Gospel Story Finder

A while ago, I was struggling with some decisions about whether to follow the ways of the world, or to follow my beliefs. The more popular decisions weren’t necessarily the ones my parents would have wanted me to choose. At the same time, I wanted to be accepted by my friends. Finally, I decided to pray for help to make the right decision. After pouring my heart out to the Lord, I received the answer, “Read.”

I decided I must have been imagining the answer because reading had nothing to do with my problem. I ignored the prompting and got into bed. After several minutes, I again felt, “Read.” I received this impression several times and ignored it until I finally decided to read for a few minutes. I pulled a book off the shelf and looked at a page.

My mind wandered, and I couldn’t concentrate. Finally, I decided I had been at it long enough. I looked down to close the book and realized that the bookmark I was using had the Young Women theme on it. The phrase “We will stand as witnesses of God at all times, and in all things, and in all places” really stood out.

It was then I realized that no matter what I decided to do, my decision would have to be something Heavenly Father would approve of. Reading the theme was the answer to my prayer. I knew then why I had received the impression to read. I bowed my head in prayer once again to thank Heavenly Father for the answer and to apologize for not listening the first time.

When Maria walked up in front of the class, her knees were wobbly because she had never given a talk in church before. She was grateful for her notes, because suddenly she had forgotten everything she was supposed to say. Finally, after a quick look at her notebook, Maria began: “Five years ago my mother and I were living in Germany, where I was born. I was in kindergarten then, and my mother was in medical school, studying to become a doctor. My father had just died. The following year my mother graduated, and she had the opportunity to do her internship in Baltimore, Maryland. That’s how we came to the United States.
“On the plane coming over, we sat next to two young men who said they were Mormon missionaries. They had spent two years in Germany preaching the gospel. My mother and I had never met a Mormon before, and we thought they were very brave to leave their homes for such a long time.
“After we had been living in Baltimore for about six months, my mother found out that a doctor she was working with was a Latter-day Saint. She told him about the two missionaries she had met and how impressed she had been by them. The doctor invited us to his home later on, and we began to attend church with him and his family. After a few months my mother was baptized. When I turned eight, I was baptized too.”

That’s when the young missionaries found me. I have always had a soft spot for those who evangelize, knowing the rejection they often face, so I welcomed them. If they came while I was eating, I put my food aside. If I was napping, I got up. But I was a skeptical audience. When they declared, “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true church on earth,” I almost asked them to leave. How could that be, when I had witnessed God’s work in so many other places?
Their patience was my gateway. They never dismissed my questions. When I challenged them, they often said, “That’s a good question. We need to study and come back with an answer.” Their intellectual honesty was refreshing; they weren’t selling a simple product. They encouraged me to pray about it myself. I took this challenge to the Lord in earnest prayer. “I have served You in another church,” I pleaded. “You have worked with me there. Do You mean to say all those deliverances and miracles were not from You?” The answer I felt was not a denial of my past experiences but an invitation: You’ve been here, and you’ve been there—why not be here too and find out the truth for yourself?
I began reading the Book of Mormon. I compared what I was learning with what I knew. I saw a stark contrast in missionary work. In my former church, “evangelism” often meant convincing members of other congregations to join ours. It was about numbers. But these young men had left their homes and families for two years, dedicating themselves entirely to teaching anyone who would listen. Their commitment was a testament to their belief.
The most profound shift came when I learned about the Restoration of the priesthood authority. In my charismatic background, the laying on of hands was a tense moment; we believed a person’s spiritual character could be transferred, for good or ill. The concept of authority restored by heavenly messengers, not just claimed through personal revelation, resonated with a deep need for order and divine sanction I didn’t know I had. This understanding became the keystone of my budding testimony.
As my baptismal interview approached, I wrestled intensely. The enemy of my soul whispered doubts. What if you are making a mistake? Think of the backlash from your community. The night before the interview, I prayed for a sign, a specific confirmation that I was on the right path. The next evening, while running an errand, my eye was caught by something fluttering in the middle of a busy highway. It was a 100-cedi note. As I waited for traffic to clear, a second note appeared, tumbling to meet the first. In that moment, a thought, clear and penetrating as a voice, entered my mind: Are you not the one who asked for a sign pertaining to your decision? I knew it was the Lord. He had provided both a spiritual answer and, in my time of need, temporal sustenance.
The interview itself was anti-climactic. The young elder began his questions, and I immediately stated, “Yes, of course. I believe this is the only true Church.” It was no longer a statement of theory but of settled fact in my soul.
My baptism day was the most spiritually significant of my life. Dressing in white, I felt like a king. The members of the ward had stayed after their own services to support me, a gesture of love that moved me deeply. As I stepped into the water, the symbolism of burial and resurrection with Christ, which I had taught so many times before, finally felt completely real and personal. It was a covenant, not just a ritual.

Illustration by Allen Garns
Our vacation was ending. Over waffles that morning, we planned how to make the most of our time at the hotel before enduring the five-hour drive home. My husband decided to take our three young daughters for a final escapade in the pool. I would take advantage of a treadmill in the workout room.
The treadmill I chose faced a wall-sized window overlooking the swimming pool. Shortly I saw a family, my family, make their way to the pool. Towels, shoes, and T-shirts flew everywhere as the girls excitedly prepared to jump into the water. Normally I would be following behind them, gathering up clothes and shoes and, quite honestly, being a bit annoyed by it all. Instead, I saw this family from the outside looking in, as though the giant window before me was a movie screen. As my feet pounded a rhythm on the rotating belt beneath, I watched.
I saw how happy everyone was, laughing and playing together, and I thought about the times I had become discouraged by the petty arguments that inevitably arise in a family, by the uneasy feeling that, despite my best effort, I was failing to teach my children to love each other. But as I watched, I saw people who were happy together. I discovered that I wasn’t failing to teach them to love one another; I was just failing to notice that they could.
I watched one of the girls jumping from the pool’s edge over and over again into her daddy’s arms. I thought about all the big jumps she would make throughout her life and hoped she would trust Heavenly Father to catch her each time. I knew that with each jump she was learning to trust and that being part of our family was a safe way to learn that trust.
Another daughter sought to perfect a swimming skill. I saw how her family’s encouragement kept her trying. There would be times in her life when she would need that same support in the face of more difficult challenges.
And then I watched as our third daughter was accidentally bumped into the pool. Upset and angry, she sputtered her way out of the water and into a chair. Immediately her family noticed she was missing. I watched each one lovingly encourage her to rejoin them. She eventually did, and I thought of her future, of all the times she would be hurt and feel like giving up. I hoped she would always find in the love of her family the strength to endure.
Suddenly, the realization hit me: our families can be a key to our ability to learn, understand, and live the gospel. Nephi noted that “by small means the Lord can bring about great things” (1 Nephi 16:29). And so it is with families. Yes, parents struggle. But every effort to teach and train and love, no matter how small, matters.
My little movie drew to a close. As I turned off the treadmill and watched my family gather their clothes, I felt renewed determination to keep going, to keep doing all the little things that I sometimes worry don’t make a difference.

It was a simple stick of chewing gum that ultimately brought Harriet Reich to the gospel and later to the love of her life, Dieter F. Uchtdorf. When Harriet was a four-year-old girl living in Frankfurt near the end of the war, a handsome American serviceman who passed her on the street kindly offered her a stick of chewing gum. She took it hesitantly and never forgot that friendly gesture or the pleasant look on the young man’s face. Roughly a decade later two LDS missionaries knocked on the Reichs’ door, which Harriet opened while her mother called out to forbid them entrance. Seeing the same kind look on the face of the missionaries, she remembered the compassionate serviceman of earlier years and pleaded, “Oh, please, Mother. Just for a moment.”

The missionaries left a copy of the Book of Mormon with certain passages marked for emphasis. That night, Harriet’s mother started to read. (Harriet’s father had died just eight months earlier.) Harriet recalls, “I couldn’t tell you exactly what my mother read, but I watched her face and noticed something remarkable happening to her countenance.” This little family had been living with the same terrible aftermath of the war that everyone else was living with. The newly widowed mother of two young girls was pale and depressed, unhappy and unclear about what their future could be. But as her mother read from the pages of the Book of Mormon, Harriet says, “I saw joy return to my mother’s life before my very eyes! I saw light come back into her eyes. I saw hope find a place in her soul.”

When the missionaries returned they asked, “Did you read the marked scriptures?”

“I read it all,” Sister Reich said. “Come in. I have questions I want you to answer.”

Harriet, her mother, and her sister were baptized four weeks later.

“Life changed for us that day,” Harriet Uchtdorf says. “Once again we laughed and ran and found happiness in our home. I owe it all to the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

On one occasion he was home on a break from college. He was focused on upcoming finals and was not feeling right, though he didn’t feel physically ill.
“If you’re feeling well and don’t feel right,” his mother told him, “you need to go serve somebody.”
Brett threw a snow shovel in the back of the family pickup and went around shoveling the driveways of the widows in the ward. He felt much better.
“I was so focused on myself and the finals, I had forgotten that the real purpose of life is to serve others,” he says.

For decades, persecution of Church members was severe. Many missionaries landed in prison, including Mikael Jonsson, a native Swede. He was arrested in 1852 and was brought in chains 480 miles (770 km) to Malmö, where he was thrown in the castle prison, exhausted from hunger and privation. He was visited by a priest, who found that Elder Jonsson was an intelligent man with some education. The priest declared that he was willing to help him and even promised him further education—on the condition that he join the Lutheran faith and deny “Mormonism.” Elder Jonsson would not deny his faith, so he was deported.4

Things were going great. I finally felt I was with the program: I attended Sunday meetings regularly, read my scriptures every day, had prayer morning and night, regularly fasted, paid a full tithe. I had even shared the Book of Mormon with one of my neighbors and was well on my way to completing the Young Womanhood Recognition requirements.
Just one problem.
It nagged at me, constantly in the back of my mind.
I wasn’t baptized yet.
Sweet 16, here I come, and the only thing I wanted for my birthday was to be baptized. I had asked my dad several times, and we had compromised. Yes, I could go to church more often now, but I still wouldn’t step into a font until I turned 18. That was that.
This was some birthday. I flopped on the couch, realizing two years had passed since I first read the Book of Mormon and wanted to be baptized. I sighed. Two years down, two to go.
The doorbell rang. A salesman, I thought.
Ready for disappointment, I turned the corner and saw two silhouettes in the frosted glass. The missionaries!
“Hi, Liz, how are you?”
“Great! How are you? Come in!” They had no idea how glad I was to see them. They stopped by sometimes to see how I was doing and were always ecstatic when I made it to sacrament meetings.
“So what’s happening?” asked Elder Rizutto.
“Oh, not much,” I said. “Well … it’s my birthday.”
“Really? How old are you? Eighteen?”
“I wish.”
My testimony was strong, I felt the Spirit often, and I knew Heavenly Father was watching over me. But I was tired of being patient. I wanted to be a Latter-day Saint, a real member with a certificate. When people asked me about my religion, I wanted to shout from the top of the hills, “I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Can’t you tell? Can’t you see the miraculous changes in my life?”
“We should go, it’s getting late,” said the elders after a short conversation. “We just wanted to see how you were doing.”
“Wait. I just have one question. What do you call people like me? When people ask me what religion I am, I’m not sure what to say.”
“You haven’t been baptized, so you’re a nonmember,” one elder said.
“How do I tell a nonmember that I’m a nonmember?” I asked. “I believe in the Church. I have a testimony.”
A pause.
“Liz, you are a daughter of God,” said Elder Rizutto. “And to be a Saint is to be a follower of Christ. If you believe Jesus Christ is your Savior, Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, and the Book of Mormon is true, then you are a Latter-day Saint.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. He was right. Why had I been so worried about a title? Heavenly Father knew the intent of my heart. He knew I was doing my best to be a good member of the Church—even as a nonmember. The gospel was not stamped on a certificate but in my heart. I still needed to be baptized for a remission of my sins and to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, but I knew who I was.
Two more years passed. I was baptized and received the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands by those in authority. Thinking back on the years of waiting, I wondered again why I had to wait so long to become an official member of the Church. Then I remembered what the missionaries told me, and I realized it didn’t matter how long I had to wait or why. The baptism sealed in my heart the knowledge of what had been true all along: I am a daughter of God, a Latter-day Saint.

For a while when he was 14, Aleksey Kulikov was a man without a country.
Though his mother was from St. Petersburg, she had taken work in Nuremberg, Germany. While there, she and Aleksey met the missionaries, studied the gospel, were baptized, and became active Latter-day Saints.
Now they had to leave Germany. The government said noncitizens on work visas must return to their homelands. To make matters worse, Aleksey and his mother were told their papers were no longer valid in Russia.
“Officially,” Aleksey explains, “we had no citizenship anywhere.”
Things seemed pretty dark, but Aleksey and his mother knew about faith.
“I remembered what the missionaries taught me,” Aleksey says. “If you have problems, then pray about them. So we asked Heavenly Father to bless us.”
From then on, the trip became easier. “We found out we did have Russian citizenship. When officials found out we were carrying all we owned, they waived the luggage restriction. At the Lithuanian border, some kind soldiers took pity on us and kept us from being forced off the train. They even called ahead to the next border and asked them to let us pass. So we came without trouble to St. Petersburg.”
After six years, they were home. But what would the city be like, now that the Soviet Union was gone? What would the Church be like, compared with their wonderful friends in Nuremberg?
“We were delighted with what we found,” Aleksey remembers. “The city had a happier feeling. Some beautiful buildings were being renovated. But best of all, we found there is a new dawn of the Church in St. Petersburg. We knew the gospel had been restored, but now we know it’s been restored here too.”
Aleksey is now 17, a member of the Nevsky Branch. His greatest desire is to serve a full-time mission, “perhaps in Germany.” But it doesn’t matter where he’s called. “I know there’s gospel light to share wherever you go,” he says.

Night was falling as we approached the mesa. In the failing light, six ragged figures stood out against the orange sky, scarecrowlike with painted faces. Their shredded black robes blew in the wind. Tin cans hung from them, clanging dully. They were eerie and alien in the gathering dusk.
“I think we’re in over our heads,” I said to my companion. Turning the pickup around, I drove off across the empty reaches of the Navajo Reservation. As missionaries in the Arizona Holbrook Mission, we wanted to share the gospel with everyone, but maybe that didn’t include the man who had set up these weird manlike scarecrows.
During the next week, however, we felt an urging that we should return to the hut of the old sheepherder on his remote mesa. We tracted on foot a lot that week so that we could drive out and see him without exceeding the mileage limit set by the mission.
We found him on his mesa. A wooden staff was in his hand, and he wore a long black coat. He stood by a gnarly old tree, as motionless as one of his scarecrow men. Silently, he watched us get out of our truck and approach. His hair was white. His eyes were calm. There was no expression on his wrinkled brown face.
My companion was new and couldn’t speak any Navajo. I wasn’t a lot better. I introduced us in Navajo with a phrase that means essentially, “Hi, who are you? We’re the missionaries.”
He looked at me. I think he was impressed that I knew enough Navajo to greet him. He answered me in English. “I’m Baptist. No hear you.”
His words were harsh, but we felt something else behind them—a kindness, a welcome that was louder than his words. We didn’t argue, but we went on talking with him and before long we had an appointment to come back and see him.
During the months that followed we visited the old shepherd often. He wandered far with his sheep and sometimes we had to drive atop a mesa and scan the country for miles to find him. Every visit was precious because we had to make sacrifices and do a lot of walking so we could save up the mileage to drive to see him.
We had no place to sit and talk with him because his shack was too small. At first we would just sit on the tailgate of our truck. When the weather was too cold, we would crowd inside the cab. We started out very slowly. I knew just a little Navajo, and he knew about the same amount of English. Sitting on the tailgate, I would point to a tree and say, “Tree.” He would point to the same tree and say the word in Navajo. I would point at a dog and say, “Dog.” He would point and tell me the Navajo word. We would both repeat the new word. Little by little I learned enough Navajo, and he learned enough English for us to communicate.
We gradually got to know him. We found out that his name was Peter Wolley. The name had been given to him when he served in the army during World War II. After a number of visits, we began to teach him the gospel. I felt the influence of the Spirit very strongly as we talked. My Navajo was not fluent, yet at times I felt inspired to use certain Navajo words that I didn’t think I knew. Even though I couldn’t communicate clearly, he seemed to know the truth of the things I was telling him.
He was a very traditional Navajo, and he taught us many of the Navajo ways. I learned not to be so inquisitive, because this is considered bad form in the Navajo culture. When I stopped asking questions, and when the mood suited him, he would tell us about his life. He took us out to the river and his other favorite places. He showed us foxholes and where the coyotes had been. He taught us to herd sheep. He showed us how he built the tall, black-robed figures that had ended our first visit. They were not designed to terrify sister missionaries but to frighten away coyotes that might harm his flock.
He loved his sheep and would take them miles each day in search of the best grass. He took the lambs inside with him when the nights were cold. He was a very caring man.
He knew his sheep. He knew their names and he knew each of their ways. One day when we were searching for him and his flock, we saw one of his sheep separated from the rest.
When we found the flock, I said, “Peter, one of your sheep is lost. We saw it over on the other side of the mesa.”
He seemed remarkably calm about the news and said, “Oh I know. That’s Box. He’s the old one. He doesn’t have any teeth. He’s all right.” I was amazed. He knew all about that one particular sheep even though it was out of sight. Peter saw my surprise and smiled. He didn’t have any more teeth than Box.
I knew that I had really earned his trust when he began calling me his “tall white friend.” For a Navajo to address you as “my friend,” instead of by your name is a big compliment. The “tall white” part reflected my five-foot-ten stature and light blonde hair.
One time we made him a placemat. It was a piece of paper with the four steps of prayer on it. We had it laminated, and he kept it on his little table. He loved that little placemat, and I think it was because he loved prayer. He had plenty of time to pray while he watched his sheep.
We taught Peter for seven months before I was transferred. Some Navajo elders then taught him in his own language. He asked them, “Where is my tall blonde friend?” He was receptive to their teachings and joined the Church. I am proud to have helped open the door for my good friend to receive the gospel.
Peter couldn’t go to church very often because there was no one to stay with the sheep. He lived 60 miles away from a church and had no truck. He couldn’t walk that far, and few could go the 120 miles round trip over rough country both to pick him up and to take him home. But I didn’t worry too much about him because Peter was a good man who lived a good life. I knew that his Heavenly Father knew where he was just as surely as Peter knew where to find old Box. Even alone on top of his distant mesa, he was within the fold.
I think of Peter as my teacher. He taught me most of the Navajo I know. He taught me about sheep and coyotes and patience and silence and pasture in barren places. Better still, he taught me about good shepherds who love and know each sheep, even the old one with no teeth who is seemingly lost and far from the rest of the flock.

My father could remember the very day, even the very hour, that his family—father, mother, and four children—left the Church, many never to return again in this life. He was 13 years old, a deacon, and in those days families attended Sunday School in the morning and then sacrament meeting in the afternoon. On a beautiful spring day, after returning home from Sunday morning worship services and having a midday family meal together, his mother turned to his father and asked simply, “Well, dear, do you think we should go to sacrament meeting this afternoon, or should we take the family for a ride in the country?”
The idea that there was an option to sacrament meeting had never occurred to my father, but he and his three teenage siblings all sat up and paid careful attention. That Sunday afternoon ride in the country was probably an enjoyable family activity, but that small decision became the start of a new direction which ultimately led his family away from the Church with its safety, security, and blessings and onto a different path.

I attended church for only a few Sundays before it became time for me to leave for Korea. When I went aboard ship on the last day of 1951, I took with me a triple combination and the Articles of Faith by James E. Talmage. I read the Articles of Faith during the first month at sea. One evening in February I heard it announced over the public address system aboard ship that Latter-day Saint services would be held in the crew library at 7:30 P.M. At the appointed hour I went to the library where I found four young men who looked very much like the two young missionaries who had knocked on my door in San Diego. I told them I was not a member of the Church but was interested in studying about it. They welcomed me with much enthusiasm.
When we arrived in Japan in the latter part of February 1952, the group decided that I was ready for baptism. So they accompanied me to the Japan Mission home where I was interviewed and received a recommend. On February 25, 1952, in the garden behind the Japan Mission home in 30-degree weather, seven thousand miles from my home in Missouri, I was baptized. Later I was confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My wife was baptized four days later in San Diego, California. Our search had come to an end.

I don’t care what anybody says, it’s just not easy to be your own personal matchmaker. But, in spite of all the discouragement and failure I’ve faced, I guess I’d still be at it if it weren’t for a mayonnaise jar filled with wheat.
It all happened because my turn to cook for my roommates was coming up fast, and they were fed up with the same old basic casseroles and meat loaf. They always looked to me for leadership—they think the simple fact that I’m the second oldest in a family of ten means I’m pretty smart and experienced. Granted, a family of ten is an experience, and in my own humble opinion, I’m pretty smart, but there’s only so much you can do with food. Nevertheless, I was determined to impress them with my culinary abilities, especially hoping that word of my success would get back to my current heartthrob, Rusty, who happened to be the best-looking guy in our student branch.
So I was racking my brain for something new and different to cook. I’d checked through our entire supply of cookbooks (which consisted of four—two copies of the Joy of Cooking, one Desserts for Two, and one Boys and Girls Jello Cookbook). I’d called my mother who was 1700 miles away, and after $6.49 worth of telephone time, decided it was another dead end. I’d also called my brother’s fiancée. After the conversation with her, I pitied my brother’s stomach, which would face her homecooked delights through all eternity, and turned to my last resort—my own imagination.
As I was sitting in the laundry room downstairs thinking about the food crisis, studying French, and listening to our basketball team trail the visitors by 24 points, the washer to which I had entrusted all my colored washables at once began to drool soapsuds and spit weird blue sparks at me. Soapsuds I can handle, but weird blue sparks are not normal. I raced upstairs to get the manager, not thinking to get my French book out of the potential disaster area. When we returned and the manager gingerly opened the door a crack, I groaned at the sight of my French book floating in the four inches of water that had leaked out of the machine.
In the face of pending financial catastrophe—the purchase of a new French book—I decided no amount of money was too small to save and so followed the manager back upstairs to get a refund of my 40 cents that the monster washing machine had so thanklessly gobbled. While I stood in the doorway and watched her rummage through a drawer for change, I noticed an unusual smell. I glanced around for clues as to its source. There was a strange bubbly noise coming from the kitchen, which I brightly assumed was something cooking. I also brightly assumed the noise was somehow connected with the smell. Usually a shy soul, I surprised myself by asking, “What’s that … (here I hesitated, but only for a second) … terrific smell?”
The manager, Mrs. Smith (honest, that’s her name), brightened by about 50 watts. “Oh, come and see it. It’s an old recipe that’s been in the family for simply generations! It’s called Palestine Stew, and it’s so very good. I personally think it’s what we’ll be eating in heaven.”
As I followed her into the kitchen, I fervently hoped we’d be eating nothing even remotely like it in heaven or on earth. From the smell, I could also guess why the recipe hadn’t left the family for “simply generations.” I stared at the big pot of bubbling brown stuff. In reply to my blank expression, she began to explain. “All it is is wheat and hamburger and tomatoes. It has to cook all day, and it’s delicious! Here, try a taste.”
I shook my head violently. It looked awful. But she had already dug a big spoonful of the mess out of the pot and, with a prizewinning smile, turned and stuffed it in my protesting mouth. What could I do?
I chewed the mouthful cautiously for a few seconds and stopped. It was weird, but the taste kind of grew on me. When I had finally swallowed, I stood thinking. It certainly wasn’t your basic casserole or meat loaf. And it looked pretty cheap—I mean, how much can wheat and hamburger and tomatoes cost?
Mrs. Smith was watching me carefully with a coaxing smile on her face, waiting for my words of praise. After long moments of thought, I took a deep breath and said, “It’s … it’s really good. Now, how did you say you make it?”
An hour later, armed with an index card on which the fateful recipe was written in Mrs. Smith’s eager hand, I combed the aisles of a nearby grocery store that boasted, “We have what you’re looking for,” finally realizing that in my case, they didn’t. Convinced there was no whole wheat in that store, I trudged home dejectedly with two cans of tomatoes and a pound of hamburger. My mind raced furiously, trying to decide where I could get some whole wheat. It wasn’t until I was almost at the door that I suddenly knew just the person to see about my problem.
My sister had lots of wheat. And I’d been planning to meet her that evening on campus to watch her husband of three months who would be playing in an intramurals basketball game. What luck! I raced inside to the phone and made all the arrangements to get the needed three cups of wheat to the gym where I could pick it up. My sister probably didn’t bat an eye when I made my request. She was pretty used to me by then.
Well, as luck or fate or whatever would have it, my own branch basketball team also had a game that night in the same gym as my brother-in-law Brent’s game. Brent’s game was at 6:00, our game was at 7:15, and Rusty was our team’s six-foot-three center.
It took about 15 seconds of pleading to get my roommate Laurie to consent to go to the games with me. She hates basketball but is also in love with Rusty. I thought it wisest not to mention my current obsession with him. She falls in and out of love about every four days, but I knew that with me, it was the real thing. So, at 5:30 we went off to the gym to watch the games, and get the wheat, and admire Rusty in action.
Brent’s team lost their game by about 80 points. But I finally had the wheat, all three cups of it, in a mayonnaise jar. For some reason I felt really dumb sitting there holding the jar of little brown wheat kernels. I mean, how many people on an average college campus watch basketball games with a jar of wheat in their lap? So Laurie and I ran all over the building checking every wastepaper basket for a paper bag to hide it in. We were almost desperate—Rusty’s game was starting in ten minutes, we were missing the warm-up action, and still could find no paper bag—until we got to the women’s locker room and found three crumpled bags in a garbage can. We pulled some waxed paper and orange peels out of the best one, stuffed the jar in, and were back at the game with about four minutes to spare.
It was a great game. One of our guards is about five-and-a-half feet tall, really handy for sneaking between players’ legs and swiping the ball mid-dribble. We won with a score of 35–28, and Rusty made 12 of those points. We were really proud of him—or maybe I should say I was really proud. You see, Laurie had fallen in love during a time-out with a guy named Gordon who happened to be one of Rusty’s roommates. I was ecstatic—I had the wheat, we’d won the game, and Rusty was all mine now. Well, at least he would have been if he’d known I was alive. So, thinker that I am, I began plotting a way to get him to notice me.
I didn’t have to plot long. Laurie had gotten an invitation to ride home with Gordon—in Rusty’s car—and naturally I, as her roommate, was included in the invitation.
It would have been terrific, except for the wheat. See, Rusty has a really far-out car. But I’m kind of a klutz sometimes. I mean, with ten kids in the family, sometimes Mom was too busy to notice my bad manners and lack of finesse. So, when it was time to let Rusty open the car door to let us out, I was a little nervous. At a critical moment, the bag caught on the door handle and tore, and as I jerked it away, the jar hit the door frame and shattered. Those little kernels of wheat flew like bullets—slow bullets, granted, but they did fly. A lot of them simply fell in the gutter, but a lot more fell on the car seat and floor.
I guess it was pretty funny, but I sure didn’t feel like laughing. In the back seat, however, Laurie started to laugh and Gordon let out a guffaw that turned into near-hysteria. I guess being in love warps your sense of humor. I just sat, feeling a little silly.
Rusty looked down at the wheat swimming in the gutter and then at the floor of his beautiful car where the rest of the wheat had gradually settled. Then he looked at me. My face was burning. Rusty offered me his hand and helped me out of the car. I stood on the curb a second, not quite sure what to do. Rusty leaned over and whispered near my ear, “Don’t go away. I want to show you something.” So I stood, red and helpless and speechless, as Gordon and Laurie climbed out of the car, still laughing, and went inside.
I was afraid to look at Rusty. But he took my arm and steered me toward his apartment as he started to talk.
“Don’t worry about the mess. I was planning to wash the car later tonight anyway, and I’ll let you come along and help me vacuum it out. Right now I’m curious about what you needed that wheat for. Were you going to sprout it or something?”
I shook my head, trying to think of some way to explain Palestine Stew. “You see, it was for dinner tomorrow night. I was going to make this stuff that takes wheat and hamburger and tomatoes and needs to cook all day.”
He looked down at me. “It sounds really bad.”
I grinned. “You ought to smell it.”
He laughed as he opened his apartment door. He went straight to the kitchen and opened a cupboard door. There on the shelf were about ten mayonnaise jars filled with wheat. “You see,” he said, “my parents are really big on wheat. My mom even taught me how to make bread once before my mission, but I’ve pretty well forgotten now. But they still keep me supplied really well.” He grinned down at me. “I’ll let you take some if you promise to let me try some of your Palestine Stew.”
Well, Rusty was, after all, really impressed with my stew. And, even though it took a long time before I could stand the sight of wheat again, I have had a good time re-teaching him how to make bread. And I’ve also come to appreciate the many unexpected benefits that can come from food storage.

Some years ago, as our youngest son, Clark, was approaching his 12th birthday, he and I were leaving the Church Administration Building when President Harold B. Lee greeted us. I mentioned to President Lee that Clark would soon be 12, whereupon President Lee asked him, “What happens to you, Clark, when you turn 12?” This was one of those times when a father prays that a son will be inspired to give a proper response. Without hesitation Clark said to President Lee, “I will be ordained a deacon.”

The answer was the one President Lee had sought. He then counseled our son, “Remember, it is a great blessing to hold the priesthood.”

Another moving story of loyalty is that of Stephen Markham, who appeared in the Prophet’s later life at nearly every occasion of peril. When Joseph was imprisoned in Missouri, Stephen Markham brought the Smith family safely to Illinois. 15 When Joseph was illegally detained and abused by two Missouri constables, it was Stephen Markham who defied them, shamed them into humane behavior, and helped prevent the Prophet’s abduction to Missouri.16 At Carthage, it was Brother Markham who offered to trade clothes and help the Prophet escape.17 On the day of the martyrdom, Brother Markham was returning to the jail with medicine for Willard Richards when the conspiring guards challenged him, attacked him, and finally forced him away at bayonet point to keep him from returning to the Prophet. Prodded onto his horse, he was poked so many times that his boots filled with blood.18 Joseph Smith’s last journal entry records a prophecy spoken to Stephen Markham that “if I and Hyrum were ever taken again, we should be massacred.”19 The measure of Brother Markham’s love is his brave effort to prevent that prophecy’s fulfillment.

Whether gardening or playing, the Gándola children like being outside. They jump on their trampoline, ride bikes, and play in the trees. Shawn and Micah are great tree-climbers, and Danielle and Lucas like hunting for green pinecones. One day, their next-door neighbor pruned some branches that fell down in the Gándolas’ yard and formed a wall of leaves. Shawn made a hole through them to serve as a door, and he calls the leaf-wall his fort.

For a long time, everything reminded Jimmy of his twin. Understanding his grief, the Thorpes arranged for him to go to Haskell Indian School in Kansas. There, for the first time, he saw boys kicking a strange, point-ended ball. Other boys were hitting a small, leather-covered ball with a club, and still others were using a pole to jump over high crossbars. Jimmy tried all the new sports, and he learned to love them.
Later he went to Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, where he led the football team to great victories over all the big teams in the country at that time—Yale, Harvard, Pittsburgh, Chicago, West Point, and many others. No one could run as fast, dodge as well, hit as hard, kick as high, or think as fast on the field as Jim.
He represented the United States in the Olympics in Sweden in 1912. He competed in the pentathlon, a series of five grueling contests, and the most difficult event, the decathlon, a series of ten punishing contests to select the top Olympic athlete. His decathlon score set a record that was not matched for many years!
The King of Sweden placed the victory medals around Jim’s neck and gave him his personal gift, a bronzed statue, saying, “You are the greatest athlete in the world!”
But heartbreak was ahead. His Olympic medals were taken away when it was learned that he had once been paid a few dollars for playing baseball. Jim hadn’t known that it would disqualify him for the Olympics. In 1982, thirty-nine years after his death, the honors were restored to his name.
Jim played professional baseball and football, and in 1950 he was named the greatest male athlete of the half-century. To many, he is considered the greatest male athlete of all time. A town in Pennsylvania changed its name to “Jim Thorpe” in his honor, and a movie was made about his life. Truly Jim Thorpe had followed the bright path set by Black Hawk; he had won at all the things he did best.

Second, pay your tithing to rightfully claim the blessings promised those who do so. “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.” After she lost her husband in the martyrdom at Nauvoo and made her way west with five fatherless children, Mary Fielding Smith continued in her poverty to pay tithing. When someone at the tithing office inappropriately suggested one day that she should not contribute a tenth of the only potatoes she had been able to raise that year, she cried out to the man, “William, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. Would you deny me a blessing? If I did not pay my tithing, I should expect the Lord to withhold His blessings from me. I pay my tithing, not only because it is a law of God, but because I expect a blessing by doing it. [I need a blessing.] By keeping this and other laws, I expect to … be able to provide for my family.”

I can’t list all the ways that blessings will come from obedience to this principle, but I testify many will come in spiritual ways that go well beyond economics. In my life, for example, I have seen God’s promise fulfilled that He would “rebuke the devourer for [my sake].” That blessing of protection against evil has been poured out upon me and on my loved ones beyond any capacity I have to adequately acknowledge. But I believe that divine safety has come, at least in part, because of our determination, individually and as a family, to pay tithing.

What is that great need? During the last year I have tried to reach out to the youth at several youth conferences. From one of those youth conferences I received from a member of the stake presidency a note which suggests something that the world needs greatly.

He said, “One recently reactivated young man of about 15 years said in our fast and testimony meeting, ‘President Lee must have known that there was lots of wickedness and evil in the … area and that the kids here were in trouble, and just to think that he loves us enough to come all this way just to help us.’”

If it means nothing more to the youth, to the children, to those who are young adults, and those who are over those ages, than that all of this is to evidence a love for them that comes from the General Authorities and from their Heavenly Father, then we have yet accomplished much.

From this pulpit over 60 years ago, the president of the Church said, “It has been said that the Church is perfectly organized, and the only trouble is that these organizations are not alive to the obligations resting upon them. When they become thoroughly awakened to the requirements made of them, they will fulfill their duties more dutifully, and the work of the Lord will be stronger and more powerful and influential in the world.”

A few weeks ago we attended a conference back in New Jersey where we heard a wonderful sermon by the stake president on the importance of love. He said something to indicate how important that was in his boyhood life in his own home. He said, “Some of my greatest resources come from lessons learned in my youth from acts of love shown by my parents. I well remember when I was very young my mother was seriously ill. I had gotten up in the night to get a drink of water, and going into the kitchen, I noticed a light in my parents’ bedroom. On going to the door, I found father sitting quietly next to mother’s bed. She was asleep. He was just sitting there, appearing to be doing nothing. And so startled, I asked him what was wrong. Why wasn’t he in bed? My father’s answer was ‘Nothing is wrong, son. I am just watching over her.’ Later I learned that he sat each night by her side during the crisis, watching over her. And thinking of this I have often thought that truly love is kind and never faileth. The memory of this act of love, the light and warmth of that occasion have always had special meaning to me. It made me feel safe and secure, to see this strong and gentle man so concerned about those of his household. It gave me a deeper appreciation of my father and set a high standard for me to try to follow.”

We have said again and again, and I repeat it now, that the most important work we will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes. Give the child love in the home, and the home will give our auxiliaries well-adjusted children who can feel the lessons of love of God and man taught in the Church.

The experience of love in one’s early youth enables him to develop the ability to feel within the feelings the urges that create the attitudes that result in a truly religious life. It is these feelings that supply the motivation for good works.

If you can take with you now as you go back to your homes, you leaders of youth and young adults, and the Church membership, the feeling of love that we have just demonstrated, you will have set the stage for great and mighty things that will make this church more wonderful and more influential than it has ever been before in all the world. You have had unraveled before your eyes an evidence of the revelations of Almighty God in your day, as He has poured out His blessings in this a great step forward in building the kingdom of God.

For example, I have a sweet Aunt Beryl Hollindrake. She told me that when she was just three or four years old that my great-grandmother, her Grandmother Featherstone, would hold her on her lap and tell her about the Savior, all the beautiful stories. Then she would recall how my great-grandmother would tell her about the Savior’s trial and how they beat him and cursed him and spit upon him—how they dragged him and forced him against the cross and drove huge spikes into his hands cruelly. She said, “As my grandmother would tell me these stories, tears would stream down her cheeks.” And she said, “It was on the lap of my grandmother that I learned to love the Savior with all my heart and soul.”