Gospel Story Finder

I felt like an Indian Placement student must feel that June morning as our bus rounded the final corner and the chaperone said, “… eure Gastfamilien” (your host families) as he pointed to a throng of anxious, unfamiliar people pushing as close to the curb as possible without falling off. My stomach fell to the very soles of my new shoes as I realized that I was about to be separated from the only people I knew in all of Germany. Reluctantly I hung my bag and my camera over my shoulder, sucked in a huge breath of air, and held it as I gingerly stepped off the bus and onto German cement. My ears were immediately hit with a barrage of jumbled conversations and nervous laughter, and I stood there in a daze not knowing where to go.
Soon I felt a hand begin to take my suitcase from me, and I turned to find a girl with long, black braids and wire-rimmed glasses smiling at me. I recognized her from a picture she’d sent as my new sister, Sunny, so I followed her as she wove her way through the mass of students and families. We found the family we were supposed to ride home with, and as we drove through the streets of Nuremberg I listened in bewilderment to the language I had thought I understood.
When we arrived at our home I met Sunny’s younger sister, Oschi, and was taken on a grand tour of the beautiful three-story house. We ended up in my bedroom, and Sunny and Oschi helped me lift my oversized suitcase onto the bed. As it sunk into the fat feather comforter I began to unload my wardrobe for the next weeks, amid innumerable questions about each piece of clothing.
After a short nap that did little but make me realize how tired I really was, we went to dinner at the house of an older sister, Claudia. My great fear of the strange, unknown things I would have to eat was dispelled when Claudia and her husband Bernhard came to the table with a very welcome sight: spaghetti and green salad. After dinner we returned home and welcomed Vati and Mutti home from their trip to Scandinavia.
After all the day’s activities I felt very lost to be back in my strange, new bedroom alone. I let myself fall into the puffy softness of the bed. There wasn’t much in this bedroom belonging to a brother away at college; just a writing table, a closet, a few shelves, and some rather strange artwork, including an odd collection of tiny hippos going up one wall and onto the ceiling.
As I lay there counting hippos, jet-lag exhaustion caught up with me and I started to cry. The more I cried, the harder I cried, because I didn’t know why I was crying. True, I was separated from my family, but I would be seeing them again in only a month. My new family treated me like a princess, yet still I felt horribly empty and I sensed something had been missed that day. As I lay there crying, feeling helpless and frustrated, I remembered: Today is Sunday. Of course. I had forgotten, but my heart had not, and it had been trying all day to get through to me. I wanted desperately to go to church, but it was far too late by then. So I closed my eyes and went through a typical Sunday at home: family prayer, journal writing, dinner together, classes, and sacrament meeting. Suddenly I realized that, more than anything, I missed the sacrament. Never before had I felt so great a need to partake of the bread and water. It had always been a routine part of my Sabbath, a routine that left me feeling fulfilled. This day there had been no routine, no sacrament, and I felt painfully void without it. I knew then that I needed that time. I got to my knees and let the pillow absorb my tears as I asked Heavenly Father for the opportunity to attend an LDS church the following Sunday.
The next morning I mentioned to Mutti how much I would like to go to my church. Over the course of the week I nearly forgot that I had said anything because I was so busy meeting new people, going new places, and learning new things with my family and at the Gymnasium (high school).
One day after school, Mutti handed me a paper with the address and meeting schedule of the LDS church in Nuremberg. A wave of excitement and gratitude swept over me in anticipation of church and the sacrament.
Sunday morning after breakfast, Mutti, Oschi, and I climbed into the car and drove the few miles to the chapel. Oschi and I were dropped off in front of the tall, gray building, and we mounted the few steps to the door. Almost as soon as we entered we were greeted by the bishop and several other members. I felt enveloped in love.
The service began. I felt the sincerity of those around me and rejoiced with them. Soon all heads bowed as prayerful words floated from behind a lace-covered table—“… dass sie wahrhaftig immuer an ihn denken …” (that they do always remember him). I clung to each sweet syllable, knowing that the message they spoke was true, no matter what the language: the Lord Jesus Christ shed his blood, and I would live again because of it.
The bread and water were passed. How satisfying each morsel, how quenching each drop. My hungry soul had been fed. I will never forget the significance of this sacred ordinance, learned one night while crying in an unfamiliar bedroom.

“Brother Ng,” the man’s voice began. Being addressed as “brother” by a gwailouh (foreigner) caught Ng Kat Hing’s attention. A group of clean-cut Americans wearing dark suits had wandered into the furniture store where he was employed, and their unusual appearance fascinated the 25-year-old Hong Kong native. But he was even more intrigued by being called “brother.”
When Ng Kat Hing questioned them about the title, one of the Americans, who wore a name tag identifying him as President Heaton, asked, “Do you believe there is one Father in Heaven?”
When he nodded, the man continued, “Then we are brothers, and I will call you that.”
Forty-three years later, Brother Ng still recalls his response. “I was touched, and in that moment, a little bit of the restored gospel was manifest to me. I wondered about it all that day and through the night. Four days later when the man called back to confirm the furniture order, I knew I wanted to know more.”

Brother Soliai and his family were the only Latter-day Saints in their little village of Nuuuli on Tutuila. On one occasion, he asked Opapo to come bless his children, his house, his property, and his friends. Present on that occasion was a wealthy nonmember widow, Salataima Puailoa, who was deeply troubled because her husband’s family was taking steps to deprive her of the land she had inherited from him. Impressed by the blessings, she requested one herself; but Opapo was reluctant because she was not a member.
She investigated the Church and was baptized, then came to him again and requested the blessing. In it, Opapo promised that she would receive the land without any hindrance from her husband’s relatives and that she would, if she were faithful, be an instrument in the Lord’s hands to further the work of the Church in American Samoa.
In the early 1950’s, that blessing was fulfilled. The Church purchased some of her property and on it built a high school, faculty housing, a large welfare farm, and a stake center.

In 1991, I really felt like serving the Lord, but I didn’t know how I would serve. I prayed about it and thought of joining a born-again church. As I was thinking that this was the right path, two young guys with white shirts knocked on my door.
My wife answered the door and told me that she thought they were students, but they introduced themselves as missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They wanted to share some gospel with me. I accepted.
The missionaries had a discussion with me and my family, and then they left the Book of Mormon with us and said that we should read from it. I told them that my family would need to read it to me because I’m blind. We made another appointment with the missionaries.
When they came back, I said, “My family hasn’t read the Book of Mormon to me yet. They are busy, and they don’t have time for me.”
The missionaries then told me that the Church made audio cassettes of the Book of Mormon. They asked if I would listen to them if they brought them to me. I agreed to do that. The next time, they came with a box of the Book of Mormon on audio cassettes and gave it to me. I thought I had to pay for them, but they gave it freely to me.
I started listening to the cassettes, and I enjoyed them. The next time the missionaries came to my house, this other guy was with them. He had come from a neighboring town to visit his family. He was a member of the Church, and he persuaded me to go to church with him on Sunday.
The first Sunday I heard the gospel like I had never heard it before. This was not a church that you find many people in, but I felt something. I found that the hymns of the Church are different from all the hymns I listened to from other churches. Something kept telling me that I should continue to go to church.
I went to church for quite a time, and eventually I was baptized. A short time later, I was called to be the second counselor in the Sunday School presidency. After my call, a high councilor gave me a handbook. I told him that I was blind and could not see to read. He said that I could take this handbook and ask someone to read it for me. “Then you’ll know your responsibilities as second counselor in the Sunday School,” he said.
I looked for someone to read it for me. One of the missionaries agreed to read the manual for me and record it. As I listened to his recording, I began to understand my responsibilities. I continued serving there for quite a time.

He sorrowed over his loss of a newborn child and was given permission to care for a neighbor’s child during the day, then return the baby to her mother at night. An older sister of the baby, Margarette McIntire, later reported:

“One evening he did not come [home] with [the child] at the usual time, and mother went down to the Mansion to see what was the matter, and there sat the Prophet with the baby wrapped up in a little silk quilt. He was trotting it on his knee, and singing to it to get it quiet before starting out.” (Ensign, Jan. 1971, pp. 36–37.)

Second, the wolf of their own imperfections will test them. One woman told me through her tears how her husband’s constant criticism finally destroyed not only their marriage but her entire sense of self-worth. He first complained about her cooking and housecleaning and then about how she used her time, how she talked, looked, and reasoned. Eventually, she felt utterly inept and dysfunctional. My heart ached for her and for him.

I was 11 years old when I learned about the Church. From the moment I first entered the meetinghouse, I felt a beautiful spirit. I continued to attend for several months, during which time I turned 12 and started the Personal Progress program in Young Women. Two months later, on August 14, 1994, I was baptized.
It was surprising to the ward members to see a girl of 12 baptized by herself, without her parents. How did this happen? I asked my father if I could be baptized. He replied, “You’re an intelligent young woman, and you will know what decision to make.” I had already made the decision in my heart that I would never again be without the beautiful feeling I had when I heard the true gospel.
During middle school and high school I experienced wonderful and difficult years at the same time, because during adolescence a young person wants support from her parents. It wasn’t easy to be the only member of the Church at home when my parents did things that were at odds with the Church’s teachings. But I remembered what Nephi said, “If ye shall … endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life” (2 Ne. 31:20).
Years later my younger siblings were baptized, but my parents were not. The missionaries talked to them, but they did not want to be baptized. Their decision saddened me, but I knew I had set a good example.
When I was 16 I traveled to the temple in Orlando, Florida, and it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life. I went by myself and was able to be baptized for my ancestors. Two years later, when I received my Young Womanhood Recognition, my joy could not be contained. I felt that our Heavenly Father was pleased with me.
When President Gordon B. Hinckley visited our beautiful island of Puerto Rico and spoke to the members, I had the privilege of singing in the choir. He urged us to go to the temple on the neighboring island of the Dominican Republic. I did, and in that temple I made a firm decision that I would be married for eternity to a returned missionary.
I reached this goal when I found a worthy priesthood holder who is a returned missionary. We were sealed in the Dominican Republic temple for time and eternity. We now have a baby boy, and I am serving in the stake Young Women presidency. My parents are still not members, but I am pleased with the example I have given them. I try to build on the good in my parents while forgetting their imperfections.
I know I belong to the true Church and that Jesus Christ is my Savior. My dream, which I pray for, is to be sealed someday to my parents and siblings. I love this gospel that has given me so much joy and hope in my life.

Two months now. Michele and Shawna were gone, Dad was in Houston on business, Mom was playing golf in Provo—and I sat under the locust taking in the dance of monarch butterflies along the hedge. So peaceful, so quiet, so dull. I amused myself by considering that the Savior was never a “returned missionary.” I had come to distrust the phrase. His mission was a mere three years, and he never went back home with nothing to do. Returning from a mission was a personal loss. You had to go on from there—become a goshawk and keep flapping your wings. I decided to make myself useful by helping Dad. He wanted the locust limbs trimmed away from the chimney before summer school.
On the roof I caught my breath after tossing off limbs. Gracious, I was thin! Wiping my forehead I saw Sister Hunter, two backyards away, bent over a rototiller—just as I had seen her husband do. Oh—it struck me: Brother Hunter had died of a heart attack a few weeks into my mission. How could I—I hated to even think the word—forget? Certainly he still hoed his beets and flooded his yard. Had he and Sister Hunter made it to the temple? Since my little medical problem I saw the temple as the abode of Deity, the place where, whatever the need, one found solace. Mom and Dad had worked with them after Brother Hunter joined the Church. But I hadn’t heard the results. As I grew up Sister Hunter offered me candy and nursed a bruised knee. She used to give me ice cream bars and a hug.
I climbed down from the roof and walked quickly down the block and into the driveway leading to her fence. After catching my breath, I said, “It’s the carburetor.”
“This pesky machine,” she said, “I want to kick it.” She was not old, only about 65, a small woman with hair the color of a fresh Oregon waterfall. She liked to wear a white cardigan sweater in cooler weather. Her eyes were green. She had a small, doll-like mouth that gave an appearance of youth. She loved to make vegetables and flowers grow.
With a screwdriver I adjusted the carburetor. But the short, frayed cord came taut under my jerked pulls. Nothing happened. I checked the oil—nothing wrong. Sister Hunter hovered above me like a mother eagle, watching first here and then there. Finally I got a spark plug out of our own lawn mower and, after more tinkering, the rototiller started. She said, “You’re a wonder. I never could have done that.”
After tilling her garden, which was deftly situated between the bank of grapes and the gray shed in the back, I helped her hand weed the corn against the side fences. I hadn’t had this much fun with dirt since the preparation day in Salem when I helped Brother Goss tie up his tomatoes. After a few mornings weeding by hand, we stood by her prospering garden as water filled the rows. She smiled and said, “Wouldn’t Henry be proud?”
Several “situations”—she refused to call them problems—plagued Sister Hunter. The grimy red pickup gathered heat in the driveway, and the water pump had quit in her washing machine on the back porch. I asked Mike Nelson, a young acquaintance at church, to help me, and within a few days we had installed a new fuel line in her ancient pickup. We road tested it through town with Jack, Sister Hunter’s faded-blond retriever. He wasn’t much help when I stalled at the Suprette Market. All he did was hang his head and loll his tongue. We ended up at the back of the store giving him water out of a discarded paper cup. Back at Sister Hunter’s we guzzled lemonade while taking breaks from her washing machine. I bought some frozen cans of lemonade to replenish her supply—and threw in a small pot roast for good measure. Mike thought I was nuts, but I wanted to do it. I found out she hadn’t had a special Sunday dinner since her husband died. Sure enough, at church she invited us over, and I graciously declined, not wanting to negate my good deeds. But she insisted. The next Sunday we arrived, and I discovered the table set with stunning china and sparkling silverware, a bouquet of peonies, and the steaming roast. Afterward I teased her about such a nice meal. Then we listened to a tape of a general conference talk by Elder James E. Faust on temple work while Mike fell asleep on the couch.
The next Tuesday I cornered Mike in an aisle of Pay Mart with a brilliant idea.
“Clean every one of her windows?”
“Yeah. Why not?”
“Inside and out?”
“Sure. It’s a small house.”
“You’re out of your tree.”
“So?”
So we armed ourselves with squeegees, clean rags, and spray bottles of glass cleaner and assaulted Sister Hunter’s windows, Mike outside, me inside. Her place sparkled, not a book out of place, not a dog hair on the couch, the islands of throw rugs floating on the polished hardwood floors. I spied on a lamp table a photograph of her husband, taken years ago. It stood behind an opened Bible which had on it a red pencil and glasses and which lay on an intricate doily. A hallowed feeling lingered in the house.
Both Mike and I figured our small act of kindness was finished. But one afternoon as I drowsed under the locust and thought about Sister Hunter, a strong feeling came over me that we hadn’t done enough. Her pickup ran, her washing machine purred, her windows shone, and her garden was a showpiece, the cool upturned earth mellowing in the furrows. What more could we do?
By now summer school was heating up, and I was busy as an instructor in the elders quorum. For diversion I hiked a few miles above Strawberry Reservoir, until I was too tired to go on and had to return. In the solemn hours I picked out lonely love songs on my guitar. Then late one evening as Mom and I endured our brewer’s yeast milk shakes I asked her about the Hunters’ temple sealing. Mom shrugged. “I don’t know what happened. Since her husband died she has stayed pretty much to herself.”
That night, in the privacy of my room, I poured out my heart to the Lord for courage to finish our task.
On a Friday after class at the Y, without Mike, who was shopping for a quick-action .22, I found myself enjoying the pungent aroma of cut apples in Sister Hunter’s blue kitchen.
“I appreciate you and Mike so much,” she said over her apples. “I’m an old sourpuss, I know. I’m too set in my ways. Won’t even talk to Bishop Thompson that much, but the home teachers are a blessing. Those young rascals think I can’t do for myself. But I can.” She glanced up at me. “Since Henry passed away, I’ve had to.” She went back to slicing apples, their whiteness glistening under her knife. Then she stopped and looked up at me again. “I never had a more trying time than when I waited for Henry to join the Church. I thought he never would, and I kind of gave up. But through it all I had to stay true—true to what I felt. You know, you’re the first one to take a real interest. And I don’t know how to say thanks.”
Like the goshawk, Sister Hunter had fierce eyes. They were light like a hawk’s, but green. She had learned to take care of herself—to keep her eyes alive by the spirit of life. She had flown into the cold recesses of fear and come back. She had fought harsh winds and long boreal hours of loneliness. The contempt I had read in the goshawk’s eyes, as in Sister Hunter’s, was a disdain for giving up—for anything vulgar or hurtful—a disdain for anything that kept him from flying freely through his northern forests.
I told her thanks were not necessary, and then I said good-bye, without having asked her about going to the temple. In Grants Pass, Oregon, I had strenuously challenged a hardened truck driver to quit smoking and he did, but I had not yet brought up the matter of the temple with Sister Hunter because I hadn’t found the words. We had talked about the temple, and we had listened to the words of an Apostle, but just what I should say had not come to me, short of simply asking, “Why haven’t you gone to the temple?” Tomorrow I would ask her.
On the back porch she stopped me. “You wait here. I want to show you something.”
She came from the house with a flat, white box, tattered and crushed, but still with its lid. She sat down beside me and opened it. She lifted out a lace veil from the box.
“This was my mother’s temple veil.” The veil, pure and white, held a sacred aura.
Sister Hunter’s eyes were intense, sparkling. For some time we sat on the back porch steps. Quietly, still composing herself, she asked, “Would you—and your folks—come with me to the temple some day? If I am worthy? Would you stand in for Henry?”
“Need you ask?” I replied, in hushed voice. “Of course.”
For days I thought about Sister Hunter’s temple veil. I had spent too much time worrying about myself. I too wanted to attend the temple and consecrate my service. The goshawk, Dad said, had to keep flying, and it too, after long hours, must have wondered about going on, wondered how it might finish what it had started. Sister Hunter had somehow shown me the continuity I sought between my mission and my present life—simply by being available to serve.

Sisterhood was something I would have avoided at times. But there were other times—times like my graduation night—when I realized that being a sister is not so much a formal title as a shared history.
Diane and Mary, my two older sisters, had tried for years to transform me. They were both experts in applying makeup, styling hair, and selecting the latest fashions. I was a constant embarrassment to them because the only thing I really cared about was freedom and comfort. If it didn’t feel good, I avoided it.
Even as a child, I had felt a duty to free paper ladies frozen in a glamorous pose. I regularly cut my paper dolls up to their navel so they could run. I knew beauty came with freedom, not restriction. I believed I had seen beauty, the whole of it, in my backyard. A bird slicing through the evening sky and the wind washing through the trees were my teachers.
These two older sisters had worked on me for 18 years without success. It had been a valiant effort. Then came the early evening before my high school seminary graduation.
I was downstairs in my bedroom looking through the closet for something nice to wear. I was going to be one of the speakers and wanted to look at least presentable. My closet was full of hand-me-downs from Diane and Mary.
It had never bothered me until then. It was the end of the month, and the family paycheck wasn’t able to stretch quite far enough to include a new graduation dress for me.
I understood. Being raised in the middle of nine children teaches one to understand a lot of things, but sometimes it doesn’t take away the wishing. I was wishing I had a new dress to wear.
I selected a nice navy blue dress with a white lace collar and pearl buttons. It had been Mary’s graduation dress two years ago, and it would just have to do.
After I zipped up the dress, I slipped on a pair of dressy black shoes. They were worn down at the heel and fit the foot form of their previous owner, my older sister Diane. They would have to do.
I grabbed my speech and walked upstairs ready to leave. When I got to the head of the stairs, I saw Diane and Mary standing together smiling. Each of them was holding a package wrapped with fancy paper and bows like the expensive department stores used. Most of our family presents were wrapped in paper and bows my mom had saved from previous birthdays and holidays. We were taught to unwrap carefully.
I took the presents from each sister as they put their arms around me and kissed me on both cheeks. The first present was large and rectangular. I opened the gift slowly, being careful not to rip the wrapping paper under the tape. When I lifted the lid and folded back the tissue paper, a bright yellow chiffon dress with lace and pleats on the front yoke shone out with the same warmth as the smiles on my sisters’ faces. The next box held a pair of bright yellow shoes with bows, an exact match.
“Run downstairs and put them on,” Diane said.
“Hurry or you’ll be late,” Mary added.
I ran back downstairs and put on my new outfit. A middle child in a large family never gets a pair of bright yellow shoes. It’s just not practical.
Diane was now a newlywed struggling to pay a huge medical debt after her first baby died of a heart defect. Mary was now a college student working hard to earn her tuition. I knew the money to buy that dress and shoes had not come easily.
When I stood up to give my speech that night, I was clothed in something more than new clothes. It wasn’t so much just the dress as it was a whole shared history before it—the missing combs, midnight talks on the double bed, the letter tucked under my pillow after I lost the election, holding hands when they lowered the tiny casket into the ground at the cemetery, crowded bathrooms and tied-up telephones. I learned that night that a sister was more than I had ever supposed.

One of the wonderful experiences a young husband can anticipate is that of watching his bride learn how to cook. While some young women enter marriage already skilled in the art of cooking, many do not. For some the learning curve can be very steep.

My wife, Sister Ball, is a wonderful cook. Over the years she has polished and refined her culinary skills to the point that now I am confident she could walk into a strange kitchen and prepare a delicious and nutritious meal out of whatever she found in the pantry and refrigerator. Still, some of the early meals she prepared for us as a young couple were real gastronomical adventures. But to this day I consider one of her early successes a true miracle in the kitchen. Somehow she managed to transform broccoli into something edible. The rave reviews I gave the dish encouraged her to make the recipe a regular part of our menu.

At that time we were living in a small town in southeastern Arizona, where I had my first assignment as a seminary teacher. The town had two major roads, appropriately named Poverty Flats and Hog Holler. We lived at the end of Hog Holler Road in a small home sandwiched between a chili field and the desert. The nearest full-service grocery store was more than 30 miles away. Consequently, kitchen commodities often ran short between trips to the store. To compensate, Sister Ball got in the habit of experimenting with substitutes for ingredients that were temporarily unavailable.

The results of her experiments were very unpredictable. On one occasion she began preparing the remarkable broccoli dish, only to discover that she did not have the cream of mushroom soup the recipe required. She decided to make her own “white sauce” from a little flour and water to substitute for the soup. (What she called “white sauce” I would call “paste.”) She reasoned that the soup was white and lumpy, and so was her flour and water concoction. The result of the substitution was a disaster. Without the proper ingredients, the true nature of broccoli was left exposed—it was no longer palatable. Sister Ball learned from that experience that color and texture are no substitutes for taste.

Following that failure, Sister Ball removed the broccoli dish from her repertoire. She no longer trusted the recipe. However, if you were to ask her about it today, she would confess that the fault was not with the dish but with her, for she had failed to hearken unto the commandments of the recipe. She thought that she could change it or twist it to her own will without consequence.

In truth, her initial confidence in the recipe was not misplaced, but that confidence could only be confirmed if she diligently abided by the recipe’s instructions. So it is with your testimony and understanding of the restored gospel: It will be best confirmed and informed by your education if you diligently follow the recipe by keeping the commandments of God.

Eli looked at the pile of homework his friend had dropped off after school. Eli had missed another week of school because of an ear infection.
That evening Eli’s parents came into his room. His mom sat on the side of Eli’s bed and took his hand. “Eli, the doctor thinks you need an operation,” she said.
“What kind of operation?”
“He wants to put tubes in your ears to keep you from getting more infections,” Mom said. “It won’t hurt, and you’ll be out of the hospital in a day.” She squeezed his hand.
Eli trusted his parents. But the idea of having an operation scared him. He thought about the story he had heard in Primary about Joseph Smith. When Joseph was seven years old, the bone in his leg became infected. The infection got worse until the doctor decided that he must remove part of the bone or Joseph might lose his leg or even die.
Eli thought about Joseph’s courage and faith in his father. “Can I have a blessing, Dad?” he asked. Eli knew a priesthood blessing could help him. At the beginning of the school year, Eli’s father had given him a blessing.
“That’s a great idea,” his father said.
Eli’s mother folded her arms and bowed her head. Eli felt his father’s hands on his head. His father’s voice grew in confidence as he blessed Eli that he would not be scared and that he would recover completely.
When the blessing was over, Eli was no longer afraid. “I can have the operation now,” he said.
Three days later he went to the hospital and returned home the next day. The ear infections soon stopped, and Eli quickly made up the schoolwork he had missed.
Eli was grateful that he was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and that he could be blessed through the priesthood.

This past year a group of engineering students was asked to come up with a solution to a serious air pollution problem in Mongolia. In 2016 there were more than 3,000 deaths in Mongolia attributable to air pollution–caused diseases; the majority of victims were children under the age of five. One of the principal sources of the pollution is the tons of coal that Mongolians burn each year to heat their traditional homes, known as gers, or yurts. After the BYU students were given the assignment to solve that problem, here is what happened to them as a result:

Alternating Voices (Ivy Running, Austin Boyce, Dylan Sellers, Ivy Running, Austin Boyce, Ivy Running): When we began this project, we didn’t expect to go see the Mongolian countryside, to be on national television, to be taking Mongolian lessons from ten-year-olds, to meet the prime minister, to be so cold.
Ivy Running: We didn’t expect that we would be making friends halfway across the world.
Dylan Sellers: Ulaanbaatar is the coldest capital in the whole world.
Ivy Running: One of the biggest problems in Ulaanbaatar is the air pollution. Most of the pollution in the winter comes from the ger districts. Ger is the Mongolian word for yurt, which is their traditional tent. Coal stoves are some of the only sources of heat that these people have in the winter.
Elder Peter F. Meurs [Deseret International Charities]: Everyone is breathing this smoke-filled air. As we started to look at that problem, we thought maybe we could do something about it. So we approached the BYU Capstone team and said, “Here is the problem. Can you solve it?”
Dylan Sellers: There are two teams here in Capstone that are trying to solve the same problem. The solution that we landed on was an electric heater that would replace the coal-burning stove.
Adjunct Professor Amy Wood: With the current insulation they have—the felt—it would take about six electric heaters to produce enough heat to keep it that warm constantly.
Ivy Running: As we improve the insulation, they will be able to use electricity more for their heating—less coal and less pollution.
Dylan Sellers: It wasn’t until we landed in Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar that we actually understood the scope of our project.
Amy Wood: Because the coal stove is in the center of the home, a lot of those pollutants don’t go up the chimney—they stay within the home.
Dylan Sellers: The World Health Organization standard for PM2.5, or particulate matter, is twenty-five micrograms per cubic meter. The concentration that we measured was over 400 inside the homes of these families.
Amy Wood: One team’s approach was to insulate the current ger so that we could replace the coal stove with an electric heater.
Ivy Running: And then we covered the outside of the ger in a radiant barrier, and what that does is it reflects back the radiative heat that would otherwise be lost.
Amy Wood: It only works if there is a gap of air in between, and so we also used foam to make that gap, and that allows it to reflect back in.
Professor Brian Mazzeo: The students realize that this is real: seeing how the design decisions you made thousands of miles away are actually being implemented in the field.
Alternating Voices (Dylan Sellers, Amy Wood, Dylan Sellers): After we finished our first retrofit, we came back the next morning to test the results. Walking in, we immediately felt a wave of heat hit us. We were able to read the data, and we saw that while it dipped outside below 7 degrees Fahrenheit, inside it stayed a constant 82 degrees Fahrenheit.
Dylan Sellers (to the homeowner of the test ger): So you will save more money every year from now on.
Ivy Running: It worked, and I kind of teared up a little bit. It was really a miracle.
Amy Wood: They were so excited that this thing we had been working on so hard actually worked.
Elder Meurs: We have a real solution, and we have proven that we can modify a ger and heat it for about $400. The next step now is to fully test that solution, and we will do that with 100 to 120 modified gers this summer in preparation for winter testing.
Dylan Sellers: I hope that we not only see the world as our campus but start to see the world’s problems as our problems. Every family we convince, we immediately impact their lives for good. We immediately influence their health and improve their quality of life. And so it is enough if one family adopts this. To expand to tens of thousands of homes retrofitted is the dream.

The last line of the BYU mission statement proclaims our firm belief that “the earnest pursuit of this institutional mission . . . will greatly enlarge Brigham Young University’s influence in a world we wish to improve.”12 I offer this as exhibit A of the fulfillment of what I think is a prophecy. As of the first of this month, Deseret International Charities was ready to launch phase two of the project, with the expectation that they would insulate about 130 gers and build ten alternative structures in the next four weeks. And there are discussions about the potential of having 5,000 to 10,000 gers ready in 2020.

Our ultimate measure of success is the impact on our students—on what happens to them as a result of their time at BYU. Professor Brian Mazzeo, one of the faculty members working with the group in Mongolia, described what can, and will, happen as we combine faith and study in the unique BYU learning process:

Students need to get inspiration as they are actually trying to execute a project like this. There is no way that they have all the information, and so they have to seek inspiration from the Lord. There is no other way. At the same time, I believe that they are trying to inspire others to be able to take solutions out into the world. And, in particular here, it is to inspire others to be able to actually use the designs that they have created. So I see that as a kind of two-fold process of both receiving inspiration and inspiring others. And in the process they are learning so many skills and methods and processes that allow them to be just more effective people—not just as engineers but just more effective as people and citizens of the world in all that they do.

That is what inspiring learning looks like. And the students involved in the project in Mongolia experienced it. One student, Prabhakar Ramaraj, stated:

When you hit a roadblock and . . . don’t know what to do, . . . there are a few things [you rely] on. . . . For a BYU student, those things are . . . knowledge, . . . wisdom, and the spiritual aspect of prayer . . . , trying to receive revelation. . . . On this project [I have] been able to experience those things. . . . We have definitely been inspired.

Another student, Austin Boyce, reported spending several sleepless nights in the Crabtree Building trying to figure out how to build an exterior door that would be both energy efficient and fit into the nonagon structure of a ger. In facing those and other problems, he stated:

We as a team . . . just . . . had a lot of faith, to be honest. . . . [And] we had the whole service center there in Mongolia fasting and praying for us as a team. It was pretty amazing to . . . have everything come together. . . . Our biggest surprise . . . was the . . . impact that [we] had. . . . It is something that we hadn’t even imagined because we were just . . . [some] BYU students trying to fix a problem.

They were just some BYU students trying to fix a problem. Yet in doing that in the BYU way, they blessed the lives of thousands, changed their own lives, and increased their own capacities to serve, forever.

“Water for life” reads a large sign fastened to the side of Sataua Primary School on the Samoan island of Savai’i.
Those are words many Pacific Islanders understand all too well as they’re often faced with the reality of little to no fresh water for drinking, cooking, or bathing.
They are also words Elder Brian and Sister Lori Bott understand all too well. As a senior missionary couple serving in Samoa, they frequently encounter families, schools, and entire villages that struggle to find and have enough clean water.
With the Botts’ help, that all recently changed for a school and several villages on Savai’i.
It was there that the Vaisigano Second District, the Samoan Ministry of Health, and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came together to provide two 10,000-litre water tanks for Sataua Primary School, and an additional 206 2,000-litre water tanks for homes in the surrounding villages of Fagasa, Sataua, and Papa Sataua.
That means approximately 900 villagers and 1,000 students now have a reliable source of clean water.
“For a school, the ability to capture and store this water is the difference between staying open and closing down,” said Elder Bott.
“Water is part of it, but anything to do with the health or education of the Samoan people and to let them know of God’s love for them—that’s what we’re about,” said Sister Bott.
As humanitarian missionaries, that’s their objective every day and especially each time they take the one-hour ferry ride from the island of Upolu to Savai’i.
Sometimes that love means classroom desks so students can sit and have a surface to write on or shelves to make library books more accessible. At other times it means having floor tiles installed to make school rooms more sanitary and easier to clean.
This time it was the Botts joining with school and village leaders to cut a violet ribbon wrapped around 20,000 litres of water.
“We know how important it is to have clean water, and we feel so blessed to be just a small, small, little part of the Church’s efforts to bring water—to bring blessings to the people of Samoa,” said Elder Bott.

Zach knew he wasn’t supposed to use that word. But so many boys at school said it that he had started using it too. At first he felt guilty, but after a while it started to feel normal. He got so used to saying the word that one day he said it at home.
“What was that?” his dad said after the word slipped out. Zach and Dad had been playing basketball in the driveway, but suddenly Dad was holding the ball and looking at Zach.
“Oh, nothing, Dad,” Zach said. “It’s just something the kids at school say sometimes. It’s not a big deal.”
“Hmm …” Dad wasn’t convinced. He shook his head and passed the ball to Zach.
“But everyone says it!” Zach said. “And other words are a lot worse!”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Dad said. “But just because a whole bunch of people say or do something, does that make it right?”
“Well, no,” Zach answered, looking down at the ball.
“Here’s a question that might help you decide if using that word is right,” Dad said. “Do you feel like you have the Holy Ghost with you when you say it?”
Zach’s family often talked about living so they could have the Holy Ghost to help them. Zach knew that when he made good choices, the Holy Ghost would guide him and he would feel good about his choices. But when he made bad choices, the Holy Ghost could not stay with him.
“Not really,” Zach said. “When I first said it, I felt guilty, but that feeling went away after a while.”
“That feeling was the Holy Ghost speaking to you,” Dad said. “When we don’t listen, we are tuning Him out.”
“I’ll try to do better,” Zach said.
“I think that’s a good decision, buddy,” Dad said as he took the ball and tossed it into the hoop. “What do you say we go inside for some ice cream? I’m beat!”
“OK!” Zach said as he scooped up the ball and took one last shot.
The next day at school, Zach was on the basketball court with his friends. They were running down the court when Zach’s friend Bryan used a word Zach knew wasn’t a good word. All the other boys laughed, but Zach didn’t.
“What’s wrong?” Bryan asked.
“Nothing,” Zach said as Bryan passed the ball to him. He hoped Bryan and the others wouldn’t make fun of him. “I’ve just decided I’m not going to talk like that any more.” Then he shot the basketball right through the hoop.
“What did you say?” Jeremy asked as he walked over.
“I just think I’ve been talking in a way that isn’t right,” Zach said. “I know better. So I decided last night that I’m only going to use words that make me feel good inside.”
The boys looked at each other. “OK, that’s cool,” Bryan said. Then the bell rang to go inside.
As they headed into class, Jeremy said to Zach, “You know, I’ve been thinking the same thing, but I didn’t want to say anything. Thanks for bringing it up.”
Zach nodded and smiled. He felt good, and he knew that feeling was from the Holy Ghost. He was glad he’d had the courage to choose the right.

“Tom? You got a minute?” Five-year-old Kevin stood outside his brother’s door.
“Sure, Kevin. Come on in,” Tom answered, looking up from his studies.
Kevin hurried to where Tom sat. “Tom, do you have to go to school tomorrow?”
“Sure. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Because tomorrow is your birthday!” Kevin protested.
“That doesn’t matter. Besides, I have a test.”
“Oh.” Kevin hesitated. “Tom, do you know any secrets?”
“No, I can’t say that I do,” Tom answered, his eyes lit with amusement.
“I do,” said Kevin smugly, “but I can’t tell you, ‘cause it’s a surprise!”
“Yeah?” Tom asked, eyeing Kevin with affection.
“Yeah,” Kevin answered. His eyes searched Tom’s. “Tom, if somebody made you a picture with lots of horses on it, do you think you would like it?”
“I sure would!”
“Better than a silver belt buckle with your initial on it?” Kevin asked hopefully.
“Lots better,” Tom replied vigorously.
“Better than a pair of real cowboy boots?”
“Yep,” Tom answered. He pointed at the wall facing his bed. “If I had a picture like that, I’d hang it right there so I could see it first thing every morning.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah,” Tom said, ruffling Kevin’s hair.
“What’s your favorite kind of cake, Tom?”
“I don’t know, Kevin. Got any suggestions?”
“Chocolate! With fudge icing!”
“Is that your favorite?” Tom asked, still smiling.
“Yeah!”
“Then it’s mine too.”
“Tom?” Kevin rubbed his eyes sleepily.
“Yeah?”
“Do you think I’ll ever get as big as you?”
“Not if you don’t get to bed. It’s way past your bedtime.”
“Will you carry me piggyback, Tom?”
“Sure.”
After Kevin was tucked snugly into his bed, Tom turned to leave.
“Tom?” Kevin called.
“Yeah?”
“I love you,” Kevin said.
“I love you, too, Kev.”
“Night, Tom.”
“Good night, Kevin.”
Kevin was still sleeping when Tom left for school the next morning. When he returned home, Kevin was waiting for him on the front steps. He tugged at Tom’s hand. “Hurry, Tom!”
“What’s the rush?”
“Come and see!” Kevin skipped as he led Tom inside the house.
Fifteen candles burned brightly on a chocolate fudge cake resting in the center of the table. Tom and Kevin’s parents came from the kitchen singing “Happy Birthday.”
“Surprise! Surprise!” Kevin yelled, jumping up and down.
“Wow!” Tom said happily.
Kevin helped Tom blow out the candles on the cake; then Tom opened his packages. He was very happy to get cowboy boots and a silver belt buckle with his initial on it from his parents. He saved Kevin’s gift for last.
Inside the package was a large white poster board. Several pictures of horses, cut from magazines, were glued to it. “This is terrific, Kevin!” Tom said, smiling.
“I made it all by myself!”
“Will you help me hang it in my room?” Tom asked.
“Yeah! Are you going to hang it in front of your bed so that you can see it first thing every morning?” Kevin asked anxiously.
“You bet!”
“Surprises are a lot of fun, huh, Tom?”
“Yeah,” Tom said, picking Kevin up and swinging him through the air. “Surprises are great!”

Your “Scavengers Welcome” article in the March issue was so impressive that we just had to try it. And try it we did, with about 500 youth at our regional Mia Maid and teacher conference. It was great!
We used between 80 and 90 cooperative adults as team leaders and divided the youth up into teams of unsuspecting strangers. We then sent them out to impress an apprehensive city. Our youth gave piggyback rides to children, pulled weeds, washed cars, and along with several other things, sang Primary songs to a new type of audience!
Our feedback included the comment from one team leader that “Actually doing it was a lot better than reading about it in the New Era.” This is an activity we would like to encourage others to participate in as it is a fulfilling and rewarding experience for both the participant and the recipient.
Deanna ElisonRichland, Washington

I am a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and my father felt that it was my duty as the oldest boy to master his Christian church’s doctrine. By the time I was five years old, I was accompanying him when he would preach door to door.
When I was nine, my father took our whole family to a region of high mountains. Often he and I would travel on foot for days to reach villages where we were to preach.
People were always amazed to see such a young child preaching. But I kept telling my father I was not ready to be baptized myself. I was not convinced that his religion answered the most important questions.
But I went on as an obedient son, converting people to a church I was not converted to myself. When I turned 18 I began looking for something more.
One Saturday a schoolteacher knocked on our door to talk to my father about my nephew. I found myself looking at a book he held, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder. Seeing my interest, he offered to leave the book. He also said I could attend a study group.
I spent almost the whole night scanning the book, stopping to take notes whenever I came across something new. Although I did not fully understand the doctrine, I felt no doubt about its truthfulness. I had a feeling of joy—as if I were discovering a genuine gem among thousands of imitations.
The next evening I joined five other people in a study group at the home of Mr. Kasongo. He had been doing research when he came across a book about American churches. “My heart pounded as I read the name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” he said. After writing to the Church’s headquarters, he received some literature—including A Marvelous Work and a Wonder by Elder LeGrand Richards (1886–1983) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
For two years, our group met twice a week. When missionaries, Elder Roger L. and Sister Simonne B. Dock, arrived in March 1987, 50 people were studying together.
The Docks began teaching the missionary discussions in French in the public school. Because some people spoke only Swahili, I interpreted. I heard the missionary discussions for the first time myself while interpreting.
On 9 May 1987 I was one of 80 people baptized in a pool at an abandoned copper mine. For me, baptism was an outer confirmation of an inner conversion that had taken place years earlier. I had been waiting for this sacred ordinance so I could officially become a member of the Church.
I have received so many blessings—among them the time I spent translating for couple missionaries. They are as dedicated as if the Master Himself were physically beside them.
I thank my Heavenly Father for these rich experiences and for the opportunity my wife, Jolie Mwenze, and I have to raise our son in the Church. And particularly I thank Him for sending me the gospel—a gem beyond price.

Because the Lord is kind, He calls servants to warn people of danger. I can still remember my mother speaking softly to me one Saturday afternoon when, as a little boy, I asked her for permission to do something I thought was perfectly reasonable but which she knew was dangerous.
She said, “Oh, I suppose you could do that. But the choice is yours.” The only warning was in the emphasis she put on the words could and choice. Yet that was enough for me.
Her power to warn with so few words sprang from three things I knew about her. First, I knew she loved me. Second, I knew she had already done what she wanted me to do and had been blessed by it. And third, she had conveyed her testimony that the Lord would tell me what to do if I asked Him. Love, example, testimony: Those were the keys.

In my heart of hearts I wanted to serve a mission. But I was in love. Sure I know guys usually leave girlfriends behind, but Chris was different. She was a cheerleader in our high school, blonde, beautiful, with a clever personality, and not stuck-up. I had a crush on her when we went to high school in Nebraska but didn’t have the courage to ask her out until we met in college. She was a year older than I.
For a guy in high school to win an older woman is nearly hopeless. It gets easier in college where you can’t tell how old a guy is by the books he carries. So I asked her out. My heart raced when she agreed to a date. Friendship quickly blossomed into romance. I felt my life was now complete and nothing else much mattered, even a mission call.
Then we argued about something really important. I can’t remember what right now, but I know it was life-or-death because of how angry I felt about it. I did not sleep that night. I continued to sulk without relief. Something had to change, and I was pretty sure it was not me.
In a physics class the next day, as Professor Hill talked about light, I wanted to collapse with some distant galaxy into a black hole. Maybe light was what we had lost. Radiant, burning light. This is how I had felt in the beginning when I was with her—like stars exploding in the skies. But now I felt uncertainty, darkness even. For the first time I longed for what I had been hearing about in religion class—pure love, selfless but fervent caring. I thought of Christ and how he felt for the little children. I knew he was the source. And I knew prayer would help.
I had always said my prayers at night. It was a childhood habit. But, unfortunately, they had become routine. It was more like brushing teeth than communion with deity, a way to prevent spiritual cavities. Please bless … please bless … please bless. Night after night I had been describing to the Lord exactly how I thought my world should be ordered.
But that day in physics I realized my whole world was turned inward. I knew that to escape the confusion I must find a way to reach out to other people. But how? I could not even reach out to my girlfriend. Instead I had tried to annex her personality into my own, to possess it, to lock her up inside me. The problem needed more maturity and strength than I had. All of the routine prayers in the world wouldn’t be adequate. I needed a prayer of faith like Enos offered in the wilderness.
So there in the wilderness of 200 physics students, I looked down as if at my textbook, and with one hand shielding my eyes, offered a simple, heartfelt prayer. My idea was to prepare the Lord for what I would be asking later, to humbly and sincerely bring him up to speed on what I had been feeling. But as I opened my heart the feelings gushed out. I told him everything. Tears trickled from my chin and wet the book. Then, suddenly, a profound peace washed through me. And with it came light, illumination, an unmistakable understanding.
I knew missionary work was the key. I needed a mission more than the Lord needed me to be a missionary. I needed to put aside my own problems and help those who were wandering in darkness worse than my own. I had learned to pray about problems. But those who lived in the dark did not pray because no one had told them they could.
After class I called my bishop.
That evening I met Chris to study in the library. I felt calm as I explained the events of the day and my determination to go on a mission. She was supportive and complimentary. As I looked at her, I considered the real possibility that she would not be waiting when I returned. But peace replaced jealousy. I knew nothing could keep me from my mission.
For two years I wrote to her. Weekly at first, then less often. When I returned, we visited. I told her of the people I had met and the lives I had watched change. She told me about her studies of South and Central America. She had developed such a love for the people of those countries that she now wanted to serve a mission. It was the last time I saw her for several years.
The selfish emotions which had consumed me before were gone, replaced by a desire for service, a love for others, and a powerful new faith in the Savior.
Back in school, I met Julie. She was blonde, beautiful, clever, and someone who cared about other people. More surprising, she was attracted to me. We were married in the spring. I can say with conviction that the Lord knows better than we do how our lives should be ordered. The self-centered existence I would have chosen for myself cannot compare with the blessings that have followed obedience and service.

Now another. A young man in Mexico City was approved to receive a loan of approximately $1,000 to make it possible for him to attend school to become a diesel mechanic. He has said: “My promise is to give my best in order to feel satisfied with my efforts. I know this program is valuable and important. Because of this, I am trying to take maximum advantage of this for the future. I will be able to serve and help the poor and help counsel my family members. I thank my Father in Heaven for this beautiful and inspired program.”