Gospel Story Finder

Another trait that characterizes Brother Rivera is his love of the scriptures. In addition to the Word of Wisdom, it is the scriptures to which he attributes his added vitality and energy in life. “I try to read the scriptures every day,” he says. “Even with my many years, I still have a lot to learn, so I continue to study, to wrap myself in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I want to be a little better every day.”
Héctor says he sees his father reading the scriptures constantly. “In the morning when I wake up I find him reading the Book of Mormon, the Church magazines, and other Church books. Then when I go to bed at night, I see him in his room again, reading the same things. Every time I see this I marvel. When I saw how much he loved the scriptures, I began to read the Book of Mormon myself.”

I think Emily Hill, a handcart pioneer, understood the principle of cherishing and watching over another. As she and her sister Julia struggled over Rocky Ridge in terrible conditions-in a 27-hour, 15-mile march-they were in desperate straits. Julia's granddaughter later shared this dream she had about the sisters:

"I could see Julia and Emily stranded in the snow on the windy summit of Rocky Ridge with the rest of the Willie handcart company. They had no heavy clothing to keep them warm. Julia was sitting in the snow, shaking. She could not carry on. Emily, who was freezing as well, knew that if she did not help Julia stand up, Julia would die. As Emily wrapped her arms around her sister to help her up, Julia began to cry-but no tears came, only soft whimpering sounds. Together they walked slowly to their handcart. Thirteen died that terrible night. Julia and Emily survived."[8]

Later, in Pilkana, a suburb of Calcutta, Cécile found scorching temperatures, flood conditions throughout the monsoon season, and a level of poverty that dumbfounded her. “But I also found so much hope, because the children still know how to laugh and have fun like children all over the world.”
There Cécile also met a European couple who had been working for twenty years to help the most destitute Indians become self-reliant. “They had started a wholly Indian welfare project, and I was lucky to be allowed into that undertaking,” she says. “I found a training center where girls fourteen to seventeen are taught to make batik prints, so that one day they may be able to provide for their families.”
With her experience in fashion design, Cécile also trained the girls to make patterns and cut and sew their own clothing. The girls now make clothes for the children in the orphanage.
Cécile also helped with the opening of a soup line for the poor—and free medical examinations. “There,” she says, “those who have little give to those who have nothing.”

When I was a few months away from returning from my mission, I started thinking a great deal about my life after my mission. I thought heavily about what lay ahead, especially with regards to my education. I often got frightened whenever the thought came to mind because my family didn’t have the funds to send me to school and I wasn’t sure I would be successful. I knew BYU-Pathway Worldwide was an option, but I didn’t know how adequate it was. Nearing the completion of my mission, I got an email to consider BYU-Pathway. I registered for the semester that started a week before I would return home. I knew I would be able to do a make-up work as soon as I returned. Just a day after I got home, I went for my first Pathway in-person gathering.
During PathwayConnect, I realized it was an exceptional program. It is truly “an innovative approach to education—one unique to the Church Education System and to the world” as President Russell M. Nelson proclaimed.1 It increased my faith, gave me hope, sharpened my intellect, and prepared me for the responsibilities I have now and those to come. My mission drew me much closer to the Savior and increased my spiritual well-being. PathwayConnect, while also keeping me close to the Savior, increased my love for others, increased my desire to serve, and improved my temporal well-being.
It wasn’t always smooth. I took my first semester with my smartphone only while I was working a low-income job. It was very challenging, especially during the second semester. I couldn’t do it all with my phone anymore so I shared a laptop with a friend named Loveth Ngumah, but I could only use it at the chapel. I would go there every evening after work, wait for her to finish studying, and then I would take over. Sometimes it meant I get home at 11 PM, and some nights were spent at the chapel, but I never gave up. I knew it was going to change my life anyway, so it was worth it. Soon, I was blessed with a laptop scholarship.
PathwayConnect in itself and the challenges faced prepared me for the busy responsibilities of an assistant stake clerk and Pathway service missionary. Also, it helped me secure a job as a quality assurance specialist for the Family History Department of the Africa West Area Office after completing my first certificate from BYU-Idaho Online.
This has been life-changing! I always hoped to be a part of the Church workforce, but I never saw myself in that position any time soon! Every morning at work I look through my office window to see the Accra Ghana Temple and thank the Lord for such an opportunity to serve in and work for the Church.
I am a first-generation university student. I am almost finished with my second certificate, and then I will finish my associate’s and bachelor’s degree. With every certificate or milestone, my self-esteem increases and my fear of the future decreases because I feel I am one step closer to securing a better future. Because I know I am nothing without God and this inspired program, I have learned to be humble and kind. I have extended helping hands to many other PathwayConnect students to give back. I created a WhatsApp group for PathwayConnect students around the globe to help them through tips and video demonstrations each week. Now, whenever I think about what lies ahead, I can’t help but smile and be eternally grateful for an inspired program called PathwayConnect.

From England:
“In my calling as branch president, I decided one day to invite our whole community to join us in fasting [and giving a fast offering] for the people of Ethiopia. I had 4,000 leaflets produced, which we distributed to homes in our area.
“One of the leaflets was delivered to a nonmember, and his wife felt impressed to take part. It was the name of the Church on the leaflet which first impressed them.
“The husband came to the chapel with the fast offering as invited, and I met him there. I gave him a tour of our small building, shared my testimony with him, and invited him to come to church Sunday. He came, and I introduced him to our missionaries, who arranged to call on the home.
“I was privileged to join with the missionaries on several joint teaching visits, and I developed a close relationship with the family.
“On the evening of March 2, the night before the date I had set, I baptized the wife. Her husband will follow soon, and their daughter.
“We have now met other families through this one, who are being taught. As for my wife and me, we have set another date!”

One day on the school bus, Rachel Chase and Lauren Smith, both in the Acworth Ward seminary, were talking about what a good seminary lesson they had that day. Curtis Clinch repeated something his pastor had told him about the Latter-day Saints being one of the fastest growing religions.
Rachel agreed and said, “It kind of makes you think, doesn’t it, Curtis?”
He answered, “Yeah, it kind of does.”
Rachel asked, “Do you want to come to seminary with us?” Instead of Curtis answering, Heidi Hetzer, another friend who had been listening to their conversation, surprised them by saying, “Oh, I do.” Rachel arranged to pick up both Curtis and Heidi, and they have been going ever since—especially after their baptisms a couple of months later.

Heidi said, “I’ve known Rachel and her brother, Stephen, since they moved to Georgia. I’ve seen how close their family is. And I’ve known other members. They all seem happier than the rest of us. I’ve been interested in the Church for a while, but I didn’t have the opportunity to learn more. So when Rachel was talking to Curtis and invited him to seminary, I just said I wanted to come. After that first day in seminary, I went to school with a newfound happiness. Since then, it’s been lasting.”

In fact, on her baptism day, Rachel’s dad noticed her happy attitude. And her friends asked if she was wearing different makeup or something because she had a glow about her.

Heidi said, “Rachel invited me over to talk to the missionaries, and I went to a fireside that same night. I dove right into the Church.”

A few years ago, right before Christmas, I had a stake conference assignment in California. On the flight back to Utah, I decided to take a short nap. My seat was C, near the aisle. Just before the cabin door closed, a beautiful lady in her mid-70s stood beside me and said, “May I have my seat?” I said, “Yes, ma’am.” That was the end of my nap. She loved to talk.
She said, “I don’t know why I should have to fly to a cold place like Utah at Christmastime to visit my grandchildren. I hate to leave sunny California.”
She went on to say, “Besides, there are strange and weird people in Utah. They call themselves ‘Mormons.’ My daughter married one of them.”
I said, “I am sorry, but before you go any further, I should tell you that I am one of them.”
Then she said, “I am sorry—I didn’t mean that.”
I said, “Oh, you really meant that, didn’t you?”
Our conversation went on until we were above Provo. We knew we would soon be landing in Salt Lake.
“Patti”—that’s her name—“you have been talking for most of the flight. I feel like I have known you from the pre-earth life. Before we land in Salt Lake City, I’d like to ask you a few questions if I may.”
I asked her sincerely, “Patti, your deceased husband—do you know you can see him again?”
She said, “Oh, is that possible?”
“Do you know your deceased son, Matt, who died as a baby—you will see him also in the future?”
Her eyes became moist, and her voice was shaking. The Spirit of the Lord touched her. I sensed she had missed them so much.
Then I prayerfully asked her, “Patti, do you know you have a loving and kind Heavenly Father, who loves you so dearly?”
She said, “Do I?”
“Patti, do you know your Heavenly Father has a special plan for you and that your family can be forever?”
“Can we?” she replied.
“Have you ever heard the plan before?”
She said, “No.”
Very sincerely I asked her, “Would you like to know about it?”
“Yes, I would,” she responded.
The Spirit of the Lord touched her deeply. And the Lord promises us, “For mine elect hear my voice and harden not their hearts.” He also said: “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep. … My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
Before we came to this earth, our Heavenly Father gently and peacefully placed in our bosoms “the love of God.” In Heavenly Father’s eyes, you are a very special child. My friend Patti has the spark of divinity in her soul. When Patti heard the word of Heavenly Father, she was touched deeply and she responded to His voice.
We were total strangers, but the Lord placed one of His precious daughters quietly next to me. I was praying earnestly that the Spirit of the Lord would touch her and speak to her.
The missionaries taught Patti. Three weeks later, while she was staying in Utah, Patti called me: “Brother Kikuchi, this is Patti. I am going to be baptized. Would you come to my baptism services?”
My wife and I went to her baptism. Many members were kindly fellowshipping her. Oh, I shall never forget her joyful countenance as she came out of the water!
I shall never forget her sweet tears at the sacred altar in the Salt Lake Temple a year later. I remember her peaceful and celestial glow when she was sealed to her deceased husband and son and living daughter who had become a member of the Church. She now knows her family is forever in the Lord. My friend Patti Louise Donaldson found the Lord Jesus Christ. Now she lives in Utah.

Ben woke up at five that morning, anxious about his first day of work. After shaving and taking a shower in the bathroom adjoining the guest bedroom, he got dressed in the gray work slacks and shirt he had bought, purposely made dirty, and washed the day before. No use looking like a new worker, he had reasoned. Besides, his future father-in-law had suggested that he try to dress as much like the others as possible. They’re all good boys, he had explained to Ben, but sometimes they can make it rough on people who are different from themselves. Try to fit in, to be as much like them as possible, and you won’t have any trouble.
He sat in the bedroom and watched the clock move slowly to six. Then, deciding he probably wouldn’t wake up the others if he were quiet, he padded silently down the hall through the large dining room with the massive oak dining table into the large kitchen and then out on the patio. Sitting down at a table overlooking the swimming pool, he watched the Southern morning spread across the lush green mountains—a contrast to the elephant-hide browns of his Wyoming hills.
Kim’s father was the next one up. He came out on the patio to sit with Ben. “How’d you sleep?”
“Fine.”
“Good,” he said, brushing a large hand over his bald scalp. “No one else is up. I guess breakfast is up to me.”
“No, don’t bother. I can wait. It’s still early.”
“I’d better warn you,” he said with a smile, “Kim likes to sleep in, so if you’re marrying her with the idea of having her fix you breakfast, you’d better think it over.”
Ben grinned, “I hadn’t even thought about it.”
“I suppose not. You’re both too much in love to be very practical. If you’d been practical, you both wouldn’t have fallen in love with someone who lives 1,500 miles from your homes. I can’t understand it,” he teased. “I sent Kim to Ricks College, after she joined your church, to get an education. Instead she got you.”
“I reckon she got a good deal,” Ben grinned, purposely adding his cowboy drawl. “They say a good man is hard to find.”
“Yes, that’s what they say,” he said, suddenly serious, “and I think Kim has found a good one. Let me get you some orange juice and me some coffee … that is, unless you can convert me in the next five minutes.”
In a few minutes he was back with a tray. He set it down and returned with two slices of toast and a file of paper work he constantly carried around with him.
“Are you worried about today?” he asked Ben.
“I guess a little.”
“I’m in an awkward position too, you know,” he said with a grin. “It’s true you’re going to marry my only child, and that I got you a job at the plant, and that I hope someday you’ll take it over and run it so I can retire—but I wouldn’t want anyone accusing me of being partial to you.”
“I’m not afraid of hard work,” Ben said seriously.
“I’m sure you’ll do well,” he said, pushing the file folder away from him. “In a way I was serious about not playing favorites. I’ve told one of my supervisors to put you wherever he needs you. I don’t plan to interfere. You’ll be on your own. Is that acceptable with you?”
“It’s the way I’d prefer it,” Ben said firmly.
A few minutes later, Kim came out, still wearing a robe over her night gown.
“Kimberly,” her father gently scolded, “you shouldn’t be out here with just a robe on.”
“Why not? It’s very modest.”
“Seeing a woman before she’s done herself up can be a rude shock. Maybe Ben will change his mind about marrying you.”
“Daddy,” she drawled with a purposely thick Southern accent, “you’re such a tease.”
“I think she looks good—even in the morning,” Ben defended.
“See there, smarty?” Kim lightly countered. “He thinks I’m a natural beauty, a regular Southern rose.”
“Okay, Rose,” her father concluded, lovingly touching her arm, “how about cooking us some breakfast?”
“Slave driver,” she protested with a smile and a hug.
While Kim cooked bacon and eggs, her father huddled over his stack of reports.
“Paper work!” he growled, shaking his head in disgust. “It’s all I ever do. You know, when I was your age and just starting out, it was fun. I had my own small welding shop, and I did all my own work. If it hadn’t been for the development of nuclear power, I suppose I’d still be in that little shop. When we first got into fabricating fuel rods for nuclear reactors, I never dreamed there’d be so much red tape. It’s been 15 years since I’ve welded. All I do now is push papers.”
After breakfast, Ben left for work. Kim’s father said he would work at his office at home. “Besides,” he said half seriously, “they seem to get more done when I’m not around.”
Ben went to the main office and filled out the forms for his employment. He was issued a film badge which would monitor the dose of radioactivity he would be exposed to.
A supervisor gave him a tour of the plant. It seemed like something from science fiction. Operators stood behind lead-lined partitions and manipulated remote-controlled mechanical arms and fingers, loading small pellets of plutonium into the eight-foot-long rods and then welding the ends shut. The rods were then ready to be shipped.
After the tour, they went to a cafeteria for a break.
“What do you want me to do?” Ben asked, sipping his root beer.
“We’ll put you on checking the X rays of the welds,” the supervisor said, taking a long sip from his cup. “You know, this company’s been good to us. This was a poor area before, but now there’s jobs. Our kids get good medical care. We can send ’em away to college if they want. Most of us own shares in it. We sort of think of it as our company.”
They walked back to the plant, to where the X rays of the welds were inspected. The supervisor showed Ben an X ray and pointed out a white patch which indicated a welding flaw. “The contract says that all welding flaws will be repaired but, to tell you the truth, when we signed the contract, we didn’t really know what we were getting into. We’ve found out that even when a flaw shows up on the X ray, it doesn’t make the weld any less watertight. So when it’s a small flaw, we just let ’em go through.”
“Oh,” Ben said.
“Fact is we can’t make a profit unless we reject fewer than 5 percent of the welds.”
“But what about the X rays?” Ben asked. “There’s still the record of the flaw on the X ray.”
“You’re pretty smart, aren’t you,” the supervisor said, walking to a desk. “I’m going to show you one of the most important tools in this place. It’s made us a profit.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a black felt-tip pen.
Ben looked at the pen for several seconds and then it dawned on him what the supervisor was showing him. “You mark the X ray so the flaw isn’t visible?”
“You catch on fast. That’s what we do. C’mon here. I’ll show you how it’s done.” With one small mark, the flaw on the X ray disappeared. “Now all you have to do is sign it.” Ben signed his name.
Before he left, the supervisor introduced him to Jesse Colson, a hard-boned, tough-talking man who also checked X rays. Then the supervisor left.
“Just do what I do, and you won’t have no trouble,” Jesse glumly suggested.
One day during his second week of work, he had just put one of the X rays on the reject pile when Jesse stopped him.
“What are you doing?”
“Rejecting it. Look at it for yourself.”
“I don’t need to look at it. Let it go through.”
Ben looked up at Jesse’s hard face. “We can reject up to 5 percent.”
“Why bother to put the welders to all that extra work, when we can fix it right here.” Jesse took out his pen and made a small mark, covering up the flaw. He dropped it in the pass box. “If you’re about to reject more than two a week, you talk to me about it first,” he demanded.
On Sunday, Ben attended the Gospel Doctrine class with Kim. Several questions were asked, and since nobody else seemed to volunteer, Ben answered. Finally, near the end of the class, the teacher broke into a broad grin and quipped, “I see we have somebody here who has all the answers. What am I doing here teaching the class? This Yankee friend of Kim’s ought to be.”
On the way home Kim leaned her head against his shoulder and sighed happily.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“You. You’re handsome and smart and good. Do you know what one of the elderly ladies told me today after Sunday School? She said that you looked to her like the next bishop.”
“She shouldn’t have said that,” Ben said firmly. Still, he was flattered. She could be right, he thought to himself.
Monday after work, he stopped by the library and checked out a book dealing with nuclear reactors. After retiring to his room for the night, he stayed up past midnight studying the design of a nuclear power reactor. He wanted to know what happened to the fuel rods after they left the plant, and, even if he wouldn’t admit it, he wanted to know what would happen in a reactor if a fuel rod leaked through one of the welding flaws that he had passed.
Wednesday he was asked to give a talk in sacrament meeting. He spent several hours during the week in preparation. Once he caught himself thinking, how would a future bishop give this talk?
After he had given the talk on Sunday, several people came up and complimented him. One of them was the elder’s quorum president, who also asked him if he would accept an assignment to be a home teacher. Ben accepted the assignment.
What had started as a little annoyance grew as the days passed. Every time he signed his name to pass a weld which should have been rejected, his guilt grew.
He talked with Kim’s father one night about it. “Did you know that some of the welds that have flaws are being passed?”
“Are they?” Kim’s father said with little interest.
“Don’t you think that’s important?”
“Not really. The work we turn out is the best in the industry.”
“But I have to sign my name even when I know there’s a flaw.”
“Don’t worry,” his future father-in-law advised, “it’s only red tape. In business, you have to take shortcuts.”
Ben had assigned to him a teacher as a companion for home teaching, but by the time Ben thought about it, his companion was on vacation, and it was the last of the month. That Saturday afternoon, he took Kim with him. They visited three of the four families assigned to him and idly chatted about weather and gardens.
“You’ll have to show me where this other family lives,” Ben said, showing Kim the name and address of the last family.
“Oh, why did they have to give you him?” she asked. “He never comes out to church.”
“Do you know where he lives?” Ben asked, looking at the name, Zeke Stone.
“Oh, Ben, do we have to go there? It’s up some country road. Who knows how to get there, and he won’t even care if we go or not.” She leaned close to him. “C’mon, let’s go swimming.”
“Okay,” he said.
Two days later, he got a phone call from the elder’s quorum president about his home teaching. “How’d you do?”
“Got ’em all,” Ben said, resolving that next month he really would visit Zeke Stone, the man who lived in the hills.
That week they sent out their wedding announcement. It showed a picture of the Washington Temple.
The next Sunday, after sacrament meeting, the elder’s quorum president asked if he could talk with Ben for a while. Kim agreed to wait for him, whispering into his ear, “I just know it’s about the vacancy in the elder’s quorum presidency.”
The quorum president and Ben found an empty room and sat down opposite each other on folding chairs. The president was a big man, a farmer, one who had a hard time conducting quorum business, always a little self-conscious about his lack of schooling. He began with prayer.
“You know, I was out shopping for groceries yesterday and I saw Brother Stone.” Speaking softly, almost apologetically, he continued, “Well, I asked him how he liked his new home teachers and he said he’d never seen you.” The president cleared his throat and fumbled with his clipboard. “Now I’m not very good at records, but I’ve written down here that you visited him. I must have made a mistake, don’t you think?”
Suddenly he looked into Ben’s eyes, and Ben knew that he knew that there had been no mistake. Ben felt the sweat pouring down his arms. He covered his mouth with one hand and looked down at the floor. He felt tears streaking down his face, and it seemed that there was a fist inside his throat. He swallowed hard and whispered, “Could I get a drink of water?”
“Sure, son,” the president answered gently.
Ben rushed to the fountain and let the cool water rush over his face and mouth. Pulling out a handkerchief, he wet it and wiped his brow.
He turned around. The quorum president stood to his left a few feet away, and Kim stood on his right. They both seemed to want to come closer to help him, but neither knew what to say.
“I’ve lied to the Lord,” he agonized. “We never visited Zeke Stone. We went swimming instead.”
The president cleared his throat and said quietly, “We all make mistakes. It takes a big man to admit he’s done wrong.”
Ben turned to Kim. “Appearances … I’m tired of putting up appearances. Covering flaws, pretending they’re not real. Pretending to be something I’m not. I need to worry about my own repenting.”
Suddenly Kim ran into his arms and held him close to her.
The quorum president touched his shoulder. “It was partly my fault. I should’ve showed you how to get there. It’s not easy to find.”
“Can we go up there now?” Ben asked.
“Sure we can. Let’s go now.”
They drove Kim home and then headed out of town. They followed the highway for a few miles, then turned onto a county road, and then followed a rutted dirt road. At one point the road veered sharply upward, crossed railroad tracks, and then sunk rapidly downward.
“I’d hate to hit that going fast,” Ben observed.
Then they turned off the dirt road onto a path. The thick growth of bushes and trees closed in around them as they continued, and the branches slapped at the sides of the car as they passed.
Suddenly they were out of the green tunnel and into a clearing near the top of the hill.
Zeke Stone was working his garden. He was an old man, wearing faded bib coveralls and a tattered hat to shade his face. A battered pickup truck stood beside a small weather-beaten house. There was no screen door on the house, and chickens roamed in and out the door. A large dog came running and barking toward them. The quorum president honked his horn and got out to greet Brother Stone. The dog’s paws landed on his chest as he gave his greetings.
“Look at that!” Brother Stone shouted with delight. “I got visitors from the Church.” He called his dog away from them.
They all stood by the garden and talked. Ben listened with admiration to their talk, loose, full of laughter and good feelings.
Brother Stone loaded them down with freshly picked corn and tomatoes. Then he invited them over to the shady part of his house, where he had set up two car seats outside. Going inside, he brought out a banjo, a jar of homemade grape juice, and three cups. While they sat and drank, he tuned up his banjo and played.
The quorum president tapped his feet, chuckling at the endless variations of “Cripple Creek,” while Ben merely sat and smiled.
“You unhappy?” Brother Stone asked Ben.
“No sir.”
“Then loosen up. You look like a Yankee.”
Monday morning at work, Ben rejected welds which were outside the tolerances set in the contract. By ten o’clock, there were ten rejected X rays on his desk.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Jesse snarled when he discovered the rejected welds. “You can’t reject all these.”
“Look at the X rays.”
Suddenly Ben was being pulled to his feet by his shoulders, and then found himself staring into Jesse’s clenched fist.
“Jesse, let go of me,” Ben said quietly.
He dropped his hold. “Change the X rays.”
“No, I won’t.”
“Then get out of here! I’m warning you! All I got to do is make one phone call for my friends and you won’t make it out of here in one piece.”
“I won’t be part of a lie,” Ben said firmly.
“Then quit, walk out while you still can.”
Ben stood, squared away to fight if he had to, his mind racing at what choice to make. Finally he said, “Okay, Jesse. I don’t belong here anyway.”
As he turned to walk away, Jesse called after him, “If you ever tell anyone about the way we work here, you’ll regret it.”
That evening Kim and Ben went to the meetinghouse to be interviewed for temple recommends. The wedding was less than a week away. Ben was elated to answer one of the bishop’s questions, “Are you honest in your dealings with your fellowmen?”
Over the next few days, he tried looking for other work, but there wasn’t anything else—or else people in the town, hearing about what they considered his betrayal of the company, wouldn’t talk to him about a job.
And at night, Ben and Kim’s father seemed to be constantly dueling, either about the company or else about Kim’s affection. Ben was careful to limit these discussions to times when Kim was not in the room, for he hadn’t told her yet about the circumstances which led to his quitting.
“Doesn’t it bother you that you’re sending defective fuel rods out of your plant?” Ben asked one evening in the office at home.
“What makes you a sudden expert on nuclear power?” his future father-in-law countered.
“Okay,” Ben admitted, “I’m not an engineer. But why bother to do the X rays at all then?”
“Because it’s in the contract.”
“And why is it in the contract?” Ben pressed.
“Red tape. It’s just another form to fill out.”
Finally, having looked for work and failed, Ben asked Kim the inevitable question one morning three days before the wedding. “What would you think about us going back West after we’re married?”
“You’ll find work. I know you will. You haven’t asked Daddy to help you.”
“I don’t want his help,” Ben answered sharply.
“Why didn’t you stay at the job you had?” Kim asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“We’ve got to talk about it. If I’m going to be your wife, I’ve got to know what’s wrong. You and Daddy hardly talk to each other anymore. What’s wrong?”
“Okay, Kim, I’ll tell you. They’re covering up their mistakes. Some of the fuel rods are being passed with defects in them. It violates their contract.”
“That can’t be true. Daddy would never let that happen.”
“He knows, Kim. I told him. He says it isn’t important.”
“Then it isn’t important,” Kim defended.
“It’s dishonest.”
“Ben, I won’t have you talking like that about my father.”
“Kim, what do you want for a husband? A cardboard cutout that you can prop up smiling for all social occasions? I can’t be like that. You’ve either got to decide between your father or me, but you can’t have both of us.”
She stormed away from him. He went to his room and started packing slowly, hoping that there was a way to get around the problem, hoping she would come in and apologize, hoping that her father would apologize, trying to remember what the bishop had said about marriage in the interview.
A few minutes later, Kim did knock on his door. He opened it quickly.
“There’s a phone call for you,” she said.
He went to the hall phone to answer it. Kim followed him.
“My name is Porter. I’m from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I wonder if I could talk to you for a few minutes … unofficially. I’m staying at the motel just outside town …”
He put the phone down. Kim stood across the hall from him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Somebody from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Kim, they must know about the welds. Tell your father.”
He ran into his room and got his suitcase and ran out to his car.
“Where are you going?” Kim cried.
“Do you think I’ll have much chance of staying alive in this town? Everybody’s going to think I told the authorities. I’m leaving town as soon as I can.”
He drove around to the back of the motel and walked inside, finally finding the room number given by the man on the phone.
“Thank you for coming,” the man said. “It’s about your job as an inspector of the X rays. Was there anything strange about the inspection procedures?”
“Are you going to close the plant?” Ben asked.
“Oh no, nothing like that. There have been a few complaints, and we just wanted to check around.”
“There were some irregularities,” Ben said as he began to explain his experience.
When he was finished, the man thanked him and stood up to show him to the door.
“What will you do now?” Ben asked.
“There’s a plane being sent from Washington with several men like myself. We’ll conduct a thorough review of the plant’s operation. You’ve been most helpful. I’ll keep our little talk unofficial, but it will be useful in our review.”
Ben ran into the motel office to use a pay phone. He called Kim. “Did you tell your father?”
“Yes, but he’s not doing anything. He’s just sitting there, like he’s in shock.” With urgency in her voice, Kim said, “He wants to see you.”
“Okay, I’ll be there in a minute.”
As Ben drove through the sleepy town, he had the feeling that it was a time bomb, set to blow up in his face.
Kim met him at the door and told him that her father was in his office. Ben found him, idly gazing out the window.
“There’s a group of government inspectors coming here. Isn’t there anything you want to do … to prepare for them?”
He turned to face Ben. “Do you still love my daughter?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then why don’t you marry her?”
“I can’t stay in this town.”
“Then take her out West. I guess there’s worse things than Wyoming, aren’t there?” he said with a smile.
“She won’t go with me,” Ben said glumly. “She loves you too much to leave.”
“Let me look into that,” Kim’s father said confidently. “Tell me, what do you think I ought to do about my company?”
“I think you ought to cooperate with the inspection, find out what’s wrong, and then run it the way it should be run.”
He studied Ben intently, then banged his fist on his desk, smiled and said, “I’m going to do that.”
They were interrupted by a phone call from a secretary at the plant. It was a short call and when it was over, Kim’s father said simply, “They’ve arrived.”
“I’m worried about some of the guys at the plant. I bet I’m not very popular with them now.”
“Tell me their names and I’ll call and explain things to them.”
Ben gave him Jesse’s name, and he called the plant and asked to speak with Jesse Colson. After several minutes delay, Kim’s father asked, “What do you mean he left? Where did he go? Well, did anybody leave with him? Listen, I want the name of every man that left. You get hold of those men and tell them I want to speak with them!”
He hung up, turned to Ben and said, “They left work.”
“I’m leaving town now.”
“No, let me speak to them.”
“Tell Kim I’ll call her when I get to Wyoming,” Ben said as he ran out of the office to his car.
He turned onto the highway. A few miles out of town, as he rounded a curve, he saw a car parked ahead of him at the side of the road. Suspecting trouble, he turned into a country road. He saw the car start up, pull a U-turn, and head after him.
They both raced down the road, dust billowing up after them, so that it became difficult for Ben to see how far the car was from him, but, on a curve, he turned back and saw that the car was gaining on him.
Then he realized that he’d been on the road before and that if he made the proper sequence of turns from county road to county road that it would lead to Brother Zeke Stone.
A few minutes later with a plan in mind, Ben raced up the steep slope of the railroad crossing and bumped across the tracks. Once over the tracks, he slammed on his brakes. As the car came to a stop, he jumped out, ran for the thick foliage, and waited for the other car.
As he had expected, the car had raced up the steep slope. It wasn’t until the driver was starting down the other side that he saw Ben’s car parked in the middle of the road. Ben could see that the driver was Jesse. He slammed on his brakes and veered to the left, just managing to miss Ben’s car.
Jesse bounded out of his car, swearing about nearly getting killed. He ran to the car to see if Ben was inside and then yelled to two others, “Burn it!” Then Jesse went to his car and pulled out a rifle, looked around, and picked up a CB mike.
Ben turned around and fought his way through the foliage, heading parallel to the road so that he would cross the lane which led to Brother Stone’s place. After about half an hour, he had made it there.
Brother Stone was outside in his garden. Ben ran up to him out of breath and scratched from his trek through the woods.
“What’s wrong?” Brother Stone asked.
Ben explained, and then asked, “Can you take me to another town so I can catch a bus back home?”
“Sure I can,” Brother Stone said slowly. First he went to his well and filled his radiator with water. “Water leaks a mite,” filled his left rear tire with air, “Tires leak a bit too,” and started the pickup running. Then he walked slowly to his house. Ben followed after him, trying to get him to move faster, expecting any minute to see Jesse burst through the clearing with his rifle blazing.
Brother Stone stood in the doorway and scratched his head. “Now let me see. If we drive down there, we’re going to pass by ’em, and they’re going to look inside, and they’re going to see you, and then they’re going to stop us. How are they going to tell it’s you? Because you look like a Yankee. But we’re going to fool ‘em, aren’t we?”
Ben ended up with a faded pair of coveralls, a pair of crusty old boots, and a checkered long sleeve shirt.
Brother Stone examined the effect critically. “One more thing,” he said with a wry smile. He went to a shelf and pulled down a large brown jug.
They started down the lane. From the lane they turned onto the road, heading opposite the direction of the railroad tracks. Even so, as they turned one corner, there were three cars and a pickup parked off the side. Four men stood idly by, waiting to walk into the woods. One of the men had a dog.
Brother Stone continued going at the same slow pace. Calmly he directed Ben, “Now, pick up the jug, and tip it up like you’re going to take a drink, and so it covers your face. It’s only water, you know. I threw the other stuff away when I got baptized.”
When they were past, Brother Stone chuckled softly, “They didn’t pay us any attention at all. Son, you’re officially a hillbilly.”
When they arrived at the town 40 miles away and Brother Stone stopped in front of the bus depot, Ben was at a loss to express his thanks adequately. Finally he thrust out his hand and said, “I’ll never forget this.”
“Just a sweet ride in the country. There’s nothing to thank me for.”
Ben asked him if he’d phone Kim and tell her he was safe. Then he was gone. Several seconds later, Ben realized he was still holding the jug.
He walked inside and went to the ticket counter. Setting the jug on the counter, he asked the attendant, “When’s the next bus north?”
The man looked at him critically and demanded, “You got any money?”
Ben looked down at his clothes, then to the jug, then to the man, and burst out laughing.
Regaining his composure finally, he fished into the front pocket, pulled out his wallet, and showed the man some money.
Ben bought a ticket, sat down, and waited. He gazed blankly at the floor, going over in his mind the events of the past few weeks, wondering if he’d ever see Kim again.
A man sat down beside him and whispered, “Mind if I have a drink from your jug?”
Ben nodded absently.
The man took a drink and spat it out. “What’s that?”
“Water,” Ben answered.
The bus was on time. Ben found the first empty row and sat down. He wanted to be alone.
A minute later, as the bus headed down the narrow two-lane road, someone was standing next to him. “Excuse me, I believe you’re sitting in my place.”
He looked up and saw Kim standing there. In shock, he stood up so she could sit beside him.
“What’s in the jug?” she asked suspiciously.
“Water. Kim, why are you on this bus?”
“Because Brother Stone phoned and told us where you were, and because this bus goes through our town one hour before it gets here, and because Daddy is happier now than I’ve seen him for a long time because he’s got a job of rebuilding to do, and because he told me that if I let you go I was a fool—‘That boy is honest and I’d trust him with anything’—and because my mother is riding in the bus four rows back …”
“Your mother is riding on a bus?” Ben asked incredulously.
Kim nodded her head. “And because I love you, and I’ll stick with you even if you want to raise rutabagas in Iceland. Basically I’d say that’s why I’m on this bus.”
He carefully set his jug on the floor, leaned over and kissed her.
A few seats back he could vaguely hear the sound of a woman clearing her throat nervously several times.

I have just finished reading “Taking upon Us His Name” in the April 1982 New Era. It is exactly the article I needed to read at this time. Thank you!
My only daughter, Audrey, and I were both baptized in 1976. She was 15 at the time. She went on to Ricks College, where she met her husband. They were married in the Idaho Falls Temple in December of 1980, and they are expecting their first child in late June. I’m so very happy for them.
On the other hand, since Audrey is gone, I’m all alone in the Church. I have gone to church alone and prayed alone. My spirituality has slowly dwindled away. It’s not much fun when an individual doesn’t have anyone in the family to communicate with on a spiritual level. I have prayed for my spirituality to come back. This article by Sister Ardeth Kapp has increased my testimony quite a bit.
How frail our mortal testimony can be when we are not encouraged by others, be it family or friends. I realized while reading that article that I don’t really need outside help. What matters most is what I feel deep in my heart. All I need is to know that our Heavenly Father loves me unconditionally.
I will continue to pray that other members of my family will be touched by the Holy Spirit as Audrey and I were. I pray that they will someday soon know all about the only true Church here on the earth. I read the New Era from cover to cover every time it comes.
Marina DouganCalgary, Alberta, Canada

I could run a long way in a minute.
Yesterday …
I ran two miles yesterday, like every other day. Fifteen laps, mouth shut all the way, to strengthen the heart and lungs.
Two miles a day, whether I felt like it or not.
I never could work out a labor-saving system for running two miles. Sometimes I tried running with short, quick strides, not lifting my feet very high off the track, and sometimes I tried bounding along with great, high strides. But no matter what method I used, two miles were still two miles, and every inch of them had to be run in the very old-fashioned way of throwing one foot in front of the other for as many times as it took to carry me all the way across the finish line.
There’s no way to sleight-of-hand a two-mile run …
The first two laps were always the hardest, because that was as far as most of the other fellows ever ran. I’d seen them come onto the track, run their two laps, and quit.
Some of them quit sooner.
Sometimes one of them would pass me, running just as hard as he could go, and I’d be tempted to race him. It bothered me to have anyone pass me on the track.
But I’d let him go, and in a lap or two I’d pass him back.
Sometimes he’d be walking, sometimes he’d be standing still, and sometimes he’d be doubled over at the edge of the track, gasping for breath like a chronic smoker.
I had fifteen laps to go, and I didn’t dare forget it. I had my choice of racing with the sprinters or running my fifteen laps.
One or the other.
But not both.
I did race with the sprinters a few times …
The competition was a thrill!
I’d be running along at a good two-mile speed, and I’d hear one of these sprinters coming up behind me, moving fast. He’d swing out around me and start to pass, and I’d let him get two or three strides ahead of me; then I’d hit it with all the speed I had and pass him like a blur!
Or else I’d pass him slowly, staying just a chest ahead of him, until he was at his absolute limit.
Then I’d move like a race horse and show him what a distance runner could do in an all-out sprint!
One day I walked onto the track and sprinted for two laps, keeping to the outer edge of the track and passing every man in sight.
I couldn’t stand to have the sprinters think that I was a distance runner only because I didn’t have the power and speed to sprint. I fed my ego, but I used up the wind I needed for my two miles.
I decided I had to choose between my wind and my ego. I chose my wind.
In a marathon, ego is no substitute for endurance.
I had to coexist with the sprinters. I had no more to gain by racing them in their sprints than they did by racing me in my distance runs.
I never raced them again.
If I raced with them, I didn’t make my fifteen laps.
You can’t win your own game by playing someone else at his, even if you beat him. There’s no way in the world you can win your own game without playing your own game …
And somewhere along the line, I made a decision in cold blood—my game was the two-mile game; I was running to win.
After that I ran my two miles every day, at a two-mile pace, and left the sprinting to the sprinters.
But the first two laps were still the hardest. That was probably because I could always think of so many good reasons why I should quit at the end of the first two laps.
There was only one way I could get past that point—I just had to grit my teeth and keep on running.
And I did …
The rest of the first mile was easier, but at the end of it was another mental barrier. After running one mile all the way to the finish line, I found myself at the starting line of another mile to run, and knew that I had to begin at the beginning and do it all over again.
I tried to ignore the quitter hidden in my mind, the traitor who liked to relax in a mental easy chair and taunt me: “A mile’s enough for anyone …”
I had to keep complete control crossing that dual line, the quitter-killer line, where quitters quit and winners keep on running.
That line killed a lot of quitters …
But once I crossed the line, I crossed the border into a new world, where the air came easier, and my body was lighter, and my brain was quicker and clearer.
The ultimate reward for running the first mile was the opportunity to run the second.
The second mile …
A mile of meditation, and even … relaxation. My brain was rich with oxygen, and I did some of my best thinking bounding along that second mile.
I thought of the physical world and its laws, and I thought of the fine arts and their expression, and I thought of people and their feelings. Especially the people I loved.
And sometimes I pretended she would be there waiting for me, just beyond the finish line …
Why didn’t I tell her how I loved her?
* * *
The last minute must be running out.
The game is finished.
And it wasn’t a two-mile game …
The heart is dead. All used up. Like a candle sputtering out when the last drop of wax is burned away.
Still …
This heart carried me over a lot of miles …
It was a two-mile heart. The heart of the two-mile game …
Can it really be dead?
How can it be dead?
I don’t believe …
I don’t believe it can be dead!
Come on, you two-mile heart! You CAN‘T be dead!
I have things I haven’t finished yet. I have things I haven’t even begun …
Beat! You can!
Beat! You will!
BEAT! I feel it coming …
BEAT! Almost …
THERE!
It beat!
I FELT it beat!
Exhausted …
Relax …
The first two are the hardest …
Now …
Beat! Almost …
Again, with more will …
BEAT!
Nothing …
Was the first time only my imagination?
For her sake …
BEAT!
AGAIN!
I felt it beat again!
AGAIN! …
Again! …
Again …
Again …
The second mile …
The mile of meditation …
Relaxation …
And very soon I’ll tell her how I love her …
“Nurse …”
“Yes; how are you feeling now?” “Much better, thanks, Would you let me have a pen and paper, please? I’d like to write a Christmas letter.”
* * *
The first mile is finished. The second is yet to run.
The second mile …
A soft, golden path, winding through green grass and tall trees, and leading—
Somewhere …
To her?
We’ll see where it leads. It’s a two-mile game, and it isn’t finished yet.
And now …
Now I’ll tell her how I love her …

When my sister was nearly 22 years old she was pregnant with her second child. During late stages of the third trimester she sank into a diabetic coma. This was the first indication that she had this disease. Her life was saved, but she lost the child just two weeks before its due date. When she came out of the coma, to avoid a too hasty surgery to her vulnerable body, she lay days recovering with the lifeless child in her womb. Her sorrows were deep and almost too much to bear. She mourned for her son that she would never hold in her arms, never experience the joy of his breath, his voice, his appearance. She sifted through the shock and making sense of God’s will. The doctrines of the resurrection distilled upon her soul in new ways. And she began to hope.

Now my sister’s greatness does not lie in her enduring this one palpable moment of disappointment. She is great because she, through a lifetime, cultivated the capacity to accept, reach out, and become a balm to the wounded and the weary. She was a gentle calming force to her family, to friends, to strangers. Her ability to notice, accept, and love others made her great. Her dear husband has a way of drawing attention to himself, not just because he truly is a most clever man, but because he is a dwarf. Together, my sister and he had four children, two are dwarfs and two are not. To know this family and my sister is to witness how “… God [truly] is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34). I always found an acceptance and geniality from my sister’s family unmatched by others. And it was just not me; a concourse of struggling individuals passed through their humble and simple home -- the lonely, the forsaken, the despondent and the troubled. On my many visits to their home I hardly ever had their full attention due the additional guests they had taken in. Their doors were open for a meal, a friendly conversation, or a place to retreat until one was able to meet the disappointments that lay outside. They fostered many children, and welcomed wayward teens and forlorn adults as well. One child they took in was a severely abused six year old boy. After months of care, and waiting for the state to locate him a permanent home, my sister could not let him go, so they officially adopted him, and helped carry the burdens of his trauma, loving him as their own, offering him the only stability he would ever know, until, his mental ghosts could not be appeased, and he took his own life in his twenties.

Through all these years of suffering long with others, showing gentleness, meekness, and love unfeigned, my sister’s health continued to deteriorate. Her diabetes was severe and she carried an insulin pump attached to her hip. Her eye sight declined appreciably and required laser surgery. Determined to bring other lives into this world she gave birth to two more children after losing her second. Literally on the edge of death each time, she carried on with these little ones and rejoiced with their cries for breath. She raised them with increasing discomfort and a failing kidney. The twice weekly complete blood dialysis grew wearisome. Her living body seemed to decay before us, instead of the spritely, happy and vibrant girl we knew, the lines of deep pain carved out in her face, and even lying down was not a respite from discomfort. The opportunity for a kidney transplant became evermore dim due to her rare blood type. Not even her four brothers, who loved and idealized her deeply, could provide a match. These four over-achieving brothers knew that the true greatness belonged to our sister. She was the pure one, sanctified by her suffering and sacrifice. We all learned something about the potency of family, how we are called upon to persevere and endure with each other. It is my sister, more than any other that has led to my own personal reflection on the meaning, the depth, and the significance of family, even when things go wrong.

My sister taught me about caring for others even in the most difficult and inconvenient circumstances. She motivated me to think globally and eternally, while serving locally and personally. Finally, after years of waiting, on one Christmas Eve she was notified that a kidney that matched with her was available. She was rushed to Salt Lake City five hours away through the night so that on Christmas morning she would receive the immediate transplant. All went well with the surgery and she began to recover. Unfortunately, she contracted a staph infection in the hospital. And while the kidney was functioning well, all the other bodily systems seem to be shutting down. She spent endless months in the hospital, only going home on rare occasions. Then her lung collapsed and part of it was removed in an emergency surgery. As she was recovering from this additional bodily trauma a hospital attendant dropped her while lifting her to a gurney. Her whole side with the wound from the lung surgery was ripped open. Her deterioration accelerated. In her suffering, as some sought retribution, she calmly uttered to me, “He didn’t mean to.” In her agony she had sympathy for the one who had injured her. “Father...they know not what they do.” The wound festered and her body continued to decline, and then, nearly four years after the transplant, just a week before Christmas, she quietly slipped through the veil and entered another glorious family reunion. If there was ever a countenance of the Savior written in a face it was in my sister. Through her I came closer to understanding the suffering of the Christ, of the dignity and love expressed through suffering, of how his sacrifice makes Him the father of our souls, and how our own suffering sanctifies and purifies us.

Sister Glazen smiled at Tyler as she nudged him toward Jason’s bedroom door.
“Tyler,” he heard Jason call, “is that you?” His best friend’s voice sounded normal, considering he had been in the hospital for two months.
“Yeah, I’m here.” Tyler’s voice squeaked.
Tyler would never forget the day the Bishop had come into his Primary class and told them that Jason had been hit by a car and seriously injured. The bishop had added that the doctor believed that Jason might never walk again.
Beth raised her hand. “Bishop, didn’t you give Jason a blessing?”
“Yes, his dad and I blessed him that night.”
“Then he’ll be all right,” Beth said.
“You have great faith, Beth. Heavenly Father truly blessed Jason, and I believe that he will live. But I can’t say whether it’s His will that Jason walk again. The Lord’s will is not always our will.”
Bishop Johannsen’s words hit Tyler like a sledgehammer. Jason? Not walk? It didn’t seem possible. Jason could jump higher and run the court faster than any other kid on the basketball team!
“Jason needs your help,” the Bishop said. “Will you all pray for him?”
Tyler had been praying for Jason for two long months, but his friend still couldn’t walk. …
Bright sunlight filled the bedroom. Tyler had to blink before he could see Jason sitting by the window. But what was Jason sitting in?
A wheelchair! It was black with big steel and rubber wheels. Jason looked so small in it! Tyler tried to smile but couldn’t.
“Thanks for coming.” Jason looked up at him.
Tyler sat on the bed. “No problem. How do you feel?”
Jason shrugged. “You heard that I can’t walk?” Tyler nodded. Jason continued, “My spinal cord was injured. I can feel a little bit in my legs, but the feeling is sort of fuzzy. Dr. Miller says I might get some movement back in them if I work hard.”
Tyler felt an ache in his chest but managed not to cry. After all, he wasn’t the one who couldn’t walk, who’d never play basketball again.
The room was quiet for a few seconds before Jason said, “Tyler?”
Tyler felt his lip quiver. “What?”
“It’s been a real long time since I’ve been down to the playground. Would you push me there? Mom said it would be OK … if you wanted to.”
Tyler stood up and pointed at the wheelchair. “How do I work this thing?”
Jason smiled. “First, I release the brake, then you grab the handles and push. I can do it myself by pushing on the wheels, but you need the exercise.”
“Oh yeah? You’re the one who never could do chin-ups in PE,” Tyler teased, surprised he was able to kid around.
“Look whose talking!” Jason joked back, “A guy who can’t do five chin-ups!”
“I can too!” Tyler said. “I’ll prove it at the playground.” Jason looked happy.
Sister Glazen held open the door as Tyler pushed Jason outside. “I’ll come for you soon,” she promised. “I wouldn’t want you to miss lunch.”
When the boys reached the playground, they saw Ian, Juan, and Beth playing basketball. Ian dribbled the ball off his foot when he saw Tyler pushing Jason across the asphalt.
“Surprise!” Jason called with a wave.
The other kids stopped playing. Tyler worried that their glum faces would make Jason feel bad, so he blurted, “Jason thinks I can’t do five chin-ups. Excuse us while I teach him a lesson.” Tyler jogged the wheelchair to the chin-up bars.
“Prepare to apologize,” he told Jason, jumping up and grabbing the bar. His palms burned as he pulled himself up. He did ten chin-ups before collapsing on the grass.
“Not bad,” Jason said, surprised, “but you’re still not as good as me.”
“What are you talking about?” Tyler panted. “You never could do more than eight or nine.”
“That was before the accident. Now I can do twenty.”
“How can you do chin-ups when you can’t even get out of that wheelchair?” Ian asked.
“I’m not glued to this thing. Besides, chin-ups are part of my physical therapy. You wouldn’t believe all the exercises I have to do every day!”
“You exercise?” Beth was surprised.
“Of course. I have to strengthen my arms so I can do things for myself, like transfer out of my wheelchair. My physical therapist also helps me exercise my legs and back. To tell the truth, it hurts a lot sometimes, but I need to be strong so I can do all the things I want to do.”
Tyler stood up. “What do you want to do?”
Jason grinned. “I want to beat you at one-on-one basketball again.”
The other kids stared at Jason. Did he really expect to play basketball again?
Jason understood their thoughts. He began pushing himself toward the court. “Tyler, would you get the ball for me, please?”
Tyler retrieved the ball and walked toward Jason.
“No—pass it to me.”
Tyler gently lobbed the ball to Jason. “Not like that,” Jason said, firing the ball back to Tyler. “Pass it to me like you mean it.”
Tyler looked at the other kids, shrugged, then passed the ball hard. Jason caught it easily.
“See—I don’t break.” Jason wheeled himself to the free throw line. “Watch this.”
He shot the ball.
They all watched as it sailed through the air—and fell short of the basket. Tyler started after it, but Jason said, “I’ll get my own rebound.” Bending at the waist, Jason picked up the ball and shot again … and again, … but missed every time. His friends stared. Jason had never missed this often before. Jason was just as surprised. His head fell to his chest.
Beth said, “Jason, we don’t care if you can’t shoot a free throw. We’re just glad you’re here. My mom says you’re lucky to be alive.”
“Funny,” Jason replied, “I don’t feel very lucky.”
Wanting to help Jason, Tyler prayed silently. Then, remembering what the bishop had said that day in Primary—“The Lord’s will is not always our will”—he said softly, “Jason, there must be some reason Heavenly Father let this awful thing happen. Sure, it’ll be hard to learn to play basketball from a wheelchair, but you can learn.”
“Tyler’s right, Son,” said a gentle voice behind them. “You can learn.” Jason’s mother had quietly joined them. “In fact, this has been a lesson for us all—a lesson about the difference between being lucky and being blessed. You weren’t lucky to be in that accident, but you are blessed. Just look at the kind friends you have.”
Jason raised his head and looked at the people around him. He locked eyes with Tyler, then whispered, “I’m scared.”
“Me, too,” Tyler admitted softly.
Sister Glazen paused, then said, “Remember that scripture in the Book of Mormon—the one about our weaknesses becoming strengths?”
“I remember it,” Juan said. “Does that mean Jason’s legs will become strong again, since they’re weak now?”
“I don’t know what the Lord’s will is for Jason’s legs, his mother said, “but it looks like His will, at least for now, is a wheelchair.”
Jason and his friends all nodded slowly. Then Jason spoke. “I think the scripture means that Heavenly Father will strengthen me when I need it. I never really understood what faith is until now. I need Heavenly Father like I never have before.” Jason looked at his mother, then at Tyler, then at his other friends. “I need all of you, too. I need you to help me learn to play basketball from this chair.” He paused, thinking. “But what I need most is for you to keep praying for me.” His smile was small, but real.
Tyler smiled back. “Sure thing!” He turned Jason’s wheelchair toward the chin-up bar. “Right now you’re going to prove that you can beat my ten chin-ups.” His smile turned into a grin. “And tomorrow we’ll all meet back here, same time, for a little basketball practice.”

We were living in a small town in Georgia, USA, when my father died at just 55 years old. Most of our family lived in another state. Never had the 2,000 miles (3,200 km) between us felt greater than at that time.
My husband was the bishop and I the organist of our small ward. With all the emotions and stress of helping with funeral plans, I was feeling especially weary that Sunday when it came time for our sacrament meeting closing hymn: “God Be with You Till We Meet Again” (Hymns, no. 152).
Halfway through the second verse, my grief overcame me. Somehow I played through the end of that verse, but my hands were shaking and my eyes so full of tears that I had to stop with an entire verse left. I couldn’t stop crying.
A brief pause followed as the congregation realized the organ had stopped. But then ward members started singing a cappella. The singing wasn’t perfect. We were few, after all. But the Spirit made up the difference. Through my tears and embarrassment, I could feel the love of many as they sang.
God be with you till we meet again;
Keep love’s banner floating o’er you;
Smite death’s threat’ning wave before you.
God be with you till we meet again.
When the hymn ended, the music leader held me as I sobbed through the closing prayer. Several people then came up to the organ with tears in their eyes to say how sorry they were about my father.
Later, I told the music leader I would be playing the piano at the funeral. It probably seemed like a bad idea after what had just happened, but my dad so enjoyed hearing me play the piano. I wanted to play for him. I realized then how close he had felt during the closing hymn.
I am so thankful for the hymns. I testify that music can teach and comfort us in ways that words often cannot. As the First Presidency wrote in the preface to the hymnbook, “Hymns … comfort the weary, console the mourning, and inspire us to endure to the end.” I am also thankful for the love of a good ward when I was so far away from my own family. I know that my father and I will indeed meet again.

“Learning about the true Church changed my life,” John reflects. “I have wondered what I would have done if my mother said ‘no’ when those missionaries knocked on her door!” With a new gospel perspective, John and Lois saved up to visit the Hamilton New Zealand Temple, where their family was sealed for time and all eternity. “It took us a good while because we had four children and of course we had to take them to be sealed to us!”

Try to feel the heart of a young man, Nkosiyabo Eddie Lupahla, in Africa, writing about his friend.
“Two and a half years prior to my joining the Church in 1999, my good friend, Mbuti Yona, looked me up. We had been friends through grades 5 to 12, then [were] separated when we attended different [schools].
“Mbuti was baptized in April 1999, and four weeks later he visited me at home and introduced the gospel to me. Regardless of the rumors about the Church, I was impressed by the ‘fellow Saints’ who gave me a warm welcome on my first visit. It was this same Sunday that my friend introduced me to the missionaries. Arrangements were made to be taught. My friend was there for every discussion, and he kept inviting me to the activities. I really enjoyed being around people with the same values, interests, standards, and goals. It was during this same time period that I began attending institute [of religion]. It all seemed very natural: Thursday nights [5:30]—missionary discussion, followed by institute.
“I learned a lot in institute and especially enjoyed our class about how to achieve a celestial marriage. The first semester ended in May, shortly after I began attending, and I felt cheated. But I was fortunate enough to catch the second semester class, Teachings of the Living Prophets. While in institute, I bought myself the four standard works and I continued to learn and grow in the Church line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. I was baptized September 17, 1999, by another friend I had made while attending institute.
“I am thankful for the institute program. It has not only shaped me, but it has also helped me qualify to become a missionary, which mission I started preparing for five months after my baptism. I have been blessed with many opportunities to serve and to teach prior to my mission.
“I am thankful for my friend. I hope he realizes what he has done for me. We have both served missions, I to South Africa Durban, he to South Africa Cape Town. All it takes is a friend to bring such a mighty change in one’s life.”
Now, there seems to be nothing miraculous in that story. But there is a miracle of wisdom beyond human capacity.
Perhaps because Mbuti had walked the path himself or perhaps by revelation, he knew what his friend would have to do to endure. And so he knew how to lift and help.
He introduced his friend to the missionaries. He saw that his friend was baptized and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. He took his friend, even before baptism, to where he would study the scriptures and thus be nurtured by the good word of God. Even before baptism he helped his friend discover this promise: “Wherefore, I said unto you, feast upon the words of Christ; for behold, the words of Christ will tell you all things what ye should do.” The words must have told him to buy scriptures, which he did.
At baptism, Brother Lupahla received the gift of the Holy Ghost to serve as his constant companion as long as he invited it and lived worthy of it. That assured him of another promise, “For behold, again I say unto you that if ye will enter in by the way, and receive the Holy Ghost, it will show unto you all things what ye should do.” The Holy Ghost must have told him to begin to prepare for a mission, which he did.
We do not know which friends went with him to his sacrament meetings both before and after baptism, but some must have greeted him warmly, as they did on his first visit. There, he renewed his covenant to always remember the Savior, to keep His commandments, and to receive again the promise of the companionship of the Holy Ghost. We don’t know what part his friends had in his calls to serve and to speak. But we can be sure that they thanked him and told him when they felt the Spirit in his service and in his teaching.
We can know something of his private life. Remember that he wrote that he continued to learn. He wrote that he grew in the Church line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. He said that he had been shaped by his experiences in the Church Educational System institute. We know from the scriptures what caused those changes in him. He had to be praying with faith in the Savior. He was receiving testimony and directions through the Spirit. And then he was not only doing what he was inspired to do but he was asking God to let the Atonement work in his life.

When I told my biological father that I had become a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I could not understand why he was so calm.
“Let me tell you a bit of my history,” he said.
My father, who had never talked to me about religion, told me that as a young man, he had attended the Church’s Cumorah Ward in Cape Town. He had played on the ward basketball team. He had made several close friends who were Latter-day Saints. One of his best friends was a missionary who, after his mission, was killed in Vietnam.
Had my dad not lost that friend, I think he would have joined the Church. His life would have been a whole different story. Years later, he still had great respect for Latter-day Saints. He didn’t practice any religion himself, but he absolutely supported my decision to join the Church.

Take advantage of companionship inventory. You have time set aside once a week where you and your companion can talk openly and lovingly about your companionship. This is not a time to nitpick your companion’s personality or habits, but rather a time to lovingly identify things you can work on together to improve your companionship with the goal of becoming better missionaries. For example, one time my companion pointed out that I was complaining frequently. I hadn’t noticed, but once she helped me recognize that, I was able to make an effort to be more positive, and our work improved.

He served two missions. The first was in behalf of the Young Men’s/Young Women’s Mutual Improvement Association (YMMIA), working with the youth in southern Utah settlements. The second call came a week after his May 1892 marriage to Lucy Emily Woodruff. His new wife joined him in the Southern States Mission where they both served in the mission office.
In those days, persecution against Mormons was still rampant in the Southern United States. Elder Smith was once with a group of fellow missionaries in a log cabin that was under seige by a mob. While the missionaries huddled against the floor, a barrage of bullets poured into the room. Yet, through all this experience, there was no bitterness on Elder Smith’s part, just a determination to work harder to “share the gospel with the rest of God’s children.”

When I first arrived in Indonesia in 1976 I met a group of pioneers in central Java who helped me understand much, much more about the meaning of words such as relief, compassion, and service. These Relief Society sisters, led by their president, Ibu Subowo, were giant souls in small bodies. Every morning before they began their cooking, each sister would hold back a spoonful of rice. They kept the rice in plastic bags that they brought to Relief Society each week. After the meeting, they would gather and prayerfully consider who needed a visit. All would then go together to visit those in need, taking the bags of rice with them to share with those who had less than they did.

Consecration. The Lord’s storehouse. A society of interdependent Saints. I learned much about sacrifice, wondering what my equivalent of a spoonful of rice would be.

Thomas Cranmer has an interesting background, and I don't have time to give you all of it but simply say to you that he was another reformer. He was involved though in the politics of the day and, weakened in the process, even signed a document authorizing the divorce of King Henry from Catherine after 18 years of marriage. He authorized the marriage of the King to Anne Boleyn, if you know that history of the Church of England.

Then King Henry died and Mary took over the throne. She had Cranmer arrested and tried for heresy. Here's the dialogue from this great reformer of Christendom. "I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And I believe every word and sentence taught by our Saviour Jesus Christ, His apostles and prophets in the New and the Old Testament. And forasmuch as my hand offended writing contrary to my heart, my hand shall first be punished therefore; for, may I come to the fire, it shall be first burned."

And when the wood was kindled and the fire began to burn near him, stretching out his arm, he put his right hand into the flame, which he held so steadfast and immovable (saving that once with the same hand he wiped his face) that all men might see his hand burned before his body was touched. (See Foxe's Book of Martyrs, p. 372-376)