Gospel Story Finder

Several years ago our daughter had a profound experience on her mission. With her approval, I share an excerpt of what she wrote to us that week:
“Yesterday a returning member asked us to come over as soon as possible. When we arrived, we found her on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. Through the tears, we found out that she had lost her job, was going to be evicted from her apartment, and once again become homeless.”
Our daughter continued: “I started frantically searching my scriptures, trying to find something—anything—to help her. As I was looking for the perfect verse, I thought, ‘What am I doing? This is not what Christ would do. This is not a problem that I can solve, but this is a literal daughter of God who needs my help.’ So I closed my scriptures, knelt beside her, and held her while we cried together, until she was ready to stand up and face this trial.”
After this woman was comforted, our daughter then used the scriptures to try and help her understand the reality of her divine worth and to teach her one of the most fundamental truths of our existence—that we are beloved sons and daughters of God, a God that feels perfect compassion for us when we suffer and is ready to assist us as we stand back up.

Many years after my first mission and while I served as mission president, an elder came to me and said that he did not know the Church was true. Because of that he wanted to return home. I pleaded with him to not do so stating, “You can’t learn the Church is true if in the back of your mind you’re thinking ‘I’m going to go home.’ By such lack of faith you cast out of your heart the very seed that could bring you the answer that you seek. First of all you’ve got to say ‘I’m going to stay. Whether or not the Church is true is beside the point. I’m staying.’” In summary I told him that the seed to plant in his heart was the seed of commitment to stay and serve, and the harvest that would grow was the sweet fruit of testimony.

The answer to your question “How can I be sure?” is simple. You’ve got to dive into the work. The fact that you think the Church is true shows that you’ve got at least your toe in the water. Now to be sure, you must dive completely in. Some want to know that the gospel is true before they dive in. They don’t want to get wet for nothing. But for me, I had to get wet first and then I knew. I believe to get the answers which you seek you will have to do the same thing.

You could reply, “I’ve tried all that.” I’d respond, “Well, try it some more.” There’s no other way. Dive in and ask the Lord if it is right. Make an effort to learn the truth. Don’t “sit” and ask the Lord for a testimony. Instead, “do” and ask the Lord for a testimony. Thrust in your sickle, and you’ll find some spiritual wheat to cut. Don’t expect the wheat to appear before you begin to cut. Have faith and be believing.

Don’t make a headlong confrontation out of your spiritual quest to know that the Church is true. That is like trying to pull a tender plant to its mature size. Let it grow naturally and surely. Don’t expect to reach the mountain peaks without being willing to climb the foothills. Life is like a cloth, and you can’t just sit and weave spirituality without weaving the rest of the fabric of daily life. You don’t have to go out of your way or say endlessly long prayers. You don’t have to travel to a distant land to find a service project. You just pray as you go and serve as you go and commit yourself to seeing how you can make yourself a better person and whatever part of the world you happen to be in a happier place. It’s how you treat your parents, how you treat your associates, how you serve them that creates the warm soil in which spiritual seeds can grow.

Walk forward into life. Hold your head high enough to see ahead but not so high that you can’t see those who need help. Say your prayers often and include among your statements of gratitude, thanksgiving, and devotion a simple request for spiritual confirmation to your questions, hopes, and desires. Keep a prayer in your heart always.

Make a commitment to serve, to love, to study, to pray. God will reach down and touch you, and the Holy Ghost will testify to your soul that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith did see him and the Father, that the Book of Mormon is true, that the gospel has been restored. Then you’ll know that Jesus Christ atoned for our sins and that through the holy ordinances administered by the priesthood of his restored church we can become clean and thus candidates for the celestial kingdom.

It’s that simple. It really is. If you make it more complicated, you’ll be ever learning but never come to a knowledge of the truth. It’s simple, but it is difficult in that it requires a whole soul effort. Where much is given much is expected.

Dive in. Plant the seeds. Nourish them. Then someday, someday soon, you’ll know the truth and you’ll be free to know and be all that you and God, our Heavenly Father, desire you to be. The answer to your question is indeed the key which will open the door to your eternal future. What you seek is worth all you have, for it is indeed the pearl of great price.

In stressing the need for mature men and women to be about the work of the Lord, President Benson related the experience of his two widowed sisters. One was the mother of ten children and the other the mother of eight. After they had sent their children on missions, they approached their bishops about going on missions themselves. President Benson relates that he remembers well the day a number of years ago when they called him and said, “Guess what? We have received our missionary calls.” President Benson said, “What missionary calls?” And they replied, “We’re both going to your old field of labor in England.” (In Conference Report, Apr. 1984, p. 66; or Ensign, May 1984, p. 45.)

They did go to England and served as companions for twenty months.

Recently I stopped at a grocery store to quickly pick up a few things for dinner. As I turned the corner, I came face to face with an older gentleman. I smiled, as I was relieved that we hadn’t collided. He smiled and said, “Thank you for your smile. I needed it.” I also needed his smile. Smile—it will make a difference for you and for others. What would life be like if we couldn’t give and receive smiles?

They went to the family room, and Mother pulled her book of remembrance from a shelf and turned to a picture of a man with white hair and a white beard. She told Eric, “Welcome Chapman was my grandmother’s grandfather. While still a young man, Welcome heard rumors of a Joseph Smith, who was living in western New York, and who claimed to have a golden book that was given to him by an angel, and to have had visions and revelations. He also claimed that he had seen Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. He said that They had instructed him to organize a new church.
“After thinking a lot about it, Welcome decided to find out for himself whether what he’d heard was true. Against the wishes of his parents, he saddled his horse and rode two hundred miles to New York.
“When he found the Prophet Joseph Smith,” Mother continued, “he discovered that they were about the same age. Welcome heard a complete account of all that had happened to Joseph, including how he obtained and translated the records on the golden plates, and was very much impressed with the Prophet and his wonderful experiences.
“He stayed two weeks at the home of the Prophet, learning all he could of the gospel. Convinced that this was the true religion, Welcome was baptized. Because of his activities in the Church and the esteem Joseph Smith had for him, he was made one of the Prophet’s bodyguards.”

While we were growing up, our father was a ward clerk for fifteen years, and I remember that every Sunday evening he would come home after meeting and go into the dining room. He would pull down the blind and on the oak table he would put the money that he had gathered that day for the bishop—the tithes and offerings.

He would count it and account for it and put the ones and the fives and the tens in a pile; and then he would get the ironing board and an iron and a wet rag, and then our dad would take each of these paper bills and iron it smooth.

Now you would wonder what four little boys would recognize about this. The one thing they got from it was that whatever you do for the Lord, you do the very best that you know how. There is nothing that is too good for the Lord.Bishop H. Burke PetersonOf the Presiding Bishopric

Chills ran up my spine when Gene Forsberg’s call jolted me late on the afternoon of December 29. “Uncle Jay, we took our Varsity Scouts and Explorers on a snowmobiling outing today. One of the boys is lost in the mountains about ten miles east of town. We’ve scoured the whole place. Can you fly me on a search?”
There wasn’t enough time or light. “Gene, get to the Logan Airport as fast as you can.” Despite fearful conditions and odds against finding the boy, we had to try.
Fourteen-year-old Val (not his real name) was on his first snowmobiling adventure when he disappeared. He did not have enough experience, equipment, or training to survive the night.
I bolted from my office, rushed home, jumped into search clothing, grabbed survival gear, and sped to ready a plane. At the same time an adult assistant and three Explorers roared out of the small town of Paradise, Utah, at full throttle into the adjacent mountains to resume the search for Val. This gritty crew had refueled, obtained food and additional equipment. They had no radio to communicate with the plane but would try to coordinate with us.
Already it was 4:25 P.M. when we lifted off the runway to search 20 miles away. A gloomy overcast blanketed the sky and hung around the mountain tops. It was seven days past the shortest day of the year. Darkness was settling. It was bitter cold—certain to be 30 degrees (Fahrenheit) below zero or lower in the northern Utah mountains during the night. We headed for the 8,500-foot level to begin—and tried not to think of what would happen if we were unsuccessful.
The plane swiftly covered the area where the group had done most of its snowmobiling. The search widened as we failed to detect anything promising. Heading east I dropped the plane to a lower level. Val might have gone into Ant Valley. Nothing! Anxiety increased as we looked over the vast expanse. Where could he be? We climbed back to where our exhausted ground crew had rendezvoused. They did not want to risk losing another in the darkness.
We flew south. It soon would be too late. Almost despairing—all choked up and with tears welling—Gene and I couldn’t talk. We needed help. I silently prayed, “Dear Lord, you know how perilous this is. Please direct us to the boy.”
Seconds later I banked the plane left. We were looking out my side of the cockpit into a deep ravine. Gene yelled, “I think I saw something move by those dark trees in the bottom!” We held our breath as I wheeled the plane around and dove in to the head of the ravine. Even though I was concentrating on the flying, out of the corner of my eye I saw a dark figure with wildly waving arms, now out on the open snow. “That’s him!” Gene joyously shrieked as we blasted by.
I breathed a prayer of thanks. “You’re not the only one who was praying,” Gene said. What a wonderful feeling we experienced. A second pass was made down the ravine to assure Val that help soon would be on the way. We lost no time flying the four miles back to our waiting crew.
To impress them that Val had been found, and provide direction, I swung around and approached from the north. This course was straight from the plane—to the snowmobilers—to Val. While I rocked the wings and Gene switched the landing light on and off, we dove into and pulled up from the dark hollow where they kept their vigil. We continued about a mile toward Val, then banked around to return.
Three of the snowmobiles were moving south through the timber, their headlights sparkling like diamonds. The fourth remained stationary and dark. The crew should know now that Val had been located. But how could they find him without some kind of instruction? I handed Gene my pen and orange-vinyl hunting cap. “Write on it and tell them what the score is.”
A blast of icy air hit us when I opened the cockpit window. Into the hollow we dove at 160 miles per hour. I pointed the plane about 45 feet to the right of and 100 feet above the lone snowmobiler so I could see when to drop the cap. As he disappeared under the wing, I let it go. After clearing the hollow I looked back. There was no movement.
“Looks as if I’ve lost my cap,” I said to Gene. “He must not have seen it. He’s not moving.” A moment later the headlight was on and the snowmobile joined the others. It was so dark hardly anything could be seen.
We circled above Val, providing the plane’s lights as a beacon. The snowmobiles were closing the distance fast, flickering lights marking their progress.
We had taken off with a minimum fuel load so we could climb and maneuver more easily. The gauges showed little left. Considering this, and that the snowmobiles were within one-third mile from Val, I peeled off toward Logan and home. I had not anticipated what difficulty this would cause. The rescuers were then totally without direction. They could see only what was illuminated by their headlights. Was this whole effort going to end in disaster?
The following afternoon, Gene walked into my office, grinning widely, my “lost” cap in his hand. One of the snowmobilers had left the cap at Gene’s home. I then learned what he had printed on the visor:
“OK FOLLOW US HE IS IN RAVINE FOUR MILES SOUTH.”
Gene didn’t know how the rescuers got the cap. I had to find out. I contacted the snowmobiler to whom it was dropped.
“Did you see me waving the cap as the plane approached?” I asked.
“No, I was facing away from you trying to get my engine started.”
“Had it been hard to start?”
“No, it hadn’t given me any trouble before.”
“I couldn’t see you move to get the cap. Where did it land?”
“Right on top of my head!” he blurted out. “It sure shook me up when it slid off by my foot!”
“You really hustled to catch the other guys. How did you get the engine started?”
“Just gave the starter rope another pull and it fired up,” he answered.
Experience in searches and drops during 40 years of piloting has proven to me that, conditions at best, scoring a hit on one man’s helmet was next to impossible.
We often have wondered what the outcome would have been if the engine had started earlier, and the searcher had gone without the cap. Not knowing that Val was in the ravine, the crew likely would have wandered in agonizing frustration. His friends found him pretty well shaken (and, oh so happy they had come) about an hour after the plane left.
We are most grateful for our Heavenly Father’s guidance, and that the cap landed precisely where it needed to—to save a precious life.

There was a dance that Saturday at the institute. Frank and I stood on the edge of the dance floor watching and waiting before we committed.

When two girls came in, Frank nudged me with his elbow. I’d seen them in church before, but hadn’t said anything to them or even smiled in their direction. They moved to the far edge of the dance floor and talked to each other as lively as two birds. Frank, bold as usual, walked over and I followed.

“What do you think of the dance?” asked Frank when he got to them. He was nodding too much. He wasn’t nervous very often.

They stopped talking and considered.

“We just got here,” one said.

“But it seems okay, I guess,” said the other.

“Good,” said Frank.

One girl reached behind her and began tapping her fingernail rhythmically on the wood molding of the wall.

I thought Frank would ask one of them to dance then, but he didn’t. Instead he put his hands in his pockets and leaned backward, reflectively, like a professor who thinks he has something really important to say.

“You know,” he said, “I’ve loved music since I was a kid—classical music, that is. And I’ve always wanted to play a concert. And next Saturday night at the auditorium I’m going to do that. And I’d like you both to come and bring any friends you want ’cause it’s free.”

They considered him for a few seconds. One pushed a few wisps of hair out of her face and smiled, nicely.

He repeated the request to about a dozen other people before the night was over.

I worried that week about Frank and the concert. Despite his love of music and his skill at teaching, I knew he wouldn’t lie about his playing. If he said his fingers moved like fish sticks, they probably did. I didn’t want to see Frank, so full of confidence, flattened by failure.

Then all of a sudden it was Saturday night, and Frank was walking out onto the stage. Under the lights and on the stage he didn’t look his typical fearless self. He seemed pale and wispy, like a crumpled tissue in a dark blue suit.

He raised his hands above the keyboard.

“You can do it, Fish Sticks,” I gasped under my breath.

He flipped the hair out of his eyes, mumbled something to the piano, and struck the first chord.

That night I walked with Frank back to the dorm. We were quiet for most of the way, but I knew it couldn’t last. Finally he asked.

“So, how was it?”

“What?” I played dumb, stalling.

“The concert, bozo. My concerto sans orchestra.”

“Oh, it was good,” I said quickly.

He grunted. “I got off tempo a few times,” he said.

“Ahh, no one noticed,” I lied.

“Seriously, I want you to tell me what you thought of it.”

I looked over at him.

“Well, I guess your playing could still use a little work,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess,” he admitted. He stuck his hands in his coat pockets. “It frustrates me sometimes—that I can’t play.”

“No, I didn’t say that.”

“No, I know. I can hear the music in my mind and I know how it’s supposed to come out, but it just doesn’t. Like tonight, Fish Sticks took over. I was halfway through and I wanted to climb up on top of that piano and jump up and down.”

I let out a little laugh and Frank looked over and began laughing too.

We rounded the bend and stopped under a streetlight, looking up at our dorm.

“So why didn’t you?” I asked.

He flipped his hair off his forehead to reveal raised eyebrows. “My students, most of them, were in the audience.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, tonight I shared something personal with them,” he said. “I showed them that Fish Sticks isn’t the greatest pianist in the world. And maybe that means they can mess up sometimes, too. You know, they can make mistakes. It’s okay.”

I waited for more.

“You remember the parable of the talents?” he asked.

I shrugged and nodded my head. “Sure. If you got it, use it—or lose it.”

“That’s the idea,” he said. “The servants who are given more talents use them, but the guy who gets only one talent buries it. And in the end, the Lord takes his talent away.

“Well, most of my students are around eight or nine, and if you ask them they’ll tell you they can play the piano—no problem. I bet if you ask them that same question in a few years—when they get into high school or college—they’ll probably say they can’t play. Most of them will lose their confidence, their belief in their talents.

“But I think the world needs more writers, and singers, and, uh, actors, and pianists. I want these kids to share their gifts with others. And I think they will if they know it’s okay to mess up once in a while on the way. That they don’t have to be the best.”

I smiled and told him, “You know, I was listening to music when I began to realize I really believed in God.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I just realized that it was impossible for music as beautiful as Beethoven wrote to come out of nothing. There had to be something more to the universe. There had to be a God. It was soon after that experience that I started to investigate the Church.”

“And the people who were playing the music you listened to, well, someone had to believe in their talent. Someone had to be there when they played wrong notes to keep them going.”

Frank tilted his head, ready to sweep the hair out of his eyes, but stopped. Instead, he reached up and pulled his hair straight out.

“You know,” he said. “I just might get a haircut on Monday.”

I laughed. “You sure you feel okay?” I asked.

“I feel fine,” he said as he started to run toward the dorm. “Honest,” he called out. “I feel great.”

Frank Calio is a band teacher now. He lives in Idaho. When I called him to let him know I’d written his story he laughed. “Call the story ‘Fish Sticks,’” he said. “The kids at my school call me Old Fish Sticks. Every year I play a little at our school recital. I’m better than I was in college, but I still make mistakes and the kids get a good laugh. But they all know in my class it’s okay to mess up while they’re learning. I just want them to play music and to try hard. That’s all.”

Let me tell you the story of one man who sacrificed greatly to maintain his own financial integrity and honor.

In the 1930s Fred Snowberger opened the doors of a new pharmacy in northeastern Oregon. It had been his dream to own his own business, but the economic turnaround he had hoped for never materialized. Eight months later, Fred closed the doors of his pharmacy for the last time.

Even though his business had failed, Fred was determined to repay the loan he had secured. Some wondered why he insisted on repaying the debt. Why didn’t he simply declare bankruptcy and have the debt legally forgiven?

But Fred did not listen. He had said he would repay the loan, and he was determined to honor his word. His family made many of their own clothes, grew much of their food in their garden, and used everything they had until it was thoroughly worn out or used up. Rain or shine, Fred walked to and from his work each day. And every month, Fred paid what he could on the loan.

Years passed, and finally the wonderful day arrived when Fred made the last payment. He delivered it in person. The man who had loaned him the money wept, and with tears streaming down his face he said, “You not only paid back every penny, but you taught me what a man of character and honesty is.”

To this day, nearly 70 years after Fred signed his name to that note, descendants of Fred and Erma Snowberger still tell this story with pride. This act of honor and nobility has lived through the decades as a cherished example of family integrity.

One of those he learned much from was his mother. She was, he recalls, a “great cook.” His chocolate dessert is a family tradition.

In November of 1983 he flew to California to attend the Fair Oaks Stake conference. Arriving early at the stake president’s home, he was taken on a tour of the family’s vegetable garden.

“I saw that he had leeks, a very popular vegetable in Belgium. Not having grown them before, the president wasn’t sure how to prepare them. I said, ‘Let’s make soup.’ So that Saturday evening after our conference meetings, with the stake president in the kitchen, we prepared leek soup to serve twenty-two people the next day—the high council and other stake leaders. I think I’ll be remembered there as a soup maker rather than a General Authority!”

My brother, Bruce, was just a year ahead of me in school. He was everything a high school boy might want to be: football star, class president, good looking, popular. I was known as “Bruce’s little sister,” and I thought he was way too cool to associate with me. Sometimes I even felt sorry for him—that people knew he was related to me. Most of the time I felt sorry for myself. I avoided him in the hallways so I wouldn’t feel bad if he didn’t say hi.
All that changed one night. After Mutual, while waiting for rides, a boy my age grabbed my sweater from me. As I was trying to get it back, he threw it on the ground and started to run away—right smack into my big brother. Bruce demanded he pick up the sweater, and growled to him, “That’s my sister! Don’t you ever treat her like that again!” In that one moment I realized he was protective and proud of me.
By the next year I had gained enough confidence to run for class president myself! Bruce helped with my campaign and cheered at my speech. Since he was Senior Class President, he helped count ballots. After the count, he pulled me aside to tell me I had lost by a small margin. “I cheered every time a vote came in for you,” he said. I realized my brother had always loved me. It was my own insecurities that made me think he didn’t. Even though I lost the election, I felt like a winner.
Denalee C., Nevada, USA

I have been a Beehive for about one and a half years and had never read the New Era. I had heard others talk about how much they loved it, but I never took much thought about it. Thanks to the Young Men–Young Women activity this month, I read the New Era for the first time. After reading it cover to cover, I realized what I had been missing out on. I felt the Spirit so strongly as I read those articles, and even though there had recently been contention in my house, the New Era somehow managed to help take all the feelings of anger away. I will never not read another issue again.
Michelle R., Utah

There often seems something magical about sleeping under the stars, especially on a dark night when there’s no moon and the stars are bright. It had been a night such as this when, at the first hint of morning in the sky, I had slipped out of my sleeping bag and headed up a little trail through the trees. Coming over a small rise, I found a grassy meadow where I could look out over the valley and the mountains. I stood there for a long time, watching the sky grow lighter and the clouds turn from gray to pink and then white.
As the sun touched the tops of the mountains, I realized that I was looking at the back side of mountains that I could see from my bedroom window when I was a child. Memories flooded back of my mother and father and their love for me. I thought of my Heavenly Father and how He had blessed me. As I stood there watching the sunrise, I could feel the warmth of the Savior’s loving, guiding hand. I knew without being told that I was a literal daughter of God and, because of the sacrifice of His Son, I can be with my earthly parents again some day and live in the presence of Heavenly Father.
I had taught this truth many times to others, but on this particular morning, it seemed as if I had discovered it for the first time. Perhaps I really had. I had received a witness of the Spirit. Standing on that hilltop, I thanked Heavenly Father for what I knew. I can’t express the joy of that moment.

I am embarrassed to think of the times I hesitated to spend extra time and effort with the seventeen teachers of the Provo Thirteenth Ward while I was their advisor. It is true. I had a growing family, a new job and home, and other responsibilities, but I needed to be reminded of my obligation to these young men. As I came to know and love them, their challenges and problems became my own. Gradually I found myself serving not out of a sense of responsibility but in a spirit of love and concern.

A second scholar was one of the more widely published Catholic theologians of the 1960s, who had also written on chiasmus in Matthew; he was a Jesuit priest, living in a monastery in Austria. Since I had made a special point of corresponding with him about my study of the Book of Mormon, I was very grateful when he invited me to visit him, and I did so. I was able to tell him much of the story behind the Book of Mormon. He had heard and read of its story before, but had not thought much of it. Much of his own professional work had been with the book of Matthew, demonstrating it to be a very sophisticated and highly literary document, consciously prepared with a complex structure, not just a simple narrative. One of the evidences he used to make his point was the presence of four- and eight-part parallel structures in Matthew, one of the most notable of which is found in Matthew 5:3–10 [Matt. 5:3–10], the Beatitudes. Now it happens that the Book of Mormon also uses four-and eight-part structures; and when I showed him some in Benjamin’s speech in Mosiah and another remarkable occurrence in Alma 34:18–25, his former neglect of the Book of Mormon quickly dissolved. By the end of our conversation, this learned man, who I think had seen much in his more than sixty-odd years of active scholarship, was seriously nodding his head in approval. I remember particularly the way his eyes reflected the enthusiasm I held for the Book of Mormon; he concluded our conversation with: “You have found here much life—and a lifetime of work.”

When I was a teenager, my family moved to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). My high school was an international school where people from many different cultures and religions attended. There were hardly any members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in our area, and I was the only member in my grade.
After a while, I started dating a classmate who was Christian but not a Latter-day Saint. As we got to know each other better, he became interested in my beliefs and started doing his own research on the Church.
Unfortunately, the sources he consulted were against The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and what began as curiosity for him soon grew into confusion and concern about my faith. I did my best to answer his questions, but I didn’t always know what to say. It was difficult and painful to have someone I cared deeply about challenge the things I held close to my heart. He was my boyfriend, and his opinions and perspectives were important to me.
As time went on, the questions and criticisms he had about the Church seemed reasonable, and I began to have doubts about my faith too.
The things I believed in seemed uncertain to me. I questioned whether Joseph Smith was really a prophet of God and if he’d really translated the gold plates. Had I been accepting made-up stories as truth? Being surrounded by so few Church members made me seriously question the legitimacy of my and my family’s faith. I felt lost and scared.
But I kept coming back to one thing—the examples I had in my life. My grandparents and my parents have always been faithful members of the Church. Every time I felt tempted to step away from the gospel, I remembered them and the goodness of their lives.
In Matthew we read:
“A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. …
“Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them” (Matthew 7:18, 20).
I knew that my parents and grandparents were good people and that the fruits of their lives were good too.
I reminded myself that there must be a reason why they raised me in the Church. So I decided to trust their judgment and faith when I was unsure whether I should trust my own.
I held on to the faith of my family members for a while. As time went on, my boyfriend lessened his scrutiny of the Church, but I continued studying the scriptures and praying to receive answers to the questions he had brought up.
And then one day, I had a big realization: I don’t need to answer every single question someone has for me about the gospel. I just need to tell them to follow the Spirit. I cannot give someone else my testimony.
I already knew this, but the reminder of these truths hit me with force. I couldn’t convince my boyfriend of the reality of the gospel if he wasn’t willing to listen to the Spirit, study, and pray. Elder Robert D. Hales (1932–2017) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught, “We do not have the authority to bestow a testimony upon someone else, because a personal testimony is granted by the Holy Ghost.”1
After some time, I worked up the courage to tell my boyfriend that I couldn’t answer all of his questions. But I invited him to pray and read the Book of Mormon if he wanted to know the truth. I explained that although my testimony wasn’t the strongest, I’d decided not to step away from my faith—it had helped mold me into who I was and had brought amazing people into my life who were good examples to me.
I would stand by my faith.
After talking with him, a huge weight came off my shoulders. I knew I had made the right choice in holding on to faith.
Having my beliefs challenged wasn’t fun, but I’m grateful for that experience because it helped me strengthen my own testimony. President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency, said: “Another way to seek a testimony seems astonishing when compared with the methods of obtaining other knowledge. We gain or strengthen a testimony by bearing it. Someone even suggested that some testimonies are better gained on the feet bearing them than on the knees praying for them.”2
In hindsight, I can see that standing up for my beliefs helped me strengthen my faith. Although my relationship with my boyfriend eventually ended, he and I have remained respectful friends, and I’m glad I learned how to protect my testimony while respecting his questions and beliefs.

This summer I was in a 4-H club. At the county fair I showed my lamb, Queenie. I won two trophies for showmanship and was invited to a round robin competition for a big trophy. When the judge told me that the competition was going to be on Sunday, I felt a weird feeling inside, as if my heart had stopped pumping blood. I told him that I couldn’t go. I was disappointed, but the Holy Ghost let me know that I was doing the right thing. It was hard, but now I know that I can make hard decisions. This will help me the next time I have a hard decision to make.

A few weeks before I became eight years old, my father was killed in a trucking accident. A month later, we moved to a new home in St. George, Utah, across the street from the beautiful St. George Temple.
Mother was soon called to be the stake genealogy secretary. Whenever a group assigned could not make it, a member of the temple presidency would call mother to ask if her sons could come to the temple to do baptisms for the dead. Mother never turned the Lord down. My two older brothers and I often went to the temple to do baptisms.
One summer’s day, I had cut my hand severely on an empty tin can. I begged Mother not to take me to the doctor to have the wound stitched together, so she cleaned my hand, applied a bandage, covered that with adhesive tape, and then wrapped everything in gauze.
No sooner had she finished than the telephone rang. It was the brethren from the temple, wanting us boys to come over to do baptisms. Because my two older brothers had been very busy lately, I had been going to the temple on a regular basis. I had by now compiled a lengthy list of baptisms for the dead that ran into thousands. Once again, my older brothers were not around, so I hurriedly bathed, dressed, and ran over to the temple.
Several hours and four hundred names later, Brother Edwards and I stopped for the night. I remember him well, his right arm to the square revealing a hand missing most of the fingers because of an accident he had had in his youth. After every baptism, he would carefully help me up into the stainless steel chair for the confirmation. After every twenty or thirty baptisms, Brother Edwards would look down at me and say, “Brother Fish, can you do some more?” I would answer yes, and we would work our way through another batch of names.
As I returned home, exhausted, Mother spotted the dripping wet gauze on my hand and helped me into the bathroom to re-dress the wound. I was so tired and hungry I just wanted to eat and sleep. I wasn’t paying attention to my hand. I let her unwrap the bandage.
The gauze came off first, then the adhesive tape, and finally the bandage. My mother looked shocked. I looked down. Not a trace of a cut remained—no scar, no redness, nothing!
I remember my mother quietly hugging me. As we cried together, sharing that moment, the Spirit bore witness to me that I had been healed because of my service in the temple of the Lord.

Please go talk with your bishop. He should be one of your best friends. He wants to help you in your life and help you return to our Father in Heaven.

I know because I kept delaying a visit to my bishop. I was scared that he would laugh at me and tell me that I was stupid for doing the things that I had done. To my surprise, as I told him what I had done, I could see a tear in his eye and I knew he was hurting for me. After telling him, he asked me a few questions and we talked for several hours.

My life changed—for two years I had felt ashamed, guilty, and unwanted. After talking with my bishop, I knew the Lord loved me and wanted me to do what is right.

Later, my bishop gave me a temple recommend and was at the temple the day that I was married for time and all eternity. Because of my Savior’s love, I was now worthy to enter our Father’s house and be married.

Your life will change if you talk with your bishop and have the strength to change it. It may not be easy because Satan will always be there telling you, “You’ve done it once—it won’t hurt to do it again.” But it does hurt.

Fast and pray. The Lord will help you.

Name withheld.

One day I was at a service station, talking with a friend who worked there. He was filling up my car with gas, and as we stood there, a school bus went by and I heard someone call out, “Heyyyy, Bishop!” I looked up to see one of the priests in my ward calling to me and giving me the “hang on to the rod” signal. I returned the signal as the bus drove by.
The following Sunday, that boy came running up to me as fast as he could. “Bishop Stanley! Bishop Stanley! Remember last week when you were filling up your gas tank at the service station and I gave you the signal?”
“Yes, I remember it.”
“Well, the friend sitting by me said, ‘Who was that tall man at the service station that you were threatening to punch?’ And I told him what our ‘hang on to the rod’ signal really meant.”
The boy then told me that his friend wasn’t a member of the Church and that he was then able to talk about the gospel with this friend as a result of our little “hang on to the rod” signal.