Gospel Story Finder

A related work that rests primarily on priesthood shoulders is the Savior’s call, echoed by President Thomas S. Monson, to rescue those who have drifted from the gospel or who have become disaffected for any reason. We have had wonderful success in this effort, including excellent work by young men. An Aaronic Priesthood quorum in the Rio Grande (Spanish) Ward in Albuquerque, New Mexico, counseled together about whom they could bring back and then as a group went to visit each of them. One said, “When they came to my door, I felt important,” and another confided, “I feel happy inside that someone actually wants me to go to church; it makes me want to go to church now.” When the quorum members invited one young man to come back, they asked him to come with them on the next visit, and he did. They were not just inviting him to attend church; they were immediately making him a part of the quorum.

Illustration by Joshua Dennis
I joined the Church before my 21st birthday. I felt a strong desire to serve a mission, but I was in difficult circumstances. Because my father had left us, I was financially supporting my mother and three younger brothers. Almost all my money went to my family. At that time you needed at least £500 (U.S. $660) before applying for a mission. After two years of saving, I still had only £250.
Financial setbacks occurred one after another. My younger brother got into trouble and was fined £240. My family was asking me to lend him the money—almost all I had. It seemed like a choice between a mission and my brother, even though he promised to pay me back when he could. I wrestled with it and sought counsel from my bishop. He advised me to help my brother. I followed his advice and paid the fine. I knew it was the right thing to do, but I was desperate to be able to go on a mission.
I thought it would take years to save the money again, but through humble prayer, I received impressions about the future. The Spirit told me not to expect my brother to pay me back and that I would go on my mission the following year. It had taken two years to save the money I’d given to my brother, but the Lord was telling me I would have twice that by the end of the year.
I was doubtful but continued on, and every week for the next 10 weeks, a miracle occurred. A young single adult in the ward heard how I had given away my mission fund and gave me £100 for my mission. The next week another young adult gave me £100 for the same reason. I was humbled and started to repent for my unbelief.
Later, my employer was asking for voluntary redundancies (a financial incentive to employees who voluntarily resign). I volunteered but did not expect to be let go, as they had invested a lot of money in my training. My manager asked why I wanted to be laid off, so I explained about my mission. He gave me a pay raise backdated for several weeks and accepted my submission for redundancy. He also gave me a bonus in my leaving package.
I found temporary work, which turned into a full-time job after two weeks. They also offered me weekend overtime. I accepted every Saturday. I submitted my mission papers shortly thereafter and was called to serve in the England London Bristol Mission. I had saved £2,500 in less than a year. I literally received 10 times the amount I had given away. In Luke 6:38 it reads: “Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall men give into your bosom. For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again.”
I know I was blessed for my obedience and faith in following my bishop’s counsel.

As a father I was blessed to see great futures in God’s kingdom for my daughters as well as my sons. When I prayerfully sought guidance, I was shown a way to help my daughters recognize the trust God had placed in them as servants who could build His kingdom.

When my daughters were young, I saw that we could help others feel the love of those beyond the veil, throughout the generations. I knew that love comes from service and inspires hope of life eternal.

So we carved breadboards on which we placed a loaf of homemade bread and went together to deliver our offering to widows, widowers, and families. The legend I carved on each of those breadboards read, “J’aime et J’espere,” French for “I love and I hope.” The evidence of their unique spiritual gifts appeared not just on the boards I carved but more clearly as we distributed them to those who needed, in the midst of pain or loss, reassurance that the love of the Savior and His Atonement could produce a perfect brightness of hope. This is life eternal for my daughters and for each of us.

Now, you may be thinking, “Brother Eyring, are you saying that I have to learn how to carve?” The answer is no. I learned to carve only with the help of a kind and gifted mentor, then-Elder Boyd K. Packer. What little skill I achieved can be attributed to his great gift as a carver and his patience as a teacher. Only heaven can provide such a mentor as President Packer. But there are many ways you can shape children’s hearts without carving wooden boards or height boards for them.

For example, new communication technologies allow sharing messages of faith and hope across the miles that separate us, instantaneously and at little or no cost. My wife helps me do this. We begin by talking by telephone with grandchildren or children we can reach. We ask them to share stories of their personal successes and their service rendered. We also invite them to send photos of those activities. We use those photos to illustrate a few paragraphs of text. We add one or two verses from the Book of Mormon. Perhaps Nephi and Mormon wouldn’t be very impressed by the spiritual quality of our content or the limited effort required to create what we call “The Family Journal: The Small Plates.” But Sister Eyring and I are blessed by the effort. We feel inspired in selecting the passages of scripture and the brief messages of testimony we write. And we see evidence in their lives of their hearts being turned toward us and to the Savior and upward.

There are other ways to reach out; you are already engaged in many of them. Your habits of family prayer and scripture reading will create more lasting memories and greater changes of heart than you may realize now. Even apparently temporal activities, such as attending an athletic event or watching a movie, can shape a child’s heart. What matters is not the activity but the feelings that come as you do it. I have discovered a good test for identifying activities with the potential to make a great difference in a young person’s life. It is that they suggest the activity out of an interest they feel has come to them as a gift from God. I know that is possible from my own experience.

When I became a deacon at the age of 12, I lived in New Jersey, 50 miles (80 km) from New York City. I dreamed of being a great baseball player. My father agreed to take me to see a game played in the old and storied Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx. I can still see the swing of the bat as Joe DiMaggio hit a home run into the center field stands with my father sitting beside me, the only time we ever went to a major league baseball game together.

But another day with my father shaped my life forever. He took me from New Jersey to the home of an ordained patriarch in Salt Lake City. I had never seen the man before. My father left me at the doorstep. The patriarch led me to a chair, placed his hands on my head, and pronounced a blessing as a gift from God that included a declaration of the great desire of my heart.

He said that I was one of those of whom it had been said, “Blessed are the peacemakers.”6 I was so surprised that a perfect stranger could know my heart that I opened my eyes to see the room where such a miracle was happening. That blessing of my possibilities has shaped my life, my marriage, and my priesthood service.

From that experience and what has followed it, I can testify, “For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God.”7

By the Lord revealing to me a gift, I have been able to recognize and prepare for opportunities to exercise it to the blessing of those I love and serve.

God knows our gifts. My challenge to you and to me is to pray to know the gifts we have been given, to know how to develop them, and to recognize the opportunities to serve others that God provides us. But most of all, I pray that you will be inspired to help others discover their special gifts from God to serve.

I promise you that if you ask, you will be blessed to help and lift others to their full potential in the service of those they lead and love. I testify to you that God lives, Jesus is the Christ, this is the priesthood of God, which we hold, and God has prepared us with special gifts to serve Him beyond our fondest hopes. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Tien was the only one in his group that spoke Siamese, the Thai language. He was able to communicate their desire to seek freedom in Thailand. They were put into a refugee camp but eventually lost track of each other. Tien spent a total of two years in three different refugee camps. He volunteered to work in the kitchen, where he could get enough to eat and also receive extra water for showers. While carrying out his kitchen duties, he noticed that whenever he offered coffee or tea to certain young ladies, they always politely refused. He was very curious about this practice, so one day he asked if something was wrong with his drinks. They explained that they were Mormons and did not drink coffee or tea for religious reasons.
Missionaries were not allowed to give formal lessons in the camps. They were there to teach the refugees how to speak English and otherwise prepare for life once they left the refugee camp. But from their mealtime discussions, the missionaries left Tien with an interest in the gospel and a card with a Utah address saying to get in touch when he left the camp.
One day a U.N. official came to visit the camp and said there were too many unattached children in camp under the age of 18. He said if there were any who would like to go to America, applications were being taken. Tien, who was willing to go anywhere, quickly applied. He was asked if he had a preference of a place to live in America. He showed the missionary card with a Utah address and said he heard the place on the card was nice. His papers went first to New York and then to Utah, where a sponsor was located. After arriving, he found a home with foster parents, Gary C. and Shawna Smith and later with Macoy and Marjorie McMurray. Tien was baptized after missionaries in Salt Lake completed the work begun in the refugee camp through the Spirit and the unselfish Christian service of the missionaries.
Tien is now a senior at Olympus High School in Salt Lake City. His parents are still in Laos, unable to join him in America. He plans to serve a mission as soon as he graduates in June. He feels that his finding a life-saving gas can along the Mekong River and then finding the missionaries in the refugee camp are more than mere coincidence. His visa does not allow him to travel out of this country, so he hopes to do missionary work among Vietnamese people living in America.

Nine-year-old David O. McKay sat cross-legged on the floor in front of a cozy fire in the front room of the McKay home in Huntsville, Utah. Sitting next to him on a handwoven rug was his seven-year-old brother, Thomas, and his sisters, Jennette, four, and Annie, two. The children were thrilled to have their father home for the first evening in over two years. David McKay, after whom David O. had been named, had just returned from serving a mission in Scotland—the land of his birth—and the children were anxious to hear of their father’s adventures in that far-off land. This was the first time that little Annie had even seen her father, because she had been born ten days after he left for his mission.
As David told the children about Scotland, describing the music of the bagpipes, the fields of heather, the castles, and the thousands of sheep dotting the hillsides, one of the children asked him if he had seen any miracles while he was on his mission. David’s eyes met those of his wife, Jennette, and he replied as he put his arm around her, “Your mother is the greatest miracle that I have ever seen on this earth.” The McKay children remembered those words the rest of their lives, and they were taught by their father to love their mother and to appreciate the many things that she did for them each day.

Years ago, President Boyd K. Packer told of a herd of deer that, because of heavy snowfall, was trapped outside its natural habitat and faced possible starvation. Some well-meaning people, in an effort to save the deer, dumped truckloads of hay around the area—it wasn’t what deer would normally eat, but they hoped it would at least get the deer through the winter. Sadly, most of the deer were later found dead. They had eaten the hay, but it did not nourish them, and they starved to death with their stomachs full.

My tourist visa ended and I had to return to Taiwan. During the following months alone, I missed what I had felt. For a time, I was filled with despair and darkness. Those feelings were so overwhelming that I wanted to give up. I didn’t really know how to pray, but I called out to God and told Him everything I was feeling and thinking. A feeling of peace came—the same feeling I had experienced when I had attended our home church. I know it was the Holy Ghost. He calmed me down.

“You’re never going to finish that thing in time,” Mark said to his eleven-year-old sister, Annie, as he passed behind her chair. In his hands he gently held a honey-colored wooden box, smooth and gleaming in the spring sunlight.
Annie stared glumly at the tangled mint-green yarn in her lap. “You got help from Dad with yours,” Annie defended herself. “No one will help me with this hat.”
“That’s because none of us knows how to crochet,” said Bonnie, Annie’s 14-year-old sister. “The only one who could help you is Mom.”
Annie jumped up, grabbing the yarn in both hands. “Just you wait,” she yelled back as she raced up the stairs. “Mom’s going to love it!”
But Annie didn’t really believe it. Bonnie’s painting was propped up to dry against a wall in their bedroom. It was a watercolor of the park, all grass and trees and flowers and blue sky. Mother would love it! She would also love the old box that Mark had sanded and refinished. It would be perfect for her scarves. But this hat—if it was a hat—no one, not even Mom, could even pretend to love.
The stitches weren’t really stitches at all, just tight, stubborn knots. Annie had to find a way to fix it. After all, it had been her idea to make gifts to welcome Mom home from the hospital. And now it appeared as if even her 10-year-old brother could do better than she could.
She glanced at the clock and saw that it was already 4:30. Bonnie soon had to leave for ballet class, and Mark was knee-deep in homework. It was up to her to start dinner again if Dad was to have any time at the hospital with Mom. She had been there for two long weeks! Even the tangle of mistakes in Annie’s hands couldn’t make her feel sad when she remembered that Mom would be home tomorrow.
After the dinner dishes and her own homework were done, Annie got right back to work. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed, her long brown hair brushing her cheeks, when Dad softly knocked. “How’s it going, Annie?”
“Oh, Dad,” Annie admitted reluctantly, lifting her aching neck, “I just go around and around, and the stitches just get smaller and tighter.”
“How about giving it up for a while, honey,” said Dad gently. “We have a big day tomorrow. You look very tired.”
“I have to finish it before Mom comes home,” Annie said with determination, “even if it takes all night.”
“Annie, I want you in bed by 9:30 at the latest,” he said firmly. “Mom will understand, I promise.”
The next morning Annie watched from the door as Dad helped Mom walk up the brick path. She looked thin and white, and she leaned heavily on Dad’s arm. But she was smiling up at Dad and laughing as she always did.
In an instant Annie was in her mother’s arms.
“Gently now, Annie,” laughed Dad as Annie hugged Mom hard.
“It’s all right, John,” Mom said, holding Annie close. Soon Mark and Bonnie were there, too, and Mom was hugging them and saying how much she had missed them all.
“We have surprises for you,” Mark told her. “Come and see.”
Dad’s bouquet of pink carnations was next to the two wrapped gifts on the living room table.
“Now, what’s all this?” Mom asked, smiling as she sat on the sofa.
Mom really liked her presents. Annie felt awful that there was nothing there from her. How could she explain about the hat? She couldn’t. Edging out of the living room, she escaped into the kitchen and finished making the tuna salad for lunch, stubbornly blinking back her tears. She couldn’t let Mom see them. That would make things worse.
She was putting a pan of soup on the stove when she felt her mother’s hand on her shoulder. “Look at this nice lunch you’ve made, Annie,” Mom said quietly.
Annie turned to face her mother, and this time she couldn’t blink away the tears. “But I have no present for you, Mom,” she said. “I wanted it to be so perfect—a lacy crocheted hat to look pretty with your hair—but …”
“Shhh,” whispered Mom, putting her arms around Annie. “Don’t you think Dad’s told me about all that you’ve done here while I was in the hospital? With Bonnie’s ballet recital coming up and Mark so far behind in his schoolwork, you have had to do more than your share of the work. Dad doesn’t know what he would have done without you.”
“But Mark and Bonnie made such nice things for you, and mine turned out just horrible.”
“Do you want to know what I think? I think you gave me the most perfect gift you could have given.”
“You do?”
“You gave of yourself for two whole weeks without any thought of a reward, and I bet that after lunch and a nap for me, we can figure out that hat and finish it together in no time.”

Michie Eguchi came to Hawaii from Japan in the early 1900s and brought with her a silk Japanese scroll. Her granddaughter Kanani Casey served a mission in Japan and later discovered that her grandmother’s scroll traced her family’s ancestry back almost a thousand years.
In 2013, Kanani’s house burned to the ground. She and her family lost nearly everything in the fire. They had stored their genealogy in plastic tubs underneath their bed. After the fire, they went back to the house, only to find a mountain of ash and soot.
“The only thing that I really hoped to find was the copy of the scroll with its translations and history,” Kanani said. “I was reassured that all the temple work had already been done for my Japanese ancestors, but the copy of the scroll was so precious to me.”
As Kanani and her husband, Billy, waded through the ashes, they eventually found a blue plastic bag. Inside the bag, they found the copy of the scroll, along with translations and a family history book, amazingly still intact. The scroll was just a little burned around the edges, but it was the only thing in their bedroom that survived.
Kanani feels the Lord preserved the scroll “for the benefit of my posterity as a testament of his love for us and to show the importance of doing family history and temple work” (in Christensen, Stories of the Temple in L??ie, Hawai?i, 172–74).

Just recently I was very sick and hurt so badly I could not move. I had prayed a couple of times to ask Heavenly Father if He could help me. It just kept getting worse. So I called my dad at work and asked if he could come home to give me a blessing. He agreed.
When he got home, I had prayed four times already and told no one about it. What was so surprising is that in his blessing he said that he knew I had prayed about it and that if I kept praying, then I would heal very quickly. I know it was Heavenly Father talking to me through my dad, because Heavenly Father was the only other person who knew that I had prayed. I thought that was amazing.

While hiking to the Machu Picchu ruins in Peru as a young missionary, Elder Juan A. Uceda slipped off the narrow trail. Desperately clinging to some branches and hanging 2,000 feet (610 m) above a river, he prayed intensely for help. Earlier that day he had prayed with his lips, he said, but “when I was about to perish, I prayed from the heart.” Just as he was about to fall, another missionary pulled him to safety.
One of the many lessons he said he learned that day was “always, always pray ‘with a sincere heart, with real intent, [exercising] faith in Christ’ (Moroni 10:4).”

When I moved to a new house in a new state, I found out that my brother and I were the only members of the Church in the whole school. Our meetinghouse was about twenty minutes away. I really liked my Primary class, but the other girls lived so far away from me that it was hard to get together.
One day a girl at school invited me to her birthday party. I was excited to tell my mom that the party was on Friday and that I would get the invitation on Thursday. On Thursday, I came home and quietly got some cookies out of the cookie jar and gathered several of my favorite stickers, wrapped them, and put them into my backpack. When Mom asked if I had brought home the invitation, I said, “Mom, I guess her party is on Sunday, so I am just going to give her a present at school.”
I am glad that Jesus Christ helps me to know what is right.

Each day at sunset, I sat on a rock looking out over the Pacific Ocean. I often imagined that on the other side of the water was our Heavenly Father’s temple, near which many of my brothers and sisters were living in happiness. I couldn’t help but weep, remembering the wonderful times I had had with my fellow Saints in the Saigon chapel.
From that day forth, our small branch awakened as if from a deep sleep. A presiding elder was chosen to lead us. We were able to communicate sometimes with the Church and other members through VASAA (Veterans Assisting Saints Abroad Association). I was finally given permission to leave Viet Nam. VASAA had helped to arrange with the Canadian and Vietnamese governments for my exit visa. My oldest son living in Toronto, Ontario, sponsored me.
Less than a year later, in March and April 1988, I was finally able to visit Salt Lake City for ten days and attend general conference. I met many friends, missionaries, and General Authorities. The first time I saw Temple Square I could not help but weep for my blessings. In the Tiger’s Den, it had been my greatest wish to see the temple. At last, I was able to receive my endowment in the Lord’s House.

The first of these callings came when I was a deacon. I attended with my family the branch of the Church in Frankfurt, Germany. We were blessed with many wonderful people in our little branch. One was our branch president, Brother Landschulz. I admired him a great deal, even though he always seemed to be rather serious, very official, and most of the time dressed in a dark suit. I remember as a young man joking with my friends how old-fashioned our branch president appeared.
It makes me laugh to think about this now because it is very possible that the youth of the Church today view me in a very similar way.
One Sunday, President Landschulz asked if he could speak with me. My first thought was, “What did I do wrong?” My mind raced over the many things I might have done that could have inspired this branch-president-to-deacon talk.
President Landschulz invited me into a small classroom—our chapel did not have an office for the branch president—and there he extended a call to me to serve as deacons quorum president.
“This is an important position,” he said, and then he took his time and described why. He explained what he and the Lord expected of me and how I could receive help.
I don’t remember much of what he said, but I do remember well how I felt. A sacred, divine Spirit filled my heart as he spoke. I could feel that this was the Savior’s Church. And I felt that the calling he had extended was inspired by the Holy Ghost. I remember walking out of that tiny classroom feeling quite a bit taller than before.
It has been nearly 60 years since that day, and I still treasure these feelings of trust and love.
As I was thinking back on this experience, I tried to remember just how many deacons there were in our branch at the time. To my best recollection, I believe there were two. However, this may be a huge exaggeration.
But it really didn’t matter whether there was one deacon or a dozen. I felt honored, and I wanted to serve to the best of my ability and not disappoint either my branch president or the Lord.
I realize now that the branch president could have merely gone through the motions when he called me to this position. He could have simply told me in the hallway or during our priesthood meeting that I was the new deacons quorum president.
Instead, he spent time with me and helped me understand not only the what of my assignment and new responsibility but, much more important, the why.
That is something I will never forget.
The point of this story is not merely to describe how to extend callings in the Church (although this was a wonderful lesson on the proper way to do it). It is an example to me of the motivating power of priesthood leadership that awakens the spirit and inspires action.

Preston Ward had a devotional with a tenor in Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, Rick Olsen.
In the Zoom question-and-answer type devotional, he shared some of his experiences in six years of singing in the choir.
Growing up, Brother Olsen played the trombone—the only choir he participated in was the missionary training center choir and that was a spiritual experience to him which inspired his participation in the Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square.
His two daughters, who are also involved with the choir, shared their experiences as well. The three of them and Brother Olsen’s wife also played instruments and sang a few songs for the Preston members.
Brother Olsen’s wife, Sister Olsen said, “It really is a blessing to have a member of the Tabernacle Choir in our home.”
“They come home with good stories and a good feeling, a feeling that comes with performing with the choir and it spreads. Plus, we get to watch them perform in the wonderful performances the Church does.” She added.
One of Brother Olsen’s daughters, Marie, who plays the violin in the Orchestra at Temple Square, said, “The orchestra is a lot less demanding. It’s professional. We don’t attend general conferences which are always busy for the choir. We also don’t require so much practice as the choir does.”
One of the Preston members asked which of the two locations at Temple Square is nicer to sing at, The Olsens agreed the old Tabernacle building is better for its history, and acoustics are better in the Tabernacle but they all said the Conference Center is an “awe-inspiring” place to perform. “The crowd is better in the Conference Center,” “When 21,000 people sing a hymn back at you, it’s quite the experience.” Brother Olsen said.
“Choir directors say they are coming home when they are at the Tabernacle though.” Brother Olsen also added.
Another member asked how many languages the Olsens have sung. The Olsens listed Latin, Spanish, French, German, Jewish, and one said they usually have a returned missionary from the country somehow in the choir when they are learning something new, which is amazing in itself.
Brother Olsen said the most memorable experiences in his opinion are not just how close they are to the Church leadership in their performances, but the most memorable are the people, the friendships made during tours, etc., because Brother Olsen admitted, “we can’t speak too much with one another, but we can sing together.”
COVID-19 has affected the world, but from Brother Olsen’s perspective, the choir is missing one another. He told the Preston members that in the choir Facebook group, “I get the feeling there’s going to be a lot of tears when we get back together and sing again.”
He added that the last time they had sung all together normally was, “We Thank Thee O God, for a Prophet” in German. A recording was done for the April 2020 General Conference. The Olsen’s assured the Preston members that they love to serve with their musical talents and are very blessed to have music be used as a powerful sharing tool and expressed love and anticipation for when the choir can visit the United Kingdom.

Left to right: Caeli (sister), Cameron (dad), Crystal (mom), Cara, Cohen (brother)
My mom has been sick since I was four. At first, no one knew what it was, but we had family and friends praying and fasting for our family to figure it out. After many years of surgeries and tests, we found out she had Chiari malformation, blood cancer, and several other illnesses that there isn’t a cure for.
Watching my mom be so sick, I began to be upset with God. I knew He had the power to heal her, so I couldn’t understand why He didn’t. I thought all the prayers, fundraisers, and fasting had gone to waste.
But as I watched the October 2021 general conference with my family, I heard Elder Brent H. Nielson of the Seventy say, “The Savior’s healing power [is] not just His ability to heal our bodies but, perhaps even more important, His ability to heal our hearts.” When the resurrected Savior invited the people in the Book of Mormon to be healed, He “was not referring to a physical healing but rather a spiritual healing of their souls” (Liahona, Nov. 2021, 57).
These words helped me realize that God wasn’t ignoring me. I just wasn’t seeing how He was healing my mom in a more important way than taking away her illnesses.
My mom still hasn’t been cured, but Heavenly Father has been there for her in her lowest points. He helps her when she truly is feeling the worst she ever has in her life. Now when I reflect on this experience, I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ know exactly what I am feeling and going through.
Cara C., 13, Rhode Island, USA
Likes to hang out with friends and invite them over to play games.

Since joining the church, I have forged and strengthened my relationships with both friends and family. Prior to my baptism I had not spoken with my family for a number of years, but through understanding the gospel and the atonement of Jesus Christ, I realised that if I was to repair relations with my family I needed to make the first move. I went to them full of apologies and with a sincere intention to mend my relationship. I am happy to say that now the relationship with my mum and my dad has never been stronger.

As much as I loved my mission, I struggled to apply the lessons I learned while serving to my life afterward. I ended up returning home sooner than I expected due to mental health struggles and then moved from my home in the Philippines to the United Arab Emirates to start working.
Since moving here, I’ve had a hard time feeling like I’m making progress and moving forward on the covenant path. On my mission, I could devote all my time and energy to the gospel. I worried very little about my temporal needs or what I was going to do with my life after my mission. But now that I’m trying to balance other demands of life, I feel like I keep falling short.
And since I’m lacking both the supportive, faithful community I had back home in the Philippines and the schedule of a missionary that makes progress much easier and clearer, sometimes I feel like I’m not progressing at all.
As I’ve continued to struggle with these feelings, I’ve felt strongly that I should implement a habit I had on my mission. As a missionary I learned how important it is to connect with Heavenly Father every night through prayer and honestly evaluate my actions each day. I would ask Heavenly Father what I had done well, ask for forgiveness from my sins and for strength to overcome my imperfections, and then ask Him how I could do better the next day.
At first I was scared to start doing this after my mission, especially since I’d been feeling like I was already failing myself and Heavenly Father. I didn’t want to feel even worse about my shortcomings. But I remembered what I’d learned on my mission: repentance brings joy. As Elder Craig C. Christensen of the Seventy explained: “Repenting daily and coming unto Jesus Christ is the way to experience joy—joy beyond our imagination [see 1 Corinthians 2:9]. That is why we are here on earth. That is why God prepared His great plan of happiness for us.”1
I’m so grateful for that prompting—checking in with Heavenly Father each day has changed so much for me. Realizing that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ give me the chance to become better every day helps me have more self-compassion—if They believe in me enough to keep giving me more chances, why shouldn’t I believe in me too?

I met Mark when I came home from college for a visit. He was a young officer in the United States military, tall and handsome, just starting an exciting career. We liked each other immediately and spent as much time together as possible. It seemed we were made for each other. He visited me at college, and by the time I returned home for the summer vacation I knew I had to make a decision about my future.
After a few dates Mark had asked me to seriously consider not returning to college in the fall so that we could spend more time together. I had worked and saved through high school so that I could have a college education, and I just couldn’t give up my dreams of college so soon.
No matter how fervently I prayed about marriage and a future with Mark, I never felt peaceful with that decision. I thought it through many times and came up with many reasons why we could have a wonderful a life together. I had always wanted to travel and knew I would love living abroad in interesting foreign lands with him in the military.
One special evening, after a romantic dinner, we decided to drive around a lovely little lake. We drove slowly as if we might save the magic of the moment. We stopped not far from my home and spoke quietly and seriously about our future and how much we cared for each other.
At that moment it would have been easy to go too far with my affections, and he with his. Who would know? I had always been morally clean and thought I would never be vulnerable in that way. I was caught off guard by how easily physical desire became so strong.
Then pictures flooded my mind. I could clearly see my Beehive teacher, my grandmothers, and my parents. My thoughts were filled with their words and what they had taught me about being chaste. I could feel their love as strongly as if they were there with me. Time seemed to stop. I was facing temptation in its most deceiving disguise—temptation masquerading as young love. Clearly it was a choice between right and wrong, and I knew I wanted to be clean and pure. I was surprised at how easily that moment passed once the decision was made. I realized that real love respects purity. Temptation respects nothing.
The rest of the evening turned from romance to a clear-headed discussion of what our futures were to be. I was more certain than before that Heavenly Father had different plans for us. I don’t remember exactly what we said, only that we probably weren’t really meant for each other after all. I went home, told my parents it was over, but was at peace with the decision. We saw each other only a few times after that evening, and our paths soon went separate directions. I returned to college, and he went on with his life. We had no contact after that summer.
Returning to school, I moved back into regular college life, dating a few great guys, eventually meeting a fine man. He had a sense of humor and a strong testimony, and we had common goals. It was then that I received strong, positive confirmation he was the right person for me to marry. What had seemed so important the summer before faded. Mark just became just one of the guys I had known.
Years passed, and with a husband and several children, I was a busy mother trying to build an eternal family, working in the Church. One day I found some free time and slipped away to attend the temple. In that holy place, I noticed a temple worker who looked vaguely familiar. Only as I passed did I realize it was my old boyfriend Mark. There, in the Lord’s house, I felt no remorse or regrets. I didn’t have to turn away in shame because of things we had done. Instead I smiled and nodded.
In the celestial room I gave quiet thanks for guidance from Church leaders, parents, and Mutual teachers who had taught the principle of chastity. In the most sacred place on earth, the holy temple, I was filled with gratitude for sure and true commandments, which kept me safe and clean. Once I was young and inexperienced, but I had the best guides in all eternity, our Savior’s teachings and the Holy Ghost, to direct me to the right path. He knew what was right for me.
In the years since then, I have had a good, happy life, and I am sure Mark has had the same. I heard that he left the military, served a mission, and was later called to be a bishop. Ours are separate lives, free and clear, with only good memories. I am just one girl he dated; he is one guy I dated—and that is all.

I attended church for only a few Sundays before it became time for me to leave for Korea. When I went aboard ship on the last day of 1951, I took with me a triple combination and the Articles of Faith by James E. Talmage. I read the Articles of Faith during the first month at sea. One evening in February I heard it announced over the public address system aboard ship that Latter-day Saint services would be held in the crew library at 7:30 P.M. At the appointed hour I went to the library where I found four young men who looked very much like the two young missionaries who had knocked on my door in San Diego. I told them I was not a member of the Church but was interested in studying about it. They welcomed me with much enthusiasm.
When we arrived in Japan in the latter part of February 1952, the group decided that I was ready for baptism. So they accompanied me to the Japan Mission home where I was interviewed and received a recommend. On February 25, 1952, in the garden behind the Japan Mission home in 30-degree weather, seven thousand miles from my home in Missouri, I was baptized. Later I was confirmed a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My wife was baptized four days later in San Diego, California. Our search had come to an end.