Gospel Story Finder

“I went a little farther that time!” Lewis exclaimed, marking where he had landed with a stick. A new house was being built next door, and six-year-old Lewis loved playing in the big piles of dirt. He especially liked to jump off the top of a pile with his brother and see who could go the farthest. Jumping was the next best thing to flying, and Lewis wanted more than anything to be able to fly. Not just to ride in a plane—he’d done that lots of times with his dad in a little four-seat airplane—he wanted to fly like a bird. He thought about it all the time.
Last Sunday, Lewis had been given a lesson in Primary about faith. Sister Jones had said that if you have enough faith, you can do anything—even move mountains! Lewis didn’t want to move a mountain—he wanted to fly over one. He believed that Heavenly Father could help him do that just as easily. Lewis didn’t hear the rest of the lesson that day because he was dreaming about his first flight. He knew exactly how it would be. He would jump off something very high and dive to the earth. Just before he hit the ground, he would pull out of the fall with his arms spread out and glide above the earth, rising higher and higher. He could almost feel the wind in his hair and see the look of surprise on his brother’s face as he flew effortlessly over his head. Yes, it was going to be truly wonderful!
“Lewis,” Mom called from the house.
“Yes, Mom?” he replied from the top of the dirt pile.
“Grandma is here and wants to see you.”
Lewis jumped one more time, marked the spot where he landed, and rushed to the house. “Hi, Grandma. How was your trip?”
“Oh, it was great fun, Lewis. I brought you something.” She held up a small pair of flight attendant wings that she had received on her flight home.
“Wow! Thanks, Grandma!” He had wings! Now he knew he could fly. He pinned them to his shirt and ran outside to the dirt pile. Sure enough, he seemed to jump a little farther and a little higher. The problem, he thought, is that this hill is too small. If I could find something higher, I’m sure I could pull out before I hit the ground.
The next day, Dad took Lewis with him to a construction show. One of the companies there was producing new playground equipment, and Lewis saw the biggest jungle gym he’d ever seen. He grinned. Today was the day he was going to fly!
While his dad was busy talking to some other builders, Lewis pulled the flight attendant wings out of his pocket and pinned them to his shirt, then raced over to the jungle gym. He climbed to the very top bar—about fifteen feet high—and yelled, “Watch this, Dad!” He jumped off, completely unafraid. On the way down, his leg caught on a bar and he crashed to the ground.
Lewis’s leg was broken, and his body was bruised and scratched.
“Are you feeling better now?” Dad asked on the way home from the hospital.
“Dad,” Lewis sobbed, “I don’t understand. In Primary, my teacher said that if I had enough faith, I could do anything.”
“I see. Lewis, you need to understand something about faith. The scriptures say that faith is things which are hoped for which are true. If I believed with all my heart that the oceans are filled with spaghetti, it still wouldn’t be true. Faith in Jesus Christ is true because He really did come and die for us and He really does love you. Faith in the scriptures is true because the Lord really commanded the prophets to write them so we could read them and learn about Jesus Christ. Heavenly Father obeys natural laws, like gravity. Can you see the difference?”
“I guess so.”
Dad continued, “You will be able to fly, Lewis, but on this earth the way you have to do it is by following the natural laws. When you get a little older, you can take flying lessons and get a pilot’s license of your own. Now let’s go home and let that leg heal.”
Today Lewis is grown-up and flies high in the sky as an airline pilot. But he still dreams that the day will come when he will be able to fly through the clouds on his own.

Illustrated by Shauna Mooney Kawasaki
Wow! What a haul! I love Valentine Day, don’t you?
I guess so.
What’s wrong?
Traci hardly got any valentines. I saw her crying after school.
It’s not your fault. You gave her one.
Yes, but she still thinks nobody likes her.
Heavenly Father does. He loves everybody.
I don’t think Traci knows that.
Why don’t you tell her?
OK! I’ll play with her at recess tomorrow and tell her then. And I’ll make her another valentine.
I’ll tell her that I like her too.

2003- My brother died of an accident at work. He was 30 years old. After his death, my life took a turn physically and mentally. I started having panic attacks and anxiety. I was in my first year of graduate school and this affected my ability to think clearly and complete my assignments. I was not in a good place.

Even with the sorrows I had encountered in my life starting at an early age with the passing of loved ones so close and near to my heart, I have been blessed more in return with the many gifts I have received thus far in my life. Two months after my brother’s passing in 2003, David came into my life. He was the beacon of light that I needed to rise from my sorrows and a sign of peace that my Heavenly Father wanted me to feel during a very tumultuous time of my life. Having no knowledge of my sorrows, David’s love for me by his many acts of kindness and examples slowly but surely pulled me out of my abyss and into a newfound peace.

A few years ago I had the privilege of going up to Fort Lewis as an honored guest. Some boys from Utah and Idaho were up there, and they asked me if I would go up and play soldier with them. I am sure I got treatment that very few people get. I had a private home with a houseboy. They saw that I was fed well and dressed properly. And yet I joined in with the boys and went through the gas chamber. I laid on my stomach and fired a machine gun. I had pistol practice. I pulled the lanyard on a cannon and watched the missile go to its destruction. I saw the airplanes drop napalm bombs to cause fires and destruction. My most thrilling experience was on the day of the dress parade. The boys came by saluting me as the honored guest. My, what handsome, what noble young men. They pulled at my heartstrings as I saw them—immaculate in their dress, perfect in their deportment—honor their uniform and this great country. It’s a thrilling thing, my brothers and sisters, the strength that lies in the youth of this nation. That’s why I say tonight I am honored to be in your presence.

While I was growing up, my life was carefree and simple. School and hobbies came easily to me. I didn’t have much to complain about and was generally happy.
But after I turned 19, my life changed.
When I left for my mission in Asuncion, Paraguay, I was excited. I expected things to go smoothly, just like the rest of my life had. After about four months on my mission, however, I found myself back in my hometown due to overwhelming depression and anxiety. In my mind, I’d always been successful—someone who didn’t have weaknesses, as if that were possible. Now I was consumed with fear, guilt, anger, hopelessness, and sadness. All I could think about was how much of a failure I was.
When the Saints in Zion’s Camp faced the news that they would be returning home without their expected blessing, they may have wondered why Heavenly Father had asked them to take the journey in the first place. I, too, wondered why I’d been led in a direction that didn’t turn out as I had planned.
After several weeks of feeling more sadness than I’d ever felt before, I realized I didn’t want to continue living with such a negative attitude. I knew I was not sent to earth to live a life consumed with discouragement and pessimism. After all, we are that we “might have joy”! (2 Nephi 2:25). I decided to shift my focus from the “whys” of the past to finding purpose in the midst of affliction.
I reached out to other people, became involved in new hobbies, and went back to school. I also started a daily gratitude journal. What started out as one-line entries turned into full pages as I began to recognize the Lord’s hand in my life more effortlessly. My prayers changed from wish lists to gratitude lists.
Even though my hard days didn’t disappear—they still haven’t—I now know what a difference it makes to focus my perspective on the good in life. Instead of seeing my trials as a bad thing, I decided to view them as an opportunity for growth.
Looking back on how things have turned out since I came home from Paraguay, I can see how Heavenly Father was guiding me and giving me opportunities through my experiences. I met some of my closest friends in those months following my mission, and I was able to immediately start studying at a local university, even though the deadline for enrollment had passed. That program led me to a study abroad in Switzerland, where I got to share the gospel with my host family.
Those years of consciously choosing gratitude have instilled in me a habit of thanking Heavenly Father for all things, which increases my faith in Him.

In Denmark, far out in the country, there once lived a farmer and his wife. Their farm cottage was overgrown with moss, and a stork’s nest perched on its ridge. The walls were crooked, the windows were small, and only one of them could be opened. An oven for baking bread jutted out of one wall. Outside, a hedge of elderberries and willow trees surrounded a tiny pond where a duck and some ducklings swam, and in the yard there was an old dog that barked at everyone who went by.
They did without a lot of things, but they did have a horse that grazed along the edge of the road since they had no paddock for it. Sometimes the farmer rode his horse to town, and sometimes his neighbor borrowed it. This the farmer believed was to his advantage, for country people believed that one good turn deserves another. But one day the farmer thought he’d be doing himself a good turn if he traded the horse for something more useful, though he didn’t know what it could be.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” said his wife. “There’s a market in town today. Why don’t you ride the horse to town and there you can trade it for something else. Whatever you do I’m sure will be all right.”
She tied his tie in a double bow to make her husband look more handsome. Then she brushed his hat with the palm of her hand, gave him a kiss good-bye, and off he rode on the horse that was to be sold or traded, just as he saw fit.
The sun was shining, it was hot, and there was not a scrap of shade along the way. The dusty road was filled with people traveling to market. Some had wagons, some rode horses, but many were on foot. And as he rode along, the farmer noticed a man leading a cow that was as beautiful as any cow could be.
“I’ll bet that cow gives a lot of good milk,” he said to himself. Then he called to the man, “You there with the cow, I’d like to talk with you!” And when the man turned around, the farmer continued, “I know that a horse is worth more than a cow, but a cow would be more useful to me. Shall we trade?”
“Why not?” said the man.
Now the farmer had done what he had set out to do so he should have turned around and gone back home with his new cow. But since he had meant to go to the market, he decided it would be a pity to miss it.
He and the cow walked quickly along, and soon they caught up with a man who was leading a goat. Such a fine animal it was. A goat like that I wouldn’t mind owning, the farmer thought. In the winter when it’s cold we could always take it inside. Besides, I don’t have enough grazing for a cow but I would for a goat. The more he looked at the goat, the better the farmer liked it.
“How would you like to trade your goat for my cow?” he finally asked. And the bargain was made.
He hadn’t gone far with his goat when he spied a man sitting on a big stone resting. He had good reason to rest for he was holding a very large goose.
“A fine fat goose!” the farmer cried as he lifted his hat. “How pretty it would look on our pond and then Mother could feed it our potato peelings.” She has often said that we ought to have a goose, he thought to himself, and now we shall have one! “I’ll trade you my goat for your goose and throw a thank-you into the bargain,” he said to the man.
“A goat for my goose!” exclaimed the stranger. “It’s a deal, but you can keep your thank-you for I don’t like to drive too hard a bargain.”
The farmer tucked the goose under his arm and walked on. People and animals were milling all about him as he came near the market.
The town’s gatekeeper had tied his hen in his potato patch so that it wouldn’t become frightened and run away in all the confusion. Its tail was as finely feathered as that of a cock. “Cluck! Cluck,” she said and winked at the farmer.
“That hen is a beautiful bird,” said the farmer, “I wish it were mine.” A hen can always find a grain of corn on the ground where she can scratch for her food, he thought to himself. Then she’ll lay eggs for us. I think I’ll see if I can strike a bargain for her.
It was no sooner said than done. After the farmer traded his goose for the gatekeeper’s white hen, he decided he was thirsty and hungry.
Entering an inn, the farmer bumped into one of the servants who was carrying a sack over his shoulder. “What do you have in the sack?” the farmer asked.
“Rotten apples,” the servant replied. “I’m on my way to the pigpen with them.”
A whole sackful, what an awful waste! thought the farmer. I wish Mother could see it. He remembered that last year their old apple tree only had one apple. Mother had put it in the cupboard and there it lay until it was all dried up and no bigger than a walnut. Then one day she had said to him, “I feel rich just looking at it.” He began to think how good she would feel if she had a whole sackful of apples so he asked the servant for them.
“What will you give me for them?” asked the servant.
“My hen,” the farmer replied. He hardly spoke the words before he found a sack of rotten apples in his arms instead of a hen.
The inn was crowded with butchers, farmers, merchants, horse dealers, and even a couple of rich Englishmen. The farmer sat down and, without giving it a thought, he put his sack of apples down on the stove and soon they began to simmer and sizzle.
“What’s that?” asked one of the rich Englishmen, pointing to the sack on the stove.
The farmer told him how he had traded his horse for a cow, his cow for a goat, his goat for a goose, his goose for a hen, and finally the hen for a sack of rotten apples.
“Your wife will be angry when you get home,” the Englishman scoffed.
“No,” the farmer insisted. “She’ll just kiss me and say that what Father does is always right.”
“I’ll bet a barrel of gold and a sackful of silver that she won’t,” said both Englishmen at once.
“The barrel of gold is enough and, if I lose, I’ll fill a barrel for you with rotten apples and you can have Mother and me for good measure,” the farmer declared.
So the Englishmen hired the innkeeper’s horses and carriage, and off they all went to the farmer’s house. When they arrived they drove right up to the door, where a barking dog and the farmer’s wife came out to greet them.
“Good evening, Mother,” said the farmer.
“I’m glad you arrived home safely,” she answered.
“Well, I traded the horse for a cow,” said the farmer.
“Trading is a man’s business,” she said and threw her arms around him. “Now we’ll have milk, butter, and cheese.”
“But I traded the cow for a goat.”
“How clever of you,” she said happily. “We have just enough grass for a goat, and the goat’s milk will be delicious for our supper. I can knit socks and a nightshirt from the goat’s wool. What a wise and thoughtful husband you are!”
“Then I traded the goat for a fat goose,” the farmer told her.
“Oh, my good husband, are we really going to have a fat goose in November for St. Martin’s Eve?” she asked. “You are always thinking of ways to please me.”
“I traded the goose for a hen,” the farmer said proudly, for now he realized how very well he had done.
“That was a good exchange,” said the wife. “Hens lay eggs and from eggs come little chicks. Soon we’ll have a real henyard and that is something I have always wanted.”
“But I traded the hen for a sackful of rotten apples.”
“Now I must kiss you, my dear husband!” his wife said, “for while you were away I decided to make a fine supper. I wanted to make an omelet with chives, but I had no chives. Our neighbor has some but she wouldn’t loan any to me. She declared that I could never return even so much as a rotten apple, because nothing grew in our garden. Now I can trade her many rotten apples. You have made the best bargain of all.”
The Englishmen held their sides with laughter. “From bad to worse and they don’t even know it. Always happy, always contented. It’s worth the money to see such people,” they said and gave the barrelful of gold coins to the farmer.
Yes, it pays for a wife to admit that her husband is clever. And now you know that “what father does is always right!”

This pattern can be seen in the life of Jasmine B. of Washington, USA, who received help in coping with a disease. Before contracting the disease, she was a healthy young woman who excelled on her high school track team and loved getting up early for seminary.
Then she started feeling ill. She lost 15 pounds very quickly, and no matter how much sleep she got, it became harder and harder to get up for seminary. She couldn’t run as well as she used to and was hungry, thirsty, and weak all the time.
Over a month went by before she started to pray for help. “I held off so long,” she says, “because the thought of praying for help was an act of submission, admitting that something was indeed wrong with me. It scared me.”
But because she humbled herself to seek the Lord’s help, answers started to come. She went to see a doctor, who discovered she had developed type 1 diabetes, which meant her body could not produce insulin to process sugar. Diabetes has lifelong consequences and must be carefully monitored. Even as the doctors developed a plan to help her manage her condition, she began to worry that she would not be able to continue running track.
“I never ceased to pray as I struggled to understand my new life and to control my disease,” she says. “I prayed for strength and understanding and that I would be able to accept this trial. I would not have made it through those hard days and weeks without prayer.”
Jasmine made incredible strides. Within two weeks of being diagnosed, she was back practicing on the track, and later that year she did well in state competitions. “I believe Heavenly Father has blessed me with a strong, healthy body,” she says. “Having diabetes was not the end of the world. With His help, I knew I could get through this.”
By the grace of God and through her dependence on Him, Jasmine is able to cope with her disease and have wonderful successes in her life.

A devoted colleague once shared with me an experience he had when fulfilling an assignment to put away chairs and straighten up the stake center following a stake conference. After 30 minutes of carrying out these duties, he realized that he was the last person remaining in the building. Rather than feeling alone with a rush to leave, however, he noticed that the same sweet sense of peace he had felt during the conference remained with him and was even increasing.
As he finished the assignment and exited the meetinghouse, he encountered another member who seemed to be watching him intently. Realizing what my friend had been doing, this member took him by the hand and said, “Brother, the Lord sees these small things that you do for Him, and He looks down and smiles upon them.”
Children and youth can be taught that reverence and care for the meetinghouse extends beyond Sunday meetings. Member participation in the cleaning of the meetinghouse—particularly the combined participation of parents and children—is a wonderful means of developing a sense of reverence for our sacred facilities. As evidenced from my friend’s experience in straightening up his stake center after stake conference, the very act of caring for the meetinghouse is a means of worship and invites the Spirit of the Lord.

They aren’t great basketball players, but they are determined, I thought as I watched the opposing team run up and down the court.
They were younger, less experienced, and shorter than our basketball team, but they kept on trying, even when it was clear that they didn’t have a chance of winning.
Randy, a boy with sandy-blond hair, played like he didn’t know what the score was. Although he rarely had possession of the ball, he chased it up and down the court like the whole game depended on him.
When his teammates did pass him the ball, he would carry it four steps, stop, bounce it, and pass it to another player. But the referees didn’t call traveling, and no one complained. Randy, who is mentally handicapped, was doing his best.
With seconds left on the clock, he got the ball and his teammates yelled for him to shoot. Concentrating so hard that his tongue hung out of his mouth, he shot—and missed. One of our players rebounded the ball, hesitated, and then tossed the ball to Randy.
“Shoot the ball!” our player yelled, and members of both teams joined in the cheer.
The ball went up, hit the rim, and bounced off. Again, Randy was given the ball, and again he missed. Time had run out, but the buzzer didn’t sound, and the referees stayed at half court. Everyone yelled for him to try again. This time the ball arched and swished the net, and the last two points of the game belonged to Randy.
The crowd went wild and the members of both teams surrounded Randy to congratulate him. He jumped up and down like he’d won the game. And I realized that he had.
And so had every player in that game. They had been true sportsmen: fair and generous. That night no one went home feeling angry or disappointed. There was no bragging or teasing—only fun, good feelings, and winners.

When I was in the 8th ward here on campus, Bishop Crowell once gave me a piece of sound advice. We were talking about appointments, and how most people are on time or early to their appointment with the bishop. Whether out of respect or fear, he told me to try something, and to see if it improved my relationship with the Lord. He told me to make an appointment with the Lord in prayer, and to set a date, time, and place that I would communicate with him. I tried it; in my night-time prayer, I designated a time and place where I would go the next day. I went there a few minutes early. I prayed, and I read my scriptures, and took some time to ponder. The Lord communicated with me because I went there specifically seeking guidance, and I had the desire to listen, or to hearken to his counsel.

Brother Yáñez believes that the Lord answered his prayer and allowed him to be Paola’s donor in order to change his heart. “If they had operated on my wife instead of me, I believe I would have gone on living the same life,” he says. It was not a life he is proud of—drinking, smoking, and gambling. He overcame his addictions, he says, because of the answers he received to his prayers. But it was very difficult; he acknowledges that only God could have helped him change.

Franklin D. Richards reports a day that Joseph and Emma came down from Temple Hill on the muddy slope and their buggy capsized. Neither was badly hurt, but when Joseph came to a meeting that afternoon, he spoke of what Emma meant to him. "The Prophet Joseph remarked in the meeting. . .how he rejoiced in the love of his faithful wife Emma, who had given her hand, her heart and her soul to him in Harmony, Pennsylvania, when first he had been called to the work of the Lord, and had braved all these difficulties with him; and he made this remark, that whatever happened to Emma, he would go, if he had to go to hell, to find her and bring her home, that she might share with him the blessings of his exaltation as she had shared with him his sufferings. He rejoiced greatly in the anticipation of these eternal family relations in the future." (Collected Discourses, Vol.5, Franklin D. Richards, October 5, 1896)

Daniel L. Carter
As a young boy in Idaho, Dan Carter often cried when he listened to the Tabernacle Choir at conference time because the music was so beautiful. He said, “I always yearned to be able to share my testimony and feelings of the gospel through music.”
When he was asked to write a song to help prepare boys to receive the priesthood, he worried about his ability to write one that boys would enjoy singing. “After several weeks of working and rewriting, an idea for the music came. … I felt … sure that this song [‘A Young Man Prepared’] could help boys.”

“I remember being called into the bishop’s office for an interview,” said Elder Steve Lloyd of the Casper (Wyoming) Fifth Ward and the Switzerland Geneva Mission, “and realizing that I’d been thinking about the same things the bishop had. He said the Lord had called me to be the first assistant in the priests quorum, and I realized the Spirit had been preparing me to accept the call. It would be tough to be a missionary and not have had experiences like that with the Holy Ghost. You might not recognize what it was when it tried to prompt you.”

The miracle of the mortal body became apparent to me one afternoon when I was holding my first baby. It was a girl, and suddenly she seemed to stop breathing. I tried to force air into her lungs. I cried to the Lord in desperation, and after only a few seconds that seemed like an endless hour, she began to breathe normally again. The problem was diagnosed as an enlarged thymus gland that needed treatment. I shall never forget how grateful I was for the miracle of life and for the power of the body that I knew that day. I determined to do my very best to help her use her life as the Lord intended when he gave her to me to care for and love.

I try to always be available to help others in my ward, but on occasion I have been the one in need of service. Once when I needed to paint a room in my home before moving, I was in the middle of final exams and also had to leave town for a wedding. When I mentioned these circumstances to a sister in my ward, she told me she would get some other sisters together to paint the room. Their service saved me lots of time and money.

One day while Elder LeGrand Richards was Presiding Bishop of the Church, he met a young boy carrying a large odd-shaped pumpkin. Bishop Richards asked the boy what he planned to do with it.
“I’m going to give it to my bishop as tithing on the crop I have raised all by myself,” the boy replied.
Bishop Richards asked the boy’s name and then talked with him about the blessings that come to us as we pay our tithing because we are sharing with others.
A few days later as Bishop Richards was leaving the regional storehouse in Salt Lake City, he saw an old couple loading their small wagon with supplies from the storehouse. Looking more closely, Bishop Richards saw the boy’s pumpkin in their wagon. Its large size and odd shape made it easily recognizable.
Imagine the boy’s surprise when a short time later he received a letter from Bishop Richards telling him of the joy his pumpkin had brought to this grateful couple. They now had something special for their holiday dinner because a young boy was happy to pay his tithing.

One afternoon I had a math quiz. I had studied for it, but I had forgotten to have a prayer to ask the Lord to help me do my best. I was nervous and did not know what to do. I wanted to have more than a silent prayer at my desk before I took the test. I asked the teacher if I could go to the rest room. Then I left class and said a prayer. When I got back to the room, I felt very calm.
The next day the teacher gave our quizzes back, and I realized I had done well. I know prayer helps. When we do our best and then ask for His help, the Lord blesses us.

As a Young Women leader, I had been to several New Beginnings programs. But when I went to New Beginnings with my own first daughter, I saw it through new eyes.
As we waited for the program to begin, I couldn’t help wondering what the coming years would hold for my daughter: Would the young women in our ward accept her? Would they be her friends? Would her leaders love her? Would they be her mentors in the challenging times ahead?
After the opening prayer, the older young women and their leaders joined hands in the middle of the room and started singing a beautiful song:
Ours is a circle, a circle of friendship,
and just like a circle, it goes on and on
endless, eternal, this circle of friendship;
enter our circle, for here you belong.1
Then each 16- or 17-year-old young woman took a younger girl by the hand and drew her into the circle too. Again they sang the song, repeating the process until every girl was included.
In the weeks to come, I saw that this song was not an idle promise. It was a symbol for something real and wonderful. The young women in that ward didn’t just accept my daughter; they welcomed her with open hearts. She was treated by the girls her age as an instant new friend, by the older classes as a treasured younger sister, by the leaders as a cherished daughter. How grateful I was—and still am—for those girls and leaders who opened their circle and made my daughter feel wanted, valued, and loved.

A few years ago, Alice E. Smith, of Yuba City, California, wrote of a faith-promoting experience in finding a record of her great-grandfather’s death. She and her husband were returning from their annual trip to visit their daughter who lived near Seattle, Washington. Although Sister Smith knew how much her husband disliked making stops during their return journey, she asked him if they could stop briefly at a cemetery to see if there were any record of her great-grandfather’s death. She was surprised and delighted when he readily agreed to the side trip in a little town along the Columbia River.
On a hunch they drove to the nearest of three cemeteries, parked in the middle of an older section, and started to search. Within ten minutes, their youngest daughter called, “Here’s a Bailey. I think this is the one!”
With a can of water and a rag from the car, her husband carefully began to scrub away the years’ accumulation of moss, revealing the name, dates in full, and a little inscription: Note the significance of the inscription: Here’s my heart, O take and seal it; Seal it for thy courts above. Surely it was heaven-sent help that had brought them to this message from her devout Methodist ancestor to the family today.
Another family member was able to identify the inscription, taken from the old hymn “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing.”3 The divine message of that hymn will sing in the hearts of an expanding family forevermore. The word sealing will take on greater significance.