Gospel Story Finder

In 2016, while serving a mission in Little Rock, Arkansas, I asked Brother Cava to deliver a package to my older sister, who lived on an island in Fiji. His response was not something that I had anticipated. “President Wakolo,” he groaned, “your sister passed away and was buried 10 days ago.” I had self-pity and even felt a little upset that my family did not even bother to let me know.

The next day, while my wife was teaching missionaries, this thought penetrated my soul: “Taniela, all these experiences are for your own good and development. You have been teaching and sharing your testimony about the Atonement of Jesus Christ; now live accordingly.” I was reminded that “happy is the man whom God correct[s]: therefore [we should] despise not … the chastening of the Almighty” (Job 5:17). It was a spiritual surgery for me, and the outcome was immediate.

Just as I was contemplating the experience, I was called upon to give my concluding thoughts to the discussion. Among other things, I shared the lessons that I had just been taught: one, I had just been chastened by the Holy Ghost, and I loved it because I was the only one who heard it; two, because of the Savior’s sacrifice and ransom, I will no longer refer to my challenges as trials and tribulations but as my learning experiences; and three, because of His perfect and sinless life, I will no longer refer to my shortcomings and lack of abilities as weaknesses but rather as my development opportunities. This experience helped me know that God chastens us because He loves us.

“A call is more than an invitation or a request. It is a call from the Lord through His chosen servant. Years ago, President Spencer W. Kimball, then president of a stake in Arizona, had an experience with extending a calling. There was a vacancy in the presidency of the Young Men organization in the stake. President Kimball left his desk at the bank, walked down the street a few doors into a business, and said, ‘Jack, how would you like to be president of the Young Men in the stake?’
“Jack said, ‘Oh, Spencer, you don’t mean me.’
“He said, ‘Of course I do. You’re a young man, and you get along with young people. You’d make a very good president.’
“Then there occurred what President Kimball thought was a very disagreeable conversation because Jack turned down the call. He went back to the bank and sat at his desk, smoldering over his failure. Then it came to him. He left his desk, went down the street—same door, same man—called him by his full name, and said, ‘Last Sunday the stake presidency met to consider a vacancy in the Young Men’s presidency. We prayed about it, talked about it. Finally, on our knees we inquired about it and received the inspiration from the Lord that you should be called. As a servant of the Lord, I am here to deliver that call.’
“Jack said, ‘Well, Spencer, if you’re going to put it that way.’
“And he said, ‘I’m putting it that way.’”6

I am grateful to the Lord that my temple memories extend back—even to young boyhood. I remember so well, as a little boy, coming in from the field and approaching the family farm house in Whitney, Idaho. I could hear my mother singing “Have I Done Any Good in the World Today?” (Hymns, no. 58.)
I can still see her in my mind’s eye, beads of perspiration on her forehead, bending over the ironing board with clean paper covering the floor where she worked, ironing long strips of white cloth. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, “These are temple robes, my son. Your father and I are going to the temple at Logan.”
Then she put the old flatiron on the stove, drew a chair close to mine, and told me about temple work—how important it is to be able to go to the temple and participate in the sacred ordinances performed there. She also expressed her fervent hope that some day her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren would have the opportunity to enjoy these priceless blessings.
These sweet memories about the spirit of temple work were a blessing in our farm home, our little rural ward of three hundred, and the old Oneida Stake. These memories have returned as I have performed the marriage of each of our children and grandchildren, my mother’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren, under the influence of the Spirit in the House of the Lord.

Latter-day Saints know that revelation and prophecy have foretold the spread of the gospel throughout the world in the latter days. Few realize, though, how clearly this has been manifest in Korea. Not a single Korean national was a member of the Church until 1951, but today, little more than a generation later, South Korea has fourteen stakes and a temple.
Much of this growth must be attributed to the work and influence of modern-day pioneer Kim Ho Jik.
Born 16 April 1905 in the province of Pyeongan Buk-Do (now part of North Korea), Kim Ho Jik moved south as a teenager to attend school in Suwon, a farm town south of Seoul. He graduated from Suwon Advanced Agricultural and Forestry School in 1924, then earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from Tohoku University in Japan, graduating in 1930. His comparatively advanced education allowed him to rise quickly to positions of influence. After his return to Korea, he became president of Sukmyeong Women’s University. Then, in 1946, he was appointed director of the Suwon Agricultural Experimentation Station.
Kim Yeon Jun, a former colleague and now president of Hanyang University in Seoul, remembers that “the thing he [Kim Ho Jik] seemed most concerned about was finding ways to improve the quality of life for Koreans.” Kim ho Jik focused his research on ways to improve nutrition in the Korean diet.
But he longed to learn more about the latest theories and discoveries in agriculture. American scientists who worked with him at the experimentation station encouraged this desire, pointing out that Korea desperately needed well-educated leaders in science and education. Syngman Rhee, president of South Korea, wanted to send him to America to learn more efficient ways of feeding their country’s malnourished population. So Kim Ho Jik made plans to enroll at Cornell University in New York, which had one of the world’s top graduate study programs in nutrition.
A yearning for education was not the only passion that filled his heart as he journeyed to the United States in 1949. Since his youth he had been interested in religion and had investigated several churches. None had satisfied his spiritual hunger. As a boy, he had looked into different religious movements. He also studied in a Buddhist monastery. In 1925, he joined a Protestant church and became an elder in that organization.
Han In Sang, an early Latter-day Saint convert in Korea and now director of the regional Presiding bishopric Office in Seoul, recalls: “Dr. Kim had great faith in orthodox Christian concepts, such as Jesus Christ as the Savior, but he had some dissatisfaction with other aspects of the Protestant churches—the theological confusion and the false doctrines, like predestination.” The sudden death of his third son in 1935 had deepened Kim Ho Jik’s longing for spiritual satisfaction.
Long before he came to America, he believed in the Spirit of God and sought its guidance. His faith served him well just before he left his homeland, when he felt compelled to sell his beautiful home, his cars, and his other possessions. He gave the cash raised from these sales to his wife and children to live on. To critics of this apparently purposeless act, Kim Ho Jik replied only that the Spirit had instructed him to do so.
A few months after he arrived in America, the reason became clear. War broke out with the North Korean invasion of June 1950. Bombs destroyed his former home, and the South Korean government confiscated all automobiles for use by the military. But Kim Ho Jik’s family remained financially secure in his absence.
Kim Ho Jik hoped the Spirit would help him find the “true church” in America. While he completed a doctoral degree at Cornell, he attended meetings of various churches in and around Ithaca, New York. But the answer he was seeking lay at his very doorstep.
The Korean educator shared an office with Oliver Wayman, a doctoral candidate in physiology. Like his office companion, Oliver Wayman was older than most of the other graduate students. He also happened to be a Latter-day Saint.
The two men became good friends. Their wide-ranging discussions, however, did not include religion—until one day shortly before Brother Wayman was to leave Cornell, when his Korean friend asked if he had any literature about his church.
“I have never seen you smoke or drink,” Kim Ho Jik told Brother Wayman. “I have never heard you use vulgar language or profane the name of God. You work harder and longer hours than any of the others, but I have never seen you here on Sunday. You are different in so many ways. I wonder if you would tell me why you live as you do?”
Brother Wayman gave him a copy of The Articles of Faith by Elder James E. Talmage. Kim Ho Jik read the book within a week. “He told me it was the best book on the gospel he had ever read and that he believed it thoroughly,” Brother Wayman recalls. Given a copy of the Book of Mormon, the Korean read it quickly and reported to his American friend that he believed it to be the word of God. It was, he said, more complete and easier to understand than the Bible.
Though Kim Ho Jik responded favorably to Latter-day Saint doctrine, he still believed his Protestant church could reform itself from within by incorporating some of the teachings of the Church. He began to attend the local branch, but also continued to attend his Protestant meetings.
On Brother Wayman’s last day at Cornell, he was saying good-bye to friends when Kim Ho Jik approached him. Brother Wayman felt impelled to ask the Korean why he had decided to leave his homeland and family to study in the United States. The Korean scholar responded that he needed the new knowledge in nutrition available at Cornell for the benefit of his people.
Then, Brother Wayman recalls:
“I bore my testimony … and told him that it was my opinion that the Lord had moved upon him to come to America … in order that he might receive the gospel and take it back to his people in preparation for a great missionary work to be done there. … I informed him … that if he refused to do the work the Lord had for him … another would be raised up in his place.”
Brother Wayman never saw Kim ho Jik again, but he left New York “sure that the Spirit which touched me when I bore my testimony to him touched him at the same time. I could see a change in his expression.”
Kim Ho Jik’s outlook had indeed changed. He continued to study the gospel avidly, but now with an eye toward baptism. Don C. and General Wood, Seneca District missionaries who taught him, recall, “As soon as we would begin any type of review with Brother Kim, he would hold up his hands and say emphatically, ‘No, no, I have already accepted that. Let us go on.’”
His was particularly receptive to a discussion of the Word of Wisdom. As Elder Wood finished reading the eighty-ninth section of the Doctrine and Covenants, tears flowed down Brother Kim’s cheeks.
“Oh,” he sobbed, “if only I had known all of this when I came here. My government wanted me to find ways to feed our people properly, and without sufficient grazing lands for cattle, we did not know how to do this. My whole time studying in America has been to find ways to feed our people through the grains the Lord has always intended for us to use.” Brother Kim accepted the Lord’s health code wholeheartedly.

A crafted red and pink paper heart frame holds a picture of the entire family dressed in white. In April 1993, the Richards family was sealed in the St. George temple. It was Mom and Dad’s tenth wedding anniversary. “It made for a special day,” Mom said. Emily says she remembers that everything in the temple was white and that she felt nice inside. “The children didn’t want to leave,” Mom said. They loved the beautiful chandeliers and the pictures of Jesus Christ inside the temple.
The family had driven for five days to get to St. George. Why did they travel so far to be sealed? On a previous vacation they had driven into St. George, and the city was covered with a thick layer of gray fog. They couldn’t see anything except the white glow of the temple. This experience made them want to return to St. George to be sealed there.
They stopped at four other temples on that trip. “Each time we visited a temple grounds, we felt a family togetherness,” Mom said. On the way home, they stopped and ate at a hotel. The hotel employees were so impressed with the children’s polite behavior and kind manner that they gave the entire family free dessert.

A small green lizard darted in and out of the crevices in the crumbling old stone pier that jutted out into the Red Sea. The hot, glaring desert sun made its body glisten. The lizard stopped suddenly, and its yellow eyes watched Abu Ibn (son of) Hassan putting his catch of five fish into the net bags that had been slung over the sides of his donkey. He had caught three kanad, a type of mackerel, and two small hamur, which looked like sea bass.
Abu hoped these fish would help his father get more money at the suq (marketplace) in town ten miles across the Saudi Arabian desert.
For a few moments Abu stood beside his donkey and listened to the tinkling sound of small bells coming from the village, a tiny gathering of stone houses for fifty-two fishermen and their families. Every family owned a donkey, and every donkey except Abu’s had a bell on a thong tied around its neck. Abu’s father had a large family to feed. There never was any extra money for a bell. Abu dreamed of the day when his father would sail home with his dhow (boat) stacked high with fish. Then there would be money for a bell—maybe even a brass bell.
When Abu arrived home, his mother and sisters were full of news.
“We have a new fisherman in the village,” his mother told him.
“He owns a camel,” one of his sisters said.
“Yes, he must be rich!” another sister added. “His name is Rathman, and he is building a house. He doesn’t seem to have any family, but his new house will be bigger than any around here. He brought men from the town to help him.”
Abu ran outside and kept running until he came to where the new house was being built. The workmen were already putting up the walls. The floor would be dirt, and the roof would be made of thatched date palm leaves.
“Is-salaam alaykum (Peace be upon you),” Abu greeted one of the workmen.
“Wa-alaykum is salaam (And upon you be peace),” the workman answered.
Abu was impressed with the size of the new house. He was about to step inside when a harsh voice shouted, “Boy, get to where you belong! Don’t bother the workmen!”
Abu turned and met the angry eyes of Rathman. He had a great hooked nose, a thin-lipped mouth, and his legs and arms looked like old, dried sticks. Abu ran for home. His tobe (a long, shirt-like garment) hindered him, so he pulled it above his knees. His red kaffiyeh (headdress) fell off, but he didn’t stop to pick it up.
It was weeks before the excitement caused by the coming of the new fisherman subsided. Rathman’s dhow was the largest at the stone pier. His camel delivered his fish to the suq earlier and fresher than anyone else’s fish. It was learned that he was a friend of the sheikh (leader of the tribe) who lived in the big town.
Unlike the bells on the donkeys, which rang together and sounded like music in the village, the bell on Rathman’s camel was large, and it clanked and clunked when the beast moved. The camel held its head high, as though it was too proud to look at the lowly donkeys. Each time the fish were taken to the market, the camel would race past the donkeys, carrying not only a bigger load of fish but also Rathman on its back. The donkeys would have to plod along, trying to avoid the sandy dust that the camel kicked up. The fishermen walking beside their little animals would have to listen to Rathman’s mocking laughter.
At the pier, Rathman crowded his fishing dhow into the best place. He walked around the village as though he were a sheikh himself.
One evening Abu’s father told his family some bad news. “Rathman has ordered that the bells be taken off all the donkeys.”
“Why?” Abu’s mother asked.
“He said that the sound of our donkey bells keeps him from hearing his camel bell,” Abu’s father explained.
“But, Father, the men are not going to do it, are they?” Abu asked.
“They must,” his father said, “or Rathman may go to the sheikh, and the sheikh could punish us.”
The next day the bells were taken off the donkeys. The village was a sad and silent place. For weeks nobody sang or laughed. All that could be heard was the ugly sound of the camel’s big clanking and clunking bell.
Then one day after Rathman took his fish to the suq, he was late getting back to the village. The people saw him walking home across the desert without his camel.
One of the fishermen found enough courage to ask what had happened. Later he told Abu’s father, “Rathman’s camel stepped on a stone and fell. It strained a muscle and refuses to move.” The fisherman started laughing. “Rathman smells awful. The camel got angry and spat on him!”
All the villagers treated Rathman’s trouble as a big joke. Rathman stayed in his house, but he could hear the people laughing. Nobody offered to help him.
Abu felt sorry for him and spoke to his father about it. “Shouldn’t we try to help Rathman get his camel back to the village?”
“After the way he has treated us?” his father asked.
“But we are taught to be good to our enemies,” Abu said.
His father looked at him with a worried frown, then walked away.
Early the next morning Abu loaded his donkey with a bag of water and a bag of hamdh bushes for the camel. A few villagers looked curiously at the goatskin bags as Abu started through the village.
There were no dunes between the village and the town. At this time of the year the flat sand was abloom with zahra hamra, a beautiful pink flower. Abu enjoyed walking among the blooms while looking for Rathman’s camel. When he found the injured animal, Rathman was sitting beside it. The man didn’t speak to Abu, even when the boy started to feed and water the camel.
Suddenly Abu saw a long line of donkeys coming toward them from the village. When the fishermen and the donkeys arrived, Abu saw that the donkeys were hitched together and that they carried ropes and an old dhow sail.
“I told the men what you said—about being good to our enemies,” Abu’s father told him.
After tying the camel’s legs together, the men maneuvered it onto the sail and dragged it back to the village.
Rathman didn’t thank them, and the fishermen grumbled a little. Then, a week later, they found a small basket full of new donkey bells in the middle of the street. On top was a solid, shining brass bell marked, “For Abu.”

Bitter consequences are seen in the lives of children who need but do not have a father who loves them, teaches them, protects them, and leads them along the path of life by example and precept. Let me recount for you something I heard about two years ago in this tabernacle. The occasion was a great gathering of single men and women. Elder Marion D. Hanks conducted a panel discussion. Included in that panel was an attractive and able young woman, divorced, the mother of seven children then ranging in ages from five to sixteen. She said that one evening she went across the street to deliver something to a neighbor. Listen to her words as I recall them:
“As I turned around to walk back home, I could see my house lighted up. I could hear echoes of my children as I had walked out of the door a few minutes earlier: ‘Mom, what are we going to have for dinner?’ ‘Can you take me to the library?’ ‘I have to get some poster paper tonight.’ Tired and weary, I looked at that house and saw the light on in each of the rooms. I thought of all of those children who were home waiting for me to come and meet their needs. My burdens felt very heavy on my shoulders.
“I remember looking through tears toward the sky, and I said, ‘Oh, my Father, I just can’t do it tonight. I’m too tired. I can’t face it. I can’t go home and take care of all those children alone. Could I just come to You and stay with You for just one night? I’ll come back in the morning.’
“I didn’t really hear the words of reply, but I heard them in my mind. The answer was, ‘No, little one, you can’t come to me now. You would never wish to come back. But I can come to you.’”

Masha and her family are a great help to the missionaries. They invite friends to listen to gospel discussions. They invite the missionaries to dinner. And for missionaries needing help with the Russian language, Masha is a friendly tutor.

“She always talks with new missionaries and helps them learn to speak,” says Elder Samuel Drown. “They don’t have to worry about making mistakes around her, because she makes them feel good about themselves.” She teaches them games Russian children use to learn words and numbers. She gave one missionary a kind nickname that included a vowel sound the elder had trouble pronouncing. He appreciated the fun teaching method—and learned to say the sound correctly.

One of the hardest things for many of you is modesty. How can we apply the spiritual power of our baptism to the principle of modesty? We hope one of the things that makes you different from the world is the way you dress. Marcie Matthews, a Laurel from Chicago, Illinois, shares her story:
“1998 was a year that I was able to see the results of many Young Women lessons, talks, and advice come into play. I am an average Mormon girl. Being able to keep my life this steady and strong has not been easy. I make goals all the time to help strengthen my testimony and my standards.
“Recently we had a Mutual activity on the importance of modesty. Every lesson before I felt like I was a modest dresser, but I knew there was still something I could change—my shorts and the length of my skirts. It was the one weakness that I knew I had but had placed far behind in my head. Everyone wore short shorts, Daisy Dukes, and miniskirts, and I had bought mine with my own money. Then I heard the lesson on modesty. I went home wanting to go straight to my closet and throw away everything that was not modest so it wouldn’t be there to tempt me. After, I told my parents. I guess I was looking for them to tell me that there was no problem in the way I dressed and then let me go.
“Later that night my dad told me he was proud of me and that he would like to buy me a couple of knee-length dresses for church. The next step was to go through all my clothes and give away everything. It was hard for me to part with my favorite skirts and the shorts that I loved so much, but I did. You will never see me in short shorts or short skirts again.
“I have never felt better about myself. I love being able to walk into the temple and church and feel like I am a child of God and am representing Him … by the clothes that I wear.
“I challenge every young woman to take this step. It will help you find out who you are and what you stand for. When we have to give up something that is a part of us, the blessings will pour in more than you can imagine” (letter in possession of Young Women office).
Marcie’s great example epitomizes our Young Women theme. You know, the part that says, “We stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things”—and in all prom dresses.

Celebrating Christ’s life during the Christmas season brings both families and friends closer together. Jennifer Adams, of Pleasanton, California, discovered this when she went away to school.
She and her roommates knew they would spend most of the time leading up to Christmas away from their families. But they didn’t want to miss out on the traditions and special experiences of home, so they started some of their own.
They took a long candle, decorated it with numbers from 1 to 25, and placed it in the center of the living room. Every night they lit the candle and let it burn down one number.
While the candle burned, they sang traditional Christmas hymns and shared stories of service and giving. Some nights, they bore testimony of the Savior and talked about what Christmas meant to them.
It only took 15 minutes a night and made for a meaningful holiday season. It became a tradition Jennifer will one day incorporate in her own home. It also brought the roommates closer together and created a feeling of having a family even while they were away at college.

Katharine was so absorbed in looking out the window that she did not know anyone was in the large bare room watching her. Her face was sharp and pinched. Her arms and legs were so thin that they looked like pipestems. Her hair was jet black, and she didn’t know how to comb it.
Deep in the shadow of the room Elizabeth Blackwell stood and wondered about adopting this girl. Of the four hundred children in the orphanage she seemed almost the least desirable. Yet in Elizabeth’s many visits the child had been like a magnet, capturing her interest and her heart.
Elizabeth was lonely. Years of determination and work and study had brought fulfillment of her great desire to be a doctor. She was the first woman in America to graduate from a medical school, and she was beloved by the people of her hospital and by those whom she helped at the clinic. Her hours were filled with the needs of children and their mothers as she blazed a pioneer trial of service.
Watching the girl at the window, Elizabeth thought of the student friend she had known in Paris and of the life she might have been sharing with him. She had chosen to be a doctor, however, so that she might be of service to mothers and their children who needed her help. The time was 1850, and the place was New York City.
The matron at the orphanage knew very little about the girl at the window. Her age might be seven or eight; she was Irish and had no family or friends. She answered to the name of Katharine. That was all.
“Why do you seem so interested in her?” the matron asked Dr. Blackwell. “She is so weak and spindly-looking. She will not be of much help to you. I thought you were looking for a strong, intelligent child you could train to be a helper.”
“I thought so too,” was Elizabeth’s sober reply. “But this child needs me more than any of the others.”
So Elizabeth filled out the papers, picked up the small bag containing all of Katharine’s belongings, and walked over to the child, who was still watching the beautiful sunset through the dingy window.
She took one of Katharine’s small hands in hers and asked, “Would you like to go home with me, dear?”
The eyes lifted to her were bright and clear. After a moment Katharine said, “Oh, yes, but could we please wait until the colors fade?”
Elizabeth dropped to her knees before the window, and together the woman and child watched until the bright sunset colors had faded to a pale yellow glow. The oneness shared in that moment was to last for half a century.
That night as Elizabeth carried her up to bed, Katharine knew a great contentment. As she snuggled down in the warm covers of her new bed in her new home, Katharine knew and returned a great love.

Okay, David, take it away.
“At Christmastime, I got my entire ward together and we had a collection of toys and food for needy families in our ward and stake area. We had one gentleman in the ward dress up like Santa Claus, and I put on a red hat—I was Santa’s helper—and we went door to door delivering food and toys. When we knocked on the doors and said ‘It’s Santa Claus,’ the kids’ jaws dropped. They were so happy, all of them jumping around.”

When I was president of TransCanada Pipelines, we had an office boy who did only what we asked him to do. He would wait until called to run an errand, or stand around waiting for instructions, never offering to be helpful. As the company grew and the job became more than he could handle, we hired another lad, even younger, who was alert and always looking for extra things to do to be helpful. He would finish an errand and then see or ask for something else to do. In just a few months one of the departments wanted him for a position of greater responsibility, and within two years he had three advancements, salary increases, and more responsibilities. The other lad remained an errand boy.

I am thinking, first of all, of a South Pacific family of 14 whose family unit had been so badly broken through parental indifference and irresponsible acts that four of the older children were in reform school and three youngsters were in foster-home custody. Today you will find a solid family unit headed by parents who have goals, proper discipline, and great love for their children, who have been sealed to them for eternity in the temple of God. The two oldest boys are full-time missionaries, striving to bring the same hope to many others. All of this because a desperate father, contemplating suicide, listened to two young men—one 19 and the other 20—and he believed what they told him.

Sometimes the tables are reversed. A dear and cherished young friend, Wendy Bennion of Salt Lake City, was such an example. Almost seven years ago, she quietly departed mortality and returned “to that God who gave [her] life.” She had struggled for over five long years in her battle with cancer. Ever cheerful, always reaching out to help others, never losing faith, her contagious smile attracted others to her as a magnet attracts metal shavings. While ill and in pain, a friend of hers, feeling downcast with her own situation, visited Wendy. Nancy, Wendy’s mother, knowing Wendy was in extreme pain, felt that perhaps the friend had stayed too long. She asked Wendy, after the friend had left, why she had allowed her to stay so long when she herself was in so much pain. Wendy’s response: “What I was doing for my friend was a lot more important than the pain I was having. If I can help her, then the pain is worth it.”

It was the middle of winter and I was serving my eighth month as a missionary in the Asana area of the Bergen Norway District. Although we tracted many hours, we taught few discussions. A baptism seemed like a miracle.
Bergen is a city built on and among seven mountains on the west coast of Norway. The mountains catch every storm that rolls up or down the coast. The clouds dump their rain on missionaries and nonmissionaries alike. The winds blow the rain horizontally, so umbrellas are used more like shields. We were lucky if our raincoats and boots dried overnight so we could wear them the next day.
One particular day the wind and rain were even much worse than usual. My companion, Sister Dolinsky, and I debated the wisdom of going out at all in such harsh weather. We knew if we didn’t we were sure to feel that depressing feeling missionaries feel when they aren’t out working. The severe weather helped us to decide to stay in and catch up on our records.
The day passed, and the storm showed no signs of stopping. Soon it was 5:30—time for us to go out for our evening tracting. We could see the fjord from our window; the water was dark and choppy. The winds were blowing full force, and the rain beat against the window. We knew we couldn’t stay in all evening too, so we dropped to our knees and asked the Lord for the strength we would need to go back out. When we got up, Sister Dolinsky said she felt the Lord wanted us to read Alma 17. We sat down at our table and began to read about Alma and the four sons of Mosiah. In verse five we read: “Now these are the circumstances which attended them in their journeyings, for they had many afflictions; they did suffer much, both in body and in mind, such as hunger, thirst and fatigue, and also much labor in the spirit.”
The fierceness of the storm seemed to diminish, and our discomfort seemed very minor as we read about those missionaries’ sufferings. The Spirit filled our tiny apartment as we continued to read verses 10–12 [Alma 17:10–12]:
“And it came to pass that the Lord did visit them with his Spirit, and said unto them: Be comforted. And they were comforted.
“And the Lord said unto them also: Go forth among the Lamanites [we substituted Norwegians for Lamanites], thy brethren, and establish my word; yet ye shall be patient in long-suffering and afflictions, that ye may show forth good examples unto them in me, and I will make an instrument of thee in my hands unto the salvation of many souls.
“And it came to pass that the hearts of the [missionaries] took courage to go forth unto the [Norwegians] to declare unto them the word of God.”
After reading those verses we knew that the Lord knew the discomfort we experienced tracting in such harsh weather, yet we also knew that he expected us to take courage and go forth in affliction to bring the word of God to the people we were called to serve. Our afflictions were small compared to those of Alma and the sons of Mosiah.
We put on our coats and took the bus to our tracting area. At the first door we knocked on we found a young man who worked out on the North Sea on an oil rig. He said he wasn’t usually home, but the storm had kept him from going out to sea to work. We taught him about the Book of Mormon, and he said he would like to read it. We gave him a copy and left with a good feeling.
The knowledge that the Lord knew of my small sufferings as a missionary, and that his Spirit comforted and encouraged us to continue with his work by inspiring my companion and me to turn to the scriptures, stayed with me the rest of my mission and will stay with me for the rest of my life.

I faced a lot of challenges after my baptism. The changes I needed to make in my life were significant. On top of that, sometimes I felt that I had no friends in the Church, and it was tempting to go back to my old friends. But my desire to feel joy—and my understanding that we can be happy regardless of external circumstances—helped me keep coming back to church. I knew I couldn’t “lay aside [my] faith” (Alma 32:36). Over time I made friends within the Church who helped me during the transition. And as I continued to live the gospel, my testimony and my happiness grew (see Alma 32:37).

Suddenly Vienna was placed under martial law when the government suspected a socialist uprising. Foreigners were arrested and deported. The elders, sensing danger, decided to separate. That way, if one was arrested, the other would still be free to proselyte. Elder Hammer stayed in Vienna while his companion transferred to another important city in the empire, Prague, in Bohemia (now Czechoslovakia).
Elder Biesinger found a room to rent in Prague and began talking to residents—those who spoke German—about the gospel. He won a number of friends and investigators, including Johann Klusak, a sectarian Bible agent, and Anthon Just, a dealer in furs.
On the morning of March 30 the elder was aroused from sleep and arrested by two police officers. They took him and all of his belongings down to police headquarters. There, to his dismay and shock, he found that his accuser was Mr. Klusak, the man “with whom I had conversed a great deal about Mormonism and who as my best friend introduced me to a great many people.” Also signing the complaint was Mr. Klusak’s fellow investigator, Mr. Just.
Police examined the missionary for two hours, then delivered him to the jailer. In a prison cell measuring eight by twelve feet, “a dirty hole,” he joined two accused thieves. “The cell fairly swarmed with lice, bed bugs, and fleas,” he recalled. After 48 hours in jail with nothing to eat, he was given a bowl of thin flour soup. Soon he was transferred to another prison in the city and securely locked up in Cell 34. “In the dim twilight I could discern millions of vermin, commonly called lice, crawling over wall and ceiling,” he noted. Two socialists, his new cell mates, were reclined on the floor.
Two days later he received a four-hour hearing. The judge “tried to be polite but was really bitter at heart, still I had a fair chance to testify of the organization of the Church and explain some of the principles of the gospel.” He learned at the hearing that the local newspapers had run articles about him, with his picture, calling him a great Mormon chief seeking to trap people into Mormon slavery.
In Cell 34 the missionary’s cell mate was a man sentenced to be hanged. Later Elder Biesinger was transferred to Cell 38, “where my cell mates were Rudolf Wedlich, a Socialist, and John Menedal,” a man convicted of first-degree murder. The socialist was “a pleasant companion” who joined the elder in singing the “Songs of Zion” to help pass the time. The murderer was a restless fellow who paced up and down the cell like a wild animal. Visitors were few, being the American consul, his son, and then a lawyer appointed by the consul.
Finally, after 37 1/2 days in jail, Elder Biesinger was brought to trial on May 6, 1884. The courtroom contained five judges—“Die fünf richter collegium” as they were called—two prosecuting attorneys for the state, reporters, spectators, and Mr. Pretsneider, the elder’s attorney.
The prisoner was asked to stand up during the questioning. They wanted to know why he was in the country and what doctrines he had been teaching. “In answering their questions, I had a tolerable good chance to explain the principles of the gospel and bear my testimony,” he said. Then evidence uncovered by agents in Vienna was introduced. John Klusak, who entered the complaint, did not appear. Anthon Just testified, but in Bohemian, which Elder Biesinger could not understand.
Allowed a final statement, the missionary complained that he had been very ill-treated by the first court, that as a foreigner he should have been warned concerning Austrian regulations rather than having agents spy on him and try to trap him. His attorney simply asked for leniency in case of a verdict of guilty.
While the judges deliberated, the attorneys and prisoner left the room. Elder Biesinger engaged the chief prosecutor in conversation. One charge against the elder was that he taught immoral practices by defending polygamy in Utah. “I assured him” countered the elder, “that during the 20 years I had lived in Utah I had witnessed no immorality such as I had witnessed in the city of Prague in one night.”
“Guilty,” the judges decided. The elder was guilty of violating section 304 which stated that “if any man is found guilty of canvassing as a missionary or agent for any society, church or sect with the intention of gaining them as converts to their faith providing such societies and sects are not acknowledged by the Church and authority of the state, the same is punishable with a fine not less than one nor exceeding three months imprisonment, and cost of court.”
Because of the prisoner’s good behavior, and his lengthy imprisonment to date, the judges sentenced him to the minimum possible term, one month at hard labor, and a fine of five guldens.
They asked if the elder would accept the sentence. He agreed but only on the firm condition that they understood that he had delivered his message from God to their city and nation for their salvation and that the responsibility for Prague’s rejection of the gospel rested on the authorities of the nation. The judges agreed, dropped the hard labor stipulation, and sent the elder back to Cell 38.
Ten days later he transferred to a better jail with a kinder jailer. Finally, after a total of 68 days in prison, he was released and walked out into the fresh spring air. Surprisingly, he was not banished from the country nor asked about his future plans.

One stake in Tennessee has been hosting a formal dance since 1996. Leaders and youth were concerned because the local high school proms were expensive and didn’t meet the standards in For the Strength of Youth. So they started their own dance, and it has been a success ever since.
In 2012, the dance had a new element because some of the young women were able to borrow formal, modest dresses that had been collected from women in the stake after someone watched a Mormon Messages for Youth video about a young woman who had done the same thing (see “195 Dresses” at lds.org/go/33D).
“I believe there is something beautiful about being able to go to a formal event dressed modestly, with a knowledge that there will be other girls there who are dressed modestly as well,” says Christy R., who attended the event.
The event’s theme was “Arise and Shine Forth” to support the Mutual theme for 2012. Many youth attended, and some even brought friends who aren’t members of the Church.
“It was important to me to show my friend that we can dance differently to different music instead of dancing immorally like what happens at school dances,” says Chris C.
Christy was able to invite a friend as well. “Bringing my nonmember friend from school to prom was a great experience. I enjoyed seeing her being loved and accepted by everyone,” she says.
Josh B., a priest who attended, sums up why he thinks a prom with Latter-day Saint standards is a great idea: “I felt relaxed because we all had the same standards. I didn’t need to worry about what other people were doing. I could be myself.”

Seventh, don’t complain. Life isn’t always fair. That’s a fact. But it’s always charged with marvelous opportunities if you know how to find them. I remember once when I was working as hard as I knew how. I happened to be working for a man who took all of the ideas and suggestions and work that I did and passed them on to his superior as though they were his own suggestions. For a while I was really upset about that. As I pondered it, a thought came to me, and I decided from then on I would write reports to him of everything that I was doing or trying to do, and I sent a copy to his boss. He didn’t like that, but it worked beautifully.