Gospel Story Finder

But the Kirtland story doesn’t end with these marvelous manifestations. A year after the temple’s dedication, the community was fraying. An international economic crisis led to massive unemployment in the United States. Banks failed across the country, including a small bank established by Church leaders in Kirtland to spur development of the community. Joseph Smith and other Church leaders desperately tried to save the economy of the community. But the tide of the global economic crisis was too much. People began to lose jobs and homes. Many began to murmur against God and the Church. Why had the Lord allowed His people to fail economically? Some began to whisper and then proclaim that Joseph was a fallen prophet.
At one meeting in the summer of 1837 in the Kirtland Temple, Joseph Smith Sr., the Church patriarch, spoke in his son’s absence. As he spoke, a dissenter tried to pull him from the pulpit. When William Smith defended his father, a fellow Apostle threatened to kill William with a sword. Other men with knives and pistols surrounded William. The temple, which had been a place of sacredness and spirituality a year earlier, was now a place of violence, dissension, and chaos.
When Joseph Smith returned to Kirtland, most Church members sustained him as the prophet, but three Apostles were removed from the Quorum of the Twelve. Economic problems had turned into spiritual problems. Within a few more months, the Lord told Joseph to leave Kirtland for the safety of his family and for the sake of his own life.

“I first heard about the Church from my best friend, Vera, who is 16. I was curious to know about her beliefs, especially why Latter-day Saints don’t drink tea and coffee and where my friend went for three hours every Sunday. I asked her to take me to church, and a month later I was baptized.
“At first I didn’t understand many things. Everything seemed to be strange and unusual, but I kept asking questions of friends and missionaries.
“Now, four months later, I reflect on the many ways I have changed since my baptism. The day of my baptism, I could feel the Holy Ghost, but I was very emotional, somewhat worried, and a little afraid. Now I can feel the peaceful, quiet influence of the Spirit, and I have what is most important—my faith in the Savior.”
Vera Terekhova,Vasiliostrovsky Branch,St. Petersburg Russia West District

Last summer I took a ballet class. I enjoyed seeing my friends there. We practiced for months for a Christmas dance. When December finally came, I was so excited to perform our dance. But two weeks before the performance, our teacher told my mom that it would be on a Sunday. When Mom told me, I said I would not go. I was sad that I would not be able to perform in our Christmas dance, but I was happy that I chose the right.

It was the second day of the Wyoming state track and field meet, and I was a nervous wreck. I could barely eat my breakfast that morning, and I had never been so nervous in all three years of my high school track career. I was one of the favorites to win the 2A girls’ 800-meter dash, along with Patricia. She had the fastest time of the season and was my main competition. If anyone was to beat her, it was me.
As I warmed up for my race on a nearby practice field, I silently prayed to my Father in Heaven for help with my race. I also thanked Him for all my blessings before silently closing my prayer. Saying prayers before my races had become a habit when I started racing in high school. I knew if I put forth my best effort, the Lord would extend a hand and help me.
I continued warming up but still felt nervous and sick to my stomach. A few minutes before my race, I fervently prayed again. This time I only asked the Lord to let me know that He loved me and that He would be there for me.
Almost simultaneously, I felt as if the Lord wrapped his arms around me and gave me a warm hug. Tears began stinging my eyes as the Spirit touched me. I realized that the Lord really did love and care about me. It was one of the most wonderful feelings anyone can ever experience.
I didn’t win the race that day, but I was taught an important lesson. I now know that God hears and answers prayers, and that He loves me very much.

Such a fracture developed between two heroes of the Restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ in these latter days. Parley and Orson Pratt were brothers, early converts, and ordained Apostles. Each faced a trial of faith but came through with an unshakable testimony. Both sacrificed and contributed greatly for the cause of truth.
During the Nauvoo era, their relationship became strained, culminating in a heated, public confrontation in 1846. A deep and prolonged rift developed. Parley initially wrote to Orson to resolve the rift, but Orson did not reply. Parley gave up, feeling that correspondence was over forever, unless initiated by Orson.
Several years later, in March 1853, Orson learned about a project to publish a book on the descendants of William Pratt, the brothers’ earliest American ancestor. Orson began to weep “like a little child” as he glimpsed this treasure trove of family history. His heart melted, and he determined to repair the breach with his brother.
Orson wrote to Parley, “Now my dear brother, there are none among all the descendants of our Ancestor, Lieut[enant] William Pratt, who have so deep an interest in searching out his descendants as ourselves.” Orson was one of the first to understand that Latter-day Saints have an obligation to research and compile family histories so that we can perform vicarious ordinances for our ancestors. His letter continued: “We know that the God of our fathers has had a hand in all this. … I will beg pardon for having been so backward in writing to you. … I hope you will forgive me.” Despite their unshakable testimonies, their love for their ancestors was the catalyst to heal a rift, mend a hurt, and seek and extend forgiveness.
When God directs us to do one thing, He often has many purposes in mind. Family history and temple work is not only for the dead but blesses the living as well. For Orson and Parley, it turned their hearts to each other. Family history and temple work provided the power to heal that which needed healing.

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.

Brigham’s mission to England, as the head of the Quorum of the Twelve, began with two dramatic departures that reveal his growing confidence in the Lord and his own developing ability as a courageous and prophetic leader. Indeed, the two years between April 1839, when Brigham led a majority of the Twelve in a daring, necessarily secret, formal farewell ceremony while surrounded by their enemies in Far West, and April 1841, when he triumphantly led them back from England, were among the two most important of his life—both in accomplishment and in personal development. We need to remember that in England he participated in the justly famous mass conversions in Herefordshire along with Wilford Woodruff; that he preached in London and visited St. Paul’s Cathedral and the British Museum; that in England he healed the lame and sick, compiled a book of hymns, published the Book of Mormon and prepared an index for it, established and for a time edited the Millennial Star—these things while welding the Quorum of the Twelve into a unified, smoothly working executive and apostolic body, with himself firmly at its head.
The first departure came as the result of a revelation Joseph Smith received in Missouri in July 1838, commanding that the Twelve, recently riven by the apostasy in Kirtland, be organized again and expand upon its assigned task of proselyting by going to England. They were to “take leave of my saints” in Far West the next April 26 on the building site of the temple.18 But before that time came, Joseph and many of the leaders had been jailed, leaving Brigham suddenly in charge of a desperate winter exodus back across the state to Illinois. The Governor’s extermination order was in effect, so enemies of the Saints were openly boasting that they would kill anyone who tried to fulfill “Joe Smith’s prophecy” about the Twelve leaving for England from Missouri.
Some of the Saints who were gathered in Quincy, Illinois, argued that in their persecuted condition surely the Lord would not require them to fulfill his word to the letter, but Brigham had been learning from Joseph the value of something more important than practical expediency. He knew the value of energetic, even dangerous, effort and sacrifice in keeping faith with the Lord and His prophet, and he knew the value of great example in motivating faith in the Saints. The three other apostles in Quincy agreed with Brigham that “the Lord God had spoken and it was our duty to obey and leave the event in his hands and he would protect us.”19 The four traveled back by carriage, picking up apostle John E. Page (who was still bringing his family out of Missouri) on the way and meeting Heber Kimball in Far West, where he had been in hiding awaiting them. Heber recorded that the Lord cast a deep sleep on the town.20 They met while it was still dark (Brigham was practical as well as courageously faithful) on the morning of April 26, ordained Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith apostles, thus providing a minimum Quorum of seven to do business, directed the laying of a token stone for the foundation of the temple, and “took their leave … agreeable to revelation.”21
The Twelve then returned to Illinois (taking with them the last group of refugees, who had risked their lives to fulfill the Lord’s command to the Twelve to “take leave of my saints”), assisted in settling the scattered Saints on the future site of Nauvoo, and spent the summer getting ready for their missions—preparing physically for their families as much as their destitute condition would allow, and preparing spiritually through meetings with the Prophet, who had been released from jail in time to join them in founding the new city. Then a memorable meeting was held at Brigham Young’s cabin across the river in Montrose on July 2, where “brother Joseph taught many important, glorious principles calculated to benefit and bless [us] on [our] mission,”22 especially advising the apostles to be merciful with each other and pray for each other, to avoid all pride and backbiting such as had brought on the past troubles with dissension and apostasy.23
When the apostles tried to leave in August, the malaria that infested the low, swampy ground where they had settled along the Mississippi had disabled nearly everyone. Brigham’s description is typically simple and restrained, leaving us to imagine the physical and emotional suffering of this second dramatic departure: “My health was so poor I was unable to go thirty rods to the river without assistance. … I left my wife sick, with a babe only ten days old, and all my children sick and unable to wait upon each other.”24 His family was even without adequate clothing because of losses to the mob in Missouri; Brigham himself was wearing a cap made out of a pair of old pantaloons, and he took along a quilt because he had no overcoat until some Saints in New York made him one. He commented that he thus “had not much of a ministerial appearance.” But though deathly ill for a time, and literally carried from place to place as he and a few companions were shuttled by the Saints across Illinois, he gradually recovered strength and began to have experiences commensurate with his calling—even though he lacked the “appearance.”
Traveling without purse or scrip, Brigham found that $13.50 given them by the Saints and kept in his trunk became like the Old Testament widow’s cruse of oil and barrel of flour that were continually replenished; drawn from again and again, it provided $87 worth of fares and meals as they traveled by stage across Indiana and Ohio to Kirtland. There they found John Taylor; he had left earlier while in good health but had been stricken enroute by a near fatal illness from which he was just then recovering. Brigham, showing the expanding dimensions of his spiritual leadership, met with the apostles in the temple where he anointed and blessed Elder Taylor and washed the apostles’ feet.25 This quality, Brigham’s growing confidence in the power of the Lord available to him, associated closely with the humble recognition of his own roughness and his need for polishing, is revealed again in his entry on crossing Lake Erie:
“The lake was so rough that no boat came into port until the 26th, when we went on board the steamboat Columbus. … The wind rose about one o’clock in the morning. I went up on deck and felt impressed in spirit to pray to the Father, in the name of Jesus, for a forgiveness of my sins, and then I felt to command the winds to cease, and let us go safe on our journey. The winds abated, and I felt to give the glory and honor and praise to that God who rules all things.”26
The missionary journey took great physical courage as well as faith. While jumping onto a ferryboat in New York, Brigham slipped and fell against an iron ring on the deck, severely dislocating his shoulder:
“I directed brothers Kimball and Hedlock to lay hold of my body, and Brother Pratt to take hold of my hand and pull, putting his foot against my side, while I guided the bone with my right hand back to its place. … When I came to a fire I fainted, and was not able to dress myself for several days.27
Brigham reported that on the voyage across the Atlantic “I was sick nearly all the way and confined to my berth. … When I landed on the shore I gave a loud shout of hosannah.”28 When he arrived in England on April 6, 1840, he was so emaciated that his own cousin Willard Richards (who had remained in a leadership role there since coming with Heber Kimball in 1837) did not recognize him.

In addresses to Church members, Elder Uchtdorf has stressed the importance of knowing one’s eternal destination and always seeking to be on the right path. He recalled one flight when, as an airline captain, he was crossing the Atlantic in a Boeing 747 with 386 passengers on board. At one point he saw the contrails of two other jetliners ahead. Soon he was flying directly between the two jetliners, with one 2,000 feet (600 meters) above him and the other 2,000 feet below. “As we slowly overtook those beautiful aircraft,” he recalled, “my copilot mentioned how remarkable it was that because of true and accurate information entered into the navigation units at the start of our flights, all three jets were precisely on the same track, separated only by altitude. And we would continue to be so if the crews used identical navigational points leading to the same destination.

“As I have contemplated the truth of this statement and its application to our lives,” he continued, “I arrived at the question: Do we all know our destination, and are we on the right track? … Heavenly Father has prepared a flight plan for us that will lead us back to him” (“Happy Landing,” New Era, Mar. 1995, 4).

This summer I injured a shoulder and lost the use of an arm for weeks. I hadn’t realized how much one arm depends upon the other for balance, or how much less I could lift with one arm than two, or that there were some things I couldn’t do at all. This disability not only renewed my respect for those who deal so well with a physical limitation, but helped me realize how much more two arms working together can do.

Years ago, when I was only six, I became acquainted with my cousin, a six-year-old girl named Roxane. Some time before I saw Roxane, I was informed that I was getting a new sister. It was she. We were adopting my own cousin for reasons unknown to me at that time.
The first month of our sisterly relationship was quite peaceful. I suppose all new things take a little getting used to. I shared a room with my little sister Deanna and my new sister Roxane. Things were different for Deanna and me, as we had to get used to sharing a bedroom with another person. This created hassles over such issues as who got which bed and who got the most closet space.
In a short time I developed a rage of jealousy towards my new sister. She had fit nicely between Deanna and me; and as the saying goes, “two was company, three’s a crowd.” Constant arguments arose, and sides were being taken. Hardly a day went by that the three of us didn’t get into some kind of argument. And I can recall that most of my arguments were with my new sister.
Not only did I forever argue with her, but I condemned her for coming to live with my family, especially when she started to call our mother, “mom” instead of “auntie.”
Many times I would go out of my way to make sure she did not use anything of mine. If she did, it meant immediate war. Any time she would do something I thought challenging, I would instantly prove that I could do what she was doing and do it even better. For years I diminished her self-image with rude remarks and strained to outdo her at everything.
About four years ago I started to wonder why I had such feelings towards Roxane. My only conclusion was that I was jealous of the attention she had taken from me when she came to live with us. At that time I also realized the damage I had done to Roxane’s self-confidence and pride. I felt so ashamed and am still ashamed of the actions of my younger years. Never once did I put myself in her shoes and try to experience what I was making her go through. What pain she must have suffered. What a feeling of not belonging I must have given her. It would have been difficult enough for her to come live in a house of strangers without having me on her back. Now the problem was how to let her know that I loved her and was so sorry.
Roxane, Deanna, and I were all at girls’ camp that year. It was the night for testimony meeting, a beautiful night, and the Spirit of the Lord was so strong that almost every girl was in tears. Wanting to bear my testimony but being the type of person to break down crying at the first word, I bravely stood and started to speak. I bore my testimony of the truthfulness of the gospel, of the love I have for the Lord, and of the growth I had received during the week at camp. At this point I had shed many tears and was ready to sit and try to settle down a bit. But suddenly I felt an urge to express my love for my sisters. It felt awkward saying “I love you,” since I had never said those words to them before. But it felt so good. It was as if I had unloaded a barrel of bricks that I had been carrying around for so long. I felt free from a burden that had been there for many years. Satisfied, I sat down. Moments after I sat down I felt two arms around my neck and heard a familiar voice say, “I love you.” Seconds later I felt two more arms around my neck and heard another familiar voice say, “I love you.” It was beautiful. I was full of love for both of them and was so thankful I was inspired to express my love for them that special night.
Now, 11 years after I first set eyes on my cousin, I am eternally grateful to my Heavenly Father for giving me another sister. Roxane has helped me to grow and understand so many things. We are now both 17 years old and are the best of friends. Today we went to a softball game and cheered for all the guys. Yesterday we went to the movies and spilled popcorn all over the people in front of us. Tonight we will go to the dance. And where there was once a crowd, there is now a circle of love.

Another young man lived on the outskirts of a large metropolitan area. There were no lights or water in the thin-walled, modest structure that served both as a home and a small shop. After his family’s conversion he attended seminary and developed an insatiable desire to learn. With great effort he entered the university, working part-time to buy books as well as to help support the family. When the desire to go on a mission became overwhelming, he had to double his efforts to save money for his mission. So he carried his books under one arm and his bag of wash rags, wax, and sponges in the other. Between classes he would go out and wash cars, then return for another class. The Lord blessed him with work. He multiplied his income until his leaders felt he had made the necessary sacrifice to help sustain himself.

There are scores of others, each one a lesson to all in the principle of obedience and sacrifice. A young lady with a great desire to fill a mission was counseled to buy ingredients, make cookies, and sell them at school during lunchtime. She did so. Then she bought more flour, baked more cookies, and continued this process for weeks, making a small amount of money each day to help toward her mission.

Are there not thousands of you listening today who are ready to match these two precious years of a young man’s life with sufficient additional funds from your abundance so that he can have the privilege of service? In this way, could you not become “nursing fathers and mothers” to these children of promise?

I call this matter to your attention for two reasons: First, time is of the essence! We need to get moving with the things of real import. The world must hear the gospel. Paul asks: “How shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher? and how shall they preach, except they be sent?” (Rom. 10:14–15.) And I ask, how shall they be sent today without sufficient means?

The second reason is the Lord counsels rather specifically about the wise use of property. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (Matt. 6:33.)

Jacob counsels:
“Think of your brethren like unto yourselves, and be familiar with all and free with your substance, that they may be rich like unto you.
“But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God.
“And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches … to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted.” (Jacob 2:17–19.)

I remember one time after coming back from an international trip. I had been gone for some time. My wife sat down on the arm of the chair, and I put my head on her shoulder. It was near the end of the month, and she asked me if I had completed my home teaching. I will be honest; I had other things in mind. But I went and did my home teaching. That is her training. So it was; I was beginning to learn the law of consecration.

I decided to practice my faith by praying and asking God for help and guidance. At first I didn’t realize the impact of my prayers, but after a few days I found that we had more peace at home.
But then my faith was challenged. My youngest brother was hurt and had to have immediate surgery, one of my friends was also hurt badly, and my mother got a sore throat with a high fever. All these horrible circumstances expelled the feelings of peace around me. I was very sad but continued to pray. My grandmother’s favorite poem came to mind, which says that God knows all things better than we do and that we should trust Him. So I started to practice my faith even more and do everything I could. Not much later my brother was able to leave the hospital. My friend was not hurt as badly as it had first appeared. My mother recovered.
Now when I pray for others, I pray with more focus and more faith than before. We should have faith in God, especially when believing in Him and His plans is hard, and never complain because He knows best.
Jarom K., age 18, Graz, Austria

This past summer my wife and I had two of our young grandsons staying with us while their parents participated in a pioneer trek activity in their stake. Our daughter wanted to be sure that the boys practiced the piano while away from home. She knew that a few days with the grandparents makes it a little easier to forget about practicing. One afternoon I decided to sit with my 13-year-old grandson, Andrew, and listen to him play.
This boy is full of energy and loves the outdoors. He could easily spend all of his time hunting and fishing. While he was practicing the piano, I could tell that he would rather be fishing on a nearby river. I listened as he pounded out each chord of a familiar song. Every note he played had the same emphasis and meter, making it difficult to clearly identify the melody. I sat beside him on the bench and explained the importance of applying just a little more pressure on the melody keys and a little less on those notes that accompany the melody. We talked about the piano being more than just a mechanical miracle. It can be an extension of his own voice and feelings and become a wonderful instrument of communication. Just as a person talks and moves smoothly from one word to another, so should the melody flow as we move from one note to another.
We laughed together as he tried again and again. His dimpled-cheek smile increased as the familiar melody began to emerge from what was previously a wild set of sounds. The message became clear: “I am a child of God, and he has sent me here.” I asked Andrew if he could feel the difference in the message. He responded, “Yes, Grandpa, I can feel it!”

My name is Svyataslava, and I’m from Moscow, Russia.
For me, prayer is a conversation with Heavenly Father. When I pray, I can tell Him about my concerns and joys. I can thank Him and ask Him about things.
One day, after finishing some proxy temple work, I went into the waiting room. Usually there were lots of people there, but when I entered the room, it was empty. I used the private, quiet moment to pray. I thanked Heavenly Father for the experiences I’d had. I asked Him about things that were important to me. At the end of my prayer, I remembered my great-grandmother, whom I missed very much, and asked God if I could feel her embrace.
When I finished my prayer, my friend entered the room and gave me a hug. I immediately thought of my great-grandmother and remembered her loving embrace. We cried together as we felt the Holy Ghost. This confirmed to me that the Lord hears and knows me. I know that He lives and loves me.

Peter felt much better about Grandpa after that lesson. But then he began to wonder if it would hurt Grandpa to have his spirit leave his sick body. Grandpa was already suffering so much that Peter couldn’t stand that thought. Mom suggested that he talk to Grandpa about it. She said that Grandpa lived close to Heavenly Father already and that he would explain his feelings to Peter.
Sure enough, when Peter told Grandpa his concern, Grandpa explained, “Petey, do you remember that day I took you to the zoo last year?”
“Yes. We stayed so long and had such fun that I fell asleep in the car on the way home.”
“That’s right. You didn’t know that when we got home, I lovingly picked you up and carefully tucked you in your bed. The next morning you were surprised to see where you were. You knew that you were in a different place from where you fell asleep. You didn’t know how you got there, but you knew that someone who loved you took you there. Well, that’s how I believe it will be. Perhaps I will fall asleep, and when I awake, my spirit will be somewhere else. I won’t hurt anymore or be uncomfortable, and I’ll know that Someone who loves me took me there.”

As a seven-year-old boy living in the Arabian Peninsula, I was consistently told by my parents to always wear my shoes, and I understood why. I knew that shoes would protect my feet against the many threats to be found in the desert, such as snakes, scorpions, and thorns. One morning after a night’s camping in the desert, I wanted to go exploring, but I did not want to bother with putting on my shoes. I rationalized that I was only going for a little wander and I would stay close by the camp. So instead of shoes, I wore flip-flops. I told myself that flip-flops were shoes—of a sort. And anyway, what could possibly happen?
As I walked along the cool sand—in my flip-flops—I felt something like a thorn going into the arch of my foot. I looked down and saw not a thorn but a scorpion. As my mind registered the scorpion and I realized what had just happened, the pain of the sting began to rise from my foot and up my leg. I grabbed the top of my leg to try and stop the searing pain from moving farther, and I cried out for help. My parents came running from the camp.
As my father battered the scorpion with a shovel, an adult friend who was camping with us heroically tried to suck the venom from my foot. At this moment I thought that I was going to die. I sobbed while my parents loaded me into a car and set off across the desert at high speed toward the nearest hospital, which was over two hours away. The pain all through my leg was excruciating, and for that entire journey, I assumed that I was dying.
When we finally reached the hospital, however, the doctor was able to assure us that only small infants and the severely malnourished are threatened by the sting of that type of scorpion. He administered an anesthetic, which numbed my leg and took away any sensation of pain. Within 24 hours I no longer had any effects from the sting of the scorpion. But I had learned a powerful lesson.
I had known that when my parents told me to wear shoes, they did not mean flip-flops; I was old enough to know that flip-flops did not provide the same protection as a pair of shoes. But that morning in the desert, I disregarded what I knew to be right. I ignored what my parents had repeatedly taught me. I had been both lazy and a little rebellious, and I paid a price for it.
As I address you valiant young men, your fathers, teachers, leaders, and friends, I pay tribute to all who are diligently striving to become what the Lord needs and wants you to be. But I testify from my own experience as a boy and as a man that disregarding what we know to be right, whether through laziness or rebelliousness, always brings undesirable and spiritually damaging consequences. No, the scorpion did not in the end threaten my life, but it caused extreme pain and distress to both me and my parents. When it comes to how we live the gospel, we must not respond with laziness or rebelliousness.

When I received my call to serve in the France Toulouse Mission, I was excited to serve in a foreign country and learn a new language. Despite not having studied French before, I was confident I would be able to learn to speak the language easily.
My stake president blessed me with the gift of tongues when he set me apart as a missionary. This blessing added to my confidence that I would be able to learn French quickly.
When I arrived at the missionary training center in Provo, Utah, I was eager to begin, but my time at the MTC was humbling. I was overwhelmed and struggled every day. When I left the MTC, I felt I had made few advances with French. I wondered when the gift of tongues would come.
My first assignment in the mission field was in a small town in southern France. One afternoon, just days after I had arrived, my companion and I were street contacting. I didn’t say much when we spoke with people—I could hardly understand them, and they could hardly understand me.
We approached a woman, and my companion began telling her about the Church. The woman listened for a few minutes and then suddenly turned to me and said, “What do you have to say?”
I anxiously and desperately tried to remember something I had learned. In a trembling voice, I bore a simple testimony about Heavenly Father and the Book of Mormon. As I did so, the Spirit bore witness to me that what I had said was true. I don’t know if the woman felt anything, but she smiled, turned back to my companion, and asked her to continue with her message.
This experience taught me an important lesson. I learned that even though I couldn’t speak French well, the Spirit could speak through me. I learned that perhaps the blessing I had received from my stake president was actually a blessing to be able to speak the language of the Spirit.
Years later, this experience still influences me. I am not required to preach the gospel in French anymore, but I need the help of the Spirit when I am asked to teach a lesson or give a talk in church. When I feel that I am struggling to express myself, I find comfort in remembering that the Spirit is able to speak to the hearts of all of God’s children.

For example, in wartime missed messages between commanders and soldiers at the front have resulted in great confusion and serious loss of life. In World War I the 308th Infantry was ordered to the front in a desperate attempt to take and hold part of the Argonne Forest at any cost. The battle was so fierce that the supporting troops on the right and the left of one battalion withdrew, and the battalion was surrounded and isolated. Because headquarters lost communication with them, they became known as the Lost Battalion.
The battalion communicated with headquarters by carrier pigeons that flew from the battalion’s location to headquarters with messages. However, as soon as these pigeons were released, they were shot down by the opposing forces. The Lost Battalion’s own artillery, not knowing where they were, opened fire on their position and inflicted heavy casualties. The battalion ran out of food and water, but they held their ground and did not surrender despite their great losses. Finally, one carrier pigeon called Cher Ami, even though it was shot, got through to headquarters carrying the message that identified the battalion’s location. The survivors of the battalion were rescued because that one crucial message got through.

When Sara was 16, she got a tattoo. It was a small flower on her back, where no one would ever see it except when she wore her swimming suit. She did it without her parents’ permission, and they were upset when they found out. She and her girlfriends had gone together to get tattoos at the same time. They had talked each other into it. They thought it was kind of cool.
Sara started regretting her decision shortly after. But she became truly heartsick five years later, when she was getting ready to go to the temple to be married to a wonderful young man. She was worthy in every way to attend the temple, but she wished more than anything that she did not have that mark, that foolish tattoo, on her body. It had come to represent a childish, silly wish to follow the crowd, an attitude that she had left behind long ago. The only thing that couldn’t be left behind so easily was the tattoo itself. Now as newlyweds, with both Sara and her new husband still trying to finish their educations, they are not financially in a position for her to undergo the laser treatments necessary to remove her tattoo. She just wishes that she had never had it done.