Gospel Story Finder

As a young newly returned missionary from the Nigeria Enugu Mission, to a family where my faith is strange to everyone, there were many ideas and plans running through my mind. Where and how to start was the only question I had. After a few days, I was added to the institute class in my ward on WhatsApp, where assignments were given every week for us to study.
I must confess that though we live in a world of hardships, where we have to battle with a deadly virus called corona (COVID-19), the Lord is still hastening His work of salvation (D&C 88:73). Studying scriptures every day has really boosted my spirituality level. After submitting an assignment on the First Vision and after a heartfelt prayer, I felt the impression that I should approach my elder sister and her family, who I am living with, and introduce them to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and to His Church. I did it and I was so happy the many questions she had about the Church even before I left for mission were resolved by the help of the Holy Ghost. She has, for some time, stopped going to her church because of some misunderstandings. I used the opportunity to invite her to church and she promised to come after the crisis is calmed and controlled.
The institute class has really strengthened my faith and has shown me many means to invite others to the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Despite the hardships and the oppositions, I know with all my heart that the work of the Lord will still move forward. Now, I have been able to create a plan to diligently assist the Lord in hastening His work. I know He is mindful of His children and I love Him with all my heart.

When an LDS classmate invited Horváth Attila, 16, to sacrament meeting, Attila liked what he saw.

“Then, when my friend told me the Church was very family-centered, I became even more interested.”

Within weeks, Attila was baptized.

Three months later, his father asked to hear the discussions. “I knew enough about the Church by that time,” says Attila, “that I could help my father learn about it. The knowledge I had received in seminary helped me explain the scriptures to him. But since he smoked and drank coffee a lot, I didn’t have the faith that he would be baptized. I was amazed when I saw how—with the help of our Heavenly Father—he was able to rid those things from his life. Two months later, I baptized my father!

“Then when my mother saw how happy my father and I were in the Church, she also started to be interested. I baptized her three months after baptizing my father! The next day, my whole family came to church and bore their testimonies. It’s not possible to describe what kind of feeling it was for me.”

Durban’s dedication weekend served as a homecoming for Elder and Sister Cook, who had resided in South Africa as he served five years in the Africa Southeast Area presidency, including the last three as president. He had presided at the Durban temple’s groundbreaking on April 6, 2016.
“Four years ago, Sister Cook and I climbed the hill where the Durban temple was to be built, along with many others who attended the groundbreaking,” he recalled of the beautiful, clear day.
“There was a feeling of awe as we sat on that empty hillside. We looked out over the valley and out to the ocean and realized that in a few short years, a temple would rise up on that ground. To have the sacred privilege of returning for the dedication of the Durban temple that has been built up to the Lord is very humbling. I am filled with joy.”

“Look at how squished together the houses are!” Richard’s younger brother, Michael, said, pointing to a row of matching doors. “Are there any kids my age around here?” he asked.
“I’m sure there are,” Mom said, pulling another box from the car.
“Yeah,” said Richard. “Look at all the toys and bikes in the yards.”
Erika stroked Jewel and tickled her tummy as she carried the purring cat to the front door. “I think Jewel likes it here!” she said.
Richard knew why his family was moving here. It was close to the hospital where Erika was getting treatments.
Even though Erika was older than Richard, she looked smaller and skinnier because of her cancer treatments. The treatments also made her hair fall out. That’s why she always wore a bright yellow hat.
“Almost as sunny as her smile,” Mom sometimes said.
Suddenly Michael yelled from the hill up the street. “A playground! We have a playground!”
“A playground?” Erika started walking up the street, her smile even bigger. “Let’s go see it!”
As they got closer, Richard saw a big sign on the fence: “UNSAFE—DO NOT PLAY.” The swing set was broken, and a few rusty pipes were lying around.
“That’s sad!” Richard said. “I bet there are lots of kids around here who would love a place to play.”
“We could fix it!” Erika said. She sounded excited, like she could already see the way it would look.
“Could we, Mom?” Richard asked.
Mom shrugged. “I don’t know, kids. That would be really difficult.”
Erika looked at the playground. Her smile had faded, but her hat still looked bright and sunny.
Richard turned back to Mom. “Can we try?”
Mom finally gave in. But it would take lots of work.
After they got settled in their new house, Richard and Michael started looking for neighborhood kids to help. Mom called businesses to ask for donations. Before long kids were cleaning up trash and planting flowers. They painted benches with castles, spaceships, and dragons—Erika’s favorite. The whole neighborhood was helping make Erika’s dream come true!
As months went by, Erika got sicker and sicker. But even when she couldn’t help fix things up anymore, she and Jewel came out to cheer the helpers on.
“Remember, we want plenty of ramps for wheelchairs,” she said. “This will be a playground everyone can play on!”
On the day the playground was finally opened, Erika wasn’t there. She had already returned to Heavenly Father. But Richard, Michael, and Mom were there?—along with tons of other kids. There were kids in wheelchairs, kids on crutches, and even kids from other neighborhoods!
A new playground sign said “Erika’s Dream Park.”
Richard sat on a bench covered with paintings of dragons and watched everyone run and jump and swing. He knew Erika was in heaven and that she wasn’t sick anymore. But it was still hard watching all those kids play without her there.
The sun was bright and yellow like Erika’s hat. Richard could feel it warm him from head to toe. He thought maybe he was feeling warm for another reason too. Like maybe the Holy Ghost was telling him that things would be OK. He knew he would see Erika again. And when she was resurrected, her body would be healthy and strong. A smile spread across Richard’s face.
“Come on, Richard!” Michael shouted from the top of the slide.
Richard jumped off the bench and ran into the sunshine to play.

I too was afraid to let my friends down. But I thought to myself that if I did give in, whom else would I let down? What worked best for me was to make the decision long before the situation came up. I made the commitment to myself that I would say no to drugs and alcohol. After I said no a couple of times, I was more respected for the decision I made. After a while, when someone would ask me again if I wanted a drink, one of my friends would say, “No, Calder doesn’t drink.” It made it easier for me once my friends realized that I wasn’t going to drink.
Elder Calder, 20, Idaho Pocatello Mission

Ruth’s family is important to her—every member, including her widowed mother-in-law. She recalls many learning experiences at the hands of the elderly Mother Funk, even a lesson in more earnest prayer. Her mother-in-law, who was hard of hearing, would often speak in loud tones, almost as if no one could hear her any better than she could hear them. Ruth would visit her frequently to check on her welfare, for Mother Funk was aging and alone.

“Many were the times,” Ruth remembers, “when I found her on her knees in her bedroom in supplication—rather loud supplication—to the Lord. She never heard me come in, so I would wait patiently and quietly, learning anew how to truly pray. That grand lady would speak to the Lord with such a fervent soul and real intent—it was beautiful.”

As a young man, Heber attended a meeting and heard an appeal for donations. After the meeting he handed his bishop $50. The bishop returned $45 to him and said that $5 was his fair share. Heber J. Grant gave the bishop the entire $50 and said, “‘Bishop Woolley, didn’t you preach here today that the Lord would reward fourfold? My mother is a widow and she needs two hundred dollars.’ He said: ‘My boy, do you believe that if I take this other forty-five dollars you will get your two hundred dollars quicker?’ I said: ‘Certainly.’ Well, he took it.” As Heber walked from the meeting, he got an idea. He wired a man he didn’t know and completed a business transaction. Heber J. Grant’s profit was $218.50. The next day he went to his bishop and said: “Bishop, I have made two hundred eighteen dollars and fifty cents, after paying that fifty dollars donation the other day, and so I owe twenty-one dollars and eighty-five cents in tithing. I will have to dig up the difference between twenty-one dollars eighty-five cents and eighteen dollars fifty cents. The Lord did not quite give me the tithing in addition to his ‘four to one’ income.”

“Dinner will be ready in a half hour,” Brad’s mother called as he left the house.
“Okay, Mom. I’ll be back.”
Walking down a sidewalk bordered with red and pink petunias, Brad looked over his shoulder at the home he had just left, still impressed by the building of white brick and by the green majesty of trees that shaded it.
Facing forward again, Brad slid his fingers into the pockets of tight denim pants, thinking about the contrast between this house on a wide street in a medium-sized California city and the home he and his parents had lived in until two months earlier.
His father, John Brannigan, had been determined to get his family out of the third-floor railroad flat on a Brooklyn street where poverty forced him to take his bride, but his son was 15 before John Brannigan, working days and going to school nights, received his degree that resulted in a job with an electronics firm and eventually earned for him the position with his company’s California office.
The three-bedroom home they bought was so different from the dreary flat Brad had grown up in, the quietness of the suburban neighborhood such a contrast to the day-and-night uproar of the Brooklyn street, that Brad had no more than begun his adjustment to the change.
“Not that I don’t enjoy the scenery and the climate,” thought Brad, “and I envy Mom her delight in our home.” He thought, too, that he understood his father’s pride in his ability to provide so well for his wife and son. Brad wondered, with a sharp twinge of guilt, whether his parents were aware of his unsettled discontent.
Mostly he missed the camaraderie of friends in Brooklyn he’d known all his life, who understood him in a way he was sure no one in this western community ever would.
Even as he brooded over his lack of companionship, he heard a cheerful, “Hi, Brad. How’s the boy?”
He hadn’t noticed Jeff Collier’s approach, so the stocky senior had greeted him and walked on before Brad could respond. Frowning, he looked after the retreating figure.
“How’s the boy?” he mimicked in a sarcastic undertone. “A lot he cares.” At the same time, he was surprised that the other boy even knew his name. Brad had been a student at Caulfield High for barely a month. In that time he had spoken to no more than half a dozen fellow seniors, but he recognized the class president. That Jeff Collier also recognized him disturbed Brad. Walking on, he decided he must have been pointed out to Jeff as “the dude with the weird accent.”
Brad entered a corner drugstore and an agony of homesickness surged through him. No place else in the California town reminded him of his own faraway city, but pausing beside the magazine rack he looked at publications that were duplicates of those on display in the drugstore in Brooklyn. An identical odor that combined the perfume of cosmetics with the antiseptic smell of medicines deepened his nostalgia.
Seated on a stool covered in shiny orange vinyl, Brad studied, with little interest, his reflection in the mirror behind the counter—a lean, tanned face, a thatch of licorice black hair worn loose over green eyes accented by arched, black brows.
The boy behind the counter asked, “What’ll it be?”
“Fresh limeade. Heavy on the fresh.”
Placing a frosted glass in front of Brad, the boy leaned his weight on folded arms.
“I know you,” he said. “You’re in my chemistry class. Have you finished the outside experiment yet?”
With slow deliberation Brad pulled the glass close, removed paper from a straw. Even though classes in his new school were hard for Brad, he was doing well in everything but chemistry. He felt sure the boy who still waited for an answer knew this, that he was taunting him. Grimly Brad drew tart liquid through the straw, thinking, “The guys in school must joke about how tough they think the students in my Brooklyn school were. Bet they think I didn’t learn a thing.”
His voice bitter with resentment, Brad said, “I suppose you breezed right through the experiment.”
The boy straightened. “Don’t even know where to start. I thought maybe we could talk it over, and also I’d like to—”
“Fat chance, man!” Brad tossed a quarter onto the counter and stalked out of the drugstore, the metallic ring of the coin echoing in his head. Fighting the ache of hurt in his throat, he strode toward his home asking himself, “How long before these dudes stop being suspicious of my background?” Brad was sure his classmates suspected him of carrying a switchblade, that they thought his clothes outlandish, and the few times he had spoken in a classroom, he’d caught glances exchanged between several fellow students who appeared to be highly amused because his speech was so different from their own.
In his preoccupation Brad nearly collided with a girl who suddenly appeared around a corner. Mumbling, “Sorry,” he would have hurried on, but she spoke his name.
“Brad Brannigan! Do you always walk right past people you know?”
Recognizing Jill Fenton he wished he could know her. Since his first day in English literature class he had been very much aware of the tall girl with the ash-blonde hair, had admired the friendliness of a smile that seemed to include everyone.
“Even me,” thought Brad. “A doll like Jill wouldn’t cut anybody.” Convinced she spoke to him only because she pitied him, resenting that pity so intensely he could barely speak, Brad muttered, “Gotta go, Jill. See you around.”
As he brushed past her, Brad’s quick sideways glimpse of the girl’s face left him with the uneasy feeling that his abruptness had marred her bright mood. Steps faltering he paused, then turned, but she was walking rapidly away, and Brad told himself, “What makes me think a snub from a guy she couldn’t really give a hang about would bother a popular girl like Jill?”
Dismissing his uneasiness, Brad was soon in an area of the town where he had been several times because a building on the corner of Vine and First streets attracted him. Rich green lawns, trimmed shrubs, and brightly grouped flowers surrounded a large structure of tan brick topped by a tapered, heaven-pointing spire. Brad thought the building was probably a church, but he couldn’t understand why there should be so much activity inside it. Every time he had walked by, people seemed to be going in or coming out.
Leaning against a tree Brad thought about his own religious background. His parents were good, honest people who had explained to him as much about God and the plan of life as they understood themselves, and although aware of the many shadings between right and wrong, Brad still felt a yearning to understand the reason for his existence, and he sensed, from the expressions of purposeful contentment on the faces of both adults and children who went in and out of the building that they knew the reason for theirs.
With a shrug, assuring himself that contentment and self-assurance were moods that could hardly be influenced by anything that took place inside a structure of brick and wood, Brad started home again, hoping he would meet no more of his classmates, not sure he could cope with another condescending greeting, but as he turned to go up the walk toward his house, four girls, walking together, called, “Hi, Brad!” not seeming to notice his surly lack of response.
After a night made restless by loneliness and a wretched sense of displacement, Brad left for school, wondering wearily whether he could ever hurdle the barrier of his strangeness, ever feel himself a part of the California community.
He was so emotionally off-balance all day that when Jeff Collier caught up with him in the hall after the last period, he walked along, unresisting, as Jeff propelled him down the hall with a hand under his elbow.
“Brad, we require another warm body on the decorating committee for the Senior Hop,” Jeff said. “You’ll be glad to know you just volunteered.”
Brad, irritated, wondered why he should help with a dance he hadn’t even considered attending, but before he could voice his refusal, Jeff spoke again.
“I’ll let you know in a couple of days where and when we’ll meet. Okay?”
To his surprise Brad heard himself answer, “Okay,” and felt the muscles in his cheeks relax in a grin, a response to the cheerful smile Jeff gave him.
Still off guard, Brad stopped to wait for Jill Fenton when she called to him outside the school.
She looked up at him with a smile that was hesitant, Brad suspected, because of his abruptness with her the evening before, but she said, “Brad, I wondered whether you’d like to come to activity night tonight.”
“To what?”
Jill laughed. “Oh, it’s an auxiliary of the church a lot of us in this high school belong to. We’re Latter-day Saints.”
“That’s one I never heard of.”
“Some people call us Mormons,” Jill continued, and before Brad could say that he had, indeed, heard of that church, but nothing he’d care to repeat, she added, “We have a chapel on the corner of Vine and First streets. If you’ll be there at 7:30 tonight, I’ll meet you at the door.”
Never could Brad remember living through such an endless evening. He couldn’t eat his dinner; then he had to spend the next hour assuring his mother that no, he wasn’t sick and yes, everything was fine at school. By 7:15 he had definitely decided he wouldn’t go anywhere near the Mormon chapel, and at 7:20 he called, “I’m going out, Mom. I won’t be late,” as he raced out of the house. What if Jill had given up on him? What if he couldn’t find her when he got to the chapel? But as he stepped onto the wide porch, Jill came through the door.
“Oh, Brad, I’m glad you came, but we’ll have to hurry. Rehearsal has already started.”
He followed Jill through a red-carpeted foyer into what was, to his surprise, an enormous high-ceilinged room that looked like a gymnasium. Near a stage on one side of the oblong area at least 30 young people, who appeared to range in age from about 12 to 17 or 18, milled around. Among them were several adults, including a big man whose broad, animated face was edged by rust-shaded sideburns. He turned as Jill, with Brad behind her, walked up to him.
Jill’s hand on his arm moved Brad forward.
“Brother Hill, this is Bradley Brannigan, the new boy in school I told you about. Won’t he be perfect for the Indian chief?”
“Hey, yeah, he sure will!” The man’s examination of Brad was candid and jovial. “Perfect. How about it, Brannigan? You ready to be in our show?”
“Your what?” Brad was confused, not only by the request, but by the bustle around him and the chatter that was suddenly drowned out by a reverberating chord on the piano which seemed to be a signal for most of the young people to run onto the stage where they lined up, arms linked.
As one of the group began to rehearse the others in what appeared to be a somewhat complex dance routine, Jill said, “Brad, our church has all kinds of interesting activities for the boys and girls our age. One of the things we’re doing in this ward right now is a musical show.”
Brad’s bewilderment must have shown in his face because Jill, smiling, explained to him that a ward was an area division of the Latter-day Saint church and that the show now in rehearsal was a dance-drama-musical production put on by the young people of the ward with token help from qualified adults.
“Paul Ensign and Jeff Collier wrote the words and music for this show,” Jill went on, “but we didn’t have anyone who seemed to be right for the part of the Indian chief. Paul said he saw you in the drugstore yesterday and thought how good you’d be, but he couldn’t get you to talk to him, so he asked me to invite you here tonight.”
Intrigued by what Jill told him, but unable even to imagine himself taking part in such a production, actually performing in front of an audience, Brad said, “Oh, I couldn’t do a thing like that, Jill, and anyway I’m not a member of your church, so—”
“Oh, that doesn’t matter at all,“ she said quickly. “You live close, and we desperately need your tall, dark, and handsome presence.”
“Flattery,” said Mr. Hill who had come up to them, “should get you everywhere, Jill. Come on, young fellow, let’s see what you can do.”
Brad, walking forward when Jill did, was amazed to find his feet carrying him onto the stage where he was thrust out in front of the grouped boys and girls. He wasn’t given a chance to say he wouldn’t be an Indian chief. Dazed, he accepted the script thrust into his hands, read lines each time Paul Ensign told him to, and when the play’s finale was reached, he was one of the performers who lined up to sing, with loud enthusiasm, “Home, Home on the Range.”
He left the chapel, part of a large group, and when they reached his house, those who were still together chorused, “Goodnight, Brad!” and “See you tomorrow.”
A glow that had been lit inside him during the evening burned around Brad’s heart and was renewed every time he remembered, during the night, how casually, yet how completely, the friendly, cheerful group had accepted him as one of them.
Entering the school building next morning, Brad was filled with anxiety and anticipation. Would the wondrous sense of belonging, which had so warmed him the night before, carry into the school day, or must he continue to keep himself apart—continue to remain different and alone?
He didn’t have long to wonder. He was barely inside his first classroom when a vivacious brunette who had played the part of an Indian princess the night before smiled at him from her seat across the room, and Jeff Collier lifted a hand in greeting when he walked in.
In his own seat Brad opened his English literature textbook to the poetry assigned for the day. A poem by Edwin Markham caught his attention. He read words that seemed to hold up a mirror reflecting his own recent actions—words about a rebel who, flaunting withdrawal from others, drew a circle around himself to shut out those who would befriend him.
Jill Fenton came in and touched Brad’s shoulder as she walked past him to her own seat. Lowering his head to hide tears, Brad read the poem’s final line that told of friends who, with their love, drew a circle around the rebel’s circle and took him in.

Brothers and Sisters we have a prophet today that has a life full of practicing serving others. The lesson of service came early to President Monson. As told by Elder Holland,
President Monson was a Twenty-three-year-old, relatively new bishop of the Sixth-Seventh Ward in the Temple View Stake, and was uncharacteristically restless as the stake priesthood leadership meeting progressed. He had the distinct impression that he should leave the meeting immediately and drive to the Veterans' Hospital high up on the Avenues of Salt Lake City. Before leaving home that night he had received a telephone call informing him that an older member of his ward was ill and had been admitted to the hospital for care. Could the bishop, the caller wondered, find a moment to go by the hospital sometime and give a blessing? The busy young leader explained that he was just on his way to a stake meeting but that he certainly would be pleased to go by the hospital as soon as the meeting was concluded.
Now the prompting was stronger than ever: "Leave the meeting and proceed to the hospital at once." But the stake president himself was speaking at the pulpit! It would be most discourteous to stand in the middle of the presiding officer's message, make one's way over an entire row of brethren, and then exit the building altogether. Painfully he waited out the final moments of the stake president's message, then bolted for the door even before the benediction had been pronounced.
Running the full length of the corridor on the fourth floor of the hospital, the young bishop saw a flurry of activity outside the designated room. A nurse stopped him and said, "Are you Bishop Monson?"
"Yes," was the anxious reply.
"I'm sorry," she said. "The patient was calling your name just before he passed away."
Fighting back the tears, Thomas S. Monson turned and walked back into the night. He vowed then and there that he would never again fail to act upon a prompting for the Lord. He would acknowledge the impressions of the Spirit when they came, and he would follow wherever they led him, ever to be "on the Lord's errand.

Bishop Keith B. McMullin (above right), Second Counselor in the Presiding Bishopric:I remember my first home teaching assignment was with a brother from Scandinavia who spoke broken English. He called me on the phone, and I tried hard to understand what he was saying. He invited me to come to his home. He was an older man, a very fine Latter-day Saint, and my senior companion. He invited me in and said in a heavy accent, “I think we should say a prayer.” We knelt down and had a prayer. At that time in my home, our family prayers were reserved for major occasions—they weren’t an everyday occurrence. My home teaching companion, however, placed prayer into a much different category for me. I thought to myself, “Home teaching is really important, and prayer is an important part of home teaching.” And of course I learned what a wonderful, precious experience it is.

Part of the problem is for us to live the eternal principles faithfully every day. One of the sisters with whom I am privileged to associate had this to say:
“Sundays were difficult when my children were small—getting them ready and then having them sit through three hours of meetings. Often they became tired, hungry, or even bored because the meetings were geared to an adult level. Sometimes I wondered if it was worth the effort. I seldom felt spiritually fed because I was trying so hard to help my children be reverent.
“Looking back now, I can see that those early Church experiences for my children were the beginnings of a firm foundation upon which they could continue to build. Because they were there each week, they gradually learned the importance of the sacrament; they learned to listen, to be reverent, to recognize the sweet feelings of the Spirit; and their testimonies began to blossom. I recognize that this is a unique and precious time for us when our children are small and need our guidance. Now my children are grown I can clearly see that my constant, repetitive efforts were worthwhile.”

When my brother and I were young, we loved to visit our grandmother. She lived about 15 minutes away from our house, so we visited her frequently. Many times when we arrived at her house, she would be on the telephone. A neighbor called nearly every day just to talk. We never could understand why Grandma spent all that time talking on the phone with a neighbor. So we told her to tell her neighbor she was busy. Grandma would finish the call, smile, and then turn her attention to us.

Sixty or more years later, I realize that Grandma wasn’t being bothered by her neighbor’s frequent calls. Rather, these two widows were supporting each other—talking together when others didn’t have the same time or interest just to visit.

Born on September 8, 1873, in Huntsville, Utah, David Oman McKay was the first son of David McKay and Jennette Evans McKay. When the younger David was just seven years old, his father accepted a mission call to serve in Scotland—even though at the time Sister McKay was expecting a baby and had only her young son to help on the farm. Her encouragement was undoubtedly a key factor. As soon as she read the missionary call letter, she said: “Of course you must accept; you need not worry about me. David O. and I will manage things nicely.”2
Under Jennette’s direction the farm did well. Strong spiritual growth paralleled the temporal prosperity the family experienced during David Sr.’s mission. “Family prayer was an established procedure in the McKay home, and when Jennette was left alone with her small family it seemed an ever more important part of the day’s events. David [O.] was taught to take his turn at morning and evening prayers and learned the importance of the blessings of heaven in the home.”3
In a general conference address many years later, President McKay related the following childhood experience with prayer:
“I remember lying [in bed] one night, trembling with fear. As a child I was naturally, or unnaturally afraid of the darkness, and would frequently lie wondering about burglars, ‘bug-a-boos,’ and unseen influences. So I lay this night completely unnerved; but I had been taught that God would answer prayer. Summoning strength I arose from the bed, knelt down in the darkness, and prayed to God to remove that feeling of fear; and I heard as plainly as you hear my voice this afternoon, ‘Don’t be afraid; nothing will hurt you.’ Oh, yes, some may say—‘simply the imagination.’ Say what you will, I know that to my soul came the sweet peace of a child’s prayer answered.”4
His father’s teachings and example were as powerful as his mother’s. On one occasion David O. McKay, his brothers, and his father were harvesting hay. When the time arrived to gather the tenth load, which was to be given to the Church as tithing, David McKay Sr. told the boys to move to a better spot than where they had gathered the previous nine loads. When young David O. questioned this instruction, his father said, “That is the tenth load, and the best is none too good for God.” Years later David O. McKay referred to this experience as the “most effective sermon on tithing I have ever heard in my life.”5
President McKay’s understanding of his parents’ influence deepened as he grew older. When he taught Church members about the importance of family and home, personal experience framed his teachings:
“[The] realization of mother’s love, with a loyalty to the precepts of an exemplary father, … more than once during youth, turned my steps from the precipice of temptation.
“If I were asked to name the world’s greatest need, I should say unhesitatingly wise mothers; and the second, exemplary fathers.”6

Abby: Hayley was 10 and I was 6 when we started.
Hayley: At first it was kind of scary because we had to audition. McKay started a little while after Abby and I began recording. Then came our brother Jacob, who still just reads for the Friend because he’s 10.
When my voice was younger I only used to read the Friend. Now I read both the Friend and New Era. We’ve all gotten better over time at enunciating things well and at making our voices go up and down to keep the sentences from all sounding the same.

Joseph and Emma Smith’s home in Harmony, Pennsylvania.
In April 1828, Emma and Joseph were living in a home along the Susquehanna River, not far from her parents’ house.22 Now well along in her pregnancy, Emma often acted as Joseph’s scribe after he began translating the record. One day, while he translated, Joseph suddenly grew pale. “Emma, did Jerusalem have a wall around it?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, recalling descriptions of it in the Bible.
“Oh,” Joseph said with relief, “I was afraid I had been deceived.”23
Emma marveled that her husband’s lack of knowledge in history and scripture did not hinder the translation. Joseph could hardly write a coherent letter. Yet hour after hour she sat close beside him while he dictated the record without the aid of any book or manuscript. She knew only God could inspire him to translate as he did.24

Another example of honesty that has strengthened my testimony is my sister Jennifer. I have watched her treat the law of tithing with great reverence. Every time she earns an income, she goes to the bishop’s office and fills out a slip to pay her tithing. She never takes it lightly.
I believe this habit helped prepare her for her mission. As a missionary, she was known for doing things the right way. Even though she faced challenges and sometimes felt misunderstood—which is something many of us experience when we always try to do the right thing—she nevertheless remained focused and true. Her example has strengthened my own resolve.

One of the most reassuring thoughts that has comforted me throughout my years has been: “I chose to come here. I sustained Christ’s plan rather than Satan’s in the premortal existence.” We all knew, before we were born, that we were coming to earth and would experience joy and sorrow. We eagerly accepted the plan. My father made this point very clear to me some years ago. I was wrestling with what to me seemed major issues in my life, with prayers not yet answered, or so I thought. Into my mind I heard him speak, although he had been gone for several years: “My dear, don’t trouble yourself about the little things, and the big things you already agreed to before you came.” We chose this life, with the struggles. We chose to accept the forgetting and to see whether we would walk by faith.

I have learned that prayer provides a firm foundation for personal revelation. But more is required. While still a regional representative, I had the opportunity to learn from another Apostle, Elder Boyd K. Packer. We were assigned to reorganize a stake and began by kneeling in prayer together. After interviewing priesthood leaders and having prayer, Elder Packer suggested that we walk around the building together. As we walked, he demonstrated a vital principle of seeking personal revelation—the principle the Lord taught Oliver Cowdery: “Behold, … you must study it out in your mind.” We pondered our assignment, counseled together, and listened to the voice of the Spirit. When we went back, we prayed and studied further, and then we were prepared to receive revelation.

I totally understand how you feel. I felt left out, too, because of the way I looked. First, I went to all the Church activities, even if I didn’t want to. I talked to some girls that I knew and asked them what I should do. I got to know them better, and one of them took me shopping. She helped me find clothes at reasonable prices that looked great on me. I got to know their feelings, and they gave me helpful hints on how to look better. Try to show the people at your ward your wonderful personality.
Miranda Dargan, 14Tacoma, Washington

We were in Boston last April for a regional conference. The stake president invited us to go to the University of Massachusetts Medical Center to visit Robert and Reed Nixon. At the hospital we met with members of the family and proceeded to a special room where two young men were on life-support systems. They were brothers, and they had been injured in a terrible accident. Each was paralyzed from the neck down. We were asked to bless them and did so.

Months have now passed. They have left the hospital, followed by a term at a rehabilitation center. They are now home and are making some headway. The most severely injured spoke in stake conference two weeks ago. Tears fell from the eyes of that large congregation who listened to a boy say with great effort a few words of gratitude and faith.

They have been able to come home because of the kindness of others. A handful of contractors in the area contributed time, labor, and materials, as well as their skills, to add to the family home, creating facilities that have made it possible for the boys to be with their loved ones.