Gospel Story Finder

Flavia, a sister from a poorer part of South America, found little opportunity and means for training and regular employment until help came through the PEF to receive training in operating computers. With the help of LDS Employment Services, she found work in a good company after completing her training. She reports: “Today I am responsible for the financial consulting area of one of the largest hospitals in Recife using [a sophisticated] computer system. I was among the crew that implemented this financial system in the company.”

Before he joined the Church, Ian used to drink tea with his friends. He also went to cheering practice on Sundays, preparing to lead cheers at his school’s sporting events. But he stopped doing those things. Instead, he started going to church, even though he is the only one in his family who does. His father supports Ian in his Church attendance, and his stepmother, who is not a member, takes him to church and then picks him up afterward.
When asked why he comes to church when it would be easier to stay home, he says simply, “I come because I want to keep my faith strong.”

Let me illustrate: Several years ago, while teaching a course in American literature at Brigham Young University, I assigned a famous novel, a book familiar to many students, a book that I found to be, when I first read it after my mission, a thought-provoking, stimulating, uplifting, and essentially spiritual book, a book of “good report.” I had read and studied the book without feeling my delicate relationship with the Holy Spirit bruised in the least. I was surprised, then, when a lovely young female student approached me after class, with tears in her eyes, to confess that the first few pages of the book had so upset her that she could not continue reading what she felt to be indecent literature. Although it was not what I considered an “indecent” book, by any standard, I saw that her relationship with the Holy Spirit had apparently been harmed by exposure to this book, and I promptly asked her to read, instead, another book by the same author. Still concerned about the assignment, I queried other students. At their various levels of development they had found the book generally unobjectionable. Indeed, one of the students, a returned missionary, thanked me for the opportunity of reading the book, for he had met many people in his missionary experiences who resembled characters in the book, and the novel had opened to him, he insisted, new insights into those people and new vistas regarding life in general. The occasionally earthy (not obscene) language had not troubled him, for he had heard such language and dismissed it; instead, he had thrilled to the portrait that the author had penned of children of God on a troubled journey through a life full of wrong turns and dead ends that arose because the characters were having to learn, the hard way, of the need to be in harmony with eternal principles. The young man was ready for the book. In fact, when I told him of his classmate’s response to the novel, he asked, “Have we both been reading the same book?”

The book was as different as the experience that each student brought to it. The young lady was on a level of development that prevented her from seeing beyond some of the rawness described in the work; the alternate selection was more suited for her personal development, and she was delighted by her insights into that novel. Perhaps there would come a point when she would be ready for the other book. There had surely been a point in the returned missionary’s life, as in mine, when we, too, would have been unable to see beyond some of the rawness of life as depicted in the book to the genuine beauty and truth of the work. The young lady was right in rejecting the book. The returned missionary was right in reading it. Finding that self-understanding which enables us to make careful and proper selections which will not discourage the Holy Spirit from remaining with us is part of reaching for spiritual maturity. Enroute to such maturity, most of us make some mistakes, along with a lot of right decisions.

After sacrament meeting the bishop called me into his office for a talk. Here it comes, I thought. I’m going to be the new teachers quorum president, I’ll bet. I was filled with pride and excitement. Wow, is the ward ever going to heap handshakes on me. Mom will be so proud!
I sat in the big chair across from the bishop. He was a pleasant man, smiling as always, but I felt that even so, this conversation was going to be an important one.
“Steve, we have an assignment for you,” he said. My heart raced.
“This is a special ‘good neighbor’ assignment. We’re concerned about Hasty McFarlan. He’s a pretty sad old man, you know. He needs someone to befriend him. He’s not a member of the Church, but God’s love reaches to all people, and we as members of his church have the responsibility to show it. Maybe I should say we have the privilege of showing that love.”
I guess I must have looked stunned.
“You know Hasty, don’t you, Steve?” asked the bishop.
My memory jumped back a couple of weeks to when some friends and I had made fun of the old man by singing jingles and shouting the jokes we had made up about him.
“Yes, I know him,” I said, choking down my disappointment and guilt. “He’s the old hermit who lives outside of town.”
“Right,” said the bishop. “I would like for you to go out and visit him two or three times a week.”
“Okay,” was the only answer I could manage.
The bishop must have detected my crestfallenness, because he leaned forward in his chair and looked at me carefully.
“Now, if this assignment will be too much, don’t be afraid to say so.”
I sighed. “Oh, I’ll do it, sir,” I said.
“Good,” said the bishop with a smile, and before I could catch my breath, he went on. “You can chop wood for the fire, and get him food, blankets—whatever he needs to help him feel wanted. Be a friend. Your father is aware of the assignment, and he told me he would help you. Your Heavenly Father will be prompting you, too.”
“Yes, sir,” I said.
I was 15 years old then, and there were other things I would rather do—play football, hunt, fish, or just do the things my friends were doing. But I had told the bishop I would carry out the assignment, and I knew it wasn’t good to go back on my word.
Hasty lived in a little log cabin at the foot of a mountain, just outside the Idaho farming community I grew up in. On the long hike to his cabin after school that first afternoon, it seemed to me that every pine along the trail whispered Hasty’s loneliness.
Once a year at Christmas the old man got a free bath at the hotel, compliments of the sheriff. Probably, we all thought, it was the only bath he got all year. We used to say he looked like a pirate with that growth on the side of his head and his black eyepatch. Most of the kids and even some of the townspeople had the habit of making unkind remarks or doing something “clever” whenever Hasty was around. Would he remember me as one of the tricksters? By the time I reached the cabin, I was genuinely frightened.
I knocked. No answer. I knocked again. I knew he had to be in there. Where else could he go?
“Hasty?” My voice broke halfway through the word. I don’t know how long I must have stood there before I decided to go inside. The thick oaken door creaked as I pushed it open.
“Hasty?” I called again. “Hasty, are you there?”
Hearing a rustling, I poked my head in as far as I dared and peeked around the door. It was cold in Hasty’s cabin and very dark. I could just make out the figure of a man on the bed. Hasty was all slouched down, but not like he’d been asleep, or even like he’d been thinking. He looked like he was slouching because there was no reason to do anything else. I noticed that the soiled, mildewed blanket he was sitting on was more hole than blanket.
My heart was beating in my throat. I swallowed hard.
“Hasty, is there anything I can do for you?” I managed to blurt out.
I told him my name and that the bishop from the LDS Church had sent me to see how he was doing and to help out. He said nothing. The silent, staring troll was freezing my nerves.
“Hasty, your fire is out.”
No reply.
“Can I chop some wood?”
No reply.
I went outside, found an axe and some stacked stumps, and began chopping kindling. With every strike of the axe my brain pounded. What am I doing out here? Why me? Why?
“Quit grumbling,” a voice inside me said. “The old man is cold and lonely, and you can help him.”
I got a fire going and tried to talk to him, but after a few minutes I decided he wasn’t really listening. He needed a new blanket, so I told him I would get a thick, clean, comfortable one, and the next day I did. After that I came every other day. Slowly, over the next several weeks, he began talking.
One day after we had talked some he said, “Boy, why do you come? I’m sure a kid your age can find better things to do than visit a sick old varmint like me. But I’m glad you come.” And then he smiled.
At Thanksgiving I invited Hasty to our house for dinner. He didn’t come, but our family took part of the dinner to him. There were tears in his eyes as he tried to thank us.
I discovered as our visits continued that Hasty had been a sheepherder. Once he had had a wife and children, but they had gotten a terrible fever and died of it.
Feeling in his grief that his life had been shattered, Hasty wandered the whole country as a vagabond. A diseased growth on the side of his face made one eye blind. And the teasing and practical joking had begun.
But to me the old man didn’t seem as ugly and frightening anymore. In fact, after school I hurried to his cabin to help him and to listen to his stories.
When Christmas arrived, we invited him to dinner once again. This time he came, and what’s more, he came in a suit, all cleaned and handsome. He looked great. A smile curved his lips. Hasty was happy because we showed him he was needed.
As we finished dinner, the old man bowed his head for a second, and then raised it and said, “You people sure are wonderful. My life has been a shambles for a long time, but the love you’ve shown is making me a different person. I’m very grateful.”
As he said that, I could feel a little fire in my chest getting big. It felt good.

Permit me to illustrate this point. A young man of faith practiced diligently and became a championship swimmer. He excelled to the point that scholarship offers from many universities were extended. One by one he turned them aside. His father asked, “Son, why won’t you accept one of these free-ride scholarships?”
“I can’t,” the boy answered. “I’m going on a mission, and it would not be honest for me to accept it and then drop it before the year is gone.”
Angrily the father shouted, “How foolish can you be! You are throwing away an opportunity of a lifetime.”
“I’m sorry, Dad,” the boy added respectfully, “but I take seriously what the Lord said about his coming again, and when he does, I don’t want to be found in the swimming pool practicing the backstroke.”

When the Allied Forces liberated Korea on 15 August 1945, Sister Whang remembers that “every creature, even trees and mountains, seemed to joy for the freedom that we had fought for for a long time.” The joy didn’t last long. The country was divided; Communists controlled the north part of Korea, and many people tried to escape to the south. Sister Whang got out of North Korea on the last train that left before the fence between North and South Korea went up. She has not seen her family since that day. She immediately began working in refugee camps, teaching the children and caring for those who were hungry and cold.
“I prayed for my solemn mission,” she says. “I knew I wanted to help as many poor people as possible, even though I didn’t think I had the ability, skill, or power. In order to do that, I knew that I would have to sacrifice worldly possessions, and I knew that I must always fortify myself spiritually.”

Nodoka T.

“I was nervous when the counselor asked me to go to stake Young Women camp for the first time,” says Nodoka T. of Okinawa, Japan. “I decided to pray. After my prayer I felt comfortable, so I decided to go.
“From the very first day, I was able to make new friends. The young women were so nice and kind to me; my fear soon disappeared. And I learned to purify water, tie knots, make bandages, perform rescue breathing, and find edible plants!”

“We didn’t have a lot of material things, but we were rich in the things that mattered. We didn’t have much land, but we squeezed everything onto it. We had chickens and cows and pigs. Raising pigs taught me how to work, and I learned about the law of the harvest. I also discovered that farmers have to work very hard to make money. After our pigs were sold and the cost of raising them was calculated, the profit on them was very little—sometimes nothing.”
Elder Maxwell won so many award ribbons for his prize pigs that when they were pinned to a blanket, they filled its entire surface. “I was proud of those ribbons,” he said. “And I still have that blanket.
“The part I didn’t like about farm work was that you were never through with it. If you milked cows or fed the animals in the morning, you knew that you had to do it again at night. Our turn to use the irrigation water for our crops would often come in the middle of the night. It was hard work, but it was good discipline.”

Saríah Moya, 15, became friends with a young woman who said she and her family were atheists. But she admired Saríah’s standards and her willingness to be true to them amid criticism. They talked about the gospel many times, Saríah gave her a copy of the Book of Mormon, they prayed together, and Saríah’s friend went to church with her. “Yesterday she came to a Young Women activity, and we sang a hymn,” Saríah says. “Afterward she told me, ‘I do believe in God.’ I realized that my example had helped someone find Heavenly Father.”

During my first Christmas as bishop, a single mother with three small children lived in our ward. This young woman had a strong testimony of the gospel and lived it to the best of her ability. She cleaned homes and did sewing to try to make ends meet, but often she could not.
Single-handedly raising three boys under the age of eight was a real challenge. These active, energetic youngsters always seemed to be in trouble of one sort or another. I remember pulling them from more than one tussle with their classmates.
Several good people helped this struggling family. I’ll never forget the brother who came into my office one Sunday just a couple of weeks before Christmas, asking to speak with me privately. He was concerned about the young mother and her family, and he wanted to do something for them. Would I accept his contribution and use it in the best way I could to help them? As we spoke, I hardly noticed his small son who remained in the office with us.
The man explained that he did not know what the woman and her family needed. He just wanted to help and felt that I would be inspired to know what to do. He then entrusted to me quite a remarkable sum of money—not remarkable in the amount, but remarkable in terms of his modest means, of which I was well aware. I knew that this gift meant a real sacrifice of his own family’s Christmas, at least in the temporal sense. But this wise brother knew where real rewards come from.
Seeing the resolve shining in his eyes, I protested only gently. Then I cleared my tightening throat, thanked him for his unselfish gift, and promised to do my best to make Christmas a little brighter for the young mother and her sons. I also agreed to honor his request for anonymity.
The story might well end here and still be memorable. But the event that has etched this experience in my mind was yet to occur. It wasn’t the way I was able to help the family with the unselfish contribution—although that turned out to be most gratifying—but rather what took place in my office one week following that good brother’s visit.
It was just a few days before Christmas, and I was between tithing-settlement interviews. I heard a soft knock on the office door, and when I opened it, I saw, standing quite alone, the six-year-old boy who had sat quietly in my office while his dad and I had talked the Sunday before.
He asked politely if he could talk to me for just a minute. After we walked into the office—which I presume is always a bit of a frightening experience for youngsters—I invited him to sit down. He fidgeted with something in his pocket and, after some struggle, pulled out three small coins and laid them on my desk. He apologized that the coins were all the money he had, and they were a little old and dirty, since he had had them quite a while. The money, he explained, was for me to use to help his three friends, like his dad was helping their mother. As my heart swelled and my eyes became moist, he added that he felt I would know best how to divide his treasure among his friends.
What lessons culminated in that moment—a father’s unselfish example, the trust of a small boy in his bishop, and the humble, Christlike act of a child without guile. Only a few weeks before I had pulled this boy from a scuffle involving the soon-to-be recipients of his forgiving love and charity.
I hugged him, partly to hide my tears—and mostly to tell him how much I appreciated him and how much I knew his Father in Heaven loved him. I then walked him to the door, shook his hand, and assured him that I would do the best I could to help his friends this Christmas with his generous gift. As I turned to go back into my office, he whispered after me, “And remember, Bishop, don’t ever tell anyone it was me.”
Well, I never have told anyone until now, my young friend. I hope relating our special story in this way is all right so that others might feel a bit of the quiet Christmas spirit of love and charity that we felt that day.

Perhaps it’s because of my affiliation with the Hawaiian saints that I’ve always liked the personal experience of Joseph F. Smith to illustrate the importance of worthiness. At the age of fifteen, Joseph F. Smith was called on a mission to the Hawaiian Islands. This future prophet of the Church relates the following personal revelation:
I was very much oppressed, once, on a mission. I was almost naked and entirely friendless, except the friendship of a poor, benighted, degraded people. I felt as if I was so debased in my condition of poverty, lack of intelligence and knowledge, just a boy, that I hardly dared look a white man in the face.
While in that condition I dreamed that I was on a journey, and I was impressed that I ought to hurry – hurry with all my might, for fear I might be too late. I rushed on my way as fast as I possibly could, and I was only conscious of having just a little bundle, a handkerchief with a small bundle wrapped in it. I did not realize just what it was, when I was hurrying as fast as I could; but finally I came to a wonderful mansion, if it could be called a mansion. It seemed too large, too great to have been made by hand, but I thought I knew that was my destination. As I passed towards it, as fast as I could, I saw a notice, “Bath.” I turned aside quickly and went into the bath and washed myself clean. I opened up this little bundle that I had and there was a pair of white, clean garments, a thing I had not seen for a long time, because the people I was with did not think very much of making things exceedingly clean. But my garments were clean, and I put them on. Then I rushed to what appeared to be a great opening, or door. I knocked and the door opened, and the man who stood there was the Prophet Joseph Smith. He looked at me a little reprovingly, and the first words he said: “Joseph, you are late.” Yet I took confidence and said:
“Yes, but I am clean – I am clean!”
When I awoke that morning I was a man, although only a boy. There was not anything in the world that I feared. I could meet any man or woman or child and look them in the face, feeling in my soul that I was a man every whit.[8]

For example, only a few weeks ago John Muaina shared a story that affirms the worth and influence of the PCC in combination with BYUH. John is senior vice president over Human Resources. In that capacity he coordinates the Asian Executive Management Training Program for interns from the People's Republic of China. Not long ago he was driving two interns who had completed their programs to the airport to return home. This is the way he related the incident:

I asked my wife to drive. I always do that, so I can turn around and talk to them. I asked both Lu Lu and Cindy, "Tell me the greatest thing that you learned that you'll take back to your organization." They both kind of looked at each other, and Lu Lu said, "Let me say some things, and Cindy can say others if I don't cover it. I can say truthfully that we have learned many, many principles about international business, about computers, about hospitality, hotels, and we've learned so much valuable information." Then she paused, and said, "But the greatest thing . . . that we've learned here is the love of the people here at BYU-Hawai'i and the Polynesian Cultural Center. They are so caring and giving and the thing that we will take back with us and treasure, more than just the knowledge, is how one should love their family. Since being here I really started to miss my family because I saw how important it was to the members here and I missed my child, my husband. In fact, three months after I arrived here I called my husband and I was so excited to talk to him on the telephone. I was telling him about the school and he was asking me, 'What classes?' and things of that sort. During the conversation I just felt that I wanted to tell him, 'Honey, I love you.' But he didn't acknowledge what I said, he just kept talking and asked me, 'Well, what do you do in these classes, and do you enjoy your roommate and the school?' And I said, I do. The second time I said, 'Honey, I love you.' He paused, and continued on as if he didn't even hear what I said to him. Then he started asking more questions. And the third time I said, 'Honey, I love you.' And he paused and he said, 'What are they teaching you at that school?' I said, in amazement, 'What do you mean, what are they teaching me?' He said, 'You said that three times now. What are you learning over there?' She said, 'I have learned so many valuable things over here, but I've learned how much you mean to me and how much my family means to me and I can't wait to come home and see you.' Then he paused and said, 'If that's what you're learning over there, Lu Lu, I wish I was in school over there at your BYU.' She said, 'You can't believe what I've learned.' As we hung up I said one more time, 'Honey, I love you.' And my husband said, 'I love you.' That is the first time I ever heard my husband say that to me."
Brother Muaina continued: As she was sharing this with me, Lu Lu was crying, Cindy was crying, my wife was crying, and I was crying. All four of us in the car. Cindy mentioned the same type of thing happened with her. She said, "I can't wait to get home, hug my husband, hug my parents, tell my parents how much I love them. That's what we've learned here. "

When I was serving as a young bishop with only limited experience in Church leadership and lacking much in the way of practical experience as well, I was approached by an elderly couple in my ward. They were old enough to be my grandparents. For years they had successfully farmed a piece of ground. They had been blessed in many ways and had reared a fine family. None of the children had showed an inclination to follow in their father’s footsteps as a farmer. Increasing age and declining health had brought the couple to a point of decision as to what should be done with their farm. They were reluctant to have it pass from their hands after so many years of labor and careful improvement. The children could not agree on a plan of action. Some wished to keep the farm in the family and lease it for an income to be shared among the family members; others didn’t care what decision was made.

One Sunday afternoon the couple appeared at my office in the ward chapel and asked to consult with me. They explained their dilemma and their reluctance to make a decision that might divide the family and jeopardize their own welfare for the remaining years of their lives. “We have come to you, bishop,” the old gentleman said, “to ask you to find out for us what the Lord wants us to do.”

I was humbled by the sincere trust that the couple were willing to place with me, but I sensed that the decision they were attempting to lay upon me and upon the Lord was not ours to make. I counseled them in the best way I could, tried to help them weight the alternatives, and then recommended that they prayerfully reach a decision themselves and ask their family to sustain them. They left my office in great disappointment, making it quite clear to me that they felt I was not fulfilling my responsibility as a bishop.

Many people who lived in those former colonies have joined the Church. Church members say this may be because the retornados are more open to new ideas. They were also humbled by their change in life-style and the loss of most of their material possessions when they left Africa.
“We lost everything we had,” recalls Arnaldo Teles Grilo, patriarch of the Lisbon Portugal Stake. “And it was a good thing.”
Involved in banking in Angola, he had owned four houses and several cars. Now he and his wife, Eugenia, live in a small apartment in a suburb of Lisbon. They have a few artworks as mementos of Africa and, in one corner, a small portion of the fine library they once owned. “Life was very hard here when we returned from Africa, because we lost so much,” Brother Teles Grilo says. But, he explains, their situation compelled them to consider the greater importance of eternal blessings when the missionaries taught them the gospel.
The Teles Grilos were baptized in 1977 and sealed later in the Swiss Temple. He dreams of the day when there could be a temple in Portugal. The cost and the rigors of the trip now keep some worthy Portuguese from traveling to Switzerland to partake of sacred ordinances in the temple there. It is approximately 2,500 kilometers, and the trip takes two days and a night on the bus.
“But at the end of the journey, when we see the temple,” Brother Teles Grilo says, remembering their feelings, “what’s the sacrifice? What’s the journey?” More than 250 Portuguese members went on last year’s temple excursion.

I had been tidying my house, but I couldn’t even vacuum the floors and dust my furniture, because I had so much clutter laying around. God’s house is a house of order (D&C 132:8), and I needed to make mine that way too. A wonderful thing happened to me in the process of tidying my house – I found some “hidden” treasures. Most of us are familiar with the story in the New Testament about looking for a lost coin (Luke 15:8-10). Today, I was looking for my original birth certificate that I needed for applying for a free bus pass.
In the process of looking I found lots of other surprises, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find my birth certificate. I knew that I had originally put it into the top drawer of my filing cabinet in a light brown money belt; but I couldn’t find it anywhere. Then I looked through all the other file cabinet drawers, to no avail. The other drawers were filled with old bank statements, car repair bills, pay-cheques, house and car insurance documents, etc., but there was no birth certificate to be found anywhere.
Finally, after spending an hour searching, I prayed for help from Heavenly Father to find the lost document. I felt (through the Holy Ghost) that my birth certificate was indeed in the top drawer of my filing cabinet. So, I went back to the drawer and looked through all the piles of papers again. Imagine my surprise when I got down to the very bottom of the drawer and found my birth certificate in a blue pouch. That was when I remembered that I had changed where I stored my birth certificate about two years ago. I’m so glad that the Holy Ghost remembered where my birth certificate was.

The choppy waters of the North Sea gently rocked the Speedwell anchored at Delfshaven, Holland. Crowding the ship’s deck were the passengers, along with their families and friends who had come to say good-bye.
Roger gathered his little sister Ellen into his arms. “Be happy that you are going to America,” he said. Ellen wrapped her arms around his neck, and her tears wet his cheek. Releasing herself, she ran to her parents, Kathrine and Edward Howard.
“Oh, Papa! Mama!” she exclaimed. “I don’t want to go away and leave my sister and brother behind.”
“Don’t worry, little sister,” Sarah said, comforting her. “Roger and I will come to America before long. Just wait and see. And remember, Ellen, although you’re almost the littlest Pilgrim on board, you must be brave, because you’re going to a brave new world.”
“Sarah, why are Pilgrims so poor?” Ellen asked. “If we were rich enough, our whole family could go to America. Then I wouldn’t feel so awful.”
“Come on, Ellen, dry your tears. I’ll tell you what—let’s play one more game of pretend before you go. Let’s pretend that I have lots of bags of gold,” suggested Sarah.
Ellen liked to play pretend with Sarah. “What are you going to do with lots of bags of gold?” she asked.
“I’m going to buy a whole fleet of ships. I’ll tell all the Pilgrims to get aboard, and I’ll take them across the ocean where they can never be persecuted again.” Sarah’s smile broadened. “Better still, let’s pretend that I’m a genie. I’ll wrap a magic web around King James, and I’ll say, ‘Aye, Your Majesty, you’re going to be banished to a faraway island where you can never rant and rave and thunder at people or throw them into prison or hang them or clap them into the stocks again. Never again will you tell people how to worship, for they will belong to any church they like.’ And then I’ll sit and watch while he flies into a rage. His beard will bristle, and his face will turn red. Then he’ll spin off into the air to an island of peacocks and apes.”
As Ellen giggled, Sarah hugged her and said, “See, it’s better to laugh than to cry.”
Edward Howard had gone down the plank for one more piece of equipment. When Ellen saw him returning with a strange, heavy load, she asked, “Papa, why are you bringing that big iron screw clamp onto the ship?”
“I’m not sure,” he replied, “but something tells me we’re going to need it.” Papa had worked at the docks for the twelve years they’d been in Holland; he understood about ships.
Sarah and Roger were small when their parents had fled from England to Holland with a group of Separatists, or Pilgrims, but they still remembered the persecutions of King James I. Ellen had been born in Holland, and she loved it because it was home to her. The Dutch people were good to the Pilgrims, allowing them to worship as they pleased. But now the Pilgrim children were speaking mostly Dutch, and the older ones were marrying into Dutch families.
“No one would ever know you’re a little English girl,” Mama once said to Ellen.
“We need to find a country of our own,” Papa declared.
In church on Sundays Ellen bowed her head and listened to Elder Brewster pray. He always thanked Heavenly Father for the kindness the Dutch people had shown them, but lately he had been adding, “Please don’t let us lose our English heritage. Guide us to a land where we can worship as we desire and where we can bring up our children as Englishmen.”
Finally, the prayers were answered, and everyone knew that America was to be their land of promise. A London company agreed to pay their passage there in return for furs, fish, and lumber from America. A patent was given them to settle in the northern part of the Virginia colony. What the Pilgrims didn’t know was that the settlers in Virginia were still bound to the Anglican Church, because King James was not interested in granting freedom of worship to any of his subjects anywhere. However, the king was very interested in the wealth that the English emigrants would send back to England from America.
Since not everyone could go to America at once, it was agreed that Elder Brewster would go with the first group. Pastor John Robinson would remain with those who planned to come later.
So on a July morning in 1620, the emigrants gathered on the deck of the Speedwell and knelt with Pastor Robinson. He stretched his hands toward heaven and, with tears streaming down his cheeks, commended them to the Lord. Then he disembarked.
The people on shore were also crying as they watched the departing ship. Aboard the Speedwell, the rails were crowded with excited, heavyhearted passengers frantically waving a last farewell to those still lining the quay. Ellen waved at Sarah and Roger until they were finally lost from view.
They sailed for England where the Mayflower awaited them. From there the two ships started for America but had to turn back when the Speedwell began leaking badly. The passengers on the Speedwell had to board the Mayflower. Finally the Mayflower, with 102 passengers and its crew, set sail for America on September 16, 1620. Of these voyagers, only thirty-five were Pilgrims. The others were either members of the Anglican Church or strangers and had no intention of changing their religion.
Master Christopher Jones was a rough seadog, as sea captains sometimes had to be. He was also good and kind. He loved his stout, chunky Mayflower and said of her, “Aye, she is apple-cheeked, double-decked, and a fine, sweet ship.”
Closely packed below deck were the stores and livestock of the colony—goats, swine, poultry, bread, butter, cheese, eggs, fish, vegetables, clothing, books, cooking utensils, farm implements, muskets, armor, cannon, and goods for trade with the Indians. The ship’s cargo was so heavy that she rode very low in the sea.
While the Mayflower skimmed westward with the breeze in her sails, Ellen played on deck with four-year-old Mary Allerton, the youngest passenger on board.
“Mary,” Ellen said, “shall we play pretend?”
“How do we play pretend?” Mary asked.
“Well, first, you make believe you’re my sister. Now I need to find a brother. Let me see … John Howland will be just right.” Walking briskly up to him, she said, “Ahoy, mate. A jolly good day it is.”
“Righto!” replied John, grinning. “That it is.”
“Aye, and a jolly good day for pretending,” Ellen added. “Would you like to pretend you’re my brother?”
“I’d like that very much,” the boy answered.
“Then it’s all settled. We are a family. Families stick together on ocean voyages and help each other.” Pretending helped ease Ellen’s homesick longing for Sarah and Roger.
One day a gale came shrieking out of the north. It tugged at the rigging, and the ship strained and groaned. Below deck, the passengers huddled together and comforted each other.
Clinging to her father, Ellen cried, “Papa, is the ship going to sink?”
“No,” he replied. “The Lord wants us to arrive in America.”
“How do you know, Papa?”
“Because He saved us once before when we fled from England and were driven by storms on the North Sea. When the water washed over us, the mariners cried out, ‘We sink! We sink!’ With divine faith, Elder Brewster cried, ‘Yet, Lord, thou canst save!’ The ship recovered, the violent storm ceased, and the Lord filled our minds with much comfort.”
Just then a wall of water lashed across the deck of the Mayflower. Wood cracked and splintered, and the main beam buckled, pulling deck boards with it. Water seeped through to the lower deck.
Cries of terror went up. “The ship is sinking!” a seaman cried.
“Brewster,” a stranger sneered, “I’ve heard about the miracle on the North Sea. See if your prayers can save us now.”
Elder Brewster looked the man in the eye and said, “We know for a certainty the Lord can save. But right now we need to combine work with faith. Come, let’s be up on deck.”
Strong and lusty seamen were struggling against the winds and the waves. The passengers ran to help them push boards against the fractured beam, trying vainly to press it up and together again.
“This iron muscle will help!” Edward Howard shouted. He came forward carrying the great iron screw clamp he had brought from Holland, and the mast was soon repaired. In gratitude the Pilgrims knelt while Elder Brewster committed them once more to the Lord.
For several days the Mayflower wallowed in the subsiding storm. At the first hint of sunshine, Ellen tugged at John Howland’s hand. “I need you to walk on deck with me,” she said.
“All right, little sister, we both need the fresh air.”
On the upper deck, Ellen admiringly patted the main beam so securely mended with her father’s clamp. At that moment a capricious wave sloshed over the deck, and John was washed overboard. Clinging to the mast, Ellen screamed and screamed. Swiftly sailors came. Miraculously John had caught hold of the topsail halyard (rope) that was dangling over the side. The halyard ran out at length, but John held on tightly, and the sailors hauled him in.
Relieved, Ellen buried her face in her hands. “Lord, thank Thee for helping John get hold of the halyard,” she whispered.
Waves and wind were gentle at last. Sailors climbed rope ladders up the mainmast and loosed the sails. While the Mayflower sailed smoothly under the stars, the passengers sweetly slept.
When Ellen awoke, she heard the cry of a newborn baby. Her feet swiftly pattered past the cabin doors until she came to the bedside of Elizabeth Hopkins. Wrapped in a blanket beside her lay the tiny baby. Ellen stared in wonder.
Little Demaris Hopkins grinned and announced, “He’s my brother!”
“Just imagine, Demaris, having a brother born in the middle of the ocean!” Ellen exclaimed.
Steven Hopkins, the baby’s father, patted Ellen on the head. “Guess what we’re going to name him! We’re going to call him Oceanus (Latin word for ocean).”
“Oh, my!” Ellen exclaimed and ran swiftly to tell her mother.
Every day Elder Brewster led the daily prayers, in spite of jeers and complaints. If mighty King James had not intimidated the Pilgrims, however, surely the strangers on board could not.
One of the worst tormenters was a huge, brawny seaman. “Aye, I’ll be burying half of you praying psalm singers at sea,” he taunted. Often he cursed and swore at them bitterly. Then one morning he was stricken. By afternoon he was dead, and his lifeless body was lowered over the side of the ship.
For sixty-six long days and sixty-six long nights, they sailed westward. On the dawn of November 10, 1620, the lookout spied a faint dark line off the starboard bow and raised a cry: “Land, ahoy!” Excitedly the passengers crowded the rail, peering toward the horizon. “Aye, there she is!” Edward shouted. Encircling his wife and little daughter in his arms, he said, “We’re almost home. There is our first glimpse of America.”
All about them people were laughing and crying. As the promised land came closer into view, the Pilgrims burst into songs of joy.
The Mayflower now dropped anchor in Provincetown Harbor, at the tip of Cape Cod. The Pilgrims were heartened, for they had reached the land they had sought so long. But winter was approaching, and they knew they must find a place to settle before the storms came.
A party of men set out to explore the coast. They found a sheltered harbor and a spot where a brook met the sea. There they chose to build their homes. On December 25, they began erecting the first house, and before long the settlement was called Plymouth.
There, through the long, cold winter, the Pilgrims endured hunger and sickness. Many died, but the survivors helped one another and kept their faith.
In the spring, the Pilgrims met the Indians, who taught them how to plant corn and hunt. By autumn the harvest was plentiful, and Governor Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving to the Lord for their blessings.
And so the little girl who had played at pretending with her brother and sister had lived to see her people’s prayers answered. The Pilgrims had found a home where they could worship God in freedom.

In 1988 life was pretty normal for Jared Anderson of Pocatello, Idaho. Much like other ten-year-old boys, he had a paper route and assigned chores around the house. He loved to play basketball and baseball and ride bicycles with his friends. But during that year his life changed quite dramatically when he suddenly became responsible for assisting with his mother’s care.
Thirteen-year-old Jared still remembers the pain he felt when he heard that his mother had collapsed with a grand mal seizure one April Sunday in 1988. Jared was visiting that day at his grandmother’s home when a phone call came from the hospital. Tests and surgery later that week confirmed that Marcia Anderson had two types of brain cancer. Doctors gave her three months to live. “I was really scared,” Jared recalls. “It was so frightening to hear that my mother was dying. She has been my best friend. She’s always been there when I’ve needed her.” Now it’s Jared who is there when his mom needs him. He is the youngest of four children in Neil and Marcia Anderson’s family and has the most time at home to be with his mom. Jared’s oldest sister, Trina, is married; his brother, Shane, is on a mission in Roanoke, Virginia; and his sister Kim is a senior in high school.
After Sister Anderson’s surgery, she had to relearn everything—walking, speaking, reading, writing, and dressing herself. She has been involved in extensive physical therapy—all of which Jared has learned to help her with. She still suffers from seizures. So nurses taught Jared how to reduce the danger of her seizures by catching her when she would fall and holding her head so it wouldn’t be injured.
“Jared has a kind of sixth sense,” his mother recalls, “and he always seems to get there to help me at the very moment I need him.” But Jared explains that any boy would do that for a mom he loved.
Jared has cheered his mother on as she has outlived the doctors’ predictions. He has helped her progress from bed to wheelchair to walking again. Through it all, Jared has turned to his Heavenly Father for help. “Even when she’s having seizures, I always stop and pray for help, but I remember also to ask Heavenly Father that his will be done.” He adds, “It has taught me a lot about patience.”

One of the mountains we had to climb was when we were making all the arrangements with my wife’s family for our marriage. Her family, who is Catholic, made it a condition that if I wanted to marry their daughter, we had to get married religiously in the Catholic Church. We were completely at a loss as to what to do.

My wife and I said to each other that temple marriage is a commandment of God. We have faith in Him and in His son Jesus Christ; we shall pray and fast, and then whatever our Heavenly Father will reveal to us we shall do it, even if it is to get married in a Catholic Church. We decided to meet with my wife’s family to ask them if we could all pray together. If our Heavenly Father reveals to us that we should get married in the Catholic Church, then we shall do it. But if God reveals to us that we should get married in the temple, then we would invite my wife’s family to accept that answer. The goal: to accept the will of God.

After we prayed and fasted, our Heavenly Father revealed to us that we should get married in the temple. To our great surprise, my in-laws did not challenge us anymore.

We are married now for three years, and we plan to go to the temple next month.

A few months ago, my mother-in-law told my wife that she felt that we had “bewitched” them during the prayer. They did not understand what had happened! My wife tenderly explained that it was the Spirit of God that touched her heart.

I learned of the importance of a strong back when I was about ten years old.
In the summertime after we had put in a full day’s work, my father would take me down to the Belly River near the edge of our small Canadian town, Glenwood, not far from the Alberta Temple in Cardston. There he taught me to swim. Not only to swim but also to eventually jump off the pier into the cold water and swim upstream against the current. It wasn’t easy. It took a lot of courage and determination—yes, and a lot of encouragement from my dad. As I recall, the water was always cold and it seemed very swift to me. What made it possible was my father swimming along beside me. I can hear his voice in my mind even today: “You can make it. Keep going.” By the end of the summer, my back was stronger from the consistent effort and constant encouragement. The water in the river had receded, and the swiftness of the current had subsided considerably—but only after I had learned the lesson. There must be opposition if we are to develop strength. The river had served the purpose my father had in mind.

When Sally was about eight years old, she lived in Salt Lake City. President David O. McKay (1873–1970) was the prophet. Sally had heard many stories of people having the chance to see him. After general conference, he always came out a back door of the Tabernacle and climbed into a big car. A huge group of people waited outside the Tabernacle to see him, hoping to shake his hand, say hello—even just see him in person instead of on television. Sally thought it must be wonderful to actually meet the prophet.
She decided she would ask her parents if they would take her to Temple Square during general conference. But she did not tell them that she wanted to wait with all the other people and maybe have the chance to talk to President McKay. This was her special secret.
It was a beautiful day—not too hot, not too cold—when Sally’s family went to Temple Square during an afternoon session and listened to conference on the Tabernacle grounds. Large speakers carried the meeting to everyone outside, because the Tabernacle—every bench, every seat—was filled with people.
As Sally walked by the open doors, she caught a glimpse of the Tabernacle Choir and the General Authorities. Her heart leaped with excitement as she thought, “Today’s the day! Today’s the day! I’m going to meet President McKay!”
She could see people starting to gather at the back of the Tabernacle. After receiving permission from her parents, she joined the group and struggled toward the front. She wasn’t very tall, so if she didn’t stand right in front, how would she meet the prophet?
At last, with a wriggle here and jostle there, she reached the front of the crowd, where ropes blocked off a pathway between the Tabernacle and the road. There, just as she had heard, waited the big shiny car.
“Not much longer to wait,” she thought. She could hear the closing hymn being sung. “Sing faster! Sing faster!” she silently urged. After the closing prayer, the organist began to play the powerful Tabernacle organ once more. It was really time!
The crowd around her pressed forward, pushing against the ropes a bit. People were pouring out of the building, many of them joining the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of the prophet too.
The big car started and pulled forward a little. A large door at the back of the building opened.
But much to Sally’s dismay, now that the car had moved, she couldn’t see a thing but the car! She could also see the heads of a few men. But President McKay was not well, so although he was a tall man, he now sat in a wheelchair. Sally couldn’t see him at all—not even catch a glimpse of his wheelchair’s rubber wheels. How was she supposed to see the prophet, let alone meet the prophet, if she couldn’t see anything?
She wanted to dash under the rope and run to the car. She wanted to climb in the car and shake his hand, say hello—something.
But all too quickly, the door slammed shut and the big car pulled slowly onto the road. It was over. He was gone.
Sally stood stunned. Her dreams! Her plans!
The crowd scattered, leaving her standing alone, staring at the ropes that had been dropped to the ground after President McKay left.
Then, a quiet whispering thought entered her mind: “Why do you want to meet him, anyway?”
“To see him and to know for myself that he is a prophet,” she almost said aloud, feeling the sting of tears.
Suddenly, she sensed a warm feeling in her heart. It was sweet and loving and slightly reproving. The thought came: “You do not need to see him to know. All you need to do is ask.”
Ask?
It was so easy, so simple! Before she could even begin to say a quick prayer in her heart, an incredible warmth filled her from the top of her head down to her toes. She knew. The man in that car, the one who had sat so quietly all through conference, the one who seemed so frail—who, to her, seemed like he must have lived forever—was without a doubt a prophet of the Lord. She didn’t need to meet him. And she didn’t need to shake his hand. He didn’t need to pat her on the head or speak to her. She just knew.
And now she understood that for the rest of her life, she could always find out that the man who became the prophet and President of the Church was called of God. All she had to do was ask.