Gospel Story Finder

Surrounded by a crowd of young women, Ariel Liston walked into her bedroom with her eyes closed. Slowly, as she opened her eyes, she lifted her hands to her face and began to cry.
“You guys did this for me? It’s so awesome. Wow! It’s so pretty!”
Ariel, a Mia Maid in the Orchard First Ward, Bountiful Utah Orchard Stake, couldn’t contain her happiness when she saw her “new” room. She loved the bright paint, the curtains, the dresser with her name lovingly stenciled on it, but most of all she was crying because she realized how much the other young women in the ward loved her.
Ariel’s room had needed some work. There were holes in the walls, the carpet was ragged, and she didn’t have a closet to hang her clothes in. Angela Gatherum, a Laurel in the ward, had similar needs in her own bedroom.
Knowing that these two girls needed help, the young women in their ward got together to remodel Ariel’s and Angela’s rooms. On a small budget, they transformed the girls’ bedrooms into beautiful living spaces. They painted, organized, made accessories and art pieces, refinished old furniture rescued from Deseret Industries and ward members, and even tore up flooring (all with parental permission, of course).
Their activity took all day, but their hard work and creativity paid off. When the young women were done, they led the girls into their rooms with their eyes closed.
“It was amazing to see the look on Ariel’s face when she opened her eyes,” says Angela, who helped remodel Ariel’s room. “I loved to see all the girls come together for the sake of serving.”
Elaine Petersen, a Mia Maid, agrees: “Seeing Ariel’s face was priceless. It made me want to do her whole house!”
The girls did a lot of work and were tired and dirty when they were done, but it was worth it. “It didn’t seem like it was work, it was so much fun!” says Katie Mortensen, a Mia Maid.
Melissa Anderson, a Beehive says, “I felt like I had made a difference.”
Not only did the girls learn some valuable decorating and cleaning skills, they also learned about how powerful they can be when they work together for a righteous cause. “This project took all of us to complete it,” says Heidi Anderson, a Laurel. “It wouldn’t have worked as well if we wouldn’t have had everyone there.”
Ariel and Angela got in on the fun, too, as they helped remodel each other’s rooms. They weren’t allowed to go into their own rooms until the other young women were finished. They were so grateful for the help they received in making their rooms more pleasant places to be. “Your surroundings have such a huge effect on the way you feel and act,” says Angela.
She thinks what the young women did for her is amazing. “My room is something I see every day, and so every day I am reminded of all the love and work that went into it on my behalf. It really makes me feel loved.”
Above Ariel’s bed the young women hung a hand-painted sign. It reads, “To every thing there is a season” (Eccl. 3:1). For the young women of the Orchard First Ward, their activity wasn’t just a season to paint, fix, and decorate; it was a season to love, serve, and give.

Long ago a woman tearfully told me that as a college student she had made a serious mistake with her boyfriend. He had arranged for an abortion. In due time they graduated and were married and had several other children. She told me how tormented she now was to look at her family, her beautiful children, and see in her mind the place, empty now, where that one child was missing.
If this couple understands and applies the Atonement, they will know that those experiences and the pain connected with them can be erased. No pain will last forever. It is not easy, but life was never meant to be either easy or fair. Repentance and the lasting hope that forgiveness brings will always be worth the effort.

Then later on he had a heart condition, and I think President Kimball won’t object to me telling just a little of the details. He was so seriously ill that he felt that something had to be done. Dr. Russell Nelson (noted Utah heart surgeon) was his doctor. He told him that his chances were about fifty-fifty. But if he didn’t have the operation, he couldn’t expect to live many months, but if he did, there was greater hope. We discussed it in President Lee’s office for some time. Finally, President Kimball said, “I think I should be operated on.” I said, “President Kimball, you’ve made the right decision, I’m sure.”
Then he asked to be administered to by President Lee and myself. We administered to him and Dr. Nelson said, “To be operating on the President of the Council of the Twelve, an apostle of God, is a great, great responsibility, the greatest I’ve ever had.” And he said, “President Kimball is going to have a double operation.” At that time he was the only one in history I believe who had undergone, or was going to undergo, a double heart operation at that age. And Doctor Nelson said, “I’d like to have a blessing by the priesthood that I might be guided and directed and do the things that will help to save his life.”
Now, brethren, does the priesthood mean anything to you? It doesn’t mean anything to you unless you live worthy of it. So whether you are a boy twelve years of age, or whether you are seventy years of age, wherever you are, live worthy of the priesthood. Honor that priesthood. Thank the Lord that you are a bearer of the priesthood, and pray night and morning, every day, with a determination that you will do those things which the Lord would have you do. And I want to assure you that you will be happier, you will be more successful, you will be more loved and respected, and the Lord will be pleased with you if you do that which he has asked you to do.
Let us do those things which will make us happy and successful and will prepare ourselves to go back into his presence, I humbly pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Raiarii loves visiting his grandmother, Mamy. He can play on the beach and catch fish in the lagoon. He eats mangoes and bananas from the trees. A few years ago, he met Mamy’s friends Kali and Mia.
Every morning Raiarii and Mamy would read the Book of Mormon together. Kali and Mia started joining them. Raiarii helped explain the scriptures so they were easy to understand.
Raiarii was getting ready to be baptized. He told Kali all about it. Then the missionaries came and taught Kali and Mia more about the gospel. When Kali and Mia were baptized, Raiarii was there. “I am so happy that Kali wanted to follow in Jesus’s footsteps,” he said.

Now, it’s probably not as hard to remember the day you were baptized—your second birth. Listen to what Lan-Ting, a Beehive girl from the Philippines, wrote about her baptism: “I felt like I had been born again. What an extraordinary feeling of cleanliness, sinlessness! My mother’s tears flowed like a fountain of pearls, and I could tell these were tears of joy! My mother told me sincerely, ‘Lan-Ting, today I am relieved to say I can turn you over to the Lord. I trust He will accompany you along the roads of your life’” (letter in possession of Young Women office).

In this childhood setting—one he later often called “ideal”—Ezra Taft Benson learned how to sacrifice to reap a spiritual harvest. He was just twelve when his father, George Benson, was called to serve an eighteen-month mission in the midwestern United States. There were seven children in the Benson home when their father left for the mission field, with the eighth soon to be born. And Ezra, as the oldest son, had to carry much of the responsibility for the farm. One of President Benson’s most vivid memories of his father’s absence was of gathering around the kitchen table to hear his mother read her husband’s weekly letters. “There came into that home a spirit of missionary work that never left,” recalled President Benson. All eleven Benson children later served missions.

I once heard a story about an imaginary king whose wife gave birth to a baby boy. The parents knew that the lad would someday inherit the kingdom. Desiring that their son be a wise king, fully familiar with the needs of the people over whom he would reign, the king and queen took the infant into the country to be raised as part of a peasant family. He was to be told nothing of his secret destiny until he became a man.

At the appropriate time the king and queen returned to the country to confer on their son the kingdom. They were greatly disappointed. Having been told nothing of his appointed destiny, he was exactly that which life had prepared him to be. He understood the proper care of animals and the gathering of crops, but he knew nothing of armies and palaces and courtyards and presiding. He had lost his vision.

It should not be difficult for you to glean the truth in this story. Another King, your Father in Heaven, has sent you away from His presence to have experiences you would not have had in your heavenly home—all in preparation for the conferral of a kingdom. He doesn’t want you to lose your vision. You are children of an exalted being. You are foreordained to preside as kings and queens. You will live in a home and environment of infinite refinement and beauty, as reflected in the language, literature, art, music, and order of heaven.

Like his wife, Joseph Sr. hungered for the truth. But he felt that attending no church at all was preferable to the wrong one. Following the counsel of his father, Joseph Sr. searched the scriptures, prayed earnestly, and believed that Jesus Christ had come to save the world.19 Yet he could not reconcile what he felt to be true with the confusion and discord he saw in the churches around him. One night he had dreamed that contending preachers were like cattle, bellowing as they dug at the earth with their horns, which deepened his concern that they knew little about God’s kingdom.20
Seeing his parents’ dissatisfaction with local churches only confused Joseph Jr. more.21 His soul was at stake, but no one could give him satisfying answers.
After saving their money for more than a year, the Smiths had enough to make a payment on a hundred acres of forest in Manchester, just south of Palmyra. There, between jobs as hired hands, they tapped maple trees for their sugary sap, planted an orchard, and cleared fields to grow crops.22
This log home, located near Palmyra, New York, is a replica of the home the Smiths built there after moving from Vermont. The Sacred Grove is in the background.
Photograph by D. Brent Walton
As he worked the land, young Joseph continued to worry about his sins and the welfare of his soul. The religious revival in Palmyra had quieted down, but preachers continued to compete for converts there and throughout the region.23 Day and night, Joseph watched the sun, moon, and stars roll through the heavens in order and majesty and admired the beauty of the earth teeming with life. He also looked at the people around him and marveled at their strength and intelligence. Everything seemed to testify that God existed and had created humankind in His own image. But how could Joseph reach Him?24
In the summer of 1819, when Joseph was 13, Methodist preachers gathered for a conference a few miles from the Smith farm and spread out across the countryside to spur families like Joseph’s toward conversion. The success of these preachers worried other ministers in the area, and soon competition for converts was intense.
Joseph attended meetings, listened to soul-stirring preaching, and witnessed converts shout for joy. He wanted to shout with them, but he often felt like he was in the middle of a war of words and opinions. “Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together?” he asked himself. “If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?” He knew he needed Christ’s grace and mercy, but with so many people and churches clashing over religion, he did not know where to find it.25
Hope that he could find answers—and peace for his soul—seemed to slip away from him. He wondered how anyone could find truth amid so much noise.26
While attending a sermon, Joseph heard a minister quote from the first chapter of James in the New Testament. “If any of you lack wisdom,” he said, “let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not.”27
Joseph went home and read the verse in the Bible. “Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine,” he later remembered. “It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did.” He had searched the Bible before as if it held all the answers. But now the Bible was telling him he could go directly to God for personal answers to his questions.
After Much Contemplation, by Al Rounds
Joseph decided to pray. He had never prayed out loud before, but he trusted the Bible’s promise. “Ask in faith, nothing wavering,” it taught.28 God would hear his questions—even if they came out awkwardly.

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). This is the first scripture mastery verse I learned in my first year of seminary. After I memorized it, I tried to follow its teaching. I never knew who was watching me, but I wanted to set a good example for them. As I became good friends with my piano teacher, I learned that we can shine as bright as a candle and stand out in a group.
I’d begun practicing piano in kindergarten. After I finished sixth grade, my family moved to a different state, so I had to find a new music teacher. A friend at church suggested I take lessons from her instructor, Susan. At the time, Susan was teaching about 80 lessons a week and her schedule was very full. But she agreed to teach me and squeezed my piano lesson in right after school.
At each lesson, the first song I would practice would be a hymn. As I played, Susan sang the words and would often ask me questions about the scriptural meaning of the piece. This served as a great missionary opportunity. Susan and I had fun as we played duets and learned more about each other. I found out that she worked as the music director at her Catholic church. She always showed a great love for God, and I am glad we had such a strong relationship.
One day, Susan sent out invitations for a recital. At my lesson, she told me it would be our last performance. To her dismay, she had to close down her piano studio because our economic times hurt Susan financially and she knew she couldn’t pay the rent for her studio and keep her two other jobs going.
The night of the recital arrived and was filled with splendid talent and beautiful music. Before each student performed, Susan shared something unique about the person or information about the song he or she would play. As she stood before the audience to introduce me, she began to tear up. “I know that God sends certain people into our lives for a reason,” she began. She said she could see something bright and different about me. As she spoke about our friendship, I felt the Spirit strongly, and I could tell she felt it too. Then I played a duet with Susan for the finale of the recital.
The impact and importance of my lessons stretched far beyond improving my piano talent. There was a reason Susan chose to teach me even though she already had an overflowing list of students waiting for an open lesson. I know that because I tried to set a good example for Susan, she is now more familiar with the Church and its teachings. She has not given up her own religion to change faiths, but she knows about the restored gospel. I’m glad I could share my light with her.

My mother and I received our patriarchal blessings together. I was 20, and Mother was 49. I will never forget that day—how the patriarch placed his hands on Mother’s head and told her how often her life had been spared through bouts of rheumatic fever, heart disease, and many other illnesses. He recounted her life, enumerating the times she had blessed others. He told her of things the Lord had in store for her and offered guidance as to what she needed to do. I knew my mother’s life, and I listened as this patriarch, who was not acquainted with her, described her life. This experience was a witness to me that God lives, that He loves us, and that He knows us individually. I felt the Lord’s love for my mother—and for me—on that memorable day.

The man in the rubber raft was flapping his arms in panic and desperately shouting for help. Tom and Nikki stood on the shore watching him. Trapped in the river’s swift current, the raft was rushing downstream toward an outcropping of jagged rocks.
Pointing toward the danger, Tom yelled to the man, “Drop your anchor! Big rocks ahead! They’ll rip your raft!”
The man in the raft bent over, picked up the end of a rope, and waved it in the air. “My anchor’s gone!” he shouted. “And my outboard’s dead!”
Tom turned toward Nikki. “Those rocks will slice his raft into rubber bands,” he declared.
Nikki grabbed Tom’s arm and looked downriver at the exposed, sharp rocks. “He’ll never get through all that,” she said despairingly.
Tom and Nikki had been heading upstream along the river toward their favorite fishing spot when they first spotted the rubber raft. It was drifting down toward them, and they didn’t know it was out of control. Now the raft was obviously trapped in the rushing water in the middle of the river.
Tom threw down his fishing gear and quickly tried to assess the situation. The raft had swooshed downstream and was now in a position nearly opposite to where Tom and Nikki were standing on the bank.
The man in the raft was working frantically to alter his course away from the jagged rocks. With great effort, he manipulated the flexible rubber sides of the raft. Then he stretched his leg over the side of the raft and finally succeeded in snagging it onto a large flat boulder.
Tom cupped his hands. “Good work!” he called. “Maybe it will hold long enough for us to find a way to help you.”
“It won’t hold very long!” the man shouted back. “I can feel the current tugging. It’s going to push me right off this rock!”
“Try your outboard motor again,” Tom suggested.
“Won’t start!” the man hollered. “I was fishing upstream, and my anchor snagged on some sunken logs! Had to cut loose! When I tried to start up the outboard … nothing!”
“Have you checked your fuel line?” Tom asked.
“I’ve checked everything! It won’t start!”
Nikki glanced toward the rapids again. “Just see how that water is churning,” she said. “There isn’t a calm place anywhere.”
Tom sat on a nearby boulder and began unlacing his boots. “When the raft clears that rock,” he said, “the current will drive the raft straight to disaster. Maybe I can wade out to him.”
“The current’s too strong,” Nikki warned.
Tom slipped off his socks, rolled up his pants, and stepped into the river. Near the shore the river was shallow and the current wasn’t very strong.
“Don’t do it!” the man in the raft shouted. “You’ll never make it!”
About ten feet from shore, Tom paused as his feet stepped down into deeper water. It was up to his knees and he could feel his feet beginning to slide on the slippery rocks because of the swift current. Tom shook his head. “He’s right. I don’t think I can make it,” he admitted half aloud.
Reluctantly, Tom made his way back to shore. “Hold on a little longer!” he shouted to the man. “I have another idea!”
When he got back to shore, Tom picked up his fishing rod and ran back down the trail alongside the river. Nikki followed anxiously. “The raft looks like it’s about to go,” she declared.
Tom glanced at the raft and saw it was teetering on the rock that had snagged it. “Hold on just another minute!” he urged.
“It’s going over!” the man shouted. “I can feel it going!”
At an open place along the shore, Tom halted.
“What are you going to do?” Nikki implored.
“Watch,” Tom answered as he quickly crimped two heavy lead sinkers onto the end of his fishing line. Then he positioned himself firmly on the ground and called, “Watch for the line!”
The rod snapped forward and the line arched out over the river and beyond the raft.
“Grab it!” Tom shouted as the line crossed near the man.
The raft’s weary passenger saw the line and reached for it. “Now what do I do?” he asked. “This light line will never hold me!”
“Fasten the line to the cleat in the bow of your raft!” Tom answered. “Then work the raft off the rock! It’s your only chance!”
Unsure that it would work, the man nevertheless tied the end of the fishing line to the cleat. But then he sought for a last desperate hold on the rock.
“No!” Tom cried. “You’ve got to let go!”
The man hesitated.
“You’ve got to trust me!” Tom insisted. “Let go of the rock!”
The man stared ahead at the dangerous rocks, paused a moment longer, then nodded and proceeded to manipulate the raft’s rubber sides until it slid off the rock.
Tom watched intently, then he reeled in the slack line and was working his rod the way he would if he had caught a huge trout. “Steady now!” he shouted. “Let me control the raft!”
He was reeling in the line as fast as he could without snapping it. “Just a slight tension,” he explained to Nikki. “That’s all I need to get the raft headed toward shore.”
“What if the line breaks?” Nikki asked.
“Nikki,” Tom said softly, “pray that it doesn’t.” Then he shouted to the man in the raft, “Keep your eyes on the water ahead of you! If you see any rocks, push the raft away from them!”
The man leaned over the bow and stared down into the turbulent water. A couple of times he had to reach down into the water to steer the raft away from a threatening submerged rock. Tom was relieved now to see the raft respond to his control on the line. A few more gentle tugs and he expertly guided the raft to a riverbank sandbar just a dozen feet away.
The man jumped ashore, smiling broadly. “If it hadn’t been for your quick work with that rod, I’d be smashed to pieces against those rocks,” he said gratefully, pointing downstream.
“I’m just glad that we happened by with our fishing gear,” Tom said. Then with a grin, he added, “I’d been hoping all morning I’d catch a big one!”

My great-grandfather was the last native te reo M?ori speaker in my family. I used to watch videos of him and listen to him speak the language of our people, wishing I could understand him. Even though he was only a few generations older than me, I didn’t have that connection to our heritage.
I served a mission in the Philippines, and I loved it. I loved the language, the people—everything. And because I spent time trying to connect with the people I was serving and teaching, I became immersed in their culture.
As wonderful as that opportunity was, I realized that I’d never tried to connect with my own culture and people in the same way. Although I had helped to gather Israel on my mission, I realized there were important ways for me to help gather Israel at home too, especially within my own family.
His dream resonated with me. I felt prompted to learn about my ancestors and connect with them like I never had before.
I had just entered medical school when I decided to learn the language of my people. So on top of my busy schedule, I took night classes to learn M?ori.
When the classes first began, I felt alone and uncertain about moving forward. But the more I talked to my classmates, the more I realized that many had also felt prompted to connect with their heritage by learning M?ori.
Over time, learning M?ori truly began to feel like a spiritual experience. I was beginning to understand the promise that Elijah would “turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers” (Malachi 4:6). My ancestors were becoming more real to me.
Learning the language also opened doors in my everyday life. I found that speaking M?ori helped me better connect with the people for whom I was providing medical care. I helped establish M?ori classes at my university and discovered that many other medical students were also interested in learning to help them provide better care.
Although the language is becoming increasingly less common, being able to communicate with those who are native M?ori speakers has helped me minister to specific populations. I’ve witnessed how my native patients feel especially heard and seen when we can speak their language together. These experiences have really shown me what it means to minister to the one.

I once visited with a family whose depressed teenager felt unable to commit to anything except getting a little more sunshine. After two weeks of getting outside more to play sports with his father, this young man felt enough energy to experiment with adjustments to his diet, which triggered other improvements and a new momentum of gradual healing. This reflects “the aggregation of marginal gains” that Elder Michael A. Dunn of the Seventy recently emphasized.18
Another brother described how adjusting what he took into his mind had rippling benefits for other areas of life: “I started to be choosier about what [media] I watched, and who I hung out with because I had a really clear sense of how it was affecting me. And that influenced my sleeping cycle. And I started to rest more; and I realized I felt really good when I exercised. And I noticed what foods made me feel good and what foods made me feel sick.” He described these changes as a “domino effect … that cascaded into other fortunate turnarounds.”19

President Henry B. Eyring recently shared a personal example of this truth with the students at the LDS Business College. He related how he felt overwhelmed when taking some physics and math classes as an undergraduate. He said:
“As time wore on, my discouragement led me to feel that it was useless to study. . . . I began to think of quitting and doing something easier.
“It was on a night during that time of discouragement when I received the help that made all the difference for me. . . . Help came as a voice, an actual voice in my mind. . . . The words voiced were these: ‘When you realize who you really are, you will be sorry that you didn’t try harder.’
“I didn’t know then all that those words meant. . . . But I knew then what to do. I went to work. I felt that I must have more ability to learn than I could see in myself. . . .
“I began to try to understand that message of encouragement. By pondering and working during the years that followed, I came to realize who I really was. I was a spirit child of God. I had inherent in me the potential to learn what He knows. Because of the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ and my faith in Him, my sins could be washed away. . . . I could receive the gift of the Holy Ghost as a companion. And I came to know that by the power of the Holy Ghost, we may know the truth of all things.”
President Eyring stated that this experience, and others like it, “gave [him] the confidence to keep trying harder, even when the learning was difficult.”

Service is the gospel of Jesus Christ in action, and it’s evident in a story I love about Brigham Young. Upon learning that hundreds of handcart pioneers were stranded on the plains in unbearable conditions, he taught with power in this simple sermon at the October 1856 general conference: “I will now give this people the subject and the text for the Elders who may speak, … it is this, … many of our brethren and sisters are on the plains with hand-carts, and probably many are now 700 miles from this place, and they must be brought here, we must send assistance to them. The text will be, ‘to get them here.’ …

“That is my religion; that is the dictation of the Holy Ghost that I possess, it is to save the people. …

“I shall call upon the Bishops this day, I shall not wait until to-morrow, nor until next day, for 60 good mule teams and 12 or 15 wagons. I do not want to send oxen, I want good horses and mules. They are in this Territory, and we must have them; also 12 tons of flour and 40 good teamsters, besides those that drive the teams. …

“I will tell you all that your faith, religion, and profession of religion, will never save one soul of you in the celestial kingdom of our God, unless you carry out just such principles as I am now teaching you. Go and bring in those people now on the plains.”2

It was a cloudy Sunday morning as I stood at the kitchen sink finishing the breakfast dishes. My two youngest children were watching a scripture video in the family room by the kitchen. I was lost in thought, and my cheeks were wet from tears. I couldn’t get my mind off the cancer that had invaded our home. My husband had been fighting it for several years, but now it had spread. My faith seemed to be wavering. My mind was crowded with “what if?” thoughts.
Suddenly the scripture video interrupted my thoughts with words from a calming voice: “Peace, be still. …
“Why are ye so fearful? how is it that ye have no faith?” (Mark 4:39–40).
I dropped the dishrag and turned to look at the TV. The video was about the Savior calming the storm. It was as if the words had been spoken to me by the Savior Himself. A feeling of warmth and peace flooded over me. It was a reminder to stick to the faith I had learned so much about through the years of cancer. It was a faith buttressed by words in my patriarchal blessing.
I learned to let the Savior carry us, I learned that I must keep my faith constant, and I learned to combat mounting fears with faith. The video that morning reminded me to rely on the Lord.

“Papa was told when he was a young man that he had great talent as a stenographer. He decided that if that were the case, he wanted to get a job with the best person he could and that person to him was the president of the Church. President Heber J. Grant needed a secretary at the time, so Papa applied for the job.
“President Grant said he was giving a talk the next day at the LDS University and told Papa that if he would go and take the talk down, he would be able to see how skillful Papa was in shorthand.
“Papa was nervous, but he went to the meeting where President Grant spoke more rapidly than ever before and quoted many verses from literature. When the talk was over Papa felt very discouraged, knowing he had not been able to take everything down.
“Still, Mother Norm encouraged Papa and told him it might be a good idea for them to go to the library and check the quotations to make sure they were right. This they did, and when Papa went to see President Grant the next day, he felt a little more confident. The story has a happy ending, of course, for he got the job as secretary to President Grant and served in a secretarial position until six years ago, although he was called to be a General Authority in 1970.”

This is how President Thomas S. Monson (1927–2018) lived his life. Many years ago, I had an assignment with him. As part of the assignment, we were to be in a four-hour training meeting on a Saturday afternoon. However, he felt the prompting of the Holy Ghost to visit some people with great needs in order to lift their spirits and help them to be of good cheer. So for the first two hours, while I and other brethren were in the meeting, he was out doing good to others, ministering as the Lord did in His mortal life. President Monson joined us for the final two hours of the training meeting and did a marvelous job of teaching and training.
After the meeting, I commented on how well he taught in the meeting and then thanked him for the most powerful teaching: his example of going out and ministering to individuals, one by one. He smiled and said: “One thing about me, I am never confused about my priorities.” I thought about what he had said and after taking him to the airport and bidding him goodbye, I headed for home. Then I changed direction and went to visit a sister who was ill and needed some cheering up. Since that time, I have tried to live in my very imperfect way to be a light to others as the Savior commanded us to be and to do so in word, action, and deed.

Among my heroes are those great souls President Shumway told us about in his book Tongan Saints. One of those is Mosese Lui Muti from Uiha Ha'apai, Tonga. He is one of my heroes because his faith was pure. He loved the Lord, and he loved fulfilling his calling in the Church.

After his first mission, he returned to his young wife, and was thereafter, called to be the secretary of the Sunday School and the clerk of the whole branch.

Listen to his words, "I cherished these assignments in our little branch and performed them with care and attention. Even when I got a painting job with Burns Philp, Ltd., and took Salavia with me to Pangai during the week, we would always catch a boat back to Uiha on Saturday afternoon and spend Sunday there. I simply could not neglect my calling."

Time will not allow us to read all of his beautiful testimony, but with President Shumway's permission, I will paraphrase the rest of his story. One Saturday they went to the dock to catch the boat home, and there was no boat. Most of us would have said, "Well, we tried, but there's no boat. Guess we'll just have to spend the weekend here. Besides, it won't matter if I miss just this one Sunday." Not Mosese!

Even though it was 9:00 p.m. and on a pitch black night, he decided that he'd swim the mile or so to the Island of Uoleva and from there swim across one of the most treacherous channels in Tonga, the Auhangamea Channel, and on to home.

The ocean was rough and the current strong, but he felt no danger. When his feet touched the sands of Uoleva, he crossed over to the other side of the island, waded into the channel and started to swim for home.

He hadn't gone forty yards when a voice spoke to his mind to look back. He looked back and saw a light in the thick undergrowth of the island. The voice urged him to turn and go back. He did. There in the undergrowth, he found the hull of a canoe, but that would be useless unless he had an outrigger. At that moment, the light which had guided him to the canoe moved away into the bush about ten yards, to a fine unattached outrigger with sennit rope to bind it to the canoe. He lashed the canoe and outrigger together, then went in search of something to use for a paddle. He hadn't gone more than a few yards when he literally stumbled over the stalk of a large coconut palm frond that had been cut and shaped into a paddle.

Despite the heavy sea and blackness of the night he crossed the channel safely and landed at 4:00 a.m. in the morning on the beach on his home island. Pulling the canoe up onto the sand he paused briefly to offer a prayer of thanks and went to his home.

He slept a few short hours, went to the chapel, completed his assignments, and returned back, exactly as he had come, leaving the canoe where he found it and swimming the rest of the way.

Listen to his words: "I have since contemplated this experience many times and have marveled that I should not have taken such risks. I have thought of the blackness of the night, the roughness of the ocean, the strange concentrated light that guided me to the canoe, a light I have not seen before or since my lack of fear and my love for my church assignment to be a secretary in the Kingdom of God was more important to me than nearly anything else."

Many unselfish children of God are involved in teaching efforts, also worldwide. A good example, known to us through our humanitarian efforts, is the activity of a man known as Mr. Gabriel, who has been a refugee from various conflicts on several occasions. He recently observed that hundreds of thousands of refugee children in East Africa needed help to keep their hopes alive and their minds active. He organized other teachers in the refugee population into what they called “tree schools,” where children were gathered for lessons under the shade of a tree. He did not wait for others to organize or direct but personally led efforts that have provided learning opportunities for thousands of primary school children during stressful years of displacement.