Gospel Story Finder

Four years ago, during my preparation to serve a full-time mission, I went to Asi Ukpo hospital located in the city of Calabar, Nigeria for my medicals. After paying for my medical test, it was time for my X-ray. I was directed to the laboratory and there I met with the doctor. He looked at me and asked the following questions:
“Your name?”
I replied “Bassey Thomas, sir”.
He asked, “Are you a Latter-day Saint?”
I said “Yes, I am.”
He smiled and asked, “Have you been to the temple before?”
I said “Yes, I have”.
He then asked, “Have you been baptized for the dead before?”
I again replied, “Yes, I have”.
Next, he asked, “Are you going on a mission?”
I said “yes, that’s why I am here, for my medicals.”
He smiled again and asked me to wait. He then invited his colleague to join, and they began trying to prove my faith wrong and my decision as well. I was quiet while they spoke. They opened scriptures and started teaching me. They challenged me to go look for a Bible-believing church and join. They also promised to cancel my medical test and refund my payment so that I can go and look for something meaningful to do.
After their challenge I began testifying to them:
That God and His Son, Jesus Christ live.
That The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true.
That the temple and temple ordinances such as baptism for the dead are ordained of Him.
My decision to serve as a full-time missionary is to help others to know this truth.
They told me that they didn’t have any option other than to obey my choice. He then proceeded to carry out the test.
After some months, I was called to serve and labor in the Ghana Cape Coast Mission. There I was able to learn, teach, grow and develop a strong testimony of my Heavenly Father, my Saviour and His restored gospel. The experience I had in that hospital has strengthened my testimony, whenever I think back on it. Indeed God “will not suffer [us] to be tempted above that [we] are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that [we] may be able to bear it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Haig looked across the hot street. He reached back and closed the door behind him as he dashed barefoot over the blistering cobblestones to the shade of his father’s shop. Father was inside making the candies for which he was known all over Cairo.
“Ah, Haig, you have braved the hot stones to come to see your father,” Krikor said, handing his son a broken piece of candy.
“Thank you,” Haig said, and went into the back of the tiny shop to get the tray his father would need to take the finished candies to sell at the marketplace.
Krikor glanced fondly at his son who had brought the tray, and said, “So, in two days you will begin school. And to think, you will ride on a bus, and it stops only a mile from the school. When I was a boy in my home country I walked to the next village each day to have my lessons from the village priest.”
“But, Father, how am I to walk to the bus with no sandals? The ground is so hot that it is cracked and broken.”
Father looked up from his work, his hands pausing for a moment. “Well, now, I don’t know, Haig. Sandals cost twenty piasters, much more than we can spare right now.” Then more hopefully Krikor added, “But perhaps I shall get such a good price for my candy today that there will be enough extra to buy your sandals.”
Haig looked around the crowded shop at the boiling candy and at the bottles that held flavorings to mix with water for sweet drinks. His father had often explained with pride that in Armenian the family name meant “candymaker.” I wish, Haig thought now, that our family had been sandal makers instead.
That afternoon as Haig’s mother prepared supper, he heard children singing outside. He knew there were few Christians living in Egypt, but from the children’s song Haig could tell they were, like his family, Christians. “Listen, Mother,” he called, “the orphans.”
His mother opened the door and smiled at the ragged children. When they finished their song she handed their leader a small coin. As they passed on to the next house, Haig noticed their feet.
“Look, Mother, even the orphans have sandals.”
“Yes, I see, Haig. They are fortunate for that. But sandals for you are another matter. Your father has saved five piasters to buy some for you, yet it is not enough.” She looked into his eyes and smiled. “When we have done all we can and still need help, what must we do?”
“I know, Mother, and I have prayed.”
“Why then, we pray again. Tonight when you go to bed, ask our Father in heaven to help you get sandals so you can wear them to school.”
After Haig said his prayers that night, he overheard his parents talking in low tones.
“Today I hoped to sell my candy at a good price so I could buy Haig a pair of sandals, but business was no better, worse even, it seemed,” his father said with a sigh. “I had to lower my price in order to sell the candy at all. I may have to take two of the piasters I had saved to buy sugar for tomorrow’s candy. Maybe next week I’ll be able to buy the sandals.”
Next week! Haig agonized. Why, I’ll never, never be able to go to school. I shall never learn to read and write.
Haig dreamed of a room full of sandals that night—all shapes and sizes. As more and more sandals tumbled into his room, he called out, “But I only need one pair!” And suddenly he was awake and it was morning. Hopefully he looked across the room. No sandals. Quickly he climbed off of his bed and searched the room. Still no sandals.
He dressed and went into the other room, sad-faced. There he found his mother talking with a woman. Haig did not remember ever seeing her before, but he heard her say, “Yesterday evening I said to my husband, ‘I feel impressed that I must go to visit Arminé and Krikor; I have not seen them for a long time.’ So I caught the night train from Alexandria and here I am only four hours later.”
His mother saw Haig standing in the doorway. “Son,” she said. “Come meet a special friend of our family. This lady and her husband stayed in our home when you were born. They were refugees from Armenia during the terrible war. It was she who gave you your name.”
The lady smiled at him. “You are indeed a fine boy.”
She turned to Haig’s mother. “My husband and I have wanted to give Haig a gift for a long time. I would have brought one with me but I wasn’t sure what he might like. If you can suggest something, I’ll buy it for him today.”
His mother looked at her son and smiled. “I think Haig would like a pair of sandals very much,” she suggested.
“That is good,” the lady said. “Today we will buy a pair of sandals.”
Haig was excited. “May we go now?” he asked.
“Oh, no,” his mother answered, laughingly. “First, breakfast. Then the shoes. And tomorrow—school!”

I traveled the wonderful state of Idaho for eight years for the university. I went to every town and hamlet, and it was not uncommon for me to be away for two weeks. Then I’d go home and, as a stake officer, change clothes and be gone again. Once when this happened, one of my little girls came to the door, waved, and said, “Come again, Daddy.”
I used to miss my family, and one particular Sunday I found myself in Pocatello, Idaho. I got thinking about my family, so far away, and I thought, “Well, I’ll just run down to Whitney and see if I can attend sacrament service.” I arrived just as the meeting was about to start. The bishop invited me to sit with him on the stand.
The meeting started, and the counselor who was conducting called on me to say a few words. I had been sitting there thinking, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if I could be home every Sunday and go to church with my family? Just think what a joy it would be.” Well, as he introduced me, he said, “Brothers and sisters, wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a job like Brother Benson? He’s always on a trip.” I thought, “Yes, how true to life. Distant pastures usually look greener.”
I hope we can be happy where we are, be grateful for our blessings—now, here—accept the challenge that is ours and make the most of it, and not be envious of others.

I’ve made innumerable errors in my sewing projects. Those mistakes caused me to get angry and frustrated and consider giving up sewing altogether! My sewing-instructor friend taught me a great lesson one day as I was furiously ripping out a seam for the umpteenth time; she told me that ripping out a seam is like learning as we repent.
I pondered on that statement time and time again, and I realized that she was right. Every time I ripped out a seam, I learned what I had done wrong and how I could prevent it the next time. Sometimes I had to rip out the same seam numerous times, but each time found me a little better at it than the time before. And if I used that same pattern for another project, I generally avoided my earlier mistakes because I had learned from my previous experiences!
I also discovered that no mistake is irreparable, no matter how bad it may seem at the time! That lesson has brought me so much hope when it comes to learning from my mistakes of a spiritual nature. Thanks to our Savior, Jesus Christ, and His Atonement, our mistakes are repairable. We will have to work through our repentance, and it may take time, but as Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has promised: “You have not traveled beyond the reach of divine love. It is not possible for you to sink lower than the infinite light of Christ’s Atonement shines.”5

Boy:Over a hundred and eight years ago, some parents in Farmington, Utah, were worried about their children.

Girl:They wondered how they could help the children understand the gospel so that they would live happier lives.

Bishop:I am Bishop Hess. Many children in the ward were allowed to be out late at night, and some were rowdy. I called a meeting of the mothers in the ward. We talked about the importance of guiding the minds of young children.

Aurelia:I am Aurelia Rogers. “I had reflected seriously upon the necessity of more strict discipline for our little boys. … What will our girls do for good husbands, if this state of things continues? … I had children of my own, and was just as anxious as a mother could be to have them brought up properly. But what was to be done? It needed the united effort of the parents.”

Boy:One day Eliza R. Snow, the General President of the Relief Society, had been to a conference in Farmington. The train back to Salt Lake was not due for some time, so Sister Snow decided to visit her friend Aurelia.

Eliza:I am Eliza R. Snow. Although I had no children of my own, I had a great interest in them. I was a poet and a teacher and had written songs and stories for little children. I was pleased with Sister Rogers’s idea when she asked:

Aurelia:“Could there not be an organization for little boys wherein they could be taught everything good, and how to behave?”

Eliza:I agreed to discuss the matter with the First Presidency, who later gave approval. A letter was written to Bishop Hess, asking for his permission to organize the children in his ward.

Bishop:After I received the letter from Sister Snow, I talked with Sister Rogers and asked if she would be willing to preside over an organization of the children. She said:

Aurelia:“I felt willing, but very incompetent. From that time my mind was busy thinking how it was to be managed. … As singing was necessary, it needed the voices of little girls as well as boys to make it sound as well as it should.”

Eliza:I agreed with Aurelia. “‘We must have the girls as well as the boys—they must be trained together.’” I suggested that the organization be called “Primary.”

Bishop:On August 11, 1878, I set apart Sister Rogers and her two counselors, Louisa Haight and Helen Miller. I suggested that they visit every home in the ward during the next two weeks, which they did. They took the names and ages of two hundred twenty-four children and invited them to the first meeting.

Girl:The first Primary meeting was held on Sunday, August 25, 1878, in the rock chapel in Farmington.

Aurelia:“Imagine our feelings as we stood before an audience of children who had come there to receive instructions from us. We were very weak indeed, but felt to lean upon the Lord.”

Boy:The meeting began with prayer; then the children were given instructions and taught to sing.

Girl:The children were asked to “see how much they could do for [their fathers and mothers] without grumbling.”

Boy:Children were also asked to not quarrel with brothers and sisters.

Girl:Little boys were instructed to not go into orchards and melon patches that weren’t their own, and little girls were told to not hang on to wagons, a practice not only wrong but dangerous.

Boy:Other Primaries were organized throughout the territory before the first Primary was even one month old. Sister Snow continued to speak to mothers about the spiritual training of their children. She felt that women with the very best talents—women who loved children and were appealing to them—should preside over the Primary.

Because I live in Shanghai, China, I had the opportunity to go with a school group to Sichuan Province in southwestern China to help build houses for victims of the earthquake that devastated the area a few years ago. We worked hard laying bricks, shoveling mortar, pushing wheelbarrows full of bricks, and handing bricks down “assembly lines” of people. By the second day my back ached, and my gloves were filled with holes. However, the trip was an unforgettable experience for me and strengthened my testimony of my own and each person’s individual worth, one of the Young Women values.
As I worked hard each day, I noticed that my belief in my own worth grew. I felt good about myself because I was doing things to improve the living situation of those less fortunate than I am.
We also had the opportunity to visit a school in the area. When we arrived, a crowd of cute little children came running toward us. When I saw all these wonderful little children, I recognized their individual worth also. They are all beautiful children of God, and I felt strongly that He loves and knows each of them.
Near the end of my trip we had the chance to go to a resort, where we were going to eat lunch. When we got there, however, we found that it had been destroyed in the earthquake. It was the worst destruction I have ever seen. It made me want to cry. The ceilings and walls of the buildings were caved in, the trees nearby had fallen, and there was rubble everywhere. A huge boulder had rolled down the mountain and crashed into the side of one building, causing the ceiling and the wall to cave in. There was a single shoe lying on one of the doorsteps.
As I thought about this and the fact that people had been killed in this disaster, I struggled to understand how Heavenly Father would let this happen. Didn’t He love them? Then I thought back to what we had discussed in Young Women class and realized that yes, He did love them. He knew and loved them each individually. Those who died that day were all children of God. Initially, it made me even sadder thinking about that. But then I realized that these people were in the spirit world and they could return to Heavenly Father again. This thought comforted me and gave me a feeling of peace.
I know that I am a child of God, with great individual worth. We are all children of our Heavenly Father, who knows us personally. He loves us with a love that is deeper and stronger than any of us could ever imagine. This understanding was planted deeply in my heart as I worked with and served among the people who had suffered so terribly in the Sichuan earthquake.

After he became president, Abraham Lincoln was asked about his childhood. “What happy memories do you have of your early years?” asked one newspaper reporter.
President Lincoln sat back in his chair. “We had little money in our home,” he answered, “but there was much joy and love. My kind and loving sister Sarah and I shared many wonderful adventures. Her years upon this earth were few. Yet my happiest memories are of the little time we had together. She was truly a loving sister and a very special friend.”

As one of 15 prophets, seers, and revelators sustained yesterday by our worldwide Church, I want to share with you one of my experiences sustaining the prophet and embracing his words. It was for me much like the prophet Jacob, who recounted, “I had heard the voice of the Lord speaking unto me in very word.”

Last October my wife, Melanie, and I were in Bangkok, Thailand, as I was preparing to dedicate what would be the Church’s 185th temple. For me, the assignment was both surreal and humbling. This was the first temple on the Southeast Asia peninsula. It was masterfully designed—a six-story, nine-spired structure, “fitly framed” to be a house of the Lord. For months I had contemplated the dedication. What had settled in my soul and mind was that the country and the temple had been cradled in the arms of prophets and apostles. President Thomas S. Monson had announced the temple and President Nelson the dedication.

I had prepared the dedicatory prayer months earlier. Those sacred words had been translated into 12 languages. We were ready. Or so I thought.

The night before the dedication, I was awakened from my sleep with an unsettled, urgent feeling about the dedicatory prayer. I tried to set aside the prompting, thinking the prayer was in place. But the Spirit would not leave me alone. I sensed certain words were missing, and by divine design they came to me in revelation, and I inserted these words in the prayer near the end: “May we think celestial, letting Thy Spirit prevail in our lives, and strive to be peacemakers always.” The Lord was reminding me to heed the words of our living prophet: “Think celestial,” “let the Spirit prevail,” “strive to be peacemakers.” Words of the prophet matter to the Lord and to us.

A few months after his mission, Elder J. Kimo Esplin was in a car accident that killed his father. Just a few months later, with his mother sitting beside him, his car was struck from behind. The car rolled, and his mother and niece were killed.
Despite the tragedies and grief he has experienced, Elder Esplin considers himself blessed. He attributes that feeling to the Lord and His goodness and tender mercies.
“Life’s been good,” he said.
One of his favorite sayings is “The Lord isn’t doing it to you; He’s doing it for you.”

During my last year of high school, I decided I had to strengthen my testimony before I left for college. I studied all I could about the Savior’s life and His atoning sacrifice. As I did so, the reality of His love struck me so powerfully that it brought me to tears. I realized that I am indeed a beloved daughter of God. As the magnitude of this sank deep into my very being, I realized that dressing modestly is not just to prevent the boys from thinking bad thoughts. It is a way to show our appreciation for one of the most wonderful gifts God has given us: a body.
May I suggest that Church members be taught to be modest because they love and respect themselves and the Lord and they want to honor His gift. I never had a strong testimony of modesty until I learned to love Heavenly Father and the Savior more deeply.
Brenda Petty, Idaho, USA

A month ago I visited a group of young women. I asked the older girls what advice they would give a new Beehive to help her to remain faithful and virtuous in every setting that she may encounter. One young woman said, “When you walk down the halls of your school, you might, out of the corner of your eye, see something that catches your attention, something that doesn’t seem right. You may be curious and want to look. My advice to you is this: Don’t look. I promise you’ll regret it if you do. Believe me; just look straight ahead.”
As I listened to this young woman, I knew I was hearing the Lord’s advice to Joshua, “turn not from it to the right hand or to the left” (Joshua 1:7), applied to an everyday setting in these latter days. … Avoid the temptations that surround you by strictly following the commandments. Look straight ahead at your eternal goal.

Let me tell you of an important event that we have had in the Church in the last few months. Not too far from Church headquarters, in Idaho, there was a great tragedy. A great earthwork dam collapsed. There were 17 miles of water backed up in the canyon behind the dam. All of that was loosed on the valley below. It was a beautiful, quiet, sunny Saturday morning. Just below in the valley were two or three little communities—7,800 people in all. A few miles farther down the valley were another 25,000 to 30,000 people, almost all of them Latter-day Saints. All were going about their work, getting ready for Sunday.
The first place the water hit was the Wilford Ward area. It was washed away, all of it: all of the houses, all of the barns, all of the fences. The ward chapel was completely destroyed. The ward was gone, just like that.
Then the water hit Sugar City. The same thing happened. Sugar City was gone. The stake center stood and a few of the houses, but they were terribly damaged. The water broke into the wall of the stake center and picked up all of the benches and just tore the inside of the building out. Then it broke out the other wall and went on its way.
In all, 790 homes were destroyed. Many of them vanished without a trace. Some places you could see a cement foundation. Another 800 homes and many businesses and churches and schools were badly damaged.
Now you are wondering about the people, about the 25,000 Latter-day Saints, all in the face of this flood that Saturday morning. Very few died by drowning. Only six. That is a miracle. An expert said that 5,300 should have perished.
But only six died by drowning. How could that be? They couldn’t just run upstairs and get on the roof and be safe, because the houses were washed away. They couldn’t just run up on the hill—most of them had several miles to go before they reached safety. Then how were they saved? There was a warning. It was only a short one. Some of them only had a few minutes. But there was a warning. And Latter-day Saints pay attention to warnings. If we are living righteously, we are easily warned. And so, the word went out just before noon that the dam was beginning to crumble. Those who heard obeyed the scripture. Let me read another verse or two from the Doctrine and Covenants.
“Behold, I sent you out to testify and warn the people, and it becometh every man who hath been warned to warn his neighbor.” (D&C 88:81.)
And that is what happened in Idaho. Some of them heard, and they began to warn their neighbors. Now how did they do that? Call them on the telephone? “It’s a beautiful day today, a nice day for a ride. Do you think you would like to go over to Rexburg some time this afternoon and visit the college? It’s up on the hill. Oh, you are too busy. Well, you think about it, and I’ll call later this afternoon.” No! no! That isn’t the way it was! If they got them on the phone they didn’t speak, they screamed: “The dam is breaking! Get your children! Get to high ground!” They ran from neighbor to neighbor. And they knocked on the door, and if no one would open, they kicked the door down or smashed in the window to warn them.
Only six drowned. What about them? One was a fisherman just below the dam. He had no warning. Two people heard the warning but didn’t believe it. They were found in their car, but they had moved too late. Three others heard the warning but went back to get some of their possessions. Latter-day Saints pay attention to warnings.
There are pages of miracles that took place individually. One young man was in town when he heard the warning. He knew that his parents were not at home out on the farm, but his little sister was there, and she was sick in bed. When it was all over, she had been saved.
One father was at the college in Rexburg doing some work that Saturday morning; someone knocked on his door and said, “Turn on your radio; I’ve heard that the dam is breaking.” He thought of his wife and the boys out irrigating on the farm. And he had the car. There was no time for him to go. When it was all over with, his wife and his children were there with him, warned and rescued by the neighbors. Now there is a great message in this.

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.

Elder John Sonnenberg’s parents joined the Church in Germany just prior to his birth. His father had been a Lutheran, his mother a Catholic. The missionaries knocked on the door of their home in Schneidemühl and said, “We’re missionaries from America. We have the gospel of Jesus Christ, and we would like to teach it to you.” His father invited them in, and the missionaries taught them the gospel. Elder Sonnenberg’s father joined the Church first.
His mother, a brilliant lady with a photographic memory, “was a little resistant to their message. She wanted to prove the Book of Mormon. Upon reading the challenge given in the tenth chapter of Moroni, verses four and five, she recognized that the Book of Mormon could only have been written under the instrumentality of Jesus Christ. She came to know for herself that it was of the Lord.”
Elder Sonnenberg’s father emigrated to America in 1927, going ahead of the family to earn enough money to bring them over. A year later Elder Sonnenberg and the rest of his family sailed to America on the Columbus. “It was a scary trip for my mother,” he recalled. “She had three little children to care for, and she spoke no English.
“On arriving in America, we moved to a suburb of Chicago. Because we couldn’t speak English, we were frequently ridiculed. Mother often escorted us to school for our protection. My brother and I, in turn, were very protective of our little sister.
“We attended the Logan Square Branch in the Northern States Mission and usually had to walk the five miles to get to church, but we enjoyed it. Sometimes we had enough money, three pennies or so, to ride the streetcar. A number of the members were of German extraction, and we were greeted with open arms. Two of my choice teachers were President Marion G. Romney’s sisters, Merlyn and Jasmine. Joseph Janse and Carl Waldvogel also spent much time with us. We lived very humbly, and they looked after our needs. I have a well-worn copy of the Book of Mormon that was presented to me when it was new by my Primary teacher for good attendance in 1929, my first year in America.
“When we left Germany, the country was in the midst of skyrocketing inflation; a million marks wouldn’t even buy a loaf of bread. Upon arriving in America, we found it in the throes of the Depression. My father’s professional skills as a tool and die maker were in short demand, and he couldn’t find work. My mother, however, was able to find housework. Because she was an extremely good cook, she also was able to get a job with a German salad-making company. She worked hard just to put food on the table for us. Then Dad got a job as a maintenance man, and I helped him during much of my growing-up years. We would go early in the morning to about fourteen or fifteen different buildings and shovel coal into the furnaces.
“Because we had to work hard, we developed strength. My brother and I participated in basketball, baseball, football, tennis, table tennis, and swimming and became quite good. Our classmates began to accept us more readily. Our family still enjoys sports together.
“My father was the oldest of eleven children, and he was the only one who accepted the gospel. Some of our children who have gone on missions to Germany have testified to my relatives, but none of them have yet accepted the gospel.
“I was born in a land that is now behind the Iron Curtain. Probably one of my choicest experiences was to be at the dedication ceremony of the Freiberg Temple. The temple is very near the place where I was born. It was a soul-stirring experience to see my own people waving white handkerchiefs to President Gordon B. Hinckley and Elder Thomas S. Monson as the bus pulled away at the conclusion of the dedication.
“My suggestion to children is this: Live each day so that the Holy Ghost will be your constant companion. Serving the Savior will bring abundant blessings to you, and family ties will be made stronger and homes will be more heavenly. Sustain your leaders and follow their counsel.”

Scott has always been a very generous boy. His heart is very tender and easily touched by someone else’s need or misfortune.
The first week of school after Christmas, the home of a kindergarten classmate named Richard* burned down. He lost everything—his clothes, his toys, his brand-new Christmas presents—everything! Scott’s teacher asked the class if they would like to help Richard by sharing some of their own things with him. I gave Scott permission to give Richard anything of his that he wanted to.
Scott went to his room and gathered up everything he had received for Christmas—toys, pajamas, a coat, clothes. All were gifts that our family had carefully picked out for him. We explained that since Richard was smaller than he was, Scott’s new clothes wouldn’t fit. So, instead, Scott parted with some of his nice, but older clothes that were getting too small. We also encouraged him to limit how many toys to give to Richard since others in his class would be giving Richard things also. Scott went to bed well pleased that Richard would be OK.

If you routinely traveled through Weber Canyon in northern Utah between the hours of 8:00 A.M. and 10:00 A.M., you probably saw him. He rode an old rickety bicycle with a box of aluminum cans on each side of the back tires. At age sixty-five, he had ridden this same bike from his home in Tennessee to Utah. Then, for reasons known only to him, he had made a canyon cave his home.*
Everyone in Morgan County knew of him. They had either seen him riding his bike through the canyon or had noticed the bike parked at a local convenience store early in the morning. He had become a part of the community. People would visit him from time to time in his cave, but he told them very little about himself. He was a sad sort of man.
Many people were afraid of him, including four-year-old Amy Creager. She had seen the man on many occasions and wondered about him. One day, about six weeks before Christmas, as she, her baby sister, Sydney, and her mother left the convenience store, Amy saw him. As they waited to turn onto the road, she said, “Mama, tell me about that man. Where does he live? And why does he have all those cans on his bike?”
Amy’s mother told her that the man lived in a cave in the canyon and that each morning he went around to dumpsters in the town to sort out the cans, load them onto his bike, and take them through the canyon into Ogden to turn them in for money.
As her mother told her what she knew about the man, a worried look came over Amy’s face. Her mother told her of the different names people used to refer to him, such as “the can man” and “the hermit.” But from that day forward, Amy and her mother began to call him simply “the man on the bike.”
With her voice trembling, Amy said, “It’s too cold to sleep outside. Why does he want to live in a cave?”
Trying to explain it simply, her mother said, “He probably doesn’t have enough money to live anywhere else.”
Amy and her family had just built a home the year before, so the solution seemed simple: “Why can’t Daddy build him a new home?”
“Well, we don’t have enough money, and Daddy doesn’t really know how.”
“The men who built our home can do it!”
“Well, it’s not that simple, Amy.” Mother tried to explain why that could not happen.
With tears welling up in her eyes, Amy sat silent for a few seconds, then said, “He can come and live with us! I am afraid of him, but he can have my room! I just won’t look at him.”
Tears came into her mother’s eyes as well. She could tell that Amy was determined to help the man somehow.
They finally reached Grandmother’s house, where Amy and Sydney would stay while their mother went to help their father at his shop. Reaching the shop, Amy’s mother told her husband about the events of the morning. The story touched him.
“We need to figure out a way for her to help him,” Amy’s father said. He thought for a while. “Since we can’t build him a home, let’s get him a new bike! I know a guy who owns a bike shop. I’ll call him, and he can tell us which would be the best bicycle for the man’s needs.”
Amy’s parents were both so excited about the idea that they stopped working and made the call. Her father told the bicycle shop owner the story. They decided that the man needed a sturdy mountain bike. After working out a few other details, they felt that Amy needed to decide the rest.
When Amy’s mother went to pick up her and her sister, she told Amy about their idea.
Amy’s face lit up. “Let’s get him a horn so that he can honk back at the cars! And let’s make sure the bike has two big baskets on the back for his cans! And, Mama, it has to be purple! Purple is everyone’s favorite color!”
As the days went by and Christmas drew nearer, Amy’s excitement about the bike grew. She could hardly wait to go and pick it out. She did many chores around the house to earn money to help pay for it. Whenever she saw the man riding his old bike in the canyon, she’d say, “He is going to love his Christmas present! How many more days, Mom?”
One night her mother went to Relief Society Homemaking meeting. Each sister was invited to tell of her most memorable Christmas. When it was time for Amy’s mother to tell of hers, tears filled her eyes. She said that she thought this Christmas was going to be one of her most memorable. She told them of Amy’s love for a stranger of whom she was afraid. She told the sisters of their plans to purchase the bike, and they were touched. After the meeting, many of the sisters asked Amy’s mother if they could be part of this Christmas memory. One sister wanted to make the man a quilt and a pillow. Another thought it would be nice for him to have some new, warm shirts. And the offers for contributions kept coming.
The next morning, Amy’s mother had a phone call from a sister in the ward who worked at a local business. The company employed many in the community. She had mentioned Amy’s desire to help the “can man” to some of the employees. They had all seen him because their place of work was his first stop every morning. He’d pick up the cans that they had gathered in a garbage bag for him. She wanted to know, on behalf of the employees she had spoken to, if it would be all right with Amy if they took up a donation to help with the cost of the bike. It was.
As the days went by, the word began to spread. More things were donated, including food and more clothing. It was exciting to watch the community rally together to help a four-year-old girl serve a sixty-five-year-old man.
About two weeks before Christmas, the “man on the bike” was invited to have dinner with a family who lived in the area. He told them it was time for him to move on. He was beginning to feel that he was an embarrassment to the people there. The family tried to tell him differently, but he had made up his mind. Amy heard of his plans and worried that she wouldn’t get the bike to him on time.
The day to buy the bike finally arrived. When she and her father reached the store and walked in, Amy looked around. Her eyes fixed on one bike.
“This is it, Dad! I want this one!”
“It is a mountain bike,” the store owner said.
It wasn’t purple, but it was the brightest blue you could imagine, with even brighter splashes of pink paint all over it! Amy loved it, and that was all that mattered. With the money that had been donated and what Amy had earned, she was able to pay for the bike and buy the largest baskets and the very best horn.
That night as Amy was tying a bow onto the bike, she said to her father once again, “Daddy, I really don’t want the man on the bike to see me.”
Her parents talked it over and asked the sheriff for his help in delivering the collected items and the bike to the “‘man on the bike.’ We understand he goes into the convenience store every morning. Do you think you could try to catch up with him there tomorrow?” Amy’s father asked.
The sheriff agreed, so Amy and her parents took everything over to his house and loaded it into his truck.
“I’m proud of you, Amy,” the sheriff said. “This is a very kind thing you are doing for a stranger.”
The next morning, the sheriff drove to the convenience store, and the man was there. The sheriff went in, walked right up to the man, and said, “You need to come with me.” The “man on the bike” thought that he was in trouble. They walked together out the door. Then the sheriff began to unload his truck, and the man stood there in silence, looking very bewildered.
“This is all for you!” the sheriff told him.
When the sheriff lifted the bike out, the man just stared at it. Then the tears began to fall. “Whose idea was this?”
“A four-year-old girl who is worried about you,” the sheriff said, his own eyes filling with tears. He explained to the man how it had all come about and how the whole community had wanted to help Amy help him.
The man was overwhelmed by this act of love. He said, “I don’t deserve all of this! You need to give these things to someone who really needs them!”
“I think you are plenty deserving. I’ll help you take them over to your cave.”
“Will you tell her thank you for me?”
The sheriff quietly nodded.
The man ended up staying in the area until May of the following year. Every time the people of Morgan County saw “the man on the bike,” they were reminded of the Christlike love of a child.

Little did I guess what would happen next. In May, I received a letter from an old friend, an American doctor named James Ferwarda. I had met Dr. Ferwarda during his visit to Mali in 1985. At his request, I had accompanied him on a tour of my country. Now, to my great surprise, he was sending me a round-trip airplane ticket and inviting me to visit him at his home in the United States!

I was astonished, overwhelmed at his offer. But it seemed impossible for me to leave my family at this critical time. The Church members urged me to accept the invitation, however. Perhaps, they said, the Lord would open the way for me to go to the temple while I was in the United States. Like many members, I cherished the dream of attending the temple “someday.”

Still dumbfounded, I did go, “not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.” (See 1 Ne. 4:6.) It was incredible that someone who was barely surviving financially could make such an expensive trip. After I arrived in the United States, Dr. Ferwarda learned of my deep desire to attend the temple, which was more than 2,000 kilometers away. Although he was not a member of the Church, he told me, “I respect your opinion, and I will pay for your ticket to Salt Lake City, too.”

I visited the Church offices as soon as I arrived in Salt Lake City. I will never, ever forget that day. Elder Alexander Morrison of the Seventy ordained me an elder. Then I went to the temple and received the endowment. Everyone in the temple was so kind. The beauty and serenity there moved me deeply. I was also impressed by the young missionaries, whom I saw for the first time. Now I knew that I wanted my sons to serve missions.

I learned about the power of such a vision when I joined my 12- and 13-year-old sons for a 50/20 competition. A 50/20 consists of walking 50 miles (80 km) in less than 20 hours. We started at 9:00 p.m. and walked all that night and most of the next day. It was an excruciating 19 hours, but we succeeded.
Upon returning home, we literally crawled into the house, where a wonderful wife and mother had prepared a lovely dinner, which we didn’t touch. My younger son collapsed, totally exhausted, on the couch, while my older son crawled downstairs to his bedroom.
After some painful rest of my own, I went to my younger son to make sure he was still alive.
“Are you OK?” I asked.
“Dad, that was the hardest thing I have ever done, and I never want to do it again.”
I wasn’t about to tell him that I would never do it again either. Instead, I told him how proud I was that he had accomplished such a hard thing. I knew it would prepare him for other hard things he would face in his future. With that thought, I said, “Son, let me make you this promise. When you go on your mission, you will never have to walk 50 miles in one day.”
“Good, Dad! Then I’m going.”
Those simple words filled my soul with gratitude and joy.
I then went downstairs to my oldest son. I lay by him—then touched him. “Son, are you all right?”
“Dad, that was the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life, and I will never, ever do it again.” His eyes closed—then opened—and he said, “Unless my son wants me to.”
Tears came as I expressed how grateful I was for him. I told him I knew he was going to be a much better father than I was. My heart was full because at his young and tender age he already recognized that one of his most sacred priesthood duties was to be a father. He had no fear of that role and title—the very title that God Himself wants us to use when we speak to Him. I knew I had the responsibility to nurture the embers of fatherhood that were burning within my son.
These words of the Savior took on a much deeper meaning to me as a father:
“The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for [whatsoever things He] doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise” (John 5:19).
“I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me” (John 8:28).
I love being a husband and father—married to a chosen daughter of heavenly parents. I love her. It is one of the most fulfilling parts of my life. My hope that night was that my five sons and their sister would always see in me the joy that comes from eternal marriage, fatherhood, and family.

Winter had set in, and mounds of snow covered the hills and rounded the shapes of the trees. It was the kind of weather one would expect two days before Christmas in Sharon, Vermont.
About midnight the few farmhouses scattered among the hills were dark—except for the Smith’s where a lamp was still burning.
Even though it was Christmastime, a light that late at night was unusual. But something wonderful had happened on that twenty-third of December, 1805. A baby had been born.
The next day, a neighbor came to visit the Smiths. Alvin and Hyrum, the oldest of the children, saw him coming. They ran to meet him, shouting the news as they went, “We have a new baby!”
“It’s a boy! A boy!”
As they plowed through the snowdrifts surrounding the small frame home, they all had to laugh. Little sister Sophronia was watching from the window with her nose flattened against the glass. Father Smith opened the door to let them in and took the neighbor to see the baby, who was sleeping peacefully in his mother’s arms. “Well, what do you know,” he exclaimed, removing his hat, “a baby boy!”
“Yes,” Lucy said. “He’ll be named for his father. We’re going to call him Joseph.”
There weren’t any telephones, just neighbor folk to pass the word along. So when he left, the neighbor must have carried the news to the men and boys clustered around the stove at the village store. “Another boy for the Smiths,” he announced. “They can always use another hand on the farm,” a hand-warmer declared.
However, when Lucy stroked the soft baby hair, she imagined him not as a farmhand but as a leader and a mighty man. Then she smiled at her dreams. He looked like every other baby born to farm folk in the backwoods of Vermont. There was no reason to think he would be known outside the neighborhood.
Even in her wildest dreams Lucy could not have guessed that this small, new Joseph would run into hatred and yet would inspire such admiration that millions would follow him. And it would be said of him, “In all that he did he was manly and almost godlike.”
Yes, a baby had been born, and “the Lord had his eyes upon him.”
The baby grew and was strong and well. But when he was six, the Smith children became ill with typhus fever. Then a swelling in Joseph’s leg caused him so much pain that he could scarcely bear it. One day Joseph thought it was Dr. Stone, who was treating him, at the door until he heard Rebecca Perkins speak to his mother.
“I brought some honey bread, Lucy—new-baked.”
“Thank you, Rebecca.”
“It’ll help some, I reckon.”
Joseph knew it would help. His mother was bone tired from tending him and his brothers and sister, who slept only fitfully because of the fever. Sophronia was sick for ninety days, even came near dying.
“I understand young Joseph is still feeling poorly,” Joseph heard Mrs. Perkins say.
“Yes. He’s been real sick for some weeks. The typhus caused a fever sore in his shoulder. Dr. Stone lanced it, but the pain shot like lightning down his side and into his leg. He cut into it, clear to the bone, trying to relieve the infection. But it’s still so red and swollen.”
“We deemed it wise to call a council of surgeons to consult about the case,” Joseph heard his father explain. “We’re just waiting to hear.”
Waiting. So much waiting, Joseph thought. Everyone had done his best; he knew that. Even his big brother Hyrum had held Joseph’s leg, day and night, to help relieve the pain. But the pain persisted. Once Joseph cried out in desperation, “Oh, Father, how can I bear it?”
Now his father called to him, “The doctors are riding up, Joseph.”
Rebecca spoke a hasty wish-you-well as Lucy invited the doctors into a room apart. “Gentlemen, what can you do to save my boy’s leg?” she asked.
There was no answer for a moment, then one of the surgeons said as kindly as he could, “We can do nothing … his leg is incurable. Amputation is absolutely necessary in order to save his life.”
Lucy covered her mouth with her hands as if to silence the cry that rose in her throat. “No! Not little Joseph!” Then she found herself thinking back to the time when the doctor said Sophronia couldn’t live. How he even stopped coming, death was so close. They prayed for a miracle … and it happened, just like that. With her head in her hands, Joseph’s mother prayed again—for another miracle.
When she raised her head she said quietly, “Dr. Stone, can you not make another trial? You must not take off his leg until you try once more.”
After consultation the doctors decided to try to remove the infected bone. Lucy went for some clean homespun sheets to fold under the infected leg while the doctors told Joseph what they were going to do. And because there were no anesthetics to deaden pain, they called to his mother, “Bring some cords. We can tie him down to the bedstead. And bring a little brandy or wine; the pain will be almost unbearable.”
But Joseph protested. He didn’t want any liquor; neither would he be tied down.
“Mother, I want you to leave the room. Father can stand it, but you have carried me so much and watched over me so long that you are almost worn out.” Tears rimmed his eyes. “I’ll have Father sit on the bed and hold me in his arms. Then I’ll do what’s needed to have the bone taken out.”
One of the doctors objected. “The boy’s so young! He needs some kind of help to get through it!”
Joseph reached out for his father’s hand and pulled the big man down beside him on the bed. “The Lord will help me . … I’ll get through it.”
So the big, weathered farmer wrapped his arms around his little son and hugged him to his heart.
The operation began. It was long and excruciating with no medicine to deaden the pain, just his father to cling to. At one point Joseph’s mother heard his screams and came running back into the house.
“Oh, Mother, go back, go back. I don’t want you to come in. I’ll try to tough it out if you will go away,” he sobbed.
When the crude operation was over, Lucy stood hesitantly at the bedroom door, not daring to ask the question that trembled on her lips. Her husband, tenderly supporting his son’s shoulders, looked up and held out his other hand to her.
In a moment Lucy was across the room, that hand curving around her own as she knelt by young Joseph’s bed. How small and pale he looked. How still.
From the dark depths of his exhaustion, Joseph heard her coming, felt her touch—gentle but hesitant. He opened his eyes and his steady blue gaze swept the anxiety from his mother’s face.
Dr. Stone wiped the perspiration from his forehead. “It’s all right,” he said, nodding.
Young Joseph knew the Lord was with him. Their prayers had been answered. His leg would heal.
(To be continued.)

The next part of Annapurna’s dream came true when at last she was baptized. There was no branch in Chandigarh, so the Muralas made the five-hour journey to New Delhi for the baptism. Ironically, now that Annapurna was free to go to church, the nearest branch was far away. “Before I was baptized, the church was very near my house, just on the corner at the end of the road, and I didn’t have the opportunity to go,” she says. “Now the church was five hours away, so we could go only once a month.” Then Annapurna became pregnant, and the five-hour trip was too taxing for her.
But then came another miracle, in the form of two Latter-day Saint families. “God takes care of you,” explains Santosh. A British couple, Brother and Sister Beer, came to Chandigarh, where Brother Beer worked in highway construction. Sister Beer taught institute classes to the Muralas, and the Beers held family home evening with the Muralas every week. A Korean family, the Moons, also moved to Chandigarh, where Brother Moon worked for a construction company. Every Sunday for two years, this little group of Latter-day Saints met at the Moons’ home for sacrament meeting. Shortly after Santosh finished his residency in Chandigarh, the Beers and the Moons moved away too.
In New Delhi, where Santosh is receiving specialized training in heart surgery, there are two branches of the Church. Now Annapurna’s knowledge about the Church is catching up with her knowledge of the gospel. She has learned how to sing hymns and conduct meetings.