Gospel Story Finder

I remember an experience I had on my mission. I was assigned to the mission home and received a call from a missionary newly arrived in the field. He indicated that he wanted to go home right then. The mission president and his wife were unavailable for a few days. I asked the mission secretary to go with me, and we drove down to the little Swiss village where the missionary was stationed. I went tracting with him while the mission secretary went tracting with his senior companion. We tracted farmhouses, and so we had a long time between houses to talk. After talking about missionary work and life in general, the missionary was feeling okay about staying on.

Our conversation turned to him. This missionary was different than most—he was much older because he was a convert. He was converted while he was a soldier in Vietnam, and then he went on a mission after he returned home from the war. He talked about his experiences, and at one point he talked about being on reconnaissance when shots were being fired. He and the soldiers in his patrol dove off the road to avoid the shots, and he heard explosions around him. The Viet Cong had placed land mines around and then used gunfire to get the soldiers to jump off the road. He talked about seeing one of his buddies literally blown apart. He became choked up.

There was silence, and finally I said, “I understand.”

I remember that he looked at me and said, “No, you don’t! There is no way you could understand. You had to be there. You had to feel it to understand.”

And you know, he was right.

Sometimes the Lord makes us go through difficult experiences because there is no other way to understand the truth. Sometimes we have to go through pain to understand pain. But it is the gospel that will provide us with the right attitude and perspective to understand. Without the gospel some people only learn bitterness or anger from these experiences. We have to be “of the truth” to understand the truth. We can have the same experiences, the same facts, but we have to be “of the truth” to understand the truth.

“Conner, it’s time to get up,” Mom said, gently shaking him.
Conner moved slowly at first. Then he remembered.
“Today’s Sunday!” he shouted as he jumped out of bed. He raced to put on his Sunday clothes and hurried down to breakfast.
What is he doing today that is so special? Mom wondered.
Conner did have something special to do. He had waited all week for Sunday to come.
Last week in his Primary class, Sister Plummer had said, “When I was about 10, I discovered something that helped me be more reverent. If you would like to know my secret, listen for the words always remember in sacrament meeting next week, and then always remember what comes after those words.”
Conner had decided he would listen. He wanted to know Sister Plummer’s secret.
At church, he heard Bishop Sheppard say, “Remember to come to the ward party.” Conner knew that wasn’t Sister Plummer’s “always remember.”
He listened as the congregation began to sing the sacrament hymn. He wondered if Sister Plummer’s special words might be in the hymn. He pointed at each word in the hymnbook and found himself singing along. But he didn’t find the special words.
Conner bowed his head and listened carefully as one of the priests said the sacrament prayer. Toward the end of the prayer, he heard “always remember.” He knew Sister Plummer’s secret! He knew who he was always to remember. But can I “always remember” Jesus? he wondered.
Conner folded his arms and sat reverently. When a deacon stumbled as he passed the sacrament, Conner wanted to poke his little sister and say, “Sara, did you see that?”
But he didn’t because he remembered.
After the sacrament, the first speaker was Sister Swanson. She smiled a lot and was easy to listen to. He had no trouble remembering while she was speaking.
“Good morning, brothers and sisters!” Brother Swanson said. He was a big man with a jolly voice. But the words Brother Swanson spoke were almost as large as he was. Conner didn’t understand everything he said and soon lost interest. His fingers began to fumble around in his pockets. He found a rubber band and started to twist it. Suddenly he remembered. The rubber band went back into his pocket, and he looked up at Brother Swanson and listened for words he knew.
A girl in front of Conner was chewing gum and blew a little bubble. It made a tiny pop. Conner watched as she began blowing another. It grew bigger and bigger and bigger.
Then Conner remembered. When the big bubble popped, he didn’t see the girl’s face covered in pink gum. So he didn’t laugh like some people around him did.
Not long after the bubbles, the Johnsons’ baby rolled under the bench and pulled playfully at Conner’s leg.
Conner wanted to play with her, but he stopped himself just in time. He had remembered.
“Sorry, Conner,” Sister Johnson whispered as she struggled to get the wiggly baby girl back on the bench.
Conner didn’t hear or see them leave the chapel. His big blue eyes were watching Brother Swanson’s eyes fill with tears. His ears were hearing the speaker’s voice soften to a near whisper as he spoke of his love for the Savior. Conner felt warm and tingly inside.
After the meeting, Mom said, “Conner, you were so reverent today. How did you do it?”
Conner smiled. “Every time I thought about something else, I always remembered Someone.”
“Who did you always remember?” Mom asked.
“I always remembered Jesus,” Conner said, “and it felt good!”

I grew up attending the Ogden First Ward in Ogden, Utah, USA. When I was about nine years old, our bishop (who was my father) started the testimony portion of a fast and testimony meeting by asking everyone in the congregation to bear their testimony. The meeting proceeded just as Dad had asked. Almost everyone in attendance stood and bore their testimonies.
The church building where Elder Hales attended the Ogden First Ward as a child.
Photographs courtesy of the author
This was a notable event for me. Every testimony was simple, to the point, and focused on what each person knew to be true about the Savior and His gospel. As far as I could tell, everyone could feel a distinct outpouring of the Spirit. Undoubtedly, I had felt the Spirit before, but the Spirit was present in a remarkable way that day. I felt a powerful witness of the truthfulness of the gospel. After all these years, I have never forgotten this experience when I felt the unity of the ward and the love of the Savior.
As I remember that unique fast and testimony meeting from my childhood, the feelings I had and the seeds of testimony planted in my heart by the Holy Ghost help me want to be a better person now. When we follow Alma’s counsel by remembering our own spiritual experiences, faithfully adhering to our personal religious practices, and humbly pondering all the Savior has done for us, we strengthen our ability to honor our covenants and draw closer to Him.

Although most of the Saints had left Nauvoo by summertime, some still remained because of poverty or sickness. This made anti-Mormons very angry. On September 10, 1846, about eight hundred men with six cannons began to fire on the Saints still in Nauvoo. The attack continued for several days until an agreement was reached that every Mormon would leave except five men and their families, who would stay to sell the remaining property.

As if being a kid isn’t bad enough. I had to grow up next door to the girl with the All-American teeth. Allison (“two ls”) Adamson had the straightest, whitest teeth in the history of orthodontistry. Adults always commented on this. You could count on them to say, “Doesn’t the Adamson girl have lovely teeth?” every time they got together.
As for me, I was more interested in the fact that Allison took tap, tumbling, ballet, baton, and hula lessons after school. She also played the piano and collected dolls from different countries. Best of all, she had her own dog—a white poodle named Hercules. Me, I just had a goldfish named Ralph. You can probably see already how things were for me growing up next door to someone like Allison Adamson.
Because we were neighbors who happened to be LDS, Allison and I ended up doing things together all the time. During the summer we went to the pool with Allison’s mom, and during the winter we watched cartoons after school together. This made everyone think, of course, that we were best friends, and we were. Sort of.
The problem was that underneath all my smiles I was jealous of Allison. I wanted all the pretty girl things she had that my parents couldn’t buy for me so badly that my chest literally hurt at times. I wanted her dolls, her canopy bed with the foamy pink bedspread, her play makeup case with the play makeup. I can remember sitting in her white wicker rocker one day and telling her I’d trade my shoebox of Bazooka bubble gum wrappers for one of her bendable Barbies. She wasn’t interested, of course.
Our eighth birthdays were coming up in April, and one day on the way home from school Allison asked who was going to baptize me.
I hadn’t thought about it much. “I don’t know,” I confessed. “Who’s going to baptize you?”
“My dad,” she said proudly.
“Well I guess my dad will baptize me, too, then,” I told her. I’d never seen anyone baptized—I’m the oldest in my family—but I figured my dad could probably do it if someone showed him how.
Allison looked at me with wide disbelieving blue eyes. “But he can’t!” she exclaimed.
This was news to me. “Why?” I wanted to know.
“Because my mom says he can’t. My mom says he isn’t worthy.”
I didn’t know what the word worthy meant, but I didn’t like Allison’s tone.
“Yes he is too worthy,” I said.
“No he’s not.”
“Yes he is.”
Allison stopped and stared at me the way our third-grade teacher always stared at stupid Stewart Lufgren. “Your dad is not worthy, Brenda, because he doesn’t go to church and he smokes. I know he smokes because I can smell it when I go to your house.” She wrinkled her little button nose in distaste. “Don’t you know anything?”
My throat suddenly felt very tight. Blood was pounding in my ears. “I hate you, Allison Adamson,” I said finally. Then I turned and ran home.
Our house is so busy with people that no one noticed how miserable I was at first. At dinner, though, Mom squinted her eyes at me and said across the table, “Are you okay, Brenda honey?”
I nodded yes.
She came into my bedroom that night before I fell asleep. “Did something happen to you at school today, Brenda? You can tell me about it if you want to.”
“No, nothing happened,” I answered, as tonelessly as a telephone operator.
Mom just sat there on the foot of my bed for a minute. Then she said, “Do you want to talk to Daddy?” Sometimes I told him things I wouldn’t tell anybody else. But this time I shook my head. Hard.
“No!”
I lay awake in bed for a long time that night watching shadows skip across my wall. Yessir, Allison had it all—extra money for Weekly Reader paperbacks, a locket with pictures inside, a father who could baptize her.
That was the first time I realized that my dad was different. I mean I always knew he didn’t go to church, but that hadn’t added up to anything—you think your father is just like everybody else’s dad when you’re a kid. But Allison had opened my eyes. The day we were baptized, Allison, looking like she had just stepped out of a fairy tale in her long white gown, was taken into the font by her smiling father. I was baptized by my Uncle Bill. Dad sat in the congregation looking uncomfortable in a suit. His rough brown worker’s hands were folded in his lap.
Things changed some between my father and me after that. Not that you could tell by looking at us—he still teased and tickled me and called me Sport and I still begged him to take me to baseball games. For sure we loved each other. But I didn’t tell him private things anymore. And then, too, I started noticing all the ways he wasn’t worthy. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t help myself.
If things changed between my father and me then, they changed even more between Allison and me. By the time we were freshmen in high school, we had pretty much gone our separate ways. Allison went from honors class to honors class while I wore an Army jacket and hung around the library with this nice but weird group of kids who all wanted to be science fiction writers when they grew up. Although she thought my friends were bad enough, it was the Army jacket that really got to Allison. “Only our boys in the armed forces should wear khaki,” she used to say.
And now this year, the girl with the all-American teeth and I are taking early-morning seminary together. There are two teachers—Brother Marshall and Brother Phillips. Brother Marshall is Mormondom’s answer to Robert Redford. All jawbone and blond hair, Brother Marshall is gorgeous. He also lettered in about a million sports when he was in college, so you can see he’s athletic, too. Besides this he’s young, nice, smart, and very funny. All the kids love him. Brother Phillips, on the other hand, is old enough to have fought in World War II. He’s small and stooped, just like a little gnome, and when he talks he whispers.
Funny thing, though, I like Brother Phillips best. I like the way he listens carefully to your questions, then thinks for a while before he answers. And lots of times he’ll answer, “I don’t know.” This drives Allison crazy. “If he wants to teach seminary then he should know,” she says. Maybe he should. I can’t say. I just like the way he seems so thoughtful about things.
The reason I’m even telling you all this is that I have a problem. I’m not talking about your typical teenager problems—losing books, being ambushed by a gang of pimples the night before a dance, dropping lunch trays. No. This one is a red-alert problem. Next Tuesday morning, I have to check into the hospital for a series of tests. They say I’ve got a tumor of some sort.
Frankly, I’m scared.
I thought some sort of blessing might help. I don’t mean a blessing that promises I’ll get better or anything like that. Just one that makes me feel like I’m not going through this alone. I thought maybe I’d ask Brother Phillips if he’d give me one: there’s something fatherly about him.
I feel pretty silly, actually, standing here at Brother Phillips’s office door. This is not the sort of thing I usually do. But I want a blessing.
I knock.
“Come in, come in.” Brother Phillips opens his door and greets me. When he smiles, his cheeks turn into small apples.
“How are you, Brenda?” he says.
“Okay,” I reply, looking around his office. It’s the first time I’ve ever been inside. It’s filled with books and old family pictures of people who look like characters on Leave It to Beaver reruns. His children, I think, must be all grown up and gone away by now. Did they ever ask him for blessings?
“What can I do for you?” he asks after inviting me to sit down.
Now that I’m here, I feel really stupid. I don’t know how to ask him for what I want.
“Well,” I begin, “I’m going into the hospital Tuesday morning.”
Brother Phillips draws his bristle brush brows together in concern. Encouraged by his silent sympathy, I go on. “Anyway, I want to know if you would mind giving me a blessing or something. It doesn’t have to be long or fancy.”
Brother Phillips looks at me for a moment, then presses his fingertips together and leans back in his swivel chair.
“I could do that,” he says slowly.
I wait. He doesn’t move.
“Brenda,” he says finally, “have you asked your father to give you a blessing?”
This is certainly a ball of the curved variety. I’m taken totally by surprise. “Well, no,” I confess.
“I see.” Pause. “Do you think perhaps you ought to go to him before you come to me?”
I can’t believe this. Brother Phillips knows that my father isn’t active in the Church.
“I don’t know,” I begin to stammer. “I guess I just thought that—” The memory of Allison, her perfect little mouth forming the words not worthy, jumps up like a puppet before my eyes, and with it the same old feelings of shame and rage return for an encore. “My father can’t give me a blessing!” I blurt out.
Brother Phillips shrugs. “Well, maybe not a formal blessing. But every parent has a prayer for his child. Go home, Brenda. Ask your father to tell you what’s in his heart for you. I know your father. He’s a good man.”
I leave feeling embarrassed, even a little angry that I didn’t get what I came for. All the same, though, I feel oddly comforted. Brother Phillips’s words “I know your father” play reel-to-reel through my mind.
Yes. And I know my father, too. I’ve lived with him for 16 years. I’ve seen him talk silly to the babies, play Candyland with my brothers without looking bored, scream at me to stay away from a live wire. I think he’s the kind of man who would have a prayer for his children.
Allison is standing at the bus stop looking perfect. I’ll say this for all those baton lessons—they sure gave Allison good posture.
“Hi, Allison,” I say, joining her.
“Hi, Brenda.”
We don’t say anything for a minute. Then she says, “I’m really sorry that you have to go to the hospital.” I can tell by looking at her face that she does feel bad. I smile at her.
“Me too.”
“Is there anything I can do to help?”
I think about this for a minute. Then I shake my head.
She drops her voice so none of the other kids will hear. “I’ll say a prayer for you, at least.”
“Yes,” I say slowly. “A prayer would be nice.”

I went sledding with my family. We had a lot of fun. There were lots of kids on the hill. I noticed that a girl was going too fast and was going to hit the fence. As she hit the fence, I ran down the hill to help her because I knew she must be hurt. She wasn’t hurt badly but she was scared and crying. No one else was around to help her, so I helped her get off her sled and made sure she was all right. Later that night when I went to bed I had a warm feeling in my heart. I knew it was the Holy Ghost telling me I had done something good and that Heavenly Father was happy with me.

Two missionaries tracting in Helsinki, Finland, in the spring of 1960 met an angry woman when they knocked at one door. She told them that if they were there to talk about a church, she didn’t want anything to do with it. One of the missionaries put his foot in the door in order to finish explaining that they represented The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. To the missionaries’ surprise, as soon as the woman heard the name of the Church, she opened the door and invited them in. So began a conversion that has touched the lives of many people in many countries.
The woman was Anna-Liisa Rinne. By profession she was a pediatrician. She was also divorced, the single mother of four children. “When the missionaries mentioned the name of the Church,” she now recalls, “I suddenly remembered reading a newspaper article in 1946, when Elder Ezra Taft Benson was visiting Finland to dedicate this country for missionary work. I remembered the Church’s long and peculiar name in Finnish. I had thought then that if there were a true church in the world, it must be that one.”
The missionaries taught her about the Book of Mormon. Anna-Liisa Rinne believed. In fact, she says, “I believed in such a childlike way that the next day I asked my colleagues at work whether they had heard that the origin of the American Indians had been discovered.” When she told them about the Book of Mormon, they all laughed at her. “For the first time I noticed that something exceptional was happening to me,” she recalls.
The gospel message seemed familiar to her, and she continued to receive the missionaries when she moved from Helsinki to Kuopio. But when the missionaries told her that they intended to baptize her, she asked them to stop coming. “I was afraid of people’s opinions,” she explains. “In my professional friendships, belonging to a religious group was not considered acceptable. I didn’t want to be different.”
But the matter kept bothering her until she finally went to a Church meeting. Soon the missionaries were coming again. “When I stopped drinking coffee, I received a testimony. I knew that the Church was true, and I had to join it.”
Three of her four children joined the Church with her, and all of them are still active Latter-day Saints. “When I was first being taught, the children would laugh behind the door. After I received my own testimony of the gospel, I got them to promise that they would listen to one discussion. I told the missionaries that they had better be good, because the children had promised to listen just this once. The elders prepared a very fine flannel-board presentation, after which the children promised that they would also join the Church. It is true, though, that the youngest son, Eikki, later said the reason he joined the Church was that his mother told him to,” Sister Rinne says, laughing.
Sister Rinne’s daughter, Kaarina Merenluoto, remembers that joining the Church changed their family life greatly. “Mother seemed much closer to us; we talked together more. She even looked quite a bit younger. Guests began to visit us, whereas before we had lived a fairly isolated life. Often the whole branch would meet at our place, as we had a large apartment, and we made many friends. Arguments between us brothers and sisters decreased. It is difficult to explain just what happened, but the whole atmosphere in the home changed.”
In the Kuopio Branch, Anna-Liisa Rinne soon became a central figure. She was Relief Society president while the branch was building a chapel, and she also served as interpreter and messenger for the construction supervisor. “At that time, I was the only one in the branch with a driver’s license,” she explains. “Therefore I had to take care of business with the hardware supplier. At the same time, I had to oversee the delivery of lunches to the construction workers.” For a while, the hospital’s pediatrician was “on call” at the church construction site.
Sister Anna-Kaarina Roto, a former member of the Kuopio Branch, now a doctor herself, remembers those times. “As the chapel was being built, she did all kinds of work and climbed the highest scaffolds. Later, after the chapel was completed, members took turns cleaning it. Seeing how conscientiously Sister Rinne swept the floors when it was her turn, no one dared to complain about his own turn.”
As a Young Women leader for years, Anna-Liisa Rinne had an enduring influence on the lives of many girls. One of those young women, Raili Jouttenus, now the wife of the bishop of the Tampere Ward, remembers, “Sister Rinne was a legendary teacher. I remember many of her talks and teachings vividly, even now after twenty years. She really cared about us young people. The doors to her house were always open, and she had time to listen to our questions, which were sometimes rather silly. In dealing with youth, she followed Joseph Smith’s concept: teach them correct principles, and they govern themselves. She never forced us into doing anything, but rather she was warm and encouraging. She showed that she believed in the youth, but she never compromised her correct principles. If something was wrong, she said so clearly.”
Sister Rinne also remembers her work with the Young Women fondly. “Many of the youth were the only members of the Church in their families and schools, and they had a very strong faith and testimony. We started to organize youth temple excursions in Kuopio, and the spiritual experiences we had on those trips were the best rewards of those years.”
Missionary work has been an important part of Sister Rinne’s life in many ways, although she did not at first expect that it would be. “When I returned home from the baptismal service, I thought, ‘Well, I have done the right thing in joining this church, but I will never tell anyone.’ But when we arrived home, Heikki changed his clothes and ran to tell all the neighbors that we were Mormons now,” Sister Rinne remembers, smiling.
Sister Rinne received her first missionary assignments after she moved to Jyväskylä, where she served twice as a district missionary. “In those days there were so many baptisms in Jyväskylä you could hear the roar of the water,” she recalls. “The Lord just sent us the people who were ready to hear the gospel.”
One of Anna-Liisa Rinne’s companions as a district missionary was Sister Kerttu Harinen, who has many good memories of that time. “Sister Rinne was my first companion in missionary work. I myself was still a little timid. I grew at her side and received courage enough to serve as a district missionary for many years afterwards. Our first investigator was baptized before we had been companions one month. We had asked that we could practice our missionary discussions with a family whose father did not belong to the Church. So it happened that as the result of our ‘practice’ the father of the family was baptized.”
In 1974, Anna-Liisa Rinne retired from her work as a doctor. In January 1975, she left for an eighteen-month health mission to Samoa. “Up to that point in life I had imagined that I was something of an important person. But a missionary is on one of the lowest steps in society, something like a private in the army,” she explains. Finding her own sense of worth was an important lesson of that experience.
Even before leaving Samoa, Sister Rinne received a new mission call to Tonga. An important experience there was getting to know her mission president, Tonga Toutai Paletu‘a, now president of the temple. “He was a man who performed one or two miracles every day. His absolute faith and positive attitude were a great example to everyone,” Anna-Liisa Rinne recalls.
During her time as a missionary in the Pacific area, Sister Rinne experienced many miraculous testimonies of the nearness of Heavenly Father. When she arrived in Tonga, hardly knowing the language at all, she was sent to speak in a certain village. In her pocket she had a ten-minute talk written on paper. But when she arrived, she learned that she was to be the only speaker for an hour-long meeting. “I was horrified in the face of this assignment. As I was sitting there afraid, I heard clearly the words: ‘But I am here.’ All fear vanished, and I spoke for the whole hour.”
In 1978, Anna-Liisa Rinne returned home to Finland, only to receive another mission call. In 1979 she left for Scotland as a proselyting missionary. “I had only young companions, and I was their trainer. We had a rule that the senior companion had to prepare breakfast until the junior companion learned the discussions. I always made Finnish oatmeal for breakfast, so these American girls learned the discussions very fast,” says Sister Rinne, laughing. For health reasons, she had to interrupt the mission after eleven months, but this did not mean a slowdown in her activity—just the opposite.
After twice serving as a volunteer temple worker in the Swiss Temple, she received a 1982 call to a temple mission. “It was valuable to me to work with older people who have had a long experience in life and to try every day to be pure in heart.” Then she was called as a counselor to the temple matron. “After completing my mission I still went back to work in the temple, and I would probably have stayed who knows how long, except that it was difficult to take care of my health there,” Sister Rinne says.
After returning from Switzerland to Finland, Anna-Liisa Rinne became involved with an assignment she had received even before she was called to temple work, writing a history of the Church in Finland. But before the work was finished a call came again—this time to the Stockholm Temple.
If Anna-Liisa Rinne’s work career has been exceptionally varied and broad, her hobbies have not quite been ordinary either. This grandmother of sixteen likes surfing, and last summer she taught almost all her grandchildren to surf. She also owns a small sailboat, and has passed a coast-guard class which finally resulted in an international sailing permit. A diving class and pistol shooting are still in her plans.
Looking back over her life to this point, Sister Rinne says, “I have continually sought my own identity in all phases of my life: who and what am I?” It is the gospel that has provided the answers to Sister Rinne’s quest. “In some ways, I have been a very lonely person, but this has forced me to seek Christ for protection. I have had to depend on him many times, and I have always received help from him,” she says.
In return, Anna-Liisa Rinne has been ready to serve wherever the Lord has needed her. And in so doing, she has verified Christ’s words: “He that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.”

While I was serving as stake president, my counselors and I invited a certain brother for an interview where we presented to him his calling to be the president of the stake Young Men organization. This man had not been fully active. He liked to spend his weekends, including Sundays, camping and fishing, and it was reported that he and his wife did not always obey the Word of Wisdom. There was some question as to whether we should consider him for such a position, but because of the prayerful discussions we had held in the presidency and the high council we concluded that he should be called. As we advised this brother of his appointment, he responded that he was not interested and that he did not feel worthy or qualified. We then told him how we had come to choose him over all the members of the stake. We explained that we needed a strong and capable leader of youth in our stake and that both the presidency and the high council had offered earnest prayers, asking the Lord to indicate the person who should fill the position. We said: “The answer was clear. You are the man the Lord has chosen. It is for you to decide, of course, but you do have an obligation to go home and discuss the question with your wife. The only request we make of you is that thereafter you kneel down with her and ask the Lord what he wants you to do.”

Three days later I received an unhappy telephone call from this same man. He reluctantly informed me that he would accept the position with all its implications. He gave powerful service in his calling, and when that assignment was finished, he became a member of the high council, and he has been happy about the gospel ever since.

Then came the hard part. Though Juanita and I were financially set for a long life together—and we anticipated many missions, lots of travel, and lots of grandkids—life didn’t go as planned. Juanita got cancer. She fought valiantly, but cancer won. I learned that there are some things that matter much more than money, and I learned the hard way that “you can’t take it with you.”
After Juanita died, I was a lonely, single dad. I couldn’t sleep. I got angry easily. I didn’t eat well. To compensate, I wasted my money. I learned how foolish it is to spend money when you are hungry, angry, lonely, and tired.

Living next to the border between Mexico and the United States, we enjoyed traditions of both cultures. Every year in school we had piñatas. One year I was sitting on the first row and the blind-folded child successfully hit the candy-filled piñata with a stick. I was the first one able to reach the candy when the piñata broke open. I had my arms around the whole thing. Within two or three seconds every other child in the school was on top of me. I was just flattened, and I lost everything.
The lesson I learned from that experience was that sometimes when we are greedy and try to take it all, we end up losing it all. If I had started passing the candy around, the other children wouldn’t have all jumped on top of me. But because I tried to take so much, I lost everything.

My husband and I were missionaries serving in Tarbes, France, in the Pyrenees Mountains. It was Christmas Eve, and we decided to go down to the city at Verdun Plaza to give away copies of the Book of Mormon. The street was deserted, and we started to ask ourselves what we were going to do with so many books. Suddenly, we saw a young man who seemed to not know where to go.
We approached him and offered him a Book of Mormon. He became joyful as he listened to us talk about the gospel. He explained that he was alone that Christmas night and that he would read the Book of Mormon and not feel alone.
After he left, we looked around the street again and saw a woman walking slowly toward us in the cold night. A glimmer of happiness shone in her eyes when we presented her with a Book of Mormon. She told us that she had become a widow recently and was happy that we were concerned about her. She said she was extremely grateful to us. As she walked away, we saw her hold the book against her heart.
That night we distributed every copy of the Book of Mormon that we had brought with us. Most of the people who we gave them to were alone, distressed, and very much in need of love. We went back home that night with the impression that we had received the greatest Christmas gift because of the joy that we were able to give to others.

When I was a mission president in Australia, I once said to those of my missionaries in Tasmania: “Tomorrow we shall climb Mt. Wellington and hold our missionary meeting on the top. We shall there seek to commune with the Lord and partake of his Spirit.”
We made the climb, and while on top of the peak we visited a television broadcasting station. A bright young man explained to us in words I had never heard, and using principles I could not and do not understand, how the sounds and scenes of television were broadcast into the valley below.
That night, back in the city of Hobart, my two young sons and I sat before a television set that was tuned to the proper wave band, and we saw and heard and experienced what had been described to us in words.
Now I think this illustrates perfectly what is involved in the receipt of revelation and the seeing of visions. We can read about visions and revelations in the records of the past, we can study the inspired writings of people who had the fullness of the gospel in their day, but we cannot comprehend what is involved until we see and hear and experience for ourselves.
This Tabernacle is now full of words and music. Handel’s Messiah is being sung, and the world’s statesmen are propagandizing their people. But we do not hear any of it.
This Tabernacle is full of scenes from Vietnam and Washington. There is even a picture of men walking on the surface of the moon. But we are not seeing these things. The minute, however, in which we tune a radio to the proper wave band and tune a television receiving set on the proper channel, we begin to hear and see and experience what otherwise remains completely unknown to us.
And so it is with the revelations and visions of eternity. They are around us all the time. This Tabernacle is full of the same things which are recorded in the scriptures and much more. The vision of the degrees of glory is being broadcast before us, but we do not hear or see or experience because we have not tuned our souls to the wave band on which the Holy Ghost is broadcasting.
Joseph Smith said: “The Holy Ghost is a revelator.” And, “No man can receive the Holy Ghost without receiving revelations.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith [Deseret Book Co., 1968], p. 328.)
Moroni said: “… by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.” (Moro. 10:5.)
The Comforter knoweth all things; he is commissioned to bear witness of the Father and the Son, to reveal, to teach, and to testify—and he is broadcasting all the truths of salvation, and all the knowledge and wisdom of God, out into all immensity all of the time.
How this is done we do not know. We cannot comprehend God or the laws by which he governs the universe. But that it does happen we know because here in the valley below, when we attune our souls to the Infinite, we hear and see and experience the things of God.
The laws governing radio and television have existed from the time of Adam to the present moment, but only in modern times have men heard and seen and experienced these miraculous things. And the laws have always existed whereby men can see visions, hear the voice of God, and partake of the things of the Spirit. But millions of people everywhere live and die without tasting the good word of God, because they do not obey the laws which implant the revelations of the Lord in their souls.
And may I say that the only way to gain true religion is to receive it from the Lord. True religion is revealed religion; it is not a creation of man’s devising; it comes from God.
Man did not create God, nor can he redeem himself. No man can resurrect himself or assign himself to an inheritance in a heavenly kingdom. Salvation comes from God, on his terms, and the things men must do to gain it can be known only by revelation.
God stands revealed or he remains forever unknown, and the things of God are and can be known only by and through the Spirit of God.
True religion deals with spiritual things. We do not come to a knowledge of God and his laws through intellectuality, or by research, or by reason. I have an average mind—one that is neither better nor worse than the general run of mankind. In the realm of intellectual attainment I have a doctor’s degree, and I hope my sons after me will reach a similar goal. In their sphere, education and intellectuality are devoutly to be desired.
But when contrasted with spiritual endowments, they are of but slight and passing worth. From an eternal perspective what each of us needs is a Ph.D. in faith and righteousness. The things that will profit us everlastingly are not the power to reason, but the ability to receive revelation; not the truths learned by study, but the knowledge gained by faith; not what we know about the things of the world, but our knowledge of God and his laws.
Joseph Smith said that a man could learn more about the things of God by looking into heaven for five minutes than by reading all the books ever written upon the subject of religion. Religion is something which must be experienced.
I know people who can talk endlessly about religion but who have never had a religious experience. I know people who have written books about religion but who have about as much spirituality as a cedar post. Their interest in gospel doctrine is to defend their own speculative views rather than to find out what the Lord thinks about whatever is involved. Their conversations and their writings are in the realm of reason and the intellect; the Spirit of God has not touched their souls; they have not been born again and become new creatures of the Holy Ghost; they have not received revelation.
It is the privilege and the right of every member of the Church to receive revelation and to enjoy the gifts of the Spirit. When we are confirmed members of the Church, we receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, which is the right to the constant companionship of that member of the Godhead, based on faithfulness. The actual enjoyment of this gift depends upon personal worthiness. “God shall give unto you knowledge by his Holy Spirit,” the revelation says to the Saints, “yea, by the unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost. …” (D&C 121:26.)
Speaking of the revelations received by his father, Nephi said: “… he truly spake many great things … which were hard to be understood, save a man should inquire of the Lord. …”
Of these same revelations, Laman and Lemuel said: “… we cannot understand the words which our father hath spoken. …”
Nephi asked: “Have ye inquired of the Lord?”
They replied: “We have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us.”
Then Nephi came forth with this glorious pronouncement: “How is it that ye do not keep the commandments of the Lord? How is it that ye will perish, because of the hardness of your hearts?
“Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you.” (1 Ne. 15:3, 7–11.)
It is the right of members of the Church to receive revelation. Joseph Smith said: “… God hath not revealed anything to Joseph, but what he will make known unto the Twelve, and even the least Saint may know all things as fast as he is able to bear them. …” (Teachings, p. 149.)
Also: “It is the privilege of every Elder to speak of the things of God; and could we all come together with one heart and one mind in perfect faith the veil might as well be rent today as next week, or any other time. …” (Teachings, p. 9.)
Religion must be felt and experienced. In the record of the ministry of the resurrected Lord among the Nephites, we find this account: Jesus “knelt upon the earth; and behold he prayed unto the Father, and the things which he prayed cannot be written, and the multitude did bear record who heard him.
“And after this manner do they bear record: The eye hath never seen, neither hath the ear heard, before, so great and marvelous things as we saw and heard Jesus speak unto the Father;
“And no tongue can speak, neither can there be written by any man, neither can the hearts of men conceive so great and marvelous things as we both saw and heard Jesus speak; and no one can conceive of the joy which filled our souls at the time we heard him pray for us unto the Father.” (3 Ne. 17:15–17.)
Then of a subsequent prayer the scriptural account says: “And tongue cannot speak the words which he prayed, neither can be written by man the words which he prayed.
“And the multitude did hear and do bear record; and their hearts were open and they did understand in their hearts the words which he prayed.
“Nevertheless, so great and marvelous were the words which he prayed that they cannot be written, neither can they be uttered by man.” (3 Ne. 19:32–34.)
Religion comes from God by revelation and deals with spiritual things; and unless and until a man has received revelation, he has not received religion, and he is not on the path leading to salvation in our Father’s kingdom.
I bear testimony of these things because I have received revelation—revelation which tells me (among other things) that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; that Joseph Smith is a prophet, through whom the knowledge of Christ and of salvation has been restored for this day; and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is in literal reality the kingdom of God on earth. And of these things I do testify, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

The Prophet said on one occasion that “the Lord once told me that if at any time I got into deep trouble and could see no way out of it, if I would prophesy in His name, he would fulfill my words.”15 One can discern, therefore, times in his life when he almost despaired and when that state of mind was the symptom, or the background, of his uttering prophecy. In Kirtland, for example, in that period of mass apostasy when perhaps half of the Church members were falling away, including many of the Twelve, he rose in tears after prayer in a meeting one night and said, “I prophesy in the name of the Lord that those who have thought I was in transgression shall have a testimony this night that I am clear and stand approved before the Lord.” Many in whom this prophecy was fulfilled bore their witness in later testimony meetings.16

Preceding the comforting revelation to Joseph and Oliver, the Prophet endured a poignant, painful experience that taught him to look to the Savior and not fear the opinions, pressures, and threats of men.
In June 1828 Joseph allowed Martin Harris to take the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript from Harmony, Pennsylvania, to show to family members in Palmyra, New York. After Martin failed to return as promised, an anxious Joseph traveled by stagecoach to his parents’ home in Manchester Township, New York. The Prophet immediately sent for Martin. When Martin arrived, he admitted that he did not have the manuscript or know where it was.
Joseph exclaimed: “Oh! My God, my God. … All is lost, is lost. What shall I do? I have sinned. It is I that tempted the wrath of God by asking him for that which I had no right to ask. … Of what rebuke am I not worthy from the angel of the Most High?”
The next day the Prophet returned to Harmony. Once there, he said, “I commenced humbling myself in mighty prayer before the Lord … that if possible I might obtain mercy at his hands and be forgiven of all that I had done which was contrary to his will.”2
After chastising Joseph for fearing man more than God, the Lord told him:
“Thou art Joseph, and thou wast chosen to do the work of the Lord, but because of transgression, if thou art not aware thou wilt fall.
“But remember, God is merciful; therefore, repent of that which thou hast done which is contrary to the commandment which I gave you, and thou art still chosen, and art again called to the work” (D&C 3:9–10).
“For a time, the Lord took the Urim and Thummim and the plates from Joseph. But these things were soon restored to him. ‘The angel was rejoiced when he gave me back the Urim and Thummim,’ the Prophet recalled, ‘and said that God was pleased with my faithfulness and humility, and loved me for my penitence and diligence in prayer, in the which I had performed my duty so well as to … be able to enter upon the work of translation again.’ As Joseph moved forward in the great work before him, he was now fortified by the sweet feelings of receiving the Lord’s forgiveness and a renewed determination to do His will.”3

Brigham Young sent several messengers to Washakie to assure him that the members of the Church were willing to assist the Shoshones in learning to raise crops. One of the messengers, James S. Brown, recorded the meeting with Chief Washakie. He said that they were taken to the chief’s lodge and invited to sit with a group of tribal leaders. Brother Brown read a letter from Brigham Young, proposing to furnish seed and tools and some men to demonstrate how to plant and cultivate. He also presented the group with a copy of the Book of Mormon. The leaders passed the book around the circle and declared that it was of no use to them. Washakie let the council members speak and waited until they were finished talking. Then he reached for the book, leafed through it, and spoke to his group.
You are all fools; you are blind and cannot see; you have no ears, for you do not hear; … These men are our friends. The great Mormon captain [Brigham Young] has talked with our Father above the clouds, and He told the Mormon captain to send these good men here to tell us the truth, and not a lie. They have not got forked tongues. They talk straight, with one tongue, and tell us that after a few more snows the buffalo will be gone, and if we do not learn some other way to get something to eat, we willstarve to death. Now, we know that is the truth, for this country was once covered with buffalo, elk, deer, and antelope, and we had plenty to eat, and also robes for bedding, and to make lodges. …
The time was when our Father who lives above the clouds loved our fathers who lived long ago, and His face was bright, and He talked with our fathers. His face shone upon them, and … they were wise and wrote books, and the Great Father talked good to them; but after a while our people would not hear Him, and they quarreled and stole and fought, until the Great Father got mad, because His children would not hear Him talk.
Then James Brown said that Chief Washakie drew a contrast between the Indian’s way of life and the white man’s, telling his people that they could gain much by learning from the settlers. The chief went on to say,
We feel that it is good for them to come and shake hands. They are our friends, and we will be their friends. Their horses may drink our water, and eat our grass, and they may sleep in peace in our land. We will build houses by their houses, and they will teach us to till the soil as they do. Then, when the snow comes and the game is fat, we can leave our families by the Mormons, and go and hunt, and not be afraid of our families being disturbed by other Indians, or by anybody else, for the Mormons are a good people (James S. Brown, Giant of the Lord, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1960, pp. 373–74).
Brother Brown reports that without a vote being taken, each man in the group gave his assent to the chief’s decision.

Robert Louis Stevenson captured this constant struggle between good and evil in the classic novel about Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The story tells us that in the beginning “Dr. Jekyll is a highly respected London physician, a good and kindly man, who in his youth had showed inclinations toward evil which, however, he succeeded in suppressing. Interested in drugs, the doctor now chances upon one which enables him to change his external form to that of a repulsive dwarf, the very embodiment of evil, whom he calls Mr. Hyde. A similar dose permits him to return to the form and personality of the benevolent doctor. Many times the doctor becomes Mr. Hyde, thereby giving this side of his nature more and more power. Jekyll finds it increasingly difficult to regain his virtuous entity and also finds himself occasionally becoming Hyde without the use of the drug.” In the character of Mr. Hyde, he commits murder, and when the drug will no longer restore him to the kindly Dr. Jekyll, the truth is discovered and Hyde kills himself. The misuse of drugs destroyed his life. So it can be in real life.

I was born in the town of Sharon, Windsor County, Vermont, on the 23rd of December, A.D. 1805. When ten years old, my parents moved to Palmyra, New York, where we resided about four years, and from thence, we moved to the town of Manchester. My father was a farmer and taught me the art of taking care of animals. When about fourteen years of age, I began to reflect upon the importance of being prepared for a future state, and upon inquiring about the plan of salvation, I found that there was a great clash in religious sentiment; if I went to one society, they referred me to one plan, and another to another; each one pointing to his own particular creed as the supreme good from which all others are derived of perfection. Considering that all could not be right, and that God could not be the author of so much confusion, I determined to investigate the subject more fully, believing that if God had a Church, it would not be split up into factions, and that if He taught one society to worship one way, and administer in one set of ordinances. He would not teach another, principles which were diametrically opposed.
Believing the word of God, I had confidence in the declaration of James—“If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.” (James 1:5.) I retired to a secret place in a grove, and began to call upon the Lord, while fervently engaged in supplication, my mind was taken away from the objects with which I was surrounded, and I was enwrapped in a heavenly vision, and saw two glorious personages, who exactly resembled each other in features and likeness, surrounded with a brilliant light which eclipsed the sun at noon day. They told me that all religious denominations were believing in incorrect doctrines, and that none of them was acknowledged of God as His Church and kingdom: and I was expressly commanded “to go not after them,” at the same time receiving a promise that the fullness of the Gospel should at some future time be made known unto me.

Nick was so finicky that his family called him “Picky Nicky.” He was picky about his clothes. He was picky about his toys. And he was especially picky about his food.
One day Mom made Nick’s favorite dish—macaroni and cheese. She served it to him in his favorite bowl, gave him his favorite spoon to eat it with, and expected him to say, “Yum! Yum! My favorite!” But all Picky Nicky said was, “It isn’t cheesy enough.”
Mom took a deep breath—what she usually did when she was upset. “Picky Nicky, I have had enough! You don’t like gelatin because it keeps falling off your spoon. You won’t eat tomatoes because they have seeds. Now you’re even complaining about macaroni and cheese! I give up! You’re too picky! Starting tomorrow, you do the cooking! See if you can make something that’s just right!”
When Nick went downstairs the next morning, Mom, Dad, and Tyler were already at the kitchen table.
“We’re waiting for breakfast, Picky Nicky. We would like some pancakes, please,” Mom said.
“I don’t know how to make pancakes. How about cereal?”
“I don’t want cereal today,” Mom said.
“Me either,” Dad said.
“I want pancakes,” Tyler said.
“Get the pancake mix out of the pantry and read the directions on the box,” Mom said. “I’ll help you if you don’t understand them.”
Nick was upset. Why couldn’t they just eat cereal? But everyone was staring at him, so he got out the pancake mix.
Mom helped him figure out what to do, but it still wasn’t easy. As he put the pancake mix into a big bowl, he spilled some onto the counter. And when he cracked two eggs into the mix, pieces of shell fell into the bowl too. It took a while to fish them out—yuck! Finally he added the milk and stirred everything together. He scooped up some batter with a measuring cup and poured it on the hot, oiled griddle Mom had gotten ready for him.
“Remember, Picky Nicky” Dad said, “I like thin, little pancakes—lots of them.”
“And I like fat, round pancakes,” Tyler said.
“I want big, brown, crispy ones,” Mom said.
After a few minutes, Nick looked at the pancakes on the griddle. None of them was thin and little, or fat and round, or brown and crispy. One pancake was flat but big. Another was round but lumpy. And the biggest one was brown, all right, but it looked soggy in the center. He put the pancakes on three plates. He gave one to Dad, another to Mom, and the last to Tyler. Then he got out the syrup and butter and put them on the table.
“This isn’t thin and little,” Dad said. “It’s flat and big and not even round. And there’s only one!”
“My pancake looks lumpy, Picky Nicky,” Tyler said.
“And mine looks soggy in the center,” Mom said. “Maybe you’d better make some more for us.”
“Maybe they’ll be OK once you put on the butter and syrup.”
“We’ll try them, but …” Mom said.
“I like melted butter,” she said, “and my pancake isn’t hot enough to melt it.”
“I like hot syrup,” said Dad.
“I like blueberry syrup,” said Tyler, “and this is maple.”
Nick was getting upset. They were just being picky. Oh!
“I’ll melt the butter,” he said to Mom. “And you’ll have hot syrup in just a minute, Dad.” “Here’s your blueberry syrup, Tyler. Do you want it heated?”
While the rest of the family ate their pancakes, Nick ate his favorite cereal in his favorite bowl with his favorite spoon. No one said anything more.
After breakfast Nick helped Mom clean up the kitchen. As he was putting the last plate into the dishwasher, Mom was wiping off the table.
“Mom,” he said softly, “will you make the sandwiches for lunch? Any kind will be OK.”
Mom didn’t take a deep breath this time. She just smiled. “OK, Nick,” she said.

I’ve always been drawn to the scriptures, largely because of my home environment. I could feel my parents’ love of the scriptures. When I was twelve or thirteen years old, I asked for a Bible for Christmas. I still have that Bible, and it is a treasured possession. Soon after receiving it, I began reading Genesis. It took me a long time to read the Bible from cover to cover, but I really learned to love the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. It taught me a lot of things.

Elder and Sister Harris grew closer to Godfrey and Mary as the months rolled by. Ultimately, this friendship became a strength and support for the Harrises when an unexpected tragedy struck halfway through their mission. They received word that their son Brad had been killed in a freeway accident.
As soon as Mary and Godfrey learned about this, they both put on their best clothes and headed out on a treacherous journey to be at the side of their dear friends.
In Uganda, few people own a vehicle. They either walk or hire a taxi. By far, the most common taxi is a boda boda, a motorcycle that can often be seen carrying as many as six people at once.
“In the dark, riding a boda boda is dangerous,” Sister Harris explains. “They crossed the Nile on a boda boda in the dark.”
After traveling dangerous roads in the dead of night at significant personal expense, Godfrey and Mary showed up to “mourn with those that mourn” and “comfort those that stand in need of comfort” (Mosiah 18:9). That evening, compassion and love truly came full circle. Mary and Godfrey were the ones providing service. “It was quite remarkable,” says Sister Harris. Mary suggested that they all kneel together in prayer. Godfrey joined without hesitation.
Elder and Sister Harris went to California, USA, to attend Brad’s funeral. Afterward they returned to Uganda to complete their mission. Now back home in Utah, Roland and Janet Harris still remain close with Mary and Godfrey.