Gospel Story Finder

Thirty-five years later, long after I had finished my military duty, I received a phone call from a branch president of the Church in South Korea. He asked me if I remembered a Mr. Park from my military service.
“Of course I do,” I answered. I had served with Mr. Park, and he had respected my beliefs and had often protected me in difficult situations.
The branch president gave me Mr. Park’s phone number, and I called him right away. As I spoke with him, Mr. Park told me that during our time together as presidential guards, he had seen a light emanating from me and had felt that he should help me. Afterward, whenever he had a hard time, he said he thought about me.
Mr. Park told me that he had two sons he wanted to be like me. He had even taken his sons to church at a Latter-day Saint chapel. One of them had been baptized, though Mr. Park had not. That son, however, was now less active. Mr. Park wanted my help and advice.
I went to see Mr. Park a week later. We had a nice visit, and I soon began to meet with his son and encourage him to return to the Church. He humbly accepted my counsel, became active, and served a full-time mission. Through his letters home while serving a mission, he motivated his father and helped prepare him for baptism. On a summer day the year following our first visit, I baptized Mr. Park a member of the Church.
What a great miracle! Their lives had been changed because of the faith exercised by a young man 35 years before.

Elder Rod Badger writes from Brazil that the miracle the gospel works in the lives of people has been his greatest eye-opener since arriving in the field. “Add that to the real love you feel for people a lot older than you, and you have the essence of missionary joy. We’ve come to love Victor Colletti who is eighty-two and was the third person baptized in his village. Since then he’s learned to read and write and has been instrumental in bringing twenty-seven people into the Church. He still spends two or three days a week doing tracting. He’s a real help to us missionaries”

One Sunday during our teachers quorum meeting, we had a lesson on patriarchal blessings. I didn’t know a lot about patriarchal blessings, so I found the lesson very interesting. The next week my aunt and uncle who recently became active in the Church received their patriarchal blessings. Then that Monday I got my copy of the New Era in the mail. I saw that one of the articles in it was titled “When Should I Get My Patriarchal Blessing?” [Aug. 2009], and that is when I started to wonder if my Heavenly Father was trying to tell me to get my patriarchal blessing. I prayed about it and received my answer. Soon afterward I received my patriarchal blessing.

We are friends with a family who goes to another church. I asked my mom if we could give them a Book of Mormon. I gave it to their mom and asked if she would read it. She said yes. A few weeks later, she had read half of it! A few months later, I fasted that they would come to church with us. They did come to church! I know Heavenly Father answers our prayers, and I love being a missionary!
Logan A., age 6, Iowa, USA

When I first arrived in Indonesia in 1976 I met a group of pioneers in central Java who helped me understand much, much more about the meaning of words such as relief, compassion, and service. These Relief Society sisters, led by their president, Ibu Subowo, were giant souls in small bodies. Every morning before they began their cooking, each sister would hold back a spoonful of rice. They kept the rice in plastic bags that they brought to Relief Society each week. After the meeting, they would gather and prayerfully consider who needed a visit. All would then go together to visit those in need, taking the bags of rice with them to share with those who had less than they did.

Consecration. The Lord’s storehouse. A society of interdependent Saints. I learned much about sacrifice, wondering what my equivalent of a spoonful of rice would be.

In December 2023, leaders from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Togo felt prompted to donate food to the community of Notse as part of the Africa West Area’s Light the World program. Notsé was chosen because of its historical significance in Togo. It is the cradle of the Ewe people and still has a king who is recognized as such by the Ewe people and their diasporas in the south of three countries: Benin, Togo, and Ghana. The current king is Togbe Agokoli IV.
On 9 December, a food donation was handed over to the king and his assistant and spokesperson, Togbe Afanwubo III. The spokesperson said of the offering, “This is the first time that I have seen a church which was not yet established in our community, making such a donation to the people.”
He expressed his appreciation for the Light the World initiative and thanked the Church for bringing the light of Christ to the widows and orphans at Christmas. “I also strongly encourage and invite your Church to be established in Notsé in the near future. I would ask your Church leaders to begin looking for land for a church building,” said Togbe Afanwubo III.
At the time there was no official congregation of the Church, but the community was already being prepared.

In April 2021, the second wave of the coronavirus outbreak swept across Fiji. My family, like many others, had to adjust quickly to all the contingency plans that were put in place to prevent the spread of the virus. Because the initial outbreak was a four-hour drive away from where I live, I didn’t think that it would have that much of an impact on my immediate family, as I was hoping that the spread would be quickly contained.
Right before the second wave of COVID hit Fiji, I had just received news of the death of my paternal grandfather. My dad, who lives on the western side of Viti Levu, wasn’t able to make it to his dad’s funeral in Suva because of the limitations in movement across Fiji as our health workers tried to contain the virus. This made me realize that the virus was a lot closer to home as it was affecting my family’s ability to physically gather in comfort for my grandfather’s funeral.
The virus continued to spread throughout Fiji. At that time, I was running a business and still had to run errands and deliveries so that I could contribute financially to my family’s income. We continued to work and put measures in place to keep our family as safe as possible. It was a difficult time trying to adjust to the changes because we couldn’t meet and gather with our extended families, which is usually what we would do on the weekends. It became mentally and emotionally challenging not being able to gather and see our families physically.
The reality of the virus hit me even more when my little family came down with flu-like symptoms. I thought to myself, “Maybe it’s just the seasonal flu that usually goes around,” but we ended up getting tested as a precautionary measure. Our results came back positive: my husband, my 18-month-old daughter, and I all had COVID-19.
The news of our positive results affected us mentally, especially for my husband and me. It felt like our symptoms grew worse and that our recovery took longer the more we dwelled on the fact that we were infected with coronavirus. Focusing on our sickness built up more fear, which crippled us mentally, emotionally and spiritually—we had no room for faith. After two weeks of being down with the virus, we realized that we weren’t showing faith in Jesus Christ because we let fear in the way by focusing on being sick. So, to counteract that, we started shifting our focus to the Saviour and the power that comes from acting on our faith in Him.
The minute we chose to have faith in Jesus Christ and to act on it, our mentality and attitude began to change, and our actions started to align with our faith. We prayed with real intent and kept expressing in our prayers that we have faith in Jesus Christ and in His ability to heal us physically. We started reading more of the scriptures and quoting scripture around the house and to each other.
We started to be a lot more optimistic, and we continued to build on hope. We didn’t feel any more fear or worry. We were happier around the house and enjoyed each other’s company. When we really started to show our faith in Jesus Christ by doing these things, we noticed that our recovery started to pick up and we were able to fully recover shortly after.
I firmly believe that faith in Jesus Christ can bring about healing power as we exercise faith in Him. We can overcome our fears and worries when we put our trust and focus on the Saviour Jesus Christ. I am so grateful that my family managed to get through COVID-19 together with the help of the Saviour’s healing power.

María Coj was a 17-year-old member of the Church in Guatemala, the oldest of eight children. She was sick with cysticercosis, a parasitic infection that comes from eating contaminated food, that with time spread to her brain, causing terrible headaches and then blindness. To give her relief from the pain, it was necessary to move her from her home in Sololá to Guatemala City. Because of convulsions caused by the advances of the illness, her condition worsened, and it was only with life-support systems that she was kept alive. It was evident that she could not live long under those conditions.
At this same time, Erika Alonzo, 12, a partially blind member of the Church, traveled 22 hours by bus from Honduras to Guatemala City to receive an eye operation. For two weeks she waited for a cornea from the United States to be transplanted to her eye, but none was available.
At this same time María died. Because her blindness was caused by pressure on her brain, her corneas were healthy. María’s father and mother authorized the cornea donation. The operation was a success.
On the 12th of July 1993, Erika traveled to Sololá to meet the Coj family for the first time. The surprised family asked her, “Can you see?” She answered, “I see everything clearly.” It was a spiritual meeting. Sister Coj, who did not understand much Spanish, because her native language is Cakchiqúel, felt the love and the spirit of the conversation. Because of the donation of María’s eyes, Erika can now see and enjoy everything around her. The death of one person and the love of her parents blessed the life of another. The medical miracle of one person being able to look through eyes of another is a surprising reality.

My father was like that. He was a scientist. He lectured to audiences in countries around the world. Once I read a talk he had given to a large scientific convention. In it he referred to creation and a Creator as he talked about his science. I knew that few, if any, in that audience would have shared his faith. So I said to him with wonder and admiration, “Dad, you bore your testimony.” He looked at me with surprise on his face and said, “Did I?”
He had not even known that he was being brave. He simply said what he knew was true. When he bore testimony, even those who rejected it knew it came not by design but because it was part of him. He was what he was, wherever he was.

I had many chores to do when I was about five or six. One of the most important was to gather the eggs about sundown each day.
We lived on a small farm on the south edge of Thatcher, Arizona. Our home was on the corner with open farm country south and east. Back from the home were the well, the pump, the windmill, a big wooden tank for our supply of water, the tool building, and a little farther back, a very large woodpile.
Then came the pigpens, corrals, haystacks, and the grainery. All these places were ideal for the hens to hide their eggs, so it was no small job for a boy to find the hidden nests of eggs. By experience, I became a good spy. Accordingly, every evening about sundown, I took the rather large bucket and scoured the area, and brought the eggs to the house.
One day, my mother took the three youngest of us for a long walk. We walked up the dusty road to the bishop’s home, Fannie in the baby buggy and Alice holding on to it. I carried the bucket of eggs.
As we walked along, I said, “Ma, why do we take the eggs to the bishop?”
She answered, “Because they are tithing eggs and the bishop receives the tithing for Heavenly Father. You remember every evening when you bring in the eggs, I have you count them out. The first one goes in the small basket and the next nine go in the large basket. Then we take the big basket of eggs down to the store and receive a ‘due bill’ for them. With the ‘due bill’ we buy shoes and food and clothing for the family, and the smaller basket of eggs goes to the bishop.”
I first learned the law of tithing from my beloved mother.

“It was late spring when I received my patriarchal blessing. The season was at its best, and I wanted to be too; so I prepared myself to receive what Heavenly Father would have to say to me personally. There had been some repenting, some fasting and praying, and deep discussions about the meaning of it all with my parents and with a very special boyfriend. I remember well the night before my appointment with Patriarch Jones. I felt a strong need to gather myself together with Heavenly Father, and I went and stood for a time listening to the song of the crickets. I felt very grown-up that moment. Then suddenly I felt once again the pull of the stars. Kind of self-consciously at first, I stretched down on my back on the prickly grass, as I had done so often as a child. Then once again I took a deep breath and turned my face skyward. I studied the heavens. And then there came to me the mind-stretching, soul-searching experience of feeling lifted up into the universe—almost into the presence of God, it seemed to me. It set my heart to pounding. I knew my prayers had reached home in heaven. The witness of the Spirit that God lives and was mindful of little me warmed me to tears.”

Twelve-year-old Caternia sat on the floor of the small, cluttered attic, rummaging through the old chest. The big, tattered coffer and its treasured contents had belonged to her great-great-uncle, Ephram Gage. The sweet, musty smell that floated out of the wooden box only added to the wonder and mystery of its contents. As soft, filtered light seeped through a small attic window, it washed across each object she touched.
Next week was Caternia’s turn to give the lesson in family home evening, and she wanted to do something different about families. “Maybe there’s something in Great-Great-Uncle Gage’s old wooden chest that might be of some help,” her father had suggested. The idea intrigued Caternia, so she’d climbed the steep stairway to the attic.
This wasn’t the first time she’d been there. In fact, it had become her secret place, where she could pray and think and read in private. Her parents had said that everyone should have such a place where they could go to pray and think things out.
Caternia shared a bedroom with her little sister, Ebony. It seemed like every time she tried to be alone, Ebony’s pet hamster, Bartholomew, would get loose, and Ebony always recruited two or three friends to assist in the hunt. By the time Bartholomew was back in his cage, the room was in total chaos—rummaged drawers, scattered school papers, and beds that looked more turbulent than her father’s just-plowed field!
After every successful capture, a victory party was held—in Caternia and Ebony’s bedroom, of course. The festivities were loud enough to out-noise, Caternia was sure, all the other sounds made since Adam, stacked together. Caternia had learned to seek refuge in the small, quiet attic.
The problem that had been most recently weighing on her mind was the big test coming up in her math class. In order to remain on the dance team at school, she had to maintain a grade of C or better. That wasn’t difficult in her other subjects, but math was especially hard for her. Her parents had helped her all they could, and so had her instructor at school, but she just wasn’t able to grasp it. If she scored well on this test, however, she would get a C for the term and be able to continue on the dance team. If she failed …
Two days earlier, one of her friends had found the test with the answers in their teacher’s desk drawer during recess and had copied it. She offered to give it to Caternia. Caternia knew that cheating was wrong, but she stood to lose her place on the team if she didn’t do well on the test.
As she sat now in the attic, mulling over what she should do, she withdrew an old World War I boot from the trunk. She pushed a fingernail into a crack and scraped out a trace of dirt, which floated like dust through the gilded light. “Dirt,” she uttered out loud. “Maybe it’s from the trenches where so many died.”
But not Uncle Gage. Somehow he had survived the bullets and the barbed wire and the gas. He had made the right moves. Dropped to the ground at the right time. “And prayed constantly,” she remembered her father having once told her, “that God would be mindful of him in his darkest hour. That he might be worthy of a loving Father’s saving grace in his time of greatest need.”
Replacing the shoe, she picked up a compass. It was old, like everything else in the chest, and scratched. But it still worked. It probably had helped Uncle Gage find his way when the smoke and fear of war clouded his judgment. Just like the gospel of Jesus Christ helps me find the way, she thought.
Her eyes faltered as guilt crept across her heart, stealing away her peace like clouds hiding the sun from the land. “But I just have to pass that test,” she protested out loud. “I just have to! I just …”
Her voice trailed suddenly as she pulled out a large tintype of a great castle. The photograph was faded and yellowed, but the castle’s walls were strong and appeared impenetrable. Like the gospel, she deduced, that fortifies one against any assault by the adversary if we keep the commandments.
“But I always do,” she defended herself aloud. “Well, almost always. Surely one wrong isn’t going to outweigh all the right I’ve done. Besides, everybody makes mistakes. I’ll repent after the test. Heavenly Father will understand.” But how much harder would her repentance be, she speculated, when she knew beforehand that what she was going to do was wrong?
As she started to replace the tintype in the chest, her eyes fell upon a hole in the bottom of one of the castle’s great walls. It was a small hole, but it went clear through the wall, and it was big enough for an enemy to slip through and do his dark work.
Caternia sat back against a large vertical timber and gazed at the picture. That’s all that the adversary needs to penetrate our spiritual walls, she reflected. Just one small hole. Just one small sin.
Her eyes lifted to the haze of light that seeped through the little window. Tears oozed down her cheeks. “Forgive me, Heavenly Father,” her lips trembled. “Please forgive me.” Her gaze returned to the old tintype. She stared at it for some time, then closed her eyes in prayer.
An hour later, she descended from the attic. She held the tintype close to her.
“Did you find something you can use in next week’s family home evening?” her mother asked.
Caternia nodded, wiping residual tears from her cheek. “Yes, I did,” she got out. “This old picture. I found it in Uncle Gage’s—”
“Is everything all right, honey?” her mother interrupted when she saw her daughter’s tear-red eyes.
“Yes, Mama. And I’m going to make sure it stays that way, no matter what!”
The following day at school, she told the girl who had offered to share the test questions with her that she had chosen not to cheat. Caternia explained why and encouraged her friend to do the same.
For the next few days, she studied diligently. It wasn’t easy, but she had committed to do all she could do, then ask Father in Heaven for His help. The day after the test, one of her friends saw her crying by her locker.
“Did you fail the math test?”
“No.” Caternia smiled. “I got a B-.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“Because I’m so happy!”
Following family home evening the next Monday, Caternia went to the attic to return the tintype to Uncle Gage’s chest. As she placed it atop the other contents, she gazed one last time at it in the amber glow of an old lamp. She again promised herself and Heavenly Father that she would work each day to keep her spiritual walls strong. She gently ran a finger across the castle’s walls and remembered with warmth the special feeling that had filled her halfway through the test—a feeling that told her in a quiet, whispered way that Someone was with her. She closed the lid of the trunk, leaned back against the timber, and expressed her gratitude to a loving Heavenly Father for helping her in her hour of need.

5 April 2015, President Thomas S. Monson announced in General Conference that a temple would be built in Ivory Coast. Due to the difference in time, most of the members in Ivory Coast did not hear the announcement live, but heard mainly by word of mouth. Large groups gathered in meeting houses later to view the rebroadcast. They patiently waited to hear the “Ivory Coast” name. There was great emotion when they heard the announcement. Brother Mathieu Brou Baah, a family history consultant exclaimed to all around him, “We got our temple!” There was great joy seeing an answer to years of fervent prayers.

A recently married daughter of a friend wrote her mother, describing how she and her husband were managing to save money on their meager income. She excitedly explained: “I’ve discovered that often prepared foods are too costly for our budget, so I make most things from ‘scratch.’ The other night at Relief Society I even learned how to make milk, buttermilk, condensed milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, and creamed cheese from the powdered milk we had stored. It’s fun to see how much I can save by doing things myself.”

For Laurentino Moreira, the gospel was a new-found treasure to give to those he loved. In sharing it, he began a chain of events that has led to more than one hundred conversions—and perhaps saved the life of his brother Joaquim.
Laurentino—Tino to his friends—was at home one day in Porto, the second-largest city of Portugal, when two young women knocked at his door. He told them politely that he already belonged to a church and had no interest in the religion they wanted to discuss with him. But when they asked if he would like to see a movie at their chapel, he agreed.
The movie, The First Vision was interesting enough that Tino agreed to listen to one of the missionary discussions, and one discussion led to another. By the second one, he was beginning to feel a spirit that he liked very much. He realized that what these young women were teaching could change his life.
“When the missionaries told me that through prayer I could ask God about the truth of things, this was not a new idea for me,” he explains. Three years earlier, he had read a series of books about ancient civilizations and had concluded that God must have had a part in their origins. For more than two years, Tino had recited prayers, the way he had been taught as a youth, entreating God to help him learn more about those civilizations. (He feels that those prayers were largely answered when he was taught about the Book of Mormon.)
One night after he began hearing the missionary discussions. Tino had one basic question about Church doctrine: Was Joseph Smith a prophet of God? So Tino asked Heavenly Father that question. Immediately, “I began to feel a peace and a great joy at the same time. I began to smile, and immediately, I was happy. I said to myself, ‘Well, this is the answer.’”
He couldn’t keep what he was learning about the gospel to himself. Previously, “I had believed that life didn’t end with death,” Tino remembers, but he had only his own theories about what came after mortality. Now that he had heard of the plan of salvation, he wanted everyone else to know, too. “I had some great friends. I felt the need to share this good news with them.”
One of those “great friends” was his brother Joaquim. When Tino invited Quim (pronounced “Keem”) to his baptism, Quim was surprised to learn that his brother had even been attending a church.
The brothers had developed different interests through the years, and Quim used drugs, lived a dissolute life, and claimed not to believe in God. He was on a downward spiral. “Maybe if I hadn’t learned about the Church, I wouldn’t be alive now,” Quim reflects. But because Tino wanted some of his family to attend his baptism, Quim agreed to go.
The chapel was a different world to Quim, with its wholesome atmosphere and well-groomed people. After the baptism, Quim was invited to hear a missionary discussion, so he stayed. He responded positively to all of it. “I was surprised at myself,” he says.
At the end of the discussion, Quim was asked to offer the prayer. “I had never offered a prayer in my life,” he says. But the missionaries taught him how to do it. “I never have offered a better prayer than I offered at that moment,” he recalls. At the end of it, “I stood up—and I felt like I was flying!” He asked the missionaries repeatedly: “What is this? I don’t understand. What is this I am feeling?” A great sense of peace, light, and joy had come over him. All evening, Quim kept talking about what he had felt.
By the next day, however, he had almost convinced himself that the experience hadn’t really been so important. “Listen, Tino,” he said, “I don’t want to go to your Church anymore.”
But during the following week, the desire to know why he had experienced such wonderful feelings after that prayer built up in him. Quim’s resolve to stay away from Tino’s church collapsed. It was late at night, Tino recalls, when Quim shook him awake to say, with some intensity, “I want to go to church tomorrow.”
“And from that moment, I wanted to be baptized,” Quim says. “As soon as I heard the other discussions, I believed.” It was a joyful discovery to learn “that our Father cares about each of his children.” He was baptized just three weeks after his brother was.
Tino served diligently in every Church calling extended to him following his baptism, but after a couple of years, he realized that there was more he could, and should, give—the time required for a full-time mission. He felt that, by serving a mission, he would be able to help other young people find answers to the same questions about life that had so perplexed him a few years earlier.
Like Tino, Quim served a mission in Portugal. When Harold Hillam, president of the Portugal Lisbon Mission, told Quim, “Brother Moreira, you’re going to be a missionary,” Quim replied: “How? I have no money, my parents aren’t members, and I’ll have to quit my studies.” But the mission president insisted that he must be prepared to go on a mission in a few months, and Quim continued to pray, asking the Lord how it could be done.
One night, in a dream, he saw himself dressed as a missionary, leaving home with his suitcases, and he awoke knowing that it would happen. Financial help was found through the Church, and Joaquim Moreira left school to accept the call. That is a very important decision in Portugal, for it is difficult to gain readmission to a university.
When they talked to their parents about going on missions, the two young men expected sterner opposition. Perhaps the elder Moreiras did not withhold their permission because they were grateful for the Church’s influence on their sons. Nevertheless, the parents—particularly Tino and Quim’s mother—resisted the idea of changing religions themselves.
But the influence of the gospel continued to work in the lives of Quim and Tino’s family. Shortly after Tino entered the mission field, their father was ready for baptism. Tino, who was working nearby, had the privilege of baptizing him. Their mother declined at first even to read her sons’ letters from the mission field. Quim sent one letter home, however, with a special prayer that she would read it and be touched. His prayer was answered, and it was not long until she was baptized by her husband.
Tino and Quim both found treasures of spiritual strength in the mission field. Quim recalls trying to teach one widow whose husband had spent much of his life as a missionary for another church. The woman had agreed to listen to the missionary discussions because her daughter was a Latter-day Saint. As one of the discussions progressed, however, she found it too difficult to accept the idea that the teachings of her church were not correct. “Elder Moreira,” she said, “I don’t want to hear any more of this doctrine. I am going to labor to finish the missionary work my husband started!”
Quickly, Quim offered a silent prayer, asking what to say. He was inspired to assure the woman that her husband had already accepted the gospel in the spirit world.
Later, the woman’s daughter told Quim that after saying her own personal prayers that evening, she lay meditating on how she could help her mother accept the gospel. Suddenly, “I saw my father in my room. He said, ‘That missionary spoke the truth, and I want your mother to be baptized.’”
Because of her daughter’s experience, the mother agreed to listen to the missionaries again. This time, there was a different spirit about her; she was baptized a week later.
For Tino, missionary service took an unexpected turn. Deferment of their mandatory military obligation is not allowed for Portuguese missionaries, and Tino was called into his country’s air force. He still remembers the counsel of R. Perry Ficklin, then president of the Portugal Lisbon Mission, who explained that Elder Moreira’s missionary service wasn’t over, that he was only being “transferred to another area—more difficult.” Tino went on to teach and baptize a number of people in the air force.
Quim, too, has been responsible for introducing several co-workers to the gospel since the end of his mission. The lives of the two brothers have, in fact, continued on parallel paths in several ways. Both are married now—to two sisters, also named Moreira! Both Tino and Quim, now in their mid-twenties, have also been deeply involved in Church leadership positions. Their commitment is such that Quire served concurrently as second counselor in his ward’s bishopric, as a stake high councilor, and as stake mission leader; at the same time, Tino was serving as ward elders quorum president, as first counselor in the stake mission presidency, and as director of Church educational programs for their area. (Tino now works for the Church in Lisbon, while Quim still lives in Porto.)
Was it difficult to fill all those positions and handle their other roles in life as well?
Difficulty was not a consideration, Tino says matter-of-factly. “When we chose a mission, we chose to be active in the Church.”
Two of Tino’s friends whom he introduced to the gospel—Jose Gouveia Pereiro and Hernani Cerqueira—also served missions. Tino, Quim, Jose, and Hernani have helped bring more than one hundred people into the Church and continue to be missionaries even now—long after their full-time service is over.
Tino reflects that none of this would have been possible without “that first little seed” planted by the missionaries who knocked on his door.
And now, he says, with a mixture of wonder and enthusiasm, “the tree keeps on growing—so fast!”

Dan wasn’t always as helpful as he is now. The “old” Dan didn’t like to work. He was sometimes disobedient and impolite, and he didn’t study very hard. Then one day his father, Jones, met two Latter-day Saint missionaries on the street. In time, the whole family joined the Church. Learning that he was a child of God gave Dan a new point of view. His baptism and confirmation helped it grow. “I felt forgiven and clean and good,” he remembers. “And since then, the Holy Ghost has helped me do what I should. And when I repent, He helps me know I’m forgiven.”
Seeing himself differently, Dan began seeing others that way as well. “I love my brothers and sisters like I love myself. I would do anything for them,” he says. Dan changed in other ways, too. Barely able to read, he studied hard and became a good reader and a good student.
Brother Balyejusa has noticed a change in all his children. “Since we joined the Church, I don’t have as many problems with my family,” he explains. “We are now like one person. Before, we were divided.”

I would like to share another experience of faith. The only child in his family, Elder Hermelindo Coy said good-bye to his mother and left for the first time in his life his small village in the mountains of Senahú, Guatemala. He entered the Missionary Training Center on 14 March 1991. Although he had been a member of the Church for only two years and was very timid about talking to people, his determination to serve was great. His formal education was less than five years of elementary school in his native language of Kekchí. Spanish, the official language of Guatemala, was foreign to him.
During his mission he learned to live with pain in his leg. He rarely complained. In August 1992 he noticed, in addition to the increase in the pain, something abnormal about his knee. The diagnosis was bone cancer. A more careful exam revealed cancer in the liver, lungs, and lymphatic system; in other words, his illness was terminal. He did not understand the nature of the illness or its seriousness. With the help of a translator and using examples from the farm life with which he was familiar, he came to understand he had little time to live.
He never asked, Why is this happening to me? He did not lament or express negative feelings. He was obedient to all that was required of him. He was asked if he would like to return home, but he asked to remain in the mission and serve as long as possible, even until his death.
By October he walked with difficulty, requiring the use of a cane. He could work only a few hours each day. By December he was unable to walk. For the first time he was discouraged because he could not proselyte. His worry was always who would take care of his mother after he died.
In one of his visits, the mission president asked him to teach more of the basic doctrine to his mother, who, along with mission nurses, was providing 24-hour care. When he taught the plan of salvation to his mother in his native tongue, his face radiated assurance and light. Elder Coy was understanding with power and conviction what he was teaching.
As his strength declined, he placed his complete trust in the Lord. On one occasion when the pain was very strong, he expressed in prayer, “Heavenly Father, I do not know the day or the hour that I will die, but I want to know soon from Thee about my new assignment.” He died in February 1993. His death blessed all the missionaries, leaders, members, and even nonmembers who learned of his courage to serve and endure to the end. His faith was so simple it was contagious. He never feared death. He strengthened all who knew him.

A few years ago, President Nelson came to my homeland in Puerto Rico. This was a great blessing. I had always wanted to see him. And I wanted the chance to meet him face to face. My mom said it would be hard because a lot of people would be in the meeting. I still had faith, and I prayed a lot to be able to meet him.
During his talk, I wrote him a quick letter. I had hope and faith that I would be able to give him my letter. After the talks ended, I tried to walk closer. He saw my little brother and came over to him with a big smile. Then he shook my hand! He told me, “You will be a great missionary.” I will always remember his words.

Leon Bergant of Ljubljana, Slovenia, has raced bicycles since he was 11 years old. When he began racing, he also began winning. He has since collected more than 100 trophies from major European races.
Following high school, Leon became a professional cyclist and a member of the Slovene national team. “I trained every day for about 160 kilometers,” he says. His hard work paid off. He became the Slovene national champion in the under-age-23 bracket, and he competed in the world championships held in Spain in September 1997. One day he hopes to ride in the Tour-de-France.
The course of Leon’s life and professional career was altered, however, when he attended the annual Christmas fair held in Ljubljana in December 1995. There he noticed a display for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Two young men, Elder Shea Clawson and Elder Craig Tingey, stood by the display, talking to and answering questions for fairgoers. Leon was intrigued by the missionaries’ message.
Although his family did not have a religious affiliation, as a child Leon had searched for the true church. “I knew there was a God, that there was a true gospel,” Leon explains. “In my childhood I attended my parents’ church, but I never received answers to my questions there. So I left that church thinking there probably was not one true church after all. But I still had a testimony that there is a God, that there is something that is true. When I met the missionaries, my questions were answered. When I heard about principles of the gospel like the Word of Wisdom and charity and the law of chastity, they were familiar to me. They were the words I had been seeking my whole life. What the missionaries were telling me was so amazing and so good for me and my soul.”
Leon was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church on 5 January 1996, two weeks after meeting the missionaries. Leon remembers: “It was a day I will never forget. I had a very strong testimony of the gospel, and it grew every day. The missionaries were a great example, and I wanted to be like them.”
Indeed, Leon wanted not only to be like the missionaries but to be a missionary himself. His parents were not pleased with his decision to be baptized nor his desire to serve a mission. “My family thought the Church was something bad, but I knew everything would be okay,” Leon recalls. From the time he started racing, Leon had been saving his earnings for a car. “I still had all that money,” Leon says. “It had been to buy a car, but then I realized that money was saved for something else. There are a lot more important things than a car.”
Taking two years off during his prime racing years may affect Leon’s professional career. He feared telling his teammates of his decision to serve, knowing how shocked they would be.
In addition, all young men in Slovenia are required to serve in the military, so Leon’s desire to serve a mission had to wait while he fulfilled his military obligation. But Leon had many opportunities to do missionary work and to have others look to his example. “Since becoming a member of the Church, I have prayed in the morning and before going to bed,” he explains. “When I went into the military, I slept in a room with 30 people. It was hard to kneel down and pray. But I felt I had to do this no matter what the circumstances. The first day I asked the guy in the lower bunk if I could borrow his bed, and he said, ‘Yeah, sure, but why do you need it?’ I told him, ‘I pray. Could I use your bed for a few minutes?’ He said, ‘OK, no problem.’ So I knelt down and prayed, and the room went from being very loud to very quiet. I had a lot of opportunities in the military to talk about the gospel because when I started to pray every day, I became an example for my friends. They saw that I was different. They started asking me, ‘What are you doing and what are those books you are reading?’”
Following his military service, Leon was called to serve a mission. He is the third missionary to serve from Slovenia, where the Church is very new. Missionaries have been serving in Slovenia only since 1991. Slovenia is part of the Austria Vienna South Mission.
In October 1997 Leon Bergant received his mission call to serve in Croatia, also part of the Austria Vienna South Mission, and he entered the missionary training center in England on 17 January 1998.
Today Leon still rides a bicycle—but instead of wearing the colorful uniform of the Slovene team, he wears a white shirt, a tie, and dark pants. His purpose, too, is different; instead of improving his racing times, he is finding those interested in the Lord’s Church and helping them improve their lives. And rather than collecting a glistening trophy at the end, he will take home eternal treasures—a stronger testimony of the Lord Jesus Christ and prized memories of his experiences in sharing gospel truth, the truth Leon himself sought and fortunately found.

Antonio follows Jesus by sharing his testimony. One Sunday before church, Antonio decided he would share during testimony meeting that day. He wrote his testimony down in a notebook and read from it. “I shared my belief that Jesus Christ died on the cross and that He loves every one of us and cares for us,” he says.
Antonio knows that sharing his testimony helps him feel the Holy Ghost. It also helps him feel closer to his grandad who died a few years ago. He says, “I know my grandad and my entire family support me, and that helps my testimony to grow!”