Gospel Story Finder

“I think the Lord has a special purpose for us, and that’s why we are growing so fast,” says President Soulé. “We have learned that when we obey, the Lord will tell us what to do. We feel his love, and we will do his will.
Once I was at a business meeting, and I didn’t drink. One of our potential clients said, ‘If you don’t drink, we won’t do business with you.’ I thought a minute, and then I said to him, ‘Maybe I don’t want to do business with someone who thinks that what is in my glass is more important than what I can do.’ I thought he was angry, but the next day he called me and said they wanted to do business only with me because I wasn’t afraid to stand up for what I believed. When we know what is right, we should do it, no matter what.”

The young single adults in the Benin City Nigeria Ikpokpan Stake decided to take President Dallin H. Oaks’s challenge to heart and make the Easter season more memorable and representative of our Savior’s love.
The YSA stake leaders, Felicia Samuel and Ejodamen Macaulay Jr., kicked off the week with an act of service on Good Friday. The young single adults came together and created bags of rice with spices and other ingredients to provide a delicious meal. They tied these bags with an Easter message of hope in Jesus Christ and an invitation to learn more from the missionaries. Then they prayed to ask our Heavenly Father to guide them to those who most needed His message of love. Many wore The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints vests, identifying themselves as they walked to the market and began to share their message of Jesus Christ with those they met. Everyone was uplifted by the small act of charity that day.
The young single adults demonstrated that as we come together to become one in Christ, we can magnify His gospel in simple ways that strengthen God’s children wherever they are.
See their highlight video created by the talented videographer Emmanuel Otumbari, from the Ugbor First Ward, at youtube.com/shorts/q43c9BayCTg.

In the mission presidents’ seminar last June, Elder Thomas S. Monson told of the great faith and trust in the Lord of Randall Ellsworth, a missionary who, in Brother Monson’s words, “was crushed under that devastating earthquake in Guatemala, pinned for, I think, twelve hours. Found himself totally paralyzed from the waist down. Kidney functions, not present. No hope to ever walk again. …

“He was flown to … Maryland and … interviewed in the hospital by a television reporter. The television reporter said to him, ‘The doctors say you will not walk again. What do you think, Elder Ellsworth?’ He said, ‘I’ll not only walk again, but I have a call from a prophet to serve a mission in Guatemala, and I shall go back to Guatemala and finish that mission.’ …

“He exercised twice the [requirement] outlined by the doctors. He exerted his faith. He received a blessing from the priesthood and his recovery was miraculous. It astounded the physicians and the specialists. He began to be able to stand on his feet. Then he could walk with crutches, and then the doctors said to him, ‘You may return to the mission field if the Church will permit you to go.’ He went. We sent him to Guatemala. He returned to the land to which he had been called, to the people whom he dearly loved.

“While there he was walking, proselyting a full schedule with a cane in each hand. [His mission president] looked at him and said, ‘Elder Ellsworth, with the faith that you have, why don’t you throw those canes away and walk?’ And Elder Ellsworth said, ‘If you have that kind of faith in me [take the canes].’” He put down the canes and has never used them since. (Mission Presidents’ Training Seminar, June 1977, tape recording, Missionary Department.)

At the age of two I was in a farming accident that left me paralyzed from the waist down. However, I was fortunate enough to be raised in a family who overlooked the disability and treated me just like everyone else.
We always enjoyed swimming at the local pool. One evening at the pool, when I was about 9 or 10, as I “walked” up and down the edge of the pool (my weightlessness in the water allowed me for a short time to be like everybody else), I watched my family laughing, splashing, and diving from the sides. My brother Robert, who is two years older than I am, thought I was not having as much fun as the rest, so he decided to help me. He told me to hold on to his shoulders, and he would swim me over to the far side of the pool. He said it would be fun. He was right; it was fun. I played on the other side, and as long as my feet could touch the bottom, I felt safe and secure.
Then Robert came to take me back. This time he veered from the shallow end, and I was soon in deep water. Suddenly he stopped and with a quick movement he turned and pulled my arms off of his shoulders and said, “OK, now swim.” Then he let go, and it was a matter of sink or swim. I sunk! Robert thought for sure I would swim. Luckily my dad had been keeping an eye on us, and he was at my side instantly. I grabbed onto his strong shoulders, and he led me back to the shallow end of the pool. As a result of that experience, I developed a fear of the water. I would still go with my family on these outings, but I would usually watch from the safety of the poolside deck chairs.

Do you remember starting at some school? Each of us could tell a story. I grew up in Princeton, New Jersey. I can remember how my cousins helped me. When I moved from New Jersey to Salt Lake City to go to public school, my cousins from the West said the kids would stone me with my New Jersey accent. I got rid of it quickly, out of fear. I remember terror as I walked up to the junior high school on the first day.

A few years later—I don’t know how it happened—but after basketball season I left high school and went without my high school classmates to the University of Utah. I can remember those first days—the Physics Department and the Mathematics Department didn’t seem very friendly to me. I remember my fear.

I went from there to the United States Air Force and somehow decided that physics would not be my life’s work. I thought I needed something else for education so I tried a place I had heard of called the Harvard Graduate School of Business. I was so naïve I didn’t know it might be hard to be admitted. I know now that it was a miracle that I was accepted.

I can remember parting from my father on a street corner in New York City. For some reason he was there for scientific meetings. I was on my way to the Harvard Business School in my Ivy League suit, or so I thought. That suit was later borrowed by my roommate, who had been a Harvard undergraduate. He wore it to a costume party as a gangster suit, which offended me some. He wore a black shirt and a white tie with it.

When I parted from dad in my new suit, it was one of those great moments in life when I was going off to school. I looked back at him. Later he said to me that I looked forlorn, but I remember feeling sorry for him. To him I was a frightened student. I didn’t know what a balance sheet was. I didn’t know what a pro-forma cash flow looked like. I was a physics student about to be lost in the Harvard Business School.

From there I went to Stanford University. Kathy was nice enough to marry me. Her first adventures in cooking for us were to find some morning menu that I could keep down on my nervous stomach as I went off to meet those apparently confident Stanford students. I wondered how I could teach them, until I found out that they were scared, too.

A number of years ago I was called to the hospital bedside of a mother in the terminal stages of a serious illness. She passed away a short time later, leaving her husband and four children, including a little boy of six. There was sorrow, deep and poignant and tragic. But shining through their tears was a faith beautiful and certain that as surely as there was now a sorrowful separation, there would someday be a glad reunion, for that marriage had begun with a sealing for time and eternity in the house of the Lord, under the authority of the holy priesthood.

This was the environment in which my father grew up. In a similar situation, my father was not able to finish high school, but had learned from his father to always do his best. He worked as a driver and later as a salesman for an insurance company. He would always work hard to meet sales goals and receive higher commissions. Through his hard work, he was able to provide a good living for our family. However, I know there are two other aspects of my father’s life that helped him to become self-reliant: my father always paid an honest tithe, and he always put God first in his life. I remember reading the scriptures and praying together as a family, getting up early in the morning to go to seminary, attending church together with my brother and sisters, handing our tithing envelope to the bishop. Through these small and simple experiences my father was teaching us the importance of being not only temporarily self-reliant, but also spiritually self-reliant.

In October 2011, while serving a full-time mission in South Africa, I received a phone call from Sister Catherine Wood, our mission president’s wife. All merry and bright, she told me that President Thomas S. Monson had just announced the construction of a temple in my home town, Kinshasa. I remember shouting—with joy with tears flowing down my cheeks—in gratitude to the Most High for the blessing of having a temple in my country.

Elder Robert M. Daines was working as a law and business professor at Stanford University when he was called to serve as an early-morning seminary teacher.
As a lifelong Latter-day Saint, Elder Daines knew the gospel, but something about the calling pushed him to study the scriptures like never before. His wife, Ruth, said he often went to bed early and arose at 4:00 a.m. because he needed three hours to prepare for his daily lesson with 15 students.
“Some people have talent; some have to hustle,” he said. “I’m in the ‘You’d better hustle’ category.”
Elder Daines said he pored over the scriptures for hours each day because he wanted to know and feel the Savior’s love and then help his students make the same connection. The decade-long experience had a powerful impact on his faith and testimony.
“I feel like I was truly converted and came to know Jesus Christ as a seminary teacher in Palo Alto, California,” said Elder Daines.

Tori fought back tears as she ran into the house and took her book bag to her room.
“Tori, honey, is that you? Hustle out here and help me get these carrots peeled for dinner, please.”
“I’m not very hungry, Mom, and I have lots of homework.”
“Well, the rest of the family will be hungry, and you’ll have plenty of time after we eat.”
Mom knew that something was wrong when Tori kept her back turned as she worked. She was sure that a few tears were dropping into the sink along with the thin strips of carrot peeling. She wanted to hug her daughter and make it better, but she knew by now that even a mother’s hug couldn’t always make a hurt go away. “A tough test today, dear?”
“Kind of. But I was prepared, and I know I did well. That’s not the problem, Mom. It’s just that I’m, well, I’m so tired of being lonely. I don’t have any real friends.”
“Of course, you do! What about Pam? And Ellen? And—”
“Wrong answer, Mom. They’re just Sunday friends. In church they’re OK. Sometimes I think they like me then. But at school it’s different. They call me a goody-goody and ‘Mommy’s little angel.’”
“Maybe it’s a compliment,” Mom said with a smile.
Tori shook her head. “I don’t think so.” She grimaced. “All the girls at school are invited to Malorie’s house Friday night for a pizza party.”
“And you didn’t get invited?”
“Yes, I got invited, but I probably won’t go. They plan to stay up late eating pizza and chips and watching television—all the shows that are off limits at our house. I feel like a dweeb.”
“Do you really want to go, Tori?”
“Yes—and no. I’d like to be with the girls, but I’ve heard them talk about some of the late night shows. I don’t want to watch them—I’d just feel dumb and embarrassed and probably guilty. Why does it have to be like this? Why, when I try so hard to do what I’m supposed to, do I always have to do it alone?”
Mother hugged Tori and said, “Why don’t you pray about this? I’m sure that there’s a solution to your problem.”
That evening Tori prayed, “Heavenly Father, I need Thy help. I need the courage to do what I know is right. I’d like an idea of how to help Pam and Ellen too.”
Before school started the next day, Ellen asked Tori if she was going to the party.
“I’ve decided not to go,” Tori said.
“I’m sorry you’re not coming to the party. I know it’s because your folks won’t let you.”
“It’s true that Dad and Mom don’t want me watching that stuff on TV, Ellen, but it’s more than that. Parties should be fun, and it’s not much fun being embarrassed and feeling ashamed.”
“You know what? I think your folks are trying to brainwash you—you know, trying to make you think what they want you to think.”
“I don’t think so, Ellen. But sometimes I wish they could wash my brain. Do you remember the dirty joke that Malorie told us a few weeks ago? It was disgusting, and I’ve had a hard time getting it out of my mind. I’ve decided that I don’t want to get any more thoughts in my head that shouldn’t be there, because they’re really hard to get out—OK?”
“OK.” Ellen turned away, but she hesitated briefly, then turned back. “Can we still be friends?”
“Yes, of course! I really want your friendship. You can come to my party next month—Dad says I can give one for my birthday. In fact, would you help me plan some fun games for it?”
Ellen thought for a moment. “Do you like to play board games?”
“I sure do!”
“You know, Tori, I bet my mom would let us make cereal treats this Friday and play games at my house. We don’t need to watch TV at Malorie’s house to have fun. I don’t really want any more of that stuff in my brain, either. Shall we ask Pam too? Then we can call Malorie and tell her we aren’t coming.”
“I thank Thee, Heavenly Father,” Tori whispered as she headed for her math class. “I thank Thee, very much.”

I enjoyed the article about tree houses in the August New Era. I am enclosing a picture of a different type of tree house. Instead of being built in a tree, it is built out of trees. My companion and I were tracting one day when we came across it. Everything in it except the nails and bolts that hold it together is made out of bamboo, logs, branches, vines, plants, etc. The owner has been planning and collecting materials for this five-level home for 20 years and building it for four. He’s still only about 40 percent finished. Soon it will have a water buffalo-powered elevator. Even the beds, hammocks, and chairs are made from logs and vines. The owner considers it his work of art, his masterpiece. It really is a birdhouse, too, because in addition to five or so monkeys, it houses three eagles and seven hawks (not to mention the fish).
You’ve really got to see it to capture the real magnificence of it, and the most amazing thing of all is that it stands in the very heart of Manila.
Elder Stacy RencherPhilippines Manila Mission

I then turned to a brother on my left and said, “My hero is Jim Newton and his wife, Helen.” Shortly after Jim and Helen’s son Zach received his mission call to Peru, he was taken in an automobile accident. When I heard of the accident, I rushed to the hospital, hoping to hear that Zach was alive and would recover. The parents, in a most dignified and peaceful manner, explained that Zach would now be serving his mission on the other side of the veil. As I witnessed the calm resolve of these two strong parents, I realized that through the pain and anguish there was a peace that could come only through a deep and abiding faith in a loving Father and an atoning Savior. My faith was strengthened, and through their inspiration my resolve to follow their example in meeting similar trials and tragedies was reaffirmed.

Several years ago, I was home one evening while my wife was fulfilling an assignment with the young women of our ward. Our children were young, and I was left at home to complete some of the normal, household chores and get the children to bed. While standing at the sink, washing dishes, I was listening to the radio, tuned to station KOA in Denver, Colorado. The narrator introduced a kindly gentleman to the radio audience as a prominent minister of one of the large Protestant churches in the United States, stating that he was second in authority in that church, and that he would be glad to respond to religious questions from the listening audience. I listened to several questions and his answers.

I was particularly interested in one caller who sounded like a college age young woman who asked a question about resurrection. She asked whether she would have a physical body when she was resurrected. She said that she had been studying one of the Eastern religions and had become curious about reincarnation, so was wondering how the Christian idea of resurrection compared. Would a resurrected person be able eat, drink, and experience physical activities--things which she understood reincarnation would provide?

The minister was kind, and it was evident that he really wanted to help her understand about the resurrection of the Savior. He answered, "My dear, you will have a beautiful resurrected spiritual body like Christ had." She responded, "Will I have a physical body and be able to eat food and drink water?" He said, "You will receive a beautiful, resurrected, spiritual body." She again asked, "Does that mean I won't have a physical body when I am resurrected?"

He replied kindly that her resurrected body would be a beautiful, immortal, spiritual body; the same as the resurrected body of Jesus. She sounded somewhat discouraged by his answer, and said, "Well, okay then." And she ended the call.

Well, I decided that I would phone the radio station, and make an attempt to answer her question. I dialed the number. After a few moments, someone on the other end answered and said, "Hold the line, please." I waited briefly and the minister answered, saying, "You are on the air, what is your question?"

I said, "Well, I don't really have a question, but would like to comment for the benefit of the young lady who called, asking about a physical body and resurrection. I think that she understood, from your answer, that Jesus did not have a body of flesh and bone, following his resurrection. I have been reading a most interesting book that gives added information about this event, which may be helpful to her."

"The book states clearly, that following his resurrection in Jerusalem, Jesus visited people in ancient America, saying to them that 'He was Jesus Christ whom the prophets testified should come into the world.'"[23]

"He then asked them to come forward and feel the wounds in his hands and his feet that they could know that he had been slain for the sins of the world and that he had overcome death. This would clarify for her, that resurrection is not to receive a new or different body, as in reincarnation, but resurrection means that Jesus had, after he was resurrected, the same physical body which he had while fulfilling his ministry in Jerusalem, a body of flesh and bone."

He asked, "What is the book?" I replied, "The Book of Mormon." Well, his friendly and warm tone of voice became a little colder and he said, "Oh, we can't believe anything in the Book of Mormon." I said, "Do you have a Bible there, with you?" "Of course!" He answered, "We believe everything that is written in the Bible." "Would you read a passage from the Bible about Jesus' resurrection and his resurrected body?" "Sure, I will read anything from the Bible." "Thank you. Would you please read Luke 24:36-43?" He answered that he would. Then, I could hear pages turning, and he began to read:

"And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you.

"But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts?

"Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.

"And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet.

"And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?

"And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb. And he took it, and did eat before them."[24]

After reading those verses, he was silent, so I said, "Doesn't that sound to you as if he had a body of flesh and bone following his resurrection? He answered, "You know, it really does!" almost as if that idea had not occurred to him before. I then responded, "Doesn't it seem possible, that his body, being a resurrected body of flesh and bone when he appeared to his apostles, would still be a resurrected body of flesh and bone now?" He replied, "No, he got rid of his body right after that, because he didn't need it any more."

I was then disconnected. The line was dead, but I hoped that what had been said was enough that the young woman who had asked the question would look up the missionaries to learn more about Jesus appearing to the people of the ancient Americas as the resurrected Savior of the world. I believe this good minister really wanted to answer truthfully. He simply had not had access to the true doctrine of resurrection.

As Joseph contemplated those dreary months of imprisonment in Missouri, he must have recalled the night, when confined in a dungeon, he rebuked the guards. He and his brethren were trying to get a little sleep, but were kept awake by the awful blasphemies and obscene jests of their jailers, who were recounting the dreadful deeds of robbery and murder they had committed among the Mormons. These were no idle boasts, for these awful atrocities had actually been committed. Suddenly, Joseph rose to his feet and, in a voice that seemed to shake the very building, cried out:

Silence, ye fiends of the infernal pit! In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you, and command you to be still; I will not live another minute and hear such language. Cease such talk, or you or I die this instant! [HC 3:208]

The effect must have been electric in its suddenness. Some begged his pardon while others slunk into the dark corners of Liberty Jail to hide their shame.

The power of Jesus Christ, whose name he had invoked in his rebuke, was upon him. His hands and feet were in chains, but these the guards did not see. They saw only the righteous anger in his shining face, and felt the divine power in his voice as he rebuked them.

Then, in 1966, he slipped while working and hit his head. Within seconds, Brother Bollbach lost sight in his left eye. “My world fell apart,” he says. “The darkness was awful.”
For a time, Brother Bollbach also lost sight of spiritual things. From the day he was baptized in 1921 in his native Germany, he had focused his life on the gospel. But after the accident, “I could not and did not want to pray,” he sadly recalls. “Even when my wife, Elli, continued to ask me to pray with her, I refused and bitterly asked, ‘Shall I thank God that I am blind?’”
He remained in spiritual darkness until one morning, about two weeks after the accident. Each morning before leaving for work, Elli had prayed alone—while Brother Bollbach stayed in bed. Then one morning after her prayer, as Sister Bollbach bent down to give Fritz a kiss, her tears fell on his face. He was moved by her tenderness. “When I heard her drive off, I knelt on my bed,” he says. “But I couldn’t pray.”
Brother Bollbach remained on his knees for several hours. He tried to speak again and again. But each time, something in him fought against his desire to pray. After much effort, he finally began praying to God again. “A feeling of thanksgiving filled my soul,” he recalls. “I remembered how many blessings I had and how many times Heavenly Father had protected my life. I was at peace.”
Since then, Brother Bollbach has used faith, prayer, obedience, and diligence to triumph over his challenges. “I could not see with my eyes, but God helped me see with my hands and with my heart,” he comments.
Before losing his sight, Brother Bollbach used his skills as a carpenter to build houses for German Latter-day Saints made homeless by World War II. He also helped construct Church meetinghouses. In 1956, the Bollbachs moved to Utah and seven years later became U.S. citizens.
In 1966, challenged with the loss of his sight, Brother Bollbach decided to expand his carpentry skills and to learn woodcarving. He also wanted to help others facing challenges similar to his own. “I made a goal to help the helpless and discouraged people,” he states. “I wanted to show that disabled people could still work and succeed.” A few weeks later, he registered at a school for the blind in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Gordon Clegg, supervisor at the school, says he has taught hundreds of blind people how to carve wood. But Fritz Bollbach, he says, had a special talent. “All I did was build his confidence,” Brother Clegg comments. “He was cautious at first about working with machinery, as most people would be if they were blind.”
Although it was dangerous, Brother Bollbach relied on his fingers to feel the shape and texture of the wood as he chiseled away. Even after breaking one piece of wood after another, he refused to give up. “After weeks of breaking wood, I finally finished a little chess piece,” Brother Bollbach remembers. “A month later, carving without sight, I made a chessboard and a chess table.” On his graduation day, he presented the chess set to the school. Brother Clegg then entered the set in a state fair competition. It won a first-place ribbon.
Brother Bollbach’s new skills gave him the confidence to start on his next goal—helping others like himself succeed. With the help of government funding, Brother Bollbach set up a workshop to teach woodcarving to people with visual impairments. He had many wonderful experiences in the workshop. One in particular stands out in his memory. It was two weeks before Christmas, and he was alone. Brother Bollbach was carving a special present for his wife—the model of an elk. He finished the elk’s body and thin legs with ease, but carving the eyes seemed impossible.
“I decided to stand up,” he says. “As I walked around the workshop, I began to sing my favorite hymn, ‘I Need Thee Every Hour.’ I prayed to God out loud for help, and again I sang.” After singing for more than an hour, Brother Bollbach picked up the knife and wood. But he still couldn’t carve the eyes. “What should I do? Shall I give up?” he asked himself. “No, Fritz, don’t give up. Try it again,” he told himself. However, he still could not hold the knife steady enough to carve the eyes. He stood up again and walked around for another hour.
“I sang, I cried, and I prayed for some time,” he recalls. “I thought of the many blessings the Lord had given me. I then took the knife again, and with my hands shaking, I carved the eyes and within minutes finished the whole head.”
Brother Bollbach says he no longer has problems carving. He proudly points to numerous figures he has made with his calloused yet gentle hands—various animals, chess sets, cabinets, and tables. “I often sat in my workshop early in the morning and late at night to carve,” he says. Only one year after he struggled to carve an elk, an art gallery in Salt Lake City featured his remarkably detailed work.
The Bollbachs extended a special invitation to Church President Harold B. Lee to visit the gallery. Instead, President Lee invited the Bollbachs to visit him at his office. Brother Bollbach fondly recalls the visit. He had created a wood carving of a wild horse jumping over a log to give to President Lee.
“We stood in his office,” Brother Bollbach remembers, “and after a short visit, he shook our hands. As I was leaving, he said to me, ‘I give you my blessing. Peace will be with you.’ I have never lost the peace President Lee promised me. I have always felt it in my heart to this day.”
That peace, won through years of hard work and persistence, reveals itself in Brother Bollbach’s deep-green eyes. Although his face shows the wrinkles of time and his big build has grown fragile from years of labor, his spirit remains strong. His testimony rests solidly on a foundation built by sacrifice and Church service.
Much of Brother Bollbach’s service has been as a missionary in the land of his birth. In 1969, six weeks after Fritz had opened the workshop, Fritz and Elli’s bishop called them into his office and asked them a question. The bishop had to repeat the question three times: “Fritz, the Lord wants you and your wife to serve together in the mission field. What do you think about that?”
“I was shocked,” Brother Bollbach remembers. “I could say nothing.”
Unable to answer the bishop’s question, he asked Elli, “Well, Mama, what do you think?”
She glanced at Fritz and said, “The decision is yours. I will be your eyes.”
He turned back to the bishop and replied, “Bishop, we will go where the Lord wants us to go.”
The Bollbachs were soon serving in the Germany Central Mission. Their main responsibility was to help bring people back to church. “Many of them did not want to pray because they said they had nothing to be grateful for or they just didn’t need anything,” Sister Bollbach explains. “However, Fritz inspired them and helped them to be grateful for life and for God’s blessings.”
One of his first assignments was to serve as branch president in Gelsenkirchen. At first Brother Bollbach was hesitant when the mission president called him to the position. “But you know that I’m blind,” Brother Bollbach told him.
“Yes, of course I know that,” the mission president replied. “God knows it as well.”
Brother Bollbach labored as branch president there until he had a mild heart attack a year later. “I wondered if I should go home after that,” he recalls. “But the doctor examined me and said it was all right for me to stay. So we stayed.”
After they returned from the mission field in 1971, Elli went back to working in the Salt Lake Temple, and Fritz reopened the workshop and put his wood pieces on display. As people flocked to see Brother Bollbach’s carvings, many thought it impossible that a blind man had done such splendid work. “Unbelievable, but not impossible,” he told them. “You must have faith in the Lord and confidence in yourself. All people—no matter what race or creed—are children of God and brought talents with them to earth. It depends upon the individual to discover and realize those talents through diligent effort.”
In 1975, the Bollbachs were surprised by another mission call, this time to the Germany Frankfurt Mission. About the same time, Elli discovered she had cancer. “No one can imagine the fear we felt,” Fritz explains. “Within one week, she underwent three operations. The curious thing was the blessing the bishop gave her. He said to her, ‘Elli, you will recover, and you will again go into the mission field with Fritz to serve God.’ We wondered how he could say such a thing.”
Sister Bollbach recuperated from the operations, and they served an eighteen-month mission in Pirmasens, Germany, near the French border.
Less than a year after returning home, the Bollbachs locked up their house and workshop a third time to serve in the Germany Munich Mission, where Brother Bollbach was called to be branch president in Nürnberg. Although the branch had more than 450 people on its records, only about 20 members attended regularly.
The Bollbachs knew they had challenges, but they also knew how to overcome them. With faith, prayer, obedience, and diligence, they concentrated on visiting less-active members. “A miracle happened,” Brother Bollbach exclaims. “The branch grew. Several months later, the branch was divided into three branches—Feucht, Fürth, and Nürnberg. I know it was the blessing and help of God. We were just the instruments in his hands.”
After coming home, the Bollbachs served as Sunday School teachers for about ten years. Because Fritz could not read the lessons, Elli recorded the lesson manual and passages of scripture onto a tape. Fritz would then listen to the tape several times and would study with Elli for up to eight hours. “I searched out the questions and had them put on tape,” he says. “Then I learned them by heart so we could teach the class together.” They finally were released when Brother Bollbach became too sick to continue the weekly assignment.
The Bollbachs say all their Church assignments have made them happy. “We used our time only for the Church and for God and for learning,” Brother Bollbach comments, “and we were glad. But it was not ourselves, but the power of prayer and the help of God that allowed us to do the work. Without God and Elli, I could not have made it. Without His help, I could not see spiritually with my heart.”

Many years ago dear friends of mine, Craig Sudbury and his mother, Pearl, came to my office prior to Craig’s departure for the Australia Melbourne Mission. Fred Sudbury, Craig’s father, was noticeably absent. Twenty-five years earlier, Craig’s mother had married Fred, who did not share her love for the Church and, indeed, was not a member.

Craig confided to me his deep and abiding love for his parents and his hope that somehow, in some way, his father would be touched by the Spirit and open his heart to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I prayed for inspiration concerning how such a desire might be fulfilled. The inspiration came, and I said to Craig, “Serve the Lord with all your heart. Be obedient to your sacred calling. Each week write a letter to your parents, and on occasion, write to Dad personally, and let him know how much you love him, and tell him why you’re grateful to be his son.” He thanked me and, with his mother, departed the office.

I was not to see Craig’s mother for some 18 months, when she came to my office and, in sentences punctuated by tears, said to me, “It has been almost two years since Craig left for his mission. He has never failed in writing a letter to us each week. Recently, my husband, Fred, stood for the first time in a testimony meeting and surprised me and shocked everyone who was there by announcing that he had made the decision to become a member of the Church. He indicated that he and I would go to Australia to meet Craig at the conclusion of his mission so that Fred could be Craig’s final baptism as a full-time missionary.”

No missionary stood so tall as did Craig Sudbury when, in far-off Australia, he helped his father into water waist-deep and, raising his right arm to the square, repeated those sacred words: “Frederick Charles Sudbury, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

Love had won its victory. Serve the Lord with love.

It’s something like the experience of a young girl who was walking with her grandmother. The song of the birds was glorious to the little girl, and she pointed out every sound to her grandmother.
“Do you hear that?” the little girl asked again and again. But her grandmother was hard of hearing and could not make out the sounds.
Finally, the grandmother knelt down and said, “I’m sorry, dear. Grandma doesn’t hear so well.”
Exasperated, the little girl took her grandmother’s face in her hands, looked intently into her eyes, and said, “Grandma, listen harder!”
There are lessons in this story for both the nonbeliever and the believer. Just because we can’t hear something doesn’t mean there is nothing to hear. Two people can listen to the same message or read the same scripture, and one might feel the witness of the Spirit while the other doesn’t.
On the other hand, in our efforts to help our loved ones experience the voice of the Spirit and the vast, eternal, and profound beauty of the gospel of Jesus Christ, telling them to “listen harder” may not be the most helpful way.
Perhaps better advice—for anyone who wants to increase faith—is to listen differently.

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.

Another wonderful example of finding purpose in life is Helen Keller Helen was born in Alabama in 1880. She suffered an illness that left her both deaf and blind before her 2nd birthday. She was extremely intelligent and became frustrated as she tried to understand and make sense of her surroundings. When Helen felt the moving lips of family members and realized that they used their mouths to speak, “she flew into a rage because she was unable to join in the conversation.” By the time Helen was six, her need to communicate and her frustration grew so intense that her “outbursts occurred daily, sometimes hourly.” Helen’s parents hired a teacher for their daughter, a woman named Anne Sullivan. Anne had struggled with her own serious hardships and understood Helen’s infirmities. At age five, Anne had contracted a disease that caused painful scarring of the cornea and left her mostly blind. When Anne was eight, her mother died; her father abandoned her and her younger brother, Jimmie; and they were sent to a “poor house,” where conditions were so deplorable that Jimmie died after only three months. Through her own dogged persistence, Anne gained entry to the Perkins School for the Blind and vision impaired, where she succeeded brilliantly. A surgical operation gave her improved vision so that she was able to read print. When Helen Keller’s father contacted the Perkins School seeking someone to become a teacher for his daughter, Anne Sullivan was selected. It was not a pleasant experience at the beginning. Helen “hit, pinched and kicked her teacher and knocked out one of her teeth. Anne finally gained control by moving with Helen into a small cottage on the Kellers’ property. Through patience and firm consistency, she finally won the child’s heart and trust.” To help Helen learn words, Anne would spell the names of familiar objects with her finger on the palm of Helen’s hand. “Helen enjoyed this ‘finger play,’ but she didn’t understand until the famous moment when Anne spelled ‘w-a-t-e-r’ while pumping water over Helen’s hand. Helen later wrote:
“Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten--a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that "w-a-t-e-r" meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. That living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, joy, set it free! … Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life.”

I have been blessed to have a mother who has spent her life preparing to meet God. She understands the principles of creating, learning, and serving in this life. Her motto has been “Welcome the task that makes you go beyond yourself, and you will grow.” Let me tell you a few highlights from her adventure-filled life. In her youth she lived in the wild Uinta Mountains, where her father worked. She learned to cut tall trees, fish, and camp in the outdoors. During the winter she attended school in the city, played on a basketball team, and learned to play the trumpet. She went to the university and became a nurse. After she was married, she went on a mission with her husband to Brazil, where she learned to speak Portuguese. She has traveled to many countries and has taught the gospel to thousands. She studies the scriptures daily, has written several family history books, works in the temple, keeps track of 62 grandchildren, and can cook 600 doughnuts in one morning!
My mother has stayed in the Savior’s path with unshaken faith in Him (see 2 Nephi 31:19) all the days of her life. She wakes up every day looking forward to new adventures. For her, life is so interesting, and she still has so much to learn.