Gospel Story Finder

Many years ago, when our children were small, we attended a local fair as a family. We had great fun on the rides and enjoyed the food and music. When it was time to return home, I noticed that I had lost the car and house keys. The place was large and full of people. How were we going to find those keys? Our strategy was to go to a secluded spot in the fairgrounds and have a family prayer. Then we went out to search for the keys.

The first thing we saw was a policeman on duty. We approached him, told him of our predicament, and then asked if a bundle of keys had been handed to him. He immediately asked us one question: “Are you members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?” After the initial shock caused by his question, I answered “Yes.”

He then handed me the keys and explained to us how he knew that we indeed were members of His Church. He told us that his father had been a branch president who also carried among his keys a small vial of consecrated oil, like the one I had on my keyring.

A few weeks later, our two youngest children got lost in a large department store where we had gone to get new eyeglasses for the older children. After waiting a while, they got bored and decided to go off on their own, looking for the toy section. The consequence was that they got separated from us.

What did they do when they realized that they were lost? They went to a secluded spot in the store and offered a faithful prayer that they would be reunited with us. Then they stepped out of that spot, with great faith that they would be found. At that same time, their older brother saw them as he was looking for them in that area.

Consider all that is learned from these two interrelated stories of faith. It is in the daily practice of the gospel that we mostly teach, and that children learn the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. It happens as we seek to diligently keep His commandments and covenants.

When I was born, I was given the name of Ronald A. Rasband. My last name honors my father’s ancestral line. The middle initial A was given to me to remind me to honor my mother’s Danish Anderson ancestry.
My great-great-grandfather Jens Anderson was from Denmark. And in 1861 the Lord led two Mormon missionaries to the Jens and Ane Cathrine Anderson home, where the missionaries introduced them and their 16-year-old son, Andrew, to the restored gospel. Thus began a legacy of faith of which my family and I are the beneficiaries. The Andersons read the Book of Mormon and were baptized a short time later. The following year, the Anderson family heeded the call of a prophet to cross the Atlantic to join the Saints in North America.
Sadly, Jens died on the ocean voyage, but his wife and son continued to the Salt Lake Valley, arriving on September 3, 1862. Despite their hardships and their heartaches, their faith never wavered, and neither has the faith of many of their descendants.
In my office hangs a painting that captures so beautifully a symbolic reminder of that first meeting between my ancestors and those dedicated early missionaries. I am determined not to forget my heritage, and because of my name I will forever remember their legacy of faithfulness and sacrifice.

It had been hard work cleaning up the yard, and it had taken me most of the morning to finish the job. After I put the rake away, Dad gave me the dollar that we had agreed on before I started to work.
I sat down in the shade of an apricot tree and looked at the finely etched lines that made up the face of George Washington on the dollar bill. I couldn’t imagine anybody drawing such a fine picture. The bill had that funny smell of money, and holding the dollar close to my face, I could see the colored threads in the paper.
A whole dollar! I thought. My dollar! One that I earned. I have a dollar to do with as I please. Then the thought came to me that I owed tithing on it. I felt a little bit ashamed of myself because I didn’t have a giving and happy feeling about paying my tithing. Instead, I tried to convince myself that the dollar was all mine because I had earned it.
If I paid my tithing, I would have only ninety cents left. Besides, Jesus wouldn’t miss ten cents. How could He? This is His world, and He can have anything He wants. That thought made me feel better.
As far as I was concerned, I had solved my problem about paying tithing, and I lay back on the grass to relax. The warm day seemed just right under the shade of the tree, and I watched the sun through the fluttering leaves.
The dollar was still on my mind. There were so many things I could buy. A chocolate candy bar with nuts would taste good. I could almost see the almonds making lumps in the smooth surface of the bar. Or I could get a butterfly yo-yo—they’re the best kind. Or maybe there was a movie in town I’d like to see. I’d have to look in the newspaper to see if anything looked good.
Then tithing popped into my head again. I knew that only ninety cents was really mine and that ten cents was the Lord’s, but I still wasn’t happy about it. Then I had a new thought: How does Jesus get the money?
This new thought stayed in my mind, and I mapped out a plan. I would pay tithing on my dollar and then watch the bishop to see how he gave it to Jesus. I could hardly wait for Sunday morning to come.
My father helped me fill out the receipt that went into the tithing envelope. He was so happy that I was paying tithing that it made me feel bad because I knew my reason for paying it was not the right one. But I was paying tithing.
Finally Sunday came. I decided I’d give my tithing to the bishop after Primary when he was in his office. I figured that that must be where he gave the money to the Lord.
The bishop was glad I was paying tithing and said that the Lord would bless me for it.
After the bishop thanked me, he turned and gave the envelope with my tithing in it to the ward clerk. I could hardly believe my eyes when the clerk opened my envelope. I just stood there. Is he going to give my money to the Lord? I wondered. I guess the bishop saw my look of dismay because he asked me if anything was wrong.
“How does Jesus get the money?” I asked. He must have thought that was a funny question because he laughed a little, then stopped. He said, “Jesus doesn’t come personally to get the money. It’s sent to Church headquarters to help with missionary work, with the building of temples and meetinghouses, with genealogy work, and with other necessary things. For instance, some tithing money is used to help pay for the operation of our meetinghouse.”
The bishop took me by the hand, and we walked through the building. At different places he stopped and asked me how much I thought certain things cost, such as chalkboards in the classrooms. He pointed out how much carpet there was in the building and how many chairs and tables and things. By the time we were through, I had a good idea that it takes a lot of money to run a meetinghouse. The bishop pointed out that repairs and upkeep are expensive too. Then he said, “You know, because I pay my tithing, I feel like I own a tiny part of our meetinghouse—and any other meetinghouse or temple I go to. It’s a good feeling.”
As I walked home from church I thought, Maybe tithing is a good thing. I felt proud that I was helping to do good with my tithing, even though I still felt a little disappointed that I had not seen the Lord.
But I didn’t think much more about it that day. Monday was coming, and I had ninety cents to spend.

Illustration by David Malan/Malan Creative
I have always wanted to play in the Orchestra at Temple Square, the orchestra of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I play the clarinet and have a degree in music, but it’s unlikely I will ever get the opportunity.
After all, I live in New Zealand.
The Holy Ghost reminds me, however, that I can “be content” (Alma 29:3) as a musical pioneer for the Church in New Zealand and other areas. My first calling at age 18 was as music leader in the nursery. Since then, I have been blessed to direct and produce stake and ward musical productions, as well as play the piano in Primary. I have shared music across New Zealand and in the Philippines. I have sung a duet at the Provo Missionary Training Center.
Music has kept me in the Church throughout a difficult battle with anxiety and depression. When I felt I couldn’t do anything else, I knew I could say yes to helping with music. Music helps me see the world through spiritual eyes.
I get to create music with my wife and three children. Together, we have performed in the ward, created a musical contribution for a missionary broadcast in the Auckland New Zealand Mission, and sung for an online stake conference. I know how the word of God, through Church hymns, invites the Holy Ghost and can touch hearts in our families and wards.
I continue to love the Orchestra at Temple Square from afar, but I know we are blessed when we seek opportunities to serve and praise the Lord wherever we are and in whatever way we can (see Psalm 150:6). I am grateful we can share our testimonies through our gifts and talents, including music. We are blessed, and we bless others, as we share those gifts and talents with God’s children and “lift where we stand.”

I can’t refrain from telling you one other thing about that visit with my brother in Washington. He was to take a B-25 bomber to Texas to pick up something and return to Washington the next day. I went with him. That was the only time we flew together.
Many years later I was honored by Weber State University, where we both had graduated. He had been a student body officer during his college days. Because I would be in South America, he agreed to attend the banquet and accept the award in my behalf.
In his acceptance speech he told this story—part of which is true. He said that in Texas we were lined up side by side on the runway ready to take off. He radioed to me and said, “See you upstairs—if you think you can make it!”
Then he told them that after I became a General Authority of the Church, once in a while I would check on his behavior and add, “See you upstairs—if you think you can make it!”
Well, Leon made it. He is now where I hope one day to be.

We were studying the Book of Mormon in seminary, and I had learned many things. I read every night. At first I read just because I was supposed to. Later on it was a habit, and then I was reading because I wanted to.
I learned more from the scriptures during that time in my life than I had ever imagined. I was almost finished with the Book of Mormon, and I knew the big question would be coming soon: Is the Book of Mormon true?
Late one night I finished reading the Book of Mormon. I had read it cover to cover. I knelt down beside my bed and asked with a sincere heart with a desire to know the answer to that one question. After I finished my prayer, I sat there for a minute and waited. Then it hit me. The warm, peaceful answer. Right then I knew the Book of Mormon was true. I ran upstairs to tell my parents. I stood in their doorway, and I started crying because I knew in my heart the Book of Mormon was the true word of God. That was the happiest night of my life. I cannot deny the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
Jennifer Harrison,Wellsville First Ward, Wellsville Utah Stake

When I was in Barcelona on my mission, my companion and I were walking by our church building when we saw a young woman walking toward us. We felt prompted to talk to her, so we stopped her and asked the woman if she had ever seen our church building before. We learned that her name was Maya (all names have been changed), and I invited her to come to a game night that we were planning with other young adults the following Friday. She accepted.
At the game night, I still remember how Maya and Alicia, a friend of ours who was a recent convert, were laughing together. Alicia was such a good friend to Maya. She asked Maya about her family, her interests, and her religious beliefs and built a friendship with Maya over time. We learned more about Maya’s religious background and her devotion to God, and she also expressed an interest in learning more about how we communicate with God.
Over time, as my companion and I, Alicia, and the rest of the ward got to know Maya and kept inviting her and showing her love, she felt the Spirit of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and decided to be baptized. As we remembered patience and brotherly kindness (see Doctrine and Covenants 4:6), I know that the authentic friendships Maya experienced influenced her decision.

SUSAN: I had friends whose parents drank. I was 12 years old. I didn’t really want to get into it. I was just curious. We’d go downstairs to their bar and we’d smell the different kinds of liquor, and we’d do a little bit of tasting.

SUSAN: After that I started drinking occasionally. I didn’t feel guilty. (Actually, I did deep down, but I blocked it out.) I don’t ever remember right after doing it saying, Oh no, what did I do? I was surrounded by friends and was not thinking about religion right then. I felt some guilt when I was sitting in church the next Sunday, but Sunday only came once a week. Sunday was for religion, and the rest of the week was for “real” life.

SUSAN: Sometime after ninth grade I started smoking marijuana, just every now and then, and into my sophomore year it was the same. This summer there were more parties, so I was doing it a lot more often, and drinking the whole time too. You get to the point where your values are totally shot. You’ll lie to anybody; you’ll say anything. I would get into arguments with my family and just pack up and move out. My grades started to go down, and I would sluff a lot.

SUSAN: I would say to myself, “I’ll just party through high school because it’s the thing to do, but when I get into college I’ll straighten up. I’m going to start working, I’ll get back into the Church and be married in the temple, and everything’s going to be hunky dory. But that simply does not happen when you’re an addict. You don’t understand that you need help and that it’s going to be a problem for the rest of your life.

SUSAN: Even when I was using, I always believed there was a god, but I’d try to push the thought out of my mind. When I wanted to pray and ask for something I’d think, I can’t ask. I don’t deserve any help.

Now I talk to God all the time. I know that he is my friend. I don’t even open it up with “Our dear Heavenly Father.” I just talk as if I were talking to someone in the room. And I get answers. Some times they come through somebody else, and sometimes they just come into my own mind. It’s I because I’m being open to it. I’m listening.

When Gordon and Del (Spencer’s older brothers) gathered hay … they would take pitchforks full of Hay and toss them up on the wagon and Spencer would tromp the hay down. The older boys liked to reach the wagon at the same time, both with huge forks of hay. One would toss his hay on top of Spencer, knocking him down, then the other would add his load. They would laugh while Spencer picked himself out, infuriated, threatening terrible punishments when he grew up. …

Occasionally he would enjoy a minor revenge. One hot Monday afternoon, hearing the bell ring for the beginning of Primary classes across the fields, Spencer, said, “I’ve got to go to Primary.” As Spencer told the story years later: “They said, ‘You’re not going to Primary.’ I said, ‘If Pa were here, he’d let me go to Primary.’ And they said, ‘Well, Pa is not here, and this is one time you’re not going to Primary.’ Gordon was seven years older than I was and Dell was five. … They kept throwing the hay up and it all piled in the center of the wagon. They said, ‘What’s the matter with you up there?’ There was no sound. They looked off across the field and I was halfway to the meeting-house.
Reminiscing about his mother, who died when he was still a boy, President Kimball said, when I just got home from school, I would hang my cap on the hook by the door over the wash dish and call, Mother Ma! Ma!’ But when I found her in the house and she asked me what I wanted, I just said, ‘Nothing.’ I just wanted to know she was home.”
Though his mother was gone, Spencer kept a place for her in his heart. His father was conscious of this. Nine years after Olive’s (his mother’s) death Andrew inscribed a gift copy of the Pearl of Great Price, “Andrew Kimball and Olive Woolley Kimball to Spencer Woolley Kimball, January 25, 1915.” Inside the book cover Spencer attached a picture of his dear mother.
“My mother was faultless,” Spencer (once) wrote. “She was a saint … , the model of perfection. Who,” he asked, “could even mention one virtue that she had not possessed?” She seemed holy “when the light would shine through her light red hair and make a halo.” Spencer was young when she died, and he grew up remembering her as he had seen her when he was eleven years of age.”

One evening President Kimball stayed late at the office, and so I continued working at my desk. It turned out that he was going to a dinner at the Lion House at 6:30 and was waiting for Sister Kimball to come and meet him so they could go to the dinner together. About 5:30, he urged me to go home, but I told him that I would stay as long as he did. He insisted, so I said, “I am torn between doing my duty to stay close to you and doing what you ask me to do.” He looked up at me with a twinkle in his eye and said, “They both ought to be the same, hadn’t they?”

Before sunrise I knew it was going to be one of those days. I hadn’t yet eaten breakfast when I messed up my shoes on some really fresh—and really fragrant—cow manure in Grandpa’s barn. Then one of the oversized eager eaters in the hog pen gave me a pretty good shove causing slop to slop onto my shoes and pants.
After breakfast things went steadily from bad to worse to awful. This was the day Grandpa had selected to have us put “soil sweeteners” on a newly cleared piece of land. I didn’t realize it yet, but Grandpa had just sentenced the four of us—Uncle Lynn, the new hired man, my little brother, and me—to a slow death by asphyxiation.
As we pitched several million tons of really ripe cow manure into the spreader, my brother managed to miss the spreader and “accidentally” hit me with a pitchforkful of the stuff. After slipping and falling several times while shoveling, all I could say to no one in particular was “No 13-year-old boy has ever been this dirty.” I didn’t hear anyone disagree.
Things didn’t get any better as the day went along. After the manure had been shoveled, we had to take the spreader to the sawdust pile and load enough sawdust to cover all of North America. Not so bad, I thought.
Boy, was I wrong. First, my brother nailed me in the back of the neck with a shovelful of sawdust. I nailed him back. He tackled me. I stuffed a handful of sawdust down his shirt. He returned the favor. Over and over we rolled, wrestling like a couple of overgrown kittens.
Cow, pig, and chicken manure on my shoes. Cow manure in the center of my back. Hog slop on my pants and shoes. Chicken manure all down my left side. Sawdust inside my shirt, and enough sweat to give me a nice shine.
Now I’m as dirty as I can get, right? I wish. While we were catching our breath, the hired man decided to tell a really dirty, offensive story.
When he finished, there was this long silence. Nobody laughed. Uncle Lynn was the ward clerk and an innocent, virtuous man. I was a newly ordained deacon who wanted to be like Uncle Lynn. My 11-year-old brother hadn’t even understood. Finally, the hired man said something about guessing his story hadn’t been very funny. He had that part right.
By the end of the day, I was dirtier than I had ever been. Eventually, I took a long shower with lots of soap and shampoo. It felt so good to be clean again. My skin was clean. My hair was clean. Even my fingernails were clean.
But no amount of soap, water, or shampoo would wash the hired man’s lewd story out of my memory. Like an unwanted and unwelcome guest, it had arrived and now it wouldn’t leave.
It’s been decades since I heard that dirty story. I’ve never repeated it. I’ve tried hard to forget it. I know the Lord considers me blameless regarding that story. But every once in a while, it pops into my mind for just an instant, and I discover the uninvited guest still hasn’t gone home.
You see, there are some kinds of dirt which soap can’t reach.

My name is Bapont Ngalamulume, I live in Kananga, in central DR Congo; I wanted to share the story about my marriage. A few days after I returned from my full-time mission, I met with my bishop to tell him that I had to return to Kinshasa to pursue my education and to build my life. The post missionary integration challenges were bothering me day and night in every way. My bishop looked me in the eye and told me that it was important to stay in Kananga, my hometown, and to strengthen my family who had just joined the Church when I was on my mission. My stake leaders urged me to stay and edify the Church, and I made the decision to stay in the city and to further my education, to build my life and to serve in the Church. This was not easy for me. On the one hand I had my studies to complete, and on the other hand, I had to simultaneously provide for my younger brother’s education and help my mother who was a widow.

Two great blessings that I received and am grateful for all my life:
The first of these is the vocational training program run by the Church’s construction department, which helped me improve my carpentry skills. As a carpenter, I had the opportunity to work in missionary apartments and Church facilities, where I could render service and earn income from contractors.
The second is the perpetual education fund which allowed me to complete my undergraduate studies before being able to pay for graduate studies on my own.

While I was performing the ordinances for Olga in the temple, one word kept coming to my mind: mission. But I was puzzled—I was busy raising three children by myself, and I couldn’t possibly go on a mission.
The answer came several months later. One day my cousin Renzo told me that Olga’s mother, my aunt Anita, had passed away. Suddenly I recalled that I had completed the temple work for Olga on a Tuesday, and her mother had passed away the following Friday. With great emotion, I felt impressed that Olga had been eager to receive her temple ordinances so she could welcome and teach her mother in the spirit world. Perhaps that was Olga’s mission.

I grew up in an environment where many men smoked, drank, and lived unchaste lives. I saw this kind of example in my own family and in most of the men in the vicinity, so I came to believe it was normal. At the early age of 20, I got married. Four years later, after we had three children, we divorced. But I later met a wonderful woman, who not only accepted me with three children but gave us five more. We have been married for more than 30 years.
One day about 22 years ago I began to fear greatly for the future of my eight children. I didn’t want them to go through the same dangerous situations I had, and I was afraid they would be lost in the wickedness of the world. I didn’t know what to do to help them, but I became very receptive to the things of God. Whenever someone knocked on the door with a religious message, I opened my door and my heart. I listened attentively, accepted their pamphlets, and went with them to their houses of worship. Still, I wasn’t at peace; I couldn’t find what I was looking for.
A few years passed, and a pair of young missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came to our home. With my wife and our five children (the other three lived with their mother), I began to hear the discussions, attend church, and get acquainted with the members and their beliefs. After several months we made the wise decision to join the Church, and 17 years have now gone by.
I understood that I had to make changes in my life if I wanted to teach my children the right way. For example, I could not teach them to keep the Word of Wisdom and live a chaste life if I was not living these commandments. By striving to live the teachings of the gospel, I was able to change my life and teach my children. I was also able to baptize my three children from my first marriage and get them back from the world. All eight children belong to the Church now. Four have served missions. One was too old to go on a mission, but he served as a stake mission president. Six are married, all in the temple.
At the beginning of 1999, we had a regional conference in southern Florida. After fulfilling an assignment to deliver earphones for the conference translation, I went into a hall where thousands of Church members were seated. I remained standing at the back of the hall, and I was able to observe one of my sons with his baby. I looked in another direction and saw another son with his wife and children.
A wonderful feeling of joy came over me at that moment, and I could not keep tears from my eyes. I remembered those terrible days when I was so worried about my children’s future. Now I was weeping for joy because I no longer had those worries.
The gospel and true Church of Jesus Christ made it possible for us to find the right way to help our children and to have joy and happiness. Christ is the light guiding our lives. His teachings persuade us to do good.

One morning during the conference, nearby Seabrook Beach was covered with wave after wave of teens in yellow shirts. They were youth conference participants dressed in Beacon-in-the-Night T-shirts who spent the morning collecting trash.
“People would approach us and ask if we were at some sort of a summer camp,” says Alex Morales. “It was great to be able to tell them that we are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was cool to be with other youth from the Church, showing people that service is an important part of what we’re all about.”
“I remember looking down the beach and seeing all those yellow shirts,” says Bethany Klick. “We were excited to be there, and I noticed that our attitude rubbed off on other people, too. When they saw what we were doing, they smiled and seemed to enjoy the day just a little bit more.”
Following the cleanup, youth and leaders ended the day at the beach with a sandcastle building competition.

It’s a typically humid day in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, and sweat drips from Agung’s brow as he awaits his opponent’s serve. The badminton match is close, and the 15-year-old feels driven to win.
After a furious exchange, his opponent puts the shuttlecock hopelessly out of Agung’s reach. Unwilling to give up the point in such a close match, Agung dives for the shuttlecock but comes up short—and bleeding from sliding across the cement court.
It’s easy to see that he loves competitive badminton. But Agung doesn’t dream of becoming a professional badminton player. He’s not going to have to choose between serving the shuttlecock in the Olympics and serving a mission. By his own admission, he’s not particularly good at the sport.
So why does this small teen with the big smile try so hard? Hope.
“I believe I can get better,” he says.
Hope is the reason we do a lot of things. We exercise because we hope we can become stronger and healthier. We practice a musical instrument because we hope we can learn to play well. Agung practices badminton because he hopes he can improve.
“If I had no hope of getting any better and ever winning, it would be very easy to give up,” Agung says.
Hope is an essential element of the plan of salvation. Hope that we can be forgiven leads us to repent and try again after we fail to keep a commandment.
Two of Satan’s best weapons against us are doubt and discouragement. He wasn’t able to foil Heavenly Father’s plan by stopping the Atonement. But he can still try to foil the cleansing effects of the Atonement in our lives if he can steal our hope that we can be forgiven.
“Satan wants us to lose hope,” Agung says, “because when we give up, it leaves us far from Heavenly Father.”
However, when Satan succeeds in discouraging us, there are ways to find hope again.
When we need hope for the future, we can look to the past. Agung uses an example from school that has taught him this lesson. “I’ve seen that if I study hard, I can be successful on my exams,” he says. “Because of that experience, I have hope that if I practice hard, I can improve at badminton,” he says. “My experience gives me hope.”
When we need hope in Jesus Christ, we can find it in both our past experiences with the power of the Atonement (see Romans 5:4) and the experiences of others, including the experiences you might hear in sacrament meeting, a Sunday School lesson, the Liahona, or the scriptures (see Jacob 4:4–6).
As we study the hopeful words of the prophets, pray for the spiritual gift of hope, and learn to recognize the Savior’s power in our lives, our faith in Him increases, as does our hope that He will help us in the future.1
Agung knows he will probably never be a professional athlete, but he knows that as long as he keeps trying, there is hope he can improve.
He has learned that the great power of hope is this: “As long as you never give up, there is hope,” he says.
In life, the Atonement of Jesus Christ is the ultimate source of hope. Because of the Atonement we can repent when we make a mistake. That also means that because of the Atonement, we have not failed our life’s test when we make a mistake unless we give up trying to repent and obey.
That’s why Agung continues to invite his father to church every Sunday. That’s why he tries to stand up for what’s right, even when his friends don’t. That’s why he makes the hour-long round-trip bike ride to the meetinghouse so often for seminary, Mutual, Sunday meetings, missionary preparation classes, and to help clean the building.
“It’s not easy to try to be like Jesus,” Agung says. “Sometimes I get discouraged, but I don’t give up. Because of His sacrifice for me, I have hope I can be better.”
Because of the Atonement there is hope. And because of hope, the Atonement can change our lives.

When I was about 12, I was asked to sing a solo in my home ward. My parents encouraged me to memorize the hymn so that I could look out into the audience. I worked on the song for many weeks until I could sing it without looking at the words. When the Sunday arrived, I sat on the stand and felt my heart pounding. I had sung in other wards before, but I felt nervous singing in front of people I knew. My greatest fear was that I would make a mistake.
When it was time, I stood up and walked up to the microphone. I felt my stomach flip. I was too afraid to make eye contact with anyone, so I looked at the clock at the back instead. My accompanist began to play the introduction, and I started to sing. I made it halfway through the hymn without any difficulties when I looked down from the clock to the congregation. Suddenly, I forgot the words to the hymn. My accompanist continued playing for a few more measures until she figured out I had stopped singing. She went back to where I had left off and encouragingly played the melody, hoping to remind me of the words.
The words did not come. Fear began to rise within me. My face flushed with heat, and I could feel my ears turning red. My mind raced through the words of the hymn trying to remember what came next, but the words did not come. I looked out into the audience feeling humiliated and embarrassed. My heart crumpled with disappointment and embarrassment. I began to cry. Tears rolled down my cheeks, and I hung my head, burying my face in my hands. I felt everyone staring at me. I wasn’t sure whether I should sit down or stand there until I could remember the words.
Suddenly, I felt a firm hand on my shoulder. I looked up through teary eyes to see my bishop, Bishop Smith, smiling at me. He leaned down and told me that he would sing with me. He then nodded to the sister to begin playing. Bishop Smith’s beautiful baritone voice filled the chapel as he began to sing. He knew the words! As soon as he sang them, I remembered them as well. With his arm around my shoulder, I felt the courage to begin again, and together we finished the song.

Inspired by the theme “We all do better when we stick together,” the Young Men and Young Women of the Pleasant Hill First Ward (Walnut Creek California Stake) launched enthusiastically into a two-pronged spring service project. Day one was spent renovating the recently purchased meetinghouse of the Sea Ranch Branch in Guala, California. Early one Thursday morning during spring vacation, the 29 youths and seven leaders joined the branch members in work crews that cleared the backyard of weeds, prepared the flower beds and garden area, painted the interior of the building, mowed the lawn, dug postholes for a fence, and cleared a large picnic area under the giant redwoods. That evening the branch members served a barbecue dinner to all the laborers, after which the youth presented a musical variety show.
The next day, phase two began when the Pleasant Hill youth drove to the nearby Pomo Indian Reservation to clear a large field of brambles and brush. Afterwards the volunteers prepared a pit barbecue for the Lamanites and presented a portion of the previous evening’s program.
After the two days were completed, the youths agreed that the time spent serving their brothers and sisters had been well spent. The general feelings of all were expressed by one of the youths who said, “I didn’t know you could have so much fun while working so hard.”

Lugging a bucket of warm, foamy milk, I stepped from the barn and slammed the heavy door behind me. A chill wind blasted across the barnyard and tore at the buttons on my coat, almost snatching my cap away. Ducking my head into my collar, I pushed toward the house, possessed with an anxious longing to escape the late autumn’s icy breath. I glanced at the gray, forbidding sky and hoped it wouldn’t snow, at least not until Ma and Pa and the girls returned from Uncle Tommy’s.
I was almost to the house before I saw him. He was shuffling tiredly down the dirt lane that came from the highway to our farm. Squinting against the onslaught of the wind, I watched him approach, all the while loathing him for coming.
I didn’t know him, and yet he was familiar, not as a person but as a representative of the motley mob of defeated wanderers who had stopped at our door in the past. I recognized the slumped shoulders; the hollow cheeks; the sunken, searching eyes; the rumpled, ill-fitting clothing; the dusty shoes; and the apologetic reluctance—all of which characterized this singular breed. They were cast-off by-products of these lean Depression years of the 1930s. Their only crime had been misfortune and circumstances. Nevertheless, my own selfishness caused me to despise them.
“Hi, son,” he greeted me, a cautious humor in his voice. “This wouldn’t be the Lorenzo Platt place, would it?”
I glanced toward the empty house. No one would know, I told myself. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to lie, even to him. “Yeah, it is,” I mumbled.
“I wasn’t sure,” he said with a smile that revealed a chipped front tooth. “The barn wasn’t finished before, and the house wasn’t painted.”
“We did that last summer,” I replied tartly, trying to discourage conversation.
“Sure looks nice.” Uneasily he looked around, obviously stalling. I knew what he wanted. They were all the same. Pa had never needed more excuse than that they were hungry, discouraged, displaced, or cold. He had always brought them into the house, given them a chair by the stove, a place at the table, and a home for the night.
I had especially disliked these gaunt, faceless guests who intruded and disrupted our home. If Pa had been content to offer them a bowl of beans and a place on the front step to eat, I could have ignored their intrusion, but that wasn’t Pa’s way. When night fell, Pa didn’t send them off to the barn loft; he offered them a bed in the house, usually mine. I would sleep on the couch, always resenting the one who supplanted me.
“Why do we have to do it?” I had accused Pa one afternoon while we were stacking hay. “Why can’t they find their own place and their own food? We’ve got to work for ours. Let them work for theirs.”
Pa had picked up a fork full of hay and carried it to the corner of the stack and said gently, “Every night and morning when I pray, I thank the Lord we have work, that we can provide. We’re not rich, son. No one is these days, but we have sufficient. I wouldn’t trade places with any of those men. It isn’t their fault that the winds blew the land away and tore them from their farms. It isn’t their fault that these are hard times. No, son, I don’t condemn them. My heart aches for them, and as long as I have a single chicken, a meager cup of beans, or a crust of bread, those men won’t leave here hungry.
“But Pa,” I protested warmly, “you do all that for the folks in the ward, too. Whenever they need something, they always come to you. It just isn’t fair, even if you are the bishop. But I wouldn’t mind that, because they’re our folks, our neighbors, and our friends. But not those others.”
Pa didn’t listen. He continued to reach out to them, and they continued to come. Although they were complete strangers, they all seemed to know that here was home for the night.
As I stood in the cold wind eyeing this new stranger, this intruder, I was determined to send him away as I had wanted to do with the others.
The man stuffed his hands into his pockets, glanced at me, and then kicked at the dust with the toe of his battered boot. “Is your pa here, son?”
I shook my head. “He’s over at my Uncle Tommy’s helping out. My ma and sisters are with him. Uncle Tommy and Aunt Lacerne are both sick. Been that way for a week or so. Won’t be back till tomorrow afternoon. I’m here alone.”
I watched the spark of hope in his eyes flicker and then die. He glanced about the place. Like all the others, he was too proud to ask. I wasn’t about to extend an invitation, not today when the decision was completely mine.
“You can come back tomorrow,” I suggested with calloused indifference. “He’ll be back then.”
“I see,” the man mumbled, knowing what coming back tomorrow implied. He looked back down the long dusty lane to the highway then peered over my shoulder toward the house. There was a longing not easily concealed in his famished eyes. He turned toward the barn and then back at me. But there was no encouragement in my unflinching stare. This man represented the whole mob that had imposed upon me, crowded me at the kitchen table, and forced me from my bed. Sending him down the road was a vindictive retaliation against all of them.
“Well, I guess I’ll be on my way,” he said more to himself than to me.
As he turned to go, I said, “I’ll tell Pa you stopped.”
The man nodded his head and waved weakly. “You’ve got a nice place here,” he commented, motioning to the barn and house with his hand. “I’ve got a boy about your age watching after my place, too. What’s left of it. It’s not as big and nice as yours, but he’s got plenty to do. I sure hope he’s getting along. Well, tell your pa I stopped by. He won’t remember me, but he helped me once before.”
I didn’t watch him pass through the front gate and start down the lane. Not even I could do that. With as much indifference as I could muster, I stepped up on the porch, put the white pad in the strainer, and poured the milk in, listening to it drip into the clean bucket below.
Suddenly I thought of Pa. Just before he had climbed into the truck and driven over to Uncle Tommy’s, he had given me his last-minute instructions. Now his words flashed into my mind, and I couldn’t drive them out: “Son, I’ll trust you to watch after things. I wish I didn’t have to leave you alone this long, but we’ve got to help Uncle Tommy out. If we don’t get the rest of that corn in, his cattle aren’t going to have much this winter. I don’t know how good it is now. I know the frost got a lot of it. If you need anything, run over to Brother Ramsey’s place. I told him you’d be here alone.”
“Pa, I can do it,” I protested, hurt that he had deemed it necessary to speak with Brother Ramsey. I was 17 and felt capable of taking care of things for the three days.
“I know, Son. You can handle things as well as I can.”
His unconditional confidence mocked me now. A gnawing shame bore into my soul.
The last drops of milk pattered into the bucket. Without thinking I glanced up and gazed down the lane toward the departing figure, hunched and plodding against the wind. I don’t know why, but I thought of his son. It was strange that I had never considered that these wanderers could possibly have families, folks who cared, who wondered whether they were safe, had enough to eat or a place to lay their heads. Suddenly, so unexpectedly, he became a real person.
A horrifying vision leaped to my mind’s stage, a vision I could not close my eyes to. The man was transformed. He was no longer a stranger, a mere wanderer, tacitly begging for a place to stop for the night. He became Pa! And I was the selfish youth who had refused him even a corner in the barn. It was a shattering revelation, one that staggered me with its vividness, one that made me loathe the merciless boy who had sent him away.
Leaving the milk on the porch, I started down the lane on a run, impelled by an awful dread that this man would escape me in the cold, dreary dusk. The terrible realization of my heartless act haunted me.
“Hey, mister,” I gasped when I was still several yards away. The man stopped and turned around. “I didn’t ask you if you wanted to spend the night. You can you know.”
“Well, I didn’t mean to …” the man stammered.
“I’m not much of a cook,” I pressed, “but I can give you something and a place to stay.” He looked down the road as though debating. “It’s getting colder. There’ll be frost for sure tonight,” I pointed out.
To my relief he came back with me. Neither of us spoke as we returned to the house. I invited him in and stirred up the coals in the stove and insisted he pull up a chair to warm himself. I could tell he was cold through and through. He rubbed his hands together and reached out to the warmth, beckoning it to penetrate his chilled body.
“Ma left some lima beans,” I apologized, wishing Ma were there to fix something nice. “But there’s bread, and we’ve got lots of milk. I can’t fix anything like Ma, but it will fill you up.”
The man nodded, “Anything, son. Beans sound good.”
We ate supper in silence. I gave him three bowls of beans, a half loaf of Ma’s bread, and a quart of milk. He wouldn’t have eaten it all, but I insisted. I could see he was hungry, and I knew he wouldn’t ask for more.
“I didn’t mean to make a pig of myself,” he apologized.
“We don’t eat steaks and stuff, but what we’ve got we have plenty of, and you’re welcome to it.”
By the time the work was done, darkness had settled and there was nothing to do but go to bed. “Son,” he began, “if you’ve got a blanket I can go out to the barn and bed down. I’ll get up early in the morning and be on my way and won’t have to even bother you. You’ve been real good to me, son.”
“You can’t sleep out there. Pa never lets folks sleep out there, not when we’ve got plenty of room in the house. I’ll fix you up.”
“Then I can lay down by the stove,” he replied.
“No, Mister, we’ve got beds. Come in here.” I led him into my room. “I think there’s enough quilts. If you need more, we’ve got plenty.”
“Isn’t this your room, son?”
“Not tonight,” I explained simply.
The man seemed embarrassed and unsure of himself. “I appreciate all this, son. I stopped by here once before on my way to California looking for work. Your pa took me in, just like you’ve done.” He took a deep breath and shook his head. “You know, there’s a lot of mean folks in this old world, folks that don’t care about anyone but themselves. Folks like that could turn a man sour on everybody. I know. When I was looking for work, sometimes I was bullied and cheated and sent on my way. I’d get real mad. All I was doing was trying to make enough to send back to my family and keep them going. But these other folks didn’t care. As soon as the fruit was picked or the cotton in, then they sent us on our way. It wasn’t my fault I was in hard times. I got to hating.”
He paused and looked down at his dry, calloused hands. “Then I remembered your pa. He didn’t make me eat on the front steps and sleep in the hay in a ditch like most folks. I was somebody to him.” He smiled wanly and brushed his eyes with the back of his hand. “I had to come back. You see, I’m on my way back to Arkansas to get my family. Going to take them out to California. But I had to stop here.”
I nodded my head and looked at the floor. For a moment there was a heavy silence. “Well,” I mumbled, “if you need anything, Mister, just call.”
“Son,” the stranger said just as I turned to go, “you got a good pa. You’re Mormon folks, aren’t you?” I nodded. Out of his coat pocket he pulled a worn copy of the Book of Mormon. “Your pa gave me this. I haven’t read it yet because I don’t read too good, but I’ve kept it with me. I’ve heard a lot of bad things about you Mormons, but I haven’t believed any of it.” He rubbed his rough, chapped hands over the book’s cover. “They said you weren’t Christians and such.” He wagged his head. “But I don’t believe them. How could I? I’ve met just one Christian man in my life. It was your pa. I’m going to get my boy to read me this book and maybe then I’ll find out why your pa’s so different.”
The next morning I was up early to milk. The stranger was up and dressed and ready to head down the road, but I said he couldn’t go until he’d had breakfast. I milked, and he went with me and helped me feed the stock and strain the milk. All the time he talked about his boy and his family. All the while I could picture Pa talking about Ma and the girls and me like that man talked about his folks. I shuddered to think I had almost sent him away.
After breakfast I put a loaf of bread in a brown paper sack and wrapped a chunk of cheese in wax paper and handed them to him. “I wish I could give you more,” I said.
“You’re just like your pa, son. Your pa can be proud of you,” he said hoarsely. With that he turned and started toward the front gate.
As I watched him start down the lane, it seemed his head was a little higher, his shoulders were not so stooped, and his step had more spring in it. I didn’t take my eyes off him until he reached the highway and walked over a little rise out of sight.
It was late afternoon when Ma and Pa and the girls came home. I was out in the barn cleaning the stable. Pa came out as soon as he took the things from the truck into the house.
“How’d things go, Son?”
“Good.” I leaned the fork against the wall. “A man came.”
“Who?”
I shook my head. “I didn’t ask. He was just passing through. Like the others.”
“You put him up, didn’t you?” There was an edge of panic in his voice as though he was worried that someone in need had come and he had not been there to help.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I did what I could.”
Pa sighed, then took a deep breath, obviously relieved.
“I didn’t finish cleaning out the pig pen, though. I ran out of time.”
There was no rebuke in Pa’s look or tone of voice. “There will be time for that. If you looked after the man, that’s all that matters for now.”
Suddenly I felt hot tears burning in my eyes. I didn’t even care that Pa saw me. I didn’t care that I was 17 and supposed to be grown up. I felt something inside me warm and reassuring, something that almost burst my soul. Pa put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me down on a bale of straw beside him. He didn’t say anything for a long time. We just sat there together, knowing what the other was feeling. I knew Pa’s eyes were filled with tears too, but I wasn’t ashamed. In a strange kind of way, I was proud we could shed tears together.
Finally he squeezed my shoulder tight and whispered, “Son, you’re a man now. You’ve proved it today.”
I swallowed hard, remembering the stranger, glad he had come. I offered a silent prayer that before nightfall he would find another man like Pa.

There is yet another gift some of you may want to give that takes starting early. I saw it started once when I was a bishop. A young man sat across my desk from me. He talked about mistakes he had made. And he talked about how much he wanted the children he might have someday to have a dad who could use his priesthood and to whom they could be sealed forever. He said he knew that the price and pain of repentance might be great. And then he said something I will not forget: “Bishop, I am coming back. I will do whatever it takes. I am coming back.” He felt sorrow. And he had faith in Christ. And still it took months of painful effort.

And so somewhere there is a family with a righteous priesthood bearer at its head. They have eternal hopes and peace on earth. He’ll probably give his family all sorts of gifts wrapped brightly, but nothing will matter quite so much as the one he started a long time ago in my office and has never stopped giving. He felt then the needs of children he had only dreamed of, and he gave early and freely. He sacrificed his pride and sloth and numbed feelings. I am sure it doesn’t seem like sacrifice now.