Gospel Story Finder

As I was trying to come to terms with everything, I knew the bishop was being prompted to talk to me about my mission papers. I just knew. I had never mentioned it to anyone, but I knew he was also getting the vibes. But I still needed time to adjust and come to terms with everything, so I started dodging him.
If I saw him in the corridor at Church, I’d dive into a classroom and hide until he passed. I’d watch him and stay out of his vicinity—terrible, but I thought this would gain me more time. But one Sunday I was walking up the corridor only to find the bishop walking towards me. No one else was there. I couldn’t hide or dive away. I was nabbed, pure and simple.
The bishop simply said, “Can you come with me for a minute? I’ve got to give you something”. I was hoping the something was to do with my Primary or activities committee callings, but he walked into the clerk’s office, opened the filing cabinet, and handed me my mission papers. He said, “You need to fill these in, and send them.” I said, “I knew you knew!” When I told him that I had been deliberately dodging and hiding from him, he laughed and said he wondered why he could never find me.

One of the more dramatic examples was the organizing of a wheelchair olympics.
On the day agreed upon, patients wheeled excitedly from place to place as they marked out a course for the coming events. Wheelchairs were lined up at a starting line, while occupants leaned forward, intently waiting for the starting signal. The signal was given, and they were off in a flurry of wheels and laughter. After a breather and an untangling of wheels, patients were given a chance to challenge another wheelchair. Don looked around, and pointing his finger at one of the chairs, said, “I challenge that chair.”
“Don, you can’t do that,” the astonished attendant replied. “That chair has a motor!”
The competitive young man was undaunted and remained firm; so a course was set and an eager audience waited expectantly for the signal to begin this most unusual race. Soon the signal was given and Don’s hands fairly flew as he propelled his chair toward the finish line. When he had gained full momentum, he ventured a cautious look toward his opponent, only to discover that he was shifting to a higher gear! To complicate matters further, a woven wire fence was stretched a few short feet behind the finish line.
With the heart of a champion, Don ducked his head and gave it everything he had. He crossed the line only inches ahead of his opponent and crashed happily into the wire fence. He was picked up and dusted off amid excited expressions of admiration. He had won!

On a vacation, I was traveling by ship down the Volga River in Russia, far from any LDS chapel. That Sunday I had planned to read the Book of Mormon alone in my cabin.
My plans changed when I found out the ship was leased for summer tours to a Latter-day Saint family. With permission from their Church leaders, they had scheduled a worship service for LDS passengers, including several Russian Latter-day Saints traveling on the ship. I was asked to bless the sacrament. I wondered if I would bless the sacrament alone and if I would be the only teenager there. I hoped not.
Later that morning when I entered the music salon where the meeting would be held, my anxious heart quieted as I saw other young men in ties and young women in dresses. I looked around for something resembling a sacrament table. To my right, I noticed that a white tablecloth from the dining hall had been spread over the piano bench. The bread and water trays sat on the white linen. The brother who had asked me to bless the sacrament introduced me to a young man.
“This is Sergei,” he said. “He will bless with you.”
Sergei, from Moscow, had just completed his service in the militia. He had met two missionaries in the subway. That eventually led to his baptism.
“Dobray Dien!” I said, practicing what little Russian I had learned.
“Dobray Dien,” he responded with a chuckle.
“Minyah Savoot, William,” I said, introducing myself.
“Minyah Savoot, Sergei.”
“Do you speak English?” I asked.
“A little.”
He pulled out a sheet of paper—tattered from use—and unfolded it. It contained LDS religious terms with their definitions. He pointed to the word sacrament as if to communicate our role in the worship service. I nodded. He next pointed to the word bread and then to himself.
“Me?” he asked.
Then he pointed to the word water and then pointed to me, I understood. He would bless the bread. I would bless the water.
“Da,” I said in Russian, agreeing with his plan.
The music began, and a young man, Vladimir, led the congregation in “Come, Come, Ye Saints.” The curtains of the room had been drawn aside, and through the windows we saw a panoramic view of Russia’s countryside.
Sergei’s copy of the Book of Mormon was well used. He thumbed through its pages for the sacrament prayer.
We stood and broke the homemade Russian sourdough bread. I could hear the congregation singing “I Stand All Amazed,” half singing in Russian and the other half in English. No one had hymnbooks, so we sang from memory. I was impressed to hear the combination of Russian and English as if our voices were creating a new language.
When the hymn ended, I knelt with Sergei. As we knelt on the floor, I could feel a slight rocking of the ship. The congregation bowed their heads. Sergei began saying the prayer in Russian.
I felt the Spirit of God enter my heart and burn through my chest. Here we were, Sergei and I, on a ship far from our homes and families, two people from different continents and speaking different languages—but feeling the same Spirit. I understood the words he spoke, clearly and peacefully. I felt solemnity fill my mind.
After wiping a few tears from my eyes, I stood with Sergei. We passed the bread trays to three young priesthood holders, who then passed the bread to the congregation.
A few minutes later, I blessed the water in English, saying the prayer with more conviction than ever before. I felt as if I were actually speaking to the Lord. My heart swelled with joy as I said amen and stood to serve the water trays.
That day, Sergei and I had come together to do the Lord’s work. We had blessed the emblems Christ instituted just before his death and sacrifice. Sergei had spoken Russian. I had spoken English. But for all of us who were present, the language spoken was the Spirit.

The message of the parable is clear: when we serve others, we serve God; when we don’t, we disappoint. He expects us to use our gifts, talents, and abilities to bless the lives of Heavenly Father’s children. The divine impulse to serve others is illustrated in a poem written in the 19th century by the Finnish poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg. My siblings and I repeatedly heard the poem “Farmer Paavo” throughout our childhoods. In the poem, Paavo was a poor farmer who lived with his wife and children in the lake region of central Finland. Several years in a row, most of his crops were destroyed, whether through the runoff from the spring snowmelt, summer hailstorms, or an early autumn frost. Each time the meager harvest came in, the farmer’s wife lamented, “Paavo, Paavo, you unfortunate old man, God has forsaken us.” Paavo, in turn, stoically said, “Mix bark with the rye flour to make bread so the children won’t go hungry. I’ll work harder to drain the marshy fields. God is testing us, but He will provide.”

Each time the crops were destroyed, Paavo directed his wife to double the amount of bark that she mixed into the flour to ward off starvation. He also worked harder, digging trenches to drain the ground and decrease his fields’ susceptibility to a spring runoff and an early autumn frost.

After years of hardship, Paavo finally harvested a rich crop. His wife exulted, “Paavo, Paavo, these are happy times! It is time to throw away the bark, and bake bread made only with rye.” But Paavo solemnly took his wife’s hand and said, “Mix half the flour with bark, for our neighbor’s fields have frosted over.” Paavo sacrificed his and his family’s bounty to help his devastated and destitute neighbor.

The record of a special conference held in Nauvoo on August 16, 1841, states: “The time had come when the Twelve should be called upon to stand in their place next to the First Presidency, … and assist to bear off the kingdom victorious to the nations. …
“Motion seconded and carried that the conference approve of the instructions of President Smith, in relation to the Twelve, and that they proceed accordingly, to attend to the duties of their office.” (“Conference Minutes,” Times and Seasons, 2 [1 Sept. 1841]: 521–22.)

Some time ago I returned from a month-long, 30,000-mile journey to the stakes and missions of the South Pacific. As the great jet plane hurtled through the heavens, I gazed out the window and marveled at the stars by which the navigator charted our course. My thoughts were upon our glorious youth; I said to myself: “Ideals are like the stars—you can’t touch them with your hands, but by following them you reach your destination.”

When I was 17, I made an agreement with my friend José Luis to teach him how to swim. So one morning we dedicated time to practice. When our lesson was over and I was leaving the pool, I heard my friend shouting for help. He was drowning in the deep end of the pool.
I threw myself into the water and swam toward him while praying for help. As I grabbed his hand to pull him to the surface, my desperate friend climbed onto my back and put me in a choke hold. Now we were both drowning. Trying my best to reach the surface, I prayed with all my might for a miracle from God. Then, slowly but steadily, the power of God was manifest as I felt a hand propelling me toward the shallow end of the pool, bringing us to safety.
This experience confirmed a profound lesson President Russell M. Nelson once taught: “When you reach up for the Lord’s power in your life with the same intensity that a drowning person has when grasping and gasping for air, power from Jesus Christ will be yours.”
Remember my story at the pool? In that moment of despair, the miracle came in the way I had expected, but God does not guarantee that it will always be according to our will. Our faith must be centered in Christ and our hope in His blessings, as He chooses to send them. “Expect miracles,” but “let God prevail in our lives.”

When I was a sophomore in high school, I was very small for my age. I was 5?2? and weighed 105 pounds. When you’re 5?2? and 105, not many coaches want you playing basketball, unless you have exceptional talent, which I didn’t. You also don’t make a very good linebacker for the football team.
I was sitting in the gym one day watching the basketball tryouts, when the wrestling coach walked by and said, “We need a few tough guys your size who can wrestle for us.”
I thought to myself, “Obviously I look pretty tough to the coach, so I’ll give this wrestling a try.” I told him I would do it.
My first problem was finding the wrestling room. After some searching, I found it was three stories under the basketball court in an unventilated, very dimly lit cubicle.
As I entered the room, I found the first thing you need to overcome in wrestling is the odor produced by 50 young men sweating in a room with no air circulation.
I found the coach. Instead of being polite and friendly as he had been the day before, he seemed grouchy and mean. He pointed to a kid across the room and said, “Wrestle him.”
I looked at the kid and thought to myself, “This will be a snap.” He was shorter than I was and looked as if he had missed a few meals. I turned to the coach to say he had made a mistake and surely there was someone else I could wrestle. As I did this, the kid grabbed me and for the next three hours gave me a wrestling lesson I’ll never forget. He rubbed my face in the mat and twisted me into positions I didn’t think possible. Finally, after three hours of mat work, I thought we were done. Not quite. Up to the halls we went, where the coach led us in wind sprints and jogging. Finally, four hours after practice began, we were finished. I sat on the bench in the locker room totally exhausted.
The coach called me into his office. He said, “How much do you weigh?”
I replied, “About 105.”
He said, “You’ll be wrestling 98 in three days.”
That was 7 percent of my body weight. “I’ll have to go without eating,” I protested.
He said, “I know.” So to my surprise, a wrestler not only had to work out for four hours, he couldn’t eat after the workout. I made weight at 98 pounds and put up with this difficult schedule for three weeks. Finally I had had enough.
I went home and told my dad that I was going to quit. I thought he would be elated after seeing how much I had suffered. Instead he said, “I never took you for a quitter. I always thought when you started something, you finished it.”
Well, if he was going to say that, I certainly would not quit now. I said, “I guess wrestling is not so bad after all.”
I stuck it out. For four long months I stuck it out. It was never easy. In fact, it was the most difficult thing I had ever done. It wasn’t glamorous. The basketball team got all the recognition. They got the nice locker room and all the new facilities, and the entire school showed up to their games. The school had to assign four members of the pep club to go to wrestling matches. No, it wasn’t glamorous. But much to my surprise, at the end of the difficult season, I had a feeling of accomplishment and satisfaction that I had never felt before. The most difficult thing I had done in my life turned out to be the most rewarding.

A German family once came to see a show and fell in love with the whole cast. The father discovered the group was Mormon when he gave Brother Benson a bottle of champagne to help celebrate a successful performance, and, of course, he wanted to know more. The family took all the players to dinner, and they responded by turning West Yellowstone upside down in order to find a German Book of Mormon for the family. At last report the family was investigating the Church in Germany.

Christopher felt tears ready to spill from his eyes. “Mom, Dad,” he said in a shaky voice, “why doesn’t the Holy Ghost speak to me? I’ve always tried to do what’s right. I know I make mistakes—like the time I spilled the red punch on the new carpet and said Jill did it so I wouldn’t get into trouble. But I did finally tell the truth. Do you have to be perfect like the bishop or Brother Johnson or Sister Woolett to have the Holy Ghost speak to you?”
“Hearing a voice isn’t the only way the Holy Ghost can communicate with you,” Mom said. “Often it’s what you feel, not what you hear. Don’t you remember that good feeling you had after you prayed and asked Heavenly Father to forgive you for blaming your sister for the carpet stain and after telling us the truth? That feeling was from the Holy Ghost.”

David looked proudly at his project. He had worked very hard to make it perfect for Mommy. He had even stayed in at recess to finish it instead of play dodgeball with the rest of his first-grade class.
He had started out with a large sheet of plain white paper. Then he had carefully cut out bright yellow flowers, curly red flowers, and big orange flowers with long petals. Next, he had carefully glued them one by one onto his paper. With green crayons of two different shades, he had drawn tall stems and wavy leaves on all the flowers. In the very center of the largest yellow flower, he carefully spelled out “I love you.”
“What a beautiful garden, David,” said his teacher. “Your mother will be very pleased.”
“Thank you,” David answered politely. “I made it big so it would be special.”
After school, he went to the back of the room to get his jacket. He set his lunch box and the picture on the floor while he put on his jacket. When he reached down to pick up his picture, he heard an awful tearing sound. His foot had been on the edge of the paper, and a big piece tore completely off. Sadly, David threw the piece away. The rest was still big enough to be special, but not as big as he had wanted it to be.
He started walking home, holding Mommy’s picture carefully in one hand and his lunch box in the other. As he passed Mrs. Johnson’s house, the picture caught on a branch of her rosebush. One whole corner was ripped into shreds. He tore it off and threw it into a nearby dumpster. He hoped Mommy would like what was left of her picture, even though it wasn’t very big anymore.
A sudden gust of wind tore the paper from his grasp at the corner of his block. He chased it down the sidewalk and finally caught up with it, but not before it had landed partway in a puddle. Nearly everything that was left of Mommy’s garden picture was soggy.
As David entered his own yard, he tossed the damaged part into the big trash can near the gate, saving only the yellow flower that said “I love you.” He trudged into the house. “I have something for you, Mommy,” he called.
“What is it, honey?” she asked, coming to give him a big welcome-home hug.
“It’s a flower. It was a whole garden, and it was special because it was big, but this is all there is left.” He held the yellow flower out to her.
“Why, David, this is perfect!” exclaimed Mommy, taking the flower and giving him another big hug. “And it’s just the right size!”
She went over to the table, picked up her purse, and took out her new wallet. “Look,” she said. “It fits into the last empty window in my wallet. I can take my special flower with me everywhere I go, and it will remind me of the special boy who made it for me!”
David grinned a big, happy, “I love you” grin.

I’ve always had anxiety. When I was 17, I noticed that most of my anxiety attacks occurred at church.
I was always told that if I’d read the scriptures, say my prayers, and go to church, I’d be happy. Well, that wasn’t the case for me. I’d enjoy the first few minutes of church, and then a panic attack would begin.
My bishop helped me realize that the spiritual expectations I had set for myself may be the cause. I thought I had to have the same miraculous spiritual experiences I heard about. It made sense to me that this pressure could cause my repeated attacks.

Often, the activation energy needed for blessings requires more than just looking or asking; ongoing, repeated, faith-filled actions are required. In the middle of the 19th century, Brigham Young directed a group of Latter-day Saints to explore and settle Arizona, an arid region in North America. After reaching Arizona, the group ran out of water and feared they would perish. They pled with God for help. Soon rain and snow fell, allowing them to fill their barrels with water and provide for their livestock. Grateful and refreshed, they returned to Salt Lake City rejoicing in the goodness of God. Upon their return, they reported the details of their expedition to Brigham Young and pronounced their conclusion that Arizona was uninhabitable.

After listening to the report, Brigham Young asked a man in the room what he thought about the expedition and the miracle. That man, Daniel W. Jones, tersely replied, “I would have filled up, went on, and prayed again.” Brother Brigham put his hand on Brother Jones and said, “This is the man that shall take charge of the next trip to Arizona.”

Seminary, rugby, and collecting old coins. Those are some of 15-year-old Joshua Kimberling’s favorite things, and in that order.
Joshua lives in York, England, where he’s not afraid to talk about the gospel. “I can answer my friends’ questions about the Church a lot easier now that we’ve studied Church history in seminary,” he says.
He also took some maps of Church history sites in England to school to show his geography teacher, who then photocopied them to show to other classes.
Joshua has just begun his Bronze Duke of Edinburgh course and especially enjoys the first aid, which he hopes he never has to use.

In her Primary class, Sister Andress said to the children, “When we’re quiet, we can hear interesting sounds. What are some interesting sounds you hear at your home?”
“My brother’s just a baby, but you know what? He can hum,” Teddy said. “He goes, ‘Hmmm.’ It’s cool!”
Frieda raised her hand. “When my cat, Gretchen, is happy, she purrs. It’s a nice sound.”
“I like scary music in a TV movie—if I’m watching it with my dad.” Joachim smiled.
“I like it when my mom calls me for supper,” Franz said. “That’s the best sound, I think.”
There are interesting sounds at your home. Could you tell Sister Andress some of them?
Next Sister Andress said to the children, “There are wonderful smells all around us. Tell me your favorite.”
“The best is my dad’s aftershave lotion,” Marla said.
Paulie said, “I like the smell of rain.”
“My sister Hilda—she’s in high school—sometimes makes cocoa for our family home evenings. I like that smell,” Ursula said.
“My favorite smell in the whole world is a Christmas tree,” Mary Margaret said.
You have some favorite smells. What would you tell Sister Andress?
“Now,” Sister Andress said, “think of something special that you like to touch.” “It’s fun to touch cotton because it’s fluffy,” Patrick said.
“I have lots of pretty rocks,” Fouad said. “I think it’s fun to touch them. Some are real smooth.”
“Sand is fun to touch, too,” Frieda said. “But I like to feel my dolly’s hair. It’s soft.”
“I like to touch my mama’s face,” said Teddy. “And I love the hugs that we give each other after family prayer.”
What would you tell Sister Andress are things you like to touch?
“There are lots of different things to taste,” Sister Andress said next, “like apple juice and crunchy celery and tuna-fish sandwiches. What tastes do you like the most?”
“That’s easy,” Joachim said. “Bubble gum!”
“My mom and I like the taste of tomatoes. We eat them in salads and sandwiches and sometimes just by themselves,” Franz said.
“Anything orange,” Ursula said. “That’s what I like most. Orange juice, orange pudding, orange gumdrops, orange cake, orange lollipops.”
“I like vanilla ice cream,” Marla said. “We always go for ice-cream cones after we help Brother Garcia in his yard. That’s when they taste the very best.”
There are many things for us to taste. What would you tell Sister Andress that you like to taste?
“There is one more way that we sense things,” Sister Andress said. “When we look around, we can see beautiful things everywhere. Tell me what you like to look at.”
“I have a picture on my wall of three horses running around,” Mary Margaret said. “I like to look at it just before I go to sleep. I pretend that they’re real.”
“Our new puppy. I look at him all the time,” Paulie said. “He makes me laugh.”
“The pictures that the clouds make in the sky,” Patrick said. “They look like cats or trees—things like that.”
“My Book of Mormon Stories—especially when I read it with Mom and Dad,” Fouad said. “There’s a big picture in it of Jesus Christ coming from heaven to visit the Nephites—that’s my favorite!”
There are many, many beautiful things to look at. What would you tell Sister Andress are some of your favorites?

The boys thought it was fun to pull pranks on the teacher, so Miss Foster was in the habit of shaking out her handkerchief with a loud snap when she took it from the top drawer of her desk to make sure there were no stinkbugs or caterpillars hidden in it. One day when she opened the drawer, a kangaroo rat leaped out in front of her face. She was so startled she screamed and jumped back, upsetting her chair and knocking her off her feet. She fell over backward and sprawled on the floor.
Mr. Stern came in fuming from around the other side of the partition, demanding to know what on earth was going on. He tried his best to find out who was guilty of putting the rat in the drawer, but no one would tell, so he made the whole class practice penmanship during recess as a punishment. We wrote: “I will not play pranks on the teacher” over and over in our best handwriting.

Starting in 1847, in one of the most monumental feats of modern time, the Latter-day Saints, led by their prophet Brigham Young, crossed the 1,300-mile stretch of wilderness of the American continent to establish a city where they could worship God in the way they desired. The willingness of these early Saints to leave behind their homes and newly completed temple in Nauvoo continues to serve as an inspiration and example for us now as we choose to live our lives committed to following the prophet.

John Taylor was often referred to as “an English gentleman” because of his noble bearing and courteous manner. In England, where he was born, he became a woodturner by trade. Later, he emigrated with his family to Canada, where he became an itinerant (traveling) Methodist preacher. He and his wife were converted to the Church and baptized by Parley P. Pratt in 1836. At the age of twenty-eight Elder Taylor presided over the Church in Canada. A man of great faith and conviction, he often declared: “I do not believe in a religion that cannot have all my affections, but I believe in a religion that I can live for, or die for.”

Thank you for such a beautiful and inspirational October edition: “From First Date to Eternal Mate.” When I came home from school, the first thing I saw was the New Era. My mum had placed it on the table so I would not miss it. That day at school all 32 class members bombarded me with questions about my beliefs on dating and marriage. I explained why I’m not going to be dating until I turn 16, and why I don’t watch TV programs or movies or listen to music that is suggestive. On my way home I wondered what I could do on a date and how I should go about dating. In answer to my silent prayer, I opened the door and saw the New Era! I read it from cover to cover and deeply felt the Spirit, knowing that the things I had shared in class were true.Rachel Gordon, Oxford Ward, Reading England Stake

March 23, 2024 was one of the busiest days of the Open House with more than 11,000 visitors. The guests were waiting in line under the unforgiving sun.
“But their patience and understanding were commendable,” volunteer Dino Santos noted. “You could see their excitement.”
He continued, “Many prayed for the clouds to cover the sun, and voila! The sun was indeed covered! It was a miracle, a prayer instantly answered!”