Gospel Story Finder

I used to look at the Old Testament in sort of the same way I looked at fairy tales—neat stories that didn’t really relate to my life. Separated from me by thousands of years of history, they seemed far removed from reality. However, my seminary teacher loved the Old Testament, and his enthusiasm and humble testimony began to instill in me a greater reverence for these scriptures.
One night as I was studying, I came across this verse: “And the Lord spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Ex. 33:11).
I read these words, and at first I wasn’t particularly influenced by them. The Lord spoke to Moses. Of course He did. It seemed only natural for the Lord to appear personally to one of His prophets.
Then I prayed, and I really started to think about that scripture. I knew Heavenly Father wouldn’t appear to me that night, but maybe I could try to speak to Him “as a man speaketh unto his friend.” It was then that I felt His love envelop me.
As I prayed, I restated in my own words what I had read: “Moses spoke to Thee face to face, just like a friend.” I stopped. I said it again and again.
Then it hit me. The realization was so profound yet so simple. Moses saw God face to face. Suddenly Old Testament times were not so distant, and I realized that Moses had been a mortal—just like me. The scriptures came to life in my mind; I knew that Moses had actually lived and breathed, that he, too, had experienced challenges and struggled with a lack of confidence. Yet he talked to the Messiah, the Jehovah of Israel, his Lord and Redeemer—my Lord and Redeemer—in the same manner I spoke to my own earthly father.
“Heavenly Father,” I prayed again, “more than anything else, I want to return to Thee!” I closed my prayer and crawled into bed, feeling His love more tangibly than I ever had in my life.

My wife, Sister Birita, and I were called to serve as couple missionaries in Nabeina, a small island in the Pacific. The moment we arrived, we felt a profound sense of peace and purpose. After much prayer, we sought permission from our mission president, President Kendall, to spend our year-long mission in Nabeina. Our request was approved, beginning a journey of faith, service, and community building that would forever change our lives and the lives of those we served.
Nabeina has a predominantly Catholic and Protestant population, with very few Latter-day Saints. Sharing the gospel was a challenge, but we felt deeply called to serve the people. We observed their resilience and resourcefulness, particularly the men who were skilled fishermen. However, their ability to provide for their families was hindered by a lack of proper fishing equipment. Witnessing their struggles, we felt a strong desire to help.
One evening, while reflecting on the needs of the community, we felt inspired to seek assistance from the Church Humanitarian Fund. We envisioned a project that would empower the fishermen to provide for their families and support their children’s education. With guidance from Elder and Sister Redmond, we proposed the idea of supplying fishing gear, a wooden boat, and an outboard motor. To our joy, the proposal was approved, and funding was secured. This marked the beginning of a transformative project.
Working with the local branch president, President Mweea Mweea, we established a community-based fishing initiative, officially registered as Nabeina Green Market Incorporated. More than just an economic endeavor, this initiative fostered unity and self-reliance among the people of Nabeina.
The fishing nets arrived first, and the community immediately put them to use. While awaiting the wooden boat, I lent my personal fiberglass boat to the fishermen. On February 9, 2025, the wooden boat and engine finally arrived. A special dedication ceremony brought the community together in gratitude and prayer. The moment was deeply spiritual, reaffirming our testimony of the Lord’s hand in this work.
The success of the Nabeina Green Market Incorporated project relies on teamwork. Each week, fishermen retrieve and repair nets while holding meetings to discuss fishing activities and community well-being. During these gatherings, many expressed how the project had blessed their lives. One fisherman, with tears in his eyes, said, “This boat is not just a boat; it is a gift from God. It has given us hope and a future.”
The people of Nabeina are deeply grateful for the Church Humanitarian Fund’s support. The fishing gear and boat have answered prayers, providing families with the means to sustain themselves. During meetings, many shared testimonies of how the aid had strengthened their faith. One woman said, “We have always prayed for a way to provide for our children. Now, with this boat and these nets, we can see God’s hand in our lives. He has not forgotten us.”
Though most of the community is not of our faith, Sister Birita and I have always believed in serving all of God’s children. Our goal was not to impose our beliefs but to demonstrate Christlike love through action. This project brought people together regardless of religion, and we are grateful to have been instruments in the Lord’s hands.
The Nabeina Green Market Incorporated project is a testament to the power of faith, service, and community. Through the Lord’s guidance, humanitarian aid, and the dedication of the Nabeina people, a sustainable livelihood has been established. The blessings extend beyond economic opportunity, fostering unity and self-reliance.
Sister Birita and I have witnessed the Lord’s hand at every step, from the initial inspiration to the final dedication of the boat. We know this is just the beginning for Nabeina, and we look forward to seeing how the Lord will continue to bless them.
“For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in” (Matthew 25:35).
The Nabeina Green Market Incorporated project embodies this scripture as the community unites to uplift one another through faith and service.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Father Damien arrived at Kalaupapa about the same time the Napelas did. This Belgian priest would eventually gain international fame because of his demonstration of faith and attitude of selfless service on the island best, captured by his own words: “Suppose the disease does get my body, God will give me another one on Resurrection Day.”6 From the day of his arrival in 1873 until his death in 1889 at age forty-nine, his concern was for all the patients, regardless of race or religion. He especially loved the orphaned children whom he often led in singing. His Christian service on the Kalaupapa peninsula serves as an important reminder of Elder Orson F. Whitney’s words, offered in a 1921 general conference address: “God has been using not merely his covenant people, but other peoples of the world as well, to carry out a work that is too demanding for the limited numbers of Latter-day Saints to accomplish by themselves. Other good and great men and women have been inspired of God under many circumstances to deliver dimensions of light and truth.”7

Soon after their arrival at the settlement, Jonathan Napela and Father Damien became acquainted. Both had come to Kalaupapa to serve, and both contracted Hansen’s disease as a result of their charity. Damien was twenty-seven years younger than Napela, and the cultural background of each was very different, yet both were firmly committed to their religious orientations. Though ecclesiastical leaders of different faiths, they became dear friends. In fact, one of their contemporaries who lived at Kalaupapa wrote, “After Father Damien arrived in the Leper Settlement, ...Mr. J. Napela and...Father Damien were the best of friends.”8

Many of Samoa’s early Saints were exiled, persecuted and even executed for their faith. In 1904, prophet and President of the Church, Joseph F. Smith (1838–1918), directed the purchase of 800 fertile acres up in the green hills of rural Upolu. This land would provide a refuge for members of the Church.
The people praised the Lord for His kindness and dedicated the 800 acres with a prayer that it might “become a choice land and a fit place for Saints to gather and become a choice people of the Lord.” They then voted to call this place: “Sauniatu,” which means “prepare to go forth.”
Starting over wasn’t easy but the early villagers moved forward in faith, planting crops, building homes and chapels, and founding a school for their children.

I recently met a family who is a beautiful example of how we believe Him. Olgan and Soline Saintelus, from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, told me their story.
On January 12, 2010, Olgan was at work and Soline was at the church when a devastating earthquake struck Haiti. Their three children—Gancci, age five, Angie, age three, and Gansly, age one—were at home in their apartment with a friend.
Massive devastation was everywhere. As you will remember, tens of thousands lost their lives that January in Haiti. Olgan and Soline ran as fast as they could to their apartment to find the children. The three-story apartment building where the Saintelus family lived had collapsed.
The children had not escaped. No rescue efforts would be devoted to a building that was so completely destroyed.
Olgan and Soline Saintelus had both served full-time missions and had been married in the temple. They believed in the Savior and in His promises to them. Yet their hearts were broken. They wept uncontrollably.
Olgan told me that in his darkest hour he began to pray. “Heavenly Father, if it be Thy will, if there could be just one of my children alive, please, please help us.” Over and over he walked around the building, praying for inspiration. The neighbors tried to comfort him and help him accept the loss of his children. Olgan continued to walk around the rubble of the collapsed building, hoping, praying. Then something quite miraculous happened. Olgan heard the almost inaudible cry of a baby. It was the cry of his baby.
For hours the neighbors frantically dug into the rubble, risking their own lives. In the dark of the night, through the piercing sounds of hammers and chisels, the rescue workers heard another sound. They stopped their pounding and listened. They couldn’t believe what they were hearing. It was the sound of a little child—and he was singing. Five-year-old Gancci later said that he knew his father would hear him if he sang. Under the weight of crushing concrete that would later result in the amputation of his arm, Gancci was singing his favorite song, “I Am a Child of God.”
As the hours passed amid the darkness, death, and despair of so many other precious sons and daughters of God in Haiti, the Saintelus family had a miracle. Gancci, Angie, and Gansly were discovered alive under the flattened building.

During the past several years, since the series of events began that led to my divorce, I have experienced more sleepless nights and have prayed more earnestly than at any other time of my life.
Why had the one thing I feared most happened to me? How could I rebuild my shattered hopes? I remember seeing a cartoon of a small boy giving a book report, saying, “This book taught me more about horses than I ever wanted to learn.” I often told the Lord in my heart, “This experience is teaching me more about emotional maturity than I ever wanted to know.”
One night in particular, I poured out my heart to God. I felt overwhelmed by the events that left my children without a father in the home. During that dark time, it seemed impossible to bear the thought that I had destroyed something precious and had lost something vitally important to me, and to my children. I did not sleep well that night.
I knew Christ had died so that we might not have to bear the weight of our failures and guilt indefinitely; but I could not see how even my repentance and Christ’s atonement could undo what had gone wrong in my own, my former husband’s and my children’s lives. I thought, “The Lord himself has never injured anyone, as I have, through ignorance, selfishness and poor judgment. He has never failed. He does not have to bear the constant burden of knowing that he has damaged a loved one’s life.”
“Neither do you,” came the quiet answer in my mind. I was suddenly flooded with the realization that when I accepted our Savior’s sacrifice for my sins, he had taken them on his shoulders in a more real sense than I had ever understood. Once I had repented of those sins and made what restitution I could, the matter of who had been at fault was no longer important; the concern shifted form the past to the future. “Now,” I seemed to hear, “what shall we do to help our children, you and I together?” That deeply impressed me: my children are Heavenly Father’s children, too, and the work of teaching them to love the Lord and live the gospel is as important to him as it is to me.
As soon as I understood that fact, I felt my feelings of failure and inadequacy go away. I realized that I didn’t need to be perfect before I could be a good mother. By humbly admitting my weaknesses and by exerting faith in Christ, I had taken into partnership, or had been taken into partnership by, a perfect Being. I was not rearing my children alone after all—I had the right to do so together with a loving Father who desired their welfare (and my own) even more than I could comprehend! That was a comfort beyond description.

While the Saints with Brigham were leaving Sugar Creek, forty-three-year-old Louisa Pratt remained in Nauvoo, preparing to leave the city with her four young daughters. Three years earlier, the Lord had called her husband, Addison, on a mission to the Pacific Islands. Since then, unreliable mail service between Nauvoo and Tubuai, the island in French Polynesia where Addison was serving, had made it hard to stay in contact with him. Most of his letters were several months old when they arrived, and some were older than a year.

Addison’s latest letter made it clear that he would not be home in time to go west with her. The Twelve had instructed him to remain in the Pacific Islands until they called him home or sent missionaries to replace him. At one point, Brigham had hoped to send more missionaries to the islands after the Saints received the endowment, but the exodus from Nauvoo had postponed that plan.9

Louisa was willing to make the journey without her husband, but thinking about it made her nervous. She hated to leave Nauvoo and the temple and did not relish the idea of traveling by wagon over the Rocky Mountains. She also wanted to see her aging parents in Canada—possibly for the last time—before going west.

If she sold her ox team, she could get enough money to visit her parents and book passage for her family on a ship bound for the California coast, thus avoiding overland travel altogether.

Louisa had almost made up her mind to go to Canada, but something did not feel right. She decided to write to Brigham Young about her concerns with overland travel and her desire to see her parents.

“If you say the ox team expedition is the best way for salvation, then I shall engage in it heart and hand,” she wrote, “and I believe I can stand it as long without grumbling as any other woman.”10

A short time later, a messenger arrived with Brigham’s response. “Come on. The ox team salvation is the safest way,” he told her. “Brother Pratt will meet us in the wilderness where we locate, and he will be sorely disappointed if his family is not with us.”

Louisa considered the counsel, steeled her heart against the difficult trail ahead, and decided to follow the main body of the Saints, come life or death.11

From the time of his youth, Joseph understood that a great key to cultivating humility is to seek our Heavenly Father through sincere, heartfelt prayer. Daniel Tyler, an early Church member, recalled a time in Kirtland when many had turned against the Prophet. Brother Tyler, present in a meeting where the Prophet prayed with the congregation for the Lord’s help, described the experience in these words:
“I had heard men and women pray … , but never until then had I heard a man address his Maker as though He was present listening as a kind father would listen to the sorrows of a dutiful child. Joseph was at that time unlearned, but that prayer, which was to a considerable extent in behalf of those who accused him of having gone astray … , partook of the learning and eloquence of heaven. … It appeared to me as though, in case the vail were taken away, I could see the Lord standing facing His humblest of all servants I had ever seen.”9

Illustrations by Maryn Roos
Mandy’s first day in her new school
Class, this is Mandy Cooper. Her family just moved into town, and she will be in our class. Mandy, tell us about yourself.
I wish I didn’t have to do this.
Well, I’m 11 years old. And I have a little brother named Matt. He’s nine and a half. Umm …
Tell us about your hobbies. What do you like to do?
I love animals, especially horses. I collect pictures and figures of horses. Someday I want to have my own horse. I like to make cookies and play soccer. Oh, and I’ve been taking piano lessons for four years, but now we have to find a new piano teacher.
What else?
What’s your favorite food? Do you have a favorite book?
My favorite food is my mom’s cheesy potatoes. And my favorite book is, umm … the Book of Mormon.
What’s that?
What did I just say?
To be continued …

Some years ago while on a family vacation, we acquired a rather unusual pet—a water snake from the beaches of Puget Sound. My children named him Sneaky, short for Sneaky Snake.
Early one morning while the family was out walking, Sneaky somehow got out of his cardboard box. When the room attendant entered to tidy the room, Sneaky headed for the open door. The attendant slammed the door in absolute terror, and since Sneaky got caught in it, we might say he came all apart.
It was the end of Sneaky, the beginning of a nervous breakdown for the attendant, and a time of weeping on the part of our children. Now, there is a lesson here. The attendant had erroneously perceived Sneaky as something less than the friend he was.

When I was about six or seven years old, our family went to Kanab, Utah, to visit my aunt, who was married to a forest ranger. My uncle was in charge of the Kaibab Forest, one of the largest national forests in the United States. We arrived there late at night and went right to bed at their home.
The next morning I was awakened by my cousins, who were younger than I. They said, “There’re some deer out there. Come and look.” I jumped out of bed and got dressed and ran to the back door. Sure enough, within twenty yards of the house was a doe with her two little fawns. After we watched for a few minutes, I wanted to get closer and try to touch them.
My three cousins and I started walking toward them, but just as we got close to them, they moved away. They kept doing that, and we kept following them. All of a sudden, the mother deer decided that she’d had enough and bounded away, her little ones behind her.
My cousins and I turned around to go back to the house and realized that we were lost. In our minds it seemed easy to just turn around and go back, but we had gone much farther than we thought we had.
I had never been in a forest before. My cousins kept saying, “Let’s go this way.” “No, let’s go this way.” So we just wandered around, and pretty soon we started hearing sounds that we imagined were bears and cougars.
We called and whistled for our families to answer, but we didn’t hear a thing. We wandered around in the tall trees for maybe an hour and a half. Then the thought came to me that we should pray to Heavenly Father. We knelt in a circle, and I said a simple prayer. As we got up, I had the distinct impression that we should walk in a certain direction, which we did. We walked that way for another thirty minutes or so. The little ones were tired, and I had to carry the smallest one on my back.
When we heard a motor in the distance, we knew enough to walk toward the sound. All of a sudden, we broke into a clearing. We could see a road, and the motor we’d heard was in a road grader. We were really tired and upset, but we knew that we had to get over to the road grader before it went by the clearing, so we ran as fast as we could. When we got close enough, we waved, and the road-grader operator saw us and stopped. He put us in the cab and took us down to the forest rangers’ headquarters. By that time, my parents and aunt and uncle had all the forest rangers out looking for us, so they were glad to see us. That experience was a testimony to me that Heavenly Father does hear and answer our prayers.

Listening once in Los Angeles to the plea of President McKay, stake president after stake president pledged contributions to make possible the building of the Los Angeles Temple. They committed. And then he arose and delivered a masterful discourse, maybe the greatest I have ever heard on the subject of temples. In shorthand I jotted down one paragraph which I’m going to quote, but before I do so, let me give this explanation. He told of a girl. a girl. I found later, who was his niece and therefore felt confident in confiding in him. Earlier that year she had been initiated in a sorority, and not long thereafter she had “gone through the temple” (as we say). I wish that verb could be improved-“going through the temple.” I wish we could somehow speak of the temple going through us. I wish that my children had not been confused-it’s my fault that they were-when my wife and I used to say to them, “We are going to do sealings.” They thought that we would take a stepladder and a bucket. It’s a kind of Mormon activism to talk about “temple work.” There is a sense of course, in which it is work; but too rarely do we speak of “temple worship,” which can send us back to our work changed.
A man of God in the temple said in my hearing, “I wonder if the dead are blessed as much as the living by the temple.” I am impatient with people who are impatient in the temple. I am distressed when someone sits behind me with a stop-watch and keeps saying, “They’re five minutes behind. Move! Move! Move!” Isn’t there one place we can go and leave our watch in the locker and rejoice if there are delays, and embrace what is there for us?
Well, on the occasion in Los Angeles, President McKay stopped everyone by saying: “This young lady came to me. She had had both experiences, but said she had been far more impressed with her sorority.” We gasped as you did. President McKay was a master of the pause. He let that wait a minute and then said: “Brothers and sisters, she was disappointed in the temple. Brothers and sisters, I was disappointed in the temple.” But then he finished his sentence. “And so were you.” Then no one gasped. He had us. “Why were we?” he asked. And then he named some of the things. We were not prepared. How could we be, fully? We had stereotypes in our minds, faulty expectations. We were unable to distinguish the symbol from the symbolized. We were not worthy enough. We were too inclined quickly to respond negatively, critically. And we had not yet seasoned spiritually. Those are my words, but they cover about what he said.

Shortly after Joseph F. Smith’s birth, a group of men broke into the Smith home. His mother Mary was ill at the time and his father Hyrum was in jail. Ransacking the house, the men entered the room where the baby slept and, without realizing it, threw sheets and blankets on top of him. They would have been surprised if they had known a baby was hidden by their actions.
Everyone was relieved when the men finally left the home. After a few minutes Mary remembered Joseph, and she and her sister Mercy ran to check on him. When they saw what had happened they were fearful the baby had smothered. Fortunately, their frantic efforts to revive him were successful.

In a previous general conference, Elder Benjamín De Hoyos spoke of such an event. He said:
“Some years ago while serving in the office of public affairs of the Church in Mexico, [a companion and I] were invited to participate in a radio talk show. … [One of the program directors] asked [us], ‘Why does the Church have such a long name? …’
“My companion and I smiled at such a magnificent question and then proceeded to explain that the name of the Church was not chosen by man. It was given by the Savior. … The program director immediately and respectfully responded, ‘We will thus repeat it with great pleasure.’”

As a young missionary, Joseph F. did all in his power to advance the Savior’s work “to earth’s remotest bounds.”11 Before his 16th birthday he accepted the call to serve as a missionary in the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii). His first assignment in October 1854 was at Kula, where he immersed himself in the Hawaiian language and culture. This inexperienced youth soon discovered that the people “had different habits to anything I had before known, and their food, and dress and houses and everything were new and strange. … For three months this seclusion from the world continued, but the history of that short period of my life never can be told. I had ample time to feel after the Lord and to draw near to him with my whole soul.”12

In the process, he also found himself drawing closer to the Hawaiian people. He earnestly sought the gift of tongues and learned their language in a hundred days. He taught the gospel, settled grievances, healed the sick, cast out evil spirits, and tried to reclaim those who had drifted away.

On the islands of Maui, Hawaii, and Molokai, he served as presiding elder and learned to receive and extend love. He recorded in his journal in March 1856 that a brother on Maui “gave me his shoes from off his feet and went barefooted himself. … This was a specimen of his love to me that should not be forgotten.”13

On Molokai, he received motherly care from Sister Ma Mahuhii, who nursed him for three months while he lay seriously ill. She never forgot him, nor he her. “Iosepa, Iosepa,” she cried out when he visited Hawaii nearly 50 years later. “Mama, Mama, my dear old Mama!” he replied.14 Those who had seemed so different from himself at the outset of his mission had become his family.

President Joseph F. Smith became an ardent defender of the faith on his first mission. On his second, he learned the importance of avoiding contention and proffering peace. In 1896 he described to his son Hyrum an incident that occurred during his mission to England in the early 1860s. “I was speaking, and I said that ‘the authority of the Apostles of today was the same as that held by the Apostles of Christ’s day, and that the word of the modern Apostles was as good as the word of the ancient Apostles.’ Somebody in the audience cried out ‘blasphemy!’ This was too much for my boyish temper to bear.”

The spirited young missionary argued fiercely with his opponent and “stirred up the emissaries of his Satanic Majesty until they were red-hot.” President Smith described learning “a good lesson” from his outburst. “Thereafter I moderated my fervor—became more diplomatic in the presence of a mixed crowd, and avoided showing any temper when reviled. In fact I learned to be reviled without reviling back again, to take an insult without retorting, except in meekness and gentlemanly candor.” He summarized, “I always tried to make my hearers feel that I and my associates were peacemakers, and lovers of peace and good will, that our mission was to pave, and not destroy, to build up and not tear down.”15

When the bishop asked me to share my testimony in the sacrament meeting after my baptism, I felt scared and inadequate. I had never spoken in front of a congregation.
“Is this really necessary?” I asked the bishop.
“Yes!” he said.
In sacrament meeting, I testified about how Heavenly Father loves me and how He answered my prayers by helping me find the restored gospel. When I stood at the podium, I felt the Holy Spirit so strongly. I felt blessed to be a member of Christ’s true Church. My heart was full of happiness and peace. Heavenly Father turned my fear of speaking into a beautiful experience.
The next month I had the opportunity to give a talk in sacrament meeting. I felt scared again—who was I to teach those who knew more about the gospel? But I prayed for the Holy Spirit to help me speak. Once again I felt the Spirit touch me, and I received the impression that Heavenly Father was pleased with my baptism and that my sins were forgiven.
I know from my experiences that I am a precious child of God and He loves me. Speaking in sacrament meeting was a valuable opportunity for me to serve God by testifying that Jesus Christ has restored His Church upon the earth.
Pamella Sari, baptized in Indonesia in 2012

That leads to the third thing I have seen in the lives of those who have truly come unto Him. They strive to become like Him. They begin to try to do unto others as they know He would do. You and I have seen that in faithful people soon after their baptism and receiving of the Holy Ghost. Once, I went with my missionary companion to visit a family we had taught and baptized just a few weeks previously. The parents took us down into their basement to show us a room. It had been the bedroom of one of their two daughters. But she had now moved in with her sister. The bedroom she vacated was filled with everything the family would need in an emergency.
We had not taught them anything about emergency preparedness. When we asked why they had done something so difficult so quickly, the reply was that they had read in a Church magazine that the Lord would like families to be prepared to take care of themselves and others. They said, “Isn’t that what Latter-day Saints do?”
That simple faith extended to everything they felt the Savior would have them do. And their desire to follow Him lasted. And it changed them. They had always been kind, trying to help others. But that ability to show charity grew. And that has been the pattern in all those I have known who continued to come unto Him over a lifetime.

During July 2009 more than 160 youth and young adults gathered for a day of friendship, workshops, dancing, and testimonies at the first youth conference ever held in Ethiopia.
Because the four branches are not organized into a district, many members were not aware that there were other branches and Church members in Ethiopia. Part of the conference’s purpose was to allow them to interact with their peers while being spiritually uplifted.
Wondwossen Amanuel, 23, who was submitting his missionary papers to become the first missionary from the Awasa Branch, said, “It gives you encouragement when you gather together and do such activities. Our branch is small, but there we felt like we were in the herd—and it’s like family.”
Participants proudly wore CTR rings and T-shirts emblazoned with the words “Steady and Sure,” the conference theme.
Two months of concerted efforts by missionaries, branch presidents, and the charitable organization Hope Arising, brought together pioneering Saints from the four widespread branches to the chapel complex in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The participants traveled by bus up to five hours to attend the conference, and more than half of them were nonmembers and investigators. Two were baptized in the following weeks.
“When [the youth] realize that there are other young people with their hopes, dreams, problems, and concerns, they have more confidence. They know they are not alone, and this gives them strength,” said Elder Brad Wilkes, a full-time missionary who, with his wife, Sister Karen Wilkes, helped organize the conference.

President Tafadzwa Mahachi, who is serving as a branch president in the Zimbabwe Kadoma First Branch, and is also an author, publisher, graphic designer and a mathematics teacher shares how he overcame his mountain through faith: “I have discovered through interaction with both prospective and returned missionaries in Zimbabwe that there is a general fear of the unknown that keeps many from wanting to serve a mission. In reflection to President Nelson’s talk in which he spoke fervently about the need to replace our fears and doubts with faith, I could not help seeing the challenges of a returned missionary as a mountain that can only be moved through faith.
“After finishing my upper high school while living with my grandfather after the demise of my grandmother two years prior, grandfather passed. My father’s death followed exactly 21 days later. Given these circumstances, my future was no longer clear as all the supporting pillars were collapsing [before] my eyes. I could have doubted. I could have given up. But I give thanks to a supportive mission president who identified me among myriads of members who also needed his attention. He called me for an interview, and ministered to me so I could see the blessings of putting my faith into action. He realized that all my mission papers were ready and helped me to enter the mission field”.
President Mahachi served an honorable mission without knowing what awaited him upon his return. He placed his faith in the Lord.
When President Mahachi returned from his mission, he knew that his success depended on exercising faith with total integrity, despite all the opposition around him. He shares his experience: “The anticipated mountain came immediately after my honorable release as a missionary. I had no job. With only high school qualifications, there were no prospects of getting any. Living in a developing country required some form of dishonesty to rise to the top through bribing those who could give me a job or entrance into a tertiary institution. I was a returned missionary. All I had was a testimony of the divinity of the Saviour and the truthfulness of the restored gospel.”
Despite those great barriers, President Mahachi said that through prayer and fasting he successfully secured a position in college which opened up the doors of opportunity.

One day when I was feeding Elvis he got loose because I wasn’t watching him carefully. My mom and I closed the door to my room right away and started looking for him. We couldn’t find Elvis no matter how hard we looked. I got the idea to pray. Even though it was my fault for letting him get out, I knew that Heavenly Father could help me find him. I prayed every day, but I also kept looking in my room. I kept my door closed and put a towel in front of it.
After two weeks I still hadn’t found Elvis. He had to be getting very hungry. I knew that if I kept praying I would find him. I just wanted to find him while he was still alive. Finally my prayers were answered as I heard all three of my sisters screaming. Elvis wasn’t in my room after all. He was in one of my sisters’ rooms. My mom helped me catch him and put him back in his cage. I was so happy that I found him. I know that Heavenly Father answers our prayers even if sometimes it takes a long time.Matthew J., age 9, Virginia