Gospel Story Finder

Elder Craig Zwick and I shared a precious moment in Fortaleza, Brazil, where we were privileged to bless a special seven-year-old boy who was dying of leukemia. His names—Jared Ammon—tell you much about his parents and family. Accompanied by a thoughtful mission and stake president, there was scarcely room for the four of us to stand beside the bed in the tiny room where Jared Ammon’s faithful 14-year-old sister held him in her arms. His stomach was so severely swollen. When the stake president lifted the oxygen mask to ask if he would like a blessing, Jared said, “Yes, please.” It was a privilege to bless him and to call him to serve beyond the veil. Tears flowed, for the Spirit was strong. The oxygen mask was then lifted again, and Jared Ammon was asked if there was anything else we could do for him. Jared meekly requested that we sing for him “I Am a Child of God” (Hymns, no. 301). Weepingly, we responded to a submissive Jared Ammon’s last request, and two hours later he was released from this life.

Before emplaning the next day, we went to the viewing at the chapel. His wonderful parents were full of faith, composed, and reverently “willing to submit” (Mosiah 3:19). The sister who held Jared plans to serve a mission later on this side of the veil while Jared serves on the other.

On May 26, 1976, Rodolfo Villalba left Salt Lake City to return home to Bolivia as a full-time missionary for the Church. “My heart is full of beautiful things I want to share with my people,” he said. After his mission he wants to come back to Utah and Brigham Young University; then he will return again to Bolivia to become a productive member of his community.
Rodolfo Murilla also returned to Bolivia at the end of May—there was a rumor that he had someone special waiting for him. The other four, Raul, Luis, Elizabeth, and Lidia, stayed in the U.S. to attend Brigham Young University. They are serious about becoming good representatives of Bolivia. After their education, they all say they want to go back to help their homeland. Lidia wants to study sociology. Luis wants to go into some technical field. Raul feels that it is a great opportunity, “one in a lifetime, to study in another country. And to do it in the Church university is really something!” His father is not a member but wants the best opportunities for his son. Raul is the oldest of the children in his family, and his father wants him to set a good example for his younger brothers and sisters.

Alex asked his friend Jake to play at his house on Saturday. They were having fun with race cars when Jake noticed a picture hanging on the wall.
“Who’s that?” he asked, pointing to the picture of Thomas S. Monson.
“That’s President Monson,” Alex said.
Jake didn’t say anything.
“You know, the prophet of our Church,” Alex said.
Jake looked embarrassed. “We don’t go to church anymore,” he said.
“Why did you stop going?” Alex asked.
Jake shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Do you want to come with me on Sunday?” Alex asked. “We could go to Primary together. My teacher is really great.”
Jake’s eyes brightened. “I’ll have to ask my mom, but I think she’ll let me go,” Jake said.
At lunchtime, Alex asked his mom, “Can Jake go to Primary with me tomorrow?”
“We have to check with Jake’s mother,” Mom said. “If she says yes, then of course he can go.”
Later that day, Jake’s mom came to pick him up.
“Can Jake go to Primary with me tomorrow?” Alex asked.
“Can I, Mom?” Jake said. “Alex says Primary is really great. They read stories, sing songs, and learn about people in the scriptures.”
“I don’t know,” Jake’s mom said, looking uncertain. “We haven’t been to church for a long time.”
“Please, Mom,” Jake said. “I want to go.”
“Jake is welcome to come with us,” Alex’s mom said.
“Are you sure you want to go?” Jake’s mom asked.
“I’m sure!” Jake said.
“Then I guess it’s OK,” Jake’s mom said.
Jake gave his mom a quick hug. “Thanks,” he said.
On Sunday morning, Alex’s family picked up Jake. He was dressed in his Sunday clothes. After sacrament meeting the boys went to Primary. When they got to class, their teacher said, “We’re so glad to have you here, Jake.”
After church, Alex’s family took Jake home.
“Thanks for taking me to church with you,” Jake said.
Alex’s mom smiled at him. “You’re welcome, Jake. We hope you’ll come with us again,” she said.
That evening at dinner, Alex asked, “Can I invite Jake to go to church with us next Sunday?”
Mom nodded. “I’m going to follow your example and invite his mother to go with us too,” she said.
“You’re a good missionary, Alex,” Dad said.
Alex was surprised. “I was just being a friend,” he said.
“That’s what a missionary is,” Mom said, “a friend.”

Grandma and grandpa really knew how to enjoy themselves. But wait! Who says it is only the gentle folks of the 1800s who could enjoy such great tastes and times? In the Ames Ward (Des Moines Iowa Stake) the young people still know how to put together ice and cream and old-fashioned fun.
The young men and young women insisted that everyone in the ward be invited personally to their ice-cream social, and so they began a phone-calling brigade. They then remodeled their cultural hall into an 1800s setting, including a sweet shoppe, general store, jail, claims office, some cactus, and hitching posts. The main attraction was the Oasis Ice Cream Shop where you could buy the “Great Divide” (a “splendiferous” banana split), a “Pie Alamo(de),” a “Golden Nugget,” a “Ghost Two Special,” and a “Flash Flood Float.”
While ward members ate, they were entertained with a talent show. Even the missionaries got in the act with a short skit called “A Typical Day in the Life of a Missionary.”
Two months of work went into the Oasis Ice Cream Shop—two months of work and gallons of ice cream, toppings, nuts, and bananas. The youth did it all themselves—with an adult leader here and there scooping ice cream, impersonating sheriffs, and complimenting the youth for one “very cool” job.

As a young man I considered and learned the doctrine of eternal marriage and family. This was of great interest to me and a determining factor in my conversion. I had witnessed the breakup of my parents’ marriage; I had seen sorrow caused by death without spiritual knowledge and friends marrying without temple ordinances. I wanted to avoid these tragedies.
The true concept of marriage and family, the unit composed of a husband, wife, and children sealed together, was instituted at the beginning by God to create eternal families. That foundation principle became my vision and my goal and also reality as my companion and I were sealed in the temple in Zollikofen, Switzerland. As a husband and father and later as a grandfather, I was and still am responsible for the development, temporal support, protection, and salvation of my family.

Another great spiritual influence in my life was President N. Eldon Tanner, who served as a counselor in the First Presidency. I first met him when he was my branch president and I was in the Royal Canadian Air Force. He wrote my parents a beautiful letter about me, which my mother kept and which I found after she died. He was very considerate of those of us who were in the air force.
When I moved to Calgary, he became my stake president. He had been the minister of mines and resources in the Alberta Provincial Government and had resigned from that position and gone into private business. A transcontinental pipeline was being planned, and it would be very expensive. The people who were going to finance it were reluctant to risk their money. They said, however, that if Eldon Tanner was the president of the company, they would be happy to put their money into the project. When President Tanner went to the project’s first meeting, he was told that the board meetings would be on Sunday. Eldon Tanner said, “Not if I’m president.” He explained his Church obligations and his belief in Sabbath observance. So the board of directors changed their meeting to another day. President Tanner was president of that company until he was called to be a General Authority. He was a spiritual giant, a wonderful model to pattern my own life after.

For example, one time my buddies and I hiked into the mountains for a week of fishing. We had a lot of fun. The deer flies and mosquitoes were so tame they let us feed them. The jays were so friendly they’d swoop down and help themselves to food right off the griddle. And some of the trout were so dumb they let us catch them.
Now, we were on our way back. For breakfast that morning we finished off the last of the food we had packed in. Now we were surviving on lint-covered raisins from the bottom of our packs. We had about eight more miles to hike before we met our rides and headed home to good food and to showers that didn’t come directly out of a cloud.
Ordinarily, the packs are lighter on the hike out; you’ve eaten all of the food and lost half of everything else. But for some reason, I found it tougher going than usual. My companions, on the other hand, laughed as we walked uphill.
Maybe it was because my face was going from red to purple—at any rate, we stopped to rest for a few minutes. When we took off our packs, I made an interesting discovery. You see, we had brought an army surplus canvas bucket for carrying spring water into camp, and I had tied the empty bucket to the back of my pack for the trip out. But somewhere along the way someone had put a rock the size of a large grapefruit in that bucket.
Well, there was a lot of laughter. I laughed too—later. And with the heavy weight gone, I not only kept up with my buddies, I practically chased them up those hills. I also learned a valuable lesson: don’t carry unnecessary burdens.

Study the words of President David O. McKay, who tells of how, in his youth, he knelt and “prayed fervently and sincerely and with as much faith as a young boy could muster” that “God would declare to [him] the truth of his revelation to Joseph Smith.”

President McKay related that when he arose from his knees, he had to admit that “no spiritual manifestation has come to me. If I am true to myself, I must say I am just the same [boy] that I was before I prayed.”

I don’t know how young David felt in his heart at that time, but I’m sure he must have been disappointed—perhaps frustrated that he didn’t receive the spiritual experience that he had hoped for. But that didn’t discourage him from continuing his search for that knowledge.

The answer to his prayers did come, but not until years later, when he was serving as a missionary. Why was the answer to his prayer so long delayed? President McKay believed that this spiritual manifestation “came as a natural sequence to the performance of duty.”

Maddie R., 13, in Virginia, has a “Dad’s box,” where she keeps her father’s letters and pictures. She e-mails him regularly so he doesn’t feel left out. “My dad used to ask me to go on bike rides with him, but I usually said no and didn’t think much about it. But now I would give almost anything to spend time with him,” she says. “I just want people to not take their parents for granted. You never know what will happen. Sometimes my dad is gone for a short time, sometimes he’s gone for a long time, and sometime,” she pauses for a moment, thinking, “it might just be for the rest of my life.”

Using things from around the house helped Britta discover something else that is fun. Once she was experimenting with a long piece of string and a plastic baseball bat, and she made a pattern of special loops around the bat. Her mom saw that Britta had discovered how to knit. With some real knitting needles instead of the baseball bat, Britta was soon busy knitting scarves, a hat, and even a long cape that she gave to Peter for Christmas.

Jared carefully recorded the last bit of information for his sixth-grade science project—comparing the differences between plants watered with tap water and those watered with distilled water.
“There,” he said in satisfaction. “All done.”
He ran into the laundry room. “Mom, I finished the experiment. Do you want to see it?”
Mom finished folding a towel and smiled. “Of course.”
Jared led her into the kitchen, where the two sets of plants occupied a shelf by the big glass door. When he saw the plants, he stopped in his tracks. “Oh, no!” he cried.
Kaitlyn, Jared’s three-year-old sister, looked up and smiled, her hands covered with dirt. Potting soil and crushed plants were strewn across the floor.
“You ruined my project!” Jared wiped angry tears from his eyes. “You wreck everything I have.”
“Jared, your sister didn’t mean to do anything wrong,” Mom said quietly.
“Sure,” Jared said bitterly. “Just like she didn’t mean to write all over my geography homework last week. Just like she didn’t mean to spill milk on my book report. Just like she—”
“That’s enough,” Mom said.
Jared recognized the tone in his mother’s voice and knew he’d said too much.
“Tell Jared you’re sorry,” Mom said to Kaitlyn.
Kaitlyn’s bottom lip trembled. “I’m sorry.”
Normally, Jared couldn’t stay angry at his little sister for very long, but this was different. He had spent a whole month caring for the plants and recording the differences between the two sets for the sixth-grade science fair. Now they were destroyed. He wouldn’t have anything to show in the fair next week.
He cleaned up the mess as well as he could, but he couldn’t save the plants. He dumped them into the big trash can in the garage. In his room, he slammed his fist into his baseball mitt. All his work had been for nothing.
A few minutes later, he heard a knock at his door.
“Jared, can I come in?” Mom called.
Reluctantly, he got up and opened the door.
Mom wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “I know you’re disappointed. Is there anything I can do?”
He shook his head.
“I’m sorry about the experiment.” she said.
“Me, too,” he said, still slamming the ball into his mitt.
“Kaitlyn made a mistake. Can you forgive her?” When Jared didn’t answer, his mother turned and quietly left the room.
When another knock sounded at his door, Jared ignored it. The door inched open, and Kaitlyn stood there. “I’m sorry.”
Jared looked at his sister’s red eyes. For a moment, his heart softened. Then he remembered how hard he’d worked on the experiment. He had hoped to win a prize with it. “Go away.”
Kaitlyn sniffled and rubbed her eyes before closing the door behind her.
Jared asked to be excused from dinner. He knew his parents were disappointed in him, but he didn’t care. He tried to do his homework but couldn’t concentrate. After staring at the same page of his history book for five minutes, he gave up. He got ready for bed, then knelt down, intending to say his prayers as he did every night. The words refused to come.
He didn’t sleep very well. He kept tossing and turning, remembering the hurt in Kaitlyn’s eyes when he’d refused to speak to her. He tried to push away the image. Kaitlyn had wrecked his experiment. He didn’t know if he could ever forgive her.
He thought about the word forgive and recalled part of the blessing his father had given him after his baptism and confirmation. “There will be times in your life when you need to seek forgiveness. I bless you with the meekness of heart to do so. There will also be times when you must forgive others. Remember the example of the Savior when you are faced with such times. Forgiveness is a gift. Use it and you will be blessed.”
The following morning, Jared trudged to school, his heart heavy. But it wasn’t the ruined experiment that filled his thoughts—it was Kaitlyn. He told himself he had nothing to feel guilty about, but he couldn’t erase the picture of Kaitlyn’s unhappy face from his mind.
At school, he explained to his science teacher what had happened. Mr. MacKade laid a hand on Jared’s shoulder. “I know you’re disappointed. You put a lot of work into your experiment.” His teacher tapped a finger against the notebook he always carried. “Did you take photos of it?”
Jared nodded. He’d asked his father if he could use his camera to take photos of the plants at different stages.
“We’ll show the photos instead,” Mr. MacKade said. “It won’t be the same as displaying the plants themselves, but it’ll be the next best thing.”
“Thanks, Mr. MacKade. I’ll do that.”
Jared slipped into his seat. He should have felt better, but the ache in his heart remained. He couldn’t concentrate on his math problems or his spelling test. He could not even choke down the sandwich and cupcake his mother had packed in his lunch. All he could see was Kaitlyn’s face, her quivering lips and tear-reddened eyes. No science experiment was worth the pain he’d caused his little sister.
By the end of school, Jared knew what he had to do. Kaitlyn had been wrong to ruin his plants, but that did not excuse how he had treated her. He hurried home from school.
“Mom, I’m home. Where’s Kaitlyn?” he called, slamming the door behind him.
Mom looked up from the Primary manual she was studying. “She’s in her room.” His mother looked like she wanted to say something else.
“Don’t worry, Mom,” Jared said. “Everything’s going to be all right.”
Jared raced up the stairs and knocked on Kaitlyn’s door. “Kaitlyn, it’s me.” He heard a muffled “Come in.” He pushed open the door.
Kaitlyn was sitting on her bed, her arms looped around her knees. “Are you still mad at me?” she asked in a small voice.
Jared crossed the room to sit beside her. “No, Kaitlyn. I’m not angry anymore. I’m sorry I yelled at you. I know you only wanted to help.” He hugged her and asked, “How would you like to go to the park with me?”
Kaitlyn nodded and gave him a big smile.
That evening Jared labeled the pictures he had taken of the plants. Kaitlyn played with her dolls beside him. A quiet feeling of peace enveloped him. And when he knelt by his bed that night to say his prayers, he didn’t have any trouble finding the words.

Chris and Byron shared everything—their toys, their clothes, their books, their bedroom, and even their colds.
“I’m bored,” sniffed Chris. “I wish we could go outside.”
“There’s nothing to do in the house,” Byron said, coughing.
“Nothing at all,” Chris agreed, “except ride my horse.”
“You don’t have a horse,” Byron declared.
Chris wiped his nose. “I do so.”
“Prove it!”
Chris opened the door to their bedroom and pointed. “See?”
Byron blinked his eyes hard. “There’s nothing there but our bunk beds.” He snorted and started to turn away.
Chris walked over to the bunk beds and said, “Good horse,” as he gently patted one of the headboards.
Byron stopped and stared at the beds.
“Want to ride him?” Chris asked. “Or are you afraid he’ll buck you off?”
Byron stepped a little closer. “He’s your horse. You go first.”
Chris slowly climbed up the ladder and sat on the bed very carefully. He gripped the bedpost and whispered, “Giddy-up, horse.”
Nothing happened. He looked down at Byron.
“Try it again,” Byron urged.
“Giddy-up, horse,” Chris said louder.
Still nothing happened.
“Wait a minute,” Byron said. He lay on the bottom bed and lifted his legs up until his feet were touching the underside of the top bunk. “Now try kicking the horse,” he suggested.
Chris put one foot over the side and kicked the side rail. “Giddy-up, horse!” he yelled. With a little help from Byron’s feet, the mattress bucked up and down. “Yippee! Wahoo!” Chris bellowed.
Suddenly Mom appeared in the doorway. “Byron! Chris! Stop that right now before you break your beds,” she scolded, then disappeared back into the kitchen.
Chris swung his legs over the side. “What do you think?”
Byron sneezed, wiped his nose, and stood there staring at the beds for a long time. “I don’t think you have a horse,” he finally said. “What you have is a tree house in the middle of a dark, scary jungle.”
Chris screeched, “Look out behind you! There’s a tiger!”
Byron scampered up the ladder. “Where?”
Chris pointed his finger at Cat, who was sitting in the corner, busily licking his paws. Cat looked up at them with big, gleaming, hungry, yellow eyes.
“Should we shoot it?” Byron asked.
“No guns,” Chris reminded him.
Cat stretched, then stalked toward the bed.
“I don’t like the way he’s looking at us. Let’s get out of here before he decides to eat us.”
Byron pulled a long string out of his pocket and made a loop in one end.
“Here comes an elephant!” he shouted. “I’m going to capture it.” He swung the string over his head and neatly lassoed the bedpost. “Got it!”
The boys rode the big elephant away from the man-eating tiger, out of the jungle, and across the hot, white sands of the desert. The string slipped down in front of the bed and mysteriously came alive.
“Rattlesnake!” Chris exclaimed.
The elephant reared back, and the boys almost fell off. They had to hang on tightly while the elephant galloped past the rattlesnake.
“Whew! That was close,” Chris said.
Soon they came to a big lake.
“Let’s leave the elephant here and take a boat across the lake,” Byron suggested.
“Good idea,” Chris agreed. “I’ll go out on deck and steer the boat out of the harbor. You hoist the anchor.”
The boat hadn’t gone very far before it ran into a big storm. Hundred-foot waves crashed onto the boat and tossed the boys back and forth.
“Better head for port,” Chris shouted down to Byron.
When they were safely anchored in the harbor, Byron suggested that they take an airplane back home and get something to eat.
“Coming in for a landing,” Chris announced. “Check the landing gear.”
Byron learned over and looked under the bed. “There aren’t any wheels. Prepare to make a belly landing, and hope that the plane doesn’t explode.”
The plane skidded and jumped across the runway and came to a jerky stop.
“Everyone out before she goes up in flames!” Chris yelled. He and Byron bailed out just as the doorbell rang. They ran to open the door. It was George from across the street.
“Come outside and play,” George said.
“Can’t,” Chris sniffed. “We have colds.”
Byron coughed. “I wish we could go out,” he said. “There’s nothing to do in the house.”
“Nothing at all,” agreed Chris.

Illustration by Ken Harvey
I didn’t usually run home from school and fling open my scriptures to study them, but today was unusual. Sprawled on my bed, I booted up my laptop and typed two words: Dear Jessica.
I’d known Jessica for a few years, but our conversations were brief. One day in English, however, we were assigned seats by each other, and our class discussion ventured into the topic of religious symbolism.
I was surprised when Jessica, an atheist and usually argumentative, started asking the teacher questions that were uncharacteristically sincere: “What did ‘Godhead’ mean? What does it mean that there are three members?”
Finally, Jessica leaned back and confided to me, “I’m glad I’m not religious; it just seems like a lot to keep track of.”
I struggled for words, but I couldn’t let a moment like this pass. “I actually love the Church,” I said at last. The discussion was moving on, so we promised to talk more after class. I shared a bit of my testimony and eventually lent her a few books about our faith.
After a few weeks of discussions both religious and nonreligious, Jessica finally said, “I understand what you’re getting at, Sydney, but I don’t know if I can believe all of this. I just can’t believe that God would let so many bad things happen to us.”
I didn’t feel ready to answer her question on the spot, so I asked for her email, which led to me being sprawled on my bed, scriptures open, unsure of what to write.
I refocused on the screen. Dear Jessica. I looked at the sticky notes I’d filled with scriptures and started writing.
As I wrote, the Spirit surged up within me. Each word fell together with power and clarity.
Dear Jessica,I don’t know exactly what you’ve been through, what your struggles are, or what the exact words you need are, but God does.
I’ve been thinking a lot about your questions: “Why do I have trials? And why doesn’t God just stop them and make everything easier?”
First, it’s important to understand that progression is eternal. We don’t just become worthy of God’s presence overnight. It’s a lifelong process. Struggle is required, but even though life is hard, I know that “men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:25). God does not cast our struggles upon us because that’s just how life is; He desperately wants us to be happy. However, I can say that this life is about not only our natural progression through struggles, but about our eternal progression in overcoming them.
Jessica, Jesus Christ knows how to come to our aid! While you have struggles in your life, Jesus Christ had them in His too. I promise that He understands every one of your struggles exactly and that He knows you personally. I know I’m only a 15-year-old girl, but I know He lives, that this is all true, and that He loves you more than it is humanly possible to imagine.
Please come to me with any more questions you have!
Love,
Sydney
I stared at the document for a few minutes. I’d written for almost two hours, leafing through scriptures and every example I could think of to produce this. As I scanned through it, I felt completely at peace. I closed my scriptures and clicked Send.
Jessica and I never talked about that letter, and she ended up moving. I don’t know if my words will lead her to the gospel this year, in 10 years, or ever in this lifetime, but writing that email helped my testimony. I’m confident it can have the same effect on her as soon as she chooses to let it.

During this trying time, the scriptures were a vital anchor for our spiritual health and progress. Although we didn’t read them together every day, they were interwoven into our daily life and conversations. We turned to them during controversies or conflicts, for confirmation of our choices, and for direction in our lives. After discussing feelings or concerns, we would often share a verse of scripture or part of a conference talk to fortify, validate, or comfort each other. Our well-worn sets of the standard works became almost an extension of our hands and hearts.
One evening as I crawled into bed, I reached for my scriptures and opened them but found I couldn’t focus my eyes to read. After a full day of school, two jobs, homework—and my usual four hours of sleep—I was quite literally out of energy. Calling to my daughter who was up finishing her homework, I asked her to read my scriptures to me. What a special moment was the sweet ministering of that beloved daughter. I don’t recall what she read, but I will never forget her love and tenderness as she tucked me into bed that night—as I had done so many times for her.

Can you remember the last time you wore your old snow boots, the ones that are now a size or two too small? How about those cross-trainers you bought and then decided that you really needed running shoes instead?
Youth in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, knew that there were plenty of perfectly good pairs of shoes in the closets of the members in their stake, shoes that were going to waste. So they requested donations from each ward and were overwhelmed when 1,200 pairs of shoes arrived at the stake center. But after the initial shock wore off, the youth got to work cleaning, polishing, and disinfecting the shoes for people who might otherwise go barefoot.
“The most enjoyable thing was to think that we’re sending these shoes to someone who really needs them,” says Paula Williams, a Laurel from the Lakeland First Ward.
The shoes are now being distributed to orphans in Romania and other countries. Shoes and boots were also donated to local charities in the Coeur d’Alene area.

After raising her children, Martha Paewai took classes through BYU–Pathway Worldwide and then started an online business.
Photograph courtesy of Martha Paewai
“Some people are surprised to learn that I began an online business later in life,” Martha Paewai notes. “Some friends said to me when I first began, ‘What does a Samoan woman with only casual work experience know about marketing?’”
There’s no age limit to learning, Sister Paewai likes to say. Besides, working from home now gives her more income and better working conditions than she had working as a domestic in New Zealand. It was hard to start a new business, but she learned as she went along and was willing to ask others for help when needed. “BYU–Pathway Worldwide gave me the confidence to try something new as well,” she says.

We often find it difficult to accept things that we cannot change. I know a man who does not believe in God. He continually stresses that he is only happy, at least as most people understand happiness, when he himself has control of every situation and has a firm grip on the reins of his life. Several years ago he had an accident. At that time, he almost despaired at the fact that others held the reins and had the power to decide what would happen to him. He kept asking himself the question, “How could I have had so little control over my life that such an accident could happen to me?” When he started to feel better, he attributed his recovery to himself alone, not to the doctors, and definitely not to the prayers of his faithful wife. He simply could not accept the reality of his accident.

Wong Yun Tai has no problem remembering the warm September evening in 1984. Two missionaries were tracting in the Wu Yuet House, a government housing project in the Tuen Mun area of Hong Kong’s New Territories where the Wong family lived. On the 21st floor, 15-year-old Wong Yun Tai, who goes by the English name of Belle, was eating dinner when a knock came at her door. Two strangers wearing ties, white shirts, and curious black name tags were talking to her through the metal gate that remained locked even though the door was open.
Belle was busy eating, so she told her two visitors to come back in an hour. “I was interested in religion, and I really wanted to know what was true. I just didn’t know which church was true. It was just like Joseph Smith. I really wanted to know which church was God’s true church,” recalls Belle.
When the missionaries returned, she listened politely to their message. Afterward, they gave her a Book of Mormon to read, closed with prayer, and then left. It was a simple meeting with powerful results. “When I prayed, I had a very unique, good feeling in my heart,” she says.
A month later, Belle was baptized. Then the real work began. Belle, the second oldest child of Wong Hong Tsuen and Wong Leung Nan Ho, wanted her parents and brothers and sisters to experience the same gospel joy that had become such an important part of her life. Belle began sharing what she had learned. And now, 11 years later, she’s still sharing.

When I left on my first mission as a young man, I had practically no understanding of missionary work. I had a feeble testimony of the gospel, but I had faith that what I was doing was right.
Upon arrival in Montevideo, Uruguay, I was assigned to Elder Wayne G. Scheiss, my first senior companion. I immediately found that he cared for me. In our brief three months together, he taught me all I was smart enough to learn of the missionary discussions. He taught me the rudiments of the Spanish language. And he taught me to put my feet on the proper path toward missionary service and to turn my heart toward godly things.
Elder Scheiss let me baptize our first convert. Mario had already been taught most of the missionary discussions by the time I arrived, but my companion thought it best that I perform the ordinance. I studied hard to memorize the baptismal prayer in Spanish. I worked on my accent in order to be understood on that sacred occasion.
I shall never forget finally finding myself standing in the baptismal font at the Deseret Branch with Mario, raising my arm to the square, and saying, “Habiendo sido comisionado por Jesucristo …” “Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptize you. …” (D&C 20:73.)
I had heard of people being commissioned to paint pictures. I had heard of people being commissioned to serve as military officers. But when it occurred to me that I had been commissioned by the Savior to baptize in his sacred name for the remission of sins, I felt a rush of testimony and pride and gratitude that went through my entire soul. I knew that I was in the service of the most important Master of all. I knew I was authorized to perform that ordinance, and I knew that Mario left that font pure and clean and acceptable to our Heavenly Father. I am grateful to my companion for that baptism experience. And I am grateful for my commission from the Lord.

Bishop Edgley has told you a basketball story. I think I’d like to tell you a baseball story. I was reminded of it while watching a program on the Public Broadcasting System one evening not long ago. It was a program on baseball, once the great American pastime.
I recognize that baseball has little interest for people in most nations of the world, but I speak of it to highlight a principle that has meaning for people everywhere.
The event of which I speak occurred in the World Series of 1912. It was an eight-game series because one of the games was called at midpoint because of darkness. Playing fields were not electrically lighted at that time. It was the last game and the score was tied 1–1. The Boston Red Sox were at bat, the New York Giants in the field. A Boston batter knocked a high-arching fly. Two New York players ran for it. Fred Snodgrass in center field signaled to his associate that he would take it. He came squarely under the ball, which fell into his glove. It went right through his hand and fell to the ground. A howl went up in the stands. The roaring fans couldn’t believe it. Snodgrass had dropped the ball. He had caught hundreds of fly balls before. But now, at this crucial moment, he dropped the ball. The New York Giants lost. The Boston Red Sox won the series.
Snodgrass came back the following season and played brilliant ball for nine more years. He lived to be eighty-six years of age, dying in 1974. But after that one slip, for sixty-two years when he was introduced to anybody, the expected response was, “Oh, yes, you’re the one who dropped the ball.”