Gospel Story Finder

I looked at the clock and shut my scriptures, relieved that my 30-minute study had finally ended. I knelt and offered a mostly passive prayer. The one thing I was sincere about was this: “Heavenly Father, please please please help me know if I’m worthy to go to the temple today.”
I repeated that phrase over and over as tears began to stream uncontrollably down my cheeks and the pit in my stomach grew.
It was the eighth week in a row I had gone through this before my weekly temple appointment. Each week my prayer seemed to grow longer and the pleading more fervent.
I knew I had sinned. I knew I had done something that made me unworthy to attend the temple.
I just couldn’t figure out what that thing was.
I had a habit of repeatedly confessing sins to my bishop. I confessed things that I had done as a child, things I had already repented for, and worst of all—things I wasn’t even sure I had done.
Although each confession provided temporary relief, the next day I would be overwhelmed with guilt again. I began obsessively reviewing my life to find the sin I was sure I had willfully committed.
Each Sunday I would take the sacrament and be filled with the purest peace imaginable. That moment was the highlight of every week. Five minutes later, however, I would be back to painstakingly reviewing my sins and shortcomings, convincing myself that each infraction was far more severe than I’d originally thought.
This constant pattern of constantly repenting and feeling guilty continued until I sought help. Three years later, through the divine guidance of a newly called bishop and small, miraculous circumstances, I found myself sitting in a therapist’s office. I was formally diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Through professional help and acts of faith on my part, I have learned more about myself and how OCD affects my relationship with Heavenly Father.
Although scrupulosity, otherwise known as “religious OCD,” is just one aspect of how OCD affects me, it has been debilitating.
In my battle with OCD, I felt like if I didn’t read my scriptures, pray, or attend the temple, God would be angry with me. With that perspective, worship became dutiful, dull, and repetitive. Like the Zoramites worshiping upon the Rameumptom, I began to “pervert the ways of the Lord in very many instances” (Alma 31:11).
Because of my disorder, scripture study became a time of mindless reading and relentlessly avoiding any passages that had anything to do with repentance. Praying became an apathetic effort. Temple attendance made me feel guilt-ridden and fearful rather than uplifted and fulfilled.
Gratefully, my feelings and perspective gradually changed. As I worked with my therapist, my anxiety became manageable. I began intentionally exercising faith and believing that I could always be forgiven and that God knew my circumstances. I began giving myself more compassion, and for the first time in a while, I felt that God was pleased with me and loved me. My relationship with Him began to be more fulfilling and more empowering. As I prayed for help and healing, I began to understand the gift of repentance and to worship God because I loved Him—not out of fear.
I started understanding what Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles meant when he recently remarked, “Our Heavenly Father’s goal in parenting is not to have His children do what is right; it is to have His children choose to do what is right and ultimately become like Him.”1
Although scripture study caused (and sometimes still causes) me anxiety, seeking the healing power of Jesus Christ and gaining helpful tools in therapy have helped me connect with Him and Heavenly Father again.
Perhaps the hardest lesson I have had to learn is trusting Heavenly Father’s timing more than mine.
One day as I was reading the blessings He promised to me in my patriarchal blessing, I was overwhelmed with the idea that because of my OCD, the blessings described would be impossible for me. I was promised that I would feel peace, but how could I with so much anxiety?
How would I ever learn to love the temple when I always felt unworthy to attend?
I pled for God to remove my OCD from me. But as I did, a single thought came to my mind: “Would I continue to follow the Savior if He didn’t take my OCD away?”
The thought that Heavenly Father wouldn’t take my mental disorder away was devastating. In the days since, I’ve pondered that question a lot: “Will you follow me if not?”
I’ve learned that although OCD might always be present in my life, God will help me to handle its symptoms and continue to grow. My healing still includes crying, bouts of guilt and anxiety, therapy, and pleading on my knees.
But more and more, my healing involves reclaiming joy in my life, offering myself love and grace, and connecting with the Savior. As I turn to Him, He helps me have the strength to carry on. He is by my side as I weep. I have felt His presence more than ever as I plead for His help in dealing with OCD. I now understand how “he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people” (Alma 7:11). I am learning that He truly does know how I feel and will provide me with what I need as I keep moving forward.
Although the extent of the healing I desire may not come now, I hold on knowing that, as Elder Renlund taught, “‘All that is unfair about life can be made right through the Atonement of Jesus Christ’ [Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Missionary Service (2018), 52].”2 I have faith and hope that promised blessings and healing will come—even if that means in the eternities.

Illustration by Julie Rogers
I was excited to participate in the Church’s 2016 “Light the World” Christmas campaign. I looked forward to completing the daily challenges, particularly for day five: “Jesus helped the sick, and so can you.”
That day I left work and walked through the gray city streets planning to visit my grandparents. I felt great. It was Christmastime and the world was beautiful. The peal of a charity bell rang through the air. As I neared the streetcar platform, the sound of the bell was drowned out by a homeless woman yelling at the bell ringer.
“You’re a fake!” she screamed. “I’m hungry, I’m cold, and you take it all for yourself! You’re a fake!”
Most people ignored her, and the bell ringer continued ringing his bell. I put my headphones on, but I could still hear the woman yelling, “You’re a fake! I’m hungry. I’m cold.”
I remembered I had a 20-dollar bill in my pocket. I considered giving it to the woman. “No,” I thought. “If I’m going to give this to someone, I should give it to someone nice.” Then the Spirit reminded me of the challenge and whom I was trying to be like. Jesus was the King of kings, yet He served the lowest of the low. I knew what I needed to do.
I walked toward the woman. She wasn’t yelling now, but her eyes were closed and tears ran down her cheeks. I took the 20-dollar bill from my pocket and handed it to her.
“Rough day?” I asked.
She looked up at me. “Yeah,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I wrapped my arms around her, and she cried into my shoulder until the streetcar came.
“Thanks,” the woman said when we said goodbye. “And not just for the money. Thanks for the hug. I needed a hug.”
Hugging a random person on the street was not something I had planned on doing, but I know it’s something Jesus would have done. I am grateful the Lord gave me the opportunity to serve as He would have. Jesus helped the sick, the poor, and the needy. So can I.

Well, since you insist, I’ll just capture her royal majesty with my humble little black bishop.
No! No! No! No! My queen! Why didn’t I see that? I might as well resign now.
Don’t give up. You can still make a comeback.
Down a queen? Fat chance! You just want the pleasure of checkmating me.
Well, yes, that might be fun. But remember what Sister Simon said—it’s never too late to come back, although it may be hard.
She was talking about life. In chess, what’s done is done, and you just have to live with it.
Well, aren’t you glad it’s chess that’s hopeless and not life?
You have a point there.
So, what’s your move?
Hmmm. My rook is feeling very hungry, and I think it’s going to gobble up your tasty little unprotected pawn. There! Now what are you going to do about that?
Checkmate!
I had to ask.

As a freshman at Brigham Young University in 1969, Neil Andersen was a diligent student. However, his sister Sheri notes, “as driven as he was by education, he was always planning to go on a mission. His only question was if he was really prepared to serve. I was so impressed that faith was a choice to him.”
Elder Andersen also remembers putting the question to the Lord. As he recalled recently in general conference, the feeling came, “You don’t know everything, but you know enough.”1 Armed with that assurance, Neil Andersen accepted a mission call and served faithfully in France.

The Africa Central Area Presidency encouraged all wards and branches in the Area to submit 99+1 Temple Ready names to Family Search in celebration of President Russell M. Nelson’s 100th Birthday.
In the Nairobi 2nd ward, Bishop Kennedy Mukula took the challenge, planning a ward activity for August 31, just 10 days prior to the prophet’s centennial event.
Gathering names would require many computers, and some family history expertise. Eric Onyango, the elder’s quorum president and a professional network engineer, who also served as an Area family history advisor, was asked to provide the technology. A senior missionary couple serving in the ward, Elder and Sister Arrington, were asked to assist members to enter names.
“We wanted to make sure people had a way to gather names and birthdates,” Elder Arrington said, “so we created a simple form that members could take home and use to gather names from their families. We passed the form out at church the two Sundays prior to the activity. And people came prepared!”
“We weren’t sure how many computers we would need, but we brought what we had,” said Bishop Mukula. “The bishopric each brought one, the Arringtons brought three, and Eric brought five more. In the end, we still had people waiting in line to add their names.”
The goal was to meet or exceed 99+1 family names entered into familysearch.org, so keeping track was important to the ward.
“We made up name cards by printing person icons similar to those in family search onto papers about 10 cm square,” said Sister Arrington. “Then we asked members to write one name that they added into FamilySearch on each paper and post them on a white board so we could keep count. We came with 140 blank icon papers, and they were gone well before the activity ended. Members were writing four, five, or six names on a single icon paper!”
“Everyone was working on entering names, and I loved it.” said Beatrice Kiragu, first counselor in the ward Relief Society. “I loved the feeling of putting in names, but mostly I was excited to prepare my ancestors for temple blessings.”
Many of the members in attendance got to take home a special memory. They filled in a special African family tree with their family names, and the ward clerk printed one for each family on photo-quality paper.
Bishop Mukula was delighted by the result. When the activity was near the end, more than 200 new family names had been entered into familysearch.org.
Sister Arrington recalls, “We ended up staying late because people still wanted to put in names. Our last participant was a nonmember. We watched as he added 15 names from his own family. He was so happy to receive his own family tree picture!”
Bishop Mukula expressed the joy so many members felt “as their hearts turned to their fathers! And we loved helping President Nelson celebrate his birthday!”

Stevie loved story time. Every Wednesday his mother took him to the library. Bonnie, the storyteller, greeted him at her desk and handed him his name tag. Later Bonnie led Stevie and the other children into the story room. Then the fun began. Bonnie told stories, put on puppet plays, and sang with them. Stevie thought that Bonnie was almost as terrific as his mother. That was pretty terrific! After the last story, Bonnie said good-bye to them and asked them to leave their name tags with her.
But one day Bonnie surprised them. “Next time, I want you all to bring a teddy bear,” she said. “Our story time will be ‘Teddy-Bear Day.’ I will give each of you a paper to give to your parents. The paper will be a reminder to not forget your teddy bears. OK, see you next week.”
Stevie didn’t have a teddy bear. He didn’t know what to do. He slowly walked out to the table where his mother was waiting. He handed her the paper Bonnie had given him. When his mother saw how worried Stevie looked, she read the paper.
“Stevie, are you worried because you don’t have a teddy bear?” she asked. “I’m sure that you can bring something else. You have lots of great stuffed animals. You have that big, shaggy dog that Uncle Todd gave you for Christmas. You have that kangaroo. And that little white cat from your big sister. You have all kinds of stuffed animals to bring.”
Stevie wasn’t sure that dogs and kangaroos and cats counted.
“In fact,” his mother added when he hesitated, “Bonnie will have so many teddy bears at story time that she’ll be glad to see a dog or kangaroo or cat.”
Stevie smiled. He’d bring one of his stuffed animals, and everything would be fine.
By the following Wednesday, he had decided on his stuffed cat. He wanted to surprise Bonnie, so he hid it under his jacket when he went to get his name tag.
Bonnie looked at the lump under his jacket and asked, “Is your bear a secret?”
Stevie nodded. When he entered the story room, he saw lots of teddy bears. There were teddy bears and more teddy bears. Big brown ones. Little black ones and fat white ones. One bear had a red hat on, and another wore pink boots.
Stevie started to worry again. Maybe it wasn’t all right to bring a cat, after all. He kept his cat hidden under his jacket.
Bonnie sat down with her books and puppets. “I see you all remembered to bring your teddy bears. Oh, my, I see some beautiful ones! Stevie, you can bring your bear out now.”
Stevie looked down and shook his head.
“Please, Stevie,” asked Bonnie.
Stevie shook his head again. He wasn’t going to let all the other children laugh at his little white cat.
Bonnie tried again. “Stevie, it will make me very sad if you don’t let us see your teddy.”
Stevie looked up in surprise. He didn’t want to make Bonnie sad. Slowly he reached under his jacket and brought it out.
The girl next to him whispered, “That’s not a teddy bear!”
“But it is one of the prettiest little cats I’ve ever seen,” Bonnie quickly said. “Thank you for sharing him with us, Stevie.”
She smiled at Stevie, and Stevie smiled back. “His name is Teddy,” he said proudly.
“Well, then I’m sure he’ll feel very much at home with all the other ‘Teddies.’”
Bonnie opened her first book, and Stevie and Teddy snuggled up to listen.

Every year, fifth-graders at my school can go to a camp called Sky Ranch. They sleep in cabins, swim, and learn about the outdoors. My parents didn’t have enough money for me to go, but they said they’d help me earn it.
The Fourth of July was coming up, so we decided to make some cute Uncle Sam flag holders. We figured out how much money we needed to buy the materials and still have enough money for me to go to camp. We needed to buy flags, wood, and paint to make fifteen holders.
Dad bought and cut the wood. Mom and I painted the holders. When we were finished, Dad and I started to sell them. We sold seven that Saturday. At Sunday dinner, Grandpa asked, “What about paying your tithing?” I had forgotten about tithing!
We decided to raise the price of the flag holders, but we only sold one, so we knew we had to lower the price again to what it was and find another way to earn the money I still needed. Mom said that we had to pay the tithing first and that the Lord would bless us for it.
On the last Saturday before the Fourth of July, we sold all but two flag holders. Then a man came up and bought those two. Upon learning why we were selling them, he gave me an extra twenty dollars!
I am very excited about going to Sky Ranch, but I’m even more excited about learning that the Lord will bless you when you pay your tithing first.
Melissa McKenna, age 10Allen, Texas

It was Florence’s exemplary behavior that began the series of events that fulfilled her greatest longing. She was back in her hometown of Onitsha, Nigeria, practicing nursing. A woman in the neighborhood noticed that Florence came home after work, rather than going out with men. The woman suggested that her nephew contact Florence.

When Christopher Chukwurah met Florence, he told her immediately that he was looking for a wife. Based on his aunt’s recommendation, he said, he would like to marry Florence. Florence promised to consider his proposal.

“I had been very close to the Lord all my life,” recalls Sister Chukwurah. “Something kept telling me that I had to be close to the Lord.” She had been consistently praying for a good husband—someone who would care for her and who would not drink alcohol. “I wanted a family that would really be anchored on the Savior,” she explains.

When she prayed about Christopher, she had a warm feeling that this was a man who was spiritually inclined. When he returned for her answer, Florence accepted his proposal. They were married on 3 March 1972.

During the pandemic I have met with youth from all over the world in many devotionals, large and small, through broadcasts and social media, and we have discussed their questions.

Youth often ask me what I believe and why I believe.

I remember visiting virtually with one young woman in her home. I asked if it was the first time an Apostle had been in her home. She quickly smiled and responded, “Yes.” Her question for me was good: “What are the most important things I should know?”

I answered with the things of my soul, the things that prepare me to hear promptings, that lift my sights beyond the ways of the world, that give purpose to my work in the gospel and to my very life.

We have a prophet of God on the earth today! Never discount what that means for you. Remember the young woman I mentioned at the beginning. She wanted to know what things matter most. “Follow the living prophet,” I said then and I emphasize again today.

I am sure that the skills and discipline and soul-power that result from overcoming the challenge of material shortages open the door for extraordinary blessings. I offer one small personal example. As poor graduate students in Chicago, my wife and I did not have the resources to telephone home, except for very short calls on special holidays. We had to keep in touch by long, weekly letters, which each of us typed to both sets of parents each week. The composition of those letters developed writing skills that have blessed each of our lives for the ensuing forty-some years. We would have been deprived of a blessing of significant growth if we could have simply picked up the telephone and communicated in the almost effortless and sometimes almost thoughtless way that would have been available if we had had more money. I am an advocate of letters among loved ones, and my preference has been reinforced as I have written family histories and rejoiced in the details of loved one’s lives that have been preserved in writing rather than lost on some electronic highway.

“David! Boyd! Come home! It’s time to eat!”

No response. My wife asked me to help her find them.

“David! Boyd! Answer me! Stop teasing! Where are you?”

The anxiety in our voices grew with each unanswered call. David and Boyd, three and four years old, had been playing in the yard at our home on Sixth Avenue next to the Manister River in Manister, Michigan. They had only been out of my sight ten minutes when they disappeared. We searched for an hour with no success. Then we began to panic. We decided we had better telephone the police.

Within 30 minutes a group of policemen, firemen, Boy Scouts, and friends were searching the area. About 4:00 in the afternoon, an officer reported, “Better call the state police and have them bring Saber, the German shepherd.”

Saber arrived, pulling hard on his leash. He bounded up the stairs to the boys’ bedroom and jumped on their beds. The trainer rubbed Saber’s head and nose with the boys’ clothes.

“Off with the leash!” commanded the dog trainer, and the big dog scrambled headlong down the stairs. “Go find them, Saber!” he called, as the dog bounded out the door.

Saber sniffed the house and yard before running across the street to a small wooded area, then made a sharp turn to the south.

“Oh, no! Not the river!” I cried, as I ran after the barking dog. He didn’t stop until he was right on the riverbank where we both identified four little foot prints walking out about 30 meters onto the ice. The silent evidence was there. A big hole was broken in the ice and cold, black, water swirled below it.

Drowned? Dead? My two little innocent boys? These thoughts filled my mind and stopped my speech. I turned away to avoid the awful scene and I ran right into my brother and father. “Oh, how I hate God!” I cried out as I ran from the horrible scene.

How long I ran I don’t know. I do know that when I finally fell down from exhaustion, I had covered a 20-mile distance and was at the home of an old friend who had been kind to me years ago. But I found no comfort there that day.

The next morning I went back to the river. State police skin divers were doing their sad work. Each minute was more painful than the last, as I watched men in wet suits search the cold dark waters.

After three hours of searching, one finally shouted, “Score one!”

Not a little boy, not a child, but a number. Not my own flesh and blood, soft and warm, with a question on his lips, but a hard, stiff little body was lifted into the waiting boat. A frozen statue, with right hand outstretched and fingers clenched. It was David, and his frozen body told the tragedy. Boyd, the more adventuresome of the two, had gone first and broken through the ice. David had followed and tried to reach out to save him. Both went under, and death was quick in the freezing waters.

A few agonizing minutes later came the second call, “Score two!”

Grief overcame me. The days that followed were like a blur. I moved in and out of reality as funeral arrangements were made. I remember little of what was said during the service, except the minister’s parting words, “This is God’s will. We are not to understand.”

I had to understand! These were no words of comfort. A God who would kill innocent children was no friend of mine now or ever, and I told the minister so.

When I was at Ricks College, I worked part-time and lived at home so that I could save money to go on a study abroad at the Jerusalem Center in Israel. I worked for years to save up enough money to go on this trip, depriving myself of a lot of things and opportunities that I would otherwise have enjoyed. Finally, the time came...I was accepted to the program and ready to go. Unfortunately, the first Gulf War began on the day we were to have left, in January 1991. I was devastated. I had looked forward to this for years, and now it felt like all of my hard work was for nothing. But things took an interesting turn. Although going to Israel was my main goal, I also had dreams of traveling through Europe and seeing many of the famous cultural sights of the world. As weeks passed by, they said that I could attend Fall semester in Israel, which was less expensive and left me with enough money to also go to Europe on a tour with the Humanities department at Ricks College. Like Tommy by the gumball machine, it had seemed like I was being deprived of something I really wanted, when later I got that plus so much more.

We arrived in Cochabamba amidst more chaos from the revolution. We found a market filled with tents, where a kind fellow Peruvian let us wash up and then store our suitcases while we went to the bus terminal. Using our same plea, we made it standby onto another bus and arrived days later in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, near the Brazilian border. For three mornings, I went to the train station to ask if there would be any departures. The answer was always no. But on the fourth day, news spread that a train would be leaving soon for Brazil.

By this point, we were running out of money. I shared my concerns with my wife, who ?rmly replied, “Even if we have to arrive by foot or on the back of a donkey, we’re going to make it.” Her reply made me happy. I wasn’t unsettled about money for the rest of the trip because our confidence was placed in our faith.

As we talked, an old lady walked toward us. She stopped in front of my wife and said, “Young lady, wouldn’t you like two tickets for today?” My wife practically ripped the tickets out of her hand. I paid the old woman, and she vanished among the crowd. It took us a few seconds to realize that the Lord and His angels were still by our side.

My heart raced with anticipation as the truck slowly wound its way up the twisting mountain road.
“How long is it now?” I asked my dad. My eyes strained to spy our destination.
“Soon, I think,” Dad said as he put his hand on my shoulder. “Just sit back and enjoy the scenery.”
This was my first fishing trip to a real lake. Turning eight was great! I was finally old enough to do exciting things. The Cub Scouts had been invited to go on a fishing trip with the Boy Scouts, as long as our fathers came too.
We had gathered all our fishing gear—rods, tackle boxes, bait, nets, towels, and hats—before we left home.
“We’re getting close now,” Dad said as he followed the road along a fast-moving stream down toward the lake. “We just need to find a place to park.”
We soon noticed some boys on the other side of the river climbing on the rocks.
“Dad, they’re jumping in the water! Can I go swimming too?”
“Sure,” Dad said. He parked the car under some big trees and started unloading our supplies.
I dashed toward the riverbank. When I got there I could see that the boys were jumping off a large boulder that hung out over the river. The flow carried them swiftly downstream. Each boy would ride the current for a while and then swim to the shore to do it again. It was like a natural waterslide. I had to try it! I jumped in.
The force of the water nearly took my breath away. It was fun to be swept along so fast. Suddenly, I felt the water pull me back toward the boulder. The whirlpool was so powerful that I was pulled under and pushed against the underside of the boulder. I struggled to find an air pocket above the water against the rock, but there wasn’t one. I was running out of breath.
Then I heard a quiet voice: “Turn upside down and push!”
That seemed wrong. Wasn’t air to be found above the water? But I was desperate. I immediately pulled my body into a tight ball, turned upside down, and pushed off the bottom of the rock with my legs.
The next thing I knew, I popped out of the water downstream. I was relieved, but everything looked so blurry. I had forgotten to take off my glasses, and now they were lost. I felt that I should run beside the river. Quickly, I swam to shore and ran downstream. I found a calm place to wade and saw my glasses floating toward me.
Turning eight really was great. Because I was baptized, I was able to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. I knew as long as I was worthy, the Holy Ghost could help keep me safe.

But through their eight years of marriage, it seemed that María Teresa was continually begging him to give the church one more chance. “I continued crying and arguing with him,” she says. “Then one day, he got tired of it, packed his bags, and left!”

Now she was alone with her three children—alone in the beautiful home Carlos had designed and built himself. And she had plenty of time to think.

Fortunately, Carlos returned home two days after leaving in that fit of anger. And soon afterward, something happened that changed María’s heart—and her feelings toward her husband.

“We got our first patriarch in Paraguay, and I asked for my patriarchal blessing,” she remembers. “In it, the Lord assured me that if I magnified my callings as wife, mother, and daughter of God—along with my other callings in the Church—everything would be all right. The Lord promised me that He would touch my husband’s heart, and that we would go to the temple and be sealed. I was told to cry no more about it. (How could the patriarch have known that I had spent the entire previous day crying about it?)”

When she told Carlos about her blessing, he scoffed, telling her those things would never happen. “But I had great faith and hope in my patriarchal blessing,” she says. “From that moment, I never again pleaded with him about the Church. Instead, I began to do what my patriarchal blessing told me to do.”

She made her home a lovely, happy place, trying to be a good example of what she believed. She kept the Sabbath day holy, fulfilled her Church callings, and took the children with her to the meetings and activities. “I fasted and prayed for Carlos,” she says. “The children and I held family home evenings, always inviting him to join us. In family prayer, we prayed that someday he would accept the gospel. But when it was Carlos’s turn to pray, he would ask the Lord to never let him lose his own faith or stray from his own church!”

María was also preparing Carlos for the day when he would begin to pay his tithing. “I asked him to give me 10 percent of his extra income. Then I paid my tithing with it. I was helping him get used to living without the 10 percent.”

One Thursday morning, while preparing breakfast, María had a strong feeling that she should fast and pray that Carlos would listen to the missionaries again. “At that very moment, I began my fast,” she says.

Amazingly, two missionaries dropped in for a visit that afternoon. “It had been a long time since missionaries had come to our home,” she says. “I told them I was fasting that very day for Carlos. They said, ‘Sister, we will fast with you. And we are going to baptize your husband! When can we come back?’”

María asked them to return the following Monday evening, because that was the only day Carlos didn’t go to one of his clubs after work. On Monday, she and the two missionaries began another fast. She hadn’t told Carlos anything about the appointment she had made.

When Carlos came home from work that day, he announced that he was going to the club to play tennis. “I felt so disillusioned?” says María. “He never played tennis on Mondays. And I was sure he wouldn’t return until very late. I didn’t know how to ask him to stay. So he went.”

At 6:30 P.M., the missionaries came. Crying with embarrassment and disappointment, María explained that Carlos wasn’t home. “We are fasting for him!” she said. “How could it have turned out this way?”

Meanwhile, the person Carlos had arranged to play tennis with didn’t show up. And neither did anybody else! “There was nobody to play with,” he remembers. “It was very strange. So I went home.”

The missionaries were still there—and, for some reason, Carlos felt like talking to them. That started six months of serious studying.

It was a difficult six months. “When the missionaries were teaching him,” María says, “the Spirit was there. But when they left, the Spirit seemed to leave—and Carlos was left to himself. I fasted for him often.”

“A Uruguayan elder who taught me had a character just like mine,” says Carlos. “We had lots of discussions. I would ask hard questions, he would answer me, and I would try to refute him. I enjoyed discussing the gospel like that. I wanted the direct message, and he helped clarify lots of things.

“Then I decided to do my part and see what would happen,” he says. “I stopped smoking—I used to smoke two packs of cigarettes a day. I stopped drinking. I bought some Catholic books, studied them all, and talked with my uncle who was a Catholic priest. Then I got a book about LDS Church history.” He took some time off work, hoping to find a quiet place to study and meditate.

Then, as if on cue, a relative called and offered the Roigs the use of her house for two weeks—a quiet place in the country. It was just the retreat he needed. “I sat down and read and prayed,” says Carlos. “I read the history and the doctrine. By that time, I had already accepted the fact that this must be true. I just needed to make the decision.
“But there was something within me that was keeping me from it. I wondered what the problem was. One night in my bedroom, I had the Bible and Book of Mormon open. And I found a scripture that says that if we want to come to the Lord, we must ask forgiveness from those we’ve offended. (See 3 Ne. 12:23–24.) That scripture really made me think. Whom had I offended?”

Suddenly, he knew what he had to do. “There was something in my life that I needed to confess and repent of. But because of my fear of losing my family and losing everything, I had kept it to myself. Now I knew that I would have to repent completely and sincerely. I believed in Christ, and at that moment I was illuminated with the truth that I hadn’t accepted before—that Joseph Smith was a prophet. And I was also illuminated with all that had to do with the gospel. At that moment, my heart broke.
“So I went to my wife and said, `You’re going to cry. And it’s going to be hard.’ I knew in my heart that I could lose everything, including my family. But I couldn’t keep quiet. It was hard, but María accepted my repentance.
“Her understanding, love, and faithfulness have changed everything in me,” he says. “I remembered Saul of Tarsus, who changed totally after the Lord came to him. That’s how it has been with me—a 180-degree change.”
Carlos was baptized soon afterwards, on 14 February 1984. A year later, he and María and their children were sealed in the São Paulo Temple. “My wife’s patriarchal blessing has been fulfilled,” he says.
Another promise was also fulfilled. Years earlier, when Verónica was born, María took her to Church to be blessed. “A missionary told me, ‘When this baby is eight years old, your husband will baptize her.’” Verónica was seven when her dad joined the Church; he baptized her the following year.
Right after his baptism, Carlos was called as a counselor in the Sunday School presidency. Six months later, he became elders quorum president. A year after baptism, he was called to the high council. After another six months, he became bishop. Four years after being baptized, he became president of the Asunción Paraguay Stake. Continuing to serve in that calling, Carlos has now spent more than half of his time in the Church as stake president.
Church membership has brought some sacrifices. “When I was baptized, my father—a military officer—said, `You’re not my son anymore.’ I spoke to him with love and bore my testimony of the Church. But he rejected me and treated me as if I had betrayed my family. And my brothers and sisters distanced themselves from me.”
Carlos’s mother had studied the gospel privately, long before Carlos was baptized. She was converted and had set a baptismal date. “But my father wouldn’t permit it. He told her, ‘If you get baptized, you will never come back.’ So she wasn’t baptized before she died.”
Years later, his father became seriously ill, and Carlos spent many days and nights with him. “Before my father died, a Catholic priest came to do the last rites. But my father said, `I don’t want it. I’m with my son.’ The priest objected, ‘We need to do the prayer.’ But my father said, ‘No, I’m going to do it with Carlos.’ His last words before dying were, ‘Carlos, if I live, my life will change.’ When he said that, I realized that we should do the temple work for him and my mother. And we have done so.”
Carlos and María have five daughters and a son. Carolina is twenty-one and has married Gabriel Cella in the temple. Nathalia is seventeen, Verónica is fourteen, Marcelo is twelve, Sandra is six, and Andrea is four. “I remember those experiences when Dad wasn’t a member of the Church,” says Carolina. “Now, when I see my father, I often get very emotional. I thank my Heavenly Father.”
Nathalia agrees. “When Dad left home angry that day, we cried bitterly. I thought he would never return. We had always had a close family, and mother had always told us we could have an eternal family. So it was hard. But now I see him at the pulpit and giving counsel. It’s a miracle.”
After Sandra was born, the doctor advised María not to have more children. “But we prayed,” says President Roig, “and we both felt that our Father was saying, ‘You can have more.’ When María became pregnant, the doctor said she would lose the baby. But I gave her several priesthood blessings and fasted for her. Andrea was born without any problems. The doctor couldn’t believe it.”
The blessings have continued to multiply. “Every time on of our children was born,” he says, “I received more work in my profession, and my wages increased. My patriarchal blessing says that whatever goods I have, I should use them for the Lord. And the Lord blesses me with much.”
A year after Carlos joined the Church, he and María decided their house was too small for their growing family. So Carlos designed and built a new, larger home. It is beautiful and spacious—with lots of room for children and friends. Nathalia is practicing the piano in the living room. Verónica is doing homework at the dining room table. Marcelo is outside playing with Alfie, their cocker spaniel. And Sandra and Andrea are giving their dolls a party. Guests are treated like family here. A barbecue, a covered patio, a trampoline, and a swimming pool are out back. The garden is full of vegetables, pineapples, and sugar cane. And the trees are heavy with fruit: bananas, oranges, guavas, avocados, and mangos.
Carlos dedicated their home when it was finished. “A spirit of love and happiness reigns here,” he says. “We’re trying to comply with what the Lord wants. And all these things have been added to us, just as the scriptures say.
“These are really unimaginable blessings,” he says. He shudders when he realizes how close he came to losing—or giving up—everything. “I have no time for my social clubs now. Instead, we have our family gatherings. And I give most of my time to the Lord. While I’m driving, I’m thinking about the members of the stake and their problems. There’s lots to do. I wasted forty years of my life. Now I need to give Him my time.”
“Carlos is the best member of the Church I know,” says Sister Roig. “He magnifies his callings, he loves the gospel, and he’s the greatest defender I know of Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith.”

As I prepared for this talk today, I was impressed by the spirit to share with you another experience. It is a very sacred experience to me, one that I have never shared publicly and rarely in private, but I have felt the prompting of the Holy Spirit that I should relate it to you. The experience came in the form of a dream. Let me preface this by saying that it is very unusual for me to remember dreams, but this particular dream was so impressed upon my mind, that the details of it have permanently remained with me.

In my dream, I found myself in a dark void. I do not know the size of the space but my perception was that it was immense, seemingly without boundaries. In the distance, I noticed a narrow, vertical conduit of light, stretching out of sight in both directions. As I approached this conduit I found it to be filled with people, dressed in white robes, and moving upwards or downwards. Some were drifting, moving very slowly, and seemingly oblivious to where they were or what was going on. Others were moving more quickly, and a few were progressing quite rapidly upward. These last ones seemed very intent on what they were doing and the direction they were headed. In my observations, I noticed that no one was stationary. All were in some state of motion.

The scene then changed and I saw that this conduit of light extended upward to an immense and glorious mansion. It was of a golden hue and radiated light. I observed that it was composed of different parts or sections. At its core was a small section that shone with a brightness far beyond any of the other parts of the building. Entrance into that small, central portion of the mansion was through a single doorway that was watched over by a guardian. As I approached that doorway, the guardian instructed me that this was the abode of the Eternal God and of his Son, Jesus Christ. It became apparent to me that the conduit of light I observed represented the pathway to eternal life and that the purpose and objective of that pathway was to provide access to where our Father in Heaven lives. I then realized that entering into His presence is fully dependent on our choices in this life, that it is through our actions and desires that we choose, and that relatively few would make the choices necessary to qualify them to live in the presence of the Father and the Son.

In this life, we cannot ignore the commandments of God or follow forbidden pathways and then expect to be admitted into the abode of God and live with him. We cannot sneak into heaven, hoping that our poor choices and sinful acts will somehow be dismissed without having done all we can in this life to repent of them. Our progression towards eternal life depends on the daily attention we give to achieving that goal. In the pathway that leads to Eternal Life, some are merely drifting, not really paying much attention to the details of their progression. Others are making moderate progress but could be doing better. Still others are progressing rapidly by diligently seeking to incorporate gospel principles into their lives and being totally submissive to the Father's will.

Another Mormon boy was sent east to an officers training school. A new commanding officer came into the camp, and they put on a banquet to honor him. There, by every plate, was a cocktail glass. When the proper time came, every one of those potential officers stood up with his cocktail glass to toast that incoming officer. All but one boy, and he raised a glass of milk. It would take a lot of courage, wouldn’t you think, to stand there with all those officers, and see all of those cocktail glasses come up, and stand and raise a glass of milk!
Well, the officer saw it. He made a beeline for that boy after the entertainment was over, and he said, “Why did you toast me with a glass of milk?”
“Well, officer,” he said, “I’ve never touched liquor in my life. I don’t want to touch it; my parents wouldn’t want me to touch it; and I didn’t think you would want me to either. And I wanted to toast you, so I thought you would be satisfied if I toasted you with what I am accustomed to drinking.”
The officer said, “You report at headquarters in the morning,” and told him what time.
I suppose that boy spent a sleepless night, but when he went into the officer’s quarters the next morning, you know what happened? The officer assigned him a place on his staff with this explanation: “I want to surround myself with men who have the courage to do what they think is right regardless of what anybody else thinks about it.” Isn’t that wonderful! He was an uncommon boy, wasn’t he? I hope you are all uncommon. I hope that if you are ever in a situation like that you will make the proper decision.

I will start with an experience from my “before General Authority” life. I planned a trip that required me to fly a beautiful, high-performance airplane from Kalispell, Montana, to Las Vegas, Nevada. My highly experienced copilot and I were excited to make the flight. We made our preparations for the trip.

We filed an instrument flight plan from Kalispell to Las Vegas and climbed into the airplane, anticipating a beautiful, quiet, and uneventful flight. The aircraft was sophisticated and state of the art, all weather was checked, flight plans were filed, and the night in Kalispell was crystal clear. All was in order. It rarely gets any better than that for the crew of an aircraft. The skies at altitude were clear and cold, making the ride smooth and breathtaking.

As we approached the Las Vegas area, air traffic controllers gave us preliminary instructions for our descent and arrival into the area. We had been monitoring increasingly bad weather developing far beneath us along the route. As we started our descent, we entered a bizarre weather phenomenon. It was snowing heavily in the clouds, and we could see lightning all around us. The aircraft started to glow an eerie blue color from the electricity in the air.

This was a new experience for both of us—even with our combined 60 years of experience in the cockpit. Suddenly, the static electricity overwhelmed the sophisticated radios in the aircraft, and we could hear nothing but loud, scratchy static. We were now descending into some of the world’s busiest airspace without being able to communicate with those who were controlling all of the other air traffic. They were ready to direct us, but we could not hear their instructions. We were being heard, but we could not hear. What was going to guide us to safety now?

There are those on the ground who will keep you safe if you follow the rule. We followed the previous instructions of the air traffic controller and our flight plan route and soon flew out of the storm, regained radio contact, and landed safely.

Even in times of darkness or what seems like silence from above, when you may feel abandoned, what you decide to do today can guide you through the darkness to the light. The Lord is always there. He is always there. If in the storms of life you feel you can’t hear His direction, stay true to the covenants you promised to keep. If you are true to your love of the Savior and covenants with Him, you will be blessed. If you find yourself in difficulty and things don’t seem right, persist in righteousness. Storm clouds will clear, clarity will come, and peace will return.

A few years ago, I went to one of those competitions in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. I was excited to compete against weightlifters from all over the country, but I was a little worried about being so far away from my family. To make it easier, my mom promised to text me scriptures and thoughtful messages every day.
The night before the competition, some kids threw a party. I thought it would be cool to go, so my roommate and I went to check it out. But right away I knew it wasn’t my kind of party. There were teenagers drinking, smoking, saying bad words, and dancing inappropriately. I knew I shouldn’t be there, but I was worried what my roommate might think. Or what the other competitors might think.
But then something popped into my head:
“Stand ye in holy places.”
It was from my favorite scripture, and one my mom had sent me that morning: Doctrine and Covenants 87:8: “Wherefore, stand ye in holy places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come; for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord. Amen.”
I don’t know why my mom sent me that scripture that day, but it’s one I’ve loved my entire life. I’ve had it memorized since I was eight, and again and again it has reminded me to have courage, be obedient, and stand for what I believe in.
“Stand ye in holy places.”
“I’m gonna go,” I said to my roommate. I explained about the scripture my mom had sent me that morning. “This is not a place I should be standing.”
My roommate told me she didn’t want to be there, either. She was uncomfortable too but hadn’t wanted to leave by herself and be seen as a loser. She thanked me for saying something, and we left.
The next morning, we found out that soon after we left, the kids who were at the party were caught and eliminated from the competition for drinking and doing drugs.
If I hadn’t been prompted to remember my mom’s verse, I might’ve been disqualified from the competition too. I ended up winning first place, so I’m really grateful I got to compete. (I think I thank my mom every single day for texting me.)

Later, while working back in London, Patrick met some members of the Church.
“They were great examples of our faith,” he recalls. “One of them was from California, and I went and stayed with that family while I worked there.”
That experience gave Patrick a wonderful foundation of understanding the Church. He was touched by the joy the family found in service, but he had many questions about Church doctrine and beliefs. Back in England two years later, however, he met some “impressive missionaries” on the streets of London. After discussing the gospel with them for several months and being told he was not progressing toward baptism, they asked him if he would like a blessing.
“I agreed to have a blessing from a senior missionary I knew,” he recalls. “How I felt during that blessing was a key moment in my conversion. It was an absolutely undeniable sense of light and joy and peace that no words can describe. The words of the blessing proved inspired and definitely prescient.”
That experience, coupled with “a number of other things in my progress toward baptism,” led Patrick to a testimony of the Savior and His restored Church. A couple of months later, on Christmas Eve 1987, he was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
For those seeking a testimony, Elder Kearon says: “Choose faith, and respond to the invitation in Alma 32. Follow your spiritual feelings. They will guide you, and you will know.”