Gospel Story Finder

Jerry Martin, a member of the Plano stake presidency, joined a self-reliance group for personal finances so he could become familiar with the process and the course material. As a retired chief financial officer of a major corporation, he didn’t think he had much to learn about finances.
“I saw opportunities to help several participants get out of debt or develop personal savings and investment plans that fit their unique circumstances,” he said. “It was very satisfying.” And he enjoyed the camaraderie from the group. Then he made a personal discovery.
“I had always paid my tithes and a generous fast offering, but as I participated in this group, I had a nagging feeling that I wasn’t doing enough,” Brother Martin said. “Was I sharing enough? Was I sufficiently consecrated?”
Despite his personal service and Church contributions, these questions persisted. While visiting India, he met many individuals and organizations involved in generously supporting various humanitarian efforts. As President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency, has said, “The Church of Jesus Christ is committed to serving those in need, and it is also committed to cooperating with others in that effort.” With that in mind, Brother Martin began looking for other opportunities to serve and cooperate with like-minded individuals. He wasn’t prepared for what came next.
“I had a valuable penny collection,” Brother Martin said. “As I prayed in India about how and where I might contribute to the work being done by others, a prompting came to me that I also needed to consider the source of potential contributions—not from my investment account but from my penny collection. I realized at that point: this was my moment of consecration. How much did that penny collection really mean to me?”
“This was my moment of consecration.”
Eventually, Brother Martin sold his penny collection and used the proceeds to fund humanitarian projects overseas and college scholarships locally. “If I had not participated in the self-reliance group, I would never have even considered how I could lift others through my time as well as my means,” he explained. “I’m a better person for it.”

Colonel Thomas Kane, a special representative of James Polk, president of the United States, visited the Mormon pioneers in 1846 while they camped in Iowa, preparing to cross the Missouri River. He had read newspaper articles about the Saints, describing how they had frequently been persecuted and driven from their homes. As he walked through the woods near the outskirts of the camp, he came upon a lone pioneer who was secretly praying. Thomas stood quietly listening to the man humbly express thanks for the restored gospel and petition for the Saints’ protection during their travels.
Thomas was very moved by this experience, and he became a lifelong friend of the Mormons, although he never joined the Church.

I met Jim when he was an extremely shy 14-year-old who was halfway through an explosive growth spurt. He came as a silent companion to his father, a devoted home teacher who faithfully visited our family each month. During each visit, he would sit in a corner chair and thumb through magazines. When we tried to include him in the conversation, he would answer our questions with a shrug or a simple yes or no. He declined all invitations to pray.
It took an earthquake to jar him from silence. We lived in San Diego at the time and would occasionally feel tremors from the San Andreas fault. One evening when Jim and his dad were in our home for their monthly visit, everything in the house started to shake as the earth beneath our home shuddered. It was the most powerful tremor any of us had ever felt, and we were startled. But I was equally startled when Jim began to talk excitedly about what he had felt. I remember exchanging an acknowledging look with my husband, “What do you know: he speaks!”

As a young missionary in Tonga, in the aftermath of a devastating hurricane, I stood in a tiny, wobbly wooden framed home of a Tongan branch president, surrounded by the shattered remains of much newer and stronger homes, and heard him describe in tears how at the height of the 150 mile an hour storm, when his house was on the verge of collapse, he placed his hand on one of the ceiling beams and commanded by virtue of his priesthood and in the name of Jesus Christ that the house remain standing solidly and intact during the storm. And miraculously it was so.

My dear brothers and sisters, when I was 12 years old, my family lived in Göteborg, a coastal city in southern Sweden. By way of reference, it is the hometown of our dear associate Elder Per G. Malm, who passed away this summer. We miss him. We’re grateful for his nobility and his noble service and for the example of his absolutely adorable family. And we certainly pray God’s richest blessings to be theirs.
Fifty years ago, we attended church in a large remodeled home. One Sunday, my friend Steffan, the only other deacon in the branch, greeted me at church with some excitement. We went to the chapel’s adjacent overflow area, and he pulled from his pocket a large firecracker and some matches. In an act of youthful bravado, I took the firecracker and lit the long gray fuse. I intended to snuff out the fuse before it blew up. But when I burned my fingers trying to do so, I dropped the firecracker. Steffan and I watched in horror as the fuse continued to burn.
The firecracker exploded, and sulfurous fumes filled the overflow area and the chapel. We hurriedly gathered up the scattered remnants of the firecracker and opened the windows to try to get the smell out, naively hoping that no one would notice. Fortunately, no one was hurt and no damage was done.
As members came to the meeting, they did notice the overpowering smell. It was hard to miss. The smell distracted from the sacred nature of the meeting. Because there were so few Aaronic Priesthood holders—and in what can only be described as dissociative thinking—I passed the sacrament, yet I did not feel worthy to partake of it. When the sacrament tray was offered to me, I took neither the bread nor the water. I felt horrible. I was embarrassed, and I knew that what I had done had displeased God.
After church, the branch president, Frank Lindberg, a distinguished older man with silver-gray hair, asked me to come to his office. After I sat down, he looked at me kindly and said he had noticed that I had not partaken of the sacrament. He asked why. I suspect he knew why. I was sure everyone knew what I had done. After I told him, he asked how I felt. Through tears, I haltingly told him I was sorry and that I knew I had let God down.
President Lindberg opened a well-worn copy of the Doctrine and Covenants and asked me to read some underlined verses. I read the following out loud:
“Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.
“By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold, he will confess them and forsake them.”
I will never forget President Lindberg’s compassionate smile when I looked up after I had finished reading. With some emotion, he told me that he felt it would be fine for me to resume partaking of the sacrament. As I left his office, I felt indescribable joy.
As a 12-year-old in Göteborg, I could have blamed Steffan. He was the one who brought the big firecracker and the matches to the church in the first place. But blaming others, even if justified, allows us to excuse our behavior. By so doing, we shift responsibility for our actions to others. When the responsibility is shifted, we diminish both the need and our ability to act. We turn ourselves into hapless victims rather than agents capable of independent action.
Another choice that impedes repentance is minimizing our mistakes. In the Göteborg firecracker incident, no one was hurt, no permanent damage occurred, and the meeting was held anyway. It would have been easy to say that there was no reason to repent. But minimizing our mistakes, even if no immediate consequences are apparent, removes the motivation to change. This thinking prevents us from seeing that our mistakes and sins have eternal consequences.
The fact that we can repent is the good news of the gospel! Guilt can be “swept away.” We can be filled with joy, receive a remission of our sins, and have “peace of conscience.” We can be freed from feelings of despair and the bondage of sin. We can be filled with the marvelous light of God and be “pained no more.” Repentance is not only possible but also joyful because of our Savior. I still remember the feelings that washed over me in the branch president’s office after the firecracker episode. I knew I had been forgiven. My feelings of guilt vanished, my gloomy mood lifted, and my heart felt light.

A few months ago I received a package from one of the state prisons in Utah. I thought it was unusual, but I opened the package. Inside was a beautiful hand-knitted blanket with the full BYU Cougar logo in the middle. There was a handwritten note on top, and part of it read:

I am an inmate of the Utah State Prison. I am fifty-four years old, and in all my life I never was interested in watching any sports on TV. That was until 2009, when I was running channels and came across a BYU women’s soccer game just as someone did a flip throw. I stopped to watch to see what was going on, and I was hooked. To this day, the only sport I really watch is BYU women’s soccer.

There is something about the way they play. It is very hard to describe. They play with heart, for the love of the game, and just for fun and enjoyment. It is something that you cannot put into words.

I will never get to see a game in person. So please accept this blanket as a token of my appreciation. It is for the entire team.

This was such a kind gift and note that touched our team and reminded us that we are capable of reaching individuals who we would never have thought of. Our reach goes so far, whether in sports, music, dance, research, science, or education. In whatever we are involved with here at BYU, we can make a difference.

A lot of us are not willing to step on the starter or the gas as we journey along through life. I met a student who was like that when I was dean of the College of Agriculture at Utah State University. One day I had a phone call from the Admissions Office and was told, “Dean Bennett, we have a young man here who wants to transfer from BYU to Utah State, and he wants to register in your college. His record at the Y was terrible. On the basis of his record we cannot accept him. Now, if you would be willing to interview him, put him on probation, and accept him on that basis, that is all right with us.”
I said, “Send his record over and let me have about 15 minutes to look at it. Then send him over. I would like to talk to him personally.”
They sent his record over. It was just as bad as they had said it was—just terrible—but I knew that this young man had just returned from a mission and that a mission sometimes helps a young man set serious goals and objectives and get control of himself. I was, therefore, interested in interviewing him.
He came over. The first question I asked him was, “Your record at the Y was not very good, was it?” He said, “Oh, I suppose it could have been better.” He spoke in a lackadaisical manner. That told me something—something I was looking for, something about his attitude—so I began digging beneath the surface a bit and coming at him from different angles. After three-quarters of an hour I was convinced his attitude was not good, and I decided to jar him.
“On the basis of your record at the Y,” I said, “I should not agree to your admittance. On the basis of your attitude, I am not going to admit you.”
That jarred him, and he immediately started coming at me from different angles, trying to get me to reconsider. But I was firm. Finally I got through to that young man when I said, “Have you ever stopped to realize that to you as an individual the most important life that will ever be lived is your life, and here you are, wasting it away. You seem to be satisfied with the situation. Have you ever stopped to think that the greatest loss of power that we have in this world is the loss that results from the failure of individuals to reach their potential?” The tears started to stream down his cheeks. He arose from his chair, snapped his fingers, and said, “I’ll accept your challenge if you will just admit me. I will demonstrate that I can cut the muster.”
I said, “Do you really mean that?” He said, “I do, and I am pleading for another chance.” I replied, “If you really mean it, I will give you that chance.” He said, “I really mean it.”
“All right,” I said, “I will approve your admittance.” And I did.
That young man established some goals that day, and he was serious about them. He went to work. Oh, how he worked. Winter quarter he got better than a B- average as I recall. Spring quarter he improved upon that; and he went on and on and graduated from Utah State University. I look back upon that experience as one of the choice experiences of my life—getting through to that young man, arousing him, and awakening him to the point where he established goals that were challenging.

A student wrote:
“In my own family I can remember times when my father spent long days at the office and helped very little with the children at home. He was under a lot of stress, and I don’t think he took his problems to the Lord like he should have. Rather, he spent more and more time trying to make money. It seemed as though he worshiped money, spending all his time and resources to get more.
“I don’t know exactly when things changed. But all of a sudden our family started to be together more. We prayed more as a family, and we were happier all around. It didn’t take long to realize that my father had turned to the Lord, and our family has been blessed ever since.”

This story happened in South Korea.
Jayne took one last bite of her noodles. Mmmm. Delicious!
“Let’s play Yut Nori!” Uncle Ji-Ho said.
It was that time of year again! Her family was celebrating Chuseok, Korean Thanksgiving. Today Jayne’s family had gathered to eat lots of food and play Yut Nori together. Yut Nori was Jayne’s favorite game.
Everyone sat in a circle on the floor. Jayne looked around. What team did she want to be on? She scooted over to sit next to Uncle Ji-Ho. “I want to be on your team!” she said. “We’re going to be the big winners!”
Uncle Ji-Ho laughed. “With you on our team, we sure have a good chance!”
Jayne’s mom set the game board in the middle of the circle. Jayne helped her set out the pieces. They passed the four sticks to the team that would go first.
Jayne’s cousin Ana took the first turn. She threw the sticks into the air. The way the sticks landed showed how many spaces that team could move on the game board. All four sticks were facing down, which meant that Ana got a Yut! She got to move her team’s piece forward four spaces and got an extra turn.
But Ana was not on Jayne’s team.
Jayne folded her arms and frowned. “I was hoping she wouldn’t have a good throw,” she whispered to Uncle Ji-Ho.
“Cheer up!” Uncle Ji-Ho said. “The game just started.” He gave her an encouraging smile.
After Ana’s second turn, Jayne’s team threw the sticks. But they didn’t get to move their pieces as far as Ana’s team did.
With every turn, Jayne’s family members cheered and laughed. Jayne watched the game pieces move around the board. Everyone was having fun.
Everyone but Jayne. Her team was still losing.
Finally it was Jayne’s turn. She threw the sticks in the air, but only one landed face down. Her team’s piece moved forward only one space.
Jayne folded her arms. “I quit!” she yelled. “I wanted us to win.”
Suddenly, everyone was quiet. When she looked up, her family was staring at her. They seemed surprised that she was so angry.
Jayne’s face felt hot. She felt bad that she wasn’t happy for her family. She didn’t usually get so mad. She stood up to leave the circle.
Uncle Ji-Ho put a hand out. “You don’t have to leave,” he said. “Winning isn’t everything. Just try to have fun.”
“OK.” Jayne sat back down. She wanted to have fun like everyone else. She took a deep breath and watched her cousin Ben toss the sticks.
“Nice turn, Ben!” Uncle Ji-Ho said. He sounded happy.
Jayne looked at Uncle Ji-Ho with wide eyes. He was cheering for the other team! Maybe that was why he was having so much fun.
As the next turn began, Jayne decided to cheer for everyone on both teams. Uncle Ji-Ho was right. Winning wasn’t everything. Jesus could help her be happy for her family members even if she lost.
When it was Ana’s turn again, Jayne smiled at her. “Good luck! You’ve got this.”
From across the circle, Ana smiled back. Jayne felt warm inside. She was having more fun already!

“Hurry faster!” Mary Jane’s friends cried as they ran down the street.
“I’m coming. I’m coming,” Mary Jane yelled back, bending to put one more rock into the bulging pockets of her light blue apron.
For a nine-year-old girl in Wales in 1846, Latter-day Saint missionaries coming to town meant excitement. She and her friends had heard many terrible stories about the “Mormons.” Surely such people deserved to be pelted with stones.
As the three girls rounded a corner, they heard music. A small crowd was singing a familiar hymn. Mary Jane was a good singer, so she joined in after she caught her breath. She didn’t know all the words, but she enjoyed humming the melodies.
As the singing ended, Mary Jane followed the elders’ example and knelt to pray. One by one, the rocks fell from the pockets of her apron. When the prayer ended, Mary Jane’s friend picked up the rocks. “Let’s get them!” she said.
“No,” Mary Jane said quietly. “I want to listen to what they’re saying.”
She turned her eyes toward the missionaries and listened carefully. One of the elders said that a prophet named Joseph Smith had seen Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, in a grove of trees. Another explained why we are born on this earth. As Mary Jane listened, her friends slipped through the crowd and ran off to play. When the elders finished preaching, Mary Jane walked slowly home, thinking about all she had heard.
As the days passed, Mary Jane kept listening to the elders. She loved what she was learning about Heavenly Father. Her mother did not. She was so opposed to what the missionaries taught that she sometimes hid Mary Jane’s clothes or denied her food so she would stop going to church.
But Mary Jane loved the gospel more than ever. She had learned to pray, and her prayers for a testimony were answered. She wanted to be baptized. Finally on a cold December night, she was baptized in a frozen river. The elders had to use an ax to cut a hole in the ice. Even though Mary Jane’s body was very cold that night, her heart was warm. She knew that she had made the right decision.
But she was sad because her mother could not understand the true gospel. Every day, Mary Jane knelt to pray. “Heavenly Father, I am so glad to be a member of the Church, but I want my mother to be baptized, too,” she said. “Please help her to understand the message. Please let something happen to help her accept the gospel.” For three years Mary Jane prayed for her mother. She never gave up hope.
When Mary Jane was 13 years old, her mother became seriously ill with a disease that settled in her foot. It was very painful.
One day Mary Jane said to her mother, “Why don’t I ask the elders to come and give you a priesthood blessing?” Because her foot was hurting so much, Mary Jane’s mother finally agreed. The elders gave Mary Jane’s mother a blessing, and to her amazement, her foot immediately stopped hurting. Mary Jane knew her prayers had been answered.
Soon afterward her mother started going to Church meetings. It wasn’t long before she also joined the Church. Mary Jane was happier than she had ever been.
When Mary Jane was 17 years old, she and her mother sailed to America on the ship Jersey and then traveled on to Utah. For the rest of her life, Mary Jane followed the Savior as she had been taught on a street corner in Wales. She was always grateful that she had listened to the elders that day. She was especially glad that when she was nine years old she had decided not to throw the rocks that had fallen from the pockets of her light blue apron.

Who can forget the evil attacks of September 11, 2001, on various U.S. locations? Such events remind us how quickly our feelings of peace and safety can be destroyed.
Our oldest son and his wife, who were expecting their first child, lived three blocks from the World Trade Center in New York City when the first plane crashed into the North Tower. They went to the roof of their apartment building and were horrified as they watched what they thought was some kind of terrible accident. Then they witnessed the second plane crash into the South Tower. They immediately realized that this was no accident and believed lower Manhattan was under attack. When the South Tower collapsed, their apartment building was engulfed in the dust cloud that rained down over lower Manhattan.
Confused about what they had witnessed and concerned about further attacks, they made their way to a safer area and then to the Manhattan stake Church building at Lincoln Center. When they arrived, they found that dozens of other members in lower Manhattan had made the same decision to gather at the stake center. They called to let us know where they were. I was relieved that they were safe but not surprised at their location. Modern revelation teaches that the stakes of Zion are a defense and “a refuge from the storm, and from wrath when it shall be poured out without mixture upon the whole earth.”
They could not return to their apartment for over a week and were devastated by the loss of innocent lives, but they suffered no permanent damage.

As a recently returned missionary, Brother Viwe Xozwa’s schedule was exhausting. The education-driven convert in Port Elizabeth, South Africa, attended school from 8 a.m. to noon, worked from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., then studied until 8 or 9 p.m. on a regular basis.

Brother Xozwa was never bothered or upset by the busy schedule he maintained, though. In fact, he was grateful just for the opportunity he had to study and learn, which was made possible by others’ generosity.

Brother Xozwa is a recipient of a Perpetual Education Fund (PEF) loan, which made obtaining an education a more realistic possibility than it otherwise would have been. Now a 27-year-old computer engineer and the executive secretary in his stake, he attributes many of his blessings to the PEF.

“I would not be where I am right now in my life if that inspired program was not established,” he said.

While he always planned to attend college, Brother Xozwa and his mother lacked the funds to pay for school. A conventional bank loan was a possibility, though higher interest rates would have made it very costly and would have taken a long time to pay off. Instead, Brother Xozwa heard about the PEF from a Church Educational System couple in his area. He applied for and received a $1,150 PEF loan and enrolled in computer engineering classes at Damelin College in Port Elizabeth.

After about a year of study, Brother Xozwa was offered a job at an IT consulting firm. The company waited for him to finish up the school year and supported him in his continued studies. Because of his employment, he was able to pay off his loan the following year, and the company has sponsored his further studies for the past four years in disciplines such as labor relations, corporate governance, business administration and management, and advanced project management.

“The PEF program gave me the initial kick-start that I needed, and the rest I could do on my own,” he said. “It gave me an initial boost; everything else just opened up.”

Knowing where his loan came from made Brother Xozwa dedicate himself completely to doing well in school and paying off his loan. He wanted to use the generous donations the best way he could.

“I realized these were sacred funds. Others had made a contribution to my education, so it was my responsibility to show appreciation by studying hard,” he said. “The money that was granted me was not mine to play around with. I was given the opportunity to make something of my life, to kick-start a good future, and it was my responsibility to grab that opportunity with both hands and not fail.”

Brother Xozwa understood this principle and was motivated to help others receive the same opportunities he had.

“The Lord is giving you the opportunity to progress, but also to help the next person,” he said. “It was my responsibility to repay the money as soon as possible so that the next person could have an equally good chance to study and progress. Think of how many people you can influence if you use the funds correctly. You can do wonders not just for you but for other people.”

His experience has taught him leadership skills and independence in addition to self-reliance and the ability to keep commitments.

“It’s not just education. It’s not just getting a diploma or getting a degree. It’s not just a career. It’s so much more than that. It opens doors for you to grow individually,” he said.

Brother Xozwa said he will be forever grateful for the generosity extended to him that made a world of difference in his life.

“I would love one day to meet the person or the people who contributed to the program in the initial stages just to say thank you,” he said. “Maybe it was pocket change for them, but it changed generations. It has changed my family.”

In July of 1976, runner Garry Bjorklund was determined to qualify for the U.S. Olympic team’s 10,000-meter race which would be run at the Montreal Olympics. Halfway through the grinding qualifying race, however, he lost his left shoe. What would you and I do if that were our experience? I suppose he could have given up and stopped. He could have blamed his bad luck and lost the opportunity of participating in the greatest race of his life, but this champion athlete did not do that. He ran on without his shoe. He knew that he would have to run faster than he had ever run in his life. He knew that his competitors now had an advantage that they did not have at the beginning of the race. Over that cinder track he ran, with one shoe on and one shoe off, finishing third and qualifying for the opportunity to participate in the race for the gold medal. His own running time was the best he had ever recorded. He put forth the effort necessary to achieve his goal.

The pocketknife always stayed in the closet, hanging from the shelf by a cord. Sometimes when I bent over to get something from the closet floor, I would hit my head against it. I had almost used the knife a few times—for camping or to cut a piece of bread. But I had never dared to.
I had always dreamed of having a knife like this. It was just the size I liked, and its handle was made of deer antler. But there it hung, swinging like a pendulum, unused. I had handled it just a few times, opening, one by one, its steel blades and accessories. In our Uruguayan climate, it was already beginning to rust.
I had decided long ago that I could never use the knife. In the first place, my conscience bothered me every time I held it. In the second place, if I used the knife, I ran the risk of losing my best friend. You see, the knife belonged to him. I had stolen it.
It had happened very quickly, during the confusion of a moment, when a group of youth from our branch were all together. Ariel didn’t notice at the time that his knife was missing. And now the knife held me prisoner.
In the two years since then, the knife had never been far from my thoughts. My bitter mistake had made me resolve to never again, under any circumstances, take something that was not mine. But as far as the knife itself was concerned, I vacillated. Back and forth I went in my mind, trying to decide what to do with it.
And now I had another reason to think about the knife. Our priests quorum was preparing for a fireside with the Laurels in our ward. The fireside was to be on a Sunday afternoon, and the priests would be giving presentations that focused on one principle of the gospel.
The principle we had selected was repentance, and each of us was to discuss one of the steps involved in repenting of sin: realizing that you have done something wrong, being sorry, confessing, making restitution, and resolving to never do it again. By some unhappy coincidence, I was assigned the topic of restitution.
Of course, the pocketknife swung into my thoughts immediately. What was I to do? With too few opportunities to associate with other members of the Church in Uruguay, I could not conceive of missing the fireside or not sharing the company of my friends. But how could I talk about restitution and repentance while my terrible guilt for stealing the knife hung around my neck like a great weight?
Finally, I took the pocketknife from the cord in the closet. I did everything I could to make it look like new. I mixed some cleanser with lubricating oil and rubbed each part. I consulted a mechanic at the place where I worked and tried washing it with solvents. But the rust was already part of the metal. It was impossible to make the knife the way it had been.
On the Sunday of the fireside, Ariel was surprised when I asked him to follow me into one of the classrooms at church.
“What’s the big mystery?” he asked.
“I have something to give you,” I said. I took the knife out of my pocket and placed it in his hands.
“What’s this?”
“It’s the knife I stole from you.”
“You? Stole from me? No way!”
“Yes—I stole it from you.”
“I thought I had lost it! Where did you find it?”
He did not want to believe me. I explained in detail how I had stolen the knife. “Will you forgive me, Ariel?” I asked when I had finished. “I have to know if you can forgive me!”
He embraced me. I returned his embrace. We wept together. Then he said, “We are friends. Of course I forgive you.” We had a prayer and embraced each other once more before we left the classroom. No one else had any idea what had happened.
How wonderful our presentation was that night! And how delicious the refreshments were! I could not remember when I had felt happier.

This principle is illustrated by a story told by Elder Merrill C. Oaks.

Some years ago while I was serving as a bishop of a Brigham Young University ward, a young woman came to me for counsel concerning a marriage proposal. She really liked the young man but was strongly committed to not taking a step as important as marriage without receiving inspiration that it was right. She had been praying about whether to marry him and had received no answer. I assured her that the Lord would surely answer her prayers and that she should keep on praying.

The following Sunday she asked to see me again. She felt she was receiving no answer. I interviewed her and established that she was worthy. I again assured her that the Lord does hear and answer prayers and that she should continue praying.

The young man was really pressing her to make a decision. He loved her but felt she was stalling because she probably did not love him. He was approaching the time he might terminate the relationship. She was very concerned but felt she could not marry him without an answer from the Lord. I was very troubled by this. I knew the Lord answered prayers. I knew this young woman was worthy to receive answers to her prayers. Why was she not receiving an answer?

The key came to me in a moment of clear enlightenment. I told her she was expecting the Lord to completely make the decision for her, but He would not do that. Even a decision as important as marriage requires us to exercise our own agency. . . .

Like Oliver Cowdery, she had taken no thought except to keep asking the Lord. I told her she must exercise her own agency by studying it out in her mind, making a tentative decision, and then asking the Lord for a confirmation of her decision. . . .

[The young lady in this story eventually] received her answer. She explained, . . . “I just began to feel [more and more positive and] good about getting married, and I knew that my prayers were being answered.

I was born into a good family. My father and mother were Christians, and they raised seven children in love of God, Jesus Christ, His gospel, and love of neighbor. My father was not a rich man, but he was able to provide for all the needs of the family. We lived in modesty and had everything we needed. But an unfortunate event would happen in my father's life, and it was going to change the course of my future.
When I was 16, my father fell ill and was no longer able to provide for the family. He no longer had the financial means to send us to school, and it was a dark period in my life's history. This situation meant that I couldn't go to school for two years, and I stayed at home without furthering my education because there was no one else to help me continue with my high school education. After several months of illness, my father recovered, but his whole life had changed because he had lost many of his material and financial possessions.
All my dreams seemed to end and my whole future became dark. I had lost hope for a better future. I lost the opportunities to continue my studies and become the man I wanted to be—or the man I dreamed of becoming.
But a year after this situation happened, I got closer to my father, and we had a very open and comforting conversation. I asked him if I still had the opportunity to return to continue my studies because education was the only guarantee in our time to be able to survive and provide for his personal and family needs.
My father was very sincere with me, and he told me, “Alfred we have to work hard to save money that will allow you next year to go back to school and continue your path of education.”
The work we had to do was to make the fields—farming. He was a man who was already fielding in the past. He also enjoyed breeding animals because he was a veterinarian by training and career. So, we decided to work the land. It was necessary to prepare the soil for the seed. Preparation meant cutting down trees and grasses, uproot tree trunks, do ploughing, sowing, weeding. We should use axes, machetes to cut down trees and grasses, and use hoes for ploughing, sowing, and weeding. So, everything was manual.
For a young person (my age of 16) who did not live in these living conditions, it was very difficult for me to have strength for this work of the land that requires endurance and perseverance. It was a very difficult job, and my body was not used to this kind of heavy work. So, I suffered from it the first days and months. My hands were wounded and bleeding. I wanted to give up everything. But because I knew the goal I had to work hard for, I didn't stop trying. I learned, I picked up the pace, and I started working the land.
We had made a field of cassava, maize, and groundnuts. But the main project was cassava.
I am not a specialist of agriculture, but I am telling you the story and the experience that I personally lived.
The cassava species we planted would have to wait a year to grow and be ready for harvest and sale. This work took us practically a year under the sun, in the rain, in the cold, and in the wind.
It was necessary work to watch over the land so that birds or wild beasts did not come to destroy our seeds. From time to time, we would check that there were no weeds growing. The field had to be weeded to allow the plants to grow in favorable conditions.
Eventually, God blessed our efforts and our field. We had a very good harvest. We sold our products and were able to save money. Finally, I went to continue high school after two years of inactivity.

When I was a graduate student, I had some trouble balancing my spiritual life and my scholarly life. Most of the other graduate students didn’t have children and Church callings. I felt like a juggler who was about to drop all of the balls he was trying to keep in the air. To make ends meet, we sometimes took care of the children of people with money while they flew to the Caribbean to escape the bleak Wisconsin winter. After we would get their and our children to bed, I would do my physics homework at the kitchen table. One night after working for hours on a particularly difficult assignment, I knelt on the kitchen floor to ask the Lord for some help and encouragement. I also asked for some kind of a testimony boost. The answer I got surprised me a little. It went something like this: “I have given you a testimony, and you have made covenants. This should be enough for now. Just hang on, and the blessings will come.”

And the blessings have come. I have been molded and shaped by the things I have learned in the Church over the years and by the service I have given in the callings I have received.

“How are we going to make it to church today?” Ellie’s little sister, Peppa, asked. “There’s so much rain!”
“Don’t worry,” Ellie said. “We’re brave!”
Ellie helped Peppa button her coat. Then she pulled on her own rain boots.
Ellie and Peppa walked outside with Mami and Papi. It was raining harder than ever. The wind turned their umbrella inside out. Ellie didn’t feel quite so brave anymore.
“What should we do?” Ellie asked. It was too stormy to walk to the bus.
“We’ll take a taxi instead,” Papi said.
“Good idea,” Mami said. “Let’s go!”
They walked down the flooded street. No taxis or cars drove past them. Even the panadería (bakery) was closed.
Finally they saw the area where taxis parked to pick people up. But the first taxi space was empty.
“Oh no!” Peppa said.
“Está bien. It’s OK,” said Ellie. “There could be one. We just can’t see it yet.”
They walked closer. The next parking space was empty too.
“Now what?” asked Peppa.
“I know,” said Ellie. “Let’s pray.”
The girls whispered a prayer. “Nuestro Padre Celestial, please help us find just one taxi so that we can make it to church today. We’re trying to choose the right, and this rain is making it hard. En el nombre de Jesucristo, amén.” Ellie was still learning Spanish, so she mixed English and Spanish together.
They walked a little more. The next parking spot was empty too.
“Maybe we should turn around and go home,” Papi shouted over the wind.
“Our feet are soaked!” said Mami.
“Let’s just go a little bit farther,” said Ellie. “We just need one taxi.”
Now they could see the last parking spot.
There, with its green light on, was a taxi!
Ellie and Peppa hopped in the taxi. Mami helped them smooth down their hair. “We’re sorry to get your seats wet,” Papi told the driver.
They arrived at the chapel and greeted their friends with besos and abrazos (kisses and hugs).
“I can’t believe we found a taxi,” Mami said. “¡Que suerte!”
“It wasn’t luck,” Ellie said. “Peppa and I prayed that Heavenly Father would help us get to church. And He listened!”

One of our sons and his wife were struggling with contention and disunity among their children in their home. After counseling together, they decided that pride was the cause. They held a family council on the matter with their children and determined together that humility is what the children needed to eliminate the contention and disunity. To help their children remember to be kind, my son and daughter-in-law placed a chair in the corner of the kitchen and designated it as “the humility chair.” When a child misbehaved or became upset, they would invite him to sit in the humility chair for a while until he could reflect and recalibrate. Then he could rejoin society whenever he was ready.

The humility chair worked as they had hoped it would. One day after our son had returned from a long, hard day at work and had displayed some impatience with several of the children, who were yelling and running through the house, one of his little daughters looked at him and said, “Papa, you need to sit in the humility chair”—which he did. He reflected, recalibrated, and rejoined society when he was ready.

Your teacher assigns you to write a paper, due in two weeks, on a book your class just read. What do you do?
Option 2
Day 1—Get the assignment, go home, and think, “I’ve got plenty of time.”
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13—Late in the evening, remember your assignment. Quickly try to form a mental summary of the book (which you don’t really remember very well). Skim through a few pages of the book to see if something jumps out at you. Look up facts and quotes. Write a few half-remembered ideas from class discussions. Stare at your document, with no clue how to connect all the material. Write more. Constantly check to see if the document meets the required length. Momentarily consider changing the font size and line spacing. Repeatedly cast your bleary eyes toward the clock and put your face in your hands, feeling stressed. Type a hasty conclusion. Print out the paper. (150 minutes)
Go to bed late.
Day 14—Go to class and briefly consider asking for more time. Then nervously hand in your paper.
Later—Get your paper back and see that you got the grade you deserved. Even worse, you didn’t learn anything—except the consequences of procrastination.