Gospel Story Finder

During my military service, my crew was sent to Seattle, Washington, where we boarded a ship headed into the Pacific by night. I remember lying on my bunk among the many men and reading my Book of Mormon. Many passages held special meaning for me.
In 1 Nephi 15:11, I read the promise: “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.”
When I reached the final promise in Moroni 10:4–5, I blocked it in solid red:
“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
“And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.”
On a crowded ship taking a horde of men into battle, I explained to the Lord that I wanted to know whether the Book of Mormon was or was not true. “I must know for sure that it is,” I fervently prayed, “for if it is not true, then I’m not sure that it is important whether or not I come back, because things in the world seem to be all undone anyway.” And so I continued to plead for an answer—an answer which, in time and in the Lord’s way, came to me.

Konnichiwa! My name is Honoka, and I live in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. I like to play, jump rope, and draw. My dream is to be an illustrator someday. I was at school when a big earthquake happened.
When the earthquake hit, my first thoughts were, “This is scary!” and “I wonder if my family is OK.” I prayed in my heart that they would be safe and that people’s lives would be spared. Later I found out that none of my friends had been hurt. At that time, I felt that God had protected us. I know that God and Jesus live.

President Harold B. Lee told of a great educator, Horace Mann, who “was the speaker at the dedication of a … boys’ school. … In his talk he said, ‘This school has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars; but if this school is able to save one boy, it is worth all that it cost.’ One of his friends came up to [Mr. Mann] at the close of the meeting and said, ‘You let your enthusiasm get away with you, didn’t you? You … said that if this school, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, were to save just one boy, it was worth all that it cost? You surely don’t mean that.’
“Horace Mann looked at him and said, ‘Yes, my friend. It would be worth it if that one boy were my son; it would be worth it’” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1971, 64–65; or Ensign, June 1971, 61).

When I first entered Young Women, I felt alone because I had left my friends in the Valiant class. However, I tried to support the young women, and they also supported me, and I was able to make new friends and interact with them. I no longer felt alone, and that made me happy. Now I am the president of the Beehives, and if I see a new sister who feels uncomfortable being with us, I talk with her, explain what we do in class, and make her feel that she is part of us.
Gredy G., age 14, Lima, Peru

While traveling alone to visit friends on a holiday weekend, I decided to follow a rural highway instead of taking a long detour to a major interstate highway. It was dusk, and I wanted to arrive at my friends’ home before midnight.
Mine was the only car on the road for long stretches of the highway, and in order to relieve boredom I turned on a radio station. As I sang along to a favorite tune, I received a distinct spiritual prompting to turn off the radio—and listen. At first I ignored the prompting, reasoning that it would be absurd to drive alone in silence on a deserted road. The prompting became more insistent, however. I reluctantly turned off the radio, sat back, and quietly told the Lord that now I was listening.
In short order I received three additional promptings to slow down immediately. These impressions seemed to be much stronger, and they reached a much more receptive and focused mind. I obediently braked three times, slowing the car substantially.
Shortly I encountered a 90-degree unmarked curve. I had no time to react in the darkness and went through the curve, stopping at the edge of a ridge overlooking a deep ditch. Shaken, I got out to inspect the damage and found my car wholly intact but with its front bumper protruding over the precipice. Had I been going any faster, I would certainly have plunged into the ditch and been injured or killed. I offered a prayer of gratitude.
I made the rest of the trip in silence as I reflected on the need to eliminate “radios” from my life. I wondered how many times I had allowed the frivolous things of the world to take priority over spiritual matters. Although I have not given up listening to the radio at home or on the road, I do take time on a regular basis to turn off the music—and listen.

The area of Peru where my family lived was particularly troubled by violence. During the afternoon of 20 April, a band of terrorists came into town with guns and dynamite. They began rounding up people—including my mother, my brother, and me—threatening to kill us. Silently I prayed that, if I had to die, I would go to paradise.
The terrorists tied up all those who had stones, sticks, or any other weapon of self-defense in their possession and shot them with machine guns. Women wept for their husbands, brothers, and sons. My mother wept, too, for my brother was among the dead.
Exactly one month later, the terrorists returned at 1:00 A.M. looking specifically for my father. He was a leader in the town, and rumor had falsely accused him of organizing the town against the terrorists. This time they took my parents and several other people from their homes and murdered them. Had my brothers and sisters and I not been sleeping at our aunt’s house, we would most likely have also been killed. But we were able to flee into the hills.
Early that same morning, we were pounded by a hailstorm, but as soon as it was light, I began running to the town over the hill to get help. Suddenly I realized that some of the terrorists were also hiding in the hills and that they were coming after me. As I started down the hill, which was very slippery with hail, I pleaded with the Lord to help me. Miraculously, I was able to escape.
As soon as I was out of danger, I knelt to give thanks and to ask for protection. As I finished my prayer, I felt a wonderful peace, as if nothing bad had happened. My legs had been shaking violently. Now they felt renewed, and I had the strength to continue running. My fear completely disappeared. I had just lost my parents, but I felt a strong assurance that I had a Heavenly Father who loved me.
With help from the people in the town I fled to, I was able to get the rest of my family to safety.

As an undergraduate, I was assigned to read Walt Whitman’s poem “Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking.” As I read the somewhat lengthy poem (those of you who have read Whitman know he can get a bit verbose), I realized that while I only understood about a third of the poem, I was enthralled with the language, the unique arrangement of words. And in my excitement, I felt in a way that I had never felt before that my Savior was reading alongside me, rejoicing in the words that I was rejoicing in.

I believe that both God and His Son are poets, but in this instance, it was less a matter of them loving poetry and more a matter that we were loving the experience together. In this relationship building moment, I learned that God and Christ cared about my fascination with words. Since then, on more than a few occasions, I have felt their pleasure as I read and write.

On the morning of Thursday, July 20, 1837, the merchant ship Garrick slipped quietly into the River Mersey and anchored opposite the bustling English seaport of Liverpool. To the uninformed bystander, the vessel, newly arrived from New York, was no different from any other. It was the dawn of the Victorian age, and Liverpool was already establishing an ascendancy as the greatest English port, which it retained for half a century.
But among the weary passengers were seven men whose presence made the Garrick far from insignificant—men whose simple but provocative message was soon to send thousands of English men, women, and children to the United States. The seven Americans were Mormons—the first missionaries to preach the restored gospel in this dispensation outside North America. Their unheralded arrival and the dramatic events of the next few months came to form a fascinating chapter in the history of northwest England and left an indelible stamp on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Today their names stand boldly among the spiritual giants of the Church: Heber C. Kimball, grandfather of President Spencer W. Kimball; Joseph Fielding; Orson Hyde; Willard Richards; John Snyder; John Goodson; and Isaac Russell.
To British Saints and thousands of Americans whose ancestry springs from this part of England, Liverpool and Preston are as much a part of the rich Latter-day Saint heritage as Nauvoo and Kirtland. And it was the word heritage in a letter from the First Presidency to all units of the Church that triggered a chain of events leading to one of the most unusual and spectacular joint activities ever organized by the Liverpool and Preston districts.
That letter urged Church members to organize significant activities to commemorate their history as part of an international heritage year. Rod Fullwood, seminary supervisor in the Liverpool District, and his counterpart in the Preston District, Arthur Hardy, had already talked over the possibility of a joint seminary graduation. From that it was a short step for them to come up with the concept of a major commemorative program telling the story of the first missionaries to arrive in England and the events leading to the first baptisms in the River Ribble in July 1837.
Once the plan had been approved by the Preston and Liverpool district presidencies, the next few weeks were marked by frantic activity as seminary groups in each branch worked on their own projects. Branches in the Liverpool District were assigned to re-create the atmosphere and scenes of 1837 by staging an “English Fayre,” complete with stalls from the period. They also wrote a dramatic production telling the story of early Mormon emigrants. Period dress for the nearly 200 young people and adults who attended was mandatory, but forseeing the likelihood of a few arriving in 20th century dress, the organizers assigned the Southport Branch to construct a set of stocks to “discipline” offenders.
The play, “The Emigrant Ship,” was based on the Charles Dickens’ novel, The Uncommercial Traveller, not one of the great author’s best-known works but certainly the most significant from the point of view of Church history. The fact that Dickens commented on the Church is little known, and even among Latter-day Saints it is not widely appreciated. But his reference to 800 Mormon emigrants as “the pick and flower of England” was one of the first recorded compliments paid to the English Saints by anyone of standing.
The script, by David Irwin, closely followed Dickens’ original prose, but other characters were interjected into the story during the production. Well-performed, it gave members a valued insight into the atmosphere of those early days.
Dickens: (To audience) Now, I have seen emigrant ships before this day, and these people are so strikingly different from all other people in like circumstances whom I have ever seen, I ask the captain … what would a stranger suppose these emigrants to be?
Captain: What indeed!
Dickens: When did they arrive here?
Captain: Most of them came aboard yesterday evening.
Dickens: And from where did these people come?
Captain: They came from various parts of England in small parties and had never seen one another before.
Dickens: They had never seen one another before? How have they settled down on board?
Captain: They had not been a couple of hours on board when they established their own police, made their own regulations, and set their own watches at all the hatchways. Before 9:00 the ship was as orderly and quiet as a man-of-war. A stranger would be puzzled to guess the right name for these people.
Dickens: Indeed he would.
Captain: If you hadn’t known who they were, could you ever have supposed?
Dickens: How could I? I should have said they were the pick and flower of England.
Captain: So should I.
Dickens: How many are there?
Captain: Eight hundred.
Dickens: Eight hundred of the pick and flower of England! What has motivated these emigrants of all ages?
Later Dickens says, “Afterwards I learned that a dispatch was sent home by the captain before he struck out into the wide Atlantic, highly extolling the behavior of these emigrants, and the perfect order and propriety of all their social arrangements.
“What is in store for the poor people on the shores of the Great Salt Lake, what happy delusions they are laboring under now, on what miserable blindness their eyes may be opened then, I do not pretend to say. But I went on board their ship to bear testimony against them if they deserved it, as I fully believed they would; to my great astonishment they did not deserve it; and my predispositions and tendencies must not affect me as an honest witness.
“I went over the ship’s side feeling it impossible to deny that, so far, some remarkable influence had produced a remarkable result, which better known influences have often missed.”
The afternoon following the “Fayre” and the dramatic production the Liverpool Saints joined those at Preston for the second half of the program—a sermon on the banks of the Ribble and a commemoration of the baptisms that took place there in July 1837.
The weekend’s events provided a natural attraction for newspapers, radio, and television, and they were widely publicized. The events were relayed in a four-minute spot on BBC television, which also included an interview with Brother Fullwood. In addition to newspaper reports of the weekend, at least one Lancashire paper began plans for a full-scale feature on early Church history.
Appropriately winding up the commemoration, a 24-member Brigham Young University ballroom dance team, which had been performing in international competition in nearby Blackpool, gave a brief display for members immediately before the seminary graduation. As if to underline the point, it was then announced that Preston seminary students had beaten all other districts in Britain in enrollment and work completion for the year.
Said Brother Fullwood: “I think the weekend’s events and all the work that went in beforehand have given the members here a greater appreciation for those early missionaries as well as for our own heritage. The fact that an ambitious program like this was so successful will encourage us to shoot for high goals in the future.”

Ashima had 10 siblings, the youngest of whom, Reza, no one talked about. He was considered a black sheep. Reza had joined the restored Church after meeting the full-time missionaries while attending college in England. At the time, he was a Muslim scholar, so when he left Islam to join the Church, it was a big deal.
While Reza was living in Toronto, Canada, he dreamed that he needed to return to India and contact his sister Ashima. Before his trip, he also dreamed about a woman he had never met. Because he kept seeing her face in his dreams, he felt an added urgency to return to India.
Reza was worried, however, because his family had shunned him. But when he reached out to Ashima in New Delhi, she said, “I miss you. You should come.”
My mom wasn’t in New Delhi at the time, so Ashima called one of my aunts, Assiya. “Can you come over?” she asked. “It will be better if other people are here so that we don’t fight.”
So, my Aunt Assiya went. When she arrived, Reza immediately recognized her as the woman in his dreams. They quickly fell in love and got married. When they moved to Toronto, my Aunt Assiya started asking Reza about the Church, why he had left India, and why he was willing to be shunned by his family.
Reza answered her questions and shared his testimony of the restored gospel. My aunt soon joined the Church.

We found a place to stay in Ogden with a family named Ferrin. Mother got better and cooked for this household of grown men in return for our board and room. I fell in love with one of the Ferrin brothers, Jacob Samuel. We were married in the Endowment House, and we moved to Provo with my brother Heber.
Later my husband and I moved to Arizona, where we were once again pioneers in an unknown territory.

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.”

—Michelle Beach, 19, worked for 10 weeks in a floral design shop in Darmstadt, West Germany, not far from where her father is stationed with the army.
“They really wanted me to learn, so they gave me a lot of opportunities,” she said. “I worked on displays, color selection, care and handling of flowers, just about everything they do in the shop, except that I don’t speak much German, so I didn’t have much interaction with the customers.”
She studied firsthand the similarities and differences between German and American business practices, and between European and American floral designs.
“I learned that running a shop is not an easy thing to do. But it’s an opportunity to use your talents and work hard. And,” she said, “I found out that it’s really what I’m interested in.”

Dan (name has been changed) was seeing me for professional counseling. “I try to live the commandments,” he said, “but I am constantly tempted by sensual distractions. I recommit but get worn down and occasionally end up letting my guard down. I am not going to pornography sites, but I become hypnotized by inappropriate images that seem to be everywhere. My wife is hurt, and I am tired of trying.”
With Dan, it was helpful to distinguish temptation from sin, understand shame and the power of agency, and learn to rely more on the Savior’s grace.
Dan had righteous desires, but he felt like he was failing. He was ashamed, in part because of his ongoing temptations. Like many, he thought that because he had given in to some temptations, he might as well give up.2 While guilt is an important feeling that motivates us to repent, shame can have the opposite effect, leading us to give up. This is particularly damaging when we mistakenly believe temptation is a sign of weakness.
With help, Dan learned not to panic when tempted but to acknowledge his feelings, then choose to move on to healthy behaviors.
Dan began avoiding the use of electronic devices when he was susceptible to temptation, such as when he was alone, tired, or stressed. He passed on problematic TV shows and other entertainment and instead spent time connecting with others. He strengthened his spirit by spending more time in the scriptures, journaling, improving his sleep, and exercising (see Doctrine and Covenants 88:124).8 These important principles can help each of us decrease temptations and increase strength, especially when practiced consistently over time.

This past summer my wife and I had two of our young grandsons staying with us while their parents participated in a pioneer trek activity in their stake. Our daughter wanted to be sure that the boys practiced the piano while away from home. She knew that a few days with the grandparents makes it a little easier to forget about practicing. One afternoon I decided to sit with my 13-year-old grandson, Andrew, and listen to him play.
This boy is full of energy and loves the outdoors. He could easily spend all of his time hunting and fishing. While he was practicing the piano, I could tell that he would rather be fishing on a nearby river. I listened as he pounded out each chord of a familiar song. Every note he played had the same emphasis and meter, making it difficult to clearly identify the melody. I sat beside him on the bench and explained the importance of applying just a little more pressure on the melody keys and a little less on those notes that accompany the melody. We talked about the piano being more than just a mechanical miracle. It can be an extension of his own voice and feelings and become a wonderful instrument of communication. Just as a person talks and moves smoothly from one word to another, so should the melody flow as we move from one note to another.
We laughed together as he tried again and again. His dimpled-cheek smile increased as the familiar melody began to emerge from what was previously a wild set of sounds. The message became clear: “I am a child of God, and he has sent me here.”1 I asked Andrew if he could feel the difference in the message. He responded, “Yes, Grandpa, I can feel it!”

When I first heard the gospel, I loved it and knew I wanted it to be a part of my life. I wanted to be married someday to a returned missionary, have children, and live happily ever after. I fell in love with the most wonderful guy. He was also a convert. After he served his mission, we were married in the Washington D.C. Temple.
Five years and two children later, I found myself sitting in a general conference broadcast all alone. My children had stayed home with their father.
I will never forget the feelings I had that day. The “happily ever after” I longed for seemed to be slipping from my hands. My sweet husband, the returned missionary I married in the temple, was struggling with activity in the Church. I prayed for him and put his name on the prayer roll in the temple. Still, he chose not to attend church. It was heart wrenching to hear my two-year-old son plead, “Come to church with us, Daddy.”
As I sat in conference that day long ago, my soul was stirred by the excellent talks, but I also felt saddened. I so wanted my husband there. We were on this earthly journey together, but we were walking different paths. I needed strength to carry on. Sitting alone at church with a newborn and a two-year-old can be trying under any circumstances, but we were living in a new city, in a big ward, and many of the members were students just like my husband. I thought I was the only one who had a less-active husband, and I felt out of place. But I plastered on a smile and continued going to church, all the while dying inside.
During conference that day, the congregation rose to its feet to sing “How Firm a Foundation,” and I simply sat there. I did not have the energy to stand.
As the third and final verse began, I started to feel different. Something was changing, and the sweetness of the Spirit engulfed my whole being as I listened to the words:
Fear not, I am with thee; oh, be not dismayed,
For I am thy God and will still give thee aid.
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand, …
Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.
(Hymns, no. 85)
Then one of the most amazing moments of my life happened. It seemed to me that someone was literally helping me to stand. I looked around, but no one was there. From that moment I was a changed person. I knew I was not alone. And in that one instant I knew that someday all would be well.
A smile came to my face in a recent sacrament meeting—18 years after that conference—as my husband was released from the bishopric and called to be the Young Men president. I received a new calling too—the one I’ve feared my whole life—Relief Society president. Feeling overwhelmed, I felt my heart skip a beat as the closing hymn was announced: “How Firm a Foundation.” My tears always flow when that hymn is sung, and on that day they were in abundance. They were tears of gratitude, and I knew again that all would be well.

It was Christmas Eve, and large, soft snowflakes were falling gently. Three small girls—Mary Ellen, Caroline, and Sarah Amelia, who was often called Pet—were home alone while their widowed mother was at work. The three girls were worried about Santa not being able to get down their chimney, so they decided to sweep a path for him from the outside gate to the front door.
After they finished, Mary Ellen, Caroline, and Pet went inside their house and cuddled up in a very large rocking chair. They were beginning to get tired when they heard their family cow, Boss, mooing and mooing. “Poor old Boss,” Pet said. “She must be hungry.”
They were quiet for a minute; then Pet said, “It’s Christmas, and Boss doesn’t have one Christmas present, not even something to eat.”
Caroline came up with a wonderful idea: “Our mattress is filled with nice dried grass. Let’s feed it to Boss.”
So Mary Ellen, Caroline, and Pet pulled the covers off their bed, struggled to get a good hold on the mattress, and pulled it into the front room. They put on their coats and gloves, then dragged the mattress through the doorway and over to the barnyard. They ripped open the mattress and dumped out the grass. Old Boss stopped mooing and got busy eating her Christmas Eve supper. The very tired girls returned to the house. They curled up in the big rocking chair and were soon fast asleep.
When their mother got home, she awakened the girls and told them to go to bed. Mary Ellen, Caroline, and Pet told her they couldn’t go to bed because they had fed their bed to the cow! So their mother let them sleep in the big rocking chair.
Sometime that night Santa came and filled their stockings with yummy things to eat. And the next morning a good neighbor came with a load of hay and straw. So old Boss got a second Christmas present, and Mary Ellen, Caroline, and Pet got a new straw bed.

Missionaries in all areas of the world spend their time searching for “golden” contacts, but for two weeks last August missionaries in the Greece Athens Mission gave their time to help those who were in search of Olympic gold.
Of the 70,000 unpaid volunteers at the Athens Olympics, 76 of them were full-time missionaries, including 14 senior missionary couples, who spent hour after hour in the sun assisting with anything from rifle shooting to equestrian events, swimming to judo wrestling.
“[The volunteer supervisors] have been so impressed with our missionaries, which we knew they would be,” said mission president John B. Ludwig during the Olympics. “[The missionaries] are making so many friends.”
Having previously worked with many Church members at the Salt Lake Olympics, Lisa Wardle, volunteer coordinator for the Athens Organizing Committee, allowed the missionaries to be included on the list of volunteers. Since then she has received many comments about how there is “something different” about the missionary volunteers—“something in their countenances,” President Ludwig said.
“I knew that the missionaries would be watched over and administered to, spiritually and physically,” says President Ludwig. “I knew that others would feel of our presence even though the missionaries had taken off their ties and name tags.”
After receiving special permission from the Church, the missionaries and President Ludwig followed a long approval process to be able to help at the games. They filled out extensive forms more than 10 months before the Olympics began. They then had to pass security checks and prove they were legally allowed to be in the country.
Initially, the Olympic committee was hesitant about accepting missionaries as volunteers, afraid that they would proselyte. Lisa Wardle assured the committee that it would not be a problem. And after members of the Olympic committee met with the missionaries, they agreed they had never met a better group of young people and were excited to have them aboard, President Ludwig said.
In fact, once the missionaries started training, supervisors were asking if they could have more volunteers just like them. They were impressed with the variety of backgrounds and languages spoken by the group.
Members of the Olympic committee were not the only ones with concerns, however. “My first concern was safety. The other concern was the disruption to the missionary schedule,” President Ludwig said. Sometimes the missionaries had to be up by 5:00 a.m. and to their scheduled venues by 6:30. Other times they would start at 3:00 p.m. and not return home until 12:30 or 1:00 a.m.
To make sure all the missionaries were safe and sound, President Ludwig set up a “command center” in the mission home. All missionaries were required to call in and report every day.
“It has been hard to a degree because [the missionaries] have broken out of their normal schedule, but overall they have said it has been a beautiful experience seeing the Greek people in a different light,” President Ludwig said. “It has been a breath of fresh air to us in Athens.”
Some of the missionaries see the opportunity to volunteer at the games as an answer to prayer, because in the past there have been problems with the way the public perceived the missionaries. Now the missionaries are making friends and helping to change the image of Latter-day Saint missionaries in Greece. “When they see us now there will be a whole different attitude. Many will welcome us to talk to them,” President Ludwig believes.
The missionaries feel that even if they don’t get one new teaching appointment, they have done important work by showing that the Church is willing to love and help others.

There was a time before we were married when my wife, Kristi, was struggling to feel Heavenly Father’s love and to understand His plan for her. As she prayed for guidance, an impression came that she should attend institute, so she enrolled in a New Testament class. The way her institute teacher taught from the scriptures, even the way he held them, showed how much he loved the word of God. As she attended, the Holy Ghost whispered to her that there was something in the scriptures that she needed. Her teacher’s love for the scriptures and the promptings of the Holy Ghost gave her a desire to begin a serious study of the word of God—which became a lifelong journey of deep conversion and consecrated service.

When our youngest child, Daniel, was 11 years old, he told us he wanted a special gift when he turned 12. He wanted to go to the temple and be baptized for some of his ancestors. The whole family got involved in family history. We grew closer to our living relatives and found several ancestors whose temple work had not been done. On my son’s 12th birthday, he was baptized for these people. I performed the ordinances. Daniel gained a greater testimony of temple work.

It was Easter Sunday here in Southern Australia, and I was staying at a friend’s house while my mum was away for the weekend. As it turned out, the people that usually provided the music at church had gone away too.
I am only a beginner at the piano, but when asked to play, I reluctantly accepted as there was no one else. That Sunday I realized what an important part the sacrament hymns play in our meetings. Even though I only played with my right hand and missed many notes, the congregation sounded like angels.
I am grateful for the Saints that provide the music for us in sacrament meeting, and even though I was terrified, I am truly grateful for that Sunday because it helped me develop my talents.