Gospel Story Finder

The Lord placed me in a home with loving parents. By the world’s standards, they were very ordinary people; my father, a devoted man, was a truck driver; my angel mother, a stay-at-home mom. The Lord helped me find my lovely wife, Melanie; He prompted a businessman, who became a dear friend, to give me an employment opportunity. The Lord called me to serve in the mission field, both as a young man and as a mission president; He called me to the Quorum of the Seventy; and now He has called me as an Apostle. Looking back, I realize I did not orchestrate any of those moves; the Lord did, just as He is orchestrating important moves for you and for those you love.

Another story of a different kind of courage is told of Ruth Campkin Randall, a tiny mother who had spent enough time on the frontier to become accustomed to its risks. As a safeguard from marauding enemies around Pine, Arizona, where she lived, a stockade was built. When an Indian or other raid was reported, all the residents were to get into this enclosure for protection. This occurred frequently enough that Ruth got tired of it. Finally, when a call came for all to go to the fort, Ruth said, “No, I have been dragged from pillar to post and from the post to hell, and I am not going to the fort. I’m staying right here.”11 Others soon decided she was right; there was no longer any point in running to the fort every time some Indians were headed in their direction.

I am grateful for my father’s good example, and we should always remember that our own example will have its effect on the lives (and vocabularies) of others. I once visited a friend who had two boys about four and five years old. They were playing at repairing machinery, and one of them was astraddle a grain auger. He had some wrenches and was playing like he was turning the bolts, and as he turned he was swearing a blue streak. He was hammering with the wrench and calling the bolts all kinds of profane names, and his little brother was doing the same. Where had they learned that? From watching their father and older brother repair the machinery, of course!

My dad said he had a big deal going that would make us rich, but he had to leave town to go to Mexico for a few days. He asked if we’d be all right, and we said yes. He gave me 50 dollars for groceries, hugged us, said good-bye, threw his sleeping bag into his ’67 Ford, and left. That was four months ago.
There are just the three of us kids. My name is Jed, and I’m 13. I have a ten-year-old brother Sam. My seven-year-old sister is named Marcie.
We’ve had a couple of mothers. My real mother died when I was nine years old. She was a Mormon and had me baptized when I was eight. Sam and I went to Primary until she died. It was the month of March when she died. I remember how much the wind tore at the flowers at the graveyard when we all stood around and watched them set the casket over the place where they had dug up the earth.
Our second mother was a woman my dad met when he was driving a truck. Her name was Joan, and she worked in a cafe before she met Dad. She could make real good hash browns. I don’t think she liked us children very much because Dad was still driving and he was gone a lot. I guess we caused Joan plenty of trouble.
Dad drove for a big moving van company. He went all over the country. He always brought us a toy or game from wherever he went. He went all the way to Maine once.
I’m not sure what went wrong exactly, but Dad and Joan didn’t stay together long. Maybe she didn’t like the responsibility of all of us kids.
Dad had to quit driving for a while. He got a job as a dispatcher for the company. I guess it didn’t pay much or else he didn’t like sitting at a desk. I don’t blame him for that because I’d hate that too. Anyway, after a few months he quit being a dispatcher.
Then we didn’t know what he was doing. He’d be gone for a few days and come back with lots of money. It was great when he came back because he’d take us out for pizza one night and to a taco place the next night. He bought us all new bicycles one time and camping and fishing gear another time.
He’d stay at home for a week or two and then be gone again. At first he paid a lady to come in and cook for us, but I told him he could save the money and I could cook as well as those women, who always wanted to feed us casseroles with plenty of noodles and cream of mushroom soup. Most women I’ve ever met would rather cook a casserole than just about anything.
Anyway he left for Mexico. We got along okay. We always have. But after three weeks, we were playing outside in this old, deserted car that Dad said he’s going to fix up sometime. I looked around and saw one of the neighbors standing at her curtains looking at us real hard. I couldn’t see how we were hurting her any because we weren’t even on her property, but she looked at us for a long time.
The next day a lady came after school looking for my dad. She said she was from the county and she was a caseworker. For a while I thought she meant that she worked in a canning factory and packaged cases of food. But that’s not what she did.
I couldn’t figure why she came at all because all she did when she was there was sit and look. We were all watching Gilligan’s Island. We like to do that after school, and we were having some peanut butter sandwiches and milk. She sat in front of the TV set, but she didn’t watch it much. She had a clipboard, and she’d write things down. She asked if that was our supper, and Sam said yes, and she wrote that down.
We had plenty of peanut butter. when Dad was still working as a dispatcher, he heard about a truck that had been in a wreck. He bought cases of peanut butter and vegetables at a good price. Our basement was full of good deals like that.
The lady with the clipboard asked where my father was. I told her that he was away on business and that he would be back on Friday. That’s what I always told everybody who asked because usually Dad did come back on Friday, and I guess he was away on business, although I didn’t know what business he was in.
The lady left even before Gilligan’s Island was over. When she stood up to go, she sort of brushed herself off like the couch was infected. I bet when she was a kid she never watched Gilligan’s Island or ate peanut butter.
The money Dad left didn’t last forever. I had to pay the light bill with part of it, and I had to get Sam a new pair of tennis shoes. It didn’t take long before we were down to five dollars. Of course, we had peanut butter, but we had to buy jelly and bread, and they don’t give that stuff away, you know.
I had a paper route, though, and made ten dollars a week.
One day after school I was working on an old lawn mower engine. I like to take things apart and try to figure out how they work. I don’t always get them back together. The engine didn’t work anyway, so I wasn’t really wrecking anything.
Since we all ate around the TV, and we had a perfectly good kitchen table that we weren’t using, I was using the table as a workbench.
It was about 4:30 because I remember hearing the Brady Bunch starting. I was working on this engine when the doorbell rang. I was afraid it was going to be that lady with the clipboard.
It was a boy about my age. He asked if I was Jed, and I said yes, and he said he was Kevin Gallagher. That didn’t mean anything to me. He said he was the deacons quorum president. That made even less sense to me. To tell you the truth, he didn’t look like any kind of a president to me.
“So what?” I said.
I could tell he was nervous. He cleared his throat and looked like he was either going to cry or sneeze.
“I want to talk with you,” he said.
“Suit yourself,” I said. “Come on in the kitchen. I’m fixing a motorcycle engine.”
He followed me in. I hoped he didn’t know enough about engines to know that it was only a lawn mower engine and that I wasn’t really fixing it. He didn’t say anything about it.
He sat down on another chair after he first moved aside some wrenches.
To tell the truth, I sort of enjoyed making him nervous. I tried to look tough. I banged the wrenches together like I was a mechanic and knew what I was doing.
He sat there as stiff as a board watching me. Finally he just blurted out, “Are you a Mormon?”
“What if I am?” I said, trying to sound mean.
“You’re old enough to be a deacon,” he said, his eyes still moist.
“What’s that?”
“We pass the sacrament and collect fast offerings.”
“Why would I want to do that? I don’t even know what it is.”
“You could be in our Scout troop.”
“What for?” I sneered. I was hoping maybe I could get him to cry.
“We do lots of things, like go camping and fishing, and we learn to do things.”
“What kind of things?” I figured I had him and that he would talk about something dumb like tying knots.
Instead he sat a minute and looked at me. Then I saw a smile come on his face, and he said, “Like learning to be a mechanic.”
“Oh.” I tried to sound as if I wasn’t interested and I already knew everything about engines and cars.
“If you come next Wednesday, we’ll be starting a new course on how to fix engines. We’ll have a mechanic who works at Olson’s Garage showing us some things. I could come by and get you.”
You see, I always thought that if I could ever get that engine to work, I’d attach it to my bicycle, but I knew I was never going to fix it the way I was going.
“I might go,” I said, as coolly as I could.
He really did come by Wednesday night. I think that if I’d remembered he was coming, I might have chickened out and left the house before he got there. But I forgot until he was there; so I went with him.
When we got there, he led me right up to a man in the hall and introduced me to Bishop Townsend. The bishop reached out, shook my hand, and said he was glad I had come. Then Kevin had me meet his Scoutmaster, who was a grown man but still wore one of those green Scout uniforms. But the Scoutmaster wasn’t so bad once you got to know him. I guess he just liked Scouting.
There were about 15 other boys in the troop. I found out that not all of them were going to learn about engines. In fact, Kevin and I were the only ones. I’ve wondered since if Kevin created this whole engine mechanics course on the spot just to get me to come out. I’ve never asked him, but he’s sneaky like that.
Anyway, we went to Olson’s Garage, and this old guy, Brother Olson, showed us a lot about engines and tools. Afterwards we washed up and went back to church.
The bishop asked me if I had a good time.
“It was okay,” I answered coolly. But when I thought of what I would have done at home, it was ten times better than that.
He asked if I’d come again, and I said maybe. He put his hand on my shoulder and told me that the quorum needed me. Well, it made me feel a little uncomfortable, but I couldn’t help but think that he meant it.
The caseworker came by the next day. She asked where my father was, and I told her he was coming back any day. She asked me what I would think about going into a foster home until he came back, and I asked, “All of us in one home?” She said that she didn’t know if she could find one home for all of us. I told her that we all stick together and that we’d rather stay home. She wrote that on the clipboard.
Then she left. I noticed that there was a small stain on the back of her dress where she had sat on an old piece of toast, but I didn’t say anything. If I had, she probably would have written it down.
The next day we ran out of peanut butter. We weren’t completely out of food though. We had some shortening, a package of noodles, and some tortilla flour. There was a case of green beans in the basement.
The problem was that I’d already collected from everybody on my paper route for the month, so I couldn’t raise any money there.
We found that there are plenty of ways to come up with money when you think you’re broke. The first thing to do is to go through all the couches and stuffed chairs and look between the frame and springs where money can drop. We found 65 cents that way. Then you can look for soda pop bottles in the basement. The grocery store will pay for them. If you check a phone booth every time you pass one, you can sometimes find a dime in the coin return because some people don’t know they get their dime back if they try to make a phone call and don’t get through.
Friday after school I rode my bike out to the airport, collecting empty cans along the way. The recycling center will pay almost a penny a can. At the airport there is a fountain, and sometimes people throw money in there. I’ve made a small rake that I can use to get the money without getting my feet wet. I got 19 pennies and 3 dimes and 4 quarters.
All in all, we got enough for another jar of peanut butter, two loaves of bread, and some pork and beans.
Saturday, while Sam and Marcie were still watching cartoons, Kevin came over and asked us to go to church with him. I wasn’t going to go, but he said after church his parents said it was okay to invite all of us over for supper. I said we’d go, and we did.
I don’t remember much about church except in priesthood meeting Kevin ran the whole show as far as the deacons went. He got up and welcomed everybody and told them just how many he wanted to pass the sacrament. He made a point to tell the rest of them about me. He told them I was a good mechanic and that’s what their quorum needed for their summer cycling trip to the mountains.
Kevin’s mom really is a good cook. Sam, Marcie, and I didn’t talk much, but we sure did eat.
On Monday after school the lady from the county came with a man. He had a clipboard too. He never spoke directly to us, and when he said anything to her, he talked quietly as if he were telling secrets that we weren’t supposed to hear.
“Is your father back yet?” the lady asked.
“He’s due back any day.”
One thing about cats, they seem to know when a person doesn’t like them. Our cat crawled over to the man and sat on his lap. I knew he didn’t like that.
“Could we look around?” the man whispered to the lady.
“Is it all right if we look around?” the lady asked me.
“Why?” I asked her.
“We want to evaluate conditions here.”
“Conditions are just fine here,” I said.
Most of the time adults never listen to you. The man stood up, tried to brush off the cat hair, and went into the kitchen. She followed him.
He opened the refrigerator and shook his head. He looked in the cupboard and shook his head. He looked at the engine on the kitchen table and shook his head.
“Deplorable,” he whispered to the lady.
“These poor children,” she whispered back.
“I recommend foster homes as soon as possible.”
“Look,” I said, “my dad is coming back on Friday. We’ve got cases of food downstairs. We just don’t keep it in the kitchen.”
I ran downstairs, got the last case of green beans, and lugged it up to the kitchen. “Look, we got cases of food. If you want, I’ll bring it all up.” I didn’t think they would go downstairs to check.
It was a lie about there being more food downstairs, and I know it’s wrong to lie, but I also thought it was wrong for them to just walk in and start shaking their heads and making plans about shipping us to other homes.
“Who could we use?” the lady said to the man.
“How many children are there?” the man asked her.
“Just the three.”
“The Johnson family could take one. Rosetti’s can take the girl. Maybe Palmer’s would take the oldest boy.”
“My dad said we could definitely expect him on Friday.”
The lady heard me. “The boy said his father is coming back on Friday,” the lady told the man.
“I guess we could wait until Friday,” the man whispered.
They left, but they sat in their car and wrote on their clipboards for five minutes in front of the house.
I knew what was coming. They were going to split us up and put us in three different homes, homes where we’d eat hot cereal for breakfast and casseroles for supper. They wouldn’t know that Marcie sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night crying, but if you go in and touch her forehead for a minute, she’ll fall back asleep. They wouldn’t know that Sam doesn’t like corn, and it doesn’t matter if you say that it’s good for him, he won’t eat it, not plain, not creamed, and not on the cob.
There were things about them that only I knew. If we were separated, we would stop being a family. I couldn’t let that happen.
I went with Kevin on Wednesday night to Mutual. They had refreshments afterwards, and I slipped two cookies in a shirt pocket to take home to Sam and Marcie.
I guess I’d told so many people that Dad was coming home Friday that I almost believed it myself. But when I woke up Friday morning, I knew we had to do something or else we’d wind up in foster homes. I got Sam and Marcie up early. While we were eating some toast and peanut butter, I turned off the TV and talked to them.
“We’ve got to leave town today. How would you like to go to California?”
“Why today?” Marcie asked.
“That lady who comes here, she doesn’t like us living alone. She wants to make us go away and live in somebody else’s home. We’d all be in different homes, and we might not see each other for a long time.”
Marcie started to cry.
“Don’t worry. I won’t let them split us up.”
We went downstairs and got our sleeping bags and packs. We put the rest of our food in my pack. Sam carried a hatchet, matches, and a flashlight in his pack along with his clothes.
We left about 9:00 in the morning. I figured that the caseworker wouldn’t go to our house until after school, so I wasn’t worried about hiding from them when we first started, but we wanted to get as far away as we could before night.
We took a city bus out of town as far as it went and then started walking. Sam and I could have walked faster, but Marcie slowed us down. By night we were only ten miles out of town.
Before we left, when I planned about us leaving, I pictured us in the mountains catching fish and eating berries and trapping animals for our food. Things never work out the way you picture them. Ten miles out of town we were still in the suburbs with miles and miles of shopping centers and auto dealerships. There were no trees to chop down and no berries to eat. I did find some pretty good lettuce in the garbage can behind one grocery store. It just had a couple of brown spots on it.
During the day when the wind blows, it’s one thing. But at night when the wind blows and it’s November, that’s another thing.
Finally we found a small park. Somebody had left some empty boxes that they store chicken in for picnics and some other paper in a trash container. We burned them to heat up our beans.
Then we unrolled our sleeping bags and tried to sleep. The wind was kind of spooky, and Marcie was afraid, but we had her put her sleeping bag between Sam and me and told her how much fun it was to be camping out.
It was cold, and it took us a long time to get to sleep.
Sometime during the night I woke up because there was a flashlight shining in my eyes.
“What are you kids doing?” a policeman asked us.
“We’re just sleeping out,” I said. “We do it all the time.”
“You can’t sleep overnight at this park.”
We put our shoes on, threw things into our packs, grabbed our sleeping bags, and walked quickly away.
He got back in his car and started to talk on his radio.
“I’ve just found three kids sleeping in Rock Creek Park. Have you got anything there on any runaways?”
We started to run.
He jumped out of his car and yelled after us, “Wait! I need to ask you some questions!”
Marcie fell down. I could see the man in the police car backing up so he could turn around to chase us.
I dropped my pack and sleeping bag and picked Marcie up in my arms. We ran across the street, through one yard, along an alley for a few feet, and then into another yard across the alley. We found a garage with the door open, and we ran in and quietly closed the overhead door and waited.
There was a small window on the garage door, and I looked out. The police car moved slowly past the street twice, shining his light on everything as he passed.
After half an hour he quit circling the block.
I left Sam and Marcie in the garage and went back to see if I could find our packs and sleeping bags. The policeman had taken them and was parked behind a hedge waiting for us, but I didn’t let him see me.
I went back to the garage, and we stayed there for a few hours. I let Marcie and Sam sit on my coat so they wouldn’t be cold sitting on the concrete. I told them I wasn’t cold.
Marcie began to cry. She cried softly because she knew we’d be in trouble if the people in the house woke up. We couldn’t stop her. She must have cried for half an hour.
We were beaten, and I knew it. We only had 75 cents, and we were out of food and a way to sleep. Sam and I could have gone on, but Marcie was too scared, and we wouldn’t ever leave her.
It was turning gray when we left the garage and walked back to the bus stop where we had gotten off the day before. As soon as the buses began to run in the morning, we took one back to the city.
We got off the bus near our home and walked through backyards until we were close enough to see our house. I wanted to see if Dad had come home yet. He hadn’t, but while we were watching, a police car drove past the house slowly.
We ran to Kevin’s house, went to the back door, and knocked. Kevin opened the door and let us in.
Kevin’s mom asked us if we’d like some pancakes. Sam and Marcie both said yes, and she made us some.
They didn’t ask us any questions, but when Kevin’s mom put some pancakes on Marcie’s plate, she touched her head lightly, the way mothers do to little girls. I guess it was the wrong thing to do because Marcie broke down and started crying again.
Kevin’s mom sat down and put her arms around Marcie. Marcie kept saying as she cried, “Don’t let them break us apart.”
Then Sam started to cry, but don’t think badly of him because he’s only ten years old.
We finally told Kevin and his parents what had happened. Kevin’s dad called the bishop and asked him to come over.
The bishop came and took me to his office in the meetinghouse. He left Sam and Marcie at Kevin’s so they could watch Saturday cartoons.
I told the bishop everything, and he promised he wouldn’t let anybody split us up.
Then he got on the phone and made five or six phone calls. After he was through, he asked me if we would like to stay with Kevin’s parents for a while. He said it was okay with the people from the county.
That was a month ago. My dad hasn’t come back yet, but he will. One of these days he’ll come back with toys and games from Mexico.
When he does, I want to tell him about the Church and about family home evenings and about the priesthood. I’m a deacon now, and Kevin and I work together in Scouting. It’s not bad, Scouting I mean. You have to learn about knots, but I guess even that could be useful someday.
I’ve gone to priesthood meeting enough to know that what I was before I started going to church is what they call an inactive. Now I’m what they call an active. I also found out that there are more inactives than there should be. Kevin says we have to keep working to turn the inactives into actives. We talk plenty about that in priesthood meeting. I guess that’s why Kevin first visited us—to turn us into actives.
You know, he really is a good president of our quorum.

Shortly after the October 2010 general conference, Jared and Kathleen Smith of Utah, USA, decided to take a drive around the neighborhood with their three children to enjoy the colorful autumn leaves. Before leaving, Brother Smith put a vial of consecrated oil in his pocket. The words of President Henry B. Eyring’s priesthood address to be ready for priesthood service at all times had been on his mind (see “Serve with the Spirit,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2010, 59).
On their way home, the Smiths happened upon a crowd gathering around a little girl lying on the ground, apparently suffering from some kind of head trauma. They heard a woman shout, “Please, does anyone have consecrated oil? Please!” Brother Smith quickly pulled over and handed his oil to the girl’s father. After a priesthood blessing, the girl regained consciousness and began talking to her parents. Moments later, paramedics arrived and took her to the hospital.
“We felt a warmth and a peace in our hearts for having been in the right place at the right time, for having brought oil, and as President Eyring spoke of, having been ready,” says Brother Smith. “Our children saw the blessing of priesthood power, and we left feeling Heavenly Father’s love for both us and this young girl and her family.”

In 1837, two years after being ordained an Apostle, Elder Heber C. Kimball was sitting in the Kirtland Temple when the Prophet Joseph Smith whispered to him that the Lord wanted him to go on a mission to England. He would be the first missionary sent outside North America.
“The idea of such a mission was almost more than I could bear up under. I was almost ready to sink under the burden which was placed upon me,” Elder Kimball said. But he accepted the call and went to England—even leaping from the boat upon his arrival in Liverpool. “The moment I understood the will of my heavenly Father, I felt a determination to go at all hazards, believing that He would support me by His almighty power, and endow me with every qualification that I needed” (see History of the Church, 2:489–90).
Elder Kimball’s mission opened the door to much success in England over the next several years, as thousands of people accepted the gospel and became a great strength to the Church.

I chose a place in the hills on the moors called Saddleworth Dovestones, where I would not be disturbed. I took my lunch, scriptures, and my journal and headed out, climbing to the top to offer the desires of my heart to my Father in Heaven. As I prayed, I listened very carefully for an answer, maybe a peaceful feeling or a burning in my bosom, but I felt nothing.
As I walked back, I noticed a series of rocks on the ground carefully placed to spell out the words “Truth Will Prevail.” “Curious,” I thought, but nothing more. However, when I told my mother, she said simply, “That’s your answer.”

The bishop’s youth committee’s ideas are good. And they appear to have worked for others as well. One ward spent a lot of money on broken light fixtures. During basketball season the past three years, it had been necessary to replace all the lights in the halls around the cultural hall. Boys bouncing basketballs off the ceilings in the halls caused the problem. When the Aaronic Priesthood quorum presidents met with the bishop to discuss athletic programs, they set down a rule. “No bouncing of balls outside the gym.” They enforced it themselves.
So far this year not a single light fixture has been broken.

Each of us must pass through our own gethsemanes or ultimate trials. There is probably no greater gethsemane for saint or sinner that the death of one of our children. Just minutes after he learned of his ten-year-old daughter’s accidental death, a father I know wrote a letter to her. Note how this good man’s gethsemane became a sanctifying experience because of his knowledge of the gospel and the gift he had received of the Comforter. Contrast his reaction with what it might have been without the light of the gospel (I quote it with his permission):
“If you may be permitted to listen, these are some thoughts your dad would like to express in his and your mom’s hour of joy and sorrow.
“You have been an angel of light in our home. Even in your passing you have sanctified the experience by the sweet sorrow of this temporary parting. As I sit in this hotel room many miles from home and only moments after hearing of your passing, I have confidence that you are really home. It’s pleasing to know that you are not held back by the troublesome physical limitations you accepted and lived with in such an adorable, non-complaining way.
“Mom and I and your seven brothers and sisters are better because you came to our home. Soon after your birth, because you needed special medical care and attention, you helped us to accept fear and the unknown; to better love others with physical, emotional, or mental challenges; and to ask and plead with our Father, who today you know better than we do. As you grew older, we learned determination from you. You had every right to spill your milk but never did. You averaged 97 percent in spelling for an entire year and by strong determination struggled with mathematics. You sat with your mom and read every night without a complaint. Yes, we did our best to help you learn, but what we learned from you cannot be printed in books—cannot be written because it is almost too sacred to describe.
“We pray for all of us whom the Lord expects to stay here on the earth for yet a while. Our prayers are that we will be worthy to be reunited with you and to see you whole and perfect. Oh, how we would have love to have you stay! How we would love to hear you say, as you did, ‘I love you’! How we’d thrill to feel that clinging embrace! Oh, yes, especially today.”

Melissa decided to try one more time to save her marriage, which seemed distant and disconnected. That’s when her husband, Cameron, told her honestly about his pornography use. At her urging, he agreed to tell the bishop, and eventually they both talked to their parents. But, as he explains, it “took two years to finally see that there was more to repentance than telling a few people and saying a prayer.” He had to learn that not looking at pornography wasn’t enough. To truly be in a state of recovery, he had to turn to God and find healthy ways to deal with the stress, fear, shame, and anxiety that triggered his craving to look at pornography.
After a relapse, Cameron agreed to attend an addiction recovery program and, over time, has come to understand that the Savior does not give up on us as soon as we make a mistake.
Through also attending a 12-step program, Melissa feels that her family finally has the tools to move forward. She remembers how difficult the 12-step meetings were in the beginning, but she was motivated by a facilitator who suggested that Melissa “try us for 90 days. If you don’t like us, we’ll refund your misery.” Melissa eventually realized that just as she felt hope from others’ stories, maybe she could help others feel hope by sharing her experiences.
Melissa used to believe that if she stayed married, she would only pretend to be happy. Her perspective changed when she realized that the Savior saw potential in her, in Cameron, and in all of Father in Heaven’s children. He put all He is—the Light and the Life of the World—into saving us and giving us another chance. Because of the Savior, Melissa says, she can now smile in a genuine, I’m-happy-to-be-alive way.
Melissa and Cameron remain married and work to live in recovery.

The Young Women of Eight Mile Plains Ward, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, decided to share their love for Valentine’s Day. After spending a Saturday preparing paper hearts with messages of love and friendship, the girls sneaked into the yards of their “victims,” leaving their messages behind, attached to sticks in the ground, and taped to doorknobs and doorbells.
The girls did the entire project in secret but were found out by some people who loved the idea so much that they did the same thing to their neighbors the following day. The Eight Mile Plains girls have decided to make it a yearly tradition.

One bishop’s wife commented, “When my husband became bishop I had a hard time, suddenly realizing I had all the yard work to do—plus all the housework. He wasn’t around and I had to do it.” Her husband agreed. “It puts a lot of strain on my wife. But that also puts an important responsibility on me. I’ve got to remember that when I get home and the dishes from last night’s dinner are still in the sink and the living room is a mess and the lawn needs mowing I can never, never complain. Instead, I must begin to work and help—and get some of the children to work, too. My wife never complains about what I do; why should I complain about what she does?”

Perla García calls them her tesoros (treasures): yellowed newspaper clippings of the Church’s early days in Chile, old photographs of visiting General Authorities, an aging Bible signed by some of the first converts, and other mementos of the nearly 50 years she and her husband, Ricardo, shared. They flood her heart with love, and her mind with memories.
When Sister García shows her tesoros to visitors, she cannot help but express gratitude for the gift of the Holy Ghost, speak with reverence of the missionaries who taught her the gospel, and recall with fondness being one of only a handful of Latter-day Saints in Chile during the late 1950s. The members may have been few, she says, but the blessings were many.
On 23 June 1956 Elders Verle M. Allred and Joseph C. Bentley from the Argentina Mission flew over the Andes Mountains and into Santiago to begin modern-day missionary work in Chile. “We were on our own. We had to stay very close to the Lord and depend upon him,” recalls Brother Allred, who now serves as patriarch of the Brigham City Utah Stake. “We felt like pioneers,” adds Brother Bentley, a Sunday School teacher in the Parleys Fifth Ward, Salt Lake Parleys Stake. “We worked very hard, but it was a great experience.”
Sister García met the elders while watering her yard. She invited them to come back after her husband had returned from working out of town. When the elders met Brother García, “he greeted us and cordially received us as though we had met before,” Brother Allred recalls. “Once we started talking about the Church, he wouldn’t let us leave.”
Their meeting turned into a three-hour discussion, during which Brother García was moved to tears as he listened to the missionaries’ message. On 24 November 1956 in a Santiago country club pool, Brother García became the first Latter-day Saint to be baptized in Chile. He was joined that day by eight others, five of them children. Sister García was baptized in January 1957.
Brother García’s agricultural work often required that the family relocate. When they found themselves in a new city without a branch, they would start one. Over the years, Brother and Sister García served in many Church callings.
“The gospel has been a great blessing for Chile,” says the couple’s daughter, Perla, recalling the joy her family felt by serving the Lord. “My father used to say that it is so beautiful to be laborers in the Lord’s vineyard.”
Ricardo passed away 26 September 1994. Despite illness, he spent the final years of his life serving as the Santiago Chile Nuñoa Stake patriarch and as an ordinance worker in the Santiago Chile Temple, where Sister García played the organ. It is in the temple that she feels closest to him.
“He was a very special man. I know he is waiting for me,” Sister García says. “I wasn’t happy to see him go, but my husband died a happy man. He said, ‘Don’t weep. I have finished my work and am ready to go. I know I will see you and the children again. Tell our brothers and sisters to remain faithful, that I love them, and that they should not be sad because I am happy to move on.’”

Young Thad, Orderville’s rope maker, decides to make a strong and beautiful horsehair rope for the town fair. He obtains the raw materials by secretly cutting the manes and tails off Orderville’s horses. The young men of nearby towns are blamed for the act, and there is talk of revenge.
“People sure are upset about the horses’ manes and tails being clipped,” Theo, my twin brother, said one night. “The other towns laugh at us already for our Order clothes that are all alike. Now they’ll probably call our horses broomtails (an untrained horse of inferior quality) because we grow broom straw, and our horses got clipped. We’ll have to get even.”
The next day Brother Spencer asked me, “Was your Uncle Claude over from Kanab last Saturday when the horses got clipped?”
“No,” I told him truthfully. “He was out on Buckskin Mountain moving cattle.” But I could see that innocent people would suffer for my actions unless I did something soon.
That night I asked father, “When does the bishop hold his weekly council meeting?”
“Every Thursday night about seven o’clock,” Dad replied.
Thursday night after dinner, I walked slowly over to the bishop’s home. Extra horses, all with clipped manes and tails, were out front.
I walked quietly up onto the porch. I could hear voices inside but couldn’t understand what they were saying. Fear came over me, and I turned to leave. But I knew that I couldn’t. I had to clear up the wrong I had done in cutting the hair without asking. I knocked on the door. As I waited for someone to answer my knock, the little speech I had practiced for the last two days went through my mind. The bishop’s clerk opened the door. “Come in, Thad.”
The bishop and his counselors and several priesthood leaders and clerks were all sitting around the table in the dining room. The bishop got up and came over to me. “Come in,” he said, shaking my hand. “What can we do for you?”
Without waiting, I gave my prepared explanation. “Brothers, I am the one who cut the manes and tails of the horses at the Saturday dance. I needed the hair to make a special rope to show in the town fair. Since the horses belong to the Order, so does the rope. I didn’t know that everyone would get so upset. I should have asked. I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Thad, for coming and telling us,” the bishop said. “Is the rope finished?”
“Yes,” I replied. “I finished it tonight.”
“Brother Thad,” the bishop said, “please wait on the porch while we discuss this.”
They talked for a long time. At first I wished I could hear what they were saying. Then I was glad I couldn’t. I was praying silently when they opened the door and asked me to come back in.
I stood first on one foot and then on the other as they seemed to look right through me. Then the bishop spoke. “Thad, what do you think you should do to make amends?”
I had thought about that a lot. “I should confess to the people I wronged and then groom their horses and clean their stables.”
The bishop nodded. “Thad, please bring the rope to sacrament meeting on Sunday and put it on display by the door on a small table so that all the people can see it as they come in. During the business part of the meeting, I will call on you to explain what took place and tell everyone that you are sorry you didn’t ask permission to cut the hair. Then you can ask them to forgive you, Will you do that?”
My heart started beating again. I took a big breath and answered in a squeaky voice, “Yes, bishop.”
“Good night, Thad,” the bishop said. “See you Sunday.”
I felt better about the rope as I walked home. I told my parents what I had done and what the bishop had required. They said, “We will support you, Thad, and we’re proud of you for owning up about this. It shows that you’re growing up.”
On Sunday evening I followed the bishop’s instructions and got to church early. I got a small table and placed it beside the big front doors and put the rope on it. Everyone would see it as they came in.
I was glad when my family came and I could sit between Mom and Dad. Mom held my hand, and Dad put his arm around me. Oh, how I needed their support and love!
People started filling up the rows. There was going to be a big crowd today. I didn’t dare turn to see how people reacted to my rope, but I could hear them talking about it. “Why, it looks just like twisted taffy, except that it changes color!” someone exclaimed.
“Look how neatly the ends are finished,” someone else said. My hard work had paid off. If they only knew how many times I had walked up and down that plank, twisting each strand of hair into twine, and how long it had taken to fill the spools! Now if they would only forgive me.
I watched Sister Chamberlain working hard at the pump organ as she played the prelude music. The bishop and his counselors came to the stand. With them were two men I didn’t know. They looked very official.
As they sat down, they had a whispered discussion with the bishop, who then passed some message on to his counselors. The counselor conducting got up, welcomed everyone, then announced, “Brothers and Sisters, we are honored to have with us Brother Miles Romney, general superintendent for the building of the St. George Temple, and Brother Robert Gardner, who is in charge of obtaining lumber for the temple. They have been sent here on assignment by President Brigham Young. We will hear from them later.”
After the opening song and prayer, the bishop got up to conduct business. I felt sure that I would now be asked to come to the stand, but he only announced the sacrament song and sat down. I looked at the hymnbook but could not sing because of the huge lump in my throat. I wondered if I was worthy to take the sacrament, since I had not yet made my confession. But I had been willing to, so I did take it when it was passed to me.
The counselor then announced that our regular program would be postponed and the meeting turned over to Brother Romney. Brother Romney got up and said, “Dear Saints of the United Order of Orderville. The work on the temple goes forward. The walls have been finished, and the end of our long labors is in sight. Now we ask you to commit men, teams, and wagons to help us transport timber from the mountains so that the interior can be completed.”
I forgot my problem as he went on to tell of the wonderful things they were doing to build the temple. I was glad to be at church to hear them.
Then he said, “Throughout the construction of the temple we have had trouble finding enough strong rope. Now, more than ever, we need it to lift timber and bind heavy logs to the wagons that will carry them from the mountains to the sawmill. We have been praying for a way to make better rope. Today, as we came into the building, our prayers were answered. Would the person responsible for the rope on the table by the door please get it and bring it up here?”
Father helped me up, and Mother gave my hand a squeeze. As I slipped past my brother, his mouth was open and his eyes were big. I got the rope and took it to Brother Romney. He put his arm around me and continued, “I have never seen such a big, smooth, uniform horsehair rope. I understand your name is Thad. Tell me—how long is this rope?”
I could hardly believe what I was hearing. They liked my rope! They needed my rope! I swallowed hard. “One hundred and eight feet,” I replied.
Brother Romney smiled. “That is exactly the length we need. Thad, will you please come over to the bishop’s house early in the morning before we leave and cut the manes and tails off our horses and start on the second rope. We will send out a request to all the communities of southern Utah to collect their horses’ hair and send it to you. This first rope will be sent to Mr. Trumball so that the work of transporting lumber can be hastened. Now, bishop, would you ask the people if they can support the donation of the rope to the building of the temple.”
The bishop stood up and said, “All in favor, please raise your right hand.”
Everyone raised his right arm to the square. I joined them. The bishop said, “The voting is unanimous. The rope is for the temple.” Putting his arm around me, he added, “And now I believe Thad has something to tell you.”
It wasn’t hard at all, because I could see nothing but smiling faces. I explained what I had done and asked for their forgiveness, adding that I would be coming around to groom their horses and clean their stables. The bishop called for a vote on my request, and again every hand went up. With a light heart, I walked back down to sit between Mom and Dad. Tomorrow I’d start on the second rope, and it would be even better. A rope for the town fair could wait till next year. Meanwhile, I’d do my very best to make rope for the temple.

A picture forms on my monitor involving a father aboard an airplane on a short business trip. He has with him his five-year-old son and is almost wishing his son were not there because it is a very rough trip. There are downdrafts and updrafts and head winds alternating with tail winds, and some passengers are feeling a bit queasy. Apprehensively, the father glances at his son and finds him grinning from ear to ear. “Dad,” he says, “do they do this just to make it fun for the kids?”
Good parents and family and leaders and friends do go to great lengths to make it fun for the kids, but the fun they are thinking of is wholesome fun; it hurts no one, and it lifts the spirit and is good to remember tomorrow and through a lifetime and forever. It never detracts from the real, long-term joy we came into this world to experience.

A story is told of a woman who was upset that her son was eating too much candy. No matter how much she told him to stop, he continued to satisfy his sweet tooth. Totally frustrated, she decided to take her son to see a wise man whom he respected.
She approached him and said, “Sir, my son eats too much candy. Would you please tell him to stop eating it?”
He listened carefully then said to her son, “Go home and come back in two weeks.”
She took her son and went home, perplexed why he had not asked the boy to stop eating so much candy.
Two weeks later they returned. The wise man looked directly at the boy and said, “Boy, you should stop eating so much candy. It is not good for your health.”
The boy nodded and promised he would.
The boy’s mother asked, “Why didn’t you tell him that two weeks ago?”
The wise man smiled. “Two weeks ago I was still eating too much candy myself.”
This man lived with such integrity that he knew his advice would carry power only if he was following his own counsel.

One sister, shortly after moving to a new ward, suffered a devastating illness that left her nearly bedridden for almost two years. She describes how the sisters of her new ward, working through the Relief Society organization, blessed her life:
“A loving and sensitive Relief Society president visited often, and other sisters checked on me every day of the week. I forged bonds of friendship with each one as we shared feelings of the heart, discussed current affairs, laughed at the small indignities of illness, and generally enjoyed each other’s company. One sister quietly did my laundry, freshened my dogs’ food and water, and brought her grandchildren to visit. Another … made delicious custard for me when I could eat no other food. …
“I rarely was able to attend church during my illness, but I still felt right at home in the ward family” (JoAnn Jolley, Ensign, September 1994, 51–52).

The raspberries were red, ripe, and juicy. Whitney had never seen quite so many. Mom had bought several large containers when they were on sale, and now she wanted Whitney to help her make jam. Whitney loved jam on toast in the mornings or on hot rolls when they came out of the oven. Her mouth watered at the thought of the treat.
Mom lifted a sack of sugar out of the storage bucket. “Start putting the raspberries in the strainer,” she instructed. “Then run them under the water in the sink until they’re clean. Be sure to pick out any bits of leaves you find.”
Whitney filled the strainer, cleaned the berries, and dumped them into a big bowl. She refilled the strainer and went through the process again and again. It hardly felt like work to her.
After Mom finished measuring the sugar, she took lots of clean jars out of the dishwasher and stacked them on the countertop. Once the dishwasher was empty, she pulled several more jars out of a cardboard box and placed them in the dishwasher.
“Why are you doing that?” Whitney asked. “They don’t look dirty to me.”
“Some of the jars have been sitting on the shelf downstairs for a while. I just want to make sure that they are all clean before we fill them with jam.”
Mom and Whitney worked together for several hours before Dad and Wendee, Whitney’s sister, came home. “Put on some aprons and come give us a hand,” Mom called to them. Dad started mashing up the last of the berries while Wendee began labeling the finished jars.
“Honey, before you put away those jars, make sure all the lids are sealed,” Mom said to Wendee.
Whitney stopped stirring and laughed. “Sealed?” she asked. “Are they getting married or something?”
Now Dad, Mom, and Wendee laughed.
“Well,” Whitney said defensively, “Mom told you to make sure the lids are sealed. So what are you going to do? Take them to the temple?”
Wendee picked up a jar and showed her younger sister the lid. “See, the lid has to seal to the jar so the jam won’t spoil. If the lid doesn’t seal, the jam won’t last. We’re not talking about the temple.”
“Well,” Dad said, “maybe we are. Think about it—isn’t it the same with families? The ones sealed in the temple by priesthood authority can last forever. Those that aren’t sealed aren’t going to last.”
“Keep mashing the rest of those berries while you preach your sermon,” Mom said as she started spooning finished jam into the jars. Whitney reached out to steady the jars while Mom worked.
“I thought getting sealed just meant getting married,” Whitney said.
“Not exactly,” Mom explained. “A man and a woman can get married anywhere, but when they marry outside of the temple, it’s only for this life. Couples married, or sealed, in the temple can be married forever.”
“Now who’s preaching?” Dad asked with a smile.
“Sealed means linked together or hard to break apart,” Mom explained. “When you get married in the temple, you are linked eternally to your spouse and your children. We seal the lids to preserve the jam. Being sealed in the temple preserves families.”
“These berries are all mashed. What’s next?” Dad asked.
“Just take those last few jars out of the dishwasher.”
“I feel another lesson coming on,” Dad said. “See, Mom cleaned the jars before she filled them with jam. Sealing jam in a dirty jar would not work. It’s the same way with the temple. We have to be clean and worthy to enter the temple. That’s the only way the sealing counts.”
“I’m impressed,” Wendee said. “Dad, you’re pretty good.”
“So is this jam,” Mom said. “Now, who wants some before we put it all away?”
Over the next few weeks, everyone in the family enjoyed the jam. Whitney liked it best of all.

I applied for a classical piano competition a few months ago. I knew it would likely be on a Sunday, but I didn’t think much of it at the time. I started practicing three months before the competition, and it took a lot of time and effort to get ready.
A month before the competition, a seminary lesson on the Ten Commandments made me think about whether or not competing on a Sunday was a good idea. I wanted to push away the thought, because I’d already paid the application fee of TWD$1,400 (about US$50)—not to mention that I’d spent so much time practicing. I asked my seminary teacher if going to a piano competition would be breaking the Sabbath. He told me that was between God and me. But he bore his testimony that keeping the Sabbath day holy would be a blessing. I thought about it, and I really didn’t want to have to forfeit the competition.
Each day, I read a general conference article. I had just finished one talk and was about to put down the articles, but the next article caught my eye: “Stand in Holy Places” by President Thomas S. Monson (Ensign, Nov. 2011, 82). When I began reading it, I hadn’t been thinking at all about my piano competition, nor was I expecting an answer from the talk. But as I read, it was as if Heavenly Father were chastising me. President Monson’s words hit me hard:
“The Ten Commandments are just that—commandments. They are not suggestions. They are every bit as requisite today as they were when God gave them to the children of Israel” (83).
Then as I continued, I found:
“His constancy is something on which we can rely, an anchor to which we can hold fast and be safe, lest we be swept away into uncharted waters.
“… There is nothing which can bring more joy into our lives or more peace to our souls than the Spirit which can come to us as we follow the Savior and keep the commandments” (83).
I knew then what my Heavenly Father expected of me. I said a prayer and told Him that if it were necessary, I would forfeit the competition, even if I didn’t get a refund. I prayed that I wouldn’t have to forfeit if it were possible, that there might be a way for me to still compete, but that I would keep the Sabbath day holy no matter what.
At the end of the day, I told my piano teacher I couldn’t compete on a Sunday. She was surprisingly understanding. She said the competitions were divided by area and that I could try to transfer to an area that competed on a different day. I made a call the next day and successfully transferred to compete in Tainan, Taiwan, where the competition was held on Saturday.
I am so grateful that I made the decision to obey my Heavenly Father’s commandments. God not only wanted me to keep the Sabbath day holy, but He cared that the piano competition mattered a lot to me. Because I was willing to obey, my testimony of God’s love for me and of the blessings that come from obeying His commandments has been strengthened. I know that when we do our best to do what He asks, God will provide the rest.

It was years after I was a deacon when I learned what that means practically. For instance, as a high priest, I was assigned to visit a care center sacrament meeting. I was asked to pass the sacrament. Instead of thinking about the process or precision in the way I passed the sacrament, I instead looked in the faces of each elderly person. I saw many of them weeping. One lady grabbed my sleeve, looked up, and said aloud, “Oh, thank you, thank you.”

The Lord had blessed my service given in His name. That day I had prayed for such a miracle to come instead of praying for how well I might do my part. I prayed that the people would feel the Lord’s love through my loving service. I have learned this is the key to serving and blessing others in His name.