Gospel Story Finder

One of the trials of living in this fallen world came to our family when our nine-year old son Tanner came home sick one day with what turned out to be a very difficult childhood cancer, which he fought for three long years.

Tanner was a great kid. He was full of life, like he had always known his would be short, so he had to squeeze everything into it. But we didn’t know that. All we saw was him, always full speed ahead, impatient, fun, funny—1000 miles per hour. We used to say of him that he would probably grow up to either become the prophet or a bank robber. We didn’t know which.

One of the Sunday mornings right before he passed away, he was experiencing a lot of pain. He had tumors in his bones and in his head, and he was taking a lot of pain medicine and still hurt. That morning, his mom came into his room to see if he had been able to sleep. She was amazed to find him fumbling to get his Sunday clothes on. “Tanner, I don’t think you should you be going to church. Why don’t you stay home and rest today?”

He hung his head for a moment, thinking about it. “I think I should go.”

His mom answered, “Nobody is going to expect you to come to church when you need pain medicine just to sit up in bed… when you feel this bad.“

“Yes, but I think it matters when I go. I see how people look at me when I pass the sacrament. I think it helps them.”

So, he dressed, went to church, and for the last time of his earthly life, he passed the sacrament. I saw he was right: people were looking at him. Everyone seemed to be looking at him. I saw that it mattered to them. They saw a little boy in a body, spent of all energy, making heroic exertions to present them with those symbols of the Atonement, carrying the tray from the priest’s table, then steadying himself with one hand on the end of the pew, his little bald head glistening with perspiration at the effort and his sacrifice quietly pointing to the Atonement, to Gethsemene, to Galgotha, places where exhaustion and pain and love and commitment had also inspired sacrifice. And, I noticed he had been right: it helped people. It helped me. It helps us still. Members of our ward still sometimes refer to the time Tanner passed the sacrament.

The gift of smiling. At everyone, not just at the cute boy or girl When employed by LDS Philanthropies I met a lady in Salt Lake City whom we invited to serve on a volunteer board to help us in our efforts to raise money for the campus, for you. She had made up her mind she was just too busy and involved in too many other worthy causes. She drove up from Salt Lake City just to tell me "no", rehearsing what she would say during the entire trip. She parked her car and had just a short walk to my office. But something happened before she made her way to me. You happened. Students just like you smiled and said hello to a stranger, as she described herself, "some little old lady." She felt the spirit of the students, the spirit of the campus, and became a great friend, instrumental in raising significant money to help you in your educations.

The cool grayness of the concrete on which I was standing matched the lonely feelings growing inside of me. It was my first day—in fact my first hour—at THE DORM, and I had contracted a severe case of homesickness.
“Why have I come so far away?” I moaned to myself. “Why did I let my father just drive away and leave me here?”
Here was May Hall, and I was beginning my freshman year at Brigham Young University. I soon discovered that most of the others on my floor felt similar apprehensions (“We can always transfer to the state university at semester time,” we comforted ourselves), yet at semester time none of us transferred. And by the time spring came, despite our excitement to go home and visit our families and hometowns, we left our roommates tearfully. During the course of only eight months, we had made lifelong and eternal kinds of friendships.
When I think back on my freshman year now, I remember Mary and Suzanne and the pizza they had delivered to their first-floor window so that the rest of us wouldn’t know they were breaking their diets. I remember five of us dragging Christmas trees to the dorm from the grocery store four blocks away. I remember the fun of sharing care packages from home, and eating crackers with Linda on the grassy lawn of Helaman Halls. I remember fasting together and kneeling in prayer with all the girls on my floor.
By the time I graduated from college, I had had 18 roommates (not counting the other 35 girls on my floor my freshman year), and more important, 18 girls I considered my lifelong friends. Looking back I realize my roommates and I became close because we shared so many things together. We had to learn a lot about sacrifice, giving, and working things out. There had been some tears, some moments of frustration, some sadness. But through it all, we had discovered the beauty in each other and the joy that comes from loving the people you live with.

Have you ever had a completely life-changing moment—the kind that seems to ruin everything? I have, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
One minute, my siblings and I were sitting on the living room couch, quietly waiting. The next, it felt like my whole world was crashing down.
My dad’s casual explanation of his decision to file for divorce contradicted everything I thought I knew. I thought we were a happy family. I thought daily scripture study and family prayer were supposed to keep us together.
From that point on, a lot changed. My happy childhood memories began to sour. My parents both got remarried. My siblings started choosing sides.
I wondered what had happened to my life.
It felt so unfair—why did someone else’s decision get to ruin my life?
Or did it? For a while, my parents’ divorce felt like the most important day of my life. But a talk by Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles made me rethink this.
He taught, “The most important day in the history of mankind was the day when Jesus Christ, the living Son of God, won the victory over death and sin for all of God’s children.”
Then he added that the most important day in our lives is the day when we commit to follow Jesus Christ—a day he hoped would recur “over and over again throughout our lives.”
So, yes, while my parents’ divorce did change my life, the Atonement of Jesus Christ changed the trajectory of human history. And that’s not all; I’ve learned that because of the events of Easter, Christ can change the trajectory of my life—every day.

A highlight of Boys Nation for me was meeting then president Dwight D. Eisenhower in the Rose Garden of the White House. He was one of the most impressive men I have ever met. His deportment and bearing, his piercing blue eyes, and his commanding manner of address made an indelible impression on me. Senator Wallace F. Bennett of Utah hosted the two of us who were representing Utah. He was gracious and kind and devoted considerable time to us. He introduced us to then senators John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, as well as then vice president Richard M. Nixon, all of whom would be future presidents. The topic of civil rights was significant at that time. It was at Boys Nation that I was first introduced to the religious-based effort led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to achieve equality.

My admiration for President Eisenhower grew when a few months later, on September 23, 1957, he ordered the National Guard to support integration and protect the nine African American students who were attempting to integrate into Little Rock Central High School. The president’s action was in support of the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, requiring integration of public schools.

During this time, Richard became active in the Relief Presbyterian Church. When he was twenty-one, he was ordained an officer in that church. Concerned about the religious instruction of children, Richard organized a Sunday School. However, questions about the Bible and Presbyterian doctrine plagued him. He spent long hours walking, meditating, and praying. The answer to his questions came when two young elders from a newly organized church across the ocean taught him the fulness of the gospel. In December 1842 Richard Ballantyne was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Elder Henry McCune in the Firth of Forth near Leith.

Another successful project has been to take a family home evening to the home of less-active youth on Wednesday evenings. “Some of the parents aren’t members,” says Jackelin. “In fact, many of these youth are the only Church members in their families. But usually their parents let us come in. When the kids see us, they’re surprised. But they can see the interest we have in them. One of us gives the lesson, and we encourage questions and comments. You can really feel the Spirit. Usually the things of the world are what keep them from returning to church. Many of them say they’re happy we’ve come and that they still have testimonies.”
But expressions of friendship must be genuine, Jackelin says. “Sometimes when they see us, youth who are not active try to hide because they think we’re always going to talk to them about the Church. But we try to be aware of their lives and talk to them about other things too. We want them to see we’re interested in them and happy to be their friends.”

I wish to share a personal experience of how the Lord has blessed my wife and me as we have sought his assistance and prepared ourselves for His use. Along with hymns, in times of need, I also draw upon life's experiences to help bolster my testimony. This is one of those fond experiences that I draw upon to help me remember that the Savior has been instrumental in my life and cares about me.

In the summer of 1997, I was about to complete graduate school and was heavily involved in all the details that go along with completing such a monumental life task. At the same time, I was seeking employment in my field for the coming school year and had been seeking employment on the university level for a year previous. It was late in the hiring season for a prospective university professor and my wife and I were concerned about the possibility of having to seek employment that was not career-related. During the peak of this concern, two events transpired that were most memorable to me as I felt the Lord's hand in assisting my life's direction.

The first event was a strong impression received following a phone call. For some time I had considered a certain occupation that had proven successful for several of my friends. On the day that I finally decided to act, I located the contact numbers that had sat dormant in my files for many months. Following my first phone call toward this end, I was most strongly prompted not to pursue this line of work. Although discouraged, I ceased at that moment from pursing that path.

Not knowing how to proceed, and in an uncharacteristic request of despair, my wife and I decided to call our home teachers for a blessing to help me find employment for the coming year. Our home teachers came and offered such a blessing. The following afternoon, the memorable second event transpired. In the most unexpected way, I received a phone call from a university department chair offering me employment for the coming year. Please understand that this was not a person that I knew or an institution that I had even applied for employment as I was unaware of their need for a person with my expertise. Clearly, this was a blessing from above and I cherish the fact that I was being watched over. My faith was bolstered and life was good. I soon learned, however, that this was only a phase of the training that the Lord had in store for me. The years following that phone call turned out to be extremely challenging years and, at times, I questioned whether I had been divinely directed. It was not until I began work here at BYU-Hawaii in the fall of 2000 that I realized why the Lord had prepared my wife and me in such a way.

From these experiences, I gained personal testimony that blessings come after the trial of faith, after all we can do, and in the Lord's time. I also learned that if we are to be instrumental in His work, He needs to become an instrumental part of our work. He was for me in these critical times of my life and my wife and I are forever thankful for that blessing.

There are many ways in which we can misuse our opportunities. Some time ago I read a tender story written by Louise Dickinson Rich which vividly illustrates this truth. She wrote:
“My grandmother had an enemy named Mrs. Wilcox. Grandma and Mrs. Wilcox moved, as brides, into next-door houses on the main street of the tiny town in which they were to live out their lives. I don’t know what started the war between them—and I don’t think that by the time I came along, over thirty years later, they remembered themselves what started it. This was no polite sparring match; this was total war. …
“Nothing in town escaped repercussion. The 300-year-old church, which had lived through the Revolution, the Civil War, and the Spanish War, almost went down when Grandma and Mrs. Wilcox fought the Battle of the Ladies’ Aid. Grandma won that engagement, but it was a hollow victory. Mrs. Wilcox, since she couldn’t be president, resigned [from the Aid] in a huff. What’s the fun of running a thing if you can’t force your enemy to eat crow? Mrs. Wilcox won the Battle of the Public Library, getting her niece, Gertrude, appointed librarian instead of Aunt Phyllis. The day Gertrude took over was the day Grandma stopped reading library books. They became ‘filthy germy things’ overnight. The Battle of the High School was a draw. The principal got a better job and left before Mrs. Wilcox succeeded in having him ousted or Grandma in having him given life tenure of office.
“When as children we visited my grandmother, part of the fun was making faces at Mrs. Wilcox’s grandchildren. One banner day we put a snake into the Wilcox rain barrel. My grandmother made token protests, but we sensed tacit sympathy.
“Don’t think for a minute that this was a one-sided campaign. Mrs. Wilcox had grandchildren, too. Grandma didn’t get off scot free. Never a windy washday went by that the clothesline didn’t mysteriously break, with the clothes falling in the dirt.
“I don’t know how Grandma could have borne her troubles so long if it hadn’t been for the household page of her daily Boston newspaper. This household page was a wonderful institution. Besides the usual cooking hints and cleaning advice, it had a department composed of letters from readers to each other. The idea was that if you had a problem—or even only some steam to blow off—you wrote a letter to the paper, signing some fancy name like Arbutus. That was Grandma’s pen name. Then some of the other ladies who had the same problem wrote back and told you what they had done about it, signing themselves One Who Knows or Xanthippe or whatever. Very often, the problem disposed of, you kept on for years writing to each other through the column of the paper, telling each other about your children and your canning and your new dining-room suite. That’s what happened to Grandma. She and a woman called Sea Gull corresponded for a quarter of a century. Sea Gull was Grandma’s true friend.
“When I was about sixteen, Mrs. Wilcox died. In a small town, no matter how much you have hated your next-door neighbor, it is only common decency to run over and see what practical service you can do the bereaved. Grandma, neat in a percale apron to show that she meant what she said about being put to work, crossed the lawn to the Wilcox house, where the Wilcox daughters set her to cleaning the already-immaculate front parlor for the funeral. And there on the parlor table in the place of honor was a huge scrapbook; and in the scrapbook, pasted neatly in parallel columns were Grandma’s letters to Sea Gull over the years and Sea Gull’s letters to her. Though neither woman had known it, Grandma’s worst enemy had been her best friend. That was the only time I remember seeing my grandmother cry. I didn’t know then exactly what she was crying about, but I do now. She was crying for all the wasted years which could never be salvaged.”

A little over a year ago, my wife and I traveled to Jiangxi, China to adopt a three-year-old, little girl. Our other two daughters were also brought into our family by the Lord through the miracle of adoption, but this was our first experience with an international adoption. This was not our plan. In fact, we were completely caught off-guard when the Lord let us know, in very clear terms, that He had prepared us and guided us into this adoption and that He meant Meizi to be our daughter. The last year has been amazing and miraculous for us to be able to witness the miracle of a little heart that had never known a family, or the light of the gospel, or the comfort of prayer, being warmed and brightened by the Spirit and the sweet love of a “forever mommy.” There is a light in her eyes now that wasn’t there a year ago. The light of family love and God’s love has pushed back the darkness and entropy of the world. In April of last year, we were able to take her to the temple to be sealed to her as part of our eternal family. This journey through endless applications, fees, certifications, paperwork, and interviews; and then on to a cold communist orphanage on a dark, rainy December day; and finally into the warmth and light of the Lord’s temple has been one of the most challenging experiences of our lives but certainly one of the most rewarding to be able to be a part of this miracle of light pushing back darkness. Because of the goodness and mercy of God – and I have to acknowledge my angel wife’s faith, determination, and prayers – there is one less orphan in the world, and our family is that much brighter and more complete.

A year after my sister’s death, my friend’s mother died. I felt incredible sorrow. I thought, “The next time I see her, I’ll tell her how sorry I am.” Then, remembering my own experience, I knew that my friend needed me right then. Walking to her house, I felt apprehensive. What if she didn’t want to see me? Maybe her family didn’t want me there. Should I wait and talk to her later? But when she answered the door, I could tell she was glad I came. Her father and older siblings were busy planning the funeral. We went for a walk. I didn’t have to worry about what to say. She did most of the talking.

Mara loved making people smile. She made her schoolteacher smile when she raised her hand to ask questions. She made her sister, Marcella, smile when she said nice things to her.
Then Mara would smile too. It felt good to help other people be happy.
But there was one time each week when Mara hardly ever smiled. That time was early Sunday morning. That’s when Mara and Marcella were always the most tired. Rushing around to get ready for church made them extra grumpy. Then there was the long walk to church. It was more than a mile away! Mara and Marcella often got there late. They would miss the first part of Primary.
“We miss you when you’re not here on time,” Sister Lima said one day. She was the Primary president of their ward in Brazil.
Mara knew she should get to church on time. But how? Then Mara got an idea. The next Saturday night, Mara decided to try something new.
Instead of sneaking bedtime snacks after dinner, Mara brushed her teeth. Most days Mama had to remind the girls to turn off the TV and go to bed. Even then they would play and whisper under their covers until late at night. Sometimes they stayed up so long they could hardly keep their eyes open. They had to wiggle to keep from falling asleep.
Tonight Mara put on pajamas and hopped right into bed. Mama didn’t even have to remind her. She started looking at the pictures in the front of her Book of Mormon.
“What are you doing?” Marcella asked.
“A test,” Mara said. Her mind was full of happy thoughts. Plus she was already feeling sleepy.
The next thing Mara knew, the sun was peeking through her window. It was almost time to get ready for church. Instead of feeling yucky, Mara felt great. Her head didn’t feel fuzzy. Her body didn’t feel tired.
She got to Primary even before some of the leaders.
“Thank you for being such a good example to the other children,” Sister Lima said.
Now it was Mara’s turn to smile. She decided she would always go to bed early on Saturday. That way she would be able to spread smiles all Sunday long.

Let me share with you an experience that illustrates this assurance.

Brother Edwin Q. Cannon Jr., we call him Ted, was a missionary to Germany in 1938. He loved the people and served faithfully. At the conclusion of his mission, he returned home to Salt Lake City. He married and commenced his own business.

Forty years passed by. One day Brother Cannon came to my office and said he had been pruning his missionary photographs. (That’s a good word. You go through all of them, throw two away, and keep all rest.) Among those photographs he had kept since his mission were several which he could not specifically identify. Every time he had planned to discard them, he had been impressed to keep them, although he was at a loss as to why. They were photographs taken by Brother Cannon during his mission when he served in Stettin, Germany, and were of a family—a mother, a father, a small girl, and a small boy. He knew their surname was Berndt but could remember nothing more about them. He indicated that he understood there was a Berndt who was a Church leader in Germany, and he thought, although the possibility was remote, that this Berndt might have some connection with the Berndts who had lived in Stettin and who were depicted in the photographs. Before disposing of the photos, he thought he would check with me.

I told Brother Cannon I was leaving shortly for Berlin, where I anticipated that I would see Dieter Berndt, the Church leader, and that I would show the photographs to him to see if there was any relationship and if he wanted them. There was a possibility I would also see Brother Berndt’s sister, who was married to Dietmar Matern, a stake president in Hamburg.

The Lord didn’t even let me get to Berlin before His purposes were accomplished. I was in Zurich, Switzerland, boarding the flight to Berlin, when who should also board the plane but Dieter Berndt. He sat next to me, and I told him I had some old photos of people named Berndt from Stettin. I handed them to him and asked if he could identify those shown in the photographs. As he looked at them carefully, he began to weep. He said, “Our family lived in Stettin during the war. My father was killed when an Allied bomb struck the plant where he worked. Not long afterward, the Russians invaded Poland and the area of Stettin. My mother took my sister and me and fled from the approaching enemy. Everything had to be left behind, including any photographs we had. Brother Monson, I am the little boy pictured in these photographs, and my sister is the little girl. The man and woman are our dear parents. Until today, I had no photographs of our childhood in Stettin or of my father.”

Wiping away my own tears, I told Brother Berndt the photographs were his. He placed them carefully and lovingly in his briefcase.

At the next general conference, when Dieter Berndt visited Salt Lake City, he paid a visit to Brother and Sister Edwin Cannon Jr. so that he might express in person his gratitude for the inspiration that came to Brother Cannon to retain these precious photographs and for the fact that he followed that inspiration in keeping them for 40 years.

When the initial quarantine began in March of 2020, I had just met with my stake president to finalize my return to finish the remaining year of my mission to Kansas. This was after a multiple month absence due to a couple of shoulder surgeries.

When I returned to my mission, I reluctantly adapted to virtual finding, teaching, and serving. However, my mission president would always remind us that “we would never go back to the way things were before.”

So, I ultimately decided to humble myself and accept these changes. As I began this process, I quickly began to see the truth in Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf’s words when he said, “That the recent pandemic may have been a ‘divine reset’ that could help us recalibrate our efforts to reach more people.”[3]

Even as I prepared to return home from my mission, we still had strict COVID-19 guidelines to follow. I was excited to return home and not have to worry about them anymore. But I quickly realized that BYU–Idaho’s policies were no less strict.

I had followed the mission guidelines religiously because I trusted the direction of my mission president and the leaders of the Church. However, I found myself irritated with these same guidelines after I arrived here, and I spent a lot of time thinking about them. After a while, I came to the following conclusion.

Wearing a mask and following the other guidelines was no worse than a minor inconvenience. Even if I didn’t think it would do any good, others did. If wearing a mask and social distancing was all it took to help others feel more comfortable coming to campus, then that was the least I could do. I also reasoned that I had committed to BYU–Idaho, and the Lord, that I would keep all the standards set by this institution, the same way I had when I committed to serving a mission.

Part of being human is not understanding why everything happens the way it does. Oftentimes our role is to simply trust that God has a plan and that He is lovingly invested in our lives. It is not our job to know everything right now. Our only responsibility is to do the best we can to follow the Savior and learn from what we experience.

Vitaly Yakushev, 18, says that, thanks to the youth conference, he has a deeper understanding of why early pioneers went through so much to gather to Utah. Local Church leaders gave him permission to take the train from his home in Kaliningrad, located in a small slice of Russia on the Baltic Sea, across Lithuania and Latvia, then back into Russia and on to St. Petersburg and Vyborg. The distance isn’t that far, but since the train stops in nearly every town, it took 21 hours.
That might seem like a lot to go through for a youth conference, Vitaly explains. “But I believe Jesus Christ lives and that he restored his Church through Joseph Smith. To be with so many others who believe the same things brings me happiness and joy. My soul wanted to be here.”

“Step on red, and you love Tami Cobb,” Travis whispered as we lined up and filed down the hall behind our teacher, headed for the cafeteria. Twenty-five pairs of shoes, including my own sandals, zigged, zagged, and leaped to miss the red-tiled squares.
Mrs. Simon stopped and faced us. “Where’s my nice straight line?” she asked, not smiling.
We straightened up. All but Tami, who turned away and hung her head. All I could see was her red hair. No doubt she had that ugly, mean look on her freckled face—the mean look she always had. I tucked my own red hair behind my ears, glad it wasn’t as bright as Tami’s—and my freckles not quite as dark. Mrs. Simon turned back around, and we continued to the cafeteria. Shoes still skipped over red tiles, but more quietly this time.
“You’re Tami Cobb’s twin sister,” Zachary said to me as we ate lunch.
Tami looked up at me as she nibbled on the corner of her sandwich. Her dark eyes looked afraid—and hopeful.
“I am not!” I protested.
Tami looked back down at her crumpled brown lunch bag. I felt bad, but it wasn’t my fault. Maybe if she stuck up for herself instead of making ugly faces all the time, people wouldn’t pick on her so much!
At recess as a group of us played together, Tami stood alone by the fence, watching. I didn’t dare ask her to join us, or Zachary would call me “Tami Cobb’s sister” again, for sure.
That night the missionaries came to dinner. It was nice outside, so Dad cooked hamburgers and hot dogs on the grill.
“Becca, I think you know one of the investigators we’re baptizing this Saturday,” Elder Ryan said, bouncing my little brothers on his knees while we waited. “She says she’s in your class at school.”
“Who?” I asked, surprised and excited. Maybe it was Brittany. She was pretty, and everyone liked her. Or maybe Heidi. Yes, I hoped it was Heidi. We always got the giggles together during music class when Mrs. Bradley’s voice quavered on the high notes. Or maybe Alix or Kira or Emily. “Who is it?” I begged, bouncing on the edge of my chair.
“Tami Cobb. We’re baptizing her whole family.”
“That’s great!” Mom said. “Isn’t that great, Becca? You’ve always wanted to have a friend at school who’s a member of the Church.”
“Yeah, great,” I mumbled. I knew I should be happy, but I wasn’t.
The next day at school, I caught Tami watching me. Every time I glanced in her direction, she was looking at me. I wanted to say something to her, but I didn’t dare. Anyone who talked to her was teased all day long.
That night the phone rang. My dad answered, then covered the receiver with his hand. “Becca, it’s the missionaries. They want to know if you’ll sing a Primary song at Tami Cobb’s baptism on Saturday. Tami requested you.”
I didn’t know what to say. Tami knew I liked to sing, because I always volunteered to lead the class in a song each morning. And just last week I sang a solo in music class for extra credit. Tami had me trapped. There was no good reason why I shouldn’t sing at her baptism—except one.
I looked at Mom. She was smiling and nodding her head. “I’ll play the piano for you,” she volunteered.
I was doubly trapped. “Oh, all right,” I agreed reluctantly. At least no one else from school would be there to see.
At the baptism on Saturday, Elder Ryan spoke about the baptismal covenant as explained in the Book of Mormon. “When you are baptized, you promise Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ that you will bear one another’s burdens,” he explained, “and stand as a witness of God at all times, even until death.”
I remembered my dad reading similar words from Mosiah 18:8–9 at my own baptism the year before, but they didn’t bother me then.
“We are all children of Heavenly Father,” Elder Ryan continued. “That’s why we call each other ‘brother’ and ‘sister.’ When we are baptized, we also take upon us the name of Jesus Christ, which makes us brothers and sisters in the gospel, as well.”
As I sang my song, I sneaked a peek at Tami. She smiled at me. It made me all warm inside, just looking at her.
I knew what I had to do.
At school Monday morning, Mrs. Simon picked us up from the gym as usual, and we began our single-file trek to our classroom to start the day. Travis whispered his usual line about Tami, and everyone began hopping over the red tiles. Except me. “Stop it, you guys,” I said. “It isn’t funny.”
Mrs. Simon stopped and faced us. She raised her eyebrows at me and waited.
“Becca is Tami’s sister,” I heard Zachary whisper, followed by several snickers.
My face grew warm. Tami looked back at me, her eyes afraid—and hopeful.
“Would you like to repeat what you said so the whole class can hear you, Zachary?” Mrs. Simon asked.
Zachary shook his head.
My heart thumped as I raised my hand. I was going to keep my baptismal covenant and help bear Tami’s burden, no matter what. After all, red hair wasn’t the only thing we had in common. We were sisters.
“Yes, Becca?” Mrs. Simon said.
I swallowed hard. “Zachary said that I’m Tami Cobb’s sister.” I smiled at Tami. “And it’s true.”

Sandra: As a child, the experience with prayer that impressed me most was kneeling together with my father and older sisters and brothers, pleading for the life of “little Linda,” one of our four-month-old twins.
Overnight she had become ill—burning up with fever. Mother was at the hospital with the twins; Dad had come home after an all-night vigil and wearily gathered us together for prayer.
We were all alarmed and a little insecure to see him so contrite in the very depths of humility.
I remember how he begged and pleaded with the Lord for the life of that little baby, the tears streaming down his face. I also remember feeling that the heavens were opened—those pleadings were heard and received.
When little Linda died, I knew the Lord had said no. I didn’t understand why, but I knew somehow it would be all right.

I started college at the University of Texas in Austin and began to contemplate serving a full-time mission. This became another test of how well I could couple a sincere heart with real intent. I was definitely curious to know the Lord’s will about my missionary service. But as I had learned while investigating the Church, curiosity alone is not sufficient. I was convinced that the answer to my question about serving a mission would be revealed in my patriarchal blessing, so I traveled to San Antonio, where the patriarch pronounced my blessing. There was, however, no mention of a mission. Driving home, I reasoned that maybe the Lord didn’t want me to serve. But then I felt impressed to pull off the road. I walked over to a grove of trees and knelt down. As soon as I commenced my prayer, the words that came into my mind were very clear: “I didn’t have to tell you to go. You already know you’re supposed to go.”
I’d been a member only about a year and 10 months when I went into the mission field in Guatemala and El Salvador. It was there that I learned what it meant to consecrate my life to do what the Lord wanted me to do. My mission was my preparation for the rest of my life. Had I not gone on a mission and learned what I did there, I might never have had the opportunities that I have today. Today I am living in Guatemala again, where I serve in the Central America Area Presidency. I love being back among the people who meant so much to me in the development of my own testimony.

You know, every member is a missionary. I think President David O. McKay first emphasized that duty. I was up in Montana some time ago visiting a stake conference. After the morning session, I was wandering around outside. I saw this young boy standing there all dressed up in his Sunday clothes. I went over to him and said, “Son, you’re a fine-looking boy. What’s your name?”
He said, “Joseph Smith Curdy.”
I said, “Joseph Smith Curdy! That’s a fine name. You’re going to be a great missionary.”
He said, “I’m already a great missionary. Down the street a couple of blocks from where we live there’s a family with a couple of boys about my age, and over a period of three or four months, I have been bringing them to church with me. A month or so ago, I said to them, ‘How would you like to have the missionaries give you the discussions?’
“They said, ‘Oh, we’d have to talk to our parents.’
“So we talked to the parents, and the parents said, ‘Well, if you will let us listen in, why we’ll be glad to have the missionaries teach them.’”
There wasn’t any problem with that, so the missionaries gave the family the discussions. Joseph Smith Curdy told me, “That whole family is going to be baptized next Saturday. I’m already a great missionary.”
I couldn’t help but agree with him.

Lorenzo Snow was a great early missionary. He had been a member of the Church for less than a year when he set out on his first mission in 1837. He tells about his first experiences preaching the gospel in the following words:
“I … traveled about thirty miles [48 kilometers], and just as the sun was setting I made my first call for a night’s lodging, as a ‘Mormon’ Elder, and was refused; then another, and so on, until the eighth call, when I was admitted to a night’s lodging—going to bed supperless, and leaving in the morning, minus a breakfast.
“The first meeting I held was in the neighborhood of my uncle, by the name of Goddard, near the county seat of Medina County, Ohio. The people were notified and a respectable congregation assembled. It was a sore trial to face that audience in the capacity of a preacher, but I believed and felt an assurance that a Spirit of inspiration would prompt and give me utterance. … [It did, for] I baptized and confirmed into the Church my uncle, aunt and several of my cousins” (quoted in Eliza R. Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow [1884], 16).