Gospel Story Finder

Would you think I was a bad boss if I told you that I want my employees to fail?

One of the areas that I was over when I was at BYU Broadcasting was fundraising and we had some pretty aggressive revenue goals. Ok, we had some very aggressive goals. I had told my employees that there was no way we would be able to hit our numbers if we kept doing the same things we had always done in the past. We needed to test and try new things. And not all of those ideas were going to work.

People were a little hesitant at first. Was I really telling them it was ok if they tried something and it didn’t work? So I did the only thing I could do. I included it as part of their yearly performance review. And in writing, I gave my employees permission to fail.

You can see it right here in black and white. Now, this wasn’t giving them a license to go crazy. They knew that we needed to be smart about how their “tests” were handled. For example, most of the new ideas that they tested would be done in the first half of the year. That way they would still have the rest of the year to make up any lost revenue for ideas that didn’t go as well as they had planned.

Fifth: "I was sick, and ye visited me." I'm sure we have all been sick at some point in our lives. And when you're feeling under the weather, who doesn't appreciate a reassuring visit from family or friends? I think of loneliness in this same category of need.

When I was in graduate school in Illinois, I was home teacher to a dear elderly sister in our ward, Zada Purrington. She lived alone in an assisted living center but made great efforts to come to church. We lived far from our own families and grandparents, so Zada became a kind of adopted grandparent for our young children. We loved to visit and spend time with her, even though she could barely hear us.

I know she was lonely and was often sick, but she was always happy to see us. I'm sure (I hope!) she appreciated our visits with three young girls in tow, and I know we certainly were greatly blessed by our association with her. This kind of service brings blessings in abundance to all involved.

An experience my mother and father had many years ago illustrates the importance and power of eyes to see and ears to hear. In 1982 my parents were called to serve in the Philippines Davao Mission. When my mother opened the letter and saw where they were called, she exclaimed to my father, “No! You’ve got to call them and tell them we can’t go to the Philippines. They know you have asthma.” My father had suffered with asthma for many years, and my mother was very worried about him.
A few nights later my mother woke up my dad at about 2:30 a.m. She said, “Merlin, did you hear that voice?”
“No, I didn’t hear any voice.”
“Well, I have heard the same voice three times tonight, saying, ‘Why are you worried? Don’t you know that I know he has asthma? I will take care of him, and I will take care of you. Get yourself ready to serve in the Philippines.’”
My mother and father served in the Philippines and had a marvelous experience. The Holy Ghost was their companion, and they were blessed and protected. My father never had any problems with his asthma. He served as the first counselor in the mission presidency, and he and my mother trained hundreds of missionaries and thousands of faithful Latter-day Saints in preparation for the coming of wards and stakes on the island of Mindanao. They were blessed with eyes to see and ears to hear.

December 13th was the day I was to become a Christmas “secret pal.”
Every year the seminary students at Mingus Union High School in Cottonwood, Arizona pick people in need of love to become a part of their lives. Each night for 12 days before Christmas, the students share a gift, a treat, or a thought with someone. I picked my quiet, friendly neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Boyle to be the object of my secret attentions.
The first night I went to their back door to knock and run, leaving a little gift. I had to run to the door about four times before they heard me knocking. Each time, I ran quickly out the gate to hide behind their little blue car and wait to see if they would find my gift.
The next day I realized that their mean dog, who I thought at one time was going to take off half of my face, suddenly began to like me. He even licked me one night, and to think I had been afraid of him!
One night I knocked on the back door, and the Boyles answered lightning fast. They found the small present I’d left and came out with flashlights looking for me. I ran again to the back of their car. They both flashed the bright lights into my eyes and I didn’t dare breathe. I felt like I was part of the bumper. I almost stood up thinking I was caught, when suddenly they turned around and went back inside. I was so excited I hadn’t been caught.
One night I was walking home, and I overheard them say that they were going to be waiting for their secret admirer. So I put that night’s goodie in the mailbox. I called them on the phone and sang, “I wish you a Merry Christmas, I wish you a Merry Christmas, I wish you would go look in your mailbox, Merry Christmas, I truly love you.”
Three days before Christmas, I sneaked into the yard after dark as usual and glanced in the window. I saw Mr. Boyle sitting near Mrs. Boyle’s chair. I said to myself, “Now is the time to do it.” I was on my way to the back door when suddenly a hand grabbed me, and Mr. Boyle yelled, “Gotcha!” I was caught. Mr. Boyle took me inside to talk to his wife. When Mrs. Boyle saw who I was, she got tears in her eyes and they thanked me. When I was in their house I noticed that they didn’t have a tree or any kind of Christmas decorations up.
Even though I had been found out, I decided I wasn’t through yet. On Christmas I bought them a small decorated Christmas tree. This time I didn’t try to hide. When I took it over, they invited me in, and Mrs. Boyle, with tears streaming down her cheeks, told me about their son.
The Boyle’s son fought in Viet Nam. Mrs. Boyle promised him that she would never celebrate another Christmas without him. He was killed in the fighting. My efforts to bring a little Christmas into their lives was the first time since their son left to fight that they had felt the love of Christ and the Christmas spirit. Together, all hugging each other, we cried.

“I’ll always remember that when I was in high school, Dad and I were President and Sister Kimball’s home teachers. Every time we visited them President Kimball invited me to say the prayer. One day I asked him why he always asked me to say the prayer. Sister Kimball smiled and said, ‘Don’t worry, son, he asks me too.’ Then with a twinkle in his eyes, President Kimball said, ‘I thought you both could use the practice.’

I reflected on this experience some months ago when in Sunday School the class discussed the ministry of President Spencer W. Kimball. I can remember as a student your age hearing President Kimball ask, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” in reference to being prepared for the gospel to be preached to the Communist bloc countries. This was at the height of the cold war. I marveled at his faith. I doubted I would see the day this would happen. Last year, in joyful irony, I welcomed back my daughter Emily from a mission to Russia.

Most people wouldn’t have thought 1853 was the best year for the Saints to break ground for an extensive building project. After all, people were still arriving in the Salt Lake Valley, and most of them didn’t bring much with them. One anonymous brother described his situation like this: “I walked the morning the ground was broken for the foundation of the Temple. … I went through frozen mud and slush with my feet tied up in rags. I had on a pair of pants made out of my wife’s skirt—a thin Scotch plaid; also a thin calico shirt and a straw hat. These were all the clothes I had. It was go that way or stay at home. … I was not alone in poverty. … There were many who were fixed as badly as I was.”

But the Lord’s house needed to be built. Later that day, John D. McAllister described the following event:
“The ground being frozen, President Heber C. Kimball commenced breaking the ground with a pick. … President Young took out the first turf. … While taking it out [a] silver dollar was flung from someone in the congregation which struck in the hole. Brother Kimball said that was an omen that we should have plenty of money to build the Temple.”

In May of 1984 I was finishing the last full day of my mission to the wonderful people of Uruguay. My shoes were worn, my feet were calloused, and my 100-percent polyester suits had taken on an almost mirror-like shine. Some of you might remember those—we called them our “steel-wool” suits. People had to shield their eyes when missionaries stepped out into the sunlight! I have to say that for my two sons who are offering the prayers today, the suits they took on their missions are much nicer than the missionary suits of thirty years ago. Well, back to the story. My bags were packed and I was in the mission home preparing to catch my flight home the next day.

As I waited for my final interview with my mission president, I was reflecting back on my experiences—the highs, the lows, the joys, and the sorrows. I had worked hard! I had given it my all. But at that moment I was focused on my shortcomings—the things that I wished I had done better. In the middle of my reflecting, President Waldo P. Call invited me into his office. He immediately asked me how I felt about my mission.

I told him that I had worked hard, that I had given it everything I had, but that I wished I could go back—go back in time. I would be so much more effective if I could just do it all over again.

His answer did not comfort me much at the time. He said, “No, you wouldn’t.” And then he went on to explain: “If you could turn back the clock, you would do things the very same way. You wouldn’t have had the experiences that you’ve learned so much from—you would have to start all over again.” And then he finished with a rhetorical question: “That’s the point of it all, isn’t it?”

I pondered that counsel, but at the time I did not fully understand that it held one of the keys to a fulfilling and joyful life.

I had worked diligently; I had put my whole heart into my mission. But, at least for a time, I let the fact that I was not as capable at the beginning or the middle as I had become toward the end diminish my appreciation for the life-changing lessons I had learned and undermine the joy I could and should have experienced on completing an imperfect but honorable full-time mission.

In the succeeding years since that time—perhaps especially in the past few as I have served as bishop of my home ward in Springville—I have learned a different and, I think, clearer view of the nature and purpose of life. I have developed a deeper understanding of how our Father in Heaven sees you and me, our weaknesses and our shortcomings, and even the mistakes we make along the way. This perspective has made my life so much more joyful and so much more fulfilling! I hope my thoughts may be helpful to some of you.

Subject: Lisa
Age: 17 years
Event: Second conversation with Kara
“You’ve finished your painting,” Lisa said, admiring the portrait of the girl. “It’s beautiful.”
“You were right about one thing,” Kara agonized. “She is sad and lonely.”
“Why?”
“She’s found out that she’s been used,” Kara said.
“What’s wrong, Kara?”
“I’m pregnant.”
“Larry?”
“Yes.”
“Is he going to marry you?”
“Oh no, not him. He doesn’t want to be tied down,” she said bitterly. “He told me he feels responsible, and so he’ll pay for an abortion.”
“Kara, you won’t do that, will you?” Elizabeth pleaded.
“I don’t know what to do,” Kara said slowly. “Could we go somewhere and talk?”
They walked to a park near the high school and sat in the swings and talked.
“Lisa, do you remember when we were in grade school? We were such good friends, weren’t we? We were just like sisters. How have we gotten so far apart?”
“I still love you as if you were my sister,” Lisa said.
“I know, but now I’m so different from you. How have I come to the place I am now? I’ve thought about it lately.”
“What did you decide?” Lisa asked.
“The only thing that has separated us is that I’ve always done what others told me everyone else was doing, but you never did any of those things. Why didn’t you?”
“I’m a Mormon,” Lisa said simply, “and we have a prophet of God who gives us warning. I guess I’ve just listened to him.”
“I wish I could be like you, but now I feel so old. I’ll never be young again, and I’ve got a decision to make. What should I do?”
“Don’t let them kill your baby.”
“It’s not a baby yet, is it? It’s just a growth. How can you be so sure that it wouldn’t be better to just do it the way Larry wants? He calls it getting it fixed.”
“Our prophet’s warned us against abortion,” Lisa said. “Will you talk to my bishop? Maybe he can help you decide what to do.”
“Okay, I’ll talk with him.”
They talked about high school over dessert.
“I never did feel very comfortable around girls,” Dan confided.
“And I was busy with my classes and other activities,” Elizabeth recalled, “but socially it was like I was watching my friends make bad choices. Eventually their choices caught up with them.”
“Did your friends in high school learn from their bad choices?” Dan asked Elizabeth.
“I’m afraid not.”
Subject: Elizabeth
Age: 20 years
Event: Meeting Kara at the airport
Elizabeth had taken the flight from Minneapolis to Salt Lake City on her return to college. She had walked slowly past the car rental agency three times, carefully studying the features of the attractive girl at the counter. Finally she approached the girl.
“Excuse me, are you Kara?”
“Lisa?” the girl cried. “Is that you?”
They threw their arms around each other, both chattering excitedly.
“What are you doing here?” Elizabeth asked.
“I was transferred from our L.A. office six months ago. Look, I’ve got a break coming. Let’s go get something to eat so we can talk.”
They sat at a small table and talked, filling each other in on their lives since they had last been together.
“I lost track of you after you left town,” Elizabeth said. “My bishop said you never talked with him.”
“Oh, I changed my mind and just had the problem fixed,” Kara said lightly.
“Oh,” Elizabeth said, trying not to betray her disappointment.
“I guess you’re shocked, but it’s quite common these days.”
“But why did you suddenly leave town after that?” Elizabeth asked.
“I had to get away,” Kara said, pursing her lips nervously, “and so I ran away.”
“But where did you live? What did you do?”
Kara shook her head slowly. “You don’t want to hear about that.” She took a final drag on her cigarette and exhaled slowly. “But look, I’m all squared away now. I’m into group therapy, and it’s really helped me get rid of all my guilt feelings about everything. What a relief not to feel guilty about anything! But I guess you know about that, because you’ve never done anything to feel guilty about.”
A few minutes later, Elizabeth asked, “What happened to Larry Hill?”
“Last I heard he was working as a DJ in a disco in California.”
“I guess that makes him one of the real men, doesn’t it?” Elizabeth said. “He always needed that assurance.”
“I’ve heard he’s still running around just like he did in high school,” Kara added. “I guess I am, too, for that matter. I’m just not ready to settle down.”

Recently, I found myself in a situation where I struggled to overcome this.
Not too long after I was called as an Area Seventy in the Africa West Area, I was assigned to a district conference in Soubre, a town about six hours’ drive from Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast.
As I journeyed from Calabar through Lagos to Abidjan, I peacefully pondered what I had prepared and what the Savior would have me say and do. However, when I arrived at the Abidjan airport, where interactions and exchanges are in French, I started experiencing feelings of linguistic inadequacy. I have limited ability in French, which made it difficult to communicate and ask for assistance at the airport. My poor pronunciation resulted in the taxi driver taking me to the wrong hotel, and only with the help of a passerby were we able to arrive at the right one.
Eventually, safely in my hotel, where I was able to reach mission support, I reminded myself how Nephi and the brother of Jared were blessed because they worked by faith and never murmured against God, even when details of their assignments were unknown to them.
In my state of helplessness, including challenges communicating and ordering food, I reminded myself of the words in Alma 37:36 encouraging us to, “Cry unto God for all [our] support”. I followed this pattern and prayed for strength and direction, waited patiently, and trusted in God’s timing.
A temporary relief came as the mission president provided an interpreter for the Saturday session, which was a great blessing. As I returned to my room later that evening, I continued asking the Lord for wisdom to see me through His first assignment for me (alone) in a French speaking country. The desire of my heart was to accomplish His purpose. The Sunday session was similar, and I never ceased calling upon the Lord. As I journeyed home after the meetings and several visits to the homes of members, I earnestly pled with the Lord to know how I was going to overcome this language barrier problem.
Upon arriving home, I shared my frustrating language ordeals with my wife, and she gently reminded me to stop murmuring, and encouraged me to trust in divine help. Her sincere admonition reminded me of Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s explanation that “murmurers have short memories. . . . [and] the longest list of demands”.
I already had two on my list and was not willing to have it increased.
I was home the next morning when a call came from a student who introduced himself as the class representative of the modern languages and translation studies at the University of Calabar where I teach.
His call was to inform me that I had just been assigned to teach English composition to the first-year students of that department who were majoring in French! I was in a state of bewilderment. Certainly, this was not the handiwork of man and if it was not, then it was God setting up support structures for me, not to only succeed, but for me to acknowledge Him. As I entered the class on my first day, the students welcomed me saying, “Bonjour professeur, tu es la bienvenue dans notre classe.”
“Bonjour” I replied.
This class is like a miniature French-speaking community in a country with English as its second and official language.
Today I am making some progress. It is slow, but I am grateful for this because I am compelled to always interact in French with them both in and out of class. But this was not all. As I shared my experience with a fellow servant of the Lord, he was also kind enough to suggest how to project my trainings in French and English to ease the training process, save time, and reduce interference.
I am glad to witness the Savior’s support as I no longer rely only on my strength.
He miraculously made the French class available to me when I least expected it. He has further supported me with a smart training method from a fellow servant as I humbly asked for help. But above all, He has strengthened me with the Spirit to trust in Him and in His timing. I know He can provide support for and help me accomplish what He wants me to, both now and in the future, so I will never allow myself to be worried over things.
Little wonder, this year’s schedule shows me returning to this same French speaking country five times. I am strong! I know like Nephi, no matter the nature of my calling, if I trust in Him and His timing, I need not fear nor doubt. “For I know that the Lord giveth no commandments [or assignments] unto the children of men, save He shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which He commandeth them” (1 Nephi 3:7).

Her mother, Castorina, was baptized the following month, along with Eulogia’s daughter, Liduvina. Another daughter, Lina, wanted to be baptized, but her new husband opposed it.
“I believe my parents’ love and patience helped us live our lives sharing the gospel,” Lina says. Even though she was not able to be baptized at first, she served in the Church as faithfully as anyone could who was not a member. Eventually, in 1986, when her husband’s opposition had softened because of the example of his wife and children, Lina joyfully entered the waters of baptism.

In December 1837 Joseph Smith cut off from the Church approximately 40 dissenters in a “high and mighty pruning.”5 This action brought persecution, hatred, and threats of bodily harm and death to Brigham, who had vigorously testified against the malcontents and defended the Prophet. His life in peril, Brigham fled Kirtland on 22 December. Shortly thereafter, Joseph and other faithful members left Kirtland as well.

During that winter, Mary Ann and her five children had to fend for themselves while apostates terrorized them, ransacking their home in the pretended belief that Brigham was hiding there. The tormentors “used ‘threats and vile language’ that undid [Mary Ann’s] emotions until her health became frail. This was, she later told her biographer, ‘undoubtedly the severest trial of my life.’”6

In February 1838, Mary Ann, now suffering from tuberculosis, gathered her children and what few possessions the mob had not taken and undertook the long, difficult journey from Kirtland, Ohio, to Richmond, Missouri, to rejoin her husband. “He was so … shocked at the change in her appearance that his first exclamation was, ‘You look as if you were almost in your grave.’”7

Brigham could now devote himself to nursing Mary Ann to good health. The Lord also knew of her desperate need for relief and care. On 17 April 1838, Joseph Smith received a revelation temporarily relieving Brigham from his heavy Church responsibilities, thus allowing him to care primarily for his family and ailing wife.8

Jennie was climbing in a tree when her mother called, “Jennie, it’s time to go to the grocery store now.”
Jennie jumped down from the tree. She waved good-bye to her friends. Then she got into the car with her mother.
When Jennie and her mother arrived at the grocery store, they smelled bread baking. It smelled wonderful,
Jennie saw a lady making orange juice.
“Would you like a sample of orange juice?” the lady asked.
Jennie nodded. She drank the orange juice. It tasted great.
Another lady was cutting pineapple.
“Would you two like to try a piece?” she asked.
“Thank you,” said Jennie. “This is really good.”
Jennie’s mother picked up a big pineapple and gave it to Jennie. “Please put this in our shopping cart.”
When they were through shopping, Jennie helped push the cart to the front of the store.
A friendly man put their groceries into a sack.
“Where did you get those big blue eyes?” he asked Jennie.
Jennie smiled. “From Heavenly Father,” she said.
“And how do you know that?” asked the man.
Jennie smiled again and looked at the man with her big blue eyes. “I learned about Heavenly Father in church.” she said. “Heavenly Father gave me my eyes so I can see you and all these good things to eat.

As we grow, everything we learn can be used by the Lord to bless someone, somewhere.
As a Scout I learned Morse code. Years later, while I was on my mission, an investigator came into sacrament meeting, and I felt inspired to write him a short note in Morse code which said something like, “Welcome to sacrament meeting. Happy to see you here!”
It turned out he was a radio operator, and it was a great delight to him to have somebody write him a note in Morse code. Imagine how happy I was when this investigator, with a big smile, said, “I’m so glad that you wrote me this message in Morse code!” I was amazed that something I had learned years earlier could help me on my mission to reach a certain individual in a particular way.
As we are open to new things and to learning in our lives, the Lord knows what we have learned and can use us to bless others. Morse code is a specific example, but if we are willing, the Lord can use us as instruments to bless the lives of others and bring joy to their lives and our own.

The next morning, Sunday dawns warm and sunny, with a sky full of puffy white clouds. Buenos Aires is a beautiful city of broad, tree-lined boulevards—think of it as Paris with palm trees. Later in the morning, sidewalks and parks will fill with people out for a stroll. For now, some of the busiest places are the LDS chapels, like the one in the suburb of Belgrano. Here you meet young people like Federico Casco. His dad was going to the United States on business, and Federico had the chance to go along and visit Disneyland. Instead, he stayed home so he could have four years of perfect attendance at seminary. Now he’s graduated, and he says, “It was a light in my life. It helped me obtain a stronger testimony and helped me decide to go on a mission.”

Going on missions is not easy for Argentine youth. The economy is just starting to improve after years of high unemployment and super-high inflation. There are very few jobs available for young people under 18, so saving money is tough. On the bright side, without part-time jobs, friends have more time for each other and for Church service.

Mauro Berta is first counselor in his ward Sunday School and an assistant to the bishop in the priests quorum. Florencia Gomez is Young Women’s secretary and teaches the Stars in Primary. And Guillermo Pitbladdo is Sunday School president. Sunday night finds them at the Pacheco chapel with other friends from their stake.

These are not just recent converts, clinging to seminary to learn about their new faith. Many of them come from second- and third-generation Latter-day Saint families. They have been taught the gospel in their homes. But Diego Griffith says, “Everything I had not learned during the fourteen years that I have been a member of the Church I learned in four years of seminary. That’s where I started to become more familiar with the scriptures and where I learned about the promises of the Lord.”

Besides, as Debora Walker points out, when you are a teen, there seem to be lots more temptations around, and without seminary “it would be much more difficult to resist those temptations.”

Maybe Juan José Zopetti sums it up best: “Seminary helps me primarily to increase my testimony of Jesus Christ—his love and his mission.”

That restored knowledge of Jesus Christ—his mission and commandments—that’s the gospel. That’s what Elder Ballard sent rolling forth across a whole continent nearly 70 years ago. And here at the center, where it began, LDS youth are making sure the wave is still building.

Let me tell of another person I met in Guatemala. He is John O’Donnal, the president of the Guatemala City Temple. He stood before a congregation and with a voice choked with emotion told his story.
As a young man he was graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in agricultural science. He was employed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and was sent to Guatemala to work on a project to develop the growth of natural rubber trees to meet a critical need during World War II.
As I remember his words, he said: “I was twenty-four years of age and unmarried when I came to Guatemala forty-three years ago. I had been raised with a love for the Savior and His teachings. During my work here, I walked day after day through these mountains and jungles among the native peoples of this land. I came to know them and to love them, and as I saw the poverty and darkness in which they lived, I wept for them. They were the purest people I had ever known, but they were without the light of the gospel. I cried to the Lord concerning them. I knew that their one sure hope lay in obtaining a knowledge of and a love for Jesus Christ, and in receiving the record of their forebears, which testifies of Him.
“In time I fell in love with a beautiful girl who had English and German blood and also the blood of Lehi, Laman, and Samuel. We were married and spent our honeymoon in a little house in the mountains among the native people. I told her that some day these people must hear the gospel and that they would rise in strength and beauty.
“In 1946 and again in 1947 I traveled to Salt Lake City, Utah, and pleaded with the President of the Church to send missionaries. Finally, in December 1947, the mission president and his counselors brought four elders to our house. The next day we drove onto a mountain where together we had the sacrament, and the mission president dedicated the land for the preaching of the restored gospel.
“My wife was the first native of Guatemala baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Today she stands at my side as the matron of this beautiful temple.”
He continued: “In 1956 I was in a serious accident and was taken to the hospital for major surgery. I almost lost my life, and in those circumstances I had a remarkable experience. The Lord showed me that a temple would be built in this land.
“Also, I was informed by a power beyond the power of man that I would not die but that my life would not be my own.”
His life has not been his own. As a scientist and administrator, he established and operated a large rubber plantation and built and operated a tire factory for one of the great rubber companies in the United States. But he did still yet a far more significant thing. In the spirit of the Master, he went about doing good. He worked sharing the gospel among the native peoples of Guatemala. For more than forty years he has lived with them, has spoken their language, has sorrowed with them in their sorrows, has taught them the everlasting gospel, and has been a quiet, unassuming, but magnificent pioneer in the development of the work of the Lord in that land.
When he walked the jungle trails alone, he was the only member of the Church in all that land. Today there are more than forty-four thousand of them. He nurtured the first little branch. Today there are eight stakes of Zion in Guatemala and many more in the surrounding nations of Central America. Once, a few members met in his home. Now beautiful chapels of the Church are seen throughout the land. On a hill above Guatemala City is a magnificent temple, atop whose tallest steeple is the figure of Moroni.

Sainimere Balenacagi of Fiji learned this lesson as a teenager when she was attending a wedding with some friends who were not members of the Church. Many people there, including Sainimere’s friends, were drinking and smoking and invited her to drink. “I was taught my whole life to live the gospel standards, so I rejected the offer without hesitation,” Sainimere says.

She knows that the blessings of adhering to the Word of Wisdom go beyond physical health: “I have found extra protection in the sense that I am able to make better choices because of the closeness of the Holy Spirit. I see clearly that standards do not restrict our freedom; they protect us from consequences that lead to restricted freedom.”

Kendall A., age 10, Costa Rica
Last year when I began elementary school, I worried very much that Mama would forget to pick me up after school. I even cried when I arrived at school. But just before class began, I said a prayer and asked Heavenly Father to help me not to cry and to help Mama remember to pick me up.
After I prayed I felt much better and didn’t want to cry anymore. When it was time to go, I saw Mama waiting for me at the front gate. I was so happy that Heavenly Father listened to me and answered my prayer.

I would like to use my own family as an illustration of what I have in mind. Mother and I were filling a mission together over in Holland when we had a little girl born to us, and after we had been home a few years she passed away. When she was born, my wife has told me over and over again that she felt she saw an angel bring that spirit to her. And yet she is gone. Then I think of her four sisters. You voted here today to sustain one of them as a counselor in the general presidency of the Relief Society. Her other three sisters are just as noble and wonderful, although their talents may be just a little different.

When I think of this little one that we laid away when she was three-and-a-half years old, I thank God I have the faith to believe that God reigns in the heavens above and in the earth beneath and that this little one will ultimately enter into her glory and be equal to any of her four sisters who have tarried here upon this earth and raised their families. I thank God for the statement of the apostle Paul when he said that “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.” (1 Cor. 15:19.) In this brief period of mortality, it would not be possible for God to accomplish for all of his children all that he has in mind for them, the ones that are true and faithful.

A few years ago, quite miraculously, I attended a stake conference in western Washington. I had secretly prayed I could be assigned there, but one of the Twelve was assigned. Then the member of the Twelve’s assignment was changed a few days before the conference, and my assignment was changed from another stake to this particular one. When I arrived and had an interview with the stake president, I knew we needed to do something to carry out the mandate on missionary work given by the Prophet. We all worked diligently together throughout the two-day conference, making some suggestions to improve the involvement of the members in the work.

In the concluding session, I did something I had never done before in a conference. I blessed the people that if they would follow the suggestions given, believing without doubting, a special blessing from the Lord would come upon them as a stake, and many would join the Church. Incidentally, the stake president and I felt the members should immediately make a list from their close circle of friends, as President Spencer W. Kimball had counseled. You remember, he said that the Lord has placed some of those people in our circle because we are supposed to bring them into the Church. The thirty-four-year-old stake president, who had been in the Church eight years, led out; and because of his childlike faith in God and his servants, he commenced immediately. By the middle of the next week he telephoned to report that he and his wife and small children had prepared a list of two hundred names of people they felt would be receptive to the gospel. One week later he wrote me the following letter.

We are hearing stories daily of missionary experiences. I’ve made approximately two contacts and have my next-door neighbors playing on the ward basketball team, and we’ve had them over for family home evening. Also, I believe we have another lady acquaintance ready to hear the missionaries. Our children have been taking friends to Primary, and Julie is working on a widow to get her to Relief Society.

Oh, I almost forgot, we held a special meeting for the brethren and their spouses and the Relief Society presidencies and their spouses to discuss and motivate them about missionary work. We challenged them to come to the meeting as you did me, with names of nonmember families they are going to work with, and more than one thousand names were brought to that meeting. The blessing that fell upon our stake has yielded the spirit and the faith and the action that we all can feel.

He continues in his letter:

One of the elders quorum presidents went home from the meeting pondering how to approach a neighbor he didn’t even know. The next day, the president was working in his yard when the neighbor came over and asked, “Brian, when is your family going to start sharing the gospel with us, start fellowshipping us?” This, of course, surprised the quorum president very much, but after a long talk with the neighbor he discovered that this man had been raised in southern Idaho around LDS people and had great respect for them. We are convinced that the blessing which was pronounced upon our stake prompted this man to come forward and express his desires. The Lord really has blessed us because we believed.