Gospel Story Finder

Your answer may not come in one powerful spiritual experience. For me it came quietly at first. But it comes more forcefully each time I have read and prayed about the Book of Mormon.

The Balancing Girl and Margaret’s Moves Margaret always needs money. In The Balancing Girl, her booth at the school carnival brings in more money for her school than any other. In Margaret’s Moves, she needs money for a sportsmodel wheelchair so that she can move as fast as her brother. By the end of summer, she has earned only $33.30 (the chair costs $1,000) and has learned that even if she had the chair, she still couldn’t keep up with her brother. But in a surprising way, things work out.Berniece Rabe7–10 years and 9–12 years

He was a man of quick, gentle humor, much of it directed at himself; he never took himself too seriously. He referred to his typing as the “biblical system—seek and ye shall find.” He described the duets he so often sang with his late wife, the great contralto Jessie Evans Smith, as “do-its; I have to do it whether I want to or not.” His personal secretary and longtime associate, Brother D. Arthur Haycock, recalls how the students at BYU had seemed to enjoy a recent talk and duet so greatly some had tears in their eyes. To this President Smith quickly responded, “I can understand that. My singing is enough to make anybody cry.”

I am very happy to take a few moments and thank you people of the New Era. My companion has been quite sick for the better part of the day, and while I was studying, I happened to notice a box full of new and old New Eras. I took a few of the older ones and went over again some of the stories that I remember reading years ago; they never cease to interest me. As it has for many other people, the New Era has really been an influence in my life.
New Era, you are doing what is expected of you; keep up the good work!
Elder Bruce R. ClarkCanada Vancouver Mission

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized on April 6, 1830. In June of that year, Joseph Smith read the Articles and Covenants of the Church in a conference, and they were accepted by the Church members (D&C 20, 22). The Lord told Joseph Smith to begin making copies of the revelations he had received. In 1831 the Lord gave Joseph Smith His approval to publish the revelations by giving him the preface for the new book (D&C 1).
President Joseph Fielding Smith said, “The Doctrine and Covenants … is the only book in existence which bears the honor of a preface given by the Lord himself. … It was not written by Joseph Smith, but was dictated by Jesus Christ, and contains his and his Father’s word to the Church and to all the world that faith in God, repentance from sin and membership in his Church might be given to all who will believe.”

It was the summer before my senior year of high school, and I didn’t want to flip hamburgers to pay for my back-to-school wardrobe. So when my grandpa asked if I would spend that summer working for him trapping the numerous gophers that ruined the range and wildflowers with their endless tunneling, I agreed. The challenge of doing something none of my classmates were likely to do intrigued me.
By midsummer, the gophers close to the cabin were pretty much under control. I now had to hike farther out to set my traps. One day I was on one of my extended hikes when I stumbled upon the most beautiful scene I’d ever encountered. I just stopped and looked. I had always thought my mountain was the most beautiful one around, but this proved it. From this newly found vantage point, I gazed over miles and miles of rolling hills that spread out beneath where I was standing. I could see two other mountain ranges, clusters of pale purple hues in the distance. I was sure I must be among the first people to have discovered this glorious sight. I decided it was my duty to name this place.
Celestial Ridge seemed like an obvious choice. I decided if I made it to the highest kingdom and was able to create my own worlds, this is what mine would look like.
After this discovery, the mountain rapidly became both a friend and a place for me to worship. Celestial Ridge seemed to fill my needs as the best place to really be alone and draw closer to the Lord. I felt I understood why the prophets of old always seemed to go to the mountains when they wanted to communicate with God.
At nights, I had to find something to occupy my evenings. Since there wasn’t a TV or phone at the cabin I began reading the scriptures. My goal was to read the entire Book of Mormon before the end of summer.
As I dutifully entered this goal on the back page of my journal where I kept a list of both long- and short-term goals, I noticed that one of the long-term goals I always seemed to write down but never achieve was to gain a testimony. I felt I really needed a testimony to go back to school with, even more than I needed new school clothes. So I began reading the scriptures in earnest.
The summer flew by and my stay in the mountains was drawing to a close. I had finally completed the Book of Mormon, and I decided there was no better place to pray about the book’s truthfulness than on Celestial Ridge.
Early one morning I hiked to the ridge. I had begun fasting the night before, and felt I was ready to finally receive my testimony. I knelt down, prayed, and then waited with great expectations. I was ready for angels, a burning bush, or at the very least, the still small voice. I’d read many faith-promoting stories and felt I knew what to expect.
I continued to wait, but nothing was happening. A rush of disappointment swept over me.
Had I done something wrong? I was crushed. I took my scriptures out of my backpack and reread Moroni 10:3–5 [Moro. 10:3–5]. I knelt down again, but still the heavens didn’t open up.
I repacked my dusty blue backpack and trudged back to the cabin while wondering what I had done wrong. I reasoned it must be my fault the Lord hadn’t answered my prayers, because I knew he was there.
When it was time to go back home for school, I was a little despondent as I placed my journal into my suitcase. I really thought this would be the summer I could finally put a check mark by that testimony goal in the back of my journal.
As I waited in the cabin for my parents to pick me up, I noticed I’d forgotten to pack my scriptures. I really didn’t want to read them. Actually I was sort of mad at them because I felt like they had cheated me. However I gave in to boredom and started lazily leafing through the pages.
As I flipped through the Doctrine and Covenants, my eye caught a section of underlined scripture in the 46th section. I read verses 13 and 14; then I reread them again. [D&C 46:13–14] “To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and that he was crucified for the sins of the world. To others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithful.”
I just stared at the book. A slow, warm feeling started spreading within me. My prayers had been answered. I knew that now. These two verses confirmed that.
All of a sudden I realized that I had been hoping for my own private miracle. But I didn’t need angels or a burning bush or a voice from heaven to whisper to me that the Book of Mormon and the Church were true. I’d already known that. After all, I had known Heavenly Father would answer my prayers because I knew he was there.
I was ready to go back to school. I really had achieved what I’d been working for that summer.

This is Sister Clara Elisa Ruano de Villareal from Tulcán, Ecuador. She embraced the restored gospel at age 34 and was a beloved leader. Her family said goodbye singing her favorite hymn, “I Know That My Redeemer Lives.”

I recall that when I was twenty years old, I went for an interview with the bishop to go on a mission. When I returned, my mother, all smiles, said, “Well, Ted, what did the bishop say?”
“He said I couldn’t go.”
“Why not?” my mother asked.
And I said, “Because we don’t have enough money.”
“If my father could leave two children and another to be born shortly after he left, you can go.”
I said, “I know that, but the bishop doesn’t.”
Parenthetically, I might say that he was doing his job right. He asked me if I had any money. I told him I had a few hundred dollars that I had earned that summer.
He said, “Then what?”
I said, “My dad would send it to me.”
He said, “Does your dad have it?”
I said, “No,” and he didn’t. We had lost our sheep herd during the Depression. My father was a livestock dealer buying lambs and wool on commission, and that was a very uncertain income.
The bishop said, “The Brethren have had some serious experiences, and so you cannot go unless you can guarantee that you’ll have sufficient money.”
I accepted that, and that’s what I told my mother.
That night we waited for Dad to come home and then held a family council. We concluded that we didn’t then have enough money—and that we wouldn’t, so far as we could see, anytime in the future. We decided to ask our neighbor, Tom Anderson, a rather wealthy man, if he would help. When we explained our situation, he said, “You tell the bishop that I will ‘back you.’”
Before the bishop opened his business the next morning, I was there waiting to tell him that Tom Anderson said he would back me. The bishop said, “That’s all I need to know.”
The interesting thing was that we never did have to call on Brother Anderson. My folks would send that check and with it a note, “This is for this month, and we’ll have the next month’s, too.”
I am a product of a household of faith. I learned faith in my home. I was taught it. It was drilled into me. I need that faith now as much as I ever did.

Growing up, Elder Choi dreamed of becoming a general in the Korean army. So when his bishop asked him to speak about preparing for a mission, Elder Choi said no. Another young man spoke instead, which made Elder Choi feel guilty.
“The Holy Ghost told me I needed to serve a mission,” he says. He prepared for and served two years as a missionary, interrupted halfway through by three years of mandatory military service. To this day, Elder Choi says he and his wife, Koo Bon Kyung, “never deny anything that comes from the Lord.”

Carthage Jail is the site of the assassination of Joseph Smith Jr. and his brother Hyrum, on June 27, 1844. They had been jailed on false charges of treason. An armed mob stormed the building and shot the two brothers.

A familiar example of losing ourselves in the service of others—this one not unique to Latter-day Saints—is the sacrifice parents make for their children. Mothers suffer pain and loss of personal priorities and comforts to bear and rear each child. Fathers adjust their lives and priorities to support a family. The gap between those who are and those who are not willing to do this is widening in today’s world. One of our family members recently overheard a young couple on an airline flight explaining that they chose to have a dog instead of children. “Dogs are less trouble,” they declared. “Dogs don’t talk back, and we never have to ground them.”

If we live righteously we should always feel comfortable speaking with the Lord. Speaking with Him means more than just reciting a list of routine desires and wants. Instead we should take the time, morning and night, to have a true conversation with the Lord. After listening to President Hinckley, 17-year-old Jill Miller decided to improve her prayers.

“Ever since President Hinckley’s counsel I have made a special effort to make my prayers more meaningful,” she wrote. “I have grown much closer to my Heavenly Father. Having a good relationship with Him and feeling of His love for me has helped me in every aspect of my life. I wasn’t always doing what was right and what would make my Father in Heaven proud and happy with me. By praying more earnestly it has helped me remember my desire to be good.”

Over the last hours I have come to understand other blessings from “always remembering him.” I thought of a family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I met years ago: a father, mother, and two teenage daughters who belonged to no church but read the Bible together every day. They pondered the Savior’s life and his words. When we found them they had decided that Christ would have a church and that they should find it. They knew that it would have prophets and apostles at its foundation because that is what Christ had left in his church in the meridian of time. They knew that the resurrected Lord had appeared to his Apostles.
And so when we testified that God the Father and his Son, the Savior of the world, came to a boy prophet, Joseph Smith, that seemed right to them. When they heard us testify that Peter, James, and John appeared and restored priesthood, they knew that would have to have happened. And the Holy Spirit, which they also recognized, told them it was true. I realized sometime last night or early this morning that they recognized the truth—that this is the Church of Jesus Christ—in large part because they had always remembered him. Every day they had gathered to read about him and his words, and so they remembered him. And after they were baptized they were ready to follow the living prophet because they knew the Savior always speaks to his prophets to bless his people.

I took my college entrance exams, filled out applications, and sorted through the letters offering track scholarships. A mission was only two years away. I took a part-time job at a restaurant to help save money for it.
Mom was doing great and Dad landed a promotion at work, one that took him off the dock and into an office. He was almost 50, and I was happy to know that his days of heavy physical labor were over.
On the track, my times kept improving. I hadn’t lost a race in two years, but my streak was in jeopardy. At an invitational meet in Sacramento, I was going to race the top runners from California, including Michael Banks, a senior from Los Angeles.
I had never met him but knew his reputation. On Mondays at practice my coach kept me apprised of Michael Bank’s achievements. “You were good on Friday, Tom. But Banks was two seconds faster.”
“Tomorrow’s the big race?” my father asked innocently the night before the meet.
“It is. I’ve never been so nervous about a race in my life.”
“You run in a circle four times; then it’s over. What’s so tough about that?” he kidded. “You’ll do fine, Tom. I’ll leave work and drive up to see you.”
My father was a stake clerk and went to a meeting of the stake presidency that night. I was asleep when he got home, yet he had already left for work when I arose just after six.
“Couldn’t Dad sleep?” I asked my mother at breakfast.
“No. He met with the stake president last night. He has something to tell you, but I’ll let him do so in his own way.”
I couldn’t imagine what he wanted to tell me, and I didn’t think of it again. Michael Banks and his fearsome times were crowding out everything else.
“Good luck. We’ll be there to watch and we’ll be proud of you whether you win or not.” She kissed me on the cheek, and I left for a half-day of school before driving to Sacramento with my coach.
Almost 11 hours later I stood at the starting line in the fifth lane. A half-dozen other boys stretched and shook their arms, preparing for the race. Tension was thick, a very real presence. My stomach was wound tight and I felt a little sick. Michael Banks stood two lanes away, looking confident, hands on his hips, staring down the track. We had met in the tunnel on the way to the track. He nodded in my direction and I murmured hello. That was all.
My coach gave me a few last-minute instructions. “Take the lead early in the fourth lap. If you don’t, Banks will out kick you down the stretch. You have the better stamina, but you can’t match his kick. Good luck, Tom. You’ll give it your best, I know.”
We were called to our marks. I scanned the crowd, but I couldn’t see my parents. I tried to block the worry from my mind. Concentrate, I must concentrate, I repeated softly. Your parents are in the stands. Don’t worry. The starter raised his pistol, and it cracked into the air. Arms and legs rushed, and there was a jostling of elbows as we started around the first corner. I began talking to myself in my mind.
How do I feel? Legs are tight, relax. Who’s on my shoulder? Don’t get boxed in. Breathe, breathe, relax. Keep your arm motion smooth. Glide, not too fast. Where’s Banks?
Glide, glide. Move outside when you can. Was that Banks in the lead? No. Maybe neither of us will win. Wouldn’t that be something. Don’t make your move yet. Do I have enough left in me to even make a move? You’ll die by the fourth lap. Remember what the coach said.
The second lap was nearing an end. My head hurt and I could taste blood in my mouth. I guessed I was in fifth place. My legs were rubbery. I didn’t have much.
Maintain, just maintain. Let your mouth go slack. Glide a lap … Oh, what’s the use? You don’t have it today, Tom. Banks has this one.
My pace slowed a bit. I was on the inside lane. I turned my head slightly and saw a familiar face, hands cupped to his mouth, standing on the infield. It was my father.
Quick strides brought me within hearing range. What was he shouting?
“Tommy … !”
Yes, Father.
“… Paula—you’re an uncle.”
What? An uncle? A boy or a girl? Get this race over, Rosa. You’re an uncle!
I forced my arms to pump faster. I moved to the outside and fought past two runners. Third place now and Banks clearly in the lead.
Paula, she isn’t due for two more weeks. But … But … a new baby in the family!
My pace quickened. I took over second place. Only Michael Banks loomed ahead. My lungs burned and my legs ached. Still, I managed to pull even with him. In unison, Michael Banks and I ran, leaving the others behind. We came around the bend again. There was my dad, shouting jubilantly.
“Tommy …”
The crowd was going berserk as Banks and I matched strides. Could I hear my father? I drew nearer and heard only two words: “You will!”
I will … I will … Now!
I moved inches ahead with a half-lap to go. Now! My fists rammed forward; my legs pounded the track. The lead grew to a foot, then a yard. I heard Michael Banks’ strained breathing behind me. Never had a race been so hard for me.
A baby!—Paula was a mom. My mom was a grandmother. And my father, a grandfather, who somehow made his way to the infield because he knew I needed to hear him.
I rounded the last corner, now in a dead sprint, my chest heaving.
Remember Banks’ kick. Don’t hold anything back. Pump your arms, run on your toes.
The tape loomed ahead. I frantically ran toward it. A few yards away, I stumbled, fought to keep my balance, and broke across the finish line. Michael Banks whisked in behind me. I turned and we threw our arms around each other. “Great race, man,” he gasped. “You ran inspired.”
“You’ll never know,” I panted.
I walked to the grassy infield. I knew that I should keep moving, but my legs refused. I sat down, then leaned back. I looked up into the clear, blue sky. A face filled it, the face of my father.
Some boys, they say things about their fathers. They say they aren’t friends, that there is too much of a difference for them to understand each other. They say they don’t know if their fathers love them. I feel an emptiness for those boys and their fathers. When thousands were shouting in a very tough race, it was my father’s voice that I listened for and heard.
On the way home, my parents told me why they were late. They got a phone call from Paula’s husband just as they were leaving. When they arrived at the stadium, the race had just started. One look told Father that I was struggling. Before he stopped to think about it, he was at the edge of the stands heading to the infield. He said he thought it was the only chance for me to know he was there.
“What a day,” he sighed. “And I didn’t get a wink of sleep last night. I suppose that’s what happens when the stake president asks you to serve as the bishop.”
He said it so casually that the impact didn’t hit me for a few seconds. My dad was going to be the bishop of our ward!

Anameere Tennaba Schwalger was the first in her family to join the Church, to serve a mission, and to earn a bachelor’s degree. She shares: “I often felt like my dreams were out of reach. But through faith, patience, and the grace of God, I’ve been blessed in ways I never imagined. I’ve seen His love in the people He brought into my life.”

One time some enemy officers were captured and brought before Garibaldi. He had been so feared by the opposing armies that the officers expected to face a cruel, harsh person. To their surprise, this great man shook their hands, told them they had fought bravely, and offered sympathy that they had been captured.

Colten and Preston are teenagers who live in Utah. Their parents are divorced, and they have not received permission to be baptized. Even though they can’t pass the sacrament, they bring the bread each week. And even though they can’t enter the temple to do baptisms with the youth when their ward goes to the temple, the two brothers find family names next door at the family history center. The greatest influence on helping our youth feel included is other righteous youth.

And ‘doing what’s required’ has been his guideline for the last five years. Prior to that, Jo’s legs were the same as most people’s—active.

Then came the blood clot in his spine. Only one in a million people ever suffer from this problem. Usually they are middle-aged and end up mentally retarded due to brain damage or even die.

Jo survived, perfectly normal except for his legs.

Despite frequent hospitalization, he has become more and more cheerful, relying on priesthood blessings and developing a testimony that takes him places where legs are not important.

Looking back, Jo has a clear picture of that turning point in his life. “I was prepared, through promptings of the Spirit, for the information that my legs would always be paralysed,” he says. “So when the doctor appeared solemnly saying, ‘I have something to tell you,’ I thought it must be, ‘Sorry, no hope, you’re going to die.’ When he said, ‘You’ll never walk again,’ it was a relief. I could handle that.”

That was the easy part. Adapting and learning to do everything differently was not. So Jo developed ways of dealing with setbacks. His favourite saying when things get tough is, “You can either laugh or cry, but if you laugh, people like you better.”

Jo did progress, becoming more and more independent and mobile.

Paul Harvey, a famous news commentator, visited one of our Church school campuses some years ago. Later he observed: “Each … young face mirrored a sort of … sublime assurance. These days many young eyes are prematurely old from [countless] compromises with conscience. But [these young people] have that enviable headstart which derives from discipline, dedication, and consecration.”

When Elder Wirthlin was young, he loved to go fishing with his father, Joseph L. Wirthlin, who would later become the Presiding Bishop of the Church.
“When I was a boy, I spent a lot of time with my father and loved to be with him. One time we went on a fishing trip on the upper part of the Provo River, southeast of Heber City, Utah. We were walking through a meadow, and I was some distance behind him. Father disappeared over a rise in the meadow, and he fell into a deep pond of water!
“When I came over the rise, there was his hat floating on the surface of the water. He finally came up gasping for air, and I reached down and helped him get out of the pond so that he didn’t drown.
“Even though I was young and very small, I learned in a dramatic way that there are many things that we can do to help our parents on a daily basis, or even in a lifesaving situation. We should always be willing to reach out to help our loved ones, regardless of the situation.”