Gospel Story Finder

So does an employer who is unfair to his employees. An idealistic young professional wrote Church headquarters about the plight of migrant farm workers. He had observed treatment that was probably illegal and certainly unchristian. When I read his letter, I thought of the positive example of Jesse Knight, the great benefactor of Brigham Young Academy. At a time when most mine owners exploited their workers, this Christian employer paid his miners something extra so they could earn their living in six days’ labor and rest on the Sabbath. He did not require them to patronize a company store. He built his workers a building for recreation, worship, and schooling. And Brother Knight would not permit the superintendent to question his workers about their religion or politics (see Jesse William Knight, The Jesse Knight Family, Salt Lake City: Deseret News Press, 1940, pp. 43–44; and Gary Fuller Reese, “Uncle Jesse,” master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1961, pp. 26–28).

In my first year of high school, an eating disorder took over my life. I told everyone I was OK so they wouldn’t ask questions, but I was cold, weak, and tired all the time from a lack of food. I lost interest in the things I used to love. I even stopped praying to Heavenly Father. I felt guilty for not being the person I thought I should be.
At first, I refused to believe I had a problem. But eventually I got a strong feeling I should tell my close friend about my struggles. I had no idea that opening up to someone I trusted would save my life.
My friend told my parents what was going on, out of concern for me. When I finally told them the truth myself, I felt Heavenly Father’s love more strongly than I ever had before. It radiated through the love that my parents and the rest of my friends and family showed me. Their Christlike support helped me accept that I did have an eating disorder—and that, with the help of Heavenly Father, I was going to get through it.
Starting my recovery was the most difficult journey I’d ever been on. I was in the hospital after school every day for counseling and treatment. When the road started to feel hopeless, I found comfort through prayer and reading my scriptures.
I still struggle with my eating disorder, but it no longer controls my life. My Heavenly Father understands my trials, my heartache, and my guilt, and I know now that I didn’t go through it all on my own. When I see myself through Heavenly Father’s eyes, I sense my eternal destiny. I can feel His love for me—a love that can help me overcome anything.
The author lives in Alabama, USA.

While serving as a mission president in New York City, I was with some of our missionaries in a restaurant in the Bronx. A young family came in and sat near us. They appeared golden for the gospel. I watched our missionaries as they continued to visit with me, then noticed as the family concluded their meal and slipped out the door. Then I said, “Elders, there’s a lesson here today. You saw a lovely family come into this restaurant. What should we have done?”

One of the elders spoke up quickly: “I thought about getting up and going over to talk to them. I felt the nudge, but I didn’t respond.”

“Elders,” I said, “we must always act on our first prompting. That nudge you felt was the Holy Ghost!”

Sitting in front of the group of people waiting to speak, Steve let his thoughts slide backward 12 years to a frosty winter evening when two small boys dragged snow shovels behind them, each clutching dollar bills in red right hands.
The house on the corner had a light on.
“There’s one,” Steve had said hopefully.
“Okay,” his brother Paul had answered, “you go ahead.”
Wearily he had trudged up the front walk and rung the bell. Two severe-looking brown eyes had stared down at him as he had forced his voice to ask, “Would you like your walk shoveled, ma’am?”
His voice had cracked and broken over the cold air that surrounded him as he realized that the old lady was Sarah Dunn. Sarah Dunn seemed ancient, and scary, and he thought of the rumor that she had once shot at someone for running across her lawn. Steve remembered being too scared to turn and run, and he could still feel the tingle that ran down his back as she had looked him in the face and asked, “Do you think my walk needs it?”
“Oh …”
He had begun to step backward when she said, “Why don’t you go ahead?”
The air seemed black and freezing as he turned to start shoveling. Looking up, he realized Paul had gone home or to find another house to shovel. He shivered, both from the cold and from his close contact with old Sarah. He wasn’t really sure what she had done to make some people afraid of her, but he was in no mood to find out. He decided he wouldn’t ask for any money for the shoveling; he would just do it and be glad to get home where it was warm and safe.
It took him longer than usual; he didn’t want to miss a spot. Once he looked up and saw her glancing out the window at him; he quickly bent over his work. Just before he pushed the shovel toward the porch for the last time, she opened her front door.
“Is it all right?” his voice faltered.
She leaned out from the porch, her eyes following the line of newly exposed pavement.
“Here,” she said, handing him three dollars and a Hershey bar, which he took gently from her.
“That’s too much,” he started to say, but she cut him off. “Next time it snows,” she said, “you come back.”
It snowed the next day. Steve watched the flakes fall and prayed for the sun to come out. Miss Dunn’s brown eyes haunted him throughout the afternoon as he and Paul played Ping-Pong. After losing three games because he kept watching flakes hit the windows outside, he left with the snow shovel.
It was the same that night—three dollars and a Hershey bar and she told him to come back. Opening the chocolate with red-cold hands, Steve realized he wasn’t quite so scared this time. Handing him the chocolate, she’d almost smiled.
It snowed a lot that winter, and Steve did lots of shoveling for many neighbors, but mostly for Miss Dunn. One night in February she asked him to come in when he had finished. His mouth almost said no before his brain could give the possibility any long thoughts. But his feet stepped right ahead until he was sitting in Miss Dunn’s front room and she was handing him a steaming cup of chocolate.
“It’s been getting harder for me to do my yard work,” she began, and before he left that night he had a summer job. He was hired to work Saturdays, but he usually found himself coming at least twice a week. He mowed the lawn while she pulled weeds and raked. She seemed strong for as old as she must be, he thought, feeling something like admiration as she leaned to pull a weed the size of a funny-stemmed carrot. She got as thirsty as he did, too, and she always seemed to have an ice-cold bottle of ginger ale waiting for both of them after the work was finished.
One day, when she finished her glass of ginger ale ahead of him, she looked at him suddenly. “Would you like to hear me play the piano?” she asked. He nodded, surprised, as she sat down and glided her hands across the keys. A smooth, many-noted melody drifted into his ears, and he began to relax, and she leaned her head back and started singing. It wasn’t a song he had ever heard, but she seemed to like it so much he couldn’t help listening. When she finished playing, he felt like he ought to clap his hands. Instead, he just looked at her.
“I used to sing for people,” she said. “I have pictures in my album. Would you like to see them?” She picked up a huge black book and patted a place beside her on the couch. He sat awkwardly next to her, expecting to be bored. Yet her voice added color to the tiredly fading newspaper clippings that clung desperately to the album’s pages. He found himself absorbed, reading along with her and looking when her finger pointed to pictures of herself in choral groups. He found it was late afternoon before he left her house.
After that, they talked regularly as they drank ginger ale and ate the oatmeal cookies she made. He brought his yearbook to show her, and she dug out pictures of herself when young. By noticing the year on one of the newspaper clippings she showed him, he figured that she was past 80. Yet she still pulled weeds.
His friends didn’t understand why he didn’t look for other work or why he stayed after the yard work was finished. He didn’t tell them much about his reasons; somehow his time with Miss Dunn wasn’t something he felt like sharing with everybody else.
For seven years he worked in Sarah Dunn’s yard, mowing in the summer and shoveling in the winter. Then, the summer he turned 19, he received a mission call. He wasn’t sure Miss Dunn knew what a mission was or how long it would last. Sometimes it was hard for him to tell himself he would really be gone two years. He knew he had to let her know so that she could find someone else to take care of her yard.
They were looking at a book together when he told her. She looked up into his eyes, and a look passed between them. “Two years,” she said softly, and the look said, “Maybe I won’t be here when you come home. Maybe this will be the last time.”
Steve looked down and pointed to something in the book she was holding. “Look at that,” he said, and his voice broke.
She wrote to him while he was gone, about how high her tomato plants were getting, and how last winter had seemed colder than all the others, and she asked was it cold where he was. He wrote back, glad when he was handed each new letter from her.
She was there when he came home. She walked a little slower, and he had to talk a little louder so she could hear, but she was definitely glad to see him. They sat on her front porch, and she looked at the pictures he had taken on his mission, holding each one out into the light and then close to her eyes so that she could see it.
“Beautiful,” she said quietly, studying one closely, “beautiful.”
It was hard for him to believe it when she died. He had thought it might happen while he was gone, and now that he was home, she had seemed safe somehow. Her niece telephoned him at home.
“Aunt Sarah had definite ideas about her funeral,” she said, “and she wanted you to be the main speaker.”
So here he sat, now, in front of the people who waited for his words. Getting up, he felt his knees shake, just the way they had that day when he asked, “Would you like me to shovel your walk, ma’am?” and he wondered if he could make his voice come out. He rested his hands on the podium edge. “How many of you,” he asked in a surprisingly clear voice, “how many of you really knew Sarah Dunn? I started to know her when she told me that she sang for people.”
His words came easily after that. He visualized the garden and Miss Dunn bent in half with her hands wrapped around a stubborn bit of morning glory weed. He saw in his mind the rounded shapes of her velvet living room furniture the color of rhubarb, and he saw himself seated on the edge of one of Miss Dunn’s chairs. (He never did quite trust himself while holding the gold-edged water goblet filled with ginger ale.) He could almost taste the ginger ale in the back of his throat as he talked.
“Do you know what Sarah Dunn gave me?” he asked the people in front of him. “She gave me my mission. I don’t mean she gave me the money to go, though a lot of what I saved came from working for her, but what she gave me was more important. She showed me how to love someone whose life was completely different from mine. She showed me that all people have some things in common. After a while, when we looked at the pictures in her album together, it seemed like we were seeing the same things—at least we could both appreciate what we saw.” Steve stopped, feeling a tear on his cheek. Would more people notice if he wiped it away, or if he left it? He left it, feeling the raw wetness descend his face.
“And on my mission, it was the same. Some people who answered the door gave me looks that made me feel like turning back, and then I would remember that 12-year-old boy standing in the snow on a bitter winter night. I would remember how the look on Sarah Dunn’s face scared me then, and think of how warm her ancient smile became that summer as we drank our ginger ale and tried not to think how many weeds we had pulled. I would think of Sarah Dunn, and I would begin to talk to the man whose frown seemed glued to his forehead, to the woman who looked as if she really wished she could be someplace else.” He stopped to breathe. His face felt really wet by now.
“I’m not saying it worked every time. I’m not saying the whole world suddenly became interested in me. But through Sarah Dunn, I suddenly became interested in the world. It wasn’t easy for me to like her. There was more than half a century between us, and at first I felt every one of those 60 years. Yet at the end of last summer, we might have been born on the same day. For showing me that loving your neighbor is really the most natural thing there is, I would like to thank Sarah Dunn now. Thank you, Sarah. What we shared will always be a part of me.”
He could talk no longer. He felt a hand on his shoulder and knew it belonged to his mother. It was funny, though. The hand felt exactly the same as Sarah Dunn’s had, the night she had said to him, “You know, I used to sing for people.”

One Christmas carol was written, set to music, and performed for the first time all in one day. On Christmas Eve in 1818, the organ at a small Austrian church was not working. Knowing music was needed for the evening service, Joseph Mohr, an assistant parish priest in Oberndorf, Austria, wrote the words for a new hymn in a flash of inspiration. He took the lyrics to the church organist, Franz Gruber, who wrote a melody to be played on his guitar. Franz and Joseph performed their beautiful new hymn “Stille Nacht,” or “Silent Night,” that evening. Its popularity spread quickly throughout the world. (See Hymns, no. 204.)

Sarah was unpacking a box in her room when Mom walked in.
“Can we paint the walls yellow?” she asked Mom.
They had just moved into a different house. Sarah had been able to pick out a quilt and curtains for her new room!
“I think so,” Mom said. “Yellow is a happy color.”
Sarah put a few books on a little shelf by her bed. Mom didn’t always feel happy lately, not since Dad had died in the accident. Sarah carefully put her favorite picture of Dad next to the books, where she could see it every morning when she woke up.
She heard a sniffle and saw tears in the corners of Mom’s eyes.
“I love you, Mom,” Sarah said, wrapping her arms around Mom’s waist and squeezing tight.
“I love you more.”
The Saturday before school started, Mom and Sarah put on old clothes, moved the furniture to the middle of Sarah’s room, and carefully pushed paint rollers into trays of yellow paint. After a while, the walls were covered in yellow—and so were their faces and clothes!
“You look like you’ve got sunshine splattered all over you,” Mom said with a laugh.
Sarah giggled. “And you look like a banana exploded next to you!”
They were still laughing as they cleaned up. But Sarah’s smile faded when she thought about going to Primary tomorrow and school the day after that.
“I’m worried about church and my new school,” she told Mom as they rinsed paintbrushes in the sink. “I won’t know any of the teachers or kids or anybody.”
Mom turned off the water and pulled Sarah into a hug.
“You’ll make friends. You have a kind heart that will draw others to you. Be your wonderful self, and friends will come.”
Sarah felt a little better, but she was still nervous.
“I wish Dad were here to give me a blessing,” she said. “Like he always used to before I went back to school.”
Mom was quiet for a minute. “What about Uncle Wyatt?” she said. “I’m sure he’d be happy to give you a blessing.”
Sarah nodded. Maybe a blessing would help.
That night, Sarah’s uncle put his hands on her head to give her a blessing.
“I bless you to know that the Savior is mindful of you as you start this new chapter in life,” he said. “He will not leave you alone.”
Sarah paid special attention to the words new chapter. She loved to read and was always excited to start a new chapter in a book.
The next morning Sarah and Mom went to church. After sacrament meeting Mom helped Sarah find the Primary room. A girl inside smiled at her and said hello.
“You can sit here if you want,” she said, patting an empty chair next to her.
“Thanks,” Sarah said. “My name’s Sarah. I’m new here.”
“I’m Melody. And I’m new too! This is only my second week.”
Soon Melody and Sarah were talking with the other Primary kids. Their teacher was really nice.
“I hope school goes this well!” Sarah thought as she went to bed that night.
The next day, Sarah rode the bus to her new school. She was excited to see a few kids from Primary in her third-grade class.
“Thank you, Heavenly Father,” Sarah prayed silently as she ate lunch with her new friends. “Maybe this will be a good chapter, after all.”

Some time ago, I received a copy of the April 1997 De Ster (Dutch). As usual, I took a break from my daily chores to start reading this magazine. The cover of the children’s section caught my eye. It portrayed Jesus Christ with a little girl. Although I’m a grown woman and the mother of two children, I desired at that moment to be that little girl—safe in the Savior’s arms.
I couldn’t get that picture out of my mind the entire day. I wanted to put my arms around my own children and let them know I love them. I felt good knowing that they trust me, but it was even better knowing that they trust the Lord.
As I prayed at the close of the day, for a brief moment I felt as if His arms were indeed around me. Inside I felt at peace.
Annelies Prent-Pellis,Dordrecht Branch, Rotterdam Netherlands Stake

One day when strolling down the road on which the Bridlington meeting house stands, my mind not taken up so much as usual with the needs of the day, I took to looking at the buildings that line this very ancient of streets.
My first observation was a surprising one, when I realised there had been eight churches of different denominations on the street at some point. Many were still there, but now used for different purposes than their builders intended. I then began to wonder at what had been on the sites of new buildings squeezed between the Victorian shops and houses. My curiosity aroused, I made a visit to our local studies library, and returned many times, as I became absorbed in the history of this road that had existed since pre-Christian times.
I was fascinated and felt that maybe others of the town would be also. This thought coincided with an invitation to attend a meeting to discuss ideas for the year’s Heritage Open Days (every September thousands of volunteers in towns and cities across the country organise events to celebrate Britain’s heritage and culture). I went along and volunteered to give a talk and put on an exhibition on the history of the street. Conscious that the biggest problem in doing so is finding a location, I had previously approached the Bishop and been given permission to use the church building.
A further thought had already come into my mind- why not extend the event to include a chapel Open House? Saddened by the missionaries’ lack of success in getting people to come into the building, I felt that putting on something of a nonreligious nature could be the encouragement people needed and hopefully once in the building, they might ask questions, pick up leaflets and read things on notice boards.
The foyer had the history of the Bridlington Ward, the Church’s involvement in humanitarian aid, emergency preparedness and ‘Just Serve.’ The notice board in the baptismal font told of Christ’s original Church, the apostasy and the restoration; and our belief in the need for baptism and the form it should take. Displays on the work of Relief Society, the Young Men and Young Women’s programmes and Primary, filled the classrooms, and the Elders Quorum were on hand to give help and advice on family history and show a film about one brother’s experience of finding out more about his family than merely their names and dates.
With excellent advertising on social media, in local newspapers and free events booklets supplied by the Heritage Week organisation, seventy people attended. No one asked the missionaries for the discussions, no-one new appeared at church the following day, but one man who attended the lecture approached me and raised my spirits when he expressed his appreciation for being able to tour the building and learn something of our beliefs. Others may have felt the same, but not expressed it. Seeds were sown and continued effort and new ideas will bring results. As Christ said: "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you." (Matthew 17:20)

This summer, our first grandson was called on a mission. We watched with anticipation and excitement as he prepared for that great adventure. We saw a transformation take place as he experienced his farewell, his temple endowment, and his entrance into the Missionary Training Center. It was a literal miracle to see a typical selfish teenage boy become a selfless servant of God. He became a man overnight. We thrilled at his letters from the Training Center in which he told his friends to get with it—that “this” is where it’s at. We saw a new boldness as he became immersed in his mission. That boldness and spirit have been increased now that he is in the mission field teaching what he believes.
Let me share a portion of a letter he wrote to a nonmember friend who is investigating the Church:
“It’s great to hear you’ve taken the discussions. They are really cool. Let me tell you something about commitment. You have just got to make it. Get committed! Read the Book of Mormon. I did it in nine days, and I only read for one and a half hours a day. Get committed to attend church every week. It is a commandment of God, and it’s necessary for baptism. Get committed to pray. If you would read the Book of Mormon and pray about it, you would know that it is true. Finally, get committed to baptism. Christ did it, and you have to, too. I suspect that you know the gospel is true, or you wouldn’t put up with it. Remember, God knows you know it; and if you don’t make the commitment, he will still hold you accountable because you know the truth. Being lukewarm in the gospel doesn’t do anyone any good—especially you!”
As a grandfather, I exult when I see my own flesh and blood entering the Lord’s service so well prepared and pray that my other grandchildren will respond as readily to the call as he has done.
From the Missionary Training Center, my grandson wrote to a friend: “Read the Book of Mormon. … It is the best book I have ever read, and I am not just saying that.”

Later in my life, I was preparing to leave college and I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do. I went to a meeting where information was given on several different kinds of work. I got excited about printing and decided that I wanted to be a printer. I made an application and was offered a position with a printing company. I had a vision in my mind of being in charge of a big printing press.
On the first day of work, I was delighted when the supervisor took me to a very large machine that was printing in two colors. I thought he was going to say to me, “This is your machine.” I didn’t realize how much training I would need to perform that responsibility. The supervisor assigned me to work with the man in charge of that machine, which I did for six months. All I did that six months was move the paper to be printed on into the machine.
After that, I was put on another machine, and I worked with somebody else. Then I was assigned to a third machine, which was a handfed machine. That means that I “fed” each sheet of paper into the machine by hand. I could do that because by that time I had learned to handle paper well.
A few weeks later, the supervisor came up to me and said, “We feel that you have come to the point where you can be in charge of this machine.”
I was excited. This machine put glazing on the labels that were used for a very popular product in the United Kingdom.
The supervisor said to me, “Before I leave you in charge, you need to spend a little while longer developing your skill. There are a few more things that you need to know.” He stood by me while I was feeding paper into this machine and said, “There is one special thing you need to know—you need to listen for a particular sound. It’s sort of a clicking sound.”
The noise of the machine running with its gears rolling, along with the noise of twenty-five other machines, made it difficult to distinguish sounds, but I confidently said, “Yes, I hear that.” I thought that I was hearing what he was describing.
He said, “That’s all you need to know. As long as you can recognize that, you’ll be fine.”
He left, and I fed the paper into the machine for forty-five minutes. Suddenly the machine came to a grinding halt, making an incredible noise. All sorts of parts were knocking together. The other workers came running to see what had happened.
My supervisor came back and said, “Did you hear the sound?”
I said, “I thought I did.”
He said, “Let’s clean the machine up.” There was paper on the rollers and the cogs, and it took us about thirty minutes to clean up the machine. When he turned the machine on, he said, “Listen, there’s a sort of clicking sound. That’s the best way I can describe it. Can you hear it?”
I listened and just heard all the same noises that I’d heard before, but I said, “Yes.”
He said, “Fine.”
About thirty minutes later, the same thing happened. The supervisor said to me, “You can clean the machine by yourself this time.”
It took me over an hour to clean the paper off the rollers and out of the cogs and get the machine ready to run.
The supervisor came back and stood beside me and asked again, “Can you hear the clicking sound?”
Suddenly, above all the other sounds, I heard a sound that I hadn’t heard before, and the best way I could describe it was that it was a sort of clicking sound. The supervisor explained to me that the sound was made when the paper separated from the printing plate. The sound was determined by the consistency of the gloss that was glazing the paper.
If that sound changed, it meant that the gloss was getting too thick and too tacky. And when that happened, the paper would jam up in the grippers, causing a big pileup of paper that stopped the machine. Once I discovered that sound, I could fix the consistency of the gloss, and my machine never stopped again unless I myself turned it off.

World War II was a time of great spiritual turmoil for me. I had left my home in Brigham City, Utah, with only embers of a testimony, and I felt the need for something more. Virtually our whole senior class in a matter of weeks was on its way to the war zone. While stationed on the island of Ie Shima, just north of Okinawa, Japan, I struggled with doubt and uncertainty. I wanted a personal testimony of the gospel. I wanted to know!
During one sleepless night, I left my tent and entered a bunker which had been formed by lining up 50-gallon fuel drums filled with sand and placed one on top of the other to form an enclosure. There was no roof, and so I crawled in, looked up at the star-filled sky, and knelt to pray.
Almost mid-sentence it happened. I could not describe to you what happened if I were determined to do so. It is beyond my power of expression, but it is as clear today as it was that night more than 65 years ago. I knew it to be a very private, very individual manifestation. At last I knew for myself. I knew for a certainty, for it had been given to me. After some time, I crawled from that bunker and walked, or floated, back to my bed. I spent the rest of the night in a feeling of joy and awe.
Far from thinking I was someone special, I thought that if such a thing came to me, that it could come to anyone. I still believe that. In the years that have followed, I have come to understand that such an experience is at once a light to follow and a burden to carry.

But like many new converts, Teahumanu saw the gospel light he had received dim as worldly pressures overshadowed his initial commitment. In 1957, after Brother Manoï brought his family to Nouméa to look for work, he started to smoke and drink. Térotí would have none of it and returned to her parents in Tahiti. Teahumanu followed her—with some trepidation. When they were married, Térotí’s father had told him, “I’m giving her to you as a trust. If she ever comes back to me, watch out!” Teahumanu asked both Térotí and her father for forgiveness and promised to give up his bad habits forever. He has kept that promise.

Elder David O. McKay had many pets, including a boar named Caesar.
Son: Father, you must really love animals to care for an ugly creature like that!
One day as Elder McKay was leaving to catch a train, he noticed that Caesar had broken out of his pen and was wandering away.
David: No, you don’t! We’ll keep you in the chicken coop for now. I’ll have to repair the pen when I get back.
But Elder McKay forgot to tell the rest of the family where Caesar was, so no one could feed or water him.
At 2:00 a.m., the telephone rang at the McKay house.
Operator: There’s a telegram for Mr. Lawrence McKay.
Lawrence: This is Lawrence. Please read the telegram.
Son: At this hour it can mean only bad news! I hope Father is all right.
Elder McKay’s son Lawrence scribbled down the words as the operator read them: “Caesar in chicken coop! Water him!”
Lawrence thanked the operator and hung up. Relieved, everyone laughed.
Son: That’s all the telegram said? Father must really love that ugly old boar!

There are so many temptations in just one day in the life of a teenager. Every day I go to school wearing my CTR ring and an LDS necklace, and I try hard to make right choices. Without fail, people ask me what CTR and LDS stand for. Once, some kids at school sang a song about me called “Little Miss Perfect Can Do No Wrong.” It bothered me so I tried to become better accepted with my friends, knowing that some things I was doing were wrong. I know many were watching when I ignored my CTR reminder. I hope I can rebuild my reputation because I know that that is the reputation Heavenly Father wants me to have. Thanks again for re-inspiring me to choose the right.
Name WithheldOhio

One Christmas season when I was about five, I saw in a store window a jigsaw puzzle with a picture of an old fire engine going full speed down the street. The horses pulling it were galloping, smoke from the engine chimney was blowing out behind, and dogs were barking. I passed that store window many times and glued my eyes on that picture. I wanted that puzzle for Christmas more than I wanted a sled or skates or anything else.
When Christmas morning finally came, I found hung on my chair a stocking full of good things. But right off I spotted my puzzle. It was wrapped in bright paper, but I could tell by the shape what it was. I quickly opened the box and was soon lost in the pleasure of putting the puzzle together.
Before long my father came into the room and explained to my younger brother, older sister, and me that the Jensen family down the street had recently come from Denmark. He said the father had no job and no money, and then he suggested that we take our Christmas dinner to them. He also asked each of us to select our most loved toy and give it to a child in the Jensen family.
Father said we would leave at eleven forty-five and were to be ready then with our toys.
Before we left for the Jensen’s, I spent three happy hours playing with and enjoying my puzzle. I thought about giving something else, but I knew deep down that there was only one gift to give.
At eleven forty-five we all started out. Father carried the turkey on a platter. Mother and my sister Emily followed with potatoes, gravy, dressing, cranberries, and dessert. And under my arm, carefully rewrapped, was my fire engine puzzle.
When we entered the Jensen home, Father placed the turkey on the small bare table in the corner, and the others followed.
Each one of us in turn then gave his present. Emily gave her beautiful doll to the girl. I stepped forward and looked at the boy about my age. “Here,” I said as I pushed the puzzle at him. He took it from me and smiled. Next my brother gave his offering to the smallest child. And then we returned home.
It was strange, but somehow as I walked the block between our house and the Jensen’s, it seemed as if my feet didn’t touch the ground. I felt as though I were floating on clouds of good feeling, for I knew I had made someone else happy.
Even our Christmas dinner of canned beans, bread, butter, and bottled fruit had a special and unforgettable meaning on that special Christmas Day!

Lizzie: My senior year of high school, I remember a teacher giving us some “advice.” She had married right out of high school, and it ended badly, so she basically told us that “there are a lot of fish in the sea.” She meant that there are a lot of things for us to try, a lot of candidates to try out. I remember being shocked that my teacher would say that. Since that time I have thought that, yes, there are a lot of people, but I don’t want a lot of people!

At school in Ireland, all students are required to take religion class. Even though they go to early-morning seminary, these Latter-day Saint students are not excused from their school religion requirement. But their study of the scriptures has paid off. Louise said, “We have Franciscan friars that visited our school. When they were asking questions, they would point to me and put their fingers to their lips as if to say, ‘Shhh, don’t answer the question.’ They know I can answer it.”

Elaine has the same story. “I always get A’s in religion class. If my teacher asked what a word means, like covenant, I would answer. He knew I would know the answer no matter what he asked.”

Derek Fagan, 17, has excelled both in school and in seminary, and he credits an experience he had just before he received his patriarchal blessing. “We had been talking about patriarchal blessings in seminary. I prayed and asked if I should get my patriarchal blessing. Our stake did not have a patriarch at that time, but three days later, our new patriarch was called. I felt it was my answer. That was the time I decided for myself that the Church was true and I would try harder to do well and choose the right. My patriarchal blessing was amazing. I carry it around with me everywhere. Since early-morning seminary started, everything has been clearer. Even in school, I just learn very quickly now. It’s unusual to do ordinary level subjects for exams and then move up and take the exam at a higher level. The teachers were rather amazed when I moved from ordinary level to higher.”

Derek has also become the first seminary student in Ireland to learn all the scripture mastery scriptures. As an extra challenge, he memorized the First Vision as found in Joseph Smith—History.

Brett and Brandt Crowther were giving up high school in the United States to come to Ireland with their parents while their father served as a mission president. Brett would miss only his senior year, but Brandt would miss three years of high school. Then, by the time his dad’s mission was over, Brandt would be old enough to serve his own mission full-time. “Some of my friends did tease me about going on a five-year mission.”

Brandt remembers the time right before early-morning seminary started just a few months after he arrived in Ireland. “I prayed almost every night of my life, but one night about eight months ago, I prayed with sincerity and asked the Lord what He wanted me to do here. I needed to know in my heart that the Church was true. And I found out that God does live and He loves me. I gained an understanding of what He wanted me to do. And since then, I’ve been happy being here. I’ve loved it. I’m closer to the Savior now.”

Brandt explains some of the things the Lord told him he needed to do. “I needed to read the scriptures every day and to pray every night and keep the commandments. And be enthusiastic. I needed to get in gear. That night the Spirit was with me. I didn’t want to go to bed. I stayed up feeling that feeling. The best way I can explain it was like I wasn’t alone and I knew it.”

Seminary class often helped give direct answers to Farris. “I received a testimony of prayer and of tithing. I was just praying about things that I really needed to find out about. It would click in seminary. I would understand things better. It is so much better when you get an answer. The Spirit tells you it is true. What is that like? It’s calm, and you understand things. You’re not nervous. You know it’s true. You feel it in your heart.”

One unique thing about this seminary class has been how much the students enjoy being together. It seems every weekday morning isn’t enough. They now get together every Saturday night, too.

It all started when Louise’s mother told Brett that Louise’s friends always ask her to go to the pub with them on Saturdays, but she never goes. Brett said, “We can get a group of people and go out and have some fun. We decided to take the whole class, make it a seminary thing. After that, every Saturday night, we’ve been doing it. It’s good fun.”

What do they do? The first week they went to the cinema, but that quickly became too expensive. So they started going to each other’s houses to play games (the Crowthers taught them to play capture-the-flag) or watch videos or just talk and talk and talk. Elaine explains, “We used to have nothing to talk about; now we don’t have enough time to talk. It’s very fun. When I was in Primary, I never used to mix. I’d stay to myself. When I was in school, I never talked to anybody. But my confidence has grown to talk to people more since I started hanging around with the group.”

For Louise, having something else to do on Saturdays has helped her be comfortable in her decision to stay strong in the Church. “It’s not an excuse, but it’s a reason for me not to go with my friends from work because they go out every weekend. Sometimes, I used to go along. I didn’t do anything I shouldn’t, but it was just being there. It just didn’t feel good. It wears out your spirit eventually. I got so tired of trying to speak up for myself. When I go with the seminary class, I can just be me. And that’s accepted.”

And most of all, “Saturday nights are fun,” says Pamela. “Usually my friends go out on Saturday night. Their standards are completely different from mine. I prefer and feel much better going to the seminary activity. We have great fun.”

Derek adds, “Early-morning seminary has brought us closer, and we’re better friends. Definitely. Saturday evenings we have activities. It’s not planned by any adults. It’s all arranged by us. I’ve gotten a lot closer to everyone in the class, even Pamela, my sister. Most nights the kids at school would go out and get drunk and break the Word of Wisdom. I wouldn’t even consider that as a choice.”

Most of all, this year of seminary has taught them the meaning of faith. Standing before the class each morning is their teacher, Rosemary Richmond, prepared to help them learn from Church history about the faith of the early prophets and members. Her husband, Brendan, suffers from an extremely rare and damaging lung disorder and is confined to a wheelchair. She has the constant worry about her husband’s care and health, yet she is willing and eager to prepare lessons and have the early-morning seminary class come each day.

Louise said, “Members here are very faithful, especially Rosemary, with all the trials she’s been through. It makes you realize how lucky you are. While in seminary, we read about the Prophet Joseph Smith and the pioneers. Joseph Smith did a marvelous thing. He’s a great man. I love him. The testimony that he had never faltered. Can you imagine living back in those days? Some people say these are the hardest days, but I think then it was so much harder. Now if we were called to Zion, we’d just catch a plane. The pioneers had to walk halfway across America just to practice what they believe. I want that sort of faith because I love the Church.”

Louise is developing that kind of faith. Every day she stands up for her beliefs. But with her small group of valiant seminary friends, she doesn’t have to stand alone. None of them do. They have found a way to strengthen each other. And that has made all the difference.

When I was in my teenage years, we thought that my older brother wouldn’t get to serve a mission because the ward was allowed to send only one young man at a time on a mission. Everybody else had to be available for the military draft. But our bishop and stake president found out that they could send one more. So, they talked to my brother about it, and he came home and told my parents.

My father was a wonderful man, but he was not active in the Church. His response was negative—but for an unusual reason. He wasn’t critical of the Church or even of a mission, but my brother was preparing for medical school. My father said, “You’ve prepared yourself to go to medical school. You’ve taken the classes. You can do more good if you go to medical school than you can if you go on a mission.”

That evening, this faithful, wonderful brother of mine sat with me, and the two of us talked. We concluded that there were really three questions that would determine his response to our father. The first one was, “Was Jesus Christ the Savior of the world?” The second one was, “Is the Book of Mormon the word of God?” And the third one was, “Was Joseph Smith a prophet?” I realized that the answers to those three questions would affect almost every decision I would make for the rest of my life.

I had always loved the Savior and I had read the Book of Mormon, but realizing how significant those answers were, I prayed that night and received through the Holy Ghost a profound favorable answer to those questions. Jesus Christ is the Savior, the Book of Mormon is the word of God, and Joseph Smith was a prophet. I testify that these things are true.

“Sixteen-inch walls.” Ephraim Hanks whispered the words and the sound was lost in an icy wind. It had been summer when he built the walls, and now it was winter. Now there was a deep, penetrating, cold wind that reached through his clothes with frozen, burning fingers, and even his bones ached from its touch. Now he wanted to get out of the wind, to find shelter from it; but the thought of the walls kept him going.
The low winter sky was darkening. The wind grew strong into a steady, unbroken gust and raised up a fine mist of crystal spray across a vast rolling ocean of moon-white hills. A dark curtain of tattered storm clouds blew along the horizon. Hidden behind the clouds the sun was setting, and night, a cold liquid blackness, was coming fast.
At night, with the wind, Ephraim knew it would get cold enough to kill a man without shelter. His instincts told him to stop, to bury himself wrapped in buffalo robes under the snow. He had been caught in cold before, many times, and it was his instinct, his will for survival, that had kept him alive. But now there was something else, something deeper, something he trusted more; and the walls, memory of the walls, stood a fortress between that and the powerful wind instinct.
His horse, a big-boned black, slipped, suddenly plunging forward and down into the snow. Catching its balance it stood breathing heavily, then staggered on through the knee-deep snow. It was a powerful animal with great endurance, but it had been going since morning and was wearing down. Ephraim knew it wouldn’t last much longer.
It would be better to stop, he thought, better for the horse.
He lifted his head into the wind, searching the horizon. Somewhere ahead, somewhere along the Sweetwater River (Wyoming), he had heard a large band of Sioux were camped for the winter.
If I can reach the village, he thought. But why now? Why tonight? Even if I found the village and they would help, it would be impossible to get back until late tomorrow. It would be better to stop now and look for the village in the morning. A couple of hours, even a half a day, won’t matter to the men.
He thought of them, behind him 20 miles, 30, 40—it seemed an endless distance back through the snow, waiting for him, counting on his help. If he didn’t make it back …
Ephraim stopped his horse. It was dark. He had to stop. He clasped his gloved hands together and whispered a prayer. His frozen breath steamed up white in the cold air.
He finished. Inside, deep, distant and close, the voice, if it could be called a voice (it was more like fire) whispered for him to keep going.
The horse started again.
Ephraim remembered seeing a man die in the snow. The man just gave up, lay down, and stopped living. The man had been strong and healthy. Ephraim had seen that in another way in other men, good men who laid down what they believed in.
The wind blew wraiths of snow around and against Ephraim. It made a soft, flutelike sound. His mind seemed to dull with the sound, and his thoughts moved like the mists the wind blew across the hills.
He was bent over in the saddle with his head down. His fingers and cheeks were numb, and the numbness spread gently around, covering his neck and arms, burning flesh yielding to anesthesia. It slowly moved inward. A drowsy warmth spread over his body. He had seen this happen to other men in the cold. Soon it would be too late. Soon he would slip into a warm, comfortable sleep. There was a drifting, falling sensation.
“Sixteen-inch walls,” Ephraim formed the words in his mouth. The cold burned his face around his lips. It was winter again, but there was still the orange light.
Light from inner fires made the tepees glow in the night and washed across the hollow, the small village spread across with a pale orange. Somewhere below Ephraim, in the village, the sharp yelp of a dog broke the night silence. More dogs followed the first, and this chorus was mixed with the soft sound of human voices.
Ephraim stopped his horse in a circle of tepees. The air smelled of burning pine. He waited on his horse, as was Sioux custom, to be invited to step down. Several dogs, growling and crouching low, moved close, smelling and threatening.
An old woman came from a large tepee and motioned Ephraim to follow her. The dogs cowered back.
Inside the tepee the woman pointed to a pile of buffalo robes and disappeared through the entrance. Ephraim sank onto the robes. A fire near the center of the tent threw waves of heat against him. The warmth brought feeling back to his skin. It throbbed with pain and blood. There was smell of wet leather and smoke. Smoke hung low in the tepee and curled up slowly through a hole in the top. Ephraim’s clothes thawed and steamed.
After awhile an old man with bowed legs and a seamed, leather face came in and sat cross-legged opposite from Ephraim. A large, lanky dog followed and sprawled next to him on the floor.
The fire slanted shadows of the old Indian’s form against the tepee wall. He rested his right hand on his left and silently studied Ephraim with strong, unyielding eyes. His eyes were large and brown with small flecks of yellow around the edges, and the large, dark irises reflected the flames from the fire. Below the eyes a scar ran jagged down his face to his neck. The old Indian’s face was as expressionless as stone.
More Indians came until there was a circle of them around the fire.
The old Indian lifted his shoulders back. His hair shone silver in the firelight. He looked around the circle and back to Ephraim.
“Who are you? What do you want with us?” He spoke English.
Ephraim looked directly into the old Indian’s eyes. Only the crackling of the fire was heard.
“I am Ephraim Hanks, and I have come as a friend. My people are the people who pulled the carts across the prairie.” Ephraim waved his hands up to emphasize his words.
“Our leader is Brigham Young, who speaks with the Great Spirit.”
The old Indian suddenly stood. The eyes of all the Indians in the circle followed him up and then went quickly back to Ephraim, glaring. Their eyes looked fierce in the firelight.
Ephraim felt a weight in the pit of his stomach, and the muscles on the back of his neck stiffened. His heart pounded in his chest. The old dog lifted his head, sniffing the tension in the air. The fire popped loudly and made gooseflesh on Ephraim’s arm. He felt for his knife handle under his shirt.
Ephraim calmed himself. He wouldn’t fight unless he had to.
The old Indian narrowed his eyes and took a deep breath.
“Do you also speak with the Great Spirit?”
Ephraim nodded and relaxed.
“Do you have the power of the Great Spirit?” the old Indian asked.
“Yes.”
The old Indian leaned down and said something Ephraim couldn’t hear. Two Indians left the tepee, and the rest talked excitedly among themselves. The old Indian’s eyes studied Ephraim even more intently. Outside the tepee the eternal night wind blew. The fire flared up and died to glowing coals. An Indian carefully placed more wood on it.
The two Indians came back through the entrance carrying a litter and laid it in front of Ephraim. On it lay an unconscious boy. His closed eyes were sunk deep in his skull. Skin was stretched pale and loose over his skeleton frame. The boy’s chest rose and fell with desperate breathing. He smelled of death.
“My grandson was injured several moons ago when his horse fell during a buffalo hunt. He has not moved or spoken since. You have the power of the Great Spirit.” The old Indian was looking into the fire.
Ephraim nodded his head.
“I do.”
“Will you ask the Great Spirit to make my boy well?”
Ephraim nodded again.
He took a steer horn flask he carried hung from his waist and uncorked it. Ephraim knew if he failed, there would be no help. If the boy dies tonight … He thought again of the walls. I’ve come this far. I won’t stop now.
The olive oil poured liquid gold in the fire’s light. Ephraim anointed the boy the way the boy’s own people had done in another time and place with the same power. The prayer came suddenly. Ephraim knew a few Sioux words, and now they flowed in a gushing stream. The fire flared bright and glowed on faces. The old Indian’s eyes swam brilliant in tears. A fire burned in Ephraim and cooled. The prayer was finished. The boy opened his eyes. He sat up weakly, looked at Ephraim, and then threw his arms around the old Indian.
It was morning. There was an autumnlike mist on the ground. The sky had cleared during the night. Pools of sunlight slanted between the tepees. The air smelled of sunshine and melting snow. The old Indian’s eyes were bright.
“Stay with us awhile,” he said.
“I can’t,” Ephraim answered. “My people need help. They need food. They were caught with wagons in the heavy snow 30 days ago. Can you help?”
The old Indian turned from Ephraim.
“Buffalo are scarce this year, and the snows are deep. My people are on the edge of starvation. Our children cry at night. If we give any of our food we will die. No, we cannot help. I am sorry.” He turned toward Ephraim but didn’t look directly into his eyes. “Ask the Great Spirit to bring us buffalo, and then we will both feast.”
The fire burned again in Ephraim. “The Great Spirit led me to you for help. If you will help us now and trust the Great Spirit, there will be many buffalo come through your lands in three days.”
The old Indian shook his head. “I am sorry,” he said softly. “Our children cry in the night for food. My people would starve if the buffalo did not come. There will be some who will die as it is.” He shook his head again. “You ask too much of me.”
He turned and walked slowly away.
Ephraim swung up onto his horse. The old Indian turned and watched him disappear over the white hills. Ephraim reached the wagon train before dark that night.
The sun settled the snow the next day, and the going was easier for the wagons. Ephraim was driving the lead wagon. The day was quiet. The only sound was the noise of the mules’ hooves in the snow and the rattle of the wagons. The men were silent. Ephraim had been their last hope for food.
As they came over the crest of a small swale, the Indians came down suddenly and formed a double line along the trail. The men raised their guns ready to fight. Ephraim leaned over and waved his hand back at them. He drove forward.
As he passed through the line, the braves each handed him a large bundle of dried buffalo meat. The old Indian was last in the line. He handed Ephraim his bundle, smiled, turned his horse and rode away. The others followed.
Months later, in the spring, Ephraim Hanks and Feramorz Little were making a return trip from Independence, Missouri, to Salt Lake City when they met an old trader on the trail.
“Hey, Ephraim, what did you do to get them Sioux all stirred up?” he asked. “They been ridin’ all over the country lookin’ for you. They said something about some buffalo. Didn’t make any sense. They said the buffalo came in three days.”
Historical note: During the Utah War, Federal troops were ordered to Utah. In an effort to keep news of the order from reaching Utah, mail service to Salt Lake City was stopped. When mail failed to arrive in Salt Lake, the U.S. Postmaster gave Ephraim Hanks and Feramorz Little a special commission to carry mail east to Independence, Missouri. After receiving a special blessing from the First Presidency of the Church, Ephraim and Feramorz left on December 11, 1856.
When they crossed over the continental divide and came to Ash Hollow, they found the Majors and Russel freight teams stranded in the snow. They had been there for over 30 days, and their food supplies were dangerously low. Ephraim and Feramorz offered to help the men. Ephraim set out alone looking for food while Little stayed to help with the wagons.
Hanks and Little reached Independence on February 27, 1857.

I like to dance, make crafts, and play with my little sister Lilly. When I was two, I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. Every year on the anniversary of my diagnosis, I do service. Last year, my family and I donated stuffed animals and gave a letter of encouragement to the children at the hospital where I was diagnosed. I felt so happy to do something nice for someone experiencing a sad time. I am thankful for the example of Jesus Christ to love and serve others.
Sariah B., 13, Minnesota, USA