Gospel Story Finder

Malou Ducta shivered in the darkness as she prayed. The typhoon, still raging out of control, was threatening to shatter the small house where she and the others were huddled. The friendly sea had become a violent stranger. Everybody was crying.

Hours ago, Malou and her family had evacuated their small house of nipa palms and wood at the edge of the sea near the city of Sorsogon. They had waded through chilling chest-deep water and muddy debris to reach a friend’s house higher on the hill.

Now, as the tumult outside continued, Malou kept praying. Suddenly she thought of her college notebook! How could she have forgotten it? Tucked inside its cover was the money she had been awarded from a Church scholarship fund. This money would pay for her final exams. With the money, she could take the exams and graduate. Without it, her dreams of graduating—and of getting a job to help support her family—would shatter like a tiny nipa hut in a storm.

“I was praying as if talking to a friend, and I said to the Lord, ‘It’s your money, and you know that if I don’t have it, I can’t graduate from college.’ I kept praying, asking Heavenly Father to save the money.”

At 2:00 A.M., the men ventured outside. “They found out that there were no more houses by the seashore,” Malou says. In tears, everyone ran to see for themselves. “All were destroyed. All gone.”

The shore was littered with debris and with bodies of people and animals that had died in the storm. “We were just thankful that no one in our family had died,” she says. “The only things we were able to save were our lives and the clothes that we wore. I felt comforted about losing my tuition money, because it was only money.”

People started digging in the sand and mud, trying to salvage whatever they could find. “One of my cousins shouted at me: ‘Oh, this is your folder!’ I ran and got it. It was wet, but the money was all there!”

As Malou recalls that moment, she again begins to cry. “Heavenly Father really knows my need.”

The only other belongings Malou’s family recovered were some irreplaceable photos—photos of her parents when they were young, a photo of the family dressed in white on their baptism day, and a photo of the family in white on the day they were sealed in the Manila Temple.

Since that 1987 typhoon, Malou has graduated in accounting and has served a mission. With donated funds and materials, the family has built a new house on the same spot at the edge of the sea, because they have no money for land elsewhere. On the wall in picture frames are the water-stained photos and her college diploma. “It’s really a miracle for us,” she says, “a great lesson.”

I begin with a short anecdote which illustrates a point I should like to make.
A young couple, Lisa and John, moved into a new neighborhood. One morning while they were eating breakfast, Lisa looked out the window and watched her next-door neighbor hanging out her wash.
“That laundry’s not clean!” Lisa exclaimed. “Our neighbor doesn’t know how to get clothes clean!”
John looked on but remained silent.
Every time her neighbor would hang her wash to dry, Lisa would make the same comments.
A few weeks later Lisa was surprised to glance out her window and see a nice, clean wash hanging in her neighbor’s yard. She said to her husband, “Look, John—she’s finally learned how to wash correctly! I wonder how she did it.”
John replied, “Well, dear, I have the answer for you. You’ll be interested to know that I got up early this morning and washed our windows!”

There are times when we can become upset at imagined hurts or perceived injustices. President Heber J. Grant, seventh President of the Church, told of a time as a young adult when he did some work for a man who then sent him a check for $500 with a letter apologizing for not being able to pay him more. Then President Grant did some work for another man—work which he said was 10 times more difficult, involving 10 times more labor and a great deal more time. This second man sent him a check for $150. Young Heber felt he had been treated most unfairly. He was at first insulted and then incensed.
He recounted the experience to an older friend, who asked, “Did that man intend to insult you?”
President Grant replied, “No. He told my friends he had rewarded me handsomely.”
To this the older friend replied, “A man’s a fool who takes an insult that isn’t intended.”3

Sara, her mentally retarded brother Charlie, and her pretty older sister Wanda all live with Aunt Willie. It has been an impossible summer for Sara, but one day white swans appear on the lake near their home. Charlie is fascinated by the great white birds. That night Charlie disappears. Sara spends anguished hours searching for him the next day. Finally Charlie is found. Sara also finds that things were not as she had thought, and that this and no other summer will be the same.
This book has just won the Newbery Award for the most distinguished children’s book for 1971.

In 2005, I gave birth to premature triplets: Milena, Mateo, and Nelson. Milena was born healthy, but my two little boys suffered complications. Mateo died of those complications three months after he was born.
A month after we lost Mateo, Nelson was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and deafness. We were devastated. Doctors told us he would never walk. At that moment, we were grateful for our knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ. It helped us understand why we experience adversity in this life.
Through faith and hard work, Nelson learned to walk and to communicate through sign language. He has done much better than his doctors ever predicted. He has grown up happy in our family and in the gospel.

We were greatly blessed in our effort to obtain visas into Salalah in Dhofar. (See illustration 7.) Our request for visas made months before in the United States had been politely but firmly refused; Dhofar was disputed territory between Oman and Yemen and not a safe place for tourists. When we reached Muscat, Oman, we called on the Minister of Information, a young man, fluent in English, and explained that we had come all the way from America to see the big trees at Salalah because we had an ancient book that reported a Semite family’s building a ship, perhaps from those trees, to sail to America where their descendants became the American Indians. He was astonished.

“Salalah is my home and there are large trees there, but I have never heard this story.” He agreed to give us passes into the war zone if we would bring letters of introduction from the U.S. Embassy in Muscat. We acquired the desired letter of introduction. Because of the tense military situation, we were asked to fly down one day and return the next. We were naturally disappointed to have only 24 hours in Salalah, but we agreed cheerfully. We discovered later that on the day before our arrival at Muscat, the commander of the rebel forces had surrendered to the Sultan of Oman, ending 13 years of hostilities. Thus, two days after our arrival in Oman, the Minister of Information was willing to issue a pass into the war zone.

Several years ago my husband and I were dumping a load at the local landfill when I noticed one of the ladies who worked there picking up a box to put into the incinerator. Suddenly the box broke open, and some photographs fell out.
As I watched, I had a strong impression to go and get that box of pictures. I jumped out of the car to help pick up the pictures. The lady and I both felt that the photographs had been thrown out by mistake, and I convinced her to let me take the pictures to try to find someone who would like to have them.
Sifting through the hundreds of photographs in the box, I found an envelope addressed to someone in Warburg, Alberta, Canada. Over the next several years, I wrote a few letters to people with the same last name, but I never got a reply.
After my family got access to the Internet, I discovered that there was a historical society in Warburg. I asked if anyone who worked there recognized the names I had found on the back of the pictures.
One month later we received a call from a man who had been contacted by the historical society. He said his sister lived close to us, and he asked if she could see the pictures. Of course we said yes.
The next day, Floyd and Beth Hawthorn, both Latter-day Saints, came to see the pictures. When I opened the box, Brother Hawthorn said, “Well, there he is,” pointing to the picture on top. It was a picture of Sister Hawthorn’s grandfather.
As they picked up picture after picture, Brother and Sister Hawthorn told us stories about the people in each photograph. The Hawthorns doubted that they were related to the person who had discarded the pictures, and they had no idea why the photographs had ended up at the landfill.
I feel strongly that Heavenly Father helped me return the photographs to the Hawthorn family. I testify that family history work is one of the most important works to be done. If we are willing to do the work, the Lord will help us do it.

A miracle is taking place in the southern part of the United States. It pertains to family history and temple work. Between 1860 and 1865, hundreds of thousands of soldiers died. Many had never married.
William D. Taylor, a Canadian, found himself, together with his wife and family, living in that area of the United States and wondering about those soldiers. The Taylors have been working at getting the records of the soldiers for over four years and have sent over 101,000 of their names to the temple to have their work done for them there. Brother Taylor writes, “I am thankful for being allowed to do this work. It brings me joy unparalleled to anything I have ever known.”

When I was a small boy, my brother and I often walked five miles to the ranch where my father worked. In the summer it was hot and dusty. As we trudged along, sweat dripping from our faces, I prayed that around the next bend we would find two horses with saddles and bridles so that we could ride swiftly to the ranch. My prayers were never answered—or so I thought. Now I realize that they were always answered, but the answer was no.

After I was called as the family history consultant for our branch in Ushuaia, Argentina, I came to feel a deep need to search for my ancestors. The task was difficult, and scarcely a day went by that I did not try a new strategy to discover who they were and where they had come from in Italy.
In 2006 I was called to oversee the family history center. I continued to feel frustrated, however, by my failure to find information about my family. My frustration grew after my husband’s search for his ancestors paid off. That year, Ruben identified the names of more than 5,000 of his ancestors who had lived in San Ginesio, Macerata, Italy.
One afternoon in the family history center as Ruben found ancestor after ancestor on microfilm, he joyfully and repeatedly cried out, “Another one!” Feeling discouraged, and with tears in my eyes, I expressed my sadness, adding that I didn’t know what to do to find my family members. Seeing my pain, he suggested that we pray. We did so, pleading for the Holy Ghost to enlighten us so that we could accelerate the work on behalf of my family.
During our prayer, Ruben suddenly remembered a certain website that featured Italian surnames. Immediately after our prayer, we checked it out. Within minutes we had found four people with my maiden name, Gos, in the telephone directory of the small Italian town of Iutizzo, in northern Italy.
Immediately I sent letters to each of them. One wrote back, saying that her husband had the same surname, but he didn’t belong to the family. However, she had known one of my grandfather’s deceased sisters, and she offered to put me in touch with another relative, still living.
A few months later, in December 2006, we received a long-distance telephone call.
“Is this Susana Gos?” a distant male voice asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“This is your cousin from Italy,” he said.
The caller, Giovanni Battista Tubaro, was the son of my grandfather’s sister Maria!
In March 2008, Giovanni and his wife, Miriam, came to visit us in Argentina. We introduced them to the gospel and family history work, and for several days we talked of those who had preceded us. Now each of their names going back to six generations had a face and a history.
Family history has allowed me to contribute to an important part of the Lord’s work. It has also brought me closer to my ancestors—children of our Heavenly Father whom I never would have known of had it not been for a prayer of faith in the family history center.

We had been struggling with our family scripture study. Getting our children to pay attention was difficult, so we tried this technique as a family. My husband and I took turns reading general conference talks out loud to the family, and when we got to a scripture, we called it out. When our children found it, everyone marked it and then one of them read it. As we did so, our kids were poised on the edge of their seats, scriptures and pencils in hand. When we ended, they said, “Oh, please, can’t we do just one more scripture?” We finished our scripture study by singing a hymn. As we got ready to sing the closing song, we showed our children how they could look up scriptures in the back of the hymnbook. They found one of the scriptures we had marked, and we sang a song that reinforced the gospel principle we had studied. It was truly meaningful scripture study!
Donna Macurdy Nielson, Virginia, USA

Sometimes it’s hard to see the little ways God shows that He knows and loves you—especially when you’re distracted by the bad stuff. For example, one morning after several people mentioned a zit I had on my forehead (one dubbed it “the volcano”), I could barely respond without an angry outburst. It almost ruined my day.
During difficult times like this, I cultivate gratitude by listing ways I see God’s hand in my life every day. I write down at least three blessings per day, often more.
Sometimes they may seem little or silly, but they are always things that help me know that God is aware of me specifically. For example, that same day at my job a particularly grumpy customer gave me a compliment—I was floored. He didn’t even mention “the volcano”! It went on my list.

In the 1980s my mother, Mai Saczkowski, directed the Swansea Ward choir. She loved her church choir. Whether it was singing in sacrament meeting or competing on the stage, she pursued perfection and was never content with second best.
As far back as I can remember, music and singing were an important part of growing up. We were encouraged to play instruments, take theory exams and develop our talents. Car journeys were filled with singing. My mother was a gifted and glorious singer with a beautiful, rich mezzo soprano voice. It has been over 20 years since her passing and I struggle to remember her speaking voice, but her singing voice I can instantly recognise.
Mai joined the Swansea Amateur Operatic Society. She appeared in many musicals and soon she was the guest artiste in concerts and fund-raising events. Her social life flourished. She attended Cardiff College where she obtained a Gold medal in singing.
But amidst this flurry of activity, my mother thought of her temple covenants and decided to curtail outside activities and concentrate on building up music in the Church. This was probably her most significant contribution. She inspired many people, especially the youth, by directing shows and teaching singing. She blessed the lives of many with her voice, adding to the spirituality of meetings.
Elder Boyd K. Packer extended a challenge in 1976 that my mother took on board:
“Go to, then, you who are gifted; cultivate your gift. [ …] If you have the ability and the desire, seek a career or employ your talent as an avocation or cultivate it as a hobby. But in all ways bless others with it.”
At age 60 she was struck down with Parkinson’s Disease, which gradually took over her body. Apart from the physical disability, it robbed her of her beautiful voice. She went through the refiner’s fire and learnt patience in her affliction.
I believe my mother used her gift properly; her contributions will be noted for generations. Her posterity has been blessed because of her, and now her grandchildren and great-grandchildren are using their inherited gift to further the work of the kingdom of God.

Anna Matilda Anderson was a young girl who lived in Sweden in the 1880s. When she and her family joined the Church, they were ridiculed for their beliefs. Anna’s mother decided they should move to America and join the Saints in Utah. Anna was 11 years old when she and her sister, Ida, were sent ahead to earn money and bring the rest of the family. They sailed to the United States, then traveled by train to Ogden, Utah, where Ida left by covered wagon to work for her sponsors in Idaho. Anna was completely alone on that train as it continued to Salt Lake City. She spoke no English and knew no one. Can you imagine the loneliness and terror of her ride?
The train pulled into the darkened Rio Grande station just before midnight. The relative who was to meet Anna was not there. Anna stood watching with dread as the station slowly emptied. Finally, she was alone with a German family who also had no one to meet them. The darkness was thick and threatening, closing in around her. She later recalled: “I started to cry and thought about the last thing my mother told me: ‘If you come to a place where you can’t understand what the people are saying, don’t forget to pray to your Father in Heaven because He can understand you.’” Anna knelt by her suitcase and pleaded with all her might for heavenly help. Haven’t we all said prayers like that?
The German family motioned for Anna to follow them. Having no other choice, she walked behind them, crying. Arriving at Temple Square, they heard rapid footsteps. A woman was hurrying toward them, studying each person she passed. She looked at the German family, then pressed on. Anna caught the woman’s searching gaze. The woman stopped, unbelieving. She recognized the young girl! And with a shock, Anna recognized the woman. She was her Sunday School teacher who had left Sweden a year earlier! Pulling Anna tightly into her arms, the teacher wiped away her frightened tears. She told Anna: “I was awakened over and over again. … Images of the arriving immigrants raced through my mind. I could not go back to sleep. I was prompted to come to the temple to see if there was anyone I knew here” (journal of Anna Matilda Anderson, in author’s possession).
Can you believe it? A Sunday School teacher sent in a pitch-black night like an angel of light! “So you see,” Anna remembered, “my Heavenly Father more than answered my prayers. I only asked for someone who could understand me, and He sent someone I knew.”
Years later, Anna explained how she took that amazing journey alone: Her faith in the Lord assured her that something better was waiting just ahead. This gave her the courage to cross an ocean without her mother, pray to her Father in Heaven when she was lost, and walk toward the safe haven of the temple. Anna moved through the unknown and left a path for others to follow. One of those who followed Anna’s faith-filled footsteps was my husband. You see, Anna was his grandmother.

Several years ago our daughter had a profound experience on her mission. With her approval, I share an excerpt of what she wrote to us that week:
“Yesterday a returning member asked us to come over as soon as possible. When we arrived, we found her on the floor, sobbing uncontrollably. Through the tears, we found out that she had lost her job, was going to be evicted from her apartment, and once again become homeless.”
Our daughter continued: “I started frantically searching my scriptures, trying to find something—anything—to help her. As I was looking for the perfect verse, I thought, ‘What am I doing? This is not what Christ would do. This is not a problem that I can solve, but this is a literal daughter of God who needs my help.’ So I closed my scriptures, knelt beside her, and held her while we cried together, until she was ready to stand up and face this trial.”
After this woman was comforted, our daughter then used the scriptures to try and help her understand the reality of her divine worth and to teach her one of the most fundamental truths of our existence—that we are beloved sons and daughters of God, a God that feels perfect compassion for us when we suffer and is ready to assist us as we stand back up.

“The animals have to earn their keep.” Papa’s words echoed in Megan’s mind. The dogs guarded the sheep, and the chickens laid eggs. The sheep produced wool to sell. Megan helped shear them every spring, and their thick wool always looked like snow melting on the green field.
But Megan’s lambs were different. They were runts that were born last year, and they were too small to produce enough wool to pay for their upkeep. Papa had wanted to take them to the butcher, but the two tiny, frail babies had captured Megan’s heart. She’d pleaded to keep them, and Papa had finally agreed. “But,” he had warned her, “you will have to take care of them all by yourself.”
At first, everything had been OK. Megan had used her birthday money to buy hay when the lambs began to eat. But now her birthday money was gone, and Papa said it was too expensive to let the lambs graze in the field he rented outside town. Besides, Megan knew she would rarely see them if they went to the field. She sighed as she watched her lambs nibble the last bit of hay. It would be gone tomorrow, and she needed to find a way to feed her lambs.
Megan patted the white wool on the lambs’ heads as she leaned against the pen. Down her street she could see Mr. Flowers tending his roses. A couple houses down, Mrs. Wilmot hobbled slowly out to get the mail. Mrs. Wilmot was a widow who lived all alone. Sometimes Megan’s brother raked leaves for Mrs. Wilmot, but he always complained because Mrs. Wilmot couldn’t afford to pay him.
Megan noticed how long Mrs. Wilmot’s grass was. “I’ll offer to trim her lawn for her,” Megan decided. “But not now. I need to find a way to feed my lambs.”
Suddenly Megan had an idea. Mrs. Wilmot had grass, and Megan had sheep that needed to graze—the perfect combination! Megan patted her lambs quickly on the head and ran to Mrs. Wilmot’s house. When Mrs. Wilmot answered the door, she beamed at Megan, happy to have a visitor. The words tumbled out of Megan’s mouth as she explained her idea.
“Mrs. Wilmot, I think this could be great for both of us!” Megan finished. She held her breath, waiting for a response.
“I think so too!” Mrs. Wilmot said. “I could use the company, and my lawn could use the help. Bring the lambs over first thing tomorrow morning.” Megan and Mrs. Wilmot smiled at each other, and Megan grinned all the way home.
The next day was the beginning of a long and wonderful friendship. Megan took her sheep over to Mrs. Wilmot’s house every morning before school, and in the afternoons she stayed to visit for a while before she took her lambs home for the night. Mrs. Wilmot’s lawn stayed trimmed at the perfect height, and Megan’s lambs earned their keep.

Back home, on December 20, Sis. Odulio began to experience labor pains. She was rushed to a downtown Manila hospital, only to be turned away for lack of accommodations. Rushing again, this time to a city-owned hospital along Roxas Boulevard, they faced the same situation. The labor pains were coming at short intervals, and the only alternative left was to proceed immediately to an expensive private clinic. Though hard-pressed financially, Bro. Odulio had no other choice. On December 21, another boy was added to his family of 3 boys and 2 girls. He was named Jacob.
Our story goes on. Three days before Christmas, two friends unexpectedly came to the clinic bearing goodwill and love which the Odulios will long remember.
Without a word being said by the Odulios that their savings were not enough to cover the maternity bill, the two gentlemen left the clinic only after assuming a major portion of the bill—truly a gift of the magi for a couple turned away by two hospitals for the birth of their sixth child, Jacob, who was sealed with them in a temple of the Lord.

James Edward Talmage was 13 years old when his family emigrated from their native England and settled in Provo, Utah.
Intelligent and thirsty for knowledge, James was a part-time member of the faculty of the Brigham Young Academy in Provo, Utah, by the time he was 17. He went on to study chemistry and geology at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland. Membership in many prominent scientific societies gave James Talmage access to important people and publications and helped him combat much of the prejudice faced by Latter-day Saints at the time.
In 1888 he married Mary May Booth. They became the parents of eight children. From 1894 to 1897 he was president of the University of Deseret in Salt Lake City (now the University of Utah). During that time he bought one of the popular new chain-driven bicycles and rode it often. One evening he arrived home an hour late for dinner, bruised, bloodied, and dirty. Near his home was a single-plank bridge across a ditch. Normally, he dismounted and crossed on foot. But this time he felt he could ride across. He kept at it, crash after crash, until he mastered the maneuver.
Elder Talmage was an effective lecturer, and some of his talks and lessons became the basis of some of the books for which he is well-known, including The Articles of Faith. Prior to his call to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in 1911, the First Presidency had asked him to write a book on the life and ministry of the Savior. Later, a room was set aside in the Salt Lake Temple where Elder Talmage could concentrate on his writing. His 700-page book, Jesus the Christ, was published in 1915 and has been reprinted several times since then.

I started working a second job to earn money for my mission, but I wasn’t treated well, and it was coming at the expense of my schooling and happiness. When I fasted and prayed, the answer I got was to hand in my resignation immediately and that everything would be OK.
Now I’ve received multiple other work offers, including some for photography. I honestly believe that God is fulfilling His promise because I was obedient to His prompting.

Paper stars. I am half Thai and half American. I spent three years living in Laos, next to Thailand. For the first two years we were in Laos, my parents hired a pileang, or nanny, named Rojana, who took good care of me. Since she was Buddhist, I didn’t expect a gift from her at Christmas.
On Christmas morning I found a jar filled with at least a hundred tiny paper stars, folded so they were three-dimensional. They were blue and pink and glittery. Rojana had no money to buy me anything, so she spent hours folding those stars for a child who wasn’t her own.
It was a wonderful Christmas gift, a gift of time and dedication.Faye H., Virginia, USA