year-old Aircraft Commander Brent Young was doing what he loved best: flying a C-141 for the United States Air Force. He and his crew, including his copilot, a flight engineer, and two load masters, were on a routine run from North Dakota to Utah.
The flight was uneventful until Commander Young began his approach to Hill Air Force Base. Then, out of nowhere, the thought came to him, “Hold 20 knots above approach speed.”
“Why would I do that?” he wondered. “It goes against everything I know about flying.”
As the plane sped toward its destination, he agonized over the decision he must make in the next 60 seconds. “If I drop 20 knots now,” he reasoned, “the plane will be at just the right speed for the approach. I can’t hold 20 knots. I’ll overshoot the runway.”
But the impression persisted. “Hold 20 knots above approach speed.”
“What are you doing?” his copilot suddenly blurted out. “You’re going too fast!”
“We need to hold 20 knots above approach speed. I can’t explain it,” Commander Young replied.
The plane hurled toward the runway. Beads of sweat rolled down his face. His heart beat wildly, and his hands clenched the steering column. “Will we overshoot the runway? Will we survive?” he thought.
At that moment, with the plane just 250 feet above the ground, the speed suddenly dropped 20 knots. Commander Young stared at the gauge in disbelief. It had dropped to 145 knots. What had happened?
Within seconds the plane touched down, and Commander Young completed the landing.
The flight was over, but he couldn’t leave the cockpit yet. He sat in stunned silence, trying to make sense of what had just happened. But he could find no logical explanation. Without the extra air speed, he and his crew probably wouldn’t be alive. If he hadn’t held 20 knots above the approach speed, the plane would have dropped to 125 knots—stall speed. He wouldn’t have had time to fly out of the stall. Likely the plane would have crashed.
“Why’d you let me do it?” Commander Young quizzed his copilot.
“I’ve flown with LDS pilots before,” he replied. “I know they are guided by a force I don’t understand.”
Commander Young uttered a silent prayer. “Thank you, Heavenly Father. Thank you for the gift of the Holy Ghost.”

The persecution halted for a season as the Saints moved to a new place on the banks of the Mississippi River, where they drained the swamplands and founded the city of Nauvoo, to which new converts from many nations came to unite with their fellow Saints. Among them was a group of nine black Saints who entered the city late in 1843, led by a free black woman, Jane Elizabeth Manning. She and her friends had walked almost 1,300 kilometers. She later recalled, “We walked until our shoes were worn out, and our feet became sore and cracked open and bled until you could see the whole print of our feet with blood on the ground. We stopped and united in prayer to the Lord, we asked God the Eternal Father to heal our feet and our prayers were answered and our feet were healed.”13

In fact, God will do more than what is best for us. He will do what is best for us and for all of our Heavenly Father’s children. The conviction that the Lord knows more than we do and that he will answer our prayers in the way that is best for us and for all of his other children is a vital ingredient of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This important reality is beautifully described in an experience recorded in Elder John H. Groberg’s recent book, In the Eye of the Storm. He describes a lesson he learned as a young missionary traveling on a sailboat in the Tongan islands.
“We would always pray for protection, success, and good seas and wind to take us to our destination. Once I asked the Lord to bless us with a good tail wind so we could get to Foa quickly. As we got under way, one of the older men said, ‘Elder Groberg, you need to modify your prayers a little.’
“‘How’s that?’ I replied.
“‘You asked the Lord for a tail wind to take us rapidly to Foa. If you pray for a tail wind to Foa, what about the people who are trying to come from Foa to Pangai? They are good people, and you are praying against them. Just pray for a good wind, not a tail wind.’
“That taught me something important. Sometimes we pray for things that will benefit us but may hurt others. We may pray for a particular type of weather, or to preserve someone’s life, when that answer to our prayer may hurt someone else. That’s why we must always pray in faith, because we can’t have true, God-given faith in something that is not according to His will. If it’s according to His will, all parties will benefit. I learned to pray for a good wind and the ability to get there safely, not necessarily a tail wind” (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1993, p. 175).

When my parents converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my father had no stable income. Back then, as today, there was much poverty in the Philippines. Work was hard to find.

So he prayed and told God that he had a testimony of the law of tithing but needed to find employment so he could live it. He promised Heavenly Father that he would pay an honest tithe all his life.

Well, my father did get a job. He found work as a cleaner in the local Coca-Cola manufacturing plant. As he began to pay tithing, his life began to change.

We used to have to walk to church since we did not have enough money to pay for public transportation. That began to change. My dad worked hard in his humble job and began to slowly rise through the ranks, ultimately becoming a sales manager. We could afford transportation in addition to food. One true miracle is that all six of my parents’ children were able to go and finish college.

Regarding that particular miracle, even my father’s coworkers seemed surprised. “How can you send all your children to college?” they would ask. “You make the same amount of money as we do. It doesn’t make sense!”

My father would always smile and say, “I have been blessed because of living the gospel. I have been blessed because I pay tithing.”

This reality has helped impel me at different times either to repentance or to avoid sin altogether. On one occasion in connection with a home sale, there was an error in the documentation, and I found myself in a position where I was legally entitled to get more money from the buyer. My real estate agent asked if I wanted to keep the money since it was my right to do so. I thought about facing the Lord, the personification of justice, and trying to explain that I had a legal right to take advantage of the buyer and his mistake. I couldn’t see myself being very convincing, especially since I would probably be asking for mercy for myself at the same time. I knew I could not live with myself if I were so dishonorable as to keep the money. I replied to the agent that we would stick with the bargain as we all understood it originally. It is worth a great deal more to me than any sum of money to know that I have nothing to repent of in that transaction.

We often talk about teaching our children from the scriptures, but how do we do that?
Several years ago I was teaching our young son about the life and experiences of the brother of Jared. Although the story was very interesting, he was not engaged. I then asked what the story meant to him personally. It means so much when we ask our children, “What does it mean to you?” He said, “You know, it’s not that different from what Joseph Smith did in the grove when he prayed and got an answer.”
I said, “You’re about Joseph’s age. Do you think a prayer like his would be helpful to you?” Suddenly we weren’t talking about a long-ago story in a faraway land. We were talking about our son—about his life, his needs, and the way prayer could help him.

One of my friends, a successful merchant, shared with me the greatest secret of his personal success—and it’s not his selling ability. He discovered it one day when the phone rang while he was helping one customer with another waiting to be helped. The clerk said, “I think it’s your wife, Ralph.”
“Hello, Ralph,” said a voice on the other end. “How are you?”
“Fine, dear, but terribly busy. What’s wrong? Why are you calling me?”
There was a short pause. Then, unhappily Betty said, “I just wanted to hear a grown-up’s voice for a change. Sorry I bothered you when you were so busy.”
Ralph loved Betty, he said he loved her more than anything else in the world, but suddenly he realized that Betty was home with four children under the age of 5, chattering, playing, quarreling, but always needing her. She was busy too—and frustrated.
Wisely Ralph took time right then to apologize, and tell Betty how much he loved her, assure her she could call him anytime, and invite her to go out to dinner that evening with him.
Ralph’s discovery? “Since Betty is the most important person in the world to me, she also deserves first claim on my time. Since I’ve learned to give it to her, she’s happier. I’m happier, and both of us can do our jobs better.”
I’ve found through my own experience that busy men have to learn Ralph’s lesson or suffer the consequences in personal unhappiness and lower efficiency. As an obstetrician, I spent much of my professional time working with women and many of them have told me their feelings about how their husbands use time.
Bart, like Ralph, is a successful man; but his wife confided: “Bart’s gone all day and I understand that. But he might as well be gone at night too. All he does is come home, eat, and either rush off to a Church meeting or go to sleep in front of the TV. He’s really gone day and night. Maybe it’ll be different when he retires … but that’s ten years from now.”
In contrast is Ruth, whose husband, an energetic entrepreneur, had just opened another in a series of big stores. I asked, “But doesn’t this mean he’ll leave you alone much of the time? Does he ever have time for his family?”
“Al travels a lot all right,” Ruth conceded. “But when he’s home, we have such a glorious time together I don’t mind. He phones me often and he takes me or one of the children along when he can.” She looked up with an expression of enchanted anticipation. “And he’ll be back tomorrow!” Al has learned the lesson.

The afternoon wind rolled like a wave up the little hillock above the sea, tugging at Joby Kelsey’s huck shirt as he tromped up the crooked dirt road toward home. He was trying to keep pace with Lucius Potter, an aging fisherman with a mass of wild white hair that looked like the breaking surf. Lucius’s long beard jerking in the wind resembled a great tuft of dry seaweed.
The tall, craggy seaman paused at the crest of the hill and looked back longingly at the restless, swelling sea. “Hear that song, lad?” he asked. “Hear that mighty chorus swell?”
Joby stared at the pounding surf, feeling its power as it lashed the rocks below them. Then he turned to look at Lucius, whose face mirrored the excitement of the churning sea.
This wasn’t the first walk the boy had taken with Lucius Potter, nor was it the first time he had listened to the seaman’s tales expressing his love for a fisherman’s way of life. The pair had become quite close after Joby moved with his parents to the small fishing village along the rugged northern California coast two months before. Joby’s father had taken over the job of the retiring proprietor at The Tradewinds, a mercantile store at the edge of town.
It was summer, 1910, and there were few fences to restrict a young boy’s desire for barefoot wanderings across the grassy, flower-blanketed seaside slopes. Nothing to restrict him except, perhaps, the old man’s stories of the sea. Lucius told them with such passion and mystery and wave-slamming excitement that Joby regularly sought out the old fisherman. “Can you tell me another story?” Joby would ask eagerly. Lucius’s smile would deepen the lines of his weathered face, and another adventure would unfold as they tramped the beachline. Sometimes they would stop to watch seals slip in and out of the churning tidewaters or rest atop a great barnacle-laden rock in the dampness.
Lucius never tired of reliving his yesteryears when he’d hauled his nets down to the sea with his crew and set sail upon the capricious water. Fishing was his life.
What puzzled Joby and his parents were the tattered clothes Lucius wore and the small shack in which he lived—a crude little dwelling made of tin scraps and driftwood. And the old seaman was so thin! Why such an experienced fisherman with a sturdy, seaworthy skiff and ample nets didn’t fare better was a mystery. Someone told Joby’s father it was because the old man refused to hire a crew. Why, no one knew. It seemed obvious that he desperately needed help. But Lucius sailed alone, never allowing anyone to accompany him, even when seamen out of work volunteered their services.
“There was a time when he was a rather prosperous man,” someone had said. “He wasn’t rich enough to live in a big house, but he didn’t live in a shack, either. He always had more than enough to eat, and he wore the nicest clothes in the village.”
Joby looked earnestly and curiously at Lucius as his friend gazed seaward with a kind of disturbed, unbroken stare. Finally the boy’s curiosity got the best of him, and he asked Lucius once again why he didn’t take on a crew. As always, the old fisherman quickly avoided the subject, pointing out the hump of a great whale on the horizon. Then he got up abruptly and said, “The day will turn into night before we reach your place if we don’t get a move on.”
Lucius had been invited by Joby’s parents to an evening meal, and along with his desire to keep ahead of any more of the lad’s uncomfortable inquiries, the thought of good food quickened the old man’s step.
Lucius was halfway through dinner when the soft glow of candlelight on Joby’s hair caught his eye. He gazed fixedly at the lad across the table, then noticed Joby’s parents staring curiously at him. Lucius spoke softly. “It’s the lad’s hair. It has a gold-dust shine just like lamplight reflecting on miller moths. Or like the gold on the waves at the last light of day.”
The Kelseys were often touched by Lucius’s poetic way of saying things, and the old fisherman always spoke with such deep reverence that it was hard to doubt what he said. That’s why the trio waited anxiously for Lucius to put the last forkful of potatoes into his mouth and wipe the leavings from his beard. They knew a colorful tale would follow—it always did.
“It’s the least I can do,” Lucius would say, “after a meal like that.”
Joby’s mother always glowed with appreciation. “Tonight,” she announced, “there’s blackberry pie—after your story.”
Lucius’s eyes grew as large as plump berries. “It’s liable to be the shortest story I ever told,” he replied, and everyone laughed.
The three Kelseys sat spellbound. Ocean waves seemed to roll and fall off Lucius’s tongue. Masts split, and men were hurled into the sea!
Suddenly Lucius stopped. Joby and his parents traded puzzled glances. The boy saw the same troubled look on the fisherman’s face that he had observed before as Lucius gazed out through the window at the heaving sea.
“Were you washed overboard, too, Mr. Potter?” Joby asked, caught up in the man’s story.
Then, as though the boy’s question had released a floodgate, Lucius’s painful secret tumbled out. He seemed almost relieved now in the telling of it … “Me and two others,” he sighed. “We were securing the rigging when the wave hit. I … I tried to save the men,” he said with anguish, “but I was the only survivor.”
“Is that why you never take anyone with you on your skiff, Mr. Potter?” Joby’s father asked gently.
Lucius nodded. “I never want anything like that to happen on a boat of mine again.” He rose from the table. “It’s late. I’d better go.”
“It wasn’t your fault in happened,” Joby’s mother consoled him.
“Mom’s right,” Joby chimed in. “You were in a storm.”
“It could’ve happened to anyone,” Mr. Kelsey added. “You have no reason to punish yourself, Mr. Potter.”
“Perhaps,” muttered Lucius as he turned toward the door and opened it. “But it’s a shameful thing when a man loses faith in himself.” He stepped out into the raven-black chill and was swallowed by the darkness.
“There must be something we can do to help him,” Joby said.
“I wish there were,” Joby’s father replied, “but I’m afraid the only person who can restore Mr. Potter’s faith in himself is Mr. Potter.”
Saturday morning the sea was furious as Joby climbed the brow of the great surf-battered rock where he had often sat with Lucius and listened to the old man’s tales. In two days the lad would be returning to school, and the times would be fewer when Lucius could tell him stories.
Lucius emerged from the dense fog on a small hillock above the churning water just in time to see a huge wave spill over Joby and dash him into the sea.
“JOBY!”
Lucius leaped across the narrow cleft that divided the steep hillock from the big rock, and gazed agonizingly into the seething water below. The boy was nowhere to be seen. Then, shouting louder than the thundering waves, Lucius doubled his fists and leaped into the sea.
The old fisherman carried the boy in his arms along the little path toward home. Tears streamed down his face—tears not of sadness but of indescribable joy. Joby was alive! Lucius had saved him.
One morning a few days later, Joby bounded out of the house with his schoolbooks slung over his shoulder. Multicolored autumn leaves fluttered about his feet. He paused to join his mother and father, who stood just outside the gate, staring toward the sea. A fishing boat bobbed in the sun-glazed water, and a crew could be seen pulling in a line of nets—Lucius’s crew! An old fisherman with a long, seaweedlike beard and a new pair of boots paused to wave at the trio on the hill.

You are looking at a FIRST. I’ve never been impressed to write a letter to the editor until today. I’ve just read the little article “Wonderful Pest” by Glenn Latham in the December 1983 New Era. It made me think of Marian Jackson. Marian was the Blazer B leader in the Edgemont 8th Ward here in Provo when she decided that our son had lounged long enough at that “almost an Eagle” stage. He was about 15 when she took him under her wing. Under the guise of “helping her” with the Blazer B’s, our son began his final assault on his Eagle. And thanks to Marian, he made it!
Marian has six sons of her own, and if I’m not mistaken all are Eagles. I can’t begin to count the sons of other people who can credit her with their similar achievements. Marian was never thought of as a “wonderful pest,” but as I tried to thank her for the inspiration and motivation and hours of service to our son, she laughingly replied, “Oh, behind every Eagle there’s an old buzzard.”
It’s a “dirty job,” but aren’t we glad someone—Jeff Sessions, Marian Jackson, and many, many others—are willing to do it! God bless those wonderful pests and old buzzards everywhere! P.S. Even parents are sometimes successful as old buzzards—and it’s not really such a dirty job. It’s really lots of fun, as we learned with our second Eagle.
Ann JamisonProvo, Utah

Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer aren’t the only active boys to come from Hannibal, Missouri. There are also Paul (10) and Jimmy (6) Stork. But Jimmy and Paul do like to keep those two famous boys in mind. Every Fourth of July they celebrate Tom Sawyer Day. This year, Paul will dress as Mark Twain and be in the fence-painting contest. Jimmy is going to catch and train a frog to jump so he can enter the frog-jumping contest. He’ll dress as Tom Sawyer for that.
Jimmy has a green thumb. He loves to garden. Every time his father, Dan, goes out to work in the garden, Jimmy’s right there. He has his own pumpkin patch that he weeds every day. When the first frost turns the pumpkins orange, Jimmy shares them with his neighbors.
Paul loves to play basketball and soccer, and he’s a whiz on computers. When his school first got computers, he helped some of the teachers learn how to use them.
One of the boys’ favorite activities is fishing down by the dam on the Mississippi River. They always have a contest with their parents to see who can catch the first fish, the biggest fish, and the most fish.
But the one contest they both hope to win is more serious—Paul’s fight with diabetes, a condition that can make you very ill if you eat the wrong things or don’t eat the right things.
Four years ago the doctors discovered Paul’s illness. At first, he was really angry about being diabetic, and he wanted to eat everything all the other kids were eating. But one time he went to his doctor and his blood sugar was really high—he hadn’t been eating right. The doctor sent the family to a specialist, saying, “If you don’t take care of Paul and keep him in control, he won’t live to be twenty.” That really upset them. The specialist helped the family learn what they needed to do to keep Paul healthy. Now he does everything he’s supposed to do. He even tests his own blood and gives himself three insulin shots each day to make certain that his blood sugar level stays normal.
About the same time that Paul found out he was diabetic, his father, also a diabetic, started having serious health problems because he wasn’t taking care of himself. One day Paul was with him when he had a seizure, and Paul had to call 911 for help. Dan realized then that he had to set an example for his son.
Paul also helps his father stay in control. Together, and with the help and support of Mom and Jimmy, they know it’s a battle they can win. It makes it easier that Mom, Carol, is a great cook who fixes all the right things for them to eat, and that there is sugar-free ice cream to celebrate special occasions with.
Jimmy tries to help his brother too. It was really hard for him the first time he saw Paul have a seizure, but now he knows what to look for and what to do if it happens. Still, he prays every day that Paul will be OK. His first words each morning are, “Where’s Paul?” He looks up to Paul and wants to go everywhere with him. Sometimes it drives Paul crazy, but he loves his brother and realizes that he needs to do what’s right because Jimmy is learning from him.
Paul and Jimmy love to visit their Grandma and Grandpa Stork, who live in Quincy, Illinois, a few miles away on the other side of the Mississippi River. When the river flooded last year, the only way the boys could go see their grandparents was by ferry or airplane because all the bridges across the river were washed out.
When the flooding started, their parents told the boys that they were all going sandbagging. Jimmy and Paul moaned and groaned all day. But after their parents explained to them why they were doing it—to save people’s homes and businesses—the boys were anxious every morning to get to work. Each day for two weeks, they went sandbagging with their mom from 10:30 A.M. until 3:30 P.M., when they’d go home to eat. When their dad got home from work, they all went again from 5 P.M. until about 9 P.M. They were very grateful to the Red Cross, who brought food and water so that they could stay on the job.
One day a ward member’s house was in danger of being flooded, so they helped move all the furniture and other things. It took until midnight, but they got everything out of the house before the water flooded it.
Paul and Jimmy’s favorite song is “Nephi’s Courage.” Both boys seem to have applied the example of that great prophet to their own lives: They try to have the courage to do what is right, to be obedient to the commandments, and to serve others. Their family is reading the Book of Mormon together every night. Both boys want to serve missions. “They’ll be the first missionaries from either Dan’s or my family,” said their mother. “It’s going to be neat!” It already is.

Jane’s family struggled during their first years in the Salt Lake Valley, and though they lacked even the most basic necessities, Jane shared what little she did have with her neighbors. When Brother Lyman, a neighbor, received a call to serve a mission in California, he left his family with few provisions. His wife, Eliza Partridge Lyman, wrote, “Jane James let me have two pounds of flour, it being half of what she had.”

As my parents reached middle age, my mother encountered early-onset Alzheimer’s. My father was determined to faithfully serve as her caretaker, even when her condition required full-time care. Even through these latter years, my father reached out to me through weekly, and, in some periods, daily, phone calls and letters. I had always had a close relationship with both my parents, but during the last 10 years of my father’s life, we became particularly close. I realized then too that he was equally successful in drawing near to my three siblings in the same way—even given the differences in interests and faiths we chose as we all grew older.
Photograph by Del Benson
My parents and my family lived on opposite coasts of the United States during those last years, and they made two cross-country visits, even though my mother’s Alzheimer’s had advanced to the point where assisting her on a long-distance flight was very difficult for Dad.
At this same time, one by one my children all decided to stop attending church. Two eventually had their names removed from Church records. This has certainly been the trial of both my wife’s and my life. And even though he wasn’t a Latter-day Saint, my father was pained and confused by our children’s choices as well. He was a privately religious man, and he joined us through those years in praying for them.
In 2005 my father passed away after being diagnosed with cancer, and my mother passed away three years later. My wife and I rejoiced in acting as their proxies in providing temple ordinances after their deaths.
I’ve long prayed to understand how best to relate to our children now that they’re adults, some with their own spouses and children, none of whom are LDS. We are emotionally close to all four of our children, and we are grateful that they often reach out in love to us.
I eventually received a very clear answer of how I must conduct myself, possibly for the rest of my life, regarding these adult children. I needed to do what my father had done with me. In spite of the different lives we lived and the different religious perspectives we had, my father was determined to draw closer to me as a father and a friend while I experienced the pain of seeing my children choose different lifestyles and beliefs from mine. I realized I must follow the example of my father, who taught me how to treat children of a different faith: love them completely, just as the Savior would.

Jenny’s tears brought back a flood of memories for me. I remembered trying to make it all the way through the first verse of “Love at Home.” But every time we hit “Time doth softly, sweetly glide,” my voice would crack—along with my composure. At my house, time rarely glided. It lurched from one emotional blowup to the next. In between, my brother and sisters and I walked on tiptoe, our nerves tightly strung. I guess we thought that if we were careful enough, maybe we could avoid setting off the next explosion. We could never be careful enough. And always the brief sunshine was followed by a terrifying storm of rage that threatened to swallow us up.
I remember going to church without Dad during the years when he was in and out of Church activity. When he came, I hoped no one would detect the smell of smoke on his breath. When he didn’t, well-meaning friends would sometimes ask me where he was, shattering my hope that no one had noticed.
Then there was the week he didn’t come for our family’s speaking assignment in sacrament meeting. I couldn’t stop the tears as I waited for my turn to speak. At moments like this, the unthinkable fear came to the surface: maybe we would never be an eternal family.
Always there was that fear, which over the years grew into a terrifying certainty. My clearest, most cherished childhood memory—of being sealed to my parents shortly after we had joined the Church—would ultimately mean nothing.
When my parents were divorced, I was in my twenties. But still I felt like a frightened child. All the happy parts of my past life with my family seemed suddenly canceled out—invalidated—no longer relevant. What joy could the present hold for me or for those I loved? And eternity? I felt eternally orphaned.
Now that I’m in my thirties, understanding and peace are healing some of the wounds in my soul. And one of my greatest desires is to offer some of the peace I’ve found to those of you who are living in turbulent, unhappy families.
“If you aren’t happy, you are doing something wrong.” I’m sure when my Sunday School teacher told us this, he never imagined how I would misinterpret it. I wrote it down and posted it on my mirror, knowing I wasn’t very happy. I cried in my room many nights—out of fear, disappointment, and self-pity. So I began to feel that I must be doing something terribly wrong. Even though I couldn’t exactly pinpoint it, I knew I must have some fatal flaw.
Of course, I wasn’t perfect as a teenager. But now I know that my feelings of unworthiness were not justified. Most of my sorrow came from the choices of others. And their choices were almost completely beyond my control. I was a child in my family. And as a child, I was not responsible for the overall success or failure of my family. Nor was I responsible for my parents’ choices.
The same is true for you. You may have an alcoholic parent or parents who fight or parents who violate the commandments. True, you need to do your best to not be part of the problem, but try not to complicate your situation with false feelings of guilt.
Sometimes making it through a divorce or another kind of family difficulty is a matter of simply hanging on. Hang on to the reality that your Heavenly Father loves you and your family deeply and eternally.
Often, my prayers for my family seemed to go unanswered. Sometimes, the more I prayed, the worse things seemed to get. I didn’t know then that, though the Lord shares our sorrow, he will not force change. But over time, his love can often find a way to bring even greater blessings than we had prayed for. So many of those fervent prayers of long ago have now been answered. And I now know that he has never ceased trying to bless my loved ones.
Hang on to the scriptures that fill you with faith. For example, “Let your hearts be comforted; for all things shall work together for good to them that walk uprightly” (D&C 100:15).
Find music that feeds your spirit. How many nights I found peace by singing to myself, “When you walk through a storm, hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm is a golden sky and the sweet, silver song of the lark. Walk on through the wind. Walk on through the rain, though your dreams be tossed and blown. Walk on, walk on with hope in your heart, and you’ll never walk alone. You’ll never walk alone” (Rodgers and Hammerstein, “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” Carousel).
If your family’s unhappiness includes abuse—physical, sexual, or emotional—you may need to ask for help. Find an adult—a parent, Church leader, social worker, school counselor, or physician—whom you trust and who will take you seriously. This may be embarrassing and very difficult. But sometimes intervention from outside the family is needed to protect you and other family members.
Hang on to leaders and friends who encourage you and help you keep your faith and standards. Brother Cherrington, a stake patriarch in our ward, always made me feel that I was someone special and that I would make it.
Hang on to your patriarchal blessing and the vision of yourself it gives you. Its promises, however distant they may seem, are real and eternal. The Lord knew all about your present difficulties when he gave those promises, and they will be fulfilled.
Hang on to the reality that you are not alone in your situation. As a teenager, I felt that my family and our problems were unique. When my best friend spent the night at my house, I worried that she would notice what I wanted to hide. Not until we were adults did I discover that her family had very similar problems to mine.
Don’t be fooled by appearances. The most confident, witty, and popular of your friends may face problems even greater than yours. Even the most faithful families may have deep challenges. Knowing this can help you break out of the prison of being totally absorbed with your own problems. Let it also prompt you to reach out in love to your friends, even when your own problems seem great.
In times of difficulty, how can we possibly keep a positive attitude? In August 1831, the Prophet Joseph Smith and ten elders were returning to Kirtland, Ohio, from a missionary journey to Jackson County, Missouri. On the third day of their trip, they had a perilous canoe ride down the Missouri River. They must have been tired and shaken, possibly homesick as well. Then the Lord reassured them with these gentle words: “Be of good cheer, little children; for I am in your midst, and I have not forsaken you” (D&C 61:36).
We, too, can be assured that the Lord will never leave us alone. During my teenage years, I did not always recognize his presence. Now I know that when my way was the most perilous, he was always with me.
We need to also know that our Heavenly Father’s plan of salvation is infinitely more just and merciful than we can possibly comprehend. He will leave nothing undone for the blessing of his children. Truly, there are no eternal orphans in his loving plan.
Although we must live in the present, we can also live for the future. We can live for the day when we can go to the temple to receive greater understanding and blessings than we now enjoy. We can live for the day when we can make a home of our own—a home where we can strive to bring love, peace, and the Spirit. We can also live for the day when we can nurture others as we may not have been nurtured ourselves.
For me, this day has come at last. I know that it can come for you.

I hardly considered myself a dating machine, which is why I was stunned when I was asked out not once, but twice in the same week. I couldn’t believe my luck. I scheduled a date with one boy for Friday and the other for Saturday. I was feeling pretty smug about how popular with the young men I had become.
My Friday night date went as planned. We had a nice dinner and then went to meet a group of his friends to play a board game. We arrived at his friend’s house and waited for the rest of the group to arrive. People trickled in every few minutes, but I didn’t really notice. There wasn’t going to be anyone I knew here.
Until I locked eyes with someone I recognized. I froze.
My Saturday night date was staring right back at me.
I could have died. I suddenly didn’t feel so proud of myself for landing two dates that weekend. I tried to give my Saturday night date some kind of facial signal that expressed my embarrassment over the situation, but to my surprise, he looked like he was trying to keep from bursting out laughing. He gave me a meaningful nod to indicate that this would be our little secret. We went about the rest of the evening without discussing the mishap so as to spare my current date, who had no idea his friend had asked me out for the following evening.
When he picked me up the next evening for our date, we were able to laugh about what happened the night before. I know how lucky I was that his feelings hadn’t been hurt when he saw me on a date with his friend. The Church encourages dating different people when we’re young, but I became more aware of how my dating decisions could hurt others if I was not careful. Even though it was an accident, the experience taught me an important lesson about treating dates with the consideration and respect they deserve.