Gospel Story Finder

Kali walked into the lunchroom and looked around. All the other kids were running straight to their friends and gathering at tables. The room was noisy with excited voices and happy laughter. It was only the second day of school, but it seemed like everyone had someone to sit with but Kali.
She squeezed the handle of her lunchbox and walked to one of the tables. “Can I sit by you?” Kali asked.
A girl with a long, brown braid looked up. She huffed and shook her head. “No. It’s taken,” she said.
“OK.” Kali moved to another empty seat and set down her lunchbox.
“You can’t sit here! I’m saving that seat,” a boy in a green-striped shirt said. He pushed Kali’s lunchbox onto the floor. His friends all laughed.
Kali bent down and picked up her lunchbox again. She walked across the lunchroom and sat at an empty table. She saw someone from her neighborhood and tried to wave, but he looked the other way. Kali frowned. Why didn’t anyone want to be her friend?
Kali looked down at her food. She didn’t feel like eating anymore. She wiped her eyes, closed her lunchbox, and walked outside.
Everyone was already playing with their friends. Kali sat by herself on a bench and watched the other kids having fun without her. Then Kali noticed a boy about her age sitting alone on the grass. He was wearing a stained yellow shirt, and his hair stood up in the back.
Kali looked away. She saw a group of girls from her class playing foursquare. She wished they would invite her to play with them.
Kali looked at the boy again. His head was hanging down, and he was picking the grass around his feet. Kali remembered something Mom sometimes said: Look for the kids who are lonely.
Kali frowned. She was lonely too. Nobody was trying to be her friend!
But then Kali thought about when she got baptized last year. She promised to listen to the Holy Ghost. Maybe the Holy Ghost was helping her remember what Mom told her. Maybe the Holy Ghost was trying to tell her to play with the boy in the yellow shirt.
Kali sighed and got to her feet. A warm feeling spread in her heart. She walked over and sat next to the boy in the grass.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he mumbled back.
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Um … green.”
“That’s cool. I like pink,” said Kali. “Do you have a favorite animal?”
The boy sat up a little straighter and looked at her. “Yeah. I really like dinosaurs.”
“Oh, me too. My favorite is a triceratops.”
The boy smiled.
Then the bell rang. Kali got to her feet and waved goodbye to the boy. She smiled as she walked back to her classroom alone. She might not have a best friend, but she felt happy knowing she had made someone else’s recess a little better.

When the missionaries taught me the gospel, the friend who gave me the Book of Mormon promised me that if I read it cover to cover in English, I would learn to speak English. I took that promise seriously, so I started reading, even though I didn’t understand much at first. I read and studied the Book of Mormon every day and every night. I even kept it under my pillow so that if I woke up at night, I could start reading again.
Within a year, I spoke English well enough to work in an English-speaking call center. After saving money, I was called to the India Bangalore Mission.
During my mission, I was really concerned about not having all of my family together in the Church. One day I read this verse: “Behold, you have had many afflictions because of your family; nevertheless, I will bless you and your family, yea, … and the day cometh that they will believe and know the truth and be one with you in my church” (Doctrine and Covenants 31:2).
I felt the Spirit so strong that I knew this verse was speaking to me. It took 14 years for that promise to come true in my family. But three years ago, I baptized both of my parents. Now we are all members of the Church except for one of my brothers.
I say this often: “The Church is a place where dreams come true.” Because of the Church, I have the things I desired most. I learned to speak English. I served a mission that was full of miracles. After my mission, I met Radhika, who is now my beautiful wife, and we were sealed in the Bern Switzerland Temple. We have a four-year-old son. My family is with me in the Church. All of my good dreams have come true.

Some of us went on a 30-mile hike that took two days. Some of us just stayed at Cooper House and floated in the stream. One day we made a raft from the inner tubes, but it had a tendency to throw its passengers. Another day we tried to use inner tubes, plastic bags, and ropes to walk across the river on top of the water. Paul Anderson of Billingham Ward walked the farthest. He had inner tubes tied to his hands and knees.

With all the preparations completed, all the shopping, talks, and goodbyes with dear friends and family, my wife and I headed for the security check at the Salt Lake City International Airport with our badges prominently displayed. A nice woman just behind us in line asked the question, “Where are you serving?” As we passed through the security checkpoint, we couldn’t help but notice the subtle glances and smiles that came from the security supervisors in their elevated booth as we walked past.

While waiting for our connecting flight in Atlanta, we were approached by a government contractor who was establishing a military support facility in southern Utah and who was a member of our Church. He asked us the same questions. He was a tough, military-trained man who reached out in the most tender of ways to two servants on their way to their assignment.

And so, our mission started with the blessing of having the power of the badge.

After my father had been on his mission about eighteen months, he had great concern that he would not be able to send his wife a present for her birthday. He was very sad about this and somewhat homesick. How he wished he had something to send home for this special occasion.
This is how my father told the story:
“I prayed earnestly that the way would be opened for me to be able to send a birthday present to my wife. As I fasted, I would especially mention this desire in my prayers.
“At that time we were tracting in a sparsely settled section on top of rolling hills in the Cumberland Mountains. The houses were scattered about two miles apart, and there was little travel in the area. The people living there were very poor.
“One day we were walking along a wagon road where it looked as if there had been almost no travel for months. As I looked down, there on the ground was a beautiful breastpin. It was pinned on a card as if it had just come from the manufacturer. It didn’t seem likely that anyone in that neighborhood could have afforded such an expensive-looking pin. When my companion saw it, he said, ‘This is the answer to your prayer.’
“We inquired at every home we visited during the next few days to see if the pin belonged to any of the people there, but no one knew of it. After we had determined that no one around had lost it, I secured a box and mailed the pin to my wife for her birthday.
“She, of course, was surprised to receive such a beautiful present and wondered how I had been able to afford it. She wore it until I returned home, and when I told her that I had received the pin in answer to prayer, she stopped wearing it for fear she might lose it.”
The pin is still in our family and reminds us of my father’s missionary experiences. It is one of our most treasured possessions.

When the Titanic embarked on its maiden voyage in 1912, people said it was an unsinkable ship. However, when it hit an iceberg in the middle of the north Atlantic Ocean, it began to sink. The captain told everyone to get to the lifeboats, but they were convinced they were on an unsinkable ship. Most passengers saw no need to get on the lifeboat—until the Titanic tilted dangerously to one side. Then everyone wanted to get on a lifeboat. 1
But by then, it was too late.

I was told once of a young man who for many years was more or less the brunt of every joke in his school. He had some disadvantages, and it was easy for his peers to tease him. Later in his life he moved away. He eventually joined the army and had some successful experiences there in getting an education and generally stepping away from his past. Above all, as many in the military do, he discovered the beauty and majesty of the Church and became active and happy in it.

Then, after several years, he returned to the town of his youth. Most of his generation had moved on but not all. Apparently, when he returned quite successful and quite reborn, the same old mind-set that had existed before was still there, waiting for his return. To the people in his hometown, he was still just old “so-and-so”?—you remember the guy who had the problem, the idiosyncrasy, the quirky nature, and did such and such. And wasn’t it all just hilarious?

Little by little this man’s Pauline effort to leave that which was behind and grasp the prize that God had laid before him was gradually diminished until he died about the way he had lived in his youth. He came full circle: again inactive and unhappy and the brunt of a new generation of jokes. Yet he had had that one bright, beautiful midlife moment when he had been able to rise above his past and truly see who he was and what he could become. Too bad, too sad that he was again to be surrounded by a whole batch of Lot’s wives, those who thought his past was more interesting than his future. They managed to rip out of his grasp that for which Christ had grasped him. And he died sad, though through little fault of his own.

My family had family prayer and family home evening, and during those times, I learned the importance of communicating with Father in Heaven.
I remember one time when one of our puppies was run over by a car. Heartbroken, I carried the puppy into my mother. “He’s not going to live!” I cried. With her infinite wisdom, she helped me place the tiny body in a box and suggested we say a prayer. We knelt and prayed, then headed to the vet.
When the vet came into the room, he took one look at the puppy and asked why we had come. “There’s nothing wrong with this animal,” he said. But I knew that there had been—I had seen the car run over him. That was a great testimony to me about the power of prayer. I knew then and know today that Heavenly Father hears and answers our prayers.

Each of us must courageously and firmly stand up for what we are and what we believe. When President Joseph F. Smith was a young man, he was faced with this predicament:
“One morning when he and several other missionaries were returning to Salt Lake City, a group of rough Mormon-haters rode up on horses, firing their guns and cursing.
“The leader jumped off his horse and shouted, ‘We will kill anyone who is a Mormon!’ The other missionaries had fled into the woods, but Joseph F. bravely stood his ground. The man shoved a gun in Joseph F.’s face and asked, ‘Are you a Mormon?’
“Joseph F. stood tall and said, ‘Yes siree; dyed in the wool; true blue, through and through!’
“The man was surprised at his reply. He put the gun away, shook Joseph’s hand, and said, ‘Well, you are the pleasantest man I ever met! I’m glad to see a fellow stand up for his convictions.’ He jumped back on his horse and rode off with his companions” (Friend, Aug. 1995, p. 43).

Ray Ivie is also the Scoutmaster of Troop 477 chartered to the 77th Ward of the Orem Utah South Stake. A couple of years ago he and his Scouts had built some pioneering projects, lashing poles together with rope to form furniture, camp equipment, even towers.

“We had poles and ropes,” he said. “And we’d been talking about a river trip, but we didn’t have any canoes. One of the projects mentioned in the pioneering merit badge book is to build a raft. I don’t think they had anything elaborate in mind, but it started me thinking, hey, we could do that; it wouldn’t cost much.”

That’s what happens when an engineer gets loose. Soon the boys in Brother Ivie’s troop were fashioning willow sticks into model rafts.

“We did some calculating of flotation needed for the weight we planned to carry, what we’d need to do in terms of water displacement,” Brother Ivie said. “We figured out that inner tubes would give adequate flotation, and we found some businesses where tubes with holes in them were just throw-aways. For the cost of patching materials and the time spent a couple of Saturdays fixing the tubes, we had the materials we would need.” The two-level rafts were designed with inner tubes lashed together underneath a log framework.

“The whole principle of pioneering is to use what’s available,” Brother Ivie added. “Teaching the boys about that is much more valuable than hiring some commercial company to ferry them down the river. And when you know you’re going to be floating on your own raft, you make sure it’s well built. It’s not like some tower you sit on for a minute. If a raft falls apart, you’re in the drink.”

After reviewing safety procedures and checking with Green River (Utah) State Park officials, Troop 477 set sail in the summer of 1983. The trip was so memorable that Brother Ivie and his boys automatically talked with friends and family about what they had done, inviting others to go with them the next year. Brother Ivie gave them copies of his assembly and instruction manual, “The PT-13 (Patrol Transport, 13-tube, 13-foot pole, Live-aboard Ship).” By the following summer, two more troops (from the Orem 15th and 27th Wards) manning a total of five rafts were scheduled for the second flotilla.

They would test a stretch of the Green originally explored by another river lover, John Wesley Powell, at identically the same time of year that the Powell expedition came through the area in July 1869.

“The Indians called it a river of no return. They told Powell that around a bend in the river there were mighty falls,” Michael Weatherred, 13, explained. “So every time his explorers went around a bend, they’d get nervous. I bet they took time to pray they’d be all right. They were glad when they got through that they’d never met up with the supposed falls.”

The Scouts and their leaders arrived in the town of Green River on a Monday morning and started building the rafts at a state park where a boat ramp provides easy access to the river. It took a little longer than expected to assemble everything. In fact, launching was delayed until the following morning. But once underway it didn’t take long for the fun to begin.

“It was like a moving summer camp,” said Brother Ivie’s 13-year-old son, Brian. “You didn’t have to worry about getting bored. The scenery was always changing.”

The Green River Canyon is a place where the earth gets down to basics. Rock and water, water and sand, sometimes some red rock to add brightness to the land. The Missouri-wide water twists through curve after wandering curve, past side canyons where Indian petroglyphs and explorer’s signatures are etched in the stone of thousand-foot cliffs reaching to a cloudless blue sky.

“It’s such a big place,” said Adam Pitcher, 13. “A massive river, massive canyons, huge rocks. How could there ever be so much rock in one place? It’s strange to imagine a place so big, but so empty.”

“It’s kind of nice to watch the world’s history book open up as you go down the different layers,” said Brother Ivie’s other son, 14-year-old Richard. “Those rocks must be some of the oldest rocks in the world. It makes you think back to the creation. You look from the beginning back up to the tops of the cliffs.”

And then there was always the water. If you got hot or bored you just jumped in the river.

“My dad, my brother Richard, and I would all go floating at the same time,” said Chris Higbee, 12. “At night, Dad and I would sleep next to each other on the deck and Richard would sleep up on the second level. We’d just lie there and talk to each other. It was neat. I’ll tell my kids about it some day.”

“I couldn’t believe it when I saw my Scoutmaster dive off the second deck,” said Andrew Owens, 12. “I didn’t know he could be crazy like that. But he got right in there and did the same things we did. He likes to have fun, too.”

Jim Oldroyd, 12, told of running across flat places on the bank where silt had accumulated.

“At first it was solid, but then we’d keep running on it and it turned into mud,” he said.

“The mud’s buoyant, so you can’t sink, and it’s a lot warmer than the water, because it’s been out in the sun. A warm mud bath was just the thing to get rid of mosquitoes,” Richard Ivie said. “Of course, when you got out you looked like a chocolate statue.”

Mosquitoes were a constant plague to the adventurers. “They were the worst where there were plants and bushes,” said Scott Hafen, 14. “When we tried to pull in to shore and tie up, they’d mob us. And they’d buzz and bite all night long while we were trying to sleep.”

But despite the whining attacks of buzzbombing mosquitoes, everyone who floated the Green would return home enchanted. They’d tell of visiting Geyser Springs and Anvil Bottom, of renaming Trinity Alcove “Cobra Swamp,” in honor of the shape of a nearby rock formation. They’d brag of their climb up the steep sides of Bowknot Bend, where fast winds snatched some of their hats and tossed them thousands of feet down the canyon. And they’d tell how the river makes a nine-mile elbow to come back within 600 yards of where it started.

Jason Von Zomeren, 16, would remember how he cooled off watermelons by floating them next to him in the river. Scott Hanson, assistant adviser to the teachers quorum in the 27th Ward, would remember demonstrating his black powder rifle, teaching the young men how to load and shoot it. Months later he would still be talking about how the river trip had taught everyone to reach out to others.

“It’s a lot easier to get your boat to shore if there’s someone there to throw a line to,” he said.

Even though the Green River seems to meander, the current at the center is an express lane. At the end of four days, the rafts had traveled 68 miles. It was time for the Friday night campfire, the closing ceremony of the trip.

Each boy’s parents had sent a letter for him to read.

“We read the letters and then just thought for a few minutes. Then we bore our testimonies to each other and said how much we’d grown closer by working together,” said Jeff Barrett, 14. “People don’t always tell you how they feel right at the time, but we all did. You told everybody how you felt.”

He remembered one special incident from the trip:

“When we were coming in the last night, there was a storm and it was blowing. We all tried to row against the current and the wind. Our two leaders, the Scoutmaster and my dad, were wearing themselves out trying to get the boat in. We had to take everything down that would prevent us from getting to shore. If we missed the landing, we’d be gone down river for 70 miles more. So we said a prayer for help. After that, the wind died down for a minute and the rain stopped. We made it in before it started up again.”

The next morning, as tubes were deflated and lashings untied, as rafts became mere piles of poles to be loaded onto trucks, Brother Ivie said the journey down the Green could not have been better.

“To do a Tom Sawyer float is something every man dreams about some time in his life,” he said. “The reason I put in the hours I did was because I decided years ago that when my sons were in Scouting we’d do things together. Next year we’re going bicycling. But I can see a few years from now that I might get my daughters to build some rafts. Maybe we can take them down to Lake Powell and float next to the big houseboats.”

Isn’t that just the way Tom and Huck would discuss it?

Do you like to work? When I was a boy growing up in Sandy, Utah, my three brothers and I learned to work hard. My family had a big garden, and my father always planted much more than our family could ever eat. He gave corn, tomatoes, and other vegetables to our neighbors. When they offered to come pick the vegetables, my father said, “Oh, no. My boys will pick them and have them ready for you.” My brothers and I learned to get up at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning to weed the garden and pick the vegetables while it was still cool. I still get up very early in the morning.

In February 1846, Elder Pratt left the branches in Anaa and Tubuai, bound for the United States. He promised to return with additional missionaries. Four and a half years later, on October 21, 1850, 21 travel-weary Latter-day Saints—seven men, five women, and nine children—arrived on the shores of Tubuai.11 Elder Pratt, called to lead a contingent of missionaries back to the islands, had returned in advance of the rest of the group but was detained by colonial officials in Tahiti who were suspicious of the missionaries. Louisa Barnes Pratt, Elder Pratt’s wife, and their four daughters, however, were with the company. Louisa immediately asked to be introduced to her husband’s “old friends” Telii and Nabota. An older man guided her and the other missionaries to Telii and Nabota’s home, where, despite having been sick for several days, Telii had prepared a feast of pork, fish, po’e (a local dish made from taro root), and fruit. The rest of the evening was spent celebrating their arrival by singing himene late into the night. “The music was delightful,” Louisa said. “Their voices are loud and clear.”12

One day, I was playing a trivia game with two of my neighbors. In the game you draw a card and answer the question on it. If you answer correctly, you get to advance on the game board. I drew a card that asked this question: “One of the world’s major religions was established by a man named Joseph Smith. What is the common name for the members of this religion?” My two neighbors are not members of the Church, so they looked confused, but I had a big smile on my face. I knew the answer! I quickly said, “Mormons!” I was so surprised to read a card about my religion. I was very happy that I knew the right answer.

David had been playing for a little league team all season. More than anything else he wanted to be a regular on the team, and he wanted to be a pitcher. He never missed a practice or a game. Whenever his dad or his older brother could find the time, he’d get them to play catch with him. Even when David watched television he would wear his baseball mitt and pop a ball in and out of it almost automatically. Sometimes he’d forget to take the mitt off when his mother called him for meals, and then the family would have to wait while David put the mitt away, washed his hands, and came to the table.
Near the end of the season the coach told all the little leaguers they should meet at the ball park on a certain Sunday morning to have a special practice and to have their pictures taken. “I can’t come on Sunday,” said David.
“You’d better,” said the coach, “because we’re going to talk about our team for next year after we have our pictures taken.”
Usually, David ran home full of excitement after a ball game or a practice. But this night he was late, and he hardly answered when his family spoke to him. He was unusually quiet all week, but on Sunday he didn’t go to the ball park. On Monday he was at practice and at every practice afterward. Finally the day came for the team tryouts.
“You’ll be one of our regular pitchers,” the coach told David, “but you’ll have to play whenever a game is scheduled. We need you, and that will mean sometimes you will play on a Sunday.”
“I can’t play ball on Sundays,” David said.
“Then you’ll have to be a standby pitcher instead of a regular one,” answered the coach. And that is how it was all season. Sometimes David had a chance to pitch a game but more often he didn’t. The other boys on the team played on Sundays, but David went to Sunday School and sacrament meeting with his family.
In the spring when David was ten years old, the coach called the boys together to begin a new season and to make selections for the team. “We’ll need you for a regular pitcher this year, David,” he said. “But sometimes you’ll need to play on Sunday.”
“I’ll have to think about it,” said David. That night he talked the problem over with his dad, and then he said a special prayer for help to have the courage to do what he knew was right. The next day he told the coach he’d have to be just a standby pitcher again. The coach only shook his head.
Several weeks went by and David was at every practice. One night the coach called the boys around him. He explained that David couldn’t play ball on Sunday even though the team often had a game on that day. “But I’d like him to be our pitcher anyhow,” he went on. “If you agree, we could let David be our regular weekday pitcher and have a standby pitcher for Sunday games. How about it?”
There was a moment of silence. David could hardly breathe. The team members hesitated for only a minute, and then every little leaguer agreed wholeheartedly to the Sunday standby pitcher plan.

That August, Apostle Luke S. Johnson ordained 16-year-old Erastus to be an elder. The new elder then became junior companion to Apostle William E. McLellin during a trip into New Hampshire. At Littleton they parted, and Erastus headed West, preaching on the way and performing his first baptism—Zadock Parker. That fall he “baptized many people and organized a branch of the Church in the towns of Lyman and Littleton, in New Hampshire.”

Sister Richardson continued: “Some time ago the film Mormons, Fact and Fantasy was being shown in one of the rooms at the public library in Nottingham. My husband was going there straight from work, and I decided that I ought to be there, too, so I got on the bus and went there with our three children.
“About a half hour before the film was due for a showing, someone’s voice called out, ‘Could we have volunteers to go out into the street and invite people in and hand out leaflets?’ I thought, ‘Yes, that’s what I should be doing. That’s what I had to come for.’ Then something inside of me said, ‘You don’t really want to, though, do you? You’re afraid of talking to all those strangers.’ I thought, ‘That’s right, I am!’
“So I just stood there with a battle going on within me, and then I looked down. Three upturned faces were looking into mine. They belonged to the three little people who are very important to me. I thought, ‘What kind of a mother would I be if I didn’t show our children my faith by my works?’ We have spent a lot of time teaching our children the gospel, and I knew that I could ruin much of that teaching if I didn’t practice what I preached. I knew what I had to do.
“We took some leaflets. Our eldest little girl put on a sandwich board advertising the film, and we went down into the street below. I didn’t know if any of the people we invited actually came to see the film, but I was happy that we were doing our part, and that I had the opportunity of showing our little ones that sharing the gospel is not just something we talk about occasionally in family home evening.”

“Ship 3527 to mission control. We’re entering launch codes. Stand by.” Nathan’s four-inch-tall stuffed monkey couldn’t really talk, and he wasn’t really the copilot in a brigade of intergalactic star fighters, but as Nathan sat on a swing outside his elementary school on a warm Saturday afternoon with the monkey perched in his lap, he couldn’t help letting his imagination get carried away. He pictured his miniature copilot typing in a flurry of complicated formulas, preparing their ship to launch.
Nathan gripped the swing ropes and shuffled backward, careful not to let the monkey slip from his lap. He was now in ready position.
“5, 4, 3, 2, 1 … we have ignition!” With an explosive whoosh, Nathan shot forward into motion. Pumping furiously, he propelled himself higher and higher, faster and faster, as he imagined the two of them soaring past the moon, past Mars, out of the solar system, out of the galaxy.
“Nathan! Come over here!” The voice of one of Nathan’s neighborhood pals brought him back to reality. “Look at this sand village I built! Do you want to help? We could make it huge!”
Nathan leaped from the swing and tossed his monkey onto a nearby bench so it wouldn’t get dirty. “OK,” he said. “I’ll start on the roads.”
The boys were just finishing the town when Nathan’s mom called out from a nearby bench, “Nathan, it’s time to go home.”
Nathan stood up, brushed the sand from his clothes, and headed toward Mom. They walked across the grass, down the street, around the corner, and into their front yard. Suddenly, Nathan gasped. “Oh no! My copilot!”
After a quick explanation to Mom, Nathan ran around the corner back to the school playground. Drawing close to the familiar bench, he was puzzled to find it bare. He checked under it, around it, and behind it, but there was no stuffed animal. Desperately, he scanned the area for any sign of his favorite toy, but all he could see were swings, slides, an abandoned city of sand, and a couple of kids playing catch with their dog. The monkey was gone.
Nathan carefully retraced his steps around the playground but couldn’t find the monkey anywhere. Losing hope, Nathan was about to give up the search when he remembered something his mom had told him about prayer: “If you ask the Lord for something that’s right, you’ll receive it.” He knelt on the ground and pleaded, “Heavenly Father, could you please help me find my monkey?” When the prayer was finished, he stood and thought for a moment. “I’ll just look one more time,” he decided.
He looked up and saw the children who had been playing with their dog walking by. He was about to walk right past them when a thought came to his mind: maybe they could help.
“Did either of you see a little stuffed monkey?” he asked them.
The kids looked at each other and laughed. “Yeah,” one of them said sheepishly. “We didn’t think it belonged to anyone, so we tossed it around and let our dog try to catch it.”
“I threw it too hard,” the other boy said, “and it landed on the roof of the school. I’m really sorry.”
Nathan couldn’t help grinning in relief. “It’s OK,” he said. “I’ll get it down. Thanks!”
Later, with the help of his parents, Nathan was able to get his monkey down from the roof. He realized how blessed he had been to meet those kids before they left, and how fortunate it was that he had thought to ask them about his toy. Without their help, the monkey would never have been found. He was grateful that his prayer had been answered.
Nathan tucked the monkey firmly into his pocket and radioed mission control. “This is ship 3527. Copilot recovered. We’re ready for launch once more.”
And with a nod from his parents, Nathan shot down the road toward home, happy to be back in the pilot’s seat with his favorite stuffed friend.

Carrying an empty grain bucket, Dallas Benson glumly closed the wooden gate on his Angus show steer and headed for the granary. He kicked at a pebble, and a puff of dust exploded about his feet. Though it was still the middle of May, already the sun was hot, the air dry, the grass and weeds lightly scorched.
Dallas took a deep breath and frowned. He had hoped this would be a fun summer, with his very own four-wheeler, but his father had dashed those hopes two days earlier.
“A cow!” Dallas had groaned as his father sat sharpening a shovel. “What do I want with a cow? I’ve got a steer. He’ll bring a good price at the county fair.”
“Your steer will give you money once,” his father explained, bending over and scraping some dried mud from the shovel. “But with a good cow, there’s money coming in all the time, as long as you milk her.”
“But I don’t want a cow. I want Jake Hawley’s four-wheeler. He’ll give me a good deal.”
He could see his father was far from convinced. “How much fun can a guy have milking an old cow?” he muttered. “Besides, we already have Ginger.”
“Ginger’ll give us milk for the house, but she’s not going to make any money. At least not missionary money.”
“I’ve got money,” Dallas protested. “And I still have time to get more. It’s not like I’m leaving tomorrow.”
“Four years pass quickly.” His dad pointed the file at him and counseled, “If you buy one of those four-wheelers, you’ll just be putting money in a hole. The only thing you’ll get back is a few thrills and maybe a broken neck. You put your money in a missionary cow, and when you’re 19, you’ll have your money. And you’ll have been thinking about a mission too.”
“But, Dad, can’t I have a little fun?”
His dad started filing away on the shovel’s edge. The only sound was the loud grinding of metal on metal. He paused, “If you’ll invest your money in a cow and milk her, I’ll provide the feed. The profits will be yours.”
Dallas licked his lips nervously. “Does that mean I can’t buy the four-wheeler?” he questioned.
“Son,” his dad began quietly, “you earned that money. You saved it. You’ve been planning for a mission too. That’s good. I’m proud of you. But it’s still your money. I trust you to do what you think is right. If you think you’ve got to have that four-wheeler … well, the money’s there.”
“Jake’s going on a mission too,” Dallas argued. “We’ve been planning since we were kids, and he’s got a four-wheeler. It isn’t wicked to have a four-wheeler.”
His dad scraped the file across the shovel’s edge a couple of times. “We’re not planning Jake’s future. We’re planning yours. Sometimes a person has to make a hard choice. Not between what’s good and wicked but between two things he really wants. He has to stop and decide which of those two things means the most to him. When you turn 19 and you have money put away for a mission, you’ll go.” He cocked his head to the side and pressed his lips together. “But if your money’s tied up in a four-wheeler … well, then you’re torn.”
“Come on, Dad,” Dallas moaned, “you’re trying to make me feel lousy.”
“No, I’m forcing you to make a decision. You see, you want me to make it for you. Well, I won’t. It’s not my money. It’s not my mission.”
Dallas pulled the granary door open and hung the grain bucket inside on a rusty nail. In the distance he heard the low, muffled putter of a motor. Gradually the noise increased, and soon he saw a four-wheeler bounce over the hill, careen precariously between rocks and cedars, and smash over clumps of sagebrush. It picked up speed as it reached the dirt lane leading to the Benson place. Dallas’s friend Jake burst into the yard, scattering the scratching hens, then sliding to a halt in a billowing cloud of dust and flying gravel.
Jake thumped the handlebars with the palm of his hand and called out above the idling putter of the engine, “How’s that for driving, Benson?”
“You’re going to kill yourself one of these days,” Dallas remarked.
“What did your dad say?” Jake asked.
Dallas kicked at the four-wheeler’s fat, puffy wheels. He glanced out past the stack of alfalfa hay and watched his father in a field harrowing, pursued by a hungry flock of seagulls. “He left it up to me,” he replied morosely.
“Great! When you going to get it?”
“I’m not.” Dallas dusted his pants. “I decided to get a cow from Brother Singer. For my mission.”
“A cow instead of a four-wheeler!” Jake gasped, shaking his head. “Why do you want a cow? You buy a cow and you’ll be married to her, twice a day, every day.”
“I need mission money.”
“Shoot! We can earn mission money later. After high school we’ll get good construction jobs.” Jake scratched the back of his neck. “If it were my money, I’d get the four-wheeler.”
Dallas squatted down in the dust and started tossing pebbles. “It’s my money, but Dad helped me with it. He helped me with the feed for the steers I’ve raised. He covered for me here at home, doing my chores, while I worked for Brother Madison. He’ll let me do what I want with the money, but I know how he feels.”
“So you traded your four-wheeler for a cow.” Jake shook his head. “When you getting it?”
Dallas nodded toward the barn. “It’s there in the barn, waiting to be milked. Brother Singer brought it over before I got home from school. Do you want to take a look?”
Jake wagged his head. “I’ve got places to go and a whole tank of gas to get there.” He kicked the four-wheeler into gear, waved, and lunged up the lane with a cloud of dust chasing him. Dallas watched until Jake bounced over the hill and out of sight. Then he turned toward the barn.
The kitchen door slammed. Dallas turned to see his 10-year-old brother, Rusty, jump down the steps with a milk bucket in one hand and a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in the other. He skipped over to Dallas, licked at the jelly on his sandwich and asked, “Have you seen her?”
Dallas shook his head, still listening to the faint growl of Jake’s four-wheeler. “She’s a big one,” Rusty continued. “Looks mean too. I brought you the milk bucket. I want to see this.”
“Since when did you get interested in milking cows?” Dallas remarked.
Rusty grinned, took a bite, and said, “Since Brother Singer brought that monster he calls a cow. She’ll scare you to death.”
“Monster,” Dallas muttered, grabbing the bucket. But when he reached the barn and saw the big Holstein cow for the first time, he was surprised. Ginger, who stood in the next stanchion, was dwarfed by her. The monster cow was white with a splattering of black on her face and across her back, and when Dallas opened the barn door, she jerked back and eyed him menacingly.
“Brother Singer says she’s a little ornery at times,” Rusty commented from the doorway. “But she gives over four gallons a milking after she’s calved.”
“Well, she better get the orneriness out of her system with me,” Dallas growled, grabbing the one-legged stool he used when he milked.
“Brother Singer says it’s best if you hobble her.”
Dallas scoffed at the idea. “I’m not hobbling any cow I milk. If you can’t milk a cow without hobbles, you don’t have any business milking.”
Just as the first two squirts pinged into the milk pail, an enormous hoof lifted up and came down hard in the bucket, pulling it from between his legs and sending it clattering across the barn floor, filling it with dry manure and straw. Dallas sprang to his feet just as that same hoof struck with lightning force against the inside of his shin. The blow knocked him off balance, and just then the cow crashed to the right, pinning Dallas against the wall. Purple with pain and rage, he raised his two fists and was about to bring them smashing down on the cow’s back when she moved away from the wall and lashed out with a hind leg, smashing him in the thigh.
Dallas groaned, grabbed his leg and limped to the back of the barn where he dropped to the floor. Gasping for breath and trying to rub the throbbing pain from his thigh, Dallas glanced over at his younger brother, who was grinning widely at his suffering. “What’s so funny?” Dallas growled.
“Brother Singer calls her Kick-a-pooh Dan,” Rusty announced triumphantly. “Acts like a wild bull instead of an old milk cow.”
Dallas swallowed, limped over to the bucket, dumped a few flakes of manure and straw from it and turned to Kick-a-pooh. “And I traded a four-wheeler for you,” he muttered.
Dallas picked up the bucket and stool. For the next few seconds there was the rhythmic ping as Dallas squirted milk into the bucket. Soon all that could be heard was the cow’s loud breathing and the muffled swish as the white strings of milk fired into the foamy bucket.
“You just got to teach them who’s boss,” Dallas commented proudly to his brother.
“Somehow old Kick-a-pooh Dan doesn’t look like a fast learner,” Rusty remarked with smiling skepticism.
“I haven’t seen the animal I couldn’t …”
Before he could complete his brag, Kick-a-pooh’s manure-matted tail lashed out, cutting him across the face. Tears came to his eyes from the sharpness of the smack. He lunged for the offending tail, but before he could grab it, it whipped across his face again, and at the same time a hoof came crashing down on his knee, knocking him to the ground and sending the half bucket of milk slopping over his legs and onto the floor. Sprawled on the floor, he saw another hoof lash out at him. Ducking just in time, he scrambled to his feet and stumbled to the back wall, groping for the short piece of two-by-four he used to prop open the barn door.
“You got manure on your pants,” Rusty observed with delight, pointing at a patch of fresh green paste on both knees and the seat of his pants.
“You die,” Dallas shouted at the big Holstein, wielding the two-by-four club.
“Well, looks like you and Kick-a-pooh are getting acquainted,” a voice spoke from behind. Dallas whirled around to face Brother Singer, who was standing in the doorway.
Rusty sang out, “Boy, she’s a mean one. Every time Dallas gets a few squirts, old Kick-a-pooh knocks the bucket on the floor and stomps all over him. This is more fun than a rodeo. Dallas says he doesn’t need hobbles with Kick-a-pooh.”
“What I need is a club,” Dallas shouted. “I’ll break her leg off. Once I’m through with her the buzzards won’t want her. I’ll break her …” He turned on Brother Singer. “Why’d you sell me her? How can I earn anything if all the milk ends up on the barn floor? I might as well have a four-wheeler.”
Brother Singer laughed. “Those old four-wheelers are more ornery than a cow and twice as dumb. They’ll steal your money and break your neck to boot. At least Kick-a-pooh will get you on your mission.”
“If I spend much time with that bag of brittle bones, I’ll be cussing a blue streak. I won’t even be able to pass my interview with the bishop. I should have planted corn. It doesn’t kick.” Dallas looked down at his soiled, smelly pants. “And it doesn’t stink.”
“That’s a good cow, Dallas,” Brother Singer said, suddenly serious. “She’s the meanest, orneriest, most stubborn beast I’ve got. But she gives the most milk. If you can stand a few kicks and swats with her tail, she’ll make you money. However, there are a couple of things you’ve got to know.”
“Yeah, like have a club ready before you sit down.”
“I’ll admit she’s a little jumpy. That’s why you hobble her. One other thing, when you milk a cow, which side do you get on?”
“The right,” Dallas mumbled indignantly. “I’ve been raised on a farm.”
“Wrong, at least with Kick-a-pooh. As near as I can tell she’s blind in the right eye, or at least she doesn’t see too well. She goes crazy if you get to fussing around on her right side, but she’s a whole different cow if you approach from the left side. In fact, you can generally milk her without hobbles. Of course, I’ve learned not to trust old Kick-a-pooh. I’d use hobbles either side.”
Dallas glared at his newly purchased cow. Brother Singer slapped him on the back and remarked, “By the way, Dallas, I got a mighty good Holstein bull over at my place. I’d like to contribute to your mission, so you got free use of that bull. Before long you’ll have the best dairy herd in the county. Old Kick-a-pooh will put both you and Rusty on missions.”
Kick-a-pooh Dan was never docile, but Dallas did get to the point where he could get through most milkings without leaving a puddle on the barn floor. Once he was able to make it out of the barn with the milk in the bucket and not on the floor, then the money came.
Summer arrived and brought with it the heat, the long days, the gnats, and the endless labor of the farm. But Dallas did find a few snatches of time to slip away and go four-wheeling with Jake. Of course, riding behind Jake was not the same as riding his very own machine, but there were some thrills. However, all too often, just as the fun really got started and Jake pointed the four-wheeler up the mountain for one last daring ride, Dallas had to head home to milk Kick-a-pooh.
“Come on, Dallas,” Jake would demand. “That old cow can wait a few minutes. It won’t kill her. You pamper her like a baby.”
“She’s a fussy old bag,” Dallas explained, just a little embarrassed. “But if I’m not right there at five-thirty, she’s a monster. Then she doesn’t give nearly as much milk. I’d sure hate for her to dry up.”
“But we’re just going to the mouth of the canyon.”
“I can’t, Jake.”
As the summer progressed, Dallas still liked Jake’s four-wheeler, but he was beginning to reap the profits of a good cow too, even if she was an ornery one.
It did appear that Kick-a-pooh came between him and Jake. Though Dallas no longer harbored serious regrets about Kick-a-pooh, he did feel bad that Jake didn’t come around as often now. Too many times when he had come, hoping to go four-wheeling or to drive into town to play video games at Benny’s Corner, he had ended up standing around watching Dallas milk or shovel out the barn.
Summer passed and faded into fall, and soon winter set in. Five-thirty in the morning was always cold and miserable when Dallas trudged through the muddy snow and stomped into the barn to milk Kick-a-pooh and leaned his head against her warm, steamy flank and dozed. As soon as his eyes closed and he began to relax, Kick-a-pooh would flip her mucky tail across his face and bring him wide awake.
Toward the end of March, Jake invited Dallas to go with him and four other friends to a late movie. Dallas was counting on it. It had been a while since he and Jake had had some good fun together. But as usual Kick-a-pooh refused to cooperate. She was threatening to calve that night, and Dallas was too nervous to let Mother Nature pull off the operation by herself.
When Jake pulled up to Dallas’s house and honked, Dallas was in the barn with Kick-a-pooh, wringing his hands and chewing his lips. He shuffled out to Jake’s car. Jake rolled down the window and asked, “Aren’t you ready yet? Or were you planning on bringing your cow for company?”
“Kick-a-pooh’s going to calve, Jake,” he said.
“She can do it by herself,” Jake growled. “Cows do it all the time. Come on. Tonight’s our night to howl.”
“I can’t,” Dallas insisted, suddenly feeling uneasy, as though he were talking to a stranger and not his best friend. “Can’t lose this calf. It might be Rusty’s missionary cow.”
“Missionary cow!” Jake muttered angrily, jamming the car into gear. “That’s the trouble with that cow. She’s always got you worrying about a mission. You’re not a missionary till you’re 19. Why spoil the rest of your life?”
Dallas was taken back by Jake’s outburst, and for a moment he thought he detected a faint whiff of … but he couldn’t be certain. Besides, this was his friend Jake. However, his suspicions were aroused, and there was something disturbing about the way Jake was trying to conceal the brown paper sack partially pushed under the front seat. The other four were smiling unnaturally.
Dallas was hurt by the brusque farewell, and long after Jake’s car disappeared into the night, he remained outside thinking, wondering if he was missing something, wondering if Kick-a-pooh was messing things up for him.
Kick-a-pooh didn’t have her calf until late the next morning, and when she did she didn’t need any help. It was a healthy heifer. Dallas was rubbing the wet, wobbly thing down with a ragged bath towel when Rusty burst into the barn. Kick-a-pooh tossed her head at the intrusion, so he stayed in the doorway and watched in wide-eyed fascination for a minute.
“Is it mine?” he finally asked.
Dallas smiled. “If you take care of it. And I hope she’s blind in one eye and as ornery and disagreeable as her mother.”
“Why?” Rusty whined.
“So she’ll be a genuine missionary cow,” he laughed. “After you’ve milked her for a few years, nothing on your mission will be hard.”
Rusty crept closer to the new calf, reached out and touched its soft, damp fur. “Did you hear about Jake?” he asked furtively.
Dallas stopped working and glanced at his brother. “What’s there to hear?”
“Tim Linn called a few minutes ago. He said Jake wrecked his dad’s car. Rolled it. Tim’s big brother was with him. Broke his arm.”
“Did Jake get hurt?” Dallas asked, tossing the towel in the corner.
“Tim didn’t think so.” Rusty looked around to make sure they were alone and then whispered, “I think they’d been drinking.”
Dallas stared out the barn, across the corrals, and over to the hills where he and Jake liked to do their four-wheeling. He shook his head, and yet the news didn’t come as a surprise.
“Jake does a lot of things you don’t know about,” Rusty explained further. “That’s what Tim Linn tells me.”
That afternoon as Dallas was going out to check Kick-a-pooh and her calf, Jake came roaring into the yard on his four-wheeler. He had a Band-Aid on his chin and a bluish lump on his forehead.
“Did she drop her calf?” he yelled as he slid to a stop and shut off the engine.
“Come in and see,” Dallas invited with a smile. “If you’re interested and the price is right, maybe Rusty will sell her to you. He won’t take a trade-in on a four-wheeler, though.”
“I don’t want a cow,” Jake snorted.
“It’s a good investment,” Dallas smiled. “By the end of the year, I’ll have my mission paid for.”
Jake grinned suddenly and changed the subject. “Hey, I came over to see if you wanted to buy my four-wheeler. I’m getting a road bike, one of those big Honda 450s. All I need now is enough for a down payment, and then I’ll get a job at Market Center. I should be able to pay it off in a couple of years. I’m selling my four-wheeler cheap. If you’re interested, now’s the time to buy.”
Dallas stared for a moment at the four-wheeler that a few months earlier had intrigued him so intensely. He did some quick calculating, reviewing his funds. He was suddenly excited by the prospect; then just as quickly the excitement faded as he realized that the lure of the four-wheeler had diminished.
“I’m looking at another one of Brother Singer’s cows,” he answered.
“For your mission?” Jake scoffed.
Dallas shrugged. “A four-wheeler will never get me there.”
“I guess you’ve fallen in love with old Kick-a-pooh Dan,” Jake remarked sarcastically.
Dallas sighed. “Not really. She’s still the same ornery old beast. But she’ll take me places a four-wheeler will never go. I guess that’s why I stick by her.”
“Well,” Jake said, starting up his engine, “just wanted to see if you were still interested. If you change your mind, let me know.” The four-wheeler jerked into gear and roared out of the yard and down the lane towards the hills.
For a long time Dallas listened to the muffled growl of the engine. Then Kick-a-pooh drowned out the distraction with a demanding bellow, and Dallas turned back to the barn and his missionary cow.

Sergio was a young man who wanted to go on a mission. He was studying at a university 300 kilometers from home. He would come home regularly and talk with his bishop and stake president. He did not feel worthy to go on a mission. He said his mind was not clean: he saw and heard too many things at the university that made him think of evil. Sergio was challenged to read the Book of Mormon every morning before going to school. He did this, and in a few months he was able to control his thoughts and he and his leaders felt good about his going on a mission. He went and served very well.

Illustrated by Mike Eagle
When Harold B. Lee was a young man, his father was a bishop. Often Harold helped load their pony cart with things for his father to take to poor families.
Harold: Well, Dad, that’s the last sack of grain.
After dark, Harold’s father quietly delivered the food and clothing to needy people in his ward.
Years later, Harold became a father himself.
President Lee: I thought you were going to Donna Mae’s house to show her your new doll.
Helen: Donna’s family didn’t have a Christmas this year! She says they are too poor.
President Lee felt especially sad because he was the stake president and could have helped the family if he’d known. That night he thought of how much his father did to help people, and he promised Heavenly Father that he would try harder to know who in the stake needed his help.
The next Christmas, President Lee worked hard with the members so that every family in their stake could have Christmas presents and a Christmas dinner.
Relief Society sister: Merry Christmas!
President Lee’s stake became so good at providing for each other’s needs that Heber J. Grant, the prophet of the Church then, called President Lee into his office.
Heber J. Grant: President Lee, the Lord would like you to direct the welfare program of the whole Church.
During a time when many people lost their jobs, President Lee set up farms and building projects where members could work, and storehouses where bishops could send them to be given food and clothing as payment.
Later, as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and as the eleventh President of the Church, Harold B. Lee continued to serve.
If you’d like to learn more about President Lee, do the “President Harold B. Lee Crossword” on page 23.