Gospel Story Finder

Food Banks
Along with other areas of the country, people struggled to make ends meet on reduced incomes due to being furloughed or losing their jobs. Members of the Telford Ward and the local community generously collected over £5,000 worth of food for three local groups: the Telford Food Bank, the Interfaith Emergency Food Service (Interfaith Council), and KiP@Maninplace, who assist the homeless. Bishop Pointer was also able to draw on funds from the Church’s COVID-19 Emergency Relief programme to provide additional food for the Interfaith Council children’s breakfast project. This project provides breakfast (and lunch) to about 1,250 children on Saturdays to the value of £5,000. Members, including his own children and the full-time missionaries, assist the bishop (working alongside numerous faith groups) in sorting out the breakfast provisions every Saturday morning and delivering breakfast parcels to families who are unable to collect them.

Taking a break from the welding work he is doing, Byron Iquic raises his visor and wipes the sweat from his brow. President Iquic, president of the San Juan Branch, Guatemala City Florida Stake, is building a new home for his wife, Etelvina, and their four children.
He loves his family and wants the house to be comfortable, but he also wants it to be safe and strong. Locks, lights, and a sturdy roof and walls are just some of the features meant to protect his family from man and nature.
As he talks about protecting his precious family, he pauses. Because President Iquic is familiar with the legend of Mixco Viejo, he understands that regardless of how well the house keeps things out, the greatest dangers to his family could come from what the family lets in.
President and Sister Iquic are trying to preserve their family and fortify it against the world, also a difficult task but possible through family prayer (see D&C 10:5), family scripture study (see 1 Nephi 15:23–24), family home evening (see 2 Nephi 25:26), and teaching the importance of obedience (see D&C 88:34).
President and Sister Iquic are also teaching repentance because they understand that even after all they and their family do to protect themselves, there may be more doors than can be guarded. And in a moment of weakness caused by distraction, someone might fall.
In preparation for those moments, President and Sister Iquic recognize that they must teach their children not just faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement but also repentance (see D&C 68:25) so that when their children make mistakes, they will recognize the breach in the wall and know how to fix it.
“Temptation will always be there,” President Iquic says. “We must recognize our mistakes and repent quickly, or they will impede our progress and keep us from the protection of the Spirit.”
With daylight fading and the legend of Mixco Viejo in mind, President Iquic puts his tools away and calls his family together for evening prayer against the gathering darkness.

Shortly after my father began walking again, I received a letter from my mother. She had returned to Japan and was working in a factory in the city of Fukui. “Come to Japan,” she wrote. “I can get you a job.” I became excited about living in the land of my ancestors and decided to go.
When I arrived in 1992, I was intrigued by the technology and other conveniences available in the country. But I also faced many new challenges. I had a job, and although I looked Japanese, I couldn’t speak Japanese. I struggled to learn the language. My coworkers were not always patient with me.
Despite my Christian background, I had never attended church nor read the Bible regularly. But now, as I faced these obstacles, I remembered how my father’s faith had given him strength. My thoughts turned increasingly to God.
One day I was walking in downtown Fukui when two young men walked up to me. One of them didn’t look Japanese, but he spoke Japanese when he introduced himself.
I said, “I’m sorry, but I don’t speak Japanese. Do you speak English?”
He answered, “Of course! I’m American!”
The young man started speaking English, which I had learned in school. He told me he and his companion were missionaries for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They talked briefly about Jesus Christ and invited me to church. I hesitated but finally agreed to go.
The first meeting I attended was a fast and testimony meeting. I came late, and as I walked into the chapel, a young woman was crying and talking about how the gospel helped her with her problems. After listening to her and to some of the other members, I realized that all of them had problems. They weren’t perfect, and they knew it. But I could also see they had something strong inside them. Their faith in God was helping them. With that kind of faith, I thought, maybe I could overcome my problems, too.
I continued attending church, and I pondered often what I learned there. I also read the Book of Mormon. One day I accepted the invitation to ask God if what I was learning was true. As I prayed, something strong touched my heart, and I thought, This is the right way. I already believe in God. It’s time to follow Him.
As I continued to pray and attend meetings, the Spirit continued to guide me. Finally I told the elders I wanted to hear the discussions. I wanted to follow God and return to His presence one day. I was baptized on 21 June 1993.
As a member of the Church, I found new strength in meeting the challenges of life in Japan. And after preparing earnestly, I was called on a mission. To my surprise, I was called to serve in São Paulo, Brazil. I was very excited about sharing the gospel in my homeland.
When I look back at my old life, I realize how blind I was. We can go through life the right way or the wrong way. At first I chose the wrong way. I knew God existed, but I wasn’t ready to follow Him. Then the gospel touched my life. Now I know that following our Savior is the only way to true happiness.

While I was a boy working in the fields with my mother, she taught me one of the most important lessons in life. It was late in the morning, the sun was up, and we had been hoeing for what I thought to be a very long time. I stopped to look back at what we had accomplished and said to my mother, “Look at all we have done!” Mother did not respond. Thinking that she had not heard me, I repeated what I had said a little louder. She still did not reply. Raising my voice a little higher, I repeated again. Finally, she turned to me and said, “Edward, never look back. Look ahead at what we still have to do.”

“My family, and especially my father, was very strict in disciplining the children in our home,” Elder Kikuchi recalls. “Those on my father’s side of the family are from the Samurai, and the Samurai way is very strict. In ancient Japan, the Samurai were the rulers and in those days they fought with swords.

“Every morning when I would get up, I had to dress—even when I was very small—and come before my father on the tatami [mat]. Then I would bow and say, ‘Good morning, Father, I will be a good boy.’ After that greeting I could go to breakfast. I remember one particular morning when I was four years old that I got up and forgot to say those words to my father. He became angry and scolded me. And I was very surprised when he opened the door and threw me outside into the snow. We lived in the northern part of Japan, and there is plenty of snow there in the wintertime. I remember that day so clearly when Father threw me into the snow just because I didn’t say, ‘Good morning, Father, I will be a good boy.’”

Elder Kikuchi recollected further that he ran to his uncle’s house that morning to stay for a while.

“But I have to say about my father,” Elder Kikuchi continued, “that every morning after I bowed and told him I would be a good boy, he held me to his bosom and said, ‘I love you.’ I remember that his beard scratched me when he did this, but I always knew he loved me.”

A young man once told me of his experience of praying about a girl he was dating and being convinced that she was the one he should marry. The next time he went out with her, he told her of his experience. Her response was that it could not be true because she had planned to break up with him that night. Naturally, he was devastated and wondered where he had gone wrong. One of his mistakes was to think that his inspiration could hold her captive.

A young woman walked slowly across the campus, deep in thought. She was at the beginning of her last semester of college. She had started to think seriously about serving a mission, but she had also been looking for a job. Just that morning she had received a very nice job offer. As she walked, she pondered what to do.
The young woman fasted and prayed to know if she should serve a mission or should take the job offer. Somewhat to her surprise, the mission did not feel right to her. Without a lot of specific guidance, she decided to take the job. Three months later she met the man who would become her husband.

I remember that as a young executive many years ago, part of my job involved attending dinners sponsored by different business groups. Each dinner was always preceded by a social hour. I felt very uncomfortable in these settings. After the first one or two dinners, I started coming late to miss the social hour. My boss thought this was not a good practice because I was missing valuable time associating with business leaders. Still, I felt awkward visiting in groups where I was the only one without a drink in my hand. I kept wondering what to do with my hands. You can always put one hand in your pocket, but you look a little foolish with both of them there. I tried holding a glass of 7-Up, but it had the appearance of an alcoholic beverage.

Finally I went over to the bartender and asked him if he had any drink that was distinctively different in appearance from an alcoholic beverage. He went into the kitchen and came back with a half gallon of milk and poured me a glass. Pouring a glass of milk at a cocktail hour was a unique event. It seemed to attract the attention of everyone, and I became the target of a lot of jesting. It embarrassed me at first, until I discovered that I was meeting more business leaders than I had at any previous gathering. I found that I did not have to violate Church standards to become a viable, contributing member of my chosen profession. It was more the case that success came because I did adhere to my values.

It soon became a practice at the social hours in that community to always have a carton of milk on the bar. I was amazed, as time passed, by how many of my associates were joining me for a glass of milk during the hour that we spent together. I found, just as Daniel did, that being different in the world brought some interesting reactions, but obedience to the Lord’s law is always associated with His blessings. Isn’t that the message of the revelation contained in the Doctrine and Covenants?

As I stepped off the stand after speaking in sacrament meeting, one of my father’s dear friends complimented me on the talk. I really wanted to know how effective my presentation had been, and so I pressed him further. “Would you have any suggestions for me?” He indicated there was something that might prove helpful if I sincerely wanted to know. He then asked the question: “What did you say tonight that could not have been said by any Protestant minister?” I was a little taken back by that comment; and in the days that followed, I spent a great deal of time reflecting on what I had said.

More than 40 years have passed since that experience, and I think I can honestly say that I have never once given any kind of a Church presentation without always attempting to convey my testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. How grateful I am for the insight, judgment, and concern that prompted his comment. How grateful I am that he was a true friend.

When I think about endurance, I am reminded of Te'eu Makimare, a relative and a Cook Islands friend from the island of Manihiki. He was a simple, honest, humble, hard working and religious man who lived on a small atoll which rises no higher than 20 feet above sea level.

On August 12, 1963, conditions were not well on Manihiki. Food supplies had run critically low. No schooners had called for several months. On that day, Makimare and a few of his friends were to travel in an open boat from Manihiki to the neighbor island of Rakahanga 24 miles away. Their mission was to bring back sorely needed vegetables and fruit.

There would be four open boats assigned to this mission. Te'eu Makimare was assigned on one of them the Tearo'a, a cutter approximately 16 feet by 5 feet in the beam and carried a main sail and a stay sail.

The tiny boats departed and reached their destination of Rakahanga, but upon their return to Manihiki, one boat failed to return with the others. The Tearo'a, with its crew of seven including Makimare, was declared missing. Apparently, the Tearo'a had sailed slightly off course, struck a violent storm which damaged the boat and delivered them into the wide-open Pacific Ocean. Before the captain and crew lost all hope, Te'eu Makimare, with his persevering spirit, took over leadership. They struck another sudden storm and their boat capsized. In the storm, Makimare single-handedly saved four of his six weakened and dispirited colleagues. Two unfortunately drowned before he could get to them.

For 64 days, they drifted across the Pacific for 2,000 miles from Manihiki in the Cook Islands to Eromanga in Vanuatu. To survive Makimare caught rainwater and fish with his bare hands. He led them in prayers regularly, kept his faith, and never gave up hope. It was an agonizingly slow drift at one and -a-half miles an hour. It has been described as one of the grimmest and most miraculous voyage ever recorded.

For his bravery and outstanding leadership, Te'eu Makimare was awarded by the Queen of England, the British Royal Humane Society's highest award, the Stanhope Medal.

The faith of Makimare in God and His Son Jesus Christ, his acceptance of the reality of his situation, and his leadership, saved his life and most of his colleagues. It is truly a remarkable story of faith, courage and endurance captured in a book entitled, The Man Who Refused to Die, by Barry Wynne. By accepting his situation and magnifying his talents to improve the situation for himself and others, Makimare anxiously engaged and endured well.

Matthew gingerly fingered a few pages into the little book, stopped, and began to read aloud: “March 18. Our Conestoga left without Ma’s piano. There just wasn’t any room, and the oxen were put upon enough as it was. Baby Jess nearly took a joyful fit when a butterfly lit on her cradle in the back of the wagon.”
The boy turned a few more pages. “March 29. Saw some Indians not too far from our camp today. Brother Ezekiel said they were Crows. They didn’t look as though they meant us any harm, but Ma took on fearful and then became prayerful. Pa tried to comfort Ma and told her not to worry because God would see to it that all of us got to the valley in one piece.”
Digging into the diary a little deeper, Matthew read: “April 3. It rained some today. Old Sister Weber died this morning. Found me a real arrowhead in the skull of a dead coyote. Brother Beacon’s boy said he’d give me his gold watch for it but I’d rather keep the arrowhead. Baby Jess has taken to coughing something fierce.”
More pages were turned. “April 19. We only made about a mile today. Pa took time out to bury Baby Jess. Didn’t see Pa cry but he put his arms round Ma in the holdingest kind of way. Then he walked off somewhere by himself for the rest of the day. Once I thought I heard someone crying off aways. Maybe it was just the wind coming down off the butte.”
“April 20. Brother Ezekiel shot a wild pig that came into a place where Sister Gunnerson was digging some Indian Soapweed. The pig was acting crazy and bubbling at the jaws like he had a devil in him. And before it was killed it horned a place across Ma’s leg—just a scratch but there’s some folks looking unusually mournful. Pa and Nephi Cole administered to Ma. Flora Clanton found some berries and said she’s going to work up something special for the one that sings the loudest tonight at the camp sing.”
Matthew fingered ahead. “May 2. They had to tie Ma down in the wagon today.”
“May 3. Ma died this morning. Just before the end she told us good-bye. I think I heard her tell me to be strong and to praise God.”
On another page Matthew read: “May 4. Cold all day—colder than ever before. We found some little wild flowers to put on Ma’s grave.”
Matthew rubbed his arms, looked up at the snow falling against the little attic window, then he flipped the page. “May 6. We’ve been trying to catch up with the rest of the wagons. Pa told me to try to stop looking so stretchy-faced over Ma being gone. He says we’ll all get to the valley, only we’ll have to take Ma and Baby Jess with us in our hearts. He said they’ll live forever because things eternal never die. And maybe it’s so.”
Matthew turned one more page. “May 7. The wind is most howly and wild today, guess that’s why Pa’s been holding me tighter than I can ever remember.”

Unfortunately, I couldn’t join the Church at that time. My parents strongly objected, especially my father. But I could understand him. His parents never took him to church; he was brought up when the country was under communist rule. Nevertheless, I knew the Lord had prepared a way for me to join the Church someday. I already knew that way would be very hard. But I had learned from the scriptures that tribulations can be for our good.

I went to seminary and later to institute, I attended Church activities, and I even started my own Personal Progress. I couldn’t wait to go to Young Women activities. I will never forget the hours we spent cooking, making postcards or bookmarks, decorating our classroom, or playing games, as well as the wonderful spirit of friendship between us. Each activity helped me understand my divine nature and role in life.

One of the most difficult Personal Progress projects was memorizing “The Living Christ.”1 When I looked at the text, I thought it would be a great challenge to memorize it. After a couple of weeks, I already knew why that project was in the Faith value. It was a test of faith and patience, a test with rewarding consequences. The testimony of the Apostles helped strengthen my faith and testimony. By remembering their inspiring words of Christ’s divine life and ministry, I got the courage to testify of Him myself.

When I was about 16, we had an activity about being a full-time missionary. We divided into pairs and lived like missionaries for a week. That was the first time I learned how important it is to share our testimonies with others. This activity helped me realize not only how hard it is to serve the Lord, but also the joy we feel by sharing the gospel and seeing how Christ’s teachings change someone’s life. It helped me understand what it is like to “stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places” (Mosiah 18:9).

As an “active nonmember,” as everyone called me, I learned to have patience and hope that one day I would become a member of the Church. I knew it was a test of my faith and patience. I wondered how long it would take to be cleansed and start a new life.

That day came almost seven years after my friend took me to church on that cold February morning in 2000. I was baptized at 21 at the mission home in Sofia. My baptism day was one of the happiest days of my life. At that moment I felt the great redeeming love Heavenly Father has for me. I felt that even more when I partook of the sacrament the next day. I couldn’t hold back the tears. The Spirit burning inside me was telling me it was worth waiting for. I could finally enjoy the gift of the Holy Ghost and other blessings of being a member of the Church.

I’m grateful to be blessed with knowledge of the restored gospel. I know we can overcome the tribulations of life through faith and patience. We have no greater and more rewarding privilege than being a member of the only true Church on earth. Nothing brings greater happiness than the knowledge we have that as worthy members of the Church, we can live with God again.

All many people need is to have someone lay things out for them so that they can understand them. I have another little story to illustrate what I mean. I toured the Colorado Mission with Brother Hinckley, a former stake president who lives here in Provo. We were holding a meeting over in Nebraska and the leader of the Reorganized church in that particular locality honored us with his presence in the meeting, and I went up to him afterward. He seemed very interested, and I said, “You have so much to be grateful for. You have the Prophet Joseph, and you have the Book of Mormon, but you only have about half of what the Prophet Joseph taught. Wouldn’t you like to know all about it? You have half a pie; we have the whole pie. I have written a book. If you will agree to read it, I’ll send it to you.”

A few weeks after that I received a letter back from him in which he thanked me for the book. He said, “I read it, and last Saturday my brother and I were both baptized members of your Church. Now I have sent the book to one of my friends over in Independence, one of the leaders of the Reorganized church, and asked him if he would read it.” If we will just take time to tell them what we have, we do not need to worry about their joining the Church.

One youth described how he first experienced the spirit of worship. He had been marginally active through his Aaronic Priesthood years. When he attended sacrament meeting, he usually sat in the back with a group of his friends, and he was less than a model of reverence.

One day, however, he came in a little late, and there were no seats by his friends. He sat alone, and for the first time in his life, he closed his eyes during the prayers, he sang the hymns, he listened to the sacrament prayers, and he paid attention to the speakers.

About midway through the first speaker, he found tears welling up in his eyes. With some embarrassment, he carefully glanced around; no one else seemed emotional. He didn’t know for sure what was happening to him, but the experience changed his life. It was during that meeting that he really started his spiritual preparation for his mission. He felt something, and fortunately, he acted and thus sustained those feelings.

As Liriel grew, her dream of becoming a singer took shape—but not as quickly as she would have liked, partly because of her family’s financial struggles. “I cried and I cried and I cried about this,” she says. “I was impatient. But a voice would come to my mind saying, ‘Be calm. It isn’t your time yet.’”

She continued to work toward her dream while working to help her family financially. It was a hard time. “God will try us, but all these things are for our growth,” she explains.

Through it all, Liriel has learned a lot—about herself and about her Heavenly Father. “I know Heavenly Father loves me,” she says. “As long as I am humble He will hear my prayers and will help me overcome my problems. I know that He hears our prayers, listens, and answers—not always as we would like, but I don’t have the least doubt that He does answer.”

Nearly 30 years ago I drove to Utah for the first time. I had been living a very unchristian life but wanted to change. I just didn’t know how.
The evening of my second day in Utah, I stopped at a motel in a small town in southern Utah. As the lady in the office gave me a room key, I asked if she was a Latter-day Saint. She pleasantly replied, “Yes, I am.” Beaming, she added, “Have you read our wonderful book, the Book of Mormon?” Both startled and enticed, I told her I had not.
“There’s a copy in your room,” she continued. “There is nothing exciting for you here in town, so you might as well get acquainted with this wonderful book.”
I thanked her and took my luggage to my room. Once there I saw a maroon paperback titled the Book of Mormon on the nightstand.
I casually opened the book near the center and read a few verses, but my mind went blank. I did not understand anything. Disappointed, I put down the book and left my room, feeling empty. I drove around until I found a bar—a dark, ugly place. I went inside and instantly felt miserable, lonely, and hopeless. I stood there for a few minutes and then turned around and strode out, determined to never again waste a moment of my life in any bar.
Invigorated, I returned to my motel room and picked up the Book of Mormon. I knelt before the Lord, whom I knew little about, and pleaded with Him to have mercy on me. I asked Him to forgive me for the mess I had made of my life and to help me to understand what I read in the Book of Mormon, to know if Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and to know if the Mormon Church was for me.
I opened the book reverently and read the first verse I saw: “I glory in plainness; I glory in truth; I glory in my Jesus, for he hath redeemed my soul from hell” (2 Nephi 33:6). My heart burned and my tears fell. The words stood out with a wonderful light of hope—a light of Jesus Christ beckoning me to come unto Him.
Weeping, I again knelt in prayer, begging the Lord to lead on. Then I opened the book again and began reading the first chapter of 1 Nephi. I was filled with awe at the unmatched power, purity, and truth of the words and testimony of Nephi. I read until 2:00 the next morning, the Lord opening my understanding as I read.
Six months later I was baptized a member of this wonderful, true Church. I know the Lord blessed me to find and read the Book of Mormon—the book that established my faith and testimony in Jesus Christ.

Illustrated by Shauna Mooney Kawasaki
I won’t say I’m sorry and that’s that, so leave me alone!Don’t take that attitude with me, young lady. You can just go to your room until you’re ready to apologize to Matt.
You’re mean! You always favor Matt, and you treat me like a baby. I will go to my room because I don’t want to be near you!
a little later. … May I come in, sweetheart?
Mandy, do you remember the time in the Bible when Jesus commanded a terrible storm to be still, and it was?Yes.
You and I have had a terrible storm inside us, Mandy, and so have Mommy and Matt. Shall we ask Heavenly Father in Jesus’ name to help the storm be still?OK. Maybe then I’ll feel like apologizing to Matt.

Anthon stepped from his doorway onto the cobbled street, hesitated, and turned back to his wife—“the best in the land” he called her.
“Are you coming, Ibine?”
His wife stepped out of the doorway. She was wrapped in woolen scarves and a heavy coat. The February night was icy cold. Their destination was the seashore, a few blocks from their home. The children followed Ibine out the door. Thorvald and Astra were too young to be baptized but not too young to be excited for their parents. Only Anthon didn’t feel excited. He was quiet and pensive while walking along the clean-swept streets of Aalborg.
The night was very dark. The children cuddled close to their parents. The hand of tiny Thorvald squeezed his father’s, and pretty little Astra clung to Ibine. Anthon looked down at Thor and remembered his own childhood. He remembered the cows he had herded, the wooden shoes he had worn in winter, his own sister who had died in a terrible blizzard too far from home to get help. He remembered the worried look of his father who couldn’t support his family of nine during the mid-1800s war with Germany. He remembered working from 2:00 in the morning until 11:00 at night on a farm in order to help. He remembered crying in bed at night. “I wondered what I was sent on this earth for. I couldn’t see what good I was doing. All I could see ahead was endless work to no real worthwhile end.”
The frigid cold gripped Anthon’s face, and he wondered if the children or Ibine were uncomfortable. The chilling breeze made him think of glacier ice, and he remembered learning that ice-age glaciers had left his Denmark an undulating flatland so suited to farming and agriculture. He was grateful that at least a few years of formal education were mandatory—that his country believed in the virtues of learning and working. He saw ships’ masts in the harbor poking above the fields.
He and his family were nearing the place where they would be baptized. A sick feeling of loneliness hit him in his stomach. “My homeland, my forefathers, all that has been good to me—am I giving up their trust in me for a far-fetched religion sprouted in a distant, upstart country?”
Every member of the Mormon church who lived in Aalborg was there on the seashore, some holding lanterns. It was a small but cheery group. They sang hymns and smiled. But Anthon was still quiet. He looked into the faces of his beautiful children and wondered if he was doing what was right for them. He knew he would have to find a private school for them because the prejudice in the public schools against the few Mormon children was too much for such young children to bear.
The singing was over. A prayer was given to open the meeting. The missionaries asked a blessing on Brother and Sister Jensen that as they were baptized they would not fall ill from the freezing temperatures. A hole was chopped in the ice. The sacred ordinance was performed for both Anthon and his wife, Ibine. The two new members were welcomed with hugs and handshakes and sent quickly home to a warm fireplace. It was then that Anthon noticed something special—something unexpected. On their way home he found himself walking, almost skipping, with lightened step—his wife and children smiling at him all the way. The heavy burdens of worry had been lifted. He knew he had done the right thing, and above all he knew now that there was something important for him to do in life.
“I went to my former friend and minister the next day to bear him my testimony. I was so happy that I felt I could convert the whole world, and I wanted to,” he later recorded. “I wanted everyone to feel the peace and the joy that came with my baptism. And the most wonderful thing of all, I had an assurance that greater joys and greater knowledge were yet in store—not only for me but for my beautiful family.”

Jamie knew what was happening in the kitchen that very moment. Her parents were waiting for her brother, Alex, to come home. She also knew what would happen later in the night. Maybe she would be asleep when it happened. Once she had slept through it all, but most of the time she woke up when it started and she lay in her bed and listened to the shouting and denials and slamming of doors. She hated it most when her mother cried. It always tied her stomach into knots and made her want to run away. She wondered what it would be like to never wake up listening to people yell at each other.
She was in her room ready for bed. She thought about praying but decided against it because she had prayed so many times that her brother would quit going out and getting drunk and she couldn’t see that her prayers had changed anything.
She slipped between the covers. The sheets were cold. It was November and getting colder every day. She remembered her mother telling Alex about a man who’d been drinking and passed out on the snow and froze to death. It didn’t faze Alex. Nothing fazed Alex.
Sometimes Jamie wished Alex would just go away so they could be a family again like they used to be, but she never told anyone that because she knew nobody would understand.
Jamie also knew what the morning would bring. When she got up, her father would be gone to work, even though it was Saturday. Her mother would be working in the kitchen, her eyes puffy from a night of tears and a morning of trying to figure out why Alex was out of control.
Alex would sleep until two or three in the afternoon and then watch TV for a few hours, take a shower, make a few phone calls, and be gone before supper. Sometimes he didn’t come home Saturday nights. Jamie thought it was because then he didn’t get hassled about going to church.
Jamie knew how it would be and what everyone would say and how it would go. And on Monday Alex would go to work at the auto parts store like nothing had happened. He worked hard through the week because times were tough and he knew if he messed up, he might lose his job.
Alex wanted to move out of the house and get an apartment. But not just any apartment. It had to be one of the best apartments in town. The only problem was that they required a large deposit and two months’ rent. Alex was trying to save the money, but because he partied so much, he never saved anything. That’s why he was still at home.
I know everything that’s going to happen, she thought. The whole world revolves around Alex, what he does, what he says, where he goes.
When she saw people at church, they’d come up and ask how Alex was doing. Alex isn’t the only person with problems, she thought. I have some too.
People talked about how church was a comfort to them when they were going through hard times, but for some reason, it didn’t work that way for her. All that happened when she went to church was that she kept getting more things piled on her. In the past week she had been asked to serve on a youth conference planning committee and had been told she was in charge of planning a fireside. But in all this nobody asked how she was doing; all anyone asked about was how Alex was doing.
Nobody cares about me, she thought. All they care about is Alex. Maybe I should be like Alex, and then people would notice me too.
She hated what was happening in their family. It was like she was being forced to play a part in a play. Her role was to be the good girl with no problems. She had to be perfect so her parents wouldn’t worry about her, so they could spend all their time and energy on Alex.
She felt like she had no one to go to—certainly not her parents. She felt that if she added one more burden to what they were already carrying they would break. She couldn’t even go to her friends because they all treated her like she was perfect and didn’t have any problems.
She lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, wishing sleep would come to take her away. At 12:30 she heard Alex’s car pull into the driveway, heard him get out of the car and come in the house. “Oh, look at you; just look at you!” her mother cried out.
Jamie couldn’t stand to hear it all over again. She pulled a blanket off the bed, went in the bathroom, shut the door, turned on the shower but didn’t get in, wrapped the blanket around her, and sat down on the floor and cried. She stayed there for a long time. When she turned off the shower, the shouting was over. She returned to her bed and soon fell asleep.
The next morning she slept until her mother came to the door and knocked.
“What is it?” Jamie asked sleepily.
“Sister Bradford just called. She wondered if you’d forgotten you promised to help her make cookies for the fireside tomorrow night.”
“I want to sleep.”
Her mother opened the door. “She said to tell you she really needs your help. Nobody else has shown up.”
The difference between Alex and me, she thought, is Alex does what he wants to do and I do what others want me to do. Nobody calls Alex on a Saturday morning to remind him he promised to help bake cookies.
She wanted to go back to sleep, but she knew it wasn’t fair for Sister Bradford to make all the cookies for the fireside by herself. “All right, I’ll get up.”
More out of habit than anything else, she knelt by her bed to say a prayer before she got dressed. She started with her usual routine prayer but then stopped. “Heavenly Father, please help me. I feel so bad.”
Just after Jamie arrived, Sister Bradford’s husband took all the kids for a Saturday outing at the park. It was the quietest Jamie had ever seen their house.
“How are you doing these days?” Sister Bradford asked as they worked side by side, rolling cookie dough into small balls and plopping them on cookie trays.
“Fine,” Jamie said, knowing that people usually didn’t want to know the truth when they asked a question like that. She turned to look at Sister Bradford, who asked. “Really?”
Jamie looked away. “Yeah, sure, I’m doing okay.”
“I’m not asking just to pass the time of day. I really do want to know.”
Jamie paused. “You know about Alex, right?”
“Yes, I know about Alex. I don’t know about Jamie, though. You want to tell me how she’s doing?”
“Okay, I guess.”
They talked for two hours, until Brother Bradford came back with the kids and it was time for Jamie to go home.
As soon as Jamie walked into her house, she went to her father. “Dad, I need to talk to you and Mom now. Is that all right?”
“I’ll get your mother,” her dad said.
It was the one thing Sister Bradford had the hardest time convincing Jamie to do. She had not wanted to say anything to her parents because she didn’t want to hurt them any more than they already were.
Sister Bradford had talked to her about it. “They’re not porcelain dolls that are going to break with the slightest bump. They can take it, Jamie. They’d rather have you tell them the truth than hide it. You’ve got to talk to them and tell them how you’re feeling.” Jamie had finally reluctantly agreed.
“I want Alex in here too,” she said.
“I’ll go get him,” her father said.
And so there they were, gathered in the front room. Jamie took a deep breath and began, “I think our whole family needs to talk to someone who can help us. It’s not just Alex. I need some help too. Just because I haven’t said anything doesn’t mean I’m not hurting. I think we all need some help.”
“Who would you suggest we talk to?” her mother asked.
“Well, the bishop to begin with.”
They all looked at Alex. “Count me out,” he said.
“We all have to do it, Alex,” Jamie said. “If all it does is get us talking again, it will be worth it.”
“Who put you up to this?” Alex asked.
“My Laurel adviser.”
“What makes her the expert?”
“When she was growing up, there were problems in her family.”
“And going to somebody made everything perfect again?” Alex taunted.
“No, but it made it better than it was.”
“It’s not going to do anything for me,” Alex said.
“You’re not the only one in this family, Alex. We’re all hurting. It’s not just you. On the nights you come in late, you think I can sleep through all the yelling? What do you want me to do? Hide in my room and pretend nothing’s wrong? Well I can’t do that, at least not anymore.”
Her father was the first to speak. “I think Jamie’s right. We need to go in as a family.”
Later that day Sister Bradford called to ask how it had gone with her family.
“We’re all going to see the bishop next week. Thanks a lot for talking to me. It was just what I needed. I just can’t understand why none of the other girls showed up this morning to help out. They all knew about it.”
There was a long pause on the other end. “I have a confession to make. After I found out you were coming, I called the others and asked them not to come.”
“Why?”
“I woke up this morning thinking about you and wondering how you were doing.”
That night when Jamie went to bed, she thanked Heavenly Father for answering the prayer she had offered by giving her a Laurel adviser like Sister Bradford.
Alex was out again. Jamie didn’t know what would happen when he came home—except she knew it wouldn’t be the same as before. At least not for her.

Sydell sniffed the air as she skipped down the cobblestone street of Kingstown, a port town on the little West Indian island of St. Vincent. Although it was a beautiful Saturday morning, she held her nose. “Whew! It smells like rotten eggs! La Soufriere, the volcano, must be stirring up sulfur gases,” she muttered.
Sydell hurried around the corner and looked down at the blue water of the fishing bay, where sailboats rocked back and forth on the tide. It must be past lunchtime, she thought, and she wondered if her father and two brothers had returned with a catch of tuna or shark on their own small fishing boat. As she quickly turned her steps toward home, she clutched the new hair ribbon she had bought to wear to church the next day.
Mother, Father, and her two brothers, Japeth and Seraft, all went to church together in rooms above a mortuary. Father was a counselor to the branch president. Mother was the Relief Society president. Their whole family was responsible for seeing that the rooms were clean and for opening the louvered windows to let the fresh sea breeze flow into the room before meetings started. Although he was only twelve, Seraft led the singing. Japeth prepared and blessed the sacrament with the missionaries.
Sydell left the town below and climbed up the trail to her small wooden home perched on the side of the mountain. Halfway up she paused to greet the big black cow tied to a banana tree. “Good evening, Blessing,” she said, patting the cow’s silky neck. Blessing only blinked her big brown eyes and went back to munching grasses. Mother called her Blessing because there was no dairy on the island, so the family was blessed to have fresh milk and butter and cream.
Sydell sniffed the air. The aroma of roasting breadfruit filled her nose. “I know what we’re having for lunch,” she called to her mother as she ran up the steep path to the porch.
Mother was sitting on the steps, enjoying the sun while she busily chopped onions and fresh thyme to season the food she was cooking. She smiled at Sydell, who leaned over and kissed her cheek.
“Oh, Mother, I am so hungry! Is the breadfruit ready?”
“Get a stick and see,” answered Mother.
Sydell put her new hair ribbon away, then found a sturdy stick and poked it into the blackened ball baking in the coals. Carefully she carried it to her mother and set it on the ground beside the step. “It’s ready!” she exclaimed, very cautiously picking out a bit of the hot meat of the fruit that tasted like bread, then stuffing it into her mouth.
Mother stood and wiped her hands on her apron. “Here comes Papa and the boys with a fine catch of fish for supper!”
Papa always stood tall and walked fast. Sydell thought that he was the handsomest and strongest man she had ever seen. But today his shoulders drooped, and he had a worried look in his eyes. Japeth and Seraft looked very serious too. “What is it, Papa? Is something wrong?”
“No, my little one, something is very right. But we have an important matter to consider that concerns all of us, and we must ask our Heavenly Father to help us.”
Father put his bag of fish down and washed his hands at the basin on the porch. Then the family all knelt together in the little home on the cliff, and Papa talked to Heavenly Father.
“Our Father in Heaven, we are thankful for the missionaries who taught us the true gospel of Jesus Christ. My son, Japeth, now is nineteen and desires to go on a mission, but we have very little money with which to help him. We ask Thee to help us find a way for him to serve. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
It was very quiet after the prayer as each family member thought about where such a great amount of money could come from. Fishing brought only enough to keep the family fed and clothed, and there was no other way to earn it.
Sydell and Mother put their arms around Japeth and told him that they were very happy that he wanted to be a missionary. “You will be a great example to the rest of the people here on St. Vincent,” his mother said.
“I will miss you very much,” whispered Sydell as she hugged her brother.
“And I will have to milk the cow every night,” Seraft remembered. “I hear her calling now.”
“The cow! That’s the answer!” shouted Papa. “We will sell the cow. Fresh milk is such a luxury on this island that she will bring a large price.”
“Oh, must we, Papa?” cried Sydell. She thought of Blessing’s big, soft brown eyes.
“Sometimes we must give up something we love to get something better. I know that Heavenly Father will give us many blessings if we are willing to sacrifice for Him,” said Mother.
“Come,” said Father, as he gathered his family in prayer once again. “Sydell, will you say the prayer this time and ask if we should sell the cow?”
Sydell could hardly keep from crying as she told Heavenly Father that they were willing to sell Blessing, if that was what was necessary, to send Japeth on a mission. As she looked around the circle after finishing the prayer and saw the smiles of her family through her tears, a warm and wonderful feeling came into her heart, and she knew that selling Blessing would be the beginning of an even greater blessing in their lives.