Gospel Story Finder

Laurel Brenda Byington of Moses Lake, Washington, was completely awestruck when former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev leaned over and kissed her on both cheeks, in the Russian manner, after accepting her presentation of a bouquet of flowers. “Beautiful girl,” he said kindly, in heavily accented English. Brenda was in Russia to attend the People-to-People Youth Summit. She had to work long and hard to earn the privilege of participating in the program. She got good grades and was involved in a myriad of service projects and extracurricular activities.
While in Russia, Brenda had the opportunity to visit schools, farms, government centers, and businesses. She was especially interested in Russian agriculture because she was raised on a farm in Washington. Brenda developed a sincere love for the Russian people and hopes to be able to do more for them in the future.

A man in our community had a son who when he was the age of 16 got involved with the wrong crowd, began to drink, and got involved in drugs. One day he came home high on drugs. His father and mother had talked to him several times. This time when he came home, the father called the sheriff. He asked the sheriff if he would come and pick his son and take him to a treatment center in Ogden, Utah.

As the sheriff got there, the father told him what they were going to do. The son was furious. He screamed and yelled and cursed at his mom and dad as the sheriff carried him out to the car, took him to Ogden, and put him in the treatment center. As he went through the treatment center, they said that he must have his parents come down and his family for counseling as well. He finally admitted and allowed them to come down, and got out of the treatment center.

He was married and then had one child. About three years later, he had a problem come up again. This time he called his brother and he said to his brother, "Will you take me back to the treatment center?" He said, "Do you think dad will come up with the money?" It had cost his father $10,000 for the first treatment. His brother said, "I'm sure we can come up with the money and I'll take you down." So he took him down to the treatment center.

Just before we came on our mission I met with him and he said to me, "If it had not been for a mom and dad that had cared enough for me to take me to a treatment center, I wouldn't have what I have today. I would not have a wife and four children that bless my life."

Brothers and sisters, there's nothing that's too expensive for us to do to help save our Heavenly Father's children from the temptations of Satan.

When I was a mission president, one of my responsibilities was to interview elders and sisters who had completed their missions and were returning home. I always asked what they were taking home as a result of their mission. I didn’t want to know what was inside their suitcases; I wanted to know what was inside of them.
One elder said, “I am going home liking myself.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked.
He said, “All my life I have wanted to be someone else. I was envious of the guy at high school who was popular with the girls. I wanted to be him. I was jealous of the guy who owned the red sports car. I wanted to be him. I wanted to be the quarterback of the football team.
“And when I arrived in the mission field, I had the same problem. I wanted to be the assistant to the president or the elder who could always quote the right scripture at the right time. I was always wishing I could be somebody else.”
“However, as I have served these two years, I have realized who I really am. I am a son of God. I have a good relationship with my Savior and my fellowmen. I have a greater love for my parents and my family. And I realize that I have talents I can develop and share and that others have their talents. I’m grateful for what I’ve been given. I’m no longer envious of what others have that I may not have. I’m going home feeling good about myself.”
I too had a good feeling about this elder and what was inside of him. How happy I was that he had come to appreciate himself and make that appreciation part of his life’s philosophy. Over the years, it has been a joy to see how this young man has developed and matured by sharing himself and his talents with others.

I woke up really early one Saturday, which was weird—I usually sleep in. But I felt an urgent prompting to walk downstairs, like I was being led.
My mom was alone downstairs. I found out that she’d suffered a miscarriage that morning, so I cried with her and massaged her shoulders and feet. Despite the sadness, I felt at peace. All my thoughts were quiet, and I felt calm and comforted.
My mom told me I must have healing hands, because the massage made her really happy and peaceful. I was so thankful that I was able to comfort her and learn how it feels to be led by the Spirit.
This experience taught me that I don’t need to do extraordinary things to minister to others. I just need to let go of my pride and worries and focus on God’s love, and He’ll use me to be His hands and bring His light to other people.

Shelley and I began buying basic foods for our home storage in January 1977 and continued to purchase bit by bit until we were married in April of that year. Prior to our wedding, we stored the food at my parents’ home.
Shelley wore the leather band as a wedding ring for a long time while I finished undergraduate studies and then dental school. Over the course of pursuing education, our family moved many times. We became accustomed to lugging buckets of wheat from apartment to apartment, house to house, and city to city. Our friends started to avoid us every time we moved, but in later years, we felt profound gratitude for having followed the counsel of Church leaders.
When I graduated from dental school and began a dental practice, Shelley and I had two children and literally no funds. Gratefully, we were able to live on part of what we had acquired in food storage just before our marriage. Our obedience to prophetic counsel blessed our lives again more than a decade after we were married, when I had completed more schooling and was in an orthodontic residency. We were again out of money, and instead of paying for groceries with credit cards or borrowed funds, we were blessed to be able to feed our family (which now included four children) from our supply.

Mosiah 3:19 is one of my favorite scriptures. In the summer of 1968 I was sitting with my Grandmother Payne at the Manti Pageant. I was fourteen, and it was the day that she would ruin my life. We had arrived early, so we had time to visit.

Grandma Payne was always interested in our lives, and she asked me, “David Rolph, what are you planning to do with your life?”

Being a child of the sixties, I thought long and hard before revealing my well-thought-out plans to a grown-up—a member of the Establishment. But I took the risk, and I carefully began to explain how I planned to leave our warlike and corrupt and materialistic society and retire to the woods to study the outdoors and to learn to play the guitar and to write poetry. I concluded my short sermon, declaring somewhat innocently, “I am going to be the natural man.”

She smiled at me, almost incredulously, and said, “Boy, are you in trouble! Don’t you know that the Book of Mormon teaches that the natural man is an enemy to God?”

I have never forgotten that day. It changed my life. I always read this passage with a smile—and I learned that it is risky to tell your plans to an adult.

Early in our marriage, my wife and I planted a garden. We knew little about gardening, but we thought the back corner of our yard looked fertile. And indeed it was. In one area we planted banana squash. The squash vines grew almost without any effort on our part until they stretched some 40 to 50 feet (10 to 15 m) along the top of a long fence. The squash were enormous. It was an incredible result for novices.
In the scriptures we often read about vineyards and grapevines. But growing grapes is not as easy as growing squash. It takes the right climate and skilled cultivation to maintain a fruitful vineyard.
Grapes were an important part of early Hebrew culture, and the tablelands and hills in the Holy Land provided an ideal place for grapevine cultivation. The land was groomed, the vines were planted along the hillsides, and the vineyards were carefully fenced to keep out unwanted animals or people. The vines were cultivated and pruned so that they would yield as much fruit as possible.
Pruning is probably the most important part of growing grapes. Branches not producing fruit are cut off. When a vine’s main branch reaches a certain size, it is cut back by taking off the tip to force the development of side shoots. Such pruning and shaping halt the growth at the tip of the branch and send nourishment into the new branches. Then, as these side branches develop, each produces as much fruit as the single vine had produced. The sturdy center stalk of the vine, rooted deep in the soil, provides the nourishment to all of these long, fruit-bearing spurs.
Vineyards have often been used symbolically in the scriptures. In the book of John, the Savior used the grapevine as a metaphor to explain the nature of His relationship with those who would be His disciples.
Prior to leaving for Gethsemane, the Savior taught the Apostles how they must live if they were to continue to be His disciples. Among the things He taught during that sacred hour was that their lives must be entirely grounded in Him and in His teachings:
“I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.
“Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. …
“Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.
“I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
“If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.
“If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.
“Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples” (John 15:1–2, 4–8).
In this allegory are two important principles: First, we must be grounded in Christ. If we are not, we will not be fruitful (see John 15:4). If our lives are not in harmony with the teachings of the Savior, it is no more likely that we will bear good fruit than that a branch cut off from a vine will bear fruit. Second, even when we are living righteously, we still need the Gardener, who knows us so completely and sees beyond what we see, so that He can purge, or prune and purify, us (see John 15:2). While at times this pruning may seem hard to bear, it is only through this process that we will become more fruitful.
Our pruning comes in a variety of ways. We may develop an illness or physical limitation. We may find that our expectations are not fulfilled. We may find sorrow in relationships or experience personal loss. Yet what initially might seem to be a sad event can help us grow if it causes us to rely more on the Lord and to rethink our priorities. Such difficult experiences can make us more fruitful, or more like the Savior—our true vine.
Throughout my life I have had ample need for pruning. For example, a few years ago I expected to receive a company promotion. I felt I had the experience, skills, and longevity required, and I hoped the choice was obvious.
At that time there was a new top manager in our company who had different priorities and goals than I did. Among other things, he expected all senior managers to work weekends in addition to weekdays. I was a stake president then and knew that to best serve the members of my stake, I needed to spend a certain amount of time fulfilling my Church responsibilities.
When the hoped-for promotion never occurred, I had to struggle to keep myself from feeling bitter. What a disappointment! I determined just to keep going, to try to do things as well as I could, and to maintain a positive demeanor. Yet my sense of self-worth had been challenged. My abilities had been called into question. Other Church leaders I knew seemed to capably manage both demanding Church callings and time-consuming employment.
In a weak moment, I even wondered whether I had made the right choice to devote so much time to the Church. Then I decided I needed to focus on what was truly important. I began to look not only at my capabilities but also at my limitations. I could see that the time I was spending in Church service was necessary and that I probably wouldn’t have been able to manage both the employment position I had sought and my Church calling.
I think the Lord was telling me I had to choose and would have to keep choosing. To have chosen to devote extra time to my employment so I could get the promotion would have disengaged me from the Lord’s work. As I look back, I can see what a blessing it was for me to devote so much of my time to the Church. The ensuing years were some of the most rewarding of my life. I felt closer to the Lord. My testimony was strengthened. My relationship with fellow Saints in the area was a great blessing, and I am sure I became more fruitful than I would have been otherwise.
We can expect that we will be pruned throughout our lives. How wonderful it is to know that an all-wise Father is watching over our development and that He is nurturing us through His careful husbandry.
We must derive our spiritual nourishment from Jesus Christ. He is the source of all truth and of all goodness. Without Him we can do nothing (see John 15:5). When we focus on Christ and His gospel, we are filled with His light. Then the fruits of the Spirit are made manifest in us, and the blessings come (see John 15:7; Gal. 5:22–23). If we seek to achieve our full potential, let us daily think of Christ and emulate His example until we become firmly rooted to Him, the True Vine.

Eun-Suk was raised in circumstances that required both her parents to work and be out of the home for most of her younger years. She remembers a painful experience as a young girl. Following her school performances, it was the custom for parents to present the children with flowers. Her parents never attended any of her performances.

My parents had never been there, so it was the worst in my experience. All the families came, and they gave flowers, but no one ever gave me flowers. It was the most painful experience. I don’t want my children to have that kind of experience.

So where did Eun-Suk learn to become such an outstanding women? Where did she learn, as she puts it, her “best lessons”?

I learned a lot of things from family and school, but learned the best things from Church. I honestly say that—in the Church.

About a month ago, my family went to the local fair. My mum and I went up to a stall that was all about being healthy. The lady said that if I could answer a question I would win a prize. She asked, “What can you do instead of smoking?” I quickly said, “Pray.” She seemed surprised but very happy with my answer. She gave me my prize, and Mum said that I was a good boy for being a good example and “shining my light.”Zachary Ainge, age 5, with help from his mum, Burpengary, Queensland, Australia

The small farmhouse appeared dreamlike in the predawn Florida mist that enveloped it and the surrounding swamplands. A large white ibis resting atop a darkened tree shape started at the sound of a screen door banging closed. A young girl ran from the farmhouse toward an as yet invisible landing on the edge of the swamp. She was crying and carrying a large doll with a broken right leg.
Cassie Gunnerson climbed into one of three wooden boats, untethered the rope that secured it to the pier, and shoved off into the gray silence. Using a long pole, she pushed with angry, tearful grunts against the soggy bottom of the shallow water.
The ibis blinked its eye, and the eleven-year-old girl was gone, swallowed up by the mist.
It wasn’t long before Cassie’s twelve-year-old brother, Nathan, and their parents, were up and searching for her. “We got in a fight, Pa,” Nathan sheepishly admitted as he and his parents scoured the mangrove thickets on the outer edge of the field. No one bothered to call to Cassie because she had been born deaf. “Cassie dropped the spyglass you gave me into the water yesterday while we were fishing, because …” Nathan’s voice trailed.
“Because why?” his father gently but firmly probed.
“Well,” Nathan continued somewhat hesitantly, “I guess because I cut her line. And that’s because,” he added defensively, “she kept splashing her feet in the water and scaring away the fish!”
“You haven’t told us why she ran off,” Nathan’s mother prompted him.
Nathan’s eyes fell, then lifted slowly. “I really liked that spyglass.” His look shifted to his father’s, hoping to find some kind of sympathy. But what he saw was deepening concern. “With it I could see things in the marsh nobody knew were there,” Nathan continued. “Little things like cooties and skater bugs and cucumber beetles and potter wasps and …” Anger festered inside Nathan as he tried to justify what he was about to say. “I broke Cassie’s doll,” he declared, “because of what she did to my spyglass!”
“Do you realize how long your sister saved for that doll?” Nathan’s mother questioned sternly. “How much it meant to her?”
“I guess about as much as my spyglass,” Nathan retorted.
Father rested his hands on the boy’s shoulders. “Do two wrongs make a right?”
Nathan’s mother stared toward the swamp. “Cassie’s boat is gone!”
The swamp was deep, a maze of twisting waterways in a jungle of trees and vines. What made matters worse was Cassie’s being deaf. She couldn’t hear them call for her.
Father rested a calming hand on his wife’s arm. He turned to Nathan. “Son, I’ll take my boat; you take yours. I’ll carry my rifle; you take my Colt Dragoon. Whichever one of us finds Cassie first will fire three shots, is that understood?”
“Yes, Pa.”
Father’s eyes focused on Mother. “You stay near the house, in case Cassie shows up here first. Grandpa Sawyer’s pepperbox pistol is in the root cellar. If she does come here, fire three rounds to let us know.”
Nathan navigated his small boat through the lily-pad-laden backwater with his long pole. His eyes scanned the densely brushed islands and the countless waterways between the huge cypress trees for any sign of his sister’s boat. To his right, on some goldenrod that protruded above a log wrapped with Spanish moss, he observed a tiger swallowtail butterfly. To his left, a harmless rat snake rested in the fold of a dead tree. Directly above him on an old, dilapidated walkway that spanned two small islands, a gray squirrel chattered loudly and shook its bushy tail at him. And less than fifty yards in front of Nathan a sandhill crane waded looking for food. The young boy found himself thinking that he would gladly trade all these wondrous sights for a glimpse of his younger sister.
The boat scraped against hidden roots of cypress trees and groaned like Nathan’s conscience. He gazed into the smooth, glassy water and stared at his reflection. Then he disrupted his image with a swish of the pole—he didn’t like what he saw.
The thrashing of brushwood on one of the nearby small islands caused him to lift his eyes with a start. There, in a little clearing high atop dry ground, Nathan witnessed two male white-tailed deer contending with each other. They pushed against each other with their heads and curved antlers. Finally the fight ended when one of them tired and ran away. “I guess Cassie got tired of fighting and ran away, too,” Nathan muttered. “It was a stupid argument,” he added as he continued on down the winding, watery corridor. “Why do people who love each other fight so much? And what if something’s happened to Cassie and I didn’t tell her I was sorry!” Nathan’s pace quickened, scanning the shadows with unblinking scrutiny.
Nathan searched all day, meandering in and out of a maze of waterways. He was a few miles from home when it started to rain. He steered his little boat under the protection of an overhanging tree limb. His eyes welled up. He hadn’t heard any gunshots. Cassie hadn’t been found, nor had she returned home. He gazed through the gray curtain of falling rain. “Cassie!” he screamed, knowing full well that she couldn’t have heard him even if she was sitting right beside him. He bowed his head and beseeched his Heavenly Father to help him find his sister. He knew that Heavenly Father could hear him even through the pounding rain.
A few moments later the rain stopped as quickly as it had started, and Nathan continued his search. A great horned owl stared out of the mossy shadows with its bright yellow eyes and hooted as the little boat moved quietly by.
A short time later Nathan’s dugout floated into a clearing. He felt prompted to stop and listen. He heard someone whimpering! Rapidly poling toward the sound, he saw a small boat harbored along the shore of an island. Then he saw Cassie. She was sitting in a patch of goldenrod, her face soiled and drawn, her hair tangled. She looked very lost and very frightened. Relief washed over Nathan.
A moment later Nathan was standing before his sister. She was relieved to see him, but her reaction was dulled by leftover hurt. He glanced at the broken doll in Cassie’s boat, then at a paint-root plant in a tuft of grass. He picked some seeds from it and crushed them on a smooth rock. He dabbed his index finger in orange dye from the seeds and wrote “I love you” on Cassie’s arm. After a long look at her arm, then at Nathan, Cassie leaned forward and hugged her brother.
Smiling through his tears, he took his father’s Colt Dragoon from his boat and fired three rounds skyward.

Kyle was building a pretend fort.
He dragged chairs over from the table. He got a green blanket from his bed. Then he got a blanket from Mom and Dad’s bed.
Kyle pulled the blankets over the chairs. He tied one blanket with some string to make a door.
This is a good fort, Kyle thought. It’s just right!
Then Kyle got a favorite book and toy. He got his pillow. He lay down inside the fort.
Sandi stuck her head into the fort. Sandi was Kyle’s little sister. She was three. “Can I play too?” Sandi asked.
Kyle frowned. Sandi always wanted to do what Kyle did. But sometimes she broke his toys. Sometimes she tore his books.
“This fort is for five-year-olds!” he said. “You’re not old enough to come in.”
Sandi’s eyes filled with tears. “I’ll be careful,” she said. “I promise.”
But this was Kyle’s fort. He built it himself. He did all the work. Kyle shook his head. “No,” he said.
Sandi trudged away. Kyle could hear her crying.
Kyle opened his favorite book. It was about dinosaurs. But he couldn’t read it. The words were blurry. He had tears in his eyes. He felt bad about being mean to Sandi.
Kyle crawled out of the fort. He went to find Sandi. She was on her bed. She was wrapped in a blue blanket. Her eyes looked sad.
“I’m sorry,” Kyle said. “You can come in the fort. We can pretend you are five.”
Sandi smiled and jumped down from her bed. “Thank you! Thank you!”
“I have an idea,” Kyle said. “Let’s make a sign for the fort. We’ll call it Kyle and Sandi’s Fort.”
Sandi ran to get the crayons. Kyle felt good inside. Now the fort was even better.

Over 30 years ago I was assigned with then-Elder Thomas S. Monson to organize a servicemen’s stake in Europe. We met at Berchtesgaden, Germany, high in the Bavarian Alps. Originally it was a headquarters built by Adolf Hitler in an incomparably beautiful place. Seldom has there been on this earth anyone who has duplicated in personality and purpose the adversary quite as much as did Adolf Hitler. I thought that we had come full circle where that had taken place on that site, and now we were gathered there to organize a stake of Zion.
After we had finished setting apart and completing that organization, we were assigned to go to Berlin for a stake conference. We needed to get from Berchtesgaden high in the Alps down to Munich to the airport.
We got to the airport in ample time for our plane, which was scheduled to leave at about 10:00 in the morning, but it was fogged in. We sat there listening to the announcements for nearly 12 hours. They kept saying they thought the fog would clear. It did not clear.
That night near 10:00, two missionary elders came to the airport. We knew then that the planes would not fly. They told us there was a train leaving Munich for Berlin at midnight. The elders took us to the train station, helped us buy our tickets, and saw us aboard the train, which would take from about midnight until about 10:00 the next morning to arrive in Berlin.
As the train was pulling out, one young elder said, “Do you have any German money?”
I shook my head no.
He said, “You better have some,” and, running alongside, pulled from his pocket a 20-mark note. He handed that to me.
At that time the Iron Curtain was very “iron.” The train stopped at Hof on the border between West Germany and East Germany, and the crews were changed. All of the West German crew members got off the train, and the East German crew got on the train. Then the train set out across East Germany toward Berlin.
The U.S. government had just begun to issue five-year passports. I had a new passport, a five-year passport. Before our trip, we went to have my wife’s passport renewed, but they sent it back saying that the three-year passports were honored as a five-year passport. She still had more than two years left on her passport.
At about two o’clock in the morning, a conductor, a military-type soldier, came and asked for our tickets, and then, noting that we were not German, he asked for our passports. I do not like to give up my passport, especially in unfriendly places. But he took them. I almost never dislike anybody, but I made an exception for him! He was a surly, burly, ugly man.
We spoke no German. In the train compartment, there were six of us: my wife and a German sitting to the side of her and then almost knee to knee in a bench facing us were three other Germans. We had all been conversing a little. When the conductor came in, all was silent.
A conversation took place, and I knew what he was saying. He was denying my wife’s passport. He went away and came back two or three times.
Finally, not knowing what to do, I had a bit of inspiration and produced that 20-mark note. He looked at it, took the note, and handed us our passports.
The next morning when we arrived in Berlin, a member of the Church met us at the train. I rather lightly told him of our experience. He was suddenly very sober. I said, “What’s the matter?”
He said, “I don’t know how to explain your getting here. East Germany right now is the one country in the world that refuses to honor the three-year passport. To them, your wife’s passport was not valid.”
I said, “Well, what could they have done?”
He answered, “Put you off the train.”
I said, “They wouldn’t put us off the train, would they?”
He said, “Not us. Her!”
I could see myself having someone try to put my wife off the train at about two o’clock in the morning somewhere in East Germany. I am not sure I would know what to do. I did not learn until afterwards how dangerous it was and what the circumstances were, particularly for my wife. I care a good deal more about her than I do for myself. We had been in very serious danger. Those whose passports they would not accept were arrested and detained.
All of this comes to this point: the elder who handed me the 20-mark note was David A. Bednar, a young elder serving in the South German Mission, who is now a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
So why was it that this young elder from San Leandro, California, handed me the 20-mark note? If you understand that and understand what life is about, you will understand really all you need to know about life as members of the Church. You will understand how our lives are really not our own. They are governed—and if we live as we should live, then we will be taken care of. I do not think he knew the consequences of what he was doing. That 20-mark note was worth six dollars, and six dollars to an elder is quite a bit!
You will be doing some things automatically, almost unwittingly. Without thinking, you will find you have been prompted and guided by the Holy Spirit. That is why this young elder, without knowing why, took a 20-mark note out of his wallet as he was trotting alongside the train and handed it to me as the train was pulling out. He saved us from great danger.

When I was a very young boy I had pneumonia, and both my lungs filled up with fluid. My father asked me if I wanted a priesthood blessing. I told him I did. I remember asking him to call my uncle to come. When they placed their hands on my head and through the holy Melchizedek Priesthood called down a blessing of heaven, I felt different. I felt something flow into me, and I knew that the priesthood was very real. The doctor had told my mother that I was in very serious condition, but the next morning I felt great. My mother took me back to the doctor, and he checked my lungs. They were completely empty of fluid.

In our own dispensation, specifically on July 30, 1837, the efforts to establish the Church in Preston, England, were met with vociferous opposition by Satan. Elders Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde (both members of the Quorum of the Twelve), along with Elders Willard Richards and Isaac Russell, had arrived in Preston as missionaries, but eight days earlier. They had already prepared nine souls for baptism on that Sunday morning, July 30, 1837.

Prior to the baptisms, Elder Russell became ill and sought a blessing under the hands of the two Apostles, Elders Heber C. Kimball and Orson Hyde. Elder Kimball was acting as voice. He later described the event as follows:

While thus engaged, I was struck with great force by some invisible power, and fell senseless to the floor. … Elder Hyde and Richards then assisted me to get on the bed. … I … sat up on the bed, when a vision was opened to our minds, and we could distinctly see the evil spirits, who foamed and gnashed their teeth at us. We gazed upon them about an hour and a half. … we saw the devils coming in legions, with their leaders, who came within a few feet of us. … They appeared to be men of full stature, possessing every form and feature of men in the flesh, who were angry and desperate; and I shall never forget the vindictive malignity depicted on their countenances as they looked me in the eye. … I cannot even look back on the scene without feelings of horror; yet by it I learned of the power of the adversary, his enmity against the servants of God, and got some understanding of the invisible world. We distinctly heard those spirits talk and express their wrath and hellish designs against us. However, the Lord delivered us from them, and blessed us exceedingly that day.[7]

Despite the opposition of Satan, the nine baptisms did occur as planned on that Sunday morning some 170 years ago. When Heber C. Kimball returned to America, he narrated the experience with Satan’s legions to the Prophet Joseph. Heber asked what it meant and whether there was something wrong with Heber that he should have such a manifestation. Joseph’s reply was:

No, Brother Heber, at that time you were nigh unto the Lord; there was only a veil between you and [Christ], but you could not see Him. When I heard of it, it gave me great joy, for I then knew that the work of God had taken root in that land. It was this that caused the devil to make a struggle to kill you.[8]

I want to introduce my subject this morning by telling you of a very simple event that happened to me 32 years ago during the spring semester of my junior year here at BYU.
I was taking a class in a large amphitheater classroom. Entering the classroom on one of those first days of the semester, I sat in the very back, far from the professor. As he began writing on the blackboard, and as those around me began taking notes, I realized that I could not see what they could see on the chalkboard. Up until that very moment I had not imagined that I needed glasses. I had not anticipated glasses in my future.
But that experience led me to the optometrist and to a pair of glasses. Suddenly my world improved immensely. I could see many things that I had not been seeing for some time. The world became much more alive for me. I remember asking myself, “Why didn’t I realize before that I needed glasses? How could I have not known that I was not seeing?”

“And speaking of courting, I remember a night when my sister Jane had a date with a boy who had grown a fine beard (fine enough to win a recent beard contest). However, the boy was very nervous about coming to our home, and he didn’t know if Dad would approve of his beard. He finally became so concerned that he shaved it off and appeared at our front door that evening clean-shaven. You know, my father was very touched by that.”

Recently some friends shared an interesting account that transpired years ago at the Air Force Academy. William “Bill” Crawford, known to the cadets in the squadron he served as Mr. Crawford the janitor, was barely recognized or acknowledged, and he did nothing to draw attention to himself or to promote himself with the students. He did his job exceedingly well, and apparently no one paid much attention to him or to his service to the academy and to future Air Force officers.

Mr. Crawford’s personal appearance was not particularly impressive, and he demonstrated with his gray hair, his wrinkled face, and his slightly shuffling gait nothing of greatness that was readily apparent to the students. He was polite but apparently shy. He typically did not speak to the young cadets unless they spoke first, which they rarely did. He just seemed, as reported by one of the cadets, to “[blend] into the woodwork.”

All of that changed in the fall of 1976 when one of the students was reading a book about World War II and the infantry campaign in Italy. Let me turn to the words of then student and later Air Force Colonel James Moschgat:
On Sept. 13, 1943, a Private William Crawford from Colorado, assigned to the 36th Infantry Division, had been involved in some bloody fighting on Hill 424 near Altavilla, Italy. . . .

. . . “In the face of intense and overwhelming hostile fire . . . with no regard for personal safety . . . on his own initiative, Private Crawford single-handedly attacked fortified enemy positions.” It continued, “For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at risk of life above and beyond the call of duty, the President of the United States . . .”

Cadet Moschgat said to his roommate, “You’re not going to believe this, but I think our janitor is a Medal of Honor winner.”

The following Monday morning, the cadets couldn’t wait to ask Bill, the janitor, about the story. As they met him, they showed him the page in question. He looked at it quietly for a time and then said, “Yep, that’s me.”

They then asked him why he had not ever told them about his experiences and his medal. He just humbly responded, “That was one day in my life and it happened a long time ago.”

The students had to leave for class, but, for them and for Mr. Crawford, things were never the same again. Quickly the word spread throughout the academy that they had a hero among them and that their janitor had won the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Let me return to Colonel Moschgat’s account:
Cadets who had once passed by Bill with hardly a glance, now greeted him with a smile and a respectful, “Good morning, Mr. Crawford.” Those who had before left a mess for the “janitor” to clean up started taking it upon themselves to put things in order. Most cadets routinely stopped to talk to Bill throughout the day, and we even began inviting him to our formal squadron functions. He’d show up dressed in a conservative dark suit and quietly talk to those who approached him, the only sign of his heroics being a simple blue, star-spangled lapel pin. Almost overnight, Bill went from being a simple fixture in our squadron to one of our teammates.

I conclude my remarks with one last tender account of what it means to demonstrate a generosity of spirit. This account centers on a little, four-year-old girl, who for more than two decades was temporarily named "Baby Hope." No one knew her name. She was never reported as missing. She was, however, brutally abused and murdered by a relative. With persistence on the part of the New York Police Cold Case Division, we now know her real name, Anjelica Castillo.

Two years after [Anjelica] was found, [she] was laid to rest in a donated plot, buried in a white dress bought by a detective's wife, with a tombstone paid for by detectives. "Because we care" is the inscription at the bottom of the tombstone . . .[23]

We really can care for others. We can touch others by showing a generosity of spirit. It can happen in grand or small ways. You too can be an Ammon, a Bowe, a Shallenberger, a Carol, a Lee, a Spencer, a Vaughn, a Mallory, a Liz, a white dress giver, or a caring police detective.

My great-grandpa got sick on the trail west. He was too weak to walk. Two women were sent from the nearby company to help him. They saved my great-grandpa. He got better and walked the rest of the way to Utah with one of the women by his side. They fell in love and got married. He was my great-grandpa Henry Eyring. She was my great-grandma Maria Bommeli Eyring.
Years later, people said it must have been hard for her to travel so far. But Great-Grandma said, “Oh no, it wasn’t hard. While we walked, we talked the whole way about what a miracle it was that we had both found the true gospel of Jesus Christ. It was the happiest time I can remember.”

Before I do this, I want to explain why these themes of vision and blindness are so intriguing to me personally. In October 1981, I was in the second grade. Our teacher asked us to do a Halloween art project that involved making a scene of a haunted house out of construction paper. She had the sample on the board at the front of the room. My desk was in the back. I realized that day that I could no longer see the board.

My parents took me to an optometrist to get glasses. I found this development to be distressing because as a young child I had been inexplicably afraid of people with glasses.

The optometrist tried to find lenses to correct my vision, but the correction wasn’t going to be very good, so I went to ophthalmologists at a place called the Eye Institute in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, near where I lived. My parents ordered glasses with the best correction possible, but when they arrived in a week or two, my vision had already changed enough that the glasses didn’t help. We spent many late afternoons at the Eye Institute; we did many tests, saw many doctors, and heard many possible diagnoses.

Eventually I was diagnosed with Stargardt disease, a congenital condition in which the central part of the retina deteriorates. As is common with the disease, my peripheral vision was left largely intact, but because central vision is the high-acuity vision used to perceive detail, I am legally blind with a large blind spot in the center of my field of vision.

What is my daily experience like? I have a hard time recognizing people by sight. Sometimes I decide to do the socially acceptable thing and point my eyes in the direction of someone’s face so it seems that I am looking at them. If I don’t do that, I appear to look at people out of the corner of my eye. I see them better this way because I am using my peripheral vision. I read and write using a video magnifier. My face is about a foot from the screen and the letters are an inch high. I have a large monitor for my computer. I walk around campus and town more or less comfortably, but I have started to carry a white cane sometimes to let drivers know that they can’t rely on my eyes for help at an intersection.

But I live a great life. I love my husband and my children, and I can see them up close. I like figure skating, bike riding, crocheting, and other hobbies that might sound visual. I enjoy math, and I absolutely love to teach. My vision has changed how I do some things but hasn’t fundamentally changed what I do.

Because of this history, scriptural stories about physical blindness and healing touch me deeply, and I find vision and blindness to be powerful symbols because they are relatable to me.