Gospel Story Finder

Tyler peeked over at Dad during sacrament meeting. There he was again, scribbling down notes as fast as he could. Weird. Was Dad trying to write down the whole talk or something? He never used to do this before. But for the past few weeks, Tyler had noticed Dad copying down as many notes as possible during church.
Why?
“Hey, Dad,” Tyler said after the meeting. “I keep forgetting to ask. What’s with all the notes?”
Dad gave a small smile. He looked a little sad at the same time.
“These are for Sister Puckett,” Dad said. “I thought she’d like to know what was said in church. She misses being able to come every week.”
“Oh! That makes sense,” Tyler said. He knew that Sister Puckett was very sick. “That’s pretty cool, actually.”
“Thanks,” Dad said. “Now isn’t it time for you to head to Primary?”
Tyler gave his dad a fist bump then hurried down the hall. The note-taking mystery was solved! He knew that Dad and his ministering companion visited Sister Puckett and talked with her a lot on Sundays.
Tyler had been surprised to learn that just talking with someone could be a way to serve them. He’d always thought service meant stuff like raking leaves or helping move a couch. But now it looked like service could be as simple as taking notes!
A few weeks later, it was time to meet with Bishop VanWagoner to talk about becoming a deacon. Dad went to the interview with him.
“How do you feel about being ordained?” the bishop asked.
“I’m really excited!”
Bishop VanWagoner smiled. “What are you looking forward to the most?”
Tyler thought about that for a minute. “Well, for starters, passing the sacrament. I’ve been watching the other guys. I think I know what to do.”
“Good for you,” Dad said. “Plus, if you forget, the other deacons will help.”
“True,” the bishop said. “Everyone in your quorum should care for and help each other.”
That’s good to know! Tyler thought. He really was excited to help pass the sacrament, but he had been a bit worried about remembering which rows to pass to.
He leaned forward in his chair. “Actually, there’s something I’m even more excited about,” he said.
“What’s that?” the bishop asked.
“Ministering.”
Bishop VanWagoner nodded. “I think that’s a great thing to look forward to.”
“Me too,” Tyler answered. “I want to minister the way my dad does! He helps people in all sorts of ways. Like with Sister Puckett and the notes.”
Bishop VanWagoner tilted his head a little. “The notes?”
Tyler nodded. “Yeah. Dad thought Sister Puckett would like to know what was said in church on the weeks she can’t come. So he writes down a bunch of notes and brings them to her. I like the idea of doing things like that for people.”
Bishop VanWagoner smiled. “You know, Tyler, I think you’re going to make a great ministering companion one day.”
Several days later, Tyler smelled something delicious in the kitchen. “Is that taco soup?” he asked.
“Yup,” Mom said.
“Did you add in the corn?” As far as Tyler was concerned, that was the secret ingredient that made this soup extra tasty.
“Of course,” Mom said. “Would you like to help Dad take some to Sister Puckett?”
“I’d love to!” Tyler answered. As he carefully carried the soup, Tyler thought about other ways he could help brighten Sister Puckett’s day. He always wanted to serve like Mom and Dad. He would try to be kind every day.

Dressed in old clothes—pants and shirt that bright yellow paint can’t ruin—James Bridges is sitting with nine of his closest friends saying the following sentence: “Service is fun.”

He says it with absolute sincerity, and the other nine nod in agreement. They are gathered at their church in Anchorage, Alaska, getting ready to restripe the parking lot. Perhaps very few will actually notice their work, but, still, it’s a job that needs to be done. And they were happy to volunteer.

Back to the parking lot. “It’s a serious activity,” says Brother Smith. “I don’t want to see anyone’s initials out there. I want you to be proud that when you drive in on Sunday, the stripes are straight.”

The yellow stripes will be straight. Members of this priests quorum know all about following guidelines and doing a good job. They know where service leads—to feelings of worth. And they know the ones that have set the example for them are now in the mission field. The lines are straight, and they’ll follow.

Many years ago this conference heard of a young man who found the restored gospel while he was studying in the United States. As this man was about to return to his native land, President Gordon B. Hinckley asked him what would happen to him when he returned home as a Christian. “My family will be disappointed,” the young man answered. “They may cast me out and regard me as dead. As for my future and my career, all opportunity may be foreclosed against me.”

“Are you willing to pay so great a price for the gospel?” President Hinckley asked.

Tearfully the young man answered, “It’s true, isn’t it?” When that was affirmed, he replied, “Then what else matters?”8 That is the spirit of sacrifice among many of our new members.

I was told of a conversation by a Primary teacher, who related what transpired in his class. He was teaching the eleven-year-olds. He asked the question, “Suppose the Lord asked you to build a spaceship big enough to take you and your family and provisions off this planet? Could you do it?”
Steve spoke up and said, “Yes.”
And the teacher said, “Have you ever built a spaceship?”
“No.”
“Have you ever built a model spaceship?”
“No.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
Steve said, “Yes, on TV.” But then he declared, “You said the Lord told me to build it. If the Lord told me to build it, I could do it.”
I wonder how many of us as adults have that kind of faith.

Tim had cried all the way home. He and his father had gone to the Tigers-Jammers game to see his hero, Bobby Joe Rankin. Even though Bobby Joe had scored thirty points, the Tigers had lost badly. When Tim had asked Bobby Joe for his autograph after the game, the basketball player had said, “Scram, kid.” Tim couldn’t understand how a basketball star could be so mean.
“Tim, you have every right to be upset,” said his father. He put his arm around Tim’s shoulder as they sat together on the couch. “Being a star doesn’t give anyone the right to be rude to people. Perhaps you’d better choose a new hero. On the way out I told Uncle Bill what had happened. Maybe he can remind Bobby Joe that fans have feelings too.”
Uncle Bill was an assistant trainer for the Tigers. He helped the players when they got hurt, and he had given Tim and his father the tickets for the Tigers-Jammers game.
There was a knock on the door. Tim’s father got up to see who it was. “Tim, there’s someone here to see you.”
Tim looked up. And up and up. It was Bobby Joe Rankin—all six feet, nine inches of him! Bobby Joe smiled and walked in and sat on the floor, cross-legged, in front of Tim. In that position, their eyes were just about on the same level.
For a while no one said anything; then Bobby Joe said, “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Tim. I was upset about the game because I’d played terribly. I only got three rebounds, and I played bad defense. But I shouldn’t have taken it out on you. I’m sorry.”
Tim still couldn’t believe that Bobby Joe was actually sitting in front of him. It was several moments before he could get out, “That’s … that’s OK, Mr. Rankin.”
“Call me Bobby Joe, Tim.”
“OK, Mr. Rankin—I mean Bobby Joe. Hey, how did you know where to find me?”
“Well, after I showered, your Uncle Bill was waiting for me. Boy, did I get a chewing out.”
“You let Uncle Bill chew you out?” Tim asked, surprised. “But you’re the star of the team. And you’re a lot bigger than my uncle.”
Bobby Joe grinned. “Yes, I am. But so what? The important thing is that your uncle was right and I was wrong. So I took the scolding like a man. And now I want to shake your hand and thank you for forgiving me.”
Bobby Joe stuck out a huge hand, and Tim shook it. They both grinned like crazy. Then Tim remembered what he hadn’t been able to get at the game. “Bobby Joe, may I have your autograph now?”
“I was hoping that you’d ask.” The basketball player reached into an inside coat pocket and brought out a photograph of himself. At the bottom he had written, “For my friend, Tim Rusick. Best of luck. Your friend, Bobby Joe Rankin.”
Along with the picture were two tickets for the Tigers’ next home game, two weeks away.
“Wow! Thanks, Bobby Joe!”
“The seats are right behind the Tigers’ bench. Best seats in the house. I’ll play much better with my friends rooting for me!”
Tim could only repeat, “Thanks, Bobby Joe!”
The big man got up and headed for the door. As Tim’s father held the door open for him, Bobby Joe shook hands with Tim’s father and winked at Tim, saying, “See you at the game.”
After Bobby Joe had left, Tim gave the tickets to his father and stared happily at the picture in his hands. He looked up at his father and asked, “Dad, do you think it would be all right if I kept Bobby Joe Rankin for my hero?”
Mr. Rusick smiled. “I think that would be just fine.”

Just before I turned 18 I finished school and decided to go visit one of my friends. She had married my uncle, and they had moved from England to Switzerland. The week I arrived in Switzerland, two Mormon missionaries knocked on their door.
I eagerly asked them to teach me and decided to be baptized after only three visits. Two weeks after my 18th birthday I was baptized. I had found my people, my world, and was in the arms of my Heavenly Father again.

The rain made the Montana spring even greener. The air was cool and as clean smelling as anything you’ll ever smell. We drove by several motels, but my mother just shook her head. “Looks kinda run down. I’ll bet there are bedbugs.”
The rain slowed to a gentle shower, and the sun dropped down from under the clouds. Blinding rays of hot sunlight burned through the rain, making the drops shine like diamonds. My father turned the truck off the road and stopped.
“How’s this?”
Mother wiped fog from the window.
“Looks a little old.”
“It’s been kept up pretty good.”
“Let’s look at just one more.”
My father shook his head and pulled back onto the highway. “You can’t always tell what a place will be like by the outside,” he mumbled.
The rain had stopped, and it was starting to grow dark when we found a motel my mother liked. It was white with green shutters and looked new, like it had just been painted. The inside of the room was the same. It smelled lightly of the new paint.
“I get the bath first,” Kathey yelled and shut the bathroom door.
“After we get cleaned up good,” my father sank down into a chair, “how about we go back to that roadhouse we passed for supper.”
“I’d like that,” my mother answered. “It’ll be nice to go into a place clean for a change and not have people turn their noses up at us.”
Scrubbed until we were raw and smelled fresh as spring rain, we put on our best clothes and then drove over to Jack’s Dirt Cheap World Famous Truckstop and Post Office. We sat down at the booth feeling like we could pass for big city tourists on holiday. Jack, wiping his hands on a towel, came over and stood next to our table. He took a careful sniff, wrinkling his nose.
“Sheepshearers, huh. What’ll you have?” I guess we laughed for about ten minutes straight, but not as long as we did when we got back to the hotel. My mother had just walked into the room when she started laughing.
“Lloyd, you won’t believe this.”
She pointed down into a corner.
“Bedbugs,” she said with a big grin. “With green paint on their backs.”
We slept in our tent that night.

Remarkable events are relived as I flip the remote control of observation and memory. One of the most touching involves a young lady convert to the Church who found in the home of a Latter-day Saint fellow student a spirit and a caring relationship she had never before known.

She said that since her baptism, things had not really changed in her own home; there were still abuse and argument and alcohol and foul language. “But,” she said, “there is one room at my house where I can shut the door and read the scriptures and listen to good music and pray and feel the Spirit of the Lord. In my little room I can have that blessing. One day, if the Lord will help me, I will marry a man and live in a home where we can have the Spirit of the Lord always.”

I was so excited! I had turned 12 about two weeks ago and had received my first temple recommend on Sunday. My dad was going to take me to the Spokane Washington Temple for the first time as a birthday present.
On the day of our trip, I was ready to go an hour early! I was just so eager to go! We finally got into the car and listened to hymns on the trip there, which really brought in the Spirit that day.
My mom had prepared some family names for me and my dad to take to the temple. While I was entering the font I had expected this huge spiritual experience, but that didn’t happen. What did happen was that I was baptized for one of my deceased relatives, and I felt a still, small voice whisper to me, “You are doing the right thing.”
On the way home I really thought about what had happened at the temple. I realized I didn’t need the huge spiritual experience I had been expecting. I was so glad I had the Holy Ghost with me that day so that I could hear the still, small voice.
I’m so thankful for the temple and all of its blessings! The temple has brought me and my family great blessings, happiness, and experiences with the still, small voice.

The ward Primary sacrament meeting program was next week. Mandy didn’t have a speaking part in the program this year. She was playing a piano solo instead. She had played prelude music for Primary before, but she had never played in front of the whole ward.
Mandy had been taking piano lessons since she’d turned eight last year. She loved her lessons. She especially liked learning to play the Primary songs. Right now, she played from a book of simplified arrangements. Someday, her teacher said, she’d play from the Children’s Songbook.
“I don’t know if I can play in the program,” Mandy said to her mother one night as they finished doing the dinner dishes. “I get all nervous just thinking about it.”
After Mother dried her hands on a dish towel, she said, “Did you know that Sister Hatch gets nervous, too?”
Sister Hatch was Mandy’s piano teacher, and she was also the Primary pianist. “Why would Sister Hatch be nervous? She plays great.”
“She still gets nervous. Just like you.”
At her next piano lesson, Mandy asked Sister Hatch, “Do you get nervous when you have to play in front of a whole bunch of people?”
Sister Hatch made a face. “All the time.”
“What do you do?” Mandy asked.
“First, I practice a lot. I try to do everything that I can to make sure I do a good job. Then I say a prayer.”
Mandy frowned. “What if you want to say a prayer right before you start to play?”
“I say the prayer in my head,” Sister Hatch said, “and in my heart. Heavenly Father knows what’s there even if I don’t say the words out loud.”
Mandy thought about that. “What if I make a mistake anyway?”
Sister Hatch grinned. “I make at least a couple of mistakes every Sunday when I’m playing for Primary.”
Mandy stared at her teacher in surprise. “You do? I’ve never noticed.”
“And no one will notice if you make a mistake. The important thing is to keep going. You know the song. Let your fingers do what they’ve been practicing.” Sister Hatch put her arm around Mandy’s shoulder. “I’ll be sitting right next to you during the program. If you start feeling afraid, reach over and squeeze my hand. And I’ll do the same if I feel scared.”
The morning of the program, Mandy felt sick to her stomach. She walked into her sister’s room. Sara was putting on her makeup.
“My stomach feels funny,” Mandy said.
“It’s just butterflies,” Sara said.
“It doesn’t feel like butterflies,” Mandy said. “It feels more like big, scary bats!”
“Don’t worry,” Sara said. “You’ll do fine.”
Mandy went to the piano and practiced her song. She had played it so much that she had memorized it. Still, she planned to take her book with her.
At church, Mandy sat with the other Primary children in the first three rows of the chapel. When the children went up to the stand following the sacrament, Mandy took her place beside Sister Hatch. Julie, who was also playing a solo, sat on the other side. As the Primary president introduced the Primary theme for the year, Mandy started to reach for Sister Hatch’s hand. Then she noticed that her teacher was reaching for hers at the same time. They looked at each other and smiled.
They squeezed hands, then Sister Hatch stood to go to the piano. The Primary children sang the first verse of “Follow the Prophet.”
As the time grew nearer for her to play her song, Mandy’s stomach started to feel funny again. Then she remembered what Sister Hatch had said about saying a prayer in her head and heart.
When it was Mandy’s turn to play, she placed her book on the piano, even though she didn’t need it. Her fingers did what they were supposed to do. When she played the last note, she let out a long breath and returned to her seat.
Sister Hatch gave Mandy a quick hug. “You did great,” she whispered.
Mandy felt great. The butterflies in her stomach had been replaced with a prayer in her heart.

“I’d like to go just one mile further, if we can,” said Bishop Steve Pond of the Kelso Ward, Longview Washington Stake. He was in the car with Mike and Beverly Glen of his ward, who were able to get through many of the roadblocks close to the volcano because they lived in that area. They had been winding up the narrow ash-covered mountain roads, helping the bishop check on members’ homes that might have been damaged by the mudslides and flooding.
“I’m afraid we’re not going to get through this roadblock,” said Mike Glen. “It’s manned, and they’re giving $500 fines to anyone who doesn’t belong up here.”
“Tell the national guardsmen that you’re a bishop and are checking on your people,” suggested Beverly Glen.
The car pulled up to the roadblock slowly, and the guardsman, who turned out to be LDS, poked his head in the car window.
“Hello, bishop,” he said. “How can we help you?”
“I’d like to check on some of our people who live up the road a ways,” said Bishop Pond.
“Very good. Some new tremors were felt in the last hour, though, so listen to your radio. If you smell lava, evacuate out of the area because as soon as we get the word to evacuate, we’re going in that direction,” said the guardsman. “Are we having Church this week?”
“Depends on your mountain,” said the bishop. “We’re going up the road now just a couple of miles, then we’ll be right out.”
Then they drove off, closer to the mountain and checking the members’ homes marked on the bishop’s map by pins. He used the map to keep track of his members during the disaster, and had spent most of his time outside of work the past two weeks since the eruption contacting members and making sure they were okay. Tonight he’d skipped dinner so he could get up to the homes while it was still light.
As soon as it was rumored that the volcano might blow, Bishop Pond had called a meeting with the ward welfare services committee to plan for the possible disaster. He asked the Relief Society to prepare a list of emergency supplies (much of which was to be taken from each family’s food storage) that could sustain each family for several days and was portable enough to be thrown into the car at a moment’s notice. The list was passed out to each family at sacrament meeting two weeks before the major eruption. Bishop Pond also assigned each ward family in a potential flooding area to another family on safe ground, so when the volcano did erupt (though no one knew if it would) everyone had a safe place to go.
To ensure good communications with the outside world and each other if the telephone system were hampered, a ham radio communications system was set up, too.
“Bishop Pond was really inspired in helping his ward members prepare for a possible disaster,” said Beverly Glen, a counselor in the Kelso Ward Relief Society. “It took a lot of work and foresight to help people get ready for what was to come.”
Some ward members put their food storage in their attics in case of flooding, so their food would stay dry. Many people drew upon their water supplies when their normal source of water turned to mud from the volcano’s mudslides. And some families drew upon their food storage when other families from the ward moved in with them.
“What we’ve learned from this situation is really just a verification that we need to do what the Lord tells us through his prophets, even without understanding the reasons,” said Bishop Pond.
“Overall, the disaster has brought some real blessings to our ward members. We’re much closer now as a ward, and we’ve been given the opportunity to really serve each other.”

My family and I moved to Layton, Utah, from Georgia during my senior year in high school. As a black teenager, I hated the thought of moving. I liked it in Georgia where I fit in quite well with my peers. The idea of attending a different school in a very white community didn’t appeal to me, even though I was a member of the Church. When I arrived in Utah, adjusting to life there took a great deal of time, and I only managed to make a few friends.
One night I was paired up with a guy my friend and her boyfriend set up with me. I would have enjoyed the night more if my date hadn’t said his parents would freak if they knew he was out with a black girl. His words hurt, but I hid it well. I’ve hid a lot of my feelings.
After graduation, I began to hang around three girls who weren’t LDS. As our friendship grew, I started smoking. I felt like life had no meaning, so I didn’t care that what I was doing was wrong. I couldn’t understand why I was on the earth, and figured I was probably better off dead. After a while, we went our separate ways and I vowed I would never smoke again. But many of my other feelings didn’t change.
I knew I wanted to marry in the temple and raise a family but wondered if I would get the chance. It was rather annoying when people I knew would become engaged, leaving me to question if I would ever get a date in this lifetime.
I wanted to blame the way I felt on something, so I blamed it on the color of my skin. It was stupid of me, I know. But I figured it was the only reason I didn’t have many friends.
By the time I was 20, I wanted to change. I decided to fix my appearance. I lost a little weight and bought new clothes and glasses. I found it helped me feel better about myself. But the actual change started when I began attending the single-adult ward and decided to go to college. This gave me the confidence that I could do things I had been too shy or scared to do before.
One day in sacrament meeting, my bishop spoke about the importance of attending church, the importance of paying tithing, reading scriptures, and praying. I felt the Spirit so strongly that I had no doubt the Church was true. It was at this time I decided to read the Book of Mormon.
For a month, I read my scriptures every night. Afterward, I would pray. I continued to pay my tithing and attend church, and I received a calling in the ward. My life couldn’t have been happier.
One day I looked in the mirror and stared at my reflection. “I’m pretty,” I said to the image before me. Tears welled up in my eyes that suddenly seemed to be looking at things differently. I saw myself, but it was as if I were looking at the face of a stranger. The fact I saw myself differently filled me with a happiness I can’t describe.
Without warning, the color of my skin no longer mattered to me. I’m Jennifer, a child of God. If God can love me, then I can learn to love myself, I thought. I now understand why they say you have to love yourself before you can show love to others. Today I can say I’m proud to be black. Four years ago I couldn’t even say it, much less mean it.
My promise now is to live the gospel and put my trust in God. After all, he’s given me the thing I needed most—a sense of my own worth.

One young mother who shares her faith online has developed a loyal following. Stephanie Nielson started a blog, nieniedialogues.blogspot.com, where she chronicled her life as a stay-at-home mom. She continued updating her blog after she survived a plane crash in 2008 that left her visibly scarred but spiritually rededicated.
Stephanie shares the gospel on her blog through her posts and includes a large button with a link to LDS.org. She also offers visitors a free copy of her “favorite book”—the Book of Mormon—that she will send “anywhere in the world … anywhere!”

Then it was time for another zone conference. It was a rainy April day as they got on the interstate to travel to the conference.

Scott was driving. As he rounded a curve, he saw a car pulled over to the side of the road. A young mother wrestled with a tire jack while two small children peered out the back of the station wagon at their dripping mother.

Scott slowed down.

“We’ll be late if we stop,” his companion warned.

“I know.”

“If we help, we’ll get wet.”

“I know,” he said, pulling off the road.

“Then why are you stopping?”

“She needs some help.”

“Maybe it’s a trap. How do you know there’s not a couple of guys hiding, ready to take our money?”

“We don’t have any money,” Scott smiled.

Scott stepped outside into the pouring rain. “Can I help?”

“I can’t figure out how to work the jack.”

“Why don’t you get out of the rain? No use both of us getting wet.”

He worked quickly changing the tire. As he worked, he realized that he was singing. He looked up once and saw the faces of the two children pressed against the back window of the station wagon. He winked at them and made a silly face. They both giggled.

When he was finished, he opened the back door of the station wagon and put the flat tire and jack in the back.

The woman got out to thank him. “Can I pay you something?”

“No, but there is something you can do,” he said, running back to his car. He picked up a copy of the Book of Mormon and ran it back to her.

“Read this,” he said, thrusting it into her hand.

Then he turned and ran back to the car.

He had never felt so happy in his life.

“You look like a drowned rat,” his companion complained as they continued down the road.

“At least my hair isn’t wet,” he answered, smiling.

“I suppose you know that we’re going to be late for the meeting.”

“I’m sorry for making you late. It couldn’t be helped.”

“Yes it could. You could’ve passed her by. Someone else would have come along.”

“Will that lady ever have a better reason for reading the Book of Mormon?” Scott asked with a wide grin.

“She doesn’t even live in our area. Even if she’s baptized, someone else will get the credit.”

Scott found himself humming.

“Why are you so happy?”

“Because I’ve just done something that the Savior would have done.”

After four days at home and the office, Sister Kimball and I left on Saturday, February 28, for Florida for a week-long series of meetings with the Saints and some business leaders. On Saturday, March 7, we broke ground for the new temple in Atlanta, Georgia. Ten thousand were present for this occasion, including the governor of Georgia and his wife, several legislators, and U.S. senators Jake Garn and Paula Hawkins. Immediately following that service, we flew to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The next morning, Sunday, March 8, we held a meeting with over twenty-six hundred members of the stake and mission on that island. We next visited the Dominican Republic and held a meeting at Santo Domingo on Monday. Two years ago there were only two families of members on that island, but at our meeting we had over fifteen hundred members present. We left Santo Domingo on Tuesday, March 10, and that night dedicated a new visitors’ center on the Church’s Deseret Ranch near Orlando, Florida. On Thursday, we visited the Washington, D.C., Visitors’ Center and then met with the Washington Temple presidency and set apart several sealers. The next morning, Friday, March 13, in company with Elder Gordon B. Hinckley, we visited with President Ronald Reagan in the Oval Office of the White House. We presented to him his genealogy on his mother’s side. We then met with Mrs. Reagan. Both were very warm and gracious and very appreciative of the genealogical record. Sister Kimball and I then traveled directly to Arizona, where on Saturday we attended the funeral of my sister, Alice Nelson, who had passed away during our absence. On Sunday, March 15, we returned home to prepare for this general conference. This has been a busy but enjoyable and fruitful six months, during which we have traveled some fifty thousand miles by air. We are grateful to the Lord as he has blessed us, and we have observed the vitality and progress of the Church in many parts of the world. Wherever we have gone, we have been thrilled and humbled by the love and devotion of the members of the Church. As we begin this conference this morning, I bring you love and greetings from the Saints and missionaries in the Orient, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean. I add my own love and greetings and leave my blessings with you. I know that God lives and that His Son, Jesus Christ, lives. He is our Savior and our Redeemer and our Mediator with the Father. May He bless us all during this great conference, I humbly pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I was taught this by goodly parents. How grateful I am for a father who had the patience to teach me how to work. I remember as a lad, when I was only seven years old, we were remodeling our house and tearing out some of the walls. In those days two-by-sixes were used as studding. To the studs was nailed the lath, and over the lath came the plaster. When tearing out walls, the slats and the plaster were easy to knock off, but, of course, that left the nails in the two-by-sixes.
Each night after the workers had finished, I had the responsibility of gathering up the two-by-sixes and taking them out to the back lawn, where there stood two sawhorses. There I was to make a pile of the two-by-sixes and then, one at a time, put them on the sawhorses, and with a crowbar remove the nails. After the nails had been pulled out of the studs, I was told to straighten them. Finally, I threw the straightened nails into a large green bucket and stacked the two-by-sixes in a neat pile.
Second, as a lad doing the job my father had assigned to me, I was taught not to waste, to conserve resources where possible. When the nails were pulled from them, the two-by-sixes could be used again—and we did use them.
Finally, I was instructed to stack the used two-by-sixes in a neat pile so the workmen could use them the next day. My work was never finished until this was done and the tools were put away.

When I was about eleven years old, I gained an understanding of our Heavenly Father’s love. My parents were not then very religious, but they were good people. They loved me and taught me to be good, clean, and honest, and they helped me to develop righteous desires. Although they were always interested in questions of truth, they did not know God, so they could not tell me about Him. I had an undeveloped hope for the reality of God, but never seemed to find anyone who knew Him and could tell me about Him.
I remember seeing a person killed in an accident. Faced for the first time with death, I was so shaken that I couldn’t sleep for a couple of days and became ill. No one could tell me what happens after death. A great fear developed within me that some accident would happen to my father and nobody would be able to explain where he had gone.
Later, during World War II in my home country of Germany, I lived with my mother and four sisters far away from home in southern Germany in two very small, humble rooms. We had fled from our home because of the many air attacks that had destroyed our city and threatened our lives. My father was separated from us because he had been drafted into the army. And I was too young to understand the dramatic events happening around me during that terrible war.
Lying in bed one night in the room I shared with two of my sisters, I remember an intense feeling of loneliness. My mother and two other sisters slept in the next room, but I still felt lost in our temporary home and strange surroundings. The people even spoke a different dialect than I was used to. I had a most frightening thought: What is the purpose of my being here on this earth? I could not answer this question, and it led right into another one that was even more frightening: What is eternity?
I looked into my heart for the answers to these questions. But the more I thought about eternity, the more lost I felt. There was nothing to hold onto, nothing to stand on. I had the feeling of falling, falling, falling without stopping. It scared me terribly.
I can still remember the details of that room—the pale light of the moon and the sound of the church clock bell ringing every fifteen minutes. I was awake until early in the morning, and I was so overcome with despair that I began to cry. I wept and wept.
Suddenly something changed. A comforting power enveloped me, and a small voice said to my soul, “You are My child. Have trust in Me.”
Immediately joy and happiness filled my heart. All my fear, loneliness, and despair were changed into feelings of warmth and comfort. That night I learned for the first time that there is some unseen but loving Person who is concerned about me. Especially is this true when I feel despair and need help.

I first visited this institution 59 years ago in the fall of 1959 when I was 19 years old. I was a student body officer at Utah State University and USU was playing the University of Hawaii in football. We student officers paid our own way but accompanied the football team on the same airplane. President David O. McKay, who was then the president and prophet of the Church, learned of our trip and invited us to meet with him at Church Headquarters. It was the first time I had met a prophet, and I was impressed with his countenance and his spirit. He was warm and gracious to us.

President McKay then told us about this institution with great enthusiasm. The school had only been in existence for 4 years, and he had dedicated the first permanent buildings the year before. He asked if we would meet with the students and administrators, give them his love and blessing and encourage them in every possible way.

I can remember to this day the feelings of awe that I experienced when I first saw this beautiful setting. The ocean, the mountains, the temple, the magnificent vistas are as inspiring today as they were then. As part of that trip, we also met with the new governor of Hawaii, William F. Quinn. Hawaii had been admitted as a new state in the United States August 21, 1959, just prior to our visit.

Again, when I was a missionary, in the same village I referred to above, I came to know everyone. I remained there for a year and half with a total of two companions. After the experience with Labwujtok our teaching efforts accelerated. We were teaching a man named Amima Alik whose wife and some of his daughters had already joined the Church. Amima knew the truthfulness of the restored gospel but retained some personal challenges to overcome. But once he did, he became a backbone to the Church in the village. During one discussion we were considering eternal families and sealing ordinances. As we sat on mats in his humble home one evening, with a small wicker kerosene lamp providing light, he looked upon our picture of a beautiful temple, and he ruminated out loud, that such a blessing he could never realize. As a school teacher, he earned a little more money than some in the village, but he still greatly supplemented his subsistence by fishing and farming. His total annual salary was barely enough to buy two plane tickets to Hawai’i, and then how would they live for the rest of the year? All I could do was kindly submit that somehow, someday, he would be sealed to his wife. But honestly, I supposed I was offering an unrealistic hope to smooth over a moment of resignation.

This discussion was over 33 years ago. A few years back Elaine and I received a phone call from the temple to come up to help with some new patrons from the Marshall Islands who had just arrived. I felt pressed for time with my university and church responsibilities, but sensed I needed to somehow make arrangements to go. The temple president asked if I would interpret from English to Marshallese in the initiatory area for the new male Marshallese patrons. When I passed through the curtain to assist with the first brother I immediately stopped still, this man gazed up at me with a huge smile that quickly turned to tears. It was Amima. As he received the first part of this sacred ordinance I tried to interpret for him in his language, but I could barely utter the words through my tears and choking voice. Amima was shaking and wiping his eyes. The ordinance worker was puzzled, but knew something special was going on. In that moment I witnessed the power of unified souls, and we both knew God had given us a gift, that he had brought two points of time together, so we could both see his hand in this great tapestry of weaving together his purposes for the benefit of individual souls. For the remainder of the endowment Elaine and I aided as escorts for this great couple, and then, I served as a witness to their sealing as a couple and family. Time, temple and perspective, it all came together powerfully in the due time of the Lord.

Emily Good was one of the guides on that blustery Saturday. It was her “Set a Date” night—she had made the goal to teach a nonmember about the gospel, and that night was her deadline. At first, she thought the monsoon was going to thwart her efforts.
In the gardens, she saw a man and asked him if he would like to go on a tour. She got to the last stop, where the guides talk about the Book of Mormon, and bore her testimony. “The words just came out. I felt like I was pouring out my whole soul to him.” The man checked the box on the referral card indicating that he wanted the missionaries to teach him more about the gospel.
After the man left, Emily talked to the other guides, excited about sharing the gospel and meeting her goal. The other guides mirrored her enthusiasm.