Gospel Story Finder

One day when President Cowley and I were traveling, we arrived at the home of Brother Stewart Meha, a great and wonderful Maori man. He presided over his large family as a true father and leader. President Cowley and Brother Meha spent all afternoon sitting on the porch and talking about the Church and other interesting things.

When it came time for the evening meal, Brother Meha stood on his front porch and, in the Maori language, shouted out to all of his large family, “Haere Mai Ki te Kai.” Then he said, “Haere Mai Ki Te Karakia.” These phrases meant, “Come on home for supper, Come on home for prayer.”

Soon family members came from every direction. We all assembled in his home in the big front room. The room had very little furniture in it, and everybody gathered in a large circle. Brother Meha was at the head of the circle, President Cowley was on his left, and I was next to President Cowley. On Brother Meha’s right was a little child about eight years of age. All around the rest of the circle were the other children, with some adults in between.

Brother Meha said to the little boy on his right, “You start.” I bowed my head in anticipation of the little boy’s prayer. Instead of praying, he quoted a scripture, after first reciting the chapter and verse. Then the young person next to him recited a scripture with the reference. After about four scriptures had been given, I realized that we were going around the circle, with each person quoting a different passage of scripture. One youngster started to quote one that had already been used, and he was quickly corrected.

Eventually it was my turn and then President Cowley’s. Then Brother Meha prayed.

“Get up, Kevin.”
I looked over to the other side of the room at my brother’s bed. He lay asleep, curled up tightly in the blankets against the early dawn cold. This morning ritual had begun a year before, when Dad traded half the rabbits, complete with cages, for a milk goat. Each morning it was my job to milk her while Kevin fed her and cleaned out her pen.
“What time is it?” Kevin asked as he got up and dressed, noticing the light filtering into the room.
“It’s 6:30.” I was fully clothed and standing by my dresser, putting on my coat and knit cap. The coat smelled of alfalfa hay and dried milk.
“Hi, Mom,” we said in unison as we walked downstairs. I opened the back door, grabbing the clean steel milking pail on our way out. As we walked toward the barn, we noticed that water from the lake had vaporized into a thin fog that drifted across the nearby horse pastures. The ground, just beginning to thaw, felt like thick peanut butter on our boots.
“Kevin, what do you want for your birthday?” I asked. For the past two days I had been trying to think of what to get my almost seven-year-old brother. I didn’t have any money to buy a present, and there was no snow to shovel to earn a few dollars.
“I don’t know,” Kevin said as he scooped up some alfalfa pellets and poured them into a container by the milking stand. “Why don’t you do my chores for me tomorrow morning?” He was referring to a tradition in our family—on your birthday, other members of the family did your chores for you.
“OK.” But I wanted to get him something else, something more than what we always did.
“Tim and Kevin,” Dad called, “it’s time for breakfast.”
After leading the goat back to her pen, we carried the milk into the house, placed it on the counter, and sat down to eat. The steaming hot cereal, cooled by yesterday’s milk, tasted sweet because of the honey and raisins Mom had added to it.
“Time for school,” Mom said when we had finished eating. After grabbing our schoolbooks, we returned to the living room for family prayer; then we left for school.
Kevin’s elementary school was just under three kilometers away, while I had to walk only one kilometer to the middle school. Each day Kevin silently wished we lived half a kilometer to the south, making him eligible to ride the school bus that picked up many of his classmates. On most mornings, we saw them entering the bus at the beginning of its route. Kevin would stop, watch for a moment, then continue walking, most of the time arriving at his school long after the bus had dropped off its passengers. It was a cruel part of his day, especially on snowy or really cold winter mornings.
“See you later,” I said, watching him walk away when we reached my school.
All day I thought more about his birthday. I remembered last summer when he had weeded all of the neighbor’s vegetable garden to earn money to buy me a present. It was a small, single-bladed pocketknife he had bought secondhand at a thrift store. He had removed the rust with steel wool, then shined the blade and the handle with silver polish.
That night when I said my prayers, I asked Heavenly Father to help me find Kevin a gift.
After a fitful sleep, I awoke before the morning light entered our bedroom. I dressed quietly in the darkness and glanced over to see Kevin wrapped in his blankets. I tiptoed downstairs and outside.
The landscape had changed from the morning before. A snowstorm had arrived, and the snow blew around me. A little blew into the house before I could close the door. I hurried to the barn, wanting to complete the morning chores quickly.
Just as I finished, I noticed something tucked into a corner of the barn. I hadn’t seen it since summer, and it gave me an idea for Kevin’s birthday.
I quickly ran back to the house to drop off the milk; then I grabbed a bucket of warm, soapy water and some old rags and carried them out to the barn. The dust of winter and the rust from the dampness made cleaning difficult, but I kept working. Finally the call for breakfast came.
The smell of bacon and pancakes, food reserved for Sundays and other special days, met me at the door. We sat and ate, Kevin happy because of his seventh birthday. I was nervous, hoping he would like my present for him.
“Time for school,” Mom said as Kevin finished the last pancake. After family prayer, we went out into the gray snowstorm.
“Kevin, I have a present for you. It’s in the barn.” He followed me around the house and into the barn.
There stood our old red wagon, washed clean and polished with wax. A small wool blanket covered the bottom, and on the side of the wagon I had carefully painted “School Bus” with some old house paint.
“Get in, Kevin. You don’t have to walk to school today. This is your bus.”
His face lit up, and he scrambled in. I put another blanket around him so he would stay warm.
I pulled the wagon out of the barn, past the house, and onto the snow-packed road. Mom and Dad stood on the porch, watching the delight on Kevin’s face.
“Everyone off!” I yelled as we pulled onto the sidewalk in front of the entrance to Kevin’s school. I tried to sound like a bus driver, and he laughed with me at my attempt. I hurried back down the road with the wagon, and once I arrived at my own school, I hid it in some bushes.
When the final bell rang, I ran outside, rescued the wagon from the bushes, and hurried back to the elementary school.
I arrived just after the school’s bell rang. Kevin quickly came out with two excited friends. “Tim, can they come with us?”
“Sure,” I said. “Everybody ’booooard,” I yelled. Kevin climbed in first; the other two squeezed in behind him.
By the time I pulled the wagon to the second boy’s home, I was really tired.
“Tim, I’ll pull you the rest of the way home,” Kevin offered.
“No, it’s your birthday. I want to do this.” That night as I got into bed, I felt too tired to pray. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been more tired. My legs and back ached, and my hands were sore and blistered from gripping the wagon handle. I lay in the darkness, thinking about the presents Kevin had received from Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, and me. Just before I drifted off to sleep, I heard, “Tim?”
“Yeah.”
“Out of all the presents I got today, yours was the best.”
“Thanks,” I said. Then I remembered my prayer from the night before. I crawled out of bed, knelt on the cold wood floor, and thanked Heavenly Father for helping me find my brother a birthday gift.

Third, the Master Healer can comfort and sustain us as we experience painful “realities of mortality,”13 such as disaster, mental illness, disease, chronic pain, and death. I have recently become acquainted with a remarkable young woman named Josie who suffers from bipolar disorder. Here is just a little of her journey toward healing as she shared it with me:
“The worst of the darkness occurs on what my family and I have deemed ‘floor days.’ It begins with sensory overload and acute sensitivity and resistance to any type of sound, touch, or light. It is the apex of mental anguish. There is one day in particular that I will never forget.
“It was early in the journey, making the experience especially frightening. I can remember sobbing, tears racing down my face as I gasped for air. But even such intense suffering paled in comparison to the pain that followed as I observed panic overwhelm my mother, so desperate to help me.
“With my broken mind came her broken heart. But little did we know that despite the deepening darkness, we were just moments away from experiencing a mighty miracle.
“As a long hour continued, my mom whispered over and over and over again, ‘I would do anything to take this from you.’
“Meanwhile, the darkness intensified, and when I was convinced I could take no more, just then something marvelous occurred.
“A transcendent and wonderful power suddenly overtook my body. Then, with a ‘strength beyond my own,’14 I declared to my mom with great conviction seven life-changing words in response to her repeated desire to bear my pain. I said, ‘You don’t have to; Someone already has.’”
From the dark abyss of debilitating mental illness, Josie summoned the strength to testify of Jesus Christ and of His Atonement.
She was not healed completely that day, but she received the light of hope in a time of intense darkness. And today, supported by a bedrock understanding of the doctrine of Christ and refreshed daily by the Savior’s living water, Josie continues on her journey toward healing and exercises unshakable faith in the Master Healer. She helps others along the way. And she says, “When the darkness feels unremitting, I rely on the memory of His tender mercies. They serve as a guiding light as I navigate through hard times.”15

A family had been taking pictures on a lookout point of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. They heard screams and ran to find that a two-year-old girl had fallen through a railing to a ledge about 35 feet (11 m) below. The little one tried to climb back up, but her movements caused her to slip even farther until she was 5 feet (1.5 m) from a dangerous 200-foot (61-m) drop.
A 19-year-old young man named Ian saw where she was and, using his emergency-response training, knew how to handle the situation. These are his words: “‘Immediately, it all came at me, and I just knew what I had to do. I set down my camera and went up the trail a little ways where it wasn’t as steep, climbed over the rail, scrambled down a bunch of rocks and through brush, and found her.’ Holding her in his arms for an hour, Ian waited until emergency teams could drop down with ropes [to rescue them]” (in Patricia Auxier, “Save Her!” New Era, Sept. 2007, 6). The phrase “holding her in his arms” caught my attention because the scriptures talk about arms—arms of love, arms of mercy, and arms of safety (see 2 Nephi 1:15; Mosiah 16:12; Alma 5:33; D&C 6:20; 29:1).

I snatched my roller skates out of the box marked “Deseret Industries,” where Dad had just tossed them.
“Not these!” I cried. “These are mine!”
“But those skates don’t even fit you anymore,” Dad replied. “By donating them to the Deseret Industries you’ll be—”
“No. They’re mine!” I interrupted.
For a minute Dad didn’t say anything, but I could tell that he was thinking hard. Then he looked at me.
“You’re right,” he said. “They are yours. And you should be the one who decides what happens to them. But,” he continued, “before you decide, I’d like to tell you a true story.”
“What about?” I asked.
“Well, it’s a story about a boy and a broken collarbone and a clarinet,” Dad answered.
“Who was the boy?” I asked. “Was it you?”
“No, it wasn’t me,” Dad said, “but it’s someone you know, someone who has red hair.”
“Uncle Max!” I cried. “But what does Uncle Max and a broken collarbone and a clarinet have to do with my roller skates?”
“But you know,” Dad said, looking straight at me, “that clarinet wouldn’t have been sitting on the shelf, waiting for Uncle Max, if someone hadn’t been generous enough to give it away.” He smiled. “Have to get going,” he said, picking up the box for Deseret Industries and heading toward the door.
For a second I just sat there, holding my skates. Then I jumped up. “Dad!” I called. “Hey, Dad! Don’t forget these!” I tossed my skates into the box and hopped onto the front seat of the car next to him. For a minute I thought that he was going to say something, but he just smiled at me and squeezed my hand.

The girls in the Salt Lake East Millcreek Fourth Ward kept track of their acts of charity in a candy jar. Each week the girls put a piece of candy into the jar for each act of service they had been involved in that week. As the jar filled with the sweets, the girls were reminded of the sweetness of service. When the jar was full, the girls selected a special family and presented the jar to them, explaining what the filled jar meant—each candy represented a charitable act.

“I want to speak about the dead.”
Thousands of Latter-day Saints hushed as Lucy Mack Smith’s voice echoed through the large assembly hall on the first floor of the nearly completed Nauvoo temple.
It was the morning of October 8, 1845, the third and final day of the fall conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Knowing she would not have many more opportunities to speak to the Saints—especially now that they planned to leave Nauvoo for a new home far to the west—Lucy spoke with a power beyond her feeble seventy-year-old body.
“It was eighteen years ago last twenty-second of September that Joseph took the plates out of the earth,” she testified, “and it was eighteen years last Monday since Joseph Smith, the prophet of the Lord—”1
She paused, remembering Joseph, her martyred son. The Saints in the room already knew how an angel of the Lord had led him to a set of gold plates buried in a hill called Cumorah. They knew that Joseph had translated the plates by the gift and power of God and published the record as the Book of Mormon. Yet how many Saints in the assembly hall had truly known him?
Lucy could still remember when Joseph, then only twenty-one years old, had first told her that God had entrusted him with the plates. She had been anxious all morning, afraid he would return from the hill empty-handed, as he had the four previous years. But when he arrived, he had quickly calmed her nerves. “Do not be uneasy,” he had said. “All is right.” He had then handed her the interpreters the Lord had provided for the translation of the plates, wrapped in a handkerchief, as proof that he had succeeded in getting the record.
There had been only a handful of believers then, most of them members of the Smith family. Now more than eleven thousand Saints from North America and Europe lived in Nauvoo, Illinois, where the Church had gathered for the last six years. Some of them were new to the Church and had not had a chance to meet Joseph or his brother Hyrum before a mob shot and killed the two men in June 1844.2 That was why Lucy wanted to speak about the dead. She wanted to testify of Joseph’s prophetic call and her family’s role in the Restoration of the gospel before the Saints moved away.
Lucy knew the Saints would help her make this journey if she chose to go. Revelations had commanded the Saints to gather together in one place, and the Twelve were determined to carry out the Lord’s will. But Lucy was old and believed she would not live much longer. When she died, she wanted to be buried in Nauvoo near Joseph, Hyrum, and other family members who had passed on, including her husband, Joseph Smith Sr.
Furthermore, most of her living family members were staying in Nauvoo. Her only surviving son, William, had been a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, but he had rejected their leadership and refused to go west. Her three daughters—Sophronia, Katharine, and Lucy—were also staying behind. So too was her daughter-in-law Emma, the prophet’s widow.
As Lucy spoke to the congregation, she urged her listeners not to fret about the journey ahead. “Do not be discouraged and say that you can’t get wagons and things,” she said. Despite poverty and persecution, her own family had fulfilled the Lord’s commandment to publish the Book of Mormon. She encouraged them to listen to their leaders and treat each other well.
“As Brigham says, you must be all honest or you will not get there,” she said. “If you feel cross, you will have trouble.”
Lucy spoke more about her family, the terrible persecution they had suffered in Missouri and Illinois, and the trials that lay ahead for the Saints. “I pray that the Lord may bless the heads of the Church, Brother Brigham and all,” she said. “When I go to another world, I want to meet you all.”6

A few years ago while we were in Sydney, Australia, my wife and I received a letter from one of our grandchildren. He wrote: “Dear Grandma and Grandpa, I just turned twelve years of age, and the bishop called me into the office, and he said, ‘I have some questions to ask of you, Bruce. Bruce, you’re twelve years of age now, and so I need to know if you love the Lord.’ I told him I do. ‘Do you say bad words, Bruce?’ ‘No, bishop, I never say bad words.’ ‘Do you love your mother and dad?’ ‘Yes, bishop, I do.’ ‘Do you pay your tithing, Bruce?’ ‘Yes I do, bishop.’

“You know, Grandpa and Grandma, the bishop said that I could receive the Aaronic Priesthood because I was twelve years of age, and he asked me if I knew what the Aaronic Priesthood was. I told him that I knew a little bit and that I could be ordained a deacon. You know, the next week the bishop asked who I would like to be ordained by. I said I would like to be ordained by my dad. So my dad put his hands upon my head, and the bishop stood around and so did my uncles, and my dad conferred the Aaronic Priesthood upon me and ordained me a deacon.

“Now, Grandma and Grandpa, you’re a long way away, but I know that you’re a General Authority and some day you’ll come home. You know, I can’t wait until you come home because I know you’ll sit on the stand, and then Grandpa, I can pass the sacrament to you.”
I think that is the true meaning of love, of families.

After years of inactivity, my father abruptly announced one day that we were going back to church. This met with some protest from me. Throughout my childhood I knew only vaguely of the Mormon Church. Basically I knew that there were rules against everything I was currently doing. I viewed the religion as a fanatical organization that demanded self-denial, something that my friends and I didn’t understand and wholly condemned. Besides, what would my friends say if they found out?
Finally my father and I agreed that I would just try going to church for a while and then if I decided against going any more he wouldn’t force me. Sunday came. I sat through sacrament meeting and Sunday School as if I were deaf. Then came Young Women. I sat in the corner of the classroom, arms folded, eyes glaring. (Later I found out that I had actually scared my adviser as much as I had hoped I would.) With that Sunday over I declared I would never go again! In order to avoid going the following Sundays, I claimed I had all kinds of illnesses, from a cold to tonsillitis.
Although I would have denied it at the time, I felt something that first Sunday we went back to church. I felt something from the adviser who really seemed to care about this strange new girl in her class. I felt something, too, from a Latter-day Saint schoolmate who took an interest in my spiritual well-being. From then on, every time I did anything wrong she would remind me that some obscure God was watching my every move. Somehow she convinced me to keep going to church.
Then I met our bishop, a large rancher who seemed too gentle for his intimidating stature. In my first interview with him he asked me to pray. I refused. I knew how to pray, but I couldn’t because I believed God wouldn’t listen to a sinner. The bishop seemed to understand, although I didn’t see how he could because I was sure he had never sinned in his life. But he didn’t condemn me. He seemed to consider me of equal value to all the “saints” in our ward. Feeling so accepted, I continued to attend.
The next couple of months were filled with something I had never felt before. I came to realize that it was the Spirit of the Lord trying to tell me that everything I was hearing and feeling was true. I don’t think I had a testimony at that time. I only knew that I loved my schoolmate and her funny ideas. I loved my Young Women adviser because she loved me. I loved my bishop because he didn’t condemn me. I loved the feeling I had when I was with these people, and I wanted to have that feeling always in my life.
I was grateful for that school year to end. The summer was a welcome escape from my old friends who didn’t understand why they saw less and less of me. I knew that the less I saw of them the easier it would be to begin repenting. Every day was a constant struggle. But, by the following August, I ended my relationships with all of those old friends. Some of them didn’t care. Some hated me and my new religion. Some were hurt and just didn’t understand. But I understood, and I knew that from then on I would always be different.
I caught hold of the gospel and hung on tight. I worked furiously to catch up in knowledge with my friends who had been raised in the Church. Many of my Mormon peers thought I was terribly self-righteous. I suppose it may have seemed that way to them, but I tried to be perfect because I was convinced that I could never escape my sins. I thought that by knowing all of the answers in church and receiving awards in seminary I could somehow make up for all the mistakes I had made. I remember thinking at the time that I could never be free from my haunting past. I accepted that fact and resolved to be perfect in order to compensate.
One of the hardest steps of repentance (at least for me) was to forgive myself. For four long years I struggled. To everyone around me I seemed spiritual and well-versed in the scriptures. Others told me how far I had come and how well I was doing, but only I knew the black that lined my heart. I had forsaken my past sins, and I was sure that God was pleased with my new life. But I felt that he was holding my past over my head, waiting for me to fall again.
Finally, in despair and confusion, I asked for a blessing. Words cannot express the peace that entered my heart as I received this personal revelation: I would receive the reassurance of the Holy Ghost and know that I was in good standing with Heavenly Father.
How could that be? My mind didn’t understand it, but my heart accepted it. So I believed it.
It wasn’t until I was reading a book by Jeffrey R. Holland, then president of Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, that I found an explanation I could understand. In However Long and Hard the Way, President Holland discussed the analogy of life being a board. Unfortunately, many people think that when we repent the nails are removed, but the nail holes remain. However, he stated that no holes remain because after repenting we have an entirely new board. I found this analogy even more beautiful after realizing that the only holes that do remain are the ones in Christ’s hands and feet. His sacrifice was complete.
Knowing that the Lord has promised not to remember the sins we have repented of is vital. (See D&C 58:42.) It is impossible to change your life when you believe that you can never be free from iniquity. It is essential to know that He really can make us clean again.
Still, I wondered why I am not allowed to forget my past sins. What am I supposed to gain from these experiences? I now realize that the memory of these things serves as a reminder of the Lord’s mercy and the power of forgiveness. I am certainly not happy to have done the things I have. But I don’t take the gospel for granted because I know where I would be without it. I have stopped looking at my past sins as leeches on my soul and have found them to be aids in charity. I am not advocating sin in order to gain charity. Wickedness never was nor can it ever be happiness, regardless of what is gained after repenting. But there is a purpose to our inability to forget our sins. And I believe it is God’s purpose that we help others see that a new board is waiting for them with repentance—a board without holes or even splinters—a board made from a tree, just like the cross of Calvary.

One time when I was young, my friend and I had climbed up on top of a concrete water tower. It was probably 10 or 12 feet tall, and the ground below it was covered with huge boulders to prevent the soil from eroding. As I was playing, I stepped over the edge. I felt myself being lowered to the ground, and I wasn’t hurt. That was one of the first inklings I had that there is Someone watching over us.

Joseph F. Smith’s mother was known as “Widow Smith.” She was the widow of Hyrum Smith, who was martyred with the Prophet Joseph. She once rebuked the tithing clerk who stated that because of her poverty, she should not have to pay her tithing. She said: “‘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. By keeping this and other laws, I expect to prosper, and to be able to provide for my family.’”
Did she prosper? Her son and grandson became presidents of the Church, and her descendants today include a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and many notable Church leaders.
Speaking of his mother, Joseph F. Smith once said she paid “tithes of her sheep and cattle, the tenth pound of her butter, her tenth chicken, the tenth of her eggs, the tenth pig, the tenth calf, the tenth colt—a tenth of everything she raised.”

By the time he was 14 years old, an acquaintance of mine was more than six feet tall and very uncoordinated. He said, “One afternoon when I was in a 10th-grade seminary class, the Spirit really touched me. I came to know that the gospel literally was true. I made up my mind that day that I wanted to serve the Lord in any way I could.”
By his senior year, he was taller and much more coordinated. Many universities offered him scholarships to play basketball. After his first year playing at a university, he told his coach that he would like to be excused for two years to go on a mission. The coach said, “If you leave, you can be sure of one thing: you will never again wear one of our basketball uniforms!” Many thought that his “mission” ought to be playing basketball. Even some family members, including his parents, tried to convince him not to serve a mission. But he was totally committed. He was willing to give everything to the Lord—the scholarship, the applause of the fans, and the excitement of playing. He knew what the Lord was counting on him to do. He was called, and he served an honorable mission.
When he returned two years later, he was even taller and about 35 pounds heavier. His coach decided to repent. He was permitted to wear one of those basketball uniforms again, and in his senior year, his team not only won the conference championship but went on to the finals in national competition.

I went off to school that fall. I was on the track team, and though I was not a star that year, I ran straight and hard. When I came home that summer, I had an interview with my bishop to begin the work of serving a mission. It didn’t take place in a bishop’s office, but in a blue, two-story home in south San Francisco. I sat on the edge of a bed, and the bishop pulled close his favorite old chair. He seemed a little hesitant. His eyes were wet.
“Tom, you are a Rosa,” he began. “And you are a Latter-day Saint.”
“Yes.”
“If you honor your family, you will honor your church. If you honor your church, you will honor your family.”
“I understand that.”
After asking me the normal missionary interview questions, he concluded, “You will do good. You will be a fine missionary.”
Then he told me to go help Mom in the kitchen. I looked back at him as I left. His hair was mostly gray now, and his arms were not as thickly muscled as before. He sat in his chair and stared out the window at ten thousand sparkling lights on the hillside across the bay from our home. I wondered if he knew how proud I was to be his son and how much it meant to me to share his good name. I walked downstairs realizing that all those years I had been running, my father had been growing, and I would never lack for someone to look up to.

Temple worship is as ancient as the hills. Whenever the Lord has had a covenant people upon the earth, He has always commanded them to erect temples or holy sanctuaries akin to the tabernacle (see Exodus 25), where He can come and dwell and instruct His children in the ways of righteousness. All sincere seekers of truth who enter these sacred edifices with a broken heart and a contrite spirit have the opportunity to make and keep sacred covenants that are both salvific and binding in nature.

In Doctrine and Covenants 109:8, we read about the special purpose of temples. Each temple serves as “a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God,” making temples the pinnacle of our worship.

My wife and I had the privilege of visiting the Accra Ghana Temple, thanks to the Temple Patron Assistance Fund. The whole process was an exercise in patience and faith. We learned to pray earnestly and wait on the Lord for the righteous desires of our hearts. Our prayers were answered when we got word from the Africa Central Area that our application had been approved. Our flight to and from the temple was safe and uneventful.

My wife and I got sealed for time and all eternity on 29 May 2024. It was an unforgettable experience—one that I will cherish for the rest of my life. After spending the day in the temple, I wrote that evening in my journal: “I felt a great outpouring of the Spirit today during Annet and my sealing ceremony. The blessings pronounced upon us are too great to fathom, yet we are grateful that the good Lord has deemed us worthy to receive the choicest blessings that heaven and earth has to offer. Eternal life is within reach.
“I am so lucky to have my wife as my eternal companion. Couldn’t ask for a better partner. She is my fellow traveler on the path that leads back home to our Father’s presence. I have a tangible witness of God’s love and mercy, and I’m excited to see what the future holds.”

What added to our joy as the opportunity we had to perform proxy work for my paternal grandfather and my maternal grandmother. There was a special presence in the air as my wife and I were baptized and endowed on their behalf. I know they are smiling down on us. I also had the singular privilege of performing the initiatory ordinances for ancestors of two members of my ward.

Some of the progenitors of our ward members lived in the 1700s. I feel a special connection to these individuals even though I do not know them. This must be the what the spirit of Elijah feels like with hearts turning to fathers and mothers—to our ancestors. I have a firm hope that the deceased individuals we did the proxy work for have been safely gathered into the fold on the other side of the veil. The gathering is truly the greatest work we can engage in right now, and it’s happening on both sides of the veil.

On August 10, 1848, the year after the pioneers reached the valley, they held a special harvest festival to give thanks for good crops despite the crickets that had almost eaten all of their tender gardens in the month of June.
A bowery was built in the center of the little city and underneath its shade, tables were piled high with vegetables, fruits, and grains. Green peas had grown especially well, and also on the tables were cucumbers, squash, beets, carrots, corn, beans, parsnips, and buttermilk.
A liberty pole was raised. On it hung a white flag, an ear of corn, and sheaves of wheat, rye, and oats.
Sister M. I. Lamson told about the celebration in a letter to a friend:
“There were firing of cannons, band of music, a number of cheers and the harvest song sung, prayer by Brother Parley P. Pratt, speaking by several. All made ready and a bugle sounded, a blessing asked, and when done eating, bugle again. Then the table [was] taken away, dancing commenced.”
What an exciting day it must have been for those pioneers who had been driven from their homes and endured all the hardships of crossing the plains.
On that first Thanksgiving Day, called the Harvest Festival, celebrated by the Mormon pioneers there were prayers of thanksgiving, songs, speeches, music, dancing, smiling faces, and merry hearts.

Families are the backbone of the Church. They also are important in “Project Hope.” Lynn Curtis of Torrance, California, originated the idea of doing a benefit project for Orthopedic Hospital of Los Angeles, California, when he was studentbody president of Torrance High four years ago. Younger brother Dean has come along to be studentbody president too and has spearheaded the project, which recently netted $15,000. More than 100,000 people attended the super-festival. The entire Torrance High campus was turned into model regional sections of the United States. The state flags were on display, and special features of the areas were erected in miniature, such as a Coney Island hot dog stand, a hula hut, a lighthouse, and a huge mountain range for the Rockies. The carnival drew students together in a great cause, and the townspeople are glad there are Mormon boys to stir up involvement.

Often, the primary contact inactive members have with the Church is through the home teachers who work under the direction of the bishop and the Melchizedek Priesthood quorum leaders. My interest in this important home-teaching duty began early in my life.
When I was a young man preparing to go on a mission, I had an outstanding bishop. His name was Marion G. Romney, now a member of the First Presidency. In giving my companion and me a home-teaching assignment, Bishop Romney emphasized the importance of being humble and prayerful and of preparing a challenging, spiritual message. He promised us great joy in the opportunities to be found in this home-teaching assignment. We were asked to visit five families, three of whom were inactive. This home-teaching assignment was so important to Bishop Romney that his enthusiasm and concern for it soon became our own. His careful instructions on how to accomplish it were impressive, and we followed carefully his inspired counsel. After a number of visits, all our families, including those who were inactive, became very friendly; and ultimately, all became active members of the Church.
Bishop Romney had made this home-teaching assignment significant for us. He encouraged us to prepare carefully and to be serious about the results of our visits. He helped us to develop the desire and the faith that make the difference. He taught us that dull, mechanical compliance to any assignment dooms it to failure. He brought us to the realization that the first essential factor in successful home teaching to inactives is the home teacher himself. The home teacher’s own preparation, dedication, attitudes, and initiative are crucial.

I have a bad habit. I like to bite my fingernails. My parents are always trying to get me to stop. One Sunday morning my Primary teacher, Sister Langston, asked if I would stay after class. When we were alone, she asked if she could see my fingernails. She had seen me biting them all during her lesson. I was a little embarrassed to show them to her because I had chewed them so badly. After I showed her my nails, I was surprised when she showed me hers. She had the same problem! She told me that she wanted me to stop so that I wouldn’t be biting my nails when I was her age. She told me that if I could overcome the temptation to bite my fingernails, I would become a stronger person. We decided to have a contest to see who could grow her fingernails out first.
I’m glad I have a Primary teacher who cares about me and wants me to overcome bad habits. She has taught me that we are on earth to learn to become better, even when things may be difficult for us. I have also learned that no matter what age Sister Langston and I are, we both have to keep trying to improve so that we can be strong enough to be able to go back to live with our Heavenly Father again.
At first I wanted to win the contest, but I have decided it would be even better if we both win!Taylor Lynne Ottley, age 8Escondido, California

A few years ago, I was one of a few Church members in my grade. People thought I was weird because I was dedicated to living all of the standards of the Church. So one day I decided that I could compromise my standards a little bit. When I did, I noticed that I had more attention from others. But after just a few weeks, I felt guilty and turned to the Lord for repentance. He did help me, and I had to make a lot of sacrifices, but it was worth it! I truly got to see the blessings of living the gospel at school. I did lose friends and attention, but I gained respect and happiness.
Sutton K., age 15, Texas, USA

The second example is from the life of Willard Bean, a remarkable man who became known as the “fighting parson.” In the spring of 1915, Willard and his new bride, Rebecca, were called by President Joseph F. Smith to serve a mission for “five years or longer” in Palmyra, New York (Vicki Bean Topliff, Willard Bean: “The Fighting Parson” [Huntington Beach, Calif.: n.p., 1989], p. 87; for the account of their life in Palmyra, see pp. 86–131). Their task was to occupy the recently acquired Joseph Smith home and farm and to reestablish the Church in the hostile environment which still existed at the time in Palmyra.
The Beans were rebuffed on every front as they settled into the Smith home. The townspeople would not speak to them or wait on them in their stores. Passersby would pause in front of the home and shout obscenities. Their children were assigned to sit in the back corners of the schoolroom and were shunned by the other children in class.
Willard, who was an accomplished athlete and had been a prize-winning boxer, decided to improve public relations by putting on a boxing exhibition in Palmyra. A ring was set up in an old opera house, and the “fighting parson” challenged all comers to a boxing match.
When the night of the exhibition arrived, the toughest men in Palmyra sat in the first few rows. One by one they entered the ring, only to be carried out again in a matter of seconds! This continued until the seventh challenger was similarly disposed.
Brother Bean’s fighting abilities were more spontaneously employed on another occasion as he walked along the unfriendly streets of Palmyra. A man watering his front lawn one afternoon suddenly turned the hose on Willard and taunted, “I understand you people believe in baptism by immersion.” The spry, athletic Willard reportedly vaulted over the fence separating them and replied, “Yes, and we also believe in the laying on of hands” (Willard Bean: “The Fighting Parson,” p. 14).
Although Brother Bean’s methods were a little unorthodox and definitely not compatible with the current approved missionary program of the Church, they were nonetheless effective. The people of Palmyra began begrudgingly to yield and to accept the Beans as the good people they were. In time, they were invited to participate in local churches and to join the civic organizations of the day. They established a branch of the Church and helped acquire the Hill Cumorah and the Martin Harris and Peter Whitmer farms. The “five years or longer” mission to which the prophet had called them stretched to nearly twenty-five years before it concluded. During that time, the attitude of the people of Palmyra had changed from hostility toward the Beans to toleration, then admiration, and finally to love. The power of good lives is truly great.