Gospel Story Finder

For example, a few weeks ago I slipped away from my office to find something for lunch. As I approached the entrance of a local restaurant, I noticed what appeared to be a mother and her three children entering just ahead of me. One of the little girls stayed behind. Here was this cute little three- or four-year-old in pigtails using all of her strength to keep the door open for me. I was impressed with this act of kindness and self-sacrifice and thanked her appropriately. I quickly ordered my food and sat down at a table that happened to be next to this family. The mother brought a large drink to the table and returned to the counter to wait for her food. The same little girl who held the door open for me was seated at the table with her younger brother, who was in a booster seat. The little brother was becoming increasingly upset because he could not reach the drink. His big sister, however, had no trouble reaching the drink and took a long sip that seemed to aggravate the brother even more. His displeasure lasted until the mother finally returned with his food. I found it interesting that, within minutes, this endearing little girl acted so kindly to me but was completely oblivious to the needs of her little brother.
So it is with us. We may act in holiness one moment and struggle with it the next. However, displaying flashes of holiness means we are capable of so much more. Where there is a flicker of light there can be steady radiance.

“Mike,” Dad called. “Time for school.” Walking slowly down the stairs, Mike found Dad waiting for him at the bottom.
“Do I have to go?” Mike asked. “Can’t I wait until tomorrow?”
Dad shook his head. “There have been too many tomorrows. I understand how you feel, but you need to get caught up.”
“Mrs. Peters sent home some of my work,” Mike said.
Dad sighed and handed Mike a sweater. “Today I go back to work—and you go back to school.”
Mike felt tears welling up. Surely he wasn’t going to cry again! “It’s so hard without Mom.”
Dad knelt and hugged Mike. “I know.” Mike could see the pain in Dad’s eyes.
As Mike walked out the door, he looked at Mom’s beautiful rose garden. But it wasn’t beautiful anymore. Weeds were popping up everywhere. He sighed. Would anything ever be the same again?
School was the same—noisy children running and talking. Mike dragged himself into his third-grade classroom.
Sam, his best friend, waved. Mike tried to smile, but his smile wouldn’t work. He kept taking deep breaths and trying not to cry.
Mrs. Peters began class. Mike heard her talking, but his gaze wandered outside. It was sunny. “How can the world look bright when Mom has died?” he wondered. A tear slid down his nose.
“Look, Mike’s crying!” shouted Bill, who sat across the aisle.
Without thinking, Mike got up and ran out the door and down the hall. He would never go back to school again! He pushed open the big school doors and ran the five blocks home. It was cold without a sweater.
He went to his room to get a jacket, then sat on his swing in the backyard. He swung back and forth, staring at the ground.
He thought of going to Grandma’s house, but she was sad now too. She used to laugh a lot and go bowling and bake cookies. He wondered if she had gone back to work too.
Mike made the swing go higher. Maybe, he thought, he would fall off and die. Then he could go to heaven and see Mom.
He heard words like the wind in the trees—“Then Dad and Grandma wouldn’t have you. Would you want Dad to leave?”
He stopped the swing, his feet skidding in the dirt. Who had said that? Was it Mom, speaking to him from heaven? He looked around, but there was only the sound of leaves rustling in the wind.
Mike looked at the patch of blue sky through the trees. “I miss my mom! Please, Heavenly Father, help me!” His tears started again.
Suddenly he had the urge to go to Mom’s rose garden. He stood looking at the poor rosebushes, without water and with lots of weeds. Mom sure wouldn’t like that! He knelt and began pulling and yanking at the weeds. Then he grabbed the garden hose and watered the bushes he had weeded. Soon it would be spring, and the roses would bloom bright red and yellow and pink. He wondered if Mom would see them from heaven. Somehow he felt closer to her as he worked in her garden.
Dad’s car came roaring up the driveway. He jumped out, ran to Mike, and hugged him. “They called me from school.”
“I’ll go back tomorrow,” Mike promised. “Dad, look at the rosebushes.”
“Mom would be proud,” Dad said. “I’ll change clothes, and we can work on it together.”
As Mike weeded alongside Dad, he thought of the roses that would bloom. He could almost smell their fragrance. After they bloomed, he decided, he would pick some of them for Grandma.
Mike looked up to see Sam and Bill. The two boys looked at the weeds.
“Can we help?” Sam asked.
Mike nodded. Slowly, a smile crept onto his face.

Kate Hansen and her family haven’t had a real plan for her participation in luge. They seem to take and evaluate opportunities as they come. Heidi, Kate’s older sister, explains, “My brothers and I thought it was funny because she was luging, and no one really knows what that is. We thought she would only do it for a while, but then she would do well and get invited to train or to be on teams, so our family would say, ‘I guess she’ll move up.’”

Eventually Kate started to get noticed. In her first junior international competition at the junior level, she came in third, shocking everyone because she was so young and inexperienced. A few months later, at 15, she came in first at the Junior World Championship. She was only the third American to ever win. She now spends most of the winter months living with the team in Europe and competing on the Junior World Cup Tour. Her name has started rising to the top.

With the upcoming 2010 Winter Olympics, Kate will be invited to participate in the Olympic trials. There are only three slots on the team, and most of the competitors are much older. Kate finished sixth overall at the end of last season and looks forward to competing for a spot on the team. Whether she makes it or not, Kate has had fun participating and succeeding in luge, but it will not become the only focus in her life.

Sometimes Heavenly Father provides us an opportunity to avoid challenges—if we are willing to listen and learn. Elder M. Russell Ballard of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles once faced this very dilemma.

“Years ago when I was in business, I learned a very expensive lesson because I did not listen carefully to the counsel of my father, nor did I heed the promptings of the Spirit giving me guidance from my Heavenly Father. My father and I were in the automobile business, and the Ford Motor Company was looking for dealers to sell their new line of cars. Ford executives invited my father and me to a preview showing of what they thought would be a spectacularly successful product. When we saw the cars, my father, who had over 35 years’ experience in the business, cautioned me about becoming a dealer. However, the Ford sales personnel were very persuasive, and I chose to become Salt Lake City’s first—and actually last—Edsel dealer. And if you don’t know what an Edsel is, ask your grandpa. He will tell you that the Edsel was a spectacular failure.

“Now, there’s a powerful lesson for all of you in this experience. When you are willing to listen and learn, some of life’s most meaningful teachings come from those who have gone before you. They have walked where you are walking and have experienced many of the things you are experiencing. If you listen and respond to their counsel, they can help guide you toward choices that will be for your benefit and blessing and steer you away from decisions that can destroy you. As you look to your parents and others who have gone before you, you will find examples of faith, commitment, hard work, dedication, and sacrifice that you should strive to duplicate.”2

I remember a particular period of my life when I was under unusual stress. There were troubles with my employment, and at the same time my wife was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. This was one of those times when it felt like the adversary had mounted a frontal assault against me and my family. On days when the stresses and anxieties of our tumultuous life were about to get the best of us, my wife and I found a way to relieve them.
We drove to a place just a few miles from our home to get away for a few moments of relief from our troubles, talk, and give emotional comfort to each other. Our place was Walden Pond. It was a beautiful little pond surrounded by forests of trees. When my wife was feeling strong enough, we’d go for a walk around the pond. Other days, when she did not feel up to the exertion of walking, we’d just sit in the car and talk. Walden Pond was our special place to pause, reflect, and heal. Perhaps it was partly due to its history—its connection to the efforts of Henry David Thoreau to separate himself from worldliness for a period of years—that Walden Pond offered us so much hope for simplicity and provided such a renewing escape from our overly complex lives.

Tom’s family had exercised faith in the face of illness before and had seen miracles as a result. Tom’s younger brother Ailama was sick some years earlier. Their father, Elisala, had a dream in which he was given specific directions on what to do to care for Ailama: find a wili-wili tree, remove some bark, and pound out the juice. Elisala did this and brought the juice to Ailama, who drank it and soon recovered. So Tom had seen how acting in faith can help overcome sickness.
During the 1918 influenza epidemic, Tom exercised faith as he worked hard to care for the people of the village. “Every morning I went from house to house to feed and clean the people and to find out who had died,” he said.
He fetched buckets of water from a spring and brought water to every house. He climbed coconut trees, picked coconuts, husked them, and opened them to collect the juice to bring it to the sick. He also killed all of the chickens in the village to make soup for each family.
The 12-year-old Tom Fanene helped nurse his village to health during a pandemic.
Illustration by James Madsen
During this pandemic, around one-fourth of all of the people in Samoa died of influenza. Some of the people in Tom’s village died as well. Tom helped dig graves and bury more than 20 of them, including his own father, Elisala.
But thanks to Tom’s hard work and loving care, many people in his village survived. He made a big difference to those people and to the building up of the Lord’s kingdom in Samoa. He was “laying the foundation of a great work.”
And in your own way, so are you.
You may not be called upon to do the kinds of things Tom did, but you are, in fact, exercising faith in various ways that will make a great difference to you, to others, and to the work of building God’s kingdom.
You’re setting an example for your family, friends, and others by showing virtue, patience, kindness, and love. You’re serving others. You’re engaging in scripture study and prayer. You’re sharing the truths of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.
During this past year, many of you have even been doing these things while enduring the effects of a pandemic. Maybe you haven’t fetched water and coconuts and nursed 400 people back to health, but you have brought people comfort, hope, joy, and peace in many other ways.
Your age matters less than your faith and your willingness to work and serve others. Examples from the past, such as Tom Fanene’s, can help you see that you are needed in laying the foundation of God’s great work.

Sierra Lybbert has a great story about prayer. When she was two, a horse stepped on her hand. Her thumb was severed, and several fingers split open. Her parents rushed her from one hospital to another to find a surgeon willing to take on the seemingly impossible repair. She said, “One doctor told my parents that the surgeon didn’t have a prayer of being successful. My mom told him that the surgeon didn’t have one prayer with him—he had many. My mother had called the temple to add my name to the prayer roll.”
Now, at 13, Sierra has a functioning hand. Her thumb works just fine, and she raised it for a few other girls from her ward to see. They had never really heard the story. All they could see on Sierra’s hand was a thin, hardly noticeable scar encircling the base of her thumb. The result seemed truly amazing.
Sierra said, “It makes me feel happy to know what prayer can do for me. It is a wonderful thing in my life.”

A friend shared an experience she had as a small child in a branch of the Church where she was the only child of Primary age. Week after week, her mother held home Primary on the same day and at the same time. She eagerly anticipated sitting on the sofa with her mother and learning the gospel of Jesus Christ and how to live it. Minutes carefully recorded by her mother in a notebook revealed the home Primary meetings always included prayers, songs, and a lesson.

The desire of this mother’s heart was for her little daughter to develop a testimony of Jesus Christ and to feel the joy of the gospel. She provided her daughter with what had been so important to her as a child. This little girl, now a woman of faith and covenant, looks back on her childhood with deep appreciation for her mother’s enthusiasm and commitment to teach her of the Savior. This mother’s diligence became her daughter’s delight—with an exclamation mark.

When a big storm called Hurricane Harvey hit Houston, Texas, USA, many people’s homes were flooded or destroyed. President M. Russell Ballard flew there to help!
As soon as his plane landed, he went straight to the command center where the Church collected supplies and sent out Helping Hands volunteers.
Then he visited neighborhoods where many homes were flooded. Some of the streets were blocked, so he walked from house to house. He listened to people and shared Heavenly Father’s love with them.
He met missionaries and other Church members who were helping.
He spoke in a devotional and three sacrament meetings so he could share Heavenly Father’s love with lots of people!
When he met an elderly man whose home was damaged, President Ballard said:
I’m one of the Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. … We want you to know we love you. And we’re here because Jesus Christ would want us to be here.
Ministering means serving and loving. Jesus Christ ministered to others, and so do His Apostles. How are the people below ministering?
How can you help someone today?

May I share with you something of a personal and sacred testimony?
Nearly forty years ago I was on a mission in England. I had been called to labor in the European Mission office in London under President Joseph F. Merrill of the Council of the Twelve, then president of the European Mission. One day three or four of the London papers carried reviews of a reprint of an old book, snide and ugly in tone, indicating that the book was a history of the Mormons. President Merrill said to me, “I want you to go down to the publisher and protest this.” I looked at him and was about to say, “Surely not me.” But I meekly said, “Yes, sir.”
I do not hesitate to say that I was frightened. I went to my room and felt something as I think Moses must have felt when the Lord asked him to go and see Pharaoh. I offered a prayer. My stomach was churning as I walked over to the Goodge Street station to get the underground train to Fleet Street. I found the office of the president and presented my card to the receptionist. She took it and went into the inner office and soon returned to say that Mr. Skeffington was too busy to see me. I replied that I had come five thousand miles and that I would wait. During the next hour she made two or three trips to his office, then finally invited me in. I shall never forget the picture when I entered. He was smoking a long cigar with a look that seemed to say, “Don’t bother me.”
I held in my hand the reviews. I do not know what I said after that. Another power seemed to be speaking through me. At first he was defensive and even belligerent. Then he began to soften. He concluded by promising to do something. Within an hour word went out to every book dealer in England to return the books to the publisher. At great expense he printed and tipped in the front of each volume a statement to the effect that the book was not to be considered as history, but only as fiction, and that no offense was intended against the respected Mormon people. Years later he granted another favor of substantial worth to the Church, and each year until the time of his death I received a Christmas card from him.
I came to know that when we try in faith to walk in obedience to the requests of the priesthood, the Lord opens the way, even when there appears to be no way.

When I was preparing to serve a mission, my bishop called me to teach the Sunbeams. I had never before learned to love others more than myself until I had served those children in such a simple assignment. With time and patience I learned how to keep those seven children in their seats and listening to a simple lesson.
One day I invited Mike* to come to church and visit my class. Mike was my age but had stopped attending church completely by the time he was 12. We had remained friends over the years as I had served as the deacons quorum president, the teachers quorum president, and first assistant to the bishop in the priests quorum. He had been the topic of many fellowshipping discussions and was often part of my prayers. Once in a while Mike would accept my invitations to come to an activity. It always surprised me when he did, so I kept inviting him.
I don’t remember when I invited him to my Primary class, but one day he showed up. At that time, Mike had long, black hair and a beard.
“Class, I would like to introduce you to my friend Mike,” I said to begin my lesson. “He is visiting us today.”
Mike sat next to me in front. The children sat in a semicircle around us with their eyes fixed on Mike. They were much quieter than usual. I was about five or six minutes into the lesson when one little boy got up from his chair and walked across the room and stood directly in front of my friend. He paused for a moment and then climbed onto Mike’s lap. I watched the two of them as I continued with the lesson.
The boy stared into Mike’s face. Mike was quite uncomfortable but did not interrupt the lesson or turn the boy away. The other children watched the two of them for a few minutes.
Then one of the girls climbed off her seat and approached Mike. I was intently interested in seeing how Mike would react, so I did not ask the two children to return to their seats. The girl stood with her hand on Mike’s knee looking into his face.
Then it happened. The boy on Mike’s lap reached up with both hands and turned Mike’s face directly to his. I stopped my lesson to see what was about to unfold.
With the innocence of a child, he said to Mike, “Are you Jesus?”
The look on Mike’s face was total surprise. It seemed, as I glanced at the children’s faces, they all had the same question on their minds.
Mike looked at me as if to ask, Help, what do I say?
I stepped in. “No, this is not Jesus. This is His brother.”
Mike looked at me in shock.
Then without hesitation the boy on Mike’s lap reached up and wrapped his arms around Mike’s neck. “I can tell,” he said as he hugged Mike.
The rest of the children smiled and nodded in agreement as their question was answered. Mike blinked back tears in response to the love he felt from this small Sunbeam. The lesson went on, but that day the teacher who taught the most was a three-year-old child.
Mike spent more than a year getting ready to serve a full-time mission. It thrilled me to learn he left for the mission field a few months before I returned. When I think of those Sunbeams, I think of the scripture in Matthew 18:5: “And whoso shall receive one such little child in my name receiveth me.”

There are abundant examples of successful youth leadership occurring minute by minute all over the world. Let me give you just one example.
I met Matt Andersen, a teachers quorum president whose father was serving as a mission president in Mexico. When Matt was set apart as the quorum president, he was the only member of the teachers quorum attending church in his ward. Young president Matt Andersen was learning a new language so he could be an effective missionary. Going forward with faith, courage, and confidence gained at home and in the deacons quorum, he determined to use his keys of presidency to bless the members of his quorum and their families. He immediately asked for a list of quorum members from the ward clerk, practiced his Spanish, and with a prayer in his heart called the one boy who was listed with a telephone number. He said, “¡Omar: Tú, Iglesia, Hoy!” Or in English, “Omar! You, Church, Today!” Just the basic message!
The miracle is that Omar came to church that day, and soon thereafter so did his mother and sister. Our young quorum president, Matt Andersen, then invited the bishop to drive him, translate, and together visit two other boys whose names were on the list but without telephone numbers. His keys of presidency, the ministering of angels, and the powers of heaven combined. The result was that these two boys also came to church and formed the new teachers quorum presidency. Other boys and their families also returned to the blessings of the gospel and the priesthood.

Before our trip, we had read some interpretations that Lehi had traveled “three days in the wilderness” from Jerusalem. (1 Ne. 2:6.) However, verse five makes it fairly clear that they started counting the three days from the time the group arrived at the “borders near the shore of the Red Sea,” which must have been Aqaba. However, something puzzled us in the text: Nephi talks about coming down “by the borders near the shore of the Red Sea” and traveling “in the wilderness in the borders which are nearer the Red Sea.” (1 Ne. 2:5; italics added.) What distinction was he making? Once we arrived on the site, it became more clear what Nephi might have meant.
The coastal plain is squeezed into the area lying between the Red Sea and the mountains on the Arabian peninsula. Its greatest width is 77 km. in the area close to Jiddah. (See illustrations 7 and 9.) Called Tihama by the local residents, it is the ancient route of the frankincense trail and the most logical route for Lehi’s party as well. We determined about how far Lehi might be able to travel in three days and made a sweep about that distance south of Aqaba to see if we might identify possible locales for the valley of Lemuel and the river Laman. Naturally, we examined every wadi system, shore, and mountain very closely.
The geographically logical thing to do—indeed, the only thing to do—is to turn away from the Red Sea and go east up the hills through the mountain chain in wide, sweeping bends. Former storms have filled in all of the rough places with a sand and gravel “roadbed” for 40 km. to the top (elevation 3,135 feet). People without animals could have traveled through these mountains by inching up the steep and rocky hillsides or by edging exhaustingly up and down the jagged summits, but obviously the wadi is a convenient superhighway—as the heavily laden camels passing our car in majestic disdain testified.
At the summit (see illustration 9), the wadi branches. One branch leads out to the desert in an easterly direction. But another wadi slopes many kilometers downhill to the south in leisurely sweeping curves all the way to the seashore. This wadi, El Afal, runs parallel to the east shore of the Gulf of Aqaba, but the mountains in between hid it from our view. We drove down this wadi, which we think represents the borders near the Red Sea, finally stopping at its oasis, a village called Al Beda, Saudi Arabia.
Thus, we pieced these geographical clues together with the description that Nephi had given us. Of course, this reconstruction is tentative, one problem being that it doesn’t seem to follow Nephi’s sentence sequence, even though his meaning could fit what we discovered. The borders “nearer” the Red Sea could have been the 28 km. between Aqaba and al Humaydah, where the trail and the beach are practically the same thing. Then the borders “near” would have been their turning aside to continue east and south through the 83 km. in the Wadi Umm Jurfayn and Wadi El Afal to Al Beda. When Nephi later refers to “keeping in the borders near the Red Sea” (1 Ne. 16:14), he was probably designating the area about halfway down the seacoast near Jiddah when they were once again traveling on the coast itself. But to us, our discovery of what “near” and “nearer” meant suggested an equally exciting possibility: that Al Beda could have been Lehi’s camp in the valley of Lemuel. We had a couple of clues that supported this tentative conclusion. It seemed clear to us that the “borders near” the Red Sea was the higher wadi in which they spent the bulk of their time, and the borders “nearer” represented the close coastal plain stretching eastward to its first range of mountains. Suddenly, Nephi’s terms took on great meaning for us.
Father Lehi describes the valley of Lemuel as “firm and steadfast, and immovable.” (1 Ne. 2:10.) The modern appearance of Wadi El Afal is indeed that, its sandy bottom firmly delineated by solid mountains.
And so our hearts rejoiced. We had located a strong candidate for the site of the valley of Lemuel. We felt a special spirit in the Wadi El Afal near the oasis of Al Beda in Saudi Arabia.

I pitched my helmet onto the shelf in the garage, hung my pads on a hook, and scuffed into the kitchen.
“What’s the problem?” Mom asked as I came in.
I flopped down on the nearest chair. “I was ten minutes late for practice and Coach Cooper gave me a lecture on being reliable and prompt.”
“Did you remember to take the bread over to Mr. Sams?” Mom asked as she poured me a glass of lemonade.
“Yes, and that’s why I was late,” I replied. “That old man just kept on talking and I couldn’t get away.”
“He’s rather lonely,” Mom said, “and seeing you in your football uniform probably reminded him of when he was a young man and able to play ball too.”
“If he’s so interested in the game, why doesn’t he come and watch us?” I asked. “The park is just around the corner, and the fresh air and exercise would be good for him.”
“He’s probably afraid to go down the stairs alone,” Mom said. “That’s how he broke his ankle last year.”
I took a big gulp of lemonade.
“Anyway,” I went on, “I was so late I don’t get to start in Saturday’s game. All the guys are mad at me because we’ll be playing the toughest team in the league.”
“Didn’t you tell Coach Cooper you were on an errand for me?” Mom asked.
“No,” I answered. “He would have said I was using you as an excuse, and then I’d get another lecture on responsibility.”
It was a long three days before that big game, but Saturday finally arrived. I was up early that morning to straighten the garage and take out the trash. I even checked with Mom to make sure there wasn’t anything I had forgotten.
On Saturdays I usually take soup to Mr. Sams, so I left ten minutes early to allow some extra time to visit with him.
“Well, you’re early today,” Mr. Sams said when he opened the door.
“Yes, sir,” I answered as I carried the soup over to the stove in his kitchen. “Today is a big game and I don’t want to be late.”
“You’re right,” Mr. Sams began. “That would never do. Why, I remember when I played back in …”
He sat down by the table and motioned for me to join him. Then he started to tell me again about some of his experiences playing football years ago.
When I figured that the ten minutes were over, I slowly got up from the chair and said, “Mr. Sams, I’d better get going so I won’t be late. I’ll pick up the soup pot after the game.”
“I’ll bet you play a good game,” he said as I gathered up my gear. “You’re a strong-looking boy.”
“I do my best,” I replied, heading for the door. He hustled along after me.
“I remember once when I was playing,” he said. “We were up against the toughest team in the state. It was the third quarter. I remember it like it was yesterday! Jason Clemons, our left guard, was …”
“Why don’t you come over to the park and watch a game sometime, Mr. Sams,” I suggested.
“I’d like to,” he said, “but I don’t get out much anymore. I watch all the games on television, but it’s just not the same as watching a live game.”
When Mr. Sams said that, I looked at him for a minute and I thought he might start to cry. He turned his head away and stared out the window. I remembered Linda and how unhappy she had looked and what she had said about being proud.
Now I knew what Mom meant when she told me that sometimes you have to listen with your eyes.
“Look, Mr. Sams,” I blurted out. “Why don’t you get your sweater and come to the game with me right now?”
I was late again! The team was on the field warming up when I came through the gate with Mr. Sams walking beside me. Coach Cooper looked upset. I took Mr. Sams to the bleachers and got him seated. Then I ran to the dressing room and put on my gear.
Just as I reached the bench, the referees blew their whistles signaling the team to clear the field.
I won’t get to play anyway, I thought, so it doesn’t matter if I did miss the warm-up.
“Tim! Coach Cooper shouted, and I ran over to him. As I got closer, he lowered his voice and asked, “Were you late for practice the other day because of the old gentleman you brought with you today?”
I looked over at Mr. Sams. His whole face was covered with a big grin as he sat on the edge of his seat eager for the game to start.
“Yes,” I admitted, and I was actually glad about the whole thing.
“Why didn’t you say so?” Coach Cooper asked.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t understand,” I replied.
“I’m a lot more understanding than you think,” he assured me.
Then Coach Cooper motioned for the team to come and join us. After explaining the circumstances, he said I could play in the game after all. Everyone seemed pleased about that—especially me!
I waved to Mr. Sams as I ran out onto the field for the kickoff, and he was smiling bigger than ever as he waved back.
Mr. Sams didn’t make a sound, but I could hear his happiness all the way across the field.

The giving of additional patriarchal blessings may have been more common in the past. My grandmother, Maude Wetzel Faust, was challenged like most mothers with the raising of her children. She made an offhanded remark that the children were driving her crazy. My grandfather took her to the stake patriarch who blessed her that her “reason would never be dethroned.” The blessing was literally fulfilled. She died at eighty-seven years of age, and she was joking with the nurses on the way to the operating room where she died from a ruptured appendix.

In Farmington, Utah, there lived a good man named Bob Hasenyager, who was not yet a member of the Church. His wife, Marlene, was devoted to the gospel. She honored her covenants quietly and patiently, never pressuring—only loving. Bob was serving and helping in the local ward. One day the stake president asked Bob, “Are you aware that your wife longs to attend the temple but still waits, not wanting to hurt you?”
Bob wept when he was told this. Then he gave his full support. Marlene received her endowment and began attending the temple regularly. Bob noticed something different: not pressure, not argument, but peace. Then one day a young missionary simply suggested Bob be baptized on a specific date. In Bob’s words: “I felt the Holy Ghost. I felt warmth and joy and peace. I finally had my answer.” Bob was baptized. He was later diagnosed with terminal cancer. He and Marlene were sealed four months before he passed away.

“After the Budapest, Hungary, concert I walked up to two full-bearded men,” said Kay Lynn Wakefield. “I asked if they enjoyed the concert, putting my hand out to greet one of them. He looked around, wondering who I was talking to. I then gave him an Articles of Faith card. He backed away, saying, ‘I am light man’—an electrical technician for the concert. He seemed surprised I would talk to him. I assured him I was happy to talk to him, and I thanked him for his lighting. I asked him who his friend was, and he said he spoke no English and was studying for the ministry. At this point, he said again, ‘I am light man only.’ I then put my hand on the arm of this man, looked him in the eye, and said, ‘You are a child of God, and he loves you very much.’ I bore my testimony to him, telling him that we represented our Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I asked him to translate this message to his non-English-speaking friend. As he repeated my words, he began to weep. It seemed almost as if a protective bubble fell over us and we no longer heard the noise of the crowd. I told them both how they could get a Book of Mormon from the missionaries. The student was visibly moved and promised that he would get and read the book.”

We were nearly halfway through the journey from Utah to our homestead in New Mexico. For several days we had found no water, and our barrels were low. The men were becoming anxious. We knew from the map that we were coming into Indian territory.
When we reached the edge of the reservation the wagons stopped for our leaders to consult. Because of his experience with Indians, Papa was chosen to go ahead and see what arrangements he could make. As we slowly drove on, we had a feeling that we were being watched.
“I hope the village ahead has plenty of water,” Papa said.
“I hope they are friendly,” Mama replied.
“I’m prepared to take care of that even if they’re not,” Papa assured her.
“How?” Mama asked.
“I have a trick up my sleeve,” he answered, but he would tell her no more.
In a few moments we saw a cluster of huts up ahead. And about the same time two little girls with black braids ran from the shadows toward the village.
“Messengers,” Papa observed.
“What do we do now?” Ed asked.
“Wait,” Papa said and pulled the horses to a stop. He jumped down, climbed in the back of the wagon, and came out carrying his unfinished basket and a hank of straw.
“You children stay in the wagon,” he instructed firmly. And we settled in a spot where we could watch what was going on.
Papa sat down on the ground and began weaving. It seemed to me like a silly time and place to finish his basket, but I had learned that patience answers many questions, so I watched and waited.
Before long five or six braves came riding up on their ponies and formed a circle around Papa.
“You cannot cross Indian land,” one insisted.
Papa said nothing but kept on with his work.
“Go back,” another brave said, pointing in the direction we’d come from. “Do not cross Indian land.”
Papa nodded to acknowledge he had heard but he stayed where he was. Nothing moved but his hands. I had watched him make many baskets, and I knew that his fingers could fly as fast as frightened quail. Now he was weaving slowly, exaggerating the in and out movements as he laced the wide strips between the twisted upright ribs.
The belligerent expression on the Indians’ faces changed to curiosity. One by one they slid off their ponies and came closer. After they had watched awhile, Papa handed the basket to one of the braves, who copied the motions he had been watching. The Indian smiled at his handiwork. Then the basket was passed around the circle, with each brave taking a turn at the weaving and all of them becoming excited and pleased.
Papa began a new basket and handed some straw to one of the Indians to start one too. Before long each brave was sitting cross-legged on the ground, busy on a basket. Papa had motioned to Ed and me to climb down from the wagon, and we slipped out quietly and stood by his side. Other Indians came one by one and soon quite a crowd was watching the activity.
I turned to look toward the village and saw a large squaw coming toward me with a loop stretched open between her hands. Smiling, she came closer and closer, holding the noose high as if to place it over my head and around my neck. To choke me, I thought, and began to shake with fear. Please, Heavenly Father, save me, I silently prayed. My hands tightened on Papa’s arm, and he sensed my fright.
“It’s all right, Dora,” he assured me. “She won’t hurt you.”
By now the squaw was close enough so that I could see she was holding a beautiful necklace of dried berries and seeds. She placed it over my head saying, “Pretty, pretty.” I guess she had never seen yellow hair before.
All of a sudden I felt that she was a special person, and I wanted to do something for her. I climbed into the wagon and found the mirror I had brought rolled up in my sweater so it wouldn’t break. It was a round one with a handle. I handed it to the squaw and when she looked at it and saw her face reflected back, she was delighted. She showed it around with great pride, pointing to her image and laughing.
While the braves worked and the others watched, Papa spoke to them in gentle tones. “We want to be friends and will do you no harm. We are moving to New Mexico and would like to cross your land. We have our food and supplies with us. We need to stop tonight to rest our horses and fill our water barrels. We will leave tomorrow. Other wagons are behind waiting to hear your answer.”
At this point, five more braves and the chief rode up at a gallop. They began to talk rapidly in their own language with the weavers, who jumped up, showing off their baskets. After some discussion the chief turned to Papa and asked, “What are you teaching?”
“Basketmaking,” Papa said. “How to make baskets.”
“Basket,” one brave repeated, pointing to what he had done.
“You are good,” the chief said. “You can camp here tonight. There is plenty of water.” Then he motioned for Papa to mount one of the ponies, and they rode back together to get the rest of the camp to join us.
Soon after we left the Indian reservation, Sister Owens in the next wagon became ill, and we camped for several days.
Some of the braves rode over from the reservation to get help with their baskets. Papa didn’t have much straw left to give them, but they had already decided that bear grass would do just as well. Papa showed them how to do a braided edge around the top of their baskets. He took out a pocketknife to trim the ends, and a little Indian boy who had come with his father looked so pleased with the knife that Papa let him keep it. Later that day the boy’s father returned with a strange-looking three-pronged stick that he gave to Papa, explaining how he could use it to find water for digging a well.
“I can probably use this later,” Papa said as he fastened it securely to the wagon.
After we left this place the weather became hotter and the land drier. We had one more stop for supplies before we came to a stretch of desert, and Papa was able to replenish our ice supply. We had left Salt Lake City with a hundred-pound block of ice in a tub to keep our meat cool. Since it was wrapped in newspapers and burlap bags, it melted slowly and lasted quite a while. Ice was harvested from frozen streams and lakes just before the spring thaw and packed in sawdust in dirt-covered sheds. Most towns had a supply that lasted until the next winter, so we were able to buy it as we needed it along the way. That day we were very glad we had some.
The desert sun was hot. Heat waves curled up in ghostly spirals. We choked on the dust stirred up by the wagons and animals. Papa chipped off pieces of ice for us to suck on. They tasted so good that soon all the other children were coming to our wagon for ice chips.
“You’ll give it all away and then we won’t have any,” Caroline complained to Papa.
“Now, now,” he replied. “They don’t have any, and we can share.”
Our trip was nearly over when the wagons drew up in a long line by the homestead office in Harmony, New Mexico. After the families finished their business inside, they drove away to locate their new home. As our friends left one by one, they called to the rest of us, “See you in church.” We had passed the meetinghouse so we all knew where to go on Sunday.
Our wagon was the last to leave. Mr. Talbot, the officer in charge, went with us to show us our land and then take us to our temporary living quarters. The family in our house had not moved out yet, but an arrangement had been made for us to live in a dugout on a neighbor’s property. With great eagerness we set out on the last dozen miles of our trip to find our new place.
When we first saw the piece of land, I must say it didn’t look like the Garden of Eden I was expecting. Mr. Talbot pointed to a stick with a red rag tied to it. “Your property begins right there at that stake,” he told us, “and extends half a mile east, north, west, then south to make a square.”
“Half a mile, hon,” Papa said to Mama. “That’s four Salt Lake City blocks. Sixteen square blocks in all!”
Papa slowed the horses to a walk as he looked over the piece of land. “Seems pretty level,” he said. “Won’t take any clearing either. Not much here but weeds and cactus.”
“It’s a good piece,” Mr. Talbot said. “Needs a little work is all.”
Papa stopped the wagon and jumped down. He kicked the dirt with his boot, picked up a handful and let it trickle through his fingers. “Good sandy loam for growing things,” he said.
“Here’s the gate and back there’s the house,” Mr. Talbot explained. “It’s not very big. You’ll have to add on. The Evans should be out in a month or so.”
We could see the lone building surrounded by a tangle of weeds. It was just the right size for a playhouse.
“Papa’ll build a new one and let us have that one to play in,” Caroline said to Ed and me.
“Goody!” I squealed and jumped up and down at the thought.
Papa climbed into the wagon and we started off to find the dugout we were going to live in. When we saw it, it looked like a playhouse too. A steep roof sloped down to the ground on two sides. At one end was a door and dirt steps that led down to a room that had been dug out of the ground. A window in the opposite end gave the only light.
“Who are our neighbors?” Papa asked.
“Neighbors?” Mr. Talbot seemed puzzled.
“Up there where the smoke’s coming out of the chimneys,” Papa explained.
I looked in the direction he pointed and saw some more slanty roofs with gray wisps puffing up into the sky.
“Oh,” he laughed. “That’s just some of the old Indians who stayed here when the others moved onto the reservation.”
“How come?” Papa asked.
“They’re pretty old and didn’t want to go, so the new owners let them stay. They won’t bother you any—can hardly move around even.”
“How many are there?”
“Just five. All squaws. Each one has a brave assigned to her, who comes down once a week with supplies.”
“Do they live together?”
“No, each one has a separate house. Just leave them alone. They’re perfectly harmless.”
Ed was looking at me in a way that meant here was a new adventure that needed to be explored, and I was looking back at him as though to say I’d have to think about it first.
We soon unpacked our wagon and Papa hooked up the smokestack of the stove to the chimney, ready for Mama to start cooking. It was hard to believe we were here at last.
Before dinner we knelt down to thank the Lord for our safe arrival at our new home.

When I was young, my friends and I often played ball in an alley behind our home. A woman named Mrs. Shinas rented a tiny house nearby, and she used to watch us play from her window. She rarely came out of her house, and when she did, she never smiled. We all thought that she was mean. She had a big dog, an English setter, and whenever one of our baseballs rolled in its direction—which happened often—Mrs. Shinas would send the dog to fetch it. We wouldn’t see the ball again. Soon we ran out of baseballs.

In those days, we didn’t have lawn sprinklers, and so each day I watered our lawn by hand with a hose. One day as I stood watering our little stretch of grass, I noticed that Mrs. Shinas’s lawn looked a little shabby. It took only a few more minutes to water it, too, and soon I was watering her lawn each day.

When autumn came that year, one of my tasks was to clear our yard of leaves. I sprayed the ground with a hose, pushing the leaves into a pile with the force of the water. I decided to gather up the leaves on Mrs. Shinas’s yard as well, and as I was doing this one day, she came to her door and beckoned for me to come inside. I turned off the hose and went into her house.

She invited me to sit in her living room, and she gave me a cookie and a glass of milk. As I sat there eating my cookie, she showed me her collection of little china dogs. I could tell that they were her most prized possession. Then she thanked me for taking care of her lawn. It was the first conversation I had ever had with her.

Mrs. Shinas then went into her kitchen and returned with a box. In it were all the baseballs that her dog had taken. She handed me the box, said thank you—and smiled! It was the first time I’d ever seen her smile.

When they returned for our second meeting, the two missionaries spoke to me of many new things that I did not know but felt were true. When they told me about the Word of Wisdom, I felt my heart sink, and I said “Tell me how I, of all persons, can give up alcohol, since I have tried every way I know how, and have had no success.” They asked me if I believed in God and in the things they had taught me and if I felt that I had faith in the Lord. I replied that I did.
“Good,” they said. “If you will listen to us, we’ll help you and the Lord will give you the power to overcome your problem.” “I’ll be infinitely grateful,” I answered. Their exhortations filled me with joy, with hope, and with faith, and I really desired in my heart to follow their guidance. When I prayed I felt more and more self-confidence, and from that morning, with my newborn courage, I imposed the rule that I would never drink cognac again. And I was able to maintain that rule though I suffered greatly. With the help of the elders, and with humility, I was able to gradually reduce the doses of other alcoholic beverages and of cigarettes. It was not easy, but I felt the Lord near to me, helping me. I felt that I had to do my part and that I would not be alone in this trial.
After a month and a half I was able to overcome my vices. Finally free, I felt ready to be baptized, with my wife, on December 28, 1977. I came up out of the baptismal waters renovated in body and spirit, sure that the Lord forgets our sins if we are truly repentant. I can’t explain what a joy it was to abandon the old me and see myself reborn full of trust in myself and love for my fellowman. I had an immense desire to recover all the lost time showing gratitude to the Lord with a commitment to do everything that he commanded me.