Gospel Story Finder

At Haun’s Mill, a few miles east of Far West, the violent removal of the Saints began with full force. Jacob Haun, leader of the settlement at Haun’s Mill, had disregarded the Prophet’s advice to move his people out of the small settlement. On October 30, a mob came to Haun’s Mill. The men living there sought protection in the blacksmith shop, but the mob shot into the shop and at everyone in sight, including women and children who were fleeing into the woods. At least 17 Saints were killed, and more than 13 were wounded.

Included in his dreams was a desire to be a student body president. He got over his miserable junior high defeat and decided that he would run when he got to high school. But just a short time before he was to announce his candidacy, his best friend told him he’d decided to run and asked Greg to be his campaign manager. Greg complied and helped him win, deciding that he could run for the office when he got to Ricks College.

During this past month I received two widely differing messages. One was a formal invitation to attend the swearing-in ceremony in Washington, D.C., of the newest and youngest member of the United States Tax Court—an appointment made by the President of the United States, and a very prestigious honor.

Within hours of receiving that invitation, I had a visit from a law enforcement officer inquiring if I knew a certain young man. I replied, “Of course I know him. Why do you ask?” This young man had indicated to the officer that he knew me. A sordid story was then related to me of drugs, immorality, stealing to satisfy the high cost of drugs, buying illicit sexual favors, and cheap rooming house living. When I expressed a desire to see and help this young man, the officer suggested I not see him at this time because of his emotional condition.

The families of these two young men are well known to me. As boys they were members of the same ward. Both received the Aaronic Priesthood and had had the same Sunday School teachers. The scriptures, Church magazines, and lesson manuals had been made available in their homes.

One received the Melchizedek Priesthood, fulfilled a mission, married in the temple, and while attending law school, served in a bishopric; and now, Judge Stephen Jensen Swift has been honored by his national government by appointment to a federal judgeship.

The other young man never merited or obtained the promised blessings of the Melchizedek Priesthood. Going to top-rated private schools overshadowed interest in a mission. He never married, associated with the wrong people, has now become a ridiculer of gospel principles because they differ from his life-style, and is virtually an outcast from family, society, and from the word of God. His family’s life-style failed to encourage him spiritually by its lack of interest in the scriptures, family home evenings, family and personal prayer, and hearing in their home testimonies of religious belief.

The Honorable Judge Stephen Swift is settling his family in Washington, D.C., and learning to feel comfortable in the robes of a federal judge. He has our love, admiration, and highest respect.

The other young man needs our love even more—a special love. I have faith that we can recover him. It was such as he of whom the Savior spoke: “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?” (Luke 15:4.)

My brother Brady was a presidential management intern working in naval intelligence at the US Pentagon when the attacks of September 11, 2001, occurred. I was working in Idaho, USA, at the time, and when I saw the news that morning about what had happened, I called my boss to let him know I would not be coming to work for several days.
A few members of my family gathered in Washington, D.C., at a hotel ballroom that government officials had designated as a briefing room, where they could update the families on the ongoing recovery efforts. We waited day after day to learn whether Brady had been among the victims. The feeling in that environment was one of insurmountable grief and hopelessness. Yet our family banded together and prayed that whatever happened, we would not lose our faith.
Nearly one week after the attacks, on September 17, we received confirmation that Brady had died.
I don’t know that I ever asked, “Why me?” But I certainly asked, “Why him?” From the time I was a child, I had loved, admired, and wanted to be just like Brady. I also wondered, “Why now?” For several weeks, Brady had been planning a trip to Idaho to spend time with family. He was scheduled to come on Thursday, September 13, just two days after he had died.
The first evening back at work after returning to Idaho, I opened my professional e-mail account, which I hadn’t done since September 10. There in my inbox was a message from Brady. He had sent it Tuesday morning, just before the attack. In it he talked about our getting together and all the fun things we had planned. When he signed off, he simply wrote, “Peace.”
That wasn’t how Brady usually ended his e-mails, but I count it as a tender mercy of the Lord that he did so. I don’t think Brady knew what was going to happen, but I love that his last words—his last word—to me was peace.
Even now, more than a decade later, I occasionally reread that e-mail. Every time I do, I am reminded that it is through the gospel that we can find the peace the Savior promised: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid” (John 14:27).
Of course I still miss Brady, but because of the gospel, I have not lost my faith to this trial. Through the help of the Savior, I have been able to move forward with hope and with peace.

Charlotte Clark was just six years old when her family left Nauvoo, Illinois, to travel west to the Salt Lake Valley. It was a long, long way to walk. Charlotte walked so much that she wore out her only pair of shoes. Every night when Charlotte knelt to pray, she asked Heavenly Father for a pair of shoes.
One day Charlotte and her sister were picking berries when Charlotte saw a pair of shoes. She and her sister ran back to their mother and father, saying, “Heavenly Father sent me shoes, and they fit perfectly!” Charlotte’s father was concerned that the shoes belonged to someone who had lost them. He told Charlotte that if the shoes belonged to someone in their wagon train, she should return the shoes to their owner. Charlotte’s family showed the shoes to everyone, but no one claimed them. Charlotte’s prayer was answered.

William Warner Major was a miniaturist, an artist who painted photograph-sized portraits. He and his siblings met the missionaries in London. All were baptised within a week of each other. Thus started a journey from London to Nauvoo, then on to Winter Quarters in Nebraska, then the Great Salt Lake Valley, and back to London, where Major died serving his third mission.
After his death, William’s missionary companions, William Henry Kimball and James Marsden, wrote a history of their friend. Recent research has uncovered a three-page journal and five letters written by William. Furthermore, since William sketched portraits of numerous pioneers, his endeavours were noted in their personal journals. From these sources emerge the story of a devoted leader and his faithful wife, Sarah Coles Major.
William and Sarah were baptised on 10 April 1842.
After the Marylebone Branch in London was created on 27 July 1842 by Elder Snow, the first meeting of the branch was held in William and Sarah’s apartment. After less than four months of membership, William was called to preside as branch president.
The Kimball and Marsden History recorded that, “Elder Major was ... ordained an elder, and sent on a mission to preach the gospel in Reading, Berkshire [...].”
On 11 February 1844 William, Sarah and son, William Jr., set sail on the Swanton. They had lost two children, Henry and Fanny, before this time. After they arrived in Nauvoo, William functioned as an official artist for the Church. He was commissioned to paint portraits of Church leaders to be hung in the Nauvoo Temple.
On Friday, 8 April 1853 general conference took place. President Heber C. Kimball stood at the pulpit and announced, “We have a number of elders who are chosen to go on missions.” He read the list of names, which included William Major, called to go to England.
On arriving in London, William settled in an apartment with other missionaries. In October 1854, William H. Kimball wrote his father, President Heber C. Kimball:
“On the 2nd inst., I went to see W. W. Major who has been ill for seven weeks, and at 7 o’clock last evening he departed this life, notwithstanding great faith and exertion on his part, as well as by many others. His last words to me were that he was not discouraged and wished me to administer to him. To the last his faith was good, and he desired to return to the Valley.”
So many of the Saints were buried at sea, or left in shallow graves crossing the plains, but William’s body was transported across the ocean, up the Mississippi River, stored for six months, then placed on the boat called Alma on the Missouri River and sent to Mormon Grove, Kansas. Such was the great love and respect the pioneers had for their leader and friend, William Warner Major.
More information on the life of W. W. Major can be found online at: sites.google.com/site/jkmajor/home.

Yolanda Elsie Díaz de Vega of the Jardines Ward, Guadalajara México Reforma Stake, recalls staying up late to study the gospel with her husband after they were baptized in 1979: “It was as though we hungered for the scriptures.” But after seven months as a member of the Church, she felt that she was criticized unfairly by an older member and that she could not go to the next meeting. For four years the Vegas did not go to church—until concern for the blessings their family was missing led them back.

The Vegas have been active for many years now, sharing strength with their family, their ward, and their neighbors. There have been great blessings in learning how to be a better couple and in serving others, Brother Vega says. The gospel “changed our way of thinking, our way of living.” Their children have grown up learning and living the gospel, and now grandchildren are enjoying the same spiritual opportunities through Church activity. “I’m proud of our children because we’ve never had to worry about people knowing we are members of the Church,” Sister Vega says. Their four children respond that they live the way they do because of parental example.

At this critical point in her life, Minerva had two experiences that took her out of the art world. The first experience crystallized her desire for life with a family—specifically, for life with Herman. In a testimony meeting she was listening to a sister speak on the joys of marriage and motherhood. “I thought of all the men I had met in my search for ‘the right one,’” wrote Minerva later. At that moment, she realized that “back on the Idaho desert, herding his cattle and branding his calves was a man more nearly meant for me than anyone else in the world” (unpublished autobiographical sketch, 1937, transcription from handwritten manuscript). Never one to doubt her own judgment, Minerva returned home to Idaho and married Herman.

In Ephraim’s mind the winter, the cold, the flutelike sound began to dissolve. It was summer, July. The sun burned hot and bright in the sky. There was the spicy, warm smell of hot sagebrush. A lizard with a gray body and bright blue sides sat motionless on a rock with only his transparent eyelids moving.
Sweat streaked Ephraim’s face. He had arrived in Salt Lake Valley a few weeks before and was building his first home. There was a strong frame of thick pine poles. Next to the frame, piles of yellow-brown adobe bricks were stacked neatly. They were good, strong bricks made from fine clay, the finest in the valley.
To help him build the walls, Ephraim had hired a bricklayer. They had finished laying the brick walls waist high when they heard the carriage coming. The lizard vanished beneath the rock.
Brigham Young leaned forward in his carriage. His shirt and trousers were gray with dust.
“Brother Hanks, how thick are you building the walls?”
“Eight inches, President Young.”
Brigham licked his lips, moved his eyes slowly over the building frame and partially finished walls, over the stacked pile of bricks, and then directly into Ephraim’s eyes. Ephraim felt their deep, blue embracing power. Brigham’s lip curled up and a broad smile spread across his face.
“Double that,” he said. “Make those walls 16 inches thick.”
Before Ephraim could ask questions President Young disappeared behind a cloud of dust. The dust settled slow in the still, hot air.
“Sixteen-inch walls,” the bricklayer exhaled. “That’s crazy. That’s twice as many bricks. We’d have to tear everything down, start over. We’d even have to build new frames. Most people only build six-inch walls. Sixteen inches is crazy.”
The bricklayer looked down at his hands and then took off his hat and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. It left a dark streak.
“You’re not going to do it are you, Eph?”
“Sixteen-inch walls,” Ephraim repeated the words. Silent, he watched the dust settle. The lizard came from under the rock and sat motionless in the sun. Ephraim tasted the hot air.
Sixteen-inch walls, why? He thought of the work already put into the house. It would take two more weeks just for brick with 16-inch walls. Was President Young just throwing advice out of the top of his hat?
Ephraim squatted down and drew a circle in the gray soil. The hot stillness was intense. He could hear the bricklayer’s breathing. Anger came into him suddenly. He took a handful of soil in a tight fist.
“No. I will not do it.”
His muscles tensed. The veins stuck out on his arms.
Then he relaxed his hand. The soil sifted through his fingers.
“Have I come this far for nothing? Nauvoo, the Mormon Battalion? I’ve followed him here. I won’t stop now.” He exhaled softly.
“Sixteen-inch walls,” Ephraim smiled and looked at the bricklayer. “Maybe President Young is just throwing advice out of the top of his hat, maybe not. It doesn’t matter. The Lord chose him to lead, and I’m gonna follow.”
A week after the house was finished, the rain came. After a month of no rain, it came in hard driving waves from fierce, black clouds. At first it pocked the earth with small craters, the dry soil unable to hold it, and the water rolled off, cutting little, growing furrows. Then the furrows snaked down and met with a hundred more furrows until the dry wash beds filled with angry, gray water. The floods came out of the canyons, newborn rivers, covering, fanning out, ripping, and tearing.
Then the rain stopped, and the sun sent warm, orange radials down from a rift in the clouds. Most of the new houses along the foothills were gone, clothing, furniture, everything not carried to high ground, lost beneath alluvials of mud and rock.
But in the orange glow the 16-inch walls still stood.

I have been remarkably blessed by the moral influence of women, in particular my mother and my wife. Among other women that I look to in gratitude is Anna Daines. Anna and her husband, Henry, and their four children were among the pioneers of the Church in New Jersey, in the United States. Beginning in the 1930s, when Henry was a doctoral student at Rutgers University, he and Anna worked tirelessly with school and civic organizations in Metuchen, where they lived, to overcome deeply rooted prejudice against Mormons and to make the community a better place for all parents to raise their children.

Anna, for example, volunteered at the Metuchen YMCA and made herself indispensable. Within a year she was appointed president of the Mothers’ Auxiliary and then “was asked to run for one of the three women’s positions on the YMCA board of directors. She won without opposition, and so joined the very council that only a few years before had refused to let the Saints meet in their building!”2

I was soon to leave for my military service. Nevertheless, my desire to be around the missionaries and members grew powerfully. As soon as I learned a new principle of the gospel, I put it into practice. Just before I left, one of the elders said, “You know, you live like a Mormon, but you’re trying to become perfect before you will join the Church. That’s the wrong way. It’s the Church that will help you achieve perfection.” They told me I had a testimony, but I still wasn’t sure.
In the military I had time to let my feelings grow and develop. There was lots of time to think, and I reflected deeply on my impressions of the Church. I was stationed with the mountain troops in Briancon, with no LDS branch nearby. But I guarded the things I had learned in my heart and let the seed of faith grow.
When I was released from the service, I faced a critical decision. My best friend from Normandy and I had planned for a long time to visit the United States, and I had saved my money so I could go. But his plans felt through. I had to decide whether or not to go by myself. I returned to Normandy, to walk the beaches and to think.
Anyone who could have eavesdropped on my mental conversation at that time would have known I already had a testimony. “I am well off here—I have my family and friends, I feel sure of myself, and this is the most beautiful spot on earth,” I told myself. “But what if I don’t go? I could miss an opportunity to learn even more about the gospel, to really gain a testimony of it. I could give up the trip, the dream of my young years. But to give up a chance to know more about the Lord’s church?”
In the U.S. I had the opportunity to develop many close relationships with Church members. I finally began to believe I did have a testimony—I can’t forget the wonderful feelings when, each time I’d ask myself a question, I would feel the Holy Ghost enlightening my soul, clearing away the doubt. I had had difficulty understanding why polygamy had been practiced. On a bus somewhere between Colorado and Utah, I glimpsed the vision, not a visual sight, but a spiritual insight, of the men who practiced it. And I saw how it was possible for such a thing to be pure, that it had come from God. That sort of clarification continued throughout my trip in the United States.
I eventually visited some islands near Seattle, Washington. There, in a small apartment, I studied the Book of Mormon for ten days. My testimony continued to grow. The time had come to return to France, and in my heart I knew I would be baptized.
Several days after I returned home, the missionaries asked me to help them teach a lesson. The investigator was a science student, and he was struggling with some of the same questions I had confronted when I was studying the same subjects. I explained to him how I had found answers to the questions, and when we left he seemed satisfied and happy.
A few days later, the missionaries called to tell me he was joining the Church. “How about that,” I told myself. “Here I am, able to help someone else accept baptism, and not myself. This has lasted long enough!” I felt I had a testimony, but I fasted and prayed. I stayed up the whole night pleading with the Lord to seal this testimony in me. Finally, early in the morning, a sweet, peaceful calm filled my soul. I knew I had to tell the elders I was ready to be baptized.
As I rounded the last corner on my way to see the missionaries, I felt a strong force trying to keep me from going. It was like walking against a 100-kilometer-per-hour wind, which I had done before, only it was stronger. But this was a spiritual “wind,” not physical. I was just about to give up and turn around. I knew this force wanted me to doubt everything, but I finally said, “No, no. I know there’s a God.” I felt that truth deep in the roots of my soul. I knew He would battle this force for me.
I reached the chapel door, just a normal chapel door, but I had to pull with all my might to force it open. When I entered I saw some members and felt their spirit, and the opposing force was gone, broken. I felt the sweet peace in my heart again, and felt it even more strongly several days later as I was baptized and confirmed. I still feel it to this day.

Jean A. Stevens, first counselor in the Primary general presidency, told a story about a boy who had missed the last bus of the day and was walking home (page 81). With many miles left to go, he got scared and knelt to pray. Minutes later, Sister Stevens was prompted by the Spirit to stop and help him. Can you think of times when Heavenly Father answered your prayers? How have you helped answer someone else’s prayer?

William Wood’s teenage years ended while he was serving in the British navy. Now, after war experience in the Crimea and China, and a three-year voyage around the world aboard the (His Majesty’s Ship) Retribution, the sailor enjoyed being home again on the Isle of Sheppey, near the mouth of the Thames River. He relayed and became reacquainted with his relatives, none of whom had appreciated his joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints five years earlier.
After being home two weeks William looked up the local branch of the Church. His sister went along, thinking he was just going for a walk. They ended up at a Mormon meeting in Sheerness held in “a little upstairs room in a dirty back alley.” William received a hearty welcome from the branch president and the few Saints who had known him before.
They called on him to speak at the meeting and tell about his sea experiences. His sister was surprised, he noted, “at finding me still a Mormon and hearing me preach.”
To supplement his discharge pay of 80 pounds sterling, William found work as a butcher. He was hired at good wages by none other than his former employer at Maldon, Mr. Blaxall, the man who fired him years before for joining the Latter-day Saints. William returned to Maldon and worked for about a year, during which period he had two pressing goals: emigrating to Zion and “selecting me a wife.”
Early in 1862 the seaman met and fell in love with Elizabeth Gentry, the attractive, 16-year-old daughter of the branch president in Maldon. Her mother had joined the Church in 1853, Elizabeth in 1854, and her blacksmith father the next year. Brother Gentry and William, converts the same year, had served together as priests at preaching services around Maldon before William’s navy service.
When William and Elizabeth became engaged, they counseled with traveling elder Francis M. Lyman about immigrating to Zion. Elder Lyman, later a member of the Council of the Twelve, advised the couple to join the emigrating company he was then organizing.
The couple joined other emigrating Saints at London and then the group traveled to Liverpool and boarded the old sailing ship William Tapscott, which had been specially chartered by Church emigration agents. For the voyage, the vessel received one of the largest Latter-day Saint companies ever to emigrate together across the Atlantic, numbering 800 souls from the British Isles, Denmark, and Sweden. “It was an interesting sight,” William reported, “to see the Saints boarding the ship with all kinds of tin utensils tied in bunches and some were carrying their straw mattresses on their heads, while others were carrying all kinds of parcels and lunch baskets. Some had old pieces of furniture … or some old picture of great-grandparents.”
William thought it remarkable how quickly the large crowd, divided into shipboard wards headed by specially appointed presiding elders, became orderly. “I do not think the same number of non-Mormons would have settled down to such order,” the veteran of shipboard life observed. “Nothing but the Spirit of the Lord would produce such harmony.” The ship left the Liverpool docks on May 13, 1862.
Ward teachers were assigned to each family, and Elder Lyman requested William to be responsible for the welfare of seven emigrants, including Elizabeth. The seaman obtained their rations, arranged for their food to be cooked, and performed other needed services. The slow, six-week voyage, characterized by rough seas and much sea-sickness, ended at Castle Garden in New York. The company passed health inspections, then boarded trains for St. Louis, Missouri. Because the American Civil War then was escalating, “we were moved and changed about a number of times. At one place we were hustled on board of a freight train. The cars had been loaded with hogs and they had not been swept or cleaned out, thus we were choked with the dust and could taste it for days afterwards.”
At the Missouri River they transferred to a small steamboat. It arrived near Council Bluffs, Iowa, very late at night, in the darkness, and passengers and baggage were unloaded at a fast speed and in confusion. At daybreak the weary travelers located their scattered luggage, then assembled at the Church’s emigration campground. There they were organized into companies of tens, fifties, and hundreds by Church emigration agent Joseph Young. William, being a military veteran, was named captain of the guards.
Wagons and teams had to be prepared, baggage loaded, food supplies purchased and packed, and teamsters trained. While this work was being done the camp was struck by a violent storm with high winds, torrential rains, and vivid lightnings. Cattle broke loose and stampeded, doing great damage. Lightning killed at least two Saints and badly injured several others. Floods washed gullies 3 meters deep in places. During the storm William, as captain of the guards, was called on to help a sister give birth under a collapsed tent—both mother and son remained his lifelong friends in Utah. The company needed two or three days to recover from the storm, and many Saints never found boxes and bags washed away by the flash floods.
A Brother Cooper, noticing William’s skill with cattle, hired him to train his teams to work together in a yoke and then drive them to Utah. In return William and Elizabeth were promised free transportation. A few days later, however, their employer announced that he did not intend to go to Zion but wanted them to help him farm nearby. When William refused, he and Elizabeth were ordered out of the wagon and left without food or water.
Fortunately for the stranded couple, Elders Lyman and Charles C. Rich rode in from the west and found them that evening. They arranged for Elizabeth to ride to Utah with a family named Wardell for 40 dollars. Elder Lyman, however, asked William to return to Florence to help with the D. F. Kimball freight train. The fiancé agreed to this separation reluctantly:
“I think this was the greatest trial I ever underwent—to leave my betrothed and go back. However, I submitted and kissed my girl good-bye and gave her a half sovereign, all the money I had in the world, and jumped in the buckboard and we went, I with a sorrowful heart and a mind full of reflections as to the outcome of it all. Brother Rich found I was in tears and told me to cheer up and have faith and all would be well.”
His first night in camp provided the other men with a good laugh then and for years after. William, preparing for bed, reached in his bag for what he thought were closely woven cotton sailor overalls and instead he held up “some sort of ladies’ underwear trimmed and adorned with lace.” His comrades laughed loudly. He had taken his sweetheart’s bag by mistake instead of his own! But perhaps the seaman was more fortunate than the others: while the freight company members slept on hard ground for three months, William rested comfortably in his sea hammock slung between two wagon wheels. On rainy nights he simply covered himself and hammock with canvas.
Day by day the scenery and travel grew increasingly tiresome. Near Chimney Rock (in what is now Wyoming) some of the cattle became diseased and died, forcing the company to make shorter drives each day. William began to think he would never get to Utah and rejoin Elizabeth.
Finally one October Saturday, William’s company descended the hills above Salt Lake City, awed by a beautiful sunset across the Great Salt Lake and by the splendid square-blocked city stretched out below them. As they approached the city, an occupant of a nearby cabin called and waved to William. It was Sister Wardell, the woman with whom Elizabeth had traveled to Utah! William hurried to her, but his anticipation was instantly crushed. She informed him that Elizabeth no longer loved him and planned to marry a local polygamist!
“This was like a bolt of thunder to me,” he recalled. Heartsick, the young man continued with the company to the valley floor, then returned that night to the Wardells. The woman tried to persuade William to marry her daughter, but he was not interested. “I formed a resolution that I was going to have the ‘love of my youth’”, he said.
Friends from Maldon lived in Centerville so early the next week William hiked 19 kilometers to locate them. He arrived at night, and “to my great joy the girl of my heart was found lying asleep on an old home-made lounge and looking free although almost in rags. She awoke, and her joy was unbounded.” Elizabeth then explained that the Wardell woman had tried to marry her to her own son. That failing, the mother sent the girl away and kept all the clothes and bedding until Elizabeth’s 40-dollar fare was paid in full. The woman then had made up the story about Elizabeth’s loss of affection for William, hoping the navy veteran would marry into the Wardell family.
William returned to Salt Lake City and drove his freight team to Springville where he received his three months’ wages. Then he walked back to Salt Lake, paid off the 40-dollar debt, obtained his and Elizabeth’s belongings, and then got a ride back to Centerville. Two weeks later the engaged couple were married.
Hard work brought the young couple a fine brick home and prospering meat business in Salt Lake, enabling them to pay for the immigration of Elizabeth’s family in 1867. But the next year the Woods gave up home and career to fill a difficult colonizing mission to Arizona. They returned destitute four years later and took up residence in a poor smelter dug in the side of a hill within sight of their former home.
William again left his prospering business and a growing family in 1880 to a mission to his home country. Near the end of that otherwise successful mission he reported:
“I preached the Gospel to my dear ones, my father, mother, brother, and sister, and although none of my own kindred have obeyed, they had to acknowledge they could not confute the doctrine, and they feel today that I am not what they judged me to be twenty-seven years ago. When a boy … All my dear relations have treated me with marked kindness, as they have any of the Elders that called upon them at the time. I know God will bless them for that.”
Six years after he returned from his mission, his beloved Elizabeth gave birth in her 42nd year to their 13th baby, but within days both mother and baby died. William later remarried, and he and his families went on to gain prominence in Canada where the Wood name became linked with extensive ranching and meat-packing interests. William’s son Edward J. served for many years as a stake president and temple president in Alberta.
The year before William died, he wrote his impressive life story, hoping his example as convert, sailor, pioneer, and missionary might teach young people in the Church that “should they have to leave the place where they have been taught the gospel … never to yield to any invitation that leads to intemperance or immorality. Always pray to the Lord, whether you are called by the servant of God to preach the Gospel or surrounded by the horrors of war—never forget to offer a silent prayer to your Eternal Father. He will not forget you.”

When Kevin was 16 years old, his parents went through a divorce. Around the same time, he discontinued the use of his epilepsy medication, which had helped stabilize his mood. Without knowing that he had a bipolar disorder, he began experiencing paranoia, debilitating mania, and severe depression. Medications did not seem to help. It reached a point that he felt so tired of everything, he decided to end his life without letting others know of his intentions.
Kevin recounts the day he attempted to take his life: “I was crying. I was just so tired, so emotionally drained. I was just looking at people, wanting someone, anyone, to say, ‘Are you OK?’ As much as I wanted that, I was hearing these voices [in my head] saying, ‘You have to die.’ … The whole time begging myself not to [go through with it], but the voices were too strong, I just couldn’t fight them.”1
Tragically, no one noticed his distress. Convinced that no one cared for him, he made the attempt—but miraculously survived.
Can we feel at least some of his overwhelming distress and desperate, silent cry for help?

My mother also taught us to finish what we started. I took piano lessons as a child and gave my first public performance at a school recital when I was eight years old. I fell down as I was walking up the steps to the stage. I went ahead and performed my number, even though I was crying all the way through it. I had learned that you don’t give up, even when you’re discouraged. You see the job through.

On the day I received my endowment, my family and I ran into a few obstacles before we got to the temple. But despite the challenges we had getting there, once I was inside I felt that nothing mattered but the sweet and peaceful feeling of joy that comes as we perform temple ordinances. One of the greatest feelings I had that day was, “I made it! I know this is where I am supposed to be.”
I knew in my heart that I’d done everything I could to be worthy and ready to receive what Heavenly Father had prepared for me. I could feel His love and His gratitude for my desire to follow Him and make and keep covenants so that I can return to live with Him someday.

Joshua Wright walked out onto the playground during recess on his first day of first grade. He saw his friends running toward the jungle gym and swings. Then he saw some of the new kindergarten students standing alone against the school wall. A few of the older students were teasing them.
“Kindergarten babies!” someone chanted.
“You’d better watch out,” another boy said. “Stay away from the swings and the tricky bars. Only the big kids get to play on them.”
Joshua remembered how he had felt last year on his first day of kindergarten. Some of the older students had teased him, and sometimes he didn’t like going out to recess.
Joshua’s mom and dad had always taught him to look out for others who needed friends. They had taught him the story of the Good Samaritan and told him that Jesus wanted all members of His Church to be Good Samaritans. Joshua decided that he would find a way to be a Good Samaritan to the new kindergarten students.
A few days later Joshua came up with a plan. He asked his teacher if the first-grade students could be paired with kindergarten students as special buddies. He thought that if the kindergarten children each had a special first-grade friend, the big kids would be less likely to tease them. Joshua’s teacher took his plan to the first-grade students. They were eager to help. Soon each kindergarten student felt special and protected by his or her first-grade buddy.
Joshua watched as first graders offered to play with younger students and included them in their games. The new buddies even asked the other children not to tease or pick on the kindergarten students.
After a few weeks, nearly all the teasing stopped. Parents and teachers noticed that many of the older students were making extra efforts to be kind to the kindergarteners.
This year as Joshua prepares to be baptized, he feels happy that he listened to the Spirit. When the school community council met, they voted to continue Joshua’s buddy program. As last year’s kindergarten students returned to school as first graders, they were excited to be new first-grade buddies to a new class of kindergarten students. They learned from Joshua’s program that one buddy really can make a difference.

Ten-year-old Jesse Brewster of Lakeview, Oregon, made a step toward keeping his baptismal covenants by following the commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” (See Mosiah 13:22; Ex. 20:15.) While Jesse was at the store with his mother, he saw a candy bar he really wanted but did not have any money to buy it with. He knew that his brother had some money saved in his room, and when he got home, he took some of that money, went back to the store, and nearly bought the candy. He realized at the last minute how wrong that would be. He put the candy bar back and bravely confessed to his brother.

By being honest, Jesse showed that he was willing to live by the covenants that he had made when he was baptized. He learned from this experience that “following what I know is right is always better than a candy bar.”

When Elder Marcos Antony Aidukaitis’s oldest son was eight, he drew a picture of his family for a school assignment. At the time, Elder Aidukaitis was putting in long hours as general manager of a company in São Paulo, Brazil. “I was working a lot and was traveling to many places around the world,” he recalls.
Elder Aidukaitis was noticeably absent from his son’s illustration. “Where is your father?” the teacher asked the boy. “Oh, he’s working,” he replied.
For Elder Aidukaitis, the experience was a wake-up call. “I changed jobs and fixed what had to be fixed,” he says, renewing his efforts to put family first.

“The princess is here!” cried the innkeeper. “We’ll soon be rich!”
“The princess is here!” cried the innkeeper’s wife. “We’ll soon be famous!”
And at that instant, into the inn walked the princess followed by four of her servants.
Days before, it had been announced that the princess, who was traveling between her castles, would be stopping at this particular inn for her noonday meal.
So now, as the wife scuttled to the kitchen, the innkeeper stepped briskly toward the door.
“Your Highness,” he said, bowing deeply, “what an honor this is to have you stop at our humble inn. Please follow me. Your meal is ready.”
With practiced charm, the innkeeper seated the princess. He scowled, however, when her four servants sat down at the same table.
The innkeeper’s wife whisked into the room, carrying a bowl of steaming stew.
“A rich, thick, savory stew, Your Highness,” she announced, setting the bowl before the princess, “prepared especially for you.”
The princess nodded graciously, picking up her spoon.
The innkeeper and his wife watched anxiously. Everyone knows what delicate and refined tastebuds a real princess has. One kind word from her about their stew, and people would come from far and wide to taste their famous fare.
But the princess paused before even tasting it. “And what about my servants?” she asked. “What are they to eat?”
“What’s this? The servants?” muttered the innkeeper to his wife as they exchanged angry glances. They hardly wanted to serve mere servants.
“Please understand, Your Highness,” replied the innkeeper in sugary tones. “We are poor. It would be a great hardship on us to feed everyone here.”
The princess made no reply. Instead, she raised her spoon and took a taste of the stew. The innkeeper and his wife leaned forward to catch any complimentary word that she might utter.
Slowly the princess licked her lips with the tip of her tongue. “This stew,” she said, at length, “needs salt.”
Salt? “We’ll add salt at once, Your Highness,” said the innkeeper, clicking his heels together. Retrieving the bowl, he and his wife rushed to the kitchen.
A moment later they returned with the salted stew.
“Oh, dear. Oh, my,” the princess said, puckering her lips. “I’m afraid that it’s too salty now.”
Too salty? Adding salt was easy. But removing salt was impossible. The innkeeper and his wife could do only one thing. Taking the stew back into the kitchen, they poured it into a large pot. Quickly they added carrots, onions, potatoes, and broth.
“That will dilute the saltiness,” said the innkeeper. “Yes, the stew will be perfect,” said his wife, tasting it. Both of them smiled at the thought of the fame that the stew would bring them.
When the stew was set once more before the princess, she took another taste. “It’s better, much better now. But,” she added, “a tad more salt would make it perfect!”
The innkeeper and his wife were delighted. Surely they were close now! In the kitchen they added the smallest dash of salt to the stew.
But, alas, when the princess tasted it this time, she wrinkled her nose. “Oh, my!” she said, reaching for a water goblet. “What have you done! This stew is far too salty.”
Back into the kitchen rushed the innkeeper and his wife. They poured the stew into an even larger pot and added more carrots, onions, potatoes, and broth.
“Oh, how famous and rich we’ll soon be!” the wife and the innkeeper whispered happily to each other.
Soon the princess was tasting the stew again. “Almost,” she said, taking her fifth delicate taste. “It needs more salt, however. Just a touch perhaps.”
Ten grains of salt were all the innkeeper and his wife added to the stew this time. But as before, the princess took one tiny taste and said, “Too salty. Much, much too salty.”
“This princess and her fickle taste buds are going to drive me crazy!” cried the exasperated innkeeper as he added more carrots and potatoes to the pot.
“But once we get the combination right,” replied his wife, “we’ll be rich and famous. We’ll call it ‘Princess Stew,’ and everyone will come to our inn to eat it!”
Once more the princess tried the stew, … took a second taste, … then another! The innkeeper and his wife were overjoyed. Breathlessly they waited for her to speak.
“Innkeeper,” the princess said, after another spoonful, “I believe that by now there should be enough stew in your pot to feed my servants.”
The innkeeper and his wife exchanged glances. These were not the words that they had expected to hear! But after all the vegetables that they had added to the stew to dilute its saltiness, they couldn’t claim that there wasn’t enough to serve the servants, after all.
As everyone ate, the innkeeper and his wife waited and waited for a good word from the princess. But the princess finished her bowl of stew without saying another word!