Gospel Story Finder

In Belfast, in quieter times, I had two roommates—girls of another faith whom I had met through a mutual friend. None of us had any extra money. Carol and Anne were both midwifery students, and I was saving for a postgraduate nursing course.
Our apartment was dismal, faded, and hard to bear, but we could find no other place within our means.
Nevertheless, Carol and Anne decided to call the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and offer to give a Christmas party for 12 needy children. Of course, I agreed to help with the work and the financing as did Carol’s sister Marian.
I had seen some of the miseries of the slums. The most appalling thing I remembered was a little girl in a torn summer dress sitting on the cold, windy sidewalk molding a lump of filthy clay because she had no other toy. I could not now find and help that child, but I could try to help some others.
Our Christmas tree was two feet high, decorated with nine small glass balls, one package of tinfoil icicles, and a star we had made from the foil inside a cracker box. The room was decorated with a few streamers and a dozen balloons. The food was simple—fried potatoes and sausages, grilled tomatoes, cookies, and orangeade. Fancy food is almost unknown to ghetto children, and we were afraid they would not eat anything unfamiliar.
Besides, we couldn’t afford it. The 12 gifts were small and inexpensive: a string of plastic beads, a doll’s feeding set, a young child’s picture book, small toys and games. And, remembering the girl on the sidewalk, I bought a package of clay.
The children arrived semiclean and in their best rags. Eleven, twelve, thirteen! One of the girls had come with her toddler sister, who had refused to stay at home. That presented a problem.
In those days my annual project for the Relief Society bazaar was dressing little plastic dolls in sturdy clothes for girls to play with. Several such dolls were in my room. I quickly wrapped one of them in the last scrap of tissue paper for our extra guest and hurriedly put it under the tree.
Most of the children stood in a group at the door, but one determined boy about eight years old examined all the gifts through the paper.
“If you don’t mind, Missus,” he declared, “I’ll have this game of blow football for me and me mates.”
Carol smiled but was firm.
“We’re giving out the presents at the end of the party. Right now we’re going to play some games.”
We played their games; they played our games. We told stories; they related past experiences. We sang songs and grew decidedly tired of the children’s favorite, “Jingle Bells.”
“Last year,” announced the oldest girl, trying hard to be sophisticated in an ill-fitting sheath and high heels much too large, “I was to a party in the Linen Makers’ Hall. Hundreds of us there was, and a tree 30 feet high.”
“Was it grand, but?” asked a slightly envious voice.
“It wasn’t, for no one had time to talk with us like these good ladies are doing.”
We served the simple food, which first brought forth cries of delight and then the silence of serious eating.
“Ye’ve left food on your plate,” objected our blow football elf to his neighbor.
“I can’t eat it, but,” she replied, “for I’ve never had this much food on me plate at once.”
“Give it here, then, for tis a shame to waste good food.”
He ate several children’s leavings and then conceded defeat.
He could not prevent a few scraps from going to waste. We gave him the blow football game. We gave the 12-year-old, would-be sophisticate the plastic beads.
We gave the doll’s feeding set to a seven-year-old Raggedy Ann.
“It’s no use to me, Missus. I ain’t got a doll.”
So the Relief Society lost another plastic doll. This time it was wrapped in writing paper, and we pretended it had fallen behind the tree. “Tis the best party I was ever at,” someone announced with satisfaction.
“I felt right to home.”
“Indeed it was grand, Missus,” seconded another voice. “For whenever we’uns wanted something, one of you ladies was near.”
I thought then that I had learned something about giving, but I was shortly to learn more.
The sophisticate I noticed, had traded her beads for the clay, the clay for a toy car, the toy car for the baby’s picture book.
“Sure it’ll do,” she said, trying to rewrap it. The used cellophane tape wouldn’t stick.
“And would you have a bit of string, Missus? And a pencil, please?” I produced them, wondering.
She tied the parcel awkwardly, and in large uneven letters she printed on it “TOMMY.”
She saw me looking and she explained: “Tis me wee brother, Missus. Nobody invited him to a party, and we can’t afford him no present.”
Ragged, messy little girl in your run-over, outsized high heels, I seem to remember that you are beautiful.

One yesterday special to young women is the birthday of our own organization, when President Brigham Young called his older daughters together and counseled them to turn their heads from the extravagant and foolish fashions of the world and to turn their hearts to the ways of the Lord. “Retrench,” he said, “retrench in everything that is bad and worthless, and improve in everything that is good and beautiful” (The Improvement Era, May 1969, p. 1)—a message needed more today than ever before.
This was the birth of the Young Ladies Retrenchment Society, and it started to grow from that moment. In one place, as the association began, the minutes were recorded to say, “A large and respectable congregation was in attendance.” However, a closer look at the minutes showed only two people were present—the newly called president and her secretary. But the secretary defended her entry by saying: “The minutes are correct. The president is very large, and I am certainly respectable.”

A number of years ago I traveled by chartered bus to Palmyra, New York, with 150 wonderful young women from BYU and other Utah schools. These young ladies served as special missionaries to help put on the Hill Cumorah Pageant. On our return trip we visited several Church history sites along the pioneer trail. One of these sites was the Mormon cemetery at Winter Quarters near Omaha, Nebraska. As we walked quietly up the hill containing many graves of the Saints who died there, our spirits were subdued. Located at the top of the hill is that impressive Avard Fairbanks monument with which you are no doubt familiar. It is a statue of a pioneer mother and father, a shovel in his hand, standing before the open grave of their baby. At the base of the monument in bronze are listed in alphabetical order most of the names of the 600 pioneers buried there. Those 600 are just a tithing of the 6,000 whose graves lie along the rest of the trail. Without a cue or suggestion from anyone, the girls began to sing “Come, Come, Ye Saints.” At first they sang very strongly, but as the words and spirit of that great hymn sank deeper in their hearts, their singing turned more into sobbing. By the last verse I think I was the only one still singing. As I voiced the words “And should we die before our journey’s through,” I was scanning the list of names on the bronze plaque. In the F’s two names caught my attention—Samuel Flake, age five months, and Frederick Flake, age one day. Then I stopped singing, too.

Because I studied Come, Follow Me, I think Heavenly Father helped me with school. At first I made lots of mistakes in my homework. Then my dad asked me to start by saying a prayer. After the prayer, I understood better. Soon I was no longer making as many mistakes. When my teachers received my homework, they would say, “Congratulations, Sarah! Keep doing what you are doing!”
I successfully completed my school year. And school at home went well, because we always started with a prayer, just like we do when we study Come, Follow Me.

“How many of you would like to have a ‘perfect day’?” the bishop asked the congregation. Many members raised their hands—some high, some low. A few kept their hands in their laps.
“That’s fine,” the bishop nodded. “Larry,” he asked one of the ward members, “would you like to have a ‘perfect day’? Would you please come up here to the stand? George and Ruth? Paul? Matthew and Joan? John and Helen? Ben and Carol?”
He called their names slowly, pausing briefly between each one. Many hands fell back into their owners’ laps; only a few remained held high.
“Is there a widow who would like to live a ‘perfect day’?” the bishop asked. There was a moment of silence as he looked over the congregation. “Grace, how about you?”
When those whose names he had called had reached the stand, he turned to them. “Which day would you like to be your perfect day? Tuesday? … Thursday?”
The disbelief and the embarrassed smiles on their faces showed that none of them had really expected to have to make a real commitment. Some nodded their heads yes. Others stood motionless. After several seconds, someone suggested Thursday because it would give them more time to prepare.
Smiling, the bishop said, “That’s fine. Thursday you will have a ‘perfect day.’ And since we do not have any speakers planned for sacrament meeting next Sunday, we’d like you to report your ‘perfect day’ to us.”
He turned back to the congregation. “Is there anyone else who would like to have a ‘perfect day’?” James, a teachers quorum member with a happy smile, raised his hand. He was included.
The bishop then told the congregation, “Your responsibility as ward members is to pray that they accomplish their assignment.”
How does one live to make a day perfect? That question passed through the minds of those who had accepted the bishop’s challenge. Throughout the week, whenever ward members got together, the subject of the bishop’s “perfect day” challenge came up. We were eager to hear the reports.
Sunday finally came.
Grace, a widow with short brown hair and shining eyes, was first. Her day hadn’t gone exactly as planned, she told us. She awoke with a terrible head cold—the first time in more than three years she had been ill. In revising her plans for the day, she decided to put together a scrapbook about her mother’s life, something she had been thinking of doing for a long time. Grace asked her sister to help, and they worked together to reconstruct their mother’s life story in pictures and words. It took most of the day, but the end result was a cherished scrapbook.
Grace found that her activities on that day opened up a new avenue to her. Her patriarchal blessing had said that she would work on her family history. “Because I didn’t understand family history, I just couldn’t get really interested in it,” she confessed. “But after doing my mother’s book, I decided to do one about my husband who died recently.”
She has since compiled histories of her husband, her son, and her daughter. “By cleaning out all the boxes of treasures and mementos I had been storing for years, I’ve found enough information to do the temple work for many of my ancestors,” she says. “I can see my work is just beginning. And I’m happy to do it.”
James’s goal for the day was much different. He planned to be obedient to his parents—to immediately and cheerfully do what he was asked. “It seems as if your mother always wants you to do something when your friends come over to play or when you in the most exciting part of a book,” he said. “Sometimes I stopped and told myself to do it now. At the end of the day, I was able to do it as soon as she asked. It gave me a good feeling,” he concluded.
Paul, a fifteen-year-old with a delightful sense of humor, also took the bishop’s challenge seriously. Though scripture study was not a part of his daily routine, he decided to begin the day by reading the scriptures. “I didn’t know why it was so important to me to read the scriptures that day, but it was,” he explained. “Several times Wednesday night I woke up, feeling sure that I had overslept. Finally, when my alarm went off, I reached for my Book of Mormon.”
He read for about forty-five minutes. “Reading the scriptures seemed to set the tone for the entire day,” he said. “It’s not always easy to get along with school friends, teachers, and your family, and my ‘perfect day’ was not different. I made some mistakes, but I did a lot better than I do most days.
“It also helped me to be much more aware of my blessings, of the things I should be doing, and of my mistakes,” he added. “Often during the day I wondered what I could do to be better.”
That question—What can I do to be better?”—was asked by others who had accepted the bishop’s challenge. Many of them found the answer in serving others.
George found attempting to live a “perfect day” a great challenge. “Even though I didn’t have exactly the kind of day I would have liked to have,” he said, “it made an impact on my life. I’d never even thought of trying to live a ‘perfect day’ before.”
Ruth, George’s wife, experienced an improvement in their relationship as a result of her “perfect day.” “By trying to keep my day perfect,” she said, “I realized some of the habits I had gotten into. For instance, I would suddenly get angry at George for some silly, insignificant reason. Now I’m working on correcting that.”
Recognizing faults and taking steps to overcome them was something each of those who accepted the bishop’s challenge experienced. Larry said, “Like many returned missionaries, I had fallen down in my study habits. There always seemed to be so many other things to do. So when I received this assignment from the bishop, I decided that I needed to regain that closeness to the Lord I had felt on my mission.”
Things didn’t work out quite as Larry had planned; a painful tooth ache spoiled his “perfect day.” “Still,” he says, “I don’t feel my day was a failure. I tried hard to live perfectly—in spite of my circumstances.”
For John, “Every day is a perfect day for me because of my wife Helen. To share my life with her is one of my greatest blessings. For me, a ‘perfect day’ is being together with her. We enjoy each other’s company, and we’re the best of friends.
“We start the day together in prayer and scripture study, and although we go our separate ways to work, we are spiritually together throughout the day. We like to surprise each other by putting a note expressing our love for one another in our lunch sacks.
“After work, we get home, have our evening meal, share in the chores, and then visit with each other and discuss our day’s activity, and plan for the coming day. A special activity for us each week is attending the temple, and this past week we went on our ‘perfect day.’ It’s wonderful to kneel together at the altar, holdings hands, and reliving our marriage covenants as we perform sealing work for others.”
Temple work featured in the “perfect day” for Ben and Carol. When Ben retired a couple of years ago, he and Carol accepted callings as temple workers. “The bishop’s assigned ‘perfect day’ happened to be one of the two days in the week that we serve in the temple.
“I serve as a supervisor at the temple, and I was really touched when, in a prayer meeting, the brother offering the prayer asked that the Lord watch over me, as supervisor, and bless me with a special day. He didn’t know about our ‘perfect day’ assignment, but his prayer was very meaningful to me.
“What a special place to be for a ‘perfect day.’ We were there in the Lord’s house, doing the Lord’s work, side by side with wonderful brothers and sisters, helping others on the road to the celestial kingdom.”
Matthew told the congregation that in his family’s discussion of a “perfect day,” “we came to understand the need to perfect ourselves a little each and every day. For some months, my wife Joan has been very ill, and her illness has affected the entire family. We have come to rely upon the Lord more and to daily seek his guidance, and we have come to better recognize and understand the power of the priesthood. For our ‘perfect day,’ we agreed that we continually need to be supportive of each other, and to live worthy of the blessings we receive.”
After hearing the reports of those who had accepted the “perfect day” assignment, I asked the bishop why he had issued the challenge.
“I’ve always thought about living a ‘perfect day,’” he said. “But we have so many outside influences and pressures in a regular day that we can seldom focus on the spiritual and idealistic. And we often speak about the impossibility of living a ‘perfect day’ or a perfect life. But I had a strong feeling that the time was right for the ward members to try.
“I think we discovered that we can make things a little more perfect regardless of our circumstances. None of the ward members involved in this assignment had to make an investment in money, but they did have to make an investment in time, and give of themselves.
“Many of us in the ward, not just those who had committed themselves to the challenge, also tried to live a ‘perfect day.’ As a result, we became more aware of the challenges involved in perfecting ourselves and tried harder to live worthy to have the Lord’s Spirit be with us.”
Though the bishop’s “perfect day” challenge did not cause instant changes in our lives, it helped us along the road to perfection—something we all hope to achieve.

I have always learned in Primary and at home that we should be honest. We should not keep what does not belong to us. We should return change when we receive too much at a store, and we should always tell the truth, even though we may be punished.
When I was nine, I was waiting at the school for my mother when I saw a wallet on a bench. The wallet had money in it.
I thought about what I should do. My mother works very hard to care for my two sisters and me, but things weren’t going very well at home. I thought about what I could buy.
Then I started to worry about the person who had lost the wallet. I sat down and waited, knowing that she would come to look for it. After a while, a very upset woman came by. She asked me if I had found a wallet.
I answered, “Is this it?”
Her joy was so great that she hugged me. She thanked me again and again.
At the time, I did not even think about why I had decided to be honest. But when I told my mother about it later, she said that the Holy Ghost had whispered to me and that I had listened to the still, small voice.
I am grateful for having learned to be honest.
Rudinei Antonio Fernandes Filho, age 11São Paulo, Brazil

Before coming to BYU–Hawaii, some of my biggest educational highlights involved my travel with American students to foreign countries. In a sense this has proven true for my time at BYU–Hawaii; however, the roles are somewhat reversed as I have had these memorable experiences traveling with diverse groups of BYU–Hawaii students to the American mainland. For the past two years, I have been lucky enough to accompany Brother Jared and Sister Stephanie Marcum with two groups of students from Oceania and Asia to learn about early Church history. We traveled to many of these sites in the northeastern and central United States with the hope that students would be able to understand through literature, travel, and Church history the early American religious contexts in which the Restoration occurred by visiting important sites where the gospel was restored.

For me, most moving are the trips to the Sacred Grove historic site in Palmyra, New York, where Joseph Smith’s First Vision took place. On our visit there, we were given the time to wander around the woods and trails where the vision occurred. Alone with my own thoughts, I wondered if I had prepared the students well enough to appreciate the importance of the First Vision. It has certainly played an important role in my own testimony, and, as an American literature professor, I wanted to make sure that they had read the right things and were prepared to understand it in relation to the American philosophers and writers we were reading about. I felt that I had something important to teach my students who came from other parts of the world about the importance of this moment so it could deepen and strengthen their convictions. After we silently walked and contemplated for about 30 minutes, Brother Marcum had us participate in a small testimony meeting, just on the outskirts of the grove.

This informal meeting quickly became one of the most memorable experiences of my teaching career. I noticed a pattern that developed as the meeting went on with student after student testifying to the power of the First Vision in their own lives, even though they had grown up thousands of miles and two-hundred years away. Each student shared an intimate connection to the struggles that Joseph Smith and his family had in trying to follow the convictions of their testimonies that echoed many of the trials for them and their families in their own homelands.

As students bore testimony about answers they had received to their own struggles with faith and shared worries with each other about the state of their own souls, they found in Joseph a kindred spirit, kneeling in the Sacred Grove, believing that an Eternal God had an interest in the welfare of his soul. As each student walked to the front of the meeting, it was almost as if I watched Joseph, over-and-over again, walk into the grove with the same concern for his salvation. In a way, I had my own minor vision there that helped me realize the enormity of the truly prophetic work that Joseph was to undertake and that we are all inheritors of that legacy, no matter what background we come from. As I saw the role of the Restoration in the lives of my students and witnessed their own vision of the Savior in their lives, my understanding of the significance of the First Vision grew far richer and more expansive.

Ho Yung was baptized in Lake Michigan. Some of the promises she made to Heavenly Father at that time were that she would try to be like the Savior and be kind and loving to other people, that she would attend her Church meetings, that she would obey the commandments, that she would have faith in Jesus Christ, and that she would take His name upon her. She knows that He helped people who were sick or injured, and she tries to be like Him by helping her sister, who is disabled. Ho Yung helps her eat, gets things for her, helps her get dressed, plays with her, and does whatever else she can for her. She says she feels good when she helps her sister—and everyone.

Some years ago while I was serving as a ward clerk, the ward supplies for the new year arrived on my doorstep. Among the numerous boxes, one box addressed to the ward clerk caught my attention. Taped to the box was a tag with bold type: “If all else fails—Please! Follow instructions.”
I did not consider this generic, and I was sure that someone at Church headquarters knew me personally.
Although humorous at the time, the image of this little tag has permanently attached its message to my mind: “If all else fails—Please! Follow instructions.”

1 Wilford loved to play with his two brothers, Thompson and Azmon. They spent many happy hours playing in the barn or outside in the fields.
2 One Saturday evening the boys were sitting around the house, bored. Thompson suggested that they explore the attic.
3 The boys’ father had told them not to play in the attic. It was dark and dangerous. Wilford hesitated because he didn’t want to disobey his father. But the mystery of the attic attracted him, and he agreed to join in the adventure.
4 The boys raced up the stairs, eager to see what treasures they would find in the forbidden room.
5 However, just before Wilford got to the top stair, he tripped and fell all the way to the bottom.
6 Wilford felt a horrible pain in his arm, and he knew that he had broken it. It took a long time for his arm to heal, and Wilford learned how important it was to be obedient.
7 From then on, not only did Wilford obey his parents, he also obeyed the Lord. And many years later, Wilford Woodruff became the fourth President of the Church.

When I was seven years old, my mom and dad befriended a less-active family in our ward that consisted of a single mother and her two sons. My older brother, John, and I were the same ages as the two boys, Robin and Shannon, so it seemed appropriate that we extend a hand of fellowship.
The family didn’t own a car, so my father offered to pick them up at their home in a nearby city and give them rides to and from church. I remember the days Dad summoned my brother and me to accompany him to pick them up. I begrudged it at the time, but despite my groaning, Dad continued to give them rides until they were actively attending church and had their own car. Robin and Shannon were soon baptized and confirmed, and their mom began participating in Relief Society. I didn’t realize at the time the positive repercussions that would come from this act of service.
A few months before I began eighth grade, my dad passed away. To compound my grief, I was insecure about my physical appearance and lack of friends. I began to succumb to feelings of despair, and I spent my lunch hours walking to my house and back because I couldn’t bear sitting alone.
That same year, the family we had befriended moved into our school district, and Shannon began attending my school. We became immediate friends. I felt accepted, and I was no longer so sad. Knowing that someone enjoyed being my friend boosted my confidence and self-worth. I no longer had to spend my lunch hour by myself.
Our friendship deepened during high school. When our older brothers left for college and missions, Shannon and I became surrogate brothers. We received our Eagle Scout Awards at the same court of honor, went to the same university, left on missions during the same summer, and became roommates afterward. We were both married in the Salt Lake Temple to wonderful women, and our first children were born within three months of each other.
One evening shortly before Shannon’s wedding, we began talking about our childhood. I told him how he had helped me overcome my insecurities and cope with the death of my father. It was his friendship, I added, that had helped me turn my life around. Shannon then told me that if my dad had not given his family rides to church, he would not have attended church, served a mission, and been sealed in the temple.
The Spirit touched me strongly during that conversation as I realized the blessings that a simple ride to church had on our lives. As I reflected on Shannon’s friendship, I realized that my father not only helped save Shannon’s family, but he also prepared a friend who helped save his own son.

Education is helping Christina Augerea from Hula, Papua New Guinea, accomplish her goals. Ever since she was little, she has had a love of reading and the goal of attending university. Her love of reading is what led her to the Church.

“When I was in fifth grade, we didn’t have books at my school,” she says. “My teacher was a Church member. She didn’t have other books, so she gave us the Book of Mormon.”
Years later, Christina served a mission in the Philippines and then started attending Brigham Young University–Hawaii, where she is working toward law school with a double major in political science and business administration and a minor in Mandarin.
Christina’s story came full circle after the COVID-19 pandemic forced her to return home. One day while visiting her village, she learned that the library at her primary school was infested with termites. With the help of local organizations and the Church, Christina oversaw the construction of a new library, with systems in place that will keep it running for many years.
As happy as she is that she was able to help her community, Christina explains that it took a lot of faith and work to get where she is now. “I know how it feels when you don’t have anything but you want to study,” she says. And through all her experiences, she has learned a lot about the value and purpose of education.
Our Church leaders often teach that it’s important to seek whatever education we can. “The Lord and His Church have always encouraged education to increase our ability to serve Him and our Heavenly Father’s children,” taught President Henry B. Eyring, Second Counselor in the First Presidency.2
But, as Christina shares, education is more than just sitting in a classroom. “One of my professors told us that learning is not just about getting grades, a certificate, or eventually a job. It’s about understanding concepts.” And in order for education to really make a difference in your life, what you learn has to become a part of you. “You have to love learning,” Christina adds.
There are many ways we can become educated. “We don’t just learn in school,” Christina says. “We also learn in the Church. We learn at home. We can learn everywhere.” As we take advantage of opportunities to expand our knowledge, we become more educated, and the process of learning becomes more central to our lives.
Christina testifies that knowledge is key to helping each of us “prepare to meet God” (Alma 34:32). “We can grow and reach our potential by learning,” Christina says. As we humbly seek knowledge, we become more like our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and prepare to live with Them again.
By unlocking our personal potential, education also increases our ability to serve others. President Russell M. Nelson said, “Education is the difference between wishing you could help other people and being able to.”3
This is one of the biggest blessings that Christina has seen from education. “Education gives me the confidence to know that I can teach skills to others,” she says. “Even teaching in the Church is a lot of responsibility. So having confidence to be able to teach the young women or youth is amazing.”
Gaining an education takes persistence and strength—but it’s possible. At first, Christina didn’t know how she would accomplish her goals. “I didn’t know where I would get the money,” she says. But Christina found that when you trust in God and seek His help, He will help you accomplish what He needs you to do.
“With all my dreams and plans, two things that I always asked Heavenly Father for was to teach me what I could do and how I could do it. And He never left me. He knew that there was something better for me, and He guided me. I knew all those times that Heavenly Father was with me and that He still is.”
And as we seek Heavenly Father’s help, He will bless us with opportunities to gain more education and knowledge.
Christina knows that gaining an education is worth the effort. “I would tell people who think that they can’t do it to remember the huge potential God has given us. We can unlock that potential by believing that He has given it to us.”

When our only daughter, Lindsay, was young, she and I enjoyed watching movies together. One that we enjoyed and watched together many times was an animated film called Finding Nemo. In the movie, Nemo is caught by a scuba diver and ends up in a fish tank in a dentist’s office. His father, Marlin, is determined to find Nemo. Marlin meets a fish named Dory during his journey. They face obstacle after obstacle as they try to find Nemo. Whether the obstacle is big or small, Dory’s message to Marlin is the same: “Just keep swimming.”
Several years later Lindsay served a mission in Santiago, Chile. Missions are hard. Disappointments are many. Each week at the end of my email I wrote, “Just keep swimming. Love, Dad.”
When Lindsay was expecting her second child, she found out that her unborn baby had a hole in his heart and that he had Down syndrome. As I wrote to her during this very difficult time, I closed my emails, “Just keep swimming.”
Obstacles come into each of our lives, but to get through them and to get where we want to go, we must keep swimming.

Amelia never expected things to be free or to come easily. She knew that most important things had a price, and she always felt that if she truly wanted something, the price was worth it. When she first wanted to take flying lessons, she was living in California. Her father told her that the thousand-dollar lessons were too expensive. Instead of being discouraged, Amelia found a job at the telephone company and worked long hours to pay for the lessons.
Amelia did as much flying as she could in those early days of aviation, and in 1928 she was invited to become the first woman to cross the Atlantic Ocean in an airplane. She was only a passenger then, but in 1932 she decided to cross the Atlantic again—this time as the first woman pilot to fly across it!
On the evening of Friday, May 20, 1932, she took off from Harbour Grace, Newfoundland. Early in the flight the altimeter, which measures the distance an airplane is above the ground or water, stopped working. It was a very dark night, and clouds blocked out the light of the moon. A lightning storm arose. Visability was poor, and Amelia couldn’t see how high above the water she was. She decided to try flying above the clouds where she would have moonlight and be safely away from the storm and the ocean. However, as she climbed through the cloud layer, ice formed on the plane’s wings. The extra weight caused the plane to go into a spinning dive. As the plane came closer to the surface of the water, the ice melted from the wings and Amelia was able to pull the plane out of the spin. But she had been close enough to the ocean to see the whitecaps on the waves.
Later during the same flight Amelia noticed flames trailing from a broken weld in the manifold of her engine. If the flames caused the manifold to weaken and break apart, the airplane might crash. Amelia could have turned back to Harbour Grace, but “there was nothing to do about it … ,” she said. “So it seemed sensible to keep going.” Although the flames never ceased and the manifold rattled steadily, Amelia made it to Ireland. She landed there in a pasture rather than continuing on to Paris as she had planned.
In her lifetime Amelia broke several long-distance flying records. She believed that one day everyone would fly from one part of the world to another and that nations and peoples would therefore come to understand each other better. She knew this could only happen if difficult exploratory flights were made first in order to learn important information about piloting, flying conditions, and airplane design and safety. “Every flight … is potentially important,” she said. “It may yield valuable knowledge. We can look at all flights across the Atlantic and see that each, in its way, has done some definite good.”
When she wasn’t flying, Amelia kept busy by lecturing, writing, counseling at a university, and helping to start a number of commercial airline services. In 1931 she married George P. Putnam, a book publisher.
In spite of her time-consuming activities, Amelia still felt that she needed to make one more long-distance flight. She told her husband that it would be her last long flight.
On January 11, 1937, Amelia started her flight by flying west from Oakland, California, to Hawaii. Then she had an accident while trying to take off in Honolulu, and she was delayed several weeks until major repairs were completed on her Lockheed Electra airplane. During this time it was decided that Amelia should fly around the world going east instead of west.
It was May 1937 when she finally took off from Oakland again. Amelia said she was just making a test flight. On board with her were Fred Noonan, her navigator; Bo McKneeley, her mechanic; and her husband. Things went so well, however, that they continued on to Miami, where on June 1 Amelia and Fred Noonan took off to finish the eastward flight around the world. A month later, on July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart’s plane was lost while she was trying to locate Howland Island in the South Pacific Ocean. She had completed more than two-thirds of her around-the-world flight. Neither she, Fred Noonan, nor the airplane were ever found.
Amelia deserved the tribute that newspaper columnist Walter Lippmann had previously written about her: “The world is a better place to live in because it contains human beings who will give up ease and security, and stake their own lives in order to do what they themselves think worth doing.”

One of the most powerful reverence lessons in my life occurred nearly thirty-five years ago. After completing our studies at BYU, Diane and I moved to Honolulu to begin the next season of our lives. It turned out to be a long season—twenty-seven years. Only a call from a prophet caused us to leave Hawaii.

The Hawaii Temple—now known as the Laie Hawaii Temple, as there are two temples in Hawaii—was first dedicated by President Heber J. Grant on (appropriately) Thanksgiving Day, November 27, 1919. It was the first temple built outside of Utah, except for the temples in Kirtland and Nauvoo. For nearly six decades it served the Saints in Hawaii and, for much of that time, those throughout the Pacific and Asia. In the mid-1970s there was need for the temple to be closed, enlarged, and renovated. Consequently the temple had need for rededication, which occurred on June 13, 1978.

Presiding at the rededication was the president of the Church, Spencer W. Kimball. With him were his first and second counselors, N. Eldon Tanner and Marion G. Romney. Also attending were Ezra Taft Benson, the president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and others of the Twelve and the Seventy. It is not something you would see in the larger Church of today, having that many of the senior Brethren together for an event away from Church headquarters. But that was our blessing in 1978.

I was a young priesthood leader at the time and was asked by the temple rededication coordinating committee to be responsible for local security and transportation arrangements for President Kimball and his party. I do not want to overstate my responsibilities—they were simply supportive and “behind the scenes.” However, what my assignment did allow was proximity to President Kimball. For a weeklong period that included three days of temple rededication sessions, a solemn assembly, and a large regional conference, I observed the president of the Church close-up. I watched him teach, testify, and prophesy with authority and with power. I saw his tireless effort to minister to “the one,” asking to meet privately with individuals he noticed in meetings or along the way. I witnessed him continually being used as “an instrument in the hands of God” (Alma 17:9). I was profoundly impressed!

At the week’s conclusion we were at the airport for the departure of President Kimball and his associates. Again, emphasizing my limited and supportive role, I share the following. President Kimball came to me to thank me for my meager efforts. Physically he was not very tall, and I am a large man. He grabbed me by my jacket lapels and sharply yanked me down to be at his height. Then he kissed me on the cheek and thanked me. After walking away a few steps, President Kimball returned. He grasped me in the same way and pulled me down again. This time he kissed me on the other cheek and told me that he loved me. Then he departed.

The year before, a biography of Spencer W. Kimball had been published, written by his son and his grandson. At that time I had obtained it and read it, and I found it interesting. However, after this very personal experience with Spencer Woolley Kimball, I went home from the airport and pulled that thick volume from our library shelf, feeling an intense desire to read it again. Over the next several days—every waking hour I was not otherwise obligated—I was reading and reflecting. You see, I was now reading about someone whom I deeply loved. I was now reading about someone who I knew loved me. I was now reading about someone for whom I would do anything, because I knew whatever he asked would be for my own best good.

Through the exhilaration of that experience I had another experience. This one is too personal to share, but through it I felt deeply ashamed. I comprehended that I did not have that same love and respect—reverence—for Those who matter the most: the members of the Godhead and, specifically, God’s Only Begotten, the Savior and the Redeemer. This motivated me to study His “biography” and, through prayer and fasting and pondering, to know that I was now reading about someone whom I deeply loved. I was now reading about someone who I knew loved me. I was now reading about someone for whom I would do anything, because I knew whatever He asked would be for my own best good.

My dear friends, I testify that this knowledge has made all the difference in my life and in our family. I hasten to add that it has not magically made us without blemish and it has not necessarily made life easy. That would be contrary to God’s plan. But what it has provided is hope—“a perfect brightness of hope” (2 Nephi 31:20). There has never been a thought of giving up, quitting, or retreating. I wish the same for you.

It was the last of February in 1923, and the wintry wind rustled the curtains as it forced itself through a crack in my frozen window sill. Poking my head out from under the heavy feather tick quilt, I watched my breath turn into a misty, cold fog.
Last night we had finished the last of the potatoes, and Mom had told us that there wasn’t any more flour to make bread and that we’d have no more to eat until noon today. All we had left in our food storage were carrots and bottled tomatoes, so I knew it was going to be a long day.
I heard muffled voices. That meant that Mom and Dad were up and that a fire would be going in the kitchen stove. That’s the only room we could afford to heat this winter. At least I could get warm. I shivered once, pushed the heavy quilt aside, jumped into my clothes, and made a dash for the stairs. It took no more than a few seconds to reach the warm kitchen, but I was shaking from the cold before I got there.
“Well, good morning, sleepyhead. It’s already ten o’clock,” Mom greeted me, smiling. She always smiled, even when things weren’t going well. This had been one of those not-going-well winters. Dad had only been able to work a month since last November, and he’d earned only thirty dollars all winter.
My three brothers and two sisters were already nestled around the small potbellied stove. I was so cold that I wanted to hug the stove, but I settled for huddling near it and holding my hands out to its warmth. Mom and Dad were sitting across from each other at the wooden table, talking quietly.
“No, we’re going to pay it,” I heard Dad say in a low voice. “It’s not ours, and it isn’t right that we use it.”
“But, Ray, the children,” Mom said pleadingly.
“The Lord will provide, Sarah,” Dad said reassuringly. “We have to trust Him.”
I stood and looked over Dad’s shoulder. On the table were three dollars—enough to buy flour, potatoes, and even a little meat!
“Wow!” I blurted out. “With all that money we can eat again! We won’t have to eat those crummy canned tomatoes today.”
That was a mistake.
“Son, that’s tithing money,” Dad said. “It’s not ours; it’s the Lord’s. I planned to give it to the bishop long ago, but it slipped into the lining of my jacket, and I didn’t find it until this morning. I’ve been worrying about how to replace it, but now I can take it to the bishop today.”
“But, Dad!” I protested.
That was a mistake too. I got the lecture of my life on tithing. I’d heard it all before, but I got the whole sermon about how the Lord requires a tenth of our earnings, how it’s not really ours, and how if we pay the Lord first, He’ll provide for us. But my stomach just wouldn’t let me forget what that three dollars could buy and how that food would taste. I tried to reason with my father: “The Lord loves us doesn’t He, Dad?”
“Yes.”
“He doesn’t want us to starve to death, does He?”
Dad didn’t respond, so I gathered courage and continued. “Wouldn’t He understand if we used the tithing money this time? We could pay it back when you get more work.”
Dad looked at me for what seemed like hours. Finally he said, “Son, the Lord will provide. Three dollars won’t buy very much food, but it will provide a lot of blessings.” That was it. No more arguments. The tithing would be paid.
There were a few silent minutes before Dad got up, put on his coat, and handed me mine. “Thomas,” he said, “I’d like you to go with me to see Bishop Rawlings.”
The winter wind bit into my face as we trudged to Bishop Rawlings’s house. We walked in silence except for the occasional growling of my stomach. I knew Dad was trying to teach me something, but my stomach wasn’t cooperating.
When we reached the small white frame house, we were greeted cordially by the bishop. I felt the warm glow of a fire as we stepped inside the house. Dad and the bishop talked for a minute, then tears welled up in my eyes as I watched Dad give him the three dollars.
Sister Rawlings appeared in the kitchen doorway with bread dough on her hands. “Brother Brown,” she said, “could you wait for a loaf of this bread I’m baking? It’s a new recipe, and I’m anxious to see if your family likes it as much as we do.”
“Thank you, Sister Rawlings,” Dad said. “We need to get right home now, because Sarah will have dinner waiting. But if you’d like, Thomas will be glad to run back for it later.”
The cold wind stung even harder as we headed for home and the tomato-and-carrot dinner. A loaf of bread was not my idea of the Lord’s providing. As if he knew what I was thinking, Dad stopped and put a hand on my shoulder. His other hand wiped the tears from my eyes. “Thomas, the Lord will provide,” he said.
Dad was right, I knew. And though it’s hard to trust in the Lord when your stomach’s empty, I decided to give Him a chance. I walked with my shoulders straight and told myself, The Lord will provide!
We were passing Harland’s Market, about three blocks from home, when we met Mr. Gates. “Ray,” he said, greeting my father. “I’m glad to see you.”
Dad and Mr. Gates spoke for a bit about old times; then Mr. Gates said, “Ray, here’s the ten dollars I owe you.” I watched as he handed my father a shiny ten-dollar gold piece!
“What’s this for, Lee?”
“Three years ago, when I was in need, you gave me ten dollars,” Mr. Gates said. “Now I can pay you back.”
I didn’t hear the rest of their conversation. All I could do was stare at the ten-dollar gold piece that Dad was holding.
When Mr. Gates finally left, Dad placed the shiny coin in the palm of my hand. “Would you like to do some shopping before we go home?” he asked, smiling. “I guess Heavenly Father thinks we should have something more than carrots and canned tomatoes for dinner. What do you think?”
My stomach rumbled happily as we turned into Harland’s Market.

I was going to tell you the story of a friend who recently joined the Church. Rather than do that, I am going to ask him to tell it himself.
May I introduce Brother William Sheffield, who was baptized last November. Brother Sheffield, come and tell us of your experience.
William Sheffield: My dear brothers, following law school at Berkeley, I developed a successful private practice, particularly with international clients, including Indira Ghandi, former prime minister of India.
For years as a lawyer I had sought a judicial appointment. The day the governor of California called to say I had been appointed to the Superior Court was exhilarating and filled with visions of perhaps, someday, even the Supreme Court. But then, after less than two years as a judge and after just purchasing a new home, we decided to leave this nearly idyllic life. I had heard the Lord call me to the seminary. In response, my wife and I agreed that from then on we would always trust in the Lord, agreeing to be as leaves in a stream—two leaves in His stream, obeying His call, wanting more than anything else to follow Him.
But I had not always followed Christ. For many years, I was uncertain who He was or how I could get close to Him. Almost daily I silently asked myself: Is there a purpose to life? Why am I here? Where am I going? Is the meaning of life found in chasing after the most pleasurable way to get through it—or is there something more? My Christian friends told me all I had to do was “knock and the door will be opened unto you, seek and ye shall find.” (See Matt. 7:7.)
I began knocking. And as I knocked, the Lord answered. Like a seed growing within me, the gospel began taking over my life. I felt the Spirit calling me. I applied at the Yale Divinity School and was accepted. I resigned my judgeship, we rented out our home in southern California, and headed to New Haven, Connecticut. I was in the divinity school though not yet a member of any church.
Arriving in New Haven, we began searching for a home near the campus. However, the Lord had other ideas. Try as we did, we could not find the house we wanted near Yale. Looking back, I now know why. The Lord wanted us in a very special ward about forty miles south of Yale, the New Canaan First Ward.
Many miracles later we found ourselves attending our first Sunday sacrament meeting in this ward. We were received as though we were expected. We had not been inside the building longer than about five minutes when we were introduced to the bishop and his counselors and invited to a dinner party that week. But my attention was first captured by the radiant spirituality of particularly the male members. I wondered: How could they live their professional lives in the fastest fast lane of them all, New York City, yet continue to radiate such a deep spirituality? What was it that caused the tears to well up in their eyes as they testified that Christ lives and the Church is true? I needed to find out.
But I didn’t particularly want to be a Mormon, I told my friends. Since I was in the divinity school, I presumed the Lord wanted me in the ministry. What would I do after graduating with an advanced degree in religion if I became a Mormon? Yet I wanted to be the leaf in a stream that I had promised the Lord I would be when we left California.
During the entire time that I was working through, struggling with, and fighting the Joseph Smith story, my friends in the ward were patient, loving, and gentle. Every time I would tell the bishop that Joseph Smith’s story was more Disney than Disney, he would tell me, “Maybe so—but it’s all true.” Every time I would tell the bishop’s counselor, “Joseph’s story can’t be true,” he would say to me, “Yes, it is.” They genuinely loved me, and I them.
For months I examined, cross-examined, reflected, pondered, and prayed about the Joseph Smith story and the Book of Mormon. I found the book complex, sophisticated, doctrinally profound, and beautiful. The more I studied the text, the more profound and beautiful it became.
Much happened over the months. I told my friends and my wife, who was an inactive Mormon and who was beginning to feel some interest in the faith of her forebears, that I would not join the Church to please them, as much as I loved them. I would join only when I had a testimony—when I could say, as a direct witness, that I know Joseph Smith was a prophet, that the Book of Mormon is gospel, and the Latter-day Saint church is His church.
In September of last year, the Lord blessed me with that testimony. I now know, without any doubt or uncertainty, without even the ability to conjure up an imaginary doubt, that in the premortal life the Lord selected Joseph Smith as His prophet in the latter days, that the Book of Mormon was preserved by Christ Himself and delivered to Joseph Smith for translation, and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His church.
I owe a great debt to the New Canaan First Ward and to my dear wife. Their patience, their steadfast loyalty to the restored gospel, and their love for me all combined together to affect me eternally.
I still am uncertain as to what the Lord has in mind for me when I graduate from the Yale Divinity School, but I know this: my wife and I will always continue to serve God, in His church, as leaves in a stream.
I say this in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Fifty-seven years ago, on July 16, 1953, my beloved Jeanene and I knelt as a young couple at an altar in the Manti Utah Temple. President Lewis R. Anderson exercised the sealing authority and pronounced us husband and wife, wedded for time and for all eternity. I have no power to describe the peace and serenity that come from the assurance that, as I continue to live to qualify, I will be able to be with my beloved Jeanene and our obedient children forever because of that sacred ordinance performed with the proper priesthood authority in a house of the Lord.

Our seven children are bound to us by the sacred ordinances of the temple. My precious wife, Jeanene, and two of our children are beyond the veil. They provide a powerful motivation for each remaining member of our family to live so that together we can receive all of the eternal blessings promised in the temple.

When my wife was carrying our third child, our second child was severely ill. Jeanene would hold him on her lap while they did fluoroscopic examinations. She received excessive radiation, and as a result she was unable to have additional children, and the one that she was carrying passed away prematurely. But we have them. They were born to us in the covenant. That is the blessing of the ordinances of the temple. Even though this mortal probation was for different lengths, those who were sealed to us with the holy priesthood through the ordinances of the holy temple will be ours for forever.

I know that I will have the privilege of being with that beautiful wife, whom I love with all my heart, and with those children who are with her on the other side of the veil, because of the opportunities made possible through the eternal ordinances that were performed in the Manti Temple. What a blessing to have once again on the earth the sealing authority, effective not only for this mortal life but for the eternities.

Now, as I have pondered and prayed about what I might say to you, my thoughts have taken me to an experience I had in Sun Valley, Idaho, when I was your age. Being a Logan boy, I chose to go to school at Utah State University, and, following in my father’s and friends’ footsteps, I joined a fraternity. That fraternity had a tradition of holding what they called the “Spring Formal,” a dance held on a long weekend that was always held off campus. It was an exciting time, a chance to get away, and for me that year it was also a chance to spend some time with Mona, whom I had fallen in love with. We had a great time on Friday and Saturday exploring the sights and surroundings, and the weekend culminated with a dance at the Sun Valley resort on Saturday night. Of course, we were up late. After we dropped off our dates and returned to the condominium some of us returned missionaries were staying at, someone asked about going to priesthood meeting early the next morning. Well, I said I was going to go. There were no other takers. In fact, there were a lot of excuses about it being so late and needing to sleep in, and there were a few pokes about my being self-righteous. Nonetheless, I determined I was going to go.

Priesthood meeting started at 7:00 a.m. That made for a pretty short night. I got up early, quietly got ready, and left the extremely dark and quiet condo alone. I drove to the meetinghouse, and as I pulled into the parking lot, I noticed there were no cars there. I thought, “Well, I must be early, and everyone is running on Mormon standard time.” As I approached the door, I saw a piece of paper taped to the glass with a hand written message that read, “No meetings today. Stake conference in Ketchum.”

I got in the car and started to drive back to the condo. I thought, “Boy, am I going to take a ribbing for getting up so early to go to church only to find that there were no meetings to go to. I’ll be laughed at, and my friends will feel justified in their decision to sleep in.”

Even now I find it difficult to describe what happened next. An overwhelming feeling of love came over me, and a voice seemed to whisper to me that my effort, my willingness to be obedient, and my sacrifice were recognized by the Lord. He knew what was in my heart, and He accounted it unto me for righteousness.

Well, I did take a ribbing. My friends laughed at me, and they felt justified in their decision to sleep in. But I knew the Lord knew what was in my heart and He had confirmed this to me in a very personal, special, and sacred way.

I have since pondered that experience and cherished the memory of the feelings that I had at that time. I call it my “Sun Valley experience.”

Hal nevertheless completed his degree in physics in 1955 before entering the U.S. Air Force. The Korean War had recently ended, and the number of young men called as full-time missionaries from each ward had been restricted. For a period of time the Mission Home in Salt Lake City was closed, and no missionaries went into the field. In a blessing, however, his bishop promised him that his military service would be his mission. Two weeks after arriving at the Sandia Base near Albuquerque, New Mexico, Hal was called as a district missionary in the Western States Mission—a calling he fulfilled in evenings and on weekends during the two years he was in the military.