Gospel Story Finder

It is said that advice is the one thing that is more “blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35). This fact is illustrated in John Erskine’s story about Dr. George Harris, who was serving as president of Amherst College.

One autumn he [addressed] the students at the first assembly of the year, but after a sentence or two he got tired and broke into a happy smile—“I intended to give you some advice, but now I remember how much is left over from last year unused.” With that he took his hat and walked out. [John Erskine, The Memory of Certain Persons (Philadelphia, New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1947), p. 142]

David Arellano was 13 years old when he shyly entered the room full of people and stood behind everyone to take his first piano lesson by memorizing the cardboard keyboard. Within three weeks after David began practicing on a teclado, he was accompanying the congregation of his Cotama Ward with simplified versions of the hymns. He was so overjoyed, he wept.
During the next summer, David traveled with his father to New York City, New York, on a trip for the family merchandising business. David’s shyness did not interfere with his desire to play the piano in front of strangers. In fact, at the ward they were visiting, he bravely made himself acquainted with the organist and, as a result, he was given opportunities to play while he was there. Later, he was also asked to share his talents at a ward in Las Vegas, Nevada. However, the most thrilling moment came when David was invited to play the organ in the tabernacle in St. George, Utah. He returned home with wonderful memories of sharing his budding talent.

But he wasn’t always so well known. Reared by his grandparents on Kuria, a small dot of land south of Tarawa, Tune didn’t come to the capital island until he was 13 or 14 years old. He had been taught traditional skills, but his grandmother felt he needed a good secondary education. So they came to Tarawa, where a few private schools, one run by a religious group, were located.
His grandmother enrolled him in the religious school. “But then just before school started,” Tune says, “I dislocated my hip playing soccer. I was admitted to the hospital on Tarawa. Unfortunately, a lady using traditional medicine tried to heal me by massaging the hip. Instead, she destroyed it. And then it got infected. I became very sick.
“When the doctors told my grandmother I might die, she called my family to Tarawa. I heard them talking to the doctors one day outside the curtain around my bed. The doctors said, ‘We don’t have any hope. This infection in his hip is very bad, and now it’s getting into the rest of his body.’
“When I heard that, I thought, ‘Wow! They think I’m going to die!’ I was raised a Christian, so I started praying. I said, ‘God, my only hope is You. If You spare my life, I promise to be a missionary. I will spend my whole life serving You.’ Of course, what I had in mind was the kind of missionary you see in the Protestant and Catholic churches. This was in 1972, before the LDS Church came to Kiribati.
“I was flat on my back in bed and couldn’t even sit up. But as I continued to pray, one day I found I could sit. After a while I could stand, then walk. I was in the hospital for two years.” Tune left with a bad limp, but he had survived.
“When I was released, for some reason I didn’t want to go to the Protestant school anymore. I wanted to go to another school called AKAS. So my grandmother enrolled me in 1974. During that year, Eb Davis, the LDS mission president in Fiji, came to our school to select 10 students to attend Liahona High School on Tonga. Attending high school is a great opportunity. Only two groups had gone before. I was older than most and had been out of school for two years, so I didn’t have much hope I would be selected. But I was.
“The big problem for my family was finding the money to purchase the required round-trip airfare. I asked my father, ‘How will you get the money? We don’t have any.’ My father had a terminal illness that left him unable to work, but he said, ‘We’ll get the money.’ My mother sewed for the hospital and had some money saved. My uncle and other relatives also helped. It seemed a miracle, but we came up with the money.
“So there I was in 1975 at Liahona High School. When I came to the campus, I thought I was in heaven. The people were clean, the school was clean, and the men were wearing ties. And then I discovered this was a church school, run by Mormons. I had no idea what a Mormon was, so I asked.
“That first Sunday I started the missionary discussions. Grant Howlett, one of my teachers, taught me. I was really excited. I had promised the Lord I would be a missionary if He healed me, and I knew I couldn’t be a missionary until I joined the Church. I was baptized on 22 June 1975—the first from our group. When my friends asked why I joined the Church so quickly, I said, ‘I couldn’t reject anything they taught. I just felt it was what my Father in Heaven wanted me to do.’
“Two months after I was baptized, the students from Kiribati were asked if anyone was interested in going home to introduce the Church there. I gave them my name. But when they learned I was 17, they told me I was too young.” Six young men accepted the call to take the gospel to Kiribati. They began in late 1975.
“Before they left, I asked them to talk to my parents. They agreed. I also sent many letters to my family bearing my testimony. They accepted the gospel and were baptized.” His grandmother, Tebwebwenikai Ribauea Tune, was the first person in the family to join.
“I finished school in 1978 and still wanted to be a missionary. By then I had also met my future wife, Maii. We decided I would serve a mission; then we would meet in Hawaii and be married in the temple. But I wasn’t sure how I was going to get to Hawaii or finance a mission.”
Tune considers what happened to him over the next few years miraculous. After graduation he stayed in Tonga translating for the Church. A family from the high school helped him go to the New Zealand temple, where he received his endowment in 1979. Within a few months he was serving a mission in Kiribati. After his mission he was able to attend BYU—Hawaii to further his education (he was the first person from Kiribati to graduate from BYU), and it was there he and Maii were married (the first couple from Kiribati to be sealed in the temple). An impression to return to Kiribati instead of accepting a job in the United States led to an encounter at the airport in Fiji with the Area President, Elder John Sonnenberg. A few days later Elder Sonnenberg called Tune to be Kiribati’s district president. President Tune’s ecclesiastic duties took him to Salt Lake City, where he had hip-replacement surgery. Limping no longer, he now outwalks most of those who attempt to keep up with him.
While serving as district president on Tarawa, Tune also filled an appointment as principal of Moroni High School, an LDS high school that resulted from the missionary work of Grant Howlett and his wife, Pat. When the Howletts came to Tarawa in 1976, the AKAS school was having financial and leadership problems. The Howletts supplied the leadership and petitioned the Church to buy the school. Eventually, the Church agreed.
Unfortunately, there was some opposition from people in the government. But the Lord had an agent in place. Baitika Toun, a member of the Church elected to parliament, helped convince several key lawmakers that a school run by the Church would be of great benefit to the I-Kiribati. The Church purchased the school and called the campus Moroni Community School (now Moroni High School).
The school has indeed proved a blessing, not only to the I-Kiribati but to the Church as well. “Moroni High School is seen as the model school in Kiribati,” Tune says. “Our graduates are skilled and have high moral values. They are sought out for responsible positions. And the Church is seen as the model church—in terms of morals, standards, and the focus on the family.”
The Church didn’t always enjoy such a reputation in Kiribati. “When it was first introduced, we were accused of being non-Christian,” Tune says. “We were even tried in parliament. But that just gave us a chance to preach the gospel to the leaders of our country. We cleared up the confusion.”
The school is now educating a new generation of Latter-day Saints who have strong testimonies and are eager to share the gospel. That is one reason the Church is growing so fast in Kiribati. Another is the gospel light that shines in the lives of Kiribati’s Latter-day Saints. “We have high standards and strong families,” Tune says. “People are attracted to that. When I started my mission, there were between 50 and 100 members of the Church in Kiribati. When I finished, we had 500. We now have close to 6,000. That’s about six percent of the population. After only 20 years, the Church had become the third largest denomination in Kiribati.” When Tune was released in 1996 after serving nine years as district president, the district was reorganized as a stake, and he was called as bishop of the Eita Ward (now the Eita First Ward).
It is now near sunset. Tarawa lies somewhere off the bow of Tune’s boat. A few terns and noddies fly past on their way to roost. Tune’s eyes follow them instinctively. The birds fly directly to land at dusk; by following them, a seafarer can always find home. Behind the birds, the sky has turned gold, tinting the sea gold as well. The light reveals a smile on Tune’s face. In the large cooler at his feet are four tuna that decided to join him during the trip home from Abaiang.
“The members here are like the seabirds,” he says. “The Great Fisherman has many fish to catch. We members are the birds showing the missionaries where those people are. And by the lives we live, we show our friends and relatives the way to eternal life.”
At the same time, the members of the Church in Kiribati are themselves among those gathered by the gospel net. If at times they soar in joyful anticipation of heaven’s joys, at other times they dive into the depths of mortal experience. Yet always there is the Light—and the leap of faith into it. At such times, for that brief moment, sea and sky become one.

While accompanying President Dieter F. Uchtdorf to Eastern Europe last year, I marveled at the faith and courage of the Saints. One priesthood leader in Ukraine told us of being called to the branch presidency in the spring of 1994, only six months after his baptism. This would require becoming public with his faith and helping to register the Church in the city of Dnipropetrovs’k. It was at a time of uncertainty in Ukraine, and openly showing faith in Christ and in the restored gospel could mean difficulty, including the possibility of losing his job as a pilot.

The priesthood leader told us, “I prayed and prayed. I had a testimony, and I had made a covenant. I knew what the Lord wanted me to do.” Courageously, he and his wife went forward with faith, unashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Brother Folau Neria and his wife, Leute, think of Sauniatu as a place of blessings because they have seen the Lord’s hand there. They were dorm parents while most of the work was being done, and Sister Neria worked with the girls who made one of the roads.
Brother Neria explained his feelings about Sauniatu. “I love that place. That’s where I met my sweetheart in 1942. Some of the first schoolteachers there taught me. I learned to take care of the work of the Lord there.
“We built that place with our hands and made it beautiful, then the Lord blessed it for us. Taros, bananas, everything grows better there than in any other place in Samoa.
“We learned how to work together and to teach each other to work. I was serving as bishop, and I learned that if we show people how to work and start first, they will soon follow.”

Elder James E. Talmage, who authored Jesus the Christ, stated:
“I was called and ordained one Sunday morning, … and that afternoon was placed as a sentinel at the door of the house in which the Saints had met for worship. As soon as I had been ordained, a feeling came to me such as I have never been able to fully describe. It seemed scarcely possible, that I, a little boy, could be so honored of God as to be called to the priesthood. I had read of the sons of Aaron and Levi who were chosen for the sacred labors of the Lesser Priesthood, but that I should be called to do part of the service that had been required of them was more than my little mind could grasp. I was both frightened and happy. Then, when I was placed on duty at the door, I forgot that I was but [a] … lad; I felt strong in the thought that I belonged to the Lord, and that he would assist me in whatever was required of me. I could not resist the conviction that other sentinels, stronger by far than I, stood by me though invisible to human eyes.
“The effect of my ordination to the deaconship entered into all the affairs of my boyish life. I am afraid that sometimes I forgot what I was, but I have ever been thankful that ofttimes I did remember, and the recollection always served to make me better. When at play on the school grounds, and perhaps tempted to take unfair advantage in the game, when in the midst of a dispute with a playmate, I would remember, and the thought would be as effective as though spoken aloud—‘I am a deacon; and it is not right that a deacon should act in this way.’ On examination days, when it seemed easy for me to copy some other boys’ work or to ‘crib’ from the book, I would remember again,—‘I am a deacon, and must be honest and true.’ When I saw other boys cheating in play or in school, I would say in my mind, ‘It would be more wicked for me to do that than it is for them because I am a deacon’” (Incidents from the Lives of Our Church Leaders: Course of Studyfor the Quorums of the Priesthood: Deacons, 1914, pp. 135–36).

I was reared as a Quaker, in the Society of Friends. Some branches of my family had been in the Society from its very beginnings in the mid-seventeenth century. Some suffered years of imprisonment for their faith. (Incidentally, I had to join the Mormon Church and do genealogy to find that out.)
As a Quaker, my father had a testimony against war, and so during the first world war he became a farmhand and we lived for a while in a little village that felt resentment against us because their men of military age were at the war. The boys used to torment my younger sister and me, and because of this I could not go to the village school—my mother and father taught me at home.
We were taught to be against dancing, the cinema, alcohol, and betting and gambling (including speculating on the stock exchange). As a result I learned that we were not of the world, and that we had enjoyments other than the world’s enjoyments. I interpreted that, as a child might well do, as looking down on people (I must have been a prig).
But Quaker meetings also taught me something of the Holy Spirit. Quakers believe in the inner light, and in my early teens I learned how it felt to be compelled from within to get up and speak, no matter how much one struggled against it.
However, I became dissatisfied with Quakerism. My family was poor, and I felt the condescension of members who were prosperous tradespeople and professionals. There were few working-class members of the Society of Friends. I was especially sensitive because the Society supported my widowed mother. I felt that there were class distinctions among the Friends.
Quakers shared a spirit, but to me it seemed too vague a spirit. It led to humane action, but the action seemed to me not vigorous enough. Their God had no body, parts, and passions. They lacked dogma, something firm I could depend on to help answer my own and others’ questionings. When I went to Cambridge in 1928, I found a generation trying to make the experience of literature and the other arts a substitute for religion. The text was Arnold’s statement that “religion has attached itself to the fact, and now the fact is failing it; but for poetry the idea is everything.” The little book that most characteristically enshrines this view is I. A. Richards’s Science and Poetry. The view was, however, an essentially individualistic one; it lacked the force to make a group cohere. There was a group—around Leavis’s periodical Scrutiny—that had a good deal of influence and effectively enforced the relationship of art and morality; but we were at sea, and though we could learn about winds and tides, there was no anchor aboard, and we had no destination.
At this point, I should like to say a few words about three important writers and their attitudes toward religion: William Butler Yeats, D. H. Lawrence, and T. S. Eliot.
Yeats used myths and images as a box of magical toys, and we cannot take his use seriously. However, he did show us a way of seeing the whole world and the whole of history in terms of images; and though he was not serious about it, we can be for our own serious purposes.
Lawrence had a disturbed life. He was restless because he could never find what he wanted, and he would not face his illness until the last. But he taught something of the sanctity and tenderness of the right relationship between man and woman in marriage, idealized from his own not very satisfactory experience. And he had a profound instinct about the need for a patriarchal community (his own family was very matriarchal) and for the priesthood. There are strong but dark shadowings of this in Aaron’s Rod, Kangaroo, and The Plumed Serpent.
Eliot was a sensitive and truthful seeker. He taught the value of exactitude in religious experience: “The spirit killeth, but the letter giveth life,” meaning that dogma is better than vague, liberal goodwill. And he well understood the step to conversion: “The awful daring of a moment’s surrender … costing not less than everything.” But his Christianity, with its royalism and Anglo-Catholicism, was a kind of seventeenth-century pastiche. His social outlook was limited and led him into snobbery (see Notes Towards a Definition of Culture). And his conversion liberated him in some ways and desiccated him in others.
At one time I investigated the Anglican Church. I attended a village church for some years. While I appreciated the hymns and the ritual, I could not join; there was nothing to join—no community of the church, no true social group, no force. The upper class tended to go to morning service and the lower class to evening service.
Like Eliot, they were pretending in a mock world, with—like him—some seventeenth-century pastiche as well as some Victorian pastiche dear to their own hearts.
After I had left Cambridge, there came to that university, as to others, the wave of Marxist thought characteristic of the thirties. Marxists deny God, but devout Communists—among whom were some of my friends—taught me something of faith: that faith must issue in energy, force, determination, organization. Faith is not content to leave things as they are, but wishes to change them for the better, both inside and outside oneself.
The quality of my friends’ faith may have been very good, but its object was deception. The Stalin trials, the Russo-German Pact of 1939, and the suppression of Hungary in 1956 were fatal blows to faith. Nothing was left but disillusion—or else self-deception—for idealistic Marxists. They found themselves in a wasteland; they knew the kind of bitter disappointment that Wordsworth experienced in the French Revolution. “Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive”; but it was just being alive and young, the excitement of animal spirits, no more. History has only savage answers to those who do not believe it to be a process of incarnation.
In the fifties, I lived for seven years in Islamic countries in Persia and Pakistan. Islam resembles Mormonism and Judaism in legislating for the organization of the whole community. The original social function of polygamy in Islam—that of providing status for spinsters and widows—helps an outsider to understand, sympathize with, and ultimately, as a member, accept the historical and eternal function of polygamy in the Latter-day Saint Church.
But Allah is remote, arbitrary, and all spirit to the Muslims. His ways are not to be understood by man, but are accepted with resignation. That he could have a body is blasphemy. History is not a process of incarnation to the Mohammedan, good historians though some of them once were. And the drive has irretrievably gone out of Islam.
I have had some experience with other religions: Hinduism, with its admirable regard for the family but its vague superstitions and continued social prejudice; and Buddhism, which in its proper form is a matter of intense spiritual discipline, has no place for a personal God, and advocates the absorption of human personality into the infinite, not its intensification through eternity. Each world religion has fatal flaws; each has in it something that points us toward and prepares us for acceptance of our Church.
So I was ready for the truth when, in 1966, my second cousin—now my wife—stopped at my door in the course of a genealogical hunt, introduced herself, and within a day or so had borne her testimony. She and the ever-ready missionaries told me what I was prepared to hear, though I had heard none of it before.
I had my difficulties as I began to relate the gospel to the world around us. But the more I learned of the gospel, the more I realized that it was wholly true, whereas much learned explanation was partial and uncertain. Facts we must accept, and know that our faith is never ultimately incompatible with them; interpretations remain a matter of continued discussion—a good scientist will always agree, too, that science does not promulgate immutable laws, but presents temporary explanations. The immutable laws remain those revealed for governing conduct, not the transient explanations of physical fact.
But all difficulties of this kind are resolved by the determination to enter the Church and accept it as a whole—all of it. It belongs together, and conversion is a matter not of choosing what you like and ignoring the rest, but of wholehearted, whole-minded acceptance.
Once we have been converted and have laid down at Christ’s feet whatever talents and tools we may possess, we find ourselves able to take them up again and use them for the Church in his name and in the light of his countenance.
I know that God lives. I have always known it. But I now know that he has a body, parts, and passions, for we are made in his image, and we may become like him. He lives in and through history. His Son was incarnate man and has now the flesh and bone that we too shall inherit after the resurrection. This is profoundly satisfying dogma.
I know that the Church is true. Its social organization and utter indifference to class distinctions vouch for this at the superficial level. But this organization could not be maintained were it not for the urge behind, the religious drive. I do not believe with Jonathan Swift that religion is just a good means of keeping society in order.
I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He speaks to me, a stylistician, in his own prose as a transparently sincere and matter-of-fact writer.
I know, therefore, that the Book of Mormon is an inspired translation and that the Doctrine and Covenants is revelation. They are quite different from Joseph Smith’s prose and significantly different from the Bible and from each other. They are unique. They could not have been invented by a man of Joseph Smith’s knowledge and training.
I know that there is a prophet upon the earth today, for there has to be succession and continuity. If Joseph Smith was a true prophet, then he had to be succeeded to maintain the revelation. As our prophet is sustained by our Father, so is he sustained by ourselves. Our Father blesses him, and through him the whole of the Church; and therefore we continue to accept and sustain him.
I believe in the work for the dead. The hearts of the fathers and the children may and must be turned to one another. The family goes back through history. It is not simply our nearest and dearest that are our concern, but our furthest and dearest. We want to learn as much as we can about them. I therefore believe in temple work. And only through regular temple work can a marriage be sanctified and become an eternal partnership on this earth.
I have come from the outside wilderness home. I carry with me throughout the day the sense of prayer. The whole world is sanctified unto the Most High, and “everything that lives is holy.”

While Elder Quentin L. Cook and Sister Mary Cook were in the Philippines, a big volcano erupted. They were glad they were there to help and comfort people.
The air was so ashy that it was hard to breathe. People had to leave their homes. Many families slept in Church buildings.
Elder Cook told the people that Heavenly Father loves them and that He would help them.
Elder Cook thanked Church members for their Christlike service to each other and to friends of other faiths.
“The Savior’s Atonement gives peace regardless of what we are faced with.”*

Darcey closed the door behind her. Her mother was sitting at the kitchen table reading. She looked up and said, “You were supposed to be home by twelve.”
Darcey nodded mutely. The expression on her mother’s face told her she was in more trouble than she had been in years. Yet at that moment she felt only an overpowering sense of relief that made her want to run to her and tell her how good it was to be home.
But she could only stand there, her hair and clothes reeking of cigarette smoke and beer. She felt like a dead skunk.
They said nothing more. Her mother got up and turned off the kitchen light. Darcey went up to her room. She undressed, climbed into bed, and stared at the ceiling, wondering how she could have been so gullible. How could Wendy be like that, she thought.
When she woke up the next morning she was still exhausted, but she couldn’t go back to sleep. So she showered and dressed, then slipped out the front door and walked up the street to Wendy’s house. Wendy’s parents were on a trip to Seattle, so Darcey went around to the deck. Wendy inevitably forgot to lock the sliding glass doors when she got home. As she stepped inside the house, Darcey found Wendy slumped over the kitchen counter.
“Morning,” said Darcey.
Wendy stared and peered around at her, slowly bringing her hands up to her ears. “Not so loud,” she whispered, hoarsely.
“You look awful,” said Darcey.
“Just a hangover.”
Darcey took the car keys out of her pocket and placed them carefully on the counter.
“Thanks,” said Wendy. Her eyes narrowed. “You didn’t tell, did you?”
Darcey shook her head.
“Yeah, my dad would kill me if he found out. You know, you tell your parents; they tell my parents; everybody gets into trouble over nothing.”
“Me, tell? I’m the one who got the ticket.”
“Oh, yeah.”
“Wendy, this is serious. I’ve got to go to court. What am I supposed to say?”
“That we were in my crummy old Escort, and no harm done. Okay?”
Her voice had taken on a scolding tone. Darcey looked past her, at the design of the wallpaper on the far wall. When she looked back, Wendy had fallen asleep.
Darcey left her and went home, heading for her room. The car was all Wendy cared about now, and that had been the first really stupid lie of the whole evening. How could she have thought that Wendy really had permission to drive her father’s sports car. But make one lie believable and the rest fall right in line. Darcey had been told they were going to a party at Steve Margerson’s, but somehow they ended up in Schenectady at Union College.
“It’ll be great,” Wendy had insisted, over Darcey’s objections. “Besides, you’re in my car. So you’re stuck. Anyway, nobody’s going to make you do anything, and it’s about time you went to a real party, one that’s not for little kids. Besides, Glenn says they’re all really smart. You can talk about intelligent stuff with them.”
Yeah, Darcey thought bitterly, intelligent stuff. Wendy had told everybody that her brother Glenn—a Union College junior—had invited them. She had told them she was two years older than she was. She told lies the whole evening, while Darcey hid in a dark corner of the living room, losing her hearing to the blast of the stereo, nibbling on potato chips, and not daring to touch anything liquid.
Then in the momentary lull between songs, someone complained to Wendy, “I thought you said she’d be fun.”
“Oh.” Wendy had replied. “She’s the designated driver.”
At least they stopped trying to get her to drink after that. But by the time she had convinced Wendy to go home, she found herself with the responsibility of taxiing inebriated party-goers around uptown Schenectady.
She had finally headed home across the I-890 business loop, thankful that none of her passengers had thrown up on her. In fact, now, on a bright Saturday morning, with an empty stomach and a headache, she could have written the whole episode off as a learning experience—if only she hadn’t taken the Broadway exit.
Darcey sighed. Whatever was going to happen would happen. The one redeeming consequence of really messing up was that her parents would take a good long time figuring out a proper punishment.
At school on Monday, Mary McMacken rushed up to Darcey and said breathlessly, “You really went to a party at Union and got stopped for drunk driving?”
“I didn’t get stopped for drunk driving,” Darcey gasped. “Who told you that?”
Mary was taken aback. “Wendy,” she said. “Anyway, how was it? I mean, the party. Were there any neat guys there?”
“No!” Darcey replied, with a vehemence that stunned Mary into silence. And then she couldn’t think of anything to say, so she turned around and walked away.
But Darcey couldn’t get away from it. All of her friends were just as inquisitive—or for reasons Darcey could not understand—just as impressed. The day was almost over before she caught up with Wendy. “Hi, Darcey,” Wendy said, pleasantly.
“You said you weren’t going to tell,” Darcey burst out. “Everybody thinks I got stopped for drunk driving.”
Wendy shrugged. “It was a drunk-driving checkpoint, Darcey.”
“I wasn’t drunk!”
“So what? For once in your life you’re actually an interesting person. I was only doing you a favor.”
“I don’t want to be an interesting person,” said Darcey, biting her lip, knowing she hadn’t said what she meant.
“Darcey,” Wendy said in an exasperated, condescending tone of voice, “I mean, sometimes you can be a real, uh, oh, forget it.” Wendy briskly walked away.
Wendy’s words stung all the more because Darcey knew that for a brief moment the party had sounded daring and exciting. But all she wanted now was to be her uninteresting old self.
Darcey threw her books on her bed. Then suddenly she caught her breath. The room was clean, too clean. Of course, it was wash day. She quickly rushed downstairs, into the kitchen, around the corner, down to the basement. She stopped before reaching the last step.
Her mother glanced over her shoulder at her while folding towels. “How was school today, Darcey?”
Instead of answering, she sort of nodded. She turned around and went back to her room.
When her mother came in Darcey didn’t look up. Her mother sat on the bed next to her. She took a folded slip of paper out of her pocket and handed it to her.
Darcey took the ticket glumly.
“Darcey,” said her mother, choosing her words very carefully, “I know it must seem like your father and I go to great lengths thinking up reasons to discipline you. But we have very vivid imaginations, and we inevitably imagine the worst that could have happened. What we really want to know is that you’re all right.”
Darcey turned to her mother, and the tears came. She explained what had happened, about driving home, the checkpoint at the Broadway exit, and the police. She’d had to do all those things she’d only seen before on TV—walking along a line on the pavement, touching her nose with her fingertips, trying to convince the police she wasn’t drunk. And she hadn’t had her purse with her, so she didn’t have her driver’s license.
After what had seemed an interminable conversation with his sergeant, the officer handed her the ticket and said, “Driving without a license. Court date’s in two weeks. Bring a parent or guardian.”
The whole time Wendy had staggered about shouting, “Darcey, c’mon. Let’s go home. Darcey, I wanna go.” The officer had escorted Wendy to the car, buckled her in and said, “Don’t let her have the keys.”
This episode would have to go down in Darcey’s life as an unapproachable low in her definition of personal humiliation.
Two weeks later she was in court as the bailiff called her name. Darcey and her father approached the bench. The judge examined her file briefly and then turned to his clerk and said, “Mel, there’s an attachment here.”
The clerk shuffled through his papers and came up with a torn, half-sheet from a legal pad. He handed it to the judge, who read it and said, “Well, young lady. It seems we have some extenuating circumstances here. Let me see. The car belonged to your friend and she had driven you both to the party where a bit of drinking was going on—against the law for someone of your age, I might add.”
“Yes, sir,” said Darcey, wondering how he had known all that.
The judge saw her expression and held up the paper. “Note from the officer on the scene. Well, next time you might consider a taxi. The court appreciates the reasons you drove without a license, but ends don’t justify the means. Nevertheless, I don’t think we have an actionable offense here. Though I might suggest to your father here that a month or two wouldn’t be too long a time for your driving privileges, being what they may, to be suspended. And if you haven’t taken your defensive driving course yet, I will have the court require it.” He banged his gavel on the table and said, “Case dismissed. Next case.”
“Well, let’s go,” Darcey’s father said simply.
To her dismay, Darcey’s father took the judge’s advice seriously. She went six weeks without driving.
As for Wendy, no one told. Not Darcey, not her parents. But a week after the incident Wendy’s father found a crushed beer can under the front seat of his car, and it was a brand he never touched. The cat pretty much worked its way out of the bag after that and Wendy ended up being grounded for a million years.
And everybody agreed that it didn’t make her a more interesting person at all.

The heat rose in dizzy waves before us as we sped along the freeway. “It must be very hot outside,” I thought as the air conditioner hissed away in our station wagon. I had heard how difficult it was for the first settlers to even enter the St. George Valley in southern Utah, let alone survive there. This was almost impossible to comprehend as we drove easily along through rocky volcanic barriers on a ribbon of asphalt.
We rapidly ascended into the Virgin River Valley, and the little community of St. George stood out against the scorching sandstone cliffs.
A barrage of bright signs beckoned us with “Enter,” “Vacancy,” “Color TV,” “Sauna,” “Pool.” When I rolled down the window, a blast of hot air reminded me that I would soon be refreshed by a swim in the blue waters of a motel pool.
The heat from the hot pavement penetrated the soles of my gym shoes as we walked the few blocks from our motel to the old St. George Tabernacle.
Hewn from native red-orange sandstone, the thick rock walls showed countless small markings from the pioneer stonecutters’ hand-held instruments. Directly under the stately spire was a tablet with the inscription “Commenced 1863—Completed 1871.”
While my little sisters played under a shade tree on the Tabernacle grounds, I walked around the building for closer inspection. The doors were locked, but by shading my eyes, I could just make out through the old window panes the beautiful circular wooden staircases.
My mother pointed out some of the old buildings surrounding the tabernacle and told us that these were at one time part of the old Dixie Academy—later Dixie Junior College. The new Dixie College campus is now located clear across town.
As I peered into one of the old vacant classrooms where biology had once been taught, I could hear my young sister Terressa protesting crossly, “I’m tired and bored, and I don’t want to see any more old buildings.”
A morning of tennis and sight-seeing left me weary. I lay by the pool, and the perspiration trickled freely. It was then I realized I was more than just a sun-warmed visitor. I felt at home here, as if somehow I belonged. My passing feet had disturbed shadows in the sand—reminders of a life-style long since gone. And yet it was as if I had discovered a golden chain in those sands—a chain of people linked together by time and love—my family.

Marusia Lawrence, longtime member of Aylesbury Ward lives in a small community on the outskirts of her town.
In 2018, she made a house-to-house collection hoping to raise enough funds to purchase a silent soldier (also known as ‘Unknown Tommy’, see https://rbli.shop/products/unknown-tommy), a black silhouette of a soldier armed with a rifle, which would be displayed permanently in the village. To her delight, these efforts raised enough money for two silent soldiers for the special 100 Year Centenary Remembrance Sunday in 2018.
For 2019, she organised a Remembrance Service for November of that year. She felt strongly that there should be a formal start prior to the two-minute silence and asked fellow Church friend—Richard Godivala—to play the “Last Post” on his trumpet, dramatically setting the scene for the rest of the programme.
All neighbours attending were able to sincerely reflect on a reading of “In Flanders Field” by John McCrae (Canadian poet, soldier, and physician, who died in 1918 in France) and then a reading of “For The Fallen,” written by Englishman Laurence Binyon in 1914.
The service finished by singing the national anthem. Afterwards attendees socialised and talked of their thanks for peace in Europe since 1945, sharing beverages and biscuits at local venue, Cooper’s Barn. Marusia said these quotes made by World War II soldiers truly resonated at this Remembrance Service:
“For your tomorrow they gave their today.”
“Attitude, gratitude and service before self brings happiness and fulfilment in life”
“Brave soldiers laid down their lives for everyone to bring peace into the world.”

Youth Voices: Why We Need to Stop It!
The New Era asked some youth how they felt when they heard President Uchtdorf’s talk and why they think it’s important to “stop it!” Here is what one young woman says:
“I love [President Uchtdorf’s] talk! It inspired me to stop gossiping and judging people. It truly had an impact on my life. This talk convinced me to talk to my group of friends about how we should stop with all the hate towards others. They took my words and put them into action. We have often found ourselves having a better day just because we were nice to someone. It was an amazing life lesson.”
Taylor L., 14, Utah

Not me, though. I had only one question when it was my turn to walk up in front of everybody as they announced my name: was I actually going to graduate?

I wasn’t exactly what you’d call a scholar. Studying pretty much never topped my ideal to-do list. And during my senior year I was doing so poorly in one class I didn’t even know if I had passed the class. The final exam earlier that week would seal my fate, but grades wouldn’t post until a week later.

If I failed this class, I wouldn’t graduate high school.

In the end, I squeaked by on the thinnest possible margin and did graduate. (Whew!) At that point I had 14 months until I turned 19, the missionary age at the time. I intended on working during that time to save money for my mission. I knew I wasn’t much of a student, so under no circumstances did I plan on attempting college.

Fast-forward three and a half years from my high school graduation ceremony. I had worked for around a year and a half, served a two-year mission, and ultimately decided to try college after all.

I wish I could say I felt all grown-up and ready for school, but that’s laughable. I felt more intimidated than ever. If I was so bad at high school, how in the world could I handle college? This time I resolved to do my best and involve God along the way. I prayed fervently to develop new and better study skills.

To my complete shock, I ended up doing so well that semester that I qualified for academic scholarships. Nobody was more surprised than me! Even so, I could also easily look back over the previous months and see the hand of God helping me along as I learned to become a good student.

What I believed about myself back in high school simply wasn’t true. From that point on and with God’s help, I was able to forge a completely new path that carried me through college graduation and beyond.

But it was the inspiring words of Elder Boyd K. Packer of the Council of the Twelve, given at the Relief Society conference in Salt Lake City in the fall of 1971, that gave me the courage to tell my husband how I felt about him joining the Church. Among other things, Elder Packer said:
“I have often said that a man cannot resist membership if his wife really wants him to have it, and if she knows how to give him encouragement.
“If you have faith enough and desire enough, you will yet have at the head of your home a father and husband who is active and faithful in the Church.
“Some who have long since lost hope have said bitterly, ‘It would take a miracle!’ And so I say, Why not? Why not a miracle! Is there a purpose more worthy than that?
“And I repeat, if your husband doesn’t feel at home going to church, then do everything you can to make him feel at church while he’s at home.
“Sisters, make the gospel seem worthwhile to them, and then let them know that that is your purpose.
“He needs to know, he needs to be told that you care about the gospel and what it means to you.” (“Begin Where You Are—at Home,” International Magazines, July 1972.)
Now an apostle of the Lord had told me to tell my husband what it would mean to me for him to accept the gospel. What a task! In our home the gospel was never mentioned unless my husband started talking about it first. I wept, trying to figure out how I’d ever be able to do it. Then I remembered the scripture, “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise” (D&C 82:10). I decided once again to fast and pray and trust in the Lord. It took me until January 1972 to find the courage to speak.
Then, one night, I asked Norman if he felt he could ever accept the gospel. He gave me a firm, but not unkind, no. Taking a deep breath, I told him how much the boys and I loved him, what a fine father and husband he had been; but, I said, he was unable to give me the thing I wanted most of all. Well, I had done it! An apostle of the Lord had told me to do it. Within six months of that night, after thirty-seven years of marriage, Norman was baptized. It was indeed a miracle.
Looking back on the months following that January conversation, I can see that many things happened to bring this about. Some friends from Salt Lake City gave Norman the book, No More Strangers by Hartman and Connie Rector, and challenged Norman to take his place at the head of his family and bear the priesthood. After our younger boy’s missionary farewell, where Norman spoke briefly, Norman’s Sunday School teacher challenged him to be baptized. Steven wrote letters of encouragement and asked his dad to read the Book of Mormon. Douglas also bore testimony to him. Though Steven had left a nonmember father behind in 1972, he returned in 1974 to find his father sitting on the stand as second counselor in the bishopric.

I love the story of the golf addict who in a spiritual moment decided to take a new set of friends each time he went to play golf. That decision led to his inviting troubled teenagers from the inner city to come and learn a game of skill in a beautiful setting with clean air and clean company. Every golfing outing became a highlight in his life, not because of the game itself but the company he kept. Their gratitude knew no bounds and many of these youth were benefited emotionally and spiritually by the things they learned about discipline, concentration, coordination, and other things you learn when you gain a skill.

As a very young elder, I went to the old Primary Children’s Hospital on North Temple Street to provide blessings for the sick children. Upon entering, we noted the Christmas tree with its bright and friendly lights and saw carefully wrapped packages beneath its outstretched limbs. We went through the corridors where tiny boys and girls—some with casts upon arms, some with casts upon legs, others with ailments that perhaps could not be cured so readily—each one with a smile upon his face.
I walked toward the bedside of one small boy. He said, “What is your name?” I told him.
He inquired, “Will you give me a blessing?” The blessing was provided, and as we turned to leave his bedside, he said “Thank you very much.”
We walked a few steps and then I heard his call, “Brother Monson.” I turned. He said, “Merry Christmas to you.” And a great smile flashed across his countenance.
That boy had the Christmas spirit.

I want to begin with a brief test and a self-evaluation. The following episode was presented in a general conference address in 1966 by President N. Eldon Tanner (1898–1982), a counselor in the First Presidency of the Church.
““A young man came to me not long ago and said, ‘I made an agreement with a man that requires me to make certain payments each year. I am in debt, and I can’t make those payments, for if I do, it is going to cause me to lose my home. What shall I do?’
“I looked at him and said, ‘Keep your agreement.’
“‘Even if it costs me my home?’
“I said, ‘I am not talking about your home. I am talking about your agreement; and I think your wife would rather have a husband who would keep his word, meet his obligations, keep his pledges or his covenants, and have to rent a home than to have a home with a husband who will not keep his covenants and his pledge.’”1

While my dear wife and I were serving as mission leaders in Thailand, Laos, and Myanmar, we witnessed firsthand the power of God that comes to those who make and keep sacred covenants in the temple. The Temple Patron Assistance Fund made it possible for many Saints in these three countries to attend the temple after doing all they could through personal sacrifice and preparation. I recall meeting a group of 20 faithful Saints from Laos at an airport in Bangkok, Thailand, to help them transfer to another airport in Bangkok to catch their flight to Hong Kong. These members were brimming with excitement to finally be traveling to the house of the Lord.

When we met these good Saints upon their return, the added gospel maturity and associated power resulting from receiving their temple endowment and entering into covenants with God were evident. These Saints clearly went forth from the temple “armed with [His] power.” This power to do more than they could do themselves gave them strength to endure the challenges of Church membership in their home country and to go forth bearing “exceedingly great and glorious tidings, in truth,” as they continue building the Lord’s kingdom in Laos.

A few years ago, I was with my noble 97-year-old grandmother. As she sat curled in her wheelchair, weak and nearly blind, she talked quietly of her life. I said: “This is a wicked world. There are so many temptations and challenges. Is it possible to stay worthy and return to our Heavenly Father?” She slowly raised herself tall and erect and said in a commanding voice: “Yes! You must! That’s why you’re here!” Thank you, Grandma, for teaching me about hope.

Home, family, and personal enrichment meeting is a wonderful place to socialize and establish the sisterhood necessary to create a sense of belonging among members of Relief Society and visitors. This is exemplified in an enrichment meeting held in Benidorm, Spain—a resort town where travelers are constantly coming and going. One evening sisters from Ecuador, Peru, Colombia, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, England, Scotland, and Spain meet together for an enrichment meeting. On this particular night the sisters from Switzerland teach the others how to make greeting cards that can be used for various occasions. It is a simple design, easily mastered while the sisters visit and strengthen friendships.
As the sisters work together, their friendliness and sincerity soon overcome language barriers. The sister missionaries have brought some investigators who are chatting happily with the others. When these investigators visit the little branch again on Sunday, they already feel they belong to the group.
It is a simple activity, but this enrichment meeting accomplishes the goals of learning, serving, and socializing. Some of the sisters might have thought, “I don’t need to go. I have plenty of greeting cards.” But the greeting cards are only a small part of the benefit of attending enrichment meeting this night. Sometimes we attend to get something out of it. Other times we’re there to give to others, if only a listening ear, a word of encouragement, or a welcoming hand of friendship.