Gospel Story Finder

A man came into the mission home one day asking to know more about our church. “I sat on an airplane next to one of your members,” he said, “and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same again. He told me about his family and the love they had between them. His face almost glowed as he talked.”
This man was far more worldly than the average man on the street. “I know I will have to make some drastic changes in my life, but I want what that man has. My family means a lot to me,” he said.
If we live what we believe, our example may serve as an effective missionary for us and for the Church, especially for those who are searching for the “more excellent way” (Ether 12:11). There are many people who admire our way of life and our standards of conduct. They want this way of life for themselves and for their families.
Doctrine and Covenants 123:12 [D&C 123:12] tells us that “there are many yet on the earth among all sects … who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it.” So how can we help them find it? How can we be effective member missionaries?
It just might be that your best method is to be your best self. Be friendly and be sharing. Invite those around you who are not members of our church to share with you the fun and the joy that they may be secretly wishing they could also have.
Instead of losing friends, you may develop friendships that will endure through this life and the life to come.

Going to the Movies
Now all of this, slightly exaggerated, is only to set the stage for this most dramatic moment about four weeks ago. The Hollands actually decided to go to a movie. We don’t go to lot of movies. We venture out about once a year, and then we hit the Varsity Theater. That’s more our speed, and the price is better. But our children prevailed upon us for a family home evening activity that would actually take us into the outside world for an honest-to-gosh movie. We weighed carefully the kind of movie we were going to, found one that seemed appropriate for the family, and went. It was one of those new combined theater arrangements where sixteen people and a keg of popcorn make a full house, so we knew it was going to be cozy, but we didn’t realize how cozy.

We came a little late; the movie was more popular than we had supposed, and the lines were long. By the time we bought tickets, there were, by actual usher’s count, only seven seats left in the house. Now, there are five of us. That left two. We said we’d take the five wherever they were and agreed as a family to regroup under the nearest streetlamp after the movie. As luck would have it, on one of the back rows of the theater where we entered were two seats together with a third nearby. We quickly inserted our children into those seats and thought at least they would enjoy the movie.

Now, out of a total of seven, that should have left four, but somebody must have been hiding them as we began our long march down the aisle. It didn’t appear to me that there was an extra arm in the room, speaking, of course, of movie seats and not human flesh. We were looking for arms without fingers on the end. Then the comments started—first a kind of low hush, growing but increasingly audible to us and, I assume, to everyone else in the theater. I was a little embarrassed. “Oh, they’re coming to a movie, an actual movie, and I’m here in this very movie with them.” Well, I didn’t think our arrival deserved all of that; I mean I know we’re famous, but I suppose President and Sister Oaks went to movies. We kept walking. “Oh, look, they bought popcorn. I want to talk to the girl who sold them that popcorn. I wonder if it’s buttered or plain.”

By now I was thinking, “Shucks, we’re just ordinary folks. Anybody could be president down there at BYU.” But the chatter went on. The farther down the aisle we went, the more the heads turned. Indeed, I was amazed at how impressed the younger crowd seemed to be. Some of the group were probably BYU students, but the larger part seemed to be younger—high school or junior high, sort of teenyboppers, if you will. I leaned over to Pat and said, “You’re causing quite a stir, dear. They want to know if you have butter on your popcorn.”

“This is ridiculous,” she whispered back. “I feel like Bonnie and Clyde after holding up a bank, and you’re Clyde.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but I prefer Chuck.”

“Chuck what?” she said.

“Just Chuck, you know, short for Charles—Prince Charles, and you’re Lady Diana. The carriage is just out by the fire hydrant, and we all turn into groundhogs at 10:00 p.m.” (That’s BYU curfew in advance of midnight. I just added that for you.)

“Don’t make fun of the royal wedding,” she said.

“I’m not making fun,” I replied. “I’m just asking you to keep your royal eye open for a vacant throne.”

By then it was obvious that not only were we not going to find two adjoining seats, but it looked doubtful whether we’d find any seat at all, and we were near the front of the theater by now. “Oh, they’re not going to sit together,” someone moaned. Another girl, about thirteen, actually started to cry. It was obvious this whole thing was a very moving experience, but I didn’t think it should be that moving. “It’s okay,” I kept saying in a sort of large-stage whisper. “Don’t worry about it; it’s okay.” But the moaning and the wailing and the tears increased.

Just when it looked as if we were going to turn the whole theater into the downtown equivalent of the Relief Society nursery on homemaking day, we spied two vacant seats a couple of places apart. Some young woman, sensing our plight, moved over into one of them, leaving hers adjoining the other single, and we sank into them, safe, our noses eight inches from the screen. This was going to be a stereophonic experience with a vengeance. But interestingly enough, the moaning and the wailing and the whispering and the pointing went on. It continued to be directed generally toward us but with something of a glazed look now in the eyes of these young people. “This is ridiculous,” I said to my wife. “They don’t need to act like we’re from another planet.”

“Maybe they wouldn’t,” my wife said, “if you’d left your cap and gown home.” She was only kidding of course, but I gave her a little elbow in the ribs.

Well, the teenyboppers were still bopping, and I thought we certainly had some responsibility. Something had to be done; it was my moral duty. So I stood in my front row aisle seat to acknowledge their feverish applause and turned head on, face to face, nose to nose, into Steve Craig and Marie Osmond, who had been walking down the aisle stride for stride behind us.

Some of you who may be new to this campus won’t know Steve Craig or Marie Osmond. Steve is from our very successful basketball team of last year. Steve has the kind of handsome looks that make Robert Redford consider plastic surgery. And Marie is a local working girl. (You certainly can’t be expected to know everyone your first day on campus.) Well, so much for Prince Charles and Lady Di. Actually, we knew that Steve and Marie were behind us; we bribed them with the last two tickets. We thought it would look like we were on a double date. You can check with me afterward and I’ll tell you whether they had butter on their popcorn.

When I was a very small boy, my father found a lamb all alone in the desert. The herd of sheep to which its mother belonged had moved on, and somehow the lamb got separated from its mother, and the shepherd must not have known that it was lost. Because it could not survive alone in the desert, my father picked it up and brought it home. To have left the lamb there would have meant certain death, either by falling prey to the coyotes or by starvation because it was so young that it still needed milk. My father gave the lamb to me and I became its shepherd.
For several weeks I warmed cow’s milk in a baby’s bottle and fed the lamb. We became fast friends. I named him Nigh—why I don’t remember. It began to grow. My lamb and I would play on the lawn. Sometimes we would lie together on the grass and I would lay my head on its soft, woolly side and look up at the blue sky and the white billowing clouds. I did not lock my lamb up during the day. It would not run away. It soon learned to eat grass. I could call my lamb from anywhere in the yard by just imitating as best I could the bleating sound of a sheep.
One night there came a terrible storm. I forgot to put my lamb in the barn that night as I should have done. I went to bed. My little friend was frightened in the storm and I could hear it bleating. I knew that I should help my pet, but wanted to stay safe, warm, and dry in my bed. I didn’t get up as I should have done. The next morning I went out to find my lamb dead. A dog had also heard its bleating cry and killed it. My young heart was broken. I had not been a good shepherd or steward of that which my father had entrusted to me. My father said, “Son, couldn’t I trust you to take care of just one lamb?” My father’s remark hurt me more than losing my woolly friend. I resolved that day, as a little boy, that I would try never again to neglect my stewardship as a shepherd if I were ever placed in that position again.

Big teardrops splashed down Bobby’s cheeks as he watched Freddie and Dick lug Freddie’s wading pool over to Dick’s house.
All the way home from school, the three boys had eagerly planned to make a jungle hideout in a pile of dirt behind Dick’s garage. Dick’s father had said they could.
Freddie’s wading pool would be their hidden lake. The green branches Dick’s father had pruned from his shade trees would be the jungle trees. They would use their stuffed toys and odd-shaped rocks and pieces of wood for animals. Bobby knew where there was a crooked stick, streaked brown, that looked like a snake. He planned to put it on one of the trees, pretending it was a huge python.
They were going to wear shorts and go barefoot. They’d creep through their jungle with bows and arrows, looking for wild animals. What fun they were going to have!
Bobby had rushed into his house to get a snack and to put on his cutoffs—and there, on the refrigerator door, was the note: DON’T FORGET, BOBBY! Love, Mom.
He was so disappointed he didn’t even look to see what she had left for a snack. Who’d feel like eating when he had to weed two rows of corn before he could play!
It didn’t help to remember that it was his own fault. He had fooled around all day Saturday while Dad, Mom, Susan, and Peggy did their weeding. Then, when he was about to start, who should come to visit but Aunt Alice, Uncle John, Nick, and Michael.
“We’ll let it go for now. We don’t want to disappoint your cousins. They have come a long way to play with you,” Mom had said, adding firmly, “but you may not play after school Monday until your weeding is done.”
And there was the note to remind him.
Bobby started to cry. He felt awful. He felt even worse when he saw Freddie and Dick go by with the wading pool. They were going to make the jungle without him. And it was his own fault.
Trudging to the garden, he began pulling weeds. He started working fast, hoping to finish in time to play a while before dinnertime. Then he remembered how Dad had told him to be extra careful not to injure the tender shoots of corn. He couldn’t work fast. He had to be careful.
When he looked down at the row of corn, it looked as long as a road that never ends. And he had two of those long rows to weed before he could play! He would never get through in time to play in the jungle with his friends.
Bobby started to cry again, which, of course, only made matters worse—no weeds were pulled while he cried.
He noticed a shadow approaching and looked up. His father was standing behind him.
Usually Bobby was happy when Dad came home. But not today. If Dad was home already, it would soon be dinnertime. That meant no time at all to play.
“My boy seems upset,” Dad said.
Bobby tried to sniff back the tears.
“Those rows must look mighty long to you,” Dad guessed.
“Yes,” Bobby said. His lower lip began to quiver. “And Dick and Freddie are making a jungle—and I don’t get to help.”
“I know a trick,” Dad said.
“What kind of trick?”
“One that makes long rows grow shorter,” Dad answered, his eyes twinkling.
“No trick can do that.”
“Try it and see.” Dad tossed a small stick a little way down the row. “If you don’t look one bit farther than that stick, the row will grow shorter. Go on. Try it.”
Bobby started pulling weeds. In no time he had reached the stick.
“Now throw it a little farther down. But don’t look up,” Dad said.
This time Bobby seemed to reach the stick even faster. Dad tossed the stick again, and Bobby weeded to it. Again. Suddenly Bobby’s head almost touched the fence. He had reached the end of the row! “Wow! The row really did grow shorter!”
“Now do the other row the same way,” Dad suggested.
Bobby tossed the stick, then weeded to it. Again and again he tossed the stick and weeded to it. Then, as if by magic, he was through!
“Now look at the rows,” Dad said.
Bobby was amazed. The two rows weren’t shorter at all. They were as long as the other rows in the garden, just like before.
Then Bobby understood Dad’s “trick”: To make a job go faster, do it a piece at a time and work as hard as you can. He looked up. The sun was still a long way from the mountain. Dad must have come home early. There was still time to play!
“Yippee!” Bobby shouted. He gave Dad a big hug, then got his “snake stick” and rushed to Dick’s yard to help transform a pile of dirt into a dark, mysterious jungle full of fun and adventure.

Col. Halvorsen said that children sometimes wrote to him with special requests. “I received one letter with a beautiful map in it. The little girl said hers was the white house with the chickens in the backyard and that she would be waiting there at 2:00 P.M. I never found her house so I mailed her a package.”
Twenty years later when Col. Halvorsen returned to Tempelhof as commander of the base, the same girl, now grown up with a family of her own, wrote to him again. She invited him to dinner in the same home he had failed to find during the airlift. The two families still keep in touch with each other.

The airplane’s engine made a final sputtering sound, and then there was nothing but a dreadful silence. Andrew sat stiffly, pale and frightened. While his father worked frantically to restart the engine, the plane glided earthward in ever-descending circles. Suddenly the engine roared back to life, and Andrew’s father quickly nosed the plane up to gain altitude. But again the engine stopped, and nothing his father could do would make it start.
“Are we going to crash?” Andrew asked.
“No, son, don’t worry. This little plane can practically fly itself, even without power,” his father answered. “Look ahead there; we can glide far enough to land in that snowfield.”
Through the haze Andrew could see the mainland snow and ice at the edge of the Arctic Ocean. And as they glided closer and lower he could see the mouth of a large river.
“That must be the Mackenzie River,” his father said. Then motioning behind them he added, “We have plenty of emergency food back in the cabin—enough to last until someone comes looking for us.”
Andrew’s father had intended to land in the Canadian town of Inuvik within the Arctic Circle, but he had taken a detour and flown the oil company’s plane over the Arctic Ocean so that his son could see it.
Soon they were gliding low over the snow and ice. “Look!” Andrew cried. “There are two igloos and some Eskimos down there!”
“Some dogs too,” his father added. “I hope they have a sled. I’m going to land this ‘bird’ close to the igloos.”
Under his father’s steady hand, the plane landed about fifty feet from the Eskimo homes. Immediately its passengers were greeted by the smiling faces of two women, two men, and a boy about Andrew’s age.
“Kabluna,” the older man said.
“That means ‘men with bushy eyebrows,’ and that’s how they think of all white men,” Andrew’s father explained. “Before knowing about our race, they believed that they were the only people in the world and called themselves Inuit, meaning The People.”
The Eskimo boy said, “Akshunai, pikatigikpugut,” and then he translated for Andrew. “I said, ‘Hello, we are friends.’”
“Nakorami (Thank you),” Andrew’s father answered, and then he turned to examine the plane’s faulty engine.
“Where did you learn to speak English?” Andrew asked the boy.
“At the government school in Inuvik. My name is Ootah.”
While the boys talked, Andrew’s father made arrangements with one of the men for transportation to the closest settlement. A sled with a walrus-hide harness was soon pulled around in front of one of the igloos and the dogs hustled into place.
“I’ll have to get a mechanic, son. This young man is going to drive me into Inuvik; it’s about seventy miles from here,” Andrew’s father explained. “You stay with the plane, and I’ll be back in six days.”
Andrew was a little apprehensive, but he smiled. “OK, Dad,” he said. “I’ll be all right. But I’ll miss you.” Feeling lonely and a little hungry, he waved good-bye as his father left on the sled.
“Come to my father’s igloo,” Ootah invited Andrew. “My mother will give us something to eat.”
When the boys were close to Ootah’s home, Andrew saw an old man and Ootah’s mother crawl out of the low entrance and struggle over a bag of flour. The old man won and marched to his igloo with the flour, muttering to himself.
Ootah was deeply upset. His face flushed and he looked down at his feet. “My grandfather is taking charge of all the food,” he explained. “We’ve had a bad hunting and trapping season and we haven’t had much to exchange at the trading post. We’re short of food.”
“That’s OK,” Andrew said. “I have some food and I can eat in the plane.”
Andrew turned back and climbed into the airplane’s small cabin. Although his father had taken some of the food on the sled, there was still a lot of canned goods left—much more than he would need. As he ate, Andrew thought of taking some food to the Eskimos, but he decided against it. If his father were delayed for some reason, the boy would need the food for himself.
When he left the plane, Andrew found Ootah waiting for him. “Come and see what my grandfather has,” Ootah said.
Ootah led him into his grandfather’s igloo. The old man grunted at the boys, and the old lady smiled. The first thing Andrew noticed was the smell of dried fish and meat and burned seal oil. Then he followed Ootah to a large box against the snow wall. In it were five Husky puppies, climbing all over each other.
Andrew fell in love with a little brown and white one. “Do you think your grandfather would sell it?” he asked. “Maybe my father will buy it for me when he gets back.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ootah said. “My grandfather will never sell any of his dogs.”
The old man left the igloo. “He’s going to set snares for the Arctic hare,” Ootah told Andrew. “Do you want to go fishing?”
Andrew loved to fish, so Ootah got fishing lines and hooks for both of them, a hatchet, some bait, and a coil of rope.
As the boys walked toward the Mackenzie River, Ootah looked like a bear in his karlik, attigis, mukluks, and puelluks (fur trousers, parka, high boots, and mittens). Andrew was warm in his modern thermal underwear and outer clothes.
“What’s the rope for?” Andrew asked.
“Just in case,” was all Ootah would tell him.
Near the river the Eskimo boy chopped two holes through the ice. After fishing for several hours Ootah finally caught three small fish. He offered one to Andrew. “For your supper,” he said.
“Thank you, but I have food in the cabin of the plane,” Andrew reminded him.
On their way back to the igloos the boys’ talk was suddenly interrupted by the sound of muffled shouts, and they both began running toward the noise.
“Grandfather has fallen through a snowbridge into a crevasse!” Ootah shouted. “He can’t see too well.”
They found the old man floundering in soft snow at the bottom of a fairly deep hole in the ice, but he appeared to be unhurt. Ootah threw one end of the rope down to him, and together the boys pulled the old man out of the hole.
“Nakorami, Nakorami,” he kept repeating.
Andrew felt terribly lonely when he returned to the plane and fixed something to eat. Before eating he prayed for his father’s safety and quick return. And as he prayed he remembered that his father had taught him to treat others as he would like to be treated. Guiltily he thought of the kindness of the Eskimo who had offered to share his fish even though they were all short of food.
Andrew flung open the cabin door and shouted for Ootah. When he came running, Andrew began throwing cans of food down to him.
On the sixth day an airplane mechanic flew in with Andrew’s father. While the mechanic repaired the plane, Andrew said good-bye to his Eskimo friends. He and Ootah solemnly promised to keep in touch with each other.
As the plane soared above the igloos, Andrew felt something pushing against his leg. He reached down and with a rush of joy picked up the little brown and white Husky puppy Ootah and his grandfather had left in the plane for Andrew to take home.

Our sweet little son, Hayden, came into this world blue, not breathing, and struggling for life. No crying. No movement.
As doctors and nurses rushed around the hospital room, I knew something was terribly wrong. My husband and my father quickly gave Hayden a priesthood blessing, and Hayden was rushed off to intensive care. He was soon diagnosed with a rare heart malfunction. Within days he underwent several heart surgeries.
Through the miraculous power of priesthood blessings, fasting, and prayers, Hayden beat all odds and survived. We were overjoyed to bring our son home and begin our new lives together.

I remember two simple events that happened when I was a little girl. Each shows how the Spirit touches hearts in special ways, no matter our age.
The first experience happened when my brother was sick. My father called a man from our ward to come to our home and help give a priesthood blessing. As our family gathered before the blessing, the man suggested that we children should leave because we might disrupt the spirit of the blessing. My father replied gently that it was important that each child be present during the blessing because our pure faith was needed.
Even at that young age, I not only felt the presence of the Spirit, but I also sensed the great love my father had for his children. My father’s love helped me believe in and understand Heavenly Father’s love for me.
A few years later, our family participated in sacrament meeting. My mother was a gifted musician. However, instead of providing a musical number herself, she gave my sisters and me the opportunity. I clearly remember the song she was inspired to have us sing:
I think when I read that sweet story of old,
When Jesus was here among men,
How He called little children like lambs to His fold;
I should like to have been with Him then.*
As my sisters and I sang the song, I felt warm and happy inside. My tender testimony was strengthened as the Holy Ghost helped me feel that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ loved me.
How grateful I am for the blessing of the Holy Ghost and the love of my parents and my Father in Heaven.

Near Christmastime I entered an art contest with students from my area. I drew a picture of an angel appearing to shepherds, telling them the joyous news of Christ’s birth. I was delighted to learn that I was one of the finalists and that my art would be displayed at a local museum, but sad when I learned that the awards ceremony was going to be on Sunday.
When my parents asked me what I thought I should do about the ceremony, I said that we shouldn’t go because it was on Sunday. My family and I had a great time visiting the museum on Saturday to see my picture, and my award was mailed to me the next week.
I am happy that I chose to keep the Sabbath day holy. My testimony grew that day because I knew I had chosen the right. I know that Heavenly Father blesses us when we keep His commandments.

When our daughter Erin was in junior high, a hugely popular movie swept the country. It went on to win several major awards, and everyone was talking about it - including my daughter’s friends. Of course, Erin wanted to see the movie and begged to be allowed. I was aware of some inappropriate content and didn’t think it was a good idea. While struggling with this issue, I felt inspired to leave the decision to her. This was NOT something I was used to as a parent. She was our oldest, and so far, things had gone pretty well with the parents making all of the decisions!
We sat down at the computer together and read several reviews which described what kind of violence, sexuality, nudity, and profanity the movie contained. At first, she was defensive because she thought I was simply trying to pile on facts in order to further my side of the argument, but then I told her it would be her decision. She was as shocked as she was elated.
A few days later, she came to me and said, “Dad, I wish you had just told me ‘yes’ or ‘no’ about the movie. Now that it is my decision, it’s a lot harder.”
To her credit, Erin eventually decided not to see the movie. We both learned valuable lessons from this experience. I learned just why agency is so important to our Heavenly Father’s plan. My daughter learned that once we take responsibility for our choices, everything is different. Once we realize that we are “agents that act and not objects to be acted upon,” the game changes.2 Taking responsibility for our choices is a monumental step in spiritual maturity.

Bruce eased his paddle into the lake water, slicing the dark substance noiselessly, watching the droplets drip from the end of his wooden blade, interrupting the rhythm of his strokes to observe the shimmering return of water to water. Wet diamonds, Bruce thought, as he watched the droplets recombine with the lake.
For the moment, they were the richest and loveliest jewels he could know.
It was late September, and the predusk air was just beginning to acquire the distinctive and leafy mustiness of early autumn. The Connecticut evenings were chilly already, yet Bruce sensed the first morning of frost was still weeks away. When he was younger, the coming of the frost mattered little to him, for September meant only one horrible and inescapable event: the removal of freedom. He was not conscious of beginnings then, as he was today; he was aware only of endings. He smiled as he pushed the paddle deep into the water again, for he could still feel the horrible cringe in his mind that haunted him during the last weeks of summer every year. How he hated to relinquish the freedom of his summer to the walls of a school.
And they had been extraordinary summers. After finishing his job at the pet shop or completing his gardening assignments at Geysmar’s estate, he would hop into his beat-up VW, pick up Bob at the gas station, and they’d rumble and downshift their way over the winding roads to the lake. A few cans of soda, some bug repellant and fishing tackle, and they were set at least until dark. Sometimes longer.
Again Bruce smiled, this time more to the familiar back that occupied the forward seat of his canoe than to the endless water. He had picked Bob up tonight at his gas station, both of them curious to try out the old fishing spots one more time before Bruce took off for Utah and then Germany. They had left the station at 4:30, and when they arrived at the lake, there still were a few hours of daylight left.
“You really think there’s fish left in this puddle?” Bob asked, as he and Bruce lifted the canoe off the roof of the Bug and carried it over their heads to the water’s edge. “Bet the acid rain has just about wiped this place out.”
“Sure there’s fish. How can you doubt it? You just have to find them.” But they had found none so far, Bruce had to acknowledge, though the reawakening of memories had been well worth the trip.
“Hey Bruce, can’t you remember those stars?” Bob said. The silent onset of dusk had begun to slip in over the lake. “Don’t you remember those nights?” He was silent for a moment, then continued. “It really isn’t that long ago—just two years since the last time we were up here, right? But man! Those stars. Sometimes when I work the pumps at night now, I remember those stars.”
How could anyone forget them, Bruce thought, checking his line for bass as Bob spoke. They had been trolling the lake for about a half hour now, but still no luck. Sometimes it was like that.
“Those stars, Bruce.” Bob laughed. “Man, I still can’t say what they make me feel.”
They stopped paddling, then floated freely, words stuck in the stuff of their memories. Suddenly it seemed to Bruce that he was 14 again, and he and Bob were lying on their backs on the seats of their old rowboat, their lines limp at the side of the boat.
“Hey Bruce, do you think there’s ever an end to those stars?” Bob had asked. And Bruce had felt it then, as surely as he knew it again this evening, that the stars stretched on forever.
“Can’t you imagine a wall out there, Bruce? Can’t you feel it? You know, all of a sudden you reach the end of the space, and then there’s this big giant wall. Bam! That’s it. The big end.” And they had laughed.
But Bruce had found that he had to stop laughing that night. The waters licked softly at the base of the boat; a peeper sounded from the shore. There was nothing but blackness in the middle of the lake, all that black and silent water. Bruce shook his head vigorously, shutting his eyes, sitting up so suddenly that he hurt the bones in his back on the seat of the boat.
“No way, Bobby,” Bruce said, still shaking his head. “I just can’t handle that. It’s like something cracks—snap!—in my head. You know what I mean? I just can’t handle a wall in space. I just can’t handle it ending. Things have got to go on. Don’t you think, Bobby?” But it was more feeling than thinking, he knew.
Nights like that had made it easier to believe the missionaries, Bruce realized, when they had come knocking on his parents’ door. Nights like that had helped his new faith to seem almost reasonable. If space was endless, then life was endless, and endless life demanded a God. And if there was a God, Bruce just couldn’t imagine any other church being truer than the one that the missionaries had taught to him. He’d felt it as sure as he felt the warmth of the sun. And so he’d done it. He’d slipped gently into the bright waters of baptism, knees bending, his white clothes clinging to him as he felt his body going down and then up, lifted from the wetness by some power much greater than skinny old Elder Larsen. He had felt himself rising from the waters, a new person.
Water. It was always water for him. Once, when he was ten, he had tried to walk on the lake water. Lying on his back on the dock near his parents’ old cabin on the lake, he had become curious with the possibilities of faith. He had heard the story countless times in his Methodist Sunday School of the Savior walking on the water, but now his wondering made him restless. If he had enough faith, would the substanceless substance become firm beneath him? He stepped confidently out, then fell clumsily into the water.
“You caught any fish back there?” Bob asked, snapping Bruce back into the present.
Bruce looked at his line; it hung lifelessly in the dark.
“Maybe it’s time to head back,” Bob suggested.
Bruce said nothing. It was hard to stop fishing. He was always filled with the wild hope of just one more minute, just one more moment of patience, and then the tiniest movement of the line would come. If you weren’t careful, you would miss that gentle sign of interest, and the hope would be gone.
“Another 15 minutes, Bob. Let’s wait till it’s real dark. Then we’ll go back.”
Bruce reeled in his line, then pulled the pole back and cast out with one final hope for success. Setting the rod in the bottom of the canoe, he turned in the seat to get more comfortable and bumped his pole in the process. It jerked precariously, the line getting caught under the bow of the canoe. Impulsively, Bruce reached his hand into the black and unknowable water, the dark liquid now fused with the dimming horizon that was tentatively lit by a few of the earliest stars. Bruce tugged at the trapped line with his hand, freeing it, and then, for some reason, felt reluctant to let it go. Unexpectedly, the line raced through his enclosing fingers, pulled taut with certain promise.
“Hey Bob!” Bruce called softly, carefully pulling his hand in from the water, unwilling to disturb the pulse of the line. “I think I’ve got something, my friend.”

My grandmother, Mary Kishiye Terazono, was born and raised in Kailua Kona.
She danced the hula professionally and sold encyclopedias door to door. My grandmother met missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when she was married with young children. She invited them in to feed them dinner, just to be kind. They began teaching her the Gospel and gave her a Book of Mormon. At the time, she was an active leader in a Buddhist congregation in her community. After she and her father read the Book of Mormon, they both joined the Church. She said when she heard about the doctrine of the premortal life, it rang true and was something she had always felt.

One Monday in Frankfurt, I got hung up at work and arrived at the church just after the carpool of our group of young single adults had driven away to a distant apartment across town.

For me, this was a disaster. Some of you will know that the streets of Frankfurt are designed like a spider web that has been through a fire. The streets wander through each other in random disorder, crossing rivers and tram tracks and back again. Someone seemed to go out at night to reverse one-way street signs so that even when you thought you knew where you were going, you could not go that way. I remembered that a couple of months earlier I had ridden through the dark to this same apartment, crammed in the crowded back seat of a car, but I remembered nothing of the route. I knew only that it was many miles of tangled streets away.

I drove home a sad, dejected soldier. I remember folding my arms, intent on grumbling a little, and saying, “Heavenly Father . . .” But before I could continue with “I am really trying here,” something of a map flashed in my head: a well-lit sequence of streets started at the church and traveled down Eckenheimer Landstraße, through a number of intersections, around a traffic circle, left, right, left, over a bridge, more turns, and onto a broad-bending street in front of an apartment building.

I was incredulous. There was not a chance I could drive to that place. But I returned to the church to make a faithless try and followed the route that had been impressed upon my mind. After driving perhaps twenty minutes (and making about forty uncertain decisions), I turned onto a broad street alongside an apartment building that filled the entire length of the long, bending city block. I was stunned to see that I was pulling up to what might be the right building.

Now I had a new problem. There were several narrow tunnels through the building into small parking areas behind that accessed stairwells to the four floors of apartments above.

“Impossible,” I thought. “I don’t know if any of those is the right drive-through, and besides, there are hundreds of apartments.” But it seemed to be a miracle that I had gotten this far, so I slowly drove past several drive-throughs and blindly turned into one.

Standing at the base of a dark, cold, four-story building, I thought, “Even if this is the correct stairwell in the correct building, they could be anywhere on any floor.” I started climbing the stairs, with little hope of a hint. Ultimately I stopped on the third floor. This way or that? That way. Was the door on the left or right side of the hall? I walked past eight or ten doors, my feeble faith vaporizing by the moment. I thought, “I may not even be in the right building. Does my faith require me to just start knocking on random doors?” I stopped to contemplate that question and heard singing: “The Spirit of God like a fire is burning!”

I opened the door, the most astonished twenty-three-year-old in the Church. Heavenly Father had sent a shaft of light that replaced my bewilderment with wonder. Later that night I couldn’t even find my way home without a guide.
What were the chances?

Eventually I returned to BYU, still confused about how it could have made sense for me to drop out of school for three long years. Subsequently, many reasons have become clear.

After returning to school, I started dating a girl I had met in Frankfurt, a girl from Tooele, Utah, whose father had taken a job in Germany—a girl so far beyond me in every way that I could never have gotten her attention at BYU in Utah if I had not known her first in Germany, where she was in a state of diminished capacity as a fellow stranger in a strange land. And so it came to pass that against all odds she agreed to marry me. What were those chances?

I have learned that the Lord sometimes withholds blessings from us to eventually deliver undeniably discernible miracles. I would serve one hundred army enlistments for that one stunning miracle that formed our family.

Now at BYU, I was serving in the bishopric of a singles ward and became friends with the ward finance clerk, who had just returned from a mission in France. He finished his finance degree at the same time I finished law school, and he invited me to help him build a company. Thirty-five years later, that company touches millions of people in fifty countries. I marvel that but for that burst of light in the temple years before, I would have come and gone from BYU and never met Blake Roney, who has enabled so many miracles in our lives.

The list of blessings flying from that still, small spark of inspiration goes on and on. None of these things are coincidences. They are consequences of a string of unpredictable heavenly interventions that have burst through the veil as flashes of light through what has at times felt like a drab, never-ending gray wall.

“Hey, wake up,” someone says, poking you.
Groggily, you look at the clock next to your bed. It’s 6:30 a.m.? What’s going on? Wait, that’s not your clock. And this isn’t your bed. Where are you?
“Hey,” the voice says, “you’re the one who wanted to follow us around. It’s time to get the day started.”
As you peer up at the missionary standing over your bed, you finally remember what’s going on. Church magazines offered you the opportunity to follow a missionary companionship around for a day, and you jumped at the chance to see what missionary life is really like.
You just didn’t realize it would start this early.
“Hi, I’m Elder Jesse Ward, from Utah,” the tall missionary says as you sit up. “Welcome to Spain. This is my companion, Elder Pierrick Triplet.”
Elder Triplet is from France, and he isn’t learning just Spanish but English too. Despite the challenge of having to learn two languages at once, Elder Triplet is grateful to be on a mission.
“I’m a convert,” he says. “I’ve had a great change in my life, and I’d like others to have it too. A mission can be hard work, but seeing someone change his or her life is worth it.”
They’ve got your attention. You’ve always heard that a mission can be the best two years of your life. Today you get a chance to find out why.
6:41 a.m. After taking time to pray, the missionaries spend some time working out. Push-ups, sit-ups, even a little light weight lifting are the usual for Elder Ward. Breakfast follows a shower and shave. Cold cereal is a favorite.
8:07 a.m. Missionaries spend a good deal of time studying individually and as a companionship so they can obtain the word before declaring it (see D&C 11:21). After language study and personal scripture study, it’s time for companionship study using Preach My Gospel.
9:55 a.m. Missionaries dedicate a lot of time to planning, at the beginning of the day, throughout the day, and at the end of the day. They talk not just about what they’re going to do but about what each investigator needs.
Today the elders are talking about a man from France, an investigator they’re going to invite to be baptized.
“He’s worried,” Elder Triplet says. “He doesn’t feel worthy.”
“Let’s talk about repentance and how God remembers sins no more,” Elder Ward suggests after the companions think it over. “Why don’t you teach it in French to make sure he understands?”
The last thing the elders do before leaving is pray—again. This is one of many prayers they’ll offer today. Missionary work requires a lot of heavenly help. Then it’s out the door and off to the bus stop in a hurry.
11:09 a.m. Missionaries talk to anyone anywhere anytime about the gospel, because they never know who is going to be interested. While waiting for the bus, the missionaries chat with a young man and give him a pamphlet with their phone number on it.
11:21 a.m. A 10-minute bus ride and a short walk later, the missionaries arrive at a rented meetinghouse at the same time as their investigator. The meeting begins well, but the investigator’s concerns push the 45-minute lesson they had planned on to more than an hour.
“That was the most frustrating lesson I’ve ever been in,” Elder Triplet says afterward. “He likes the Church. He thinks it’s true. He wants to pay tithing. But he doesn’t believe he needs to be baptized again. He was a little argumentative.”
“He’s a great guy,” Elder Ward says, shaking his head. “Maybe he’ll be ready to talk about baptism next time.”
2:06 p.m. The missionaries jump on another bus, this time to El Casco, the historic quarter of Toledo, Spain. They stop by an investigator’s business to invite him to an activity that night.
“You can get lost in here really quick if you aren’t paying attention,” Elder Ward says of the maze of narrow streets lined with buildings that seem to lean over those walking below.
2:24 p.m. While navigating the tight streets, the missionaries stop to offer help to a woman carrying a heavy load. They spend a moment explaining who they are and what they do, but the woman isn’t interested.
2:47 p.m. It’s siesta time in Spain, so the missionaries catch a bus back to their apartment, or piso, for lunch. “Everything shuts down between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.,” Elder Ward explains. “Some people get mad if you knock on their doors.”
“This is chorizo, or sausage,” Elder Triplet says poking at lunch. “It’s typical food. We eat a lot of noodles and chorizo because it’s cheap and easy to make.”
“The mission is great preparation for marriage,” Elder Ward laughs as he mixes his Kool-Aid. “You have to learn to get along, cook, clean, do laundry, budget, and take care of yourself.”
4:24 p.m. Back in El Casco, the missionaries meet with a counselor in the mission presidency about current activation efforts.
“This is a great area,” says Elder Ward, who explains that Church attendance has gone from about 15 to 80 members each week because one family set the example of fellowshipping.
4:59 p.m. The elders end up with a little unexpected free time on their hands, but missionaries are used to doing some planning on the fly. Their backup plan was to do some tracting.
5:42 p.m. In El Casco, where so many people live above street level, knocking on doors often means carrying on conversations with people on their balconies. And even in historic tourist towns, a missionary has to look out for dogs.
The elders have some success: “We found some great people,” Elder Ward says. “There were some youth from Paraguay. They invited us back tomorrow.” And some failure: “We had a half-hour conversation with one man,” Elder Triplet says. “It was like talking to a wall.”
7:45 p.m. Two buses later the elders make it to the activity they had planned with the sister missionaries who work in the same city, Sister Kathleen Bonifay and Sister Brittany Hofman.
The people they were expecting to come didn’t. “That’s the way it goes sometimes,” Elder Ward says. But after a little footwork, the missionaries are able to gather a handful of other investigators living nearby. After a hymn and a video, you can feel the influence of the Holy Ghost as the missionaries bear testimony of the Book of Mormon as another witness of Jesus Christ. The activity is a success.
“The Lord takes care of you when you put forth your best planning and best effort,” says Sister Bonifay.
9:13 p.m. After a hike to the bus stop, the elders and sisters have made it back to their respective apartments, where they’ll call their leaders, review the day and their long-range plans, and make plans for the next day.
“Well, this is what we do,” Elder Ward tells you. “It doesn’t change much.”
Elder Triplet laughs. “We are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”
Things didn’t go exactly as the elders had planned, but the day went well anyway. They made some good contacts, pulled off a powerful activity, bore testimony of Christ, and did their best to follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
“I’ve heard people say these are the best two years of their lives,” Elder Triplet says. “The two years are great, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the best 730 days of my life. There are some days I thought would never end. But I have loved being a missionary.”
Elder Ward agrees. He has mixed emotions about leaving. “I always thought I’d be excited to go home,” he says. “But I see life differently now. I love my life. I’m a missionary. I’m speaking to people about Christ every day. Leaving will be bittersweet.”
You’ve enjoyed getting a taste of missionary work as well. As exciting as it is, missionary work can be exhausting. Now it’s time to get some rest and prepare yourself for your day as a missionary. It has a way of coming faster than you think.
Preach My Gospel is a part of every missionary’s day. You can get a copy at a distribution center or at www.ldscatalog.com.

It was really late, and my sister was asleep, but I was still up reading. I held my book and flashlight under the covers. If Mom or Dad came to see if I was still awake, I could switch off my flashlight, close my eyes, and they’d never know I wasn’t really asleep.
I just couldn’t put my book down yet. It was full of scary stories, and I had to know what happened next.
Scritch, scritch. I jumped. What was that sound? It was coming from my window. It sounded just like in the story I was reading, where a girl was hiding from a ghost in her house.
I shivered as the sound came again. Scritch, scritch, meow. I slowly let out my breath. It was just our cat scratching the window. Maybe it was time to put the book down and go to sleep.
I stuck my bookmark between the pages and hid the book under my pillow. Then I switched off the flashlight. Now it was totally dark. The bed creaked as I rolled over. What was that shadow in the corner? Had that been there before?
I pulled the covers up over my head and tried to fall asleep. But I couldn’t stop thinking about the girl in the story. What would I do if a ghost was in my house?!
Ghosts aren’t real, I told myself. It’s just a story. I kept telling myself that, and finally I fell asleep.
The next day was a book sale at school. I’d been saving up my chore money for weeks. When it was my class’s turn, I went straight to the scary stories.
At the bottom of the stack was a book with an old picture of a creepy house. “I bet it’s haunted,” I told my friend Julia. I tucked it under my arm and found two other books to try.
That night I started my new books. I read straight through the first one. You had to read scary stories fast. If you thought about something scary for too long, it just made you more scared.
But the next day, as I started reading the book with the haunted house, I did stop to think. I’d been reading scary stories for days. I’d hardly set the books down. I’d hardly even left my room. And my brain was full of lots of scary things. I thought about ghosts and people getting lost in the woods and monsters that tricked and ate you. All that stuff made me scared—even while sitting in my safe room with the sun shining through the window.
I set my book down and took a deep breath. These books didn’t make me happy. They didn’t make me feel good. I was sad about lots of things, and these books just made me feel worse.
I closed my eyes and leaned against my bed. Dear Heavenly Father, I prayed, I don’t think these scary books are very good for me. Please help me know what to do and to be strong enough to do it.
When I opened my eyes, I looked down at my new books. “I don’t need these,” I said. It was time to find something that made me feel happy, not scared and sad.
Turn to page 20 to find some great books to read!
I picked up the books and pulled the rest of my scary stories off my shelf. It was a lot of books. But I carried them all to our recycling bin. I felt much lighter as I dumped them in.
And when I walked away, I didn’t look back.

Heavenly Father has answered my prayers many times since then. When one of my own sons was about 10, Heavenly Father saved our lives. I had my pilot’s license and was flying some friends from St. George, Utah, to Grand Junction, Colorado, so they could visit their family. I invited my son Michael to come along for the ride.

To get to Grand Junction, we needed to fly over some very high mountains. We were flying 15,500 feet in the air in a twin-engine plane. We were a little more than halfway there when the propeller of my left engine started racing out of control, so I had to shut it down and boost maximum power to the other engine. But even after that we started losing altitude, heading downward at about 200 feet per minute, and we still had one last mountain range to fly over.

As we got closer, I could see that the plane was sinking below the top of the mountain, and that we weren’t going to make it over. In my heart I was praying that Heavenly Father would guide me through this. I started to look around for a place to make an emergency landing, but there was nowhere to land the plane safely.

Right then, words came into my mind that told me to start the damaged engine. At first I ignored them, because I was afraid that if I turned the engine on, it would race out of control again and maybe even blow apart. But the words kept coming back to me: “Start the engine!” I then realized that if I turned the engine on just a tiny bit, the wind would be able to easily pass through the propeller and not drag the plane down as much. The minute I turned on the engine, the plane started to climb. We cleared that last mountain pass with less than 50 feet between us and the treetops. We finally landed safely at the airport. That taught me a real lesson in life—to pay attention to what Heavenly Father is trying to tell you through the promptings of the Spirit.

This was not your typical Sunday morning. On this particular February Sunday, members were encouraged to gather after sacrament meeting, and some leaders even ended services early, sending volunteers to help their neighbors.
Over 150 youth and adults from the La Crescenta California Stake gathered with shovels, wheelbarrows, and their bright yellow Mormon Helping Hands vests to help move mud. Torrential rains, combined with mountains of earth exposed because of burned-off vegetation, had sent rivers of mud down residential neighborhoods in their area. Homes had three to four feet of mud surrounding them and several feet of mud inside as well.
Volunteers cleared pathways though the mud so that homeowners could get to their belongings and salvage what had not been destroyed. Katie Callister, a Mia Maid in the La Canada Second Ward, said, “I really wanted to help shovel the mud out of the damaged homes, but when I got there I saw the terrible destruction. Seeing the residents’ faces turn from devastation to gratitude was such an amazing experience. It made me feel so happy to know that I was helping someone so much and at the same time serving the Lord.”
Tons of mud, rock, debris, and people’s belongings were moved that day by the youth and adults wearing those yellow vests. Many residents commented that they were touched that teenagers would give up their Sunday afternoon to help strangers.

One of four regional winners in last year’s national “Sew-Biz” sewing contest was a Laurel from the Orem 55th Ward, Orem Utah South Stake. Jo-Anne Erickson was chosen as Orem High School’s winner and as one of 60 district winners before being named a top participant oh the national level. Jo-Anne made a three-piece skirt-blouse-vest ensemble to fulfill the requirements of constructing an outfit from a “Quick Butterick” pattern in fabric containing at least 50 percent Kodel. The contest was sponsored by Butterick Patterns, Eastman Chemical Products, and Seventeen magazine.
As a national winner, Jo-Anne received a Kodak camera, a silver bowl, and a four-day, all-expense paid trip to New York City for herself and her home economics teacher. The other regional national winners were from Arkansas, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. While in New York the winners visited the World Trade Center, the Rockefeller Center, and Fifth Avenue; toured Eastman Fibers, Seventeen magazine, and Butterick Patterns; went on a boat tour around Manhattan Bay; and attended a Broadway show. Jo-Anne is currently attending Ricks College where her major is interior design.

I think of dear Sister Amy Gent, whom I was privileged to visit for several years as branch president, home teacher, and friend. The first time I visited her, she was 87 years of age. Widowed twice, she was the only member of the Church in her extended family. Was she lonely? Never!

She read the scriptures every day. Once she asked me to bring her some missionary tracts, which I thought were to vary her reading. I gave them to her saying, “You will enjoy reading these, Sister Gent.”

“Oh, they are not for me,” she replied. “I visit an old lady, and I want to share the gospel with her!”

Reaching out, helping, serving, this is the way we overcome the fear of loneliness.

Sister Tingey and I were married and our first child was born while I was in law school. Our first apartment, a basement apartment, was a huge step down from our prior experience of living in our parents’ homes. The ceiling of each doorway included heating pipes, and the height of the pipes was the middle of my forehead. I cannot number how many times I hit my head going from room to room. Sister Tingey remembers the “hideous wallpaper,” as she called it, displaying large red roosters. We had no laundry facilities and used a commercial Laundromat for 18 months.

Our second apartment, while I served in the military, was a duplex that shared one bathroom located between the two apartments. The bathroom had two doors, one to each apartment. You may well surmise what my wife thought of that arrangement. We slept on a fold-up bed that was easy to move around but extremely uncomfortable. Our first kitchen table was a card table with folding legs. On many occasions during the year we used that table, I inadvertently knocked one of the legs, and the entire table and contents came crashing to the floor.

For several years when we had four children under the age of nine, we lived in an apartment with only two bedrooms. Were we crowded? Absolutely! Yet, today, some of the sweetest memories of our family come from that period.

As you can see, we had few of life’s necessities and no luxuries in our first living arrangements. Looking back on it, we realize it didn’t matter. We were in love, we wanted to start a family, and we simply trusted in the Lord and had faith that all would work out.

Today, 48 years later, we have a lovely home with all, and probably more, of the necessities and conveniences that we need. But when we started out, we had so little. We are happier today because our love has grown through the sometimes difficult life circumstances we have shared and not because we have acquired more worldly possessions.