Gospel Story Finder

During the troublesome days at Far West, Missouri, there came to the home of the Prophet’s parents eight men from Daviess County, Missouri, who believed the lies circulated about Joseph Smith and the Mormons. They had come to kill the Mormon leader. Mother Smith greeted them at the door and invited them to come in. They refused to sit down; in fact, they informed the mother of the Prophet, “We have come to kill him.”
Mother Smith was to say, “If you were to see Joseph you would not want to kill him.” At that particular point the Prophet Joseph Smith entered the room, and Mother Smith introduced the eight men to him. They stared at him in mute silence. The Prophet smiled, extended his hand, and invited them to be seated. His friendly, cordial manner convinced them that he was guilty neither of murder nor of any other crime. A pleasant half hour was spent, during which time the Prophet explained his views, his feelings, his mission, the purpose of the Church, and the brutal treatment he and the Saints had so unjustly received. He then excused himself, stating that he must be on his way home. Immediately two of the men sprang to their feet and offered to escort him home as they considered it not safe for him to travel alone. He thanked them but did not accept their offer. As the eight men were leaving the house, Mother Smith overheard their departing words. One said, “Did you not feel strange when Smith took you by the hand?”
Another man replied, “I could not move. I would not harm a hair of that man’s head for all the world.”
The third one said, “I never saw a more harmless, innocent appearing man than the Mormon Prophet.”
“Yes, indeed,” said the fourth, “that story about him killing those men is a lie, but they’ll never fool me again.”

At a fast and testimony meeting, Emanuel felt impressed to bear his testimony. He thought, No, I can’t get up and do that. I’d be too frightened! Then he felt as if someone were speaking to him, telling him that he needed to bear his testimony. He walked to the front of the chapel. As he did so, he felt calm. When his turn came, he remembered everything he wanted to say and wasn’t at all nervous. It was the first time that he had borne his testimony, and it made him very happy.

David Eves discovered firsthand how quickly life can change when, on September 20, 1997, he and his friends went four-wheeling at Kolob Canyon in southern Utah.
“We’d been driving all day when we hit a bump and lost control,” says David. “I remember flying through the air, then waking up in excruciating pain. When I saw my friends looking down at me and told them I couldn’t feel my legs, I knew I would never be the same.”
After being life-flighted to LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City and undergoing eight hours of surgery to stop internal bleeding and to secure two titanium rods in his back, David spent the next three months fighting for his life.
An avid football, basketball, and track star, David, of the LaVerkin Second Ward, LaVerkin Utah Stake, was no stranger to pain, but soon he was faced with a new challenge: he couldn’t hold his food down or speak. His body weight dropped from 170 to 100 pounds over a two-month period.
The days and nights grew longer. “I wanted to get off the morphine, but the pain was unbearable,” David recalls. “I asked my dad to read to me from the Book of Mormon, and as he did a miracle happened. The spirit of that book brought so much peace, I was able to rest.”
But David was not improving. Jill Eves became alarmed at her son’s severe weight loss and, pleading with the Lord for inspiration, knew a specialist must be called immediately. Sure enough, the doctor discovered and repaired a hole in David’s esophagus, and David came home two weeks later.
His father, Raymond, had taught him two important secrets to obtaining goals: give it your all and never quit. David was used to giving his all, so it was no surprise when he was back at school the following Monday.
“Looking like an alien with my body cast and neck brace, I could see how different I was. I had absolute faith I would get better, but soon realized I was completely unlike the other 800 kids in my school. After that first hard week, though, I knew I could do anything I wanted; I just had to find a different way.”
When his brother suggested he run for student body president a few months later, David again gave it his all. “Vote for someone with skills and wheels!” posters lined the school halls, and soon David went from jock to school leader. “That year was awesome,” he says. “I felt it was the perfect preparation for my mission.”
Nothing made David’s therapy more important than his determination to serve a mission. Although some of his friends said serving a mission wasn’t necessary, since he was in a wheelchair, David didn’t buy it. “I knew the Lord wanted me to serve, so I decided I would do everything in my power to make that possible.”
Before long, he could shower and dress himself, drive his car, and negotiate his way anywhere. In fact, after his doctor said it was impossible, David learned to strap on a brace he calls his exoskeleton and walk, using crutches extending from his hands, by moving his shoulders to push his body forward. With no sense of balance or ability to feel the ground under him, this is an incredible feat—one for which the students and parents honored him with a standing ovation at high school graduation exercises.

It was three o’clock in the morning. My dad had just nailed the final trim on the three-story dollhouse we had built for my little sisters (the trim was not quite dry and the white paint still bears several thumb prints). Mom and I placed inside all of the furniture we had made and gathered, and then sat back and looked with real pleasure on our creation. It had been a hectic three weeks of building, creating, and upholstering, but this year Christmas somehow seemed more real. The small house was beautiful. The furnishings were charming, and the tiny crocheted rugs just fit the decorating scheme we had chosen.
Since that Christmas several years ago we have made a few improvements in our dollhouse—pasted 1-by-1 1/2-inch cardboard pieces on the roof for shingles, added tiny accessories on the tables and shelves, found a potbellied stove for the upstairs bedroom—and with each passing year, and the arrival of each new niece and nephew, the dollhouse has grown in popularity; it has even become the pattern for several others as far away as Michigan.

At a recent stake conference, the stake president shared a story with me. He asked his son what was discussed at a recent Sunday evening fireside. The young man replied, “Raising the bar.” He then informed his father that he was weary of the theme because it was the subject of every recent class and meeting. My first thought was, “That’s great; the prophet’s message is being discussed, heard, and acted upon.” My second thought related to the young man’s feelings concerning repetitive reminders. Repetitive reminders can be an irritant when we are trying hard to do our best.
As a youth I would tune out my mother’s repetitive reminder: “David, remember who you are.” The reminder always brought some interesting comments from my friends. Irritation set in when my father repeatedly pointed out President George Albert Smith’s home as we traveled along 13th East in Salt Lake City and reminded me that a living prophet of God who loved me lived there. Today I am most grateful for those repetitive reminders.
The term “raising the bar” is often used in the world of sports to describe achieving higher levels of performance. The use of a sports metaphor may help describe why it is critical to respond to what President Hinckley asked us to do last conference when he said: “I hope that our young men, and our young women, will rise to the challenge [Elder Ballard] has set forth. We must raise the bar on the worthiness and qualifications of those who go into the world as ambassadors of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

As I sat there on the porch, I continued thinking about Cindy’s question. In one of our Primary lessons we learned that the Holy Ghost is the Spirit of truth. Our teacher said that He would help us not to lie. I guessed I needed help with that too. I remembered the day Mom had come into the kitchen right after I had accidentally knocked the sugar bowl to the floor. Before she could even speak, I said, “Shauna made me do it.”
“Janna, look out the window,” she told me. “What do you see?”
I saw Shauna swinging on a rope hanging from the tree. I said, “That’s how she made me do it. I was thinking about hurrying out to swing with her, and it made me bump into the table.”
“Janna.” Mom tilted my face toward hers. “None of us breaks dishes on purpose. We all have accidents. It isn’t the sugar bowl that counts. It’s you. More important to me than all the dishes in the cupboard—even the crystal glasses—is a little girl who tells the truth.”
I looked down at the floor. I knew I should’ve said I was sorry, but I didn’t. Instead, I asked, “Don’t dishes sometimes get too close to the edge and fall off by themselves?”
“Oh, Janna Lynn,” Mom said, and I wished she’d spanked me instead of looking at me the way she did. It would have made me feel a lot better.
I was still sitting on the porch thinking when Katie and Shauna came running around the house. “Come and play catch with us,” they called.
We threw the ball back and forth to each other, and then Katie threw one that was too high for me. Running backward to catch it, I slipped and fell on my backside in a clump of Mom’s blue irises. Mom came out of the shed just then with a pair of clippers to cut a bouquet. I looked at the smashed flowers and was just starting to speak, when something inside of me seemed to say, “No, Janna Lynn, you’re not going to say Katie made you do it.”
“I’m sorry, Mom,” I said. “I ran backward and fell.”
“Yes, I know. I saw you,” she replied.
“And you’re not mad at me?”
“Of course not.”
The way she laughed, I almost felt good about sitting on her flowers.
“Just look at all those irises that you didn’t sit on,” she said. “A daughter who tells the truth is more important than a whole yard full of flowers!”
Goodness! That must have been the Holy Ghost prompting me to the the truth, I thought. And He’s helping me to learn what a great feeling you have when you know you’ve done the right thing. I could hardly wait to tell Cindy.

Mark Dougherty, 18, of the Portadown Ward, Belfast Northern Ireland Stake, likes to tell people he was converted by the book—by the Book of Mormon, that is. Little else is conventional in his conversion story.
Around Christmastime, he found a copy of the Book of Mormon. “I just picked it up and started reading it and learning what was in it.” Eventually, he set the book aside.
A few months passed. Then the missionaries knocked on his door, and even though his family didn’t let them in, Mark’s interest was rekindled. “I started reading again, and it just seemed like what I was reading was right.”
Later Mark saw the Church listing in the phone book, called, and asked to be taught. “They sent two elders around, I had the discussions, and about a month later, I was baptized.”

While we were serving a mission in England, our 17-year-old son, Cory, was killed in a car accident. We were able to come home to Utah for his funeral, and then we immediately returned to England to finish our mission. It was a very tender time for our entire family.
One day, shortly after returning to England, I was walking down the street and an acquaintance who had heard of the death of our son said to me: “Well, what do you think of your God now? You are serving a full-time mission for Him, and He has taken your son.” I was both shocked and hurt. I felt so sorry for this person who did not understand Heavenly Father’s plan.
The difficult experience of my son’s death helped me identify and rejoice in the blessings of peace, hope, and direction—blessings that all who truly accept and live the gospel of Jesus Christ may enjoy. I can bear witness to the words of Elder Richard G. Scott: “Please learn that as you wrestle with a challenge and feel sadness because of it, you can simultaneously have peace and rejoicing” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1995, 20; or Ensign, Nov. 1995, 17).
What are some specific things we can do to have these blessings of peace, hope, and direction in our lives? May I share with you three things that have helped me.
First, we must have complete trust in our Father’s plan of happiness and our Savior’s part in that plan. Trusting in His plan gave me peace during the time following our son’s death. I knew where our son was, and I knew Heavenly Father loved him. I had a perfect hope that because of the Savior’s Atonement Cory lived and we would be together again as an eternal family. I also had direction. I knew what I needed to do and what our family needed to do to be together forever.

Growing up, I was raised in a non-denominational Christian home, which I loved. I was, and always will be, incredibly grateful for my family and the things they taught me about God and Jesus Christ. But when I graduated high school, Southern Virginia University reached out to me to play lacrosse on a scholarship. I was hesitant because this school was affiliated with the “Mormon” Church, which I had always been told was crazy.
But for some reason, I knew this was the school I needed to attend.
The first thing I noticed about my classmates who were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was that they had genuine intentions to do good. I knew from the Bible that I could assess others’ character by their fruits (see Matthew 7:15–20). And the only “fruit” I saw from these Church members was goodness.
Curious, I started asking questions, particularly to a classmate named Coleman, who talked with me for hours about the gospel. When he began preparing to serve a mission, I joined him in reading scriptures every morning. At first, I was cynical about The Book of Mormon. But I started pondering what we read, and I could see the light in the words. I knew I needed to seek the truth for myself.
That April, I watched general conference for the first time and heard President Russell M. Nelson give a talk on faith. He spoke about tiny mustard seeds, saying:
“The mustard seed represents a small but growing faith.
“The Lord does not require perfect faith for us to have access to His perfect power. But He does ask us to believe.”1
With my growing and curious faith in mind, I developed a desire to deepen the roots of my faith in the true gospel. So, I started going to church with my roommates. I fasted and prayed to really know if the Book of Mormon is true.
When I prayed, I felt the Spirit so strongly. It felt like the Savior and Heavenly Father were sitting with me, Their hands on my shoulders. I knew I had found the truth. And I believe They were comforting me because They knew I had a hard decision to make.
I called my mom and told her I had something important to tell her. She jokingly asked if I was joining the “Mormon cult.” When I told her I was indeed going to be baptized and confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we both cried. It was a difficult conversation, but I knew I couldn’t deny the truth I had received.
Coleman was able to baptize and confirm me. His family and all my friends from school came to support me. I felt so much love, especially from Heavenly Father.
But my decision to be baptized really strained my relationship with my family. My parents believe I worship a different God now and am bound to go to hell. My 12 siblings all have their own opinions about me joining another Church too. Sometimes it feels like I’m walking on eggshells in our relationships, so I continue to pray their hearts will be softened. I feel the support of the Holy Ghost, and while my family is still adjusting, we make sure we know that we love each other.
Coleman is serving a mission now, but he, his family, and my other ward friends still support me daily. I don’t think I could have made it through this past year without them. And I recently received my temple endowment. The temple has been so helpful to me when I need peace and guidance.
Though not having support from my family has been incredibly hard, God has blessed me beyond what I expected and has given me many mercies as I move forward with faith.
Like Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles described, “The Lord’s tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ.”2
It’s been a long journey, but through my struggles, I’ve turned to Jesus Christ and strengthened my foundation of faith in Him. If you are in a situation where your family doesn’t support your faith in the gospel, you can still have peace and hope in the Savior. I know that as we focus on the daily blessings and tender mercies of the Lord, we will continually become more confident in our testimonies and in His grace. He will always lead us to wonderful blessings like good friends and peace and joy in our hearts. Even in difficult trials, He will always provide us with goodness!

I remember when I was about 11 years old. I delivered the local weekly newspaper in our town, which paid me a few dollars each week. I remember considering all the wonderful things I could buy with my money. One evening while thumbing through a magazine, I came upon an advertisement for a Lucky Leprechaun. It was a solid silver figure of a leprechaun and the ad told of its magical power and how it was known to bring luck and good fortune to those who processed it. The cost was $7, which seemed like a lot but the leprechaun in the picture appeared quite large and I was sure the pure silver alone was worth the money. All my desires and thoughts turned to receiving wonderful luck, wealth and happiness from my silver leprechaun. It took me several weeks of earnings before I could send off my order, and it seemed like forever in coming, but finally the package arrived that would change my life. When I opened the envelope, I was surprised at how small the little figure was.

I resolved in my mind that the size didn't matter. It was the luck it would bring to my life that was most important. I took the little leprechaun everywhere with me, but after a few weeks my excitement faded as I realized nothing had changed in my life. I had paid too much for the small silver leprechaun. However, it did teach me some valuable lessons. I learned to be more careful as to my desires because many things in the world draw us away from what is most important. I also learned that often things are not as they first appear and that luck has much more to do with hard work than just looking to luck.

A priesthood quorum that is looking for ways to give service can combine the right plan with the right place and really make a difference.

Adapt to conditions.
Sam Welsh, 14, of the Wellington Ward, West Palm Beach Florida Stake, had his teachers quorum organized in a food drive for the homeless. Then things blew apart—literally. Hurricane Andrew hit southern Florida with a fury that tore homes apart, uprooted trees, and displaced thousands of people. The service project suddenly became a way for Sam’s quorum to give relief to hurricane victims.

“Our quorum or any other teenage groups weren’t allowed into the hurricane area to work,” said Sam. “We only got to go work with our parents.” But one way teens could help was working for organizations funneling supplies into the area. Sam’s food drive expanded beyond his quorum and ward to include the entire stake, other Scout troops, and his performing arts school. The school officials asked that students donate money instead of goods. Sam used the money to purchase items the food bank had run short of, such as baby formula and bottles, diapers and wipes. The quorum helped collect donations and deliver them to a central collection point. Because the quorum had experience working together, they were able to keep the drive organized and on schedule.

Adapt to needs.
But chances for service don’t always come on such a large scale. Paul Brown, 16, of the Fort Pierce Ward, West Palm Beach Florida Stake, was severely injured in an automobile accident. His recovery will be long and slow. Mark Settle, a friend and member of the same priests quorum, explained what the quorum did after hearing about Paul. “We wanted to go see him, but we weren’t allowed in intensive care, so we had a group prayer. And we remembered Paul in our personal prayers and in our family prayers.”
“Every Sunday,” Mark said, “we have our priests quorum meeting at his house so Paul can be with us. He’s a good person to be around.”
And they have plans for Paul’s return. “When he feels good enough to go to Church, we’re going to get a microphone so he can bless the sacrament even if he can’t break the bread yet.”

There is a story that was written about 350 years ago entitled The Pilgrim’s Progress. It is an extended allegory in which a man named Christian has a great burden on his back, and, try as he might, he cannot shed it. Then a man named Evangelist tells Christian he must get on the path to the Celestial City. As Christian enters the path, he sees the Cross and his heavy burden falls off. He takes up the burden of the path and has many adventures on his way to the Celestial City.

At one point Christian comes to a fork in the path. Both ways look just the same. He sits confused, not knowing which is the way to the Celestial City. Then a person in bright, shining clothes greets him and tells him he knows the way, and Christian follows. All of sudden this person captures Christian in a net and leaves him for dead. But someone from the Celestial City happens upon Christian and frees him.

Christian wonders what he did wrong. He had followed someone who seemed to know the way. The person from the Celestial City says that Christian had followed the Flatterer and reminds Christian that he had been given a note that would have directed him at the fork in the road. Christian was given everything he needed, but he had forgotten.

Young Tommy Monson had always wanted a pony. He often admired his friend Henry’s Shetland pony. Wouldn’t he love to have one too!
One December, right before Christmas, Tommy’s mother took him to the toy department of a store in Salt Lake City. The store was going to give away a Shetland pony! To enter the contest, children had to write a note telling why they wanted the pony for Christmas. Tommy carefully wrote his note and placed it in the large box right next to the live pony in the toy department.
Finally the day came when the winner of the pony was going to be announced. Tommy and his mother waited in the excited crowd. Tommy was sure he would win the pony. He had already made a home for it in his sister’s playhouse in the backyard and stacked a pile of hay nearby. But when the name was chosen out of the box, it wasn’t Tommy’s name. Another child took the pony home, and Tommy was heartbroken.
As they left the store, Tommy and his mother walked past a man ringing a bell beside a small kettle to collect money for the poor. Tommy’s mother stopped and dropped in a big silver coin. Then she asked, “Tommy, do you have any money you would like to give to the poor for Christmas?” Tommy reached in his pocket, pulled out two nickels, and dropped them into the kettle, one after the other. It was all the money he had.
President Monson still remembers that day. “I didn’t win the pony,” he recalls. “But I received a far greater gift, even ‘the smile of God’s approval.’” It was a good Christmas after all.

In the summer of 2016 I traveled for the first time to Dilley, Texas. You probably have never heard of Dilley. It is a small town with fewer than 4,000 residents about ninety miles away from the border with Mexico. Dilley is home to one of the largest immigration detention centers in the country. Reserved exclusively for women and children, the South Texas Family Residential Center, as it is called, can house more than 2,000 women and children behind its tall barbed-wire fences. Most of the women and children there have traveled to the United States fleeing violence in Central America and hoping to apply for asylum. Multinational gangs have been terrorizing communities in Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala for several years. In the months leading up to my trip to Dilley, I had read stories in the newspapers of sexual violence, murder, kidnapping, extortion, and torture.
I had been thinking, quite abstractly, about doing something to help these detained women and children for more than a year, but I was unsure of whether I was qualified to help, hesitant to travel so far from my home and family, and nervous about the emotional burden of listening to women tell stories of violence. In many ways I was paralyzed like I had been on the train to Salt Lake. I am grateful to a colleague and friend at the Law School, Professor Kif Augustine-Adams, who nudged me toward this opportunity to give of myself in a personal rather than an abstract way. She arranged for us to spend a week in Dilley helping the women and children there begin the first steps toward claiming asylum in the United States.
That week changed my life. In Dilley I met women who had endured unspeakable horrors in their home countries and who had left everything they knew to find safety for their families. Many of them had walked most of the way from Central America to the United States, often carrying infants. While we were at the detention center, my colleague and I met individually with women in visitation rooms. We listened to their stories and helped them prepare to tell those stories to an asylum officer.
I remember speaking to one woman whose husband had been killed by a gang. She struggled through her sobs to tell her story while her son slept in her arms. In that moment I loved that woman—my sister—personally. Her proximity to me helped me better understand her humanity and mine. And, suddenly, it was not just “okay” to be more than a thousand miles away from my comfortable home in Provo, spending a long and hot July day in an immigration detention center; it was exactly where I wanted to be.

The two missionaries serving in the Philippines San Fernando Mission are walking side by side, making their way up the stairs. This is no easy trick, and going up and down stairs is not an afterthought. Elder Dominador Sabit III takes his companion, Elder Michelangelo Benigno, by the arm and they begin their ascent. Elder Benigno struggles, and Elder Sabit patiently helps his companion along. It’s slow going, but there’s no other way. Elder Benigno suffers from Guillain Barre syndrome, a muscle disorder that he contracted when he was three. For as long as he can remember, his legs have never worked right. The braces he wears on both legs help him maneuver, but they’re made of iron and are plenty heavy.

Elder Benigno shows similar enthusiasm. He remembers the day his mission call came. “I was so happy I was almost jumping. I wish I could jump,” he says smiling.

Preparing to serve a mission had always been a part of Elder Benigno’s life. He had read the standard works by the time he was 11. “I could just watch my playmates chasing around while I was sitting down observing them,” he says. “That is why I read. I just focused on the books I read, and it helped me a lot.” Before leaving on his mission, Elder Benigno taught the youth in his ward about missionary service as Young Men president.

“I told myself, if I didn’t have this disability, I wouldn’t serve as an inspiration to others. I want to serve as an example to the young men in my home ward and to the people that I am teaching on my mission,” he adds.

My doctor told me I have diabetes and that I would need to take shots of insulin before every meal. I was really sad because the disease would be with me the rest of my life. I asked my dad to give me a priesthood blessing. During the blessing he told me that I would have courage and be tough enough to take the injections. My mom and I went to the hospital to spend the night. I practiced using a needle to inject water into oranges because oranges are kind of like human skin. At dinnertime, the nurse asked me if I wanted to do my own injection. I said, “Yes, I will try.” I did it! The nurses were amazed that I was brave enough to do my own shot the first time. I have done all my own injections and blood sugar tests since the very first day. I know that my priesthood blessing helped me to be brave. I know that Heavenly Father will always be there to help me.Christopher Hall, age 10,Mountain Home, Idaho

Some time ago, a friend and I applied for an educational program. I was confident I would be selected. When the results came out, I was disappointed that my friend was selected but I was not. I felt wronged because I thought I deserved to be selected more than my friend.
At that moment, I saw my friend as an opponent or someone who had taken something that belonged to me. A few days later, while studying Jacob 2 in the Book of Mormon, I read how Jacob had rebuked his people for their sins. One of those sins was pride.
Jacob’s teachings made me realize that I was committing the sin of pride toward my friend by thinking I deserved something given to him. Jacob’s words were a revelation to me:
“Let not this pride of your hearts destroy your souls!
“Think of your brethren like unto yourselves” (Jacob 2:16–17).
I prayed to Heavenly Father to forgive me and to help me avoid the sin of pride in the future. Then I spoke to my friend about how I had felt and asked him to forgive me. I felt peace and joy in doing so and in receiving forgiveness from him and from Heavenly Father.

Several years ago, Brother Brothers and I were tight on funds and had to make a decision between paying our tithing or putting the money towards the adoption of our second child. Both were righteous and worthy uses for the money. We could not do both so we decided to prove the Lord, pay our tithing, and trust that everything would work out. A few days after paying our tithing, we received an unexpected refund check in the mail. We had been overcharged for something and the money was being returned to us. The amount was slightly more than the sum we had given in tithing. God keeps his promises when we obey.

Abby: Hayley was 10 and I was 6 when we started.
Hayley: At first it was kind of scary because we had to audition. McKay started a little while after Abby and I began recording. Then came our brother Jacob, who still just reads for the Friend because he’s 10.
When my voice was younger I only used to read the Friend. Now I read both the Friend and New Era. We’ve all gotten better over time at enunciating things well and at making our voices go up and down to keep the sentences from all sounding the same.

One extremity occurs at the end of life. Many precious family experiences tell how we help each other hold on and let go at those tender times. Here is one our family holds dear.
After joining the Church, my mother became a young BYU student in Provo. She stayed with the family of Gerrit de Jong, Jr. An accomplished composer and linguist from Amsterdam, Gerrit de Jong served many years as a temple sealer. He would kindly ask those attending the temple, perhaps nervous at being there for the first time – would you like me to perform your sealing in English, Dutch, German, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, or perhaps some other language?
By affection, our family called Gerrit de Jong Grandpa de Jong and his wonderful wife Thelma Grandma de Jong. I became a namesake of Gerrit de Jong. Because of him, I am the only person I know with a Dutch first name, an American middle name, and a Chinese last name.
We enjoyed many Sunday dinners with Grandpa and Grandma. No meal was complete until we had finished the homemade banana cream pie and laughed as we together washed and put the dishes away.
Grandpa’s physical body deteriorated toward the end of his rich and full life. He suffered excruciating pain. It hurt so much he wanted to die. But Grandma was not ready to let him go. Despite his great pain, Grandpa determined he would hold on for Grandma.
Finally Grandma was able to find peace. She said, “I patted his cheek, and told him I would be all right. I let him go.” Shortly thereafter, Grandpa peacefully moved on.