Gospel Story Finder

President Tanner: That reminds me of the story of my Aunt Agnes. Aunt Agnes was housebound in her later years, but she always kept a current temple recommend. She had the desire to get to the temple again somehow. One day her daughter Janeen came for her usual weekly visit. When she opened the door something seemed different. “Mother,” she said, “did you have a cleaning person come today? Everything seems so bright and sparkling.” “No, no one cleaned,” said my aunt. Janeen still persisted. “Did they paint the apartment a lighter color this week? It feels so different, so light to me.” Aunt Agnes smiled and said, “My visiting teachers were able to take me to the temple this morning. I must have brought the light and glory of the temple home with me.”

During a recent trip, Julie and I attended church and saw this verse in action. A young man, soon to leave for his mission, spoke in sacrament meeting.

He said, “You all think my dad is such a good man at church, but …” He paused, and I anxiously wondered what he might say next. He continued and said, “He’s a better man at home.”

I thanked this young man afterward for the inspiring tribute he had paid his father. I then found out that his father was the bishop of the ward. Even though this bishop was serving his ward faithfully, his son felt that his best work was done at home.20

May I close with the story of a young man who taught me this principle very forcibly. I was serving as a mission president in San Diego. I got a call from the Missionary Department one day, and they said they had a young man over in Thailand who had been there for nine months. He had learned the language fluently, but he had quit and come home because he hadn’t had a baptism. See, you have to have success to be happy. You can’t be happy and fail, I don’t care who you are. I presume the ultimate success will be eternal life, and that’s ultimate happiness, too. They had asked him to come by and talk with me on the way home. He wanted to go home so badly that he was willing to do that. So he came into my office, and there he sat, a handsome, good-looking, obviously smart young man. He had learned that language and could speak it fluently in nine months. There are people born and raised in Thailand that never speak the language fluently.

I said, “Elder, how on earth could you spend nine months in Thailand, learn the language fluently, and not baptize anybody? All you would have had to do is walk out on the streets of Bangkok and say, ‘Excuse me, I’m a Mormon elder, I have authority to baptize. Would you like to be baptized?’ That’s really all you have to do—ask people. I’m sure you would have baptized somebody in nine months, speaking the language the way you do. I know it works that way.”

The young man from Bangkok said, “President Rector, I don’t like those people. I don’t like the way they look, I don’t like the way they act, I don’t like the way they smell. They are arrogant.” And he knew about arrogance.

I said, “Well, Elder, I understand why you haven’t baptized anybody. You have to love people in order to baptize them. Why don’t you let me send you up to Carlsbad, California? We’re having a little success up there with the Spanish-speaking people. I’m sure that you could love them enough to bring them into the Church. I know you don’t speak Spanish, and we could send you down to Provo, Utah, to the Missionary Training Center for two months. You would learn to speak the language fluently. But there’s no sense in doing that. I can send you up to Carlsbad and you can get on-the-job training.”

He said, no, he didn’t want to go. I said, “What difference does that make? How many times on this earth do you have to do things that you don’t particularly want to do? Isn’t that what life is really all about, doing a bunch of things that you don’t want to do? I don’t suppose that Abraham wanted to offer his son as a burnt sacrifice, do you? I don’t think the Master wanted to die on the cross either. If he did, he was acting very strangely in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before it happened. And I know for sure that Jonah did not want to go on a mission.”

Well, he went. I gave him a blessing, promised him he would have baptisms, at least two in two months. He almost came home after his first month. But he had committed himself to stay. Commitment is very important to you and me. If you are going to serve the Lord, you are going to have to commit yourself to do so. It’s like Abigail Adams said to her husband, John, president of the United States at the time. “Do you remember what you said to me, John? You said, ‘Commitment, Abby, commitment. There are only two creatures worthy to live, one who makes commitments and one who requires commitments of others.’” If you are going to serve the Lord, you are going to have to help people make commitments. There are certain things you have to do if you are going to make it with the Lord. Those commitments are vitally important.

Well, he stayed. He was twenty-eight days into the second month, and I was getting a little nervous when I got a call from him. He said, “President Rector, I just baptized two people last night.”

I said, “Elder, that’s tremendous. Tell me about it. How did you do it?”

He said, “Well, we were teaching about twenty-five at one time. We were in our commitment lesson where we commit them to keep the commandments, pay their tithing, live the Word of Wisdom, attend church, and so forth. There were two in the group who couldn’t make those commitments. So the elders pulled them out and put them in a room by themselves. They didn’t want any negative influence in their commitment session. I was walking down the hall, and I saw them in the room. The Spirit told me to go in to talk to them.”

Oh, that’s a good sign—when the Spirit starts telling you what to do.

“I went in,” he said. “I pulled up a chair and sat down. One of them looked remarkably like my own brother. As I sat down in that chair, I don’t know what happened to me, but a feeling of love came over me. I said to him, ‘I really do love you.’ The tears rolled down my cheeks, and his cheeks too. A short time later I baptized him; then I baptized his friend.”

In the next six months that young man baptized 350 Spanish-speaking people. I transferred him down to San Diego, where we had some Spanish-speaking people as well. I made him a district leader. He and his companion were walking down the street one day and saw some Thai writing on the window of a building. He went in and spoke Thai with the proprietor. Remember, he could speak Thai fluently. The proprietor about dropped his uppers because he didn’t look like a Thai. The young man called me, very excited, and said, “President Rector, did you know that there are fifty Thai families that live here in my area?”

I said, “You don’t mean it.”

He said, “Yes, they’re here. Can I teach them?”

I said, “Now, Elder, let’s think about it for a minute. If you teach them, you’ll have to be their fellowshipper too. They have to go to Church. They won’t understand anything in English so you will have to translate everything for them. Are you willing to be their fellowshipper as well as their proselytizer?”

“Yes, yes, I’ll do it,” he said.

I said, “Okay, let’s see what you can do.”

Three weeks later he called me and said, “President Rector, I just baptized the most beautiful family of five you have ever seen—a mother and father and three children, all Thais. They don’t speak a word of English.”

I said, “Elder, that’s wonderful. Tell me about those people, will you? What kind of people are they, anyway?”

He said, “Oh, they are the sweetest people. They are so nice and humble.” They were just like the Mexicans, or the Japanese, or the Germans, or anyone else who comes to this particular point of conversion.

I said, “Tell me, elder, how do they smell?”

He said, “Yeah, that’s right; it’s me. I’m the one that’s changed.”

I listened some years ago to a startling confession of a man who stood in a high place. I shall speak carefully of this, lest you try to identify him. He said he had gone to a midwest university, where he received his Ph.D. in education. His father, who was in the Presidency of the Church, went to his graduation exercises and, after the exercises were over, took him to lunch and said to him, “My boy, for eight years now you have done very little in the Church. You have gone through your college years, and now you have gone through your Ph.D. years, and you haven’t been very active in the Church. I want you to promise me that when you get back home you will get active in the Church.”

But the son said, “When I returned home, to my shocking surprise, the boys with whom I had graduated from high school had grown spiritually until they were Ph.D.’s in religion, but I was still in the high school age. I had laid aside my religion for eight years.”

As I listened to that rather sad confession, and being closely associated with that man, I watched him go through the rest of his life. He never did have his spiritual self catch up with that intellectual side. The result was that he failed to take the counsel of his father. He went through life making decisions by his own measure of what was right and wrong, and finally he lost his place in the Church and was excommunicated because of his conduct. I say, as you think of that, it should be a warning to all of us that we must keep our spiritual selves as alive and growing as our intellectual selves.

The majority of young members in Japan are, however, converts themselves.
Hiroyuki Inoue, 17, of the Machida First Ward, remembers vividly the day he and some friends went into Tokyo “just to hang around.”
“We saw several missionaries at a display in the street. One of them held out his hand to me and said, ‘I would like to talk to you a little.’ I was strongly impressed with this missionary’s sincere eyes, his beautiful, shining eyes. He gave me a feeling that what he was telling me was of great significance to me. I promised to attend church the following day.
“At church, even though I had never been there before, I felt as if I was coming back after a long absence. The missionaries taught me the gospel. When I learned about the atonement of Jesus Christ and the many blessings the Lord has given to us, I was happy. My knowledge became sure that he is my Savior and this is his Church.”

In 1904, he and a few others founded a settlement called Sauniatu (“Preparing to Go Forward”), a small sanctuary for the Saints in the mountains of Upolu. Shortly after the first chapel was built, the small cooking house behind it caught on fire and, despite the efforts of the people to carry water from the river, the fire spread rapidly, endangering the chapel itself. Then people noticed that Opapo had climbed atop the chapel and sat astride its roof-beam. Raising his right arm, he looked to heaven and said, “Father, we can spare the small house, but we cannot spare the big one. In the name of Jesus Christ and by the power of the holy priesthood, I command the wind to change.”
It did; the small house collapsed, and the chapel was saved. Not only was the chapel spared, but the Sauniatu Saints’ faith was strengthened at a very difficult time.

Vitaly Yakushev, 18, says that, thanks to the youth conference, he has a deeper understanding of why early pioneers went through so much to gather to Utah. Local Church leaders gave him permission to take the train from his home in Kaliningrad, located in a small slice of Russia on the Baltic Sea, across Lithuania and Latvia, then back into Russia and on to St. Petersburg and Vyborg. The distance isn’t that far, but since the train stops in nearly every town, it took 21 hours.
That might seem like a lot to go through for a youth conference, Vitaly explains. “But I believe Jesus Christ lives and that he restored his Church through Joseph Smith. To be with so many others who believe the same things brings me happiness and joy. My soul wanted to be here.”

In our afternoon sessions, we had been working on the second movement of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata. The notes on the page seemed deceptively simple, but it never felt quite right when I played it.
“This time, Maria,” he said, “don’t hang on the notes like you own them. Let them sing through you. Pathetique doesn’t mean ‘pathetic,’ like in English. It means great, powerful emotion. Listen as you play. This second movement is flooded with hope. Remember, you and the piano are the instruments for the master.”
After that speech, what could I do? I thought of the master Beethoven penciling in the notes; then I closed my eyes and began. The feel of this movement had always eluded me. But this time the sounds told my fingers how to play, and the music shimmered in the room forming a momentary blanket against the coldness in other parts of my life. When I finished, I looked at Todd. A tear trickled down his cheeks.
“I can’t tell if that was for the master of the universe or from him, Maria.”
The Master he was talking about wasn’t Beethoven. I remembered Papa’s pain and said, “If you mean God, it was neither.”
“Then you know nothing of gifts,” he said.
“I know there is no God.”
He hesitated before he spoke. “Can I share something?”
“If it’s more of your Mormon religion, I don’t think so.”
“Why?”
I told him about Papa, about his singing, about his pain.
“Perhaps Mormon missionaries can help—him and you,” he said.
“Don’t count on it.”
Sunday evening Todd showed up with two college-age young men. I didn’t think Todd and his friends could help Papa, but after our visit in the music room the day I mastered the Pathetique, I was willing to try. Todd talked that day of what he called eternal things, and although Todd’s words were strange to me, they were full of hope. Even if there was only a slight chance they could help Papa, I wanted to try. I had not told Papa, though. I was afraid he’d say no if I asked.
I let Todd and his friends in, and Papa entered from the kitchen, two drinks already down and another in his hand.
“Papa, this is Todd. I’ve told you about him. He helps me with my music.”
“Ah,” Papa said, crossing the room to shake hands. “You are the boy with fingers of gold, Maria says.”
“She’s kind. But she has gold of her own, Mr. D’Alesso.” Todd stepped back. “Mr. D’Alesso, this is Elder Sals and Elder Warran.”
“What, you have the same funny first name?” Papa asked, grinning.
“No,” Elder Sals smiled. “That’s what missionaries in the Mormon church are called.”
Papa’s lips tightened. “You have a business here? In my home?”
Todd looked at me.
“I forgot to tell you, Papa. I invited them over to talk to us about their church.”
“They go.” Papa turned, and over his shoulder he said, “Now,” and walked back to the kitchen.
I apologized to Todd and the elders, and they left.
Papa came back into the room. I wanted to yell at him for being so rude, but I knew most of it was my fault for not telling him.
“These boys. They fill your head with the funny ideas, and you believe them. Then you find out the truth, and you be bitter. Eh, I know. You listen to your Papa. There is no God. You stay away from that boy and his friends.”
“Okay, Papa. I won’t talk religion with him.”
“No. No more practice with him. He’s bad.”
“No, Papa. I can learn more from Todd in one afternoon than I can from Mrs. Talesworthy in ten years. I won’t quit my lessons.”
“You will stay away,” he shouted. “Final.”
“Please, Papa.”
“Final!” he screamed.
Where my relationship with Papa had been cool and distant before, it now became icy. To disobey Papa was unforgivable, to not work with Todd on my piano, unbearable. In the evenings I went to the library, to a friend’s house, or I occupied myself in my room doing homework or reading.
A few weeks passed, and Pauly came home from college for the weekend. We ate a quiet dinner where Papa asked questions, the same questions Papa always asked—How’s school? You keeping your grades up? You don’t do nothing to let them take your scholarship away? Then later, alone, I told Paul what had happened.
“Papa chooses to pine away his life,” Paul said. “We buried our mother; he buried his joy. Do what you have to do to live your life, Maria.”
Monday, as we walked together between classes, I told Todd I was ready to start piano lessons again.
“Did your father say it’s okay?” he asked.
“It doesn’t matter what my father says. It’s my life.”
“You should obey your father.”
“Then I’m destined to take lessons from Mrs. Talesworthy for the rest of my life.”
“There are worse things.”
“Yeah,” I smiled, “like watching you sight-read Chopin without even one mistake.”
“Oh, there are mistakes. You just don’t hear them, yet. But your ear’s improving. Look, there has to be a way to reach your father. I feel responsible for bringing up the idea of talking religion to him in the first place. Maybe I should visit him, apologize, tell him I won’t discuss religion with you, and ask him to let us work together again.”
“No. That’s hopeless, and maybe unwise—especially if you came when he was drinking.”
“Is he mean then?”
“No, not really. Just more stubborn.”
Todd seemed stumped. Then he shrugged his shoulders and said, “If it’s supposed to work out, it will.”
I stopped walking and grabbed his arm. “People can’t just hope things will work out. They have to do something, Todd.”
Todd turned to face me. “So, what are you going to do?”
“Men!” I said and whacked him on the shoulder.
We both laughed, but I knew he was right about obeying Papa.
The warning bell rang, and Todd started to walk away, then turned around. “You might pray,” he grinned, and was off.
The thought that I could pray had never occurred to me. I’d only seen it done by preachers on TV, or in the movies. I had to do something, though. I thought about Todd’s suggestion the rest of the day and decided I would try it.
That night I poured out my heart at my bedside and after a half-hour climbed in bed. There was no flash of light, no inspiration, no singing angels, nothing. But the melody of Beethoven’s Pathetique Sonata playing in my mind and an understanding that I must do something.
I stared at the dark ceiling and made a mental list of my options. I could try to persuade Papa to see a doctor. That hadn’t worked before; perhaps, though, it was worth another try. I could leave things as they were and hope that in time he’d heal. But Papa was growing more sullen each week. I could talk to Uncle Ricard and ask him for help. But he was a thousand miles away. I could let Todd talk to Papa, but that hadn’t gone over too well before. I had tried to bring Todd’s name up on two occasions since the missionaries’ visit, and Papa got angry. I told him I wanted to know more about what Todd believed, and he didn’t like that.
Of course I could confront Papa and insist that we either work together or threaten to move out. Chances were, though, I’d end up on the street. And if he threw me out, I didn’t know what would happen to him or me. What I really wanted to do was take responsibility for my own life, let Papa do with his what he would, and secretly start lessons with Todd again.
But that’s not what I did.
It was after dinner the next evening. We had eaten and cleaned up, mostly in silence. When we were through, Papa headed for the bottle of scotch and the TV.
“Papa?” I said.
“What?”
“Can we talk?”
“About what?” His eyes grew darker.
Oh, how I longed to see the brightness in them again. Why did Mama have to go? “Papa, I’m dying.”
“What? You make a joke?” His eyes widened.
“I don’t have a disease or anything, but I’m dying. My music is dying, and so are you.”
“Look. I don’t need you to tell me what I am doing.”
“Papa, I remember one spring afternoon when we were barbecuing and Pauly asked you to sing. You opened your mouth, and the notes came out like the Creator himself had touched your voice. And the world stopped to listen. I asked you that day if you had always sung. Do you remember what you said?”
“No. It doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter. It matters to me, and it matters to Mama.”
“There is no Mama for you, Maria; no wife for me.”
“Papa, you said that you thought God sent music to give us joy and Mama to show us he loved us. Do you remember?”
Papa lifted his gaze and stared at the wall. “I remember.”
“I don’t know why she died, but you mock her life with your constant self-pity.”
He raised his voice. “I lost my wife.”
“And I lost my mother,” I shouted. “And now I’m losing you.”
“You will not talk to me like that.”
“Why not? If it’s not like this it won’t be at all.” I pounded the table. “The only talk you do these days is to the TV and your bottles of scotch.”
“You give your dad some respect. Hear?” He rose off his seat, his face flushed, and I knew I was close to a point of no return. I could stop now, and in a few days things would be more or less frigid normal. If I pushed him too far, I could lose him as surely as I had lost Mama.
“Papa, what if Todd is right? What if there is a God, and what if Mama is alive, living with him in another world, waiting for you? What if your being with her again depends on what you do here? What if your selfishness and self-pity kept you from being with her after you die?”
He looked as if each word was a well-aimed bullet. He sunk back in his seat. After a moment of silence, he said, quietly, “No one can know about these things.”
“Todd says he and a lot of other people do.”
For the first time in my life I saw Papa as a little boy, a frightened child who had lost hope.
“Father, may I play you a song?”
“You hate me, Maria?”
“No, I love you, Papa. Please, may I play for you?”
He nodded his head and followed me into the living room.
“Sit down, Papa, and listen.”
I closed my eyes and, this time, pictured the Master, like in a picture Todd had shown me. And Mama stood beside him.
I began the second movement of the Pathetique. When I finished, I looked at Papa, deep in his chair, and he said with a softness to his face, “You play like you want God to hear you.”
“I do, Papa. I want to play so well that he will tell Mama how beautiful it is.”
Papa came over and stood behind me. He put his strong hands on my shoulders. “This Todd. He taught you to play like that?”
“No, Papa. You did.”
I felt his hands tremble against my shoulders, and he said, “Tonight, you play for me, Maria, and inside I sing again.”

If anyone asked Belinda where she was going to live when she grew up, she’d tell them on the moon. She’d explain how she was going to build her house in a big crater and watch the stars all night long. But nobody ever asked her, so she never told anyone.
And if anyone ever asked Belinda what her favorite food in the whole world was, she would tell them raspberries. But no one ever asked her that, either. Instead, they asked her where she got her red hair, or if she was a good girl—simple questions that they already knew the answers to.
No one ever asked her the kind of questions they asked her father, like which team would win the world series. And they didn’t ask her questions like they asked her mother. No, no one ever asked Belinda how to spell encyclopedia.
Belinda was tired of answering simple questions. She wanted people to know that she could guess which team would win the world series as well as anyone else. And maybe she couldn’t spell encyclopedia, but there were lots of other words she could spell.
When Saturday arrived, her mother told her that they were going to Aunt Martha’s for supper. Grandfather and Grandmother would be there, along with Mr. Nibb, a special guest. Mr. Nibb was her aunt’s neighbor. He was an older man who lived by himself. Belinda had never met him before.
When they arrived, Aunt Martha was in the kitchen, rolling out dough for the pie she was making. “What a big girl you’re getting to be,” she said to Belinda. “Are you eating your vegetables?”
“Yes, Aunt Martha,” Belinda answered politely.
Grandfather was standing by the sink. “Are you remembering to brush your teeth after each meal?” Grandfather used to be a dentist.
Just then Grandma came into the kitchen. After everyone said hello, she walked over to Belinda and pinched her cheek. “Are you being a good girl, Belinda?”
Before Belinda had a chance to answer, Mr. Nibb came into the kitchen. He was older than her grandparents, and he had white hair and wore glasses. He walked a little more slowly than Belinda’s grandparents did.
“Are you warm enough?” Grandmother asked as he took off his coat.
“Yes, thank you,” Mr. Nibb answered.
“Did you remember to take your medicine?” Grandfather asked.
“Yes,” Mr. Nibb answered.
Then Aunt Martha took Mr. Nibb into the living room. “Do you like the view?” she asked, once he was seated on the couch in front of the large bay window.
“Yes,” he answered.
Belinda went in and sat beside Mr. Nibb. “What does a young girl like you plan to be when you get older?” Mr. Nibb asked her.
“I want to be an astronaut,” Belinda told him. Mr. Nibb was the first person who had asked her that in a long time.
“Well, that is a fine profession,” Mr. Nibb told her. “I bet you like the stars then.”
Belinda nodded. “Do you?”
“Do I?” Mr. Nibb repeated. “Why, every clear night I sit on my back porch and look at the stars through my telescope!”
Belinda couldn’t believe her ears. “You have a telescope?”
“I sure do. If you want, I’ll let you look through it tonight.”
“Great! Why do you like the stars so much, Mr. Nibb?”
Mr. Nibb smiled. “When I was your age, I looked at the stars every night. I wondered what it was that made them so bright and shiny.”
Belinda was smiling now. Mr. Nibb asked her questions that were special, questions that most grown-ups thought that she was too young to answer. “Do people ask you silly questions just because you’re old?”
“Sometimes,” Mr. Nibb answered slowly. “But they mean well. They think that because I’m old, I can only answer simple questions. And I suspect they do the same thing to you because you’re young. But we both know that that isn’t true, don’t we?” he said, winking at Belinda.
Belinda smiled. “You ask great questions, Mr. Nibb.”
Mr. Nibb smiled back. “So do you, Belinda.”
That night Belinda went over to look at the stars through Mr. Nibb’s telescope. She asked Mr. Nibb all kinds of questions, and Mr. Nibb knew the answers to almost all of them. Then Mr. Nibb asked Belinda where she’d like to live when she grew up, and they looked through books that had pictures of the moon in them, to find a crater that would be perfect for Belinda’s house.

In 1833, an ancestor, Truman, and his young wife, Polly, embraced the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and were baptized. Truman came from a very troubled home with an abusive father. But then he and Polly started their own gospel-centered family. They moved to Kirtland, Ohio, to be with the Saints, and since Truman was a carpenter—a joiner—he worked on the interior of the Kirtland Temple.

In 1836 Truman was ordained a seventy:

Since this position involved special responsibility for missionary work, he began preparations for a mission while remaining busy with construction work. When the Prophet Joseph approached him about building a store, Truman replied that he “was about to go out into the vineyard to preach.” The Prophet told him to go ahead but apparently reconsidered his need for the skilled carpenter and returned with his counselors the next day to renew the request. Truman records the conversation in his autobiography:

“The next day I looked up and saw the Presidency of the Church together. I dropped my head and continued to work. At this time a voice seemed to whisper to me, ‘It is your duty to build that house for President Smith.’ And while I was meditating upon it, I looked up and Brother Joseph Smith was close to me. He said, ‘It is your duty to build that house.’ I answered, ‘I know it.’ Accordingly, I changed my determination and yielded obedience.”18

I wonder how things might have been different if this young man had pushed to do what he had planned to do rather than submitting to what the Lord had in store for him. This man’s name was Truman O. Angell. He eventually became the architect for the Church and designed the Salt Lake Temple, along with many other structures from that time period. As with Truman, if we allow the Lord to guide us, He can lead us in directions where we can be most useful.

Oftentimes we are like the young merchant from Boston, who in 1849, as the story goes, was caught up in the fervor of the California gold rush. He sold all of his possessions to seek his fortune in the California rivers, which he was told were filled with gold nuggets so big that one could hardly carry them.
Day after endless day, the young man dipped his pan into the river and came up empty. His only reward was a growing pile of rocks. Discouraged and broke, he was ready to quit until one day an old, experienced prospector said to him, “That’s quite a pile of rocks you are getting there, my boy.”
The young man replied, “There’s no gold here. I’m going back home.”
Walking over to the pile of rocks, the old prospector said, “Oh, there is gold all right. You just have to know where to find it.” He picked two rocks up in his hands and crashed them together. One of the rocks split open, revealing several flecks of gold sparkling in the sunlight.
Noticing a bulging leather pouch fastened to the prospector’s waist, the young man said, “I’m looking for nuggets like the ones in your pouch, not just tiny flecks.”
The old prospector extended his pouch toward the young man, who looked inside, expecting to see several large nuggets. He was stunned to see that the pouch was filled with thousands of flecks of gold.
The old prospector said, “Son, it seems to me you are so busy looking for large nuggets that you’re missing filling your pouch with these precious flecks of gold. The patient accumulation of these little flecks has brought me great wealth.”

Not long after he came back from Asia in 1927, Howard went to see Ned Redding, a friend who lived in Southern California. After serious deliberation he decided to stay there and look for a career. He got a job with the Bank of Italy (later Bank of America) in 1928 and enrolled in evening classes for college credit. This same friend, Ned Redding, introduced Howard to a young lady friend of his at an M-Men and Gleaner dance at the Wilshire Ward on 8 June 1928. Her name was Clara (Claire) May Jeffs. Attracted to her at once, Howard said to Claire: “Why don’t you ever go out with me?” She said, “Why don’t you ask me?” Soon she and Howard began dating. They became engaged early in 1931 and were married on June 10 that year.

After their engagement, Howard decided to give up professional music and set new goals of marriage and a family. Since that time he has played his musical instruments only at family gatherings.

Rebecca Rosanne couldn’t stop following things. She followed the big brown garbage truck as it crawled like a giant beetle from dumpster to dumpster in the apartment complex where she lived.
She followed the gardener on his riding lawn mower. And she followed the letter carrier in his little white jeep with the red and blue stripes. But every time Rebecca Rosanne followed something, she followed it so far that she got lost.
“Rebecca Rosanne,” her mother would say, “when will you stop following everything that moves!”
Rebecca Rosanne would hang her head. She never meant to get lost by following things. But she was curious about trucks and jeeps and lawn mowers. She was curious about the letter carrier’s bag of mail.
One day Rebecca Rosanne was digging in the sandbox when a strange bus drove into her neighborhood. It wasn’t orange like the bus the older children rode to school. It was green and black.
Rebecca Rosanne was curious. She ran to the parking lot, where the bus had stopped. People lined up to climb the three tall steps into the bus. So did Rebecca Rosanne. When she looked inside, she was surprised. Instead of seats on this bus, there were shelves of books. She followed a boy to the back, where there were some picture books on a rack.
Rebecca Rosanne pulled out a book and sat down on the steps that led to the back door of the bus. She smiled when she turned to the first page. There was a picture of a letter carrier beside a white jeep with red and blue stripes. A picture on another page showed where the letter carrier got the mail.
Then Rebecca Rosanne found a bigger book about trucks. She was so busy looking at this book that she didn’t notice the other people leave the bus. She didn’t hear the driver close the front door and start the engine. Before Rebecca Rosanne knew what was happening, the bus full of books was gently swaying as it drove out of the parking lot.
When it stops at the next apartment building, I’ll get off, thought Rebecca Rosanne.
But the bus didn’t stop at the next apartment building. Instead, it drove onto the main highway and headed downtown. Rebecca Rosanne was scared. She had never followed anything that far before. Her stomach felt as if she’d swallowed a bowlful of cold, wiggly worms.
Finally the bus pulled into a driveway behind a red brick building and stopped. Rebecca Rosanne heard the driver walking toward the back of the bus. When the driver saw her, he said in a kind voice, “Well, it looks like somebody hitched a ride on the bookmobile.” He bent down and asked, “What’s your name?”
Rebecca Rosanne was still scared, but she told the driver her name.
“Well, Rebecca Rosanne, climb off the bookmobile while I lock up. Then we’ll go into the library and call your mother.”
While she waited, Rebecca Rosanne said to herself several times the word bookmobile. She thought that a bus full of books was even better than a garbage truck.
And when Rebecca Rosanne saw what was inside the red brick building the driver had called the library, she was even more pleased. Books were everywhere!
A woman behind a high counter smiled kindly, then said softly, “This must be Rebecca Rosanne. Your mother just called. A neighbor told her that she’d seen you climbing into the bookmobile. I’ll call your mother and tell her that you’re here.”
The driver led Rebecca Rosanne to a room with tables and chairs just her size. “You can wait for your mother here,” he said.
Rebecca Rosanne looked at a book about trains until her mother came. “Hey, Mom,” she shouted, “a book on the bookmobile showed me where letter carriers get their mail. And this one is about trains!”
When Rebecca Rosanne’s mother saw how excited her daughter was about the books, she helped Rebecca Rosanne borrow some from the library.
One day when they were looking at a book, Rebecca Rosanne said, “I haven’t gotten lost for a long time, have I, Mom?”
“No, not since you stopped following everything that moves and started following books,” she said, giving Rebecca Rosanne a big hug.

Don’t just take our word for it. Last year in a small town in Utah, young men in a teachers quorum visited the youth activities website (lds.org/youth/activities) to find ideas for an activity. One in particular caught their attention: “Seven Days of Service.”
These young men decided to do something even bigger: they would provide service each day for an entire week to anyone in the ward who requested it. When 19 families signed up, the young men were a little surprised and perhaps even a little overwhelmed. How would they be able to do so much service in such a short time? But they had made a commitment, so they decided to serve all of the families.
In just one week, they gave over 250 hours of combined service, doing such projects as moving a huge pile of rocks, digging a sandbox, cleaning out gutters, and stacking wood. And it changed the young men too.
They felt awed by the strength they felt and the blessings they received. They described feeling united as a quorum and receiving divine help to do homework and other responsibilities. Now, when their ward needs service, the teachers quorum responds enthusiastically. They didn’t just serve for a week—they try to serve every day.

There is no dinner like a Christmas dinner in France. The food comes in courses, at least seven of them. And we had feasted on each course, from hors d’oeuvres to entrées to pièces de résistance. And to top it all off, dessert. Not some ordinary cake, pie, or pudding. Not even flaky pastry from the local patisserie. Sister Gournillon had made a bûche de Nöel.
To say a bûche de Nöel is a Christmas cake is to say the Eiffel Tower is some building in Paris. A bûche is the culinary crown of a French Christmas. It is composed of layers of butter frosting, cream custard, and light, white cake swirled together in the shape of a Yule log, from which it gets its name. Sister Gournillon had made hers herself and had even pushed a tiny plastic hatchet into the chocolate frosting.
“Nobody is going to say the branch president’s wife didn’t feed the missionaries well on Christmas,” she said. Nobody would.
It was thanks to the bûche, I guess, that I fell asleep on the couch. We had told President Gournillon that we could only stay a short time for Christmas dinner, and he understood. But when I sat down after such a huge meal, I must have dozed for a minute.
It didn’t take me long to wake up. The kids, all seven of them, were playing soldiers. Stephan, age 6, was the commandant. He was chasing Natalie, age 5, around the couch when she tripped and fell. Her forehead popped against my cheekbone just below my eye, hard. She was so startled she didn’t even cry. I was amazed at how fast my ruptured blood vessel produced swelling.
We left for home a few minutes later. By then, my eye was swollen so much I felt like a prize fighter.
“Oooh, Frère Romney, cette beurre noir va vous fair du mal,” Sister Gournillon said. (“This black eye’s going to hurt.”)
“I’ll live,” I said.
President Gournillon held Natalie up next to me so she could kiss it better. “Je suis triste (I’m sorry),” she said.
“Ca va, ça va (that’s okay),” I smiled. “Next time pick on someone your own size.”
When we got out to our bikes, I gathered up some snow and held it to my cheek. It felt better.
How does a missionary with a black eye go tracting? I wondered. The same as any other missionary: one door at a time. Some people gave me funny looks, as if they wondered who would punch a foreigner and why. One man even asked me if I had hit the other guy first. But the embarrassment really deepened when the zone leaders arrived for their visit.
“You know, Elder Romney, for a brand-new missionary you’ve really come out swinging,” Elder Zoelfelt said, grinning. “Just don’t think you’ve got to fight your way to the top.”
“I’d rather fight than switch,” I joked back. By now my black eye was purple and yellow—and all over the side of my face.
Elder Zoelfelt and I were assigned to go tracting together that day. I was a little intimidated to be out alone with a zone leader, but I wanted to do my best.
“You decide where we’ll go,” he told me following a word of prayer.
“Let’s head for the Z. U. P. de la Cité (government housing area),” I said. “It’s not far and we only did about half of it the last time we were there.”
We pedaled the half mile, climbed off our bikes, locked them to a tree, and took out the flip-charts. As we approached the nearest building, I suddenly realized that I had no idea where Elder Norton (my regular companion) and I had left off. It had been about two weeks. There hadn’t been many people home, and we hadn’t made any teaching appointments. The only thing I remembered about the cold, gray complex was that in one building one lady hadn’t liked us at all. When we had told her we were Mormon missionaries, she hadn’t just said, “Non, merci.” She had said, “Non! Non! Non!” at the top of her voice and chased us down the stairs. Everyone in the building must have heard her yell at us.
I picked out an entrance to one of the nearest stairwells (they all looked alike).
“I feel good about starting here,” I said.
“Always follow your feelings,” Elder Zoelfelt said.
We walked up the five flights to the top floor and started our way down. Nobody home. Nobody home. Come back later. Nobody home.
“It’s your turn, elder,” the zone leader reminded me.
I rang the bell. We could hear someone inside.
“Un instant! (just a minute),” a voice said.
That voice!
I looked around me. The potted plant. The light switch. The color of the door. How had I picked that door? It was the door of the lady who had chased us down the stairs! Maybe if I ran for it I could get out before she charged us. What would a zone leader think of a missionary who flees from battle?
She opened the door.
“Bonjour,” I said. “I think we’ve met before.”
“Yes, we have,” she said. “But last time you were with someone else. And … you didn’t have that black eye.”
“Well … ,” I stammered, “Would you like to know how I got it?”
“Sure,” she laughed. “Come on in.”
Her name was Madame Barnet.
“I was quite rude to you the other day,” she apologized. “But you see, I’m the local catechism teacher. The priest told us the Mormons were in the area and that we should not make it pleasant for you.”
“All we want is to tell people about Christ,” Elder Zoelfelt said.
“But we already know about him.”
The silence was deadening, the kind of silence that happens when everyone knows the next word could set off sparks.
“Well … ,” I said. “Let me tell you about my black eye.” I started with the bûche de Nöel. Then we talked about the branch president’s family. Then I told her how Natalie had tripped and bumped me on the cheekbone.
“I thought someone must have hit you,” Madame Barnet said. “But I didn’t dream it would have been a little girl.”
We talked about Christmas in France and Christmas in Ohio. We talked about turkeys and roast chestnuts and caroling and sleigh rides. We talked about families and Christmas cards and being away from home. She told us about the children in the neighborhood and how she loved them. Since her divorce, teaching them about Jesus had been a great comfort to her.
“Would you like to tell them how Jesus came to America?” Elder Zoelfelt asked.
“Come on,” she said. “No fairy tales here.”
“Seriously,” he said. “That’s something we know about Christ that you may not know. Look at this picture.”
He showed her the picture of Christ appearing to the Nephites and bore his testimony that it had actually happened. I could feel the Spirit.
“That is something that I never heard before,” she admitted. “Et vous en êtes si convaincus (and you are so sure it’s true).”
We talked a few minutes more, and then she sent us on our way. She wouldn’t let us make an appointment to teach her, but she at least smiled and shook our hands.
When we got outside, Elder Zoelfelt looked at me and smiled.
“Elder Romney,” he said, “that was one of the most original door approaches I’ve ever seen. I wonder what you’d do with a broken leg.”
I couldn’t help laughing.
“I wish she would have invited us back to teach her more,” I said. “I bet she’d really like to see ‘Christ in America.’”
“Maybe someday she will,” Elder Zoelfelt said. “Maybe she will. For right now, you’ve helped her understand us a little better. She might even consider us friends. At least you didn’t give the Church a black eye.”
I groaned. I had to. But at least I felt like I’d helped someone know a little bit more about the Church. Maybe that bump on the cheek had been worth it after all.

I started attending my new senior school last September. In a school of over a thousand students, I was the only Latter-day Saint. In my religion class of 30 people, only I and one other girl attend church of any kind. On my first day of class, my religion teacher, Mrs. Johnson*, asked us to name the holy books that are used in different religions. I said the Book of Mormon, and at first she wasn’t sure which church used it. I explained that I was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. She asked me to choose my favorite scripture for the following week and also tell the class about my church.
The following week I read Moroni 10:4, which was the first scripture the missionaries shared with me and my mom. I told the class about the First Vision and how Joseph Smith received and later translated the gold plates. I was really nervous because my friends think that you are a geek if you go to church. I was afraid that they would make fun of me. But when I started speaking, the Spirit was with me, and everybody listened with interest. Afterward, they asked questions.
Since then, Mrs. Johnson has started reading the Book of Mormon and the Ensign, although she hasn’t yet come to church. Also, in every religion lesson we talk about my beliefs. And some of my friends are planning to come to church activities.
My prayer is that one day I will be just one of many Latter-day Saints at my school. Everyone deserves an opportunity to learn about Jesus Christ and His Church and return to live with Heavenly Father. If we keep the gospel to ourselves, we are being selfish. We should share it with everyone, no matter who they are. That is what Jesus Christ wants us to do, and I am trying to be like Him.

When we arrived in Montevideo, Uruguay, I nervously looked for my father and saw him standing with his wife. He waved his cane at me in recognition. I waved back. Finally, the customs officer told me to proceed. As I walked through the customs door, my father eagerly came toward me. We embraced and kissed each other. As we left the airport terminal, the Spirit told me that the man walking beside me was a different person than I had imagined.
We spent the next few days getting acquainted with one another, laughing together, discovering what we had in common, and becoming friends. Angie and I asked him to record on tape his experiences in his youth and in courting my mother, and we discovered many things about his past. Then, one morning, Angie and I prayed that we would be blessed that day with the right words in asking my father to share with us the Ainsa genealogy and history.
It was my father’s eighty-first birthday. After opening presents at breakfast, he excused himself and came back with an object hidden underneath a towel. He handed me a box and said, “This is the least I can do after all these years. Somehow I feel that I have to make it up to you.” Inside the box was a beautiful watch.
Thirty minutes later, as we were upstairs sitting around my father’s oak desk, I inserted a blank tape into the cassette recorder and asked him to tell me about my ancestors. He talked for a few minutes, then stopped. “It’s a waste,” he said.
I panicked. “Lord, please help me,” I prayed. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for years.” Then I asked my father, “Why do you say it is a waste?”
“Because I have it in print,” he replied. My heart began to beat faster as he reached for a drawer in his desk, opened it, pulled out a folder, and handed me a sheet of paper with a list of names on it. “These are your ancestors on my father’s side,” he said, “and you’re welcome to this list.” I glanced quickly through it; it contained the names of his parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents, as well as those of distant relatives.
“What about your mother? Have you compiled a list on her side of the family?” I asked, my voice trembling.
“Your grandmother’s lineage is not important,” he muttered, brushing aside my inquiry. I replied that were it not for my grandmother, he wouldn’t be here, to which my father said, “Well, if it is that important to you, you can have it.” With that, he gave me an envelope containing names scribbled on several sheets of paper and said, “As a matter of fact, you might as well have everything.” He placed the folder in my hand.
I opened it and, as tears began to blur my vision, I read through several lists of names of distant relatives. Inside were pictures of my grandmother, my grandfather, and others. I wept openly. During the past twenty-one years, I had prayed on many occasions for this day. The Lord had heard my requests and had answered them at the appropriate time.
“Why are you crying?” my father asked.
“Because I am happy to be here,” I said.
At that moment, he, too, began to cry. He leaned his head on my shoulder and took my hand between his. “I am sorry,” he said. “I am sorry for what I did. I was wrong. I was never a father to you. During all those years, I never bothered to find out who you were. Will you ever forgive me?”
“Of course I forgive you—it is forgiven and forgotten,” I uttered between sobs. As I embraced him, the Spirit whispered softly, “I, the Lord, will forgive whom I will forgive, but of you it is required to forgive all men” (D&C 64:10). We were at peace. All the years of separation, loneliness, and turmoil melted away. He knew who I was. He had found a son. And I had finally found my father.

Under sacred circumstances, our beloved prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, once reminded me of two simple truths that are foundational to your grand and glorious work.
As I sat on the couch with my husband, our prophet pulled his chair over, almost knee to knee with us, and looked at me with his piercing blue eyes. I wasn’t sure if my heart was racing or had completely stopped as he called me to serve as the Young Women General President. He asked a question that still echoes in my heart, “Bonnie, what’s the most important thing the [youth] need to know?”
I pondered for a moment and said, “They need to know who they are.”
“YES!” he exclaimed, “and they need to know their purpose.”
You are a cherished, beloved child of Heavenly Father. He loves you so perfectly that He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to atone for you and for me. The Savior’s love for us is unfailing—even when we fail! Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Remembering this love can help you push back the confusion of the world that tries to weaken your confidence in your divine identity and blind you of your potential.
At an FSY conference, I met two young women who had been struggling. Both young women mentioned turning to her patriarchal blessing to rediscover the Lord’s love and guidance for her personally. Find your patriarchal blessing, blow off the dust if you must, but study it often. If you don’t have one, get one—soon. Don’t delay finding out what the Lord wants to tell you now about who you are.
President Nelson’s second truth spoken to us that day is to know our purpose. This is our grand and noble charge.
Many years ago, my son Tanner was about five years old when he played his first soccer game. He was thrilled!
When we arrived at the game, we realized that his team was using a regulation-size soccer goal—not some little pop-up goal but a very large net that seemed way too big for five-year-olds.
The game took on mythic proportions as I saw Tanner take the goalie position. I was so surprised. Did he really understand his purpose in guarding the net?
The whistle blew, and we became so caught up in the game we forgot all about Tanner. Suddenly one of the opposing team members got the ball and dribbled it swiftly toward him. I looked in Tanner’s direction to make certain he was ready to stand his ground and defend the goal. I saw something I was not expecting.
At some point in the game, Tanner had become distracted and began weaving his left arm through the various holes in the net. Then he did the same with his right arm. Next, his left foot. Finally, his right foot. Tanner was fully entangled in the net. He had forgotten his purpose and what he had been entrusted to do.
While Tanner’s soccer career didn’t last long, his lesson to me that day will never fade. We all occasionally get distracted from why we are here and divert our energies somewhere else. One of Satan’s most powerful weapons is to distract us with good and better causes which, in times of need, may blind and bind us away from the best cause—the very work that called us into this world.
Our eternal purpose is to come unto Christ and actively join Him in His great work. It is as simple as doing what President Nelson taught: “Anytime we do anything that helps anyone … make and keep their covenants with God, we are helping to gather Israel.” And when we do His work together with Him, we come to know and love Him more.
We continually seek to draw closer to the Savior through faith, cherished repentance, and keeping the commandments. As we bind ourselves to Him through covenants and ordinances, our lives are filled with confidence, protection, and deep and lasting joy.
As we come to Him, we see others through His eyes. Come unto Christ. Come now, but don’t come alone!
The gospel of Jesus Christ is not just nice; it is essential for all. “There is no other way or means whereby [we] can be saved, only in and through Christ.” We need Jesus Christ! The world needs Jesus Christ.
Remember, the best way for you to improve the world is to prepare the world for Christ by inviting all to follow Him.
There is a story in the Book of Mormon that speaks powerfully of the resurrected Savior spending time with the Nephites. Can you imagine what that would be like?
As Christ announced that He must return to the Father, “he cast his eyes round about again.” Seeing tears in the people’s eyes, He knew their hearts were longing for Him to linger.
He asked: “Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, … deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them.”
Having great compassion, He set no limits and called for all “that are afflicted in any manner.” I love that nothing is too big or too small for Jesus Christ to heal.
He knows our suffering as well and calls, Bring forth the anxious and depressed, the weary, the prideful and misunderstood, the lonely, or those who “are afflicted in any manner.”
And all “did go forth … ; and he did heal them every one. …
“… Both they who had been healed and they who were whole, [did] bow down at his feet, and did worship him.”
Every time I read this, I ask myself: Who will I bring to Christ? Who will you bring?
Can we look round about again, as Jesus did, to make sure no one is missed and everyone is invited to come to know Him?
Let me share an example of how simple it can be. My 15-year-old friend Peyton had a goal to read five verses of scripture at breakfast each day, but she didn’t do it alone. Looking again, Peyton invited her parents and siblings, even her five-year-old brother. This seemingly small act is what Christ was teaching when He invited, “Bring them hither.”
This invitation from the Lord is still extended today. Young women and young men, start now, in your own home. Will you pray and ask Heavenly Father how you can support your parents as they continue to come unto Christ? They need you just as much as you need them.
Then look again at your siblings, friends, and neighbors. Who will you bring to Christ?
Our Savior declared, “Behold I am the light; I have set an example for you.” We will feel the love and peace of the Savior as we join Him in saving God’s family, for He has promised, “He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
What a glorious time to be engaged in the cause of Christ!
Yes, you are here for something grand. I join with President Nelson, who said: “The Lord needs you to change the world. As you accept and follow His will for you, you will find yourself accomplishing the impossible!”
I boldly testify that the Lord knows who you are and He loves you! Together, we will advance His purpose until that great day when Christ Himself returns to this earth and calls each of us to come “hither.” We will joyfully gather together, for we are those who come unto Christ, and we do not come alone. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Early in my professional life, Sister Homer and I were asked to accept a change in job assignment. At the time, it seemed to us a huge decision. We studied, we fasted, and we prayed, but an answer was slow to come. Eventually, we made a decision and pressed forward. As we did, we felt settled and soon learned that it was one of the best decisions we had ever made.
As a result, we have learned that answers are sometimes slow to come. This can be because it is not the right time, because an answer is not needed, or because God trusts us to make the decision ourselves. Elder Richard G. Scott once taught that we should be grateful for such times and made this promise: “When you are living worthily and your choice is consistent with the Savior’s teachings and you need to act, proceed with trust. … God will not let you proceed too far without a warning impression if you have made the wrong decision.”

Two years ago last spring I was caught in the middle of a very heated controversy. A group of creative writing and art students at Brigham Young University, where I am one of the deans, published an issue of the school’s literary magazine which some members of the administration, faculty, and student body felt contained spots of questionable language and photography that should not be permitted to circulate. I was asked as Dean of the College of Humanities to withdraw the publication. Feelings were strong on both sides, and I was painfully squeezed between.
In the confrontations that followed, some teachers and students urged me to really clamp down on those students and their advisors who were responsible for the publication. It was suggested by some that I ought to exercise tighter controls in supervising students and their creative activities. Meanwhile, other teachers and students were pressing me even more strongly to stand up with vigor in defense of academic and creative freedom. Each side stressed the important “principles” involved.
The whole situation was intensely awkward for me because I felt that both sides were, to some extent, right. Surely morality, refinement, and good taste are standards to be defended and practiced, especially by members of the Church and in all Church publications. Equally, however, academic and creative freedom is also surely an ideal to be championed; and its opposite, censorship or suppression, inevitably contains elements that are not only inherently repugnant but also most difficult to control.1
This unpleasant incident of two years ago was particularly tense for a few weeks, but, rather than standing alone, it was merely one of many such incidents that have come to my door during the past twenty-five years in my responsibilities as a teacher and school administrator supervising creative writing classes, publications, and contests. The incident I have referred to happened at BYU, but it could have been in any high school or university. In fact, similar confrontations, often far more severe, have occurred and are occurring all over the world, wherever talented young people are writing, and that is everywhere. It is a problem that concerns all of us who are students and educators; and for those of us who are students and educators in the Church, it is a problem of special concern. The typical pattern is for some students and their teachers to press for increasing freedoms in writing and publishing while other students and educators press for tightening restrictions and controls.