Gospel Story Finder

Forgive me for a personal conclusion, which does not represent the terrible burdens so many of you carry but it is meant to be encouraging. Thirty years ago last month, a little family set out to cross the United States to attend graduate school—no money, an old car, every earthly possession they owned packed into less than half the space of the smallest U-Haul trailer available. Bidding their apprehensive parents farewell, they drove exactly 34 miles up the highway, at which point their beleaguered car erupted.
Pulling off the freeway onto a frontage road, the young father surveyed the steam, matched it with his own, then left his trusting wife and two innocent children—the youngest just three months old—to wait in the car while he walked the three miles or so to the southern Utah metropolis of Kanarraville, population then, I suppose, 65. Some water was secured at the edge of town, and a very kind citizen offered a drive back to the stranded family. The car was attended to and slowly—very slowly—driven back to St. George for inspection—U-Haul trailer and all.
After more than two hours of checking and rechecking, no immediate problem could be detected, so once again the journey was begun. In exactly the same amount of elapsed time at exactly the same location on that highway with exactly the same pyrotechnics from under the hood, the car exploded again. It could not have been 15 feet from the earlier collapse, probably not 5 feet from it! Obviously the most precise laws of automotive physics were at work.
Now feeling more foolish than angry, the chagrined young father once more left his trusting loved ones and started the long walk for help once again. This time the man providing the water said, “Either you or that fellow who looks just like you ought to get a new radiator for that car.” For the second time a kind neighbor offered a lift back to the same automobile and its anxious little occupants. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry at the plight of this young family.
“How far have you come?” he said. “Thirty-four miles,” I answered. “How much farther do you have to go?” “Twenty-six hundred miles,” I said. “Well, you might make that trip, and your wife and those two little kiddies might make that trip, but none of you are going to make it in that car.” He proved to be prophetic on all counts.
Just two weeks ago this weekend, I drove by that exact spot where the freeway turnoff leads to a frontage road, just three miles or so west of Kanarraville, Utah. That same beautiful and loyal wife, my dearest friend and greatest supporter for all these years, was curled up asleep in the seat beside me. The two children in the story, and the little brother who later joined them, have long since grown up and served missions, married perfectly, and are now raising children of their own. The automobile we were driving this time was modest but very pleasant and very safe. In fact, except for me and my lovely Pat situated so peacefully at my side, nothing of that moment two weeks ago was even remotely like the distressing circumstances of three decades earlier.
Yet in my mind’s eye, for just an instant, I thought perhaps I saw on that side road an old car with a devoted young wife and two little children making the best of a bad situation there. Just ahead of them I imagined that I saw a young fellow walking toward Kanarraville, with plenty of distance still ahead of him. His shoulders seemed to be slumping a little, the weight of a young father’s fear evident in his pace. In the scriptural phrase his hands did seem to “hang down.” In that imaginary instant, I couldn’t help calling out to him: “Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it—30 years of it now, and still counting. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”

We went to church in Port Harcourt from Omoku, our hometown. It was about two-hour drive. We did this every Sunday until sometime in 2001 when the Port Harcourt West Stake Presidency authorized me and family to stay back and worship in Omoku under the supervision of the Rumueme Ward. We reactivated some members of the Church who resided in our town and surrounding towns, two of whom were old schoolmates at the university. We started worshipping in my one-room apartment and later moved into a three-rooms flat in the city center where, on the 9th of January 2005, the Church was officially organized with me as the first branch president and my wife as first counsellor in the Relief Society. We had 36 members of our branch.

Let me give you two examples of a fulfillment of this promise. One day while serving as the Executive Director of the Missionary Department, I received a phone call pertaining to a man who had received a call to serve as a mission president accompanied, of course, by his wife. His business partners, who could not understand the willingness of this man and his wife to leave their business, offered the church $100,000 if the call would be rescinded. I knew, of course, the answer but took it, nevertheless, to the member of the Quorum of the Twelve who was serving as the Chairman of the Missionary Executive Committee. His response was predictable. “Tell them we need the brother, his wife, and would appreciate the $100,000 as well.”

How much pressure do you think his partners applied on him before the money was offered to the Church? What risk was he taking after investing so much of his life in the business world? How difficult might it be when they returned to the business after their mission? Would there be anything there? I have watched that couple carefully since that day and can testify to you that the impact of their devotion and sacrifice has righteously influenced a multitude of people. Their sacrifices during and after that mission have “yielded much precious fruit.”

I hold in sacred memory two priesthood bearers who had qualified for the Spirit of God to go with them on the errand to which the Lord called them. They had found the restored gospel themselves in America. They were the Lord’s servants who first spoke of that gospel to two of my European ancestors.
One of those ancestors was a young girl living on a small farm in Switzerland. Another was a young man, an orphan and an immigrant to the United States from Germany, living in St. Louis, Missouri.
Both of them heard a priesthood holder testify of the restored gospel—for the girl by the fireplace of her little home in Switzerland, and for the boy it was sitting in the balcony of a rented hall in America. Both of them knew by the Spirit that the message those elders brought to them was true.
The boy and the girl chose to be baptized. The two of them met for the first time on the dusty trail years later, walking hundreds of miles to the mountains of western America. They talked as they walked. What they talked about was the miraculous blessing that in all the world, the servants of God had found them and, even more miraculous, that they knew their message was true.
They fell in love and were married. And because of a testimony of the Spirit, which began as they heard the words of priesthood holders under the influence of the Holy Ghost, they were sealed for eternity by priesthood power. I am among the tens of thousands of descendants of that boy and that girl who bless the names of two priesthood holders who brought the ministrations of the Spirit of God with them as they climbed the hill in Switzerland and rose to speak in that meeting in St. Louis.

For a few years at the Missionary Training Center, I supervised those learning American Sign Language. One day the supervisor brought her group to my office door to announce they’d been asked to sing for the MTC Christmas program. I could tell something funny was about to happen by the look on her face.
“Do you want to know what they’ve chosen to sing?”
“Of course I do!”
“Our two numbers are “Do You Hear What I Hear?” and “I Heard Him Come.’” The missionaries, several of whom were deaf, laughed and clapped. So did I!

Robert is Mister Popular. Everyone in my sixth grade class likes him. I kind of wish he would disappear like invisible ink. Before he came to our school, my life was great, but now all I hear is “Robert, Robert, Robert!”
This week, our teacher, Mrs. Beng, told us we were going to do reports on different dinosaurs. I love dinosaurs. I was so happy with this assignment, I couldn’t stop grinning—until Mrs. Beng said that my best friend, Jeff, would be Robert’s partner.
“You should see the neat picture Robert drew of a tyrannosaurus,” Jeff told me at lunchtime. “Our report is going to be great!”
“Probably,” I mumbled. “I’m partners with Katie. She only likes to draw horses.” I hurriedly changed the subject. “Want to play soccer?”
Jeff nodded as he finished off his milk. “I brought my ball.”
We grabbed our hats and ran outside to the grassy field next to the playground. The kids were waiting to start a game, and I made sure I wasn’t on Robert’s team. I’m pretty quick, and I figured I might score a couple of goals.
But Robert got the ball. He weaved in and out of the players and passed it off to Jessica before I could get my legs racing in the right direction. Jessica kicked it into the net. Before the bell rang, Robert’s team had scored four goals. He’d kept stealing the ball and passing it to a teammate in front of the net.
That afternoon, we had a spelling bee. Robert knew how to spell triceratops.
“Good job,” Mrs. Beng said when he finally outspelled everyone. He didn’t even get the extra-hard challenge words wrong. The whole class clapped for him. I didn’t clap very loudly. Everyone would cheer for me, too, if I had a computer brain like Robert’s.
After school, I waited by my locker for Jeff. “Do you want to come over and play basketball?” I asked him.
“I’m going over to Robert’s,” Jeff answered. “We’re going to work on our dinosaur report. And he’s going to show me his aquarium. I love fish. Plus, I’m going to try out his new skateboard. Want to come over to my house tomorrow?”
“Maybe,” I said. “I’ll let you know.” My stomach felt like I’d swallowed a pile of rocks. It figured that Robert had all sorts of neat stuff. No wonder Jeff wanted to go there. No wonder everyone liked him.
That night, I thought about Robert before I fell asleep. There had to be some amazing thing I could do, too. It took a lot of thinking, but I finally remembered the trick Grandpa had taught me. I knew how to make a coin disappear and then seem to pull it out of someone’s ear. Jeff would like seeing that, and then he’d forget all about Robert.
Tomorrow will be a much better day, I told myself as I pulled up my covers. Besides my magic trick, our class was going on a field trip to the dinosaur museum.
When I woke up the next morning, I wanted to make my stomach disappear instead of a coin. It kept flipping and flopping. My head hurt, too.
“You have the stomach flu,” Mom said. “You’ll have to stay home today with me.”
“Not today,” I moaned. “We’re going to the dinosaur museum.”
“I’m sorry.” Mom brushed back my hair with her cool hand. “I’ll take you there another day.”
“I can go,” I said, standing up. Everything in the room twirled around, and I felt myself getting hot and sweaty, like I’d raced ten miles. My stomach lurched.
“Lie down,” Mom said sympathetically but firmly. “Maybe you’ll feel better tomorrow.”
I lay down, but I missed two whole days of school before I felt normal again. I was really glad to go back to school, but I didn’t tell everyone that. I also remembered to bring my coin.
At lunchtime, Mrs. Beng asked me to stay in and make up some of the work I’d missed. Two seconds later, guess who showed up at my desk—Robert. He was going to help me.
“I’m sure you two will do fine,” Mrs. Beng said as she left, her heels tip-tapping down the hallway.
First, Robert explained the math assignment to me. I started working on it while he went to dig something out of his backpack.
“What’s that?” I asked when he plunked a box down on my desk.
“It’s from the museum,” he explained. “It’s a plastic model of a brontosaurus, but you have to put the bones together. You like dinosaurs so much, I felt kind of bad when you missed our trip. I thought you might like this, so I got one for you.”
“How did you know I like dinosaurs?” I said, picking up the box.
“I noticed that you have dinosaur stickers all over your folders, and Jeff told me you have a collection of plastic ones in your room.”
“Oh.” A bunch of thoughts jumbled around in my head. Robert cared about me, and he even knew my favorite hobby. I guess I never realized how he always paid so much attention to the other kids. That’s why everyone liked him. It wasn’t because he could draw or spell or play soccer. Robert was just plain nice! Suddenly I didn’t feel so good about myself. But maybe I could fix that. “The dinosaur’s great,” I told him. “Thanks. Do you want to come over and see my collection?”
“Sure.” He gave me a friendly grin.
“Do you collect anything?” I asked Robert next.
“Stamps,” he answered.
“I’ll keep my eyes open for any special ones,” I promised.
“Great!” He grinned again.
“No problem,” I said. A warm feeling spread through me as I finished up my math. Robert had helped me more than he knew. In fact, from now on I decided I’d try to be like him, a real Mister Nice Guy. It was the only “magic” trick I’d really need.

“I had a friend who began to encourage me to disregard my standards, and for a while I listened. I finally decided that enough was enough and I wasn’t going to let her influence me anymore. I prayed for strength and guidance, and because I was again living the way I know I should, I received the guidance I asked for. I eventually stopped hanging out with her, and in the months that have passed, my testimony has grown so much. Who you are friends with definitely makes a difference in your ability to live the way the gospel teaches.”

Margaret K., 17, Utah, USA

One of the greatest gifts I ever received from my father is one I don’t even remember. He never talked about it. That was Dad’s way. I learned about it many years later from my mother.
Both my mother and father had been raised as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but Dad’s habit of smoking had kept them from being married in the temple. The loving bishop who performed my parents’ civil ceremony encouraged them to set a goal to marry in the temple before their children came. They were still working on that goal when I joined the family.
By the time my second birthday was approaching, my parents still had not been to the temple. Mom really wanted to be sealed as a family before a second child came, but Dad was still using tobacco.
Sometimes I wish I could remember what happened on my second birthday, because that’s when I received the gift. My father came home from work that night in early November, and after setting aside his lunch bucket and taking off his coat, he picked me up. “Gary,” he said, “I have a special birthday present for you.” Mom said she was surprised because she knew Dad didn’t have extra money to purchase a gift for me.
Reaching into his shirt pocket, Dad took out a partially used packet of cigarettes and handed them to me. Mom started to object, but Dad held up his hand as if to say, “This is between my son and me.”
Quietly, he then said to me, “I have thought about this for several days. I have decided I don’t want you, my son, to ever remember your father smoking. My gift to you today is that I am giving up my cigarettes, and I will never smoke again.”
And that was the end of his tobacco habit. He must have struggled to quit smoking so abruptly. Although I don’t remember it, that was his special gift to me. But it was more than that.
A few months later, with my mother pregnant with my brother, we made our way to the Logan Utah Temple, where we were sealed together as a forever family.
I am truly grateful for that gift given many years ago from my loving and caring father.

One sound you don’t hear much in Navatuyaba is the low rumble of industrial farm equipment. That’s changing now that the tractor owned and operated by the stake is being kept in the village.
The 17 youth in the branch are grateful for the tractor. Without it, the Navatuyaba members would have to find a way to till two acres (0.8 ha) manually. But the tractor doesn’t do all the farm work. The members all work together planting, weeding, and harvesting crops such as taro and tapioca.
“We all help on the farm,” says Kuli Qaravanua, 15. “The youth weed and plant or bring refreshments when the adults are working.”
“I like working on the farm,” says Maca Baikeirewa, 14. “It helps my family in many ways.”
The blessings of the farm aren’t just about having food to eat. The youth are learning a lot about growing food and working hard.
“I think that working on the farm has brought the youth of our branch together,” says Tulia Tinaimolikula, 18. “It has helped us learn about each other.”
But, as Kuli says, “the tractor and farm especially help us have peace of mind. I don’t have to worry about what I will have to eat tomorrow.”

After being in college for about four years, I remember not being able to pass one of my classes. It was a requirement for my major and there was no way around it. It was a discouraging time. At that point, I was working full-time, going to school, and raising a young family. I was already into my career as a computer programmer, and obtaining a degree didn’t seem as necessary as it did when I first began college. It was hard to envision getting beyond that trial. I shared with my wife that I felt hopeless and wanted to quit school. I’m so happy for her love and encouragement. She reminded me of my vision of receiving a college education. We spoke of the sacrifice my parents made to give us a better future. With hope renewed and refocused vision, I ultimately made the decision to continue. By the way, it didn’t take me the traditional four years; it took eight years to finish a bachelor’s degree. Quite a long time to finish, I admit, but I did finish.

“Since childhood it has been very easy for me to believe in the reality of the visions of the Prophet Joseph Smith,” said President David O. McKay to a Tabernacle audience six months after he became president of the Church in 1951. Then, vividly recalling a childhood experience on the family farm in Huntsville, Utah, he continued:
“When [I was] a very young child in the home of my youth, I was afraid [one] night … Father was away with the herd or on some mission, … [and] I could not sleep … I imagined I heard noises around the house. Mother was away in another room. Thomas E. [his younger brother] by my side was sleeping soundly … I became terribly fearful, and I decided that I would do as my parents had taught me to do—pray. I thought I could not pray without getting out of bed and kneeling, and that was a terrible test.
“But I finally did bring myself to get out of bed and kneel and pray to God to protect Mother and the family. And a voice as clearly to me as mine is to you said, ‘Don’t be afraid. Nothing will hurt you.’ Where it came from, what it was, I am not saying. You may judge. To me it was a direct answer, and there came an assurance that I should never be hurt in bed at night.”

I was wearing the embarrassing Santa Claus sweatshirt and jingle bell necklace my mom had picked out. My mother had served as a chair of an organization that provided limited resources to homeless children. This year she talked me into volunteering at the Christmas party.
When we arrived the director of the program led us into the room where several volunteers were already helping children decorate Christmas cookies, make ornaments for a Christmas tree, and paint stars and angels on white T-shirts.
After we had all sung Christmas carols, eaten the cookies, and read the Christmas story from the Bible, it was time to go. As I sadly waved good-bye from the front door, a little boy ran forward.
I handed him the jingle bell necklace. His wide eyes filled with tears and he whispered in awe, “For me? This is the best Christmas ever!” He wrapped his arms around my neck and said, “I love you.”
As he ran off to show his friends his new toy, an overwhelming feeling of the true meaning of Christmas filled my heart with love.
Though the small gift I gave Markus did not cost a lot, his gift of love toward me was priceless. Moroni 7:47 says that “charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever.”
That Christmas, a five-year-old boy allowed me to sample the greatest gift of all.

I was under the same working conditions as you are. The person I worked for was not a member of the Church and would lose his temper very easily. Many of the things he did and said conflicted with what I was brought up to believe. We didn’t get along very well, and my image of him was very hateful.
The Lord has taught us to look upon the heart and not the outward appearance (1 Sam. 16:7). As I began to look at the good things he did, I was able to get along with him better. He later joined the Church. We should always treat people with respect because we never know the influence we will have on them.
Elder Drew Patterson, 19Australia Brisbane Mission

One day at camp we all had the chance to take on the confidence course, a high ropes challenge. For this activity, each participant was strapped into a climber’s harness and had to climb halfway up a steep, notched telephone pole and then up a climbing wall featuring handholds placed randomly across its face. The whole time an instructor watched and waited on a platform high above the climber holding a safety rope attached to the climber’s harness.
For most participants, the course’s height and degree of difficulty made for an imposing obstacle. Still, most of my friends were determined to meet the challenge. In spite of my physical shortcomings, I try to do all I can to match the abilities of average-sized people, and so I decided to attempt the climb.
Before I knew it, I was suited up with climbing helmet and harness, standing at the base of the notched pole. As I began to climb, I heard encouragement from my friends below and from my instructor above. I soon discovered that no matter how hard I tried, my reach was insufficient for the spacing of the notches, which were designed for people with “normal wingspans.”
The instructor at the top watched as I struggled and, when he saw that I had stretched just as far as I was able, he pulled up on the rope a few extra inches allowing me to reach the next handhold. He then relaxed his tension, allowing me to do all of the work that I could.
After much effort I would try for the next handhold. Again I was just inches short of reaching. But because of a caring person at the top who wanted me to succeed, I was again lifted those few extra inches needed to reach the next level. It continued this way, with few exceptions, until I was at last at the top.
The instructor congratulated me, and I felt such appreciation, not only for the help he gave me but also for the fact that he let me do all that I could for myself. It was our success, not his or mine alone.

It was an important occasion. The president-elect of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had assembled his cabinet members for their first meeting. He greeted his new advisers warmly, smiling broadly as he chatted and shook hands.
But when everyone was seated, his smile gave way to seriousness. He turned to his Secretary of Agriculture. The incoming administration had great need for divine inspiration, the president said. Because of that, he was asking Ezra Taft Benson to open the cabinet meeting with prayer.
Even though he was taken by surprise, Ezra Taft Benson was a man used to praying, both in public and private. He offered a beautiful, sincere prayer, and it became a tradition to begin all cabinet meetings with an appeal to the Lord.
That was in January 1953.

Less than a year after returning home, the Bollbachs locked up their house and workshop a third time to serve in the Germany Munich Mission, where Brother Bollbach was called to be branch president in Nürnberg. Although the branch had more than 450 people on its records, only about 20 members attended regularly.
The Bollbachs knew they had challenges, but they also knew how to overcome them. With faith, prayer, obedience, and diligence, they concentrated on visiting less-active members. “A miracle happened,” Brother Bollbach exclaims. “The branch grew. Several months later, the branch was divided into three branches—Feucht, Fürth, and Nürnberg. I know it was the blessing and help of God. We were just the instruments in his hands.”

In 1873 Jonathon’s wife, Kitty, got leprosy. Leprosy is a contagious disease that people feared getting, and at that time there was no cure for it; if you got it, you were forced to live in a leper colony. The sailors who took the lepers there were so afraid of this dreadful disease that they pushed the patients into the sea, forcing them to swim to shore.
When his wife had to go to the leper colony, Jonathon went with her. This valiant and giant man of God worked in the colony and fought to obtain government assistance for the lepers to have a more comfortable place to live. He became a leper himself and died two years before his wife did. Why did he risk his life and do all this? Because he loved her so much! He knew that life is eternal and love is eternal, even through times of sickness and suffering.

“I can go all by myself, Mom. I’m four years old now!” Andy exclaimed, his freckled face all lit up with pride.
“Don’t you want me to come with you?”
“No. I know the way. I go down the road, around the turn, past the barn, by the chicken coop, and through the garden. That’s how.” He grinned. “Can I go by myself?”
“All right,” said Mother. “But be careful.”
Andy walked down the road. He stopped to watch a duck with five babies waddle across it. He liked the way the babies followed their mother one by one.
He walked around the turn. He saw a squirrel run up a tree and scamper into the old granary. The squirrel had a long bushy tail of pretty brown colors.
Then he walked past the barn. The lambs who didn’t have mothers bleated to him. They think I have some milk for them, he thought. He patted their heads and said, “You’ll get fed again at suppertime.”
Andy walked by the chicken coop. The chickens were busy clucking to each other. I wonder what they’re saying, he thought.
When he walked down the path through the garden, he picked a piece of rhubarb and bit into it. “Oooh!” He pulled a funny face. “This is too sour.”
He walked up the steps of the house beyond the garden and knocked on the door.
“Well, look who’s here!”
“Hi Grandma Great!” Andy opened the door and gave her a big hug.
“Didn’t your mother come with you?”
“No. I’m four years old now, and I walked here all by myself.”
“You did? You’re such a big boy! I’m very proud of you. Are you ready to spend the day with me making cookies and breadsticks?”
“Yes! Can I wear an apron too?”
“You sure can!” Grandma Great helped him put on an apron. It was blue with red and white polka dots.
“Grandma Great?”
“What is it, honey?” Grandma asked, putting her arm around Andy.
“Will you be my grandma forever?”
“Well, Andy,” Grandma Great answered as she lifted him onto her lap, “do you see that picture of the St. George Temple on the wall?”
Andy nodded.
“Grandpa Great and I were married there for time and all eternity. Your mom and dad were married there too. That means that we will all be together forever if we try everyday to be good people and keep Heavenly Father’s commandments.”
“I’ll try real hard, Grandma, because I love you and want you to always be my grandma.”
“And I’ll try hard, too, because I love you, Andy.”

I think of a sister missionary. Her challenge was not lustful thinking. It was negative thinking due to continued sorrow. There were some awful, external conditions in her life. Together we turned to Moroni 9, where Mormon describes some of the worst external conditions in all history. He then suggests that if Moroni is faithfully moving towards Christ, Moroni will be filled with power, and the terrible external conditions of his life would not weigh him down. Indeed, Christ would lift him up (Moroni 9:25). This touched the heart of this missionary. For the rest of her mission, she chose to move forward in her purpose while being lifted up in Christ. Her external conditions remained the same, but she was no longer determined by them.

Father was a commercial artist for a large advertising agency in New York City. On one occasion he was under tremendous stress to produce an advertising campaign. He had come home on a Friday evening and worked most of the night. Saturday morning, after a few hours working in the yard, he retired to his studio to create an advertising campaign for a new product. My sister and I found great delight in chasing each other round and round the dining room table, which was situated in a room directly over his head. He had told us to please stop at least twice, but to no avail. This time he came bounding up the steps and collared me. He sat me down and taught a great lesson. He did not yell or strike me even though he was very annoyed.
He explained the creative process, the spiritual process, if you will, and the need for quiet pondering and getting close to the Spirit for his creativity to function. Because he took time to explain and help me understand, I learned a lesson that has been put to use almost daily in my life.