Gospel Story Finder

A dear friend told of the passing away of his atheistic father. As he bid good-bye to his family who had gathered around, he expressed no hope of any future, saying, “No, this is the end.”

Then, as the last moment came, he suddenly opened his eyes and said distinctly, “Mother, how good to see you! Sister, you look lovely. How beautiful it all is!” Then he died. What a surprise it must have been for him! I hope he was happy about it.

I remember my first association with the welfare program. It was inaugurated in the early 30s during President Grant’s administration. Presidents J. Reuben Clark, Jr., Harold B. Lee and Henry D. Moyle were its principal architects. I was a bishop at the time. We had many people living in my ward in that depressed era who were unemployed and unable to sustain themselves. I remember we were in this building at a conference when President Heber J. Grant told us as bishops to go home and see what we could do to get together the basic food, clothing and other necessities of life required to care for our people during the coming year. I remember that in our ward we built some closets in the basement and gathered food and used clothing, which we put in those closets to take care of our people during the ensuing winter.

Hi! My name is Rachael.
Bullying was a problem at my school. My friend Lexi and I decided to challenge the kids in our school to be kind!
How It All Started
When I was in fourth grade, I saw a friend being bullied. I told my teacher, but I didn’t do anything else. I wished I had been brave enough to do something more. My mom said if I prayed, Heavenly Father could help me.
A Prayer and a Phone Call
I went to my bedroom and prayed about it. Just as I said, “Amen,” the phone rang. It was my friend Lexi. She could tell I had been crying. I told her what happened at school and invited her to come over.
The Challenge for Kindness
I decided to make a chart to help me remember to be kinder every day. I called it the “Challenge for Kindness.” Lexi said we should make one for everyone in our class.
Sharing the Challenge
We made a presentation about the challenge and sent it to our teacher. She invited us to present it to our class. I was super nervous, but we did it. Now everyone in our class had their own kindness chart.
Butterflies!
I still wanted to do more, so I sent our presentation to the principal. She asked us to share our challenge with the whole school! Now I really had butterflies. I said a prayer right before the assembly started. Lexi and I took turns talking about why people bully and what to do about it. At the end we both said, “We will make a difference! Together we will stop bullying!”
A Huge Warm Feeling
As I walked back to my seat, I had a huge warm feeling. Heavenly Father comforted me when I felt bad and prompted me to do something that made a difference. It felt good to know I had answered Heavenly Father’s challenge to be kind!

The Olson family in Brigham City, Utah, USA, found that even changing one small aspect of their Sabbath day brings about great blessings. Instead of watching regular television on Sunday, they focus on Church-sponsored media. They found that watching the Bible videos (see BibleVideos.org) with their children invites the Spirit as well as questions from the kids that prompt good family discussions.

“Not watching TV on the Sabbath led to the biggest shift in focus for me,” said Sister Lacey Olson. “We might feel like there are so many rules with regards to Sunday, but I think the Sabbath is a day unrestricted with regards to service and charity. If we choose, the Sabbath day can arm us with rejuvenation to face the world in the following week.”

In a little Mormon town like Whitney, religion was in the very air everyone breathed. It was the center of the community’s existence. “Father and Mother taught their family complete devotion to the Church and full integrity in the payment of their tithes and offerings,” President Benson declares. He often recounts the time when his father had to choose between paying his tithing or a $50 debt. He paid the tithing, and almost immediately received an unexpected offer of $50 for a hay derrick he had built.

In my senior year at Brigham Young University, I entered the national Woodrow Wilson Fellowship competition, named in honor of a former U.S. president. An important part of this competition is a traditional half-hour private interview, in which three judges may ask each applicant any questions they please. My interview went fairly well until about halfway through, when one of the examiners suddenly changed the subject. My file had contained a copy of my article for a BYU publication on the Book of Mormon, and that was the source of his question. Challengingly, he demanded, “Doesn’t the Book of Mormon just steal from the Bible?”
The next five minutes were nervous ones for me. I undertook to show that the Book of Mormon differed from the Bible in several crucial ways. For instance, in the Sermon on the Mount, which appears in both books, the King James text reads: “whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment.” (Matt. 5:22; italics added.) The italicized phrase appears to be an interpolation that was added to the text well after it had been written by Matthew. The earliest New Testament manuscripts do not have it; neither does the Book of Mormon. (See 3 Ne. 12:22.) I also pointed to numerous differences between the selected Isaiah passages cited in the Book of Mormon and the same passages in the Bible, to important similarities between Book of Mormon imagery and nonbiblical Jewish imagery (especially in regard to the tree of life and to the significance of Joseph), and finally to the original poetry as part of the writings of the Book of Mormon prophets.
At least two things make me think that my answer was convincing. First, one of the other professors finally asked the challenging professor quite pointedly, “It doesn’t sound like stealing to me. Have you ever read the Book of Mormon?” And second, I received the fellowship.

“You won’t understand everything the first time, but always go back to the temple and keep learning more throughout your life.”
My bishop gave me this advice right before I received my endowment, and he was right! I’ll never forget the Spirit and the love I felt in the temple, but afterward, I quickly forgot a lot of it, and I wasn’t sure how to apply everything I had learned.
Which just made me want to keep going back to learn more.
Elder Robert D. Hales (1932–2017) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught, “Temples are the greatest university of learning known to man.”1
But how can we learn in the temple?
We all learn differently, so as we seek revelation, the Holy Ghost can teach us individually and make the temple a “house of learning” for each of us (Doctrine and Covenants 109:8).
Here are a few experiences that have shown me how personalized learning in the Lord’s house can be.
Temple preparation isn’t just a class we take before receiving our endowment. We can always prepare ourselves to learn before each visit.
Heavenly Father wants us to learn and to seek answers. We can pray for help, we can search the scriptures, and we can even fast or do family history work prior to our temple visit to better open our hearts to the knowledge that can be found there. President Russell M. Nelson said: “One may … read in the Old Testament and the books of Moses and Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price. Such a review of ancient scripture is even more enlightening after one is familiar with the temple endowment.”2
Before every temple visit, I try to have a question in mind about the gospel, about my life, or about the ordinances, and I ask Heavenly Father to help me recognize the voice of the Spirit to understand what He wants to teach me. Preparing beforehand always helps me invite a spirit of learning in the temple. And when we let go of the things of the world within the temple and seek to hear Him, we can open our hearts to the Spirit and learn in whatever ways He wants to teach us.
When I was getting married, I felt anxious. My family still chuckles at how I tapped my fingers on my knee (a nervous tick of mine) as the temple sealer spoke to us. I wasn’t afraid to marry my husband—I loved him! But I was worried about the future because I was making such an important covenant. I silently prayed when I entered the temple to know what I could do to keep our marriage strong in a world that was growing increasingly turbulent.
A few moments later, the temple sealer told my husband and me to remember that every ordinance in the temple points us to Jesus Christ. The Spirit helped me recognize this message as an answer from Heavenly Father, and the temple sealer’s words deepened my testimony that as my husband and I consistently turned to the Savior, especially through temple work, we could strengthen our marriage through eternity.
This experience reminded me that Heavenly Father cares about the questions in our hearts and can provide comforting wisdom to us in the temple in personal ways. As President Ezra Taft Benson (1899–1994) taught: “When I have been weighed down by a problem or a difficulty, I have gone to the House of the Lord with a prayer in my heart for answers. These answers have come in clear and unmistakable ways.”3
During one temple visit in a particularly busy time in my life, my mind was elsewhere, and I was in a hurry to do the ordinances and be on my way. But a kind temple worker quietly suggested that when we slow down and consider the sacred work we are doing, we can feel the profound Spirit that resides only in the Lord’s house. I believe that temple worker was prompted to help me understand a truth. And I was reminded of how we can receive knowledge from so many different sources in the temple. I have received revelation in the temple by silently praying, searching the scriptures in waiting areas, meditating on the words of the ordinances, and, yes, even talking with inspired temple workers.
As we learn in the temple, we might receive an increased understanding of ordinances and covenants, a deepened testimony, promptings, feelings of comfort, and more. Heavenly Father wants us to have personal learning experiences in the temple and to be open to the many ways we can receive knowledge in His house.
I still have so much to learn about temple ordinances and the power that comes from keeping my covenants. But I’m so grateful that I can continue to keep learning throughout my life.
As we prioritize our time in the temple and set aside moments to reflect on our covenants, we will open the door to knowledge that can help us stay on the path to Christ. That has been true for me as I have returned again and again to learn in the Lord’s way in His holy house.

I know a woman of Mexico who joined the Church, the only person in her family to do so. She subsequently went on a mission, did graduate work at BYU, and took a responsible position in government. To take this job meant a move, so off she went to a new community where she had no friends.
The first week in her new, suburban, North American, family ward, she introduced herself to the bishop. He promptly responded with a calling to serve in the ward library and with a husband and wife to serve as her home and visiting teachers.
Because she was so new to the ward, she felt she should have been called to serve in a position that would let her mingle with the ward members. She said nothing to the bishop, but she resented being asked to serve in such an isolated environment as the library. Weeks came and went, and she got angrier and angrier about what she felt was a real slap in the face from an insensitive bishop.
About the time she got up a good boil about her Church job, her home/ visiting teachers called. They were elderly, the husband explained. They had often come by to visit, but she was never home. He complained that he could never get her on the phone and told her she should have bought an answering machine months ago, if she expected him to ever check on her.
He continued: His knees were bad—so were his wife’s—and they would no longer climb the three flights of stairs to her apartment. If she wanted them to come, she’d have to call them first.
After that phone conversation, she got up a really fine head of steam. “These Anglos,” she thought. “Who do they think they are? First, they shove me in a closet at the ward, then they offend me by expecting me to meet their schedule. I’ll show them. I just won’t come at all.” True to her word, she stopped going to church. All because well-meaning people dropped offense.
Now she could have disposed of that offense in several ways. She could have picked up the ugly thing and thrown it in the garbage. She could have asked, “What is the intent of their actions and words” before she heated to such a hard boil. She might have stepped over the offense, laughing at the difficulty all of us have sometimes as we try to communicate. She could have explained her needs to the bishop in the first place. She could have chosen a street-level location to meet the home/ visiting teachers. She could have counseled with an understanding friend. She could have stomped and fumed until she was able to turn the heat off and let her feelings simmer down. She could have said, “This is my Church, too, and no one will drive me out of it no matter what they do or say.” She could have determined to be more understanding so she never did something similar to others. She could have done a lot of things. Most of all, I wish she had never taken offense in the first place.

On November 1, 1857, Elder George A. Smith delivered a memorable discourse, which included this old Chinese fable:
“A man travelling through the country came to a large city, very rich and splendid; he looked at it and said to his guide, ‘This must be a very righteous people, for I can only see but one little devil in this great city.’
“The guide replied, ‘You do not understand, sir. This city is so perfectly given up to wickedness … that it requires but one devil to keep them all in subjection.’
“Travelling on a little farther, he came to a rugged path and saw an old man trying to get up the hill side, surrounded by seven great, big, coarse-looking devils.
“‘Why,’ says the traveller, ‘this must be a tremendously wicked old man! See how many devils there are around him!’
“‘This,’ replied the guide, ‘is the only righteous man in the country; and there are seven of the biggest devils trying to turn him out of his path, and they all cannot do it.’” (Journal of Discourses, 5:363–64.)
After relating the fable, Elder Smith added that “the devil has the world so perfectly at his disposal that it requires few devils to keep it in subjection” and that “the whole legion of devils has nothing to do but look after the ‘Mormons’ and stir up the hearts of the children of men to destroy them—to put them out of existence.” (Journal of Discourses, 5:364.)

The second lesson was learned several years later when we were more financially secure. Our wedding anniversary was approaching, and I wanted to buy Mary a fancy coat to show my love and appreciation for our many happy years together. When I asked what she thought of the coat I had in mind, she replied with words that again penetrated my heart and mind. “Where would I wear it?” she asked. (At the time she was a ward Relief Society president helping to minister to needy families.)
Then she taught me an unforgettable lesson. She looked me in the eyes and sweetly asked, “Are you buying this for me or for you?” In other words, she was asking, “Is the purpose of this gift to show your love for me or to show me that you are a good provider or to prove something to the world?” I pondered her question and realized I was thinking less about her and our family and more about me.
After that, we had a serious, life-changing discussion about provident living, and both of us agreed that our money would be better spent in paying down our home mortgage and adding to our children’s education fund.

During the sixty years that Mary was with the Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir and the fifty-eight years she was pouring out her love for children and Primary workers through the pages of The Children’s Friend, she was also spending part of her time with crippled and ill boys and girls who were being cared for in the Primary Children’s Hospital.
Mary helped in the planning with Sister Felt and Sister Anderson when the original hospital was opened in 1922. It was housed in an old home on North Temple Street that was given to the Primary for a convalescent home and equipped by the Church. There they welcomed boys and girls who needed only limited medical help, but their dream was to be able to provide a shining new fireproof hospital where all medical services could be given.
A project was launched to secure funds for such a building. While the Church, friends of the Primary, and others who loved children contributed amounts both large and small for a new building, much of the money for it was given through the efforts of Primary children. Each boy and girl was asked to buy one brick for a dime, and the children contributed more than $18,000 to the brick project. Many children, excited by the joy that comes through sharing, asked friends and family to give money for the hospital instead of buying birthday and Christmas gifts. The smallest contribution received from a child was two pennies, but that, too, was accepted with gratitude.
In order to properly handle all the funds, the Primary sisters were advised to select a board of trustees and incorporate the Primary Children’s Hospital. It was Mary R. Jack who signed those articles of incorporation and remained as secretary of the board until her release in 1970.

My scripture study would have to wait. All three of our sons had awakened—and much earlier than usual. The youngest, Caden, then 18 months old, was screaming in his crib. I went into his room and saw instantly that he was sick.
Thus began a Monday of one challenge after another. At one point, shortly after I had changed Caden’s clothes and tried to feed him, he flung a large jar onto the floor, spilling applesauce everywhere and sending shattered glass across the kitchen. As I was cleaning up the mess, I thought about all the things I wasn’t getting done: family history, service, home storage, missionary work.
“How in the world can I do everything I know I should be doing when I am barely managing the basic tasks of my day?” I wondered. By early evening I was exhausted, but I set aside discouraging thoughts during dinner, family home evening, and the boys’ bath and bedtime routine.
Finally, with the children in bed, I sat down to do what I had not had time for earlier. I picked up the May 2006 Ensign, which was open to a talk by President Henry B. Eyring titled “As a Child.” My eyes fell on a passage I had previously marked: “To keep the blessing of [changed natures] in our hearts will require determination, effort, and faith. King Benjamin taught at least some of what that will require. He said that to retain a remission of our sins from day to day we must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and help people spiritually and temporally” (Liahona and Ensign, May 2006, 17).
Immediately, I again felt that I wasn’t living the gospel fully. I wondered, “How can I feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, and help people spiritually and temporally when I can scarcely take care of my own family?”
That’s when I experienced an overwhelming feeling of divine approval. It was so clear, precise, and tangible that I knew I had to write it down so I wouldn’t forget. I could see my day replay in my mind—full of feeding the hungry, doing laundry to clothe the naked (I changed Caden’s outfit multiple times), gently caring for our sick baby, helping our five-year-old prepare a family home evening lesson on missionary work, and then discussing the power of example with my family—in other words, helping people spiritually and temporally.
The impression flowed with such an overpowering feeling of peace that I knew the Lord was telling me He had accepted my offering. In caring for my family, I was fulfilling the admonitions of King Benjamin and President Eyring.

Elder Johnson’s grandfather, Joseph William ‘Billy’ Johnson, living in Ghana, was introduced to the Church of Jesus Christ and the Book of Mormon in 1964. He immediately began preaching the gospel and starting congregations, independent of the Church of Jesus Christ. Within a short period of time, Johnson’s followers in Ghana reached over 500 individuals meeting in 10 separate congregations. Johnson pleaded with Church leaders in Salt Lake to send missionaries. President David O. McKay (1873–1970) told him they would not send missionaries yet, but that Johnson should wait patiently for the right time.

In 1977, four different denominations tried to persuade Johnson to have his congregations become part of their churches and offered him money to do so. Johnson declined their offers. The next year, President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) made the announcement that extended the priesthood to all worthy male members of the Church regardless of race or color. Johnson was overjoyed when he heard the news and prayed that the time for waiting was over.

President Kimball called missionaries Rendell N. Mabey and Rachel Mabey and sent them to Ghana. In December of 1978, just a few months after the announcement, Elder Mabey baptized Brother Johnson in the ocean near Cape Coast, Ghana. He was ordained as a priest and called as the first branch president in Ghana. He later became the first district president.

The Mabey’s served in Ghana and Nigeria until October 1979. Billy Johnson served the Church faithfully until his death in 2012. The branches that they helped organize together formed the nucleus of the early Church in West Africa. Currently there are 465,000 members of the Church in West Africa with 141 stakes and many districts. There are 21 missions with 3 new missions opening in July. The Accra Ghana and Abu Nigeria temples are currently operating and there are three temples under construction and five other temples announced in West Africa.

After graduating from BYU, I took a job with the Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington. I was soon called as an assistant Scoutmaster in our ward. One year we spent the summer taking hikes, including a fifty-miler around Mount Rainier. The early hikes prepared us physically and helped us develop the skills needed for the ultimate hike. We learned how to use maps and the compass and also to set checkpoints along the trail to find where we were and how to get where we wanted to go. It was a wonderful time for us.

For the Scouts, a hike in the Cascades was an exciting adventure and an end in itself, but for us, as leaders, it was an opportunity to teach them the skills, character traits, and testimony needed for life’s journey.

I first saw Karen Aydlotte at a multi-stake fireside at BYU. She was the speaker. She was smiling and joking and telling us that there was a good chance she might not live much longer, that she had cancer, an often incurable form of it.
Several weeks later I met Karen through a mutual friend. She was very open with her feelings. We talked a good deal about life and death. For me, for most of us, it is easy to put the reality of death into what Shakespeare aptly phrased as “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.” For Karen death was hard reality. She had to reconcile living with dying.

Illustration by Stephanie Hock
Ever since I was baptized, I have been interested in family history and temple work. I loved the idea of being sealed to my family for eternity, but I didn’t think this would ever happen because many of my family members, including my father, struggled with alcohol addiction.
I grew up in that environment, but the good advice of my dear mother helped me decide not to follow that path. She got baptized a year after I did.
When I turned 18, I decided to serve a mission and received a call to serve in Arizona, USA. This was one of the best experiences of my life. When I returned home, I discovered that my father’s addiction was totally out of control. I remember questioning if my service had been of any worth if things were now so bad at home.
During the April 2018 general conference, I heard Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles say, “As you … discover, gather, and connect your family … you will find healing for that which needs healing.”1
My mother continued to pray, read the scriptures, and seek for inspiration to help my father. Eventually, she convinced him to get help. He entered a treatment home for nine months. We could visit him only once a month. It wasn’t easy, especially in the beginning, but month after month my mother and I continued to be faithful in the gospel and to seek for our ancestors. In doing so, we were greatly blessed in ways we couldn’t have imagined.
After my father’s treatment, he returned home and has been sober ever since. He met with the missionaries but was not yet ready to commit to the gospel. My mother suggested that we go to the temple grounds and feel the Spirit there.
A short time later, the missionaries felt inspired to stop by our home and visit my father. He shared with them his desire to be baptized. That evening, my father and mother shared the great news with me.
The Lord had fulfilled His promise. That which needed healing was healed. My father was healed from his addiction, and my doubts were healed with renewed faith. Our family is now preparing to be sealed.

True in his faith, Napela was one of the first to arrive in Laie. Remote and desolate, Laie became the new gathering place in the islands after the sad end of the Palawai settlement. Here in Laie, Napela and Kiti settled once again into a new life with the saints. During his first year here, Napela demonstrated how sugar cane could flourish on this side of the island. Soon plantations in Laie and Kahuku expanded and a new means of support took root. Here is a photo of one of the first sugar mills in Laie, and industry on the North Shore that can be traced back to Napela's first crop of sugar cane in his field near Haaula. In the 1870's Laie did not possess the remarkable beauty we now enjoy. The land was barren, vegetation was limited, and water was scarce, yet 6,000 acres was purchased for new gathering place. During this time, Napela received permission from the Kingdom of Hawaii to travel to Salt Lake City where he met with former missionaries and where he received his endowment. Not long after his return the Napelas faced another crisis. In 1872, it was discovered that his wife, Kiti, had contracted leprosy, a scourge of the islands affecting nearly every village in the Kingdom.

Contracting leprosy meant that under law Kiti must be taken to reside in the colony on Molokai to remain until the disease would disappear or until the end of her life. Unwilling to be separated from his wife, Napela volunteered accompany Kiti to Kalaupapa, there to care for his wife and to serve the settlement the assistant to the director of the colony. For a period of time life on Molokai for the Napela's achieved a kind of normalcy. There are records horseback riding, fishing, picnics, and many social activities. Their only child, Panana, was sent to the Big Island to live with relatives. There, Panana married Samuel Parker and together they became the parents of nine sons and daughters, two of whom are pictured here. Meanwhile, Napela served as the local branch president, conducting meetings sometimes out in the open or under a hut made of woven fibers like the ones shown here. In 1877, Napela contracted leprosy.

Very likely the appearance of the Napelas would resemble these former residents of Kalaupapa. The disease first took hold in Kiti while Jonathan showed less evidence of leprosy. However, these conditions changed quickly. When visiting Kalaupapa near the end of Napela's life, Elder Henry Richards stated that the disease had taken Napela beyond recognition. Prior to his death, Napela was permitted to visit Laie once again, attend conference, and bid farewell to his beloved friends and saints living here. His final days, despite pain and disfigurement, were filled with exceptional service to the local saints in the colony. He continued to care for Kiti and willingly assisted members of other denominations with the basic care and comfort necessary to survive under unimaginable difficulties. Napela, preceding his wife Kiti in death, in August of 1879. The graveyard in the crater near Kalaupapa is the final resting place of Jonathan Napela.

There are many ways bishops and quorum members can help to relieve the suffering and anxiety of the unemployed. Phil’s Auto of Centerville, Utah, is a testament of what priesthood leadership and a quorum can accomplish. Phil was a member of an elders quorum and worked as a mechanic at a local automobile repair shop. Unfortunately, the repair shop where Phil worked experienced economic trouble and had to let Phil go from his job. He was devastated by this turn of events.

On hearing about Phil’s job loss, his bishop, Leon Olson, and his elders quorum presidency prayerfully considered ways they could help Phil get back on his feet. After all, he was a fellow quorum member, a brother, and he needed help. They concluded that Phil had the skills to run his own business. One of the quorum members offered that he had an old barn that perhaps could be used as a repair shop. Other quorum members could help gather needed tools and supplies to equip the new shop. Almost everyone in the quorum could at least help clean the old barn.

They shared their ideas with Phil; then they shared their plan with the members of their quorum. The barn was cleaned and renovated, the tools gathered, and all was put in order. Phil’s Auto was a success and eventually moved to better and more permanent quarters—all because his quorum brothers offered help in a time of crisis. Priesthood quorums can and must make a difference.

An example of focusing on serving others when challenged is President Hinckley, as a discouraged missionary in England. He wrote, "I was not well when I arrived. Those first few weeks, because of illness and the opposition which we felt, I was discouraged. I wrote a letter home to my good father and said that I felt I was wasting my time and his money." His father's advice was "forget yourself and go to work." He followed his father's counsel and would later call this his "day of decision" that would lay a positive course for the rest of his life.[13]

The sorrow Joseph felt at the deaths of these two beloved brothers was perhaps surpassed by another event involving another brother. After a seemingly trivial disagreement, Joseph’s brother William turned against him and became disaffected from the Church. Along with other apostates, he began publicly declaring Joseph a “fallen prophet.” The worst damage, however, was done within the family circle. Joseph describes William’s angry departure from the Church:
“He went home and spread the leaven of iniquity among my brothers, and especially prejudiced the mind of brother Samuel. I soon learned that he was in the street exclaiming against me, and no doubt our enemies rejoiced at it” (History of the Church, 2:297).
Despite the wound inflicted by a rebellious-yet-beloved brother, Joseph felt no vengeance, no hate, no bitterness—only patience and forgiveness. His actions toward William are a profound example of the Lord’s wise counsel to show “forth afterwards an increase of love toward him whom thou hast reproved, lest he esteem thee to be his enemy; that he may know that thy faithfulness is stronger than the cords of death” (D&C 121:43–44).
Daniel Tyler, who attended a meeting with Joseph Smith shortly after William’s apostasy and bitter denunciations of his brother, the Prophet, left us this touching account of Joseph’s anguish over his wayward brother: “I perceived sadness in his countenance and tears trickling down his cheeks. A few moments later a hymn was sung and he opened the meeting by prayer. Instead of facing the audience, however, he turned his back and bowed upon his knees, facing the wall. This I suppose, was done to hide his sorrow and tears.
“That prayer, which was to a considerable extent in behalf of those who accused him of having gone astray and fallen into sin, that the Lord would forgive them and open their eyes that they might see aright—that prayer … partook of the learning and eloquence of heaven” (Juvenile Instructor, 15 February 1892, page 127).
It was a measure of the greatness of the Prophet that he regarded the spiritual unity of the family so highly; thus, forgiveness and love prevailed. He patiently and lovingly helped his brother William again into the fellowship of the family and the Church, despite the damage he had done to Joseph and the Church.