Gospel Story Finder

When our children were small, my wife Mary and I decided to follow a tradition which my father taught when I was a child. He would meet with each child individually to help us set goals. Then he would teach us how church, school, and extracurricular activities would help us achieve those goals. He had three rules:
We needed to have worthwhile goals.
We could change our goals at any time.
Whatever goal we chose, we had to diligently work towards it.
When our son, Larry, was five years old, I asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up. He said he wanted to be a doctor like Uncle Joe. Larry had experienced a serious operation and had acquired great respect for doctors, especially his Uncle Joe. I told Larry how all the worthwhile things he was doing would help prepare him to be a doctor.
Several months later, I asked him again what he would like to be. This time he said he wanted to be an airline pilot. Changing the goal was fine, so I explained how his various activities would help him achieve his new goal.
Almost as an afterthought I said, “Larry, last time we talked you wanted to be a doctor. What changed your mind?” He answered, “I still like the idea of being a doctor, but Uncle Joe works on Saturday mornings, and I don’t want to miss Saturday-morning cartoons.” Since that time our family has labeled a distraction from a worthwhile goal as a Saturday-morning cartoon.

The article “No Spoonful of Sugar” in the May 1988 New Era really disappointed me. It seemed to me that you accentuated the negative and eliminated the positive.
I am a nanny of eight months, and I am having a wonderful time. My testimony has grown along with my sense of responsibility. I know that there are some hard situations, but not all are bad.
My employees have treated me very well, and they help to work out any problems I might have. They even gave me a plane ticket home for Christmas.
I would not have missed this experience for anything. I really wish you had printed a few more positive examples.
I really enjoy reading the New Era articles and thought you would like to know how my nanny friends and I felt about the article.
Louann BishopNingham, Maryland

There is a puzzle in the scriptures about justice and mercy. These are two seemingly conflicting principles which I addressed on another occasion by teaching somewhat of a parable.5 Listen carefully.
There once was a man who wanted something very much. It seemed more important than anything else in his life. In order for him to have his desire, he incurred a great debt.
He had been warned about going into that much debt and particularly about his creditor. But it seemed so important for him to do what he wanted to do and to have what he wanted right now. He was sure he could pay for it later. So he signed a contract with a lender. He would pay it off sometime along the way. He did not worry too much about it, for the due date seemed such a long time off. He had what he wanted now, and that was what seemed important.
The lender or creditor was always somewhere in the back of his mind, and he made token payments now and again, thinking somehow that the day of reckoning really would never come. But as it always does, the day came, and the contract fell due. The debt had not been paid.
His creditor appeared and demanded payment in full. Only then did he realize that his creditor not only had the power to repossess all that he owned, but the power to cast him into debtor’s prison.

“I cannot pay you, for I have not the power to do so,” he confessed.

“Then,” said the creditor, “we will enforce the contract, take your possessions, and you shall go to prison. You agreed to that. It was your choice. You signed the contract, and now it must be enforced.”

“Can you not show mercy? Can you not extend the time or forgive the debt?” the debtor begged. “Arrange some way for me to keep what I have and not go to prison. Will you not be merciful? Surely you believe in mercy?”

The creditor replied, “Mercy is always so one-sided. It would serve only you. If I show mercy to you, it will leave me unpaid. It is justice I demand. Do you believe in justice?”

“I believed in justice when I signed the contract,” the debtor said. “It was on my side then, for I thought it would protect me. I did not need mercy then nor think I should ever need it. Justice, I thought, would serve both of us equally well.”

“It is justice that demands that you pay the contract or suffer the penalty,” the creditor replied. “That is the law. You have agreed to it, and that is the way it must be.”

There they were: one meting out justice, the other pleading for mercy. Neither could prevail except at the expense of the other.

“If you do not forgive the debt, there will be no mercy,” the debtor pleaded.

“If I do, there will be no justice,” was the reply.

Both laws, it seemed, could not be served. Mercy cannot rob justice.6 Each is an eternal ideal that appears to contradict the other. Is there no way for justice to be fully served and mercy also?

There is a way! The law of justice can be fully satisfied and mercy can be fully extended, but it takes someone else. And so it happened this time.

The debtor had a friend. He came to help. He knew the debtor well. He knew him to be shortsighted. He thought him foolish to have gotten himself into such a predicament. Nevertheless, he wanted to help because he loved him. He stepped between them as a mediator and made this offer to the creditor:

“I will pay the debt if you will free the debtor from his contract so that he may keep his possessions and not go to prison.”

As the creditor was pondering the offer, the mediator added, “You demanded justice. Although he cannot pay you, I will do so. You will have been justly dealt with and can ask no more. That would not be just.”

The mediator then turned to the debtor. “If I pay your debt, will you accept me as your creditor?”

“Oh, yes,” cried the debtor. “You save me from prison and show mercy to me.”

“Then,” said the mediator, “you will pay the debt to me, and I will set the terms. It will not be easy, but it will be possible. I will provide a way. You need not go to prison.”

And so it was that the creditor was paid in full. He had been justly dealt with. No contract had been broken. The debtor, in turn, had been extended mercy. Both laws stood fulfilled. Because there was a mediator, justice had claimed its full share and mercy was fully satisfied.

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

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

As a bishop, I worried about any members who were inactive, not attending, not serving. Such was my thought one day as I drove down the street where Ben and Emily lived. They were older—even in the twilight period of life. Aches and pains of advancing years caused them to withdraw from activity to the shelter of their home—isolated, detached, shut out from the mainstream of daily life and association.
That day I felt the unmistakable prompting to park my car and visit Ben and Emily, even though I was on my way to a meeting. It was a sunny weekday afternoon. I approached the door to their home and knocked. Emily answered. When she recognized me, her bishop, she exclaimed: “All day long I have waited for my phone to ring. It has been silent. I hoped that the postman would deliver a letter. He brought only bills. Bishop, how did you know today is my birthday?”
I answered, “God knows, Emily, for He loves you.”
In the quiet of their living room, I said to Ben and Emily: “I don’t know why I was directed here today, but our Heavenly Father knows. Let’s kneel in prayer and ask Him why.” This we did, and the answer came. Emily, who had a beautiful voice, was asked to sing in the choir—even to provide a solo for the forthcoming ward conference. Ben was asked to speak to the Aaronic Priesthood young men and recount a special experience in his life when his safety was assured by responding to the promptings of the Spirit.
She sang. He spoke. Hearts were gladdened by the return to activity of Ben and Emily. They rarely missed a sacrament meeting from that day to the time each was called home. The language of the Spirit had been spoken. It had been heard. It had been understood. Hearts were touched and lives saved.

During the Great Depression, we had certain values burned into our souls. One of these values was gratitude for what we had, because we had so little. Rather than becoming envious or angry because of what we did not have, many of us were grateful for the meager, simple things with which we were blessed, like hot, homemade bread and oatmeal cereal.
I remember my beloved grandmother Mary Caroline Roper Finlinson making homemade soap on the farm. The soap had a very pungent aroma and was almost as hard as a brick. There was no money to buy soft, sweet-smelling soap. On the farm, there were many dusty, sweat-laden clothes to be washed and many bodies that desperately needed a Saturday night bath. If you had to bathe with that homemade soap, you could become wonderfully clean, but you smelled worse after bathing than before. I have since developed a daily appreciation for mild, sweet-scented soap.

Thirty-six years ago I served a mission in southeast Mexico. At that time there were no stakes, with the largest cities in the mission having only two branches. There were limited opportunities for education and much poverty. With two or three exceptions, all the missionaries were from the United States.
I remember the people of the Nealtican Branch. All buildings in the town were made of adobe, except the Catholic cathedral and the LDS chapel. I remember standing in the small adobe house of the branch president. It had a dirt floor, windows with no glass, and a rug hanging over the entryway. There was no furniture in the house. His family had no shoes.
But they were a happy people. He told me that they had sold everything they had to buy bus tickets to the Mesa temple, where they were sealed for time and all eternity. Many of the branch members had done the same thing.
A month ago I returned to Mexico to serve in the Mexico North Area Presidency. The Mexico of today is much different from that of 36 years ago. Nealtican is the center of a thriving stake of Zion. Mexico has 200 stakes and a million members of the Church. Many stake and ward leaders are highly educated and financially secure. Thousands of young men and women from Mexico are serving full-time missions.

I have had the privilege, as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, of ordaining a number of patriarchs, but the first one I ordained said to me, “I don’t believe I can fill that important office.” I had a letter from him a few weeks after he had been ordained, and he said something like this: “I did not think I could do it, and now I have been reading over the blessings that I have given, and I know I did not do it. The Lord did it, or it could not have been done as it has been done.”

Tom Rehak, the young man behind the counter, is a master of that tradition. He’s a faithful, 18-year-old Latter-day Saint who learned the baker’s art from his father Joseph. To make it official he also completed a two-year baking college curriculum in eight months, passed all the tests with flying colors, and got his baker’s papers.
Tom’s education as a baker began officially when he was 12 years old. At first he only washed the equipment and swept up, but soon he was making cakes and simple tarts. Within a few years he was a competent professional baker, absorbing his father’s ancient craft with an ease that proved he was born to someday be a master baker himself. Working at the long, narrow, wooden table in the small shop on weekends, he began to get the ancient magic in his hands.
Now he works with practiced ease. His hands fly as he mixes dough, bakes, frosts, decorates, glazes, dips, twists, and pinches, and delicious things appear beneath his fingertips. Following his father’s instructions, he uses only the best of everything—real whipped cream, real butter, real chocolate, real everything.
He is now able to handle any aspect of the business, and his father often leaves him totally in charge. He understands the business aspects of the trade. He can keep the books, manage the help, control the inventory, and purchase the supplies, which include orchards of cherries, plantations of pineapple, groves of pecans, islands of coconuts, and dairies of cream.
Tom has a profound respect for his father’s counsel. “My father is constantly giving me guidance in every aspect of my life. When he tells me something about baking pastry, it’s always right. He has never told me anything wrong. Sometimes I think he’s wrong, but when I do what he says, I find out that he is right.
“He also talks to me about girls and other things, and it helps a lot. I really listen to him. A lot of kids think, ‘Oh, my parents don’t know anything,’ but I really try to listen. And I couldn’t ask for anybody better to work with. He naturally drives me harder than anybody else because he’s my father, but we have a fantastic relationship. When we have disagreements, we work them out. The gospel influences all our decisions.
“My father has always been strict with me, which helped a lot, but he has also given me a lot of love. I have friends whose parents aren’t strict with them, and they get into a lot of trouble. My father’s a great man. I love him a lot. I couldn’t ask for better parents. He tells me his experiences in life. We discuss things. If he thinks I should do something and I think I shouldn’t, we’ll discuss it, and we usually come up with a compromise, or else he sticks to his point and I do what he says.”
Tom’s entire family helps make the bakery a success. From the first his mother has played a vital role, selling the products her husband bakes. Tom’s sisters have all helped man the cash register, and his 13-year-old brother Joe is beginning to learn to bake. Every member of the family is a strongly committed Latter-day Saint, and the bakery has been an unfailing fund-raiser and refreshment provider for the Church. Bake sales at Tom’s ward tend to be well attended.
As much as Tom loves baking, the gospel is the most important thing in his life. “I know the gospel is true beyond a shadow of a doubt,” he says. “I know it spiritually, and I know it because it is evident in everything. I see my friends having big problems they can’t handle. By comparison, I’m not having any. I’m in the Church. I’m in good health. I’m striving to prepare myself for a mission because I believe that is the most important choice any 18-year-old going on 19 can make in his life. A mission teaches you to get along with other people and adapt to situations. You learn to understand people. You learn to love others and help them with their problems. I think a mission can make a real change in a man. It will make you a better husband and father someday.”
When Tom speaks about missionaries, he speaks with some authority because over the years a goodly number have dropped by the bakery, and seldom have they gone away empty.
Tom is financing his own mission, largely by selling a car he bought with his bakery salary.
Because of his hard work at the bakery, Tom has had to scramble sometimes to make room for weekday Church activities, but he has managed. Once he worked two days, straight through the clock, to get ahead of schedule so he could go to a youth conference in Palmyra, New York. He was a little tired, but he went.
The whole family put their faith on the line several years ago when they decided to close the shop on Sunday, even though it was one of their best days. They lost some customers after that, but they held firm to their decision, and their ex-customers, lonely for the incomparable pastries, came back and brought friends. Surrounded by this kind of integrity, Tom has learned many principles more important than the secrets of baking.
By the time you read this, Tom may already be on his mission. He may even be working in your ward. You’ll know him. He’ll be the one with the chubby, but happy, companion.

When Spencer was about 14 years old, he went to stake conference. Brigham Young’s daughter Susa Gates spoke.
Sister Gates: How many of you have read the Bible through?
Spencer looked around. There were about 1,000 people in the hall, but only five or six hands went up.
Spencer: I read the funny papers all the time. I’ve read so many books, yet I’ve never read the Holy Bible. Why?
Spencer: I’m going to read the Bible from cover to cover, like Sister Gates said. I will, I will, I will.
When he got home, he found the family Bible, went up to the unfinished attic where he slept, lit a lamp, and opened to the first chapter of Genesis.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth …”
He read every night, even when he was confused by what he read.
Spencer: I don’t really understand this part, but I’m sure it will be worth it to keep reading. At least I’ll have some idea of what’s in the Bible when I’m finished.
A year later he closed the book, having read the whole thing. He had learned not only more about the Bible but also that he could set a goal and achieve it.

My grandmother, a spiritual giant to me, taught me how to pray. She spent her winters with a daughter who lived a hundred miles away, so I saw her only in the summers. Sometimes I got to stay with her. I loved to climb between her sparkling white sheets and lay my head on her freshly ironed pillowcases. Her home was a house of order and love. And her homemade bread and Potawatomi plum jam was like a king’s dinner to me. She always kept a tin box of lemon drops and mints.

After biking to her house one day, I couldn’t find her in the kitchen, so I went into her bedroom. Through the window I noticed her out in her garden. Passing her dresser, I saw a new box of chocolates that someone had given her for Mother’s Day. The temptation was too great. I opened the box, picked out several pieces, and shoved them into my pocket before running outside to see Grandma.
The next day Grandma called and asked me to come over to her house. When I arrived, we visited for a while, then she offered me a chocolate. I cried and she cried, then we talked about what it means to be honest and about how disappointed Heavenly Father is when we steal. Grandma taught me other lessons that afternoon that helped strengthen my spirituality. She was the first one I called when I received my mission call. She died while I was in the mission home, and she was buried the day I arrived in New Zealand. I will always cherish the comfort and strength that she was to me.

“All right, let’s fire ’em up and roll ’em out!”
Eighteen trail bikes coughed and roared awake in the early morning silence, filling the canyonlands with their chain-saw burr. The predawn light gleamed on bright-colored fuel tanks as the double column spun off in formation through the cedars and pines of Dead Horse Point State Park. Behind them, churning wider plumes of dust, came three four-wheel-drive vehicles, one towing a trailer for wounded bikes.
The Orem (Utah) 15th Ward priests, almost a part of their bikes, rode easily over the rough ground. It was clearly not the first time they had done some hard riding.
It had all begun under the stars and the moon one night in Wyoming in a mad flight of spinning wheels and flying shadows known forever after as the “midnight ride of the Orem 15th.” The quorum was on a camping trip and a few priests brought along their motorcycles. One night about bedtime their adviser, Dave Anderson, jumped into the saddle, called his cohorts to horse, and they flew away over mountains and moonlit meadows like so many Paul Reveres. The night seemed to be alive. More animals than they had ever seen stood watching them pass as if hypnotized by the string of moving lights.
They got back to camp about 2:00 A.M., feeling that they were much more than just a few people assigned to the same quorum. They were friends.
Fired by the enthusiasm of the midnight riders, the whole quorum joined in, and in the weeks that followed they framed a lot of territory between handlebars.
Once they followed the old pony express trail for about 200 miles, stopping at the way stations just as if they were carrying the mail. They came home feeling like authentic time travelers.
And now, several months later, they were following the White Rim Trail in Canyonlands National Park in southern Utah, where the Colorado River and the wind have carved a canyon full of sandstone miracles.
They set up camp Friday afternoon at Dead Horse Point and began exploring on foot and bike. They walked the observation trail that winds around the edge of the canyon, overlooking a sheer drop of 300 million years. They saw an unbelievable panorama of sandstone filigreed with peaks, spires, ridges, and wrinkles. The whole broad chasm was a huge river of colored shadows, with the great brown and green Colorado winding through at the bottom.
The enthusiasm of the quorum had long since overtaken the rest of the ward, and there were more adults than priests on the trip. It was a great opportunity for a father to explain some of the wonders of nature to his son.
“Do you know why they call that the Green River, son?” asked one father, leaning over the edge of the observation wall and looking at the river far below.
“That’s the Colorado, Dad,” his son answered.
After awhile the group started drifting back, lured by the aroma of steaks sizzling on the campfire grill. The four-man cooking crew went about its work with the efficiency of old pros, using one fork and several convenient sticks for their tools.
“What do you mean, hot?” a young Navajo asked, reaching for a foil-wrapped, baked potato while his cooking partner licked burnt fingers.
The steaks cooked quickly, and what steaks! They eclipsed the paper plates and hung over the edges. Tender, juicy, and savory, they soon disappeared. Everyone said, “I can’t eat all that,” and then did.
Approaching the table one young man asked, “Do we have to use manners?” But no one stopped licking his fingers long enough to answer.
Later there was time for some fun and games, including an impromptu Olympics that featured long jumping from a sandstone boulder to the soft sand below. In the middle of it all, a huge moon came up and became an audience of one. The Indian youth pointed at it and said softly in Navajo, “Ooljee!” And everyone echoed still more softly, “Ooljee.”
An asthmatic bugle dribbled taps from somewhere in the darkness, announcing bedtime. Before climbing into their sleeping bags, the whole party got together for prayer. The priests quorum group leader called on one of the adults to pray, but before he could begin, a young man slipped to his side and whispered, “Pray for R.G.; he’s not feeling well.” It was done.
Stars seem to be made to lie awake under, but wind in pine boughs is the sleepiest of sounds, and soon most were unaware of the crackling red fire by which a few hungry young men were still roasting marshmallows.
At 4:30 the cooks were up, frying ham and scrambling eggs, long before the sun even hit the mountaintops. Before long an uproar followed as hibernating cyclists were turned out, and a frowsy-headed crew was soon attacking breakfast.
About halfway through the ham the bugler woke up. A sleepy reveille crawled from his tent and lay dying on the ground.
“What’d we bring you for?” someone asked.
Someone began singing a lively version of “Onward Christian Soldiers,” but trailed off under a barrage of glares.
Before sunup, breakfast was finished, and the cycles were gassed up and lined up in their assigned order, two abreast. On the handlebars of each cycle hung a helmet. Everything was ready.
The group formed a huge circle, and Kent Keller, the group leader, spoke with a suppressed smile.
“I guess you’re all wondering why I called you here …”
Safety rules were reviewed, last minute instructions issued, and the group knelt in prayer. Then it was to the cycles and away.
Along the rim of the chasm they went—sometimes over a thin layer of sandstone undercut with thin air—to a spot where the road gave up all inhibitions and dropped down the face of the all-but-sheer stone wall in a series of razor-sharp switchbacks hanging nonchalantly onto the edge of nothing. It was the first of many such roads. The priests zigzagged down as slick as slalom racers. The adults zigzagged down too, but some of them looked more sick than slick.
But the view made up for the nervous stomachs. The group stopped about halfway down just to look for a while.
“What do you think, Dad?”
A strong arm tightened around the young man’s shoulder. “I think it’s great, son.”
And then it was ride, ride, ride, through and over awesome desert valleys, passes, and peaks, on a road that sometimes degenerated into a trail and sometimes into an exercise in imagination. The riders often found themselves standing up more than they were sitting in order to absorb the jolts. But every bump and hill was an invitation to jump, and some young men were airborne so much they should have been licensed pilots.
They paused at the edge of the last plateau above the Colorado to make some minor repairs and adjustments on their bikes. All had been trained in bike maintenance and had received instructions in riding safety.
“Who’s got the chain lube?”
“Can I use your spoke wrench?”
Then over country steep, bumpy, and rugged, dotted with huge sandstone monoliths balanced on thin stone columns and fringed far away with pale mountains and colored mesas. Once the group went down a wash to the shore of the river, a road rough enough to test the most expert cyclist. They cut willows by the river for the wiener roast later on. Several million climbs, dips, and jumps later, they ate lunch on the wide stone ledge overlooking Monument Valley.
They built a wiener-roasting fire with the wood they had brought with them. One of the adults whittled kindling from the end of one of the huge, squat stove lengths.
“That’s not necessary, Brother Rasmussen,” one of the priests said kindly. “We’ve already got enough sticks, and you’ll never get that thing sharp enough anyway.”
Soon there was a roaring fire, just right for cremating wieners, and everyone did.
More roads, more bumps, more ruts, more breathtaking climbs and heart-stopping descents, more ravines to go around, more hours, and the group found itself down to the level of the Colorado again. By now the faces of the riders were a grimy, mottled brown. The young men were beginning to feel the wear and tear of the long ride, and some of the older men were past feeling it; and it wasn’t over yet. Ahead lay the ascent from the river back up to the top of the canyon.
It was done down dirt roads and up dizzy climbs, and finally down the home stretch through a pouring rain, and back into camp wet, muddy, tired, and happy, with 105 miles of hard biking under their belts. Had the rain come ten minutes earlier it could have made the climb out of the canyon very difficult, perhaps impossible. As it was, the four-wheeled vehicles had to grunt hard to make it.
In camp the bikes were loaded back into their trailers and the long haul back to Orem began. And in every car, jeep, and pickup, accompanied by the hypnotic squeak of windshield wipers, they all talked about the same thing. “Where shall we go next time?”
But to think of these young men just in terms of bike riding is to miss the whole point. Their quorum is a spiritual university to them. They’ve got a 100 percent attendance record going in their quorum meetings; they’re preparing for missions; and they’re learning to love each other. For them, fun, religion, spirituality, and all good things are getting tied up together, each supporting the others.
Their bishop once offered them a camping trip if they would maintain perfect attendance. “No, thanks,” they said. “We’ll attend our meetings all right, but for the right reasons—not for a prize.”
Their bishop goes along on their trips, and so does their adviser, but the priests themselves are in charge, right down to the last hot dog bun. Their adult leaders have been wise enough to recognize leadership potential in the young men of the ward and to let them develop it. They haven’t been sorry.
The group leader says, “It’s not just getting on the bike and riding and loving bikes. We’re getting out with each other, and that’s really the part we’re going to remember the most. On a trip like this you get to know each other. You take off the mask, and everybody really gets to understand each other. It’s not like at school where everybody goes down the hall, and when you meet somebody it’s ‘hi,’ ‘hi,’ and it’s not really the real person you see at all. You get out in the wilderness, and you know there’s not that much security all the time like we’re used to having, and there aren’t the luxuries—that’s when the masks come off.”
Another says, “It’s great! Everybody tries to help everybody out, not just in motorcycle riding either. If someone needs help in anything, everybody helps out. It’s almost like a family. When we plan meetings we have the Spirit there to guide us and tell us what to do. If you’re just in a group talking, it’s hard to get the Spirit there, but if everybody’s friends, and everybody knows each other well, it’s easier to get the Spirit there, and you’re able to get closer to the Lord.”
The spiritual balance of these young men surfaced in a van full of priests traveling from Orem to Dead Horse Point the day the outing began. The conversation was about motorcycles for a while, but then it shifted somehow to the scriptures—so smoothly and naturally that you couldn’t quite remember how it had happened. It was as if trail bikes and Bibles might have something to do with each other in the lives of these young men.
And maybe they do.

My girl friend used to be very in tune with and enthusiastic about the gospel. But recently she’s been going out with people who have different standards than the Church teaches, and as a result she’s doing things that aren’t good for her. She isn’t attending Mutual and has started drinking and dating boys with bad reputations. I wrote her a letter, telling her how much I love her and the gospel, and I asked her if there is anything I can do. She wrote back saying she knows that what she is doing is wrong. Yet, she keeps doing it. Her family is really strong in the Church. They are trying to help her, but it’s not working. This problem is tearing her apart, and it’s hurting me as well. What should I do?

On the night of May 22, 2011, amid the sound of blaring sirens, a massive tornado touched down in the heart of Joplin, Missouri, USA, destroying homes and lives. The Joplin First Ward was hit hard by the twister, but right away Bishop Chris Hoffman and the ward council started accounting for ward members.
“We had a response plan in place because we had talked about these preparations in ward council before they happened,” he said. “We also relied on the Spirit to know what to do. Power lines were down. Cell phones didn’t work. We prayed and listened for answers, and they came—they always came. It was gratifying for me as a bishop to hear members say, ‘This is what I’ve done,’ instead of, ‘What do you want me to do?’”

Afele Schwenke, born on April 10, 1912, was deeply rooted in his faith and dedicated to his family. Together with his wife, Soala, Afele served the missionaries of Malaela Aleipata for nearly two decades. The couple opened their home to the missionaries, insisting they stay in their Western-style house while Afele, Soala, and their children lived in their Samoan fale. His generosity left a lasting impact, and his home became a place of gospel teaching.

Although Afele had a strong testimony and faithfully paid his tithes, he struggled with fully living the Word of Wisdom. His love for the Church never wavered, but he passed away in 1967 without receiving the blessings of the temple.

I have a friend like you. More than forty years ago we were in the mission field together. In the years that followed he went off to war. In his loneliness he picked up with careless companions. He married out of the Church. He followed habits which had made him feel he would not be welcomed. He moved from one part of the country to another. His identity was lost.
One Sunday I found myself in a California city for a stake conference. My name and picture had been in the local newspaper. The phone rang at the stake center as the stake president and I entered the building that morning. The call was for me, and the caller identified himself. He wanted to see me. I excused myself from the meeting I was to have held early that morning and asked the stake president to carry on with it. I had something more important to do.
He came, this friend of mine, timidly and somewhat fearfully. He had been away for a long time. We embraced as brothers long separated. At first the conversation was awkward, but it soon warmed as we discussed together days spent in England many years ago. There were tears in the eyes of this strong man as he spoke of the Church of which he had once been so effective a part, and then told of the long, empty years that had followed. He dwelt upon them as a man speaks of nightmares. When he had described those wasted years, we talked of his returning. He thought it would be difficult, that it would be embarrassing, but he agreed to try.
I had a letter from him not long ago. He said, “I’m back. I’m back, and how wonderful it feels to be home again.”

Suddenly, the cars arrived, and the hall of the stake house was crowded with boys in straw hats covered with cookies, and girls in neon yellow, green, and orange skirts with big bows holding giant candy bars as hats. And just as quickly, they gathered in a classroom for one more run-through of their song—“Buy Me Chocolate,” which helps explain the cookies and candy bars.
Then another group walked by, all dressed in black and white with red-checkered napkins. They were humming something that sounded vaguely operatic but had tongue-twisting lyrics. Another group had swatches of cloth with an African print. They were going over some steps in a dance.
The cultural hall of the Salt Lake Hunter Stake was filled wall to wall with families from nine wards, all waiting to see each ward’s performance in the Young Women and Young Men Choral Festival. Every ward had two songs to perform: one serious song and one fun song from another country that could include some dance steps. The wards chose from religious songs that have been printed in the New Era.
As each well-rehearsed ward came on stage, the energy began to build. Everyone was ready to sing with volume and enthusiasm. But when the Mapusaga (Samoan) Ward came on (they were the ones with the chocolate song), the Caribbean rhythm had everyone moving. After that, there was no stopping them. Each ward put everything they had into their performances before an appreciative audience.
What was the best thing about holding a choral festival? “The practices were fun,” said Ashley Auva‘a of the Mapusaga Ward, “especially when we got into it. The best part was being with friends and family and dressing up and dancing and having fun.”
Kiyana Aiono said, “We did our costumes together for a Young Women activity.” Ashley added, “They look like fabric, but they’re really plastic tablecloths, so they were inexpensive. And they looked great on stage.”
Vini Purcell said, “It was fun to get to know a song from a different country.”
The teens in the Hunter 18th Ward felt the same way. They really liked learning a song from another culture. Their song had African origins. Kori Coombs said, “When I heard it I thought it was a great song. I liked the beat. Then we added some choreography, and we were grooving.”
They also really liked their serious song. Jaynie Baker said, “I like the lyrics that say, ‘Our trust remains in Thee.’ It was a good song.”
Working together during practices, it seems, was everyone’s favorite part of the festival. The Hunter 25th Ward had a song with complicated words all about pasta. The Young Women leader worked out some actions to help everybody remember the words. Laura Buckner confesses, “I thought it was the worst song in the world at first, but it ended up being fun. And yes, every time we have pasta for dinner, I just start singing it.”
Their serious song left a similar impression. Eric Manwill said, “Every day I catch myself singing ‘Behold, the Field Is White’ in my head”—a good choice for a young man preparing for a mission.
The printed program identified which Personal Progress value experiences or Duty to God requirements participation in the festival helped fulfill. Singing in a program even fills a requirement for the music merit badge.
Why have a choral festival? The youth in the Hunter stake now know it means some fun times at practices and an even better time at the performance. And the audience agreed.

I am reminded of a priest in my ward when I was bishop for the second time. This young man, I shall call him Bill, had not been to church for many years; yet, when he did gain a testimony he bore it so powerfully that he had a great influence on at least two other priests in the ward who were not terribly active. One of those priests was Bill’s younger brother and the other his brother’s friend.

Bill served a mission, and partly as a result of his influence his brother left to serve a mission before he returned home. Before Bill’s brother had finished his mission, his friend had prepared himself and left on a mission as well.

All three of these young men might have served honorable missions independent of each other’s influence, but it is impossible to measure the impact that they had on each other’s lives as they bore testimony and cared. It might be added that the influence didn’t stop there. Many of the friends of these young men were influenced by their decisions to serve missions and some perhaps served missions themselves because of the process started by that example.

A father gets home tired after a long day at work and finds the rest of his family struggling with similar grumpy feelings. It’s Monday night, and holding family home evening seems impossible. After saying a prayer for help, the father and mother decide to keep things simple. They call their family together, sing a hymn, and pray together. They give each member a small candle to light as they tell about something that inspired them recently. In a darkened room, the light of the candles represents inspiration and focuses the children’s attention. As testimonies are shared, a feeling of sweet peace and love enters the home. The family ends the night grateful they held home evening.

A few years ago my back started hurting. I was kind of worried, so I went to see our family chiropractor. He took some X-rays, saw something weird going on, and recommended me to a specialist.
I was right. There was something wrong. The specialist told me I have a condition called ankylosing spondylitis. It’s a form of arthritis where your spinal joints get inflamed and your spine tries to fuse itself together.
My prescription was to exercise and stretch four or five days a week for about 20 to 30 minutes. If I don’t, my back starts to hurt again. Ankylosing spondylitis can also lead to other serious health problems.
Someday I may have to treat my condition with drugs, but for now, I stretch every day. I also go to the gym several times a week. Recently, I went for a checkup. The doctor told me that because I was diligent with stretching, my spine is in a lot better shape than many people my age.
I’m thankful for my body despite its limitations. I try not to focus on my health problems and just use my body the best I can. A few months ago, I found out that the lead singer of one of my favorite rock bands also has ankylosing spondylitis. Rather than complain, he said a lot of the great things in his life have come from struggling.
I try to remember the fact that Jesus Christ suffered every pain for us. He knows the mental and physical pain of any condition, including ankylosing spondylitis. He is the most equipped to help us, and He has helped me be grateful for my body and its abilities.
Samuel M., 21, Utah, USA