Gospel Story Finder

Some of you old sports fans remember Babe Ruth; most of you would have to read about him. He’s still revered today as one of the great sluggers of all time. Seven hundred and fourteen home runs was the standing record until Hank Aaron came and broke it with a few more. But did you know that while Babe Ruth was making all those records he struck out twice as many times as he hit a home run? I remember reading about the incident that happened in Scheib Park in Philadelphia late in the season in 1927 when the Yankees were trying to secure another pennant. On the mound that day for the Athletics was perhaps one of the greatest left-handed pitchers the game had ever produced, Lefty Grove. He had fanned Babe Ruth on two successive tries at the plate; and, of course, the Philadelphia fans were overjoyed. Every time that Babe would come up to bat they would jeer at him, and he was such a colorful player he would take off his cap and wave back to the crowd. In the eighth inning, he came to bat for the third time, and this time the situation was extremely critical. The Athletics were ahead of the Yankees three to one, and the bases were loaded with two outs. He could win or lose the game for the Yankees as he went to bat. He selected his favorite bat, strolled out to the batter’s box as only he could do it, and faced Lefty Grove. Now it all depended on him—the man who had just struck out twice, the man who had earned the insults of the crowd. The excitement was tremendous. All eyes were upon him. The pitcher threw the first pitch across the plate, and with all his power Babe swung and missed. The next pitch was equally good, and Babe swung so hard that he fell down, creating a cloud of dust. The crowd went crazy. But the third time Babe swung, he connected with a loud explosion that sent the ball hurtling out of the park, beyond the houses, and across the street; and it was recorded later as one of the longest hits in the history of baseball. You see, brothers and sisters, Babe Ruth had a basic ingredient that produces winners. We call it “staying power.” He stayed in there and wouldn’t give up. He didn’t measure and remeasure his failures, as we sometimes do. He didn’t declare himself a loser and curl up and die in the dugout. The great slugger kept trying, putting his whole heart into the effort until he succeeded.

Fifteen-year-old Taitia Wilihana spends much of his free time painting black designs on his face and sticking his tongue out at tourists. He does it in the name of entertainment and in an effort to educate people about his native culture. Taitia is a Maori, a descendent of the first people to inhabit his native New Zealand. He lives in Queenstown, a beautiful city on the southern tip of the south island; and because of its picturesque setting on the shore of Lake Wakatipu, it is a tourist mecca with plenty of interest in the Maori culture. Half of the youth in the Queenstown Branch—Rachel Ruru, 14, and Taitia—are Maori; and Taitia performs traditional songs and dances nightly at the town’s Maori cultural center, owned and run by Rachel’s parents.
Every night except Sunday and sometimes Monday, you’ll find Taitia on stage singing and dancing, while hordes of tourists watch and eat the traditional Maori hangi, food steamed underground. Taitia and his group have even performed for the prime minister of New Zealand. The cultural center is a sort of branch gathering place during the week. Branch members and missionaries often mingle with the audience and are asked questions about their heritage. Missionary-minded performers take advantage of this opportunity to mention the Church and its emphasis on family unity and family history. It’s all very subtle, but it leaves a strong impression.
“There are so many tourists coming and going, there aren’t very many permanent members,” explains Angelina Giles, 15, half of the branch Young Women’s group. “When the missionaries make contacts and get referrals, they’re usually with people from other parts of the world.
“There are so few of us here, and we have such different standards, that we really stand out,” she continues. “We’re all very close and we stick together.”
In Sundays the branch meets in a hotel conference room. Deacon Ashley Giles, 12, and Taitia, being the branch’s only Aaronic Priesthood holders, always pass the sacrament. Angelina is the ward chorister. Rachel helps in the Young Women program. During the week, the three oldest attend early-morning seminary, held alternately at Taitia’s house and at Angelina’s. All four have unwavering testimonies of the gospel and realize they’re blessed to have it in their lives.
“I’m adopted,” Taitia explains. “I’m the youngest of eight children now. My real mother is a relative of the family that adopted me. My adoptive mother used to look after her when she was little. I’m lucky though, because my family now has the gospel. My other one didn’t.”
“We’re all lucky to be members of the Church here,” explains Ashley, referring to the fact that since most people in Queenstown are there on holiday, many have a party attitude. The gospel, he explains, helps them remember the important things in life.
“If you can stay away from Satan’s temptations here, you’ll probably be good anywhere else,” agrees Taitia.
And they all plan to try their hands elsewhere. Ashley, at 12, isn’t quite sure yet where he wants to go or what he wants to do, but Angelina will spend a year or two at the LDS church college on the north island, then perhaps go on to study law. Taitia wants to go on a mission, then become a physical therapist, and Rachel thinks she’d like to study graphic design. This will require them all to leave their homes and families in Queenstown, although Taitia and Rachel will have family and a place to stay almost anywhere in the country because of their heritage. “It’s the Maori way,” says Taitia.
In the meantime, they realize that the tourism that seems to be almost everywhere in their town isn’t all bad. It provides them with a living.
“All our parents are involved in it somehow,” says Angelina. “Our dad works in the city of Dunedin, and takes people on yacht charters during the day. At night he does hotel work. To help support our older brother, who’s on a mission, our family delivers advertising flyers.”
You get the feeling that all four of the LDS youth in Queenstown have a sense of purpose. Through the gospel they have found normalcy and stability in a city teeming with adventure-seeking tourists.
“It’s a good way to grow up, and a good place to grow up in,” says Angelina. “We can never forget we’re children of a Heavenly Father who loves us.”

Several years ago I spoke at a meeting for members and investigators in the Peru Lima South Mission. I don’t know why I started talking about revelation and the importance of having a prophet. But as I did, I noticed two young men on the first row listening attentively and taking notes. After the meeting, those two young men came to me and said, “You talk about prophets and about revelation. We thought that there weren’t any prophets after John the Baptist.” The young men had been sent by the local priest to find out what I said. I had to leave on an airplane soon and didn’t have time to explain more about prophets and revelation. However, I did tell them that if they wanted to have personal revelation, they should read the Book of Mormon and follow the counsel in Moroni 10. I gave them each a Book of Mormon and marked Moroni 10:4–5 [Moro. 10:4–5]. Three months later, I received a letter from those young men telling me that they had been baptized. One year later, I received another letter saying that they were both preparing to go on missions. The Book of Mormon was what converted them.

One Friday night, we joined a Jewish family for Shabbat dinner, held to signify the beginning of their Sabbath, which is Saturday. I observed as they offered traditional Jewish prayers and then took part in a multicourse meal, including wine, which we declined. Some of those present found it fascinating that we, as members of the Church, had our own health code to follow and didn’t drink alcohol, coffee, or tea.
After our experience at that Shabbat dinner, I reflected on some other things that showed the dedication and devotion of our Jewish friends to their religion. I thought about what a sacrifice it would be to give up my Friday nights. But I was also inspired by their preparation for the Sabbath. What if I spent more time on Saturdays preparing for the Sabbath? How could I put more thought and effort into my Sabbath-day observance?

A little over a month ago, I received a message from a returned missionary who had served with us. He said: “The last while has been tough. Battling anxiety and depression every day has been weighing me down, and it is very difficult. I feel alone and just miserable. I have been praying for the guidance of our Heavenly Father for peace and comfort in what I can do to battle the hardship. … While I was praying, I felt the prompting of the Spirit tell me that I needed to be paying my tithing in full. … I felt the Spirit so strongly, and I immediately felt the urge to do so. With the desire to do so, I felt the prompting that ‘if you pay your tithing, everything will be OK.’ I am still struggling to find peace, but I do have a testimony in our Savior and that through my obedience, I can feel and find the peace I am looking for in my heart and mind. I have recently decided to come back to the Church and to seek the Spirit in all that I do.”

Now he is doing very well. You also may ask Heavenly Father for peace, but the answer may be different than what you anticipate it will be. As long as you seek to know of the Savior and pray to Heavenly Father, He will give you a customized answer for you.

But what of an existence beyond death? Is death the end of all? Robert Blatchford, in his book God and My Neighbor, attacked with vigor accepted Christian beliefs such as God, Christ, prayer, and particularly immortality. He boldly asserted that death was the end of our existence and that no one could prove otherwise. Then a surprising thing happened. His wall of skepticism suddenly crumbled to dust. He was left exposed and undefended. Slowly he began to feel his way back to the faith he had ridiculed and abandoned. What had caused this profound change in his outlook? His wife died. With a broken heart he went into the room where lay all that was mortal of her. He looked again at the face he loved so well. Coming out, he said to a friend: “It is she, and yet it is not she. Everything is changed. Something that was there before is taken away. She is not the same. What can be gone if it be not the soul?”

Later he wrote: “Death is not what some people imagine. It is only like going into another room. In that other room we shall find … the dear women and men and the sweet children we have loved and lost.”12

The events that led up to his martyrdom, at least for our purposes today, began on the 10th of June, 1844, with an ordinance passed by the Nauvoo City Council to abate a newspaper press called the Nauvoo Expositor, a newspaper hostile to the Saints. Hence, it was defined, under the City’s Charter, as a “nuisance.” The declaration that this paper was a nuisance and the subsequent order to destroy it was done because of the libelous and slanderous character of the paper which had, as its avowed purpose, the destruction of Nauvoo and the driving of the Saints therefrom”[3]

Joseph Smith, mayor of Nauvoo, was given charge by the Council to abate the nuisance. He immediately “ordered the Marshal to destroy it without delay…”[4] On Monday, June 17, 1844, Joseph Smith and others were arrested for the destruction of the Nauvoo Expositor press. They appeared before a Justice Wells and “after a long and close examination” by him, were discharged.[5]

This did not satisfy the enemies of Joseph, and mob activity intensified. The day that Joseph and others were dismissed by Justice Wells, June 17, 1844), he received a report from Stephen Markham that a mob could be expected to make an immediate attack upon the citizens and city of Nauvoo. The mobs intent, he reported, was the extermination of the Latter-day Saints.[6]

In response, and again acting as mayor, Joseph called out the Nauvoo Legion, a military body, to “take such measures as shall be necessary to preserve the peace” of Nauvoo and its residents. The following day, June 18, 1844, and as deciphered from the local newspapers around them, Joseph declared:

No one was to enter or leave the city without proper orders. These actions, while prudent given the circumstances, seemed to further incite the ire and unrest of the mob. On Thursday, June 20, 1844, Joseph, seeming to understand the dire circumstances that lie ahead, sent correspondence to the ten apostles who were absent on missions to come home immediately.[8] The other two apostles, John Taylor and Willard Richards, were already with Joseph.

On Saturday, June 22, 1844, Illinois Governor Thomas Ford, in letter demanded that Joseph and others come to Carthage to stand trial again for the Expositor affair. He threatened a calling out of the militia, comprised primarily of men anxious for the destruction of the Saints, if his demands were not met.[9]

Offering his defense, Joseph responded to the letter the day it was received.[10] His response was personally delivered to the governor by John Taylor. Brother Taylor was poorly received and treated by the governor and reported back to Joseph that the governor was surrounded by “some of the vilest and most unprincipled men in creation.”[11] In hearing of this report, Joseph counseled with his brother Hyrum and asked, “What shall we do?”[12]

By and by the prophet made a decision to cross the Mississippi River with Hyrum and begin traveling west. Joseph told the people “there is no doubt they will come here (Nauvoo) and search for us. Let them search; they will not harm you in person or property, and not even a hair of your head.”[13] With that prophetic statement, Joseph and Hyrum said goodbye to their families and crossed the Mississippi by boat.

On Sunday, June 23, 1844, early in the morning, a posse, sent by the governor, arrived in Nauvoo to arrest Joseph and Hyrum. They did not find them. They leave the city with a man by the name of Yates left behind to keep watch. This Yates mentioned to one of the brethren that Governor Ford was intent on getting Joseph and Hyrum even if it meant guarding the city for three years.[14] This frightened the Saints.

Emma Smith sent a message to Joseph asking him to return. In addition, Reynolds Cahoon, Lorenzo D. Wasson, and Hiram Kimball accused Joseph of cowardice for wishing to leave the people. Said they, “Like the fable, when the wolves came the shepherd ran from the flock, and left the sheep to be devoured.” How hurtful this must have been for Joseph to hear. His response, “If my life is of no value to my friends, it is of none to myself.”[15]

Joseph again counseled with his brother Hyrum, “What shall we do?” Hyrum’s reply, “Let us go back and give ourselves up, and see the thing out.” Joseph pondered this and said, “If you go back I will go with you, but we shall be butchered.”[16] Joseph and Hyrum returned to Nauvoo and prepared for their journey to Carthage.

On Monday, June 24, 1844, Joseph and Hyrum, after taking care of matters of business and after preparing the people for their departure, traveled to Carthage, Illinois. En route, Joseph made his prophetic declaration:

They arrived at the Hamilton House, a guesthouse and tavern in Carthage, just before midnight. On the morning of Tuesday, June 25, 1844, Joseph and Hyrum voluntarily surrendered themselves to the constable at Carthage. They were arrested for treason against the state of Illinois because they called out the Nauvoo Legion.[18] They were taken to the Carthage Jail. Every attempt was made to solicit help from those in authority to protect Joseph and Hyrum but to no avail.

On Thursday, June 27, 1844, those who were with Joseph and Hyrum are removed from the jail. Ultimately, only four men remain:

It was hot and muggy on the afternoon of June 27, 1844. The men confined in the Carthage Jail had their coats off. John Taylor wrote of the scene in the jail cell: “All of us felt unusually…languid, with a remarkable depression of spirits. In consonance with those feelings I sang a song, that had lately been introduced into Nauvoo, entitled, ‘A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief.’ After a lapse of some time, Brother Hyrum requested me again to sing that song. I replied, ‘Brother Hyrum, I do not feel like singing,’ when he remarked, ‘Oh, never mind; commence singing, and you will get the spirit of it.’ At his request I did so.”[19]

Following the hymn, Joseph was conversing with the guard, Hyrum had just finished reading excerpts from Josephus’ “Antiquities of the Jews” and was visiting with Willard Richards when there was a rustling at the outer door of the jail, and a cry of “Surrender!” The discharge of firearms followed. Willard Richards glanced out the window and saw about a hundred armed men around the door. It is recorded that what I now describe to you occupied no more than two or three minutes’ time.

Some of the mob rushed up the stairs, past the guard, and began the work of death, while others fired through the open windows of the jail. Immediately, the men inside the jail sprang to the door in an attempt to brace themselves against it and block entry of the mob. Guns continued to be fired and one ball came through the door. Joseph, John Taylor, and Willard Richards sprang to the left of the door for safety, all the while trying to knock aside the guns as they were being inserted through thru the door.

In the same instance, Hyrum retreated back remaining in front of the door when a ball came through the door and struck him in the left side of his nose, and he fell on his back on the floor, crying, as he fell: “I am a dead man.” As he fell, another ball from the outside entered his left side, and passed through his body. Another ball from the door grazed his breast, and entered his head by the throat; subsequently, a fourth ball entered his left leg. He never moved afterwards.

Joseph fell to Hyrum. John Taylor records, “I shall never forget the deep feeling of sympathy and regard manifested in the countenance of Brother Joseph as he drew nigh to Hyrum, and, leaning over him, exclaimed, ‘Oh! My poor, dear brother Hyrum!’”

A shower of balls was pouring into the room. John Taylor did his best to parry the guns at the door until at length, he found the exercise futile and he attempted to jump out the window, where a ball fired from within struck him on his left thigh. He fell forward to the windowsill, when another ball fired from outside struck his watch and threw him back into the room. This watch recorded the time of the martyrdom: 5:16:26 p.m.

After John Taylor fell back into the room, he was hit by two more balls, one of them injuring his left wrist and the other entering at the side of the bone just below the left knee. He rolled for cover under the bed. While he lay there, he was fired upon several times from the stairway; one ball struck him on the left hip, which tore the flesh in a shocking manner.

Joseph, seeing that there was no safety in the room, and no doubt thinking that it would save the lives of his brethren in the room if he could get out, turned calmly from the door, and sprang into the window. He was now in full view of the mob firing at him from below. Instantly, two balls pierced him from the door, and one entered his right breast from without. He fell outward into the hands of his murderers, exclaiming, “O Lord, my God!”

Dr. Richards’ escape was miraculous; he being a very large man, and in the midst of a shower of balls, yet he stood unscathed, with the exception of a ball which grazed the tip end of the lower part of his left ear. His escape fulfilled literally a prophecy which Joseph made over a year previously, that the time would come when balls would fly around him like hail, and he should see his friends fall on the right and on the left, but that there should not be a hole in his garment.[20]

John Taylor, who would follow Brigham Young as Joseph’s successor, was converted to the Restoration by an apostle who later wavered for a period before returning to stand by Joseph. John Taylor, however, was stalwart from the time of his baptism in 1836. During the dark days in Kirtland he attended a meeting where President Joseph Smith, not in attendance, was severely criticized by apostates who once had been Joseph’s friends and associates. John Taylor courageously offered this defense:

It was Joseph Smith, under the Almighty, who developed the first principles, and to him we must look for further instructions. If the spirit which he manifests does not bring blessings, I am very much afraid that the one manifested by those who have spoken, will not be very likely to secure them. The children of Israel, formerly, after seeing the power of God manifested in their midst, fell into rebellion and idolatry, and there is certainly very great danger of us doing the same thing. [In B. H. Roberts, The Life of John Taylor (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1963), 41]

John Taylor saw what had happened to his colleagues and recognized the attendant spiritual risks that they faced. I submit that the danger to us as well is both great and real should we also fail to stand by Joseph.

I remember another example my father set for the community as the local stake president. He always tried to keep our home and yard clean and neat. It just had to be that way. Once an old cowpuncher who lived in Safford—when I was called to Salt Lake to be an Apostle—came in to see me and said, “Well, Spencer, you know, I always used to pass your place as we went to meetings, and if it was clean, then I knew conference was on. If it wasn’t clean, it was something else.”

I learned a very important lesson when I was your age. Upon my return from my mission, I took up selling cars at Ballard Motor Company as part-time work while I attended the university. I worked hard and became quite successful. I was taking many classes in business and knew that as a part-time salesman I was earning considerably more money than the professors who were teaching me in the business school.

So I said to myself, “If I quit school and put full-time effort into sales, I could really become financially secure.”

Big mistake! I only had one year left to graduate. In making that decision I lost my focus on what mattered most.

For many years I have wished that I had graduated. Now, in my business career I don’t believe a degree would have affected my capacity to earn money, but the fact that I would have held a degree over these many years would have been a wise thing for me to have accomplished. So I congratulate each one of you on your day of graduation from Brigham Young University.

Usually Manuel liked market day in Manila. He liked the happy sounds of the market place. He liked the way the bright sun gleamed on the baskets of flowers, the shell jewelry, and the shoreline of the Manila Bay. But today he was not happy.
“Our neighbor, Aling [Mrs.] Sion, is ill and I must care for her,” his grandmother had said. “We need money for food, and so the flowers must be sold. I have no one but you, Manuel, to take them to market.”
Manuel had started early, so early that the sun was not yet peeking over the mountain tops. He trudged past the little lake, half hidden among dense trees. When he reached the dusty trail to Manila, he joined crowds of people carrying huge baskets of flowers.
Manuel grumbled to himself as he walked. “I hope Jose doesn’t see me.” Jose was a boy from Manuel’s village. Jose was a bully and lately he had chosen Manuel to pick on. Shaking his head as if to cast the thought from his mind, Manuel made his way to Grandmother’s usual place next to Aling Finay.
Aling Finay looked at him curiously. “You are the flower seller today?” she asked.
He explained politely, “Grandmother could not come.”
“You must arrange the flowers nicely,” said Aling Finay.
“Just as she would do,” Manuel agreed.
He set out the pink and yellow daisies, the beautiful red roses, and the big white lilies. Then he stepped back to admire his work. The arrangement wasn’t quite as good as he had hoped, but he didn’t know how to improve it. He was sure Aling Finay would have helped him if she had not already been busy with her customers. All Manuel could do was just wait and hope someone would buy from him.
When the first rays of the sun slanted over the palm-leaf roofs of the village, Manuel heard the clatter of horses hooves on the cobblestones. The men and boys were coming with coconuts, bananas and firewood. Jose will probably be with them! Manuel drew back into a corner, wishing he could hide and forget all about selling flowers.
Suddenly Aling Finay exclaimed, “See! There is Jose strutting into the square. He means trouble for somebody.”
Manuel’s heart seemed to turn upside down. He knew by the way Jose was grinning that he had already caught sight of him. Manuel scrambled to his feet. Only the thought of Grandmother’s disappointment if he came home empty-handed kept him from running away.
Jose stopped in front of him. “Ho!” he scoffed as he grabbed a handful of daisies, tore them to pieces, and threw them on the ground. “See Manuel selling weeds!”
Anger rose inside Manuel as he remembered how hard Grandmother had worked to make her flowers grow beautiful and strong. Forgetting to be afraid, he stepped close to Jose and shouted, “Stop!”
“Out of my way,” Jose ordered, giving him a fierce push.
Manuel sprawled headlong on the cobblestones. He heard Jose’s mocking laugh as the bully went on across the market place. Manuel picked himself up, rubbing his bruises.
That Jose is a bad one,” muttered Aling Finay, her dark eyes flashing. “Still you are fortunate. He might have done much worse.”
Manuel eyed his torn shirt sadly. “It is so. I hope he does not come back.”
The day passed and the shadows grew long. Finally the sun drew its light below the far horizon. Manuel’s heart was glad. He had sold all the flowers, and many coins jingled in his pockets.
Grandmother will be happy, he thought. But now I must hurry to get home before dark. Suddenly Manuel shuddered. Suppose Jose is lurking somewhere along the way!
But in spite of his misgivings, Manuel started up the dusty trail to his village. The breeze was cool after the heat of the day, and he could feel it through his torn shirt as he plodded along.
Manuel was passing the little lake among the trees when a cry nearby made him stop short. He stood still to listen. “Perhaps it was only the wind,” he said at last. “Or a late-singing bird.”
Then he heard the sound again.
“Help!”
Quickly Manuel ran to look between low-hanging branches. Several yards from the bank, he could see someone holding tight to a log and struggling wildly in the water.
“Jose!” Manuel gasped.
He hesitated for a moment. But no matter what Jose had done, Manuel knew he had to try and save him.
As he pulled off his shirt and trousers, Manuel called, “Hold on, I’m coming.”
The bigger boy was not easy for Manuel to help. Jose was strong, and now he was fighting in panic. Once he nearly pulled Manuel under the water.
It took all his strength, but slowly and deliberately Manuel worked his way to shore. When they finally reached it, he and Jose slumped down, exhausted and shivering.
When Jose found enough breath, he mumbled, “Many thanks to you, Manuel.”
“Why were you swimming, Jose?” Manuel asked. “It’s almost dark.”
Jose ran his fingers through his wet hair. “My feet were weary. I meant only to wade a few minutes, but I stepped into a deep hole.” Then he added embarrassed, “I cannot swim. Lucky for me that you can.”
“And that I came along at the right time,” Manuel agreed.
Jose hung his head. “I have often done wrong. There are many people who would have let me drown.”
“Had I done that, I too would have been doing wrong,” Manuel replied.
“I am ashamed I have been cruel. I am sorry I knocked you down,” Jose went on. “You are brave. I would like to be your friend.”
Manuel smiled and began pulling on his clothes. “Come then, friend,” he said, “it is not far to our homes. We will walk together.”

“Michael, I’m not going to tell you again. Get into the living room and practice.”
“Why?”
“Because practice makes perfect, because you’ll thank me later, and because I say so!”
The last reason carried the most weight. Michael sighed as he dumped his baseball glove on the hall table and went into the torture chamber.
There it stood—eighty-eight keys’ worth of misery. Michael thought he knew how knights of old had felt when advancing to certain doom. “We who are about to die salute you,” he muttered under his breath.
“I don’t hear anything,” his mother called from the kitchen.
There was no way out. Michael placed his fingers on what he hoped were the correct keys and began to play. It sounded like the time the high school drum major had tripped in a parade and knocked down a drummer and half the woodwinds.
“That’s better,” his mother called over the cacophony.
“If only it were,” Michael muttered wearily.
Half an hour later he knew he had reached his breaking point. “Kitten on the Keys” sounded like the cat had just had an unfortunate run-in with a train. Resolutely he headed to the kitchen.
Mom was at the table, gluing together rocks that she painted with cute faces and sold at the craft store in town. The house was littered with the things. They paid for Michael’s piano lessons.
“Uh, Mom,” Michael said gently. “I think you should stop painting those.”
“Why?” she asked, putting a base coat of paint on something that vaguely resembled a frog.
“Because I’m quitting piano.”
The rock frog quivered, then fell stickily apart in Mom’s hands. She turned to face him. “Oh no you’re not.”
“Look, Mom,” he reasoned, “you’re throwing money down a well here. A deep well. I have no talent. I’ve learned to face it, why can’t you?”
“Nonsense,” she replied briskly. “You just need to practice more. Anyone can learn to play the piano. How hard can it be?”
At that, Michael snapped. “If you think it’s so all-fired easy, why don’t you take the lessons?”
“Me?” Mom asked, taken aback. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Don’t think you can do it, huh?” Michael replied triumphantly.
His mother looked thoughtful for a moment, then smiled. “All right, you’re on! I’ll take lessons too.”
“Too? No, no, no. Instead. You’re going to take them instead of me, right?”
“No—too. Here’s the deal.” Mom looked him in the eye. “We both take lessons. If, at the next recital, I play better than you do, you keep taking lessons. If, however, you play better than I do, then it’s your choice.”
Michael saw that this was the best chance he’d get. “OK.” Now, at least, there was a possibility of escape. The next recital was in two months. Mom couldn’t possibly catch up and pass him by then. After all, he’d been taking lessons for almost a year. It was a sure thing. He could relax.
He stopped relaxing after two weeks. To his horror, he discovered that his mother was swiftly progressing from one-hand to two-hand pieces, from scales to chords.
“It’s not fair!” he announced, coming home from school to hear “Kitten on the Keys” played as if the cat had almost completely recovered from the train accident. “You can practice all day, and I have to go to school.”
Mom just smiled and launched into “Elephant Antics,” finishing with a flourish before presenting him with the piano bench.
Michael began to panic. He got up early to practice. He zipped home after school and flung himself at the keyboard with the desperation of a drowning man learning to swim. Mom had lined up a critical audience of stone creatures along the top of the piano that seemed to eye him as he played, daring him to improve.
To his amazement, he started playing better. To his horror, so did his mother.
The piano was practiced from dawn until bedtime. Michael’s father took to inserting earplugs as he walked through the front door every evening. The dog decided to spend its time in the backyard. The neighbors kept their windows shut.
Finally the day of the recital arrived. Michael sat on the stage with the other piano students—a line of kids, with Mom sticking out like a basketball player at a jockey convention.
Sweat trickled down his back; Mom looked cool and collected in pink organdy.
“She’s just trying to psych me out,” he told himself as he ran a finger inside his sweaty collar, trying to loosen it. But she hadn’t let him hear her practice in a week. How good is she? he wondered.
Pretty good, he groaned to himself, when he heard her play. Her fingers moved swiftly across the keyboard, and he counted only three mistakes. The applause when she finished sounded like the final nails being pounded into his coffin.
He was next. Nervously he approached the piano, sat down, raised his hands to the keys, and played.
To his amazement he sounded good. No, he sounded great! He’d been so busy the last few weeks worrying about his mother that he hadn’t really been listening to himself. Well, I’ll be! Mom was right—practice does make perfect!
The applause, when he finished, seemed to rock the room. He was surprised to see Mom clapping the hardest. At least she was a good loser.
“You won fair and square,” she said as they walked home. “So what are you going to do, Michael? Are you quitting piano lessons?”
“I guess not.” He shrugged. “After these last two months, a half hour of practice a day will seem like a vacation. Besides,” he added, pretending to buff his nails, “I’m getting pretty good at it.” He paused. “What about you, Mom?”
“I’d like to keep taking lessons, too,” she said, “but I don’t know if my painting can support two lessons—it takes time to find good rocks, you know.”
Michael stooped down, picked up a couple of likely rocks, and handed them to her. “Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll help you.”

At age 19, I moved to Jakarta and joined my mother. We had been separated for many years because mother had to find a job to survive when my father died. I was very lonely in this big city of 8 million people. I turned to the New Testament to study about the Savior. I had forgotten the scriptures for many years during my teenage years. One day, in early 1977, as I stood in the main train station seeing my friend off to his home town, a young lady came over and asked me about the starting date of the school year. She had mistaken me as her class mate. This introduction led me to the invitation to join her family at Church. What a miracle that was, a mistaken miracle I called it. I went with them to a small Church. I received a warm welcome. It was my first time attending a meeting of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The missionaries taught me and I accepted baptism and was confirmed a member of the Church on the 30th of April 1977.

I didn't know much at that time about the church, but I knew that Joseph Smith was a prophet. Yes I knew it! I felt my Heavenly Father's love. Somehow, I felt that life had a purpose and meaning. I could see a light for the future.

Next week I will have the opportunity to go to the House of the Lord in order to perform sacred temple ordinances on behalf of a cousin who did not live long enough to complete these for himself. His life ended tragically in the company of a supposed friend early one cold, wet autumn morning, when the car he was riding in careened off the road, hit a telephone pole, and then was literally ripped in half when it slammed into a tree. Members of his extended family would like to believe that my cousin died instantly, since the injuries that his body sustained were too horrific to describe. It was no longer a fit or sustainable tabernacle for his spirit, and thus a merciful God allowed his mortal probation to come to an end there amidst the dead leaves and litter at the side of a road in the hilly midlands of Staten Island, New York.

While I am in no position to judge him, I fear that my cousin was still woefully unprepared when his life ended. He had experienced a very tempestuous and violent youth, and his adulthood was marred by perverse and even satanic practices that he encountered and too frequently embraced when he wandered into "forbidden paths" and became lost. Nevertheless, he and I stayed in touch over the years and we conversed frequently on the phone or via email. I had grown up viewing him as a wayward younger brother, born out of season and out of context, who should have been an heir to the blessings of the gospel had things worked out differently for him. Despite his many incorrect choices, I was not ready to abandon him. As time passed we spoke with increasing frequency about gospel-related topics and about the purpose of our life here on Earth. In small but consistent increments I could see his heart softening, and I was quite confident that one day, with the Savior's help, he would be strong enough to turn away from his sinful past and enter the waters of baptism. I had looked forward to that day, had prayed for that day, and had worked toward that day. When I was a young man, I had made a promise to my grandmother that I would not forget my cousin nor would I fail to stay in contact with him, no matter how troubled he might be or how much trouble he might find himself in. I'd like to believe that I kept that promise while my cousin lived, and by completing his temple work, I shall continue to keep that promise now that he has passed beyond this life.

The Savior taught: "Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die, and more especially for those that have not hope of a glorious resurrection. And it shall come to pass that those that die in me shall not taste of death, for it shall be sweet unto them; and they that die not in me, wo unto them, for their death is bitter" (D&C 42:45-47).

My cousin lost his life, based in part on his own choices and, more specifically, as the direct consequence of the driver of the car in which he rode being incapacitated by drugs and alcohol. That man how faces many years in prison as a result of his choices and their tragic consequences. I do not believe that my cousin was ready to leave this life so soon, but I do believe that he had already reversed his fall and was moving with increasing speed in the right direction.

“Get up, Kevin.”
I looked over to the other side of the room at my brother’s bed. He lay asleep, curled up tightly in the blankets against the cold. This morning ritual began a year ago when Dad had traded half the rabbits, complete with cages, for a milk goat named Colleen. It was my job to milk her while Kevin fed her and cleaned out her cage.
“What time is it?” Kevin asked as he got up and dressed, noticing the light filtering into the room.
“It’s six-thirty.” I was fully clothed and standing by my dresser, putting on my coat and knit cap. The coat smelled of alfalfa hay and dried milk.
“Hi, Mom,” we said in unison as we walked downstairs. I opened the back door, grabbing the clean steel milking pail on our way out. As we walked toward the barn, we noticed that water from the lake had vaporized into a thin fog that drifted across the nearby horse pastures. The ground, just beginning to thaw, felt like thick peanut butter on our boots.
“Kevin, what do you want for your birthday?” I asked. For the past two days I had been trying to think of what to get my seven-year-old brother. I didn’t have any money to buy a present, and there was no snow to shovel to earn a few dollars, either.
“I don’t know,” Kevin said as he scooped up some alfalfa pellets with a cut-out bleach bottle and poured them into a container by Colleen’s milking stand. “Why don’t you do my chores for me tomorrow morning?” He was referring to a tradition in our family—if it was your birthday, other members of the family did your chores for you.
“OK.” But I wanted to get him something else, something more than what was done traditionally.
“Tim and Kevin,” Dad called, “it’s time for breakfast.”
After leading Colleen back to her pen, we carried the milk into the house and placed it on the counter, then sat down to eat. The steaming cereal, cooled by yesterday’s milk, tasted sweet because of the addition of honey and raisins.
“Time for school,” Mom said when we had finished eating. After grabbing our schoolbooks, we returned to the living room for family prayer, then left for school.
Kevin’s elementary school was just under two miles away, while I only had to walk a half-mile to the middle school. Each day Kevin silently wished we lived a quarter mile to the south, making him eligible to ride the school bus that picked up many of his classmates. On most mornings, we witnessed them entering the bus at the beginning of its route. Kevin would stop, watch for a moment, then continue walking, most of the time arriving at his school long after the bus had dropped off its passengers. It was a cruel part of his day, especially on snowy or really cold winter mornings.
“See you later,” I said, watching him walk away when we reached my school.
All day I thought more about his birthday. I remembered last summer, when he had weeded all of the neighbor’s vegetable garden to earn money to buy me a present. It was a small, single-bladed pocketknife he had bought secondhand at a thrift store. He had removed the rust with steel wool, then shined the blade and the handle with silver polish.
That night when I said my prayers, I asked Heavenly Father to help me find Kevin a gift.
After a fitful sleep, I awoke before the morning light had entered our bedroom. I dressed quietly in the darkness and glanced over to see Kevin wrapped in his blankets. I tiptoed downstairs and outside.
The landscape had changed from the morning before. A snowstorm had arrived, and the snow blew around me. A little blew into the house before I could close the door. I hurried to the barn, wanting to complete the morning chores quickly.
Just as I finished, I noticed something tucked into a corner of the barn. I hadn’t seen it since the summer before, and it gave me an idea for Kevin’s birthday.
I quickly ran back to the house to drop off the milk, grabbed a bucket of warm, soapy water and some old rags and carried them out to the barn. The dust of a winter and the rust from the dampness made cleaning difficult, but I kept working. Finally the call for breakfast came.
The smell of bacon and pancakes, food reserved for Sundays before church and other special days, met me at the door. We sat and ate, Kevin happy because of his seventh birthday, and me nervous, hoping he would like my present for him.
“Time for school,” Mom said as Kevin finished the last pancake. After family prayer, we went out into the gray snowstorm.
“Kevin, I have a present for you. It’s in the barn.” He followed me around the house and into the barn.
There stood our old red wagon, washed clean, then polished with car wax I had found on a shelf above the alfalfa pellets. A small wool blanket covered the bottom, and on the side of the wagon I had carefully painted “School Bus” with some old house paint.
“Get in, Kevin. You don’t have to walk to school today. This is your bus.”
His face lit up, and he scrambled in. I put another blanket around him so he would keep warm.
I pulled the wagon out of the barn, past the house, and onto the snow-packed road. Mom and Dad stood on the porch, watching the delight on Kevin’s face.
“Everyone off!” I yelled as we pulled onto the sidewalk just in front of the entrance to Kevin’s school. I tried to sound like a bus driver, and he laughed with me at my attempt. I hurried back down the road with the wagon, and once I arrived at my own school, I hid it in some bushes.
When the final bell rang, I ran outside, rescued the wagon from the bushes, and hurried back to the elementary school.
I arrived just after the bell rang, and saw Kevin with two excited friends. “Tim, can they come with us?”
“Sure,” I said. “Everybody ‘booooard,” I yelled like a bus driver. Kevin climbed in first; the other two squeezed in behind him.
By the time I pulled the wagon to the second boy’s home, I was really tired.
“Tim, I’ll pull you the rest of the way home,” Kevin offered.
“No, it’s your birthday. I want to do this.” That night as I got into bed, I felt too tired to pray. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been more tired. My legs and back ached, and my hands were sore and blistered from gripping the wagon handle. I lay in the darkness, thinking about the presents Kevin had received from Mom and Dad, Grandma and Grandpa, and me. Just before I drifted off to sleep, I heard “Tim?”
“Yeah.”
“Out of all the presents I got today, yours was the best.”
“Thanks,” I said. Then I remembered my prayer from the night before. I crawled out of bed, knelt on the cold wood floor, and thanked Heavenly Father for helping me find my brother a birthday gift.

Jennilee Adams from Ogden, Utah, appreciates the common bond with those in institute. When she came to college, she felt nervous and alone because she didn’t know any other students. “Will I find friends?” she wondered. “Will I be okay living so far away from home?”

It didn’t take her long to get over those worries, however, because Jennilee went to the institute building the first week of school to sign up for classes and to attend opening activities. At institute she quickly found friends.

Today, one year later, Jennilee is a different person than she was when she first came to CEU. Thanks to institute, she is confident in herself and her testimony of the gospel. In fact, Jennilee is the president of an organization associated with institute that functions as an activity and service club for LDS women. The LDS men have a similar organization. These associations give institute students a chance to meet for fun, weekly activities on campus.

“It’s just a chance to get to know a bunch of girls that have your same beliefs, who are experiencing the same things, and are making the same choices,” explains Jennilee. She says that she will always keep in touch with the wonderful friends she has met through institute. Needless to say, Jennilee does not feel alone anymore.

It is sometimes really tough to know how to deal with people who pick on you. I had long ago decided that the best way was just to ignore them. But sometimes this just didn’t seem to work. Earlier that school year, two girls in my science class had hurt me so much with their cruel words that I finally burst and fired similar cruel words right back at them. This landed me in detention, and I spent a miserable afternoon picking up trash. Worse than the actual punishment was how horrible I felt inside. I knew my actions weren’t Christlike, and that hurt me more than anyone’s awful words ever could. After that, I stuck like glue to my old policy of keeping silent and expressionless, hoping people would get bored with me. But Megan still hadn’t given up trying to have fun at my expense, and I had been wondering recently if there were something more I could do besides just turning the other cheek.

Looking down at the candy canes in my backpack, I realized that the Spirit had just given me a solution to my dilemma. I thought of Matthew 5:44, in the Sermon on the Mount, where Christ says, “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you.”

“Well,” I thought, “it’s worth a try.” Even though the thought of doing such an unusual thing scared me, I told myself it couldn’t make the situation any worse.

I almost chickened out. It was the very end of the class period before I had the guts to approach Megan. When I called her name, she turned and looked very surprised that I was speaking to her.

“Here, this is for you.” I held out the candy.

She looked at me very suspiciously. I could tell she was trying to figure out what the trick was. I knew she thought I was trying to do something mean because she knew she’d never done anything nice to me. So I smiled and said, “Merry Christmas,” hoping she would trust me just a little bit.

She took the candy. When I turned to walk away, and it was clear that there were no strings attached, she said, “Thank you.”

I wish I could say Megan and I became friends after that. We didn’t. But she left me alone the rest of the school year, and her eyes lost that hard, malicious glint when she looked at me.

I like to hope I gave her more than just candy that Christmas. I hope that’s what happened, but maybe it didn’t. Maybe she never thought about it again. But I was changed for life after that simple exchange. I was filled with the joy of having done what Jesus would have done. The gift I gave her paled in comparison to the gift I received—a taste of charity, the pure love of Christ, a feeling sweeter than all the Christmas candy in the school.

Jimmie Nicholson wears a skirt to work, and nobody seems to mind. In fact he’s following in the steps, dance steps that is, of many of his ancestors who were Highland dancers.
Jimmie, from the Scottish seaport of Dundee, learned to Highland dance when he was four years old and began learning to play the bagpipe when he was about eight. He has been dancing for the past 16 years and now performs semiprofessionally with his younger brother Gary. Their variety show includes singing, Gary playing the bagpipe and Jimmie on the drums, and both brothers dancing.
Jimmie says his interest in Highland bands and dancing was there right from the start. “My mother was a drummer in a pipe band, and I thought she was wonderful. She won many awards, including being named the Winnipeg Band championship drummer.”
Sharing their talents and rich Scottish heritage has brought warm responses, not only in their homeland but also in Canada, where Jimmie and Gary have toured twice.
When he was eight or nine, Jimmie started playing the chanter, a reed pipe with finger holes. “When you are learning,” he says, “you can’t go straight onto the bagpipe. You have to learn to play the chanter first, so you can get all your fingering correct.”
Other skills must also be mastered before finally beginning to play the pipes themselves. The Scottish bagpipe consists of a leather bag that is filled by blowing air through a mouthpiece or tube. The air is pressed from this bag into several tubes. The melody is played on the chanter, which has a double reed as an oboe does. There are three pipes that extend upward, called drones. Each has a single reed like that of a clarinet and produces a single note. When learning to play the pipes, the three drones are added one at a time until you work up to playing with a full set.
Jimmie got his first set of bagpipes when he was 16, and he joined two bands, one in Dundee and another in Armancourt.
“The bagpipe’s an instrument that demands a lot of practice because it’s so difficult and temperamental,” Jimmie says. “Starting right in the beginning, an hour a day is adequate. But if you want to be really good, you’ve got to put in more practice.”
Jimmie has participated in many pipe band competitions and Highland games, which are held not only in Scotland but all over the world. Most Highland games take place in the summer and consist of many different competitions ranging from pipe band contests, Highland dancing, and Gaelic singing to a tug-of-war contest, caber tossing (tossing a young tree trunk), high jumping, and hurdle races.
“During the winter season, the pipe bands practice their competition sets for the summer,” Jimmie says. “Highland dancing competition carries on throughout the year. During the summer months it’s held at the Highland games and during the winter months in halls, theaters—everywhere. Every place big enough to hold a competition, you’ll find dancing.”
Jimmie has stuck with Highland dancing even though it took a back seat to soccer for a while. Now he’s working on qualifying as a dance instructor. He could have qualified four years ago, but changing teachers twice slowed him down. Of course, he has learned a wide variety of styles by having three different teachers.
Entering dance competitions takes a lot of stamina. “It’s a game that’s very demanding,” Jimmie admits. “In the competitions there are so many dances. You usually compete in them all. You’re talking about possibly ten dances. You’ve got to have strength in the legs and be quite fit. You achieve that by dancing.” The standard dances are the reel, fling, and sword dances.
Jimmie still competes with his band, which has won most of the competitions around, but he has given up dance competitions for a while. “My main aim is to become a qualified dancing teacher,” he says.
Four years ago Jimmie discovered a new heritage. Through entertaining, he met a member of the Church. They became friends, and she invited him to go to church with her. He enjoyed the meetings and soon he began talking with the missionaries.
“I found out all about the Church. I was more active than some members,” he says. Finally after two years Jimmie decided he was going to get baptized.
“I had the object one week to pray about it. I did pray, and sincerely. I think that was the big difference. I prayed sincerely because I did want to know if the Church was true. An answer came. I mean it was really strong—very, very strong.
“Before, I was expecting an answer straight away when I was praying. This time I waited. I didn’t have to wait very long. Once I had the feeling, I knew there was no way I could deny it. Just no way at all.
“My parents weren’t too keen on my decision at first. I had been brought up in the Church of Scotland. My mother was slightly hurt, but my father was just concerned I was doing the right thing. I asked them to come to my baptism, and they were there on the front row seats.
“My brother disowned me. He just didn’t want to know me at all. But now he’s great about it. If he hears anyone saying anything bad about the Church or my being a Mormon, he’ll jump to my defense. It’s heartwarming. It’s good to see him stand by me as my parents do.”
Jimmie shares with his family the things that happen at church each weekend. “If I have a calling they seem quite pleased. They know the Church is quite a big part of my life.”
He was attracted to the Church because he had many of the same values it teaches. “I’m a firm believer in doing unto others as you would have them do unto you.”
When he started studying with the missionaries, he was already living the Word of Wisdom. “As a teenager I drank, but only because all my friends were drinking. I realized that to be one of the boys you didn’t have to drink. They respected me eventually because of it.”
Jimmie is proud of his new-found heritage as a Latter-day Saint and strives to share it with others by his example. He blends his new beliefs with the Highland traditions of his homeland to show others what it means to be a Scottish Latter-day Saint.

Some years ago, Zulma—my wife, my better half, my best part—received some difficult news just two weeks before the wedding of one of our children. She had a tumor in her parotid gland, and it was growing rapidly. Her face began swelling, and she was to immediately undergo a delicate operation. Many thoughts ran through her mind and weighed on her heart. Was the tumor malignant? How would her body recover? Would her face become paralyzed? How intense would the pain be? Would her face be permanently scarred? Would the tumor return once removed? Would she be able to attend the wedding of our son? As she lay in the operating room, she felt broken.
In that very important moment, the Spirit whispered to her that she had to accept the will of the Father. She then decided to place her trust in God. She strongly felt that whatever the result, His will would be the best for her. Soon she drifted into surgical sleep.
Later, she wrote poetically in her diary: “On the surgeon’s table I bowed before Thee, and surrendering to Thy will, I fell asleep. I knew I could trust Thee, knowing that nothing bad can come from Thee.”
She found strength and comfort from surrendering her will to that of the Father. That day, God blessed her greatly.

I will never forget, while engaged in a hurricane clean-up, when one person in my group was prompted to immediately go to a small town of a few hundred people. When we arrived there we saw a large group of people lined up outside the town’s only building. Inside sitting on a chair by herself, was a young woman in tears. She was the first person in this town to ever graduate from college and had returned to help others achieve GED diplomas. She said something to the effect, “I don’t have anything to give them. Everything has been wiped out and everybody is looking to me to solve it.” We explained that though our Church we could get her supplies and relief. She thanked us, and then said: “I didn’t know anybody knew I was alive.” The truth was we didn’t, but God did, and because we hearkened to the whisper of the Spirit, lives were blessed.