Gospel Story Finder

On February 15, the burden of this covenant weighed heavily on Brigham as he crossed the Mississippi. That afternoon, he pushed and pulled wagons up a snowy, muddy hill four miles west of the river. When only a few hours of daylight remained before evening would darken the way ahead, Brigham remained determined not to rest until every Latter-day Saint wagon west of the river arrived safely at Sugar Creek.30
By now, the plan to send a small advance company ahead to the mountains that year was already delayed. Brigham and other Church leaders had left the city later than planned, and some Saints—ignoring counsel to stay in Nauvoo—had crossed the river and camped with the advance company at Sugar Creek. After fleeing the city so quickly, many families on the trail were disorganized, ill-equipped, and underprepared.
Brigham did not yet know what to do. These Saints would surely slow the others down. But he would not send these Saints back to the city now that they had already left. In his mind, Nauvoo had become a prison, no place for the people of God. The road west was freedom.
He and the Twelve would simply have to press forward, trusting that the Lord would help them find a solution.31

Several years ago, an atheist parent of a child in our school district was demanding that the words “under God” be removed from the students’ daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance. He was also demanding a “God-free” classroom for his daughter where there would be no mention of God or any religion. I went to the school board meeting where the issue would be discussed.
One of the speakers was a 12-year-old Latter-day Saint young man. He told the school board members his name and said, “Please don’t do this. I have one friend who is Jewish, one who is Muslim, one who is Catholic, one who is Buddhist, and me—I’m a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Some of us stand for the pledge, and some don’t. Some say, ‘under God,’ and some don’t. It’s OK. We’re all different. We all get along. Please vote this down.”
The entire room erupted into a standing ovation, and the school board voted it down—quoting a courageous 12-year-old young man.
He spoke truth. And everyone heard it clearly. In a vote that could have failed, one 12-year-old young man made the difference.

Let me share with you the true account of one sister, Ellen Yates from Grantsville, Utah. Early in October, 10 years ago, she kissed her husband, Leon, good-bye as he left to go to work in Salt Lake City. This would be the last time she would see Leon alive. He had a collision with a young man 20 years of age who was late for his first job and had tried to pass a slower vehicle, resulting in a head-on collision that killed them both instantly. Sister Yates said that after two compassionate highway patrolmen told her the news, she plunged into shock and grief.
She records, “As I tried to look ahead in life, all I could see was darkness and pain.” It turned out that her husband’s best friend was the bishop of the young man’s ward. The bishop called Sister Yates and told her that the young man’s mother, Jolayne Willmore, wanted to talk with her. She remembers “being shocked because I was so centered on my grief and pain that I had not even thought about the young man and his family. I suddenly realized that here was a mother who was in as much or more pain than I was. I quickly gave my permission … for a visit.”
When Brother and Sister Willmore arrived, they expressed their great sorrow that their son was responsible for Leon’s death and presented her with a picture of the Savior holding a little girl in His arms. Sister Yates says, “When times become too hard to bear, I look at this picture and remember that Christ knows me personally. He knows my loneliness and my trials.” One scripture that comforts Sister Yates is “Wherefore, be of good cheer, and do not fear, for I the Lord am with you, and will stand by you.”
Each October, Sister Yates and Sister Willmore (both of whom are here together in the Conference Center today) go to the temple together and offer thanks for the Atonement of Jesus Christ, for the plan of salvation, for eternal families, and for the covenants that bind together husbands and wives and families on both sides of the veil. Sister Yates concludes, “Through this trial, I have felt the love of my Father in Heaven and my Savior in greater abundance than I had ever felt before.” She testifies that “there is no grief, no pain, no sickness so great that the Atonement of Christ and the love of Christ cannot heal.” What a wonderful example of love and forgiveness these two sisters have demonstrated. It has allowed the Atonement of Jesus Christ to be efficacious in their lives.

At a hotel restaurant in Quito, Ecuador, Elder Spencer W. Kimball of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles was sitting with a group that included four missionaries. After ordering bread and milk, Elder Kimball asked the waiter if he had children. The waiter replied that he had a son. Elder Kimball then said, “Bread and milk will make him healthy, but he will be even healthier if you will feed him the food these young men have to give.” The waiter appeared unsure what to make of this statement. Then Elder Kimball indicated that the young men he referred to were missionaries and that they taught the gospel of Jesus Christ. The waiter said he would be interested in listening to their teaching.20

Elder H. Burke Peterson, then of the Presiding Bishopric, related the experience of a group of teenagers who were picnicking in the desert outside Phoenix, Arizona. One of the girls was bitten by a rattlesnake. Instead of immediately seeking medical attention, the group pursued the snake and sought revenge by killing it with rocks. Unfortunately, during the precious minutes that the group wasted in exacting revenge, the poison had time to move from the surface of the girl’s skin into the tissues of her foot and leg; her leg later had to be amputated below the knee.
“It was a senseless sacrifice, this price of revenge. … The poison of revenge, or of unforgiving thoughts or attitudes, unless removed, will destroy the soul in which it is harbored,” said Bishop Peterson.

I never cared for household dusting. But one day, this simple act was the reason I was able to take my family to the temple.
I joined the Church in 1970. My family was involved in Primary, Relief Society, and youth programmes. I noticed that our branch president kept mentioning the word ‘genealogy’ every Sunday. I kept turning a blind eye; I was too busy; I would do it later.
One Sunday, we had a visiting speaker who challenged us to think about where we could begin finding information about our ancestors. I then remembered seeing my name and birth date in my great-aunt Lizzie’s birthday book when I was a child. I wondered where the book might now be, as she had died many years ago. Jessie (my mother’s cousin) might know because she knew Lizzie. But what was her address? I’d had no contact with her since I was a child.
The next morning, I was dusting. I can’t imagine why, as dusting was hardly a favourite pastime of mine. I picked up a beautiful wooden bowl that my husband had made for me before we married. Underneath, there was a piece of paper with Jessie’s address on it. I was stunned. Where did it come from? I didn’t question it; I sat down and wrote to Jessie there and then. Jessie wrote back that “no one else has asked for it, Edith, so it’s yours.” Within the week I had that book in my hands. It is now my treasured possession. It gave me a flying start to my research into my mother’s side of the family!
I’m still not much of a duster, but I’m ever so grateful for that prompting so long ago.

Pray. Before the Young Women’s conference, Allison Buytendorp, 17, of the Roswell Georgia Stake, didn’t want to go. But her mother suggested she pray about it before she made up her mind. Allison prayed and felt she should go. Now she knows why. “I loved it. I felt spiritually renewed afterwards, and it made me want to go to seminary. Now I want to learn more about the scriptures. I know I was where I was supposed to be because I prayed. It just feels good to know Heavenly Father is always there for you to help you out.”

A lovely lady of more than 90 years visited with me one day and unexpectedly recounted several regrets. She mentioned that many years earlier a neighboring farmer, with whom she and her husband had occasionally disagreed, asked if he could take a shortcut across her property to reach his own acreage. She paused in her narrative and, with a tremor in her voice, said, “Tommy, I didn’t let him cross our property but required him to take the long way around—even on foot—to reach his property. I was wrong and I regret it. He’s gone now, but oh, I wish I could say to him, ‘I’m so sorry.’ How I wish I had a second chance.”

I grew up in a large family, and I always believed that motherhood would be my greatest contribution to building the Lord’s kingdom. However, my husband and I recently learned that our chances of adding children to our family in this life are small. Our infertility journey has been excruciatingly painful, but the uncertainty of treatments and the emotional load of making difficult decisions have been especially soul crushing. At times I have wondered, What will my influence and role be if I can’t be a mother in the way I had planned?
During this journey, I’ve been grateful for other faithful women in my life whose experiences have also turned out differently than they had planned. And through their examples, Heavenly Father’s message to me has been this: “Don’t wait. Don’t second-guess if you could or should have done more or chosen differently. Be where you are now. Take opportunities to love and serve those around you.”

When the one-year anniversary of Joe’s baptism was approaching, he started asking about going to the temple. Again, my reaction was, “Whoa! Slow down! I’m not ready for that.”
So my patient husband waited. Every now and then, he would slip something into the conversation like, “Honey, I read a great article about the temple. Do you want to read it?” or “Hey, babe, I saw a wonderful video about the temple. Do you want to watch it with me?” His enthusiasm was endearing, but it wasn’t getting me any closer to being ready to go to the temple. Finally, one day he asked me directly what made me feel unprepared.
“You know I had some issues with the Church growing up,” I said. “But I loved going to the temple. Baptism trips were my favorite. I loved the way I felt in the temple, so calm and peaceful. But I don’t know about the rest of the temple. What if someone says or does something that bothers me? What if that ruins going to the temple for me? What would be the point of being a member of the Church if you can’t go to the temple? So I don’t want to go until I’m sure nothing will shake me.”
I found solutions to most of my issues, but I was still struggling with one: how could I be part of a church I didn’t always agree with? This led me to the final step of learning from my journal. I realized I needed to try to understand why other people believe what they believe and say what they say. I needed to know why God had directed the Church to be the way it is today.
I found my answer through my husband. When he first started reading the Book of Mormon, a line from the title page stood out to him: “And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God.” Joe had quoted this over and over, but now it meant something more to me.
I realized that the Church exists in an imperfect world populated by imperfect people. And that includes me. We all have times when we get things wrong before we get them right. I realized I needed to stop judging others, just as I wouldn’t want them to judge me. We are all on a path of learning and growth.
I also realized that the Church is the Lord’s. It is in His hands. Yes, He works through imperfect people, but He directs His work. He knows what is needed, and when.
After this, I felt ready to go to the temple. I was pleased to find that it felt just as good on that day as it had years before when I had done baptisms. On our third wedding anniversary, my husband and I went to the temple again to be sealed together and have our son sealed to us. It was so sweet and such a happy day. I kept thinking that this was what all families are meant to be—eternal. And I had yet another realization: though there might be policies or doctrines that might take me time to sort out, there are also rare and beautiful truths in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. One is that each of us can actually talk to Heavenly Father and receive answers. Another is that through living prophets, He gives guidance for our day.

My parents supported 13 of us siblings on missions and at one time there were three serving at the same time. It was through the examples of my siblings that I desired to serve a mission. I was fortunate and blessed to serve a mission right after I graduated from High School at the age 17. I have to admit that I did not want to serve a mission in Samoa because I did not speak the language.

My mother raised us speaking English because of her father, papa Malaki's, encouragement. That we could learn Samoan anytime. Long story short, I would meet with my bishop at the time, Bishop Beaver Ho Ching, who happened to be my cousin, a few months before graduating from High School to work on my mission papers.

Each Sunday we met he would encourage me to go to College at BYU–Hawaii and find a good husband to raise a family, he said I was too young to go on a mission. I finally asked him to please send my papers in, I would accept the Prophet telling me not to go but not him. He had enough of me and agreed to move my papers forward.

Then I met with the Stake President, President Eugene Reid, who happened to be married to a cousin of mine, and he kind of said the same thing as my Bishop. He knew I was determined to go so he asked where I would like to serve, I joyfully said, New Zealand, at least I can speak English there.

He then said, “Let’s just put Samoa and New Zealand as your second choice. You’d be lucky if you can go at all.”
I reluctantly agreed.

Two weeks later, I got my call, guess where to?
That’s right, Apia Samoa Mission.

I wasn’t too happy at the time but I can honestly say I had the best experience and of course it was the best mission. I am grateful to have served in Samoa because I learned the language, by reading the scriptures in Samoan and English, I came to appreciate the culture and people more and my testimony of Joseph Smith and the Savior grew. It wasn’t easy, but it has been a great blessing in my life.

I had been on my mission for 13 months when I received a phone call from my mission president informing me of the death of my dear sister Solange. This news broke my heart, and I shed tears of sadness as I remembered the beautiful moments we had spent together throughout her life of nearly 20 years. My pain over losing her was very deep.
As we approached the weekend, I realized that we were coming up on general conference. And in spite of my sorrow and pain, my companion and I went to watch the conference broadcast at the chapel.
Who would have known, but in his talk entitled “Confide in God Unwaveringly,” Elder Ulisses Soares recounted an experience that exactly described my situation. He said, “Years ago while serving as a mission president, I received a phone call from the parents of one of our beloved missionaries informing me of the death of his sister. I remember, in the tenderness of that moment, that missionary and I discussed God’s marvelous plan of salvation for His children and how this knowledge would comfort him.
“Although he was stunned and saddened by that adversity, this missionary—through his tears and with faith in God—rejoiced in his sister’s life. He expressed unwavering confidence in the tender mercies of the Lord. Resolutely, he told me that he would continue to serve his mission with all faith and diligence in order to be worthy of the promises that God had for him and his family. In this time of need, that faithful missionary turned his heart to God, placed all of his trust in Him, and renewed his commitment to serve the Lord with faith and with all diligence” (Liahona, May 2017, 35).
Dear brothers and sisters, I felt that every word, every sentence of this talk was addressed directly to me—and what a source of comfort! I testify that God speaks to us every six months through the mouths of His servants in general conference.

On one occasion when we were permitted to take John to church even though he was still on oxygen, a mother approached us with her eight-year-old son. She quietly, almost reverently, asked if her son could see the baby. She explained that her son had caught the vision of serving and loving others by fasting and praying. He wanted to see how his faith and prayers had been answered. He looked at the baby and wept. He told his mother he was glad he could fast and pray. “After all,” he said, “look what Heavenly Father did.”

A number of years ago, when I first came to this campus, I was called to be a bishop of a student ward. One day a young man walked into my office—a young man I had never seen or met before. He was obviously distraught. He paced back and forth in front of my desk, finally stopped, then looked at me and asked, “Are you Bishop Daines?”

I said, “Yes, I am.”

He then said, “I want you to excommunicate me.”

I said, “Well, we’d better talk.”

So he closed the door, and for the next two hours I heard the story of the most disturbed, distorted life I had ever heard of before or since. For the first and only time in my life, I felt as I visited with this young man that if I had ever met somebody who was a lost soul, this was one of them. One of his transgressions was that of homosexuality. He was a student at the university, and at the time the recommended procedure was to visit with either Elder Mark E. Petersen or Elder Spencer W. Kimball of the Council of the Twelve. We were assigned to visit with Elder Kimball. What a profoundly instructive experience that was for me.

As we talked with Elder Kimball, he heard the same story I had heard. His response, however, was different. He looked at that young man and asked him three questions.

Calling him by name, he first asked, “Would you like to be forgiven of all of your sins and transgressions?”

The young man said yes.

The second question was, “Would you like all of the blessings the Lord has in store for you?”

The young man said yes, he would.

The third question was, “Would you like to be married in the temple for time and all eternity and have a family and raise them up unto the Lord?”

The young man broke down and said, “I would.”

Then Elder Kimball gave this simple but profound advice. He said, “Then let me tell you how to do it. You get up in the morning, you fall to your knees, and you ask God for strength to live clean for one day. Then when you go to bed at night, you fall to your knees and express gratitude for the strength to have been clean for that one day. You get up on the second day and you do the same thing. You fall to your knees and you ask for strength. You go to bed at night and you express gratitude. And two days will become a week, and a week will become a month, and a month will become six months, and six months will become a year. However long it takes, you can be forgiven.”

The interesting sequel is that for the next three months Elder Kimball called this young bishop in Provo to ask how his friend was doing. He cared enough that he made those phone calls.

6. Avoid conveying the impression that you are applying for a certain job, program, or fellowship simply as a hedge. No one wants a halfhearted appointee who clearly feels that he is in a second- or third-choice deal. Apply for opportunities that truly interest you, and tell your recommenders as many things as you can that will be considered plus values. My heart sank a few times when, during an interview for admitting a student into teacher training, he or she would make a remark like this: “What I really want to go into is marine biology [or fashion design, or professional baseball], but if that doesn’t work out, I’d like a teaching credential to fall back on.”
But I must also tell you about one rare graduate-to-be who went job hunting, portfolio in hand, hoping to get on with a radio station. He saw KLM on a plate glass front in San Francisco, went in, asked for and received an interview. Fortunately, his personality and his qualifications were strong enough to get him hired—not by station KLM, as he’d figured, but by KLM Dutch Airlines, beginning a long and rewarding career in sales promotion and public relations.

This story took place in Tonga in 1981.
Silioti walked home from school past trees of yellow papayas and rosy ripe mangoes. When she saw the fruit, she remembered how hungry she was. She also remembered that today was a special day. Today everyone in her stake in Tonga was fasting for the prophet, President Spencer W. Kimball. The prophet was sick and needed an operation. Tonight everyone in the stake would meet to pray and end their fast together.
When Silioti reached her house, she smelled food cooking in the ‘umu, the pit oven. Her stomach grumbled. Silioti was glad she was old enough to fast now, but fasting on a school day was so much harder than fasting on a Sunday.
Silioti tried to forget how hungry she was. She found firewood and cleaned up the leaves that had fallen from the tall breadfruit trees that shaded her yard.
Heavenly Father will understand if I take a tiny sip of water, Silioti thought as she washed her hands after chores. Then she thought of how much she loved President Kimball. She wanted him to be well again. She decided she would wait.
Silioti sat down on the porch and laid her head in her mother’s lap. She was so tired.
“You can end your fast if you need to,” Mother said.
“But I want to fast,” said Silioti. “I can do it.”
When Father came home from work, everyone in the family helped uncover the ‘umu. They took out the pork wrapped in leaves, the fish, and the breadfruit baked in coconut milk. Then they wrapped the food in cloth and carried it out to the road to wait for the bus.
They met other families on the road, all with their own bundles of food. They all smiled and talked as they climbed on the bus together. Silioti found a little space next to Mother. She smelled the good food as the bus bumped along.
It was dark when the bus reached the chapel. Inside, Silioti knelt with her parents, her brothers and sisters, and hundreds of other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
During the prayer, Silioti prayed in her heart, Please let President Kimball get well again. She knew every person in the room was praying for the same thing. A calm feeling inside told her that President Kimball would be OK.
When she opened her eyes, she saw tears on the faces of the people around her. All of these people had fasted, and she had fasted with them. It had been hard, but she had done it!
President Kimball survived his operation and served as the prophet for four more years.

A few days later, the Whitmers joined the Smith family at their farm in Manchester. Knowing the Lord had promised to establish His words “in the mouth of as many witnesses as seemeth him good,” Joseph went into the woods with his father, Hyrum, and Samuel, as well as four of David Whitmer’s brothers—Christian, Jacob, Peter Jr., and John—and their brother-in-law Hiram Page.34
The eight men gathered at a spot where the Smith family often went to pray privately. With the Lord’s permission, Joseph uncovered the plates and showed them to the group. They did not see an angel as the Three Witnesses had, but Joseph let them hold the record in their hands, turn its pages, and inspect its ancient writing. Handling the plates affirmed their faith that Joseph’s testimony about the angel and the ancient record was true.35
Now that the translation was over and he had witnesses to support his miraculous testimony, Joseph no longer needed the plates. After the men left the woods and went back to the house, the angel appeared and Joseph returned the sacred record to his care.36

For her master’s thesis, she organized and wrote a curriculum guide to teach outdoor skills. This became the basis for her national best-selling book, Roughing It Easy. But getting the book published was also an exercise in perseverance. She approached BYU Press to take on the job, but they turned it down. She kept working with an editor until the press reconsidered the project and agreed to publish the book. To promote the sale of her book, she started a series of lectures combined with local television, newspaper, and radio interviews. She prepared herself to go after opportunities. She made proposals to companies about how she could help them with product promotion. She became a favorite of the television talk show circuit not only because of what she talked about but by the force of her personality. Now she is a popular lecturer crisscrossing the nation regularly, talking to businessmen in Alaska one week and a group of teachers in Pennsylvania the next. She attributes her success to preparation. “I would watch for opportunities and be prepared. Sometimes I’ll think and work on a proposal for months before approaching a company.”

Before my thirtieth year I was called to be the bishop of an 850-member ward in Honolulu, Hawaii. Two weeks prior, I had cofounded a company that had just hired and was responsible for many new employees. At the time, Diane and I had three active children, ages one to seven. The daunting responsibilities to properly care for my young family and the Saints entrusted to my stewardship, all in the midst of creating a viable business, seemed impossible. Would I know how to allocate my time when any one of these three important and complex aspects of life could become all-consuming? Was it possible to achieve a balance?

The answer I found as a young bishop, and which has served me in the ensuing years, was simply that we must thoroughly understand the guiding doctrine and then do our best each day. We organize, prioritize, and live worthy of the spiritual guidance required when ­making difficult decisions. Often we seek counsel from those closest to us. From time to time we may be out of balance for a brief period as the immediate needs of one portion of our life take temporary precedence. When this occurs, we knowingly work through the issue and seek to stabilize ourselves as soon as possible, before the short-term need becomes a long-term trait.

When I was in Africa serving as a mission president, one day I received a call from Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. He asked if I would speak to a woman by the name of Helen Whitney. He told me she was doing a special PBS television special on the Church. He said he wanted me to speak to her because she needed to know why I would leave a powerful and influential position in the business world and go serve a mission for the Church. He said not to worry about what I said, just do the best I could, be honest and open-and then he said, probably sensing a little trepidation from me: "Again don't worry. I've already said everything that could be said. I spent five hours in interviews with her and I will probably be a made a Methodist preacher after this."

Soon thereafter Helen Whitney called me on the telephone in Ghana. We had about an hour and a half telephone conversation. Sometime during that call she asked what she really wanted to know. She inquired, "Have you ever had any regrets about leaving behind everything and going to Africa?" I honestly answered and said, "Yes, there was one time." I knew immediately I had put my foot in my mouth. In my mind flashed the thought--national television-- "Mission president regrets having been called." Over the course of time, I had a couple of lengthy calls with Helen and ultimately her film crew came to Ghana to tape an interview. During that taped interview I was asked again if I had ever regretted putting aside my position and coming to Ghana for the Church. I told them that one day I had traveled to Sierra Leone for an assignment. To get there I had to travel on a local airline, which had been rated, I believe, the least safe in the world. After the flight you then had to take a short helicopter flight. This helicopter service also was a little problematic. One of their aircraft had once dropped out of the air, killing all on board. After finally arriving in Freetown, my assignment required that I next drive for four hours on what was then some of the very worse roads in this world. These roads were not only dirt roads but also they were heavily populated by some of the deepest and largest potholes you could ever imagine.

As we were driving on that dirt road I received a telephone call on my cell phone. At first I was startled because I couldn't imagine how in the middle of the African bush I got reception. Nevertheless, it rang. On the phone was one of my former business partners. He was in London. He was calling to tell me they had just closed a new $10 billion investment fund. I was taken aback by the size of the deal. I immediately congratulated my partner on his success. But as I was saying those words, I was also calculating in cold hard dollars how much I had just given up. In the partnership that I had left to come on my mission there was no shareholder larger than myself. I knew exactly what my percentage ownership would have been in this investment fund and in seconds I had flash into my mind exactly what I left behind. It was and is a staggering amount of money. I was caught totally off guard and all the wrong thoughts began to race through my mind like, "Why did the Lord want me here right now?" "Would it really have made any difference if I had left this year or some later year?" "Surely I could have done great good with this money." I am sad to say I began to feel a little sorry for myself. At this time I was traveling in a truck, which one of our senior missionaries was driving. Everybody wondered why I suddenly went so silent for the next couple of hours during the trip. It was then that things took an even worse turn.

We were on some very loose gravel when our truck hit a very deep pothole. It threw us off course and in a moment we were sliding into a wall on my side of the auto. We bounced off that wall and were thrown across the road into a wall on the other side. That impact caused the truck to spin and ultimately propelled it into a triple somersault. Our truck came to rest on the side where I was sitting. It slid along the loose gravel for at least 100 feet. The glass in the window where was I seated had shattered and as the truck slid the gravel acted like a file and ground off much of the skin and flesh on my forearm. When the truck came to rest the four of us inside were on top off one another. I was on the bottom. We climbed out. Miraculously no one was seriously hurt. Still I had glass pieces embedded in my skull and a few minor gashes along my forehead. Then I looked down at my arm and saw that it was bleeding profusely. I also saw that I had a big gaping hole and could look down to my muscles or tendons. Now we were in the middle of nowhere, on a small dirt road in the heart of the bush. Villagers came running and started wailing at the sight of the blood and gore. My assistants grabbed a white shirt and made a tourniquet bandage to stop the bleeding. The only thing we could do was sit and wait for some other car to come by and hopefully take us to a hospital.

Now I was really beginning to feel real sorry for myself. Here I was, in who knows where, just having barely escaped a fatal accident and the thought flashed through my mind, "What are you doing here?' "You're going to die from infection!" Fortunately, a car came by within about 15 minutes and agreed to take me and one on my assistants to the medical center in Bo, Sierra Leone, about 35 minutes away. When we got to Bo the doctor looked at my arm and said there was nothing he could really do because I didn't have any skin to stitch up. However, he said he could clean up and dress the wound. So I went into the quote, unquote, "operating theater." It was a small wooden table with a light bulb over head. The doctor administered some anesthetic to deaden my arm before he began to scrub and clean it. He also found a little skin and stitched a part of the hole in my arm. As he began this process he asked me a question I wasn't expecting. He asked me if I would like to know where he had gotten the instruments he was using, the gown he was wearing, the bandages and medicines he was using. I said, "Of course." He had seen the missionary tag on my shirt. Through the bumps and flips of the accident I had not lost my nametag though it was pretty scratched up. He said he was familiar with the Church. He then said that some time ago a senior missionary couple from our Church had come by and donated these medical supplies. Without these supplies he wouldn't have been able to treat me in the way he was able to that day. Because of those supplies I had the needed medicines to stave off infection. And then I heard the still small voice whisper; "You have been spared because two missionaries who you will probably never meet or know gave of their time to go serve unselfishly into the African jungle."

I told PBS this story and said something to the effect, "Today on my right arm I have an ugly scar that this accident gave me, but to me it is a beautiful African tattoo-a gentle reminder that each of our lives owes itself to service of someone else. Yes, there was a moment when I felt some small reservation but then I was taught to never look back, and no, I have no regrets."