Gospel Story Finder

When he was released, we again felt prompted to move. We decided on Beverley in East Yorkshire to be near my widowed mother, then in her nineties. Her passing early in our planning did not change our minds, but three house purchases fell through in quick succession. I asked Paul, ‘Do you think the Lord is trying to tell us something?’
We widened our search to the next branch area, Bridlington. We found a house quickly, but the owners soon decided not to sell. I was almost in despair. Then, quite unexpectedly, the Lord blessed us with a better home—larger, cheaper and full of the historical details I love. We have been happy here ever since, serving in the Church as we can.

This story happened in Brazil.
Later that day …
Those are some nice colored pencils! I’ve never seen them before.
Well … I found them in the hall at school.
How would you feel if those were your pencils and you lost them?
Sad.
Whoever they belong to is probably looking for them. How can you help return them?
Maybe I could put them in the lost-and-found area at school!
The next day …
I found your pencil case and put it in the lost and found. I hope you get it back. They are really cool pencils!
From,
Rafaela
I hope whoever the pencils belong to finds them!

If you have a smartphone, tablet, or laptop with you, please google something; look up “John F. Kennedy Honolulu 1963." Hopefully within seconds you will see images of our 35 th president when he visited the island of Oahu to address the Conference of Mayors. He was there to urge the mayors to help pass legislation that would guarantee black Americans equal rights.
On June 8 th of that year, his plane touched down a little after 9 p.m. local time. President Kennedy spoke to the crowd assembled on the tarmac and commended the people of Hawaii for being a great example of how persons of differing races, cultures, and religions could live together so peacefully and prosperously.
After finishing his brief remarks at the podium, he moved forward to the people behind the restraining fence. He started shaking hands with anyone he could reach over the fence. I maneuvered my body forward into tight spaces between people, jumping up and down several times to see how close he was getting to where I was positioned in the crowd. Suddenly, the man behind me grabbed me and hoisted me high over his head onto his shoulders. Instantly I was shaking hands with the president of the United States. I was shocked, excited, surprised, elated, and terrified.
Five minutes later, President Kennedy drove off in the same 1961 Lincoln convertible that carried him to his death in Dallas five months later. I must admit to you that being asked to share a devotional address has brought some of those exact same emotions to me: shock, excitement, surprise, happiness, and terror. I welcome them all.

Part of the tragedy you must avoid is to discover too late that you missed an opportunity to prepare for a future only God could see for you. The chance to learn another language is for me a painful example. My father was born in Mexico. He grew up speaking Spanish as his first language. I lived in his home for more than 20 years. Sadly, I never asked him to teach me a word of Spanish. But my Church assignments have caused me to have contacts in Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. It was no accident that I was born into a home with a Spanish-speaking father. My father was a great teacher. He was a chemist. He even kept a blackboard in our basement for his children. He was eager to teach me mathematics. He spent hours trying to help me solve problems for my physics classes. He pled with me to think more often about those things that then seemed so uninteresting and unimportant. Years later I was called by the Lord to the Presiding Bishopric of the Church and given responsibilities for computing and communications systems. What a blessing I might have had if I had followed with my father the counsel I am giving to you now. Your life is carefully watched over, as was mine. The Lord knows both what He will need you to do and what you will need to know to do it. You can with confidence expect that He has prepared opportunities for you to learn. You will not recognize those opportunities perfectly, as I did not. But when you put the spiritual things first in your life, you will be blessed to feel directed toward certain learning, and you will be motivated to work harder. You will recognize later that your power to serve was increased, and you will be grateful. Your service may not be in what the world would recognize as a lofty calling. But remember that when the real value of service becomes clear in the judgment of God, some people who worked in quiet anonymity will be the real heroes.

Toward the end of his high school career, Mike Schwartz of the Malad Idaho First Ward, Malad Idaho Stake, started having nightmares about people forcing him to stay home from school. There was nothing he could do but just give in and stay home.
Sound more like a dream come true to you? Well, Mike was working toward a goal very few people ever achieve. In all of his schooling, Mike has never missed a day of school. That’s right, beginning with his first day of finger painting, and ending with his high school commencement, Mike has had perfect attendance.
In order to be in school all 2,340 days, Mike relied on good luck, good health, and help from his family.
“My family never put pressure on me to miss school,” Mike told an Idaho newspaper reporter. “In fact, when I was going to miss a day for my grandpa’s funeral, they encouraged me, saying Grandpa would want me to keep my perfect attendance.” Mike went to the funeral, but only missed a few hours of school, instead of the whole day.
Mike’s determination and perseverance has also helped him be a leader in his Aaronic Priesthood quorums and in his high school sports endeavors. Mike is now using his time management skills and determination to help him on his mission in the Texas Houston Mission.

Liking the school was one thing, but getting accepted was another thing altogether.

“I had to audition in front of the teacher,” Kamila said. “It was really hectic, because I had to create two storyboards [outlines of her film ideas] to present. I wasn’t prepared on the first day like everyone else, so I had to go on the second day. On the way there we got a little lost, and I was late. My mom told me not to worry and to call my dad. I did, and he said a prayer with me over the phone. It was nice.”

Kamila calmed down and presented her storyboards. The result? She was accepted into the program, and she just started her third year there.

One of the most spiritual experiences to come out of our mission occurred near the European supreme headquarters of the Allied powers, located in Belgium, during 1968. One evening one of our expectant American sisters became desperately ill and had to be rushed by an ambulance to a military hospital. Upon arriving, she was given diagnostic and x-ray examinations revealing a very serious obstruction that would have to be removed by surgery. Following the priesthood administration by her husband and another member of the branch presidency, she underwent the operation—only to have the same doctor who had examined her moments before find that there was no obstruction, in fact nothing wrong whatever.
While in the hospital convalescing for a few days she studied the scriptures and some other commentaries, and this attracted the attention of a medical orderly who was there on assignment as an American serviceman—a former alcoholic, incidentally. He wondered what this book with the strange title really meant. One week later he attended a Church activity with the husband of the woman in the hospital and committed himself to study the gospel. He and his family quickly went through the Book of Mormon and the discussions with the missionaries and were baptized into the Church. He has since read the standard works many times as well as all of the commentaries that he has been able to secure; and, in addition, he has been responsible for bringing many people into the church of Christ.

One day when I was walking home from a jog on the beach, I felt the heavy burden of my weaknesses and how they negatively impact my children. Although I try to repent of my sins as soon as I see them, I also see that my repentance does not mean that they are automatically healed from my errors in mothering.It was on that walk that I had an epiphany. I am like Sariah. My love for Heavenly Father and my children motivates me to seek God and repent. Heavenly Father sent me these children knowing full well that I am not perfect. He knew that I would bequeath many of my insecurities and pathologies to my own children. But our love for our children can motivate us to let go of our weaknesses, to turn to God for strength, and to add to the depth of our faith. Moroni tells us: "And if men [and women] come unto me I will show unto them their weakness, I give unto [them] weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all . . . that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." (Ether 12:27).

The boys’ own testimonies have grown as they have shared them with others. Matías talks about one of his recent testimony-building experiences: “A little while ago, on Saturday before I went to bed, I was praying and asking that more people would come to church. That Sunday there were a lot of people there. I felt good about it. Things like that strengthen my testimony. Reading in the Doctrine and Covenants about Joseph Smith strengthens my testimony. I want to pray like he did—he was my age!”

Emma looked at the bright yellow rubber raft on top of the van and felt a little shiver run down her back. She’d never been rafting before, and she didn’t know what to expect.
“You’ll like the Big Eddy,” Dad was saying. He pulled their lifejackets out of the van and handed one to Emma. “It’s beautiful and exciting. Someone takes your picture right when your raft crashes through the Big Eddy.”
Emma didn’t like that word—crash.
“Let’s hurry, Dad,” her little brother Zachary said. He didn’t look nervous at all, but Emma’s stomach churned.
A raft passed them going down the river, and Emma could hear one of the men yelling over the rushing water.
“The guide in the back tells them when to paddle forward or backward, and when to stop so they won’t tip over,” Dad said.
Dad was going to be the guide in their family’s raft. She hoped he knew the right directions to tell them.
Mom and Dad put the raft into a calm place in the river and they all jumped in. The water was moving slowly for now, and Emma started to relax.
The raft bobbed around and up and down through the current. Everyone paddled when Dad said to paddle. A little water splashed up on them. Emma and Zachary laughed. Maybe this would be fun after all.
Suddenly the raft started going faster, and the sound of the water got louder. They were getting close to the Big Eddy!
Dad shouted instructions for them to go through the next rapid sideways. They paddled on the right side of the raft, but something went wrong. When the river curved, the current washed them to the other side. They tried to go back, but instead, the raft banged into a log on the riverbank.
Emma, Zachary, and Mom yelled as the water pushed against the raft. At first the water pushed them back into the river, but then another wave crashed them back against the log.
Dad tried so hard to get them out of the whirlpool that he fell overboard and the river swept him downstream toward the Big Eddy. The next surge of water tossed Mom out. Emma was terrified, but she felt prompted to grab Zachary and point to the log. Somehow they both scrambled onto it just before the raft flipped upside down and slipped out into the rapids again.
Another raft came down the river, and the guide had the people in the raft steer over until they were next to the log.
“Get in!” yelled the guide.
Zachary held back, his eyes wide. Emma was frozen in place. They both clung to the log, unable to move.
Then she remembered President Packer’s words from a conference talk she had taped to her closet door at home. He said that the Spirit will show us what to do so we don’t have to be afraid.
As she thought about those words, Emma felt less afraid. She thought that she should hold Zachary’s hand and they would make it to the raft safely. She gripped Zachary’s hand, and with the help of the guide, they scrambled into the bouncing raft. They huddled together until the guide got the raft to a calm pool of water where Mom and Dad were anxiously waiting. Dad’s arm had a cut on it, and both of Mom’s knees were scraped up, but they were OK.
They all hugged. “I’m so glad you’re safe,” Dad said.
“I was really scared, but the Spirit helped me feel brave,” Emma said. “He told me what to do.”

Extremely unusual circumstances had led my son and me from our home in Salem, Utah, to our adventure in the Northwest, a 1,126 kilometer trip I never would have undertaken without the direction and inspiration of the Lord. When Bob was 17 years old, like most teenagers he wanted a job. A large portion of his income was to go to his mission fund. He had dreamed of a mission most of his life and longed to follow the example of his older brother, David, who had served in the Florida Tallahassee Mission.
But the job brought bad influence with it. At first Bob thought he could rise above it, and he should have been able to, but little by little it began to soak in. My wife and I suggested that he change jobs, and he did. But the second job was even worse than the first. Severe changes—lack of personal prayer, for example—became evident. His desire for a mission faded, and he spent several thousand dollars of his mission fund for fun and parties.
Heartbroken, his mother and I had fasted and prayed and visited the temple often. On one occasion as we sat in the Provo Temple, the answer came. My wife whispered that she had a strong impression that if I would take Bob on the Coppermine River, he would regain his love for the gospel. At first I thought she was crazy.
My sons and I had read about the Coppermine River in an outdoor magazine several years earlier. Six American explorers told how, in 1974, they had been the first to travel the length of the river, which wanders through 482 kilometers of barren tundra before emptying into the Coronation Gulf of the Arctic Ocean. Maps show 38 sets of rapids, and a government report rates some of the rapids at a turbulence of five on a scale of zero to six. One set of rapids is said to have waves 2.7 meters tall. A Canadian group had attempted to follow the same route in 1973, but had been forced back by violent weather.
Ever since that article appeared, David and Bob and I had dreamed of conquering the Coppermine River. But it had always been a dream. Our finances wouldn’t allow us to fly in to the headwaters, and that would mean paddling our canoe and carrying our equipment through 644 additional kilometers of small lakes and hostile terrain just to get to the river. Even though all of us had considerable wilderness experiences, it would be a difficult, arduous journey.
But I knew my wife had been inspired. I trusted the Lord to tell me the same thing, and before we left the temple, I received the same confirmation. Still, it was hard to imagine ahead of time what such a trek would mean.

I recall being in a graduate class here a year or two ago taught by a visiting professor (I am grateful it was a visiting professor or I could not tell this story)—a capable, qualified, and inspiring teacher. Although the course title was something else, he was preoccupied with individual differences and spent the major share of the time emphasizing the significance of them to teachers.

We were assigned a term paper. That is usual, isn’t it? I thought that since this teacher recognized individual differences, here was my opportunity to write the kind of term paper that would help me best. I could write the paper that would help me discover what I know or what I need to know about this subject. Since we had to have an interview with the professor before we went ahead on our project, I made the proposal that I would like to survey the literature of the field and then write, in my own words, without reference to any other authors, without including any quotations, this subject according to me. Then I indicated to the professor that I did not care how carefully he edited it or how severe he was in his judgment. His appraisal would be the more helpful. Then I expressed myself as being willing to read references and cite any number of references in the bibliography, but not to list quotations.

(I say here, parenthetically, that I resent the necessity most often imposed upon students of racing to the library and looking through books, trying to find a place where somebody said something approximately in the direction you would speak, extracting the quotations, tying them together with a few meaningless connecting sentences, and then handing it in as a term paper. Hence my proposal to the professor.)

I remember he considered the proposal very carefully, and then he said, “You mean, no quotations?”

“Exactly.”

“You mean, spin it out of whole cloth?”

“I do.”

Then he pondered rather deliberately and said, “Oh, no. I don’t think we could let you do that.”

Before I left the office, I had been assigned one book and several articles from which I could quote.

Well, I am not critical of the use of expert opinion, but I think it is often misused. I think that in the course of always searching for someone else, in the course of always looking for what others have done and what others have thought and what others have felt, often we overlook what is in our hearts and never make the most important of all discoveries.

When I was a young girl, my mother, Lovina Anderson Low, told me, “You can be anything in life you want to be, Elaine, if you work for it.” She was right. Because of a heart ailment, she wasn’t well for a good deal of my growing-up years. By the time I was twelve or thirteen, I was taking care of the home—doing the washing, baking bread, and doing quite a bit of the cooking. Mother taught me the pattern for managing seasonal things: I canned fruits and vegetables in the summer, and I helped my father put carrots and potatoes in the storage pit in the fall. Sometimes I felt like I was asked to do too much, but I learned to do what had to be done.

Let me provide some examples of what I mean. In my biblical studies, I often encountered strong arguments for Isaiah being written by two or three different people. As a Latter-day Saint, I do not have a problem with the idea that someone may have changed or added to the biblical text. In fact, we are sure that they did. Some of these arguments about Isaiah’s authorship were based on a refusal to admit that Isaiah could actually foretell the future, which was not at all convincing to me. However, some arguments were based on extensive theories and models intricately built up over years of scholarship based on the ideas of what themes were salient in Israelite culture at various periods of time. These latter ideas seemed quite compelling to me as they tried to demonstrate that the later chapters of Isaiah were actually written after the Jews had been carried captive into Babylon, long after Isaiah had died.

Fortunately, as a Latter-day Saint, I had an additional source of information I could consult regarding this matter. The Book of Mormon quotes Isaiah as written on the Brass Plates, plates that were created before the Jews were taken to Babylon. I can still remember opening my Book of Mormon to see if there were any passages from this so called “second Isaiah” in the Book of Mormon. There were. At that point, I found myself with a choice. I knew, based on revelation I had personally received, that the Book of Mormon was both inspired writing and that it was what it claimed to be — a record of an ancient people who really existed and really did the things they said they did. I could now either continue to believe what I had come to know through revelation, or I could believe what made sense based on an academic model. I decided that revelation was a more trustworthy source of knowledge and that I would need to suspend my judgment on the academic model while I further investigated to see which aspects of it were worthwhile and which were not. It did not take long to see a number of problems with the intricate academic model, which had been based on historical themes, and at this point, I would say that a large share of academia has abandoned at least much of that model. Even recent and compelling scholarship has demonstrated some problems with the assumptions that led to those conclusions about Isaiah. Furthermore, some other very persuasive explanations for why there are some thematic differences between various portions of Isaiah have also come forth. At this point, both my academic avenue of learning and my revelatory avenue of learning are in harmony with each other. If they were not, I would still choose revelation as being more trustworthy.

Miss Blake is concerned that everyone in my fourth-grade class has a good self-image. At first I wasn’t sure what she meant. I knew that your image is what you see in the mirror, but I decided that the image that she was talking about was the one that you see of yourself when you’re not looking into the mirror.
Last Thursday she said that we should all think of something good to say about ourselves. Now, that really took a bit of thinking on my part. I wish I could have said, “I like the way I look,” as Mary Lou did. That was all right for her, with her beautiful long blonde hair and her big blue eyes. But it would never do for me. Oh, my, no! My hair is too thin and my freckles are too thick and my nose is too short. That would never do for me.
Neither could I be like Wendy and say, “I like the way I do my schoolwork.” She almost always has the highest grades in class. Not me. I’m really not very good in math. I’m better in history. I love the stories, but when a test comes along, I can’t remember the dates.
What I truly wanted to say was, “I like having so many friends.” But I would have to leave that for Kevin. Everyone likes him, me included. He lives just two houses away, so maybe that’s why he’s always friendly and nice to me. But then, on second thought, he’s that way with everyone. We elected him class president, and when Miss Blake said that it was time to vote again, no one wanted to change.
“Well, Angie?”
That was Miss Blake. It was my turn, and I still hadn’t decided on anything, so she went on to Linda and the others.
I had to think of something, something that I was really good at. I couldn’t even say that I was the fastest runner. Both Kevin and Linda could beat me at running. They knew it, and so did I.
While I was trying to think of something, I was also listening to what the others were saying. When it was Kevin’s turn, he didn’t say a word about all his friends. He just said, “I like the way I can catch high flies when I’m having a good day at baseball practice.”
There is one thing I’m good at: I notice things, and I’m honest enough to tell people what I notice. For instance, one morning Mary Lou came to school with her hair looking just awful. No one else seemed to notice, but I did. I asked her if her mother was away. She seemed surprised and wanted to know why I asked. “Because,” I said, “your hair is such a mess.”
I learned later that her mother had been away—to the hospital for a new baby—but Mary Lou didn’t tell me. She sort of stayed away from me the rest of the day. Most of the other girls did too. They just seemed to flock around Mary Lou. I guess they hadn’t noticed how weird she looked.
And when Wendy came to school with a tear in the back of her blouse, not one other person seemed to notice. But I did; I told her about it too.
“Are you ready, Angie?” Miss Blake had finished with everyone else and was back to me. I had to think of something quickly.
“Honest.” I said. “I suppose I’m about the honestest person in this whole class.”
There was a big silence, a real silent silence. I was a little surprised. Didn’t the class members agree with me?
I thought about it as I walked home by myself. I decided that I’d have to work even harder at being honest. I began the very next morning.
Miss Blake was wearing a dress that I disliked. Now, I can take most colors. But purple! I have this strong feeling against purple, particularly that purple. I had to be honest about it. As soon as school started, I spoke right up. “Miss Blake, I don’t think I can do my work very well today.”
“Why, Angie? Aren’t you feeling well?”
“Yes … I mean, I was. But I hate that purple color of your dress, and it upsets me. I thought that I had better be honest and tell you.”
Well! The silence that followed that remark made yesterday’s silence sound like a traffic jam. For the next few moments I don’t think that anyone even breathed.
Miss Blake spoke first. “I am truly sorry, Angie. I shall try to remember.”
The next recess, when I tried to join the girls playing jump rope, they quit and went over to the volleyball net. When I moved over there, they all ran into the school building.
Then Kevin ran by, chasing a softball. He got it and threw it back to the pitcher. I wasn’t surprised to see him playing in the field, even though he is our best pitcher. He says that the other kids like to pitch too. That’s Kevin, always thinking about others.
“Hi, Angie,” he said.
I felt silly standing there all alone. “The others were all thirsty,” I explained. “They all went in early.”
He just glanced at me, then started back to his game.
“Well, I don’t care!” I shouted at him. “See those mountains in the canyon, those far, far back ones? My dad and I are riding our horses up there on Saturday. That’s my favorite place in all the world, and I don’t care what these girls do or say!”
“Honestly, Angie?” Kevin called back over his shoulder. Then he stopped and turned around. “You know, Angie, some people like purple. It’s my favorite color.”
I stood there thinking about what he had said and about what I had said to Miss Blake—and about how the other kids had looked at me. Right there on the playground, without any kind of mirror, I took one good long look at myself, and I didn’t like what I saw.
And to think that Kevin liked purple! Evidently Miss Blake did too. I looked again at the mountains to the east. The closer ones were different shades of blue, but those farther away, those up against the horizon—those in my favorite place in all the world—were a beautiful, lovely purple! And it was the same color as Miss Blake’s dress. …
I made up my mind. When the bell rang, I raised my hand and said, “Miss Blake?” My voice was a little shaky, but I made sure that it was loud enough for everyone in class to hear. “I’m sorry for what I said about your dress. It’s really very nice, and I’ve decided to learn to like purple.”
Once more there was silence in our classroom. Then Kevin started to clap. After a moment the other kids all smiled and joined in. So did Miss Blake.
After school Mary Lou, Wendy, and Kevin waited to walk home with me. I felt happier than I had for a long time. I decided that I would still be honest, but from now on I was going to be like Kevin, honestly kind.
When I reached the sidewalk in front of my own house, I took another good long look at myself, still without a mirror. I liked what I saw a little better.

When I was in my late 20s, I went through a period of deep depression, and during that time, it was as if the reality that God existed was suddenly gone. I can’t fully explain the feeling other than to say I felt completely lost. From the time I was a young child, I had always known that my Father in Heaven was there and that I could talk to Him. But during that time, I no longer knew if there was a God. I’d never experienced anything like that before in my life, and it felt like my whole foundation was crumbling.
As a result, it was hard for me to attend church. I went, but it was partly because I was afraid of being labeled “inactive” or “less faithful,” and I was afraid of becoming someone’s assigned project. What I really needed during that time was to feel genuine love, understanding, and support from those around me, not judgment.
Some of the assumptions I was afraid people would make about me, I myself had made about others when they didn’t regularly attend church. That painful personal experience taught me some valuable lessons about why we’ve been commanded not to judge one another unrighteously.

While my devotional is not on gratitude, please permit me to briefly express my gratitude to the love of my life, my wife Karrie. She is my best friend, my partner, and my better half. This past summer marked 12 years since she and I deplaned with our children in Honolulu.
With only a handful of bags and an address, which we had received only just before departing, we set out for a house that we had never seen before. We had just sold a house, most of our belongings, rehomed my beloved geriatric dog Fetch with my parents, and were all feeling the trepidation and excitement of having flown almost 4,000 miles to start a new chapter in our lives.
Many of you probably relate to this story, as each of you has made a similar journey to BYU–Hawaii. Do you remember the first view when you exited the H3 tunnel? That expansive view of Kaneohe Bay, the turquoise blue water bespeckled with patch reefs before you, and the sheer green peaks of the Ko’olau behind? Do you remember your first view of BYU–Hawaii? What about the David O. McKay building framed by flags from all the countries represented by our international student body? In front of it all, the sign exclaiming, “Enter to Learn, Go Forth to Serve”. This common experience unites each of us here today.

I remember an occasion when I was hospitalized for an illness, and it was difficult for me to sleep. When I turned off the lights and the room became dark, I saw a reflective sign on the ceiling in front of me that said, “Call, don’t fall.” To my surprise, the next day I observed the same message repeated in several parts of the room.

Why was that message so important? When I asked the nurse about it, she said, “It is to prevent a blow that might increase the pain you already have.”

The next day, Sunday, in testimony meeting they sat together, sang the opening song with great enthusiasm, and then with quiet reverence and a special depth of feeling blended their voices in the sacramental hymn. When the priesthood leader turned the time over to the audience for testimonies, the girl stood up.
““I love my dad and mother,” she began, then stopped, brushed a tear away with the back of her hand, cleared her throat, and continued. “I haven’t always been able to say that. When I was about thirteen, I had a problem and went unexpected to my father’s office. He is president of a large corporation. Upon being told that he was too busy to see me, I rushed home, flung myself upon the bed, and cried. Mother, hearing my sobs, came into the room. ‘Daddy doesn’t love me!’ I blurted out through the tears. ‘Why do you say that?’ Mother asked. Then I told her what had happened. Nothing more was said, except my mother firmly declared that Father did indeed love me, and I was not to think otherwise again.
“The next day while at school I received a call from my father’s private secretary. ‘Could you come to the office at 4:00 o’clock today for a visit with President ____________?’ and she named my father. I was thrilled, and the appointment was set. At 4:00 o’clock I was ushered into my father’s office with as much pomp and ceremony as the richest client. There, my father told me to sit in a brand-new chair located next to his desk. Then he said, ‘That is the chair. Whenever you have things bothering you, come and sit in that chair, and I will drop whatever I am doing and listen to and help you, because I care about you more than I care about anything in this world except your mother and your brothers and sisters.’ And you know,” the girl said, wiping more tears from her eyes, “he never once broke his promise.”

One of the important lessons my mother taught me by her example was about praying with a plan. She said it was important to pray that Heavenly Father would guide me. But I should also do my part by having a plan to help my prayer be answered.
One day when I was about six years old, I learned what that meant. I had earned a nickel, so I decided to buy some candy. On my way to the store, I started flipping my shiny nickel in the air. On its way down, I missed catching it, and it fell into some tall grass. My nickel completely disappeared.
I felt very bad, and I decided to pray. I knew Heavenly Father would help me find the nickel. As I finished my prayer, I thought about what my mother had taught me. What plan could I make to help with my prayer?
Suddenly I had a great idea. I would go home and get another nickel. Then I would come back to the exact spot where I had lost my nickel. If I flipped the second nickel in the same way, I thought Heavenly Father could help me find my lost nickel.
I ran home and borrowed another nickel. Then I went back to the spot where I had been before. I flipped the second nickel, this time watching carefully to see where it landed. When I looked down, I saw both nickels lying side by side. I knew that Heavenly Father had helped me.