Gospel Story Finder

Tony Wong’s parents fled from Communist China into Hong Kong before he was born. His father was unable to find work in the British colony, so his parents “switched roles,” Brother Wong recalls. “My father fed us the bottles and changed the diapers while my mother worked.”
She worked for a few dollars a day—just barely enough to put food on the table and pay for the tiny makeshift hut the family lived in. “We didn’t even have enough money for an electric fan,” observes Brother Wong. And in a land where summer temperatures reach 90 degrees with nearly 100 percent humidity, a fan is almost a necessity.
All that changed when the missionaries came to visit. The family listened to the gospel, and eight-year-old Tony and his parents were baptized in 1960. (A younger sister followed on her eighth birthday.) Although money was tight, the family paid tithing. “And within two months my mother found an extra job, and we had enough money to buy a fan,” Brother Wong says. “The Lord has continued to bless us through the years.”

Tommy Ayres moved with his family to Arizona, hoping the climate would benefit his father’s health. Tommy was ten years old at the time. The family attended an Evangelical Church; and at one gathering, President L. Harold Wright of Maricopa Stake was invited to explain the beliefs of the Mormon Church. Tommy was interested but did nothing about it until his father’s ill health kept them from driving the several miles to church. Tommy started attending Scout meetings at the nearby Latter-day Saint Church. Then he was on his way. He and his mother were taught by the missionaries and were baptized. His father, in a nursing home, was later baptized by Tommy. Two elders helped Tommy with the baptism by wheeling his father to the edge of the font and gently lifting him into the water. One month later his father died. His temple work was done two years later from sheets carefully prepared by Tommy.

Tommy’s interest in genealogy began soon after his conversion. He has spent hours researching family records for his own direct lines. It was a sweet moment for him when his parents were sealed (someone standing proxy for his dead father), and a brother who had lived for only two days and Tommy were sealed to their parents. Tommy left shortly afterward for his mission. He is serving in the Montana-Wyoming Mission under President Wright, the man from whom he first heard about the gospel.

One of my good and bright friends left the Church for a time. He recently wrote to me of his return: “Initially, I wanted the Book of Mormon to be proven to me historically, geographically, linguistically, and culturally. But when I changed my focus to what it teaches about the gospel of Jesus Christ and His saving mission, I began to gain a testimony of its truthfulness. One day while reading the Book of Mormon in my room, I paused, knelt down, and gave a heartfelt prayer and felt resoundingly that Heavenly Father whispered to my spirit that the Church and the Book of Mormon were definitely true. My three-and-a-half-year period of reinvestigating the Church led me back wholeheartedly and convincingly to its truthfulness.”

If one will take the time to humbly read and ponder the Book of Mormon, as did my friend, and give ear to the sweet fruits of the Spirit, then he or she will eventually receive the desired witness.

Chris loved playing football in grade school and junior high. He started at linebacker all during high school. And, as Chris points out, football in Georgia is serious business. His high school would have 10,000 fans attend its Friday night games. During his junior year, he began getting attention from college scouts. It was exciting, but his mom would remind him not to get too interested because he was going on a mission.
When the scouts showed up, that was the time Chris had to face the possibilities of playing football at the college level. His high school coach told the scouts that he was a hard-working player and was an honor student. Finally concrete offers started to come—full-ride scholarships through four years of college, worth thousands of dollars.
“I asked,” said Chris, “if they would hold a scholarship for two years. One coach was shocked. I told him I was going to go on a mission for my church. He just stared at me and said, ‘You’re going to give up 80 thousand dollars to serve a mission for two years?’ He got mad at me. But I didn’t get offended.” After that, his coach started turning away college recruiters interested in Chris.
Eventually, State University of West Georgia called. The school offered him a scholarship. It turned out that Chris would be able to play a year and a quarter, essentially two seasons, before turning 19 and receiving a mission call. “I knew that all things were possible with the Lord. There were people saying that I couldn’t serve a mission and play ball, yet the Lord provided a way to do both.”
Chris struggled at West Georgia, not on the field where he started as a true freshman but in the permissive atmosphere in the dorms. He didn’t like what was going on around him. He was more determined than ever to go on a mission. And it was on his mission that Chris put football behind him completely. He told his coaches that if they needed to talk to him, to go through his parents. He didn’t keep up on what the team was doing. He says that the only way to serve on a mission is completely and with total focus.
At the conclusion of his mission, Chris decided that he could not return to the atmosphere at his former college. He thought that was also a decision to give up football, and he was willing to do it.
Just as Chris was completing his mission, his mission president contacted BYU about Chris. At first, becoming a BYU football team member didn’t seem like a possibility, but he was invited to try out. He received a full-ride scholarship but was redshirted a year. Once Chris thought sitting out a year would be horrible, but now it was a blessing. He was able to concentrate on his major, a difficult one, in manufacturing engineering and technology. He feels that the Lord has guided his life because at BYU he has had the opportunity to continue missionary work as a ward mission leader. Football will fall by the wayside. That’s fine with Chris. It no longer has his heart.
There is, however, one thing Chris has always wanted—a championship ring. He just missed taking state in high school. And his college team won the conference the year he left on his mission. Knowing this, some friends on his mission got together and bought Chris a ring—a CTR ring that he wears continually. It’s become his championship ring.
Whenever Chris looks at it he is reminded of what he believes deep inside. “Right makes you happy. If you do what is right, everything will fall into place.”

My father always expected neatness around our farm. As a boy, I had as one of my jobs that of soaping and oiling the harness and hanging up the collars and bridles on the pegs in the harness shop. The surrey had to be washed, greased, and painted regularly—too frequently to suit me. I asked my father, “Why wash the buggy? It’ll just get dirty and dusty again after the first mile or two.” But I made no impression on him and had to do it anyway. And when I painted the buggy, it had to be perfect—no smudges or crooked lines.

I had to whitewash the fence and paint the rose trellis green. Then I had to paint the barn, the granary, and the harness shed. He insisted that everything be neat and clean and in good repair around the house and the farm.

As the weeks passed, I marveled that most often peace and joy, not grief, dominated my heart. I contemplated why. One day, I decided to research the words of our prophets and apostles that relate to grief and gratitude. They confirmed what I had already concluded: that I had been strengthened by the comforting power of Jesus Christ and His Atonement, along with my gratitude.
The title of a 2005 Ensign article by President Thomas S. Monson (1927–2018) struck me deeply. It was called “The Profound Power of Gratitude.” In that article, President Monson said:
“God in His infinite mercy has not left grieving loved ones to wonder. He has provided truth. He will inspire an upward reach, and His outstretched arms will embrace you. Jesus promises to one and all who grieve, ‘I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you’ [John 14:18].”2
I realized I had been experiencing God’s comfort and embrace. They were profound and powerful! They enabled me to look at John’s picture each morning and smile as I said, “Thank you!” to him and to God!
Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles has perfectly described what I experienced: “When we are grateful to God in our circumstances, we can experience gentle peace in the midst of tribulation. In grief, we can still lift up our hearts in praise. In pain, we can glory in Christ’s Atonement. In the cold of bitter sorrow, we can experience the closeness and warmth of heaven’s embrace.”3
These blessings were what I had felt within minutes of John’s death and in the days since! I am grateful for the peace in my heart and how I continually feel God’s embrace. I never want to lose those feelings! And so, I continue to express gratitude daily for my sacred experiences, for gospel knowledge that brings me closer to Jesus Christ, for the strengthening comfort made possible by Him and His Atonement, and for an eternal perspective and the hope of spending eternity with my Johnny.

Another dedicated pair of visiting teachers in the Democratic Republic of Congo walked great distances to visit a woman and her baby. These sisters prayerfully prepared a message and wanted to know how they could make a difference in the life of the dear woman they were visiting. The woman was thrilled with their visit. For her their visit was a message from heaven given just to her. As the visiting teachers met in her humble home, the sister, her family, and the visiting teachers were all lifted and blessed. The long walk didn’t seem a sacrifice. These visiting teachers had compassion, making a difference for good and blessing the life of this woman.

Truman had a desire to join the main body of the Church, and in 1835 he moved his little family to Kirtland, Ohio, where he found work waiting for him in the temple. Pulpits, pews, stairs, window casings, and doorjambs all needed to be built. The Prophet Joseph Smith noticed his fine work and put him in charge of many other buildings in Kirtland.
When the Kirtland Temple was almost completed, Truman was ordained a seventy. Eagerly he prepared for another mission. But shortly before he was to go, the Prophet Joseph asked him to stay and build a store. Truman told the Prophet that he was now a seventy and wanted to serve a mission. The Prophet simply said, “Well, go ahead.”
After Joseph Smith left, Truman struggled with his thoughts: How could he bear testimony of a prophet of the Lord if he, Truman, was not willing to heed that prophet’s counsel? Truman remained in Kirtland and built the store and many other buildings that were needed.

Such was the experience of William Norris, formerly the chairman of a large computer manufacturing firm and a friend of many years. Mr. Norris determined to build a plant in an area of extreme poverty. The neighborhood was predominantly composed of a minority race—unmarried women with children, uneducated, uncared-for, but needing help. These women became the work force in the production of high-tech computers.

I had the privilege to be hosted by Mr. Norris and to be given a tour of his new facility. I was impressed with the employment provided—but more impressed with the company nursery, which occupied a wing of the building. Here, while their mothers worked, children received schooling, including proficiency with computers. Since most of the children did not have fathers and grandfathers who cared, retired grandfathers in the community were invited to have lunch with them. The children were benefited, and the grandfathers had a special blessing brought into their lives.

As a result of Mr. Norris’s dream, the chain of poverty was broken. Children learned to earn. It was as though William Norris had personally blessed the life of each worker. Through the window provided by Mr. Norris—even love in action—I saw demonstrated the philosophical and practical truth: The bottom line of living is giving.

Lastly, this from the rededication of the Mexico City Mexico Temple just three weeks ago. It was there with President Henry B. Eyring that we saw our beloved friend Lisa Tuttle Pieper stand in that moving dedicatory service. But she stood with some difficulty because with one arm she was holding up her beloved but severely challenged daughter, Dora, while with the other she was trying to manipulate Dora’s dysfunctional right hand so this limited but eternally precious daughter of God could wave a white handkerchief and, with groans intelligible only to herself and the angels of heaven, cry out, “Hosanna, hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb.”

What are you making?” Cassie asked her older brother as he opened the oven door.
“Some cookies for the baseball game. I figure, since we just moved here, it wouldn’t hurt to go the extra mile to get to know the kids,” Chris explained.
“I’m going to make something too!”
“What are you going to make?”
Cassie thought a bit before a smile spread across her face. “It’s a secret, but I’ll give you a hint—it starts with F.”
Chris grinned. “So what ingredients do you need for your secret recipe?”
“Ingredients?”
“The things you use to make your recipe,” Chris explained. “Ingredients are very important. Use the wrong ones, and your recipe won’t turn out. Good luck.” He grabbed his mitt and the plate of cookies, then ran out the door.
Cassie got the plastic bucket out from under the sink. “Since I’m making an F recipe, I’ll need things that start with F,” she reasoned. She carried the bucket outside, where her mother was weeding.
“Flowers!” Cassie exclaimed, “Can I have some?”
“You may have all the dandelions you want,” her mother replied, gazing at their lawn in exasperation. “Pick away.”
It wasn’t long before the bottom of Cassie’s bucket was covered with yellow flowers. “I’m making an important recipe,” she told her mother. “Can I go down the street?”
“Yes, but don’t leave the block. You aren’t used to this neighborhood yet, and I don’t want you to get lost. I’ll keep an eye on you from the yard.”
Cassie carried her bucket out the gate. She still needed more ingredients for her recipe.
“Who are you, and what are you doing?” someone asked.
Cassie looked up to see a girl about her age looking at her.
“I’m Cassie, and I’m making a recipe. I need ingredients that start with the letter F.”
“My name is Rachel. I live next door. How about a flamingo? We have a plastic one in our front yard.”
“Great!” Cassie exclaimed. Soon a plastic flamingo was sticking out of her pail. She walked down the street with Rachel, the pink head bobbing with their steps.
“What are you doing?” said a voice. They turned to see a boy on a bicycle.
“This is Cassie,” Rachel told him. “She’s making a letter-F recipe. We have flowers and a flamingo for ingredients. Can you think of anything else, Steven?”
“Frogs! Come with me to the pond. There are lots of frogs there.”
He walked along with them, pushing his bike, to the pond near the corner.
While they were catching frogs and putting them into the bucket, three more kids came up. Rachel introduced them as Benjamin, Eric, and Kathryn. They seemed happy to meet Cassie and were eager to help with the recipe.
“Flowers, frogs, and a flamingo,” Eric said. “How about adding french fries? I have a couple in my pocket.” He tossed them into the bucket.
“What else?” Cassie asked.
“Ferns? Kathryn shouted, plucking some that grew near the pond. “But I think we’ll have to forget about the frogs. They’ve all jumped out.”
“Ferns, flamingo, flowers, french fries—can you think of anything else?” Cassie asked.
“I have a toy fire engine,” Benjamin said. “Let’s go to my house and get it.”
They followed him home, looking like a small parade. The fire engine went into the bucket, nearly filling it.
“Now come to my house,” Cassie said. “We can finish the recipe there.”
Her mother met them at the gate. “Cassie, what are you doing, and who are these children with you?”
“We’re making a recipe,” Cassie explained. “We need a few more ingredients, but we don’t know what.”
Her mother smiled. “Well, how about a snack? There are some bananas in the kitchen.”
“Fruit? Kathryn declared. “That’s perfect!”
All the children followed Carrie into the kitchen. Soon they came back outside with a bunch of bananas nestled among the other things in the bucket. Then they sat on the porch and ate the bananas.
Cassie’s mother looked in the bucket, then at her daughter. “That’s a rather strange recipe,” she remarked. “I’ve never seen such unusual ingredients. What are you making?”
Cassie looked at her mother and smiled. “Friends,” she said.

The earliest [time I can remember having] spiritual feelings was when I was about five years of age, a very small boy. I was crying from the pain of an earache. There were no wonder drugs at the time. My mother prepared a bag of table salt and put it on the stove to warm. My father softly put his hands upon my head and gave me a blessing, rebuking the pain and the illness by authority of the holy priesthood and in the name of Jesus Christ. He then took me tenderly in his arms and placed the bag of warm salt at my ear. The pain [grew less] and left. I fell asleep in my father’s secure embrace. As I was falling asleep, the words of his administration floated through my mind.
Later in my youth, my brother and I slept in an unheated bedroom in the winter. People thought that was good for you. Before falling into a warm bed, we knelt to say our prayers. There were expressions of simple gratitude. They concluded in the name of Jesus.
I recall jumping into my bed after I had said amen, pulling the covers up around my neck, and thinking of what I had just done in speaking to my Father in Heaven in the name of His Son. I did not have great knowledge of the gospel.
But there was some kind of lingering peace and security in communing with the heavens in and through the Lord Jesus.
That testimony grew in my heart as a missionary when I read the New Testament and the Book of Mormon, which further bore witness of [the Savior]. That knowledge became the foundation of my life, standing on the footings of the answered prayers of my childhood.
Since then my faith has grown much further. I have become His Apostle, appointed to do His will and teach His word. I have become His witness to the world. I repeat that witness of faith to you.
Jesus is my friend. He is my exemplar. He is my teacher. He is my healer. He is my leader. He is my Savior and my Redeemer. He is my God and my King.
Gratefully, and with love, I bear witness of these things.

Forced by mob persecution to leave their homes in Nauvoo, Illinois, many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints looked to the West to find a new Zion. The next year, 1847, under the direction of President Brigham Young, they migrated to the Great Salt Lake Valley. The first pioneer colony to arrive at the valley numbered one hundred forty-three men, three women, and two children. Among these first settlers was Green Flake, a former slave of a North Carolina planter, who had been converted earlier to the Church.
Born in Anson County, North Carolina, in 1825, Green was inherited by Madison Flake after his father’s death. As was the custom of the time, Green took the surname of his master. After Madison Flake joined the Church, he offered Green his freedom. However, Green chose to remain with Madison, and he moved to Nauvoo with the Flake family. In Nauvoo Green served for a short time as one of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s bodyguards.
Madison asked Green to go with the first wagon train of Saints to help prepare for the subsequent arrival of the Flake family. Life was hard for all of the pioneers. Green proved himself strong and reliable as the small band set up winter quarters in Nebraska; forged a trail along the Platte River to Ft. Laramie, Wyoming; in the spring, and conquered the Rocky Mountains.
President Young became ill with a fever when they arrived at Echo Canyon, which cut through the eastern slopes of the Wasatch Range fifty miles from the Great Salt Lake. He sent Orson Pratt ahead with a company of forty-two men, instructing them to build bridges and roads as they went. Green Flake was included in this group, which pushed on and reached the Great Salt Lake Valley on July 21, 1847. He rode in the first wagon to move through Emigration Canyon into the desert valley, later called by Brother Young a promised land.
Orson Pratt immediately dedicated the land to the Lord and blessed the seed that they had carried with them over a thousand miles. He then ordered the first crops to be planted. Green Flake plowed and sowed his seed before building a log house for the Flake family. He had chosen a site on the Amasa Survey in Cottonwood so that the Flakes could live near the Southern Saints who had come west with the Mississippi Company. It was they who established the first settlement in Utah outside of Salt Lake City.
When Madison Flake arrived a year later, he found a beautiful home ready for his family. At this time Green was only twenty-two years old. Shortly afterward Green married Martha Crosby, and they had two children. After his wife died in 1885, Green went to live near his son and daughter in Gray’s Lake, Idaho. He returned to Salt Lake City in 1897 to attend the Jubilee Pioneer Celebration and to receive a special certificate for being one of the first pioneers to enter the valley. He died six years later in Gray’s Lake at the age of seventy-eight.

The Lord is also giving the Saints information and comfort through miraculous means. For instance, a sister, who was having marital problems because of her husband’s authoritative attitude, told of a dream she had that helped her resolve her bad feelings. “This sweet gentle lady came to me and told me to be patient and loving, that Arnold was a good man, and that he would change his ways. The dream stayed with me for days; I couldn’t get it off my mind. I wondered who the lady was, and how she could say what she had. Then one day, not long after, we received some long-awaited photos of Arnold’s progenitors that we had sent for to put with our genealogy. Among the photos was one of Arnold’s mother. He had never really known her, since she had died when he was only seven. But apparently she knew him well. The woman who came to me in that dream was his mother.”

During the time my parents were serving in the Arizona Holbrook Mission, I joined them for a few days at Christmastime. Christmas morning we delivered treats and greetings to some of the families with whom they worked. As I stood in the center of one of the hogans surveying the surroundings and the people, I was overwhelmed with a sense of my richness in terms of material possessions and awed by the sense of peace, happiness, and contentment that radiated from the faces of the extended-family members who were present. “Could I be this content in these circumstances?” I asked myself. “What did I do to deserve what I have? What are my responsibilities? What are my values? What really matters?”

Am I rich? The answer depends on the comparative basis I choose to use—but in my heart I know that I have enough of this world’s material blessings and that I will be accountable for my use of them. Are you rich? Do you have enough and to spare? How can that determination be made? When we use more than our share of the earth’s resources, are we rich or are we greedy, or are we both rich and greedy? Are we greedy in our demands? Are we accountable?

My father was our bishop, but he died before I received the priesthood. I remember so clearly being ordained a deacon. A new world opened up for me. I was now living on a higher plane. As I would hear people say, “You hold the priesthood,” it was not easy to fully comprehend. But with humble leaders, we began to understand that as deacons we had been given blessings and authority to do sacred things.
As quorum officers we accounted for all of our members and would see that they were all at church. We enjoyed being together. We helped the elderly and the widows. We cleaned the meetinghouse and raked the grounds. We made sure that the sacrament trays and sacrament cloths were clean and fresh. We were part of the Church, and the Church was part of us. We knew it; we felt it! We held the priesthood of God! Understanding leaders guided us and helped us broaden our vision and our ever-expanding role as young men; but more important, they helped prepare us to be called in our youth to be servants of our Savior. He needs every one of you young men.

One day Grandpa’s best friend, Carlos Sanchez, wiggled his bushy eyebrows and said, “Well, Hitty, I’ve got one today that will stump you! Riddle me this: How can you hatch a chicken from a boiled egg?”
Mehitabel frowned as she thought. Suddenly she smiled at Mr. Sanchez. “I know! If you grow a patch of boiled peas, then scatter them around the boiled egg, the chicken will come out of the shell to eat the peas.”
The listeners clapped their hands and nodded their heads. Mehitabel had given a very clever answer.
Grandpa slapped his knee and chortled, “That Mehitabel! You just can’t beat her!”
After Mehitabel ate the ice-cream cone Grandpa’s friends had bought her, she went off with her jump rope. She always tried to go ten times around the duck pond without a miss.

When Dr. Luca Ceccherini-Nelli met Barbara Muller in Washington, D.C., in 1979, he had no idea how much his life was about to change. At that time, he was in the United States doing medical research on the AIDS virus at the National Institute of Health, and she was working as an engineer for the U.S. Department of Energy.

They met through mutual friends and had known each other only a short time when they had an unusual discussion about religion. After observing some members of a very different religious organization, Barbara had commented, “There surely are some strange religions on the earth.”

Luca—not knowing that Barbara had recently been baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—responded with, “Well, I know of a religion that is even more strange than this one—the Mormons!” After a long silence, Barbara finally dared to ask why he thought the Mormons were strange.

“Well, because they are different from us. They look nice. They are always sharp. But they are more strict, more firm,” Luca said.

They continued walking until Barbara broke the silence again. “I am a Mormon,” she said, “and my children will be raised as Mormons.”

They saw each other only one more time before their careers called them to different parts of the world, and they lost contact.

“But she had left an impression on me,” recalls Luca. “She was somehow different from other people that I had met. I couldn’t forget our brief discussion about the Mormons. I was born and raised in Pisa, Italy, and I had seen the Mormon missionaries there, but I had never been interested enough to stop and talk to them. Now, since I was living very close to the Washington Temple, I decided to stop at the visitors’ center to learn more about this ‘strange’ religion.

“I asked to see the missionaries and to learn about the Church, and—to make a long story short—it all made sense to me. I quickly accepted the challenge to be baptized.”

After several unsuccessful attempts to contact Barbara, Luca telephoned her one more time. Luca recalls, “When she came on the telephone, I said, ‘I just wanted to invite you to my baptism.’ She accepted my invitation, and two weeks later we decided to be married.”

The next few years were not easy for the Ceccherini-Nelli family. Two years after they were married, they made the decision to live in Italy. They had both quit their jobs and money was scarce when they moved to Milan. There were many discouraging times as they sought understanding from their families and as Barbara struggled to learn Italian.

“My parents were against me, and her parents were not happy with her,” Luca recalls. “They came to see us, and they couldn’t understand—my parents couldn’t understand my new religion or my decision to marry an American, and her parents couldn’t understand our decision to move to Italy.”

“The first three years were very difficult,” says Barbara. “But we prayed constantly, and went our way.”

Luca became a counselor to the bishop in Milan and invited his father to come to church. “My father said that he had not received so much gospel in his entire life as he did that day. He recognized my commitment to the Church, and that was the beginning of his acceptance of my decisions.”

Luca and Barbara now have three children: Beatrice, 10; Roberta, 8; and Vittorio, 6. “As Luca’s mother has watched our children grow, her feelings have softened about us,” says Barbara. “She has commented to me that our children are better behaved, are more calm, and do better in their schoolwork than other children she knows. And she recognizes the ‘special closeness’ we have in our family because of the teachings of the gospel.”

Once again, Pisa, Italy, has become home to Luca Ceccherini-Nelli and his family. Doctor Ceccherini-Nelli is a respected physician and professor of medicine at the University of Pisa. Brother Ceccherini-Nelli has been a branch president three times and continues to devote countless hours to his Church callings. Barbara Ceccherini-Nelli—after eleven years away from her career—has found time in her busy life to do some consulting work with the European space program. But Sister Ceccherini-Nelli is a devoted homemaker and mother while serving faithfully in her Church assignments.

Brother Ceccherini-Nelli reflects on how different his life would have been without the blessings of the gospel. “There was a time when I think I was really kind of lost,” he says. “I was working all the time and had developed a little place by myself with nobody inside, which was cold and useless. But then Barbara came into my life, and the Church came in, and things got better. We had a few years of really difficult times, but with the constant help of our Heavenly Father we have been greatly blessed.”

“I think my life would have been much more materialistic,” says Barbara. “I think I probably would have been like a boat at sea, with no place in particular to go. Having the Church in our life has made everything so warm—it has made all the difference!”

Washington, D.C. is a city of monuments. Every building seems to have historical significance. Statues and memorials are so abundant that it becomes difficult to keep track of them all. And yet there are places in the city that, like the men or events or ideals that inspired their edification, can never be forgotten. Places like the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Capitol, the Supreme Court Building, the White House, the Smithsonian Castle, the museums and galleries, and more.
For Americans, a drive through Washington is at once a lesson in history and in patriotism. For thousands of tourists from other lands, Washington fosters a kinship that increases respect for a great nation and initiates memories that may last a lifetime.
But especially for those who live near the capital, a sightseeing visit to the downtown area is a feast. Often those who dwell in the suburbs forget the heritage that lingers nearby. Rushing on business, hustling off to school, or becoming involved in their smaller residential areas, many Washingtonians neglect the legacy in their own backyards.
But not the Fairbanks family.
The Fairbanks live in Bethesda, Maryland, just a stone’s throw from downtown Washington D.C. And the Fairbanks love to ride bicycles. As a family, they have benefited from the exercise and recreation cycling has given them. But they have also found their bikes to be a key means of access to the city. “There’s a bike path all the way into town,” explained 18-year-old David, the oldest son. “It follows the old Chesapeake and Ohio Canal route along the banks of the Potomac River, down into Georgetown, and eventually out onto the Mall.” (The Mall is the large, grass-covered rectangle running two miles from the Lincoln Memorial to the Capitol.)
From Bethesda, the route is mostly downhill, shady, and picturesque. “We’ll ride into town sometimes for exercise or fun, and then mom will come pick us in the station wagon,” Lisa, 16, added. “But if she can’t come, then we have to ride uphill all the way home.”
Sometimes the entire crew (half a dozen in all) makes a Saturday excursion to the landmarks in town. “I remember dad showing us the statue of Abraham Lincoln and telling us how he fought against slavery,” eight-year-old Galen said.
“Do you remember how many times you wanted to stop for ice cream on the way there?” Jeff, who is 14, kidded him. Washington in summer is a humid, sweltering steambath, and bicyclists soon learn to carry water with them or to stop at concession stands that line the Mall.
“A lot of times we’ll stop at a fountain or a pool to cool off, too,” Lisa said. There are fans of water outside the National Art Museum that mist the air with chilled vapor, and the Reflection Pool down the hill from the Washington Monument offers another site where the sun-soaked cyclists can escape the heat.
On special occasions some of the family members may take a few minutes out from a pedaling excursion to ride the elevator to the top of the Washington Monument. From the observation deck of the 555-foot pillar, it’s possible on a clear day to see all the way to Kensington, Maryland, where the Washington Temple raises its spires in solitude through the trees. “Lots of people know where the temple is,” Jeff said. “It’s really becoming a landmark, too. A lot of people have found out about the Church because of the missionary work members have done inviting people to the visitors’ center.
“The temple symbolizes a lot of things to me,” David said. “The way it rises out ot the woods reminds me of the goals the gospel puts into our lives, things like going on a mission. A goal like that towers over things that might seem important without the influence of the Church.”
The Church plays a major role in the family’s life. They are members of the Chevy Chase Ward, Washington D.C. Stake, where Jeff is teachers quorum secretary; Lisa (the only Laurel in the ward) was recently released from the Mia Maid presidency; David works regularly with the full-time missionaries; and Galen is a sterling Sunday School student. Both Brother and Sister Fairbanks are active in Church callings as well.
But Church involvement doesn’t stop when the Fairbanks step out the chapel door. They are a missionary family that doesn’t cease sharing the gospel. One of their primary means for so doing is the Fairbanks Family Band, a bluegrass ensemble that includes everyone from Galen on up.
“We’ve performed for other churches’ social gatherings, for community family weeks, even for a program honoring the family that was held in the President’s Park just behind the White House,” Brother Fairbanks explained. “We got a thank-you certificate from the President for that show.”
“We feel it’s our way of doing some missionary work,” Sister Fairbanks joined in. “We always make it a point to tell our audiences how important families are and we explain about the family home evening program of the Church.”
When the Fairbanks aren’t cycling or playing music, you can still usually find them together. When David graduated from high school, his friends came over for a celebration dinner. Brother Fairbanks served as waiter, and the rest of the family helped prepare the meal.
Our friends always want come visit us at home,” Lisa said. “It’s probably because we make them part of the family when they come.” It might also be because of the ice cream everyone’s helping to churn on the back porch, or the fresh rolls Lisa and her mother just pulled from the oven, or because of the friendly warmth that pervades the entire household. Even when they chop wood or do housework, the Fairbanks do it together.
In a city full of monuments, they are building a living monument that shines—a family full of love.

Almost three years ago in a Saturday evening session of a stake conference in New York, I listened intently to a young Hispanic sister bear her testimony. As a recent convert she bore witness of the promptings and feelings that occurred during her conversion. She stated:
When the missionaries knocked on my door, I saw the smiles on their faces and felt the firm grip of their handshakes. They said they had a message that would bring happiness into my life. At the conclusion of the first lesson they turned to Moroni’s promise in the Book of Mormon. I was surprised. They did not ask me to believe their words. Instead, the missionaries challenged me to find out for myself the truthfulness of the gospel through prayer and the Holy Ghost. Later, as I listened to the missionaries explain the plan of salvation, I suddenly felt a confirming witness that I was more than a speck in the universe. My life was important not only to me but to a loving Heavenly Father and his Son. They knew me! There was purpose to life, and God had a plan for me to achieve that purpose. I could never feel worthless again!
The truth of the young sister’s testimony burned within me that evening. I knew then and know now, as do you, that there is purpose to life, that God has a plan of happiness designed for all of his children.