Gospel Story Finder

The unfamiliar can be scary. As a new bishop, it was daunting to reach out to a member of my ward who identified as gay and needed spiritual help. It was challenging to lead discussions about this topic and to counsel parents of youth who were struggling with their identity.
A wave of anxious thoughts would come to mind:
“What if I say the wrong thing?”
“What if I sound too conservative or too extreme?”
“Do I even know enough to be helpful?”
One day while contemplating my fears, my mind was drawn to study scriptures that mentioned fear. I felt peace when I read, “Perfect love casteth out all fear” (Moroni 8:16), and that “there is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear” (1 John 4:18).
Those truths helped me to remember that if I acted out of sincere love, I could be confident in receiving guidance and help from the Lord.

As impressive as each of the presenters was that night, describing the various accomplishments of President Nelson, I was even more spellbound by a conversation I struck up with a man seated next to me in the audience. He didn't know who I was, but he knew President Nelson, then Dr. Nelson, director of the Thoracic Surgery Residency Program of the University of Utah Medical School in 1955.

This man described to me how he was a student of President Nelson's at the time. He shared with me many memories, affirming what I was hearing from the lectern. Most interesting to me was his description of the teaching style of President Nelson, which he said brought with it a large measure of notoriety. He explained that much of the teaching of residents who were to become heart surgeons was conducted by faculty members in the operating room. Here they observed and performed surgery under faculty supervision--which served as a laboratory classroom. He shared that the operating room environment under certain faculty surgeons was chaotic, competitive, filled with ego--a pressure cooker where resident surgeons felt their career was on the line each and every moment. He described how it was very difficult, sometimes even demeaning. He then explained the unique environment found in President Nelson's operating room. It was a peaceful, calm, and dignified atmosphere. Residents were treated with deep respect. However, following the demonstration of a procedure, Dr. Nelson expected the highest standard of performance from each of the residents. This man described how the best patient outcomes and the best surgeons came out of Dr. Nelson's operating room. This doesn't surprise me at all. This is the exact leadership style that I have experienced and observed firsthand and have been the recipient of in the Quorum of the Twelve. I feel that I have been, in a sense, one of his "residents in training."

At the unofficial 1906 games in Athens, Greece, an Austrian weight lifter, Josef Steinbach, was scorned by the partisan crowd because it was alleged he was a professional. The frustrated Austrian left the stadium, allowing the Greek in second place to win the event. The flag was raised and the crowd cheered. Then Steinbach re-entered the stadium, walked up to the weight the winner had lifted with great effort, and with ease hoisted it three times over his head.

In 1952, super-athlete Emil Zatopek of Czechoslovakia won both the 10,000 and 5,000-meter races. To celebrate his victory, he announced he would enter the marathon, even though he had never run the 41.8 kilometer event before.

“Do you really think you can win?” a newsman asked.

“If I didn’t think I could win, I wouldn’t have entered,” Zatopek replied.

At the 24.1 kilometer mark, Zatopek was side-by-side with Him Peters of Great Britain, the pre-race favorite.

“Don’t you think we should be going a bit faster?” Zatopek asked, then ran ahead. He was grinning when he won.

Football player Floyd Little of the Denver Colorado Professional Football Team summed up self-confidence: “I choose not to be an ordinary man. It is my right to be uncommon if I can.”

One of the trials that our family endured was when my oldest brother got sick and, after a while, died. It was really hard for us at first, but our family was able to overcome that trial. Because our family was sealed in the temple, we know that we will be with my brother again and with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ when the right time comes.
I know that this trial was one of the ways the Lord prepared us for other trials—to help us become stronger. Everyone has trials to endure, and our Heavenly Father knows we can overcome them. So we shouldn’t lose hope.
Carmila R., age 18, Southern Tagalog, Philippines

Brother Lund also said, “If you are ever called upon to speak and you don’t know what to say and you haven’t had time to figure it out, just stand up and bear testimony of the divine mission of the Redeemer of the world and of his Prophet of this dispensation, and I promise you that the Lord will give you something to say.” A child in Primary can bear witness of those things. And that reminds me of an experience that I had.

I was secretary of the mission in Holland. Our headquarters at that time were in Rotterdam. President Grant was then president of the European Mission, and he came over to attend one of our mission conferences. We had rented a theatre, and we had over 1,500 people there. Men came with their stovepipe hats and their walking canes, and it was a great meeting. My mission president had promised me that if I would take down President Grant’s talk (I could write shorthand) they would not ask me to speak, so I sat down at the little table in front of the stand. Right in the middle of that meeting the mission president stood up and said, “Our next speaker will be Elder LeGrand Richards, the secretary of the mission.” And he had promised me that I would not have to speak! But there was one higher in authority than he was: President Grant had said that he wanted to hear from me.

As I walked up onto the stand, I remembered the words of Brother Anthon H. Lund: “If you are ever called upon to speak unexpectedly and you don’t know what to say, bear your testimony.” And as I stood there, brothers and sisters, I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I felt as though I were lifted right off that floor—they could have moved the floor out from under my feet and I would have remained standing there, bearing witness of the truth. I did not know whether I had done any good or not, but a few weeks after that I attended a baptismal service in Rotterdam—and I am always one who goes around and shakes hands with everybody; I like to shake hands—and I shook hands with a man and his wife. He said, “You don’t know us, but we know you.”

I asked, “How do you know me?”

“We were in that conference when you bore your testimony, and that is what started us investigating the gospel.”

The mission president was there, an apostle presiding over the European Mission was there, and I was just a young man with broken language who had only been in the mission a few months; yet the testimony that I bore as Brother Lund advised was what touched their hearts. These are the things that make life worthwhile.

One night a number of years ago, a newly called missionary named Elder Swan and his Japanese senior companion came to visit our home. Fortunately I was home, so I invited them in. When I greeted them at the door, my eyes were drawn to the coat that Elder Swan was wearing. Without thinking, I said to him, “That sure is a nice coat you are wearing!” However, it wasn’t a new coat, and it was rather faded. I assumed that the coat was one that a previous missionary had left behind in the missionary apartment.
Elder Swan immediately responded to my words, and it was completely the opposite of what I had been thinking. In halting Japanese he replied, “Yes, this is a good coat. My father wore this coat when he served as a missionary in Japan over 20 years ago.”
His father had served in the Japan Okayama Mission. And when his son was leaving to serve a mission in Japan, he had given his coat to him. This picture shows that coat that two generations of Elder Swans wore in Japan.
I was touched when I heard Elder Swan’s words. And I now understood why Elder Swan wore his father’s coat while he was proselyting. Elder Swan had embarked on his mission having inherited his father’s love for Japan and its people.

It was our first Christmas away from home. Elders Heemeyer, Bright, Kehoe, Schulze, Westover, and I had all gathered in one apartment to share Christmas Eve. We hoped that spending the evening together as a missionary district might make it easier to be away from home.
It was about 5:30 in the afternoon, and we were all a little discouraged. Setting up appointments with investigators and finding new people to teach had been difficult recently. “Come back after Christmas,” everyone said.
After talking for a few minutes, Elder Schulze suggested we go caroling to the homes of our investigators and some of the members. We all thought it was a great idea, and we planned a short program. We would start with two hymns and a spiritual thought. Then we would conclude with another hymn and a prayer. The whole program would be only 20 minutes long, but we all felt pleased with it.
Before we left, we knelt to pray. Then we set out into the cold night on the south side of Chicago, Illinois, in the United States.
Our first stop was the apartment of a member whose daughter and two grandchildren were investigating the Church. We certainly weren’t the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, but for six elders we sounded pretty good. After we shared our program, the family told us our “gift” was the best they had ever received.
Soon we were at a different apartment presenting our program to another family. At every stop, our enthusiasm and joy grew. We kept hearing the same response: “This is the best gift ever. You really brought the Christmas spirit.”
That night I came to better understand the true meaning of Christmas—that sharing and serving others are what Jesus Christ’s ministry is all about. And while we were busy in the service of others and of the Savior, home didn’t really seem so far away.

July 1990: I had come home. I was back in Prague, in my native country of Czechoslovakia—a country I had left twenty-two years before. I left because I couldn’t tolerate the political climate of the time. Now, within a few months, an overwhelming change had been wrought in the country, and I was free to return.
I suppose I expected to feel the same as I had so many years before. But I felt like a tourist. Everything seemed smaller and shabbier, and I felt as though I had lost my family and childhood roots.
But a few days after I had arrived, as I was walking along a crowded street, I suddenly felt a kinship with the people around me. I was among my own people. A great feeling of love and belonging came over me, and I felt the joy of the freedoms that they had gained after forty-five years of strict control.

After 34 years in the Church Educational System, my wife and I decided about three years ago to retire and set our feet on some different paths in life. At that point we began to make plans. We changed our residence to be closer to children and grandchildren. I began to develop what I thought were some wonderful projects. Some were absolutely brilliant, I thought. And then one of those pivotal moments in life happened.
It was our privilege at that time to be living across the street from Elder F. Enzio Busche, now an emeritus Seventy, and his wife. One day Elder Busche taught our high priests quorum, and he cited a scripture in the book of Alma where Alma longs to have the voice of an angel. Then Alma immediately repents of those feelings, and in verse four makes a remarkable statement. He suggests that we have to be careful what we desire, for the Lord grants unto us the desires of our heart. And then came what was to me almost a stunning statement: “Whether they be unto salvation or unto destruction.” God will grant unto us, according to our will, the things which we desire (see Alma 29:1–5).
I went home that day—and it’s not that I felt any of my desires were wrong—but in that moment I realized that those desires were mine. That day I began to try to let the Lord know that what I’d like to do is fulfill His desires. Even then, I thought I really meant it, but I came to know that that’s an easy thing to say and a difficult thing to do. As Elder Maxwell said yesterday, only when we truly yield our hearts to God can He begin to accelerate the purification and the sanctification and the perfecting process (see Hel. 3:35). We have found in the three years that have come since that time that the Lord has set our feet on different paths than we expected, and this one is the latest.
Just the other day, after President Hinckley called my wife and me, I was reading in the book of Deuteronomy and found a verse in the 12th chapter that came to mean a lot to me. It’s put in the form of a commandment. The Lord says, “Thou shalt rejoice before the Lord thy God in all that thou puttest thine hands unto” (Deut. 12:18). We are grateful for this privilege to rejoice in the Lord at this new opportunity.
Since starting on those paths, we have come to learn how truly merciful God is, how deeply He loves us, and how perfectly compelling His love is for us. When I was 16 years old and not smart enough to know very much at all, the Spirit touched my heart and I realized the significance of the woman that you marry. Starting at that time I began to pray that the Lord would find for me the woman who would be my eternal companion. Those prayers were answered, and all that we now enjoy in our family with children and grandchildren is largely responsible to her.
I’ve come to know that Jesus is our Christ, that His and the Father’s mercies are infinite and never ending, even when we’re not deserving. I’ve always loved the Prophet Joseph Smith, but it was my privilege to spend about 10 years in an intensive and extensive study of his life, of his writings, of his teachings, and of those who knew and loved him, and I came to know that here is a prophet of prophets, one who was worthy to bring about the Restoration of this last great dispensation. And I’ve come to know with great power that those keys that he restored have continued unbroken to this day and now reside in our living prophet, even Gordon B. Hinckley.
Again, we rejoice in this opportunity to serve. We are deeply humbled and greatly honored, and I leave that testimony with you in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

“Brother Ng,” the man’s voice began. Being addressed as “brother” by a gwailouh (foreigner) caught Ng Kat Hing’s attention. A group of clean-cut Americans wearing dark suits had wandered into the furniture store where he was employed, and their unusual appearance fascinated the 25-year-old Hong Kong native. But he was even more intrigued by being called “brother.”
When Ng Kat Hing questioned them about the title, one of the Americans, who wore a name tag identifying him as President Heaton, asked, “Do you believe there is one Father in Heaven?”
When he nodded, the man continued, “Then we are brothers, and I will call you that.”
Forty-three years later, Brother Ng still recalls his response. “I was touched, and in that moment, a little bit of the restored gospel was manifest to me. I wondered about it all that day and through the night. Four days later when the man called back to confirm the furniture order, I knew I wanted to know more.”
Although Grant Heaton, president of the newly opened Southern Far East Mission, was merely looking for advice about teakwood furniture that August day in 1955, he found much more than that in Ng Kat Hing. He found a language teacher, a convert, a missionary, a Church leader—a true pioneer.
“Brother Ng and his family are real pioneers of the Church in the Hong Kong area,” remarks Elder Jacob de Jager an emeritus member of the Seventy, who, while President of the Asia Area, worked closely with Brother Ng. In fact, Brother Ng was Elder de Jager’s Cantonese teacher. “He has great experience and wisdom and reaches out to people in a natural way. This was especially evident when Brother and Sister Ng were serving as temple missionaries in the Taipei Taiwan Temple, where they were of great help to the Cantonese-speaking members.”
Reaching out to people has always been one of Brother Ng’s talents. In fact, it was his willingness to serve others that put him in even closer contact with the missionaries. After ordering furniture for the mission home, Brother Ng agreed to help President Heaton find someone to teach Cantonese to the missionaries. He talked to several friends, but none of them could help. So he quit his job at the furniture store and taught the missionaries himself. Married and the father of four young children, Brother Ng took a cut in salary with the job change. But he believes it was well worth it.
“I learned the truth,” Brother Ng states simply. “That was a good deal, right? Nothing is more important than that.”
The men took turns learning and teaching. Brother Ng presented basic language lessons, and the missionaries taught gospel discussions. At that time, investigators were taught a total of 18 discussions, so Brother Ng went through several sets of missionaries before hearing all the lessons.
“It took quite a while,” he acknowledges, “but by the time I was baptized, all my questions were answered. I had a strong foundation and a strong testimony.”
Brother Ng was baptized on 31 May 1956. He was one of the first converts after missionary work resumed in Hong Kong following the Korean War.
But Brother Ng’s search for truth had started years earlier. His grandmother, a Buddhist, had begun attending Christian churches shortly before her death, and Brother Ng often accompanied her. “I was looking for a god who was different than the one I’d been taught about while growing up,” he remembers. “But the pastors and preachers at those meetings were difficult to approach, and they were more concerned with donations than with answering my questions.”
Brother Ng’s questions went unanswered until he met the missionaries. “From the beginning, I learned about our Father in Heaven and his son, Jesus Christ. The missionaries taught of our relationship to these beings. And they continually talked of being children of God,” he remembers.
The gospel changed Brother Ng’s life. “My wife tells me I was entirely different after joining the Church,” he says, laughing. “My temper became smooth. My finances were better because I paid tithing. I didn’t worry about food or shelter because I kept the commandments. A happy life followed.”
After seeing the difference the gospel made in her husband’s life, Sister Ng Pang Lai Har also investigated the gospel. Missionaries often visited their home, teaching her husband one of the new member lessons, then teaching her one of the 18 discussions.
Ten months after her husband’s baptism, Sister Ng was baptized. Brother Ng had the privilege of baptizing their seven children as they reached age eight.
Brother Ng’s family is important to him. His dark eyes sparkle as he speaks of the joys of being a husband, father, and grandfather. Highlights of Brother Ng’s life include the temple marriages of all seven children as well as the sealings of each of the children to him and his wife.
“We were not sealed to all our children at once,” he explains. “Traveling to the temple, either in Tokyo or in the United States, was very expensive.” After saving for years, Brother and Sister Ng were sealed in the Provo Temple in 1974. Subsequent temple trips have strengthened the couple’s dedication and commitment to temple work. From 1986 to 1987, they served as missionaries in the Taipei Taiwan Temple.
The high point of their temple service is their most recent calling—president and matron of the Hong Kong Temple, dedicated in May 1996.
“My wife and I were thrilled with the announcement of the temple. We were planning on becoming temple workers, maybe even working three or four times a week,” President Ng says. “We’ll work more than that now!
“I was frightened with the calling at first and very humbled. I had feelings of unworthiness. But after praying, I felt confident that Heavenly Father would give us the spiritual strength and guidance we need to fulfill this calling. We are so grateful for this opportunity.”
President Ng’s service in the Church actually began before his baptism. In addition to teaching the missionaries, he helped translate Church materials, and he was serving as an assistant in the branch Sunday School superintendency when he was baptized. Since his baptism, he has served at various times as branch president, district president, stake president, stake patriarch, counselor to the mission president, and regional representative.
To each calling, President Ng has brought a lively wit and loving warmth. Individuals matter to this leader, who hopes to see the Church grow in Hong Kong.
“There is much pressure and stress in life,” observes President Ng. Concerns about the future, coupled with materialism, which often exists in a growing economy, are challenges that members deal with daily. “Everyone is working so hard for money. We often spend so much time worrying about temporal things. The gospel brings a balance,” President Ng explains.
President and Sister Ng worked together to establish balance in their home. They worked out a plan and followed it closely. They emphasized wise use of financial resources, family unity, and Church activity. “We made time for our children, for each other, and for Church callings,” he continues. “People say they have no time, but that is just an excuse. They have the time for the things that are important in their lives.”
Another thing President Ng has always made time for is missionary work and watching the gospel affect others’ lives the way it has his own. He knows the impact of our knowledge of a loving Father and a worldwide family.
“We are all brothers and sisters,” testifies President Ng. “We need to share that knowledge with others so they can join our family and we can welcome them home.”

In an effort to create replicas of the golden plates for the Museum of Church History and Art, historians have studied and compiled all the accounts from those who saw or felt the plates and then used that knowledge—and some educated guesses—to create three sets of golden plates for display. Each set varies a little in color, weight, and dimensions. The plates were created as part of the celebration of the 200th anniversary of Joseph Smith’s birth.

With all these descriptions, historians have little more than a general idea of what the plates look like. But they’ve done the best they can with the information they have.

The process to create the replicas of the plates was long and a little complicated. First, thin copper plates were created and coated in black acid-resistant paint. More than 150 volunteers, many of them youth, then used sharp metal tools to scratch characters into the black surface, exposing the copper beneath. The museum provided examples of what the characters might have looked like.

“This isn’t as much work as the ancient prophets did,” said April Rowbury, 15, of the Provo Eighth Ward, Provo Utah East Stake. “It was hard, but it wasn’t as hard as it was for them, because they had to engrave on the actual metal.”

“This is all very speculative,” says Kirk Henrichsen, a senior exhibit designer for the Church museum. “We’ve made them as accurately as we could with the information that we have, but I’m sure if Mormon came to look at them he would just laugh!”

After the volunteers engraved the characters in the black paint, the next step was to soak the plates in a copper etching solution. The solution ate away at the exposed copper, leaving the surfaces beneath the black paint intact. The solution was then rinsed off, and kerosene was used to clean off the remaining black acid-resistant paint. Soapy water cleaned off the kerosene, and then the clean copper plates were electroplated.

Electroplating coats the plates in a thin layer of a golden colored alloy of gold and silver, called electrum. Electrum is not as heavy or as precious as gold. Black ink will then be rubbed into the etched characters to make them more visible.

Similarly, when I told my story to another friend, Debbie, she laughed, because for her God had made it clear that in her home it was to be—as she put it—all hands on deck at home, all the time, by her. Debbie deferred completion of her undergraduate degree and taught and nurtured her four children—sometimes homeschooling them to best address their unique individual needs—until her youngest child was five, when she was prompted to return to BYU to finish her bachelor’s degree in linguistics, with minors in Chinese and Japanese.

When I contacted Debbie, she said that for her the Spirit seems to work by reawakening her own long-dormant dreams and goals when the time is right. She is now preparing to take the LSAT and hopes to become an attorney. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3:1).

When Mamie was 14, a little sister was born at the ranch. Her father, by now stake president, had gone to general conference in Salt Lake City. Before leaving, however, he had brought from Kanab a midwife, Macey Stewart, who promised she would stay till his return, or at least till the mother was able to be up and around. “When the baby was a week old,” wrote Mamie, the midwife got homesick and “regardless of her promise to Father that she would stay, she left Mother in bed with me to care for her and the baby, besides all the housework, washing, etc., for the family and hired men. Talk about responsibility for a 14-year-old!” she concluded.

As a qualified therapist-counsellor, Elder Robert Durkin had a custom-made mission. He was called as a pre-mission assessment coordinator. He also coordinated all the addiction recovery programme coordinators throughout the Europe areas where the addiction recovery programme is being used. He trained the coordinators and made sure records were kept up to date.

He and his wife served a full-time mission at the MTC in Chorley where he was in the MTC presidency. After her passing, he decided to serve another mission. He wanted to serve and live in Germany, so he was planning to move from the UK to Frankfurt, where he would have paid his own expenses as a service missionary rather than paying the monthly missionary fees. Due to COVID, he stayed in the UK and completed his mission from his own home. He says he was able to do everything he needed to do while living at home. He encourages others to serve a mission. He says, “Don’t miss the opportunity. A mission is a great way to get closer to the Lord.”

I’m reminded of some missionaries again in that regard: they had a “goal board” in their apartment. They liked to write down on the board what their goals for the week were, such as “Baptize the Jones family by Saturday.” They had been working with the Jones family for a long time. It seemed that Brother and Sister Jones were giving them a ride back to their apartment on that particular day, and as they came to the apartment they asked the missionaries if they could use their telephone. They didn’t know how brave they were to go into the missionaries’ apartment! But the missionaries were even braver, because they let them come in! When they came in, Sister Jones (I guess we’d call her “sister” whether she’s a member or not) came over by the phone. There was this “goal board,” and she read, “Baptize the Jones family by Saturday.” She looked at her husband, pointed it out to him, and then said, “You boys really mean business, don’t you?” One elder replied, “You have to set your goals or you’ll never achieve them.” The Jones family was baptized on Saturday!

The winter of 1979–80 was more severe than usual in our area, and the heavy snowfall in the mountains collapsed the roof on a friend’s cabin. The entire roof system, all the way down to the concrete footings, needed rebuilding. I was hired to do the job.
The cabin is located in a very secluded spot in a nearby canyon, nestled among majestic pine trees along the bank of a stream. It is so beautiful and peaceful there that it almost seems as if it doesn’t belong on this telestial earth.
Because of the lovely setting and the peace I felt every time I went there, I decided to do the work myself rather than subcontract it out, as I often did. My brother Rusty helped me, and we started tearing down the damaged structure in the latter part of April, as soon as the snow melted enough for us to get to the cabin.
As the weather gradually got warmer, I started taking my little son Kenny with me every day. He was two and a half years old at the time and really enjoyed going to work with his dad. He would entertain himself all day, exploring everything in sight. He was fascinated by all the new-found beauties of nature—especially the squirrels, chipmunks, and birds—and he spent hours playing near the stream, throwing rocks and sticks into the fast-moving water. Often he would curl up and take a nap under the protection of a shady pine tree.
This went on day after day. He took many minor falls and got a few scratches and scrapes during his adventures, but I seldom went to his rescue because I could see the growth he was experiencing. As he became more familiar with these new surroundings, he developed confidence in himself and his abilities. Nevertheless, I was very careful to keep a close watch on him because he was so young and small, and especially because of the nearby stream which had grown deeper and swifter with the melting snow. He showed surprising common sense, never getting close enough to the water to fall in; but I noticed that each day he felt more confident about edging closer to the bank of the stream.
One night, after taking Kenny with me for four or five weeks, I had a terrible dream. I woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming that he had fallen into the rushing water and drowned. It was so real and scared me so badly that I sat up in bed and found myself shaking.
I couldn’t go back to sleep. I spent the rest of the night trying to calm myself and thoughtfully considering the frightful images that kept turning over and over in my mind. I had the distinct feeling that this dream was a warning not to be ignored. At the same time, I wondered how I could tell little Kenny that he wouldn’t be able to go with me to work on the cabin again. I was concerned about hurting his feelings because I knew how he loved to go to the mountains to work with his dad.
The next morning I told my wife, Georgia, of the experience and of my feelings, and she agreed that I had better not take him with me to the cabin anymore. But she, too, was concerned about how he was going to handle the disappointment.
Kenny got up early that morning, and as usual, started to dress himself. He came into our bedroom and sat on my lap, and as I was helping him put on his shoes and socks I was still trying to figure out how to tell him he couldn’t go with me anymore.
All of a sudden he said, “Dad, I can’t go to work with you today.”
“Why?” I asked, surprised.
“Because I will drown in the river,” he said.
Tears of joy came to our eyes as we realized that Kenny had received the same warning that I had that night. A strong feeling of peace came over us, knowing that our Heavenly Father had given us this inspiration to protect our son and save him for his mission in this life.

An early pioneer woman named Eliza Cheney was able to put aside the things of the world because she had nurtured the seed of faith within her. While at Winter Quarters, Eliza received a letter from her parents offering her any amount of money to denounce her newfound religion and come home. She tightened the laces on her pioneer shoes. Even in such bitter conditions, Eliza’s faith burned bright. She wrote back to her parents:
“I have not the most distant idea [of returning], neither has Nathan … , our cause is just and must be onward. … I did not embrace this work hastily: I came into it understandingly. I weighed the subject, I counted the cost, I knew the consequence of every step I took. …
“If I could be among the numberless throng that John saw whose robes were washed white in the blood of the lamb[,] I must[,] like them, come up through much tribulation and instead of thinking it hard that I have these difficulties to pass through, I count it all joy that I am counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.”

When I was eight, I chose to be baptized. As I was immersed in the water, I felt a special happiness that came from the Spirit. Shortly after my baptism, my mother passed away. I felt sad, depressed, and frustrated. No child should have to know how it feels to lose their mother.
However, three years later we went to the temple and were sealed as a family. The special feeling of the Spirit came back that day, and I felt that my mother was there by my side in the temple. I have faith that I will see her again someday.

I just received my August 1996 issue of the New Era. As I read through it I came upon the FYI article “Fine Tuning” about watching television. Recently my mother and I moved to Montana from southern California. It was a big change. I had grown up having everything within reach, like TV, radio, and different kinds of music. There is so much corruption and temptation everywhere, and after a while you kind of get used to it. I used to watch TV when I was at home, and I listened to the radio when I was in my truck. So when we moved here, at first I was upset that we didn’t have TV, and I got bored really easily. But then I started going outside and playing with my dog, reading books, and writing poetry on my computer. Then slowly I started forgetting about watching TV. I have been reading more books on the Church and developing my testimony. I sometimes go outside and watch the sunrise or sunset, admiring nature and all of the beautiful gifts Heavenly Father has blessed us with. Thank you for the spiritual encouragement.
Layla BastiansenHelena, Montana

When two Latter-day Saint missionaries visited the Graybeal home in 1959, Alexandria knew their message was special. Her husband and two children were touched, too, and the Graybeals progressed toward baptism. When Brother Graybeal learned that the Air Force was transferring him to Germany, he decided to be baptized before he left. Alexandria, however, was struggling to know whether Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. Some time later, after the family had moved to Germany, her husband said, “If you really want to know, go to Heavenly Father and ask him.” That night Alexandria did just that. “I don’t know what happened,” she explains, “but the next morning I knew Joseph Smith was a prophet.” Alexandria and the two children were baptized a short time later in Kerlsrue, West Germany, in June 1960.
“I just felt wonderful,” Sister Graybeal says, remembering her baptism. “My testimony was strengthened after that, and I couldn’t get enough of the gospel. I studied and studied. It was like walking through a door and finding that the light was shining. It was beautiful.”