Gospel Story Finder

Early in my life, my parents struggled in their marriage, and it affected our family. When my mother’s friend became aware of this, she said to my mother, “How about you come and learn about my church?” My mother said that she and my father were not ready for that. Her friend said, “Then why don’t you let me take your children with me?” I was five at the time. My sister was eight.
This good friend took me and my sister to church for several years. I remember experiencing the joy of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. As my testimony grew, I wished and prayed for my parents to eventually learn about the gospel. When my sister decided to be baptized, my parents felt that they needed to find out a little bit about the Church.
As my parents began to learn about the truthfulness of the gospel, I saw a change of heart in them. They were humbled, and they came to embrace the gospel. A year after they joined the Church, I turned eight and my father baptized me. Heavenly Father had heard and answered my prayers.
Three years later, the Mexico City Mexico Temple was dedicated. I had the chance to go there with my family. We knelt at a beautiful altar to be sealed together forever, and we rejoiced in the promises and hope that Jesus Christ and His gospel bring. Years later, my wife and I were sealed in the same house of the Lord.

The president of an elders quorum in one of our outstanding stakes in Brazil—I love that great people, our members in Brazil—reported phenomenal success in reactivating fifteen elders in his quorum last year. I asked the question, “How did you accomplish this?” He said, “We and the home teachers visited them often. These inactive elders knew that we really cared for them.” Their testimonies were strengthened. They and their families are now active members of the Church.

As mentioned I wanted my children to know of Jesus as I knew of him, so I started to attend the Sunday services. I grew up in a Latin based church service where prayers and hymns were all in Latin, so this was the first time I had ever entered another church and heard hymns in English. I remember the first hymn I heard was “O my Father Thou That Dwellest.” It filled me with awe and is now my favourite hymn.
Thereafter, I was invited to the Relief Society and then my baptism came around. I think the whole stake came out to see this young Scottish girl being baptised in Utah. I have since held many positions in the church, such as Relief Society President, Primary President, Stake Primary President, and Sunday school teacher. Currently, I am in charge of Public Relations and Communications for the Greenock Branch.

The tune begins as gently as a whisper, a melody that fills your soul as quickly as it fills your ears. It becomes even more memorable when the choir begins singing:
If I were there to see this man arrive, this man, a carpenter called Jesus,
When I would see thousands flock to Him, would I not follow them and hear Him?
When I would see Him, with one glance would I know Him instantly?
Would I know that He is the Christ?
Look at the choir, and you can see that all the members are singing from their hearts. Look at the accompanists carefully constructing each chord and the sound technicians balancing the entire performance into well-blended harmony. Look and see the young adults of the Pretoria South Africa Stake, themselves a blend of backgrounds and experiences, joining their voices together in praise of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And at the center of it all is a 20-year-old conductor who penned every word, composed every note, coordinated each rehearsal and performance, and created what ended up as a Christmas present for his friends, for Church members, for the community, and even for his Savior and his Father in Heaven.
Michael McLeod, who will soon be serving a full-time mission, didn’t expect his celebration to grow into such an event—performances at four chapels, each one filled to capacity with hundreds of thrilled audience members. He was simply responding to an assignment given to the young single adults (YSA) of his stake to prepare a cantata, a program of music and words to help people worship the Savior. In fact, the program was originally scheduled for June or July 2009 but after several delays was moved to December.
“When the stake YSA representatives told me what they’d been asked to do, I instantly said, ‘Why don’t we use original music instead of borrowing other people’s music?’” Michael remembers. The YSA representatives agreed. And they also knew just the right person to put it all together—Michael McLeod.
Michael is a University of Pretoria student, majoring in English and mathematics education. “What I really want to be is a teacher,” he says. But Michael has always been interested in music. In fact, he studied it seriously until he was 17.
“Music became my hobby,” he explains, “and I still love it. I love the way music is able to touch people’s hearts. I love to conduct and to feel the energy that comes from a choir, especially when it’s a gospel song. I love to watch the congregation as the music draws them in and to feel the Spirit as they feel the Spirit. I think I’ll be involved with music my whole life because it means so much to me.”
But most of all Michael loves to share his testimony of the Savior, and doing that with music at Christmastime became a perfect opportunity. “The whole point was to share our testimonies of the Savior through the music and the words of the cantata,” he says. “We wanted powerful music and at the same time to have powerful testimonies, so we used the testimonies from the scriptures of people who knew the Savior: Mary, Joseph, Anna, Simeon, Peter, James, John the Beloved, Mary Magdalene, and those Christ healed and taught. We tried to convey what they knew, and it’s powerful. We also used the Savior’s own testimony. It came together wonderfully.”

I was raised in a family that made family home evening a priority. In order to make it home in time on Mondays, we would go straight home from school without making plans to be with friends. Personal tasks, such as homework, were completed following family home evening. There really was nothing that took precedence over this special time for our family to be together.
Family home evening made an impact on us growing up not only because of the priority we placed on it but also because we worked together to make it happen. We rotated who would give the lesson, who would prepare the refreshments, and who would say the opening and closing prayers. We didn’t just listen to lessons but also had opportunities to be instructors. As a result, I was blessed to obtain a knowledge and testimony of the gospel and to have strengthened family ties.
Because family home evening has become a habit in my life, I look forward to the blessings it will bring when I have a family of my own.
Chieko Kobe, Japan

By the time Domingos turned 18, his church activity began to irritate his father.
“Dad thought seminary was getting in the way of my schoolwork, so he banned me from getting up early to go. I wanted to honor him, so I quit going. But I still did seminary at home. Then he didn’t want that either, so I put that away.
“Then he’d find me reading my scriptures and think I hadn’t done my homework, even though my grades were good. One time he grabbed my scriptures and threw them in the rubbish bin. I had spent the last two years reading them and marking them, and they are really precious to me. The next morning I was able to get them back, but I had to give them to the branch president for safekeeping.”
It wasn’t long before Domingos’s father banned him from everything related to church activity—scripture study, Mutual activities, home teaching, and, finally, Sunday meetings.
“Even though I was 18 and legally my own person, my first reaction was to obey. Really. You want to obey your father because he is your father. But I knew I couldn’t break my promise to Heavenly Father by not attending church.
“Dad said if I went that Sunday, not to worry about coming back. So I packed my bags. My prayers were very sincere that night. The next morning, when he saw me dressed up, he was furious.”
Domingos left, but his parents came to the chapel and found him. They reached an agreement that he could attend every other Sunday. “I wasn’t happy with it, but it was better than nothing,” he says.
Then the next time he got ready for church, his father again told him if he went, never to return. “The second time was just as bad, probably worse. I’d been waiting to receive my patriarchal blessing, and the patriarch, who can only come about once a year, had come from far away. I got there for the appointment, but my father came at the same time. I had to go home and missed my blessing.”
The third time that his father confronted him in a similar way, Domingos left home and moved in with his grandmother. “Eventually my mum came and said my father was all right and he wouldn’t get angry again. So I came back.”
But in the meantime, he’d developed a desire to serve a full-time mission. “I prayed, and the answer was very certain that I should go when I turned 19. From then on my mind was made up—I just needed to prepare.”
If he would complete his first year of study, the University of the Northern Territory would agree to give him two years off to serve. But he’d have to carry an even harder class load for a few months before he left. “My coordinator actually encouraged me and said the mission would be a good experience,” Domingos says. He continued something he’d done since high school—telling fellow students about the steps of repentance and the plan of salvation.
He intensified his scripture study, memorizing many passages. “The scriptures brought me peace,” he says. “They reminded me of the things I should be doing.”
He joined the full-time missionaries when they gave discussions. He often bore his testimony. He kept a journal, writing in it every day. His Church leaders interviewed him, found him worthy, and sent in his missionary application.
Then one day, this time when he returned from church, his father kicked him out for the fourth time. “It was pretty final,” Domingos says. “He was not pleased with my plans for a mission and said if I went I wouldn’t be his son anymore.”
His branch president, Michael Kuhn, invited Domingos to live in his home until the mission call arrived.
Finished with his schoolwork, Domingos filled his days with prayer, with uplifting music, with Church activities, missionary work, and study of the scriptures. Sometimes he would read the scriptures all day long.
And then the letter came: “You are called to labor in the Hong Kong Mission.” Domingos returned home for a short time to try to make peace with his family before he left. “Mainly because they knew they could not change my mind, they yielded,” he says. Before he left, the family went out to dinner together and took lots of farewell photos.
Letters written from the Missionary Training Center and from the mission field reflect the joy that quickly followed:
—“At the airport I was able to meet one of the missionaries who taught me, Elder (Hoyt) Skabelund, and his wife and baby and parents. I am slowly learning Cantonese. The people in the MTC are wonderful.”
—“I’ve received two letters from my mother. Everything is going well at home. They are being blessed greatly and they know it! My family and relatives are now happy that I am serving a mission. Surely God is a God of miracles!”
—“I have done my first street display, talking to everyone who goes by. I have taught the six discussions in Cantonese.”
—“Now I have been transferred to Macau, a Portuguese colony neighbouring the coast of China. I am pretty lucky because not many missionaries get to serve here. We are teaching an investigator, and he will be baptized. I know that God called me here to do a special work.”
—“Every inconvenience was worth overcoming to read the Book of Mormon. Every insult was worth swallowing to keep the Sabbath holy. Every moment was worth waiting for to kneel in private prayer, every pain worth enduring to attend church. Every blow was worth taking, every torment worth suffering, every tear worth shedding to come on this mission.”
Today in Macau, Elder Liao looks out the window of his missionary apartment and sees a promised land.
“When I decided to go on a mission,” he says, “I knew there would be strong currents against me. I didn’t really know the dangers lurking in the water, what might try to sting me or to swallow me up. I was only thinking about making it. Now here I am, and I know that it’s worth it.”
And he’s eager to build a bridge to help others, including his family, to cross over to the other side.

“How did family home evening get here so fast?” grumbled Jonathan to himself. He kicked at an imaginary pebble on the front step and sighed in frustration.
Last week Jonathan’s father had announced that for their next home evening they would have a family art exhibit. When he had explained that Jonathan, his brother, Tom, and his sister, Janie, were each to create a picture or some other kind of art to share, everyone had cheered at the idea. Even Mom and Dad would prepare something to be shown. “If you’d like,” Mother had added, “you can display more than one thing.”
Jonathan’s enthusiasm had quickly faded, though. More than one thing! he thought now in exasperation. I’ll be lucky to think of anything. I’ll bet when Dad made his announcement, everyone thought up a good idea right away of what they would make.
Each day Jonathan became more concerned because he hadn’t come up with an idea for his picture.
“Be creative! Use your imagination!” his mother had said. But her encouragement hadn’t helped at all.
“I don’t think I have an imagination,” Jonathan had told her. He’d hoped that his Primary class would give him an idea, but even it hadn’t helped.
Now Monday had arrived, and everyone was ready but him. All last week he’d watched Janie going in and out of her room, her hands full of paper, scissors, glue, lace, and felt-tip markers. Jonathan didn’t doubt that whatever she was making would be close to a masterpiece.
He already knew what Tom would display. For as long as Jonathan could remember, his older brother had been drawing fantastic race cars. Their bedroom walls were loaded with his art specialty. “I wish it were as easy for me to think of something to draw as it is for you,” Jonathan muttered under his breath so that Tom couldn’t hear it.
Jonathan was still thinking about his problem when his friend Marie ran across the yard toward him. “Want to play baseball?” she asked.
“Not today,” Jonathan answered. “I’m kind of busy.”
“You don’t look busy,” Marie said.
“Well, I’m busy thinking,” Jonathan answered her. “I have to come up with an idea for family home evening tonight.”
“What kind of an idea?” questioned Marie.
“An idea for my display in our family art exhibit.”
“I’ll help you think of something,” Marie said as they settled down on the front lawn. “Why don’t you draw a picture of your family?”
“I can’t draw very well,” Jonathan admitted. “Anyway, I’m trying to think of something better.”
“Don’t you have some pictures from school that you could use?”
“Sure, I’ve made lots of things at school, but everyone’s seen all that stuff.”
Suddenly Marie sat up straight and said excitedly, “Why don’t you make a chalk picture? We did those in school last year. They’re really fun, and easy too.”
Jonathan thought about it, then said, “That’s a good idea, but I don’t have any chalk.”
Marie lay back on the grass to think some more. “Maybe if we think about something else, an idea will just pop into our heads,” she said.
Both children were quiet for a moment. Then Marie pointed. “See that cloud? It looks like an elephant’s head.”
Jonathan stared up at the fat clouds dotting the sky. His face brightened as he spotted the one Marie was pointing at. “Hey, you’re right! And that one over there looks like a pony with its tail missing.”
Jonathan and Marie had a lot of fun watching the clouds change from animals to ice cream sundaes to bull-dozers to fancy ball gowns.
Suddenly Jonathan jumped to his feet and raced for his front door, shouting back, “Thanks a lot, Marie. You’ve been a big help.”
That evening when Dad called everyone together for family home evening, Jonathan ran to his room and gently picked up the blue construction paper he’d been working on since he left Marie. On it he had glued puffy cotton balls to form huge elephant ears, a roundish head, and a long trunk. Jonathan smiled as he carefully made his way back downstairs and into the living room to share his cloud picture with his waiting family. Placing his creation beside the others, he grinned and said just loud enough for Mother to hear, “Maybe I do have an imagination after all!”

When Dallin H. Oaks was seven years old, his father got very sick. For six months, Dallin’s father stayed in the hospital while doctors tried to help him get better. During this time, Dallin, his mother, and his brother and sister all prayed a lot for his father to get better. Dallin’s father even had many priesthood blessings. Dallin’s family all thought his father would get well.
When the doctors said that his father was going to die, it was hard for everyone to understand why. Had they not had enough faith?
A few days before Dallin’s father died, his mother had a very peaceful feeling. She trusted Heavenly Father’s will. It was still really hard when Dallin’s father died, but she knew things would be all right.
Elder Oaks learned that when we have strong faith in Heavenly Father, we can trust Him. He can help us through any hard time.

When my family moved to Japan, it was scary moving to a new place and making new friends. On my first day of kindergarten we were doing an art project. We had to trace our hands on paper. I noticed that a boy at my table was having a hard time tracing his hand. I wanted to help him, but I was nervous. Then I remembered that in family scripture study we had been talking about how Jesus loved and served others. I helped the boy trace his hand. It made him happy, and I felt happy too. Heavenly Father blessed me to not be nervous and helped me make a new friend too!

My name is Alan. I’m eleven years old and a member of the Blazer patrol of Boy Scout Troop 103. We don’t get to do many things with the older Scouts, so when the Scoutmaster came to our meeting and asked how many of us wanted to go on a winter campout with the troop, every hand shot up.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “I want you to cook in patrols, so start planning your menus.”
We had to plan a supper and a breakfast for six—Josh, Justin, Russel, Mark, me, and Russel’s grandpa. “Spaghetti and garlic bread,” I suggested, and everyone else thought that sounded good. We planned to make hot chocolate and French toast for breakfast.
The campout was set for the day after Thanksgiving. The weather was cold, and there were about four inches of snow on the ground. Mom bought me a new pair of moonboots, put two quilts in our heaviest sleeping bag, and made me wear long underwear, a flannel shirt and a sweatshirt under my coat, and two pairs of socks.
We met Friday afternoon in the church parking lot. The sky was dark and cloudy. We were all waiting when Dave, the assistant Scoutmaster, pulled up in his truck and began loading the tents and camping gear. He told us that the Scoutmaster had had trouble with his truck and that he’d come up later, which he did. Dave said that he could only take two passengers with him in the cab of his truck, and he chose a couple of older Scouts to ride with him. We’d have to find another ride to the camping place. My mother offered to drive the Blazer patrol to the campsite, so we all piled into our station wagon and headed for the hills south of town.
When we came to a sign announcing that we were entering a national forest, Mom asked, “Now where do we go?”
We all looked at each other. No one knew. There was an open meadow nearby where Scouts sometimes camp, and Mom said she’d see if Dave was there. He wasn’t, and I had a sinking feeling. We waited for about an hour to see if Dave would come; then Mark remembered that one of the older Scouts had mentioned something about Lead Drop.
Russel’s grandpa said that he knew where Lead Drop was, so we all got back into the station wagon and drove to a mountain road about two miles from the meadow. The road was fine for a while, but then Russel’s grandpa said that we had to turn left and go up a steep hill. Mom’s car wouldn’t make it up the snow-covered road, so we had to get out and walk from there.
A half mile from the top of the hill we found Dave and the two other boys setting up a tent. Although we were winded after our climb, we couldn’t rest. The sun was going down, and we had to get our tent up. It was an old eight-man tent, and right away we ran into trouble. We tried to drive the stakes into the ground by stomping on them with our boots, but after they went down into six inches of snow, they hit rockhard frozen ground. Luckily, Russel’s grandpa had brought a hammerhead hatchet, and we were able to drive a few stakes solidly into the ground. We had to tie the rest of the tent tabs to trees and bushes and hope that the tent wouldn’t blow away.
When we laid out the tent poles, one of them was missing. Russel’s grandpa found a stout stick, and by shifting the poles around and using the stick, we got the tent up, though one side was a little lower than the other.
By then it was dark, and we still had to cook our supper. First we had to build a fire ring, and the only place where we could find any rocks was a small stream that ran by the camp. When we started gathering rocks, Mark picked up one that was too heavy. He staggered and stepped right into the freezing water. Mark went back to the tent and changed his socks, but he had to wear the wet boots.
We dug a pit in the snow and arranged the rocks, then borrowed wood from another patrol to start our fire. Josh was in charge of cooking, so we left him to fill the water pot while we collected more firewood. I was tugging on a branch of a dead tree when it suddenly broke loose and hit Justin on the head. It didn’t hurt him, though.
We came back to camp with our arms full of wood just in time to see Josh spill the whole package of spaghetti. It looked like a porcupine sticking out of the snow. He just picked it up, snow and all, and dumped it into the pot of water and set it in the middle of the fire. We put our foil-wrapped garlic bread at the side of the fire to get warm. I knew it only took my mom about twenty minutes to cook spaghetti, so we kept testing it, but it didn’t get soft, even though we kept throwing more wood onto the fire. Josh wondered if he should have let the water boil before he put the spaghetti in.
Finally, after more than an hour, we couldn’t wait any longer. We dumped a can of spaghetti sauce into a pan, stirred it until it started to steam, and dished it up along with the spaghetti. We all stood around the fire, crunching hard spaghetti in lukewarm sauce. By that time the garlic bread had burned, but we ate it anyway.
The cold froze our backs when we faced the fire, and our fronts when we backed up to it. After Russel got too close to the fire and burned his glove, we decided to go to bed.
Russel’s grandpa was smart. He had lugged up a propane tent heater and set it up in the middle of the tent. We arranged our coats and boots around it, and Russel scorched his boots by putting them too close. Mark had to break the ice off his socks before they’d come off. We all laid our sleeping bags in a circle around the heater with our heads toward it, except Mark. He put his feet closest to the heater.
It was hard to go to sleep. The ground had looked level when we spread out the tent, but I guess the snow covered a lot of things. I kept rolling over hard bumps, and sharp things kept sticking into me.
The next morning was beautiful. But the sun gleamed so brightly that its reflection off the snow hurt my eyes. Breakfast was much better than supper. Russel’s grandpa sort of took over the cooking chore for us, and he cooked French toast until the bread was gone. Mark dropped the jar of strawberry jam on a rock and put out our fire. I had to eat my last three pieces of French toast without any jam. I’d probably overeaten anyway, because I had a stomachache the rest of the day. We used one of the other fires to finish heating water for our cocoa.
Then the Scoutmaster called us together for some activities. We divided into teams and had a stretcher race. We had to find some sticks, make a stretcher, and carry a victim back to camp. The first team to return would be the winner. We found our sticks, made our stretcher out of coats, and, since I was the smallest, I got to be the victim. We would have won, too, except one of the sticks broke and I got dumped into a snowdrift.
For the next activity, Dave gave us a compass and a piece of paper with directions on it and said that we would find a pot of hot soup if we followed the directions correctly. We took off, with Justin counting the paces and Russel pointing the compass. But something must have disrupted our compass (Mark said a plane flew over and disoriented it), because we ended up halfway down the hill. There was no soup there, so we went back to camp. But Russel’s grandpa was looking out for us. He’d stayed in camp (where we were supposed to have ended up!) and made sure the others saved some soup for us.
While we ate, a black cloud covered the sun, and the wind began to blow. The low side of our tent dipped lower, and the Scoutmaster said that it was time to go home. We threw all the gear into the trucks, stuffed the tents on top of it, buried our fire ashes in the snow and scattered the rocks, and drove off down the mountain before a snowstorm came.
When I got home, I smelled like smoke. I was dirty and hungry and wet and cold—and I’ve never had so much fun in my life!

WYNN: If she really wants to join the Church, the Lord will help prepare a way. One of my best friends was a nonmember. At first his dad wouldn’t even listen to him talk about the gospel. He wanted to be baptized, and we told him to pray about it and keep his spirits up, and the Lord would find a way. It was interesting to see how his dad changed his attitude toward the Church when he was given a little time to think about it. In about a year my friend was baptized. Just a year before, his dad had said, “There’s no way you are going to be baptized!”

Jacy stared at the night-light. It was too bright. She couldn’t sleep. She pulled her blanket over her eyes. Now it was too dark! She couldn’t sleep.
Jacy grabbed her teddy bear. It had a little bell inside that made noise. Jacy shook the bear. Ting, ting, ting went the bell. That didn’t help her sleep either.
She was so bored! There was no one to talk to! And it was too quiet and too dark.
Jacy started to cry. She would never fall asleep!
Just then her door opened softly.
“Jacy?”
It was Daddy! He came and sat by her on the bed. “What’s the matter?” Daddy asked.
“It’s too quiet! I can’t sleep. My brain just keeps thinking of things!” Jacy wiped the tears off her cheeks.
Daddy rubbed her back. “Sometimes when I can’t sleep, I sing my favorite song. And then I count my blessings.”
Daddy started singing. He sang, “Count your blessings, name them one by one. Count your blessings, see what God hath done.”
Jacy hummed along. She liked this song too.
“What are some of your blessings?” Daddy asked.
“Um, my teddy bear,” said Jacy. She waved the bear to make the bell jingle.
“That’s a good blessing,” said Daddy. “What else?”
“Daddy!” said Jacy. “Daddy is a blessing.”
That made Daddy smile.
“And Mommy,” said Jacy. “And baby Darel. He’s kind of a blessing.”
Daddy laughed. “How about your warm bed and your night-light?”
Jacy nodded. She was starting to feel sleepy.
Daddy pulled the blanket up to Jacy’s chin. “You are a blessing too, Jacy. I love you.” He gave her a kiss and closed the door behind him.
Jacy hummed the song again. “Count your blessings, count your blessings …”
And soon she was fast asleep.

“What do these scriptures teach us?” Daddy asked as he closed his Book of Mormon.
Four-year-old Tyler piped up, “Jesus said we should pray always.”
“That’s right, Tyler,” Daddy said. “Do you think you can have a prayer in your heart all day today? But don’t just pray for yourself; look for others who need blessings and pray for them, too. We’ll pray for them again when we have family prayer tonight.”
Mommy stood up. “It’s time to get the breakfast dishes done and for Daddy to go to his office.”
As Daddy walked to the front door, Tyler followed and grabbed his hand. “Daddy, I’ll try my best to find someone who needs my prayer today.”
Daddy gave Tyler a hug. “Good! I’m sure that will make Heavenly Father happy.”
Later that morning, Tyler went with Mommy to take books back to the library. He saw a lady holding a baby. The baby wouldn’t stop crying, no matter how her mom tried to soothe her. The baby looked as though she could use Tyler’s prayer. Tyler prayed in his heart, “Please, Heavenly Father, bless the baby to be happy and quiet.”
After lunch, Tyler went outside to ride his tricycle. The people who lived next door waved to him. Tyler saw Mr. Radcliffe helping his wife climb out of her wheelchair and into the car. “Heavenly Father,” Tyler prayed, “I like the Radcliffes. Please bless Mrs. Radcliffe to get well.”
That afternoon the doorbell rang. The piano tuner had come. Tyler liked to watch him use his tools to tune the piano. Tyler asked Heavenly Father to bless the piano man to do a good job.
Before Tyler’s bedtime, his family gathered for their evening prayer. “Did you find anyone to pray for today?” Daddy asked Tyler.
“I found three people who needed my prayers—a baby, Mrs. Radcliffe, and the piano man,” Tyler reported.
“That’s wonderful, Tyler!” Mommy said. “I’m sure Heavenly Father heard your prayers, and He will answer them.”
“Tyler, will you please say the family prayer tonight?” Daddy asked.
As Tyler prayed, he remembered to ask another blessing on the people who had needed his prayers that day.

As Adam Harrop walks the sidewalks of Ricks College, very few students or faculty would be able to single him out of the crowd. After all, his worn jeans, fresh haircut, and navy blue shirt are common sights at the LDS Church-owned junior college in Rexburg, Idaho.
However, beneath his common appearance, Adam is different. Not many male sophomores at Ricks are only 18 years old. Most second-year male students are 21 and returned missionaries. In addition to Adam’s unique age situation, he also holds the top student leadership position, overseeing 8,500 students at the largest private junior college in the United States.
Being student body president of Ricks College doesn’t come stress free. Especially when you’re taking a full load of classes, planning towards a degree in law or medicine. Especially when you’re also preparing for a full-time mission. Especially when you’re younger than most of the people you are leading.
But Adam Harrop knows that everything “IS OK.” The Harrop family has a saying back in Quincy, Illinois, where Adam grew up. If you’re In Scriptures and On Knees (IS OK), everything will turn out the way the Lord intended.
Adam doesn’t see his age as a disadvantage. “I still have my youthful spirit,” he says. “I want to work hard and play hard.”
It wasn’t easy from the start, however. Adam didn’t come to Ricks with a lot of leadership experience. Once he got to Ricks, he knew he wanted to develop his leadership skills. “There are a lot of people older than I am on my committees,” Adam says. “But there is a feeling of trust that has grown among the officers that has allowed me to lead them and to accomplish our goals.”
In fact, Adam’s campaign slogan last spring emphasized his energy. His signs read, “Thumbs up, step it up with Adam Harrop.” The voters said thumbs up to his ideas and elected him to the office. Adam is quick to give a thumbs up to his sister Heidi, also a Ricks student, who did “all of the campaigning,” he says. Adam has five older sisters, including Heidi.
His support of other students and leaders and, in turn, their support of him make him an approachable leader. He hopes his experience at Ricks will be a springboard toward a successful career. “Being the president has taught me time management, communication, patience, and how to get along with others,” Adam says. “It has been a big character builder for me.”
Adam spends more than 20 hours a week completing duties for his office, including attending 18 meetings each week. “I have to make good use of my time so I can study. None of us has time to waste. We all have to prioritize and know what is the most important to us.”
“If I could give advice to high school students,” says Adam, “I would say to push yourself harder and find areas in which to improve. Participate in something that will help you grow—physically, spiritually, and academically. Find out what the Lord wants you to do, not just what you want to do.”
Adam is pushing himself hard in his office and his schooling as he tries to do what the Lord would have him do. At times it seems overwhelming, but he reads his scriptures and prays. So he knows, everything IS OK.

Recently, a colleague I worked with years ago contacted me online. We have not seen each other in years. Retired now, he was less interested in discussing professional accomplishments and more interested in discussing our personal lives. Since reconnecting, we’ve kept up an online dialogue about friends, family, and life stages. He’s interested in religion now in a way that never seemed to be the case when we worked together.
“Life changes,” he wrote to me. “There are some things you have that seem deeply satisfying and that profoundly affect me. I may never join your church, but I appreciate your perspective.”

Finally, I’ll always remember a man I met when I was driving a delivery van through downtown Seattle. I was earning money for my mission. I met a wide variety of people, but Larry was the most interesting by far. I had just run some boxes into a store and was hustling back to my van when he came up alongside and extended his hand.
“Hi, my name is Larry. Will you be my friend?”
“You bet,” I agreed with a smile. It was plain that Larry was mentally disabled. I’m sure some thought it was funny he would walk up to a total stranger asking for friendship. But I believe Larry was only innocently asking out loud the same question so many ask silently, Will you be my friend? If we would all just say, “Sure,” wouldn’t it be cool? Cool-aid.
We all know how it feels to be thirsty, so thirsty we can hardly stand it. I’m convinced that’s how many in the world feel right now, thirsty for attention, approval, acceptance, and love. We can do something about it! By giving cool-aid—the coolest aid of real selfless service—to those around us, we can quench the thirst that our brothers and sisters have and leave joy that will last longer than the purple mustaches on my upper lip ever did.

Six-year-old Taylor loved stickers—big ones with lots of colors, and little ones that you could barely see. Sometimes he put them on papers or notebooks. And sometimes he put them on himself. Once he put an orange sticker on his arm, and a blue one on his chin. Another day he put a dog sticker on the toe of each tennis shoe. Today Taylor had a new sticker. He put it on his shirt, right in the middle of his chest.
Megan, his older sister, noticed the new sticker. “Where did you get that one?”
“Off the new socks Mom bought me yesterday,” Taylor said. “Isn’t it great?”
Megan leaned close enough to read the sticker on her brother’s shirt and began to chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Taylor asked defensively.
“It’s your sticker. It’s so—”
Taylor covered the sticker with his hand. “What’s the matter with it?”
Mom heard the discussion and came into the room. “What’s going on here?”
“Megan’s making fun of my sticker.”
“No, I wasn’t,” Megan responded. “I promise. It’s just so cute! Look at what it says, Mom.”
Mom lifted Taylor’s hand from the sticker and read aloud, “Stain-resistant sole.”
“What does it mean?” Taylor asked.
Mom answered with a smile, “It means that some kind of protection was put on the bottom of your socks so that they won’t get dirty as easily.”
“Don’t you get it, Mom? Taylor has a stain-resistant soul! S-o-u-l!” Megan chuckled again.
“I don’t want people laughing at me,” Taylor said, starting to rip the sticker off.
Mom reached out to him. “We’re not, Taylor. You see, soul can be spelled two ways. One way, s-o-l-e, means the bottom of your foot—that’s what the sock that this sticker was on protects. The other spelling, s-o-u-l, means you—your body and spirit together. So when Megan said that you have a stain-resistant soul, that’s good. It means that you are trying your best to do what is right and keep your soul—your body and spirit—clean.”
Taylor smiled at Megan and decided to leave the sticker on. “May I go outside to play now?”
“Sure, but come right home for dinner when I call you.”
Taylor ran out the back door and saw his brother’s skateboard. His brother didn’t like other people riding it without his permission, but he was away for the weekend. Great! Taylor thought. He put one foot on the skateboard, then thought of his sticker and took his foot off the board. He wanted to stay a stain-resistant soul.
He looked up and saw his best friend, Colby, running out of his garage. “Colby—wait up!”
“You’re just in time,” Colby said excitedly. “I’m going to light some firecrackers.”
Taylor stopped. “My mom says I’m not supposed to light matches unless a grown-up’s with me.”
“She won’t know. Come on—it’ll be fun!”
Taylor started to follow his friend. Then he thought of his sticker. Would lighting firecrackers keep my soul stain-resistant? No. Maybe there’s something else we can do. He said, “I don’t want to do that, Colby. Let’s play on the trampoline.”
Colby liked Taylor’s idea, so the two boys jumped on the trampoline until Taylor’s mom called him. Taylor hurried home.
“Wash your hands,” Mom reminded him as he rushed into the kitchen. He went into the bathroom and turned on the water. He saw Taffy, their cat. She hated water, and Taylor loved to tease her by splashing water at her. But just as he aimed his wet hands at her, he remembered his sticker. He couldn’t tease the cat and stay a stain-resistant soul, so he dried his hands, and ran to the kitchen.
His dad was just coming in from the other direction. “How’s my big boy?” Dad gave Taylor a hug. “Hey, what’s this on your shirt? Another sticker?”
“Oh, that’s a special sticker,” Mom said.
“He got it off his new socks,” Megan added.
“Stain-resistant sole?” Dad asked. “Why is that so special?”
“Don’t you get it, Dad?” Taylor blurted out. He thought about how he had resisted riding on his brother’s skateboard without permission, how he had resisted playing with fire at Colby’s house, and how he had even resisted teasing Taffy. “I’m a stain-resistant s-o-u-l!”

“Turn on your lights”—Sister Sharon Eubank’s message for October 2017—was the theme of our stake Relief Society activity for this year 2018.
The purpose was to unite sisters, increase their self-­worth, and enlighten their minds toward ministering and temple preparation.
All were excited. The preparations from the stake activity committee began. They started planning, organizing, and assigning sisters for the activity.
We were five wards and one branch, which was a big number to coordinate. Each ward’s sisters were assigned with a topic to present on the day of activity with a skit or presentation.
And these were the topics covered:
Being righteous
Being articulate/different/distinct
Being happy
Preparing for the temple
Being self-reliant
Ministering/the worth of souls
Each ward started preparing for their presentation on the activity day. The long wait came to an end.
?It was a beautiful morning. When the activity began, there were not as many sisters as was expected. However, they began with an opening hymn and prayer. And slowly more sisters started coming in. There was a message from the stake Relief Society president. She displayed different kinds of lights and explained about each light, comparing it with the qualities of the sisters. It was a beautiful message.
Then the actual part of the sisters came. It was time for them to showcase or present their topics.
Each group of sisters came forward and presented their topics in the form of skits. Every one of them had put in a lot of effort to convey the message in a spiritual way and with a little bit of humor.
We all laughed and enjoyed ourselves, but in the end of each presentation, we were touched by the Spirit for the messages they carried about how to be happy always, how to be articulate and different, how to be self-reliant, and how to prepare for the temple.
It was amazing to see how the sisters joined hands together, both young and old, in acting it out. Lastly it was concluded by the testimonies of a few sisters who strengthened ours for their commitment to the gospel.

Dear Topher,
You asked me in the letter I got from you yesterday if I was afraid to die. I guess I should be, kind of. But I don’t feel scared. Mom told me what Grandma Clanton said before she died about four years ago. She said she would be leaving Mom and the rest of us for just a little while and to not be frightened. She said she’d be happy and that we shouldn’t worry about her. That helped me a lot.
Another reason I’m not afraid is because I have a testimony of Jesus. He died so that we might all live again and so that families can be forever. I have an older brother in Heaven. Maybe I’ll be able to see him. And my Uncle Eugene. And my ancestors. I kind of got to know some of them when my parents were working on their family history. One of them, Nathan Twiggs, carried a chair on his back all the way across the plains—and not just so he would have something to sit on when he got tired walking! His grandfather, Thomas Twiggs, made it and used to sit on it with Nathan on his knees and read the Book of Mormon to him. Dad said it was in that chair that Thomas got his testimony.
If I could choose between staying or leaving, I would stay here on earth for a while because when I think of leaving my family, I feel sad. But Heavenly Father knows best, and Mom said that we were all probably both happy and sad when we left our heavenly parents to come down here.
Oh, I wish I could see that play you are going to be in, Topher! It sounds like it will be fun. I laughed when you said you brought a friend to dress rehearsal and you pointed to Bigfoot and said he was your bishop, and your friend said, “No wonder everyone is so reverent—I wouldn’t want to upset him, either!”
Take care of yourself, Topher. Kiss a kangaroo for me. I think they’re cute.
Your pen pal,
Cindy
Dear Topher,
I’m Cindy’s mother. You probably don’t know me. Or maybe you do, a little. Cindy most likely told you about her family in some of her letters. She’s told us a good deal about you.
Cindy passed away last week, Topher. She wanted me to tell you good-bye and that she would see you later. She said for you to work on your testimony every day because it will help make your trials much easier to bear. And you know what, Topher? It does. It does!
Write us when you can. We would like to keep in touch.
Love,
Cindy’s mom
Dear Cindy’s family,
I cried a lot when you told me about Cindy. Then, well, it’s hard to explain, but a warm feeling came over me. It felt like the sun when it pushes down through a bunch of dark, wet clouds. I know Cindy is happy, just as she said she would be. And what she said about you asking me to work on my testimony? Well, I am. I want one, too, so that when things get hard or confusing I can be strong—and happy, even when I’m sad.
I’ll write again soon.
Love,
Topher

As a freshman at Brigham Young University in 1969, Neil Andersen was a diligent student. However, his sister Sheri notes, “as driven as he was by education, he was always planning to go on a mission. His only question was if he was really prepared to serve. I was so impressed that faith was a choice to him.”
Elder Andersen also remembers putting the question to the Lord. As he recalled recently in general conference, the feeling came, “You don’t know everything, but you know enough.”1 Armed with that assurance, Neil Andersen accepted a mission call and served faithfully in France.