Gospel Story Finder

Later in the same year we were married, we jointly decided I should enlist in the Navy, and off I went to San Diego for basic training, the indoctrination phase. Boot camp was a rude awakening, and I was convinced I had made the worst decision of my life. That first night as they played Taps on the loudspeakers across the base to signify “Lights out,” it felt like I was at a funeral, my funeral because I felt nigh unto death! I missed my wife terribly, and I silently wept in my rack as I heard others sobbing around me in the open bay barracks where we slept. What have I done? Taps still bring tears to my eyes when I hear them.

Reveille in the morning came early and loudly as metal trash cans were thrown down the passageway followed by angry yelling to get up and get moving, in very colorful language. Our leaders were working quickly to break us down and weed out the weak. In a few days, the haircuts that left us with less hair than we were born with and dungaree uniforms fresh out of a World War II poster began to transform the look and behavior of this ragtag group of civilians into the beginnings of a military unit. We commissioned Recruit Company 263, and I was the guidon bearer assigned to carry the company flag whenever we were in formation.

This is when I began to appreciate Heavenly Father’s tender mercies. As the guidon bearer, I needed to be the first man out in the morning for the company to fall in behind, so my rack was in the best location in the barracks; first one in the door, bottom bunk. Then, the company commander, a Chief Petty Officer, took me aside to tell me that he was a member of the Church and if I ever needed a blessing, he was there for me. Of all the company assignments or company commanders I could have ended up with, Heavenly Father made sure I knew that He knew who and where I was, and He was watching over me.

Sunday came, and I made my way to church. A missionary couple conducted the meeting, and you could not find a humbler group of sailors pleading for grace and mercy than that small bunch of Latter-day Saint recruits. The opening hymn was #250, We Are All Enlisted. The irony of the statement was too thick to ignore, but before we began singing, the sister missionary was kind enough to make important corrections to the words of the hymn.

“We are all enlisted till the conflict is o’er; Happy are we! Happy are we! (we weren’t that happy)
Sailors in the Navy, there’s a bright crown in store; We shall win and wear it by and by.
Haste to the battle, quick to the sea; Truth is our helmet, buckler, and shield.
Stand by our colors; proudly they wave! We’re joyfully, joyfully sailing to our home.”

Hymn #250, Text: Anon., The New Golden Chain, New York, 1866
Music: William B. Bradbury, 1816–1868

We sang with great enthusiasm, having the false doctrine of the Army erased from our hymnbook! I still sing hymn #250 this way today.

The sacrament hymn was #98, I Need Thee Every Hour. Truer words were never spoken or sung. Oh, how we needed the Savior every hour, every minute of every hour. That church meeting was a tender mercy, and it saved me. I knew that day that God knew what I needed and that I was going to be okay, and so was my wife back home. Boot camp got a whole lot easier after that first sacrament meeting. Enduring the indoctrination into the service and the separation from my wife, who was expecting our first child, was still hard, but not as hard as it could have been.

A German family once came to see a show and fell in love with the whole cast. The father discovered the group was Mormon when he gave Brother Benson a bottle of champagne to help celebrate a successful performance, and, of course, he wanted to know more. The family took all the players to dinner, and they responded by turning West Yellowstone upside down in order to find a German Book of Mormon for the family. At last report the family was investigating the Church in Germany.

Lily also colors pictures to remember scriptures that she reads but doesn’t need to memorize. For Virtue value experience number three, Lily and the other young women in her ward read Alma chapter 5 together and talked about being worthy to enter the temple. Lily colored a picture of the Salt Lake Temple to remember what she learned. “I know I can go to the temple,” she says. “I like doing baptisms for the dead.”

Before 1961, missionary conferences were sometimes held in West Berlin, and missionaries and members from the German Democratic Republic could occasionally bring back lesson manuals in their luggage. Although not officially approved by the government, these were not always officially denied at the border crossings. Local Saints then typed the lesson manual information, making many carbon copies, until there were enough copies for each of the branches. After 1961, even this contact with official Church literature became more and more restricted. Brother Joachim Albrecht in Bautzen told this story:
“We received a directive from President Burckhardt that all unauthorized religious materials, books, manuals, etc., were to be destroyed. I was heartbroken. I had, over the years, scraped together a small but nice library of Church materials, for which I had no official authorization. I sat in front of an open fireplace. No, I said to myself. I can’t do it. But in the end, I burned all of the books and manuals I had collected with such difficulty. Less than two weeks after that the secret police knocked on my door. They searched my house for unauthorized printed material. I had none. From that experience I learned a great lesson about inspired leaders and listening to their counsel.”

When I was six years old, my family moved to the United States. We loaded everything we owned into a truck and drove to my grandmother’s house in Mesa, Arizona.
I remember standing on her porch with my father when a truck playing music came down the street.
“Dad, what’s that?” I asked. He explained that it was an ice-cream truck, and he gave me money to buy something. I ran over to the truck and said, “I want a paleta (frozen dessert on a stick). I had grown up in Mexico and spoke English and Spanish, but I didn’t know the English word for the thing I wanted. My father told me that I had to ask for a Popsicle.
I remember walking up the steps of my new school on the first day of first grade. When I saw some of the other children crying, I asked my mother, “Why are those kids crying?” My mother had taught us how important education was, so I couldn’t imagine what was so sad about going to school.
I soon learned that in the United States, most children my age had many things that I didn’t have. One of those things was a bike, and I wanted one badly. Somehow, my dad got me a bike for $5. Unfortunately, it had one major defect: it was a girl’s bike! It was humiliating for me to ride it. I found my shiny new dream machine in a mail-order catalogue, and it cost $65. I decided to earn the money to buy the bike myself, so I started working in the cotton fields every day after school. I would drag a long canvas bag up and down the rows of plants, filling it with cotton. Each afternoon, I could usually pick between twenty and forty pounds of cotton. I was paid two cents a pound, so I could usually make at least fifty cents a day.
As the end of the harvest drew near, I realized that I was not going to earn enough money for the bike. I told my dad, and he agreed that if I could raise half the money, he would pay the other half. Even after I had earned my part, the bike didn’t show up immediately. But then on Christmas morning, I got my beautiful new bike. From that experience, I learned that sometimes when we work very hard to reach a goal but fall short of reaching it, we can ask someone for help. Just as my father helped me, our Heavenly Father will help us, too.

“Don’t run too far ahead!” Dad called. “It’s getting dark, and I don’t want you to fall.”
Vincent stopped and turned around. “But you’re walking so slowly. I want to get to the festival before all the mooncakes are gone!”
“They won’t run out of mooncakes,” Dad said as he and Mom caught up. “At least, not until you get there!”
Vincent could hear drums beating as they got close to the park. Strings of colorful lanterns hung from the trees, lighting up the dark night. Families were eating on blankets, getting ready to watch the full moon together.
Mom found an empty spot on the grass and laid down their blanket. She handed Vincent some coins to buy food.
“Thanks!” Vincent couldn’t wait to go exploring. He counted his coins as he walked. Twenty ringgits! That was enough for a mooncake. But which kind did he want? Ham? Egg yolk? Durian? Finally he picked one full of black sesame paste. He wandered from stall to stall as he ate, staring at all the different foods. Stacks of chicken on skewers. Giant pots of spicy broth and noodles. Maybe he could get shaved ice with ice cream with his last coins!
Pretty soon he’d wandered into an area that didn’t have as many lanterns. The darkness gave him an idea.
I wonder how far I could walk with my eyes closed? He shut his eyes and took a step. Then another. Then caught his foot on something. He was falling!
Ouch! His chin hit something sharp. It was a big metal drain cover! He reached up and touched his chin. He was bleeding.
“Dad? Mom?” he called out. He hurried back toward the lanterns, and someone helped him find his parents.
“We were getting worried!” Mom said. Then she saw his face. “We need to go to the hospital.”
Pretty soon Vincent was sitting with Mom and Dad in the hospital waiting room. He was so scared. Was he going to be OK?
He folded his arms tight and thought about Jesus. He and his family had been baptized a few months ago. The missionaries had said that Jesus could help him feel comfort.
Jesus Christ will help me. Jesus Christ will help me, he thought over and over again. And soon he did feel a little calmer. It felt like the Holy Ghost was by his side.
Dad squeezed his hand.
“Everything will be OK,” Mom said.
Vincent nodded. He knew she was right.
When the doctor came, she stitched up his chin. It hurt, but not too much. She told Vincent that he would probably have a scar. But that was fine with him. Whenever he saw it, he would remember mooncakes, the festival, and a time he felt comforted by Jesus and the Holy Ghost.

In his autobiography, Parley P. Pratt gave us a description of a real man. In his account of his imprisonment in Liberty Jail with Joseph Smith and others, he told of one of those awful nights in which they had to listen to the guards brag of their deeds of rape, murder, robbery, and other crimes committed against the Mormons.

When the Prophet Joseph could bear it no more, Elder Pratt wrote, he rose to his feet, and spoke with a voice of thunder: “SILENCE, ye fiends of the infernal pit. In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you, and command you to be still; I will not live another minute and bear such language. Cease such talk, or you or I die THIS INSTANT!”

Said Elder Pratt: “I have seen the ministers of justice, clothed in magisterial robes … in the Courts of England; I have witnessed a Congress in solemn session … : I have tried to conceive of kings … : and of emperors assembled to decide the fate of kingdoms; but dignity and majesty have I seen but once, as it stood in chains, at midnight, in a dungeon in an obscure village of Missouri.”

A little over a year ago, I was released from my assignment in the Presidency of the Seventy, a change announced here at general conference. Because my name was read near those of General Authorities becoming emeritus, many assumed I was also finishing my time of service. After the conference, I received numerous messages of gratitude and good wishes for my next phase in life. Some even offered to buy my house in North Salt Lake. It was nice to see that I would be missed and also to know we will not have trouble selling our home when I am done. But I am not there yet.
My new assignment took Monica and me to beautiful Africa, where the Church is flourishing. It has been a blessing to serve among the faithful Saints in the Africa South Area and witness the Lord’s love for them. It’s inspiring to see generational families of all backgrounds, including many successful and well-educated Church members, dedicating their time and talents to serve others.
At the same time, given the region’s demographics, many people of modest means are joining the Church and transforming their lives through the blessings of tithing faithfulness and the educational opportunities offered by the Church. Programs such as Succeed in School, EnglishConnect, BYU–Pathway Worldwide, and the Perpetual Education Fund bless many lives, especially those of the rising generation.
President James E. Faust once stated, “It has been said that this church does not necessarily attract great people but more often makes ordinary people great.”
The greatness of our Saints in Africa becomes even more evident as they face life’s challenges and the demands of a growing Church. They always approach it with a positive attitude. They embody well the well-known teaching from President Russell M. Nelson:
“The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives.
“When the focus of our lives is on God’s plan of salvation … and Jesus Christ and His gospel, we can feel joy regardless of what is happening—or not happening—in our lives.”
They find joy despite their challenges. They have learned that our relationship with the Savior enables us to approach difficulties with smiling faces and grateful hearts.
Let me share some of my experiences with these faithful Saints who illustrate this principle, starting with Mozambique.
A few months ago, I presided over a stake conference for a one-year-old stake that already had 10 units. More than 2,000 people filled the small chapel and three tents that were set outside. The stake president is 31 years old, his wife is 26, and they have two small children. He leads this growing and challenging stake with no complaints—only a smiling face and a grateful heart.
In an interview with the patriarch, I learned that his wife was seriously ill, and he struggled to provide for her care. After addressing the issue with the stake president, we gave her a priesthood blessing. I inquired of the patriarch how many patriarchal blessings he gives on average.
“Eight to ten,” he said.
I asked, “Per month?”
He replied, “Per week!” I counseled him that doing that many per weekend was not wise.
“Elder Godoy,” he said, “they keep coming every week, including new members and many youths.” Again, no complaints—only a smiling face and a grateful heart.
After the Saturday evening session of stake conference, on my way to the hotel, I noticed people buying food along the road late at night. I asked my driver why they were doing it when it was so dark rather than during the day. He responded that they were working during the day to have the money to do it later.
“Oh, they were working today to eat tomorrow,” I said.
But he corrected me: “No, they were working during the day to eat tonight.” I had hoped our members might be in a better situation, but he confirmed that many faced similar challenges in that part of the country. The next morning, during our Sunday session and newly aware of their circumstances, I was even more moved by their smiling faces and grateful hearts.
On the way to a Sunday meeting, the stake president and I saw a couple walking along the road with a baby and two small children. We stopped to offer them a ride. They were surprised and delighted. When I asked how far they needed to walk to the chapel, the father replied that it could take 45 minutes to an hour, depending on the children’s pace. They faced this journey back and forth, every Sunday, with no complaints—only smiling faces and grateful hearts.
One Sunday before a stake conference, I visited two branches using public schools as meetinghouses. I was shocked by the humble and modest conditions of the buildings, which lacked even some basic amenities. As I met a few members there, I was ready to apologize for the inadequate conditions of their meetinghouse, but they were happy to have a nearby place to gather, avoiding the usual long walk. Again, there were no complaints—only smiling faces and grateful hearts.
Following a Saturday of leadership training, the stake president took me to Sunday services held in a rented house. There were 240 people in attendance. Then the bishop introduced 10 new members baptized that week. The congregation was spread across two small rooms, with some members also sitting outside the building, watching the meeting through windows and doors. There were no complaints—only smiling faces and grateful hearts.
I visited this beautiful small country, also known as “the mountain kingdom,” to see a Church district preparing to become a stake. Following a Saturday of meetings, I attended Sunday services in one of their branches in a rented house. The sacramental room was overflowing, with people standing outside the door to participate. I told the branch president that he needed a bigger house. To my surprise, he informed me that this was only half of his membership. The other half would attend a second sacrament meeting after the second hour. Again, there were no complaints—only smiling faces and grateful hearts.
I returned to Lesotho later due to a fatal traffic accident involving several of our youth, already mentioned by Elder D. Todd Christofferson earlier. When I visited the families and leaders, I expected a somber atmosphere. Instead, I encountered strong and resilient Saints who were coping with the situation in an uplifting and inspiring way.
Mpho Aniciah Nku, 14, a surviving accident victim in this picture, illustrated it well in her own words: “Trust in Jesus and always look unto Him, because through Him you’ll find peace, and He will help you in the healing process.”
These are just a few examples where we see their positive attitude because they center their lives in the gospel of Jesus Christ. They know where to find help and hope.

After a year of extreme financial burdens, I was feeling hopeful that things were beginning to look up for my family. Then came fresh setbacks. For an entire year I had trusted the Lord that everything would work out and we would one day see our trials as growing experiences. But with the new setbacks, I stumbled in my spiritual footing. I felt abandoned and lost and soon stopped feeding my spirit. Though I never stopped attending church, I stopped praying, fasting, and reading the scriptures. I no longer went to the temple. I did the bare minimum for my calling as a Primary teacher. I felt hopeless and wondered why I should try to live righteously if it wouldn’t protect me from getting hurt.
One night as I was watching television in my bedroom, my 10-year-old daughter walked in carrying her Book of Mormon. She had been trying to read it, but she said she couldn’t pronounce a word. I helped her and then sent her out of the room.
In a few minutes she was back, saying she was having a hard time understanding what she read. Feeling sorry for myself, I was in no mood to spend time in the scriptures. In an irritated tone, I said, “Samantha, go pray to Heavenly Father and ask Him to help you understand what you are reading.”
My daughter didn’t move. She looked at me steadily and said quietly, “I did pray. I have a really strong feeling that I need to read scriptures with you.”
I stared at her in surprise and then clicked the television off. I patted the bed beside me, she climbed up, and we read a chapter from the Book of Mormon together. I didn’t pay much attention to what we were reading because I was marveling at Heavenly Father’s reminder to me that I needed to seek Him as I dealt with my trials.
After that night I started saying my personal prayers again and spending time in the scriptures daily. I set a goal to attend the temple at least once a month. Amazingly, everything I read in the scriptures and Church magazines seemed to apply to me and the problems I was facing. Once again my soul was being fed, and I found I was able to bear my burdens. I often got down on my knees and asked forgiveness for not trusting the Lord as I should have. I will always be grateful for the spiritual sensitivity of a 10-year-old and a gentle reminder from a loving Heavenly Father.

Illustrations by Scott Peck
So where are your video games?
Don’t have any.
What?! How can we play Monster Quest like we do at my house?
We can’t. Let’s go outside and look for real monsters instead.
Is this an arrowhead?
Maybe it’s a monster tooth!
Yikes! A bigfoot monster was here!
We can’t let the monster get us! Follow me to the creek!
We’re mud monsters!
RAWR!
Sea monsters!
Aaah!
That was even more fun than Monster Quest. Next time, let’s look for real monsters at my house too!

When I was 10 years old, my mother had a massive heart attack. She spent many weeks in the hospital fighting for her life.
During this time, my Primary teacher, Sister Ellen Johnson, came to my home once a week to see me. I had just started attending Primary and had limited understanding of the gospel. Every week Sister Johnson bore her testimony to me and talked about prayer. She taught me that if I prayed, Heavenly Father would answer.
After several weeks, Mom’s health deteriorated further. She had a damaged heart valve that needed repair. Her doctor said she would die without experimental heart surgery. Her chances of recovery, however, were only about 50/50.
Open-heart surgery was new and risky in the early 1960s. Surgeons planned to cut Mom open from her chest to her backbone and then split her rib cage to access her heart. Many patients did not survive the surgery. I was upset and afraid my mother would die.
Dad was mostly at work or at the hospital with Mom. My older sister, Pam, took care of my brother and me. At night, I felt lonely and afraid, but I thought about what Sister Johnson had been teaching me about prayer. I often knelt by my bed and cried, pleading with Heavenly Father to spare Mom’s life.
During one such crying prayer, a great peace came over me and I stopped crying. I felt that everything was going to be OK. I felt reassured that my mother would live to see me grown and that I need not worry. I didn’t hear a voice or see a vision, but I had quiet, peaceful feelings. I did not doubt them. Heavenly Father had answered my prayer, and I knew it.
Mom survived the surgery. She was weak and sickly most of her life, but Heavenly Father had answered my prayers and spared her life. She lived to see me grow up, marry, and have children.

Just as black members had crossed into another part of town and another culture to attend the Johannesburg Ward, white members had to adjust to a new environment and culture as they served in Soweto. Things did not always go smoothly. Maureen van Zyl, a white member who had been called to serve as Primary president, thought nothing of it when the South African national anthem of the time was chosen as the opening song in Relief Society meeting one week. She soon learned, however, that black South Africans viewed the anthem as a symbol of apartheid and that many black sisters were offended by the choice of song.
Black and white members alike could easily have become discouraged by such misunderstandings, but they chose to see them as an opportunity for discussion and improvement instead. “We shared all sorts of things,” Maureen remembered. “As blacks, what would be offensive and as whites, what we’d find offensive. How they did certain things and how we did certain things. And so it was just this wonderful time of learning together.”

When I was a little girl, I thought Christmas was heaven on earth. Between cookies and candy, parties and presents, everything was perfect. Everything waited for me to tear it open or munch on it.
In the midst of all this, my mother said, “Remember that Jesus is the reason for the season.” She went with us to sing carols to the ward members. She would suggest that we part with a few of our precious cookies and give them to a neighbor or a teacher. All of this service was of little interest to me. I wanted to go to Christmas parties.
As I progressed into my teenage years, Christmas lost the sparkle and magic. My parents had divorced, and we had moved away from my grandparents and my friends. It became a hassle. I hated having to split my holidays between homes, and I was annoyed that I had to participate in my new stepfamily’s traditions. The neighbors were extra sweet and thoughtful at Christmas—almost too sweet and thoughtful, it seemed to me.
As a senior in high school, I decided that I was going to try harder to focus on that cliché about Christmas. I was going to find a way to appreciate the “reason for the season.” I offered to help with my high school’s Festival of Trees.
Each year various clubs and sports teams raised money, decorated a tree, and bought gifts for every member of a family they sponsored. For one week before Christmas break, the trees were put on display for the community. At the end of the week, the families being sponsored were invited to a special program to have treats and pick up their trees.
All along I found that changing my attitude was harder than I’d expected. By the time the night of the party came I never wanted to see another Christmas tree or curly ribbon again. I’d even had my fill of Christmas carols. But the party came anyway.
I glanced at my watch and at Kim, my co-chair for the evening. I reviewed the commons area and went through my mental checklist. Everything looked good. I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the first family timidly walk in the front doors. Whipping out my trusty list, I walked toward them, grinned, and said, “Merry Christmas! This is your host. She’ll take you to your tree.”
The evening went great. Even I was enjoying myself, I found.
I had just turned to tell a host that the last family was there when I noticed one of our janitors, Jay, standing beside me.
“Hi, Jay. Do you need my help with something?”
“No. But I do have a question for you.”
He hesitated so long that I finally nodded and said, “Okay, what’s that?”
“What is it that you know that I don’t?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You must know something that I don’t know, because you haven’t quit smiling, and I can’t figure out why.”
I gave him a funny look and said, “Well, it’s Christmastime, Jay.”
He stared blankly at me for a moment, muttered something I didn’t quite catch, and shuffled off toward the janitor’s closet.
As I watched him walk away, I thought about how often he described Christmas as just a holiday for kids who didn’t get what real life was like. Jay had experienced many disappointments in life and hardly ever seemed happy.
At that moment I had what the Prophet Joseph Smith described as a stroke of “pure intelligence” when I realized Jay was right (see Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith [2007], 132). I did know something Jay didn’t know, but until then I had not really let it sink in.
I knew there is a God in heaven who loved me enough to send His Son to be born in a lowly manger, live a life of intense trial, and be resurrected and atone for my sins so that I could have happiness and hope. I had a knowledge of the reality of the Savior. I knew why we celebrate Christmas: so people who are followers of Christ would be reminded of who and why He is, and also that they might be reminded of their commitment to strive to be like Him.
Christmas is an opportunity to feel love and kindness in a world that may sometimes seem dreary and hopeless. I was in the middle of a program to ease the burdens of the poor families in my community, and I knew I had done a good job. But I also knew that I had missed someone. There was a man in that crowd who needed that love and hope just as much, if not more, than everyone else there, and I had shrugged him off.
With this realization fresh on my mind, I turned to see if Jay was still around. He deserved an answer. I couldn’t see him, but I had to find him. I thrust my checklist into Kim’s hands and hurried off with no explanation. I searched every inch of the school that wasn’t locked up. My heart sank as I realized that he was gone. I fought tears as I trudged back to the commons area.
“Well, it’s Christmastime, Jay.” What kind of answer was that? How could I have been so insensitive? Jay knew that I had something more, but I had not really answered him.
The moment I got home I knew what I had to do. I sat down and wrote Jay the most sincere Christmas card I have ever given anyone. He had been the key influence in my epiphany about the reason for Christmas, and he deserved to know what I knew. I left the card for him at the school office.
I have no idea what Jay thought of that card, or if he even read it. I saw him a few more times before Christmas break, then off and on for the rest of the year, but he never said anything to me. But every time I walked past him the hope rose in my heart that maybe, just maybe, his Christmas had been a little lighter because I answered his question. And I know my Christmases will be forever changed, because I came to realize for myself that focusing on Christ as the “reason for the season” is so much more than a cliché.

Brother Wakolo’s Disciple’s Soul
While serving in the South Pacific, I received a letter from the First Presidency with an assignment to travel to Fiji and deliver a letter to Taniela Wakolo, president of the Nausori Fiji Stake. After I handed the letter to him, he read aloud the call from the First Presidency to serve as an Area Seventy, and tears flowed freely from his cheeks and those of his lovely wife, Anita.

After discussing with him the nature and duties of his new calling, I observed the tattoo on Brother Wakolo’s large right hand. Now, tattoos are very common throughout the South Pacific, and long before he joined the Church, Taniela Wakolo had the back of his hand tattooed with a large, garish design.

I said: “Brother Wakolo, in your new calling as an Area Seventy, you are going to be speaking to the youth on many occasions. I would suggest before such meetings that you put a large Band-Aid on the back of your hand to cover your tattoo. It’s hard to discourage our youth from getting tattoos when the speaker has one himself.”

He smiled a broad smile, and with a radiant expression he said, “I’ll take care of it. I want to be a good example.”

A few weeks passed, and the next time we met, his hand was heavily bandaged as if he were preparing for a boxing match. I asked, “What in the world happened to you?”

He smiled with glistening eyes and said, “I followed your counsel and had the tattoo removed.”

“Was it laser surgery?” I asked.

“No,” he replied with a big smile, “they don’t remove tattoos with lasers in Fiji. I had it surgically cut out.”

A month later Elder Wakolo and I were assigned together to reorganize a stake presidency in American Samoa. As we met at the airport, I immediately noticed an unsightly scar on the back of his hand where the surgeon had removed several square inches of skin and then very crudely sutured the gaping wound closed. This had not been performed by a plastic surgeon.

I apologized for having been the cause of the large scar on the back of his hand. He responded with a radiant Christlike countenance: “Not to worry, President Condie; this is my CTR ring. Now the Lord knows where I stand! I’ll do anything the Lord asks of me.”

Elder Wakolo has become a disciple who keeps his covenants and strives to do good continually.

One night Ernestine had to go across the lake with her family in the middle of the night because a forest fire threatened their home. At 1:30 A.M. her mother woke her up, and they all loaded into the boat and went across the lake. She felt frightened, and she worried about their house. “We saw flames from clear across the lake!”
She spent that night on the boat with her mother and her sisters, Loralee (18) and Danielle. Her father, a state trooper, patrolled the lake, rescuing people. As the fire zigzagged a black path through the area, Ernestine and her family lived out of their car the next night, then went to a friend’s house for two days. They went to the meetinghouse to get clothes and supplies. When they were finally able to return to their house, she felt very thankful to Heavenly Father that it had not been burned and that almost all of the ward members’ houses were untouched by the fire.

When Tommy, Betsy, and their parents left Nauvoo, they had enough food to last for one year. They hoped this would be enough food to sustain them until they reached the valley out west and could plant and harvest their own crops. But now they were still at Winter Quarters, and they would be there until next spring.
Tommy’s mother had invited Elija and his sister Eliza, whose mother had recently died, to live with her and with Tommy and Betsy while the men were away with the battalion. Their food supply was nearly gone.
Tommy talked to Elija about this several times. “If we only had the money, we could go to St. Joseph and get what we need,” Tommy told Elija. “St. Joseph is only fifty miles away. We could take our wagons and be back in less than two weeks. I wish we knew where we could get some money!”
One day Tommy was surprised to see Parley P. Pratt ride into camp. Three weeks before, Brother Pratt, John Taylor, and Orson Hyde had left Winter Quarters for missions to England. Why is he riding back into camp alone, Tommy wondered.
Brother Pratt rode straight to the cabin where William Clayton, the clerk of the camp, had his office. Tommy watched him go inside and then waited by the door.
In a few minutes Brother Clayton called to Tommy. “Here is a letter for your mother and one for Elija. Tell your mother that Brother Pratt has returned to our camp with money from the men of the Mormon Battalion. He met the men in Fort Leavenworth and volunteered to return to Winter Quarters with the money before going on to England.”
When Tommy reached the cabin, he called for everyone to come outside. “Here is a letter for you from your father, Elija,” Tommy said. “And here is one for you, Mother.”
Tommy and Betsy listened quietly as their mother read the letter to them. “Hooray!” shouted Tommy when she came to the part that said there would be money in the clerk’s office for them to use for food.
“My father says there is money there from him for you to use too,” said Elija. “And if there is enough money left over after buying food, maybe Eliza and I can have new shoes.”
Tommy’s mother thought of the cold winter days ahead. “There will be enough left over,” she said decisively. And Tommy knew that whatever else they bought, they would buy shoes for Eliza and Elija. His mother put her arms around their shoulders and said, “It’s good to know that your father is still taking care of you even though he is far away.”

When I was getting ready to attend high school over 50 years ago, my mom and I went out to our family farm to gather fragrant plants, roots, seeds, flowers and leaves to make Tongan oil. The sun that day was very hot and scavenging for these ingredients was hard. I was not enthusiastic about crawling on my knees through the shrubs and bushes looking for these plants. At one point, I started to murmur with every step, complaining about everything. I wasn’t sure whether it was a worthwhile to spend so much time in this laborious activity; considering other things we could be doing. My rationale was that a bottle of oil could be bought in the marketplace for 10 cents; and it would be a lot less hassle.
Getting fed up with my constant nagging, my mom threw the woven basket on the ground and stood quietly for a few minutes. Then she looked straight at me and slowly said,
“Son, someday, you will understand the things that I worry about. If you go to school without a shirt on your back, people will simply say that you are poor. But if your skin is scaly and dry, your hair is not freshly covered with oil, then people will say that you don’t have a mother. Son it’s OK to be poor, but it’s a shame for my children to be in public with dry skin and wild hair that is not well groomed when their mother is still alive.”
I learned a very important lesson from my mother that day. I learned to be respectful of those older than me. She taught me that others may have more experience and wisdom to share and I would be better off listening and not complaining. My skeptical attitude got me nowhere and only hurt my mothers’ feelings.

Faith. When Elder Richards left his first mission to go home, the ship’s crossing proved to be rough. As they neared the American shore a terrible storm arose. Gigantic waves rolled about, and everything not attached to the deck was thrown around. A sister returning from Scandinavia said, “Brother Richards, you don’t seem a bit worried.”
He answered, “Well, I don’t know what’s going to happen to you and the rest of the passengers, but I feel just as much at ease as if I were sitting in my mother’s parlor. I had a promise that if I filled an honorable mission, I’d return home in safety, and I have had the assurance that my mission was acceptable to the Lord, so I am going home.”

This advice was found and followed by Joe, who had been asked to get up at six in the morning and drive a crippled child 50 miles (80 km) to a hospital. He didn’t want to do it, but he didn’t know how to say no. A woman carried the child out to the car and set him next to the driver’s seat, mumbling thanks through her tears. Joe said everything would be all right and drove off quickly.
After a mile or so, the child inquired shyly, “You’re God, aren’t you?”
“I’m afraid not, little fellow,” replied Joe.
“I thought you must be God,” said the child. “I heard Mother praying next to my bed and asking God to help me get to the hospital, so I could get well and play with the other boys. Do you work for God?”
“Sometimes, I guess,” said Joe, “but not regularly. I think I’m going to work for Him a lot more from now on.”

Back in 1977-78, Southeast Idaho, like in recent years, was in the grip of a devastating drought. This is, after all, a desert where precipitation is always going to be sparse and unpredictable. The stakes in Idaho Falls where I was working that summer organized a vigil of prayer and fasting to the end that the Lord would moderate the weather for their good. I wondered at the time at their use of language—why ask for the weather to be moderated, why not simply ask for more rain? After participating with our stake in the fast, I was impressed to observe that while the historic amount of rain received in the spring and summer did not appreciably change, the timing of the rain was such that the non-irrigated dry farms in the region got the needed rain at the proper time and in the proper amounts to ensure a bumper crop. From this perspective, I have no doubt that the Lord’s hand has been manifest in moderating the climate in our mountain valleys to allow for productive agriculture. However, I am also satisfied that the active faith and work of the people of the area in building large dams and irrigation projects has also contributed hugely to making agriculture successful in Southeast Idaho.