Gospel Story Finder

In the 1980s my mother, Mai Saczkowski, directed the Swansea Ward choir. She loved her church choir. Whether it was singing in sacrament meeting or competing on the stage, she pursued perfection and was never content with second best.
As far back as I can remember, music and singing were an important part of growing up. We were encouraged to play instruments, take theory exams and develop our talents. Car journeys were filled with singing. My mother was a gifted and glorious singer with a beautiful, rich mezzo soprano voice. It has been over 20 years since her passing and I struggle to remember her speaking voice, but her singing voice I can instantly recognise.
Mai joined the Swansea Amateur Operatic Society. She appeared in many musicals and soon she was the guest artiste in concerts and fund-raising events. Her social life flourished. She attended Cardiff College where she obtained a Gold medal in singing.
But amidst this flurry of activity, my mother thought of her temple covenants and decided to curtail outside activities and concentrate on building up music in the Church. This was probably her most significant contribution. She inspired many people, especially the youth, by directing shows and teaching singing. She blessed the lives of many with her voice, adding to the spirituality of meetings.
Elder Boyd K. Packer extended a challenge in 1976 that my mother took on board:
“Go to, then, you who are gifted; cultivate your gift. [ …] If you have the ability and the desire, seek a career or employ your talent as an avocation or cultivate it as a hobby. But in all ways bless others with it.”
At age 60 she was struck down with Parkinson’s Disease, which gradually took over her body. Apart from the physical disability, it robbed her of her beautiful voice. She went through the refiner’s fire and learnt patience in her affliction.
I believe my mother used her gift properly; her contributions will be noted for generations. Her posterity has been blessed because of her, and now her grandchildren and great-grandchildren are using their inherited gift to further the work of the kingdom of God.

We knelt and had our family prayer. It was times like that that I wished Pa was around. Even though I couldn’t remember him, I thought it would be right nice to have my own Pa like the other kids. I was just a baby when he died. His wagon broke through the ice on the Mississippi when the Saints were leaving Nauvoo, and he fell into the river. Ma said he was all blue when the men pulled him out, and he got real sick and died a few weeks later.
“Why do we pray so much?” I asked Ma as we started eating our lumpydick. “We say family prayers in the morning and at night. We say our own prayers morning and night, and we pray a lot in between. That’s a lot of praying.”
“We have a lot to be thankful for, Son.”
“We do?” I asked, looking around at our one bed, two chairs and table, and the two boxes we used for a dresser and a cupboard. It seemed to me that we didn’t have much of anything. Ma had to wash people’s clothes and sew and clean, and I had to work for Brother Jeffers and Brother Simms. We didn’t get any money for it, either—just flour and sugar and stuff like that.
“We have a lot,” Ma said. “We have a house. We always manage to find something to eat. We have each other. We have the gospel, and we know that someday we’ll be with your pa. Doesn’t that sound like a lot?”
I nodded my head but kept eating my lumpydick and thinking about my bare feet.
“The Lord has blessed us, George, and when we need His help, all we have to do is ask Him in faith, just like the Prophet Joseph did. Heavenly Father wants to help us, but we have to ask.”
That gave me an idea. If the Lord wanted me to have shoes, then maybe He would help me get some.
“You mean we can ask the Lord for anything?”
“Anything that’s right,” she said. “We do have to remember that it’s still up to the Lord and that sometimes His answer is no. We let His will be done.”
I knew Ma was telling the truth, because she doesn’t ever lie. Once she said that if we had enough faith, it would rain. And it rained the very next day. Another time I was very sick, and everybody thought I was going to die, but Ma asked Brother Abott and Brother Beecher to come and give me a blessing. I was better after a couple of hours.
Before I went to bed that night, I said a special prayer to Heavenly Father. I told Him about my bare feet and how I felt bad about going to church without shoes. I said I’d go anyway, even without shoes, but if He felt I should have some shoes, I’d sure appreciate it. When I finished my prayer, I felt good all over. It was just like Heavenly Father was telling me that somehow I’d have a pair of shoes for church the next day.
I woke up just as the sun was peeking over the mountains. I hurried and got dressed and started outside because I knew my new shoes would be there.
“Where are you off to?” Ma asked as I opened the door. “It’s Sunday, you know.”
“I’m just going out to get my shoes,” I called back as I ran down the path to the old wooden gate. Right on top of the gatepost were my shoes, just as I knew they’d be. They were brand-new, and they were just my size.
I was so excited that I could hardly stand still. I wanted to shout and run, but about all I could do was cry a little bit because I was so happy. I knelt down right there by the gate and said a little prayer and thanked Heavenly Father for sending me those shoes.
I didn’t understand how it happened or who Heavenly Father inspired to put the shoes there, but I put them on and ran into the house. “Look, Ma!” I shouted. “Look at my new shoes!”
Ma didn’t know what to say. She just stood there with her mouth open. Finally she asked, “Where did they come from?”
“They’re mine. They’re the ones I prayed for. They were on the gatepost, just waiting for me. You were right. The Lord does answer our prayers.”
Ma looked worried. “George, those are brand-new shoes. You can’t keep them. They belong to someone else.”
“Oh, no, Ma. They’re mine. Heavenly Father helped someone decide to give them to me. I know He did.”
“Take them off,” Ma said.
I knew it was no use to argue with her.
“We’ll take them to church with us and ask President Young to find the owner. I’m sure the owner will be anxious to have them back.”
President Young held the shoes up and asked the owner to come up and get them after the meeting, but nobody did. I would have gone, but Ma wouldn’t let me, even though I knew they were mine.
The next Sunday I went barefoot, and the next Sunday too. It had warmed up a bit, so I wasn’t cold, but I sure was anxious to get my shoes back. Before I went to church that third Sunday, I said a prayer and told Heavenly Father that if He wanted to give those shoes to someone who needed them more than I did, it was all right with me.
President Young held up the shoes after meeting again and asked the owner to claim them. But he still had them in his hand when he came over to Ma and me. “Well, Sister Little,” he said, “it doesn’t look like anyone’s going to claim these shoes. Do you think they’ll fit George?”
“Sure they will,” I said. “The Lord wouldn’t make it possible for me to get a pair of shoes and then have them too big or too little.”
“What’s this?” President Young asked with a twinkle in his eye.
I told him what I’d done—how I’d prayed and had just known that the Lord was going to help me and how I’d found my shoes on the gatepost.
President Young nodded his head, and his eyes got real smiley when he said, “And all this time we’ve been trying to give your shoes away?” I nodded my head. “No wonder no one claimed them. They were yours all along. Well, Sister Little, I think we’d better let George keep his shoes. After the Lord went to all that trouble, I don’t think He would want us giving George’s shoes to someone else.”
I smiled and sat down right there to put on my shoes, and as I pulled them on, I said another little prayer and thanked Heavenly Father for helping me get my shoes back.

The story is told of a 14-year-old boy who had come to Nauvoo in search of his brother who lived near there. The young boy had arrived in winter with no money and no friends. When he inquired about his brother, the boy was taken to a large house that looked like a hotel. There he met a man who said, “Come in, son, we’ll take care of you.”
The boy accepted and was brought into the house, where he was fed, warmed, and given a bed to sleep in.
The next day it was bitter cold, but in spite of that, the boy prepared himself to walk the eight miles to where his brother was staying.
When the man of the house saw this, he told the young boy to stay for a while. He said there would be a team coming soon and that he could ride back with them.
When the boy protested, saying that he had no money, the man told him not to worry about that, that they would take care of him.
Later the boy learned that the man of the house was none other than Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet. This boy remembered this act of charity for the rest of his life.2

Thank you so much for your article in Questions and Answers (Jan. ’02). It talked about what to do if you sometimes feel sad and unhappy, and it also gave some great advice on what to do if you feel “overwhelmingly sad all the time.” It said to tell a trusted adult who will be able to get you some professional help. My 16-year-old son sadly ended his life last year. Our son was a nice, shy, worthy priesthood holder who was active in the Church. He didn’t tell anyone how sad he was feeling, and we didn’t recognize the subtle signs we now know were caused by depression. Instead, we brushed them off as him just going through the teenage years. We later learned that untreated depression is the number-one cause of suicide. The organs of our bodies, like our hearts, lungs, or kidneys, can become ill. We sometimes don’t realize that another organ, the brain, can also become ill. Depression is a chemical imbalance of the brain that can usually be successfully treated with medication and therapy. Maybe if our son would have read your article he would have received the courage he needed to ask for help. I hope there is someone out there who reads this article and then asks an adult for help.
Stacy HonePayson, Utah (via e-mail)

My temple service ended when I moved away to attend college. And I was so busy and overwhelmed with my studies that I didn’t attend the temple as often. I started to notice a nagging feeling that I needed to serve there again, so I met with my bishop to ask about it.
I received a call to serve in the temple on Saturday afternoons.
Yes, I was so busy, but I was thrilled to make time to serve in the Lord’s house every week. With each shift, I grew closer to the Savior and to Heavenly Father, and I was able to enjoy the peace that is unique to His house.
My temple service has been somewhat brief, but I can testify that my time serving has changed my life for the better.

When President Kimball died, we were living in Arizona. President Kimball had been in our home. We had knelt with him in family prayer, and he had eaten bread and milk with us. We knew he was a prophet of God.
I wanted a witness of the Spirit that President Benson was God’s chosen prophet. I wanted to know more than that he was just a good person and next in line after President Kimball. The Lord was kind to me, and, after fasting and prayer, I received, by the Spirit, the witness that President Benson was indeed God’s chosen prophet for this time, with a special calling and a special message for our day.

Seeing 30 homes built from your own designs is quite satisfying, but when you are only 18 years old, it’s an outstanding accomplishment. Robert McArthur has had his own home designing business in the Salt Lake City area and has also worked for several builders and contractors even before his graduation from high school.
His love of home designing began early in his life—he was about 15 when he started sketching designs. While a senior at Bountiful High School (Bountiful, Utah), Robert won first place in architectural drawing in the State of Utah. This entitled him to a trip in the summer of 1975 to Washington, D.C., where he competed on a national level in architectural drawing. He took second place, with a gold medal in the skills contest. In 1975 he designed a home for the 1975 Parade of Homes in Salt Lake City, competing with professional builders and designers. The judges awarded him a trophy for second-best design in the show. In 1976 he designed a home for the 1976 Parade of Homes and again won second-best design and also the coveted award for “Best Home in the Home Show” (awarded by public vote).
Following graduation from high school he was awarded a full six-year scholarship from the Home Builders Association of Greater Salt Lake. But Robert decided it was time for more important things at that age—he decided he would complete a full-time mission, so he declined the scholarship.
Elder Robert McArthur is presently serving a mission in the Washington Seattle (Spanish-speaking) Mission. When he returns from his mission, he will have 30 homes, a challenging future career, and a very happy family waiting for him.

Recently, three fellow priesthood holders and I were in the home of a mother who was the head of the household and caring for at least four children. After a brief visit, one of my colleagues asked this matriarch to share her favourite hymn. Without hesitation she responded with “Come, Ye Children of the Lord”. They had not attended church for years, and we asked if we could sing that hymn for the family. Her face lit up as we sang, and the room reverberated with the beautiful words of the hymn. There were smiles on every face as the Spirit of the Lord filled the room. It was easy for us to invite this wonderful family back to church and share with them how our Savior wants them to return.

Melusi and the two families we visited are once again actively participating in church. Elder Mervyn B. Arnold of the Seventy said, “As we go to the rescue, God gives us power, encouragement, and blessings.”1 I have learned that we will receive help and inspiration when we are on the Lord’s errand. We surely do not go alone when we go to rescue His children. He has indeed graven us upon the palms of His hands and will therefore never forget any of His children.

One Sunday after sacrament meeting, the children and we teachers were to go directly to our classrooms instead of meeting first in the Primary room. When I got to my classroom, I realized that I had left my teaching materials in the Primary room. I told my class to sit down, that I would be right back. Before I hurried away, I said, “Be quiet now!”
When I returned, the classroom seemed unusually quiet. I slowly opened the door and peeked inside. My students were all kneeling, their arms folded and heads bowed, quietly waiting for me to return to have class prayer.
I want to say thank you to my class! You are all really trying to do what Jesus Christ would want you to do.

In last April’s conference, in the general priesthood meeting, I told about my father drawing a picture of a knight in armor to teach me about putting on the whole armor of God and the spiritual protection it brings.

After that session was over, a father reported to his family what he had learned. Inspired, their young son Jason searched LDS.org to hear the message for himself. A few days later he appeared in family home evening to share the lesson with his brothers and sisters. Here he is.

Jason in his “whole armor of God”

A simple conference message, inspired of the Lord, received by a child, was taught to a family in a personal, powerful way. I love his breastplate of righteousness. I love his shield of faith to thwart the fiery darts of the adversary. These are the blessings of conference.

In Brisbane, Australia, a seven-year-old boy pleaded with his father to join the Church so his father could baptize him. While his father had attended church for several years and had good experiences there, he had not taken the step to be baptized. When I met with them, I extended a bold invitation to the dad to accept his son’s loving request. He gently declined. And yet the love remains. The invitation remains. The agency remains. Sometimes the seed is planted long before it breaks the soil.

Mark J. Messick, president of the Vanuatu Port Vila Mission, got a phone call from the district president on Tanna Island asking that missionaries be sent there. They had 80 people waiting to be interviewed so that they could come unto Jesus Christ and His restored Church through baptism!
President Messick tried to send his assistants to conduct the interviews. They needed to travel from Éfaté Island, where the mission office is located, to Tanna, more than 130 miles (209 kilometers) away. But several serious challenges got in their way.
First, Tanna’s active volcano became more active. Then a small cyclone damaged much of Tanna. Finally, COVID-19 came to Vanuatu in 2022, and everything shut down. No one was allowed in or out of Éfaté or Tanna.
Months later, after things calmed down, Elders Brian Moses Nalin and Silas Toa arrived in Tanna, ready to interview people. President Messick feared that the number of people wanting to be baptized might have dropped since they had to wait so long.
When Elder Nalin, a native of Tanna, and Elder Toa arrived, there weren’t 80 people waiting—there were now 114.
To get to a remote branch in Saetsiwi on Tanna Island, Elders Nalin and Toa drove to and then hiked up a mountain for three hours, eating nothing but the coconuts they found along the way. But when they arrived at Saetsiwi, they couldn’t find the branch president. And then the rainstorm started.
Rain filled the rivers, which Elder Nalin knew would soon be impassable and dangerous. The elders got back to their truck as quickly as possible, knowing that they had to get off the mountain. The two missionaries crossed the first river safely, but at the second river, the truck got stuck. They pushed and even got others to help push, but the truck didn’t move.
Elder Nalin noticed another river flowing into theirs and just how much bigger it was. He later said, “Our river was still small, like it was waiting for us to get out.” But that wouldn’t last forever.
Both elders grew up in Vanuatu, where vehicles are usually rare and extremely expensive. So, for them, abandoning the truck didn’t seem like an option. But the water level was up to the door handles.
They called President Messick and asked what they should do.
President Messick replied, “Thank you for giving me a call. It’s OK! Leave the truck where it is and find a safe place now!”
Elder Toa and Elder Nalin faced challenges as they tried to reach the people on the island of Tanna who wanted to be baptized—including a sudden rainstorm that flooded the rivers they were crossing.
Elder Toa, the last one out of the truck, later said, “I looked in the back seat for my scriptures and the baptismal forms, and there was nothing. And I thought maybe Elder Nalin already took them.” If the forms were lost, the missionaries would have to go back to Éfaté to get new ones.
Then one of the people who had come to help started shouting. Elder Toa did not understand what he was saying. But Elder Nalin did since it was his native language. He yelled to his companion, “Get out of the truck, something is coming!”
Elder Toa climbed out the back door because the water had already reached the window in the front. The moment he got out, the river swept the truck downstream. As they watched the truck flow downhill, they could see the scriptures and baptismal forms in the back seat.
Elder Toa later said, “While we were still in the river, we called on the power of God to protect our scriptures and baptismal forms. We had faith that He could save them according to His will.”
“After our prayer, we knew everything was going to be fine,” Elder Toa later said.
The district president called and told Elders Toa and Nalin that the Saetsiwi branch president, the same man they couldn’t find earlier, had found their truck. The river had pushed it 820 feet (250 meters) from the main road, but while the engine was wet and the truck had to be towed for other repairs, the outside of the truck wasn’t dented or scratched. However, their lesson books, notebooks, and pamphlets were drenched and destroyed. “You could not read some of the words,” Elder Toa said.
But sitting on top of everything else, their scriptures and the interview forms were somehow dry and undamaged.
Though Elder Toa and Elder Nalin had abandoned the truck in the flooded river, it was later found. Though the engine needed repairs, the truck wasn’t dented or scratched. But most miraculous of all, the most important things they carried inside were undamaged.
The elders traveled to all eight branches where they needed to conduct interviews on Tanna. Since the truck’s engine was damaged, they often walked. One of them later said to his fellow missionaries, “When your legs get tired of walking, you walk with your heart.”
“When your legs get tired of walking, you walk with your heart.”
In one branch alone, 48 people had faithfully waited to be baptized. Elder Nalin interviewed those who spoke the native languages of Tanna, and Elder Toa interviewed the Bislama speakers. When they finished, they were surprised to see the sun setting. The interviews had taken the entire day.
Elder Toa and Elder Nalin went all across Tanna to baptize the people who had accepted the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
They baptized people across the island, many of them families, in rivers and the sea. There wasn’t enough baptismal clothing, so some new members handed their wet clothes to another person until all were baptized.
The elders baptized people, many of them families, wherever they were, no matter how remote. Both the people and the elders showed great faith.

Another valuable lesson I learned as a new member was the value of the promise in D&C 82:10. “I the Lord am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise.”
I was studying by correspondence at the time and my wonderful, diligent missionaries taught me this principle and promised me that if I didn’t study on Sundays, I would be entitled to call upon the Lord for His help with my exams with confidence that He would help me. I thought that was a more than fair deal.
As I sat in the exam hall for a 4-hour accounting paper, I started reading the exam paper with horror! I had to answer five of the six questions. The first question was incomplete with essential information missing, so I no longer had a choice, I had to answer the other 5. All went well until I realised the last question was on an aspect not covered in my notes. I prayed and started writing an answer.
When I got home afterwards and re-looked at the paper, I realised that the first question was not missing information; it was simplified and had I read it properly, I would definitely have received an A for the exam. At the same time, the answer to the question for which I hadn’t studied had flowed so easily—but I had no way of checking to see if my thinking had been correct.
The result? I received an A+ for the paper, which meant the misunderstood question and my answer had to have been correct. But the REAL result? A strengthened testimony that is unwavering. I learned that the Lord truly keeps His promise if we do our part.

That diversity and harmony are also reflected in the Church there. For example, when the new family history center opened last year, Brother Rajamohan, an Indian, eagerly took a seat at a microfilm reader to see what genealogical records were available. “I have many ancestors who lived in southern India,” he said. “I can finally start finding their records.” The woman who helped him was Chinese. She knew a lot about Chinese genealogies but almost nothing about Indian records. She did as much as she could, though, showing her friend how to use the readers and what records were available from India. When the first records showed on the microfilm reader screen, Brother Rajamohan exclaimed, “Oh no! They’re all in Hindi. Am I going to have to learn Hindi, too?” Most Indians in Singapore speak Tamil, a language common to southern India and Sri Lanka.

Lynn and Jim wiggled their toes as the oozing, sucking sand completely buried their feet in the middle of a galloping white wave. As the wave slid back into the sea, the two laughed at the sight of their feetless legs. They looked like two pairs of skinny straws drinking up sea foam.
“It sure doesn’t seem like Christmas, does it?” said Jim.
“No, it sure doesn’t,” his sister agreed. “California isn’t at all like Michigan.”
Lynn and Jim had lived in Michigan all their lives until one day Dad had announced that they were going to move to California. The whole family had been excited at first because they had never been to California. But now Lynn and Jim missed their old friends and the woods where they used to play. It was Christmastime, but there was no snow to play in, no frost to nip their noses when they went caroling, not even any icicles hanging from the rooftops to look at. They missed the proud pheasants and redbirds that came to feed in their backyard, and the frisky squirrels that played tag in the sugar maples. Here at the sunny beach it was hard to remember that it was Christmastime.
Lynn stooped to pick up a shiny white shell. “These shells are awfully pretty, though. Let’s see how many we can collect.”
Soon they had collected so many shells that they could hardly carry them all.
“You need a bag,” said a voice behind them. Turning around, Lynn and Jim saw the oddest-looking couple that they had ever seen. Both had sunburned faces with more wrinkles than a hound dog. The woman’s hair was a scraggly gray mass tucked underneath a patched straw hat; she was carrying a plastic bag. Her dress was shapeless and worn. His clothes were even scragglier, and he was carrying two fishing poles and a small, battered creel. The woman removed a couple of old books from her bag and handed it empty to the children.
“Thanks,” said Jim, dumping the shells into the bag. “But don’t you need it?”
“Oh no,” the elderly woman assured him. “I have plenty more at home.”
“Do you live near here?” Lynn asked.
“Our home is only about a half mile that way,” the elderly man said, pointing up the beach. “We like to come down and read and fish once in a while. We don’t ever catch much. But today we got lucky and founded something special.” He carefully pulled a small, star-shaped object out of his creel.
“It’s a starfish!” Jim exclaimed, reaching out to touch the dead creature.
Lynn gently took the starfish from the man, admiring it. “There are all kinds of beautiful things to collect on this beach,” she declared. “You know, we’ve never collected shells at Christmastime before. We just moved here from Michigan.”
“Well, Christmas is the very best time for collecting shells,” the woman told them.
“I’d rather have snow at Christmas,” Jim complained. “It’s not Christmas without snow.”
“Now, there’s where you’re wrong,” the man responded. “Do you have any pails and shovels?”
“They’re back there.”
“Well, if you’ll get them, there should be enough time before it gets too dark for you to help with one of our favorite Christmas traditions.”
Lynn and Jim ran over to a sagging sandcastle and grabbed up the spoons and cans that they’d been using to build it.
“Now,” began the man as they returned, “have you ever seen a sand tree?”
“Noooo.”
“Well, we’ll show you how to build one.”
Soon the foursome had scooped up piles and piles of wet sand into a mound as high as their arms could reach. Then they began shaping it, first into an upside-down ice-cream cone, then into a fir tree with tiers of branches.
Lynn and Jim were delighted. “Let’s decorate it with our shells,” Lynn said.
The elderly man smiled. “Now you have the idea.”
Carefully, Lynn and Jim placed their shells on the tree. Some were pearl-colored with orange around the edges. Others were dark blue and lavender. They were shaped like fans, teardrops, icicles, and buttons.
“Oh, wait till Mom and Dad see it!” cried Lynn.
“Why don’t you bring them here later, and we’ll have a bonfire, too,” suggested the woman.
Lynn and Jim rushed home to tell their parents all about the sand tree and their new friends.
By the time the family returned with blankets, a huge thermos of hot cocoa, and a plastic container filled with sandwiches, darkness had set in. The elderly couple had already started the bonfire near the sand tree. In the firelight, the shells gleamed like tiny moons. And there was a surprise—on top of the tree shone the little starfish.
“Ohhhh!” they all gasped. The sand tree was too splendid for words. Lynn and Jim quietly sat on a blanket close to the fire and gazed up at the Christmas starfish. Then Lynn nudged Jim and nodded slightly toward the elderly couple. The woman had on a raggedy shawl; the man, a threadbare jacket. They were both shivering.
Jim and Lynn got up; then Jim took their blanket and placed it around the couple while Lynn and their parents poured the cocoa and passed around the sandwiches. After he’d eaten, the elderly man began to sing in a deep voice:
“O holy night,
The stars are brightly shining;
It is the night of the dear
Savior’s birth. …”
The woman’s clear voice joined in on the second line, and Lynn, Jim, and their parents began singing also. Before long, other people who lived along the beach were gathering around the sand tree, singing. Before they knew it, Lynn and Jim had almost forgotten about snow and sleigh rides.
“You can have the Christmas spirit any place,” whispered Lynn.

It’s a critical time for Leah Guzman. The decisions she’s making now will affect her forever.
For most of her life, Leah attended her father’s church. But recently, since her parents split up, she’s been going to church with her mother at the Virginia Beach Third Ward. Although she’d attended LDS meetings when she was younger, it’s still a bit new to her, and she’s in the middle of deciding just how important the Church will be in her life.
The decision to come to the encampment was a big one for her, and she’s happy she made it. “I’m glad I came,” Leah said. “At the other church they had carnivals once a year and a church fair, but nothing like this, where you really get to know each other and learn things. I’ve decided to start coming to this church all the time. It’s different and I like it.”
Leah has many other important decisions ahead, but the one she’s already made adds a beautiful, bright orange to the rainbow.

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

George Albert Smith was born during the week of April general conference, 1870. Many people came to Temple Square that week to see the balcony that had just been added to the Tabernacle.
A boy: Two thousand extra seats, and it’s still crowded in here!
As a young man, George Albert often went to visit Lucy Woodruff, who lived just across the street from the almost-finished Salt Lake Temple.
Lucy: George Albert, look at that beautiful hot air balloon.
George: I think it’s going to hit the Tabernacle!
George Albert ran to call the fire department from the nearest telephone. But when the firefighters got to Temple Square, they discovered that the gates were locked and that the night watchman didn’t have a key.
George: We have to break in fast!
Fire man: Line up, men. We’ll charge the gate on the count of three.
Working together, the men and firefighters put out the blaze. The Tabernacle was saved!
Lucy: George Albert, you’re a hero!
Later, after marrying Lucy and serving a mission, Elder George Albert Smith gave many sermons in the Tabernacle as member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
He also became the first president of the Church to give a general conference talk on television. Many people saw on TV the Tabernacle that, years before, George Albert Smith had helped protect from fire.

The prospect of two years without warm sand and blue-green waves ahead of me sent me surfing with my friend Gaven. At the end of the summer I’d be leaving for my mission in Iceland.
As Gaven and I carried our surfboards down a steep slope, we saw that an offshore wind was shaping six-foot waves into smooth, hollow barrels, beautiful to surfers’ eyes.
At the foot of the hills, cliffs dropped 50 feet down onto a narrow beach. We followed an eroded gully down the bluffs and easily climbed the last ten feet to the sand. Leashing our surfboards to our legs, we paddled out through kelp beds to the distant surf line.
I got in some of the best surfing of my life that day. The air and water sparkled clear and warm, and salt spray felt fresh on our faces. Seabirds wheeled and cried constantly, and the rides were long, fast, and perfect. Gaven and I stayed until after sunset.
As the twilight began to fade, my friend caught a last ride to shore. I looked at the horizon, which promised yet another set of extra-large waves, and waited for one more. I was rewarded by a last long, pounding ride.
I began the long paddle back, but a current pulled against me, and light faded to almost nothing. I finally reached the cliff’s base and discovered that the tide had risen much higher than I’d expected and now covered the beach. Waves rolled in and crashed directly against the cliff I had to climb. At first I shrank from the foaming water and tried in vain to discover an easier way; then I finally got up the courage to try.
The climb up was nothing like climbing down had been that afternoon. Then the cliff had been dry and high above the surf. Now it was slick as sushi, and white water roiled around me as I climbed.
Just short of the safety of the gully, I could go no farther. One last handhold lay just above my right hand, but I couldn’t reach it. That hand held my heavy surfboard, which a leash still attached to my leg. If I dropped it to the water, the waves would catch it and pull me off the rock. I needed my left hand to hold me in place. I was truly stuck.
Gaven, who had already reached the cliff top, suddenly appeared above me. For a moment, my foolish pride told me not to accept the hand he offered. “I’ve come so far on my own,” I thought. “I can make it myself.” But then I gratefully handed him the surfboard that burdened me, and with my right hand freed, I grasped the last handhold and reached the top.

Edison kicked the ground. All the other boys were talking and setting up tents. But he didn’t know anyone.
Edison’s family had stopped going to church a little while after they moved to Spain. But then the boys from the ward came over and invited him to come on the camping trip. Camping had sounded fun, but now Edison wasn’t sure he wanted to be here after all. He felt like he didn’t belong.
Two boys, Diego and Juan, walked up to Edison. “Do you want to share our tent?” Diego asked.
Edison let out a breath and smiled. “Sure.”
“Cool!” said Juan. “And then we can go swimming.”
The boys set up their tent and ran to the river. The water was cold, but now Edison was having so much fun he hardly noticed. After lunch, the boys and leaders went on a hike. They got back just as the sun started to set, so they helped set up a campfire.
“What’s your family like?” Juan asked.
Edison dropped a pile of twigs by the fire. “My parents are pretty cool. And my sister is my best friend. We moved here from Ecuador.”
Diego and Juan looked at each other with big smiles.
“We’re from Ecuador too!” Juan said.
Diego unzipped his jacket to show his T-shirt. It had the symbol for Ecuador’s soccer team on it!
“Wow!” Edison said. “So what do you miss most about Ecuador?”
Diego and Juan laughed. “The food!” they both shouted.
The boys kept talking about what they missed about Ecuador and what they liked about living in Spain. Edison liked how easy it was to talk to Diego and Juan.
Then one of the leaders, Brother Cisneros, stood up. “Hey, everyone! We want to end the night with a testimony meeting.”
One by one, boys and leaders stood up and shared their testimonies. Their words made Edison’s heart feel like it was wrapped in a warm blanket.
Diego stood up. “I know the Church is true. I know that God is my Father and that Jesus Christ is my Savior.”
The warm feeling grew stronger. I want to know that too, Edison thought.
When Edison got home from the trip, Diego’s words stayed in his mind. He wished he could go to church and learn about Jesus with Diego and Juan.
That night at dinner, Papá asked, “How was the camping trip?”
“It was great!” Edison said. “We swam and hiked and built a fire. I even made two friends who are from Ecuador too!”
“That’s great! We’ll have to invite them over,” Mamá said.
Edison paused. “Could we start going to church again?”
Mamá and Papá didn’t say anything for a few moments. Then Mamá cleared her throat. “If you want to go, that’s fine,” she said. “But Papá and I aren’t going to go.”
Edison slumped in his chair. He didn’t want to go to church alone. Maybe he should stay home with his family.
Then Edison remembered the warm feeling from the testimony meeting. Even if his family didn’t want to go to church, Edison wanted to go.
Besides, he wouldn’t be alone. Edison smiled as he ate his dinner. Then he picked up the phone. He knew some friends he could go to church with!
This story took place in Spain.