Gospel Story Finder

It was Saturday morning. To Greg that meant cartoons on TV. He woke up early, even before his father and mother or his older brother Tony were up. Tiptoeing into the living room, he turned the TV on low so he wouldn’t wake anyone. He loved to see the strong, brave heroes fight the monsters who tried to wreck the world.
Tony woke up and asked Greg if he wanted to go outside and play baseball, but Greg said, “No, I want to see the end of this show.” But when that show was finished, an even better one came on the screen.
When his father woke up, he asked Greg if he wanted to help him work on the car, but Greg answered, “Not now. This is my favorite show.”
And after that show, there was one that seemed even better than the first two.
Breakfast over, his mother asked him if he wanted to go shopping with her, but Greg replied, “No, I’d rather stay and see this show.”
“If you don’t watch out,” his mother warned, “you’ll turn into a TV set.”
But Greg didn’t pay much attention to her because he was watching the adventures of Captain Plastic, a hero who could turn himself into any shape he wanted to be.
I wish Dad were Captain Plastic, Greg thought. And I wish Mom were Wonder Woman and could stop bullets with her belt. And I wish life were more like it is on TV. Then he curled up in the large rocking chair …
The next thing Greg knew, his father jumped into the living room wearing a red cape and blue tights with a big letter P on his chest. “Hi there, son!” his father said, hanging from the ceiling like a lamp. In fact, he looked like a lamp.
“Why are you wearing that funny suit and hanging upside down from the ceiling?” Greg asked.
“Because I’m Captain Plastic!” his father said proudly, still looking like a lamp.
“No, you’re not,” Greg laughed. “You’re my dad.”
“Well, to you I’m your dad, but to the world I’m Captain Plastic.” And with that, his father came down from the ceiling and turned into a piano. “I can fly to London and back faster than you can say, ‘Where’d he go?’ But today,” his father said, changing back to Captain Plastic, “I have a cold.”
“You should go to bed and get plenty of rest,” advised Greg, remembering the TV commercials.
“Well, yes, but when Captain Plastic—the world’s strongest man—gets a cold, it’s even more of a problem because when I …”
His father sucked in his breath before letting out a great big sneeze, “Aaaaa-choo!” And his breath blew a hole through one wall of the house.
“You see what I mean?” his father asked. “That’s what happens when Captain Plastic gets a cold. Boy! I’m sorry about the wall. It was one of my favorite walls too. Well, I guess we’ll just have to put a big window there.”
Then his father looked like he was going to sneeze again. “Dad, you’d better go outside.” Greg warned. “If you sneeze one more time, you’ll wreck our whole house.”
“I know, but I hate to go outside and just sit on the porch. Some people make fun of me when I’m wearing my Captain Plastic costume.”
“Then turn yourself into something else,” Greg suggested.
“OK. I’ll turn myself into a big truck.” And with that, his father marched outside, sat down in the driveway, and became a giant truck.
Greg went outside and walked around the truck, admiring its glistening chrome hubcaps and its bright, metallic color.
Dad would love to drive a truck like this, Greg thought. But then he remembered that his dad was the truck.
Greg became confused trying to figure out what was happening. A few minutes later his mother came home from the store. “Whose truck is that in the driveway?” she asked.
“That’s not a truck—that’s Dad,” Greg told her.
“I thought so,” his mother said. “When I walked by, it sneezed.”
“I hope you weren’t hurt,” Greg said.
“Oh, no, but the sneeze broke our elm tree in two. Poor Dad has such a bad cold.”
“What did you get at the store?” Greg asked his mother.
“I thought you’d never ask!” his mother shouted. Suddenly in the house—Greg didn’t know how it happened—there was a banjo player and a drummer and a man with a large TV camera aimed at his mother. And his mother, who usually didn’t even dress up for Halloween, was dressed like a giant potato. “Hey, kids! Be the first in your neighborhood to have your very own potato!”
“A potato?” Greg asked.
“Sure! A potato is so much fun! Look, you can throw a potato just like a ball!” His mother tossed a potato through the hole in the wall. “Do you think that’s all you can do with a potato?” she sang in time with the banjo player. “No, sir! Why, you can boil potatoes and then take them out of the water and step all over them. Do you know what we call that? We call that smashed potatoes!” His mother jumped up and down on a pile of potatoes and the banjo player and drummer did a fast song and the cameraman caught all the action with his camera.
“Are you really my mom?” Greg asked when they stopped.
“Well, to you I’m your mom, but to the world I’m Potato Woman!”
“If you’re not my mom,” Greg said, “you’d better get those smashed potatoes cleaned up, because my mom doesn’t like messes in her house.”
“Do you think that’s all you can do with potatoes?” his mother sang, looking into the TV camera. “No, sir! You can put them in a glass of water for a few days and they’ll grow long roots. Very scary!”
Suddenly a giant potato with long arms sticking out of its body and with many eyes was slithering toward him.
“Potato Woman to the rescue!” his mother shouted. She took out a long, thin rope and lassoed the potato monster and flung it outside through the hole in the wall.
Just then Tony came into the room wearing a magician’s costume. “Hey, kids! Tired of the same old boring outdoors? The same old blue sky? And why do the trees always have to be green? It’s so boring. Right?”
“I like blue sky,” Greg said.
“Well, since you don’t want to go outside and play, we are changing things around. Now we bring you the new and improved orange sky!” Suddenly the sky turned a bright orange color. Greg thought it looked awful.
“And since you were so bored with the same green trees and grass,” his brother continued, “we now bring you the super sensation of the year—purple trees and purple grass!”
It looked horrible! Everything was the wrong color. “I think blue is the best color for the sky,” Greg told his brother.
“Well, thanks a lot!” Tony said disgustedly. “We went to plenty of work just to turn the sky orange and the trees purple because you didn’t like the color they were.”
“What makes you think I didn’t like the colors they were?” Greg asked.
“Because you wouldn’t go outside this morning to see them.”
Just then, his father the truck sneezed and knocked over three telephone poles. Greg ran outside to watch them crash to the ground. “Sorry,” the truck said.
“Dad, I don’t want you to be Captain Plastic anymore! You’re wrecking everything!”
“If you think this is bad, wait until I have the hiccups,” the truck said.
“Hey, kids!” his mother sang, now outside with the banjo player and drummer and cameraman. “When you’re hungry, ask your mom for chocolate covered potatoes!”
“I’m hungry now,” Greg wailed, “and I just want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich!”
“Oh, that’s so boring!” his mother exclaimed. “Here, try some super soup! It’s so thick that you can eat it like a lollipop. Here, try some!” His mother thrust the lollipop into Greg’s hand. “This will turn you into Plastic Boy, like your father. You’ll be the world’s strongest boy!
“I hope you don’t get a cold,” the blue truck moaned. “If you sneeze in school, you’ll turn your desk into a box of toothpicks.”
“I don’t want to be the world’s strongest boy! I don’t want to be Plastic Boy! I want everything to be the way it was before.”
“At least try it for a minute,” his father enticed. “Just take a lick of this super soup and think about becoming something. I know—think about becoming a TV set!”
Greg was sure he wouldn’t like that. But he took a lick of the soup lollipop and thought about being a nice color TV.
And before long he was a 17-inch color TV!
“A chip off the old block!” his father exclaimed proudly, standing next to his son and turning himself into a 27-inch color TV.
“I told you that if you watched too much TV, you’d turn into one,” his mother reminded Greg.
His father turned himself back into Captain Plastic again, put his arm around Greg, and picked him up in his arms. Of course, Greg was still a TV set. “Oh, look,” his father said, “he has an automatic channel selector.” Then his father looked like he was going to sneeze again …
“Dad, don’t sneeze!” Greg yelled through his TV speaker.
“Aaaaaa …” his father again breathed in sharply, raising his head high into the air.
“Dad, if you’re going to sneeze, at least put me down!”
“Aaaaaa … CHOO!”
When his father sneezed, he threw his arms into the air, tossing Greg high into the sky. Above the house and trees he rose, then above the mountains and even higher until he was above the clouds. A second later he zoomed past a large jet plane and saw the surprised looks of the passengers at seeing a 17-inch color TV set flying past them in the air.
I’d better think about being a plane, reasoned Greg. He knew that before long he would begin falling back toward the ground. And just then he did start back down. Before long he was below the clouds again, and he could see the purple ground coming toward him very fast. So he thought and he thought about being a plane until his feet turned into airplane wheels. I need wings most of all, he decided, now falling down below the mountains. But the wings were the hardest of all to think, and he was still falling … downward …
And then he suddenly woke up! He ran into the kitchen where his mother was making him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and he kissed her. “Mom, I’m glad you aren’t Potato Woman.”
“What did you say?” his mother asked.
Next he ran into the garage where his father was working on the car. “Dad. I’m glad you’re not a truck!”
“What did you say?” his father asked.
Then he ran outside and looked around. The sky was a brilliant blue and the trees were a cool green and Greg rejoiced in their beauty.
That afternoon Greg played baseball with Tony.
“Aren’t you glad the sky is blue?” Greg asked, lying back in the green grass and looking at the beautiful blue sky dotted with lacy clouds.
“I don’t know,” Tony said. “I’ve never thought about it much before. What other color could it be?”
“Orange,” Greg said, remembering his dream, “with ugly purple trees.”
And the next Saturday morning, Greg didn’t watch much TV. He was too busy playing outside!

May I share a few observations our interns are experiencing out on the job? One of our married interns working for a large residential home builder in a large city here in the west called me after only being out a few weeks to report that things were much more difficult for him and his wife than he had ever imagined. The neighborhood that they were renting a home in was scary and they didn’t dare go out after dark. The ward they attended had a large number of less active members and within the ward boundaries were hundreds of families that were not members of the Church. This student was shocked to find that many of those he worked with would lie, cheat and steal. He and his wife were lonely and discouraged. After being out a few months he reported that work was going fine, those he worked with respected his values, his boss loved his attitude and had offered him a full time position. He and his wife found they were desperately needed in the ward and it was fun to do missionary work in the area.

My father was very bright, and he wanted to study at a university. At that time the government where he lived chose who could attend universities and who could not. The government did not want people to believe in God. Dad was told that he could attend the university only if he would stop belonging to the Church and talking about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
My father knew he could not give up his faith. Instead, he and my mother, Helga, decided to leave their home. They boarded a train for West Germany, praying that they would be allowed to enter that country. At the border the police officers checking the trains did not check the compartment where my parents were riding. So they were able to begin a new life in a country where they could worship God. Two months later I was born.

A young person who “just loves music” or is “simply wild about acting” can easily mistake a hunger for applause as the presence of talent. Recently a young man came to my office and said that he was going to organize a rock band, make a hit record, and acquire fame and fortune within the next year. I asked him what success he had already achieved in other people’s bands. “None.” How expert was he on an instrument? “I’m just learning the guitar.” I advised him not to risk the savings of friends or parents on a rock-band venture but to learn basic musical skills, join someone else’s band, and when he felt that he could surpass his mentor, then embark on a solo career. As he left, I suggested that he return in a year with his bank book, and we could compare notes, receivable and payable.

Another entry by Elizabeth Huffaker, reflecting back, said:
I remember our first Christmas in the Valley. We all worked as usual. The men gathered sagebrush, and some plowed; for though it had snowed, the ground was still soft, and the plows were used nearly the entire day. We celebrated the day on the Sabbath (Christmas was on Saturday), when all gathered around the flagpole in the center of the Fort, and there we held a meeting. And what a meeting it was. We sang praises to God, we all joined in the evening prayer, and the speaking that day has always been remembered. . . .
. . . Many who were there for that first Christmas in the Valley later remarked that in the sense of perfect peace and good will, they never had a happier Christmas in all their lives. [Madsen, Christmas, p. 26]

Their Christmas spirit was really the peace, comfort, and sense of well-being they felt from a Heavenly Father who knew they had done their part, that they had given their all—literally—to the furthering of the kingdom on earth. He blessed them, not with material rewards, but with gifts of the Spirit.

Many years ago, as a freshman at BYU–Hawaii, I was passing through some difficult life experiences. I was also aware of my imperfections and felt distant from my Heavenly Father. I was not guilty of any egregious sins, but I was not where I wanted to be spiritually. I was much like the boy who, through some carelessness, had wandered into the desert.

On a particular Sunday a conference was held on campus, presided over by President Spencer W. Kimball. He spoke to a large gathering of Saints who had come to hear the prophet. I remember feeling the Spirit as he spoke. Following the closing prayer all arose, and in respectful silence we watched that great man exit the building.

As we filed out, two young Polynesian students I had met at the dorms approached me and invited me to walk with them to the Laie Hawaii Temple, where they were going to spend the afternoon reading from the scriptures. I was a bit surprised at the invitation—not knowing them very well at the time—but I gladly accepted. When we arrived at the temple, we walked to the upper grounds. I didn’t have scriptures with me, so as they sat on the grass to read, I walked a short distance away and sat on a stone bench.

I cannot remember all that I thought and felt that day—it was many years ago—but I remember thinking about my Heavenly Father and about how I wanted to draw closer to Him. I started to pray, but as I did, I remember I felt heavy and discouraged. At that time in my life I had a hard time envisioning a God of love and compassion. I felt I was praying to someone who was always displeased and disappointed with me and far away. I didn’t understand the true nature of my Heavenly Father.

But my perspective was about to change. As I sat on that bench, my attention was suddenly drawn to a small group of people excitedly walking toward the entrance of the temple. I looked beyond them, and to my great surprise I saw President Kimball and some local and general Church leaders coming out of the temple. They were walking down a sidewalk that led to a gate where cars had just pulled up to carry them to the airport. A half dozen or so people lined the sidewalk, waiting to greet President Kimball as he made his way to the awaiting cars.

I stood up and apprehensively approached the sidewalk, deciding to remain a short distance away from where he would pass. However irrational it might sound, I was afraid to approach him. I had decided that as a prophet he might be able to peer into my heart and see my imperfections. I felt that I was in need of greater spirituality and a serious haircut, so I decided to remain what I considered to be a safe distance away from the sidewalk.

Well, I miscalculated. As President Kimball passed by, he looked right at me. I recorded in my journal what happened next: “President Kimball suddenly stopped and turned and headed right for me. The prophet grabbed my hand, gave me a hug, and kissed me on my cheek and then looked me in the eyes and said, ‘I love you.’”

I was overcome with emotion. The only words I was able to get out were thank you. I felt something in that hug and expression of love. I watched him through my tears as he climbed into an awaiting car. He looked through the window at us with such pure and loving eyes and waved good-bye as he drove away.

I then ran behind the temple and had a good cry. Yes, I felt President Kimball’s love for me, but his love pointed to the wellspring from which it flowed. I felt an outpouring of my Heavenly Father’s love for me, so real and so clear. The feeling remained with me for a time. President Kimball’s act of kindness could have come from the groundskeeper that day, because if it had flowed from fountains of charity, I am convinced the same results would have followed. Having it come from the prophet certainly made it very special, but what flowed through him and was communicated to me was my Heavenly Father’s love. Heavenly Father was reaching out to me through one of His special servants and two wonderful students, through whom the pure love of Christ had flowed to me that day.

I’ve always been a member of the Church. I was baptized, received the priesthood, and attended meetings regularly. But I started making choices that set me on a path away from the gospel.
When I neared the age for missionary service, I said I wasn’t going to go. I thought nothing could change my mind.
Except that I had so many positive influences in my life. My parents encouraged testimony-building activities. My Church friends loved me and never judged me. And my home teaching companion would often tell me he thought I would make a great missionary. Gradually, I started to believe him.
As time went on and positive influences in my life pushed out the negative, I began praying personally. I didn’t kneel at first, but the more I practiced, kneeling at my bedside became a special time for me. I began to feel nearer to the Lord than I ever had before. I felt a seed of testimony start to take root.
One Sunday in Gospel Doctrine class, I felt impressed to pray and ask for forgiveness for my past mistakes. I bowed my head right where I was and I prayed to Heavenly Father.
Then, I asked the question that I had been dreading: “Should I go on a mission?” The answer immediately came to my heart and mind: Yes.
It was so powerful that I was unable to hold back tears. I am so grateful for that experience. I learned that even when we push the Lord away, He will never give up on us.

I felt the lure of Kalaupapa before I ever visited there. In 2003, my wife, Joanna, and I were investigating the Hawaiian Islands in preparation for a research trip and anniversary celebration. I asked her where she would like to visit after my research was completed and she quickly responded, “I don’t care where else we go, but we must see Kalaupapa.” It was high adventure just getting to that remote location. The destination necessitated a precarious mule ride down the highest sea cliffs in the world.1 At last, we spilled out onto a flat peninsula, four-miles of transforming terra firma that changed my life.

The literal translation of Kalaupapa has been rendered “flat plain” or “flat leaf.”2 In either case, I discovered through much reading, many interviews, and multiple firsthand encounters that Kalaupapa is a leveling experience: Here one crosses the boundaries of his or her self-proclaimed beliefs and ethnicity and melds into a community defined only by humanity, a greater realm of brotherhood and compassion. For it is in Kalaupapa where religious denominations and cultural divides vanish—where the love of God and mankind manifest themselves in a truly magnificent way, triumphing over the devastation of leprosy also known as the separating sickness.

Illustration by Julia Yellow
When I was 15 years old, I gained a strong testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and was so happy to join the Church. At the time, I was working to help support my family. Not long after I was baptized, however, I lost my job.
I needed to find a new job soon because my family depended on me, but every job I applied for required that I work on Sundays. I turned down many job offers because I knew that I needed to be at church on Sundays (see D&C 59:9–10).
After two months of searching, I still hadn’t found a job. My mom was not a member of the Church, and although she believed in God, she was very angry that I was passing up so many jobs.
One night she looked at me with tears in her eyes and asked, “Why is God letting this happen to us when you are so faithful in doing what is right?”
I replied, “Mom, I don’t know why this is happening to us, but I do know that I am doing the right thing, and I know that God will bless us for it.”
The next morning someone offered me a considerable amount of money to spend two days moving some heavy cargo from one house to another. The work was strenuous, but when I received the money, I went straight home and offered a prayer of gratitude. I soon found a good job that allowed me to take Sundays off, and I haven’t been unemployed since.
I am glad that I chose to keep the Sabbath day holy. There are many challenges in life, but I know that if we strive to be strong despite those challenges, the Lord will bless us.
Sahil Sharma, India

There are so many who are not—or feel they are not—understood. Recently our family visited with a dear friend, Sister Louise Lake, who has lived her gracious, sharing life in a wheelchair for more than a quarter of a century.

Perhaps because our 12-year-old son was with us, Sister Lake told us of another 12-year-old with whom she became acquainted in a rehabilitation center in New York where she was working. The boy had been blind and for most of his 12 years had lived a sad existence, thought to be uneducable, incapable of learning. Then he was given a chance, thank the Lord, and a marvelous spirit and fine mind were discovered. He told his friend that he had thought all his life that being blind was the worst thing that could happen to one—until he met Campy. Campy was Roy Campanella, great athlete, who at the height of his career was rendered physically helpless in an automobile accident. The blind boy said he had decided after meeting Campy that his condition was worse than not being able to see. “But there is something even worse than that,” he said. He talked of feeling his way down the hall at the hospital, hearing the scuff of feet as people passed him by. “There is something worse than being blind or crippled, and that is to have people not understand you,” he said. “I guess they think that because I am blind I can’t hear or speak either.”

Well, brothers and sisters, I have tried to become observant and learn all that I could from any situation I have found myself in. One activity that I have had an opportunity to participate in on several occasions with my Ward is a pie pie. I find it interesting that the best time for this activity is in the dark of night.
During this event the experienced fishermen, takes a net, that is actually made up of two nets suspended with floats, hanging next to each other. The net closest to where the fish are has larger holes approximately 6 inches; the other net is smaller with holes that are only 3 inches across. The master fisherman then strings the net off the beach surrounding an area where fish are potentially feeding on the reef. Once the net is in place all the other participants, go into the water making all kinds of noise to drive the fish into the two nets. Very small fish will swim through, but medium and large fish swim into the net going through the 6 inch net but being caught in the 3 inch net with their gills catching on the 6 inch net keeping them entangled until they can be drawn to shore.
Once the net is collected and brought to shore everybody helps fold the net and extracts the fish. The first time I participated, I was surprised by both the number and size of the fish that were captured. As you can see over 60 pounds were caught just enough to feed a few deacons at Scout camp.
Some of the participants became so involved that they start to look like a fish, my daughter Katie was one of them.
So what did I learn? Some from our Ward would suggest you want to be a good friend to the master fisherman in case we have hard times and need to rely on our food storage. I would suggest another lesson. A verse from the doctrine and covenants explains this lesson:
Abide ye in the liberty wherewith ye are made free; entangle not yourselves in sin, but let your hands be clean, until the Lord comes. (Doctrine and Covenants 88:86)
As I participated in catching the fish with that net I remembered this verse. I guess I can admit that I even felt a little sorry for the fish that had entangled themselves in the net. The reason perhaps is that I recognize how easy it is to become entangled. Just like the fish that was going along unaware of the dangers around it, we also find ourselves in a world where nets are strung to catch us. And just like the trapped fish, many times we feel hopeless and lost.

“One memory that I have of my grandmother painting comes from when I was about 9 or 10 years old. For a while some of my cousins and siblings and I would go to my grandma’s studio each week to work on drawing, painting and sketching with her. During this time, she was painting a depiction of Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well. I remember whenever I saw her painting, every brush stroke was very careful and very intentional— though I was young and often didn’t really notice the difference that each individual brush stroke made. Each week we returned to her studio, and you could start seeing the difference and the changes and that it was closer and closer to being the beautiful, finished product that it is today. In some way I can’t help but think that is how the Lord can help us to one day become complete.”

Some time ago I was with President Kimball in New York. We had gone to tape an interview that was going to go on the CBS nationwide broadcast. It was a beautiful Saturday morning in April and we decided to walk up 5th Avenue to the mission home. Thousands of people were out walking and President Kimball said, “Look at all of these people—and they’re all ours. They all should have the gospel and not a one of them knows us. All of them are strangers to us,” he said.

”I know how we can find someone we know,” I said.

”How can we find them?” he asked.

We were passing a little French restaurant with tables sitting out on the sidewalk. I said, “We can just step over there and order coffee, and someone will find us in a hurry!”

Just as I said that, in a joking way, I heard the words, “Brother Kimball! Brother Kimball!” Out of the crowd came the wife of a stake president!

The point I make is that this phrase from Timothy strikes me as being monumentally important. “But continue thou in the things which thou has learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou has learned them.”

And there are schools there. Schools that feature superlative female basketball players. The winning tradition has become a legacy that many of the little girls in town dream of joining. “I’ve always wanted to be on the team,” says Gaylene “Gidget” Gallagher, an energetic guard. “I’ve been trying to learn how to play since I was little. When the coaches finally started us in a program, I spent all my time in the gym.”

It was the same for Collette. “When I was just little I remember my dad saying, ‘Here—take this basketball and go dribble it around the house—and don’t use both hands!’”

Once Collette got to high school, basketball seemed to dominate just about everything else. “You just go to practice, come home, study, and go to bed,” she says. “You have no social life. Except after the games you might go get pizza or something, but that’s about it. All during the summer, you just practice.”

All that work seems to have paid off for Collette, who fits most people’s description of the all-American girl. In the summer of 1987, she was selected to be on a high school superstar team that traveled to Israel. She has managed to be active in seminary, Mutual, and student council, and she is rated second in her class academically, so you can tell she finds time for some other interests.

During the season, practices last at least three hours a day. And in the summertime, some of the players have been known to practice up to 12 hours a day. Coach Cluff, a loving, fatherly man who knows how to take charge, uses basketball as an opportunity to help his players learn the gospel.

“I’m simple enough to believe that everything is spiritual with Heavenly Father,” he says. “Whether it’s basketball, math, science, or whatever.” He always makes sure that there’s a prayer both before and after a game. “Kids can learn a lot about their Heavenly Father through basketball, if they use prayer, and hopefully those lessons will stick with them for the rest of their lives.”

What are some of the lessons they’ve learned? They’ve learned to stick to their standards, for one. “The community knows we’re not the partying type,” says Collette. In fact, the town residents know just about everything about the players on their championship team, from their grade point averages to the color of dress they wore to the prom. “The community knows that we’re probably the straightest people in the whole town. We can’t give in to temptation, even just a little bit, or everything will go down. Not just our reputation, but our abilities and our potential.”

“And it’s not always easy to set a strong example,” adds Paige. “It’s hard in a small town. You don’t have much to do that’s exciting. Everything gets real old real fast, so a lot of kids just turn to things like alcohol and drugs, and they think that makes them happy. I’ve seen them go through a lot of pain, and I’ve been able to avoid all that by following the Word of Wisdom and keeping my standards where they should be.”

They’ve learned that the missionary work they do through example is invaluable. Over the years, several team members have joined the Church thanks to the examples set by their LDS counterparts. And most of the LDS players today bring friends to Church activities and seminary. You might think there would be a certain breach between the LDS and non-LDS players, but they go out of their way to be unified.

“There’s never a division between the LDS girls and the others,” says Moni Ahlcrimn, a raven-haired forward with a sparkle in her blue eyes. “But they do watch us, and many times they kind of follow along with what we’re doing.”

Gidget thinks that that cohesiveness is the main reason for Kirtland’s success on the courts. “You have to be truly dedicated to teamwork to win,” she says. “We work so much together as a team. One of the reasons the other teams lose is because there’s conflict from within. But we really help each other. I think the main reason we do so well is that we’re like one big family.”

But even on a winning team, there are lessons to be learned about defeat. Angie Harris, the team center, hyperextended her knee during the second quarter of the first game of the record-breaking season, and was sidelined for the rest of the year. At least two surgeries have been necessary to get her back on her feet, and she’ll probably never play school ball again. Many players might be bitter over this, but not Angie. She reads the scriptures faithfully every day, and from them she’s learned that “the Lord isn’t going to give you challenges that you can’t handle. This injury wasn’t that bad. I played on the state championship team last year. This keeps it from going to my head.”

Oh, and of course there are the basic lessons to be learned about taking care of the temple which is your body. These girls are so into fitness that in the few seconds of spare time they have left over, they do things like coach little girls’ softball, work as a lifeguard at the community pool, play church volleyball and softball, compete on the school track team, and run just for the fun of it. That’s the main reason Moni is involved in basketball at all. She’s only been playing about three years, but she says, “The running is what I like best. I play to stay in shape.”

And they’ve learned to play, to eat, to drink and sleep—to live under pressure. Many people think the girls’ basketball program is the best thing that ever happened to Kirtland. “Now that we’ve got a streak going, nobody wants to be on the first team to lose,” says Coach Cluff. “The girls work real hard, under intense pressure from the community and from themselves and their teammates, to continue the winning tradition.”

With that kind of pressure, you can see why most of the girls are a bit relieved come graduation day when they hang up their tennies and go on to college. A few of them continue playing basketball—BYU’s star Karina Zapata is a product of Kirtland, and Collette hopes to play for a four-year university. Most of the players from the Kirtland basketball legacy, however, will give up ball in favor of books.

But they will never regret, and they will never forget, the things they learned from their magical years on the basketball team. Sure, their hook shots may fade, and they might not recall how they ever managed to pull down so many rebounds, but because they took their coach’s advice to “consider all things spiritual,” they’ll never forget the eternal principles they learned on a high school basketball court.

I once counseled a man whose outlook and behavior were so accusing that he frequently swore at his wife and children with the vilest of swear words. I met with him and his wife for a couple of sessions, trying to help him understand and overcome his accusing mentality. But he took offense, called me names, and stormed out of my office. His wife subsequently asked for a separation, and he ended up living with his parents. I never expected to see the couple again.
Needless to say, I was shocked almost beyond belief when he called me on the phone two months later and said he was ready for more counseling! After apologizing for his former behavior, he explained what had been happening to him. Staying with his parents had helped him see himself more clearly. As he watched them continuously put each other down and accuse and strike out at each other, he began to realize that he had been acting just like they had always done. Soon he hated to go home at night because of his parents’ behavior.
He also became more aware of the same accusing behavior in others, especially the people he worked with. He observed that his colleagues spent much of the day gossiping and complaining and putting each other down.
As he began to miss his family, his heart gradually began to soften and he felt remorse for the way he had treated them. Scenes of the times he had physically and verbally abused his wife and children passed through his mind, and he became haunted by the need to make up for his intolerable behavior. His sorrow increased until he began to feel that it was almost more than he could bear.
When he came to me for help, it was obvious that he was experiencing a change of heart. For the first time, he was admitting to himself how awful his behavior had been. Of course, he had really known it all along. But he had deceived himself into believing that his wife, children, and circumstances were to blame for his misery and unhappiness. He had convinced himself that if people only understood him better and were more compassionate he wouldn’t have had the problems he did. Caught in a paralyzing web of misery and self-pity, he had failed to see himself as the architect of that web.
But now he was beginning to see the truth about himself. That self-knowledge took him down into the depths of humility with a broken heart and a contrite spirit; he acknowledged his need to change and sought the Lord’s help in improving. Now he could see that his problems were spiritual and of his own making. He also saw that he was in the best position to do something about them.
He was ready for change. As he responded to the workings of the Spirit within him, his heart continued to soften. It didn’t take many sessions of counseling or much prompting from others for him to make positive and lasting changes.
This man’s turnabout was the most dramatic I have ever seen in a client. I’ll be forever grateful to him for confirming to me what the Lord has said all along through the scriptures and the prophets, but which so many of us fail to understand: The keys to peace and harmonious relationships are to be found within our personal application of the basic principles of the gospel. In other words, in order to have peace and harmony in our relationships, we must first have peace and harmony within ourselves. Such peace comes when we are doing what we know to be right by following the still small voice of the Spirit.

I don’t think any of us had any idea how big America really was. When we landed in Boston, we didn’t realize that our long journey was just beginning, rather than nearing its end.
From Boston, we traveled to Iowa City, Iowa, by railroad. The new railroad saved us weeks of traveling by wagon. The cattle cars were crowded, but we endured the journey well. The train stopped in Buffalo, New York, on the Fourth of July. We could only watch the people celebrate. How I wanted to join them!
Finally we arrived in Iowa City. From the train station, we walked three miles in rain and mud to the place where we were to meet the Church’s agent in charge of organizing the trek. We had been assured that everything would be ready for us when we arrived, but it wasn’t. The handcarts hadn’t even been built! We camped and worked at preparing for the journey until all was ready.
Eventually the handcarts were obtained, and our family was assigned to Captain Edward Martin’s company. Near the end of July 1856, we cheerfully began our journey to Zion. Our family had three carts when we started out. Each cart could carry about 120 pounds of baggage, 100 pounds of flour, cooking utensils, and additional food. There were 576 people in our company. I’d never been with so many members of the Church!
Pulling the handcarts wasn’t bad at first. But many of them broke down because they were built of green wood. We pulled those carts three hundred miles to Florence, Nebraska. The last members of our company, and the Willie company, arrived there on August 22. As soon as we arrived, there was some disagreement as to whether we should continue on. Some said that it was too late in the year. They felt that we should set up a winter camp in Florence and wait until spring to travel to Salt Lake City. But most of the Saints were for starting immediately. After much discussion, it was decided to continue on. We were anxious to finish our long journey. About a thousand miles remained ahead of us, but we had already come so many miles that another thousand seemed like a short trip. We didn’t know that the worst part of our journey was still ahead.

I close with an adaptation of an account by C. S. Lewis entitled “The World’s Last Night,” which I have commandeered and changed for our purposes here this morning. The metaphor and most of the language is Lewis’s, but the application is my own.

In King Lear (III, vii) there is a man who is such a minor character that Shakespeare has not even given him a name: he is simply called “First Servant.” All the characters around him—Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund—have fine long-term plans. They think they know how the story is going to end, and they are quite wrong. The servant, however, has no such delusions. He has no notion how the play is going to go. But he understands the present scene. He sees an abomination (the blinding of old Gloucester) taking place. He will not stand for it. His sword is out and pointed at his master’s breast in an instant. Then Regan stabs him dead from behind. That is his whole part: eight lines all told. But, Lewis says, if that were real life and not a play, that is the part it would be best to have acted.

The doctrine of the Second Coming teaches us that we do not and cannot know when Christ will come and the world drama will end. He may appear and the curtain may be rung down at any moment—say, before we have filed out of the devotional this morning. This kind of not knowing seems to some people intolerably frustrating. So many things would be interrupted. Perhaps you were going to get married next month. Perhaps you were to graduate this spring. Perhaps you were thinking of going on a mission or paying your tithing or denying yourself some indulgence. Surely no good and wise God would be so unreasonable as to cut all that short. Not now, of all moments!

But we think this way because we keep on assuming that we know the play. In fact, we don’t know much of it. We believe we are on in Act II, but we know almost nothing of how Act I went or how Act III will be. We are not even sure we know who the major and who the minor characters are. The Author knows. The audience, to the extent there is an audience of angels filling the loge and the stalls, may have an inkling. But we, never seeing the play from the outside (as Sister Holland has just suggested), and meeting only the tiny minority of characters who are “on” in the same scenes as ourselves, largely ignorant of the future and very imperfectly informed about the past, cannot tell at what moment Christ will come and confront us. We will face him one day, of that we may be sure; but we waste our time in guessing when that will be. That this human drama has a meaning we may be sure, but most of it we cannot yet see. When it is over we will be told. We are led to expect that the Author will have something to say to each of us on the part that each of us has played. Playing it well, then, is what matters most. To be able to say at the final curtain “I have suffered the will of the Father in all things” is our only avenue to an ovation in the end. (See “The World’s Last Night,” in Fern-Seed and Elephants and Other Essays on Christianity by C. S. Lewis, ed. Walter Hooper [Great Britain: Fontana/Collins, 1975], pp. 76–77.)

The next faculty account I share deals with a much more serious act than barn burning. It has to do with forgiving someone who killed a wife and a child. Though the heinous act did not contain the element of intention inherent in the sin we call murder, the result was the same: a loving husband lost his companion and infant daughter, and a four-year-old son was robbed of a mother and baby sister. A colleague who now serves as a campus bishop shared his story in these moving words:

In a late evening of August we were beginning an eleven-hour drive from Cody, Wyoming, to Salt Lake to support our mother who was worried about my father’s open-heart surgery; we were close as a family and felt a strong need to be together.
My older brother was driving, his wife was sitting next to my youngest brother, who occupied the front window seat. My wife was behind my driving brother, holding our eighteen-month-old daughter, and I was on the opposite side with our four-year-old son stretched out on the seat, his head in my lap.
I awoke from a half-sleep to see headlights crossing the road to our side, my brother swerving to avoid head-on contact. Swerving helped, but there was contact, nonetheless, and it changed my life and my son’s life forever.
The left side of the car had received the most damage, my wife and daughter having absorbed the major portion of the shock. Although my daughter died later that night in the hospital, my wife took an entire week before she could finally go.
Everyone was hurt but me. While I was alone and assessing the damage, praying for a saving car to happen by in the loneliness of the Wind River Canyon, and then walking toward the other damaged car, I was immediately offended by an overwhelming stench of alcohol. I briefly checked and found the nineteen-year-old driver of the other car incoherent from drink, but otherwise unharmed. I was later told, after the police finally arrived, that he had tried to find me to fight me, since he thought I would be angered by what he had done. Eventually, he did find me and drunkenly asked me to forgive him for what he had done that night.
I certainly had not prepared myself for such a request. My immediate thought was that if I did say that I would forgive him, I would have to do it, since I would not play games with my mind and my heart, given the incomprehensible changes of my newly defined life.
I could not say no. I told him flatly that I forgave him, and I meant it. In honesty, I must say that I have never wanted to be his buddy or pal. Indeed, I cannot even remember his name, nor do I know where he is now. But I will be eternally grateful for his asking for forgiveness that Saturday morning before dawn, because in complying I was freed from the thrall of anger and hate that otherwise could have brought even greater sorrow into my life. From this tragedy I think I learned something new: Forgiveness brings true and genuine freedom, often to the forgiven, but always and without exception to the forgiver.

This fine brother shared with me his conviction that he never would have been called as a bishop had he refused the invitation to forgive. How could he speak on behalf of the Lord’s church and bear testimony to penitent ward members that they were forgiven if he himself had never been willing to forgive? The drunken driver in this story was, of course, tried in a civil court and will one day stand accountable before God for his actions.

I joined the church with my family in 1978 while I was just 16 years old. My parents were strong second generation Protestants and our family grew up familiar with the Bible. So while the missionaries were teaching us, we struggled to accept Joseph Smith as a prophet and the Book of Mormon as another testament of Christ. The love and patience of the missionaries, however, brought my parents and all of us five children to the waters of baptism. We all voted to become members for we felt it to be right for our family. But it wasn't until I was about to go on a mission years later that I realized that I had to know for myself, independent of my family. I knew I could not depend on what others know; nor could I live on the light I had borrowed from them. I had learned enough at the time that I could not share with others what I did not have.
So one night, I took Moroni at his word. After reading from the Book of Mormon, I knelt and asked God. And I testify to you that did I earn my own witness. On many occasions since then, I have repeated these same steps of receiving a witness. I learned that I can follow this process of revelation to know what God would have me do in my life.

We need to make our homes a place of refuge from the storm, which is increasing in intensity all about us. Even if the smallest openings are left unattended, negative influences can penetrate the very walls of our homes. Let me cite an example.
Several years ago, I was having dinner with my daughter and her family. The scene is all too common in most homes with small children. My daughter was trying to encourage her young, three-year-old son to eat a balanced meal. He had eaten all the food on his plate that he liked. A small serving of green beans remained, which he was not fond of. In desperation, the mother picked up a fork and tried to encourage him to eat his beans. He tolerated it just about as long as he could. Then he exclaimed, “Look, Mom, don’t foul up a good friendship!”
Those were the exact words he heard on a television commercial a few days earlier. Oh, what impact advertising, television programs, the Internet, and the other media are having on our family units!