Gospel Story Finder

The day after the assault, some friends of mine asked if I would like some alcohol to help me through the situation. I had been a member of the Church for little over a year, and I wasn’t active at the time. But something in me knew that if I drank any amount of alcohol, I would become dependent on it.

When my mind cleared after a few days, I decided that this assault would be a moment in my life, but it wasn’t going to ruin my life. I went through the court case. I remember shortly before the sentencing, people had told me that the man who had assaulted me was a good man from a respectable family and that this assault was so out of character for him. They said he had made a mistake due to drinking alcohol and he was so remorseful that he couldn’t live with himself for what he had done. They convinced me to ask the judge to be lenient with him.

On the day of sentencing, I gave my victim-impact statement and told the judge that the man had simply made a mistake while drunk and that I thought he should get psychiatric help rather than a prison term. The judge thanked me and, due to my statement, he sentenced the man to only six years in prison. After this, I tried to get on with my life. I got married and had children.

Sometime in 1997 or 1998, I got a phone call informing me that the man was back up in the papers. He had been released from prison and had assaulted three other women. This news brought everything back to me. I felt somewhat responsible because I spoke up for him.

The guilt I felt caused me to suffer from depression. I was a strong member of the Church at that time, but it was still hard. My head was so confused that I couldn’t always hear the still, small voice. Priesthood blessings helped me because I was able to better understand what my Father in Heaven wanted me to know at that time. I know I was able to get through this because I had the gospel in my life.

At first I thought seminary would be hard.
I had to change schools, and seminary was early in the morning. I didn’t think it would work because I had a lot of homework and other things going on.
But when I started going to seminary, time just opened up for me. Now, I always have enough time for my homework. And I’m always excited the next day to get up and go back to seminary again. My friends and I support each other and learn a lot while we’re there.

John Oii introduced his small ancestral village of Kuriva to the gospel in September 1986 when he returned from Port Moresby to bury his son, who had died from a snakebite. During a traditional two-month mourning period, Brother Oii shared stories of Joseph Smith and the angel Moroni. So many villagers were interested that Brother Oii requested missionaries to teach the eager listeners while he acted as interpreter.

By March 1987, 40 Kurivans had been baptized, and a small branch had been organized. That same month, Elder James E. Faust of the Quorum of the Twelve dedicated a one-room, thatched-roof chapel that members had built out of local materials. Membership in the branch has more than quadrupled since 1987. With help from the seminary program, 15 young men have prepared for missions. Most of them have served in Papua New Guinea.

One day, a few months after my baptism, I heard some members criticizing each other in church. I was very disappointed. I went home and told my father that maybe I should not go to church anymore. It was difficult to see members criticize others like that. After listening, my father taught me that the gospel had been restored and it is perfect but members are not yet, neither himself nor me. He firmly said, “Do not lose your faith because of the people around you, but build a strong relationship with Jesus Christ. Don’t look around, look up!”
Look up to Jesus Christ—the wise advice of my father—strengthens my faith whenever I face challenges in life. He taught me how to apply the teachings of Christ, as in these words: “Look unto me in every thought; doubt not, fear not.”4

Growing up with parents who are deaf, I was keenly aware that my family was different. When I was young, there was no one to interpret for my parents at Church meetings or activities, so we didn’t attend often.
I always felt like an outsider looking in, wanting what others in my ward had—a family who prayed and studied together.
Near the end of my senior year in high school, however, we became more active in the Church. My parents were sealed in the Mesa Arizona Temple, and two of my four siblings and I were sealed to them.
Five years later, I was preparing to be endowed and married in the temple. The night before my temple sealing, my brother and his wife attended the temple to perform proxy work for my mother’s parents in preparation for their sealing the next day. My mother was a convert of almost 20 years at the time, and she was eager to begin her family’s history and temple work.
The next day, our grandparents were sealed to each other, my brother and his wife again standing as proxy. It was my wedding day, yes, but it held extra significance for me. My grandparents, whom I had never met, were sharing this special day with me.
A few days later, as my husband and I opened wedding gifts, we opened one very special gift from my grandmother’s first cousin. She was a religious woman who had been close to my grandmother. The gift was a picture of my grandmother on her own wedding day. An accompanying card said, “Your grandmother is so happy with you and is looking down upon you.”
This cousin had no idea how much her message meant to me. Nor did she know of the temple work that had recently been performed for my grandmother. I knew in my heart at that moment that my grandmother was pleased with me and happy that our family had started on the important journey of family history and temple work.
We were a forever family now, on the path of gathering our ancestors and led by my mother in blessing our family on the other side of the veil.

When I was a boy growing up in a home with a widowed mother, I heard a story that touched me and that has had a lot more meaning since I have had the blessing of having a son of my own.
A youngster was assigned by his father to see to the moving of a large rock. He tugged and pushed, and he lifted and struggled without avail. Some friends were enlisted, but together they could not move it. Reluctantly he reported to his father that he could not budge the rock.
“Have you done all you could?” asked the father.
“Yes,” said the little boy.
“Have you tried everything?” persisted the father.
“Yes,” said the boy. “I’ve tried everything.”
“No, son, you haven’t,” said his dad. “You haven’t asked me.”

Recently my granddaughter Jennifer was invited to go with some of her school friends to a dinner and a movie. The girls all agreed on the movie they were going to see, and Jennifer was comfortable attending. However, the girl who left dinner to buy the movie tickets for the group returned with tickets to a different movie than was planned. She said, “It is a great show, and it’s R-rated.”

Jennifer, caught by surprise, couldn’t believe the situation had changed so quickly. But fortunately she had made up her mind before she ever found herself in this position that she would not watch R-rated movies. She was able to stand firm and say to her friends, “I can’t go see an R-rated movie. My parents would not approve.” To which the girls replied, “Oh, come on! Your parents will never know.” Confronted with this, Jennifer went on to say, “Well, actually it doesn’t matter whether my parents will know. I just don’t go to R-rated movies.”

Her friends were upset and tried to get her to relent. They told her she was ruining everything. When she would not give in, they threw the ticket and change in her face and deserted her for the R-rated movie. It wound up being a lonely night full of rejection from her friends. But it was a great moment for Jennifer and our family. She gained confidence, self-worth, and spiritual power.

Elder Hugh B. Brown of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (1883–1975) once shared such a lesson he learned while pruning a currant bush on a farm in Canada.
As he went about cleaning up and repairing his property, he came across a currant bush that had grown over six feet high and was yielding no berries. Therefore, he pruned it back drastically, leaving only small, teardrop-shaped stumps. The sight made it appear as if the currant bush were crying, and Elder Brown thought he heard the bush say:
“‘How could you do this to me? I was making such wonderful growth. … And now you have cut me down. … I thought you were the gardener here.’”
Elder Brown replied, “‘Look, little currant bush, I am the gardener here, and I know what I want you to be. If I let you go the way you want to go, you will never amount to anything. But someday, when you are laden with fruit, you are going to think back and say, “Thank you, Mr. Gardener, for cutting me down, for loving me enough to hurt me.”’”7

The next day, Sunday, in testimony meeting they sat together, sang the opening song with great enthusiasm, and then with quiet reverence and a special depth of feeling blended their voices in the sacramental hymn. When the priesthood leader turned the time over to the audience for testimonies, the girl stood up.
““I love my dad and mother,” she began, then stopped, brushed a tear away with the back of her hand, cleared her throat, and continued. “I haven’t always been able to say that. When I was about thirteen, I had a problem and went unexpected to my father’s office. He is president of a large corporation. Upon being told that he was too busy to see me, I rushed home, flung myself upon the bed, and cried. Mother, hearing my sobs, came into the room. ‘Daddy doesn’t love me!’ I blurted out through the tears. ‘Why do you say that?’ Mother asked. Then I told her what had happened. Nothing more was said, except my mother firmly declared that Father did indeed love me, and I was not to think otherwise again.
“The next day while at school I received a call from my father’s private secretary. ‘Could you come to the office at 4:00 o’clock today for a visit with President ____________?’ and she named my father. I was thrilled, and the appointment was set. At 4:00 o’clock I was ushered into my father’s office with as much pomp and ceremony as the richest client. There, my father told me to sit in a brand-new chair located next to his desk. Then he said, ‘That is the chair. Whenever you have things bothering you, come and sit in that chair, and I will drop whatever I am doing and listen to and help you, because I care about you more than I care about anything in this world except your mother and your brothers and sisters.’ And you know,” the girl said, wiping more tears from her eyes, “he never once broke his promise.”

Not long ago, a faithful sister in the Church shared with me a deep concern she had been praying about for some time. Her concern was for some of the sisters in her ward. She told me how it hurt her heart to observe that they sometimes spoke disrespectfully to their husbands and about their husbands, even in front of their children. She then told me how as a young woman she had earnestly desired and prayed to find and marry a worthy priesthood holder and build a happy home with him. She had grown up in a home where her mother had “ruled the roost” and her father had cowered to her mother’s demands in order to keep peace at home. She felt that there was a better way. She had not seen it modeled in the home she grew up in, but as she prayed fervently for guidance, the Lord blessed her to know how to create a home with her husband where the Spirit would be warmly welcomed. I have been in that home and can testify it is a holy place!

Not long ago, I listened to a man and woman who spoke in my home ward. This man had served in many capacities in the Church, including that of bishop. Their most recent assignment was to fellowship a single mother and her children. He stated that it was the most joyful of all his Church experiences.
This young woman was full of questions. She was filled with fear and anxiety. She did not wish to make a mistake, to say anything that was out of line that might embarrass her or cause others to laugh. Patiently this man and his wife brought the family to church, sat with them, put a shield around them, as it were, against anything that might happen to embarrass them. They spent one evening a week with them at their home, teaching them further concerning the gospel and answering their many questions. They led that little family along as a shepherd leads his sheep. Eventually, circumstances dictated that they move to another city. “But,” he stated, “we still correspond with that woman. We feel a great appreciation for her. She is now firmly grounded in the Church, and we have no fear concerning her. What a joy it has been to work with her.”

Shortly after Ka Po was baptized, the sister missionaries encouraged her to take an institute class. It was held early Saturday mornings, and Ka Po remembers how hard it was to wake up and get to class on time.

A classmate called Ka Po every Saturday morning to wake her up and encourage her to attend class. One day the classmate gave the responsibility of calling to King. That was the beginning of their friendship.

Ka Po says, “Church activities helped us know more about each other.” Their first date was a dance practice for young single adults.

Ka Po and King dated for four years. King helped Ka Po share the gospel with her grandmother and brother. Then on the night he proposed, he met Ka Po in the playground of the school where she was attending night school. She had just finished a big exam and was exhausted, but she felt wonderful when he asked her to marry him and gave her an engagement ring.

They were married in the Hong Kong China Temple. Ka Po says, “I will never forget the day we were sealed in the temple. It was so beautiful and amazing that we could be together for eternity. I could not stop crying, and my heart was so full I couldn’t speak. I love the temple and the great blessing that we can go to the temple in our own country.

“Our temple marriage will influence not only us, but it can influence our children and their children. It is so important that we have the same purpose and goals on earth. I love the gospel, and I love my eternal spouse.”

As a father I was blessed to see great futures in God’s kingdom for my daughters as well as my sons. When I prayerfully sought guidance, I was shown a way to help my daughters recognize the trust God had placed in them as servants who could build His kingdom.

When my daughters were young, I saw that we could help others feel the love of those beyond the veil, throughout the generations. I knew that love comes from service and inspires hope of life eternal.

So we carved breadboards on which we placed a loaf of homemade bread and went together to deliver our offering to widows, widowers, and families. The legend I carved on each of those breadboards read, “J’aime et J’espere,” French for “I love and I hope.” The evidence of their unique spiritual gifts appeared not just on the boards I carved but more clearly as we distributed them to those who needed, in the midst of pain or loss, reassurance that the love of the Savior and His Atonement could produce a perfect brightness of hope. This is life eternal for my daughters and for each of us.

When my friend Fernanda (not her real name) didn’t show up to class one Friday, I wondered what was wrong. “Is Fer feeling sick? Is she OK?” I asked as I ran over to some friends at the end of the day. “She isn’t sick,” another friend answered, “she just had to go to a psychologist.” When I asked why, she told me that Fernanda was suffering from depression and had been hurting herself. Shortly after I found out, Fernanda was admitted to the hospital for treatment, and we didn’t see her for a few weeks.
Even though we were friends, she hadn’t shared that part of her life with me. She had been hiding it from everyone because she was ashamed. She later told me that she didn’t want others to pity her or her situation. But I didn’t pity her—I just felt compassion.
That first day, I lay on my bed after school, my face buried in a pillow. I was emotionally exhausted but too anxious to sleep. My world was in chaos. I felt like I was in the middle of a storm, and so many thoughts and feelings whirled in the wind. I felt confused, lonely, and, most of all, so powerless to help.
What could I do or say to help her? How could we as friends pull together and lend our support? I couldn’t find any sort of solution to comfort my friends or myself. I prayed for inspiration but felt like my prayers just weren’t getting answered.
But the next week I had an epiphany. I was sitting in my early-morning seminary class when my teacher reminded us of the First Vision and how Joseph Smith asked Heavenly Father directly for help with his difficulties and concerns. My teacher then said, “If we seek out the Father and ask Him, He will answer us. We will never be alone.”
I realized that in my sadness, I had closed my heart off to my Heavenly Father. Even though I was trying to pray often, it wasn’t enough—I still had too much fear to find peace. I knew that He understood exactly how I felt and that He could help me. But I needed to open myself up to Him and truly trust that He could do it—I needed to exercise faith.
So I did. Over time, as I continued to pray and read my scriptures, striving to let the Savior take my burdens, I came to understand that eventually my friend’s depression would end. Despite the fact that the external chaos continued, I felt calm, balanced, in harmony. My mother kept encouraging me to seek out peace, saying, “Your friend will be OK and so will you. Stay strong in the gospel, and it will all work out.”
When Fernanda finally came back to school, I was able to provide strong support for her, but only because I had sought out and found peace through Jesus Christ myself. I tried my best to be a good listener, to be positive, and to share the gospel. I felt confident when I explained the plan of happiness and when I told her that our Father wants us to find joy, despite our challenges. It may take time, but it is possible for every one of His children.
There have been many situations in my life in which I have felt anguish and sadness, but because of the gospel I always remember where I come from. I know that I am a daughter of God and that He has a plan for me—and for Fernanda. We all walk distinct paths, but each is for our good because He loves us. Each path, each trial, has a purpose. And if we can find peace in those trials, we can share the peace we gain with others.

Ever since Tavita was eleven years old, it was his dream to serve a mission—and nothing was going to stand in his way. He loved to sit and listen to returned missionaries share their spiritual experiences, and each day he grew more determined that he too would serve. When Tavita was a college freshman, preparing to sign scholarship agreements to play football at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, he made sure he could leave for two years to serve the Lord.
After serving an honorable mission, Tavita returned to his place on the Hawaii team, and last fall he was ready to play again.
Though Tavita was born in American Samoa, his family moved to Hawaii when he was only four years old. “I came at the ‘end of the rope,’” laughs Tavita, commenting on his place as the fourteenth child of fifteen.
In the Samoan culture, families are very important, and large families are respected. Parents are treated with great honor. “Coming from a large family helps the brothers and sisters to depend on one another,” Tavita explains. “They draw upon each other’s strength and give moral support to one another. Any time one of us needed the others, we were always there. Regardless of where we were, we’d come back to help. It is still the same to this day.”
As Tavita’s brothers and sisters got older, they would work to help support the family. Their father worked, and their mother stayed home to raise the children.
All fifteen children were raised in the Church, and the gospel played an important role in their lives. “I am thankful that my parents constantly encouraged me to do the right thing,” Tavita says. “To this present moment I have never had any problems keeping my standards, no matter what.”
Most who meet Tavita are intimidated at first by the tall, muscular young man. But when he starts speaking, his cheerful and loving spirit radiates, and they are no longer afraid. “I want people to see that Samoans are a soft, gentle, and kind people. We are taught to respect others and, more importantly, to treat others the way we want to be treated.”
Tavita may be big, but he’s not ferocious or quick tempered. His name means “David.” Though he is closer in size to Goliath, his name represents courage and patience, traits he and the biblical David share.
Tavita started learning patience when he was a young boy. He needed a direction in his life, and when he was thirteen years old, a good friend got him into weight lifting. By the age of fourteen, Tavita could lift almost twice his own weight.
“People thought that I was twenty years old when I was only fourteen because of the way I acted and the way I looked. I had the body of an adult. Even so, I still loved to play and watch cartoons on television.”
In the following years Tavita continued to grow in both strength and size. He entered and won weight lifting competitions around the country. At the age of fifteen Tavita traveled to Little Rock, Arkansas, where he was recognized as the strongest 14–17 year-old in the United States. For five years he won national titles. By the time he was eighteen years old, he could squat-lift 412 kilos.
In high school Tavita excelled at weight lifting and football. In his first season playing football, he was selected for high school teams at both the state and then the national level. His list of awards goes on and on. “I excelled in football and weight lifting because they are the two sports I love the most,” he says.
But Tavita excelled not only because of his love for the sports, but because he taught himself strict discipline. That discipline helped him learn Cantonese while still preparing to enter the Hong Kong Mission. “When I got my call to Hong Kong, my next thought was, ‘What is a 120-kilo Samoan going to do there?” But I knew that was where Heavenly Father wanted me to serve.”
At the beginning, Tavita had difficulty learning the language. It was frustrating to not be able to communicate his strong feelings about the gospel. “Through patience and prayer I learned to endure. The relationship between my Heavenly Father and me grew closer, more than I ever thought it could. My knees literally had calluses on them.”
Patience and long-suffering helped him succeed on his mission. These attributes have continued to help him succeed in his college studies and football career. During high school, he thought he had to prove something. But now all he feels he needs to prove is his worthiness to his Heavenly Father.
Tavita continues to work out six days a week. “I take a lot of pride in building the body Heavenly Father gave to me. I want to keep it clean and to keep it physically as well as spiritually fit.”
Tavita also strives to be a good example to all his friends, both members and nonmembers. He wants to have a positive influence on those around him.
But first and foremost is his relationship with the Lord. “The relationship I have with my Heavenly Father is a little like the one I have with my own dad and mom. I try to serve Him to the best of my ability and to do what He wants me to do.”
Tavita’s father recently died, and his mother is living in California. But every opportunity they have, the family gets together to have fun. Tavita especially enjoys working on cars with his brothers and cousins. ‘I love to fix cars. I love anything to do with hands and tools. I have a strong talent for being able to fix and repair things. In fact, my father was a mechanic, and my brothers are also mechanics.”
Tavita has enthusiastic advice for the young people of the Church. “Serve a mission. Especially the young men when they turn nineteen years old. Go now. It might not be the easiest, but it will be the best two years of your life.”
He also advises youth to learn the importance of the gospel in their lives.
“Stay close to the Church,” Tavita adds. “Have a close relationship with your Heavenly Father. It has helped me.”
And that’s the kind of attitude which, whether he’s standing or kneeling, makes Tavita Sagapolu a true spiritual giant.

When Camille Erickson was born, no one knew quite what to do.
Don’t misunderstand. Her parents already had five other children, so they were getting to be pros at parenting. Her five siblings had excitedly awaited her arrival. It was just that, well, she was a … girl.
Being the younger sister of five older brothers, and then the older sister of one younger brother, Camille knows a lot about “being one of the guys.” When the family splits up into teams for sports, Camille plays right along. As the only girl, Camille was the only person to have her own room—a fact she didn’t get used to for a long time.
“When I was little, I used to sneak into their rooms at night and go to sleep. My mom would find me the next morning, curled up on the floor,” she says.
But Camille, now a Mia Maid in Battle Ground, Washington, hasn’t slept on the floor for a long time. She still likes to play sports and to roughhouse with her brothers, but Camille’s life is more focused on school, Young Women, and friends than in those days when she was little. Also, her older brothers have grown up, and many of them don’t live at home anymore. In fact, since the age difference between her oldest brother and her youngest brother is 22 years, having the family all together is a rare experience.
“My brothers and I try to do things together, one-on-one, so that we have time to talk,” says Camille
Activities Camille enjoys with her brothers include things that are pretty unstructured, like watching videos, going out for treats, and taking walks together. But, occasionally, there is something more planned, like the time she took ballroom dance lessons with her 23-year-old brother, Travis.
“I think the average age in that class was 60,” says Travis with a grin. “But we had a good time.”
There are traditions that keep them close, too. The night Camille was born, Brad, her oldest brother, stayed up late to make her a birthday cake. Now her brothers send roses to her at school on her birthday.
“When my friends see that I get flowers from my brothers, they’re shocked. They can’t believe we’re all friends.”

Many of us want the simple way—the process that will not require serious work and sacrifice. Well, I once thought I found it. Driving in the back of a verdant valley above the city of Honolulu, I looked up, and there it was—Easy Street! As I was dreaming of the life-changing benefits of my discovery, I took out my camera to record the blissful moment. As I looked through the viewfinder, however, my focus literally and figuratively became clear. A large yellow sign returned me to reality—Easy Street was a dead end!

Those of us who have entered into the waters of baptism and received the gift of the Holy Ghost have covenanted that we are willing to take upon ourselves the name of Jesus Christ, or in other words, we declare ourselves to be disciples of the Lord. We renew that covenant each week as we partake of the sacrament, and we demonstrate that discipleship by the way that we live. Such discipleship was beautifully demonstrated in recent events in Mexico.
It had been a beautiful spring for the fruit-growing communities in northern Mexico. The fruit trees were in full bloom, and expectations were high for a bounteous harvest. Plans were already being made to pay off loans, replace needed equipment and aging orchards, and meet personal commitments such as school tuition for family members. Plans were even being made for family vacations. There was a general air of optimism. Then, on a Monday afternoon in late March, a winter storm moved in, and it began to snow. It snowed until about three o’clock in the morning. Then, as the clouds moved out, the temperature plummeted. Throughout the night and early morning, every effort was made to save at least a part of the fruit crop. It was all to no avail. It simply got too cold, and the crop was totally frozen. There would be no fruit to be harvested and sold this year. Tuesday dawned with the sickening and disheartening loss of all those wonderful plans, expectations, and dreams of just the day before.
I received an email regarding that terrible Tuesday morning from Sandra Hatch, the wife of John Hatch, then-first counselor in the presidency of the Colonia Juárez Chihuahua Temple. I quote portions of that email: “John got up early—about 6:30—to run up to the temple to see if we should cancel the session this morning. He came back saying that the parking lot and road were clear, so we decided to go ahead. We figured that maybe some of the workers who didn’t have orchards would come, and we could put all the workers into the session. … It was so inspiring to see the men come in, one after another. There they were, after no sleep at all, and figuring their crops were lost. … I was watching them during our preparation meeting, and they were having a hard time staying awake. But instead of figuring they had a good excuse to not come, they were there. And there were 38 people in the session (a full session)! It was an uplifting morning for us, and we thanked Heavenly Father for good people who do their duty, no matter what happens. I felt a special spirit there this morning. I am sure He was pleased to know that we love His house and felt that it was a good place to be on such a difficult morning.”
The story does not end there and in fact is still ongoing.
Most of those who lost their fruit crop had some land available on which to plant alternative crops for the season, such as chili peppers or beans. These crops could provide at least some cash flow sufficient to survive on until next year’s fruit crop. However, there was one good brother with a young family who did not have additional land and was facing a year with no revenue at all. Others in the community, seeing the dire situation of this brother and acting on their own initiative and expense, arranged for a piece of property, used their own equipment to prepare the land, and provided the chili plants for him to plant.
I know the men about whom I have just spoken. Knowing them, I was not surprised at what they did. But those who do not know them will probably be asking two questions, both beginning with the word why. Why would they come to the temple to perform their duties and to serve after having been up all night long, only to realize that they had lost the greater part of their revenue for the whole year? Why would they use what were now scarce and very precious resources to help another in desperate need when they themselves were now in such dire financial straits?
If you understand what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ, then you will know the answer to these two questions.
Making the covenant to be a disciple of Christ is the beginning of a lifelong process, and the path is not always easy. As we repent of our sins and strive to do what He would have us do and serve our fellowmen as He would serve them, we will inevitably become more like Him. Becoming like Him and being one with Him is the ultimate goal and objective—and essentially the very definition of true discipleship.
As the Savior asked His disciples when He visited the American continent, “Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be?” And then, answering His own question, He said, “Verily I say unto you, even as I am” (3 Nephi 27:27).
Becoming as the Savior is not an easy task, especially in the world in which we live. We face obstacles and adversity virtually every day of our lives. There is a reason for this, and it is one of the primary purposes of mortality. As we read in Abraham 3:25, “And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them.”
These tests or trials vary in nature and intensity. But no one will leave this mortal existence without passing through them. Mostly, we picture trials as the loss of a crop or a job; the death of a loved one; illness; physical, mental, or emotional incapacitation; poverty; or loss of friends. However, even the attainment of seemingly worthwhile objectives can bring their own dangers of unhelpful pride, where we aspire more to the honors of men than the approbation of heaven. These may include worldly popularity, public recognition, physical prowess, artistic or athletic talent, prosperity, and riches. Regarding these latter trials, some of us may have feelings similar to those expressed by Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof: If riches are a curse, “may [God] smite me with it. And may I never recover!”
But these latter types of trials may be even more daunting and dangerous and more difficult to overcome than the former. Our discipleship will be developed and proven not by the type of trials that we are faced with but how we endure them. As we have been taught by President Henry B. Eyring: “So, the great test of life is to see whether we will hearken to and obey God’s commands in the midst of the storms of life. It is not to endure storms, but to choose the right while they rage. And the tragedy of life is to fail in that test and so fail to qualify to return in glory to our heavenly home” (“Spiritual Preparedness: Start Early and Be Steady,” Liahona and Ensign, Nov. 2005, 38).
I am the proud grandfather of 23 grandchildren. They never cease to amaze me with their grasp of eternal truths, even in their very early and tender years. As I was preparing for this talk, I asked each of them to send me a very brief definition of what it meant to them to be a disciple or a follower of Jesus Christ. I received wonderful answers from all of them. But I would like to share with you this response from eight-year-old Benjamin: “Being a disciple of Jesus Christ means being an example. It means being a missionary and preparing to be a missionary. It means to serve others. It means you read the scriptures and say your prayers. It means you keep the Sabbath day holy. It means you listen to the promptings of the Holy Ghost. It means going to church and going to the temple.”
I agree with Benjamin. Discipleship is all about doing and becoming. As we obey His commandments and serve our fellowmen, we become better disciples of Jesus Christ. Obedience and submission to His will bring the companionship of the Holy Ghost, along with those blessings of peace, joy, and security that always accompany this third member of the Godhead. And they can come in no other way. Ultimately, it is total submission to His will that helps us become as our Savior is. Again, becoming like Him and being one with Him is the ultimate goal and objective—and essentially the very definition of true discipleship.
Discipleship is what I saw being practiced in the Colonia Juárez Temple and in its nearby fields as brothers and sisters in the faith reaffirmed their commitments to God and to each other despite heartrending adversity.
I testify that as we obey His commandments, serve others, and submit our will to His will, we will, indeed, become His true disciples. I so testify in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

The decision to continue his studies at Harvard proved to be significant for another reason. It meant he was still in Boston during the summer of 1961, when Kathleen Johnson, daughter of J. Cyril and LaPrele Lindsay Johnson, of Palo Alto, California, came to Boston to attend summer school. Hal, who was serving as a counselor in the Boston district presidency at the time, was assigned to preside at a sunrise service for young adults.
After that sunrise service, he saw a young woman coming out of a grove of trees. Not only was he struck by her beauty, but at that moment the words of President David O. McKay came to his mind: “If you meet a girl in whose presence you feel a desire … to do your best, … such a young woman is worthy of your love” (Gospel Ideals, Salt Lake City: Improvement Era, 1953, page 459). “That was exactly how I felt as I saw Kathleen for the first time,” says Elder Eyring.
Hal and Kathleen were introduced at church the following Sunday. “I knew Hal was someone special,” Kathy remembers. “He thought deeply about important things.”
The courtship continued throughout the rest of the summer and then by mail and phone after Kathleen returned to California. They were married in July 1962 in the Logan Temple by Elder Spencer W. Kimball.

I want to share with you some of the great blessings the Book of Mormon can bring to us. The Book of Mormon can and does change lives. After our son John received his mission call to Japan, he said to me, “Dad, before I enter the Missionary Training Center, I am going to read the Book of Mormon twice.” I said to John, “That is quite a demanding goal.” I felt his resolve and made the decision to follow his example. I began reading early each morning. A few days later when I came home from work, John said to me, “I caught up with you today.” I asked, “What do you mean?” His response: “I caught up to where you are in the Book of Mormon. You left it open on your desk.” The next morning after my reading, I felt inspired to turn about 150 pages past where I was. I left my Book of Mormon open where he could not miss it and went to work. After a meeting that morning, I checked my voice mail. The very first message said, “Yeah, sure, Dad!”

Why this story? As I watched my son read from the Book of Mormon, I began to see a special change in his life as he prepared to enter the Missionary Training Center. That experience has anchored my son to the gospel of Jesus Christ.