Gospel Story Finder

On January 12, 2007, a man dressed in jeans and a T-shirt walked into a Washington, DC, subway station, pulled a violin from its case, and began to play.2 He put his soul into the performance, sometimes pounding his bow against the strings, sometimes gently caressing them to bring out soft and sorrowful tones.

As he played, more than a thousand commuters passed through the train station on their way to work. They had busy days ahead of them: lists of things to do, worries, and troubles. Their minds were occupied with everyday trivial things—like where and what to eat for lunch, how their favorite sports team was doing, or whether anyone would notice their new glasses.

Some, undoubtedly, were wrestling with greater problems: a challenging health diagnosis, relationships that were unraveling, financial loss, or some other pressing anxiety.

In short, these people were people like you and me: unwrapping the gift of a new day, even the gift of a brand-new year, but consumed with the trivial and tragic, the petty and profound.

Did they notice the musician? Or was the man with the violin merely part of the impressionistic blur that shaded the all-too-familiar backdrop of their daily lives?

What these commuters did not know was that this musician was no ordinary violinist, he was playing no ordinary instrument, and he was playing no ordinary music.

The man’s name was Joshua Bell—one of the most accomplished musicians in the world.

The violin he played was handcrafted in 1713 by Antonio Stradivari. Joshua Bell had purchased it a few years earlier for an estimated $3.5 million.

And the music he played was some of the most challenging and beautiful ever composed.

Now, this whole experience in the subway station had been set up by a journalist from the Washington Post who was curious to know what would happen if a world-class musician gave an anonymous, virtuoso performance in the walkways of an ordinary subway station.

Would people recognize the sublime music played by a brilliant artist on an unparalleled instrument?

Or would they ignore him? Would they throw a coin or two into his open violin case and walk by?

Some people at the Washington Post worried that the experiment would cause a traffic-control nightmare at the station, with hundreds of people crowding around to listen.

Here is what happened.

Of the nearly 1,100 people who passed by Joshua Bell during his forty-five-minute performance, only “seven people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute.”3

One person who had passed within four feet of Joshua Bell later could not recall that he had even seen a musician on his way to work. As it turns out, this man had been wearing earbuds, listening to a favorite rock song on his personal playlist. Ironically, the lyrics of the song were about failing to see the beauty right before your eyes.

Introducing the gospel to my father was important to me. He attended another church and was an elder in that church but had been denied baptism because he was married three times. My mother was the first wife. He visited us and I told him about the missionaries. He did not think there could be truth anywhere else but in his Methodist church. As he learned more about the Church, he decided to be baptized. He had been sick off and on for a while. After he was baptized, he felt better and went home.
My hope was that he would stay strong in the Church. Every Sunday he would sit with the Book of Mormon and sing hymns. He especially liked hymns 44 and 45— “Beautiful Zion, Built Above” and “Lead Me into Life Eternal.” Some of his family members deserted him because of the truth that he embraced. They said that I took him from the family church. He told them that God brought the Church to him for his sake. He was given a blessing by President Albert Mutariswa, of the Nigeria Enugu Mission.
A branch was established in Ojantell and my father gave his own house to be used for the Church and there were many baptisms because of that. Before his death, he said that the Church would have access to his house for meetings until they no longer needed it. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave him a befitting burial. I plan to go to the temple and do the baptism for my mom and seal them together with his children.

When I was a teenager, my family moved to New Jersey. I stayed behind with my grandparents for the summer and helped them farm. One morning I was slow getting out of bed. When my grandfather came to get me, he found me kneeling by my bed, in the middle of my morning prayer. He quietly went out and waited for me. As soon as I finished, he came in and gave me a big hug and said how pleased he was to see me praying. He told me how much it meant to him to pray and how he always began the day by praying. There was no reprimand for being late. I’ve always felt that praying was more special because of the way he reacted.

“Before I tracked the time I spent, I thought it was going to be really hard to take time out and read the scriptures—but after realizing how much time I spent on social media, taking 10 minutes out of that felt super easy! I could read at lunch or right before seminary started.
“After I had read the scriptures, I was a lot more aware of what I looked at on social media. If I stumbled across something bad, with bad language or a negative message, I noticed it and tried to avoid it way more than before. I also noticed that my prayers were a lot more sincere and that I was receiving more answers to them. This is definitely something that I hope to continue for a lot longer!”
Izzie J., 16, California, USA

For many years, I carried a quiet but persistent desire in my heart—to find more names to add to my family tree. As a Church leader, I often encouraged others to engage in family history and temple work, but in my own journey, I kept hitting barriers. I spoke to older relatives, made calls, asked questions, but it felt like every path led to a dead end. Some family members had passed on, others could not remember, and some simply were not willing to talk. It was discouraging, and at times I wondered if my family’s history would remain forever hidden.
Still, I kept praying.
One day, I received an unexpected phone call from my brother who lives in the United States. He told me he would be travelling to attend a village reunion—a gathering of people from our ancestral hometown, now living abroad. At the reunion he said, “You won’t believe who I found.” It was a distant relative we had been searching for over the years, someone who had moved away and lost contact with the rest of the family.
But that was not all. This family member had preserved something I never imagined—a detailed family organogram (family organization chart) with dozens of names and family connections, some going back generations. When my brother sent me the files and shared voice notes explaining the stories behind each name, I was overwhelmed. It felt like heaven had opened a door that had been shut for so long.
As I reviewed the names and saw the faces in old photos, I felt the spirit of Elijah very strongly. These were not just names—they were my ancestors, real people, children of God who had been waiting for their temple ordinances. I felt their presence, and I knew they were aware that the time had finally come. The Lord had remembered them.
I shared this miracle during a FamilySearch training recently. I told the participants, “We may feel like we are working in darkness sometimes, but when we move forward in faith, the Lord brings light. He prepares the way. He hears our prayers—even the quiet ones.”
Through this experience, I have come to know with even greater certainty that God knows every family. He is not limited by distance or time. If we persist, if we pray, and if we act, He will guide us to the people we need—and to those who need us.

Dad had a busy life, but he still made time for his family. When I was a Boy Scout, our troop planned to go down the Rogue River in Oregon, USA, in kayaks we had built ourselves. Dad volunteered to go with us even though he was not the camping, sleeping-on-the-ground kind. We spent hours in the garage working together building our two-man kayak.
Before long, we were on the river. I took the pivot position in front, and Dad took the back. As we progressed down the river, we soon headed into particularly dangerous falls.
The nose of our kayak went deep into the water at the bottom of the falls and turned over, tossing us both through the splashguard into the river. I came up and looked for Dad but couldn’t see him. He eventually bobbed up, sputtering, and we managed to right the kayak and get back in. Before we could make it to shore to assess what happened, the river swept us into the next set of rapids. We didn’t have time to get the kayak lined up again when an eddy spun us around, and we shot through a long set of rapids backwards and out of control.
We eventually made it back to camp that evening along with the other Scouts. Dad told us in some detail the story of Job. From the day’s events and the account of Job, we learned that life is not always easy. The next morning, rather than return home, Dad climbed back into our little boat and off we went. This experience taught me what a great man does when he values his family.

While serving as bishop of a BYU singles ward, I knew one young man in the ward who supported everything we sponsored. He came to every family home evening, every activity, every dance, every service project. Anything the ward sponsored, he was there. The reason I bring this up is because he didn’t actually need the activities for himself. He had a serious girlfriend in another ward and was soon to be engaged, but still he came. I asked him why he came to all the ward social functions. He humbly replied, “I feel like if I attend, perhaps I can contribute to the success of the event. Maybe I can help someone feel welcome, maybe I can add to the fun. I just think it’s another great opportunity to serve.” In other words, he didn’t attend to see what was in it for him but rather what he could contribute to others.

Squirrel knew that winter was coming. Owl had said it was, Blue Jay and Deer had told him too. Even Chipmunk, his best friend, had reminded him as she busily gathered food for the winter.
“You’d better hide nuts for winter,” Blue Jay chirped.
“You can’t find food in the snow,” Deer said.
“Listen to your friends, Squirrel,” Chipmunk chattered, flicking her tail. “They’re right, you know.”
But it was only September, and for Squirrel, winter was a long way off. There would be plenty of time to gather food later. He had other things to do. He liked to have fun and to play tricks on his friends. He liked jumping from tree to tree and scaring Blue Jay. And whenever Deer was standing under a tree that Squirrel was playing in, Squirrel dropped nuts on him. When a nut hit him, Deer would bound away in fright—while Squirrel held his sides and chattered with glee!
But what he liked best was stealing a nut from Chipmunk. She would chase him around and around! Up and down the trees they’d go. Finally Squirrel would drop the nut and look for something else to do.
“Squirrel, you are being very foolish,” Owl scolded. “If you don’t store food, you will be very hungry this winter.”
Chipmunk warned him again too. “Store some nuts now,” she said. “Soon they’ll be covered with snow, and you won’t be able to find them.”
Squirrel didn’t like to have Chipmunk mad at him, so he took a few nuts to his pantry, just to please her. But he thought that work was no fun, so before long, he was off playing tricks again.
Time passed quickly. Then one morning when Squirrel poked his head out the door, a blanket of white greeted him. Snow? he thought. Already? The air was crisp and cold. A breeze blew a puff of snow off the branch above his door. Plop! It landed right on his head. “Yipe!” He jumped back inside. He shook his head. “Brrrr!”
Squirrel had to think about this. But thinking always made him hungry. He went to his pantry. Two or three nuts will help me to decide, he thought. Oh, oh! Squirrel stared at the little pile of nuts in the corner. He had always planned to gather food “tomorrow.” But “tomorrow” never seemed to come. “What shall I do?” he muttered.
He ate two of the nuts from the little pile and thought about it. “I’ll go see Chipmunk,” he said. “She’ll know what to do.” So away he went.
Squirrel raced along as fast as he could. At long last he came to Chipmunk’s burrow. He poked his head in. “Good morning,” he chattered. “May I come in?”
Chipmunk looked up from her breakfast. “Wipe your feet first,” she said, after swallowing a mouthful of acorn.
Squirrel wiped his feet, then came in and sat down.
“How do you like the snow, Squirrel?” she asked.
“It’s pretty, but it’s cold,” he answered. Hanging his head, he mumbled, “And it hides the nuts.”
Chipmunk shook her tail reproachfully, “We all tried to warn you that this would happen.”
“I know,” Squirrel said, watching his feet as he shifted from one to the other. “I was very foolish. But I won’t be anymore, I promise.” He looked up. “What can I do now, Chipmunk?” he said in a small voice.
Just then Blue Jay landed on the ground outside Chipmunk’s door. “Good morning, Chipmunk. Good morning, Squirrel,” he said in a cheery voice.
“Good morning, Blue Jay,” Chipmunk and Squirrel said together.
“How do you like this fine, snowy day?” Blue Jay asked, hopping about.
“I think the snow is very pretty,” Chipmunk chattered. “But Squirrel has a problem.”
“He does?” Blue Jay tipped his head and looked at Squirrel with shiny, black eyes.
“I was very foolish. I didn’t gather nuts when I should have,” Squirrel told him quietly. “Now the snow hides them, and I don’t know what to do.”
“Hmm.” Blue Jay ruffled his feathers. “That is a problem.”
“Squirrel has promised not to be foolish anymore,” Chipmunk told Blue Jay. “What can we do to help him?”
Blue Jay hopped about and looked around. He thought and thought. Then he said, “Wait here,” and flew away.
In a little while, he came back. Owl was with him, and so was Deer. Chipmunk and Squirrel came out to join them.
Owl was perched on a limb near Chipmunk’s burrow. The others gathered around him. “Blue Jay told me about your problem, Squirrel,” he said in a deep voice. “We will all try to help you, but first you must promise to never scare Blue Jay or Deer again, and to not tease Chipmunk when she is gathering food.”
“I promise,” Squirrel agreed earnestly. “I also promise that I’ll work hard next year to be ready for winter.”
“Good.” Owl turned to Blue Jay. “You can help Squirrel by knocking the last of the nuts from the highest branches. But”—he turned to look at Squirrel—“you must help Blue Jay get berries from under the bushes when he can no longer reach them.”
Squirrel nodded.
“I’ll help dig nuts out of the snow for you,” Deer offered.
“But when the snow gets too deep for Deer to find food,” Owl told Squirrel, “you must break off tender twigs that are high in the trees for him to eat.”
Squirrel nodded again. “I’ll do that too.”
“Chipmunk can help you carry the nuts to your tree,” Owl said.
“But next fall, Squirrel, you must help me carry nuts to my burrow,” Chipmunk told him.
Squirrel agreed happily.
And that is just what they did.

After track practice, my brother, my friend, her brother, and I were waiting to get picked up. While we were waiting, we talked with our coach about our religion. He belongs to another faith, but he knew that we were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Even though he had many questions, all four of us were Church members, so I wasn’t nervous or afraid he would ask a question that I wouldn’t know the answer to. I knew that if I didn’t know the answer, then there was a pretty good chance my brother or friends would know it.
A couple of hours later, when we were picked up, I thought about what I’d do the next time someone asked a question I didn’t know the answer to. I decided that I didn’t want that to happen and that praying, studying the scriptures, attending church, and partaking of the sacrament would help, because next time my friends or brother might not be there to back me up.

A number of years ago I was in Atlanta, Georgia, as an attorney representing a man who was buying a business. After several days of negotiations, we reached an agreement and signed the closing documents. That evening one of the sellers invited us to a dinner to celebrate the closing. When I arrived, he offered me an alcoholic drink, which I declined. He then said, “Are you a Saint?” I didn’t fully understand what he meant, and he repeated, “Are you a Latter-day Saint?” I responded, “Yes, I am,” and he said he had been observing my personal habits during our negotiations and had concluded that I was either LDS or had a stomach problem. We both chuckled. He then informed me that he had only known one member of the Church on a personal basis: David B. Haight. They were both executives in Chicago with a large retail chain following World War II. He told me of the significant influence Elder Haight had been in his life and that he held him in the highest regard.
As I flew back home to San Francisco, I thought about what had occurred, especially in two respects: I was surprised at how it felt to be asked if I was a Saint, and I was impressed with the positive influence one outstanding example—Elder Haight—had on this good man.

However, all was not going to go as planned because precisely one week before preparing to fly to Hong Kong, Sister Berry began to experience lower back pain. She tried to shrug it off, expecting it to heal on its own. Then, a couple of days later, after a volleyball game, she noticed the pain grew to the point where it was difficult to walk.
She was immediately seen by the MTC doctor and was horrified to be told that she would not be able to fly out for her mission but would need to return home to England to have surgery.
She was utterly devastated but determined to find a way to stay on track. She was able to see a surgeon in the USA who specialised in the surgery she needed. So, Sister Berry remained in the MTC for an extra three weeks, waving goodbye to her MTC group as she waited.
Within that time, the cysts on her spine had receded and drained enough to help the surgery process for which she was waiting.
Following her surgery, the recovery programme would take longer than six weeks, and so it was decided she would return home to England, but she went back with the mindset that she would not stay for long, and that her suitcase would remain packed!
To keep herself in the missionary frame of mind, she kept her daily missionary routine, reading her scriptures and studying the mission language. She also met with her MTC teacher online to practise the language.
She said, “I did not give myself the option even to consider staying home. My mind was firmly set that this was just temporary”.
On March 4, 2019, now stronger, she flew from England to Hong Kong, ready to meet with her mission president and his wife, President and Sister Phillips, from the USA (now living in Salt Lake City).

An incident in my own life may explain what I mean.
A few years ago I lived in Blacksburg, Virginia, a university town in the Appalachian plateau area. I went to renew my driver’s license at the Department of Motor Vehicles. As part of the process the clerk asked me to look into a box on the counter to take an eye test. I looked, and she asked me to read what I saw. There were a number of lines of letters and numbers I could read, so I took a bit of time trying to think of where to start. As I hesitated, I heard a bored voice say, “Out loud, please.”
Well, she thought the task was obvious. I was not quick enough to see it so. I hope today to find the right lines to read with you and to explore a topic that we can all see as important, if not obvious.

I recently decided to try a new recipe: a bûche de Noël. A beautiful, swirly chocolate cake.
During the first few minutes of mixing, my lump of dough looked nothing like the example I was following. “This is not working out,” I said. And as the tedious task of mixing wore on, I also wondered, “Is all this work even worth it?”
After some redoes and a lot of patience, I tried a new bûche de Noël recipe. There were several moments when I thought it was going to fail, but in the end, it turned out fantastic!

The faith of this family is personified by the faith of President Uchtdorf’s grandmother. She was standing in line for food following the end of World War II when an elderly single sister with no family of her own invited her to sacrament meeting. His grandmother and his parents accepted the invitation. They went to church, felt the Spirit, were uplifted by the kindness of the members, and were edified by the hymns of the Restoration. In 1947 Dieter’s parents were baptized in Zwickau; Dieter was baptized nearly two years later at the age of eight. The family’s commitment to the Church became strong and enduring.

I have never received an F or E. Nor have I been placed on academic probation, but once I was put on probation when I was an 11-year-old in Primary.

I had the honor of being a safety patrol officer, for which I had a little red flag on a long white pole to assist the other children across the street after Primary. The matter that got me into trouble was that my associate in this assignment and I felt that we needed to delay the children from crossing the street until there was a car coming for us to stop. This was not met with uniform enthusiasm, and probation resulted, following a very direct correction. That ended my law enforcement career, but also my probations. It is not my intent ever to impede your proper progress.

Finally, let me share a beautiful example of uniting families for eternity. Lydia from Kharkiv, Ukraine, first learned about the temple from the missionaries. Immediately, Lydia felt a fervent desire to attend the temple, and after her baptism, she began preparation to receive a temple recommend.

Lydia attended the Freiberg Germany Temple to receive her endowment and then spent several days doing proxy work there. Following the dedication of the Kyiv Ukraine Temple, Lydia attended the temple more frequently. She and her husband, Anatoly, were eternally sealed there and later called to serve as temple missionaries. Together they have found more than 15,000 names of ancestors and have worked to provide temple ordinances for them.

When asked about her feelings regarding temple work, Lydia says, “What did I receive in the temple? I have made new covenants with God. My testimony has been strengthened. I have learned to receive personal revelation. I am able to perform saving ordinances for my deceased ancestors. And I can love and serve other people.” She concluded with this very true statement: “The Lord wants to see us in the temple often.”

Many times during my youth, my family would drive from New Jersey to Connecticut to visit my grandparents. As part of our trip, we would often visit my father's alma mater, Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

On one of these visits to Yale, my father and I were talking about the Yale seal. I asked him to explain the meaning of the inscription. My Dad explained that Lux Et Veritas was Latin for "light and truth," and that this phrase was a goal of higher education—to enlighten our minds with knowledge.

I then asked my father what the Hebrew symbols meant. He said he did not know. I jokingly said, "What? You don't know!" I thought to myself, "My dad knows everything." I then asked, "You have a degree from this school and you don't know what the school seal means?" I guess he missed the foundation class lecture that explained the meaning of the seal.

In the years that have passed since that conversation with my father, I have often wondered what that Hebrew inscription meant. A few years ago, while reading an article I discovered their meaning. Imagine my excitement at solving one of the mysteries of my youth. Now try to imagine my excitement when I learned that the translation of the Hebrew text means Urim and Thummim!

Wait a minute! What is the connection between the Yale seal and the item that the Prophet Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon? In order to answer this question, I did what any good Latter-day Saint would do. I turned to the Bible Dictionary.

The Bible Dictionary, states that Urim and Thummim is Hebrew for "lights and perfections." It also explains that it is an instrument prepared of God to assist man in obtaining revelation from the Lord. In other words, the Hebrew translation of Urim and Thummim gives us the very purpose for which God intended the instrument to be used, that of obtaining revelation from Him—or light and truth.

While still a BYU student himself, my father—like almost every graduate in this auditorium—was profoundly touched by the mentoring and friendship of remarkable professors at this university. He particularly recalls a conversation with Dr. Robert K. Thomas, who served as the university’s provost.

“The problem,” said Dr. Thomas, “is that so many of our students leave with the idea that they should seek material prosperity, worldly influence, and prestige—that this is what the Lord meant when He said, ‘Let your light so shine before men.’”

Then, lifting his hand and tracing a rising arc, he said, “But all too often, by the time their star is up—the light is out.”

Looking my father squarely in the eye, he said, “Don’t let that happen to you.”

An example I often use in my Eternal Family class is of a husband who observed his wife turning back and forth in front of a mirror. Since her birthday was not far off, he asked what she would like for her birthday. Still looking in the mirror, she replied, “I’d like to be six again.”

Well, on the morning of her birthday, he rose early, made her a big bowl of Lucky Charms, and then took her to a Six Flags theme park. After five hours enjoying every ride, he took her to McDonald’s, where he ordered her a Happy Meal with extra fries and a chocolate shake. Then it was off to the movies, with popcorn, soda, and candy. They finally wobbled home, and with a big smile he asked, “Well, dear, what was it like being six again?”

Her eyes slowly opened, and her expression suddenly changed: “I meant my dress size.”

In my early childhood, we had a stove in the kitchen and a stove in the dining room. A furnace was later installed, and what a wonderful thing that was. But it had a voracious appetite for coal, and there was no automatic stoker. The coal had to be shoveled into the furnace and carefully banked each night.

I learned a great lesson from that monster of a furnace: if you wanted to keep warm, you had to work the shovel.