Gospel Story Finder

Through their efforts and the efforts of other missionary couples, LDS Charities provided training and equipment to vision clinics and organizations serving those with physical disabilities. Among those that the Hammonds and other welfare missionaries supported was a center that teaches women with physical disabilities how to design and make specialty clothing and craft items. These skills gave students the opportunity to better provide for themselves and their families.
Photograph courtesy of LDS Charities

Illustrations by Shauna Mooney Kawasaki
Three • two • one
Blastoff!
Yaahoooooo—
Chaaaarge!
Let’s do it again—
And then again—
Climbing up isn’t as—much fun—as sliding—down.
Nowhere—near as—much fun!
But the slide is worth the climb.
It’s better because of the climb—just like life!

But before my promised blessing came, a rich blessing for the entire family came to us. It was during the time, many years ago, when sacrament meeting was held at 2:00 P.M. in the rural wards. We usually went to meeting in our white-top buggy, which would hold the entire family. But at this particular time there was much sickness—an epidemic—and parents were asked to attend sacrament meeting but to leave the children home, so Father and Mother went alone in our one-horse buggy.
When they returned, we saw something we had never seen before. Both Father and Mother were crying at the same time. Being the oldest, I asked what was wrong. Mother assured us everything was all right.
“Then why are you crying?” we asked.
“Come into the house and we’ll tell you all about it,” she answered.
As we gathered around the old sofa in the living room, they explained the tears.
When sacrament meeting was over, the country store was opened just long enough for the farmers to get their mail, as the post office was in the store. There was no rural mail delivery in those days, and opening the store briefly on Sunday saved the farmers a special trip to the post office.
On the way home from sacrament meeting, they had stopped at the store for the mail. Then, with Father driving and Mother opening the mail, they had found a letter from Box B. This was a call for Father to go on a mission. In those days no one was asked if he were able, ready, or willing to go. The bishop was expected to know, and a mission call came without warning.
Mother said that they were happy and grateful that Father was considered worthy to fill a mission. Father explained, “We’re crying a bit because we know it means two years of separation. Your mother and I have never been separated more than two nights at a time in all of our married life, and that has been when I’ve been in the canyon for poles, fence posts, or derrick timbers.”
Father went on his mission, leaving Mother at home with seven children. The eighth was born four months after he left. Our small dry farm had been sold to finance the mission. A family moved into part of our expanded farm home to rent the row cropland. We children, under Mother’s day-to-day encouragement and Father’s letters of blessings, took care of the dairy herd, the hay, and the pastureland.
It was hard work, but it was a rewarding two years. Not once did we ever hear a murmur from Mother’s lips as she sang at her work the songs she and Father had enjoyed. Letters from Father came from Davenport, Iowa; Springfield, Illinois; Chicago, Illinois; and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. These letters, along with family prayer and unity, brought a spirit of missionary work into our home that never left it. Later, seven sons went on missions from that home.

4:59 p.m. The elders end up with a little unexpected free time on their hands, but missionaries are used to doing some planning on the fly. Their backup plan was to do some tracting.

5:42 p.m. In El Casco, where so many people live above street level, knocking on doors often means carrying on conversations with people on their balconies. And even in historic tourist towns, a missionary has to look out for dogs.
The elders have some success: “We found some great people,” Elder Ward says. “There were some youth from Paraguay. They invited us back tomorrow.” And some failure: “We had a half-hour conversation with one man,” Elder Triplet says. “It was like talking to a wall.”

Family home evening presents a special opportunity to teach the gospel to the family. The parents of a five-year-old were concerned about how they should teach of Nephi’s encounter with the wicked Laban. Laban had repeatedly refused to make the precious brass plates containing a religious record available to Nephi and had sought to kill him and his brothers after confiscating their family wealth. When Nephi encountered the drunken Laban, the Spirit directed Nephi to slay him:
“Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief” (1 Ne. 4:13).
As this young boy, my grandson, knelt beside his bed that evening, his prayer demonstrated his understanding and personal application of the lesson. He said, “And help me, Heavenly Father, to be obedient like Nephi, even when it’s hard.”

When Katy Ballenger started volunteering at Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City, Utah, she had no idea her life would be changed forever. On her last day volunteering at the hospital, the nurses asked her to spend the day with a terminally ill boy who spoke little and who smiled even less. She read stories to him and played with him all day, and, after all her efforts, the boy laughed. He was sad to see her go at the end of the day. “I realized I had made a difference in this child’s life,” Katy says.
After experiencing the good feelings that resulted from her service, Katy decided to make a difference and continue to use the gifts her Heavenly Father had given her to serve others.

In March 1934 Admiral Richard Byrd (explorer of the North and South Poles) isolated himself in the wastes of Antarctica in a little nine-by-thirteen-foot hut buried in the snow. There he planned to remain during the six-month-long night, making weather observations. He took this task on himself. He would not order any of his men to do it.
One day he went outside to check the instruments in the midst of a raging blizzard. When he tried to get back inside the hut, he found the trapdoor frozen. He pulled and yanked, exerting all his strength. It was like trying to pull open a locked bank vault. The door was frozen solid. He tried to scrape off some of the snow around the edges. He threw himself on the door, trying to break the ice by the pressure of his body. He pulled, tugged, pushed, and pounded until he was worn out. Then he was terribly cold, even through his heavy clothing. His fingers were numb, losing feeling. He was alone in vast Antarctica, the frozen, wild wastelands.
The wind tore at him. He was about to panic. Ten minutes more in the cold, and it would be too late! With the mighty effort of his will, he resisted panic; he prayed. He forced himself to rest quietly, to think, to concentrate. Suddenly he remembered—a shovel! The other day when he had been checking the instruments, he had left a shovel outside. He crawled around. It had snowed a great deal in the past two days. Where was the shovel? He slipped and fell, and as he crashed, he struck something hard. He seized it; he had the shovel.
Now, back to the trapdoor of the hut! Somehow he got back. Somehow he wedged the handle of the shovel under the handle of the trapdoor. His hands were almost useless by this time. He threw his body across the handle of the shovel, and, God be praised, the ice cracked and the door opened.

We have sustained as God’s prophet on earth a kind, sensitive servant of God—Howard William Hunter. He is a humble, faithful, scholarly, and gentle soul, one who has experienced deep sorrow and suffered serious infirmities and even a threat upon his life, but, with his Scottish ancestral determination, has never given in or given up.
How tenderly he cared for his Claire during her illness, sitting by her bedside night after night, caring for her every need. We are witnesses of President Hunter’s deep sorrow and loneliness in the slow losing of his eternal companion.

Zach knew he wasn’t supposed to use that word. But so many boys at school said it that he had started using it too. At first he felt guilty, but after a while it started to feel normal. He got so used to saying the word that one day he said it at home.
“What was that?” his dad said after the word slipped out. Zach and Dad had been playing basketball in the driveway, but suddenly Dad was holding the ball and looking at Zach.
“Oh, nothing, Dad,” Zach said. “It’s just something the kids at school say sometimes. It’s not a big deal.”
“Hmm …” Dad wasn’t convinced. He shook his head and passed the ball to Zach.
“But everyone says it!” Zach said. “And other words are a lot worse!”
“I’m sure that’s true,” Dad said. “But just because a whole bunch of people say or do something, does that make it right?”
“Well, no,” Zach answered, looking down at the ball.
“Here’s a question that might help you decide if using that word is right,” Dad said. “Do you feel like you have the Holy Ghost with you when you say it?”
Zach’s family often talked about living so they could have the Holy Ghost to help them. Zach knew that when he made good choices, the Holy Ghost would guide him and he would feel good about his choices. But when he made bad choices, the Holy Ghost could not stay with him.
“Not really,” Zach said. “When I first said it, I felt guilty, but that feeling went away after a while.”
“That feeling was the Holy Ghost speaking to you,” Dad said. “When we don’t listen, we are tuning Him out.”
“I’ll try to do better,” Zach said.
“I think that’s a good decision, buddy,” Dad said as he took the ball and tossed it into the hoop. “What do you say we go inside for some ice cream? I’m beat!”
“OK!” Zach said as he scooped up the ball and took one last shot.
The next day at school, Zach was on the basketball court with his friends. They were running down the court when Zach’s friend Bryan used a word Zach knew wasn’t a good word. All the other boys laughed, but Zach didn’t.
“What’s wrong?” Bryan asked.
“Nothing,” Zach said as Bryan passed the ball to him. He hoped Bryan and the others wouldn’t make fun of him. “I’ve just decided I’m not going to talk like that any more.” Then he shot the basketball right through the hoop.
“What did you say?” Jeremy asked as he walked over.
“I just think I’ve been talking in a way that isn’t right,” Zach said. “I know better. So I decided last night that I’m only going to use words that make me feel good inside.”
The boys looked at each other. “OK, that’s cool,” Bryan said. Then the bell rang to go inside.
As they headed into class, Jeremy said to Zach, “You know, I’ve been thinking the same thing, but I didn’t want to say anything. Thanks for bringing it up.”
Zach nodded and smiled. He felt good, and he knew that feeling was from the Holy Ghost. He was glad he’d had the courage to choose the right.

In another instance, a Laurel class president determined that she was going to fulfill her responsibility to activate a girl even though her leaders felt the situation was almost hopeless. Her bishop told her that because of some problems in the home and for other reasons, there was very little chance this girl would ever come to church. The other class members laughed when they learned helping this girl come back to church was to be one of the goals of their class president.

Nevertheless, she was determined to befriend this girl and enlisted the help of a neighbor girl as well. They began by saying “Hi” whenever they saw her and always stopping to visit for a minute. Then they started finding reasons to visit her. She was selected to be a member of the Booster Club for her high school wrestling team. The Laurel class president took her a flower and a note expressing congratulations. This process went on for three or four months. Finally, one Sunday the girl accepted an invitation to come to Sunday School. The next week she was there again, and that week she also attended Mutual. Because of her courage and faith, a young Laurel influenced one of her peers to take the first step toward activity in the Church.

Can a clown fish from the Indian Ocean find happiness with an anemone from the Gulf of California? That is the question we asked ourselves as we watched our recently acquired amphiprion bicinctus wriggle out of the plastic bag it had resided in for the past hour and into our aquarium. The salesman at the tropical fish store had assured us that the two of them would get along famously, but then that’s what he had also told us when we introduced a moray eel to our seven-armed octopus!
The meeting in this instance was considerably less dramatic. After hovering around in an upper corner of the tank for a few minutes and being sized up by the other fish, the banded clown made her maiden voyage across the ten-foot expanse of our upstairs show tank. Scattered across this stretch of sand and coral are twelve different anemones that we have collected from the Gulf of California just south of Puerto Penasco, Mexico. We wondered which one the clown would choose for her own. Would it be one of the smaller reddish ones? Or would it be the large brown and purple one in the center of the tank? Or maybe several of them?
Throughout that first day we didn’t notice too much activity on the part of the clown fish directed toward any of the anemones. But then on the second day, we saw that she had taken up a semipermanent residence close by the large anemone near the center of the tank. And soon she was vigorously wriggling among the many tentacles of her newly claimed possession.
This close association between clown fish and anemones has been a topic of some controversy among observers of the symbiotic (living together) relationship for several years. It has usually been agreed that nestled among the tentacles of the anemone the clown is protected from its enemies. But what does the anemone reap from the association?
At various times it has been suggested that the clowns purposely provided anemones with food or even lured other fish toward the anemones’ grasping tentacles with their nematocysts (poisonous stingers). This view has been challenged, however, by the observation that although clown fish have been observed to bring large chunks of food to an anemone partner, they do not let the anemone eat it. Instead, they often tear at it as soon as the anemone has grasped it, feeding themselves with small portions they break away from the large chunk. In the end, the anemone is left with nothing.
Which view is true? We decided to find out for ourselves—and find out we did.
Our first step was to provide a suitable food source. A quick trip to a nearby pond supplied us with plenty of freshwater minnows. We introduced three of them into the tank. Immediately the water churned with activity as the community of marine fish began to subdivide the minnows for their lunch. But then, as if from out of nowhere, the banded clown darted into the melee and returned just as rapidly with one of the minnows intact in her mouth. The clown fish’s rapid wriggling reminded us all of the joyous wagging of a puppy’s tail as the puppy returns to its master with a stick it has retrieved.
Upon reaching the large brown and purple anemone, the clown fish actually shoved the minnow down into its outstretched tentacles. Immediately they responded to the stimulus and began to close about the prey. Assured that the minnow was securely trapped, the clown turned back to the fracas at the end of the tank. Once again she somehow managed to secure another minnow, and once again she wigwagged her way back to the plump anemone. Plumper still with her second delivery, the anemone was soon to be truly gorged when the clown returned a third time with the last of the minnows.
On the following day, in the manner of true scientists, we proceeded to see if our observations were repeatable. And indeed they were. Not only did the clown fish again succeed in securing three minnows for the anemone, but she retrieved them when a sneaky Heniochus (pennant butterfly fish) stole them out of the anemone’s grip. And in no instance did the clown fish attempt to reclaim any of the minnows as her own.
It thus appears that the answer to our initial query about the banded clown and the displaced anemone is affirmative. An amphiprion bicinctus (clown fish) can indeed find happiness with an anemone from the Gulf of California, and the association is most certainly mutually beneficial. What else can you say about a friend who brings you a three-course meal each day?

Although temple marriage is associated with eternal promises, a husband and wife need not wait for eternity to experience the blessings of celestial marriage. Many temporal blessings also come from preparing for and being married in the temple. About eight years ago, Lee Hing Chung of Hong Kong lost an arm in an industrial accident. As a result, he also lost his job and became sick and despondent. But today faith fills his heart as he contemplates being sealed in the temple with his wife, Kumviengkumpoonsup, and their children.

“Before we joined the Church,” he says, “I was primarily concerned with making money. Now I have different priorities. … I am so grateful that we are together and that we can be together forever. … The presence of the temple reminds me to be good, to be disciplined, to be worthy” (quoted in Kellene Ricks Adams, “A Dream Come True in Hong Kong,” Liahona, March 1997, 38).

As we rocked, I thought what our last night in heaven must have been like, the night before each of us came to earth. Did Heavenly Father hold us close and tell us of the joys and dancing toys that we would find on the morrow? Did we cry and wish we could stay with him forever, even though we knew earth life would bring us more joy than we could imagine? He must have held us long after his song to us had ended, asking that angels would watch over us in our earthly journey, that our years away from him would be filled with happiness and would eventually lead us back to his presence.

The family home evening wheels are just one of several service projects these young women have completed. In an effort to help a widow from the branch feel a little less lonely, the young women decorated a basket and filled it with lots of short, happy handwritten notes. “No one is there to take care of her,” Daisy says. “So we wanted to remind her that members of the branch are thinking about her.” The young women delivered the basket in person and explained that she could read a note each day to bring a smile to her face.

In September 1845 the anti-Mormons began burning Mormon homes in the small, scattered farm communities surrounding Nauvoo. Unprotected families were forced from their log farm homes as the vigilantes set fire to their homes. The mobs destroyed more than two hundred homes and farm buildings, plus several mills and dozens of grain stacks. The friendly Sheriff Jacob Backenstos vainly attempted to preserve order. President Young advised the Saints to evacuate the rural areas and move to Nauvoo. He cautioned against retaliation, hoping that sympathetic citizens would see the flagrant denial of property rights and rally support for the Saints.

My name is Matilda, and I am from Chile. Ever since moving to another country, other kids have made me notice that I am different from them. They have laughed at my curly hair, the color of my eyes, my eyebrows, and even the color of my skin. They have called me ugly and weird and even told me that I am poor because I look different than everyone else.
My mom has taught me to respond to bullying with a smile. She says many times that people who bully are sad or are living with something that hurts them. She has also taught me that it’s not my fault, and being different is something good and wonderful. God created different kinds of things in the world like different plants, places, and people. It doesn’t matter how we look as long as we have a good heart.
Since my mom taught me that, every time I get bullied, I think about it and talk to the person who is saying bad things. I try to stop the situation. Once I told a classmate that saying bad things about others can hurt a lot. I said that he doesn’t know what happens to others in their hearts when they hear bad things about themselves for being different. Since that day, that classmate hasn’t made fun of me anymore, and now we are friends.
I think the way my mom taught me to fight bullying is the best way. She taught me to fight bullying with love, as God would do it. I try to always ask myself, “What would Jesus Christ do in this situation?” This has helped me come closer to our Heavenly Father.

In 1938, during the middle of the Great Depression in the United States, my mother had just turned nineteen years old. She was the oldest of six children, with her youngest sibling having recently turned five. Her father, Leslie, was a sheepherder in the deserts of eastern Utah. The weather was hot and dry. One summer day in June, while Leslie was out tending the sheep, he became dehydrated and suffered from heat stroke. At age 41, he died suddenly, leaving his wife and six children with no husband and father and very little financial means. My mother did not understand why God would take her father when she felt the family needed him so desperately. She prayed and asked God why her father would die at that particular time.
My mother sought to learn from God why her father died when he was young and had a family that needed him so much during a time of great economic difficulty. The answer she received did not come quickly, but it did come. After studying the scriptures and praying for many days, her answer came in a dream. The answer was clear and brought peace and understanding to her soul.

I finished law school around the time of my daughter’s first birthday. My wife and I looked forward to celebrating my graduation, our daughter’s birthday, and the new opportunities that would come to us, but nothing went as planned.
I found myself unemployed shortly after completing my degree and had difficulty finding work. Soon, financial difficulties came. Just having a simple birthday celebration would be difficult.
After many conversations with my wife, we accepted our situation. It was not easy for me as a father not to have the ability to buy even a simple present for my daughter and to see my beloved wife feeling frustrated.
I didn’t understand what was happening. I prayed and asked Heavenly Father to help me understand what He expected of me. Suddenly, as if a voice spoke to my mind, I heard the following words: “You possess something more valuable than any material possession on this earth. You hold the priesthood. What better gift could you give your daughter than a priesthood blessing?”
Tears filled my eyes as I thought about what the priesthood means to me. My heart filled with gratitude when I considered that the priesthood is the power that can unite my family for all eternity.
I shared my feelings with my wife. I told her that offering a blessing to our daughter was all I could give. We both decided that this would bring happiness and peace to her, and that would be enough.
On the day of our daughter’s birthday, friends, relatives, and neighbors brought a cake and simple decorations. We were grateful to celebrate this special day with those we love. That night, I placed my hands on my daughter’s head and gave her a blessing. I blessed her with all that the Spirit of the Lord prompted me to say.
We are still going through a period of changes and challenges regarding unemployment and finances. But even in the midst of sadness and frustration, peace and comfort comes to us through our Savior, Jesus Christ. I have no doubt that being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints with access to priesthood power is a blessing. It was all I could give on my daughter’s birthday, and it was more than enough.

I will conclude by discussing another important question members and leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are asked by others: “Why do you send missionaries to preach to other Christians?” Sometimes this is asked with curiosity and sometimes with resentment.

My most memorable experience with that question occurred some years ago in what we then called the Eastern Bloc. After many years of Communist hostility to religion, these countries were suddenly and miraculously given a measure of religious freedom. When that door opened, many Christian faiths sent missionaries. As part of our preparation to do so, the First Presidency sent members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to meet with government and church leaders in these countries. Our assignment was to introduce ourselves and to explain what our missionaries would be doing.

Elder Russell M. Nelson and I called on the leader of the Orthodox Church in one of these countries. Here was a man who had helped keep the light of Christianity burning through the dark decades of Communist repression. I noted in my journal that he was a warm and gracious man who impressed me as a servant of the Lord. I mention this so that you will not think there was any spirit of arrogance or contention in our conversation of nearly an hour. Our visit was pleasant and cordial, filled with the goodwill that should always characterize conversations between men and women who love the Lord and seek to serve Him, each according to his or her own understanding.

Our host told us about the activities of his church during the period of Communist repression. He described the various difficulties his church and its work were experiencing as they emerged from that period and sought to regain their former position in the life of the country and the hearts of the people. We introduced ourselves and our fundamental beliefs. We explained that we would soon be sending missionaries into his country and told him how they would perform their labors.

He asked, “Will your missionaries preach only to unbelievers, or will they also try to preach to believers?” We replied that our message was for everyone, believers as well as unbelievers. We gave two reasons for this answer—one a matter of principle and the other a matter of practicality. We told him that we preached to believers as well as unbelievers because our message, the restored gospel, makes an important addition to the knowledge, happiness, and peace of all mankind. As a matter of practicality, we preach to believers as well as unbelievers because we cannot tell the difference. I remember asking this distinguished leader, “When you stand before a congregation and look into the faces of the people, can you tell the difference between those who are real believers and those who are not?” He smiled wryly, and I sensed an admission that he had understood the point.

Illustrations by Arthur Lin
“Let’s get more sticks!” Callie said to Marco.
Marco looked at the sky. “I have to go home. It’s almost sunset.”
“But we haven’t finished our fort yet!” said Callie.
“Sorry!” Marco called out as he jogged toward the backyard gate. “I have to be home before the Sabbath!”
Callie sighed. There were great things about being Marco’s friend, and there were hard things. Well, mostly just one hard thing. The hard thing was that they didn’t have very much time to play together. Even though they were in the same grade at school, they weren’t in the same class. They didn’t have the same recess. Plus, they both spent the Sabbath with their families. In Marco’s church, the Sabbath was Saturday. It started at sunset on Friday night. For Callie, the Sabbath was Sunday.
And the good things? There were lots of them. One was that Callie never had to worry that Marco would swear, try to get her to do bad things, or watch things that weren’t good. He and his family went to a different church, but they believed a lot of the same things Callie did. Like they believed in keeping the Sabbath day holy, even though they had it on a different day.
Callie set down her armful of sticks and went inside.
“Did Marco go home?” Mom asked.
“Yeah,” Callie said, slumping into a kitchen chair. “We hardly ever get to play.”
“Maybe you two can get together Friday. It’s a school holiday,” said Mom.
“OK,” Callie said, cheering up. She would get everything ready so when Marco came over, they could start working on the fort right away.
During school later that week, Callie’s teacher made an announcement. The whole third grade was going to watch a movie together.
“Yes!” Callie said. She put her lunch box into her backpack and went into the common area between the classrooms.
Everyone found a place to sit on the floor, and the teachers turned off the lights. Callie got excited as the movie began. It was about some boys building a fort in the woods, just like she was building a fort with Marco! If we ever finish it, she thought. She shook her head and focused back on the screen.
But as the movie went on, Callie noticed that some of the words in it weren’t very nice. She started to feel more and more uncomfortable. She didn’t know what to do.
Just then, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Marco! He had crawled all the way through the crowd of students to talk to her.
“Callie, I don’t think we should be watching this,” he whispered. “I think we should go ask our teachers if we can read instead.”
Callie breathed a sigh of relief. It felt good to know someone else felt like she did. “Yeah. I don’t like this movie either.”
She and Marco stood up and tiptoed around their classmates until they reached their teachers. Marco went to his teacher, and Callie went to hers. She asked if she could read a book instead of watching the movie, and her teacher said yes.
As Callie went into her classroom to read, she saw Marco doing the same thing. He gave her a thumbs-up and a smile. Callie smiled back. Having a true friend was even better than having a finished fort.