Gospel Story Finder

Once you turn 16, group dating is a great way to build friendships. You’ll want to keep in mind a few things. Follow the example below to see what outcomes your decisions may have.
Start
You worked up the nerve to ask someone out. Great job. Your date asks, “Who else is coming?” You answer:
John and Suzy. (Go to #2.)
No one. (Go to #3.)
Good answer. Group dating is important in your teenage years. What do you have planned for the date?
Go to a movie. (Go to #4.)
Go on a hike. (Go to #5.)
It’s time to rethink this one (see For the Strength of Youth [2011], 4). Your date says she won’t go without a group. What do you do?
Make it a group date instead. (Go to #2.)
Stay home.
A nice idea, but maybe not the best option. You enjoyed the show, but you sat next to each other for two hours without saying a word. What do you do next?
Go home; you’re tired. (Go to #6.)
Make a dessert. (Go to #7.)
Sounds fun! And it will give you lots of opportunities to get to know one another. Did you tell your date what the plan is?
Of course! (Go to #8.)
Whoops! (Go to #9.)
You take your date home, and she thanks you for the nice time. It’s too bad you didn’t really get to know her better instead of just watching a movie.
The group gets ice cream at someone’s home. The dessert is good, and you enjoy talking with everyone. It’s almost curfew. What do you do?
Take your date home. (Go to #10.)
Stay a little longer—you’re having fun. (Go to #11.)
You enjoyed the hike and really got to know everyone in the group. What now?
Make a dessert. (Go to #7.)
Take your date home. (Go to #10.)
Your date wasn’t prepared for hiking, so you wait inside the door for a few minutes while she changes. You’re a little late in meeting up with the group, so the hike ends up shorter than you’d planned, but it’s still fun. What now?
Make a dessert. (Go to #7.)
Take your date home. (Go to #10.)
Your date says she had a great time, thanks you for the evening, and says, “We should do that again sometime!” You smile all the way home.
When you return home after curfew, you and your date both get grounded. Even though you had fun, your date’s dad won’t let you go out again.

I feel blessed to have been raised in the gospel and to have had many good examples of missionary service within my own family. My family members have served teaching missions all over the world.
I am autistic and serving a mission was something I presumed I would never be able to do. Then an insightful bishop discussed the possibility of a service mission with me and my family. Upon hearing about service missions and what they entailed, I immediately felt that it was something that I wanted to do; it could be such a wonderful blessing in my life.
At times, my life has felt challenging, living with autism can be frustrating and lonely. To be able to represent and serve the Lord as service missionary has made me feel included, valued, and loved. I have made many new friends within the mission and feel a great sense of belonging.
I was set apart as a service missionary in October 2021. I have received much support and excellent training from my service-mission leaders, Elder and Sister Crew.
So far, I have been involved with The Billion Graves Project linked to FamilySearch. With support I have transcribed information from headstones and uploaded this, for other people to access. I have transcribed information from many Commonwealth war graves and uploaded many poignant epitaphs. I have also taken photographs of headstones in local cemeteries and been involved in uploading them to FamilySearch for other people to access and use. Being engaged in this work has led to my greater appreciation of temple and family-history work. I feel a closer connection to my own ancestors.
I am shortly due to begin serving in a local food and clothing bank and look forward to serving and meeting new people in my local community.
My family and I consider it a sacred privilege that I have been called to a service mission in the Lichfield Stake. As I diligently serve and represent the Saviour in this way, other people will feel the love that He has for them. I hope others will want to serve a mission through my example. I feel that I am being blessed with a greater understanding and appreciation of Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour, as I emulate His example and serve people as He did.

Steve was working on a term paper when a credit card company called his Brigham Young University dorm. The company was offering cards to students and wondered if he would like to apply. Happy to take a break from studying, Steve agreed to answer a few questions. He told the representative he was on scholarship and had no income. Since he planned to serve a mission at the end of the year, it would be a long time before he graduated and began a career. I’ll never get approved, Steve thought as the conversation ended. To his amazement, he received a $2,000-limit credit card a week later in the mail.
Credit card debt can get out of control, causing heartache and deep financial troubles if unchecked. President Gordon B. Hinckley has said, “Debt can be a terrible thing. It is so easy to incur and so difficult to repay. Borrowed money is had only at a price, and that price can be burdensome” (Ensign, Mar. 1990, 4). Steve learned this lesson the hard way. For the first few months he had his credit card, it stayed in his wallet. But in the last three weeks of his freshman year, Steve went on a spending spree. “After a year of living on a few hundred dollars a month, I decided to go have some fun,” says Steve.
With his credit card he paid for weekend trips and new clothes. By the time he went home, he had racked up charges nearing his credit limit. As a result, he spent the summer before his mission working frantically to pay off the debt. “It wasn’t a positive learning experience,” says Steve. “At the time, I didn’t realize that a credit card doesn’t expand your income now; it shrinks your future income because of debt.”

Thenceforth, I continued to walk leisurely, convinced that only dogs would act they way I had just witnessed. I was certainly saddened, in spite of my surroundings, when at a distance before me I saw two men locked in physical combat. I intervened, and they stopped at a point when one of them pulled a long knife. My presence was properly timed to prevent the certain death of the other who was apparently without any defensive weapon except his hands. I inquired what was wrong, and they began accusing each other. As a lawyer, I advised them that whoever won the fight is not a winner in the true sense because not only would he be deprived of peace of mind but that the authorities would see to it that he went to jail to pay for his crime.
The cause of it all, I finally found out, was that one owed the other the measly sum of $10.00 which he could not pay at the moment but promised to do so in an uncertain future. The latter, obviously drunk, became fed up with promises and so decided to settle it his way on the assumption it would solve his problem. Naturally, I remarked that it is the duty of the courts to collect debts otherwise impossible of recovery and that to take somebody’s life is too high a price for such an insignificant amount.
I left these two men shaking hands in renewed friendship, as I volunteered to pay the debt in behalf of the debtor.
The course taken by these two men was surely less forgivable than that of the dogs. Dogs are not expected to exercise self-control. But many of us act like dogs if we don’t.

With this prospect before us, consider the following story. A young man, full of ambition and energy, enrolled in a fine university. At the time, he was a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. His goal was lofty—he wanted to become a doctor. His aim was ambitious—he wanted to be rich. He wanted to play football, so he sought out the coaches and eventually made the team. Now he could have the recognition and bragging rights unique in the world of university sports. Such were the notions in his head.

But he had given little thought to something that would ultimately dismantle his lofty and vain ambitions—he had failed to lay up in store. He had overlooked the importance of adequate preparation, the requirements of regular attendance and disciplined study, and the college chemistry class. The consequence was swift and merciless. It took less than 90 days. It happened this way:

The day he found his 5-foot 8-inch, 170-pound body on the line of scrimmage opposite a mammoth lineman from the varsity squad, he knew he was in the wrong sport.

Unaccustomed to rigorous study, his eyes and mind refused to function after a brief time in the books.

The capstone of defeat was the final chemistry exam. Suffice it to say that his random answers to multiple-choice questions did not even approximate the law of averages. He failed miserably.

Hard work, a mission that awakened in him a correct vision of life’s purposes, and unrelenting preparation eventually overcame the consequence of this brief period of foolishness. Even today, however, I still have nightmares about that chemistry class.

With this lesson in mind, I began to look back on my life and see how often I had been influenced by men and women who at the time held no great title or position. One of those Shiblon-like souls was my seminary teacher during my junior year in high school. This good man taught seminary for only two or three years, but he opened my heart in a way that helped me gain a testimony. He may not have been the most popular teacher at the school, but he was always prepared and his influence on me was powerful and lasting. One of the few times I saw this man in the 40 years since he taught me was when he came to see me at my father’s funeral. Truly, that was an act not motivated by title or power.

Aulola Mateialona was born into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She was raised by faithful grandparents in Ha’alaufuli, Vava’u, Tonga and she was baptised at eight years old. Aulola later graduated from Liahona High School, a Church-owned school.
When she was 15, Aulola received her patriarchal blessing, which promised that if she stayed true to her covenants with the Lord, she would be married in the temple. It wasn’t until a few years later, as she prepared to serve a full-time mission, that Aulola fully understood the immensity of that promised blessing. As she walked through the Nuku’alofa Tonga Temple for the first time, she was overwhelmed by the desire to return one day with her eternal companion and be sealed to him in that sacred place.
The reality of Aulola’s life, however, didn’t quite follow the plan in her heart. After her mission, it took some time before marriage became a priority for her, and by then she was in love with someone who didn’t share her faith.
“He’s a good man,” Aulola says. “He always welcomed [my Church’s] missionaries into our home and always fed them, but he was never interested in hearing their message.” His family are devout members of their own faith, and he would not break with their tradition. Their difference of religion put a great strain on their marriage. Aulola was unable to attend sacrament meetings as often as she liked, and she couldn’t raise their children in the Church the way she had been. Eventually, the contention in their home proved too much. After 23 years, the couple decided to part ways.
Aulola was devastated. She had lost her marriage and, with it, her hopes for the future with her family, but she was also suffering now from debilitating health issues. In her grief and pain, she turned to her Father in Heaven for guidance. “I fasted and prayed, and I promised the Lord that if He would accept me back, I would never turn away again.”
Her prayers kept leading her back to her patriarchal blessing, which brought her comfort and peace at such a troubling time. One day, she reread the promise that she could be sealed in the temple, and Aulola knew what she needed to do. “I realised that if I don’t do my part, it’s not going to work.” In that moment, she recommitted to follow all of Heavenly Father’s commandments, and to draw near to Him through church attendance, daily prayer and scripture study.
Before long, Aulola reconnected with an acquaintance from her early days in Tonga: Brother Semisi Mounga Mateialona, a priesthood holder who had recently found himself single again, too. They bonded over shared experiences and their mutual love for the gospel of Jesus Christ, and Aulola knew in her heart that this was the man for her. The couple got married in New Zealand in 2019 and at the end of September 2022, they travelled to the Nuku’alofa Tonga Temple to be sealed to each other for time and all eternity.
At a recent temple fireside in the Auckland Papatoetoe Stake, Aulola reflected on what she says is a miracle. As a young woman, she had experienced the sweet sacredness of the temple and knew how important it was to worship there. Then, for 23 years, she didn’t know if she could ever qualify for the temple blessings promised to her in her patriarchal blessing—but she didn’t give up hope.
It took time, patience and the kind of faith that changes lives, but now Aulola feels like she’s come home again. Finally, she can testify: “When you stay near God, He is going to bless you as He promised—if you do your part.”

As I contemplated the possibility of bearing my testimony tonight to you, my mind went back to many years ago when I was in the Aaronic Priesthood, and somehow I and one of my companions found ourselves over here by the stairs where we didn’t belong, just prior to the beginning of the priesthood meeting. President George Albert Smith, in his kindly way, saw our plight, saw that we really had nowhere to go, and invited us to sit on these stairs by the pulpit. I sat there with my friend and watched the proceedings of that great priesthood session, never believing that I would ever again get that close to this pulpit.
I remember that I said to my friend when we left the conference, “It sure would be nice to be a General Authority; then you would have one of those big red chairs to sit in.”
I would like to say, my brethren, that I have been sitting in a big red chair for just a few minutes, and the greatest desire of my heart is that I will learn through my obedience and my service to become comfortable in that big red chair. I pray that the Lord will bless me that I might properly represent President Kimball, his counselors, the Council of the Twelve, and all my brethren of the General Authorities; that as they send me forth on whatever errand it might be, I might do the will and the bidding of the Lord.

President Joseph F. Smith was six years old when his father, Hyrum, was killed in Carthage Jail. Joseph crossed the plains with his widowed mother. At age 15 he was called on a mission to Hawaii. He felt lost and alone and said: "I was very much oppressed. … I was almost naked and entirely friendless, except the friendship of a poor, benighted … people. I felt as if I was so debased in my condition of poverty, lack of intelligence and knowledge, just a boy, that I hardly dared look [anyone] in the face."

While pondering his plight, the young elder had a dream, "a literal thing; … a reality." He dreamed he was on a journey rushing as fast as he possibly could.

He carried a small bundle. Finally he came to a wonderful mansion, his destination. As he approached, he saw a notice, "Bath." He turned aside quickly, went in, and washed himself clean. He opened his little bundle and found clean, white clothing—"a thing," he said, "I had not seen for a long time." He put them on and rushed to the door of the mansion.

"I knocked," he said, "and the door opened, and the man who stood there was the Prophet Joseph Smith. He looked at me a little reprovingly, and the first words he said [were]: 'Joseph, you are late.' … I took confidence and said:

"'Yes, but I am clean—I am clean!'" And so it can be with you.

Did they ever become discouraged? Of course they did. I quote now from James Brown, this remarkable experience and prophecy:
The winter of 1848–49 was quite cold. Many people had their feet badly frozen. . . . As the days grew warmer the gold fever attacked many so that they prepared to go to California. Some said they would go only to have a place for the rest of us; for they thought Brigham Young too smart a man to try to establish a civilized colony in such a “God-forsaken country,” as they called the [Salt Lake] valley. . . .
It was at this time of gloom that President Young stood before the whole people, and said, in substance . . . : “Some have asked me about going. I have told them that God has appointed this place for the gathering of his saints, and you will do better right here than you will by going to the gold mines. Some have thought they would go there and get fitted out and come back, but I told them to stop here and get fitted out. Those who stop here and are faithful to God and his people will make more money and get richer than you that run after the god of this world; and I promise you in the name of the Lord that many of you that go thinking you will get rich and come back, will wish you had never gone away from here, and will long to come back, but will not be able to do so. Some of you will come back, but your friends who remain here will have to help you. . . .
“We have been kicked out of the frying pan into the fire, out of the fire into the middle of the floor, and here we are and here we will stay. God has shown me that this is the spot to locate his people, and here is where they will prosper; he will temper the elements for the good of his Saints; he will rebuke the frost and the sterility of the soil, and the land shall become fruitful. Brethren, go to now, and plant out your fruit seeds. . . .
” . . . We shall build a city and a temple to the Most High God in this place. We will extend our settlements to the east and west, to the north and to the south, and we will build towns and cities by the hundreds, and thousands of the Saints will gather in from the nations of the earth. This will become the great highway of the nations. Kings and emperors and the noble and wise of the earth will visit us here, while the wicked and ungodly will envy us our comfortable homes and possessions. Take courage, brethren. I can stand in my door and can see where there is untold millions of the rich treasures of the earth—gold and silver. But the time has not come for the Saints to dig gold. . . . For if the mines are opened first, we are a thousand miles from any base of supplies and the people would rush in here in such great numbers that they would breed a famine. . . . People would starve to death with barrels of gold. . . . It is our duty to preach the gospel, gather Israel, pay our tithing, and build temples. The worst fear that I have about this people is that they will get rich in this country, forget God and his people, wax fat, and kick themselves out of the Church and go to hell. [That is a quotation!] This people will stand mobbing, robbing, poverty, and all manner of persecution, and be true. But my greater fear for them is that they cannot stand wealth; and yet they have to be tried with riches, for they will become the richest people on this earth.” [See Life of a Pioneer: Being the Autobiography of James S. Brown (Salt Lake City: George Q. Cannon & Sons, 1900; New York: AMS Press, 1971), pp. 119–23, cited by Preston Nibley in Brigham Young: The Man and His Work (Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1936), pp. 126–28]
I would like to say that we are a very rich and blessed people.
Notwithstanding the temptation to go to the California goldfields, where the entire world seemed to be rushing, the people accepted their leader’s words. They stayed here and grubbed the sagebrush and made their way. Brigham Young’s prophecy has been fulfilled. This is now a great and beautiful and fertile area. It has become the Crossroads of the West. Thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands pass this way constantly. We in the Office of the First Presidency are called upon day after day and week after week to meet the great of the earth.

Worthy music also has the power to persuade. We learn this lesson from the writings of John Jaques. He was born in England in 1827, a son of Wesleyan Methodist parents. In his youth John earnestly sought the true religion. He studied intensively with Latter-day Saint missionaries and, at the age of 18, became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
John’s austere father, upset upon hearing this news, wrote: “I wished you . . . to attend the Wesleyan Chapel. They [the Mormons] do not teach you . . . [to] honor and obey your parents. I . . . hope you will give up the idea of belonging to such a party. . . . It is fiction.”
John’s reply, written March 14, 1847, when he was but twenty years of age, included these words: “Dear Father: I would pray . . . that I may understand the things of the Kingdom of God and carry my ideas to you. . . . Since I [joined the Church] my eyes have been opened, and I have been able to understand the truth. I can bear testimony to the truth . . . of the doctrines . . . in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”
Three years later, at age 23, John Jaques wrote the words to this hymn that we know and love:
Oh say, what is truth? ’Tis the fairest gem
That the riches of worlds can produce,
And priceless the value of truth will be when
The proud monarch’s costliest diadem
Is counted but dross and refuse.
Yes, say, what is truth? ’Tis the brightest prize
To which mortals or Gods can aspire.
Go search in the depths where it glittering lies,
Or ascend in pursuit to the loftiest skies:
’Tis an aim for the noblest desire.
The sceptre may fall from the despot’s grasp
When with winds of stern justice he copes.
But the pillar of truth will endure to the last,
And its firm-rooted bulwarks outstand the rude blast
And the wreck of the fell tyrant’s hopes.
Then say, what is truth? ’Tis the last and the first,
For the limits of time it steps o’er.
Tho the heavens depart and the earth’s fountains burst,
Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst,
Eternal, unchanged, evermore.
John stood firm in his conviction of the truth. He remained true and faithful and ultimately served as assistant to the Church historian from 1889 until his death on June 1, 1900.

I had a difficult childhood; my parents separated when I was still a teenager. This separation was a big blow to me and my three siblings, I being the eldest. Despite my mother’s meager resources, she did her best to provide for our needs. During this challenging situation, we learned to live with little, wake up early, appreciate life and people, and to think seriously about life and the existence of God: Does God really exist? If so, why did He allow us to live such experiences? We wondered what we did to deserve that. These questions went unanswered until I met the missionaries.
I brilliantly passed my baccalaureate exams in 2010 and gained admission to the faculty of psychology at a university in Abidjan. Despite our poverty, I had decided to take a chance with this as I could not accept the fact that my brilliant school career was going to stop due to lack of financial means. I contacted one of my uncles living in Abidjan, asking him to take me in to further my education. He was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints; I had never heard of it before. What impressed me from the first moments in this home was the love and joy filled there. I had no difficulty fitting in. I grew up in a Christian sect; however, I had begun to lose interest because of everything that had happened to me. I found it unjust and I began to question the very existence of God. It was just at this moment of desperation that my host family asked me if I was ready to receive the missionaries. In fact, it did not interest me anymore, this matter of religion, but for the respect that I had for my uncle, I accepted.
After several unsuccessful visits and discussions with the missionaries, I came to recognize the fact that the Church was true, but I had a problem: The Book of Mormon. I did not accept the idea that there was another scripture besides the Bible that would testify of Christ. I had a keen interest in reading and my supposed broad knowledge of the Bible and other philosophical books did not facilitate my discussions with missionaries.
Finally, I began to read the Book of Mormon. At first, I read it just out of curiosity, but once I started, I could not find the strength to stop. After a full reading in a month, I began to feel something deep inside me, a warm feeling in my heart, a light in my mind, a transformation, a voice.
At night, I could not close my eyes because my mind was revealed about the sacredness of the Book of Mormon. I was baptized in February 2010. As a result, I served a full-time mission and married Prisca Ebi, a lovely daughter of our Heavenly Father!
I am grateful to the Lord for using the Akoi family in making me an instrument in His hands to do a lot of good for His children.
I testify that God is hiding in the Book of Mormon, and I invite everyone who wants to discover it to make it their personal experience to gain their own testimony.

The first is illustrated by an experience when a stake president and I took the opportunity to visit a young woman in her home near Atlanta, Georgia. She was young; her husband had been killed in a car accident; she was living in an apartment with her two young children. I suppose we expected to find her upset and discouraged at having received a “bump” not of her own making. On the contrary, she was cheerful, calm, and very gracious. She thanked us for coming and said, as nearly as I can recall: “Brethren, I want you to know that I believe in the plan of redemption. I am grateful to my Savior for the promise of a glorious resurrection with my husband. I am grateful for his redeeming sacrifice.” Then, putting her arms around her two children, she said, “Our faith in Jesus Christ will see us through.”
We came expecting to comfort and strengthen, and we left humbled, buoyed, and blessed by her wonderful expression of faith.

In my kindergarten class we had a box of toys, and during playtime we could choose a toy to play with. The most treasured of all the toys was a carved wooden train with wooden wheels and a caboose. All the children in my class always wanted to play with the train and caboose.
One day I thought of a way I could play with that caboose without sharing with the other children. I slipped the caboose into my lunch pail and took it home with me. As I did that, I felt bad inside. At age five, I knew I was doing something wrong.
At home, I hid in the corner of our hall closet to play with the little caboose. I did this for a few days. Then one day my mom opened the closet door and saw me playing with the caboose. She asked me about it, and I told her. She and my father then began to teach me. They helped me understand that I felt bad because I had done something wrong. The Holy Ghost was prompting me to do the right thing. They told me that I needed to return the caboose.
Mom walked with me back to school, and watched me as I said sorry to the teacher and gave her the caboose. The teacher told me the consequences, and for the next few days I did not get to play with the toys. But even with the discipline, I felt good inside.

For a long time I stared at that white card, and I remembered what it was like to move into a new school. Two years earlier I had been the new kid. At first I was afraid and was sure that everyone in the whole school was staring at me. Then Brandon invited me to sit next to him in class. His friends became my friends. We sat in the cafeteria together. We played at recess together. That very first afternoon he even invited me to his house after school.

I thought about Darren’s first day. No one had spoken to him. No one had invited him to join them. No one had eaten lunch with him. No one had asked him over after school to play. And all during the day, he had been forced to face the silent, scary stares from the rest of us.

As I stared at Sister Murray’s white card, I realized that although I had thought Darren was different from the rest of us, he really wasn’t. He had a different color of skin, and darker eyes and hair, but he felt and hurt just like the rest of us. He didn’t want to be alone. He wanted to have friends. He wanted to play. He wanted to go places without everyone staring at him.

Suddenly I felt sorry for Darren. I decided that by really feeling sorry for him, I was doing what Alma talked about at the waters of Mormon. I told myself that that was all I needed to do, that that was all I could do without the whole school staring at me like I was someone extra strange. I changed my clothes and rushed outside to play.

The next day I grabbed my football and charged out of the house for school. Before I could leave the yard, I slid to a stop. There were Darren and Tanya coming down the street on their way to school. Barry and Trevor were fifteen or twenty steps behind them. I saw Barry pick up something and toss it toward Darren and Tanya. Then Trevor said something that I couldn’t hear, and both of them burst out laughing. Darren and Tanya just kept walking with their eyes straight ahead.

Instead of starting down the street close to Darren and Tanya, I pretended to have forgotten something and slipped back inside the house until all four of them were far down the street. I tried as hard as I could to not think about the white card stuck on the mirror in my bedroom.

During the day, there were several times that I could have said something to Darren, but I didn’t.
I didn’t stare at him and snicker like some of the other kids, but I didn’t try to comfort him at all. At lunchtime, I was right behind him in the line, and when he went to sit down, I almost followed him to his table. Then Brandon called to me from another table, and I went over to him.

By the end of the day, I was glad that it was Friday because I had a whole weekend without having to think about or to see Darren. On Saturday, I hardly thought about him. By Sunday morning when I was rushing about to get ready for church, Darren was the last thing on my mind.

As sacrament meeting started, I sat on the bench next to Mom. She teaches Primary and had her manual and lesson materials piled neatly on the floor in front of her. Right on top was a picture of Jesus wearing a red and white robe. And He was staring right at me. We sang the sacrament hymn, and I began to think about my white card with those special baptismal promises written on it, promises that I was about to renew when the deacons brought the bread and water around. I was going to promise to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and I knew—and I knew that Jesus knew—that for me that promise included Darren.

For a moment I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t see that picture of Jesus looking up at me. But I could still feel His eyes staring at me. They didn’t stare at me like the eyes at school stared at Darren and Tanya. Jesus’ eyes were asking me to do something for Darren.

That Sunday was the first time that I was a little afraid to take the bread and water as it came down the row toward me. I knew that I wasn’t eating plain old bread or drinking regular old water. I was supposed to be thinking of Jesus and promising to do what I thought He would do if Darren was in His class at school.

I hesitated as Mom handed me the bread tray. In fact, I hesitated so long that Mom nudged me. Slowly I reached out and took a small piece of bread. When I did, I knew that I was repeating the promise I’d made three years ago, when Dad had led me down the tile steps into the baptismal font. For me, that shiny clean baptismal font was the same as the waters of Mormon for Alma’s people.

On Monday morning, I said an extra long prayer because I needed all the help and courage I could get. I grabbed my football, slipped out the door, and looked up and down the street. Darren and Tanya were still over a block away. Barry and Trevor were a few steps behind them.

I knew that I could start for school without running into Darren just yet. I could wait until I was in Mrs. Riley’s class and look for a chance to be nice to Darren there. Then I thought of that picture of Jesus, dressed in His red and white robe, staring up at me.

I gripped my ball and waited for Darren and Tanya. I was going to keep a promise.

“Hi, I’m Steve,” I said with a nervous smile. “I think you and I are in the same class.” I glanced anxiously down the street toward Barry and Trevor; then my gaze returned to Darren and Tanya. “Do you mind if I walk with you?”

Darren thought a moment and then shook his head. I smiled and took a deep breath because my heart was pounding and my hands were shaking a little bit. I tossed my football to Darren and he caught it. “Good hands,” I said. “Do you like football?”

“I love it! I used to play at my old school.”

“He was good, too!” Tanya spoke up, grinning up at her brother and then over at me.

“Then you’ll have to play with us. We can always use a good football player.”

We started down the sidewalk. I heard Trevor and Barry snicker, and I knew that they were staring behind us, but I kept walking with Darren and Tanya.

“Did you think of a frightening experience to write about in class?” I asked, remembering an assignment that Mrs. Riley had given us on Friday.

Darren laughed. “I can think of a lot of scary experiences that I’ve had. I haven’t written anything down yet, though.”

“Mrs. Riley said we could work in pairs. Maybe you and I can work together,” I invited. “We can help each other come up with something really good.”

When we reached the school, we went over to where the guys were starting the morning football game before the bell rang. As we approached, the playing stopped for a moment and all eyes were on Darren, Tanya, and me. No one said anything, but I could feel all of those staring eyes on me.

For a moment, I wished that I had hurried to school without waiting for Darren and his sister. I wasn’t used to those staring eyes. Then I realized that ever since Darren had entered this school, he had been facing those same staring eyes all the time. There was no place for him to run and hide from them, and those eyes hurt him as much as they hurt me—probably even more.

“Darren’s going to play with us this morning,” I burst out boldly. “Before he came here, he played a lot of football. He’ll be on my team. We can play with my ball.” I silently prayed that my voice wouldn’t crack or shake as I spoke. I didn’t want anyone to know how scared I was.

“We don’t need any extra guys,” Rusty spoke up, staring up at Darren and me.

“We can always use someone good like Darren,” I came back. “He’s playing,” I repeated. “Go out for a pass,” I said, turning to him.

While all eyes were on us, Darren raced across the field. I gripped the ball, cocked my arm, and threw with all my might. My pass was a little high and a little long. I figured that Darren would probably miss it. But just as it sailed over his head, he leaped and stretched out his arms. The ball touched his fingertips. It was as though they had invisible glue on them, because he held onto the ball, pulled it into his chest, and clutched it tightly as he fell to the ground.

“Awesome!” I heard someone mumble behind me. “What a catch!”

I grinned and waved Darren back to us. “Come on, Darren, we’ll kick off.”

The eyes still stared, but I didn’t mind them so much, because I remembered the promise I had made the day before, when I had taken the bread and water. Into my mind came the picture of Someone in a red and white robe with His eyes staring at me. As I raced across the field alongside Darren, I was glad for His staring eyes and how good they now made me feel.

When I was the Young Women class president, we started out with only five girls in the class. But then a new girl moved in, and we wanted to help her feel welcome and included.
I started out not knowing her that well, but I tried to be extra nice to her. After a while, the “extra nice” just became the normal amount of nice as she became my friend. I began to understand how God loves His children. I was able to feel that love for the girls in my class. Serving others helps me feel genuine love toward them.

Bang! Crash! The broomstick hit the garbage can lid such a blow that Steven fell to the ground. “You’re not supposed to hit so hard. I’m not a real dragon, you know.”
“Sorry, Steve,” Mike said. “I know you’re not, but I wish you were. I mean—I just wish there were still dragons around someplace.”
“Me too,” said Steven. “I’d slay them all and rescue people.”
“And when we got back to town they’d have a big parade for us,” suggested Mike.
“And root beer floats,” Steven added.
“But it’s no use,” Mike complained. “There’s nobody to rescue anymore. No dragons. No maidens in distress. Nothing exciting to do.”
“Steven! Are you out there?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“I need something at the store. Will you go for me please?”
“OK, Mom, in a minute.”
“That gives me an idea!” Mike said, jumping up from the grass. “There’re still people to rescue. Your mom needs to be rescued right now.”
“That’s not rescuing! I go to the store all the time.”
“Yes, but this is different. Now we’ll go looking for chances to help people just like knights did in the olden days!”
“OK,” said Steve, catching his friend’s enthusiasm. “And if it’s a lady, we can give her a red rose from one of our bushes. Knights love to do stuff like that.”
“Thanks, boys,” said Steven’s mother when they returned from the store. “I really needed these things in a hurry. You saved my day.”
“Well,” said Steven, “that’s our job.”
“Here you are, madam. This red rose is for you to remember us by,” Mike added. “Now we have more knight work to do.”
“Night work?” asked Steven’s mother incredulously, as she put the rose in some water. “But it’s only two o’clock in the afternoon! However, I’m grateful for your help whatever time you’re going by.”
“It was our pleasure, madam, and all in a day’s work,” Mike said, bowing extravagantly.
The boys were pleased as they ran outside. “Now what?” they said, laughing because it sounded like one voice. Looking around for something else to do, they noticed that Mrs. Thompson’s yard was covered with leaves. A half hour later there was not a single fallen leaf to be seen, and a red rose was tucked into Mrs. Thompson’s mailbox. “She’ll never know it was us, “Mike said, grinning with pleasure.
Just then the two knights saw something that alarmed them. Little Jimmy Black had wandered into the street, chasing a big beach ball. And a car was coming around the corner only a block away. “Mike! Quick!” shouted Steven. “You get the ball. But be careful!” The two boys ran at top speed down the sidewalk. Looking carefully, they walked quickly into the street.
Mike grabbed the ball, and Steven picked up Jimmy.
Just as the boys returned to the curb, the car whizzed past and Mrs. Black ran out of her house. “Boys,” she cried, “I can’t thank you enough! I saw Jimmy in the street, but by the time I got here, you already had him out of the path of that car. I’m so grateful to you.”
“That’s all right. You don’t have to thank us. We like doing this kind of work.” The two boys smiled.
Just then Mike’s mother called from his house, “Mike! Steven! Could you come here a minute?”
As the two boys climbed the porch steps, they saw a tray and began to smile. “I thought you might like a treat,” said Mike’s mother.
“Root beer floats!” said Steven. “My favorite!”
“Mine too!” Mike agreed. “Being a real, live knight is lots more fun than fighting pretend dragons.”
When Mike’s mother came out to pick up the tray and glasses, the boys were already gone. But their empty glasses were neatly placed on the table, and beside them lay a beautiful red rose.

The dorm was quiet Saturday night because nearly everyone except Carol was on a date. She studied until 10:30 and went to bed.
A little past midnight the overhead light flashed on, and her roommate Natalie bounced in and gleefully announced her engagement to David. For the next 15 minutes she sat on Carol’s bed and gave a complete playback.
Finally she stopped, looked seriously at Carol, and said, “Oh, I’m sorry. How must you feel listening to me go on and on?”
“What’s wrong?”
“It’s not fair that I’m a junior and engaged and you’re a senior with no prospects. You must hate me.”
“I’m happy for you.”
“How can you be? This is your last semester. If you don’t find anyone now, what’ll become of you?”
“Don’t worry,” Carol said nonchalantly.
“You’re so brave,” Natalie said, “but don’t worry. Now that I’m engaged, I’ll devote my efforts to helping you find someone. Now don’t fall asleep because while I brush my teeth I’m going to plan it all out.”
As soon as she left, Carol’s smile vanished. What would she do if nobody ever asked her to get married? She never used to think about it, but lately it kept surfacing, like some Loch Ness monster in her mind.
A minute later, smelling of toothpaste, Natalie returned. “I’ve got it all figured out. You can date David’s roommate—his name is Tom. He’s a senior too, so he must be as desperate as you.”
Natalie spent the next few days coaching Carol, teaching her stock phrases designed to boost a guy’s ego. Carol didn’t find it strange that Natalie believed they were necessary to impress a guy, but what did surprise her was that for the first time in her life, she was trying to fit someone else’s mold, because she very much wanted to find a husband.
David and Tom were invited for supper on Saturday evening. Carol hoped that Tom would not be too much like David, who never seemed completely human to her. She could imagine that he was a cleverly made robot, and that someone plugged him in at night to recharge his battery pack. Also there was his smell—the aroma of the chemistry lab always permeated his clothes.
At least Tom was not a chemistry major, Carol thought. He was a civil engineering student specializing in concrete, one who had brought fame to the school by designing and building a concrete canoe which actually floated and had won a race against other colleges.
By the time Saturday night arrived, Carol was wearing Natalie’s dress, sporting her hair style, and mouthing the guaranteed phrases.
Finally the time arrived and so did David and Tom. Carol’s first reaction to meeting Tom was to inhale sharply, trying to find out if the rancid smell coming from the pair was from David or Tom. Was it nitric acid or sulfur dioxide, she wondered, trying to remember back to her high school chemistry class.
“Well, let’s get acquainted, shall we?” David said heartily, attempting to be warm and human. “Carol, I keep forgetting—what’s your major?”
“Music education,” she said, repeating the answer to the question David asked each time he came to pick up Natalie. It was his version of conversation.
“Oh sure,” he said with a superior grin. “You came to college to learn how to sing songs and play games—right?”
“Actually,” Carol said, fighting to maintain her pleasant smile, which Natalie stressed was a necessity for the evening, “it’s a difficult discipline.”
“Oh sure. I bet you have to learn how to use the pitch pipe, don’t you?” David said, laughing at his little joke.
Tom turned to her and said, “I’m sure there must be more to it than just singing songs.”
She liked him for rescuing her from David’s superiority complex. She leaned toward him and took a whiff. He was not the one who smelled like rotten eggs. It must be David.
“Yes, there is,” she said.
“Would you like to tell me about it?” Tom asked.
“Oh, there’s not much to tell. Besides, I’m dying to hear about your concrete canoe. I heard about you winning the race against the other schools.”
“Well, it floated. That’s one of the most important things you want in a canoe.”
“And you built it yourself?” she said, gushing the way Natalie had taught her.
“It wasn’t that hard.”
“Oh, I could never do anything as complicated as that. You must be so smart.”
Natalie winked at her to tell her she was doing well with Tom, and then she left to borrow something from another apartment. David sat down and played with his $700 programmable calculator.
A few minutes later Tom again asked about her major, and she offered to show him what she was doing that semester. She went to her room and returned with a tuba mouthpiece.
“Where’d you get that?” he asked.
“Brass workshop,” she said.
His eyes widened in astonishment. “You made that in a brass workshop?”
“No,” she laughed, “a brass instrument workshop. I have to learn to play every instrument, and right now it’s the tuba.”
She showed him how to hold his lips for the mouthpiece.
“I’ve always wanted to play the tuba,” he said.
“I brought it home for the weekend. If you want, I’ll bring it out for you to try.”
In a minute she was back from her room with the tuba.
“Play me a song first,” he said.
“This will be ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’,” she said, preparing to play. With some difficulty, she made it through.
“When I hear that song on the tuba,” he said, “I picture a two-ton lamb who roams the fields scaring the socks off the local coyotes.”
He’s got a sense of humor, she thought approvingly.
Just then Natalie returned, took one look at the tuba, and said icily, “Carol, could I have a word with you in private?”
They went to their room.
“What on earth are you doing?” she asked. “Do you think a guy will fall in love with a girl tuba player?”
“He seems interested in it.”
“Oh sure, he’ll say he’s interested, and he’ll let you make a fool of yourself, but let me tell you, when it comes to taking a girl home to meet his parents, it won’t be the girl with the tuba. No sir!”
“Why not?”
“Tubas aren’t feminine! You can play the piano or the violin or the clarinet for him, but the girl who plays the tuba will never marry.”
If there had been anyone else waiting in the kitchen, she might have argued with Natalie about the tuba, but she felt a deepening interest in Tom, and in the worst way didn’t want to harm her chances.
“What should I do?” Carol asked.
“I’ll get David to put the tuba away. Here, you put on this crocheted shawl of mine and go in there and imply you made it.”
“Imply?”
“Just go in and ask him how he likes your homemade shawl. Say to him, ‘Alhm made this shawl.’”
“I don’t want to lie.”
“It’s not lying. There’s a lady down the street, her last name is Alhm, and she made it, so you can tell him that Alhm made this shawl.”
A few minutes later Natalie coached Carol in the kitchen with the shawl.
“Are you cold?” Tom asked, looking at the shawl.
Carol wasn’t sure what she should answer so she looked at Natalie who nodded her head. “Yes, a little.” Then her conscience got the best of her. “No, not really.”
“It’s pretty.”
Natalie looked sharply at Carol and waited.
Finally she did it. “Alhm made this shawl,” she whispered.
“I can’t hear you. What did you say?”
“Alhm made this shawl.”
“Really? You made it?”
She looked down at the floor and knew she was blushing, and then shook her head and said, “No, not me, a Sister Alhm made it. I don’t know anything about crocheting.”
Natalie cleared her throat and asked to see Carol again. They both returned to their room.
“Why can’t you just do what I say? Then he’d fall for you. Don’t you like him?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Then just do what I say.”
“I’ve never lied like that. It makes me nervous. And I don’t like the idea of putting up a phony image.”
“Everyone does it—it’s a part of life to hide things from others. Listen to me. I can make him fall in love with you if you’ll just cooperate. You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Yes, but who would he love?”
“He’d love you.”
“Which me—the real me or the phony one?”
“What does it matter as long as he asks you to marry him? Okay, we’ll forget the shawl, and I won’t ask you to lie. I’ll go in and ask you to drain the spaghetti, and David and I will leave to borrow some dessert goblets. You say to him, ‘Tom, this pot of spaghetti is so heavy. You’re so strong. Could I get you to lift it from the stove and help drain it?’ And after he does it, you tell him how wonderful he is.”
“I’ve drained spaghetti by myself since I was ten years old,” Carol said quietly.
“I know, but men need to feel strong and masculine, especially these days when they’ve been replaced by electricity. Besides, what’s the harm? Men are supposed to be strong, aren’t they?”
A few minutes later Tom lifted the large pot off the stove onto the counter next to the sink.
“You’re so strong,” Carol said, nearly choking at the words. She dumped several pitchers of cold water on the noodles to rinse them out, and then asked him to tip the pot so the water would run out.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“A little more.”
He tipped it too much, causing the noodles to rush into the kitchen sink, at the same time spilling water all over their shoes.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Don’t worry about it. Just think of the mess I would’ve made if I’d tried to do it myself.”
She went to her room, found another pair of shoes for herself, and decided the only thing she had that he could wear was her ancient slippers with the bunny face on each toe. They were well worn with all but one of the button eyes missing and one bunny ear gone.
“Golly, look at them,” he laughed as she brought him the slippers.
“I got ’em as a joke my first semester here. I’ve worn them for nearly four years now.”
“Poor bunny rabbit,” he said, looking at the one eye on one of the slippers. “Do you ever write imaginary talks?” he said. “Brothers and Sisters, each of us in life is given a new pair of bunny slippers. But what do we do with them? For some of us, the little ears have come off, and we haven’t got around to sewing them back on. Brothers and Sisters, what have you done with life’s bunny rabbit slippers?”
She smiled and told him he was clever. She wanted to say more but was afraid it might be the wrong thing.
They had left the water on to let the spaghetti rinse itself out, and soon heard the water overflowing onto the floor.
Tom turned the water off and scooped the noodles out and plopped them back in the pot. The entire drain pipe was crammed shut with noodles.
Just then David and Natalie returned with the dessert goblets.
“Why are you both looking down the drain?” David asked.
“It’s clogged,” Tom said.
“Let me take a look,” David said, scooting Tom and Carol out of his way. After carefully examining the situation for a while, he summed it up, “There’s noodles in your drain pipe. That’s your problem.”
Carol backed away from David. Maybe it was hydrochloric acid she was smelling.
“Somebody forgot to put the stopper in the drain,” David said ominously.
“I always put the stopper in the drain,” Natalie said self-righteously.
“Well, somebody forgot,” David said. “If the stopper had been where it belongs, the drain pipe wouldn’t now be full of noodles.”
Natalie and David looked with silent accusation toward Carol.
Tom took a large knife and stuck it down the drain pipe, trying to cut the noodles into little pieces.
“No, no, that’s not the way!” David barked. “If we’re going to do a job, then let’s do it properly. We’ve first got to remove the trap down below. Let me show you.”
With a flair for the dramatic, David opened the cupboard below the sink and pointed. “You see that bend in the drain pipe there? That’s what we call the trap. Do you see it there, Natalie?”
“Oh yes,” she said, “there it is. Oh, David, you’re so smart. How did you ever know about that? I’ve never noticed it before. So that’s the trap.”
“I’ve got a pair of pliers in my car,” Tom said.
“No, not pliers,” David said, on his knees looking at the trap. “Pliers would be the very worst thing to use. Let me give you some advice. In plumbing, if you use the wrong tool, you can harm your threads. Do you know how many people end up buying new fixtures because they’ve harmed their threads?”
Carol wanted to put her hand on Tom’s arm and tell him she didn’t care about plumbing threads, but she didn’t say anything. Natalie hadn’t coached her about what to say when the drain is clogged.
“You know,” David continued, “it’s a good thing I always carry a set of tools in my car. Natalie, will you take this key, go out to the car, open the trunk, and bring me a pipe wrench?”
“I can get it for you,” Tom offered.
“No, no. Natalie and I are a team, aren’t we, dear?”
“With you telling me what to do, we are.”
“While you’re doing that, I’ll clear away this junk down below so we can get to the trap.”
“You’re so smart,” Natalie said before leaving.
A minute later she returned with the wrench.
David, whose head was in the cupboard, pushed himself out, took one look at the wrench and scowled. “No, dear,” he said, his voice grating, “this is a crescent wrench and I asked for a pipe wrench. Can you go out again and get me a pipe wrench?”
Natalie smiled faintly and looked as if she were going to cry.
“Now what’s wrong?”
“I left the keys in the trunk.”
David sat up on the floor and stared at her. “Why would you do a dumb thing like that?”
“I had to go through the entire tool chest, and I must’ve set the keys down while I was looking.”
“You left the keys in the trunk and then closed it?”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Sorry isn’t going to open the trunk, is it? Without the keys, how am I going to get back to the lab and check my experiment? Well, we’ll just have to get the keys, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry,” Natalie pleaded.
“I have to watch you all the time, don’t I?”
That’s when Carol realized that if you play the role of being less than you are, then before long people will treat you that way. Suddenly she didn’t want to play the games Natalie had set for her, even if it meant that Tom was turned off by it, because she realized that she was important and if she didn’t treat herself with respect, nobody else would.
From now on, I’m going to be me, she thought. And if that turns the guy off, then that’s tough.
Natalie started to sniffle. “I’ve ruined the whole evening, haven’t I?”
“Maybe next time you’ll remember to make sure you have the keys with you when you close the trunk,” David continued.
“Yes, dear, I will.”
“Well, it’s water under the bridge, isn’t it? We’ll have to take out the back seat, crawl in through there, get the keys, and fix the drain. We might as well get going.”
“I don’t think I want to go out and watch,” Carol said.
“Aren’t you going to help us?” David said.
“I don’t think so. We’ll just stand around watching you do everything, and I don’t want to do that.”
She realized that Tom was looking at her with a bewildered expression on his face.
“The least you can do is come out and show some interest,” Natalie said. “It’s your fault the drain was clogged anyway. The least you can do is show appreciation to David for making things right.”
“Maybe David will need some help,” Tom said, trying to smooth things over.
“All right,” she said, walking over to the tuba.
“I hope you aren’t planning on taking that outside,” Natalie said.
“I am,” she answered.
“You’ll never get married,” Natalie whispered as she marched past her. Carol followed after her playing “Mary Had a Little Lamb.”
To watch David giving a detailed description of everything he was doing one would have thought he was the first man on the moon.
Tom and Carol sat on the hood of the car and traded off playing the tuba. Every few minutes, Natalie would look up from her reverential attention to David’s work and give them a withering glance because they were not paying sufficient homage to his efforts.
After David had retrieved the keys, fixed the drain, and cleaned out the trap, he decided to return to the lab to check on his experiment. Natalie left with him.
Carol and Tom sat in the kitchen, talked, and played the tuba.
“You know,” Tom said contentedly, “this is a picture, isn’t it? Me here in these bunny slippers, you playing songs on the tuba. I think I could do this forever.”
“That won’t be possible,” she said, finding enough courage to tease him.
“Why not?”
“Next Wednesday I have to turn in my tuba, and it’ll all come to an end.”
“And then what?” he asked, looking as if he had a little more than tubas on his mind.
She looked at him for a second, smiled, and said, “The trombone.”
“Ah, the trombone,” he repeated with a grin. “One of my favorites.”
Two weeks later, if you had been standing on the shore, you might have marveled at the sight of the handsome couple in a concrete canoe, the guy paddling slowly along the shoreline while the girl happily played a love song on the trombone.
Well, it wasn’t actually a love song. It was “Mary Had a Little Lamb.” But it was played with deep feeling.

One day Sam accidentally hopped on his grandmother’s toe. He accidentally ate a plate of fresh cookies that his mother had baked for dinner. Then he accidentally cut pictures out of his father’s evening paper. The family was very upset with him.
“I can’t read a story to you today,” his grandmother said, waggling her sore toe in a basin of warm water. “My toe hurts too much.”
“There will be no dessert for dinner tonight,” his mother announced at dinner. “Sam ate it all up.”
After dinner, when his father sat down to read the evening paper and found only holes, he said, “Sam, go to your room and try very hard to find a way to keep from upsetting people.”
Sam climbed the stairs, saying to himself, “Grandmother doesn’t like me, Mother doesn’t like me, and Father doesn’t like me either, because I upset them. I have to make them like me again.”
Sam straddled a chair in his room and said to his electric train, “I could buy Grandmother a pair of wooden shoes, and then if I accidentally hopped on her toes, she wouldn’t be upset.”
He jumped up and down on his bed and said to his football, “I could buy Mother a bakery shop, and then she wouldn’t be upset if I accidentally ate some cookies.”
He stood on his head and said to the ceiling, “I could buy Father a newsstand. Then if I accidentally cut out pictures in a newspaper, he wouldn’t be upset.”
But when he shook his bank, which was shaped like a fat toad, and only seven pennies fell out, he knew he didn’t have quite enough money. So he said to himself, “I guess I’ll just have to sit in a chair and be still so I don’t upset anyone. Then they’ll like me.”
Sam went back downstairs. He didn’t slide down the banister. He sat quietly in the soft chair and folded his hands.
His grandmother looked at him over her sore toe. “You’re very quiet, Sam. Does your toe hurt too?”
“No, thank you,” Sam said.
His mother came in from the kitchen and looked at him. “Do you have a stomachache from eating too many cookies?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” Sam said.
His father looked through a hole in his newspaper. “Would you like to walk to the drugstore for an ice cream cone?”
“No, thank you,” Sam said.
For the next hour Sam sat in the chair while the family kept watching him. After a while Grandmother said, “My toe feels better now. Sam, would you like me to read a story?”
“No, thank you,” Sam answered.
His mother felt his forehead. “Are you sick, Sam?”
“No, thank you,” Sam said.
“Would you like to watch television?” his father asked.
“No, thank you,” Sam replied.
Sam hoped the family would see how good he was and begin to like him again, because he didn’t know how much longer he could keep his feet from running.
Grandmother walked around the room exercising her toe and looking at him. His mother watched him over the blue sock she was mending, and his father kept staring at him through the holes in the newspaper.
Finally his mother jumped up from her chair.
“I’m so upset,” she said, “I’m going to call the doctor. I just know that Sam is sick.”
“I’m not sick!” Sam protested.
“But you aren’t running and playing and getting into mischief,” she said in a worried voice.
Sam’s eyes widened. “Do you like me if I get into mischief and upset all of you?”
“Oh, yes,” they all said. “We love you no matter what you do.”
“Yippee!” Sam shouted, as he jumped down from the chair. He raced around the room. His father and mother smiled happily because they were so glad that he wasn’t sick. And Grandmother kept smiling even when he accidentally hopped on her toe.

“Robert! What do you mean, you want to use your mission fund on computer equipment? You made some commitments to us, to the bishop, and to your twin sister before she …” His voice trailed off. “I loved Rachel too, son. I miss her too. But don’t you think she would have wanted you to go on your mission regardless of what happened to her?”
I just shook my head. Dad was still going on. “It was nine months ago, son. Maybe she would have wanted us all to bury our grief by now and get on with our lives.”
“I agree with you,” I mumbled. “I want to get on with my life. So why can’t I just use my mission fund on some nice computer equipment? It’s not as if Rachel is around to demand I act like nothing has changed.”
I stomped up the stairs, slammed my bedroom door, threw myself into my desk chair, and stared into the blank computer screen. Another argument. A bad one.
After hyperventilating for a while, I pushed the “on” button and powered up. The thought occurred to me that I seemed to relate better to my computer than I did to humans.
Do you want to work on your AI program as usual, sir?
I “Yessed” the option, and my Artificial Intelligence program, which we had been perfecting for the last year, appeared.
We? I mean I’m working on it alone now. My sister Rachel and I developed it, but she …
I began to fiddle with the program. I have to admit, Rachel was even better than me when it came to computer programming. She could break into any of my personal files, and she’d often leave me a scripture or some word of encouragement that would pop up on my screen. She could even do this from her hospital bed during those last days; she had her portable laptop (plugged into my computer by modem) with her every minute.
I pulled my mind back.
Anyway, her Artificial Intelligence conversational programs were the best I’d ever seen. It worked like this. A question or statement appears on the screen, and anyone can type in an answer. Then—and this is the tricky part—the computer program recognizes a word or a phrase from the human’s answer, and automatically responds with a prewritten answer, as if it were another human. If the person writing the program knows the person well enough, it would seem as if a normal conversation is taking place between the human and the computer. Of course, the machine side of the conversation had all been preprogrammed.
The first question appeared:
I am fine. How are you?
I reply: “I am just great.” The computer recognizes “great” from my answer and gives its prewritten response:
You are great. That is nice. Why do you feel great?
But I decide to tell the truth and type in “I lied. I’ve been feeling rotten for the last nine months.”
The program replies mechanically:
You are feeling rotten? I am sorry to hear that.
At this point, I began to get carried away. I had the overpowering urge to spill my innermost thoughts to somebody or something—even this stupid computer. So I started typing and I couldn’t stop.
“I am feeling rotten because I miss my twin sister.” I could feel tears running down my cheeks, hitting my hands, then rolling on to the keys. “She never complained. She was always joking with me, telling me how she could read me like a book, telling me how she wanted me to promise her that I’d still go on my mission when I turned 19. And I did promise her, just to make her feel better. Then she used to joke that she’d come back to haunt me if I didn’t leave on my mission. She always had that sly grin, that ridiculous wink, even when the pain was the worst.
“But how can I keep that promise to her? How can I go on a mission and ‘proclaim the gospel’ when I feel so bitter inside?”
My computer clock buzzed. It was midnight, exactly nine months from the day of her death. For that matter, it was nine months from when I was supposed to send my mission papers in.
Suddenly my computer screen went blank, and my hard drive began to buzz oddly. This isn’t supposed to happen. Oh no, I thought. I had been neglecting to do a backup system.
Suddenly I heard the synthesized system sing, “Boy, you’re in big trouble and your hard drive’s gonna be rubble unless you repent on the double!” It was then the terrible message appeared in large red letters over my screen:
DO NOT ATTEMPT A RECOVERY! THIS IS A TIME BOMB! YOUR FILES HAVE JUST BEEN HOPELESSLY SCRAMBLED.
My hands froze over the keys. A time bomb! One of the most awful forms of computer viruses. I tried to remember all I could about this monstrous file-invading practical joke.
A time bomb is an invasion program keyed into a computer’s clock or calendar. It can be put into the system anytime in the past—weeks, even months. It can be set to scramble files, or do anything, when the clock reaches a certain time or date. You can’t get your files unscrambled unless you do exactly what it tells you.
Another message appeared:
And don’t even think about unplugging and using your backup. That’s rigged to scramble also.
It must be a bluff, I thought. I mean, how could anyone get into my backup files? Only if they had all my security codes. But how did someone get into my system in the first place? Nobody could plant a time bomb in my system unless they had all my codes. And there’s only one person who had them, and she’s …
A cold, dull feeling began spreading from the pit of my stomach to my trembling hands, still frozen over the keyboard. And another message began to materialize on my monitor:
Robbie? Don’t be mad. It’s me.—Rachel.
I felt my hands drop to my sides, and I began to breathe funny.
I know you may be a bit surprised, but it’s all perfectly logical, really. I programmed this time bomb to go off nine months after you were supposed to send in your mission papers. I had to do it this way because I knew I’d be gone by then. If you were nicely off on your mission, your computer would have been safely turned off, and the time bomb would have canceled itself out.
But you haven’t left yet, have you, Robbie? I knew if you stayed home, you’d still be fooling around on this stupid machine all day. So because the computer is turned on and you’re not on your mission the time bomb has been activated, and you and I are going to have a little talk.
Okay, listen up. If you do everything I say, this program will unscramble your files. If not, our two-year project goes to byte heaven. Okay? Type your answer here now. And it better be the right answer.
I typed in “OK.” I didn’t have much choice. I was pretty dazed. It was like, well, a voice from the dust.
Her program recognized the correct response, so instead of deleting my files, it responded.
Good boy. I don’t have much time, so let’s get down to business. Remember, back at the hospital you promised me you’d go on your mission? Now, you know I can read you like a book! You kept averting your eyes and looking guilty. So I knew I’d have to arrange a way to do what the Book of Mormonprophets did. I call it my 2 Nephi 33:13 program. [2 Ne. 33:13]
Anyway, Robbie, you didn’t go on your mission like you promised. So now’s your chance to explain yourself. Multiple choice. Pick one.
I, Robbie, didn’t go on my mission because (a) I had some unforeseen difficulties (such as a weird disease or something); (b) I have some sort of worthiness problem; (c) I am bitter about my sister’s death.
This was starting to get ridiculous. How would her program know if I were to make up some sort of fictitious disease and choose “A.” Still, I had only lied to her once and she seemed to have picked up on that with no problem. No sense taking any chances. I might as well come clean and tell the truth. I chose “C” and pressed “Enter.”
Aha! I thought so! You’re still bitter because I had to die?
I started typing in my replies as if I were talking to a real, live person.
“I’m bitter because you had to suffer, and I’m bitter because you died.”
Robbie, remember what we used to do when either of us had a problem we couldn’t figure out? We used to get together and have a mini-scripture chase to find the answers. Well, let’s try that again.
How can I have a scripture chase with someone who’s … who’s dead? I wondered.
Here’s how it works. I’ll give you the scriptures to look up and you type them into the computer. The program will recognize them, and soon you’ll have your precious files unscrambled.
Suddenly the computer started listing scriptures I had to copy. I grabbed a set of scriptures and tried to keep up.
D&C 122:7; D&C 122:9; Rom. 8:28; Abr. 3:25; Mosiah 3:19; Mosiah 23:21.
How long was I typing those scriptures back into the computer? Three hours? Five hours? And then I had to answer questions about each verse. It was like some late-night, unending seminary lesson.
Just when I thought I would collapse and fall asleep, precious files or no precious files, the program declared:
Good job! Break time! Have a ten-minute rest.
I sunk back in my chair. I looked out the window, into the cloudless night. All those stars. I noticed I was beginning to feel different. It seemed like my jaw muscles had been clamped together for months, and I had just remembered how to relax them. Was I just getting my second wind, or were those scriptures getting through to me?
Then I noticed I had been using Rachel’s scriptures, the set she used in the hospital. There was a single piece of notepaper stuffed between the leaves, in shaky handwriting:
“Thank you for comforting me these last months. When the pain gets the worst, and I just want to die and get it over with, the nurses and my parents try to comfort me, to make me braver. But they can’t say, ‘I know what you’re going through’ because, of course, they don’t. But you can, because you’re going through worse than me. You just put on that smile and wink at me. You look so funny when you wink, I just have to laugh and then I feel better. You know, I think no one can really understand anyone that is in pain unless they have suffered the same pain themselves.”
The signature ran off the page, unintelligible.
The sound synthesizer played a few trumpet calls, and I shook myself out of my thoughts. I was once more poised at the keyboard, ready to resume what seemed to be her never-ending scripture chase. But instead, the screen declared:
Now, after studying all those scriptures, you should know everything there is to know about why some people have to suffer and die. Yes or no?
I sighed and checked “No.” I had failed. I still didn’t completely understand.
Aha! Gotcha! Of course you don’t understand all the answers to all the questions mankind has been asking for ages. Nice to see you’re finally being honest about it, though.
But at least I got you studying the scriptures again. Keep studying them prayerfully. The answers are all in there. And even if you don’t completely understand everything, come on, admit it. As you read the scriptures again, didn’t you start to feel a little of the peace we always used to feel after a good scripture read?
Or maybe a lot, I thought.
Yes, Robbie, I had to suffer and die—just like a lot of other people. Like the others in my cancer ward, like the handcart pioneers, like Joseph Smith. I prayed, like you, because I wanted to know what was going on, but I didn’t get an answer. But at least I got a feeling of peace, like Heavenly Father was there with me, telling me it was necessary.
You must be reading this sometime after my death, so I guess by now I know all the answers. I wish I could really come back and explain everything to you, but I suppose it’s not my place to tell you. But I can tell you this. I am surrounded by great and good spirits, spirits that want their families who are still on the earth to hear the gospel. I never had the opportunity to go on a mission in earth life, but here, who knows? But I have done my job on earth and will do my job where I am now.
It’s time for you to do yours.
I looked at my hands, as they now rested on the keyboard. My tears had dried, and I realized the alarm clock was ringing. It was dawn. I let it ring. I had to type very slowly because my hands were still trembling.
“Yes, Solemn Twin Promise.”
The program recognized my response, and the printer activated itself, typing out a letter.
“Dear Bishop. I want to meet with you and talk about my mission. Can we get together this Sunday after church?”
Why don’t you sign this handy note and send it off tomorrow?
“Robbie.” My mother was calling from down the hall. “Your alarm clock’s ringing. Wake up and turn it off!”
I pulled the paper out of the printer, signed it, and addressed it to the bishop.
I knew you’d make me proud of you, Robbie! Now you can have our—your—files back, and it’s time for me to go. But when you return in two years or so, turn the computer back on. You never know what other surprise messages I’ve planted in it.
“I can hardly wait,” I replied.
The screen went blank again, and I could hear the drives at work as the time bomb program told them how to unscramble the AI project files. But just before the monitor returned to normal, the family picture file activated, and I caught a half-second glimpse of a picture of Rachel grinning.
And winking.