Gospel Story Finder

“This is going to be great!” Sterling said as he looked out the truck window. The sun was just rising over the horizon. The range stretched as far as he could see, full of sagebrush, a few twisted cedar trees, and one lonely cabin.
“Yeah!” his friend Glen said back. “I can’t wait to ride the range with Marcus.”
“And eat his famous sourdough biscuits,” Sterling said.
Sterling’s dad drove up to the cabin and parked the truck. He was dropping them off to help Marcus with their families’ cattle. The boys ran to the cabin as the 70-year-old cowherder walked out, smiling big. A cowboy hat covered his head.
“Here are my cowhands!” Marcus said. “I was starting to think you wouldn’t make it. I’m sure glad to see you.” Marcus spoke a few minutes with Sterling’s dad, then waved as the dust settled behind the truck.
Marcus fed them breakfast—delicious sourdough biscuits, eggs, and bacon. Then they saddled their horses and began riding the range, looking for cattle who were wandering. They set out big blocks of salt for the cattle to lick so they would be healthy.
After lunch they rode under the cloudless sky to a far corner of the range. It was hot and dusty, so Marcus led them to a spring of water to have a drink and cool off. Soon they were ready to get back to work.
But as Marcus swung his leg over his horse, his sharp spurs accidentally hit the horse under the tail. The horse bucked and threw Marcus to the ground on top of a big rock. Marcus screamed in pain.
“Marcus!” yelled Glen.
“Are you OK?” said Sterling.
“I can’t move,” Marcus moaned. Then his eyes closed. He had passed out!
The boys looked at each other, eyes wide. “What should we do?” said Sterling.
“We need to find someone to help us,” said Glen. “He needs a doctor.”
Sterling and Glen were scared. They were miles away from other people and didn’t have phones to call for help. They didn’t even know exactly where they were.
“I’ll be right back,” Sterling said. He walked around a pile of rocks, knelt in the dirt, and bowed his head. “Heavenly Father, Marcus is really hurt, and we don’t know how to help. Please let me know what to do.”
Sterling heard a clear voice in his head. Ride north.
He hurried back to Glen and Marcus. “I’m going to find help,” he said to Glen. “You stay here with Marcus.” Glen looked relieved.
Sterling climbed on his horse and started riding north. After about an hour of nothing but sky and sagebrush, he saw a cloud of dust in the distance. A truck was coming slowly across the range. Sterling galloped to the truck and waved it down. It was two sheepherders looking for their lost sheep!
Sterling told them about Marcus. The sheepherders knew where the spring was and drove right to Marcus and Glen. They carefully lifted Marcus into the back of the truck and drove him to the hospital. Sterling and Glen took the horses back to Marcus’s cabin and waited for their parents to pick them up.
“Thank you, Heavenly Father,” Sterling prayed quietly. “Thank you for helping us help Marcus.”
A few months later, Sterling saw Marcus after his broken bones had healed. “There’s my brave, smart cowhand!” Marcus said. “Thanks for saving my life with your quick thinking.”
Sterling smiled. He was glad Marcus was OK. “It wasn’t me,” he said. “I was just following Heavenly Father’s directions.”

Recently a professional assignment required me to travel out of the country. But I felt such a foreboding about the trip that prior to leaving I sought a priesthood blessing. I was warned that the adversary would attempt to thwart my mission and that physical and spiritual danger lay ahead. I was also counseled that this was not to be a sight-seeing or a shopping trip and that if I would focus on my assignments and seek the direction of the Spirit, I would return safely home.
Well, the warning was sobering. But as I proceeded, pleading for direction and protection each step of the way, I realized that my experience wasn’t all that unique. Might not our Father have said to you and to me as we left His presence: “The adversary will attempt to thwart your mission, and you will face spiritual and physical danger. But if you will focus on your assignments, if you will heed my voice, and if you will refuse to reduce mortality to a sight-seeing or a shopping trip, you will return safely home”?

He smiled as he reminded his daughter of one of her favorite rides at the amusement park when she was younger. “Remember how much time you used to spend on that large spinning turntable in the fun house? You and all the other children would scramble toward the center and try to hold your places as the huge wheel spun.”
“Oh, yes,” the daughter replied. “Once that wheel started spinning, the kids closest to the edge went sliding off just like that cotton ball, and the ones who managed to hold their position near the center stayed on.”
Her eyes sparkled as she remembered how she would slip and slide on the big wheel. “I tried my best to work my way from the edge toward the center, but it was a real struggle. I had to crawl and apply great traction with my hands to pull myself up toward the center. And if that weren’t hard enough, I always had to be on guard for those who didn’t make it, because they usually grabbed someone else as they spun off and tried to take them with them.”

We like the general conference notebook that we can print from lds.org. The activities are great, and we are able to discuss what we learn at conference in family home evening.
–Guymon Family

We started meeting with the Reverend and put together a proposal to the church to secure some funding. All Saints was opening their doors to asylum seekers twice a week for drop-in sessions where an individual could get a cup of coffee and cake, needed clothing, as well as advice, ESOL support, someone to listen to them, or just an entertaining round of chess to break up the monotony that they feel. They had recently run out of funding. The Church agreed to give £15,000 to provide much needed warm clothing and toiletries as well as vouchers for underwear, school uniform and shoes. We were all thrilled.

At the beginning of 2019, when the new Come, Follow Me was just beginning, we could feel the excitement of the students. Even though we were studying from the Doctrine and Covenants in seminary, they started sharing things they had learned from studying the New Testament with their families. They were so excited about it. When we studied Doctrine and Covenants 89 (the Word of Wisdom) in seminary, it was around the same time we were studying John 2 (when Jesus Christ turns water into wine) in Come, Follow Me. Finding common principles and ideas between the two readings allowed the students to share with their peers what they had learned at home. They were much more engaged, and the discussion was much more invigorating because the students had things to talk about. They were able to apply the things they had learned at home to what we were learning at seminary.

Eli Hansen, 15, from Burley, Idaho, was taking an acting class in high school and thought Pirates would be fun. “I learned I have some talents I’ve never used before,” he says. “I didn’t know I could dance or sing. Now they’re getting me into the ward choir.”

In August 2005, when the Church received a request from Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to partner with them to send aid to Niger, an African nation facing major food shortages because of crop-devastating locust attacks and severe drought, the Church responded immediately with its largest ever air shipment of Atmit. The Church provided 80,000 pounds (36 tonnes) of the specialized porridge made for those suffering from severe malnourishment. Since then, subsequent shipments have been made and will continue according to need.

On March 24, President Eyring dedicated the Red Cliffs Utah Temple in St. George, Utah, USA. “You will find a joy in your service here that is available in no other way,” he said during the dedicatory services.

I met Regis Carlus for the first time in 1995 in France. He was not a member of the Church. His daughter, Charlotte, was being sealed in the Bern Switzerland Temple the next day, and he had written, asking if he could stop by my office to meet me. He had heard that I often inquired about him, and he was perplexed as to why.

After being called as a General Authority and assigned to serve in the Europe/Mediterranean Area Presidency, I received Mr. Carlus’s request to meet and hoped that he would follow his children into the restored gospel.

When Charlotte’s father was a university student in the 1960s, the missionaries had taught him the gospel. He was drawn to the restored Church and felt the power of the Book of Mormon. He decided, however, that joining a small, American-based church would not help his professional career.

Now, as I greeted Mr. Carlus and exchanged pleasantries that day in 1995, he asked why I had demonstrated such an interest in him.

After praying with him, I told him that these few minutes with him might be the only time in this life that I would see him. I complimented him on his remarkable daughter and son and told him I respected him immensely for raising two righteous children.

Then I spoke to him of the purposes of the Savior in restoring His gospel upon the earth, the role of the priesthood, the importance of family and the sealing power, and the gathering of a covenant people across the world.

I told him I felt that when the missionaries taught him as a university student, his righteous destiny was to join the covenant people of the Church. I asked that he not be offended as we read two verses that I felt applied to him.

Together we read in Alma about those “called and prepared from the foundation of the world … on account of their exceeding faith and good works; in the first place being left to choose good or evil; therefore they having chosen good, and exercising exceedingly great faith, are called with a holy calling … while others would reject the Spirit of God on account of the hardness of their hearts and blindness of their minds, while, if it had not been for this [for they were on the same standing] they might have had as great privilege as their brethren” (Alma 13:3–4).

I politely shared with Mr. Carlus that I believed he had been prepared to be with us, and when he refused because of the appeals of the world, the Lord continued to bless him with two choice spirits to be his children. They embraced the covenant path meant for his family. Then I invited him to accept the invitation he had been given 30 years before.

Regis Carlus did not join the Church in this life, but his children had chosen the covenant path, and they have remained on the path.

Out on the field, Richard makes the game look simple. He feints, counterfeints, and passes. He sees an opening and sprints for it, waving his hand to let fellow players know he’s in the clear. On defense he shouts instructions and directs traffic as though he’s been playing all his life—which is just about the truth. His expertise, along with his scholarship in school, have qualified him for two trips abroad with soccer teams—one to Glenrothes, Scotland, another to Den Haag, Holland. While there, Richard lived with families and attended school, as well as playing exhibition soccer.

We used the “Light the World” stars in the Friend (Dec. 2017) to make ornaments for our Christmas-tree poster. It helped us follow Jesus all month. We love the Friend magazine!
Annie, Adelaide, and Sullivan W., ages 5, 3, and 2, Texas, USA

Pierre’s idea for a choir of homeless men never got off the ground in Paris because he didn’t stay in Paris. His older brother and sister had moved to Montréal, and he visited them frequently. In April 1995 he moved to Québec to get married. His engagement didn’t work out, but Pierre fell in love with Canada and decided to stay. He set up a successful dental lab and, of course, began volunteering.
“On my second day here,” he says, “I inquired at the tourist office where I could volunteer.” By coincidence, the tourism officer was a volunteer at l’Accueil Bonneau, a homeless shelter, and told him how to find it. “I arrived in time for lunch, and they gave me an apron,” he recalls. “I started to serve lunch to the homeless. For more than a year I did this.”
But the same frustrations he had felt in Paris resurfaced, and so did his idea. He typed a flyer and handed out 600 copies to the men in the food line. It offered employment to “singers, even beginners, for part-time work. Men only. Any age. Any nationality. Must love to sing. Musical knowledge not necessary.” Thirty men expressed interest, but at the first rehearsal only 3 showed up. However, 7 came the next day. The day after, 12 showed up. Pierre taught them four Christmas carols from the LDS hymnbook.
The metro was an inspired and logical location for their performances. “If the mountain won’t come to you, you must go to the mountain,” says Pierre. “Thousands and thousands of people come to the metro.”
Residents of Montréal are accustomed to seeing homeless people on the street, but they were not prepared for what they encountered in the metro station at 7:30 A.M. on 17 December 1996. It was an unforgettable experience for the performers and the commuters. “I couldn’t see the faces of the spectators,” Pierre explains, “because I was conducting, but I could see the faces of my friends in the choir. Their faces changed. People crowded around us. Several missed their trains to listen longer. One woman began to cry, and her sobs filled that improbable event with incredible emotion. It was like a tide coming in. People were crying, singing with us, putting money in the hat to the cadence of the melody, clink, clink. They started to make a line to put money in the hat. It was a wonderful experience.”
That first concert brought in more money than they had expected. The next morning the choir earned even more. “But the greatest pay the men received,” says Pierre, “was when people came directly up to them, spoke to them, and shook their hands. This meant much to men who had spent their lives digging in garbage cans, begging, or even stealing simply to survive.”
The choir sang every day that Christmas season except Sundays. The money they earned allowed all of them to spend the holiday in more comfortable circumstances. A few were able to visit relatives. Some hadn’t seen their families in years.
“After the last performance,” Pierre recalls, “I asked my friends, ‘Do you want to keep going with this choir, or do you want to stop now and start it up again next Christmas?’ ‘Keep going,’ they insisted.”
After the choir’s first subway concert, the media quickly learned about them. Two days later they were invited to introduce the weather forecast for a large television station, and the next morning articles appeared in most of the Québec newspapers. This unexpected free publicity allowed the choir to sign contracts for concerts at festivals, schools, churches, banks, and other television stations.
“The media,” says Pierre, “has helped give us a voice for our message that life is beautiful, that it is really worth living, and that we should never give up. Everyone deserves a second chance, and no one should be excluded, even if he or she is different.”

On another part of the island, in the capital city of Basse-Terre, the Church is becoming a two-generation heritage for Luidgia Duflo, 13, and her sister Stella, 17, who joined the Church two years ago at the same time as their older sister, their younger brother, and their parents. They say the gospel has taught them to honor their mother and their father. They especially enjoy family home evening, which they hold in their family’s apartment, located above their father’s small store. He sells household products, sugar, spices, candy, and animal food. One of their favorite places to talk with him is in his office at the back of the store, where the wall is covered with photos of various Latter-day Saint temples.
“It gives him an opportunity to do a little missionary work when people come in on business and want to know what all those buildings are,” Stella explains. “But I think it also reminds him every day of his eternal promises and goals; it certainly does that for us. We should prepare to go to the temple, and he is constantly reminding us of that.”
The Duflo family sees a bright future ahead. “The Church will keep growing in Guadeloupe, and it will flourish,” Stella says. “We just have to do our part, little by little, day by day, trusting the Lord in all things and sharing the gospel whenever we can.”

After hearing the stake patriarch speak in sacrament meeting, I felt inspired to ask my bishop for a recommend. Then the patriarch and I set a date. As I entered his house that morning, I knew I was on the right path. We told each other a little about our lives. After that, the patriarch laid his hands upon my head and began to prophesy about my life. I could feel that it was all true and that it was really God that was speaking through the patriarch. I wept. I learned many things about myself that day.
Jared Edge, 18Layton, Utah

When Brother Dahlquist was a mission president, he met a shepherd with his sheep near Kassel, Germany. He asked the shepherd if he led the sheep or if he followed them. The shepherd said, “It all depends. If it’s someplace they’ve been before, the sheep lead and I follow. If it’s someplace new, I lead and they follow me.” Wise leaders know this and set the example and then let others lead. When that happens, new leaders gain the confidence they need to apply those same skills.

1833 The Book of Commandments was published. Few copies survived a mob attack on the printing press. Two teens, Mary Elizabeth and Caroline Amelia Rollins, saved as many pages as they could and hid from the mob in a cornfield.

I get up almost every morning and pour myself some cold cereal for breakfast. I used to pour a bowl of Grape Nuts or Corn Flakes and set the box right in front of me where I could read it for 10 or 15 minutes. I could read each panel close to three times in one sitting. Eating cold cereal five days of the week meant I was reading the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowances 15 times per week or 60 times in a month!
In high school I had a difficult time getting excited about scripture reading. In my seminary class, though, daily scripture reading was required if I wanted a good grade, so I would read the scriptures—for the grade. Each night, just before my eyelids were ready to close, I would remember about the “A” that I wanted in seminary and grab my scriptures from my desk. As I fell into a deep sleep, my mind would skim over the words and I never really got that much out of them.
Then I started college. Every night I was up so late I didn’t feel like I had time to read the scriptures. There were so many other things to do—like sleep! But I began to feel guilty seeing them sitting on my shelf, only taking them down for church or home teaching. Besides, I could always find the time to read a good novel or go to a movie. So one morning, I took my scriptures to the breakfast table with me. Rather than reading those daily allowances that I had memorized anyway, I read the scriptures. I found something very interesting—the scriptures fill another type of Recommended Daily Allowance: things like increased spiritual awareness, a good feeling inside, and answers to my problems.
After reading my scriptures in the morning, my day goes a lot better. Reading every day has evolved into an everyday habit which I now enjoy very much. I am glad that my Heavenly Father loves me enough to show me how much I need his word in my life.

Mountain Born The newborn black lamb was still, stiff, and cold, but with the old shepherd’s special touch and Mother’s loving care, Biddy was soon a spirited pet for Peter. But she was more than that. One time, for example, Biddy appeared at the farmhouse door, her side dripping blood. She led Peter, his father, and the old shepherd back to the flock in the mountains so that they could save it from the wolves that had attacked her.Elizabeth Yates8–11 years

Sacrament Thoughts
I fold my arms
And bow my head;
Then the sacrament prayer is said.
I open my eyes
And then look up,
And after the bread I drink water
From a little plastic cup.
I try to think
Of how Jesus died,
Sacrificed His life
For all mankind.
I picture His hands
Pierced, bleeding, and sore.
A crown of thorns
On His head He wore.
And now I think
As I take the sacrament’s drink
How Jesus, our Savior,
Died for us,
That we might live again.
Sariah J., age 11, Utah