Gospel Story Finder

Last August, I had an important decision to make. I could either go to Young Women camp with my ward or attend a volleyball camp. I would be trying out for the volleyball team at school, and the volleyball camp was highly encouraged. It showed you were dedicated if you attended it. I had been praying about whether I should go to Young Women camp or volleyball camp. I had a strong impression to go to Young Women camp.
The biggest lesson I learned at Young Women camp was about blessings we receive when we follow the Lord. The following week, I went to tryouts. I made the volleyball team and progressed to varsity at the end of the season. My testimony grew immensely. I know whenever we are faced with decisions, we can pray and receive answers.

Another Cooper family tradition: At least once a week everyone tries to do something nice for another family member as a surprise.
Thanks for making my bed! You know how much I hate doing that.
You’re welcome. It needed to be done, and you weren’t here, so …
Hmmm. Nobody’s done anything special for me yet, and the week’s almost over.
Later that morning …
Somebody pumped up my bike tire for me!
Now you know where I was while you were making my bed.

Jenny brushed her hair until it was smooth, then held it in place with a bow her mother had made to match her new dress. She twirled in front of the mirror on her closet door, eager to go to school. Today was her ninth birthday. That meant that Mrs. Jordan would put her name on the board and her class would sing “Happy Birthday” to her. And, on birthdays, Mrs. Jordan always let the class play an extra fifteen minutes after lunch. When they were through playing games, Jenny would pass out the chocolate chip cookies her mother was sending to school with her.
Then, after school, her friends Carrie and Susie were coming home with her for dinner. They were going to have pizza and cake and ice cream.
Her mother opened the bedroom door and held her arms out for a hug. “Happy Birthday, Jenny.”
“Mom, it’s going to be a fun day.” Jenny hugged her mother hard.
“I know, honey.” Mom straightened the bow in Jenny’s hair and turned to leave the room. “Everyone else is eating breakfast. Hurry, or you’ll be late.”
Jenny grabbed her backpack and her jacket and carried them into the kitchen.
“Happy Birthday, Jenny,” shouted her sisters, Heather and Janie, and her brother, Joshua. Her father got up from the table and pulled out a chair for her just like he did for Mom when they went to a nice restaurant.
When Jenny went to her classroom, she carefully set the box of cookies and her backpack on her desk and turned around to look at the chalkboard. Written there was:
Mary and JennyHappy Birthday, girls!
The smile left Jenny’s face. She had not known that it was Mary’s birthday, too. Mary had been in the class only a couple of weeks. No one had tried to make friends with her. In fact, most of them whispered about her clothes, which always had torn places and were never very clean. Her hair looked as though it were never combed. Because she never tried to talk to anyone during recess and usually played by herself, everyone else felt that she was unfriendly and wanted to be left alone.
Jenny had felt uncomfortable about it, though, especially after last week’s family home evening lesson about trying to see good in others. Still, she felt as if her special day had been spoiled.
Mary was the next student to enter the classroom. Her hair was a little neater than usual. She sat at her desk and didn’t even look at the board.
Jenny could see that she didn’t have anything to share with the class for her birthday, so she asked, “Mary, didn’t anyone tell you to bring something to share with the class? We always bring something on our birthdays.”
Mary looked up. “I couldn’t. My mother is too sick to cook.”
Jenny looked at the blue box that held her cookies. She felt ashamed. What if her mother was sick? She wouldn’t have had cookies or a new dress. She went over to Mary’s desk. “My mom made cookies for me to share with the class after lunch. Would you like to help me pass them out when it’s time?”
Mary looked up at Jenny. “Are you sure?”
“Of course. It will be fun.”
“I’d like that. My mother has been sick for a long time.” Mary’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I probably won’t even get a birthday cake unless my dad buys one for me.”
Jenny couldn’t imagine a birthday party without a birthday cake. She suddenly had an idea. “Mary, you watch the cookies. I have to find Mrs. Jordan.”
Hurrying out of the classroom, Jenny saw her teacher at the end of the hall and ran to tell her about her idea. Mrs. Jordan gave her a note to go to the office to call her mother.
After explaining about it being Mary’s birthday, too, and about Mary’s sick mother, Jenny asked, “May I bring Mary home and let her share my birthday?”
“I’ll go see Mary’s mother and find out if Mary can come to dinner. When I pick you and Susie and Carrie up after school, I’ll let you know what her mother said. Now both of you have a nice day. And, honey—” Mom paused. “I love you.”
That evening four girls stuffed themselves with pizza, played games, and fixed each other’s hair. They giggled and told stories. Jenny had been afraid that Carrie and Susie would be mad at her for inviting Mary to her party, but after Mary had told them a story about her former school, Carrie leaned over toward Jenny. “She’s fun. I like her.”
“Me, too,” Jenny said, and she meant it.
“Girls, it’s time for cake and ice cream.
The girls followed Mom into the dining room.
“Oh, look!” said Carrie. “They’re beautiful!”
On the table were two cakes ablaze with candles. Mary’s eyes opened wide. “I’ve never had a cake with icing flowers.”
Jenny looked at Mary. She no longer looked like the unhappy girl who had been an outsider in their class for the past two weeks. Jenny hugged her mother and whispered in her ear, “Thank you for making both our birthdays special.”
The girls ate pieces of both cakes with big scoops of ice cream. Then Carrie and Susie begged Jenny to open the gifts they had brought her. Mom slipped her a gift to give to Mary.
The party ended with more laughter and singing. Jenny’s mother left the room and came back with Mary’s sweater and a cake box. “Mary, I promised your mother that I would have you home by seven o’clock. We don’t want her to worry.” She handed the box to Mary. “You can share the rest of the cake with your family.”
Mary set the box on the table and hugged Mom. “Thank you. It was the best birthday I’ve ever had!” She turned to Jenny and hugged her, too. “Jenny, thank you for sharing your birthday with me.” She paused a moment, then said in a soft voice, “You’re nice.”
Jenny thought that that was her best birthday present of all.

In Oslo, the morning sun is hazy. It’s peering over rock walls, creeping down the cobblestone streets. For most teenagers, it’s time to get up and get ready for school.

But at the Oslo First Ward building, a group of teenagers is already studying. In fact, they arrived long before the first light peeked through their seminary classroom windows.
“I have to get up at 5:30 in the morning to get ready,” says Øyvind Andersen, 17. “My father drives me over, and class starts at 6:30. Then at 7:15 I take the subway to my school, which starts at 8:20.”
“At school we already have classes on Christianity and World Religions,” says Liv Austenaa, 15. “So some of my friends think I’m crazy to come to another religion class early every day.”
“But early-morning seminary has given me a lot,” says Thor Andre Eråk, 16. “I believe I’ve learned much more than if I had studied by myself at home.”
Is it worth the effort? “I cannot possibly express my gratitude for what the Church has done to my life,” Øyvind says. “I know what I have—the gospel—is extremely valuable. I’m convinced that programs like seminary and missionary work give you a solid platform for later life. They strengthen your testimony radically.”
His brother Geir, 16, agrees. “Seminary helps me to find out what the gospel is all about,” he says. “I think Christ is the best of all examples, and thinking about him makes me want to get up and go to seminary. When I come here, I always get more out of my day.”

When 15-year-old Jenni tells about having a prayer answered, she starts with an apology. She is sorry to admit that she hadn’t been praying regularly for almost a year. Things in her life had not been going well—not at school, not with her friends, not even at church.
One night, Jenni explains, she wanted to watch a movie. She bent down to look at the movies on the lowest bookshelf when she caught sight of a photo of her uncle who had tragically passed away not too long before. Suddenly, the weight of everything she was worried about made her want to cry. “I just knew in that instant that I had to pray,” says Jenni. She knelt where she was and prayed.
Jenni describes receiving her answer: “As soon as I was done, I had the answers to my questions. I felt that everything was all right again. Everything is going to be OK. Everything with my uncle is OK. I realized that I love school and my friends. As soon as I finished praying, I knew that I had to go to church because it is for me. It really hit me, and I felt so comfortable and so warm. I know my Heavenly Father loves me and He will help me through things.”
For Jenni, this prayer was one she had been wanting to say but somehow couldn’t. Now, even thinking about it, she gets that same feeling of comfort over again and the same assurance that her answer was from the Lord.

When you meet Chris Jones, the first thing you’ll notice is how quick he is to smile.
And the second thing—which follows almost immediately—is how quickly he begins to treat you like a good friend.
As Chris’s new friend, you’ll be talking football—because Chris has been a football player since the age of seven—but you can’t help noticing that his conversation is full of references to the gospel. It soon becomes clear that he loves the Lord and the Church with all his heart.
Even though Chris has been home from serving in the Oregon Portland Mission for a couple of years, he still has the sure handshake of a missionary. A mission is something he had been planning for his whole life. And his missionary spirit certainly did not get left in the mission field when he returned.
Chris is from St. Mary’s, Georgia. His parents, Artie and Carolyn Jones, met the missionaries in 1978, when Chris was only two. Chris said, “The first time my dad went to church, he saw a lot of people that he recognized in the community that respected him. That was one thing he really noticed.”
The Jones family was baptized and, as Chris has been told, they received a lot of ridicule for joining the Church. When Chris looks back, he is so appreciative of the fact that his parents were able to raise him and his two brothers and one sister in a way consistent with the principles of the gospel. And Chris grew up knowing that someday he would serve a mission. “If it is part of the Church and the Church is true, then I’ll do it.”
In fact, Chris says his mother helped him keep that in mind. “My mom was the one that pulled us out of bed at 5:15 in the morning to go to seminary for four years. It was a struggle. I hated getting up at 5:15. But it was through a combination of my mother and going to seminary that I gained a testimony of the gospel. Up until then, I always knew the gospel was right. I just didn’t know why it was right.”
As Chris gained a testimony, he found that living the gospel principles helped him learn about prayer. “I can’t recall a prayer that I’ve never received an answer to. Receiving an answer is a matter of allowing the Lord to answer you and give you His answer. A lot of times if you pray with your own answer in mind, you look for that answer. If another answer comes, then you’re not ready to receive it.”
Chris loved playing football in grade school and junior high. He started at linebacker all during high school. And, as Chris points out, football in Georgia is serious business. His high school would have 10,000 fans attend its Friday night games. During his junior year, he began getting attention from college scouts. It was exciting, but his mom would remind him not to get too interested because he was going on a mission.
When the scouts showed up, that was the time Chris had to face the possibilities of playing football at the college level. His high school coach told the scouts that he was a hard-working player and was an honor student. Finally concrete offers started to come—full-ride scholarships through four years of college, worth thousands of dollars.
“I asked,” said Chris, “if they would hold a scholarship for two years. One coach was shocked. I told him I was going to go on a mission for my church. He just stared at me and said, ‘You’re going to give up 80 thousand dollars to serve a mission for two years?’ He got mad at me. But I didn’t get offended.” After that, his coach started turning away college recruiters interested in Chris.
Eventually, State University of West Georgia called. The school offered him a scholarship. It turned out that Chris would be able to play a year and a quarter, essentially two seasons, before turning 19 and receiving a mission call. “I knew that all things were possible with the Lord. There were people saying that I couldn’t serve a mission and play ball, yet the Lord provided a way to do both.”
Chris struggled at West Georgia, not on the field where he started as a true freshman but in the permissive atmosphere in the dorms. He didn’t like what was going on around him. He was more determined than ever to go on a mission. And it was on his mission that Chris put football behind him completely. He told his coaches that if they needed to talk to him, to go through his parents. He didn’t keep up on what the team was doing. He says that the only way to serve on a mission is completely and with total focus.
At the conclusion of his mission, Chris decided that he could not return to the atmosphere at his former college. He thought that was also a decision to give up football, and he was willing to do it.
Just as Chris was completing his mission, his mission president contacted BYU about Chris. At first, becoming a BYU football team member didn’t seem like a possibility, but he was invited to try out. He received a full-ride scholarship but was redshirted a year. Once Chris thought sitting out a year would be horrible, but now it was a blessing. He was able to concentrate on his major, a difficult one, in manufacturing engineering and technology. He feels that the Lord has guided his life because at BYU he has had the opportunity to continue missionary work as a ward mission leader. Football will fall by the wayside. That’s fine with Chris. It no longer has his heart.
There is, however, one thing Chris has always wanted—a championship ring. He just missed taking state in high school. And his college team won the conference the year he left on his mission. Knowing this, some friends on his mission got together and bought Chris a ring—a CTR ring that he wears continually. It’s become his championship ring.
Whenever Chris looks at it he is reminded of what he believes deep inside. “Right makes you happy. If you do what is right, everything will fall into place.”

In one of my stake conference assignments in the Salt Lake Valley, I invited a young deacons quorum president to join me to talk about the keys of the priesthood. I wanted him to understand that he held a very special office that included the keys to preside over a quorum of the priesthood. We talked about the great responsibility it is to hold keys and how special it is to belong to a quorum. At the conclusion of the little presentation, I asked him how many members he had in his quorum. His answer was 14.
Then the question: “How many are active?”
The answer: “12.”
Then I asked: “What about the other two?”
His response was: “I need to get to work and make them an active part of our quorum.”
I asked him how long that would take. He thought maybe three months. I encouraged him in his efforts.
Three months later, almost to the day, I received a letter from him informing me that all the members of his quorum were now active. He said he had befriended them, and one was now attending deacons quorum meetings, and the other had been ordained a teacher by the bishop. I was overwhelmed with his response. What an example of one honoring his priesthood and using priesthood keys to carry out an assignment the Lord has given him to fulfill. I could not help but marvel at the design the Lord has established for the administration of His work here on earth using the powers of the priesthood.

1. Truman was racing around the dining room table when he saw Mom place an empty box on the kitchen counter and start to fill it with food.
What are you doing, Mom?
Thanksgiving is coming. I thought we could do service for another family by giving them food for a Thanksgiving dinner. Do you want to help?
Sure.
2. Truman ran to the pantry and found a box of stuffing mix.
Do you think they would want this?
Yes, I think they would be thankful for it. Go ahead and put it in.
3. Truman raced to the box and put the stuffing mix inside. Then he ran back to the pantry.
I’m going to be your super-fast helper, Mom.
That sounds great. Can you find some corn?
4. Truman quickly looked through the pantry and grabbed two cans of corn. He rushed back to the box and placed them inside. He was having fun helping as fast as he could. He put a lot of food in the box. Later, he even helped put a frozen turkey inside.
5. Now what are we going to do?
When it gets dark, Dad will take you to deliver the box.
Can we do it super fast?
Yes. Super fast.
6. When it got dark, Dad, Truman, and his older brother, Ethan, carried the box to the car. They drove for a couple of minutes until Dad parked down the street from the family’s house.
OK, guys. We’re going to put the box on the doorstep, knock on the door, and run.
Truman was excited about the running part.
7. Dad carried the box as Truman and Ethan walked quietly behind him. When Dad put the box down on the doorstep and knocked on the door, all three of them ran back to the car as fast as they could. Truman ran faster than ever.
8. As they drove away, Truman looked out the back window. He saw someone open the door, look around, and smile. He felt good about helping a family have a Thanksgiving dinner.
Do you think anybody saw us?
No way, Dad! We were super fast!

Putting God first means that we can trust Him to make more of our lives than we can on our own. My grandson received an old bike with rusty handles. To help him be excited about this bike, his father showed him how to sand the handles and then promised to bring his favourite colour paint to coat them that afternoon. After 15 minutes of sanding, the task seemed more challenging for this little guy than he had expected, and he complained about the difficulty, to which his father said words we can all take comfort in: “You do the best you can, and I will make up the difference.”

The Book of Mormon was a means of introducing Wannipha Thongchalerm, to the Church. First introduced to Christianity by a United States serviceman, she received a copy of the Book of Mormon from a friend. The book led to visits by the full-time missionaries. “Learning the gospel was a happy experience for me,” she says. “The missionaries would visit me every other day, and I would make notes of what they told me. Each time they came, I would repeat the previous lesson back to them. I was baptized in 1976.”
Sister Thongchalerm married a nonmember whose work required him to travel a great deal. After five years of marriage, they were divorced. Prior to the divorce, Sister Thongchalerm began studying to be a nurse, a profession she still follows at one of the local hospitals. Three years after her divorce, she married Anan, who had been baptized in 1981. With their two children, Ariza, 4, and Aachanoon, 3, they were among the group that went to the Manila Temple.
“When I came back from the temple, I felt a greater need to share the gospel with others. I decided I would try to bring at least ten other people into the Church, a goal I reached within two years.”
Sister Thongchalerm, who teaches in seminary, Sunday School, and Relief Society, treasures her testimony. “I feel that no matter what happens, no one can take away my testimony of Jesus Christ.”
The Thongchalerms live in a multilevel house in Udorn—a house Brother Thongchalerm will completely finish “some day.”

When I got baptized, I immediately wanted to leave the Primary to go to Young Men and be able to begin my priesthood service. I started to really know my Heavenly Father and my identity. I helped clean the building on Saturdays, and came very early on Sundays, sometimes even before the building was open. As I grew older, my desire to serve a full-time mission grew likewise. Through seminary and institute, I was able to prepare for my mission and had the privilege to serve in the DRC Kinshasa West Mission from 2021 to 2023. I’m grateful for the restored gospel and for the joy it has brought to me and to my family.

As I left a conference and was on the way out of the airport, I met a sweet family of members. They had contacted a nonmember man who was having severe problems and wondered if I would give him a blessing. We dropped by the home to find an apartment in a condominium or large apartment complex. In the living room were two pieces of furniture—a bean bag and a stereo set—and nothing more. A little girl, age nine, was taking care of her father because the mother, when she heard that her husband had cancer, had abandoned him and the nine-year-old girl and a seven- or eight-year-old boy.
The girl said, “I don’t think my father is expecting you. I don’t think he is expecting anyone.”
We said, “Would you please go ask him?”
She went into the bedroom, and in a minute she came out and said, “Yes, he is expecting you. Will you please come in?”
She took us down the hallway into his room, and here on the bottom bunk of a bunkbed set we saw this man; he was six feet tall and weighed only sixty-seven pounds. We administered to him, that feeling he would not live; but we felt impressed to bless him with the thing that would be of most worth to him: that his son and daughter would be protected, that angels would walk through this life with them, that they would be protected when he was no longer there to do it. I suppose that those of us who have been involved in such experiences (and all of us have) would not sell them for all the money in the world.

After that first visit to Queenstown, Brother Raubenheimer and I departed for Ilinge, where we met with branch president Augustine Mjiba and the more than seventy Saints there. They met in a rented school classroom with a corrugated metal roof and a dirt floor. They share the building with another religious group, which uses African drums to lead its singing. But in spite of the interruptions by the drumming and singing, we felt the Spirit in abundance and experienced a warmth and love for the Saints who meet in such conditions.

After the temple was dedicated in 1958, many Saints gathered to the temple from across New Zealand and the Pacific Area to receive their endowment and sealing. For example, when Vaha’i and Sela Tonga of the country of Tonga heard that a temple would be built in New Zealand, they made plans to attend the dedication. Despite financial hurdles to travel, Vaha’i and Sela were the first couple to be sealed in the Hamilton Temple.

President Spencer W. Kimball, the twelfth president of the Church and for whom one of our buildings on campus is named, once wrote of his great internal struggle when he received the call to be an apostle:
“I was telling [the Lord] that I had not asked for this position, that I was incapable of doing the work, that I was imperfect, and weak and human, that I was so unworthy of so noble a calling…. How I prayed! How I suffered! How I wept! How I struggled!” [6] And yet, despite these concerns, our dear President Kimball later served for 43 years as an apostle and prophet. During the 12 years of his presidency, the number of operating temples literally doubled and missionaries serving around the world increased by 50 perecnt. [7] He helped bring about tremendous good for both the Church and the world.

The rooms that April morning had been beautifully decorated with flowers for it was President Snow’s eighty-seventh birthday. On the mantle stood a more beautiful arrangement of roses. Before the president was awake there came a knock at the door of the Beehive House. When it was opened, there stood two little girls behind armloads of stunning red roses for President Snow.
The girls sang two or three songs and he was deeply touched by the serenade. He said he would cherish the memory all of his life.

I remember when I was assigned to give my first talk in church. I was given the liberty to choose my subject. I’ve always liked birds, so I thought of the Seagull Monument. In preparation, I went to Temple Square and looked at the monument. First I was attracted to all the coins in the water surrounding the monument. I wondered how they would be retrieved and who would retrieve them. I shall not confess any thought of taking them.

Then I looked upward at the seagulls atop that monument. I tried in my boyish mind to imagine what it would be like to be a pioneer watching the first year’s growth of precious grain being devoured by crickets and then seeing those seagulls, with their lofty wings, descending upon the fields and eating the crickets. I loved the account. I sat down with a pencil in hand and wrote out a two-and-one-half-minute talk. I’ve never forgotten the seagulls. I’ve never forgotten the crickets. I’ve never forgotten my knees knocking together as I gave that talk. I’ve never forgotten the experience of letting some of my innermost feelings be expressed verbally at the pulpit. I would urge that we give the Aaronic Priesthood an opportunity to think, to reason, and to serve.

Strengthening Our Interactions
Now, having sought to be more teachable and more able to embrace the qualities and comprehend the challenges, I want to suggest three aspects of our interaction in which being teachable seems to be a very needed goal.
First, that we might better know the experience of being a woman or a man in our congregation. What is it like for someone who is different from us? If we are women, what can we know of the experiences of men as fathers, husbands, siblings, and brothers in the gospel? If we are men, what can we know of the experiences of women?
If we too quickly assume we know what the experience of someone else is or should be, then we are less prepared to learn from speaking together “concerning the welfare of [our] souls.” I can imagine that Elder Maxwell’s description of the quality of conversation in the city of Enoch is instructive to us as both men and women: “You should observe . . . how . . . they listen to each other instead of seeking to display their own learning. They are more willing to be impressed than they are eager to impress.”13
I think that description is important no matter if we are eager to impress others with our conservative or liberal values. We have much to learn from one another in living the gospel, and we can best do that by staying in relationship to each other. I know in my own life it is easier to talk about somebody than with them—but my learning is different when we are speaking together. I have learned to listen without fearing that others will think my listening means agreement. And I have learned that being too anxious to tell others where our differences exist hasn’t helped me understand them.
I welcome the opportunities to share the similarities and differences of our experience as sisters in living the gospel. I am interested in how men around us support our sisterhood and our learning. I want to know how they experience women supporting their friendships as men as well as sustaining the priesthood they hold.
Second, that being teachable can strengthen our interactions as well as improve the quality of our service to one another in our congregation and communities. Having heard that where much is given, much is expected,14 I have sometimes allowed my own need to serve to determine what I did rather than paying close attention to the needs of others. Seeking to meet the needs of others is more of a challenge than doing what is convenient for me to be “helpful.”
Paying attention to others is a powerful factor in how well we serve. Tim Gallwey wrote about the necessity of paying attention to service. Interestingly enough, he was talking about tennis. He was suggesting that to improve our serve, we had to learn to love the tennis ball.
“What!” I remember saying. “Love a tennis ball?”
But he meant pay attention to it, see how it bounces, see where the seams are when it comes at you—concentrate. When we love, we concentrate our attention.15
By truly paying attention to others around me and concentrating on them, I can place myself in their service and I am taught what is needed. I saw a very pragmatic example of this a few semesters ago when a study-group member who obviously had better computer skills than the others didn’t take the attitude “I learned it, so can they” or “I’ll do it since you’ll never learn this anyway.” Instead he watched, he made himself available, he answered questions, and he encouraged. He didn’t exaggerate. In his daily interactions with his study group, he was taught how he could best teach them—and he did.

In the past I’ve always had very negative feelings about myself. I would always complain to my friends about how ugly I looked that day, how fat I was, how messy my hair was, etc. One day this began to change.
I had a wonderful friend named Holly. She was a great listener and just fun to be around. She gave me a note after school one day, and on the envelope it said, “Don’t open until you get home!” Of course, my curiosity grew, and I wanted to open it very badly. But I decided to wait until I got home so that I could really read it.
I wondered what this letter contained. I thought of the worst things she could have written. I got home and opened the letter. It said that I was a good person and that I should always remember I am someone special. She wrote out a list of all the good things she saw in me. I read this letter and wondered how I had let these qualities go unnoticed. By giving me that list in her letter, Holly helped me develop a better opinion of myself. Now I know I am a child of God and that he loves me. I thank Holly in every way I can for writing me that letter.
I think Satan would like us to believe that we are not worthwhile. When we don’t value ourselves, we end up doing things we will later regret. The Lord loves us and always will. I now know that he doesn’t just look at our weaknesses. He also sees our strengths. I know, thanks to a letter from Holly, that I am someone special and that Heavenly Father loves me.

The rodeo chute burst open and a raging, bucking bronco leaped high into the air. A cowboy sat on the horse in perfect form, the rhythm of each move matched to the twisting and turning of the wild animal.
But then the crowd rose to its feet and gasped as the massive animal came crashing down on its side, all of its weight crushing the left foot of its rider.
Zane Davis picked himself up and hobbled over to the chute. When he got his boot off, the foot began to swell. The crushed bones eliminated his chances to continue in the competition, but that didn’t keep Zane down.
Less than a month later he was back in the saddle, working his way to the title as top college rodeo rider in the United States.
Now Zane is serving a mission in Brazil and teaching the gospel to people in Portuguese. And he says, “I wouldn’t trade this mission experience for anything—even a national professional rodeo championship.”
It was in June of 1990 that Zane Davis secured the award as the national collegiate all-around cowboy of the year in the College National Finals Rodeo in Bozeman, Montana. Although only a freshman at the College of Southern Idaho, Zane didn’t get to the number-one spot by simply riding a few wild horses and winning a few competitions. Zane’s training started before he could walk, when his father, Shawn Davis (a three-time National Finals Rodeo saddle bronc world champion), took him along to rodeos across North America.
At the age of three, Zane insisted that he be allowed to ride in the rodeo against the eight- to twelve-year-old cowboys. But since he was too young to compete, he was only allowed to demonstrate his riding skill. Undaunted, he put on his hat, boots, rope, and spurs and climbed aboard a rather angry calf. Zane says that the next thing he knew he was on the ground. Apparently, he had ridden the calf almost to the time limit before falling off.
He entered his next rodeo when he was only five, and this time a pony bucked him off. But he still walked away with third-place honors. Hundreds of rodeos later, Zane had earned an impressive array of saddles, belt buckles, trophies, and cash prizes. The success came as a result of hard work.
Each day at his parents’ ranch in Idaho, Zane exercised by doing eighty sit-ups, twenty pull-ups, and four hundred push-ups. In addition, his riding included roping ten to twenty calves and practicing once a week for each riding event. Also, before each rodeo, Zane asked his father for a father’s blessing. Zane says, “I feel that these blessings kept me from getting injured on many occasions; and when I was injured, I recovered remarkably fast.”
Zane adds that obeying the Word of Wisdom has been a great blessing in his life. “Other cowboys who drink and take drugs may be good for a very short time, but they never last long,” he says.
Another reason Zane has done so well is that he has learned to face challenges. At one rodeo, he had to ride a bull that had thrown off all the college-age riders who had tried to ride it. But Zane, only thirteen years old, got on the bull and rode him in three out of five attempts. “I don’t remember ever being really frightened at a rodeo,” said Zane. “A little fear is always good for you, but too much fear is not good. If you have a little fear, you plan better. If you have too much fear, you may get out of control.”
One of the hardest decisions Zane ever had to face was whether or not to go on a mission. Colleges all over the United States were recruiting him. Although he had always planned on a mission, the final decision was really hard. “But I decided I had to go on a mission to try to pay the Lord back for some of the many blessings I have received,” he said.
Zane wrote home from his mission and said, “I’ve learned many things. I’ve changed a lot. I thought riding three times at each rodeo all summer long was tough, but it wasn’t anything as tough as serving a mission; nevertheless, it has been good for me.”
In his life, Zane has ridden a thousand wild horses and roped a thousand calves. Rodeo became easy to him. But perhaps the best thing about the sport was the chance to be with his father—who was always there, watching him, helping him stay safe.
Zane’s mission in Brazil was not easy. He underwent the shock of learning a new language and living in a different culture. But Zane improved daily. And on his mission he learned firsthand that his Father in Heaven is always there, watching him, helping him stay safe.