Gospel Story Finder

I want to share two more examples of integrity and honesty involving students at Brigham Young University–Idaho. I believe the simplicity and seemingly ordinary nature of these events make them extraordinary.
The first episode was described in a letter from a local business owner that I received while serving as president at BYU–Idaho.
“A girl living in one of the dorms stopped in, shopping for a tie to send to her boyfriend who is serving a mission. She took a close look at the ties and found a great looking one. We stepped over to the checkout counter, and I rang up the sale. She paid with a check and left. I went about my work, and about an hour later I looked up and saw the same girl walking into the store. She had an interesting smile on her face as she walked up to me. She handed me a check and explained that I had accidentally put the check she had written back into the sack along with the cash register receipt and the tie. I really did slip up on this one! We laughed, and I thanked her and told her that I really did admire her honesty.”
This young woman clearly exhibited integrity and honesty with other people. She is also increasing in integrity and honesty with God and with herself.

In my heart of hearts I wanted to serve a mission. But I was in love. Sure I know guys usually leave girlfriends behind, but Chris was different. She was a cheerleader in our high school, blonde, beautiful, with a clever personality, and not stuck-up. I had a crush on her when we went to high school in Nebraska but didn’t have the courage to ask her out until we met in college. She was a year older than I.
For a guy in high school to win an older woman is nearly hopeless. It gets easier in college where you can’t tell how old a guy is by the books he carries. So I asked her out. My heart raced when she agreed to a date. Friendship quickly blossomed into romance. I felt my life was now complete and nothing else much mattered, even a mission call.
Then we argued about something really important. I can’t remember what right now, but I know it was life-or-death because of how angry I felt about it. I did not sleep that night. I continued to sulk without relief. Something had to change, and I was pretty sure it was not me.
In a physics class the next day, as Professor Hill talked about light, I wanted to collapse with some distant galaxy into a black hole. Maybe light was what we had lost. Radiant, burning light. This is how I had felt in the beginning when I was with her—like stars exploding in the skies. But now I felt uncertainty, darkness even. For the first time I longed for what I had been hearing about in religion class—pure love, selfless but fervent caring. I thought of Christ and how he felt for the little children. I knew he was the source. And I knew prayer would help.
I had always said my prayers at night. It was a childhood habit. But, unfortunately, they had become routine. It was more like brushing teeth than communion with deity, a way to prevent spiritual cavities. Please bless … please bless … please bless. Night after night I had been describing to the Lord exactly how I thought my world should be ordered.
But that day in physics I realized my whole world was turned inward. I knew that to escape the confusion I must find a way to reach out to other people. But how? I could not even reach out to my girlfriend. Instead I had tried to annex her personality into my own, to possess it, to lock her up inside me. The problem needed more maturity and strength than I had. All of the routine prayers in the world wouldn’t be adequate. I needed a prayer of faith like Enos offered in the wilderness.
So there in the wilderness of 200 physics students, I looked down as if at my textbook, and with one hand shielding my eyes, offered a simple, heartfelt prayer. My idea was to prepare the Lord for what I would be asking later, to humbly and sincerely bring him up to speed on what I had been feeling. But as I opened my heart the feelings gushed out. I told him everything. Tears trickled from my chin and wet the book. Then, suddenly, a profound peace washed through me. And with it came light, illumination, an unmistakable understanding.
I knew missionary work was the key. I needed a mission more than the Lord needed me to be a missionary. I needed to put aside my own problems and help those who were wandering in darkness worse than my own. I had learned to pray about problems. But those who lived in the dark did not pray because no one had told them they could.
After class I called my bishop.
That evening I met Chris to study in the library. I felt calm as I explained the events of the day and my determination to go on a mission. She was supportive and complimentary. As I looked at her, I considered the real possibility that she would not be waiting when I returned. But peace replaced jealousy. I knew nothing could keep me from my mission.
For two years I wrote to her. Weekly at first, then less often. When I returned, we visited. I told her of the people I had met and the lives I had watched change. She told me about her studies of South and Central America. She had developed such a love for the people of those countries that she now wanted to serve a mission. It was the last time I saw her for several years.
The selfish emotions which had consumed me before were gone, replaced by a desire for service, a love for others, and a powerful new faith in the Savior.
Back in school, I met Julie. She was blonde, beautiful, clever, and someone who cared about other people. More surprising, she was attracted to me. We were married in the spring. I can say with conviction that the Lord knows better than we do how our lives should be ordered. The self-centered existence I would have chosen for myself cannot compare with the blessings that have followed obedience and service.

The first real test of my young testimony came when I had to decide between going on a mission and playing basketball,” says Dean Reid Burgess. Brother Burgess had spent his freshman year playing basketball for the College of Southern Utah on scholarship.
It was 1965, the height of the war in Vietnam, and not every young man had the chance to serve a mission because of the United States military draft. But Brother Burgess had the chance and the choice. “It took a lot of prayer and a lot of fasting,” he says. “But I knew serving a mission was a real privilege, so I left school to serve.” While serving in the Brazilian Mission, Brother Burgess solidified his testimony of the restored gospel.
Upon returning home, he completed his education at Brigham Young University in business management and graduated in 1970. Some time later, he met Annette Christensen at a BYU student ward. “She was the Relief Society president, and I was the elders quorum president,” he says. “She was always busy serving in worthwhile and constructive ways.” They began dating and were later married in the Provo Utah Temple on 27 December 1973. They have five children and reside in Sandy, Utah.
Brother Burgess, 57, was born in Alpine, Utah, to Reid and Ethel King Burgess on 24 May 1946. He grew up working in the family-owned mercantile store and on their 20-acre (8-ha) farm. His parents taught him the value of family, hard work, and the principles of the gospel—the same values he has tried to teach his own children.
In 1997 Brother Burgess returned to Brazil, where he served as president of the Brazil Belo Horizonte East Mission. His other Church service includes counselor in stake presidencies, stake Young Men president, bishop, and high councilor; all told, he has served with the youth of the Church for more than 24 years.

Cut down on television time. We found that even though watching television is relaxing, it doesn’t give us quality time as a family. We decided not to watch television between the time Dad comes home from work and when the children go to bed. After we got used to having the television off, we were surprised at how much interaction we had as a family. We began communicating and feel closer to each other than we used to.

While preaching at a public meeting in Philadelphia, Hyde declared that he was on a mission to Jerusalem so that he could dedicate that land for the gathering of the Jews. He also mentioned that Mormon missionaries travel without purse or scrip and that he was looking for financial assistance for his mission. Afterward, a stranger gave him a purse of gold and asked that when he delivered his prayer in the Holy Land, he pray for the donor.30
Since he did not know the name of the donor, Hyde supplicated God during his prayer in Jerusalem to
look with favor upon all those through whose liberality I have been enabled to come to this land. . . . Particularly do Thou bless the stranger in Philadelphia, whom I never saw, but who sent me gold, with a request that I should pray for him in Jerusalem.31

The identity of the anonymous giver was not made public until 1924. During a sermon given in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, Nephi L. Morris32 mentioned the offering given by the stranger to Orson Hyde when Hyde was in Philadelphia. Two months later Morris received a letter from John F. Beck, who had been in the audience when Morris had spoken at the Tabernacle. Beck told him that the stranger in Philadelphia whom he had spoken about was his father, Joseph Ellison Beck. John Beck wrote the following in his letter to Morris:
My father . . . was the man who sent the purse of gold to Elder Orson Hyde, with which to bear his expenses on his mission to Palestine. He did not have much to say about it, but all our family knew very well that he did that generous deed. . . . He did not become rich, but always had money laid aside for a time of need. I have heard the prayer Elder Hyde offered up in his behalf, and am a witness that every feature of it was wonderfully fulfilled.33

Let me add a personal connection about Elder Hyde and the stranger who gave him gold. This past summer I was on a field trip with a group of BYU students in the Old City of Jerusalem. After talking about Orson Hyde and his achievements, I asked the students if any of them happened to be a descendant of Orson Hyde. Bryson Ensign, one of the students on the trip, raised his hand and told me he was a direct descendant.
I asked Bryson if he had anything he wanted to add about Elder Hyde. He said that one of his favorite family stories growing up was about the stranger who gave Hyde the purse of gold that helped finance his mission to Jerusalem. I was thrilled to tell him that my son-in-law Joseph Paul Beck was a direct descendant of the person who gave the gold to Orson Hyde.
I took advantage of my speaking assignment today by requesting that Joseph P. Beck offer the invocation for today’s meeting. Joseph is the great-great-grandson of Joseph Ellison Beck. I also asked if Bryson Ensign, the great-great-great-great-grandson of Orson Hyde, would offer the closing prayer. It is a fortuitous ancestral meeting, of sorts, through their posterity.

“Ship 3527 to mission control. We’re entering launch codes. Stand by.” Nathan’s four-inch-tall stuffed monkey couldn’t really talk, and he wasn’t really the copilot in a brigade of intergalactic star fighters, but as Nathan sat on a swing outside his elementary school on a warm Saturday afternoon with the monkey perched in his lap, he couldn’t help letting his imagination get carried away. He pictured his miniature copilot typing in a flurry of complicated formulas, preparing their ship to launch.
Nathan gripped the swing ropes and shuffled backward, careful not to let the monkey slip from his lap. He was now in ready position.
“5, 4, 3, 2, 1 … we have ignition!” With an explosive whoosh, Nathan shot forward into motion. Pumping furiously, he propelled himself higher and higher, faster and faster, as he imagined the two of them soaring past the moon, past Mars, out of the solar system, out of the galaxy.
“Nathan! Come over here!” The voice of one of Nathan’s neighborhood pals brought him back to reality. “Look at this sand village I built! Do you want to help? We could make it huge!”
Nathan leaped from the swing and tossed his monkey onto a nearby bench so it wouldn’t get dirty. “OK,” he said. “I’ll start on the roads.”
The boys were just finishing the town when Nathan’s mom called out from a nearby bench, “Nathan, it’s time to go home.”
Nathan stood up, brushed the sand from his clothes, and headed toward Mom. They walked across the grass, down the street, around the corner, and into their front yard. Suddenly, Nathan gasped. “Oh no! My copilot!”
After a quick explanation to Mom, Nathan ran around the corner back to the school playground. Drawing close to the familiar bench, he was puzzled to find it bare. He checked under it, around it, and behind it, but there was no stuffed animal. Desperately, he scanned the area for any sign of his favorite toy, but all he could see were swings, slides, an abandoned city of sand, and a couple of kids playing catch with their dog. The monkey was gone.
Nathan carefully retraced his steps around the playground but couldn’t find the monkey anywhere. Losing hope, Nathan was about to give up the search when he remembered something his mom had told him about prayer: “If you ask the Lord for something that’s right, you’ll receive it.” He knelt on the ground and pleaded, “Heavenly Father, could you please help me find my monkey?” When the prayer was finished, he stood and thought for a moment. “I’ll just look one more time,” he decided.
He looked up and saw the children who had been playing with their dog walking by. He was about to walk right past them when a thought came to his mind: maybe they could help.
“Did either of you see a little stuffed monkey?” he asked them.
The kids looked at each other and laughed. “Yeah,” one of them said sheepishly. “We didn’t think it belonged to anyone, so we tossed it around and let our dog try to catch it.”
“I threw it too hard,” the other boy said, “and it landed on the roof of the school. I’m really sorry.”
Nathan couldn’t help grinning in relief. “It’s OK,” he said. “I’ll get it down. Thanks!”
Later, with the help of his parents, Nathan was able to get his monkey down from the roof. He realized how blessed he had been to meet those kids before they left, and how fortunate it was that he had thought to ask them about his toy. Without their help, the monkey would never have been found. He was grateful that his prayer had been answered.
Nathan tucked the monkey firmly into his pocket and radioed mission control. “This is ship 3527. Copilot recovered. We’re ready for launch once more.”
And with a nod from his parents, Nathan shot down the road toward home, happy to be back in the pilot’s seat with his favorite stuffed friend.

Second only to the importance of being eternal companions is being an earthly parent. Fathers and mothers need to consider their roles in this great responsibility. My children taught me a great lesson many years ago. Our family had moved from California to New York, where I had accepted a position with a new company. We began the process of finding a new home by looking in communities closest to the city. Gradually, however, we moved farther away from the city to find a home in a neighborhood that suited our needs. We found a beautiful home some distance from New York City. It was a one-story house nestled in the lovely deep woods of Connecticut. The final test before purchasing the home was for me to ride the commuter train into New York and check the time and see how long the commute would take. I made the trip and returned quite discouraged. The trip was one and one-half hours each way. I walked into our motel room where our family was waiting for me and presented to my children a choice.

“You can have either this house or a father,” I said. Much to my surprise they responded, “We will take the house. You are never around much anyway.” I was devastated. What my children were telling me was true. I needed to repent fast. My children needed a father who was home more. Eventually we reached a compromise and bought a home closer to the city, with a much shorter commute. I changed my work habits to allow me to have more time with my family.

Cowboys often have a bad reputation for smoking and drinking. But I’d like to thank my dad for setting the example for me of being a cowboy who doesn’t do those kinds of things.
Once when I was tagging along with my dad to a rodeo, an old buddy of my dad’s came up to talk to him. During the conversation, the guy asked mv dad to come to the bar after the rodeo for a drink for old-time’s sake.
My dad just grinned and said, “You know I don’t drink.”
The guy said, “Yeah, I know. I was just checking.”
That answer was more important to me than just a friendly no. I respect my father for setting a great example for me that day. From then on, any time I was asked to drink or have a smoke, my dad’s answer would come to my mind and then come to my lips.

When I told my bishop about my pregnancy, he was so helpful. It was a blessing to meet with him regularly. As I talked with him about my options for the baby, he wanted me to know that he was there to represent the Lord in my repentance process but would not tell me what decision to make about raising or placing my baby. As we were studying Doctrine and Covenants 9:8–9, my bishop asked me to pray and tell Heavenly Father what I really wanted—he encouraged me to make a decision and seek confirmation from the Lord.
So I went home and prayed. I told Heavenly Father all the amazing reasons why I would be the best mom for this baby, and I asked to know if that decision was right. The next day, everything in life felt like it was falling apart. For instance, I lost my medical insurance, and my car broke down.
At church the following Sunday, I told my bishop how life seemed to fall apart after I prayed about my decision. Because of what had happened after my prayer, my bishop suggested that I consider a different decision and seek confirmation about it instead.
While working with my bishop, I had considered placing the baby for adoption and had narrowed down the potential adoptive families to two couples. The bishop suggested that I select one of the two couples and pray about that decision to ask if this little guy needed to go with them.
I went home and reluctantly prayed, asking Heavenly Father if the couple I had chosen were the ones my child needed. The next morning, a connection my sister made led to a miracle solution for my insurance. I felt this was a confirmation that adoption was the right path for me, and I remember thinking this child could have so much more with a different family.
I knew that Heavenly Father would help me with this decision. Part of me hoped this choice would be like the story of Abraham and Isaac (see Genesis 22)—that when it came time for me to place my son for adoption, God would tell me I didn’t need to do it anymore. But He didn’t. I needed to place my son with a wonderful family.

Although the path to eternal marriage has been just as straight for Vynohradars’kyi Ward members Petr and Adalina Mikhailenko, the road has been much longer. The Mikhailenkos were among the first families to join the Church in Ukraine, having been baptized in 1993—just two years after the first branch was established in Kyiv.
Despite this, distance from a temple and other factors kept the couple from being sealed for many years. Undeterred, they remained committed to each other and to their dream of an eternal marriage.
“I waited patiently for the temple,” Brother Mikhailenko says. “There was never a thought to leave the Church. The path has always been clear.”
After President Thomas S. Monson dedicated the temple in August 2010, the couple’s eagerness to be sealed couldn’t be contained. “We came so early on the day we were to be sealed that the temple was not open yet,” Sister Mikhailenko says.
The couple wasn’t alone. Many fellow ward members came to the temple that day as well, excited to share in the Mikhailenkos’ joy.
“The sealing was wonderful,” Sister Mikhailenko says. “There was a feeling like you never really loved your spouse like you love him at that moment.”
The feeling of love has persisted since that day. “There is an absolute difference in our relationship,” Brother Mikhailenko says. “We have been married for a long time, but there is now a different feeling. We want to do more for each other, and we do it with more love.”

A Brother Cooper, noticing William’s skill with cattle, hired him to break his teams to yoke and then drive them to Utah. In return William and Elizabeth were promised free transportation. A few days later, however, their employer announced that he did not intend to go to Zion but wanted them to help him farm nearby. When William refused, he and Elizabeth were ordered out of the wagon and left without food or water.

Elizabeth wept bitterly. William’s thoughts focused on his 50-foot rope that Cooper had taken. Then, with his fiancée following to calm him down, William hiked the half hour to Cooper’s evening camp. When he approached the cow to which his rope was tied, Cooper “drew a beeline on me with his old Yorker.” Without hesitation, William cut loose the cow, coiled his rope, then marched up to the disagreeable man and announced: “Mr. Cooper, I am going to lay off my religion and give you a licking so you won’t forget me.” Which he did.

Fortunately for the stranded couple, Elders Lyman and Charles C. Rich rode in from the West and found them that evening. They arranged for Elizabeth to ride to Utah with a family named Wardell for 40 dollars. Elder Lyman, however, asked William to return to Florence to help with the D. F. Kimball freight train. The fiancé agreed to this separation reluctantly:

“I think this was the greatest trial I ever underwent—to leave my betrothed and go back. However, I submitted and kissed my girl good-bye and gave her a half sovereign, all the money I had in the world, and jumped in the buckboard and off we went, I with a sorrowful heart and a mind full of reflections as to the outcome of it all. Brother Rich found I was in tears and told me to cheer up and have faith and all would be well.”

Illustrated by Mike Eagle
The McKay family loved music and learned to play instruments. President McKay’s son Lawrence played the violin beautifully.
President McKay: What a beautiful song.
Years later, when Lawrence became a husband and a father, he sold the violin to help make ends meet.
Lawrence: Mildred and I need the money, Father, but how I hated to give up my violin! Playing it often comforted me when I was far from home.
President McKay didn’t hesitate to solve the problem.
President McKay: I understand my son recently sold you this violin. I’m here to buy it back—I prize it too greatly to let it leave our family.
President McKay composed a poem about how much he valued his son’s musical talent and the memories they had made playing music together. A few months later, he put the violin and poem in the mail.
Lawrence: Look, Mildred, a package from my father. What do you think it is?
When Lawrence recognized his beloved violin, tears streamed down his face. He played all of his favorite songs late into the night and vowed never to part with his father’s precious gift again.

When I was 14, I got the idea that I was the “special exception” to the commandment of not dating until you’re 16. It doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s still dating. I lost the trust of my parents and the confidence of my friends. Most importantly, I lost the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost. Luckily, I got back on track. This could be one of the most eternally costly choices you ever make.
Name Withheld

When I was serving as class president of my seminary class in West Jordan, Utah, I decided to do an object lesson as a devotional.
For the lesson, each student got a card with a tiny mustard seed glued to it. I had painted each seed with glow-in-the-dark paint, so that the seeds could be easily seen in the darkness. The seed represented our faith, which would help us even in dark times.
The Spirit was strong when we talked about the devotional that day. But I didn’t think much more about my short lesson until a few months later when our seminary building burned down. Almost everything was ruined. About a week after the fire, students were allowed to claim what was left of their scriptures. Most of the books were totally scorched. After finding his scriptures, one of my classmates came up to me with a smile on his face. The card I had given to him months before was in his hand. It was still damp with water and had chemical residue on it, but the words, “With the faith of a mustard seed, trust in the Lord” could still be plainly read. And there, in the middle of the card, was the mustard seed with a sprout growing out of it! After the tribulation of the fire and the stress of chemicals, this little seed had not only survived, but thrived.

When our daughter Berta was born, we were grateful to finally have a baby after two unsuccessful pregnancies. Soon we realized that Heavenly Father had sent to us a very special spirit. As the oldest in the family, she was the peacemaker and the ringleader. Berta was a ­master at coming up with the silliest family jokes, and she loved to imitate my accent, which brought us a lot of fun. She loved writing and creating art, but above all she had a compassionate heart. Berta was always looking for opportunities to serve and nurture those who are often disenfranchised, forgotten, and overlooked.

Berta’s wit and command for words were never lacking. She often used this gift during her untiring advocacy work for the Latter-day Saint LGBTQ+ community. Berta loved and sought to follow the Savior by being a humble servant to those who needed love and care. She once told me that every time she served others, she felt she was breaking bread with the Savior. Berta especially advocated for homeless LGBTQ+ youths, who frequently fall victim to predators. She worked to find them a safe place to live and access to health resources. With all the love and compassion she had in her heart, Berta battled with generalized anxiety and major depressive disorders. In June 2018, Berta died by suicide.

The days following Berta’s death were some of the most difficult days in my life. I felt “like a broken vessel.”7 Sometimes it was difficult to breathe or see the light, but the Savior’s light was there, comforting us and sustaining us as He has sustained us in the past. Many angels in the bodies of family members, dear friends, and the LGBTQ+ community came to minister to us, even people I had never met before. As difficult as the passing of Berta was for our family, knowing that she inspired and touched many lives has been a healing experience for us.

I’m grateful for the gift given to me of ears to hear. One of my great-grandfathers, John Bennion, walked or rode his horse from over Jordan to this place to hear his name called out to go on a mission to Dixie. His journal doesn’t say much, except just that the next day he prepared to go, and he went. His assignment was to be a sheepherder. In his journal there is a record of an evening in which he met with Erastus Snow. He said another man was in the room; his name was Henry Eyring. And somewhere in St. George that night was Bishop Miles Romney. They talked about sheep. And you might have thought they were talking about something temporal. But not to those men, because they knew they were God’s sheep, and they knew they were for God’s people. And they knew how to listen, and they knew how to do what they heard.
John Bennion went on another mission to Wales and back again to this valley. Henry Eyring went on to Colonia Juarez, as Miles Romney did. And they left for me a tradition which I deeply appreciate. They were the yeomen of the Church, the soldiers of the Church, and my great-grandfathers. You can’t find in their journals records of the positions they held, just of the instructions they heard, and knew were from God, and followed. I’m grateful to my parents who handed me that heritage undiminished. I’m grateful to my wife, who more than once has heard when I did not and gently said, “Would you pray about it?” If my sons and daughters will listen to her, and hear through her what God has in mind for them, we will pass the heritage on again.

Photograph by Randy Clegg
Opportunities to create new and uplifting activities can come anywhere and anytime. For example, a group of young men camping in Goblin Valley State Park (south-central Utah, USA) found a creative and exciting way to share the gospel: they buried some treasure.

Their modern-day treasure hunt was made possible with geocaching, where, with the use of a global positioning system (GPS) device or mobile phone, all you need is a set of numbers to help you find an exact location even in the middle of nowhere. The standard practice in geocaching is to take what you find when you reach your destination, usually something small such as an inexpensive toy, and then leave something else for the next person.

These young men were learning about geocaching on their campout. They wanted to create an official geocache of their own, but with a twist. Instead of taking and leaving small objects, they wanted visitors to read (take) and mark (leave) scriptures.

“I’ve looked at a lot of geocaches in the past, and I’ve never seen anything like this before,” says John B., 16, one of the young men in the group.

Each member of the group marked a favorite scripture with his name next to it in a single copy of the Book of Mormon. John also included his testimony along with written instructions to those who will visit the geocache in the future.

The young men then placed the Book of Mormon in a weatherproof container surrounded by rocks and made note of the GPS coordinates. They have high hopes that this geocache, which they registered online, will be visited for many years to come.

“It was a lot of fun,” John says. “This was a way for us to share the gospel.”

These young men led out—being “the first on the dance floor”—by sharing scriptures that strengthened them and inviting others to follow their lead.

by Reneé Heyland
One of the altars in the sealing rooms of the Sao Paulo Temple in Brazil is very special to some former Mia Maids from the Lethbridge Alberta Stake. During the course of a year, girls from the nine different classes in the stake raised $1,425—approximately $225 more than the cost of the altar they hoped to contribute to the new temple.
Cheryl Crane from the Second Ward expressed the following thoughts about her experience: “At first I wasn’t too happy to give up my free time to earn the temple money, but then I read about the sacrifices the members in Brazil are making.
“Hundreds of thousands of dollars had to be raised, and such amounts of money are not easy to come by. One young couple saved $2,000 to come to Salt Lake City to go through the temple, a dream they had shared for many years. But when they were asked to contribute to the temple fund, they gave up that dream for the sake of another—the dream that every Brazilian Saint could go through the temple, instead of just a few.
“When I read about these and other sacrifices that Saints in Brazil had made, I realized my sacrifices hardly classify as sacrifices at all.”
Throughout the year the girls participated in a variety of money-raising projects. To the usual baked-food sales one of the groups added caramel popcorn, another sponsored a spaghetti dinner, and several of the classes sold concessions at stake sports events. The girls had car washes, pop bottle drives, and Christmas tree sales. One ward sponsored a carnival (complete with balloon-shaving and doughnut-eating contests); another cut out, made, and sold doll clothes; and a third took orders for and assembled silk flower corsages for Mother’s Day gifts. Several nonmembers became as enthusiastically involved as their Mia Maid friends.
Along with the money-raising events came “spirit-raising” events. Lessons were devoted to learning about the Saints in Brazil, temple marriage, and the significance, structure, and purpose of our modern-day temples. In addition, some of the girls were able to visit the Alberta Temple and do baptisms for the dead. But the highlight of the year was the special stake meeting held for all the Mia Maids, their parents, and leaders at the completion of the project. A Mia Maid from each ward explained how her class had raised the money and then gave her testimony of this special project. Next was the presentation of a story “The Dark Blue Suit” (see the July 1978 New Era), which gave a little insight into the faith and attitudes of some of the Saints in Brazil.
The conclusion of the evening was a talk by stake president Lamont Matkin concerning what the temple in Cardston should mean to the Mia Maids in the Lethbridge Stake.
Adviser Lesley Heath of the First Ward summed up her feelings about the year by saying, “It was a time of learning—about the Brazilian people, about the value of temples, and about the special beauty of each individual Mia Maid in my class. Only I, as their adviser, will ever know the real sacrifice of the two girls in our class who went the extra mile and donated twice as much of their babysitting money as they had promised. Only I will ever know of another girl who took the time away from a special event with her friends to work all day at the basketball concession stand. I’m grateful for this experience, and for the vision it gave us of what we can do.”

One of my great blessings is to live surrounded by people who have in difficult situations held fast to their faith and shown largeness of soul. I am referring to my wife, our parents, our children and their spouses, siblings, extended family, friends, and colleagues. I can tell you of my children, uprooted from one place amid difficult family circumstances and thrust into new schools, who drifted at first toward the easy crowd who seemed to accept them, until they recognized that that crowd was taking them places they didn’t want to go, and they had the courage to seek out new friends. That took an ability to see the end of a story from the middle and to change direction.

Although I didn’t attend Primary as a child, I learned what a blessing Primary is when I had children of my own. Once our family moved into a new home in downtown Seoul. After moving in we discovered that there were some bad places of entertainment in the neighborhood. My wife and I worried about how this might affect our children. One day we heard our daughter and her younger brother talking in the backseat of the car. “When you go to school, some friends might ask you why you are living in such a bad neighborhood,” our daughter said. “But don’t worry. In Primary we learn how to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. As long as we follow the teachings of Jesus, we will be safe.”
My son answered, “Yes, it doesn’t matter where we live if we choose the right.”
They were talking to each other, not to us. As I listened, I felt overwhelming gratitude to their wonderful Primary teachers. My daughter and son both grew up to be faithful Latter-day Saints. So enjoy Primary, and do the things your teachers tell you. You will be better, safer people if you do.