Gospel Story Finder

Last year the missionaries knocked on their door and were invited to come inside. After the missionaries taught the family, Mother decided that she wanted to join the Church, and knew that it would help her teach the gospel to her family. Father decided that he needed to obey the Word of Wisdom so that he could be baptized too. Both parents were baptized on July 10, 1991. About a week later, Loli was baptized by her father. The Primary children sang at her baptism. A few weeks after that, Pili decided that she was ready to be baptized too. She knew that it was important for her family to become an eternal family. When Pili was confirmed, she could feel the Holy Spirit in her heart.

The highlight of our mission was the visit from the first members in Ukraine. We had prepared ourselves. The mission president’s wife spoke Russian, and even I learned part of one of the ordinances in Russian. These members had such a reverence for the house of the Lord. As they came and left, they bowed in humility. They were so happy they could receive their endowments, and many cried for joy and didn’t want to leave the temple.

Pastel-colored tissue paper cluttered tabletops as young women from a ward in Utah, USA, working with their leaders, cut circle after circle, then threaded the circles together to form flowers, and then attached them to head bands. As they fashioned flower after paper flower, laughter and conversation filled the air—as well as anticipation. The flowers were to be worn at a dinner where, after months of anonymous service, the young women would finally meet their “secret grandmothers.”
From February to September, the young women had worked both alone and in groups—delivering treats, washing windows, plastering paper hearts all over doors—anything they could think of to brighten the day of the senior sisters in their ward.
And now it was finally time for the grandmothers to find out which young women had been serving them.
The evening for the dinner soon arrived. It didn’t take long before young women and “secret grandmothers,” all of them with paper flowers in their hair, were laughing and joking, saying, “So, you’re the one!” and “Thank you so much!”
Once everyone was a little better acquainted, and after sharing a delicious meal, the real fun of the evening began. The “grandmothers” had responded to questionnaires. As their answers were read aloud, the young women had to guess who was being introduced.
Answers revealed information such as favorite childhood activities, best advice received from parents, life-changing moments, family rules and chores when they were teens, favorite foods, embarrassing experiences, awkward dates, nicknames, their mother’s recipes, family heirlooms and traditions, favorite teachers, and much more.
There were some tender moments. One young woman, Charlotte R., 18, who lost her mother when she was eight, found out that two of the senior sisters had been through the same experience.
“That strengthened me a lot,” Charlotte said. “Here are women I admire, who do so much and help so many, and I never knew that they lost their mothers, too.”
Sister Shields, for example, was 16 when her mother died. Charlotte said, “When she said her mother’s faith stayed strong and that she heard her mother’s testimony many times, that really touched me, because that’s how my mother was.”
Sister Shields showed two prized possessions to the young women—a baptismal dress her mother sewed, and a coat her mother made for her just before she passed away.
Serenity M., 15, said that “seeing what Sister Shields’s mother did for her made me think about what my mother has given to me.” It also made her glad that she had made something nice for Sister Shields: “a hot chocolate mug with a smiley face inside, so that when she’s done drinking cocoa she has an extra reason to smile.”
Another young woman, Michaela M., 15, said she had often seen Sister Heyward at church before the months of service began. “I never actually knew her personally,” Michaela said, “but doing service for her made me feel closer to her, even though until tonight she didn’t know who was doing it.”
At the dinner, however, Michaela gained additional perspective. “Tonight, when the ‘grandmothers’ answered questions about growing up, going on dates, what they learned in seminary, and all of that, I thought, those are the same things I’m going through. I got the feeling that we’re all sisters, even though we’re different ages.”
Emma F., 13, agreed. “Sometimes it’s fun to be with people who are a little older because you get to see how much alike we are.”
Emily M., 15, said that an added benefit of the service and the dinner was that it made her feel eager to attend Relief Society. “If they’re all nice like these ladies,” she said, “then I’m excited.”
“It brought us together as sisters in Zion,” said Chloe F., 17. “It wasn’t scary or intimidating to be with these ladies; it was easy and natural because we all had things in common. It strengthened my testimony of how we truly are sisters, and I was impressed with their faith and how it has guided them.” It was, she said, “perfect preparation for when I go into Relief Society this fall.”
And Amanda L., 17, said, “The day after the dinner, Sister Coke left me some flowers and a note that said she was happy to get to know me. I’ve made a friend and it won’t taper off. I’m going to keep visiting her every once in a while to see how she’s doing, to let her know we still care.”
That is, after all, the sort of thing that sisters do.

Life was going according to plan.
I was just about to complete my mission. During the previous 18 months, my testimony had been strengthened, and my vision of the plan of salvation had expanded. I had never felt closer to my Savior and my Heavenly Father. Life just seemed blissful.
Sure, my family and I were experiencing our share of trials, but overall, I was excited and had a lot of plans for what would come next. But then I came home. And the shock was pretty brutal. I struggled adjusting to everyday life again. I worried incessantly about making good choices and being perfect in my obedience. I put so much pressure on myself to stay at the high spiritual level that I had throughout my mission because I feared that if I didn’t, I would regress spiritually.
As the pressure I put on myself increased, I started experiencing anxiety and panic attacks. They became more and more frequent, and I eventually felt like I was drowning.
Unfortunately, I hid my feelings from my family and friends. I knew that anxiety and depression were nothing to be ashamed of, but I felt so out of control and lost that I didn’t even know how to express what I was experiencing to seek help.
Thankfully, the Lord is always there to guide us when we turn to Him. After some pondering and prayer, I felt prompted to open up to my brother and his wife. They helped me recognize that I wasn’t as “crazy” as I thought and that emotional struggles can happen to anyone.
Sister Reyna I. Aburto, Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, testified of this truth: “My dear friends, it can happen to any of us—especially when, as believers in the plan of happiness, we place unnecessary burdens on ourselves by thinking we need to be perfect now. Such thoughts can be overwhelming. Achieving perfection is a process that will take place throughout our mortal life and beyond—and only through the grace of Jesus Christ.”1
As I prayed to Heavenly Father for guidance, I realized that I needed to give the resources He has provided for us a chance, and I needed to learn and change for the better. Gratefully, at that time I had the chance to attend the Church’s emotional resilience course. The opportunity seemed to come at just the right time, and I don’t believe it was a coincidence.
In the course manual, emotional resilience is defined as the following:
“The ability to adapt to emotional challenges with courage and faith centered in Jesus Christ.
“Helping yourself and others the best you can.
“Reaching out for additional help when needed.”2
In other words, emotional resilience is something we all need.
To me, this inspired course is a clear sign that Heavenly Father is aware of the trials we are facing nowadays as members of the Church of Jesus Christ. He wants to be able to help us keep moving forward on the path back to Him. Seeing the many beautiful aspects of this course helped me realize just how deeply Heavenly Father knows each of us and our individual needs, and I immediately felt peace as I started studying. The course teaches clear and powerful eternal truths that can be applied to our lives when dealing with mental health issues, whether it be ourselves or someone we love.
One of the teachings that struck me is found in chapter 9, “Providing Strength to Others.” This chapter is what helped me finally reach out for more help. It teaches the principle of serving one another. I learned how important it was to serve others by validating their feelings, emotions, and opinions and reaching out with empathy and understanding. I also realized that I needed to trust others to help me in my struggles.
When I was able to put these ideas into practice and open up to my family and friends about my mental health struggles, I was surprised that they were so compassionate and nonjudgmental. I received so much support from them.
I feel like my anxiety would have taken a deeper and darker turn if I hadn’t shared my challenges with my loved ones. And this experience helped me reach out and empathize with others about their worries and problems too.
I find it funny how when I came back from my mission, I was so worried about losing the “spiritual ground” that I had gained during my mission, because now I realize that coming home was just the beginning of a new chapter where I could find new ways to deepen my faith.
My personal relationships with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ have grown and deepened so much since I came home, especially because of the principles I learned in this emotional resilience course and through relying on Heavenly Father and the Savior for help. They feel much more real and present in my everyday life.
I’ve learned and accepted that as children of God, we constantly change, learn, and evolve. And yet through our life changes, Heavenly Father is unchanging. He didn’t expect me to be perfect on my mission, and He doesn’t expect that now. He simply loves me and wants me to continue to strive toward Him and do the best I can on my journey back to Him.
Now, just because I took this emotional resilience course, that doesn’t mean that I don’t have any more anxiety or panic attacks or moments when I feel overwhelmed by fear of the future. I still do at times. But now I recognize these patterns and have learned tools to help address them in a healthier way, improving the quality of my daily life.
In the end, this course taught me coping mechanisms for times when I experience anxiety and challenges. It taught me to have patience and compassion for myself and my imperfections. And I learned to understand how God sees me and to not be terrorized by the unknowns of the future.
Through both professional and heavenly help, I’ve come to realize that we have the necessary tools to know how to “act … and not to be acted upon” (2 Nephi 2:26) by our emotions and feelings as we continue to move toward Christ.

President Hunter has always been a man of great resolution. On 7 February 1993, he was on the Brigham Young University campus to speak at a nineteen-stake fireside and Church Educational System broadcast. As President Hunter rose to address the nearly twenty thousand young adults assembled in the Marriott Center, an assailant threatened him, shouting, “Stop right there!” The man claimed to have a bomb and a detonator and ordered everyone to leave the stand except President Hunter. Many people did leave, yet President Hunter resolutely stayed at the pulpit, with two security guards. Although threatened by what looked like a gun, President Hunter firmly declined to read the written statement the man handed to him. When students spontaneously began to sing “We Thank Thee, O God, for a Prophet,” the assailant was momentarily distracted. A security guard rushed him and took him into custody. Other security guards lowered President Hunter to the floor for safety.

There was, of course, a considerable commotion in the audience, but soon a reasonable calm returned. After a few moments to collect himself, President Hunter made a second approach to the microphone and read the opening line of his prepared text: “Life has a fair number of challenges in it.” He stopped, looked over the audience, and added, “As demonstrated.” Then he went on with his message as though nothing had happened.

When I was a mission president, a fine elder came to me. I asked, “How can I help you?”
“President,” he said, “I think I’m losing my testimony.”
I asked him how that could be possible.
“For the first time I have read some anti-Mormon literature,” he said. “I have some questions, and nobody will answer them for me. I am confused, and I think I am losing my testimony.”
I asked him what his questions were, and he told me. They were the standard anti-Church issues, but I wanted a little time to gather materials so I could provide meaningful answers. So we set up an appointment ten days later, at which time I told him I would answer every one of his questions. As he started to leave, I stopped him. “Elder, you’ve asked me several questions here today,” I said. “Now I have one for you.”
“Yes, President?”
“How long has it been since you’ve read from the Book of Mormon?” I asked.
His eyes dropped. He looked at the floor for a while. Then he looked at me. “It’s been a long time, President,” he confessed.
“All right,” I said. “You have given me my assignment. It’s only fair that I give you yours. I want you to promise me that you will read in the Book of Mormon for at least one hour every day between now and our next appointment.” He agreed that he would do that.
Ten days later he returned to my office, and I was ready. I pulled out my papers to start answering his questions. But he stopped me.
“President,” he said, “that isn’t going to be necessary.” Then he explained, “I know that the Book of Mormon is true. I know Joseph Smith is a prophet of God.”
“Well, that’s great,” I said. “But you’re going to get answers to your questions anyway. I worked a long time on this, so you just sit there and listen.”
And so I answered all of those questions, and then asked, “Elder, what have you learned from this?” And he said, “Give the Lord equal time.”

If you need miracles or blessings, family history can help you. Sam and Betsy (names have been changed) experienced such a miracle in their family. They had a child who was estranged from them for years. Inspired by the talk “Family History and Temple Work: Sealing and Healing” by Elder Renlund, they decided to dedicate time each Sunday to work on family history. After many months, they were reunited with their child and are rebuilding their relationship. The Spirit confirmed to them that this miracle came because they followed Elder Renlund’s invitation to do family history work.

Too soon the term came to an end. When I came back from vacation, Scott Anderson was gone. “Moved,” somebody told me, “back to Utah.” I clung even more to his famous one line in memory of our friendship.
It was a fresh April day at the Apothecary Outdoor Restaurant when I had a final chance to use Anderson’s line. We had just finished our salad and were beginning our soup when an acquaintance of my mother stopped to greet us. He added the usual, “And what are you going to be doing next year, Jack?”
“I will be going on a mission for the Mormon church, sir,” I replied.
“You will?” He seemed more than astonished. “Why I didn’t know you were Mormons!”
“We’re not,” my mother smiled her let’s-get-on-to-other-things smile.
“But I am,” the man went on. “As a matter of fact, I’m bishop of the Manhattan Third Ward.”
“A bishop? I’ve heard of bishops,” I said. “You see, I had this friend at school …”
And so I met Bishop Beesely. And now I am going on a mission for the Mormon church. My father thinks that I am tomorrow’s Dr. Livingstone because I am going to South Africa.
My mother, though, is her same plural self. Just yesterday she said, “We’ll be needing some white shirts and dark suits now, won’t we, Jack?”

Lohran sought to learn God’s will through fasting and prayer. That very week, he noticed the recently delivered issue of the New Era magazine in his home, and he began thumbing through it. He was attracted to the article “Ice Dreams,” about ice skater Chris Obzansky, who interrupted a promising skating career to serve a mission at age 19, losing the opportunity to compete in the 2006 Winter Olympics.
One passage in particular caught Lohran’s attention: as Chris was in sacrament meeting listening to his Young Men president talk about his own mission call, the Spirit told Chris, “You need to serve a mission when you’re 19, or you’re going to have a tough life.” Chris said, “The message was so clear I actually turned around to see if someone was there. The feeling came back 10 times stronger, and I knew I had to go on a mission.”
Lohran smiles. “When I read that, I felt it had been written for me. Age 19 is the age prescribed by the Lord. I realized that was the answer I needed, and it was like an enormous weight was taken off my back.” The time for Lohran to serve a mission was now. He talked to his bishop, made the necessary preparations, and never looked back. “It was not even difficult to make the decision of leaving football behind,” he says, “for I knew it was the right time to do it.”
Lohran served in his country’s capital, in the Brazil Brasília Mission. He was known as “Elder Happy” because of his contagious enthusiasm. “I am exceptionally happy serving people, sharing with them what I know is true,” he says. “It is so gratifying to see people change their lives after learning the gospel.”
Like all missionaries, though, he experienced his share of hardships. “Obviously, missionary life is not all fun,” he says. “There are difficulties, moments of weakness and loneliness, but all that is next to nothing compared to the treasures of a mission. These are years I’ll never forget, that I’ll always have in my mind and, more important, my heart.”
A few months ago he finished serving a successful mission. Now that he’s home, he has joined a football team in Rio de Janiero and believes more chances to continue his football career will come his way. With faith he says, “I am now waiting for the opportunities to come, opportunities that our Heavenly Father will bless me to enjoy.”

My two oldest boys, Kahia who is nine and Makani who is six, love to surf. This slide here is a picture of my six year-old Makani. Over the last year and a half we have been taking a group of their friends on regular surfing sessions here in Laie. About three weeks ago, we all went out to Mokuauia, or Goat Island, to surf the waves that break off the island's reef. Since Mokuauia is about a ¼ mile off shore, we decided to paddle to the island on kayaks from Temple Beach. With our surfboards in tow, we headed out into the clear calm waters of Laie bay. The water was beautiful, but the waves were small. Unlike the stories I've shared thus far, our kids didn't pray for the waves to stop, they instead prayed that the waves would get. While we waited, nine year-old D'arman Natoa noticed that a large humpback whale was swimming about 200 yards directly outside of us. Staring in amazement, we then watched her slap her large white-spotted, black tail on the surface of the water. As she repeatedly slapped and splashed, the kids cheered with excitement. Moments later, waves began coming our way. The kids believed that the whale's tail splashing was making the waves bigger. Although a scientific explanation may not corroborate this story, the kids believed that the whale was sent as an answer to their prayers. As we later paddled our vessels back home, the whale, still lounging in the same spot, waved his side fin high in the air, as if saying, "A hui hou, goodbye". And To my surprise, the children waved back in gratitude, "Mahalo, see you later!" Even I, a life-long ocean goer, had never seen anything quite like this. The innocence of their belief allowed us all to witness something miraculous that day. I was also reminded why Jesus asks us to be like little children, because they are so quick to believe. Although we did not get a photograph of that whale, this shot of Kahia sharing a wave with a honu, or turtle, captures a similar experience of being watched over by God's great ocean creatures.

I was interested to read recently of a young British girl who learned in school about the characteristics of water along a shoreline that signal the approach of a tsunami. Two weeks later, on vacation with her family in Thailand, she observed those phenomena and insistently warned her parents and the people around her. They escaped to higher ground just in time when the December 26, 2004, tsunami hit south Asia. More than a hundred people owe their lives to that girl’s knowledge of certain truths of the natural world.

And I remember hearing in New Zealand many years ago the testimony of a man from the far side of Australia who, having been previously sealed by civil authority and then joined the Church with his wife and children, had traveled all the way across that wide continent, then across the Tasman Sea to Auckland, and down to the temple in the beautiful valley of the Waikato. As I remember his words, he said, “We could not afford to come. Our worldly possessions consisted of an old car, our furniture, and our dishes. I said to my family, ‘We cannot afford to go.’ Then I looked into the faces of my beautiful wife and our beautiful children, and I said, ‘We cannot afford not to go. If the Lord will give me strength, I can work and earn enough for another car and furniture and dishes, but if I should lose these my loved ones, I would be poor indeed in both life and in eternity.’”

The following is a true story. For my eighth birthday I wanted to have a party. My parents agreed, and so a week before my birthday, I took the invitations to school.
On the school bus, I kept thinking about Alice.* I was hoping that she wouldn’t be there that day. Then my parents couldn’t blame me for not inviting her. You see, Alice’s clothes were old and worn, her hair was seldom combed, and she was very quiet. She always played by herself at recess, and as far as I could see, she had no friends. In other words, I didn’t see why I needed to invite her to my party.
When I got to school, much to my dismay, Alice was there. I handed out the invitations, and everyone was very excited.
The morning of my birthday party, my parents asked, “Will Alice be coming?” I was surprised! I didn’t think that they even knew Alice.
“I don’t know if she’s coming,” I answered. My father suggested that we take a ride over to her house to see. My father is a very kind man, but he is also very firm. If he suggests that we do something, we do it.
Alice’s mother answered the door, and my father told her why we were there. “She won’t be coming,” Alice’s mother said. “She doesn’t have a present for your daughter. You see, my husband lost his job and …”
My father gestured that he understood, then said, “We would still like Alice to come. It doesn’t matter if she has a present or not.”
No present? I thought. What kind of a birthday party is that? But, of course, I just stood there and smiled.
When we were in the car again, my father told me that after he took me home he was coming back to take Alice to the store to buy a present for her to give to me.
This isn’t turning out so bad after all! I thought.
I can’t remember what presents I got that day, but I do remember that Alice seemed to laugh a lot and was actually quite fun to be with. When it was time to take her home, I got in the front seat and she got in the backseat. I turned around to tell her something, and next to her was the prettiest doll I had ever seen. In my eight-year-old mind, I knew that my father had bought that doll for Alice. I felt like my heart grew two sizes that day.
My father is not a rocket scientist. He has never invented anything or found a cure for a disease. But that day he did something just as important—he showed charity to a little girl. And to another little girl, he showed what it means to be Christlike.

A boy in my class is mildly handicapped. (I will call him Joe, not his real name.) He is a slow learner, and he stutters, so everybody thinks he is odd. One day at school when I sat by him, a mean boy thought he was being clever by picking on him. But I didn’t think it was clever at all. Joe went and told the teacher. When the teacher came over, I stood up and told her about other mean things that had been done to Joe that he had not told her.
This summer my mom was talking to his mom, and she told my mom that just about every day after school Joe came home crying. When she said that, it made me feel so good that I had been nice to him.
Lisa Miller, age 9Great Falls Fifth Ward

Simón’s handsome quick-tempered father died when the boy was only six and his mother three years later. The happy early childhood of the Bolívar children was abruptly ended. They were taken into the homes of different relatives. Uncle Palacios became responsible for Simón, and the easy outdoor life he had known was replaced by the severity of Uncle Palacios’ cold and formal home in Caracas. Monks were hired to teach the lonely and homesick boy. Uncle Palacios worried about his unhappy nephew and the monks worried about Uncle Palacios, after he once interrupted their unimaginative teaching about the stars to observe, “The stars in the heavens are there for all to see. One is not forced to observe them by gazing through any one particular window.”
Soon afterward a new tutor was engaged for Simón, a tall, loosely built young man of twenty-three. His name was Rodriguez Carreno and, fired with the revolutionary ideas of freedom, he threw away the dull books the monks had used, exchanging them for long walks, exercise, and philosophical talks. These exciting subjects were to influence Simón and make it possible for him to eventually become a great statesman, soldier, and liberator of the five countries he would later help to free and govern.
Rodriquez taught Simón the history of their country and spoke bitterly about the Spaniards who were rulers there and in much of the rest of South America. It was Rodriguez who also told Simón that these rulers considered the native Venezuelans to be inferior because their Spanish blood had been mixed through intermarriage with people from France or the West Indies (Creoles). Rodriguez’ remarks were shocking to the proud young man, and the tutor’s dream of freedom from Spain became a hope for Simón too.

One summer evening my parents and I swung in the squeaky glider on the front porch and fanned ourselves with the evening’s Register-Mail. We were hopefully searching the twilit skies for a thundercloud, but only heat lightning appeared to lick the sky.
A train clattered by on the tracks across the road, then tooted as it passed the State Street intersection. Daddy pulled out his pocket watch and remarked, “Mail train’s right on time.” Then he continued, “Dulcy, you ought to get to sleep a little earlier tonight. The circus train starts unloading at five o’clock in the morning.”
I knew he was right but I hated to miss the nightly game of hide-and-seek with my friends, the Shane kids, who were just coming up the walk.
“Dulcy, can you play?” Emmalou called. “Walter said he’d be it.“
“Not tonight, I have to go to bed early.”
They drifted away as Mama said, “Dulcy, before you go upstairs, there’s something Daddy and I would like to tell you.”
We got up, brushed june bugs off the screen door, and went inside to sit down by the dining room table. Mama fidgeted with the bowl of zinnias in the center of the table. “We received a letter from my cousin Martha today. She’s sick and needs someone to look after her boy. He’s coming tonight,” she said.
“Oh boy!” I exclaimed. “Someone new to play with. Will he stay all summer?”
“No, just for a few days. His grandma is driving up from Missouri. He’ll spend the summer with her.”
“How old is he?”
“About your age, maybe a little younger,” Daddy put in.
“Dulcy, I want you to show him kindness and understanding while he’s here,” Mama continued. “He’s not had much.”
“Yes, Mama.”
“Now brush your teeth and go to bed.”
Upstairs I decided to count to a million by fives, determined not to go to sleep until the boy arrived. But I never made it past one hundred and fifty.
It seemed only moments later when my Mickey Mouse alarm clock rang. And even before I opened my eyes, I knew something in the room had changed. My white china dogs still marched on their shelves; the dolls and stuffed animals still sat in their corners. What was different? Then, from deep within a heavy comforter over the daybed, came a muffled sound.
“Is that you Clipper?” I said, wondering if my dog would emerge. “You’ll get fleas on Grandma’s quilt.”
The comforter was tugged downward to reveal the largest dark eyes I’d ever seen. “Good morning.” I said. “My name’s Dulcy. What’s yours?”
“Jebediah E. Banks,” came the answer.
“That’s a big name for a little boy like you.”
“It was my Granddaddy’s, and I reckon I’ll grow into it.”
“Till you do, I’ll just call you Jeb. Do you want to see the circus train unload?”
We sat side by side on the window seat while, across the road on the spur track from Peoria, the spectacle began. Work lights cast a yellow pall on the scene and threw long, grotesque shadows upward into the nearby trees. Men dressed in overalls worked swiftly, lifting machinery, tying off ropes, and transferring the calliope to a waiting truck. Animal handlers in knee-high boots helped maneuver red and gold cages off the flatcars with only an occasional snarl of protest from within. In their slow, plodding manner, the elephants carried poles and timber in their trunks without a sound or gesture from anyone.
I cast a glance at Jeb.
“Is it real?” he whispered.
“Of course it is,” I replied.
He turned to stare at me questioningly. “But the elephants,” he said, “they’re yellow.”
“They just look that way on account of the lights.”
When the train was completely unloaded, we climbed back into our beds. I lay staring at the ceiling, puzzled about Jeb. How can a boy of seven or eight not know what’s real and what isn’t? I wondered. After breakfast, I’ll have to teach him the difference.
That morning Jeb and I sat on the porch steps while I figured out what to do. But Mama already had plans. She came out and handed me a brown paper sack. “You and Jeb take these string beans down to Grandma so she can cook them for supper. Hurry along now.”
Our bare feet slapped on the hot sidewalk as we hurried the two blocks to Grandma’s house. “Grandma,” I called as we went in the back door. Then I saw the note on the kitchen table.
“DULCY,” it read, “HAVE GONE TO STORE. HAVE SOME COOKIES.”
I pulled out the brown stone cookie jar and we selected two ginger drops each. As we sat at the table and made the cookies last as long as possible by eating around the edges, I said, “Jeb, I’m going to show you the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. I’ll show you make believe first.” Then I went to the pantry.
I carried about a dozen bottles and cans of different kinds to the table. I arranged them with the tallest in the middle, flanked by the next tallest on either side, then the next in height, until the shortest bottles stood at the ends on each side.
This is a pretend game I made up,” I explained. “You’re going to be the only other person in the whole world to know about it.” His dark eyes brightened slightly.
“This is my Sunday School class,” I began. Then I introduced him to the containers that were pretend pupils, each with a name and with a part to give as they stepped out of line to say their pieces, the way my real class does for the special Mother’s Day program every year. For the grand finale, the Sunday School-bottle class sang, “Mother, I Love You” before they were dismissed. Naturally, I said all the pieces and sang the song; and the bottle named Dulcy knew her pieces best and the one named Walter forgot his.
“Now it’s your turn,” I told Jeb.
He traced the design on Grandma’s tablecloth before he said, “I don’t know how.”
“Just try,” I pleaded.
“No, I can’t do it,” he insisted.
“Then let’s go home,” I snapped as I put the bottles away.
Later, we sat under the pear tree in my backyard.
“Are you mad at me?” Jeb asked.
“No.” But I didn’t sound much like I meant it.
Moments later I turned to look at him and found him staring straight up into the tree. “What in the world are you looking at?” I asked, giving him a nudge.
Slowly, very slowly, he said, “There’s a yellow elephant sitting right up there.” He pointed to the highest branch.
I looked up before I realized what had happened. “Jeb!” I squealed. “You’ve learned how to pretend!”
We climbed as high as we dared and stayed in the tree the rest of the day. Mama sent our lunch up to us on a rope pulley and in the afternoon brought out a sack of fresh sugar cookies.
The next day we climbed back into the pear tree after breakfast. In the late afternoon it began to rain and Mama called us inside. We cut through the garden as Jeb said, “Tomorrow, let’s get up earlier and play with my elephant.”
“Tomorrow your grandma is coming and you have to go to Missouri.”
“I can’t go.” He stopped by a neat row of calendulas. “I can’t leave my elephant.”
“Don’t be silly,” I told him, looking up into the rain so it would pepper my face. “There isn’t any elephant in the pear tree.”
He pulled back his arm and doubled up his fist as though he were going to hit me, but I managed to get out of the way. Mama appeared before we had time to do any damage to each other. “Dulcy,” she shouted, grabbing me by my collar. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, picking on a child so much smaller.” Jeb slipped away from her and climbed back into the pear tree. “I’m going to call your father,” Mama said, looking at me. She turned toward the house, but I headed for the pear tree.
“Come on down, Jeb,” I said.
“No!” he declared, sobbing. “I’m never coming down. I’m going to stay with my elephant forever. He’s the only one in the world who loves me.”
And right there I should have told him. I should have said, “I love you, too, Jeb.” But I didn’t because I was only ten, and was still smarting from our verbal battle.
“Well then, why don’t you take your stupid elephant and go join the circus?” I shouted, and turned and ran through the downpour into the house.
Soon Daddy came home and gently coaxed Jeb out of the tree. Mama spooned hot potato soup into him and put him to bed. The next morning I awoke early to a dully, gray dawn, heavy with moisture. Jeb’s bed was vacant. I hurried down the hall and shook Mama.
“Has Jeb gone to Missouri already?”
Her eyes widened in alarm and together we ran to my room. His pajamas were neatly folded on the quilt, the only evidence that he’d ever been there. We woke Daddy and the search began.
Thinking of the pear tree first, we went outside, using Daddy’s flashlight to cast a beam into the mother of pearl mist hanging on the branches. The tree was strangely empty, emptier than yesterday, and I had the craziest feeling that Jeb really had taken his elephant with him.
Then I remembered what I’d said to him. I told my folks that Jeb liked the circus a lot, so we headed for the fairgrounds.
Daddy and the manager organized a search. While acrobats in robes of scarlet scoured the main tent, a family of midgets hurried to the clown’s wagon. The bearded lady kept Mama and me company, reassuring us this had happened a thousand times before, and they knew just where to look for a runaway boy.
The sun broke through the overcast and I managed to slip away to find the elephants.
They were staked near some scrub oaks, and I found Jeb sitting in the shade nearby. When he saw me, he said, “They’re not yellow, Dulcy. Only mine is yellow.”
On the way home all I managed to say was, “I’m glad you found your elephant, Jeb.” I wanted to say more but the time for that had passed.
The moment we turned onto Second Street, we saw the old Packard coupe with the Missouri license plate parked in front of our house. As we pulled into the driveway a lumpy, middle-aged woman with set lines on her face hurried out of Mrs. Adams’s house next door. I knew she must be Jeb’s grandma.
Within moments she had taken him by the hand and walked to the Packard. Jeb paused with one foot on the running board, shook his hand free, and turned around. He stared at me with those sad brown eyes for one long moment, but without any sign of farewell or that he’d ever known us. Then he turned and climbed into the car and they chuffed up the street, turned onto Pearl, and disappeared.
I hope he took his elephant. It’s all I had to give him.

Children perceive their own identity much earlier than we may realize. They want to be recognized as individuals. Not long ago as my wife visited with our daughter, her three-year-old son ran to his grandmother. She picked him up and said, “Hi, how are you doing, Babes?” He looked at her and said with a serious voice, “I not a babes, I a dude!” In the vernacular of the day, he was asserting that he was someone special, he had a place, and he belonged.

Teachers by profession, President and Sister Khanakam used family prayer and their training to help their son overcome what appeared to be a learning disability. “His teachers said he was very slow intellectually, and so we first thought of providing him with a tutor at home. But then we prayed about the problem, and we realized that the best teachers for our son were his mother and father. Our decision, based on the answer to our prayers, is turning out well. Ben is happy that his mother and father understand his needs and want to help him. As we help him with his school work, he is improving and learning faster. And it gives us the opportunity to grow closer together.”

President Hunter taught this lesson to me in a very personal way. The first time I met him was when I was called to his office to be set apart for an assignment on a general board. He greeted me very kindly and discussed with me the opportunities I would have as I served in this new calling. He commended me, smiled at me, and then, in his gentle, kind manner, he humbled me by telling me it was not difficult to find people to serve in that assignment. He said if we were to step outside and stop the next 100 members of the Church who passed in front of the Church Administration Building, almost all of them would be able and willing to serve in that same calling.

Then he asked, “Do you know what we need in the Church, Brother Pinegar?” I just sat there, not knowing how to respond, and he didn’t really wait for my answer. “What we need,” he continued, “are home teachers. That is the great need in the Church today.”

As he placed his hands on my head, I was uncertain what Elder Hunter would say. I thought he might set me apart as a home teacher, but in his pleasant, reassuring manner he set me apart and gave me a blessing that I would be able to fulfill my new calling. I promised myself that I would be a better home teacher.

At age 13 I was called into Bishop Murray Holt’s office, and he extended a call to me to serve as the president of the deacons quorum. He told me I needed to go home and pray about who my counselors should be. He taught me that the Lord would help me decide. He did. I then learned about counselors, and I began to see why the Lord has His Church directed by presidencies, not just presidents. I loved my counselors in the deacons quorum, and we prayed and worked hard to help the boys in our quorum. Bishop Holt taught me the pattern of presidencies and taught me how a presidency should operate and function in the Lord’s Church.