Gospel Story Finder

I began college at age 18. After a short time, however, I transferred to another university and changed my major. My new university was only a couple of hours from my home, but I found myself terribly homesick and discouraged, wanting to give up and return to my family. Yet I knew if I did, I would be abandoning my chance to earn a degree.
One weekend not long after the school year began, all of my roommates went home for a visit. I knew that if I went home too, I would not return. I couldn’t even call and speak to my family for fear I would break down and not be able to focus on my studies. I had been praying for the strength to overcome my homesickness, but now I was praying to know whether I should even remain at school and complete a degree.
Early that Sunday morning as I walked slowly across the quiet campus on my way to church, I wondered how I could stay at school when I missed my home and family so deeply and couldn’t overcome my loneliness. But what would I do if I left school?
When I arrived at church, the previous ward had just left the chapel. I entered, hoping for a moment to pray for direction. As I found a place to sit and slowly moved onto the wooden pew, I noticed a printed program from the previous sacrament meeting. There on the front of the folded paper were the following words: “Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.”1
At that moment I knew what I needed to do. The Lord had answered my prayers in such a simple way, but I could not deny that it was an answer just the same.
It wasn’t long after that Sunday that my loneliness and discouragement left. As a result, I enjoyed my remaining years in school. I gained a degree, lifelong friends, and a stronger testimony by following the promptings of the Spirit.
Now, more than 25 years later, I still recall that answer to my prayer, and I use those same words from that sacrament meeting program to commit myself to difficult tasks. I have shared my experience with close friends and family in hopes that they too might gain strength in difficult times.
I know the Lord cares about our feelings and everyday choices, and I know He answers our sincere prayers.

One occurred on a farm somewhere in the central part of Kansas. The people there had what they called Pole Pond. Pole Pond was a large pond, and it was fairly deep. They put a pole out to mark the drop-off so that the children in the community who couldn’t swim very well wouldn’t go out over their heads. As the children were swimming one day, one of the boys got a little too far out, went around the pole, and all of a sudden had stepped off of the drop-off point. He was in water over his head. A farmer walking nearby heard the rest of the boys yelling for help. He ran as quickly as he could and saw the boy drowning. Although unable to swim, he went out into the water and with his mighty arm threw the boy back into shallow water. He himself, in water over his head, drowned. During the next week, the boys and the youth in the community talked about nothing else except this brave man who had gladly given his life in an instant. I believe the man of Christ would do just exactly that.

Permit a personal experience for just a moment. Strengthening one’s brother, I think, comes closer to home when we think of fellowshiping and friendshiping our family. Some time ago when my youngest daughter was faced with the reality of attending a different school, she looked forward to the new experience with great anticipation and excitement but with the usual anxieties and concerns. Her mom and dad tried to make her experience meaningful, and one that would be positive, and we spent several hours attempting to prepare her mind for the new experience. We even planned a time when we could shop for new clothes and other special school supplies.
Finally, the long-awaited day arrived. A special evening was planned to help give spiritual comfort and guidance. Later she put her clothes out in anticipation of the next day. As she retired to her bed, seemingly all was well, but about an hour later she appeared at my study door where I was making some preparations.
“Dad,” she said, rubbing her tummy, “I don’t feel very well.”
You know the sign; and I thought I understood it, so I invited her in and sat her on my lap. We put on a little music that we liked to listen to together. I rubbed her tummy, and she soon fell asleep. I took her back upstairs, placed her in her bed, tiptoed toward the door; and she broke the silence with the announcement, “I am not asleep yet.”
I went back and lay down on the bed with her, stroked her head, gave what fatherly counsel one could under the circumstances, and reassured her. Finally she fell asleep. The next morning she appeared at breakfast in her petticoat. She said, “Dad, I don’t think I had better go to school today.”
I said, “Why not?”
She said, “I think I am going to get sick.”
You know what she was trying to tell us, don’t you? I don’t know how to handle a new situation, Dad. Will I make friends? Will my teacher like me? Will I fit into the social group? Will I be accepted? These are the concerns that all of us experience, as we find ourselves in new and different social situations.
She knew what my answer would be and agreed to have me drive her to school. As we got in front of the school building, the warning bell sounded. The tears started to come to her eyes. I got out of the car and assisted her. We walked about ten feet, and she grabbed hold of my leg. It was as though she were a tackle on some football team. And then, as only a child can do to a father, she looked up at me and said philosophically, “Dad, if you really love me—if you really love me—don’t send me in there.”
I said, “Honey, this may be beyond your comprehension, but it’s because I do love you that I am taking you in there.” And I did. When we got inside the door, she grabbed hold of the other leg and held on. Numerous students came and went, and finally the little miracle happened that changed everything.
From I don’t know where came a delightful, wonderful friendshiper, a fellowshiper who knew how to lose herself in serving others; one who would now take the admonishment of the Savior to strengthen her friends. With the exuberance of youth this little girl said, “Kellie, how are you?”
“Fine.”
“What is your home room?” And she told her. “Tremendous. I had that home room last year. Come on, and I will take you to it.”
And before Kellie knew it, she had let go of my leg and got about ten paces away, then realized what she had done. I will never forget her expression and the sermon she taught as she looked back. “Oh,” she said, “Dad, you can go now; I don’t need you anymore.”
Thank God for the little people as well as the big people who know how to friendship and fellowship.

A young woman’s heart was touched as her institute teacher taught about Lehi giving blessings to his children. He encouraged the students to ask for a father’s blessing. After the class, she asked the teacher if he would give her a blessing because she was sure her father was not prepared to do so. The teacher encouraged her to write to her father and ask him if he would give her a blessing when she was home for the holidays. When she returned to school, she reported with joy that her father had made a mighty change. He was reading the scriptures and attending church again. The blessing he gave her was beautiful. The entire family was blessed and strengthened.

Karl ran down the boat dock, excited to see his dad. Karl’s father was a fisherman, and Karl often ran out to the boat to meet him at the end of the day.
“Hurry, Papa!” Karl called. “I want to show you a picture I drew for you today!”
“Great!” Papa said. “But I need to tie up the boat first.”
Karl watched Papa carefully tie the boat to the dock with a thick rope. “Why do you have to tie it so tight?” Karl asked as Papa pulled on a large knot.
Papa pointed to a boat on the shore that had a large hole in the bottom. “That boat wasn’t tied up well. In the last storm, it got loose and crashed onto some rocks.”
Karl’s eyes widened.
“Can you think of how Heavenly Father helps us stay tied to Him so we can be safe?” Papa asked.
“The scriptures?” Karl guessed.
“That’s right,” Papa said. “He also gives us priesthood ordinances like baptism and the sacrament. Mama and I got married in the temple so our family could be tied together forever.”
Karl grabbed the rope and helped Papa give it a final tug. “We make the tightest knot of all!”

Students in the Rigby, Idaho, seminary liked the October ’92 FYI’s goal jar idea so much they took it a step farther. Not only did they cut out all the goals from the New Era and put them in specially decorated jars, but they added goals of their own from the New Testament and general conference.
In addition, they started a project where one student would give another student a bead when the student was caught doing something nice or cheerful for someone else. Students string the beads and use them for bracelets, bookmarks, etc., and they say it encourages them to make a positive difference at their schools. One student said, “I found myself watching just for good things and decided that I wanted to do good too.”

On 27 June 1844 Elder Taylor, Elder Willard Richards, also of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the Prophet Joseph Smith, and the Prophet’s brother Hyrum were in Carthage Jail awaiting word from the governor. While the four friends waited in prison, Elder Taylor sang the hymn “A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.” The mood was somber and melancholy. “Shortly Hyrum asked him to sing the song again, to which he replied:
“‘Brother Hyrum, I do not feel like singing.’
“‘Oh, never mind; commence singing and you will get the spirit of it.’
“Soon after finishing the song the second time, as he was sitting at one of the front windows of the jail, he saw a number of men, with painted faces. … The mob reaching the landing in front of the door, and thinking it was locked, fired a shot through the key hole. Hyrum and Doctor Richards sprang back, when instantly another ball crashed through the panel of the door and struck Hyrum in the face; at the same instant a ball … entered his back, and he fell exclaiming, ‘I am a dead man!’ …
“… Elder Taylor took his place next [to] the door, and with a heavy walking stick … parried the guns as they were thrust through the doorway and discharged. …
“… Streams of fire as thick as a man’s arm belched forth from the ever increasing number of guns in the door-way, yet calm, energetic and determined, Elder Taylor beat down the muzzles of those murderous guns.
“‘That’s right, Brother Taylor, parry them off as well as you can,’ said Joseph, as he stood behind him.”
But as the gunfire continued and more mobbers pushed their way up the stairs, Elder Taylor sprang for the open window.
“As [Elder Taylor] was in the act of leaping from the window, a ball fired from the door-way struck him about midway of his left thigh. He fell helpless on the window sill and would have dropped on the outside of the jail—when another shot from the outside, striking the watch in his vest pocket, threw him back into the room. … He drew himself as rapidly as possible in his crippled condition under the bedstead that stood near the window.
“While on his way three other bullets struck him; one a little below the left knee—it was never extracted; another tore away the flesh to the size of a man’s hand from his left hip and spattered the wall with blood and the mangled fragments; another entered the forepart of his left arm, a little above the wrist, and, passing down by the joint, lodged in the palm of his left hand.”
While he lay in pain, he heard the mob shout that the Prophet had leaped from the window.
“Dr. Richards … confirmed his worst fears—the Prophet was dead!
“‘I felt,’ says Elder Taylor, ‘a dull, lonely, sickening sensation at the news.’”12
Several days later, Elder Taylor discovered that one ball of shot, aimed at his heart, had smashed into the crystal of his pocket watch, preventing him from falling from the jail window. He said, “I felt that the Lord had preserved me by a special act of mercy; that my time had not yet come, and that I had still a work to perform upon the earth.”13

The Korean educator shared an office with Oliver Wayman, a doctoral candidate in physiology. Like his office companion, Oliver Wayman was older than most of the other graduate students. He also happened to be a Latter-day Saint.
The two men became good friends. Their wide-ranging discussions, however, did not include religion—until one day shortly before Brother Wayman was to leave Cornell, when his Korean friend asked if he had any literature about his church.
“I have never seen you smoke or drink,” Kim Ho Jik told Brother Wayman. “I have never heard you use vulgar language or profane the name of God. You work harder and longer hours than any of the others, but I have never seen you here on Sunday. You are different in so many ways. I wonder if you would tell me why you live as you do?”
Brother Wayman gave him a copy of The Articles of Faith by Elder James E. Talmage. Kim Ho Jik read the book within a week. “He told me it was the best book on the gospel he had ever read and that he believed it thoroughly,” Brother Wayman recalls. Given a copy of the Book of Mormon, the Korean read it quickly and reported to his American friend that he believed it to be the word of God. It was, he said, more complete and easier to understand than the Bible.
Though Kim Ho Jik responded favorably to Latter-day Saint doctrine, he still believed his Protestant church could reform itself from within by incorporating some of the teachings of the Church. He began to attend the local branch, but also continued to attend his Protestant meetings.

A couple of days ago, our neighbors’ dog died. That day my little brother asked me to look at a letter he had written. It was a letter to our neighbors saying how sad he was that their dog had died. On the other side there was a picture of a dog barking. He was too shy to give it to them face to face, but he left it on their doorstep and rang the bell. I used to think I could only learn from people older than me. But that day I learned a lesson from my little brother.

The Lord not only knows who we are, He knows where we are, and He leads us to do good. One day a mother I know felt impressed to call her daughter. (This kind of thing happens to mothers all the time.) It was the middle of the day, and Mom was at work, which made the call out of the ordinary. To her surprise, her son-in-law answered the phone—he’s not usually home on a workday either. As he handed the phone to his wife, he said, “It’s your mother with her usual inspiration.”

They had just been to the doctor. She came on the phone, close to tears, and said, “The ultrasound shows the cord is double-wrapped around the baby’s neck. The doctor says we have no choice but to do a C-section and soon.” Then came the real cause for the distress: “And he says I can’t lift anything heavier than the new baby for four weeks!” She needed reassurance before going into the surgery that the Lord knew her need and loved her—and that there would be help tending the three little ones at home, who were scarcely more than babies themselves. When mothers—and fathers—pray for the Lord to bless and strengthen their families, He often shows them the way.

What would you do if you were suddenly told your family was moving to an isolated logging camp way out in the wilds of Alaska? You’d hopefully do what 14-year-old Gayle Gentry did—you’d adjust.
Gayle and her family order their food from Juneau, and they order their church supplies from the same city. They are the only members for quite some distance, so they hold Church meetings at home.
Just because they are so far away from many people and from the center of the Church, Gayle doesn’t feel she has to be far away from the Lord. Her testimony is intact and stronger than ever. “I know the Church is true and that President Ezra Taft Benson is a prophet,” she says. “I love my family and friends, and I love my Father in Heaven and my older brother Jesus Christ, and I know they love me!”

One time I got nothing wrong on a test, but when I looked more closely I saw that I forgot to fill in an answer. I told my teacher, and I got to help hold our pet snake because I told the truth. The commandment I chose to follow was, “Thou shalt not bear false witness” (Exodus 20:16). When we know something is true but don’t say it, it is the same as telling a lie. The thirteenth article of faith begins, “We believe in being honest [and] true.” Even though my teacher marked that answer wrong, I felt good inside because I knew I was following Jesus Christ’s example.

Sometimes his bold and powerful leadership was disconcerting. For example, after his dangerous winter journey to the Salt Lake Valley to mediate peace with the army, Colonel Kane was at first offended when Brigham Young rejected his counsel. However, when Kane finally agreed to do whatever President Young told him to do, this is what Brigham said of that incident:

I told him as he had been inspired to Come here he should go to the armey and do as the spirit led him to do and all would be right and he did so and all was right.

He thought [it] vary strange because we were not afraid of the armey. I told him we were not afraid of all the world. If they made war upon us the Lord was able to deliver us out of their hands and would do it if we did right. [Brigham Young, quoted by Wilford Woodruff, 15 August 1858, in Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, 5:209]

“Of all the 15-year-old girls in the world, why me?” I asked myself. I always knew that having to move away from the place where you grew up would be tough, but I didn’t really understand just how tough until it became a reality for me.
The first week at my new school was terrible. I didn’t know anyone and soon found out that I was the only Mormon among the 2,500 other teenagers there. I had always loved basketball, but when practice began I could feel myself giving up. Being a freshman didn’t help matters any. And, if all of that wasn’t enough, we moved into a community where 90 percent of the people spoke Spanish. In seminary this didn’t help at all! Although the lessons were taught in English, the class discussions were in Spanish, and I had a hard time understanding.
After the first month I was ready to give up. I wouldn’t go to seminary and didn’t care about my grades, about making friends, about my family, or about myself.
One night after an extremely long day, I had the feeling that I should read my next scripture assignment for seminary. I don’t know why I began to read. I hadn’t been going to seminary, I was way behind, and I didn’t really care. However, one of the scriptures I read that night affected me in a way I will never forget.
“Be patient in afflictions, for thou shalt have many; but endure them, for, lo, I am with thee, even unto the end of thy days” (D&C 24:8).
I felt guilty for the doubts I had been having about Heavenly Father’s love for me. Now, rather than letting the problems of life affect the steps that will lead me nearer to the Lord, I am trying to base my life around this scripture. My life seems much easier when I look at my blessings instead of my problems.
When we take the time to look beyond our immediate problems and listen to the Spirit’s promptings, we discover that our Heavenly Father is there protecting, guiding, and helping us every hour and every minute of every day.
I have to go to a new school.
I have the opportunity to make a whole new set of friends and learn new things from them.
I’m the only Mormon in a student body of 2,500.
This way I’ll have lots of opportunities to share the gospel.
I’m only a freshman and can’t do very well on the basketball team.
But workouts are a great way to stay in shape, and they’ll help prepare me fornext year.
Most people speak Spanish here, and I don’t understand them.
Great! I always wanted to learn a foreign language. Here’s my chance.

Barbara moved from Uganda to Norway in 1998, when she was nine years old. Ten years later, while living in Oslo, two missionaries invited her to learn about the restored gospel, telling her that they could meet in the center for young adults. Barbara was skeptical, at best.
“I thought to myself, ‘Yet another youth center,’” she admits. “I had been to plenty of places like that before, and I honestly never felt comfortable being in any of them.”
But this center proved to be different. “My mind was blown away when I took the first step into the door,” Barbara remembers. “I stood still for a moment, trying to figure out the feeling I had. I felt warmth and love. I felt assured that I was in the right place, with the right people, for the right cause.”
Barbara Matovu remembers the first time the missionaries brought her to the center for an activity to meet other young single adults. She thought she knew what to expect.
“Throughout my life I’ve always had a group that I belonged to,” explains Barbara. “And the groups were always stamped with something—you were the sporty group or the international group or some other group. So when people started coming into the center, it was so strange because no one seemed to have the attitude of ‘I’m in the popular group, so I can’t talk to you.’
“At first, I thought, ‘Are they acting? Is this a show?’ But after a while I realized it actually doesn’t matter who we are or where we come from or which language we speak. The love of our Heavenly Father is for everyone. Usually it takes me a bit of time to find my group, but this time I felt like I didn’t need a group. I was just Barbara, and I could be Barbara for everybody.”
Elisabeth Olsen says she feels humbled to see her place in her heavenly family. “When you meet people from a different culture or society, it’s so easy to label them. I’ve learned to open up my eyes more and to see people through the eyes of Christ,” she says. “At the center we all have different cultural backgrounds, but we all have one thing in common: we want to be with Jesus Christ and God again.”
Some might be wary of the idea of unity because they think it must come at the cost of sacrificing individuality. “A lot of people are scared of religion because they think that it makes us all the same, because we live by the same commandments,” explains Elisabeth. “But that’s not how it is at all. God made us all individuals. We may have the same beliefs, but we have different qualities and gifts, and that’s what makes us individuals. God wants us all to be different because we all have different missions.”
Sam Basnet has also fielded concerns from friends who believe religious rules are restrictive. “One friend told me, ‘If you go to church, you have to follow the rules of others,’” he reports. But Sam follows the standards of the Church because he has prayerfully sought personal revelation to confirm his actions.
And it’s by individually speaking to His children that God is unifying them, explains Sam. “God says that all nations and all tongues will worship Him” (see Mosiah 27:31), he says. “By meeting different people, I learn to appreciate different cultures. But experiencing such diversity also makes me feel that, yes, God has a great plan to unite us in peace.”
As much as these young adults appreciate the power of gathering to a center for young adults, these future leaders of the Church understand that it’s just the beginning. As Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught, one of the most important gathering places is the temple.1
Sam has prepared to enter the house of the Lord by surrounding himself with good friends at the center. “By getting to know people from so many different places, it has helped me to feel positive about the world,” he says. “I want to be a good example for my friends, and this has made me more fit for God and more fit to enter His temple.”
One month after her baptism, Barbara first started thinking about attending the temple while she was at a family home evening lesson at the center. After the lesson, she started asking questions.
“Having friends who understood what the temple meant for them helped me understand what the temple might mean for me. As they explained to me about the temple, I felt the Holy Spirit,” Barbara recalls. “I realized that all the places I’d been thinking about getting married—a nice church or the beach—couldn’t even be compared to the temple. From that moment the temple was no longer just a building. It was something I wanted to look forward to and a place to one day enter with my future husband.”
Elisabeth has also included the temple as one of her most important goals. “Whenever I get to travel to a temple, I just smile like I won a million dollars,” she says. “I know that God wants everyone to go there and receive all the blessings and gifts He has in store for us. Going to the temple and being temple worthy are true success. I can enter the temple and be the closest to God—the closest to home—as I can get on this earth.”
The celestial kingdom is, of course, the ultimate gathering place, one where Barbara doesn’t want any empty seats. “Christ says that it is only through Him that we can come to Heavenly Father, but He also says that one of the biggest things we can do in life is to serve one another [see John 21:15–17]. And serving one another is helping somebody come home to Heavenly Father, because you don’t want to go alone.”

Just as important as these “mighty miracles” are the smaller “private miracles” that teach each of us to have faith in the Lord. These come as we recognize and heed the promptings of the Spirit in our lives.
I am grateful for a teacher who encouraged his students to keep a journal of the whisperings or promptings of the Spirit in their lives. He directed us to note what we felt and what resulted. Little things became evident. One day I was frantically trying to complete some assignments and prepare for a trip. I had just been down to the laundry area of the dorm to move my clothes from the washer to the dryer. Unfortunately, all the dryers were in use, and they all had many minutes to go. I went back upstairs discouraged, knowing by the time those dryers finished, I had to be on the road. I had barely returned to my room when I felt prompted to go back downstairs and check the laundry again. Foolishness, I thought—I had just been there, and I didn’t have time. But because I was trying to listen, I went. Two of the dryers were empty—and I was able to meet all my commitments. Could the Lord possibly have been concerned about smoothing my way in such a small but, to me, important matter? I have learned since through many such experiences that the Lord will help us in every aspect of our lives when we are trying to serve Him and do His will. [5]

Lacey was busy making things for her miniature dollhouse. She’d already made button plates, a yogurt-lid table, and a popcorn bowl out of a bottle cap and Styrofoam. She was just starting on the paper-clip hangers when her little brother, Zach, burst through the door with a bath towel around his neck like a cape.
“Zach!” Lacey cried as he bumped into her desk, sending the button plates flying.
“I’m not Zach. I’m Awesome Boy!” Zach shouted. He stomped around her room and knocked into the walls, pretending to fly. “And you’re a giant mutant monster that’s attacking the city!”
“I am not a mutant monster!” Lacey shouted back. As she looked at the buttons scattered all over the floor, she felt a hot, angry feeling rising in her stomach. She felt like yelling.
Instead she stomped out of the room. “Mom!” she called. “Zach’s bugging me again!”
Mom was on the phone in the kitchen and held up her hand. “One minute,” she mouthed. Mom walked into the other room to finish her phone call.
Lacey sighed and flopped into a kitchen chair. Why is Zach so annoying? Lacey fumed. She was ten, and Zach was only seven. He thought it was funny to see her mad. Worse, it seemed like Zach looked for ways to bother her. He grabbed her dolls, copied everything she said in a silly voice, and searched through her drawers. Each thing made her madder and madder. She didn’t like feeling that way.
Lacey looked down at the paper-clip hanger she was still holding. Kylee, Lacey’s older sister, had showed her how to make miniature things. Kylee was away at college now, and Lacey missed her. Why couldn’t Kylee still be around instead of Zach?
Lacey looked down at her arm where the mosquito bite had been, and suddenly she understood something. She could control her own actions. She couldn’t stop Zach from doing what he wanted, but she could choose not to be bothered by it anymore! And Heavenly Father could help her.
Heavenly Father, she prayed silently, please help me not to get mad when Zach teases me. Please help me to just love him.
As she prayed, she felt the hot anger in her stomach start to go away. A warm feeling filled its place.
“Never mind,” she mouthed to Mom as she walked back to find Zach. Maybe her miniature dollhouse would make the perfect city to defend from a giant mutant monster. And maybe Awesome Boy could use a superhero friend—Awesome Girl!

Robert learned an important principle while serving in the military. Each unit in his squadron had a motto that had been chosen to inspire the pilots in their efforts. “Our unit motto (displayed on the side of our aircraft) was Return with Honor,” says Elder Hales. “This motto was a constant reminder to us of our determination to return to our home base with honor after we had expended all of our efforts to successfully complete every aspect of our mission.” This motto has served as a reminder of the importance of honesty and integrity in his personal and professional life. As a father, he put his arms around each of his two sons before they left to serve their missions—Stephen to England and David to Germany—and whispered, “Return with honor.” He still refers to this motto today.

I knew a man who admittedly lived the perfect life, full of things that went his way and had no afflictions. He was raised by loving parents and had the gospel in his home. His brothers and sisters were nice and sweet and nobody had any major problems. School was easy because he was smart and he grew up active in the church, intelligent, strong and handsome. He was a football star in high school and because he was also smart he went to a large university played football, became a star, married the cheerleader and went on to obtain a graduate degree. Then he was called to be a Bishop and it became the hardest thing he ever has done in his life.
Members of his ward spoke to him of loneliness, sadness, mourning the loss of a love one, desperation, poverty, chronic sickness, abuse, violence in the home, etc. and he was overwhelmed and speechless. He was at a total loss as to what to say and he had no idea that there was so much sadness in the world.

Here is one representative example. Soon after joining a school back East, I attended a research seminar where a faculty member from another university had come to present his research to our faculty. In the course of this presentation, I noticed a problem in his approach and statistical methods, and I shared these thoughts with the presenter during the seminar. It proved to be a problematic error for the visiting faculty member’s research, and by the end of the seminar, everyone knew the research conclusions of the scholar could not be made given that error.

Later that day, my colleagues congratulated me for “killing the paper”—their words, not mine. They shared with me running tallies of how many research papers they each had shot down in the public setting of a seminar. It felt wrong to me. Over time, I came to see that their group behavior or methodology seemed to be driven by a “king of the mountain” mentality, that if they were to be on top, they had to take others down. I found this culture to be quite common among my colleagues, and some argued that this was a superior methodology to get to the best research. From some perspectives, I could see their point. I have seen similar cultures or methodologies in business and other professional settings. Those interactions were not to edify, and unless those groups become willing to fundamentally change how they interact, they will never qualify to receive group revelation.