Gospel Story Finder

For over a year I tried to memorize the Articles of Faith, but I was having a hard time because I’m deaf. I worked on it every Sunday, but I just couldn’t do it. I wanted to give up many times, but I kept on trying.
I decided I needed help, so I went into my room and knelt down and prayed to Heavenly Father. When I got up, I started trying to memorize the Articles of Faith again, and it was so much easier. I finished all 13. My mom was amazed at how well I had memorized them. I know now that whenever I need help I can pray to my Heavenly Father, and He will help me.
Sam McGrath, age 9Mesa, Arizona

In addition to the badges, there are other projects a Scout must complete to earn his Springbok. One of these is a construction project. Rocco chose to build a bridge. He had to first design and build a scale model of the bridge. Then, with a team of six other Scouts, Rocco had to build it full size, about 20 feet tall (6 m) and 30 feet long (9 m). It took nearly nine hours to build the bridge and then disassemble it.

Then there’s community service, which is a big part of earning both the Springbok and the Duty to God Award. For his Springbok service requirement, Rocco visited more than 40 homes of seniors to help them with various chores and repairs. “The only big thing that overlapped was the 40-hour service project I was able to use for both Scouts and the Duty to God Award,” says Rocco.

Of all the requirements Rocco has fulfilled to earn his various awards, he points to one in particular as most valuable for his personal growth: “Reading the Book of Mormon,” Rocco says without hesitation. “That was the biggest and most rewarding challenge.”

“I had read the Book of Mormon once already, a year or so ago, but I was just reading to get it done,” Rocco explains. “When I started reading it again, I really wanted to learn and gain a testimony of it.” He approached reading the Book of Mormon in a completely different way his second time through. “Every time I read now, I pray before to ask Heavenly Father’s Spirit to be with me as I read.”

Rocco’s already begun on his next big project—to more actively share his testimony with others as he prepares to serve a full-time mission. His Scouting experiences and earning the Duty to God Award have helped him in his personal development and in becoming a missionary. “To spread the gospel, I needed to know what is in the Book of Mormon, and I needed to know that it is true,” he says. “After reading the Book of Mormon for the second time, I received a testimony of it.”

Even if there was not a Duty to God Award to earn, Rocco says he would have fulfilled most of the requirements simply because he wanted to prepare for missionary service. Attending church, reading the scriptures, praying daily, and giving service are just part of who Rocco is, of being what a Latter-day Saint is supposed to be.

Now that he has received his call to serve as a full-time missionary, the testimony Elder du Plessis has built is proving much more useful than the rope-and-log bridge he built for his Springbok construction project. However, some of the backwoodsman skills he learned as a Scout may come in handy as he serves in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi.

Some time ago I went through a period in which I was plagued with many personal problems and felt that I had nobody to help me solve them. I was attending church regularly but had not been successful in finding solutions to my difficulties. Fear often overcame me, especially during the night. I was very unhappy.
One day when I was feeling particularly distraught, I tried to get in touch with the mission president. On another day I had a strong desire to reach the President of the Church. I thought if I could just speak with or write to him, he would give me the answers I sought.
While in this troubled state of mind, I attended a session of district conference in Cúcuta, Colombia. I found the answer I needed during a talk by the mission president. When President Canals asked, “When is the last time you had a spiritual experience?” I realized that I had been so preoccupied with trying to find someone to help me solve my problems that I had forgotten the Savior’s call to draw near unto Him (see D&C 88:63). In my rush to find a solution, I had forgotten the Being who had power to give me peace in my afflictions and to answer my prayers.
That very day I started the process of drawing nearer to my Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. I told Heavenly Father of my fear and anguish, and I prayed in the name of Jesus Christ that I might have His Spirit to be with me. I dropped all of my burdens at the Savior’s feet, remembering His promise: “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
I still don’t have all the answers to my personal problems, but I have received strength and comfort. I have also received impressions that if I live a righteous life, keep the commandments, and serve the Lord with all my heart, He will help me solve my problems or give me strength to endure them (see Mosiah 24:14).

“All right, girls, load them on the fire,” Brother Andersen called as he stepped away from the circle of smoldering coals.
When we had arrived at our destination, everyone had piled their backpacks around the fire and taken off to swim in the lake for a few hours. By the time I was done swimming and had changed back into my hiking clothes, the fire was hot and burned down to coals, ready for our lumpy foil-dinner packets.
One by one all my peers put their dinners into the coals. Each one was marked with the girl’s name, so we could identify our own. I, however, was left frantically searching my backpack for my foil dinner but couldn’t find it anywhere. I desperately racked my memory. I remembered double-checking that my foil packet was in my bag before we had left in the morning. Sister Robinson had been stern about us double-checking because she said we wouldn’t have anything to eat if we forgot. Maybe I had taken it out of my bag at the lunch spot and forgotten it along the trail.
All of the dinners were in the fire now and would take a little over half an hour to cook. I didn’t have the courage to tell my leaders that I had lost mine. I was worried and embarrassed that they would scold me and would have to give me theirs. Instead, I sat around and waited with the group. As everyone started eating, I took off looking like I was going to the bathroom, when really I just waited for a while until the group was mostly done eating.
I wandered back into the group after 15 minutes or so and found that my plan was working almost perfectly. No one had noticed that I had been gone or that I hadn’t eaten. The only problem was that I was hungry. I drank a lot of water, but it only left me with that full-of-water-and-nothing-else feeling. The only thing I could hope for was a few marshmallows—mere sugary puffs of air. But now I was surrounded by the aroma of hamburger patties baked with hearty chunks of potatoes, carrots, and onions. It was torture!
All I could think about was foil dinners and how much my stomach really wanted one. I looked around for something to distract me. All the girls were playing around, happy and filled with a good dinner, and getting ready to start roasting marshmallows. Off in the corner I saw Rachel, the Big Sister assigned to me, surrounded by a group of my friends. She was telling them something, and they were listening intently. I was shy to join in, but something pushed me towards the group anyway, and I sat down with them.
I was surprised to find that Rachel wasn’t telling them about a wonderful guy she knew or a favorite vacation. She was teaching them the gospel. They were taking turns asking her questions about scripture stories, gospel doctrine, or her personal testimony. I entered the circle as she was telling about Mary, the mother of Christ, and how brave and obedient she was. From the moment I sat down at the foot of my friend and Big Sister, I could feel the Spirit teaching me that what she was telling us was true. I instantly forgot about my stomach and that I hadn’t eaten. I even forgot to fill up on marshmallows as a last resort because we were all too engaged in discussion and searching the scriptures.
At 13, out in the wilderness with a group of girls my same age and an entirely empty stomach, I truly feasted on the words of Christ for the first time. I listened to the testimony of a girl who was only four years older than me, but what she taught was something that satisfied my hunger much more than any foil dinner. As we hiked home under the stars, I felt like I didn’t even need a flashlight because there was a light burning in my heart as my testimony had grown that night.
The Savior said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matthew 5:6). I knew that it was an evening that I would never forget. More than anything I wanted to build my own testimony to be like Rachel’s so that I could share it with others and they could feel that wholeness that I had felt that night, having feasted on the words of Christ and been completely filled with the Spirit of God.

A newly baptized member told me what she felt when she received that gift. This was a faithful Christian woman who had spent her life in service to others. She knew and loved the Lord, and she had felt the manifestations of His Spirit. When she received the added light of the restored gospel, she was baptized and the elders placed their hands upon her head and gave her the gift of the Holy Ghost. She recalled, “I felt the influence of the Holy Ghost settle upon me with greater intensity than I had ever felt before. He was like an old friend who had guided me in the past but now had come to stay.”

One day, I was really excited about being with my friends at kindergarten. I wore my CTR ring and necklace to school.
A new girl in my class is really mean. At recess that day, all my friends were around her, so I went over to see what was going on. The new girl had made up a new club, and all of my friends had joined it. She asked if I wanted to join. I asked her what kind of a club it was and what I had to do to be a member.
She said, “In order to be in my club, first you have to raise your right hand and say, ‘There is no God’ and ‘Jesus does not live and has never lived.’”
It made my heart hurt! I looked down at the CTR ring on my finger. Then I looked at the mean girl and said, “You are very, very wrong. There is a God, and Jesus does live. If this is what I have to say, then I don’t want to be in your club.”
After I said that, she pushed me really hard, and all my friends laughed and made fun of me.
I told my mom about it that night and cried and cried. She told me she was proud of me and cried with me. She said, “Taylor, you know that you belong to something better than the best club in the whole wide world. You belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it doesn’t have ten or twelve members. It has millions of members. And it is true. The gospel is true.” She told me that I had a lot of courage to stand up for God, Jesus Christ, and the gospel.
When I prayed that night, I asked Heavenly Father to help the mean girl know that He and Jesus live.
The next day at school, the girl went up to our teacher and asked her, “Do you believe there is a God? And do you believe that Jesus really lived?”
The teacher said, “Yes, I do believe in God. And yes, I do believe that Jesus lived.”
My friends came up to me later and said that they were sorry and that they didn’t want to be in that club anymore.
And the next day after that, the girl came to me at recess and asked, “Can you tell me a little bit about your church?”
I am really glad that I know that there is a God and that Jesus Christ lives and that I stood up for what I believe.

Brian R.
Twelve-year-old Brian R. of Arizona, USA, was preparing to pass the sacrament for the first time. He didn’t want to make a mistake, so he asked the other Aaronic Priesthood holders in his ward to explain things to him.
“They were great,” he says. “They told me where to stand, where to go, and how to pass the trays.”
But even more important, they reminded him to be reverent. “We need to remember the Savior as we pass the sacrament,” Brian says. “If we are reverent, it helps others to remember Him too.”
Brian learned that others are happy to help him to understand his duties and to learn to do them well. “Just ask,” he says. “Moving from Primary into Young Men is easier than you think.”

Elisabeth reminded me that I can see only a tiny sliver of what the Lord sees. This thought kept me going after each failed infertility treatment. I could not understand why the Lord kept directing us down paths that seemed like failures because they didn’t end with us having a baby. Now, looking back, I can see how each of those seeming failures was an important stepping-stone on our path to understanding His timing.

When her husband confessed betraying her, one sister prayed for help in forgiving him and sought relief as she studied the scriptures and attended the temple. “As I look back,” she writes, “I realize that it was during those long, prayerful moments that I tapped into a life-giving source of comfort from my loving Heavenly Father. I sense that he was not standing by glaring at me for not having accomplished forgiveness yet; rather he was sorrowing with me as I wept. He loved me. … I had always viewed the Atonement as a means of making repentance work for the sinner. I had not realized that it also makes it possible for the one sinned against to receive into his or her heart the sweet peace of forgiving” (“My Journey to Forgiving,” Ensign, February 1997, 43).

When Angel was eight years old, she was introduced to gymnastics. “I had always loved sports. I had tried swimming, soccer, kung fu, skating, and ballet,” she says. But she felt none of those sports were challenging enough to interest her.
At her first gymnastics class, however, she was presented with a variety of feats that seemed physically impossible. Her interest was piqued, and from that point on she was drawn to the gym like a magnet. Angel had finally found a sport that matched both her energy and her athletic abilities. “I wanted to excel in gymnastics,” she says. “I knew God gave me an amazing gift. He gave me a healthy body and the talent to do gymnastics. So, I set my goals high and worked toward them with intensity.”

Lesson 2
After understanding the reason for commandments and the need to seek forgiveness when we break them, I offer a second lesson. It is the other side of the forgiveness coin: Just as the transgressor seeks forgiveness as part of the quest for relief and peace, we need to forgive at least in part for the relief and peace it brings us. As angry as Troy and Deedra might justifiably have been over this terrible experience, they have felt that they should not withhold forgiveness for him who gave offense. At least part of that motivation was because Troy has spent these last five years of his life struggling with his role, accidental as it was, in the loss of nine-year-old Austen.
To carry that into this setting, there is not one of us anywhere on this campus who has not needed forgiveness for some mistake made. Our deed may not have been as severe as the kind we are recounting today, but we have all made mistakes, and some of them were very serious mistakes. Whatever the event, we all thank God for being the Father of forgiveness and for the gifts of mercy and relief He offers us—all of it ultimately coming to us through the majestic Atonement of His Only Begotten Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to join in and participate in that offering. The Russells have done that. They have looked up to their God and, even in their anguish, have humbly but resolutely joined the Savior in extending forgiveness to one in need. Surely they have been “submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love.” Without embarrassing them, surely they are becoming “saint[s] through the atonement of Christ the Lord.”

During his second day of freedom, while he was walking down a street, he was interrupted by someone tapping him on his shoulder. Turning, he faced John Klusak, his chief accuser. “He was much frightened and begged me to forgive him as he did not know at that time what he was doing.” Klusak was convinced that “the Lord had punished him very severely,” said the elder, because the man’s only son was dying of smallpox and his mother had become gravely ill. The elder forgave him but said that the troubled man would have to ask God for His forgiveness. The son died two days later.
Because newspapers carried his picture and said such evil things about Mormons, Elder Biesinger could not do effective missionary work anymore in Bohemia. While waiting for money from mission headquarters in Bern to pay for transportation out of Prague, he sent Church literature to all of the friends he had made while in prison. Then, on June 21, 1884, before leaving the city by evening train, he baptized and confirmed Anthon Just, his other accuser, in a nearby river.

Note: The following youth from Paradise, California, USA, reflect on the meaning of Christmas after the most destructive wildfire in California’s history burned down their community.
“After the fire I realized that the most important things to have are your family and friends. So although we didn’t get many gifts, it was so really nice to just be surrounded by family. It was still a happy time for us, even though it wasn’t like our normal Christmas.”
Rachel W.
“I got to help unload and organize several truckloads of donated toys. Then we opened the doors and let everyone in. It was really fun to watch all the kids. Their eyes would light up. They were so excited! It made me happy to see them so happy and peaceful after living through something so awful.”
Audrey V.
“It was great to see everyone kind of get thrown together and depend on each other socially. … I learned that material things don’t matter as much. Service, family, and time spent together matters a lot more. Life is valuable. Things can always change for the worse, so we need to try to enjoy the positive times while they’re around. We’re the ones that make those positive times!”
Billy A.

Streamers of crimson, pink, and yellow crepe paper seemed to glow in the California sun. Orange and yellow balloons clung to the peaks of arched Spanish doorways, with strands of multicolored paper serpentines trailing in the breeze. At a dozen booths arranged in a rectangle around the church courtyard, white banners, lettered in black, proclaimed the names of countries from all over the globe.
At one of the booths Svetlana Rudovsky, 17, a descendant of Russian, Italian, and Spanish ancestors, cut and served a tray of apricot pastry typical of her father’s home region in the Soviet Union. She wore a traditional costume with scarlet satin sleeves, a patterned green front, and yellow and black trim. It was bright, but not as bright as her smile.
At another corner of the courtyard, Tina Ksajikian, 13, opened a piece of pita bread and ladled tahini (yogurt) sauce onto a garbanzo bean patty called felafel. She topped the Arabian sandwich with shredded lettuce and handed it to an elderly woman eagerly waiting to try a new kind of food. Felafel is an Arabian dish, but Tina’s booth also offered a sampling of Armenian cuisine. Two large stainless steel bowls to her right contained egg-shaped balls of kufta—a blend of pine nuts, cracked wheat, and lamb.
Next to the bowls of kufta Tina had arranged a small display of Armenian books, most notably a Book of Mormon. “I can read parts of it,” she said. She attends an Armenian school and is learning the language as part of her classwork.
Both Tina and Svetlana are members of the Los Angeles California Stake, and both were serving food at a festival organized and run by the stake’s Young Women. As at almost any Los Angeles stake activity, there were young Latter-day Saints present representing a multitude of backgrounds and nationalities. So many different cultures were represented, in fact, that the festival seemed like a feast for all the world.
Central and South Americans comprise the largest portion of the stake’s young Latter-day Saints who were born outside of the U.S. In fact, there are two Spanish-speaking wards in the stake. “One of the most difficult things for us,” said Bertha Garcia, Young Women president of the Third Ward, “was to decide which countries we could represent at the festival. We finally decided on Guatemala, because that’s my native land. But we also did El Salvador and Mexico.”
Each country’s booth featured young ladies wearing native costumes and serving traditional national dishes. Cultural displays including posters, postcards, books, souvenirs, crafts, and artwork were also scattered around the covered lanai adjacent to the meetinghouse.
Louise W. La Count, stake Young Women president, said that the “Cultural Cook-off” was organized to encourage the Los Angeles Stake youth to appreciate each other’s background. “The stake is composed of a real potpourri of nationalities,” she explained. “A lot of the elderly people meet in the Wilshire Ward, and there are also the Korean and Chinese branches there. There are the Spanish-speaking wards, and the Hollywood Ward includes a lot of Armenian and Arabic members. The Westwood First and Second wards seem to have a high number of Americans with Scandinavian ancestors, so they chose to represent both America and Scandinavia.”
And, of course, everyone in the stake was invited to come taste treats and learn about other lands. By about 2:00 on a Saturday afternoon, members, families, missionaries, and investigators were wandering through a courtyard filled with foreign fragrances, new customs, and friendly, knowledgeable young women. Youngsters slurped up genuine Italian spaghetti, fathers tried to open wide enough to bite an all-American hot dog, and two college coeds from the UCLA Ward exulted over the delicious plátanos con crema (bananas with cream) offered to them by El Salvadorians.
Dressed in an elegant red and black Chinese gown, 15-year-old Mimi Chu of the Wilshire Ward described the mixture of cabbage, carrots, bamboo shoots, celery, water chestnuts, and mushrooms used as a stuffing in egg rolls. Mimi is the only member of the Church in her immediate family, but she said that family love is strong in her home, and “it’s not that hard.” “Support from friends and other members of the Church helps a lot,” she said. “My family runs a restaurant, and a lot of the members come there to eat.”
At a booth surrounded by shrubbery and bamboo, Kim Phuong Ho, 12, of the Westwood Second Ward, offered fried rice to onlookers and also talked about Vietnam, the country her family fled during time of war. “We came over when I was in second grade,” she said. “Since then, most of my friends have been American.”
Cotton puffs and red and blue ribbons outlined the wooden counter where Julianna Rees, 14, of the Westwood Second Ward, delivered crusty, powdered sugar-coated Scandinavian dessert rosettes to her customers. She explained how the cookies are made by dipping an iron into batter, then into hot oil. “I got the recipe from my grandmother,” she said.
Her friend Margaret Stohl, 13, from the Westwood First Ward, grinned and said, “I learned how to make them from my grandmother, too. Scandinavian grandmothers and cookies—they go together. When I was making my cookies, I was talking to my grandmother and she said she got her cookie iron for Christmas when she was seven years old. That was neat for me because I just got my cookie iron for Christmas, too.”
It seemed only natural for the chefs to swap recipes and for descendents to share stories of the influence, past and present, of their heritage. Svetlana told how her mother’s friends from the Greek Orthodox Church had volunteered to help cook food for the Mormons. Tina discussed her struggles to maintain an LDS identity at her Armenian school. In between serving slices of leche flan, a rich custard topped with burnt-sugar caramel, Maryjoy Morato, 17, of the Wilshire Ward, told how missionaries in the Philippines contacted her family and shared with them the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“They just knocked on the door one day,” she said. “But they were always welcome in our home because they would talk about good things.” Exposed to the light of the restored gospel, the entire family eventually joined the Church. Maryjoy’s father died, her mother remarried, and the family moved to America. “Members here are the same as in the Philippines,” she said. “There’s no change. They’re all nice.”
Laura Sanchez and Claudia Sosa, both 12, are members of the Los Angeles Third Ward. Both arrived in the U.S. just months ago, Laura from El Salvador and Claudia from Mexico. They would agree with Maryjoy that fellowship among the Saints is universal. “One of the reasons I know this is the true Church is because I always feel the same spirit,” Laura said. Their friend Maria de los Angeles Valenzuela, 17, from the same ward, expressed the same idea. Asked through an interpreter if there is a friendliness among Church members no matter what language they speak, she enthusiastically responded, “¡Sí, sí, sí!”
Many of the young women who participated in the festival spent hours with their mothers, relatives, and friends learning recipes, preparing food, sharing stories about “the old country,” and telling each other about parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and traditions. They shared their spirit of love and appreciation for who they are and where they came from with each other, and later with those who came to take part in their celebration. They rejoiced together in the fellowship of the gospel, and in that small way, perhaps, invited everyone everywhere to join in another sort of banquet—the spiritual feast of the gospel, a feast to which the door is always open.

Illustration by Adam Howling
“Hey, Trace, where did Mom go tonight?” I called out as I walked through the dirty kitchen. It looked like a tornado had blown through—dirty dishes were all over the place.
“I don’t know. She and Dad went to a dinner party with some friends,” replied the youngest of my 11 brothers and sisters as he watched a basketball game.
“So, is this food up for grabs?” I asked, hoping to find something in the pots and pans.
Wesley, number 10 of the 11, came bounding down the old, battered stairs, and as he ran to see the latest basketball score, he said, “Mom made it for us and left for the party. She said she’ll be back late and to not make too much of a mess.”
“Too late for that,” I mumbled. “Man. Good thing it’s not my night to clean up.”
The Christmas season was in full swing, and having our whole family in town made for a heavy amount of stress that seemed to wind up in Mom’s shoulder muscles. That’s when the idea came to me. It had been a while since I’d done anything but dirty the house—so why not surprise Mom and make it less dirty for a change?
After having a bite to eat, I tried for a miracle. “Wes, Trace, what do you think about cleaning this place up for Mom?”
“You can do what you want. I’m watching the game,” Trace said. He sounded bugged by the mere thought of trading dishes for the game.
“I knew it was pointless to ask you two,” I grumbled, feeling annoyed. The giant mound of dirty dishes was daunting, but someone had to do the job.
Usually when Mom asks me to clean the kitchen I whine for at least five minutes before grudgingly carrying out her wish. I typically react to her pleas for help with pride and selfishness. So this time, at first I started cleaning because I was looking for her praise. But soon I felt a joy that I can’t explain in doing the work without being asked.
As I began to slosh dishes around in the sink and squeeze the pineapple-scented dish soap into the steaming water, something unexpected began to happen.
Slowly, as if trying to hide the fact that he was even thinking of helping, Wesley wandered in and said, “I’ll dry if you wash.” Not wanting to scare him off, I nodded without looking at him.
“OK,” I said, “but the element of surprise is everything, so let’s move fast.”
Two minutes later, Trace walked sheepishly into the kitchen and said, “I’ll wipe the counters and sweep, but that’s it. And if I miss anything cool in the game, I’m going to be mad.”
“No prob,” I answered. “The faster we go, the faster we’ll be done. If Mom could only see us now, I think she’d have a heart attack.”
“Yeah,” they both said in unison.
“I was just thinking. What if we did the math?” Wes said. “There are 365 days in a year, times 13 of us, and then add three meals a day. I can’t even work those numbers. I’m just glad I’m not Mom.”
“It’s 14,235,” declared Trace triumphantly.
“Oh, and then times it by each utensil and cup on the table. I’m beginning to feel depressed. I don’t even know how Mom handles us all.”
“Hurry, here they come!” Trace yelled just as we caught sight of the car’s headlights. “Quick, hide!” I ran to my position at the top of the stairs, just out of eyesight, listening intently for Mom’s response to the sparkling countertops. As I waited, I sat thinking about what had just happened. We’d sacrificed half an hour that would have been wasted in front of the TV. How simple it was to give so little and have it mean so much.
The hum of the car’s motor cut out. The car doors opened and thumped shut. As the kitchen door swung open with a burst of icy winter air, we heard these rewarding words, “Oh! Heavenly angels have been at work!”

“When I was nine, my family moved to Phoenix, Arizona,” Elder Gibbons continued. “Even as a young boy I had wanted to be a court reporter. So at the age of seventeen I studied shorthand and qualified to become one. Soon after that I lost my desire to be a court reporter. However, I used the skills that I learned, both in school and in my work as an attorney.
“In 1970 Joseph Anderson, secretary to the First Presidency, was sustained as a General Authority. I was Joseph’s bishop, and he told my wife, Helen, and me of the difficulty the Brethren were having trying to get someone to replace him. They needed someone who had had administrative experience in the Church, someone who could work well with the General Authorities and who could take rapid shorthand because they don’t use recording devices in the First Presidency meetings or in the temple.
“When we got home that night, my wife said, ‘Frank, I could hardly restrain myself from telling Joseph that the man the Brethren are looking for is you.’ We prayed about it. I called Joseph the next morning and said, ‘Can I see you?’ He said, ‘Yes, why don’t you come in at ten o’clock.’ Joseph told me later that he hung up the phone, turned to his wife, Norma, and said, ‘Frank Gibbons is going to come in and offer his services to the Brethren.’ Norma said, ‘You’re mistaken. Frank wouldn’t give up his legal practice for that.’ And he said, ‘Well, we’ll see.’
“I saw Brother Anderson at the appointed time and told him ‘I just wanted you to know, Joseph, that if the Brethren have need of my services, I’m available.’
“He called me the next day and said, ‘The Brethren would like to see you in the morning.’ So I went in that Thursday morning, and the Brethren asked me how long it would take me to free myself from my law practice. I said that it would take several months. Then President Tanner asked, ‘How can you afford to do it?’ President Lee spoke up and said, ‘Frank has come to the point in life where he knows that he can’t afford not to do it.’
“When I was a teenager, the thought of learning shorthand in order to work for the First Presidency never occurred to me. But I had a strong desire to learn shorthand, and I acted on it. Likewise, you children ought to dream, have ambitions, and set goals. It doesn’t make any difference if over the years those goals change. The fact that you’re striving to attain a goal means that you’re developing skills. And you can never tell how those skills will be used in the years ahead.”

My mom first got baptized into the Church with our younger brother. My elder brother and I were in another church. Our father was a reverend in a different church. My father’s background was Muslim. Our grandfather was an Imam. My father grew up as a Christian because he was not brought up by his parents. Our mother, too, was a Christian. She wanted us to be baptized with her and our younger brother. She was trying her level best to convert us, but I told her “Mom, you be ready to be joining that church, but we are not ready to come along with you.”
One day, her inspired bishop called her for an interview and asked her if she was ready to go to the temple. She gladly accepted and told him yes; she was ready. The day came when she went to the temple. While she was there, she asked Heavenly Father to help her in the conversion of her family. That was the biggest and most important thing to her, and she asked for it with a sincere heart.
When she returned back home, something happened. She started talking to us about the Church and helped us to understand one or two things at a time. She helped us clear up misunderstandings. Slowly, a change came into our hearts. We gradually started learning about the Church. One day she invited me to sacrament meeting. I accepted and went with her.
That first day I attended was the best day of my life. The things I saw that they did, the way it was organized, the love and affection, the welcome of the bishop, the love that members showed to me, it all made me stay. The missionaries started teaching me. They only taught me for two weeks because I was very eager, very very eager to join the Church because of the things I saw. I was taught and baptized. After I was baptized, I kept going to Church and partaking of the sacrament and made sure to do that every week to renew my covenants with my Heavenly Father. I remain active and true to my covenants.
As told to Sister Stacy Wursten on 23 February 2023 at the Accra Ghana MTC.

Sometimes Eugene’s world got awful noisy. There was the rattle of Clancey Sawyer’s milk wagon and Hector Moore’s ice truck over the rutty dirt road in front of his house. The clatter of Mr. Gunnerson’s old Model T. His Aunt Althea’s loud laughter and nonstop talking whenever she came to visit. (Eugene loved Aunt Althea, but she could outtalk any salesperson he’d ever heard!) And all the other noises the world had to offer in 1932.
His four brothers and two sisters could cause a lot of racket, too, especially when they all wanted to listen to different radio shows at the same time. Or when their friends came over to play and they fought over the stereoscope. If that wasn’t enough, sometimes Widow Willowby’s hound dog howled and barked all night. All that noise was enough to drive any kid up a tree.
And that’s just where Eugene’s favorite quiet place was—in a tree. Not just any tree, but the big old fig tree in the field, a little way behind Eugene’s house. His father and older brother, Vern, had built him a tree house in its strong, leafy branches. And just last week, his father slept with him in the tree house.
They played the imagination game before sleep overtook them, his father telling him that the fireflies that danced in the night reminded him of children’s prayers on their way to heaven. Eugene said that the moon and stars were holes in a big black curtain in God’s window. On the other side, God was staying up late with a big lamp on, sitting in a rocking chair and making a list of all his children who had problems. And that the creaking they heard was not the fig tree limbs in the stiff night breeze but the creaking of His rocker.
Just as Nephi and other prophets of old at times had gone high into the mountains to be alone in order to pray, Eugene liked to climb up into his quiet place in the big fig tree. Sometimes it was to think out his thoughts, sometimes to read his scriptures, sometimes to just relax, and sometimes to pray about things. …
Like the time Grandpa got real sick and had to go to the hospital. Everyone fasted and prayed for him, including Eugene. He climbed up into his quiet place and prayed for a whole hour.
Two weeks later, Eugene’s father lay in the tree house and cried. Eugene heard him because he was there, too. Everyone was happy because although the doctor had said that Grandpa was going to die, he got better. Eugene climbed up into the tree and lay close to his father. Neither of them spoke. At least not out loud. They were busy thanking Heavenly Father in their hearts, warm tears trickling down their faces.
After a while, Eugene asked his father why he had come to the tree instead of staying at the house with everyone else. “Everyone needs a quiet place where they can go to be alone sometimes. Even grown-ups. I don’t have one,” he said. “I was hoping you wouldn’t mind if I came up here for a few minutes.”
Eugene was happy that his father thought having a quiet place was important.
“Besides,” his father added with a wink, “with Aunt Althea at the house to greet your grandpa coming home from the hospital, it’s a bit noisy there. I needed a moment alone to thank the Lord for your granddad’s recovery.”
A few moments later, Eugene walked back to the house with his father. The back screen door whined as they joined the others. Eugene paused to look back over his shoulder at the old tree. It was like an old friend—warm, inviting, peaceful. And always there when he needed it. He smiled, went inside, gave Aunt Althea a big hug, then hurried over to Grandpa’s bed.
“Now, some things are best prayed about in private. … Praying alone … helps us open our hearts and be totally honest and honorable in expressing all of our hopes and attitudes. …
“The Savior at times found it necessary to slip away into the mountains or desert to pray. …
“We, too, ought to find, where possible, a room, a corner, a closet … where we can [pray] in secret. …”President Spencer W. Kimball(Ensign, October 1981, pages 3–6.)

A young woman with whom I am acquainted was planning to be married. Sound familiar? Her parents were overjoyed. “At last,” they said. She was twenty-six years old. She had been very choosey. The whole family rejoiced when she found someone she could agree to marry. The date was set; the invitations were printed; the wedding dress was selected; and the trousseau was ready. Then one evening this young woman sought out her parents. She was very sorry to disappoint them, but she just couldn’t go through with it. She could not marry this man.

Her parents were shocked. “Why?” they asked. “You have so much in common. You enjoy being together. You are perfect for each other. You’re in love. And you’re twenty-six years old!” Then she explained her feelings to her parents. This man did not honor his mother. The girl had been bothered for a long time by the way he spoke to his mother, by the disrespect he showed her, by his discourtesy. She could not marry this man because some day he might treat her the same way.

I had many responsibilities on our farm at a young age. When I was nine years old, one of my summer jobs was to keep a herd of twelve cows and twelve calves in the pasture. Unfortunately, they loved to push over our fence and gorge on the sweet alfalfa in an adjoining field. On one of their escapes, they got into an empty canal some twelve to fourteen feet deep. I knew that the canal would soon fill with water, drowning the trapped cattle.
I couldn’t move twenty-four cattle up the canal’s steep banks, and I didn’t know how else to save them, so I knelt and prayed for help. I was impressed to drive the cattle down the canal to another man’s property. I questioned the wisdom of this, because I didn’t know the property or its owner and I didn’t want to get stuck between even steeper banks. I obeyed the Spirit, however, and soon found a section of the canal where the cattle could climb out easily. And our neighbor didn’t mind. When I told my mother, she said that I had been inspired by Heavenly Father.