Gospel Story Finder

Andy straightened his neckerchief and grabbed his Webelos manual.
“Hurry, Andy! You’re going to be late,” his mother called from downstairs. He rushed down and out the front door.
“Bye, Mom!” he yelled as he hopped on his bike. In his last ward, his mom had driven him to the church every week for Scouts. It seemed so cool that now he could ride his bike just around the block to Sister Snow’s house for den meeting.
Sister Snow’s son, B.J., answered the door. Andy liked B.J., but B.J. always seemed to be looking over Andy’s shoulder, like he was hoping someone else would show up. B.J. led Andy to the family room where David, Tanner, Bryce, and Jemison were busy painting a poster. David looked up and smiled when Andy said hi.
All during the meeting Andy tried to be friendly to everyone, but especially to B.J. He wanted to have some friends in his new ward before school started. It would be easier to go to a new school if he already had friends.
When den meeting was over, Sister Snow said that the boys could stay and play together a little longer if they wanted to.
“Great!” B.J. said. “Let’s play a video game. You have to see this new one I got.”
Andy looked to see what game B.J. was putting on. With a sinking feeling, he realized it was not one his parents would let him play.
“What’s wrong?” David asked. All the boys turned to look at Andy.
“I was just wondering what other games you have,” Andy said to B.J.
“Why? Don’t you like this one?”
“It’s just—it’s just that …” Andy stammered, trying to make his voice work. “It’s just that my parents won’t let me play that game.”
B.J. laughed. “Oh. Well, that’s OK. We won’t tell them.”
Andy felt the other boys watching him. He said in a small voice, “I think maybe I’ll go home.”
Nobody said anything for a second. Then David said, “Hey, guys, let’s pick another game.”
“You could always stay and just watch, you know,” B.J. said.
Watching wasn’t the same as playing, was it? But, no, that didn’t feel right to Andy either. He felt all tight inside and wanted to cry. “No, I think I’d better not.”
“Better not what?” Sister Snow asked as she passed through the room. “What’s wrong, Andy?”
“Andy thinks his parents won’t let him play this game,” B.J. said.
“Wow, Andy. That’s really responsible of you to obey your parents even when they aren’t around.” Sister Snow smiled. Then she left. Andy had hoped she would make B.J. change the game. Now what would he do?
Finally B.J. said, “All right. Let’s just pick another one.” He put in a different game. Even though Andy was allowed to play it, he still felt lonely.
When he got home, Andy ran straight to his room. A few minutes later his father knocked on the door. “Andy? Can I come in?”
Andy rolled over and looked at the wall. “I guess,” he answered softly.
Andy’s dad came in and sat on the edge of the bed. “Sister Snow called,” he said. “She told me you followed our family rules and didn’t play the game the other boys chose.”
Andy shrugged. Then he looked up into his father’s face. He was smiling. “Andy, I am so proud of you.”
Hearing the love in his father’s voice made tears come into Andy’s eyes. “I thought about calling you or Mom. I thought maybe if I asked on the phone, you might let me play it.”
“So why didn’t you call us?”
“Because I knew what you would say. Then the other boys said I should just play it, because you would never know.”
“But you didn’t do that,” Dad said.
“No, but I almost did. The game looked really cool, and I felt like a baby not playing it. I can’t wait until I’m a teenager and can play those games.”
“Wait a minute,” Dad said. “Are you sure you’ll be playing them when you are a teenager?”
“But the rating was—”
“I know. But some things are still not good for us even when we are older. Your mother and I are both old enough to see any kind of movie, but we don’t because the Holy Ghost has told us that some movies aren’t good for us. We have rules for you now, but as you get older you’ll have to make rules for yourself—rules that will help you keep the Holy Ghost with you.”
“But it’s so hard to be left out,” Andy said.
“Let me tell you something that has helped me,” Dad said. “I have a best friend who helps me choose the right: Mom. We can always do good things together. Do you have any friends who might feel the same as you about video games?”
Andy thought about that. “Well, I think David might have been glad when they switched to another game.”
“It sounds like David is the kind of boy you might want to spend some more time with.”
“Yeah, maybe so. Dad, can I invite David over tomorrow?”
“OK,” Dad said. “I love you, buddy.” Dad rubbed Andy’s hair and left the room.
Andy sat on his bed for a few more minutes and thought about David. It would be nice to have a friend who didn’t want Andy to do what felt wrong.
Andy looked at the bare walls around his room and the moving boxes on the floor. He would call David right now. David was probably the right person to help Andy hang his posters up tomorrow.

I had many chores to do when I was about five or six. One of the most important was to gather the eggs about sundown each day.
We lived on a small farm on the south edge of Thatcher, Arizona. Our home was on the corner with open farm country south and east. Back from the home were the well, the pump, the windmill, a big wooden tank for our supply of water, the tool building, and a little farther back, a very large woodpile.
Then came the pigpens, corrals, haystacks, and the grainery. All these places were ideal for the hens to hide their eggs, so it was no small job for a boy to find the hidden nests of eggs. By experience, I became a good spy. Accordingly, every evening about sundown, I took the rather large bucket and scoured the area, and brought the eggs to the house.
One day, my mother took the three youngest of us for a long walk. We walked up the dusty road to the bishop’s home, Fannie in the baby buggy and Alice holding on to it. I carried the bucket of eggs.
As we walked along, I said, “Ma, why do we take the eggs to the bishop?”
She answered, “Because they are tithing eggs and the bishop receives the tithing for Heavenly Father. You remember every evening when you bring in the eggs, I have you count them out. The first one goes in the small basket and the next nine go in the large basket. Then we take the big basket of eggs down to the store and receive a ‘due bill’ for them. With the ‘due bill’ we buy shoes and food and clothing for the family, and the smaller basket of eggs goes to the bishop.”
I first learned the law of tithing from my beloved mother.

I was up in Wyoming some years ago talking to the young people. At the close of the meeting a boy came up to me and asked if he could shake my hand. I told him I couldn’t think of anything I would rather do at that moment than shake his hand. Looking up into my face, he said, “Brother Richards, my bishop will never need to worry about losing me.” I could have hugged him. I thought, Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every boy and girl in Israel could say this, for then truly they would be on the Lord’s side!

I’ve had many problems with my temper. I used to yell at people because I thought they were such idiots. My temper had a very short fuse. The way I overcame my “short fuse” was by reading the Book of Mormon, writing my feelings down on paper, and making a conscious effort to change. After about a week, I could tell that I wasn’t getting mad at people nearly as often.
Elder John O. Leyer, 19Indianapolis, Indiana

Six-year-old Coleman Verburg of Lehi, Utah, and his three-year-old brother, Cooper, are best friends, even though the two had a rocky start. When Coleman was just two years old, he accidentally knocked his newborn brother out of his baby bouncer on Cooper’s second day home from the hospital.
But things have changed a lot since then.
“Coleman is very patient with his brother,” his mom says. “He is a good example because he shares his toys so freely. Cooper loves his big brother. Coleman is his hero.”

Let me share one of our family secrets, found in this family photo taken some years ago, before the advent of social media. Were this taken today, it likely would be posted, presenting a family of four lovely, color-coordinated, well-behaved boys enjoying a harmonious family photo opportunity together. Would you like the real story?

I still remember the phone call from my wife. “Gary, where are you? We’re here at the photographer’s outdoor studio. We’re all ready to shoot. It hasn’t been easy getting the boys all dressed, coordinated, and ready. Are you nearly here?”

Well, I had forgotten and hadn’t left the office yet! I was half an hour late, and things had not gone so well in my absence, bordering on chaos.

What had happened? Well, my oldest son had been running through the yard and had found an apple tree, picked some apples, and begun throwing them at the other boys. He hit our third son in the back with an apple and made him fall down, and so he started to cry.

Meanwhile, as that was happening, my second son sat down and his pants went up a little bit. The other kids saw that his socks were white athletic socks, not the church socks his mother had laid out for him to wear. She asked him, “Why didn’t you wear your church socks?”

He said, “Well, I don’t like them. They’re scratchy.”

And while she’s talking to him, our two-year-old son was running through the yard, tripped on something, fell down, and bloodied his nose. Now there is blood dripping onto his white turtleneck shirt, and it’s stained. This is when I showed up. The only way to salvage the picture was to reverse the turtleneck and put it on backward, hiding the blood stains from the camera.

As it turns out, while our oldest son was running around and throwing apples, he fell down and got a large grass stain on his knee. So, in the picture, his arm is strategically placed, covering up the grass stains.

As for our third son, we had to wait for 20 minutes so his eyes were no longer red from crying.

And, of course, the bloodstains are now on the back of our youngest son’s shirt.

Now, our second son has his hands placed strategically over the top of his white athletic socks so that everything matches.

As for me, I am now in the “doghouse” because it was my late arrival that was the trigger for all of this.

So, when you see this beautiful picture of our family and lament, “Why can’t we get things together and be a picture-perfect family like theirs?” you all know better!

New in school, Janet is an obnoxious, outspoken bully. When Sister Card asks her Merrie Miss class to help fellowship Janet, they’re surprised to learn that she is a member of the Church but reluctantly agree to help. They decide to secretly leave surprises for Janet on her front porch for a week. On Saturday, the class personally delivers a beautifully wrapped gold heart necklace to her. Questioning their motives, she accuses them of trying to bribe her, thanks them for the unopened gift, then shuts the door in their faces.
I felt like someone had just slapped me across the face. “Boy,” I said. “She’s a real creep. We were only trying to do something nice.”
“She didn’t even open our present,” Amy said.
“I knew this wasn’t going to work,” Jill said.
“Now, just a minute,” said Sister Card, as we all got into her van. “Maybe Janet was right. Maybe we were just trying to bribe her.”
We were quiet for a minute. Then Mandi said, “How can we like someone who acts like that?”
“I’m not sure I want her to come if she’s going to treat us that way,” Christina said.
“Girls, I can see that this isn’t going to be as easy as we thought,” Sister Card said. “Perhaps we need to ask ourselves what the Savior would do if Janet were in His Primary class.”
Well, she had us stumped. None of us could think of something that Jesus Christ might do in a situation like this one. We looked at Sister Card expectantly, waiting to hear the answer. Instead, she smiled at us and said, “I challenge each of you to find out, then do it.”
The next day at lunch recess, I saw Janet across the playground. She saw me and yelled, “Hey, there’s Redhead-Wet-the-Bed!”
All the kids around me laughed, and I could feel my cheeks burn with embarrassment. Why does she have to say things like that? I wondered, walking away to find Jill. How can anyone be nice to a girl who acts that way?
I was still thinking about Janet when I found Jill. “I don’t know what Sister Card expects us to do about Janet. She hates me. I don’t like her very much, either,” I said.
“I know what you mean,” Jill answered. “Can you imagine what our Primary class would be like if she did come?”
I hadn’t thought about that, and the visions that ran through my mind as I thought about it were not pleasant. “She’d ruin everything!”
Later that evening, I was still thinking about Janet. I couldn’t get her off my mind. “Mom,” I said, “Sister Card wants us to come up with an idea to get Janet Willard to come to Primary. You know we already tried being pixies to her for a week, and I told you how that didn’t work. She’s so mean to everybody that I’m not sure I really want her to come.”
Mom thought for a few minutes, then said, “Maybe the first thing you should do is pray for the ability to like Janet.”
I was mystified. “But how will that help Janet want to come to Primary?”
“Well, it’s pretty hard to help someone you don’t like. Your efforts won’t be very enthusiastic, and she’ll know that you aren’t sincere. You need to pray for Heavenly Father’s help, then try being nice to Janet even if she isn’t nice to you.”
“That’s going to be hard,” I said.
“I know,” said Mom. “That’s why it’s so important to ask for Heavenly Father’s help.”
On Sunday when Sister Card asked us if we had decided what Jesus would do about Janet, I told everyone what Mom had said to me. Sister Card smiled and said, “You have a very wise mother, Esther. If you’ll all open the New Testament to Matthew 5:44, you’ll see that the Savior said the same thing: ‘But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.’”
We were all very quiet as we thought about what this really meant in our relationship with Janet.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” Christina said, breaking the silence.
“You’re right. It isn’t going to be easy,” Sister Card said. “But then not many things that are really worthwhile are.”
We decided we were going to be so nice to Janet that she wouldn’t know what to think. Sister Card cautioned that we should be very patient and not get discouraged if she didn’t respond positively right away. “Janet has had ten years to learn and practice the behavior she has now, so don’t expect her to change overnight.”
The next day when I went into our classroom, I heard Janet’s familiar greeting before I even saw her. “Hey, there’s Redhead-Wet-the-Bed!”
Instead of ignoring her and walking away, I went over to her and said, “Hi, Janet. Do you want to play kickball with us at lunchtime?”
She was so surprised that she didn’t answer at first. Then she said, “Not me! That’s a sissy game,” and walked off.

Suppose the bishop called you into his office after sacrament meeting and said, “I have a very important calling for you in the ward. I would like you to be songbook coordinator for the ward choir.” What would you do? You might think to yourself, “But Bishop, that’s such a little job. Couldn’t you give me something important to do, something difficult that I could really get involved in, like Young Men’s president or Relief Society president—a position where I can really be of service?” But, having been taught never to refuse a calling, you smile and say, “Yes, I would love to be songbook coordinator.”
On your first day as songbook coordinator for the ward choir, you arrive half an hour early and carefully place the songbooks; after the practice you hurry to collect and return them to the proper closet. No one, you observe, puts an arm around you and tells you what a fine job you did. The next week you arrived a bit later and rush through your responsibilities. Again, no one notices your efforts.
The third week comes, and you don’t even go. After all, it’s such a little job.
It may be true that songbook coordinator is not necessarily the most difficult job in the Church. The most difficult job in the Church is the one that begins with the words “I am only.” I am only a home teacher; I am only a visiting teacher; I am only an usher; I am only a deacon. The most important job in the Church, on the other hand, is the one in which service is willingly, and faithfully rendered.
I’ve determined that there are three types of people holding positions in the Church. One is the worker who says, “Yes, I’ll do the job,” but then doesn’t fulfill his responsibility. Another is the person who does the job, but does no more than the minimum expected (and he really doesn’t enjoy it). The third type of individual is one who not only does the job, but finds joy in doing more than just what is expected.
You might ask, “But how can a ward choir songbook coordinator do more than is expected?” Let’s think about that. He might notice that several books have broken bindings, and he takes the time to repair them. Perhaps some of the books have missing pages; so he photocopies those pages from other books and inserts them into the books where they are needed. He might even build a container to carry the books so that he will not drop them as he is distributing or collecting them. There are many ways to enhance one’s service.
Let me tell you about some church workers I have known who went the extra mile. President A. Harold Goodman, of the Provo Temple presidency, once lived in Tucson, Arizona. While there, he was called to be home teacher to a man that no one had been able to visit. After attempting several times without success to find him at home, he went to the neighbors and found out that the man was working two jobs and left home every morning at 5:30 A.M. So the next morning at 5 A.M. Brother Goodman was sitting on the front porch; when the lights went on in that house, he jumped to his feet and knocked on the door. The man answered the door, and Brother Goodman said, “Good morning, I’m your home teacher.” The man was surprised to see someone so interested in him, and a warm relationship developed.
I have an aunt living in Ogden, Utah, who says that as a young girl she had a memorable Sunday School teacher. When he was called, he said, “A Sunday School teacher is the most important calling in the Church,” and he was the best Sunday School teacher she ever had. His name was David O. McKay.
I believe that the most important job in the Church is the one we hold right now. Maybe you don’t even hold a specific position. I remember being in a ward where there were just not enough ward positions for everyone to have one, so the bishop called certain people into his office and asked them to be celestial members—to set a good example for others; to fellowship those in need; and to be one-hundred-percent participators. That was an important calling—as is any calling we now or in the future will hold in the kingdom of God. For it is through righteously serving others that we bless our own lives, enrich the lives of our neighbors, and further the work of the Lord.

In 1849, Brigham Young had a dream in which he saw the Prophet Joseph Smith driving a large herd of sheep and goats. Some of these animals were large and beautiful; others were small and dirty. Brigham Young recalled looking into the Prophet Joseph Smith’s eyes and saying, “Joseph, you have got the darndest flock … I ever saw in my life; what are you going to do with them?” The Prophet, who seemed unconcerned with this unruly flock, simply replied, “[Brigham,] they are all good in their places.”
When President Young awoke, he understood that while the Church would gather a variety of “sheep and goats,” it was his responsibility to bring all in and allow each of them to realize their full potential as they took their places in the Church. (Adapted from Ronald W. Walker, “Brigham Young: Student of the Prophet,” Ensign, Feb. 1998, 56–57.)

Years ago my expectant wife, April, and I eagerly attended an ultrasound appointment to discover whether we were having a boy or a girl. We were overjoyed to learn we were having our third son. We also learned there were severe physical complications afflicting his body. Our son was missing sizable portions of his brain, his skull was not properly shaped, and the doctors were unsure if he would survive until delivery.
During the ensuing weeks, every time we received more information, it was distressing news. I distinctly remember when my wife called to tell me the latest update: our son did not have a right eye.
To pray more specifically for our unborn son, we decided on his name early. We chose to call him Caleb, after the Old Testament Israelite who was known for his fearlessness in the face of overwhelming odds.
Miraculously, Caleb survived his birth, though it was clear he would remain like a newborn throughout his life. He would never walk, talk, or be able to feed himself.
When we asked how long he might live, the doctor candidly replied, “Take him home and love him, but don’t bring him back to the hospital. There’s nothing more we can do for him. He has a few weeks to a few months left—at most a year or possibly two.”
I was anxious as we left the hospital with our little boy to take him home. The amount of medical equipment needed to sustain his life was daunting. I would regularly sit in his room watching the little green light on his heart monitor. I was nervous about leaving, worried the light would stop blinking and Caleb would die alone.
Simply feeding him took extraordinary effort because he needed to eat every three hours. The process to eat through a feeding pump took one hour to complete. This involved waking up throughout the night: start the pump, sleep for an hour, stop the pump, sleep for two hours, start the pump again, sleep for an hour, and so on. We constantly feared losing him and doubted how we could keep ourselves alive, let alone our fragile son.
Thankfully, the Lord blessed us with many miracles in our seemingly hopeless situation. Earthly angels rallied around us. We had a competent and compassionate nurse and a doctor who made house calls. Ward members, family, and friends provided meals and offered fervent prayers in our behalf. We felt heaven’s sustaining hand upon us and that angels walked our hallways and sat in Caleb’s room. Our three-year-old son said he sometimes saw the Savior watching over us.
The Lord blessed us with many miracles as we loved and cared for our son.

Sometimes Heavenly Father provides us an opportunity to avoid challenges—if we are willing to listen and learn. Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles once faced this very dilemma.

“Years ago when I was in business, I learned a very expensive lesson because I did not listen carefully to the counsel of my father, nor did I heed the promptings of the Spirit giving me guidance from my Heavenly Father. My father and I were in the automobile business, and the Ford Motor Company was looking for dealers to sell their new line of cars. Ford executives invited my father and me to a preview showing of what they thought would be a spectacularly successful product. When we saw the cars, my father, who had over 35 years’ experience in the business, cautioned me about becoming a dealer. However, the Ford sales personnel were very persuasive, and I chose to become Salt Lake City’s first—and actually last—Edsel dealer. And if you don’t know what an Edsel is, ask your grandpa. He will tell you that the Edsel was a spectacular failure.

“Now, there’s a powerful lesson for all of you in this experience. When you are willing to listen and learn, some of life’s most meaningful teachings come from those who have gone before you. They have walked where you are walking and have experienced many of the things you are experiencing. If you listen and respond to their counsel, they can help guide you toward choices that will be for your benefit and blessing and steer you away from decisions that can destroy you. As you look to your parents and others who have gone before you, you will find examples of faith, commitment, hard work, dedication, and sacrifice that you should strive to duplicate.”2

During a Manitoba Canada stake conference a few years ago, Sister Karen Beaumont described her feelings about the raging winter storms that come to their area. She said:
“I love a winter storm. … When the wind starts to blow and the snow begins to fall, a feeling of excitement starts to build. … When I can’t see the trees at the neighbor’s farmyard, … I phone my husband! … He then picks up the children who are at school. … It is hard to describe the feelings I experience as our family is gathered home, and the storm rages outside. … And I love it! Everyone is safe; we are together. We have lots of food and water. The longer it lasts, the better. … We are shut off from the world. … We bask in the warmth of our home and in the warmth of our love. My heart is full, and I am at peace. Sometimes I wish I could just stay like that forever, with my family gathered around me, protected, shut off from the evil influences of the world. But alas, the storm blows itself out eventually, we dig ourselves out, and off we go to face the world again.”

Rushing to scribble a message on the last Christmas card, I quickly licked the envelope and stuffed the cards into my bag. I arrived at church just in time to join the other young men and young women in a holiday service activity.
This particular Christmas season we had decided to go to a local nursing home to sing hymns and Christmas carols as we strolled up and down the halls. I had decided that I would also bring along Christmas cards to hand out and to visit with people as we sang. I was looking forward to that evening, mostly because I love to sing Christmas carols. And it was a lot better to sing indoors rather than outside in the bitter cold!
We gathered in the foyer and began with a few Christmas classics like “Jingle Bells” and “Frosty the Snowman.” Then we opened our hymnbooks and began to sing as we wandered up and down the halls. Our voices soared and filled the air with the beautiful spirit of Christmas. Each doorway was overflowing with smiling faces, “Merry Christmas” greetings, and even several hugs.
But there was one man in a wheelchair who followed our every move for two hours. When we were done singing, he motioned for me to come to him. I leaned down to hear his frail voice.
“Can you please sing ‘O Holy Night’?” he asked softly.
Looking into his warm and hopeful eyes, I knew that he felt the Spirit and that hearing this song would help him feel closer to the Savior.
“Sure,” I replied. “We would love to.”
This song was not in our hymnbook, and I did not know all of the words, but I was sure that with close to 75 people there, someone was bound to know the lyrics. But as I gathered everyone to sing this request, I could not find anyone who knew the lyrics.
Slightly discouraged, I stood there staring at that man in his chair, desperately wishing to sing his simple Christmas request. Then I heard a girl in our group begin the song. One by one we all began to sing. The words flowed from my mouth with such ease, it was as if I had written the song myself. Our voices created an angelic chorus and echoed through the lonely halls. I knew that Heavenly Father was using our group to bring His Spirit to this man and the others in the nursing home.
After the song, everyone in the group and in the foyer stood in silence for a few minutes with tears running down our faces, full of the spirit of Christmas. I looked in my hand and noticed that I had one Christmas card left. I knelt down by the man in his wheelchair and handed him the card. Before I could say anything, he flung his arms around my neck.
“Thank you,” he said. “Thank you so much.”
As we finished giving hugs and Christmas wishes, we decided to walk around the neighborhood to continue our caroling. We had all been messengers that night, sharing our feelings of the Savior and His love. We strolled through the cold night air singing hymns, warmed by our testimonies of the Savior, whose birth we celebrated.

Brother Baron carried the blue fast offering envelopes into our deacons quorum meeting and set them on the table in the small classroom. He scanned our young faces with a serious scowl. After handing out all the envelopes but one, he patted it in his hand and looked at me and said, “Joey, for five months I’ve been giving you Brother Mumford Grossenheider’s fast offering envelope, but he tells his home teachers that no one has come by. What’s going on?”
I looked at my friend Reggie, who smiled innocently and folded his arms.
Brother Baron sat on the table in front of us and looked at me while tapping the envelope against his knee. “Joey, Brother Grossenheider hasn’t been to church in more than 60 years. We finally got some home teachers that he’ll talk to, and the home teachers asked him if someone could come by to collect fast offerings, and Brother Grossenheider said okay. Have you been going to his house?” he asked.
I leaned forward and looked down at the floor. “Well, yeah, but nobody answers the door.”
“He’s an old man,” Brother Baron said. “He uses a cane. You’ve got to give him time. How long did you wait at the door last month?”
I glanced at Reggie again. He was watching Brother Baron as if nothing was wrong.
“Last month?” I said slowly.
“You went to his house last month, didn’t you?”
“Well, I went the first two months and nobody answered, so …” I looked up into Brother Baron’s disappointed face.
“You haven’t been going?” he said sadly.
“It takes too long,” I said.
“But what’s the big hurry?” Brother Baron asked. “It would only take another five or ten minutes. You can sacrifice five minutes a month can’t you?”
“Well,” I said, “Reggie doesn’t have any hard ones like that, and he always beats me.”
“Beats you? This isn’t a race, Joey.” He looked at Reggie, whose mask of innocence suddenly seemed removed. Brother Baron dragged his hand over his face, flattening his nose. He looked back and forth at me and Reggie. “You’ve been racing?”
After church Reggie and I walked together down Main Street until we reached house number 433, where Mumford Grossenheider lived. We looked at the house together. Brother Baron was waiting for us back at the church, and when we returned, he wanted a report on every house—something he said he probably should have been doing all along.
It was a strange old house. A fence, barely visible behind raggedy bushes and tall yellow grass, surrounded the weedy front yard. There a fat mulberry tree stood with its branches nearly touching the ground, and a shaggy hedge had begun to climb onto the raised front porch, where posts and eaves had long since begun peeling their coats of faded brown paint. As we stood at the front gate, my eyes followed the straight sidewalk, narrowed by overgrown edge grass, to a broken screen door that leaned like a car with a flat tire. The house had a tall narrowness about it—a steep pitched roof with peaks pointing heavenward. The dark windows were covered with heavy closed curtains, concealing all evidence of who lived there.
“This is creepy,” Reggie said. “I’ll wait here.”
I lifted the latch and pushed the front gate forward. It squeaked loudly and wavered back and forth from its open position. Indeed, it was creepy, and I must now confess that I hadn’t actually ever knocked on Brother Grossenheider’s front door as I had told Brother Baron. I had rattled the gate and yelled, “Is anybody here?” then quickly left.
A few steps placed me halfway up the front walk. I hesitated. A breeze started the gate moving, and it slammed closed.
Suddenly the front door of the house opened, and a raspy voice yelled, “What are you boys doing in my yard?”
I froze on the walkway. I heard Reggie’s feet pound the pavement as he ran away. “Run!” he called from across the street. The daylight reflecting on the broken screen door left darkness behind it, and I could not see the angry man, though I imagined the worst.
“Answer up quick, boy,” the voice continued. “What do you want?”
The broken screen door swung suddenly open and out shot what looked like a six-foot arm, but later I realized was a normal arm pointing a cane at me.
I dropped the envelope and grabbed the top of the gate and heaved my body over it, landing on my knees on the other side. I jumped to my feet and ran down the street until Reggie and I met a block away, breathing heavily.
When we returned to the church with our other envelopes, Brother Baron was not very understanding. “Why didn’t you just tell him who you are and what you were doing?” Brother Baron asked. “He probably thought you were just a couple of kids.”
“We are just a couple of kids.”
“No,” Brother Baron said. “You’re Aaronic Priesthood holders on an errand from the Lord Jesus Christ.” Then he looked seriously into my eyes. Finally, he shook his head and said, “I’ll have the home teachers explain it to Brother Grossenheider.”
The next Sunday in our priesthood lesson, Brother Baron told the story of President Spencer W. Kimball’s father, Andrew Kimball, who was called on a mission to the Indian territory in 1884. The summer of that year, both Elder Kimball and his companion got malaria and lay sick in bed for many weeks. Malaria had caused many missionaries to return home early from their missions. Some even died, so the Church sent word to Andrew Kimball that he and his companion could return home, which his companion did. But Elder Kimball sent this message back to Salt Lake: “I have the priesthood with me. I will get well and prefer to stay.” And he did stay for two more years.
“You see,” Brother Baron said, “the priesthood is a great, great privilege. It’s your enlistment into the army of God. And when you are given an assignment, I think the Lord watches as much to see how hard you try as He does to see whether you succeed or fail.”
After church I grabbed Reggie and said, “I’m going back to Brother Grossenheider’s to get the fast offering envelope, and you’re coming with me.”
“No way,” Reggie said. He argued all the way down Main Street until we stopped next to the gate. We stood to the side of the gate, behind the overgrown bushes, unseen by the silent house.
“The Lord gave us an errand,” I said. “Now let’s finish it.”
“It was your errand to start with, not mine.”
“Well, we’re both deacons. We both have the priesthood, and I need your help. Brother Baron made you my official companion.” I reached for the gate latch.
“Hold on a minute,” Reggie said.
“What?” I said, actually relieved to postpone our entry.
Reggie exhaled a great breath and looked around the vacant street. “We could call him on the phone from my house,” he said and looked at me with a fresh smile.
I nodded. “But then we’d still have to come and get the envelope.”
We looked at the raggedy house through the equally raggedy bushes.
“Let’s just do it,” I said.
“Well, what’s the plan?” Reggie asked. “Walk up to the door and ask him for it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess so. It’s like Nephi going to get the brass plates from Laban. We’ll just have to let the way open up once we get there.”
“Oh, brother. That won’t work for us. We’re just kids. Nephi was a prophet.”
“We’re deacons. And besides, Nephi was a kid, remember?”
“Yeah, but a ‘large in stature’ kid.”
“Come on. Are you a Laman or a Nephi?”
“That’s not a fair question. I’m kind of a Nephi-in-the-making, you know, but I’m not quite there yet. And besides,” he mimicked me, “Nephi went alone, remember?”
“Well, I’m not going up there alone. You’re coming with me. Now, let’s go.”
I grabbed the gate latch and Reggie’s arm at the same time.
“All right,” Reggie said, still resisting me as the gate swung open and I pulled him through. “But if he’s passed out like Laban was, no way are we going to …”
“Shhh,” I said.
We slowly moved up the narrow walk to the porch steps and stopped, looking at the shabby house.
“Boy, does this place need paint,” I said.
“And a weed whacker,” Reggie said.
As we carefully proceeded up the steps, the top step flexed and creaked louder than a doorbell when we put our weight on it, announcing our presence.
“You boys!” a voice suddenly said from behind us. As we turned, Reggie slipped, sitting on the top step and bouncing his way to the bottom.
Brother Grossenheider was sitting in a lawn chair in the shade of the overgrown mulberry tree near the front gate. The bushes and weeds had kept him out of our sight. He had been there the whole time, even as we had been talking.
Reggie stood quickly and rubbed the back of his pants.
“H-hello, sir,” I said from the top step.
The old man reached into the big pocket of his faded overalls, and Reggie motioned to the gate to run for it, but Brother Grossenheider pulled from his pocket the blue fast offering envelope. “You looking for this?” he asked.
He was a very old man. His cane leaned against his chair. The top of his head was bald, the sides covered with thin gray hair. Small wire-frame glasses rested on the end of a large hooked nose. With his chin down, he watched us over the tops of the glasses but beneath the bottoms of his bushy white eyebrows.
“I found this on my walkway,” Brother Grossenheider said and shook the envelope at us as if it were evidence of our guilt.
“Y-yes, sir,” I said nervously and came down the steps next to Reggie. “We, uh, left it for you last week, and, uh, we’ve come to—to get it back.”
“So you’re deacons, are you? From the Church? Why didn’t you say so last week?”
I looked at Reggie, and we smiled sheepishly together, and I asked, “You didn’t hear us talking outside the gate, did you?”
He nodded slightly and looked at the envelope.
“We didn’t mean that you are like Laban, Brother Grossenheider. It’s just that …” I shrugged my shoulders.
“I remember that story of Nephi,” Brother Grossenheider said in his raspy old voice. “I was a deacon once, you know. But I was 16 or 17 years old. I didn’t know they sent young bucks like yourselves to do this kind of work.” He squinted at the sky. “I haven’t been to church in 60 years. But I remember doing fast offerings a few times when I was a deacon.”
He paused. “I’d forgotten all about that.” He turned the envelope over and over in his hands and examined it. “That used to be an important job, fast offerings. The bishop took us around in a wagon, and we loaded that wagon with eggs and tomatoes and carrots and meat, sometimes a chicken or two. And we drove right over to the people who needed it and gave it to them. They surely were glad to get it. Nineteen thirty-six, it was. Lots of people out of work. The Depression, you know.”
He looked keenly at us over his glasses. “No, I guess you don’t. But it was an important job back then. I suspect there’s still people in need, eh.” He looked at us sharply. “You boys look mighty young to be doing important business like this.”
We didn’t answer.
He shook the envelope at us again. “Can’t fit a chicken in here. How does this work?”
Reggie and I exchanged glances. “You just put some money in it,” I said and shrugged again. “Whatever you can afford.”
“Yep,” Reggie said and put his hands in his pockets. “And then the bishop takes care of it from there.”
The old man nodded and thought for a moment. “So I’m Laban, eh?” he said and squinted his eyes at us.
We looked at the ground, embarrassed, and adjusted our feet.
He took a dollar bill from his pocket. “I don’t have much,” he said and slid the dollar into the envelope. Then he stood and slowly walked to us with the envelope, his cane supporting his left side.
“You’ll be back next month?” Brother Grossenheider asked, handing me the envelope.
“Yes, sir, we will,” I said.
He worked his way up the porch steps with his cane, groaning as his legs lifted his body to each level. At the top he turned around and paused as his hard breathing settled to a quieter mode. “You boys close that gate when you leave, will you?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, and we did.
When we got to the street, Reggie said, “You know, I was thinking how the quorum needs a service project. Maybe next month we could ask Brother Grossenheider about helping with his yard. What do you think?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s go tell Brother Baron.” I turned and ran. “Last one there is a rotten egg!”

At 29, Ransom Stevens was president of the Samoa Mission when stricken with typhoid fever, which was complicated by a heart problem. He died on April 23, 1894.

His widow, Sister Annie D. Stevens, started for home by steamer on May 23. She reached Ogden on Sunday, June 10, where she was met by President Joseph F. Smith and Elder Franklin D. Richards. On June 11, she had an interview with the First Presidency in Salt Lake City and then went on to her home in Fairview, Sanpete County, arriving at 6:00 P.M.

The history states, “The greetings by her friends were necessarily brief for Sister Stevens was ill and had to retire to bed early, and at 11 P.M., five hours after her arrival home, she gave birth to a nice boy.” She had gone through the whole ordeal in the advanced stages of pregnancy.

When I was born, our family lived in a tiny cottage on the grounds of one of the great and historic meetinghouses of the Church, the Honolulu Tabernacle. I now apologize to my dear friends in the Presiding Bishopric, who oversee the facilities of the Church, but as a boy I climbed over and under and through every inch of that property, from the bottom of the water-filled reflecting pool to the top of the inside of the imposing lighted steeple. We even swung (Tarzan-like) on the long hanging vines of the huge banyan trees that are on the site.
The Church was everything to us. We went to lots of meetings, even more than we have today. We attended Primary on Thursday afternoons. Relief Society meetings were on Tuesday mornings. Mutual for the youth was Wednesday night. Saturday was for ward activities. On Sunday, men and young men would go to priesthood meeting in the morning. Midday we would attend Sunday School. Then in the evening we returned for sacrament meeting. With comings and goings and meetings, it seemed our time was consumed with Church activities all day Sunday and most other days of the week.
As much as I loved the Church, it was during those boyhood days that, for the first time, I had a sense there was something even more. When I was five years old, a major conference was held at the tabernacle. We walked down the lane on which we lived and over a small bridge leading to the stately meetinghouse and sat on about the 10th row in the large chapel. Presiding and speaking at the meeting was David O. McKay, the President of the Church. I do not recall anything he said, but I vividly remember what I saw and what I felt. President McKay was dressed in a cream-colored suit and, with his wavy white hair, looked very regal. In the tradition of the islands, he wore a triple-thick red carnation lei. As he spoke, I felt something quite intense and very personal. I later understood that I was feeling the influence of the Holy Spirit. We sang the closing hymn.
Who’s on the Lord’s side? Who?
Now is the time to show.
We ask it fearlessly:
Who’s on the Lord’s side? Who?
(“Who’s on the Lord’s Side?” Hymns, no. 260)
With those words being sung by nearly 2,000 people but seeming to be a question posed just to me, I wanted to stand and say, “I am!”

One Christmas I gave several pass-along cards to my friends and teachers at school. In January a teacher I had given a card to told me she had called the number on the card and received a Christmas DVD. She watched it and liked it very much. I think the pass-along cards are special. When I give them out, I can feel the Spirit. It makes me happy to share the gospel. I know that Jesus Christ lives and loves all of us.
Raiane R., age 11, Brazil

Indio High School’s water polo team was surprising everybody. The Southern California 3-A championship game was half over, and they were thrashing the El Dorado Hawks, 7–3. Indio’s Rajahs were considered a Cinderella club, strong on teamwork but lacking the polish and size necessary to pull off an upset. Yet somehow they were winning the game!
Calvin Lowell, 17, braced himself at the edge of the pool, ready to sprint to the center. (In water polo each quarter begins when the referee tosses the ball to the middle of the water, and players swim toward it in a scramble for possession.) He knew El Dorado would come out fighting.
Cal looked up at his father, Dr. John Lowell, who was standing near one of the diving boards, ready to shout encouragement. It wasn’t just another case of a proud spectator cheering on his boy. Cal’s father is the Indio coach.
The whistle shrieked. Waves foamed and churned. One blazing shot after another skittered into the net, despite flailing arms and lunging defensive maneuvers. Two of Indio’s top players fouled out. The lead narrowed to 8–7. Each team scored again quickly. Then with two minutes and 36 seconds remaining in the fourth quarter, an El Dorado forward slapped the ball from the goalie’s hand and it floated into the net to knot the score at 9–9.
Coach Lowell bowed his head. Ignoring thousands of screaming fans, he said a silent prayer. He knew the Lord couldn’t promise a victory, but he hoped that each player would perform to the best of his ability. A new strategy came into his head, and he called a time out.
He gathered the players around him and counseled them to avoid the congested area just in front of the goals, concentrating on outside shots. Play resumed. The tactic worked perfectly, but the man who wound up free with the ball was the team’s poorest marksman. “Not him,” Coach Lowell wanted to shout. “Anybody but …”
The ball slammed into the goal’s canvas backing. Indio led again, 10–9. The same play worked twice more with other Indio shooters, while the Hawks tallied only one more point. The seconds timer read zero. The championship game was over, and the Rajahs had won, 12–10!
The CIF (California Interscholastic Federation) victory over El Dorado was the culmination of a lot of struggle and practice for the coach and his players. But more than that, it was the realization of a goal shared by a father and a son. Cal Lowell and his father, both active members of the Church, have been working together to build water polo in Indio for a long time.
The Lowell family came to the community under unusual circumstances. Brother Lowell had just finished his doctorate degree at BYU and was searching for a job. “I knew I wanted to coach swimming because Cal was in swimming. He showed talent as a youngster, and all I really wanted to do was help him develop it. I wanted to find a job that would allow me to spend time with my son.”
But after graduation Brother Lowell was 50 and unemployed. He’d been fasting and praying about finding a job and worrying particularly about his older son Ron who was still on a mission. As he sat at the kitchen table reading a swimming magazine, a small classified ad caught Brother Lowell’s attention. It described a coaching position available in a desert town 150 miles southeast of Los Angeles. Every detail seemed to be describing him. “It was like a hand came down on my shoulder, and I had to get up and call the number. I figured that an ad in a national magazine would already be filled, but I knew I had to call just the same. I told the man who answered the phone, ‘You may think I’m crazy, but I think the Lord wants me to come to Indio and coach swimming. I’m a Mormon, and I think that I’m being told that that’s what I should be doing.’ The man said, ‘I don’t think you’re crazy; I’m a Mormon, too!’” Brother Joe Rile, the man Brother Lowell had phoned, was on the board of directors for a private swim club in Indio. Soon the whole Lowell family was relocated.
When they arrived in Indio, there were good facilities, but there was no solid program for water polo. Brother Lowell started talking to community leaders, and Cal and his friends started “recruiting” potential players. The combined community and high school effort they initiated for both swimming and water polo has produced an enviable record.
Four boys formed the nucleus of the original team. (There are seven players per team, counting the goalie.) They played a summer of AAU league water polo in eighth grade before their freshman year in high school. In their first high school season they won athletic letters and started on the varsity polo team. In swimming they won the CIF freshman-sophomore 6-by-50-yard relay (freestyle). Then they captured the national Junior Olympics water polo crown (15 and under) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and six of the players on that trip, including Cal, were named to the All-America team.
The next year Indio’s high school team won the league water polo championship and made it into the second round CIF playoffs. Then during swimming season they won four out of seven events in the CIF freshman-sophomore relays, setting three records, including one national record that beat the previous time by three seconds. Cal was the anchor (final) swimmer on all the relay squads and qualified for the state championships in all four strokes on varsity time standards as a sophomore.
Brother Lowell also arranged for the team to travel to Australia and to the Church College of New Zealand and to play several exhibition games en route. To help fund that project, the polo players swam 7,000 laps in a hotel pool, with people pledging money for each lap completed. During the tour they stayed part of the time with LDS families and were impressed by their friendly attitude, high standards, and enthusiasm for life. “They made us feel at home,” Guy Baker, one of Cal’s teammates, said. The team gained enough recognition with its 13–1–1 record during the tour to receive tentative invitations to Japan and Cuba next year.
But the team members feel the high school championship over El Dorado in 1977 still tops their list of achievements. No team outside the Los Angeles area had ever won the 3-A water polo title before. (And incidentally, all of the starting Indio players were named to the all-CIF team, and Brother Lowell was named coach of the year.) It’s indicative of the growth water polo has made since the Lowells arrived in Indio. So is the formation of the Indio Aquatics Club, an AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) organization founded by Brother Lowell, which stars the same swimmers in tournaments against amateur teams.
Both Cal and his father are quick to point out, though, that their success hasn’t come without effort. “When we organized our first summer polo program here,” Cal said, “we didn’t even know what the tournaments were. We called up team after team, but they wouldn’t practice with us. Mira Costa (150 miles away) was the only team that would play us, and that was at seven in the morning.” So Sister Lowell and the players got up at 4:00 A.M., drove for three hours, played the game, and drove home. (Brother Lowell had to work at the high school and couldn’t leave.) They lost 14–2. They battled through the rest of that initial AAU season, too. In nine of the eleven final games, they won by only one point. (But then they battled on in championship playoffs to the Junior Olympic title mentioned above.)

To return good for evil not only overcomes fear but also overcomes enmity. I remember when we had an unfriendly neighbor some years ago. He would play the radio very loudly and generally try to be objectionable so much as to generate fear. I am glad I was prompted to retain a positive, cheerful demeanor which overcame fear and eventually broke down the barrier, for “perfect love casteth out fear” (1 Jn. 4:18).

It all started in 1988 when three young women from the Jacana Ward in Sao Paulo, Brazil, felt a strong desire to visit the elderly ladies who live in a nursing home near the chapel.
The initial idea turned into a continuous service project called “Adopt a Grandma” and other young women from the ward soon began to participate. Later on, more young people from two other wards were also involved. Now, there are nonmembers who help with the project.
These youth have learned what it means to have the pure love of Christ. The elderly women in the rest home have different backgrounds and histories. Some don’t even know their parents or when or where they were born.
One of these is Sebastiana Maria Catarina de Jesus; a talkative, cheerful lady who appears quite small in her wheelchair. She does not know her age, and has no relatives nor visitors. She has become a different woman since these loving and giving young people began visiting her. Catarina now feels that she has a family. She loves to spend time with these youth who are her new family.
Flora Esperanca Galassi is seventy-nine years old and becomes emotional at the mention of her family. A surprise birthday party was given to Flora, who is touched as she remembers this precious day in her life. She embraces the young people warmly because they are everything she has in life.
Virginia Fernandes, who looks about seventy-five years old, also does not know when she was born. She walks around the nursing home with difficulty and does not hear very well, but her countenance reflects joy in being close to her newly made friends.
They speak words of support and are always willing to help the elderly ladies, whose simple needs are easily met: a towel to Catarina, clothing to Flora or a cake to Virginia. These young people know that they are attending to the needs of a part of the Good Shepherd’s flock. They freely give of their love, affection, and kindness, which is just as freely returned.