Gospel Story Finder

Let me conclude with a parable: Once there was an army. It was strong, handsome, and fairly well trained. The soldiers knew their duty. They were assigned to be watchmen on the towers. They were to sound the alarm to warn the people when the enemy approached. In times of relative peace, however, it isn’t always easy to remain alert in such an assignment. To help spend the time, the soldiers often invented games to amuse themselves; some of these games required great skill. One game was particularly engrossing, and many soldiers became quite proficient at it. Someone suggested that they start a tournament to determine who in all of the army was the best player. The tournament became the talk of the whole village and even beyond. In fact, game players from all over the land actually began to join the army simply so they could compete in the tournament. Each year great honors were given to the champions, parades were held in tribute to their achievements, and children dreamed of the day when they, too, could join the army to participate in the tournament. Of course the enemy was not disappointed by the tournament’s acquired popularity; it was one of the enemy, in fact, who proposed the competition in the first place.

My brothers and sisters, we are the army of Zion. We can make a difference, but we must stay alert as watchmen on the tower and not be distracted by the games or purposes of the world.

Personal prayer also played a critical role. I remember at one point before he started chemotherapy his local surgeon felt like the shunt he had inserted was no longer working. He was concerned that Josh would begin retaining fluid again, which fluid, if there was too much retained, could even cause his death. My wife and mother-in-law were at the doctor's office for a routine appointment when this was discovered. I was at home with our other children. They called me with the news, but I felt unsettled about what the doctor was recommending. Our younger kids were in bed, and I was alone in my home.

I remember kneeling by my bedside and praying fervently for direction. I was given to know that this surgery was unnecessary with an unmistakable answer. I called and informed my wife about my impression, and they cancelled surgery. When she and my mother-in-law came home they were pretty upset with me because of what the doctor had told them. My mother-in-law looked me square in the face, and said, "You realize Josh could die don't you?" Now, for those of you who aren't married yet, just a word of advice here: When attempting to maintain healthy relationships with your in-laws, it is not wise to contradict your mother-in-law. Keep that in mind. But in this case, I stood firm. I got a call from the doctor at 2 am, basically saying the same thing—"Do you realize your son could die?" I heard him out, but stood firm. I had prayed and received clear direction.

What would you do if you had received a spiritual answer that contradicted what everyone else around you thought was the right course, and your son's life hung in the balance? The next day we traveled to Salt Lake, where doctors reassured us that Josh's shunt was okay, and it did not need to be removed. I was so grateful that I listened to the Spirit, and that Josh did not have to go through an additional surgery.

For a few brief seconds after he woke up, Steve Caldwell felt fine. He’d been dreaming that he was hairy beyond belief, a recurring dream since his mission and the loss of some of his hair.
Then the memory of the date he’d had the night before thudded into his memory like a lead ball. He sat up on the edge of his bed and gloomily looked out at the snow swirling past his window.
“Big snowstorm today,” his roommate announced. “The interstate’s already closed.”
“Do you know how many girls at BYU have told me that they like me only as a friend?” Steve asked. But his roommate breezed out of the room, leaving the question hanging in the air.
Steve sat and brooded.
An hour later, however, a sudden great idea flashed into his mind, causing him to hurriedly get dressed.
“Where are you going in this weather?” his roommate asked as Steve bundled up in his parka.
“If they can send a man to the moon, the least they can do is give me hair!” With that, he was out the door.
His car wouldn’t start, but undaunted, he trudged through knee-high drifts.
The first thing he noticed about the usually busy BYU health center was that there were no cars in the parking lot. In fact, there was no parking lot, only a field of snow. He climbed over a drift near the front door and walked in.
“I’m sorry,” the girl at the reception desk told him, “but the doctors aren’t in yet because of the storm. You’ll have to wait.”
“For how long?”
“I don’t know. I’m only the receptionist.”
“Do any of the doctors do hair transplants?”
“I don’t know. I’m just the receptionist.”
“I see.”
He walked into the waiting room. It was empty except for a girl reading a magazine while breathing noisily through her mouth.
He sat down on a chair opposite the girl and alternated between reading a magazine about tooth decay and watching her struggle for breath.
She looked up from her magazine suddenly to catch him staring at her.
“You’ve got a bad cold,” he said.
She burst out crying.
“Nothing to cry about. Everybody gets ‘em.”
“It’s not that!” she sobbed, fumbling for a tissue in her purse. “I was going with a guy, and last night he broke up with me. I cried all night.”
“Really? The same thing happened to me last night.”
She stared at him, and then asked, “You cried all night?”
“No. My girl broke up with me, too.”
“It’s rotten, isn’t it? Had you been going together very long?”
“Two weeks,” Steve admitted.
“That’s not very long.”
“It was to her. Last night she told me she could never get serious with a guy who had less hair than her grandfather.”
“How cruel.”
“Thank you. What’s your name?”
“Susan Benson.”
“I’m Steve Caldwell.” He stood up, walked over to her, put out his hand, had second thoughts, and withdrew it. “Okay if I don’t shake your hand? You can’t be too careful these days.”
She looked at him strangely.
“Germwise, I mean,” he clarified.
He returned to his chair. “Well, there are always other fish in the sea, hey?”
“Not for me,” she cried. “I need tall fish.”
He lowered his eyes to the magazine and tried to figure out what she meant.
“I’m taller than your average coed,” she explained.
“You don’t look so tall to me.”
“That’s because I’m sitting down.”
“Oh sure. Well, even so, you’re no King Kong.”
Her lips began to curl downward, and he knew he’d said the wrong thing. Hoping to smooth things over, he added, “I mean from here you don’t look that abnormal to me.”
She started to cry again. He felt terrible.
“I’m not that tall,” she finally said, “but guys don’t date a girl unless they’re at least two inches taller.”
“I’ve never heard that.”
“Have you ever dated anybody taller than you?”
“Are you kidding? I’ve got enough problems.”
She began crying again, and he read the same paragraph about gum diseases for the seventh time.
Finally unable to stand her crying, he put down his magazine. “Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it the way it came out. I’m sure you’re a very nice person.”
She blew her nose and looked up at him. “Do you really think so?”
“Sure. And you shouldn’t worry. There are plenty of tall guys on campus. I mean, just look at the basketball team.”
“There are 47 guys in school who are at least two inches taller than me. Twenty-six of them are already married. Nine are waiting to go on missions. Eight of them are either engaged or going steady with someone else. I broke up with one last night.”
He added the numbers up in his head. “That still leaves three.”
“One is my cousin.”
“Two.”
“One is 42 years old.”
“One.”
“One eats only yogurt and sesame seeds and always carries an orange in his left hand.”
“Zero. I see what you mean. You’re really in a pickle.”
She cried while he read. A few minutes later, he tried again. “I never knew there was so much tooth decay.”
“Where I grew up, we had fluoride naturally in the water.”
“I bet you don’t have very many cavities, do you?”
She started to answer but stopped to touch her cheekbone. “My sinuses are killing me. It feels like my whole head’s been pumped with Jello.”
“I’ll see what’s keeping the doctors.”
On his way to the reception desk, he stopped at a window and surveyed the raging blizzard. It was impossible to see 20 feet beyond the building.
“Nurse?” he asked the girl at the desk, who was listening to her small portable radio.
“I’m not a nurse. I’m just a receptionist.”
“Right. Where are the doctors?”
“I don’t know. The storm may have blocked the streets.”
“Say, have you got anything for that girl? She’s got a sinus problem.”
“This isn’t a drugstore, you know. I’m not a pharmacist.”
“Miss Williams, is that your name?” he said reading the name tag on her uniform. “Don’t doctors get little samples of medicine?”
He walked to a cabinet and opened it. “Do you have a first name?”
“Of course I do.”
He looked at all the packets of medicine.
“You’re not trained to look in the cabinet,” she said.
“Miss Williams, do you have any idea the suffering that poor girl is going through in there? Don’t you have any empathy?”
“If we have any, it’ll be there.”
He finally found a sinus pill. He read the directions out loud: “‘Drowsiness may occur. Use caution in driving or operating machinery.’”
He took a glass of water and the pill back to Susan. She took it and thanked him.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“I came to get a hair transplant.”
“Do they do that now?”
“Look,” he answered, feeling himself tense up, “they sent a man to the moon. They ought to be able to grow hair on my head.”
“It’s not that bad, really. What are you, 26?”
Steve bit his lip. “I’m 22.”
“Sorry,” she said quickly. “It’s not the hair that bothers me. It’s what people say. They’re so cruel.”
“I know about cruel,” she agreed. “I was five ten in the eighth grade.”
“If you’re tall, you should play basketball.”
“I do.”
“I mean for BYU.”
“I do.”
“Oh. You really are an athlete. I always used to dream about being an athlete. Tell me, do guys ever wait outside the gym and ask you for your autograph?”
“No.”
“That was the only reason I wanted to be an athlete—to sign autographs for girls.”
Susan yawned. “Wow, that pill really made me sleepy.”
A few minutes later, she was asleep in her chair.
Steve finally gave up on his magazine and turned on the TV in the waiting room, but after four commercials, the screen went blank, and he turned it off.
A little later, Miss Williams came into the waiting room. “May I have your attention?” she asked formally as if there were a hundred people in the room. “Dr. Rawlins has asked that I close the health center and send all of you home.”
“Okay.”
“But just after I talked with him, I heard on the radio that they advise everybody to stay where they are.”
“Do we go or stay?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Miss Williams confessed. “What do you think we should do?”
He looked out again at the raging blizzard and said, “We’d better stay.”
“Okay, we stay.” Suddenly she noticed Susan with her head tilted back against the back of the chair, breathing through her open mouth. “Is anything wrong with her?”
“No, she’s just tired. Did you know that where she came from they had natural fluoride in the water? I bet she doesn’t have many fillings in her teeth.”
“Really?” Miss Williams asked.
“I’ve been reading about tooth decay. I wonder if she’d mind if we looked into her mouth,” he said.
They both leaned over and peered into Susan’s open mouth.
“Isn’t that amazing?” he whispered.
“It’s breathtaking,” Miss Williams agreed.
“I’ve never seen teeth with absolutely no fillings,” he continued. “I wish I had my camera.”
“Really.”
“She has a nice face, too, don’t you think?”
“You like her, don’t you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I guess we both need someone right now.”
“We don’t get many romances here.”
“Oh, it’d never work out. She’s taller than me, and I don’t have all my hair. People’d always be making fun of us.”
“Do you really care about people who do that?”
“I suppose you’re right,” he said, looking at Susan’s upper molars. “Oh, look! I see a filling way in the back. You have to get down and tilt your head over like this.
Miss Williams also looked. “Where?”
“Way back, where my finger’s pointing.”
Just then Susan woke up, saw them peering into her mouth, and screamed.
Steve grabbed his ears and moaned.
“Why were you looking into my mouth?” Susan demanded.
“We were looking at your teeth,” he confessed.
“Why?”
“The TV wasn’t working,” he answered lamely.
“You scared me to death. I thought at first you both were vampires.”
Miss Williams went back to the reception desk. Steve sat down and picked up his magazine.
“I’m sorry, Susan. I had no right. The least I could have done was ask your permission. You can look at my teeth if you’d like.”
“No thanks.”
“You have amazing teeth. You can truly be proud.”
“I brush regularly and watch my snacks.”
He looked up from his magazine. “I bet you’ll teach that to your children, too, won’t you?”
“Oh, yes.”
“You’ll be a wonderful mother. If you have boys, you can teach them basketball.”
“Girls, too.”
“Oh, sure, it wouldn’t matter, would it?”
“And you could show them how to be interested and concerned about other people …” Suddenly she stopped and blushed. “I didn’t mean to imply that we’d get married.”
“It’s all right.”
“Don’t misunderstand me. I think you’re a nice guy, but it was dumb of me to imply that we’d be married in the temple and have a wonderful family.”
“No, really, it’s fine.” He put down his magazine, walked over and sat down beside her. “Susan, I’ve never said this before to any girl, but I think you’re nice.”
“Thanks. That’s good to hear, especially after last night.”
“You know,” he said, holding her hand, “you remind me of a greyhound.”
“I do?” she asked with raised eyebrows.
“Oh, not the bus,” he said quickly. “I mean the dog … that is … I mean … you look like you probably run gracefully.”
“People say that on a fast break heading for the basket, I remind them of a gazelle.”
“One thing’s for sure. Next home game you have, I’m going.”
She looked down at his hand clasping hers. “Is that a very good idea?” she asked quietly.
He looked at her strangely.
“Germwise, I mean,” she added.
“I can take it.”
They sat in silence together for several seconds before she whispered softly, “Steve, could you let go of my hand? I have to take care of my nose.”
While she did that, he stood up and walked to the window. Moving aside the drapes, he saw a seven-foot snow drift.
“Susan, you’ve got to see this drift.”
“Oh, yes,” she said, remaining in the chair.
“No, come here and see it.”
“I’m afraid,” she confessed.
“Snow can’t hurt you.”
“I’m afraid of standing up.”
He turned to face her and asked gently, “You are?”
“When I stand up, you’ll see how tall I am, and I’m afraid that’ll change our friendship.”
“But we can’t go through life together with you in that chair.”
“All right,” she sighed, “but turn around while I stand up and walk to you.”
He turned around.
“I’m walking toward you now, but don’t turn around until I say. Steve, I don’t think of you as a person who’s shorter than me.”
He could tell that she was just in back of him.
“All right, you can turn around now.”
He turned around, looked at her, and whispered, “Good grief!”
She ran from the room. A second later, he ran after her. He heard a door slam, but by the time he reached the hallway, he couldn’t tell which room Susan had entered.
“Where is she?” he asked Miss Williams.
“Second door to the right.”
He ran to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked.
“Susan!” he yelled. “Listen to me! I’m sorry!”
From inside the room, he could hear her crying.
Miss Williams appeared beside him. “I’m sure the medical staff would frown on this kind of activity going on in the medical center.”
“Susan, it doesn’t matter! Susan! Come out so we can talk!”
“No,” a muffled voice answered.
“Susan, if you don’t come out, I’m going to do something drastic!”
Just then the electrical power throughout the building went out as the blizzard raged on.
Susan opened the door a few seconds later. “How’d you do that?”
“It was the storm. The power just went out.”
“Oh, no,” Miss Williams moaned. “What are we going to do now? We’ll freeze to death.”
“We’ll survive! Don’t worry. First thing, get some doctor’s smocks for us to put on to keep us warm.”
A few minutes later, each wearing a doctor’s white smock, they sat down behind the reception desk. Steve took charge. “Now we’re going to tell stories and play games and have a nice LDS get-together until the storm lets up. It’ll be just like a long ward activity.”
“How long?” Susan asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Can we play Simon Says?” Miss Williams asked eagerly.
“Later. First I want to tell you about my mission.”
“Then can we play Simon Says?”
Suddenly they heard yelling outside. The door opened and a student staggered in, his clothes caked with snow. He wearily stumbled to the reception desk, saw Steve, and cried out, “Doctor, you’ve got to help me!”
“Well, actually …” Steve began.
“I’ve been so depressed lately. This morning I even thought about committing suicide. You’ve got to help me, or I don’t know what I’ll do!”
Steve glanced down at the name tag reading Dr. Rawlins on the smock he was wearing, and then up at the student. “What would happen if you couldn’t see a doctor today?”
“Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”
“I see,” Steve said. “All right, I’ll see you. What’s your name?”
“Frank Henderson.”
“Before we start an examination, we need you to fill out a form. Miss Williams, get a form.”
“What form?”
“Any form!” Steve whispered. “Have him fill it out in a room down the hall.”
As Miss Williams escorted Frank down the hall, Steve called out, “Frank, take all the time you want to fill out the form.”
After depositing Frank in a room down the hall, Miss Williams ran back to the reception desk, nearly hysterical. “What are we going to do?”
“Don’t ask me! I’m not a doctor!” Steve said.
“We could phone a doctor and ask him what to do,” Susan offered.
Miss Williams dialed the number and summarized the situation concisely: “Dr. Rawlins, there’s a student here who says he’s terribly depressed! What do we do?” A long pause followed. “I see.” Another long pause. “Yes, doctor.” A few seconds later. “Oh, rats!”
“Oh, rats?” Steve asked.
“The phone just went dead.”
“Well, what did he say before the phone went dead?” Steve asked.
“He said for us not to let him leave the building. Dr. Rawlins will try and find some way to get here.”
Just then, Frank returned with the completed form, which he handed to Steve. “Now what? I’ve had plenty of counseling before, but none of it’s done any good. What do you people do?”
Steve felt all three of them staring at him. He cleared his throat. “Of course it varies with the individual case. There are a number of different treatments possible.”
“Believe me, I’ve had ’em all. What will you do for my case?”
Steve picked up the form and pretended to be examining it. Finally, he cleared his throat and announced as officially as he could, “We could play Simon Says.”
“Oh, good!” Miss Williams said.
“Wait a minute!” Frank said suspiciously. “I’ve never heard of that therapy before.”
“It’s new,” Susan said. “You could say we are the pioneers in Simon Therapy.”
“Okay, everybody line up against the wall,” ‘Steve said. “I’ll be Simon.”
“Really, you should be Dr. Simon,” Frank suggested as they lined up.
“Simon will do. By the way, Frank, why were you so depressed this morning?”
“Because I’m a failure.”
“I see. Well, let’s begin. Susan, Simon says, take two regular steps forward.”
Susan took two steps forward.
“Frank, Simon says, take two regular steps forward.”
Frank wiped his brow, put his fingers over his mouth, and stared at the floor. “No, I can’t do it. You’re trying to trick me.”
“No, I’m not. Go ahead, you can do it.”
Frank took two steps forward. “Look, I did it!”
“Good. Okay, Miss Williams, Simon says, take two tiny steps forward.”
She did so.
“Frank, Simon says, take two giant steps forward.”
“How big is a giant step?” Frank asked apprehensively.
“It’ll vary with the individual.”
Frank nervously ran his fingers through his hair. “No, I don’t trust giant steps. Go on to someone else.”
“All right then. Frank, just take two regular steps forward.”
Frank took the two steps.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Miss Williams yelled. “He walked, and you didn’t say Simon says!”
“Miss Williams!” Steve warned.
“Those are the rules! He has to go back and start all over again.”
“I knew you were out to get me!” Frank yelled.
“Nobody’s out to get you!” Steve yelled back.
Frank slumped to the floor in utter defeat. “I’ve failed again! Everybody is ahead of me, in every class, in every job, in everything!”
“For crying out loud! Frank, get up! Don’t you know that you’ve got to have failures in order to succeed! There’s nothing wrong with having to start all over again. It’s a part of life. You only fail if you quit. And doing yourself in would be the ultimate in being a quitter.”
Frank stared at the floor for several seconds and then said quietly, “But I’ll never be a nuclear physicist.”
“So what?” Steve said. “Neither will I.”
“But it’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do all my life, ever since I started to watch science fiction movies about the brilliant scientist who saves the galaxy from destruction.”
“What’s the problem?” Susan asked.
“Calculus. I can’t pass first semester calculus.”
“Calculus? What’s that?” Susan asked.
“If I knew what it was, I could probably pass it.”
“Well, you know what they say,” Miss Williams said, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again.”
“I have. This is my fourth time to take it. I flunked the first three times.”
“Oh.”
“It isn’t fair,” Frank complained. “Life isn’t fair. I want to be a nuclear physicist, but I can’t do math.”
“I know what you mean,” Steve agreed. “I want to have lots of hair, but look at me now.”
“And I want to be average in height, and look at me,” Susan added.
“I want to be a nurse, and I’m only a receptionist,” Miss Williams said.
They all went into the waiting room and sat down and brooded.
“So, what do we do?” Frank asked. “Give up?”
“The things that are important to you aren’t important to me,” Susan said. “I mean I don’t care if Steve has a whole head of hair or not. If he hadn’t mentioned it, I wouldn’t have paid any attention to it. Life is more than hair.”
“That’s right,” Steve added. “I don’t care if Susan is tall or not. Life is more than being average in height.”
“And I certainly don’t care if Frank is a … what?” Miss Williams added.
“Nuclear physicist,” Frank said. “That’s it!” Steve said. “We’ve all been worried about what we can’t be. What we ought to concentrate on is what we can be! I’m a nice guy, and I like working with people.”
“And I’m a good athlete,” Susan said.
“And a good receptionist is very important to a medical staff,” Miss Williams said cheerfully.
“And I can be a science fiction writer and write about the brilliant scientists who save the galaxy from destruction!” Frank added.
The electrical power went back on, and Frank and Miss Williams hurried to see if the phones were working yet.
Steve and Susan sat across from each other.
“I should apologize,” Susan began. “I’ve been acting as if I were shipwrecked and you were the only life raft in the sea.”
“And I’ve treated you badly,” he admitted.
“You know, I feel much better now. I found out that I was the one who was making height a barrier to my own happiness.”
“And I was doing the same thing, being so self-conscious about my lack of hair that I drove girls away.”
“I can hardly wait to use my new insight to meet other guys.” Susan said grimly.
“Me too,” he added sadly.
Then he walked over and sat down beside her. “Susan, don’t walk out of my life. We should be more than two life rafts passing in the night. Will you go out with me, at least until someone taller comes along?”
“Oh, I’d like that,” she said, suddenly happy. “Besides, I really look up to you.”
Ten minutes later, four snow-mobiles pulled up in front of the building. Dr. Rawlins jumped out first and ran to the door. “I just hope we got here in time!” he yelled to the two policemen following him.
They rushed in to save the day but instead found four students in doctor’s smocks dancing to music from Miss Williams’s portable radio.

“There were several very nice young men in our company, especially one. He used to say such lovely things to me, told me that I was beautiful and intelligent, and even went so far as to say that I was amiable, something I had never been accused of before, said I was the only woman that he ever loved, and that we were just suited to each other.
“I began to believe him and when he proposed what could I say but yes? Well, the course of true love did run smooth, at least until we got into the Valley. And then we had the usual lovers’ quarrel but not the usual making up. In a short time, he let me know that another girl appreciated him, if I did not. He married one of the girls of our company, whose ignorance he had ridiculed to me many times while on our journey. Such is the constancy of man! I understood she made him a good wife, but stood in great awe of him, the man had honored her so highly. The fates sometimes seem to interfere with our plans, all for our best good.”

I grew up in the Church—I went to the activities, and I participated in family prayer and scripture study. But I didn’t really have a testimony. I didn’t know if I believed in God or His Son. I didn’t know if the Book of Mormon was true.
I wanted a testimony, but I felt frustrated after praying many times without feeling like I had received an answer. I started wondering, “If God is real, why won’t He show me? Why does He let me sit here wondering?”
Looking back, I can see clearly why I wasn’t getting an answer: I wasn’t really putting in the effort. I would read my scriptures for five minutes once a week and expect some revelatory experience just because I asked for it.
I didn’t understand that faith is a principle of action.
Anyone looking from the outside would have called me “active” in the Church, but I still didn’t know if the Church was true. But I did want to know.
So I decided to serve a mission. I incorrectly assumed that as a missionary, I would automatically be more likely to get answers from God. I still wasn’t putting much effort into praying or studying, but soon I had my assignment.
At the start of my mission, I struggled to feel the Spirit while training online during the pandemic because of my half-hearted effort. But then I got to the missionary training center in person. And my time there was the most spiritual experience of my life. It was the first time I had a simple seed of faith that was real.
Finally entering the mission field was hard. I felt like the small testimony I had gained got lost.
One day I was crying, and then a memory popped into my head. My dad used to ask me how my day at school was, and I would always say it was boring. And he would say, “Well, that’s because you made it boring. If you want school to be fun, make it fun.” I realized that I could either make the most of my time on my mission through learning and growth or I could be miserable.
So I prayed with more sincerity than ever to tell Heavenly Father that I was going to try and change my attitude. After that, I was motivated to put in new effort. I started to truly study and pray and ponder, and over time that glimmer of testimony came back—and continued to grow. I was less frustrated, and I started finding joy in the gospel.
I was never going to strengthen my faith without changing my attitude, following this pattern, and putting my full heart into connecting with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. When I made those changes, I started to receive answers and believe truths.
For onlookers, my level of activity in the Church probably looks the same as it always has. But I’ve changed my commitment to the gospel in my heart. And that has made all the difference.

“Here I am, Grandfather!” shouted Barbie as she jumped out of the parked car in front of her Grandfather’s farm. “What’s the big job you want me to do?”
When Grandfather had called last night, he said the sap was flowing, it was sugar time, and he needed Father’s help. But he told Barbie he had a special and very important job for her too.
“You’re just in time,” Grandfather said as he picked Barbie up and whirled her around.
“What do you want me to do?” Barbie asked eagerly.
“You’ll see,” answered Grandfather.
He hurried toward the barn. Soon he came out leading two large powerful horses. The horses pulled a sleigh with a big tank on it that Grandfather called a gathering rig.
“You’re going to ride on the rig,” Grandfather said as he gave Barbie a boost up behind the horses.
This is my job, thought Barbie. Grandfather needs me to drive the gathering rig.
Swinging tin pails, Grandfather and Father started walking down the narrow snow-covered road.
Before Barbie could say giddap, the horses tugged at their harnesses and the creaky sleigh slowly slid along the road. Down one hill and up another went the horses, their warm breath turning misty in the chilled air.
Soon they came to a grove of maple trees. Sunlight flickered through the bare branches down to shiny buckets hanging on the trees.
“Whoa!” commanded Barbie, but the horses kept moving.
Grandfather and Father stopped at a tree where two buckets were hanging. They emptied the buckets into their big pails and then went on to other trees to empty more buckets. When their gathering pails were full, they stood by the road and waited for the sleigh so they could pour the sap into the tank.
Barbie jumped down into the snow. “I thought my job was to steer the horses,” she said. “But they don’t pay any attention to me. They already know what to do.”
“Smart horses,” commented Grandfather with a smile.
“Then what is my special job?” asked Barbie.
“You’ll see,” Grandfather promised.
Barbie tagged along to the maple trees. She spotted a small tree with a small bucket. This must be what Grandfather meant, she thought. This bucket is just my size.
Barbie tried to lift the bucket, but it wouldn’t budge. She tried again, but it was too full and too heavy. So she sat down on a tree stump and listened to the sap drip-drop into the buckets while Grandfather and Father poured more sap into the gathering rig. I’mnot big enough to help them, Barbie thought.
“It’s full!” announced Grandfather. “Come, Barbie. We’re going to the sugar house.”
They all climbed on the sleigh. Without being told, the horses began to move down the slope to the sugar house.
“Hello, Ben,” Grandfather said to the man who was waiting for them there. “This is Barbie. She’s going to do that special job for us.”
Barbie was tingling with excitement as she watched Ben attach a hose to the tank to drain the sap into a huge wooden vat.
Holding her hand, Grandfather took Barbie into the sugar house. They entered a room filled with a cloud of steam and the odor of burning pine logs mingled with the smell of something sweet. Barbie could see long trays of sap bubbling and popping over the stoves.
“Here is Barbie, Henry,” said Grandfather to a thin man who was stirring the boiling sap. “Are you ready for her to do her job?”
“Almost,” answered Henry. He scooped a dipper full of hot liquid and lifted it. Tilting the dipper, he watched the ribbon of syrup return to the pan.
“Now!” he said.
“Now?” asked Barbie in surprise. “But where is Grandfather?”
“Out here, Barbie,” Grandfather called.
Barbie ran through the door and stopped. Grandfather was standing beside a tub heaped with snow. Father and Ben were there too. Henry brought a newly filled dipper to Grandfather, who poured it on the snow. The cooled syrup changed to thick candy.
Grandfather handed a tiny wooden paddle to Barbie.
“Your job,” said Grandfather, “is to be the official taster.”
Barbie carefully scooped up the maple sugar candy and slowly tasted it. Then in her most expert voice she announced, “It’s delicious!”
Grandfather nodded his head in approval.
“M-m-m-m,” Barbie said as she took another taste of the sweet surprise. Then she looked at Grandfather. “I’ll be glad to do this job for you every year,” she promised.

After graduating with honors from high school, Bien studied political science at the Christian College of the Philippines. “We were talking in class about earthquakes,” Bien remembers, “laughing about getting caught in one.” Suddenly, the whole classroom swayed. It was an earthquake.

Terrified, everyone scrambled to escape. The building was dancing madly. Just as Bien was about to dash to safety through an open door, he was pinned by an avalanche of concrete.

“A broken chair jabbed at my stomach, one of my legs was in a half-kneeling posture, and I was face-down,” he remembers. His fractured right arm bled profusely under a block of collapsed flooring. Yet, incredibly, a huge chunk of fallen concrete had barely missed his head. “Classmates were crying for help, but I couldn’t budge,” Bien recalls. One by one they died, including three lying on Bien. The quake struck in late afternoon, and by evening it was pitch dark. Everything was silent.

“I cried,” Bien admits. But as he wept, a Primary song crossed his mind. He started singing “I Am a Child of God.” As each word pierced the silence, a feeling of peace came, a feeling that he was no longer alone. “I prayed, saying, ‘Father, if I still need to live, then please let me live.’” As he prayed, Bien remembered the Savior. “He suffered a lot more than I did,” Bien realized. The cave-in became a tremendous spiritual experience.

As the sun rose the following morning, so did Bien’s hopes. Rescue workers pried him from the rubble and carried him to safety. His relieved family was notified. Bien was rushed to a hospital. Doctors immediately amputated his right arm. “I woke up, looked at my right side and cried out, ‘What’s happening here?’ I thought I was dreaming.” Shock turned to sorrow. “I felt so lonely because I might not be able to do what I used to do.”

After three bedridden months, Bien went home. Nearly all of his 50 classmates had perished. It seemed the same thing happened to Bien’s will to live. How could he, a right-handed person, manage with just his left arm?

While tutoring his nephews one day, Bien felt prompted to practice writing the alphabet. At first it was pure frustration. “My mind knew the shapes, but my hand had difficulty following.” However, practice makes perfect; less than a year after that fateful day, Bien was not only writing with ease, but was also oil painting again. And he resumed college.

After a year, he felt it was time to make use of his newfound strength and serve a mission. His family was aghast. “We’d really worry about you,” his mother protested.

“I know this is what the Lord wants,” Bien reassured her.

Months later, as a missionary, Bien received a family letter. “Don’t worry about us,” they wrote. “We’re boasting about you already.”

Bien’s personality affects just about everybody. At the Manila Missionary Training Center he was an inspiration, and his dedication has touched the Santa Maria Branch. But Bien admits there are still some challenges, like forgoing basketball and missing service projects like harvesting rice.

One of Bien’s favorite scriptures says God “will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will … also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it” (1 Cor. 10:13). It’s a scripture that helps Bien see everything as a learning experience.

Mission life, he says, “is like a school where I learn much, not only about the gospel but also about myself.” He hastens to add that it was in the rubble of another school where he learned to trust Heavenly Father.

Ask Bien to sum up his blessings, and he’ll share his motto: “I asked God for health that I might do great things, and I was given an infirmity that I might do greater things.”

Then he’ll smile and extend his friendship to you—with a warm, left-handed handshake.

In October 2011, while serving a full-time mission in South Africa, I received a phone call from Sister Catherine Wood, our mission president’s wife. All merry and bright, she told me that President Thomas S. Monson had just announced the construction of a temple in my home town, Kinshasa. I remember shouting—with joy with tears flowing down my cheeks—in gratitude to the Most High for the blessing of having a temple in my country.
Eight years later, having married and been sealed to Rachel Tshimungu in the Johannesburg South Africa Temple in 2014, I am the father of two children. Together as a family we have witnessed the fulfillment of this great miracle—not only in our country, but also and especially in our own lives. We watched as the temple rose from ground level until, finally, the Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple was dedicated on Sunday, April 14, 2019 by Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
My family and I are very blessed for having participated in the events preceding the dedication of the temple. We felt the Spirit of the Lord in abundance. At the temple open house, my mother, Mary Noël Kona Bukasa—currently a less active member of the Church—testified: “This temple is truly a House of God, I felt like I was in paradise.” Our neighbors who also attended the open house, said: “It is a perfect house—as if we were in heaven.”

On a beautiful sunny morning, I invited my almost eight-year-old granddaughter, Vicki, to walk with me near a lake, which is actually a water reservoir for our beautiful city.
We walked happily, listening to the soft noise of the crystal clear brook running alongside our path. The path was lined with beautiful green trees and sweet-scented flowers. We could hear birds singing.
I asked my blue-eyed, cheerful, and innocent granddaughter how she was preparing for baptism.
She answered with a question: “Grandpa, what is sin?”
I silently prayed for inspiration and tried to respond as simply as I could: “Sin is the intentional disobedience to God’s commandments. It makes Heavenly Father sad, and its results are suffering and sadness.”
Clearly concerned, she asked me, “And how does it get us?”
The question first reveals purity, but it also reveals a concern for how to avoid involvement with sin.
For her to understand more clearly, I used the natural elements we had around us as an illustration. Continuing down our path, we found by the side of a barbed-wire fence a stone post of considerable size; it was a heavy structure with flowers, bushes, and little trees growing around it. Over time these plants would become bigger than the post itself.
I remembered that a little farther down the path, we would find another post that had already been taken over little by little, almost unnoticed, by the vegetation that grew around it. I imagine that a post would not perceive that, despite its strength, it could be encompassed and destroyed by fragile plants. The post would have thought, “No problem. I am strong and big, and this small plant will do me no harm.”
So as a nearby tree grows bigger, the post does not notice at first; then the post starts enjoying the shade the tree provides. But the tree continues to grow, and it encircles the post with two branches that at first seem fragile but that in time intertwine and surround the post.
Still the post does not realize what is happening.
Soon, in our walk, we found the proverbial post. It had been plucked out from the ground. My little granddaughter looked impressed and asked me, “Grandpa, is this the tree of sin?”
I then explained to her that it was only a symbol, or an example, of how sin gets us.
I don’t know what the effect of our conversation will be on her, but it made me think of the many faces of sin and of how it sneaks into our lives if we allow it to.

One day while working around our home, trimming the hedges and vines, I had an interesting experience. I was at work with my electric clippers and long extension cord. I had done this often, each time reminding myself of the need to use these clippers with great care in order to avoid cutting things that I shouldn’t.
Suddenly the blades became jammed. Caught between them was the power cord itself. Because I had not seen it in the thicket I was trimming, I had cut into the very line that was providing the power to work.
“Isn’t that one of life’s great lessons?” I thought. “Power, if misused, can cut into the very source of that power.”
Just as the careless use of electrical power can sever the source of that power, so is it possible to misuse spiritual power to sever our spiritual power line. We would then lose that which enables us to generate success in our lives. Proper use of our spiritual power line allows us to learn, to labor, to be obedient to law, and to love. While these capabilities lead to fulfillment, at the same time they also carry risk.
Consider the power to learn. How essential it is for progress, whether one’s career is professional or that of a salesman, a farmer, or a homemaker.
But learning can be misused! A sharp mind, misdirected, can cut into that line of spiritual power. Some “learned” souls delight in leading others astray, all in the so-called name of learning. Years later their victims may realize that they have climbed their ladder of learning, only to find it leaning against the wrong wall. A prophet of the Lord has counseled us on this point:
“O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.
“But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.” (2 Ne. 9:28–29; italics added.)
What happens without spiritual learning? What happens to the pilot of a glider when he is cut loose from the power of his tow plane? There may be banks and turns, but ultimately there is only one direction he can go, and that is down!
We must gain learning, but we must apply it wisely. Otherwise, we have politics without principle, industry without morality, knowledge without wisdom, science without humanity!
Consider the power of labor. Labor well spent increases our capacity to do. President Heber J. Grant often said, “‘That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not that the nature of the thing itself is changed, but that our power to do is increased.’” (In Conference Report, Apr. 1901, p. 63.)
The Lord, through his prophet Lehi, said, “It must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things.” (2 Ne. 2:11.) So, in reality, competition forces us to improve. It deserves our praise and our gratitude. Without it we could not reach the heights that are otherwise ours to achieve.
But our labor can be misdirected. One can be anxiously engaged in a meaningless cause. Or one can do something wrong a hundred times and call it experience! Some would avoid labor while pursuing the goals of wealth without working for it, or an honored position without preparing for it. The converted Lamanites taught this lesson: “Rather than shed the blood of their brethren they would give up their own lives; and rather than take away from a brother they would give unto him; and rather than spend their days in idleness they would labor abundantly with their hands.” (Alma 24:18.)
Next, consider the power of obedience to law. One of the great applications of spiritual power is obeying the laws of both God and man. Freedom to act and mastery of our actions both emanate from law. “When we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.” (D&C 130:21.)
I relearned that so well from President Kimball. On one occasion when he needed an operation that I was to perform, he first asked me for a priesthood blessing. Following that, he said, “Now you may proceed to do that which must be done in order to make that blessing possible.”
He knew, and I knew, that not even for God’s prophet can anyone be exempted from law. Not even for God’s Son could divine law be broken!
Consider the power to love. I remember a mother I met once as I made a professional house call. This woman was confined in an iron lung. The ravages of polio had effectively destroyed all the breathing muscles so that her life was completely dependent upon this large metal tank and the electrical motor that powered its noisy bellows.
While there, I watched her three children as they related to their mother. The oldest interrupted our work to ask permission to go to a friend’s house for an hour. Later the second child asked her mother for help with arithmetic. Finally the youngest child, so small that she couldn’t see her mother’s face directly, looked up at her image in a mirror that had been placed over the mother’s head and asked, “Mommy, may I have a cookie?” I’ve never forgotten that lesson on the power of love. This woman, virtually disabled and certainly incapable of any degree of physical enforcement of parental authority, sweetly influenced that home solely with the power to love!
The power of love between a man and a woman is special. The love shared with my beloved companion, Dantzel, has increased the power of love for both of us. That love brought us to the altar in the temple of the Lord. Her love for me motivated her to teach school during the early years of our marriage. When things were tight, she held a second job at night. Once when things were exceptionally tight, she even sold her blood in between her two jobs to keep us solvent. (Her dear parents may have wondered what kind of a son-in-law they had on that occasion!) I thought of that many years later when she needed a transfusion urgently and her blood couldn’t be matched readily with donor blood from the blood bank. What a privilege it was for me to donate mine directly to her.
Can the power to love be misused? Sadly, yes. The illegitimate union of the sexes has, in my observation, been one of the greatest causes of grief. In some instances, the improper use of this sacred physical endowment has even destroyed its use in later years.
Misused, the power of love can cut off spiritual power. The abuse of the power to love can result in no love at all. Only its cheap facsimiles of lewdness and lust remain in the wake of pleasure without conscience. Instead of feasting at the banquet table of bounteous love with his own posterity, one is left with scraps from the table—only the refuse from what might have been.
The ashes of burned “love” smolder with the smoke of sadness. Yet the embers of evil still burn. But as loud voices argue on, let us remember that those who advocate abortion have already been born! Those who freely deny God with their amoral and agnostic practices will one day find that He may just as freely deny them! (See 3 Ne. 28:34.)
The source of our spiritual power is the Lord! The ultimate source of spiritual power is God our Father. The messenger of this power is the Holy Ghost. This power differs from electrical power. An electrical appliance consumes power. The use of His spiritual power replenishes our power. While electrical power can be used only for measured periods of time, spiritual power can be used for time and eternity!
Our spiritual power line is strengthened through prayer. As we counsel with God in all our doings, he will direct us for good. (See Alma 37:37.) Prayer is available whenever we ask for it!
But the Lord places the initiative upon us. He expects us to reach for his power, just as we must insert the plug in the outlet for electricity. He said, “If thou shalt ask, thou shalt receive revelation upon revelation, knowledge upon knowledge, that thou mayest know the mysteries and peaceable things—that which bringeth joy, that which bringeth life eternal.” (D&C 42:61; italics added.) Personal worthiness and scripture study enable us to do more with this power.
Rewards result from the righteous use of the spiritual power belonging to the priesthood! And they are so great that they are almost beyond human comprehension. To those couples who bear and share that priesthood worthily and remain faithful to the law of the everlasting covenant of eternal marriage, enduring the congested years and trials of diapers and dishes, crowded kitchen and thin pocketbook, service in the Church, education and the burning of the midnight oil, the Lord makes this promise: “Ye shall come forth in the first resurrection; … and shall inherit thrones, kingdoms, principalities, and powers, dominions, … [and there] shall be a fulness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever.” (D&C 132:19; italics added.)
The spiritual power line conveys revelation. Revelation is given to the President for the Church, and to leaders and teachers in their respective callings. Personal revelation is provided for the glorification of individual members and families in the Church. These lines are well insulated, and they are not scrambled! Our Father is a God of order! No one else receives revelation to govern the Church; that will be delivered only to the President of the Church. The father in the home next door will not receive revelation for his neighbor’s family.
It is possible to disregard or even misuse spiritual power. Some have misused the power of prayer by making that sacred communication trivial. Some well-meaning Saints even do the right things for the wrong reasons, if they narrowly center on the percentages they report rather than on the precious people they serve.
Like cutting the cord with clippers, it is possible to use spiritual power so carelessly as to destroy one’s very connection to that power. I know a husband who dominates his wife as though she were his possession. He seems to regard her about as he does his automobile or his suitcase, which he uses for his own purposes. And I know a wife who dominates her husband to the point that he has lost all feelings of worth.
Remember, “The rights of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and … the powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness.” (D&C 121:36; italics added.)
The unrighteous use of priesthood authority surely severs the connection to the Source of that authority. (See D&C 121:37.)
Worship strengthens our power line to deity. There can be no true worship without sacrifice, and there can be no true sacrifice without a cause. The cause that earns our love and priority is the cause of Jesus Christ.
Speaking of his own atonement, the Savior proclaimed, “To this end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world.” (John 18:37.) His example of worship, sacrifice, and commitment to cause becomes ours! His is the ultimate source of all our power to do good.
As we carefully and prayerfully protect the spiritual power line that links us to the Savior, we become more like him!
Of his sacred name and mission I solemnly bear special witness. Of his divine sonship I proclaim sacred testimony. That this is his church I fervently declare, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

On a beautiful Sunday morning in the fall of 1841, my great-grandfather, William Minshall Evans, then sixteen years of age, was walking down the streets of Liverpool, England, on his way to church. Suddenly he heard singing that thrilled him beyond anything he had ever heard before. He followed the sound down an alley and up some rickety stairs into a room where a few people were holding a meeting. John Taylor, who later became President of the Church and who had a beautiful tenor voice, was the singer. The song he sang was so beautiful that William remained to hear the sermon.
Upon returning home, William was reprimanded by his elder brother, David, for being absent from his accustomed place in the choir. When asked to give an account of himself, William replied, “I have been where you should have been and I shall not be satisfied until you all hear the wonderful truth I have heard this morning.”
Before long, William and David were converted to the gospel, and then helped convert other members of their family. Three of the brothers and their parents emigrated to Utah between 1848 and 1850. William’s mother died of cholera in Kanesville, Iowa, and her husband was so brokenhearted that he had no desire to continue on to Utah and so returned to England.
The boys experienced all of the hardships and trials of those early pioneer days, but remained true and faithful to the gospel. William had twelve children and passed on a great heritage to his posterity.
I never sing the hymns of the Church without remembering that it was the singing of a hymn that opened the door to the gospel for my family and made it possible for me to enjoy all the blessings that have followed.

Third, we must live courageously in accordance with the light and testimony that we have received. We are promised, “He that receiveth light, and continueth in God, receiveth more light; and that light groweth brighter and brighter until the perfect day.” It takes real effort and sacrifice to live the gospel courageously. For some years temple worship for the Saints who live near Manaus, Brazil, has meant traveling two days in a crowded riverboat on the Amazon River, followed by two days’ travel in buses through the hot tropics to the Recife temple. Arriving worn out and tired, they would shower, dress appropriately, and immediately begin their temple worship. After several days of service to the Lord, they would make the long, difficult journey home. The words “but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” were beautifully reflected by their sacrificing actions.

When we reach this milestone in our spiritual progression, some wonderful blessings and consequences will follow. Most importantly, we will experience the joy and peace of conscience that come as a result of worthiness. The earliest memory I have of the relationship between keeping God’s standards and experiencing happiness is associated with my own baptism. I recall the anticipation I felt as I awaited my eighth birthday and how sincerely I tried to exercise faith in Christ and repent of any wrongdoing. When the memorable day came, the ordinances themselves were most impressive. I vividly remember the warm water enveloping me and the equally warm spiritual feeling I later had as I was confirmed and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. The joyous feeling of being clean and close to God meant so much to me that I vowed I would never sin again. Unfortunately, my youthful good intentions failed a few days later when I responded in frustration to my older brother’s teasing by uttering what my parents had warned me was a “naughty” word. Much to my dismay, my ever-vigilant mother overheard me and came dashing out of the house with fire in her eyes! She marched me down a path to our dairy barn where my father kept a basin of water and a bar of soap. Pushing my head toward the basin, she began vigorously scrubbing my mouth out with soap, all the while impressing upon me her desire that I “never use such words again!”
Although it has been more than 50 years since that humiliating moment, I still remember perfectly the deep sadness I felt because I had offended my brother, my mother, and, most serious of all, my Heavenly Father. I learned then a lesson that the First Presidency has taught and which has been reconfirmed many times in my life: We cannot do wrong and feel right (see For the Strength of Youth, 4).

At the beginning of 2010, I was struggling with some trials and went on a walk to clear my mind. While on the walk, I felt the Spirit whisper that I should not worry about the past; instead, I should think about my future. Just as I began reviewing my goal of finishing school, I was prompted to think about serving a mission. I never thought about a mission before, but as the idea took hold, so did an excitement and a desire to serve. However, I decided that I wanted a little more time to think about such a big decision.
The next few months were filled with promptings to serve a mission. While I still felt that same desire and excitement when the promptings came, doubts and fears came as well. I knew that women are encouraged to serve if they so desire but are not obligated to do so. During this time, I received priesthood blessings telling me the Lord would be pleased no matter what I chose.
The following summer I had a roommate who had served a mission. She said that she too felt fear before and even after she decided to serve. She helped me understand that the Spirit does not speak through doubt and fear (see 2 Timothy 1:7). As we talked, the Spirit touched me. I returned to my room and read a letter from a friend who was serving a mission. The letter encouraged me to read Joshua 1:9, and I felt the Spirit nudge me to look it up.
The words pierced my soul: “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” I felt as though the Lord was speaking directly to me. I knew that I could serve a mission. I didn’t need to fear—I wouldn’t be doing it alone; the Lord would be with me.
One month later I received my call to the Philippines Iloilo Mission, where Joshua 1:9 was the mission theme.
Kristen Nicole Danner

One woman who stopped attending church at a young age shared the following experience of how her family continued loving her. In her large LDS family, missions were celebrated in a visible way. Photographs of all the missionaries in the family adorned her grandmother’s living room wall. It was “the epicenter of our family’s universe,” she said. She knew she would never serve a mission, and she felt that no matter what good she did in the world, she would never earn a place on her grandmother’s wall.
At age 30 she decided to serve in the United States Peace Corps. She journeyed to Madagascar and devoted all her energy to serving there. Partway through her experience, she learned that her grandmother had included her photo on the wall. When the Peace Corps term ended, grandmother and granddaughter embraced and shed tears. “Service is service,” her grandmother explained. Whether or not we have a missionary wall in our homes, there are still plenty of ways we can show all our family members they are loved and valued.

My friend’s father worked as a mechanic. His honest labor showed even in his carefully washed hands. One day someone at a temple told my friend’s father he should clean his hands before serving there. Instead of being offended, this good man began to scrub the family dishes by hand with extra soapy water before attending the temple. He exemplifies those who “ascend into the hill of the Lord” and “stand in his holy place” with the cleanest of hands and the purest of hearts.16

Then the merchant told his story. “I was once a farmer and had a strange tree on my farm. The tree had only a few barren branches but no leaves. One day I noticed that three fruits appeared on the branches. The fruits grew bigger and bigger until each was about the size of a barrel. I cut the fruits open and found a young man in each of them. I made them all work for me on the farm. But one day the young men ran away because they didn’t like the hard work.”

At this point the merchant pointed his finger at the three brothers and said, “I know you are the ones who ran away from my farm. I’m taking you back to the farm today.”
At once the three lazy brothers jumped up and cried, “No, no, we are not from your farm! We don’t believe your story!”
The merchant looked at them and smiled. “Have you forgotten your promise? You don’t believe my story; therefore you shall be my servants.”
The chief judge declared that the merchant had won the contest, and the three lazy brothers became servants of the merchant.

Goals are great! Almost everyone sets goals, and everyone reaches some level of success or failure in his efforts to reach them. Some goals seem almost unattainable—like running the sub-9-second 100-yard dash, or vaulting over 18 feet. Some goals are strange—like wanting to make the longest banana split in the whole world. And some goals are just downright ridiculous—like seeing how many live gold fish you can swallow.
But two young men from Ogden, Utah, set a goal that was a learning experience, a great character builder, and a goal that, as far as we know, has never been achieved before, especially by two brothers. Since they have been Scouts, Chad and Craig Carson, ages 15 and 16, have each earned every merit badge that has been offered by the Boy Scouts of America. Each has 127 merit badges. This is actually more merit badges than are now offered because some have been discontinued since Chad and Craig earned them. Both boys are Eagle Scouts and have found the Scouting program an exciting general education in itself. Their dad has figured that they have done enough reading, research, and study to qualify as sophomores in college.
Craig and Chad didn’t start earning all those merit badges until two years ago. Chad, the younger of the two, had a little catching up to do, but once the brothers were working together, they spent some time almost every day working toward their common goal. During one summer they earned 48 merit badges. It took more than half an hour to read them all at the Court of Honor. They now have all 127, and they each need two merit badge sashes to display their awards because there is only room for 100 per sash.
When asked which merit badges had given them the most trouble, both Chad and Craig said that beekeeping was the greatest challenge. It wasn’t so much doing the work as it was finding someone who was qualified to teach them and pass them on the badge requirements. After some searching and one unsuccessful attempt to get together with a beekeeper, they finally found a man who was teaching a class in beekeeping at Weber State College, and they were able to complete the merit badge requirements with his help. By the way, Chad and Craig are still beekeepers.
Cotton farming was also a tough one. When the brothers decided to work on this, they had to send away for the book because it seems that no one really raises cotton around Ogden anymore. And after they got the book, they just couldn’t find any cotton seeds. But their mother remembered that she had been in the South some 17 years before and had picked a ball of cotton as a memento. And there are seeds in a real cotton ball. Chad and Craig took the seeds that were in that 17-year-old cotton ball and grew four cotton plants.
Craig and Chad say that the physical skill merit badges have been the most fun to earn. They have learned how to ski, swim, shoot, water ski, and do many other things that they otherwise might not have had the opportunity to do.
When asked if they thought they had missed out on anything because they had spent so much time working on all those merit badges, Chad said, “No, sir! We’ve been able to do more ourselves and as a family because we have set goals. When we were going to get our skiing merit badge, Dad had to drive us up to take lessons, and he decided that instead of just waiting around, he might as well take lessons with us. Now we all ski. It has been great for the whole family.”
Craig said, “It’s not really hard to earn the merit badges if you put your mind to it. Scouts could earn a lot more merit badges if they tried, and if they did, they would be glad they put forth the effort.”
So, on September 21, 1974, Chad and Craig Carson received the last of the merit badges they could earn. Both brothers give a great deal of credit to their mother and father. Chad said that his mom was always saying, “Come on! You can do it!” She would help them schedule appointments and drive them wherever they had to go. At the beginning of the summer, she would help map out a plan for which merit badges they could earn. Both boys also had high praises for their Scout leaders. The leaders challenged them and helped in every way possible.
Now Chad and Craig think there should be a merit badge given to help Scouts like themselves figure out where they can keep all the projects, models and charts that it takes to earn all those badges.

Although Christ’s mercy produces transforming forgetfulness, his justice endows him with perfect remembrance. He told his followers gathered at Bountiful that even though their land had been torn apart by earthquakes, he would remain constant: “For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed, but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed” (3 Nephi 22:10; see also Isaiah 40:4). Elsewhere, the Lord used a metaphor of writing to emphasize this constancy: “Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands” (Isaiah 49:16). In the ancient world one of the most common writing technologies was engraving. The engraver pressed the sharp point of a stylus into the soft surface of clay or metal sheets. Christ metaphorically transforms these implements of writing into the Roman nails and his tender hands. When we think of these two images of a writing Savior, once in sand and once in his own flesh, we begin to understand Paul’s description of Christ as “the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him” (Hebrews 5:9; emphasis added).

A few years ago I saw how these images of constancy and forgetfulness had come together in the life of a BYU student. He had grown up in Southeast Asia during years of unspeakable violence and cruelty. When he was a young boy, soldiers entered his town one day and carried away his father. He never saw him again. His playgrounds were not soccer fields but the killing fields and the squalid conditions of refugee camps. Eventually his mother managed to relocate the family in the United States, and here they accepted the gospel. I asked him how he coped with this burden of memories. Did he suffer from nightmares? Was he haunted by post-traumatic stress? His response was simple, yet powerful: the Atonement had cleansed his memory. The testimony he bore of the cleansing power of the Atonement remains perhaps the most moving witness of spiritual transformation I have ever heard. And his story reinforced the truth that the Atonement must restore both the sinner and those who suffer from the sinner’s actions. Christ’s perfect fairness requires that victims receive a share of his grace at least as bounteous as that offered to the fully repentant sinner. The Savior’s promise that he will remember us allows us to start the process of this intimate restoration of forgetting.

Once there was an old man who lived with his three young sons in a small village in Vietnam. Though they all loved each other very much, the boys seemed to always be fighting and quarreling.
One day the father called them to him. “My sons,” he said, “I want each of you to bring me a chopstick.”
“Yes, Father,” they said, and each ran to get a chopstick.
When they stood before him again, he said to his oldest son, Ta, “Can you break your chopstick?”
“Yes, Father. That’s easy.” He snapped his chopstick in two.
The father asked his middle son, Hai, “Can you break your chopstick?”
“Yes, Father. That’s easy.” Hai snapped his chopstick in two.
“Can you break your chopstick?” the father asked his youngest son, Thu.
“Yes, Father. That’s easy.” It was harder for him, but he was able to break his chopstick in two.
“Now,” the father said to his youngest son, “bring me three unbroken chopsticks.”
Thu ran to get them.
“When you hold them together, can you break them?” asked the father.
Thu tried as hard as he could, but he could not break the three together. Hai also tried, but he couldn’t break them.
Ta, being the oldest, thought he might break the three, but try as he would, he could not do it.
“I hope you have learned from the chopsticks,” said their father.
One day soon after that, Thu was taking his new ball to a friend’s house to play. At the end of his street, a bully, much bigger than Thu, jumped out and took the ball away from him.
“Please give it back,” Thu begged. But the bully would not. Thu went home and told his brothers what had happened.
Ta and Hai looked at each other. “Chopsticks?” they said, and they went to find the bully. “What are you doing with our brother’s ball?” they asked.
“Aw, I just borrowed it,” said the bully, looking nervously at the brothers. He gave it back at once and didn’t borrow it again.
Some time later, Hai got sick and had to stay in bed for a while. He became cross and restless. “My sons,” said the father. “Have you noticed that Hai is getting very tired of having to stay in bed day and night? I wonder what can be done about that.”
“Chopsticks,” said Ta and Thu, and they began bringing things to their brother and entertaining him while he was sick. Soon he was feeling much better.
Years passed, and the boys had grown into fine young men. Each had a farm and a family of his own.
One spring a terrible rain lasted so long that the river flooded. Hai and Thu lived on high ground, but Ta lived near the river, and his entire rice field was swept away by the flood.
Hai and Thu got together to talk about their brother’s loss.
“Chopsticks?” asked Hai.
“Chopsticks,” answered Thu. And until the next rice harvest, a bag of rice appeared on Ta’s doorstep every week so that he and his family never went hungry.
When the old father, who was very old by this time, heard of it, he was sitting in front of his house in the sun. “Chopsticks,” he said, and he smiled a very happy smile.