Gospel Story Finder

José’s lovely young wife had died while he was away. José took their little daughter, Mercedes, and went with her into exile in Europe. She became the joy of his life. He planned what he must teach her, just as he had always planned his battles. On a chart he wrote his ideals for her:
To make her kind and gentle.
To make her love truth and hate lies.
To inspire her with a feeling of confidence and friendship.
To arouse in her a charity toward the poor and unfortunate.
To arouse in her respect for other people’s property.
To accustom her to keep a secret.
To inspire in her a respect toward all religions.
To teach her to speak little and to speak accurately.
Her father was Mercedes’ great example.
During his lifetime José de San Martín refused salaries, promotions, prizes, and honors. The government of Chile once gave him money that he immediately returned for a public library. A farm he was given was used as a hospital for women. He died in Boulogne, France, a poor and almost unknown man. He knew that others with whom he had fought were enjoying fame and fortune, but he cared only for the freedom of the people of South America.
In the past few years the world has come to know José de San Martín and to honor him as one of the great men of all time. Statues have been raised to his memory and many public buildings have been named for him. With special love and gratitude the people of the countries of South America that he helped to free refer to him as the “Saint of the Sword.”

Another spiritual highlight came two days later in Haifa in the form of an apostolic blessing. The physical and professional demands had been overwhelming for everyone involved with the tour. The following comments of a choir member are representative of similar stresses experienced by others: “Three months of arduous rehearsals, several performances, a dozen broadcasts, personal preparations for the tour, family Christmas activities, and the death of my mother had taken their toll. When I boarded the plane on December 26, I was utterly exhausted. That’s no way to begin a choir tour.” Then in the first two days after arriving in Israel, the choir had four major rehearsals, including three rehearsals of the Berlioz Requiem (nearly an hour and a half long) and a rehearsal and a performance of the a cappella concert.
Before the choir’s first concert in Haifa, Elder James E. Faust pronounced a blessing upon the group. He blessed them that their bodies would be renewed and that they would have the strength to perform.
“I could physically feel the strength gradually come into me,” says choir member Toni Davis. “By the time we were on the stage, we were there in power. I believe that after you do all you can do, the Lord fills in the rest. When I returned to the hotel, I dropped to my knees and gave thanks to the Lord for the strength—not just the spiritual, but also the physical.”

In a Las Vegas, Nevada, stake, I listened to a convert tell her story. She related how she and her family had moved to Las Vegas from Oklahoma. They moved two doors from a Mormon family, and shortly thereafter their young daughter was invited to go to Primary by the neighbor’s daughter. She enjoyed relating her Primary lessons to her parents. About that time, the parents felt the need of religion in their home. The mother had been raised a Baptist so they attended the Baptist church, but they did not seem to enjoy it. The next Sunday, the parents were discussing which church they would attend. The young daughter suggested, “Why don’t you go to my church?”—meaning where she had been attending Primary. The parents accepted the suggestion, went to the Mormon church, found what they were looking for, and later were baptized. This to me is a beautiful example of “every member a missionary” in action.

Moses Mahlangu, yet another Elias, was a preacher from Soweto, South Africa. He found a copy of the Book of Mormon, but because the bottom of the title page was torn off, he did not know what church had published it.

As he read the book, he was filled with light and understanding. He said, “I had had desires to find God and to receive revelation, but I was never satisfied until I got the Book of Mormon.” He told his fellow pastors:

We fight every day over what the Bible says about baptism. We fight about the name of the church. The Book of Mormon is very clear on these points. . . . People will have no need to fight if they read both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. [In LeBaron, “All Are Alike,” p. 191]

Fluent in nine languages, Moses taught from the Book of Mormon and gathered many followers before he ever learned the name of the Church and made contact with it. Then, for more than 14 years he waited, preparing himself and others for baptism. During this time he frequently came to the mission office in Johannesburg to obtain copies of the Book of Mormon and other literature, and I was therefore privileged to know him.

Soon after the revelation was announced, I sought out Moses. As we embraced I asked him if he had heard about the revelation. He said, “Yes. Does this mean that I can now be baptized?”

I asked, “Moses, would you like to be baptized?”

His eyes welled up with tears as he said softly, “I have waited for 14 years.”

I conducted a baptismal interview that I shall never forget. To every question I received the same answer: “I have been keeping that commandment for 14 years.” I was deeply humbled in the presence of this great pioneer. His son, who as a boy accompanied Moses in his ministry, is now serving as Moses’ bishop in the Soweto Ward, near Johannesburg.

“When I was twelve, I became a batboy for a local professional baseball team. That’s when I met my hero, Lou Gehrig. He did more to inspire me than any other single player or event. I couldn’t believe he was coming to Little Rock. Not only did I meet him, but I also had a chance to pitch to him in batting practice. He lived a clean life, and he taught me some great lessons. He could see that young people were the hope of the future.
“One day I asked Mr. Gehrig if he knew of a way I could get rid of the butterflies in my stomach when I went out onto the ball field. He replied, ‘Don’t ever get rid of the butterflies—God put them there on purpose. They keep you humble. They remind you that there’s a higher source. They also remind you that there are eight other players and that you can’t play the game alone.’
“That is a good lesson to remember. There are many others who care about us on our team—our families, our bishop, our Primary teacher, our friends. Most important of all, our Father in Heaven loves us and knows what is best for us, and He is always there. We never have to play the game alone.”

The Prophet led the way in physical and moral courage. For example, the morning after he was attacked and tarred and feathered by the mob, he was scraped clean and then preached to a congregation that included his enemies. Not so well known is a similar episode in returning from a Canadian mission in the latter part of 1837. At the time, a friend of the family wrote of the Prophet and his companion Sidney Rigdon making their way back to Kirtland, Ohio, through the swamps at night. They had been unjustly arrested, but they escaped at night, and a mob of men was trying to track them down. Joseph took his older counselor by the hand, and they “covenanted to live and die together.” When the mob came their way, Joseph and Sidney hid on wet ground, hardly breathing for the fear of discovery. The mud-soaked men reached home about 3:00 A.M., sick with fatigue, but after a short sleep Joseph appeared in the temple to speak “in a very powerful manner and blessed the congregation in the name of the Lord.”

From the first week they arrived in Utah they wanted to be involved in a family home evening at least once a week. So, on Monday nights they were invited into homes all over the Salt Lake Valley and enjoyed American family home evenings. But on Sunday nights they decided to get together and take turns giving the lesson to their own group. They made popcorn and usually ended the evening singing LDS hymns in Spanish.

This missionary ticks all the usual boxes—he wears a white shirt and tie, has his scriptures at the ready, and possesses a natural faith in God. But something else makes Elder Gavin Chambers stand out from the crowd.
Chambers is a 206 centimetre (6-foot 9-inch) all-American volleyball player! From Corona, California, he’s traded in his volleyball togs for the threads of a full time missionary.
Elder Chambers has been serving in the Papatoetoe area of the New Zealand Auckland Mission, where he recently began training a junior missionary companion, Elder Bryce Jacobson “I really look up to Elder Chambers,” says Elder Jacobson, clearly referring to him as a senior companion. But at his height, being looked up to is something Chambers is used to.
He was always tall. “By the time I was 13, I was already 182 cm (six feet). But my real growth spurt didn’t begin until my sophomore year in high school.” He reached his full height by his senior year, and, as with most tall kids, it was assumed he would play basketball. That was not to be.
“I never really liked basketball,” he noted. “The other kids and the coaches always kind of made fun of me, telling me I couldn’t jump.”
His mother urged him, instead, to try a local recreation league volleyball team. “I had never had so much fun in any sport before,” Chambers says. “I was hooked! Even though I wasn’t very good, I went home and told Mom that volleyball was the sport for me!”
Great club coaching helped him find his footing in the game, and because of his prodigious height, they made him a middle blocker. Finally, the burden of being tall began to pay-off. After a season of club volleyball, he was anxious to join his high school team and test his new skills. But disaster struck in his very first scrimmage.
“I jumped and extended myself to try and block a ball, and when I came down, I landed on the foot of the guy on the other side of the net and broke my ankle,” Chambers recounted. “I had to wear a boot everywhere after that and I didn’t get to play at all my freshman season.”
“It was frustrating to have made progress in this new sport I really liked, then lose that whole season.”
But from the ashes of that setback rose the phoenix of an all-star career. Over the next three years, Chambers became a feared opponent on the court, drawing the attention of college volleyball teams throughout the US. He turned down scholarships offered by top schools—Stanford and UCLA among them—in favour of what he truly wanted: to play for the nationally-ranked Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah (USA).
Chambers’ youth career culminated in the summer of 2022, with the victory of his Orange Coast Volleyball Club at the under-18 national club volleyball championship. Chambers was named first-team all-American by the American Volleyball Coaches Association. The kid who couldn’t jump had proven all of those early naysayers wrong.
“After that tournament . . . I took a couple of weeks and kind of basked in the excitement of it all—I wore my gold medal . . . and enjoyed the recognition,” Chambers says. “But then I knew it was time to move on with my life.”
That meant accepting his call to serve as a missionary for the Church. With his newly found fame, one might think it was difficult to walk away from volleyball, but Chambers had already made that decision as a 12-year-old. He wanted to serve the Lord by inviting others to come unto Christ. Going on a mission was the right thing to do.
“Sure, it was hard to stop playing volleyball . . . but I had prayed about this decision, and I felt confident that the plan Heavenly Father had for me was to serve a mission right after high school.”
He says deciding early in his life made it much easier to manage all of the other things that could have acted as roadblocks to missionary service. “You want to make sure that you pray about that decision, too, because you may have ideas about what you want to do with your life, but your plan and the one Heavenly Father has for you may be different.”
Because of a visa issue for New Zealand, Chambers began his missionary service in the West Virginia Charleston Mission. There, he saw people in severe economic distress, but Chambers found them to be humble, just searching for spiritual guidance in their lives.
The gospel of Jesus Christ is the answer.
The situation in New Zealand is a lot different, but people here are also searching for answers to life’s questions. “We’re making friends everywhere we go, talking to people and sharing God’s plan of happiness with them,” he continues. “The work is hard, and we get rejected . . . , but we have tremendous faith that we’ll find people who are looking for a spiritual change in their lives,” he said. “When they’re ready to listen we’re going to be there, to answer their questions and help them learn what to do.”
“As I look back now, I can see how the Lord answered my prayers, and helped me find that perfect time to serve,” Elder Chambers says. “By doing things the Lord’s way, I was able to receive an offer to play at a college that would allow me to serve a mission and live my volleyball dream afterwards.”

Our influence is surely felt in our respective families. Sometimes we fathers forget that once we too were boys, and boys at times can be vexing to parents.
I recall how much, as a youngster, I liked dogs. One day I took my wagon and placed a wooden orange crate in it and went looking for dogs. At that time, dogs were everywhere to be found: at school, walking along the sidewalks, or exploring vacant lots, of which there were many. As I would find a dog and capture it, I placed it in the crate, took it home, locked it in the coal shed, and turned the latch on the door. That day I think I brought home six dogs of varying sizes and made them my prisoners after this fashion. I had no idea what I would do with all those dogs, so I didn’t reveal my deed to anyone.
Dad came home from work and, as was his custom, took the coal bucket and went to the coal shed to fill it. Can you imagine his shock and utter consternation as he opened the door and immediately faced six dogs, all attempting to escape at once? As I recall, Dad flushed a little bit, and then he calmed down and quietly told me, “Tommy, coal sheds are for coal. Other people’s dogs rightfully belong to them.” By observing him, I learned a lesson in patience and calmness.

I would guess that some of you could be feeling overwhelmed with your circumstances, the academic demands of college life, the reality of having to work, and the social ups and downs you are all experiencing. I remember well my first few weeks of living away from home and at college. They were hard. I struggled a bit, and I guess I was naïve, too.

I had come from a small town that didn’t even have one stoplight. Fortunately I didn’t have a car, so I didn’t have to worry about stoplights. At least that’s one worry I didn’t have! My mother had created a wonderful home, where accomplishment was a way of life. She inspired me. My father provided spiritual and financial security and wise counsel.

Suddenly I was on my own. There were decisions to make, papers to write, exams to take, classes to prepare for, laundry to do, meals to fix, Church assignments, and an expanding social life. There were new roommates. It was difficult—some days nothing went well. After one such day I remember calling my mother and saying, “This is just too hard! If you think college is so great, why don’t you come and take my place? I bet I could get my old job back at the Dairy Queen on Main Street.”

She listened quietly. Mother was very wise but not very sympathetic. She simply said, “Well, dear, you’d better learn to handle it, because it gets harder!”

She was so right. Gradually I did learn to organize myself, and I learned a lot of other things, too. I changed my mind about wanting to give up college and go back to where everything was familiar and easy. I’m so thankful I stayed and did something that was hard for me. From those demanding experiences I began to mature.

My wife and I were recently blessed to serve as mission leaders to labor with the outstanding missionaries in Uruguay. I would say that these were the best missionaries in the world, and I trust that every mission leader feels that way. These disciples taught us every day about following the Savior.

During regular interviews one of our great sister missionaries walked into the office. She was a successful missionary, an excellent trainer, and a dedicated leader. She was looked up to by her companions and loved by the people. She was obedient, humble, and confident. Our previous visits focused on her area and the people she was teaching. This visit was different. As I asked her how she was doing, I could tell she was troubled. She said, “President Olsen, I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know if I will ever be good enough. I don’t know if I can be the missionary that the Lord needs me to be.”

She was a remarkable missionary. Excellent in every way. A mission president’s dream. I had never worried about her abilities as a missionary.

As I listened to her, I struggled to know what to say. I silently prayed: “Heavenly Father, this is an outstanding missionary. She is Yours. She is doing everything right. I don’t want to mess this up. Please help me know what to say.”

The words came to me. I said, “Hermana, I am so sorry you are feeling this way. Let me ask you a question. If you had a friend you were teaching who felt this way, what would you say?”

She looked at me and smiled. With that unmistakable missionary spirit and conviction, she said, “President, that is easy. I would tell her that the Savior knows her perfectly. I would tell her that He lives. He loves you. You are good enough, and you’ve got this!”

With a little chuckle she said, “I guess if that applies to our friends, then it also applies to me.”

May I share a personal missionary experience? Shortly after we arrived in Toronto we were preparing the children to enroll in their schools. My five-year-old son was to start kindergarten, but on the first day he was afraid to go. My wife and I were concerned, and I was impressed to invite my son to come into my office and sit in what the missionaries call the “hot seat,” and we would have an interview.

He climbed up into the big black chair, and I asked, “Son, how can I help you?”

I shall never forget as long as I live the look of real concern on his face. With his little chin quivering, he said, “Daddy, I am afraid.”

I understood, for I knew he had left behind several friends of his same age, and so far he had found no one his age near the mission home. I said, “Craig, you have a friend that will always be with you. Let’s kneel down together and ask Him to help you.” We did, and Craig assigned me to say the prayer.

The Lord helped Craig find his courage in this experience. Every morning thereafter we held our interview, and every morning I was assigned to pray.

Then one morning, about two weeks later, there came no knock at my office door—no special father-and-son prayer. He had found his confidence and made some friends, and I was the one that missed that very special experience each morning with my little boy. I hope that this choice learning experience while on this mission will remain with Craig and become a source of strength to him when he is called to serve the Lord on a mission of his own.

“Next Wednesday,” said the teacher, “bring to class an item that represents who you are.” It was the first assignment in my sophomore English class. Uh oh, I thought. What if I don’t know who I am?
I had just moved to Seattle, Washington. It was my first week in a new school. The teachers didn’t know me. Neither did my classmates. It was an excellent opportunity to redefine myself—both to myself and to others.
Whenever people learned I had recently moved from Utah, they often asked me if I were Mormon. Each time, I would answer in a different way: “I don’t know.” “I was baptized, but I don’t go to church.” “No, but I should be.”
For some reason, I felt a responsibility to God to be a Latter-day Saint. This didn’t make sense because I didn’t quite believe in God. Still, within my heart lay a desire to live a life that would matter. I wanted to make a positive impact and to know that my life was not lived in vain.
My oldest sister, Lark, was the only active member of the Church in our family. She and her husband, Tim, had invited me to attend church with them in their ward, which was nearby. It was something she wanted me to do, and I somehow knew it was something I was supposed to do. So I decided to go.
With my life fluctuating and with the decision of who I would become hovering before me, I tried to think of an item to take to class that would truly represent me.
Needless to say, I had not come up with an item by Monday. Nor had I come up with anything by the time my sister took me to Mutual Tuesday night in her ward. She made some suggestions on the way to the meetinghouse, but none of them satisfied me.
The plans for Mutual that night had been kept secret, so it was with curiosity that I looked into the cultural hall. At first glance I saw tables that appeared to be set for dinner. A second look revealed that there was no food on the tables. Instead of plates containing food, there were copies of the Book of Mormon. Instead of eating utensils, there were writing utensils. Instead of napkins, there were sheets of paper. As I took a seat, my attention was captured by this riddle that had been set before me.
Two missionaries were the central speakers. Each bore his testimony of how he came to learn that the Book of Mormon was, indeed, the word of God.
When they turned our attention to a video that told the story of Christ’s visit to the righteous Nephites and Lamanites after his resurrection, an incredible feeling came over me. The way Nephi described the situation then is also an apt description of how I felt: “And it was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them … to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn” (3 Ne. 11:3). A testimony of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon entered my soul that night, leaving a mark that would affect me eternally.
As Lark and Tim drove me home, I mentally went through my homework checklist. First period, algebra, done. Second period … Sixth period, English—uh oh. What could I take that represented me?
In a still, small voice, the Spirit whispered, “The Book of Mormon.” I instantly recognized that it was not my physical ears that had heard this statement. This was the first time I had felt the Spirit with such distinctness and clarity.
“Cool!” I stated with outright enthusiasm.
“What?” Lark said as she looked over her shoulder.
In awe, I explained, “I think the Book of Mormon is the item I want to take to my English class.”
A smile spread quickly across her face, and she said, “Oh, that sounds great, but it will be really hard.”
That realization dampened my enthusiasm considerably. Would I be giving up popularity and the chance of making friends in my high school life? Sensing my hesitation, Lark suggested that I pray about it before going to bed.
That night, I placed the Book of Mormon with my school books. Then, kneeling, I prayed, “Dear Heavenly Father, are you sure this is what you want me to do?” The answer I felt was an immediate yes, accompanied by the assurance of the Spirit. “Will you help me?” I asked. Another strong positive feeling calmed my nerves. Reassured, I went to sleep.
As my sixth-period English class approached, I grew more uncertain. The teacher gave instructions to the class. We were to state our name, what our item was, and why it represented us. The first two requirements I had down pat, but for some reason, I hadn’t thought about the third. I knew what my representative item was; I didn’t know why it was.
When the call for volunteers was made, one girl from the front row stood up and told about her item. Then the girl next to her stood up and took her turn. A pattern started developing in the order of volunteers. I would be the final person to share his item.
When my turn came, I slowly walked to the front of the room. I hadn’t written a speech or even made a mental outline of what I would say. I began with, “My name is Derek Tucker, and this is the item that represents me. It is the Book of Mormon.” From that time until I finished speaking, I felt the Spirit guiding my words. To this day I am not really sure what I said.
After I finished, I braced myself for a verbal assault. But to my amazement and gratitude, there was silence. What truly took me by surprise, however, were the facial expressions of the students. About one-third of the class had tears in their eyes. Others wore stoic expressions. And still others were nervously looking away. Though not everyone may have felt comfortable about the subject, there seemed to be an atmosphere of respect.
As I turned to walk back to my seat, I saw that the teacher’s face was streaming with tears. She whispered in an emotional voice, “That’s a strong testament.” I was stunned; time slowed as the statement penetrated my heart. I said, “Thank you,” and then walked back to my desk.
I had put my trust in the Lord, and he had helped me. I now knew who I was—a precious son of Heavenly Father. And I knew that as I served him, my life would have meaning and value.

Lethbridge, Alberta, is quite a long way from the Sweetwater River in Wyoming, but during a recent pioneer trek, they looked a little bit the same. Three boys from the Lethbridge Stake—Randy Bullock, Drew Walters, and Brett Barfuss—were inspired by a story they heard about three young men who helped rescue members of the Martin Handcart Company. The young men carried many Saints through the icy river, risking their own lives to save others.
The boys in Lethbridge reenacted the brave service rendered by those young men so long ago. And although they didn’t risk their lives to carry their friends across Lee’s Creek, all the youth felt of the sweet spirit that service brings.

A few years after I had been baptized, becoming better acquainted with some duties in the Church, I was ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood. My father, who had baptized me, had died in the meantime of a heart attack, so the bishop conferred the Aaronic Priesthood upon me and ordained me to the office of a deacon. I remember that I had a wonderful feeling about that as he conferred the priesthood upon me, that I now had responsibilities and would be accountable for my actions and would have things to learn to do as I would progress through life. I did have a special feeling that I now was a little different, that I wouldn’t be exactly the same as friends who did not hold the priesthood or people that you would meet out in the world. I now had some responsibilities, things we would learn on Sundays in church as we would sit around the old coal stove down in the basement of the meetinghouse.
On Saturdays we would clean out the church, fill the coal buckets with coal, and see that the building was ready for Sunday meetings. We had things to do in the lesser priesthood, in all the temporal affairs of the ward—collecting fast offerings and doing duties for the bishop. He and other leaders would teach us about the Aaronic Priesthood and the office of a deacon, then a teacher, and then, of course, a priest as we would advance in the priesthood. It seemed to me that I was developing an interesting understanding, a vision of the work to be done, and that I personally had some responsibility, even though I was just a young boy in a little country town. There was something very important about it.

I, too, had the privilege of serving as a stake president. I served as the first president of the Mt. Graham Stake, formed in 1938 from parts of the St. Joseph Stake. Like all of you presidents, I have experienced the sadness as well as the joy of laboring with those in difficulty.
I well remember the flood of September 1941. It rained continually the weekend of stake conference. The day after stake conference the Gila River overflowed its channel and swept through Duncan, Arizona, and environs. After consulting with my first counselor, Vernon McGrath, regarding the Saints’ immediate needs, I loaded my car with goods from the interstake welfare storehouse in Safford and drove the forty miles to Duncan. Arranging matters as best we could there, I walked the eight miles to Virden because bridges were unsafe for cars. I was filled with grief as I viewed the devastation of the houses and the farmland. Yet, in the ensuing weeks, I shared in perhaps the most fulfilling experience of my tenure as stake president. Through the high council and ward bishoprics, we organized for reconstruction. From welfare supplies and local labor we reestablished the people on the land. The contributions of the Saints throughout the area were wonderful, and, as I recall, we did not have to call on the General Welfare Committee for help. We handled it all locally ourselves.

Nicole loves Suriname. So when she heard about a national contest to write an essay about her country, it seemed like a good thing to do. The contest rules said to describe what she would do if she were the Minister of Tourism. In her essay she suggested that historical buildings in Suriname should be cleaned up and beautified and that citizens of Suriname should be friendlier to visitors.
Nicole won the contest for her age group and traveled to Puerto Rico to compete with winners from other countries. Nicole really enjoyed her trip to Puerto Rico. “It is a beautiful country,” she says. “The people there are very kind, and I made lots of friends. But after all, home is home.” She was eager to be with her parents and her four older sisters again. And she was anxious to see her pet cat, Rosy!
At night Nicole likes to listen to the chirping crickets and the croaking frogs and the sounds of life in the woods around her house. She also likes to think of the city, with its government buildings and street signs, flower stalls and food markets. She is happy to be where she is. And she is grateful that, by writing down her thoughts, she was able to share her love for her country with people throughout the world.

Fish Sticks appeared out of nowhere.
One late summer evening, just when I was beginning to think I might get a college dorm room all to myself, there he was, standing in the doorway and grinning like a self-satisfied explorer who’d found a lost tomb.
“Frank Calio,” he said, sticking out his hand into the room and willing me to get off my bed to shake. “You can call me Fish Sticks.”
I shook his hand and then he disappeared down the hall. A minute later he reappeared with two envelope-yellow suitcases and a laptop computer. He threw the suitcases on the bed and popped one open.
“What are you in for?” he asked, not looking up from his unpacking.
“Huh?”
He turned to me and spoke slowly. “What are you stud-eee-ing?”
“Oh. I don’t know yet. Maybe business.”
“Hmmm,” he said, “I’m music education. Gonna be a junior high music teacher.” He stood up straight and ruffled his hair like a mad scientist. “I’m going to be rich, I tell ya. Ha, ha, ha, ha.”
“Not,” I said.
He nodded, then rearranged his hair. It was long in the front, and he let it hang in his eyes.
“Why do I have to call you Fish Sticks?” I finally asked.
“You don’t have to,” he said.
“But that’s what people call you? Is it your nickname?”
He flipped his front hair to one side with a quick half-turn of his head. “Yep.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I may tell you about it one day,” he said. “If I like you.”
That first year, Frank spent most of his time at the music building—in class or teaching piano lessons to local kids. On Saturday nights, if there wasn’t a dance at the institute, we’d order pizza and watch TV in the lounge.
One night in January, when there was nothing good on, Frank finally started talking.
“You know, I taught myself to play the piano,” he said.
“I taught myself to whistle,” I added, spinning the empty pizza box on one finger.
“I’m serious,” he said.
“So am I.”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. I was gonna tell you about Fish Sticks.”
I dropped the pizza box on the floor. “I’ll be quiet. Tell me.”
He pushed the remote to mute the TV. “I was about ten,” he said, “and I learned to play a few songs out of the Primary songbook. You know, just simple tunes. But that got me hooked. And after a while I figured out a few real pieces—classical pieces.”
“You like classical?”
“Love it,” he said. “Anyway, all that time I dreamed about something. You know how most kids dream about playing in the Super Bowl or the World Series? Well, I spent my teenage years inside at our piano playing Bach or Chopin. And I dreamed about playing at Carnegie Hall. You know, my fingers flying along the keyboard in a blur, the music rising to a crescendo, the crowd carrying me off on their shoulders.
“That is a pretty weird dream for a kid.”
“I guess.”
“So you must be pretty good … at the piano.”
“Uh, no. I started taking lessons when I was about 14, but I’ve never really gotten what you’d call good.”
“C’mon, you can’t be that bad. You got into music school, didn’t you?”
“I got in ’cause I know my theory.”
“Oh.” I tried to remember where the conversation had begun. Oh, yeah. “What’s this got to do with Fish Sticks?”
“Okay. One afternoon I was playing the piano. It was hot, the window was open, and a couple of my friends walked by and heard me. So they climbed up, you know, to look in the window—and they saw me playing. That’s when they laughed and called me Fish Sticks.” He shrugged. “And it’s true. When I play the piano my fingers move like stiff, frozen fish sticks.”
He held his stumpy fingers up and wiggled them for my benefit.
I nodded. “But why would you want people to call you Fish Sticks?”
“That’s another story. I’ll tell you one day if I get to liking you a bit more.”
Just before summer vacation, I bumped into Frank on campus. Looking for any diversion from studying for finals, I walked with him to the music building.
As we walked, Frank repeatedly flipped the hair out of his face. Sometimes, on a windy day, and in a frustrated attempt to free his face of hair, I’d seen Frank spin his head and body a full 360 degrees, often losing his balance and staggering to stay upright.
When we reached Frank’s practice room, a young girl was waiting. She was about ten, with long fingers and large brown glasses that sat awkwardly on her bony, high-cheeked face. She was quiet.
“Hey, Cheryl!” Frank said, barging into the room while throwing his book bag to the side of the piano. “You been practicing?”
An almost inaudible “Yes,” from Cheryl, like she was talking through a pillow.
“Fantastic,” Frank snapped back, holding up his hands like a triumphant boxer. Cheryl and I couldn’t help smiling at his enthusiasm.
“I just picked up a new book on alternating melodies. Just off the presses. You up for something a little challenging?” Frank asked.
Cheryl shrugged.
“Okay!” He made a show of pulling the book out of his bag, like it was a rabbit. Cheryl watched closely as the blue and gray cover emerged. “Looks fun, huh?” he added, sarcastically. “Those crazy people playing football in this spring weather don’t know what they’re missing.”
He cracked the book open and placed it over the keyboard. Cheryl swallowed at the intimidating lines and lines of black notes.
“Just ten minutes of theory,” he said. “Then we’ll learn a song. Okay?”
Cheryl shrugged again and placed her long fingers on the keys.
There was a dance that Saturday at the institute. Frank and I stood on the edge of the dance floor watching and waiting before we committed.
When two girls came in, Frank nudged me with his elbow. I’d seen them in church before, but hadn’t said anything to them or even smiled in their direction. They moved to the far edge of the dance floor and talked to each other as lively as two birds. Frank, bold as usual, walked over and I followed.
“What do you think of the dance?” asked Frank when he got to them. He was nodding too much. He wasn’t nervous very often.
They stopped talking and considered.
“We just got here,” one said.
“But it seems okay, I guess,” said the other.
“Good,” said Frank.
One girl reached behind her and began tapping her fingernail rhythmically on the wood molding of the wall.
I thought Frank would ask one of them to dance then, but he didn’t. Instead he put his hands in his pockets and leaned backward, reflectively, like a professor who thinks he has something really important to say.
“You know,” he said, “I’ve loved music since I was a kid—classical music, that is. And I’ve always wanted to play a concert. And next Saturday night at the auditorium I’m going to do that. And I’d like you both to come and bring any friends you want ’cause it’s free.”
They considered him for a few seconds. One pushed a few wisps of hair out of her face and smiled, nicely.
He repeated the request to about a dozen other people before the night was over.
I worried that week about Frank and the concert. Despite his love of music and his skill at teaching, I knew he wouldn’t lie about his playing. If he said his fingers moved like fish sticks, they probably did. I didn’t want to see Frank, so full of confidence, flattened by failure.
Then all of a sudden it was Saturday night, and Frank was walking out onto the stage. Under the lights and on the stage he didn’t look his typical fearless self. He seemed pale and wispy, like a crumpled tissue in a dark blue suit.
He raised his hands above the keyboard.
“You can do it, Fish Sticks,” I gasped under my breath.
He flipped the hair out of his eyes, mumbled something to the piano, and struck the first chord.
That night I walked with Frank back to the dorm. We were quiet for most of the way, but I knew it couldn’t last. Finally he asked.
“So, how was it?”
“What?” I played dumb, stalling.
“The concert, bozo. My concerto sans orchestra.”
“Oh, it was good,” I said quickly.
He grunted. “I got off tempo a few times,” he said.
“Ahh, no one noticed,” I lied.
“Seriously, I want you to tell me what you thought of it.”
I looked over at him.
“Well, I guess your playing could still use a little work,” I said.
“Yeah, I guess,” he admitted. He stuck his hands in his coat pockets. “It frustrates me sometimes—that I can’t play.”
“No, I didn’t say that.”
“No, I know. I can hear the music in my mind and I know how it’s supposed to come out, but it just doesn’t. Like tonight, Fish Sticks took over. I was halfway through and I wanted to climb up on top of that piano and jump up and down.”
I let out a little laugh and Frank looked over and began laughing too.
We rounded the bend and stopped under a streetlight, looking up at our dorm.
“So why didn’t you?” I asked.
He flipped his hair off his forehead to reveal raised eyebrows. “My students, most of them, were in the audience.”
“Yeah, so?”
“Well, tonight I shared something personal with them,” he said. “I showed them that Fish Sticks isn’t the greatest pianist in the world. And maybe that means they can mess up sometimes, too. You know, they can make mistakes. It’s okay.”
I waited for more.
“You remember the parable of the talents?” he asked.
I shrugged and nodded my head. “Sure. If you got it, use it—or lose it.”
“That’s the idea,” he said. “The servants who are given more talents use them, but the guy who gets only one talent buries it. And in the end, the Lord takes his talent away.
“Well, most of my students are around eight or nine, and if you ask them they’ll tell you they can play the piano—no problem. I bet if you ask them that same question in a few years—when they get into high school or college—they’ll probably say they can’t play. Most of them will lose their confidence, their belief in their talents.
“But I think the world needs more writers, and singers, and, uh, actors, and pianists. I want these kids to share their gifts with others. And I think they will if they know it’s okay to mess up once in a while on the way. That they don’t have to be the best.”
I smiled and told him, “You know, I was listening to music when I began to realize I really believed in God.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I just realized that it was impossible for music as beautiful as Beethoven wrote to come out of nothing. There had to be something more to the universe. There had to be a God. It was soon after that experience that I started to investigate the Church.”
“And the people who were playing the music you listened to, well, someone had to believe in their talent. Someone had to be there when they played wrong notes to keep them going.”
Frank tilted his head, ready to sweep the hair out of his eyes, but stopped. Instead, he reached up and pulled his hair straight out.
“You know,” he said. “I just might get a haircut on Monday.”
I laughed. “You sure you feel okay?” I asked.
“I feel fine,” he said as he started to run toward the dorm. “Honest,” he called out. “I feel great.”
Frank Calio is a band teacher now. He lives in Idaho. When I called him to let him know I’d written his story he laughed. “Call the story ‘Fish Sticks,’” he said. “The kids at my school call me Old Fish Sticks. Every year I play a little at our school recital. I’m better than I was in college, but I still make mistakes and the kids get a good laugh. But they all know in my class it’s okay to mess up while they’re learning. I just want them to play music and to try hard. That’s all.”

Now, from the life of another brave believer. On December 27, 2013, Alicia Schroeder joyfully welcomed her dear friends Sean and Sharla Chilcote, who unexpectedly showed up on her doorstep. Sean, who was also Alicia’s bishop, handed her his cell phone and solemnly said, “Alicia, we love you. You need to take this call.”

Alicia’s husband, Mario, was on the phone. He was in a remote area with some of their children on a long-anticipated snowmobile trip. There had been a terrible accident. Mario was seriously injured, and their 10-year-old son, Kaleb, was gone. When Mario tearfully told Alicia of Kaleb’s death, she was overcome with a shock and horror few of us will ever know. It dropped her. Paralyzed with unspeakable anguish, Alicia could neither move nor speak.

Bishop and Sister Chilcote quickly lifted her up and held her. They wept and deeply grieved together for some time. Then Bishop Chilcote offered to give Alicia a blessing.

What happened next is incomprehensible without some understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the immediate goodness of God. Bishop Chilcote gently placed his hands on Alicia’s head and, with quivering voice, began to speak. Alicia heard two things as though spoken by God Himself. First, she heard her name, Alicia Susan Schroeder. Then she heard the bishop invoke the authority of Almighty God. In that instant—at the mere utterance of her name and God’s power—Alicia was filled with an indescribable peace, love, comfort, and somehow joy. And it has continued with her.

Now, of course, Alicia, Mario, and their family still mourn for and miss Kaleb. It is hard! Whenever I speak with her, Alicia’s eyes well up with tears as she tells how much she loves and misses her little boy. And her eyes remain moist as she tells how the Great Deliverer has sustained her through every bit of her ordeal, beginning with His immediate goodness during her deepest despair and continuing now with the bright hope of a sweet reunion that is “not many days hence.”

May I share a personal experience to help any who feel anguish when eternal marriage is mentioned since you believe your spouse will not prepare for that sacred experience because of deeply rooted characteristics or habits. About five years into our marriage, we had a growing experience. Our precious two-year-old son Richard died while undergoing surgery to correct a congenital heart defect. Within six weeks our daughter Andrea passed away at birth. My father, then not a member of the Church, loved little Richard very much. He said to my inactive mother, “I cannot understand how Richard and Jeanene seem to be able to accept the loss of these children.”

Mother, responding to a prompting, said, “Kenneth, they have been sealed in the temple. They know that their children will be with them in the eternities if they live righteously. But you and I will not have our five sons because we have not made those covenants.”

My father pondered those words. He began to meet with the stake missionaries and was soon baptized. In just over a year Mother, Dad, and the children were sealed in the temple. Later, President Kimball put his hands on my father’s head, promised him the vigor and strength of youth, and gave him the sealing power. He worked as a sealer for 11 years in the Washington D.C. Temple with Mother at his side. You do your part. Don’t abandon hope for a temple marriage.