Gospel Story Finder

In both of those visits to the Soviet Union, we met with the chairman of the Council of Religious Affairs and learned that recognition of a church was not given on a federal basis but was granted locally. A petition was required from a minimum of twenty adult members of the Church, all Soviet citizens residing in a given political district. Also, as in many of these countries, open preaching of the gospel was not allowed because that was deemed to be an infringement on the rights of others who chose not to believe in any religion. Thus, we were left with a real dilemma. Without missionaries, how could we get a congregation of twenty members in any district? And how could we teach the gospel without first having twenty members so that we could obtain legal recognition? But remember: “With God nothing shall be impossible.” Within a few months we had a congregation of twenty and more members in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg)!

The conversion of these pioneer members of the Church is truly marvelous study in the workings of the Lord. Our branch president and his wife found the Church and were baptized on 1 July 1989 while in Budapest, Hungary. Russian-speaking home teachers from Helsinki, Finland, were assigned to visit the new converts upon their return to Leningrad. Another woman temporarily left Leningrad to find the Church in a miraculous manner. This beautiful young mother named Svetlana had importuned the Lord in prayer to make it possible for her to obtain a Bible written in the Russian language. Such a Bible is rare, precious, and very expensive. In the fall of 1989, she and her husband and their young child went to Helsinki in quest for a Bible. While walking through a park in Helsinki, she stepped upon an object hidden beneath the ground cover of autumn leaves. She picked it up and found it to be the answer to her prayers. It was a Bible written in the Russian language. So excited was she that she joyfully recounted the story of this great discovery to another mother who was also in the park with her youngster. The second mother then replied to Svetlana, “Would you like to have another book about Jesus Christ, also written in the Russian language?” Svetlana, of course, answered in the affirmative. The other mother then provided Svetlana with a Russian copy of the Book of Mormon and invited her to church. This other mother was Raija Kemppainen, wife of Jussi Kemppainen, then president of the Baltic District of the Finland Helsinki Mission. Shortly thereafter, Svetlana joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and returned with her family to Leningrad.

These early converts invited choice friends into their homes to hear news of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and many of these gratefully responded to the message of the missionaries and were baptized.

On 26 April 1990, we met with governmental officials and subsequently submitted application papers for recognition of the Leningrad Branch. That very day, I offered a prayer of gratitude and rededication in the Summer Gardens adjacent to the Neva River, just beyond Mars Field, where Elder Francis M. Lyman of the Council of the Twelve had dedicated Russia for the preaching of the gospel on 6 August 1903.

Our request for formal recognition for our branch in Leningrad was granted on 13 September 1990. Thus, an important precedent was established that congregations in other cities would follow.

I am very fortunate to have had opportunities at your age to improve my decision-making abilities. It may surprise you to learn that I struggled with the decision of whether or not to serve a mission. I was young for my grade, so all my friends left on their missions nearly a full year before I was eligible to go. By that time I was quite comfortable in my studies, and I was dating a young woman whom I thought was “just right.” I was a novice at trusting the Lord. I will be forever grateful for the wise counsel of my father and bishop at that critical crossroads. Their loving guidance helped me see the inadequacy of leaning on my own understanding, and I began the upward spiral of trusting the Lord.

By the time I met Margaret following my mission to Scotland, I had added depth and breadth to my spiritual attitude and spiritual perspective. Experience had made trusting in the Lord much easier for me, and I knew right away the correct answers to the questions “Whom should I marry and when?”

As a young boy, I went on a family outing to a park where an entrance fee was required for each person in the car. The amount of the fee was dependent on the age of each occupant. I was about 13 years old. I noticed that if I said I was 12, then my father could pay less for a ticket. So, I said something like, “Dad, why don’t you tell them that I am 12?” thinking I was doing him a favor. His response is one I have never forgotten as he said, “Why would I do that? You are 13!” The message was clear. In no way would my father call into question his honesty or integrity by saying something that was not true to save money. I am grateful for that example of my father shown to me 52 years ago. It is one that I will never forget.

“I’ve always loved theater, and I think Shakespeare teaches universal truths,” says Chelsea, who started the neighborhood children’s theater at the request of a 10-year-old boy in her ward. “Being in these plays increases the children’s confidence and has broken down a lot of social barriers in our neighborhood.”
Getting the theater off the ground was both frightening and rewarding for Chelsea. “It was scary to do because I’m not much older than a lot of these children, and I was afraid they wouldn’t listen to me or that they would quit, so it took a lot of prayer for me to put that first production together, and it strengthened my faith to have those prayers answered.”

“Get up, Kevin.”
I looked over to the other side of the room at my brother’s bed. He lay asleep, curled up tightly in the blankets against the early dawn cold. This morning ritual had begun a year before, when Dad traded half the rabbits, complete with cages, for a milk goat. Each morning it was my job to milk her while Kevin fed her and cleaned out her pen.
“What time is it?” Kevin asked as he got up and dressed, noticing the light filtering into the room.
“It’s 6:30.” I was fully clothed and standing by my dresser, putting on my coat and knit cap. The coat smelled of alfalfa hay and dried milk.
“Hi, Mom,” we said in unison as we walked downstairs. I opened the back door, grabbing the clean steel milking pail on our way out. As we walked toward the barn, we noticed that water from the lake had vaporized into a thin fog that drifted across the nearby horse pastures. The ground, just beginning to thaw, felt like thick peanut butter on our boots.
“Kevin, what do you want for your birthday?” I asked. For the past two days I had been trying to think of what to get my almost seven-year-old brother. I didn’t have any money to buy a present, and there was no snow to shovel to earn a few dollars.
“I don’t know,” Kevin said as he scooped up some alfalfa pellets and poured them into a container by the milking stand. “Why don’t you do my chores for me tomorrow morning?” He was referring to a tradition in our family—on your birthday, other members of the family did your chores for you.
“OK.” But I wanted to get him something else, something more than what we always did.
“Tim and Kevin,” Dad called, “it’s time for breakfast.”
After leading the goat back to her pen, we carried the milk into the house, placed it on the counter, and sat down to eat. The steaming hot cereal, cooled by yesterday’s milk, tasted sweet because of the honey and raisins Mom had added to it.
“Time for school,” Mom said when we had finished eating. After grabbing our schoolbooks, we returned to the living room for family prayer; then we left for school.
Kevin’s elementary school was just under three kilometers away, while I had to walk only one kilometer to the middle school. Each day Kevin silently wished we lived half a kilometer to the south, making him eligible to ride the school bus that picked up many of his classmates. On most mornings, we saw them entering the bus at the beginning of its route. Kevin would stop, watch for a moment, then continue walking, most of the time arriving at his school long after the bus had dropped off its passengers. It was a cruel part of his day, especially on snowy or really cold winter mornings.
“See you later,” I said, watching him walk away when we reached my school.
All day I thought more about his birthday. I remembered last summer when he had weeded all of the neighbor’s vegetable garden to earn money to buy me a present. It was a small, single-bladed pocketknife he had bought secondhand at a thrift store. He had removed the rust with steel wool, then shined the blade and the handle with silver polish.
That night when I said my prayers, I asked Heavenly Father to help me find Kevin a gift.
After a fitful sleep, I awoke before the morning light entered our bedroom. I dressed quietly in the darkness and glanced over to see Kevin wrapped in his blankets. I tiptoed downstairs and outside.
The landscape had changed from the morning before. A snowstorm had arrived, and the snow blew around me. A little blew into the house before I could close the door. I hurried to the barn, wanting to complete the morning chores quickly.
Just as I finished, I noticed something tucked into a corner of the barn. I hadn’t seen it since summer, and it gave me an idea for Kevin’s birthday.
I quickly ran back to the house to drop off the milk; then I grabbed a bucket of warm, soapy water and some old rags and carried them out to the barn. The dust of winter and the rust from the dampness made cleaning difficult, but I kept working. Finally the call for breakfast came.
The smell of bacon and pancakes, food reserved for Sundays and other special days, met me at the door. We sat and ate, Kevin happy because of his seventh birthday. I was nervous, hoping he would like my present for him.
“Time for school,” Mom said as Kevin finished the last pancake. After family prayer, we went out into the gray snowstorm.
“Kevin, I have a present for you. It’s in the barn.” He followed me around the house and into the barn.
There stood our old red wagon, washed clean and polished with wax. A small wool blanket covered the bottom, and on the side of the wagon I had carefully painted “School Bus” with some old house paint.
“Get in, Kevin. You don’t have to walk to school today. This is your bus.”
His face lit up, and he scrambled in. I put another blanket around him so he would stay warm.
I pulled the wagon out of the barn, past the house, and onto the snow-packed road. Mom and Dad stood on the porch, watching the delight on Kevin’s face.
“Everyone off!” I yelled as we pulled onto the sidewalk in front of the entrance to Kevin’s school. I tried to sound like a bus driver, and he laughed with me at my attempt. I hurried back down the road with the wagon, and once I arrived at my own school, I hid it in some bushes.
When the final bell rang, I ran outside, rescued the wagon from the bushes, and hurried back to the elementary school.
I arrived just after the school’s bell rang. Kevin quickly came out with two excited friends. “Tim, can they come with us?”
“Sure,” I said. “Everybody ’booooard,” I yelled. Kevin climbed in first; the other two squeezed in behind him.
By the time I pulled the wagon to the second boy’s home, I was really tired.
“Tim, I’ll pull you the rest of the way home,” Kevin offered.
“No, it’s your birthday. I want to do this.” That night as I got into bed, I felt too tired to pray. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been more tired. My legs and back ached, and my hands were sore and blistered from gripping the wagon handle. I lay in the darkness, thinking about the presents Kevin had received from Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, and me. Just before I drifted off to sleep, I heard, “Tim?”
“Yeah.”
“Out of all the presents I got today, yours was the best.”
“Thanks,” I said. Then I remembered my prayer from the night before. I crawled out of bed, knelt on the cold wood floor, and thanked Heavenly Father for helping me find my brother a birthday gift.

Early in 1846, when Henry was 17, the Saints had to leave Nauvoo. For the wagon trek across Iowa, Jonathan C. Wright hired Henry to be a chore boy and drive an ox team. Henry liked this job, except for Brother Wright’s restriction that Henry walk his horses but never run or race them.
While Henry was camped with the Wrights at Council Bluffs, Iowa, a United States army recruiter arrived. “I had told my comrades that he would not get a man,” Henry said. But President Brigham Young called a meeting in a brush-covered bowery and asked that 500 men enlist in the Mormon Battalion for the Mexican War. Henry felt impressed to answer the call, so he joined the army. Mr. Wright, upset at losing his hired hand, “was wrathy and said that I could not go.” But Henry went. He was not yet 18, as required by the government, “but as I had nearly got my growth in height I passed without difficulty.”
The next summer, when he was 18, he left California, where the Mormon Battalion had completed its march, and entered the Great Salt Lake Valley just after the 1847 pioneers arrived. Wanting to rejoin his family, he returned east with Brigham Young’s company late that same year to the Winter Quarters area.

Tonight my thoughts are about a boy somewhere in the world. He is wondering if he can do what being a priesthood holder will require of him. I had that worry when I was about 13 or 14.
I had grown up in the mission field where there was only a tiny branch, which met in my home. Then my family moved to where there were stakes and large wards and chapels and quorums of boys who all seemed to know so much more than I did about what priesthood holders do. They had in that ward a complicated pattern for passing the sacrament. I felt almost certain that I would make a mistake when my turn to pass or prepare the sacrament came.
In my fear and desperation, I remember going outside the chapel to be alone. I was worried. I prayed for help and for some assurance that I would not fail in serving God in His priesthood.
It is now many years later. I have held the Melchizedek Priesthood for more than 50 years. But in the last few days I have prayed with that same pleading for help and assurance that I will not fail in the call which has come to me to serve in the First Presidency. Others seem so much more able to serve and so much better prepared. But as I prayed this time I think I could feel an answer that was probably sent to me outside the Yalecrest Ward chapel long ago. It is the same answer you can expect to get when you face a call to serve in the priesthood which seems beyond you.
The message may come in words to your mind or in a feeling or both. But it will include at least three things to give you assurance and guidance in what you must do in this seemingly overwhelming calling.
First, the assurance will come from a memory of times Heavenly Father has helped you through dangers and difficulties. That’s happened to me in the last few days.
When I was young and still living in New Jersey, a large crowd of angry people gathered in front of our house. My mother went out to meet them, standing alone in this crowd of people who looked very dangerous to me. I couldn’t hear what she said, but after a few minutes they went away peacefully. I still remember that I had seen a miracle.
From when I was older, I have a more recent memory of a crowd of angry people I was called by the First Presidency to face who suddenly and inexplicably were touched by a spirit of calm and reconciliation.
Another time, I was sent to speak to leaders of churches in the United States and ministers of those churches who had met in Minneapolis to deal with the problem of competition among churches.
When I arrived, I found that I was assigned to be a speaker. My subject was to be: Why there was a need for a restoration of the true Church through Joseph Smith. I was a last-minute substitute for Elder Neal A. Maxwell.
When I arrived in the city the night before the meetings and looked at the program, I called President Hinckley. I told him that the meetings were to last three days, that many talks were to be given at the same time, that the crowd could choose which one to attend. I told him that I thought if I told the truth, I feared that no one would come to my second session and that I might be coming home very quickly. I asked him what he thought I should do. He said, “Use your best judgment.”
I prayed through the night. Somewhere near dawn, I was sure I was to say about the Restoration not, “This is what we believe happened to Joseph Smith and why we believe it happened,” but, “This is what happened to Joseph Smith, and this is why the Lord did it.” In the nighttime I was given no assurance of the outcome, just a clear direction—go forward.
To my amazement, after my talk the ministers lined up to speak to me. Every one of them, one after another coming to me, told essentially the same story. Each of them had met a member of the Church somewhere in their lives that they admired. Many of them said that they lived in a community where the stake president had come to the aid of not just his members but of the community in a disaster. They asked if I could take back their greeting and their thanks to people I not only didn’t know but had no hope of ever meeting.
By the end of the three days of meetings, larger and larger crowds were coming to hear the message of the Restoration of the gospel and the true Church of Jesus Christ not because they believed the message but because they had seen goodness in people’s lives—the fruits of that restoration.
As I prayed in these last few nights, those and other memories flooded back with an assurance something like this: “Haven’t I always looked after you? Think of the times I have led you beside the still waters. Remember the times I have set a table before you in the presence of your enemies. Remember, and fear no evil.” (See Psalm 23.)
So to the new deacons: remember. He has always taken care of you from your childhood. To the new quorum presidents: remember. To you fathers with children that are a challenge to you: remember, and have no fear. What is impossible for you is possible with God’s help in His service. And even when you were very small and in the years since, He has with His power and His Spirit gone before your face and been on your left hand and on your right hand when you went in His service (see D&C 84:88). You can receive assurance that God will watch over you if you pray for it in faith. I know that.
The second part of the message you will receive as you pray for help in facing a hard assignment came to me very early Friday morning. I had prayed, as you will, about overwhelming inadequacies. The answer was very clear and very direct and really a rebuke as I prayed. “Forget yourself—start praying about the people you are to serve.” That does wonders, I can testify, to bring the Holy Ghost.
But be prepared to lose track of time as you pray. You will feel love for the people you are to serve. You will feel their needs, their hopes, their hurts, and those of their families. And as you pray, the circle will grow wider than you would imagine, to perhaps people not in your quorum or your family but to those they love across the world. When you forget yourself to pray for the circle of others, your service will be extended in your heart. It will change not only your service but your heart. That is because the Father and His Beloved Son, whom you are called to serve, know and love so many people your service will touch, however limited to a few it may seem to be to you.
The third and final message you can watch for when you pray for help in a hard priesthood assignment is this one—I got this one as well—go to work. Priesthood power is given you to bless others. And that always takes moving out and doing something, usually something hard to do. So you can expect, in addition to assurance of God’s help and the command to forget yourself, the clear prompting by the Holy Ghost to go and do something which will bless someone’s life. That may be as obvious as going prayerfully to visit a person or a family or a quorum member to whom you are assigned to serve. For a father it may be to correct one of his children.
Whether what you do is to correct or to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ, you will do it better if you remember what success will be. You are to help Heavenly Father and His Son, Jesus Christ, make eternal life possible for those you serve. To do that, the Spirit must take a testimony down into their hearts. And that testimony has to lead them to choose to keep the commandments of God, whatever storms and temptations may come.
With that in mind, the Spirit will guide you in teaching and correcting with priesthood power. You will keep yourself clean so that you will teach with the Spirit. You will pray for the Spirit to tell you when to correct and how to correct and how to show an increase of love (see D&C 121:43–44). Whatever you do in your priesthood service can be guided and measured by how well it could or did help the person take a testimony of the truth down into his or her life and heart, enough for the Atonement to work and keep working.
You can get assurance in your service. You can forget yourself and begin to pray for and love those you are to serve. And you can choose what to do and measure success by the degree to which it changes the hearts of the people you serve.
But it is never going to be easy for you or for those you serve. There will always be pain in service and in the repentance necessary to bring the power of the Atonement to change hearts. That is in the nature of what you are called to do. Think of the Savior, whose service you are in. At what point in His mortal life can you see an instance when it was easy for Him? Did He ask easy things of His disciples then? Then why should it ever be easy in His service or for His disciples?
The reason for that is suggested by the phrase “a broken heart,” about which you have been taught so well today. The scriptures sometimes speak of people’s hearts being softened, but more often the words describing the state we seek for ourselves and for those we serve are a “broken heart.” This may help us accept that our call to serve and the need for the repentance we need and seek will not be easy. And it helps us understand better why testimony needs to go down into the hearts of our people. Faith that Jesus Christ atoned for their sins has to go down into the heart—a broken heart.
Now, tonight let us decide together what we are going to do. All of us, whatever our callings may be, face tasks that are beyond our own powers. I do and you do. That’s true from the simple fact that success is to get testimony down into the hearts of people. We can’t make that happen. Even God won’t force that on anyone.
So success requires people we serve to choose to accept the testimony of the Spirit into their hearts. The Spirit is ready. But many people aren’t ready to invite the Spirit. Our task, which is in our power, is to invite the Spirit into our lives so that people we serve will want to have the fruits of the Spirit in their lives—the fruits that they can see in ours.
This leads me to some suggestions of what we can choose to do or not to do. Some things we can do invite the Spirit. Some force the Spirit to withdraw. You know that from your own experience.
No priesthood holder who wants to succeed will be careless about where his eyes may go. Choosing to look at images which incite lust will cause the Spirit to withdraw. You have been warned by Elder Clayton as well as you may ever be warned about the dangers of the Internet and the media in putting pornographic images before us. But immodesty is now so common that everyday life requires discipline—a conscious choice not to linger watching whatever might create in us feelings which would repel the Spirit.
The same care is required in what we say. We cannot hope to speak for the Lord unless we are careful with our speech. Vulgarity and profanity offend the Spirit. Just as immodesty seems to be more common, so does vulgar and profane language. It used to be that only in certain places and with certain groups would we hear the name of the Lord taken in vain or hear vulgar words and crude humor. Now it seems to be everywhere and, for many, socially acceptable, where once it was not.
You can decide—and you must—to change what you say even when you can’t control what others say. But I know from my own experience that even in such a terrible situation you can count on God’s help. Years ago I was an air force officer serving for two years in an office with a marine colonel, an army colonel, and a grizzled navy commander. They had learned to speak in war and in peace in a way which offended me, and I know it repelled the Holy Ghost. I was at the time serving as a district missionary, trying in the evenings to go out to find people and teach them under the influence of the Holy Ghost. It was very hard. I was only a lieutenant. They were very senior to me. I had no way of changing their language. But I prayed for help. I don’t know how God did it, but in time their language changed. Slowly the profanity disappeared and then the vulgarity. Only when they drank liquor did it come back, but that was in the evenings, so I could excuse myself for missionary work.
You can have memories like that to sustain your faith when life puts you in difficult places. God helps the faithful priesthood holder who decides to see and say no evil, even in a wicked world. It will not be easy. It never is. But you can have the promise fulfilled for you as I know that it can be for me: “Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven” (D&C 121:45).
I testify that I know that you and I hold the priesthood of God and that He will answer our prayers with sweet assurance and with the help to serve Him better. I so promise you and testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Heavenly Father wants us to serve others. My Primary teacher was a great example of service. When we came to Primary, Sister Antonietti always brought a chocolate cake. I hated chocolate cake! Everyone else liked it. But I never ate it.
One day she asked me, “Why don’t you try a little piece? This cake is made with a special ingredient.”
I agreed to try it. And guess what? I liked it!
Many years later my mom told me what Sister Antonietti’s secret ingredient was. “Sister Antonietti didn’t have much money,” my mom said. “Each week she had to choose between paying for a bus ride to Primary or buying the ingredients to make the chocolate cake for your class. She always chose the chocolate cake. So instead of riding the bus, she walked more than two miles [3 km], each way, regardless of the weather.”
Sister Antonietti’s secret ingredient was the love she had for others!

In British Columbia, Canada, Scouts of the Fifth Kelowna Troop arranged a special Remembrance Day recognition evening. The young men, ranging in age from 11 to 13, moved out of their comfort zones to interview LDS veterans in the Vernon British Columbia Stake, the troop’s sponsor.
Patrol leader Michael Edis of the Kelowna Second Ward conducted the evening as master of ceremonies. After a flag ceremony, the singing of the Canadian national anthem, and a presentation on the history of Remembrance Day, each Scout gave a short biography about the veteran he had interviewed. Each veteran was then presented with a “thank you” crest.
“They risked their lives for us,” said Brady Wilson. “It was fun to give out the thank-you awards and listen to their stories.”

Illustration by Adam Howling
“Hey, Trace, where did Mom go tonight?” I called out as I walked through the dirty kitchen. It looked like a tornado had blown through—dirty dishes were all over the place.
“I don’t know. She and Dad went to a dinner party with some friends,” replied the youngest of my 11 brothers and sisters as he watched a basketball game.
“So, is this food up for grabs?” I asked, hoping to find something in the pots and pans.
Wesley, number 10 of the 11, came bounding down the old, battered stairs, and as he ran to see the latest basketball score, he said, “Mom made it for us and left for the party. She said she’ll be back late and to not make too much of a mess.”
“Too late for that,” I mumbled. “Man. Good thing it’s not my night to clean up.”
The Christmas season was in full swing, and having our whole family in town made for a heavy amount of stress that seemed to wind up in Mom’s shoulder muscles. That’s when the idea came to me. It had been a while since I’d done anything but dirty the house—so why not surprise Mom and make it less dirty for a change?
After having a bite to eat, I tried for a miracle. “Wes, Trace, what do you think about cleaning this place up for Mom?”
“You can do what you want. I’m watching the game,” Trace said. He sounded bugged by the mere thought of trading dishes for the game.
“I knew it was pointless to ask you two,” I grumbled, feeling annoyed. The giant mound of dirty dishes was daunting, but someone had to do the job.
Usually when Mom asks me to clean the kitchen I whine for at least five minutes before grudgingly carrying out her wish. I typically react to her pleas for help with pride and selfishness. So this time, at first I started cleaning because I was looking for her praise. But soon I felt a joy that I can’t explain in doing the work without being asked.
As I began to slosh dishes around in the sink and squeeze the pineapple-scented dish soap into the steaming water, something unexpected began to happen.
Slowly, as if trying to hide the fact that he was even thinking of helping, Wesley wandered in and said, “I’ll dry if you wash.” Not wanting to scare him off, I nodded without looking at him.
“OK,” I said, “but the element of surprise is everything, so let’s move fast.”
Two minutes later, Trace walked sheepishly into the kitchen and said, “I’ll wipe the counters and sweep, but that’s it. And if I miss anything cool in the game, I’m going to be mad.”
“No prob,” I answered. “The faster we go, the faster we’ll be done. If Mom could only see us now, I think she’d have a heart attack.”
“Yeah,” they both said in unison.
“I was just thinking. What if we did the math?” Wes said. “There are 365 days in a year, times 13 of us, and then add three meals a day. I can’t even work those numbers. I’m just glad I’m not Mom.”
“It’s 14,235,” declared Trace triumphantly.
“Oh, and then times it by each utensil and cup on the table. I’m beginning to feel depressed. I don’t even know how Mom handles us all.”
“Hurry, here they come!” Trace yelled just as we caught sight of the car’s headlights. “Quick, hide!” I ran to my position at the top of the stairs, just out of eyesight, listening intently for Mom’s response to the sparkling countertops. As I waited, I sat thinking about what had just happened. We’d sacrificed half an hour that would have been wasted in front of the TV. How simple it was to give so little and have it mean so much.
The hum of the car’s motor cut out. The car doors opened and thumped shut. As the kitchen door swung open with a burst of icy winter air, we heard these rewarding words, “Oh! Heavenly angels have been at work!”

A few years later, in graduate school in Indiana, a fellow student came into my practice room just before spring break. He looked quite dejected. I said, “Gary, what’s bothering you?” He was upset because he had decided to go to Florida with some friends for spring break, and that would mean he could not practice for a whole week.

I said, “Gary, lighten up, man! You will do better when you get back because of the break. It will be better than if you had stayed here the whole time working.”

“You really think so?” he said.

“Yes! Why, I take a day off every week, and things always go better because of it.”

He was incredulous, and we began comparing practice routines. He was practicing three hours during the day and two hours after dinner plus 12 hours each Sunday. I was practicing the three hours during the day, but often missed the two hours in the evening because I was working with the full-time missionaries, and I wasn’t practicing at all on Sundays. This was a real testimony to me of the Lord’s blessings in my practice because Gary and I were always in a friendly competition for the best playing opportunities, and I always seemed to stay just a little ahead of him in auditions and ensemble placement.

Brother Lowell also arranged for the team to travel to Australia and to the Church College of New Zealand and to play several exhibition games en route. To help fund that project, the polo players swam 7,000 laps in a hotel pool, with people pledging money for each lap completed. During the tour they stayed part of the time with LDS families and were impressed by their friendly attitude, high standards, and enthusiasm for life. “They made us feel at home,” Guy Baker, one of Cal’s teammates, said. The team gained enough recognition with its 13–1–1 record during the tour to receive tentative invitations to Japan and Cuba next year.

While serving as a mission president, I came home once to general conference. It’s always very dangerous for a mission president to leave his mission—I don’t recommend that. While I was away, four of my missionaries had decided that a sister was too good for her husband, and they had counseled her to divorce him and leave him. That’s right. A missionary, you see, is called to preach the gospel by the Spirit, and he has great responsibility with respect to nonmembers. But when it comes to membership in the Church, we have branch presidents and bishops who are called, ordained, and set apart by the Lord to give this kind of direction and guidance. I would even be concerned about a bishop who would counsel a wife to leave her husband. I transferred those missionaries, got them as far from this situation as I could as quickly as I could. Then it took a month before I was able to get the husband and wife back together again! It worked out all right. They are still corresponding with me even now, so I think it’s going to work out pretty well. But when we get out of our areas of assignment, we get into trouble. It makes no difference who you are.

On another occasion, I had the opportunity to work with a woman who had experienced the trauma of domestic violence. Her experience had forged distrust of herself and others. During one activity, she climbed to the top of a telephone pole and stood. The object was for her to leap and ring a bell. The invitation was given for her to identify what she wanted to leap toward in her life. Standing on the swaying pole, she declared that she wanted a better life, to be a stronger person, and to be a courageous mother. She leaped and rang the bell. Her feet firmly planted on new ground, this would impact her family and her future. We all witnessed the intentionality of re-creation.

In September 1938 I was 15 years old and lived in the little Swiss village of Gilly, between Geneva and Lausanne, in the Swiss canton of Vaud.
One day I returned home from school and found Mamma (Geneviève Emilie Pauline Gay) visiting with two young gentlemen, one from Canada and one from the United States. They were missionaries of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and were living in the nearby village of Nyon. My mother was helping them improve their French language skills. She told me that she was very happy to help, and I met them several times. Then one day Mamma told me that the young gentlemen had left Nyon. Over the years, Mamma and I wondered what had become of them.
I grew up, married, and moved to central France with my husband. In 1990 we were living in the small town of Beaumont in Puy de Dôme when by chance I came upon a magazine article in Le Point, a current affairs magazine. The article was called “Recenser l’humanité depuis Adam et Eve” (“To take a census of humanity since Adam and Eve”). It told about the work of genealogical research and baptism for the dead in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
As I read, I experienced a great shock that took me back more than half a century. For several days after reading the article, I felt unsettled, as if I must do something. I thought of my mother, who had always had much faith and goodwill toward other religions and had passed away in 1978. I also thought of my father, who had died in 1937.
Finally, I wrote a letter to Mr. Patrick Coppin, director of acquisitions for the Genealogical Society of Utah, who had been mentioned in the article. I asked if the names of my mother and father might be included in the genealogy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and if they could receive the blessings of the Church. I included my parents’ birth, marriage, and death dates.
I also included something else: the names and addresses of Elder Brigham Y. Card of Cardston, Alberta, Canada, and Elder Jay Lees of Salt Lake City. They had written their names and addresses on the back of a photograph they had given my mother 52 years earlier.
Three weeks later, I received a letter from Elder Card telling me it would be his joy to act as proxy in the temple ordinances for my mother and father. Tears rolled down my cheeks as I read his letter, but it took me several days to realize what this meant for my parents. On 28 June 1990, my parents were baptized, endowed, and sealed in the Jordan River Temple, with Elder Card and his wife, daughter, and son-in-law acting as proxies. My parents had received the blessings of the temple.

A dance festival? Sharon Leo had never seen one, and now she was invited to dance in one. An 18-year-old nonmember living in central Utah, Sharon had been around Mormons all of her life. Now her friend Jolynne Taylor of the Orem Utah Sharon West Stake had asked Sharon to join her in a five-stake dance festival to be held in the huge BYU Marriott Center. With reservations, Sharon accepted.

Rehearsals occupied every Saturday morning for months as Sharon found herself practicing square dances, Swiss polkas, disco numbers, karate exercise numbers, Greek line dances, the English quadrille (her specialty), and many other dances with 600 fathers, mothers, young adults, teens, and children. Sharon’s view of Mormonism began to expand as she met new people and made more friends.

While the entire cast struggled to learn dances together, the rehearsals didn’t all go smoothly. Mary Kay Kelly, 14, of the Orem Utah South Central Stake, remembered, “We never could get the Danish dance to work right—but the last night we had a prayer and it went perfectly.”

Then there were the costumes to make. While Sharon was struggling to put in a zipper and get the length of her costume correct, others were also sewing like crazy—especially where whole families were participating. Cori Dawn Anderson, 16, of the Orem Utah Sharon West Stake, commented, “Being in the dance festival as a whole family was a good experience. The hardest part was making seven costumes in two weeks. But with everyone helping and sewing in their spare time, we got them all finished. It was really fun, and despite all the work, it was worth it.”

During the rush of practices and costume making, Sharon Leo began taking the missionary discussions.

As Sharon grew in gospel knowledge, the dance festival grew in excitement among its participants. Bishops, stake presidents, and high council members responded to the challenge to participate and brought their families. Miriam Abegg, 17, whose father is on the Orem Utah West Central Stake high council said, “The dance festival was fantastic! I could feel that the Lord’s Spirit was with us during our performance. And I enjoyed practicing with my family. It helped me to see my dad with different eyes—enjoying square dancing, whirling and throwing my mom and us kids up in the air. It was a lot of work, but it was fun to work with other people—especially my own family, even though my brother did drop me on the floor one time.”

Suddenly, the day of the performance was upon them. Between the final dress rehearsal and the evening performance, a different kind of event took place. As Sharon’s family, friends, missionaries, teachers, and priesthood administrators watched, she stepped into the waters of baptism. Jolynne’s father performed the baptism, and Jolynne’s mother accompanied the hymns at the piano. Jolynne waited at the top of the baptismal steps to be the first to give Sharon a hug of fellowship. It was a beautiful time of reverence in an exciting day.

The dance performance filled the evening. As the Marriott Center darkened, over 6,000 spectators sat waiting. Suddenly the lights flashed on to the throb of Star Wars music, and the youth and their families began a spectacular show complete with bright lights, colorful costumes, and exciting dances. The dance numbers that had been such stumbling blocks—difficult to learn, difficult to find music for—suddenly were magnificent. The costumes, made mostly from donated materials, looked professional. The organization and technical details, so ragged in rehearsal, suddenly ran smoothly and professionally.

As Joycelynn Demaree, the costume chairman, remarked, “There were so many little miracles and acts of faith that took place during the putting on of the festival. It was a lot of hard work, but to see the whole thing come together was worth every minute of the thousands of hours involved.”

My fondest childhood memories are of my family piling into our big gold van and fleeing the flat deserts of Texas toward the mountains and rivers of the West. As we climbed in elevation, my father, a geologist, would point out the window at rock formations and explain how the layers were deposited just so and how the rocks contained a record of past processes that quietly shaped the landscapes in front of my eyes. My mother would take pictures of wildflowers, collect pine cones, and revel in the turning of the seasons.
Their love for nature was contagious, and I fell in love with the world of living things too.
Years later, while serving my mission among the mountains and forests of Alaska, I developed an even deeper respect for the connections between God’s human and nonhuman creations and decided to devote my life to the conservation and study of nature.
Throughout my studies, I’ve been encouraged by principles of earth stewardship taught by prophets, apostles, and other Church leaders. For example:
At the beginning of this dispensation, the Lord told Joseph Smith that He wanted the Saints to be “accountable, as [stewards] over earthly blessings, which I have made and prepared for my creatures” (Doctrine and Covenants 104:13).
President Russell M. Nelson has taught: “As beneficiaries of the divine Creation, what shall we do? We should care for the earth, be wise stewards over it, and preserve it for future generations.”1
In 2019, Sister Sharon Eubank, First Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency and president of Latter-day Saint Charities, discussed the connection between God’s children and the earth by stating: “Some people will say, ‘Isn’t there something more important to do? Shouldn’t we be caring for the poor versus caring for the earth?’ And my question is, are they not linked so inextricably that we can’t do one without caring for the other?”2
And finally, President M. Russell Ballard, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, spoke these words directly to our generation in March 2020: “I see … your commitment to a more sustainable future for all of God’s children and creatures and the earth. Whether it is environmental, economic, or social, I would hope you will continue to find creative solutions to help protect the future for all of God’s children in our world. We should do whatever we can to protect and preserve the earth, to make life better for those who will live here. We have a divine stewardship, as noted in Doctrine and Covenants 59:16–20.”3
These teachings and many others4 highlight our responsibility to care for God’s creations, both today and for future generations. So how can we as young adult Latter-day Saints respond to these prophetic teachings more fully today? Here are a few ideas to consider.
In the past few decades, nations across the world have been experiencing increases in pollution, deforestation, drought, species extinction, biodiversity loss, and other challenges that are intensifying.5 We need to always keep in mind that God created this earth for us, His children, and it’s our responsibility to care for and protect it (see 1 Nephi 17:36; Doctrine and Covenants 59:20; 103:13).
We can start by learning more about these and other environmental problems that may exist in our communities and countries. As Latter-day Saints, we’re taught to be informed about “things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; … things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:79). Surely the Lord wants us to care about the issues that affect His creations—both this earth and its inhabitants.
Learning about the role we play in our local ecological communities can also help us discover how our individual actions affect the environment. In our increasingly connected world, people’s individual actions on one continent are now collectively contributing to the environmental effects felt by God’s children in other parts of the world (for example, things like rising sea levels, food shortages, plastic pollution, and invasive species). This relationship with our global neighbors provides a whole new meaning to the commandment to “love [our] neighbour as [ourselves]” (Matthew 22:39).
It’s good to learn about environmental problems, and even better to do something about them. Here are a few practical steps you can take:
Go outside and learn about the plants, animals, and ecosystems around you. Knowledge leads to understanding and respect; use field guides, online resources, or apps to get to know God’s creations more personally.
Choose to walk, skate, cycle, carpool, or use public transportation where available. You can enjoy the outdoors a little bit more while at the same time reducing pollution.
Buy local. This has the double benefit of directly supporting your community and cutting carbon emissions (products grown or made locally don’t need to travel as far).
Plant a garden. There are few food sources more sustainable or personally fulfilling than growing your own!6 As a young adult, you might have limited space, so start small by growing an herb garden or consider joining a community garden.
Reduce, reuse, recycle. Consume less, carry reusable grocery bags and water bottles, and check what materials are recyclable in your city.
Use less water and energy. Things like taking shorter showers, turning off lights, and unplugging appliances when not in use can all add up.
Get involved. You could consider volunteering or supporting reputable environmental groups.
Vote. Take the time to be educated, and vote the way you feel will best affect environmental issues and policies.
Be “anxiously engaged in a good cause” (see Doctrine and Covenants 58:26–29). We’ve been taught the principles—now it’s time to act on them.
You don’t have to feel overwhelmed by this list: to start, choose just one item and put energy behind it. Doing something is better than nothing. In doing these simple acts of environmental service, you may feel that your contribution doesn’t matter, that it won’t make any difference against the magnitude of the world’s ecological issues, but remember that “by small and simple things are great things brought to pass” (Alma 37:6).
In spiritual matters, we don’t stop choosing the right just because the world is growing more wicked! We know that our small acts of kind service won’t stop all the evil in the world, but we continue to perform them anyway, blessing lives in the process. We can have a similar attitude toward the earth and her inhabitants.
Throughout my life, I’ve had the privilege to travel and conduct research in many different countries and landscapes. Despite the drastic differences in species, climate, and human culture that exist on our planet, there is one unifying principle among each of these ecosystems: they are all connected and beautifully alive.
When Christ returns to this earth—a world He created to sustain us physically and spiritually, and one that He commanded us to preserve—I, for one, hope to have done my best to take care of His beautiful creation.

I have had many worthwhile experiences since coming to BYU, and I should like to introduce my remarks this morning by telling you of one of these.

A few years ago it was the privilege of many of us on the faculty to represent the Unified Church School System throughout the stakes of the Church at quarterly conferences and to explain what we were doing in the seminaries and institutes and at BYU. We would accompany the General Authorities to these quarterly conferences. What golden hours they were, to spend hour upon hour with the Brethren in their automobiles, talking about the gospel and the challenges and problems of the Church.

On one occasion I went with President A. Theodore Tuttle, of the First Council of the Seventy, up to a stake in Idaho. He told me something about this stake on the way. He said, “I don’t expect to see too much activity here. This stake is one of the poorer stakes of the Church, so far as attendance is concerned. It is a farming community, and the young people are moving out. Primarily the members are older people. The stake is getting smaller all the time; in fact, we have considered combining it with another stake.”

Therefore I was not too surprised when it came time for us to meet with the stake presidency that only one member of the stake presidency was there. However, we began our meeting, and in time all four of them were there.

Then, in the evening, when it came time to have our stake priesthood meeting, there were only seven people present—including Brother Tuttle, myself, and four members of the stake presidency. The stake president turned to Brother Tuttle and said, “What shall we do?”

Brother Tuttle said, “We will go ahead.”

So we did, and we had the opening song and the prayer. By this time there were eleven people there. The stake clerk got up to call the roll. He called the roll—four of the stake presidency, two on the high council. Then he called for the presidency of a priesthood quorum to stand. One man stood up. He said, “I am the only one here.”

Brother Tuttle got up from his seat, went over and stood next to the stake clerk who was calling the roll, and looked over at the man. He said, “Brother, how many is one?”

The man said, “Pardon me. What did you say?”

“How many is one?”

The man stood there, slightly flustered, and did not reply. The seconds turned into about a half-minute or so. I felt a little bit embarrassed. I was about to raise my hand and volunteer the answer, because, although I had not had very much math, I knew enough that one is one.

But before I could get my hand up, someone far wiser than I in the audience raised his hand. Brother Tuttle acknowledged him, and the man stood up and said, “It depends. Sometimes one is a multitude.”

Brother Tuttle said, “Thank you,” and sat down.

I have thought of that experience many times. I am not sure I know exactly what Brother Tuttle was trying to teach, but he taught me something. Since that time, whenever I pick up a biography or an autobiography of a great man or woman, whenever I read the scriptures and study the lives of the prophets and the life of the Savior, I am reminded of the statement of that good brother: “Sometimes one is a multitude.”

During my boyhood, the Roman Catholic priest taught me that repentance is not a casual act. He said that asking for forgiveness for the same sins over and over is not the turning around which is expected of us in repentance. The priest said this to me after listening to me ask for forgiveness for stealing my mother’s peanut butter several times. My mother would make peanut butter and place in a big jar. I would sneak in the kitchen unnoticed and scoop some out. I would then shake the jar so that my mother would not notice any was missing.
Once every six weeks the priest would visit our little chapel in Silobela, Zimbabwe. This was the only opportunity we had to partake of the sacrament. In preparation for the ordinance, the priest would take his chair and sit under a tree and invite us to kneel before him and confess our sins. The priest would ask Heavenly Father on our behalf to be forgiven of any wrongdoing. It was during these occasions that the priest told me how disappointed he was in me for asking for forgiveness for the same thing again and again. He said, “Edward, do not play with God”. I loved peanut butter, even up to this day, I love peanut butter! The change from stealing mother’s peanut butter was hard but with her help, I was successful, and it was worth it!

It took me a long time, many years of preparation, to make it into orbit. I learned that important things don’t come easily or quickly. I learned that persistence pays off. I also learned that you have to be prepared when the opportunity comes. I started preparing for the space program long before there was a space program. I could pass the six-day astronaut physical examination because I had lived the Word of Wisdom all my life. When they started accepting applications for the astronaut program, I had already completed my education. I already knew how to fly jet airplanes. When they ran an FBI check on me, there was nothing in the record that would disqualify me. Now, you young men of the Aaronic Priesthood, this evening you have already started to prepare for what you will someday become. I encourage you to prepare well.