Gospel Story Finder

A few years ago my father had a serious operation and spent several weeks in the hospital. This was during the winter months. My sons and I had made several trips down to my parents’ home to keep the snow cleared from the driveway and walk, but one day while I was working and my sons were in school, we had a very heavy snowfall. My mother was trying to clear the walks when a young university student came by, laid his books down, gently took the shovel from her, and cleared all the walks and driveway. As my mother thanked him he said, “That’s all right. I am away from home going to school. Maybe someone else’s son will be there to help my mother.”
As my mother told me how this young man had helped her, I remembered the words from my childhood: “God bless you, my son. I pray that some young man will be there to help your mother.”
And he was.

The name of my third great-grandmother, Mary Ellen Williams, stood out on the list of names I was researching because she was half Cherokee Indian. I became interested in family history when I was about 12. After a few years of researching the lives of my ancestors, I was fascinated by this small detail about her life. But finding the information necessary to submit Mary Ellen’s name for temple work was tough.
I began my search by looking through the 1900 census records. I couldn’t find what I needed there, so Mary Ellen’s name went back into the files and I continued to work on other family lines. About one year later I found an old tattered envelope which contained letters from people whom my mother had corresponded with concerning her family history. There wasn’t much information about Mary Ellen, but it stirred an excitement in me once again. I searched through cemetery records, marriage records, birth dates, and death dates. I was running out of leads, but I continued to fast and pray for any leads to Mary Ellen.
In 1996 at a family reunion, I sought help from family members and received a copy of an obituary of Grace Meador Wooden, Mary Ellen’s daughter. I read it hoping to find something about Mary Ellen. Again nothing. However, survivors listed in the obituary included a sister named Audry. I looked in the phone directory and found her number. My mother called her for me to ask for any information on Mary Ellen. Audry answered many questions and said she would send me what she could. I waited daily for news from Audry, but nothing came.
Two months had passed when I got a phone call from Audry’s daughter. Audry had not been well and had passed away shortly after she and my mother had spoken. But the search for Mary Ellen didn’t end with Audry’s death. While going through her mother’s things, Audry’s daughter found an old family Bible and said she would send me information out of it.
Another two months passed and nothing came in the mail. I couldn’t give up so I spoke out loud, “Mary Ellen, I don’t know where you are, and I have searched everywhere possible. I don’t know where else to look. If you want to be found, you have to help me.” The next day I received a large manila envelope from Audry’s daughter containing valuable information. Among the treasures was a copy of a small booklet of biographical sketches of Mary Ellen Williams. I had found her after two and a half years of searching. I immediately went to my room and thanked my Heavenly Father for answering my prayers. On August 11, 1998, my great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Ellen Williams, received her temple blessings.

A few years ago I read a Reuters news service account of an Alaska Airlines nonstop flight from Anchorage to Seattle, carrying 150 passengers, which was diverted to a remote town on a mercy mission to rescue a badly injured boy. Two-year-old Elton Williams III had severed an artery in his arm when he fell on a piece of glass while playing near his home in Yakutat, 450 miles south of Anchorage. Medics at the scene asked the airline to evacuate the boy. As a result, the Anchorage-to-Seattle flight was diverted to Yakutat.
The medics said the boy was bleeding badly and probably would not live through the flight to Seattle, so the plane flew 200 miles to Juneau, the nearest city with a hospital. The flight then went on to Seattle, with the passengers arriving two hours late, most missing their connections. But none complained. In fact, they dug into their pocketbooks and took up a collection for the boy and his family.
Later, as the flight was about to land in Seattle, the passengers broke into a cheer when the pilot said he had received word by radio that Elton was going to be all right. Surely love of neighbor was in evidence.

My life changed in a big way the year I turned 16. Like most of my friends, I had entered a complicated stage in life. It seemed that all my thoughts were increasingly centered around my problems and aspirations. I worked to excel in school, tried out for the top choir, lettered in track, and even went to the prom.
Then on a Tuesday evening late in the spring, my whole perspective changed. My dad gathered the family in the living room, explaining that he had something important to tell us. Never before have I seen my parents look so dismal and depressed. Dad explained that my mom had breast cancer. My father went on to explain that the odds were very good that with treatment Mom would be okay and the cancer would go into remission. Emotion erupted in my home with tears and hugs. I struggled with my feelings, searching for a way to deal with the emotion welling up inside.
It was Mutual night, so I decided to go. But while I watched everyone else laughing and playing volleyball, I felt lost. Could anyone understand what I was going through? In my mind I said a silent prayer, asking Heavenly Father to give me the strength to help support my mother and the rest of my family.
Slowly a comforting feeling grew within me. I realized that, although it might be hard for others to understand my feelings, Jesus Christ always knows our troubles and hardships. I thought of a scripture I knew in John 14:18, “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.” It reminded me that if we go to him, Christ will help us to bear our burdens and give us comfort.
Over the next year my mother had surgery and multiple radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Throughout that year I relied very heavily on the comfort of the Holy Ghost. With that added strength I was able to support my mother through her illness and help out at home. Now the doctors have declared my mom successfully in remission. Although a chance for recurrence exists, she will probably continue to be healthy.
Through our trial my family has grown much closer. I learned to be less selfish, and I came to recognize that my family and the relationship I have with them is what is truly important in my life. Most important, I realize now that the Savior knows all that we experience and we are never alone. He is always there, ready to extend his love to us.

When Lucy* and I were little, we were good friends and played together often. As time passed it became harder and harder to get along with her. She was often negative and critical of me. It seemed like she really enjoyed stirring up trouble among our friends, and there were lots of hurt feelings. I decided I didn’t want to be around her anymore, and we stopped talking to each other. I felt really uncomfortable each time I passed her in the halls at school.
This past year as I became a Beehive and began to study about divine nature, individual worth, and good works, Lucy started coming to my mind. I decided I should forgive her for the way she’d acted and the things she’d said and done.
I started small by just saying hi to Lucy in the hallways when we passed each other. After doing this for a few weeks, I felt I was ready for the next step. I called Lucy and asked her if she’d like to go to the temple with me early in the morning to do baptisms. She was excited and said she’d love to go. We had a great morning at the temple and going out for breakfast!
I’ve found that as I’ve done my part to forgive Lucy, Heavenly Father has changed my heart and blessed me with ideas on how I can strengthen our friendship again, and I’m happy, because I know that by forgiving her, I’m following my Savior.

Burgon can’t really see much of anything. She has retinitis pigmentosa, a progressive loss of sight. And for a while Burgon couldn’t hear much. She had only five percent hearing in one ear. She was even preparing for a nearly silent future by learning tactile sign language, in which the signing is done in her hand.
But Burgon Jensen of Midvale, Utah, even with these two obstacles, is a fun, well-read, creative person. She loves to read and write in Braille, and she especially likes to write poetry. She loves to sculpt (yes, sculpt—she feels an object and then recreates it in clay). These days, her future is full of sounds and music because she has had a cochlear implant to help improve her hearing. These are just the beginning of a long list of things that Burgon does. She goes hiking and rock climbing with her family. She skis by following a guide’s instructions. She loves to go shopping, feeling pieces of clothing to determine if she wants to try it on. She is learning to cook and helps clean the house. But most of all, she has a funny sense of humor and a great attitude.
Burgon says, “I think attitude is such a big deal when you have challenges. You can be angry that you were given those challenges, or you can have a good attitude and say, like Nephi did, ‘I will go and do’ [Nephi 3:7], because I know that Heavenly Father is going to give me a way to do it.”

The importance of this process as a foundation for developing a Christ-centered life was impressed upon me many times when, as a stake president, I interviewed returning missionaries. One interview in particular left an indelible impression on me as a young man shared an experience that had changed his life. This elder had spent two years serving a mission in Mexico. Like many others, his gospel foundation had been somewhat shaky before he entered the missionary training center. But as the interview progressed, I could tell that significant changes had occurred within him.

After a few weeks in the field, this elder had become concerned that he was telling people the Book of Mormon was true and Joseph Smith was a prophet when he didn’t know for himself. How could he assure others when he did not have his own assurance? In discussing the problem with him, his companion challenged him to follow the counsel he was giving investigators: read the Book of Mormon and pray with a sincere heart, with real intent, even if he could only desire to believe.

A month went by and my friend’s feelings did not change. He read parts of the Book of Mormon and prayed daily that he would know the truthfulness of the message, but nothing happened. Two or three more weeks passed. He was obedient in his scripture study, prayers, tracting, and teaching, but he still lacked conviction.

As this missionary and his companion were tracting, they made an appointment to teach a family the next evening. When they arrived home that night, the elder, who, at his companion’s request, had agreed to teach the Joseph Smith story to the new investigators, began reading the Book of Mormon again. He read and prayed and then read some more. He was determined to have an answer before teaching the family. Through most of the night he repeated the pattern of reading and praying. As morning came he was disappointed; no swelling motions, no particular enlightenment or feeling had been received.

He dutifully followed his companion during the day but worried about the evening appointment. When the hour came, they knocked on the door. The husband answered and ushered them into a small home. Sitting on the dirt floor were nine children, and the father joined the mother behind them. Soon it was time for the struggling elder to teach his part of the lesson. He began by describing rather methodically young Joseph’s confusion regarding which church to join and his subsequent prayer on a beautiful spring day in 1820 in a secluded wooded area near his father’s farm.

As the elder reached the point in the story where the Father introduced the Son, saying, “This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!” (JS—H 1:17), a warm feeling began to envelop him, starting in the deep recesses of his soul. Within moments, it had filled his entire being, and he began to cry. He dropped his head in embarrassment. Why was he crying? What were these feelings? He had never felt them before. The feelings were sweet and penetrated his very being. As thoughts rushed through his mind, he realized he knew that the Father and the Son had appeared to the boy Joseph, that the Book of Mormon was true, and that the gospel had been restored. Regaining control of his emotions, he looked up at the father and mother. Tears were streaming down their faces! They were feeling the same powerful influence of the Spirit he was feeling. He looked at the children. They, too, had tears in their eyes. The Spirit had borne witness to them of the truthfulness of his words. He continued the story and finished with a humble witness that the Father and the Son had appeared to the boy Joseph.

As this elder concluded telling me his story, he said, “President, I never had a problem teaching people after that. I knew the gospel was true, for I knew the Father and the Son appeared to Joseph Smith. I knew why I was in the mission field.”

As I listened, the Holy Spirit bore witness of the extraordinary missionary the young elder had become. I thought of how efficient Heavenly Father is. The father, the mother, the nine children, and the young missionary were all converted that evening. Twelve were converted that night, whereas only one would have been converted the night before. Moreover, the test required for a witness had been completed. The missionary had been obedient to his companion and to his mission president. He had exerted his desire to believe, and he had acted on that belief. And he now had a more sure hope through the witness of the Spirit!

Six months after Ethel died, then at nine months, then at two years, I wrote down my feelings. Keeping a daily journal has been a source of comfort. Between nine and twelve months after Ethel’s passing, I decided to ‘get back out there’ by joining a social group and a travel group. That lasted about a month before I realised my heart wasn’t ready. I felt the impression to attend the temple regularly. Despite the initial pain, this proved a great strength to me.

One of my outstanding missionaries once suggested that he didn’t think he had a testimony, because he never cried or felt tears as others did while expressing their testimony. He had great feelings but could never cry. I asked him what time he got up.

“6:00 a.m.,” he replied.

Did he study as outlined?

“Yes,” he explained.

Was he out the door doing his missionary work?

“Yes.”

I explained that I deeply believed in his testimony because of his actions. He was developing the qualities of understanding and experience by the manner in which he was conducting his life.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland told of a young man who was the brunt of his peers’ teasing during his school years. Some years later he moved away, joined the military, received an education, and became active in the Church. This period of his life was marked with wonderfully successful experiences.
After several years he returned to his hometown. However, the people refused to acknowledge his growth and improvement. To them, he was still just old “so-and-so,” and they treated him that way. Eventually, this good man faded away to a shadow of his former successful self without being able to use his marvelously developed talents to bless those who derided and rejected him once again. What a loss, both for him and the community!

Photograph courtesy of Ian Jonsson/Lodi News Sentinel
The final whistle sounded, and Kyle* left the mat feeling discouraged about losing the match. Team captain Colin Anderson from California, USA, put his arm around Kyle and offered him a ride to get burgers with the rest of the team.
They sat in the restaurant parking lot while Colin listened to the freshman pour out his frustrations. Kyle had done well in middle school, but he was struggling with the switch to high school competition. Colin hadn’t been very good as a freshman either, but he had kept trying. So he turned to his teammate and encouraged him: “Look, you’re just a freshman. You have time. You’ll do fine.”
Encouraging his teammates was something Colin tried to do as often as he could. But it certainly wasn’t the norm when he was coming up in the program.
By the time Colin reached his senior year and was made a cocaptain of his high school wrestling team, he’d worked hard and learned a lot. He’d begun “at the bottom of the food chain,” kept his head down, and tried to improve. At that time the team was run like a boot camp, using fierce competiveness and hazing to try to toughen the wrestlers and build camaraderie. But when it was his turn to lead, Colin knew that wasn’t right. “I didn’t feel I could do what had been done in the past.”
Colin’s mother often drove him to wrestling meets, and on the long drives they talked about his wrestling and the team. These conversations helped shape the idea of how Colin would lead if given the chance. “I decided to lead in the Lord’s way, as I’d learned in priesthood.” When he was made a captain, he used encouragement, love, and persuasion to help his team members improve.
Things didn’t turn around all at once. The coaches considered it a building year because the team was so young, with Colin and his cocaptain as the only seniors. The “building year” was evident early in the season, when a rivalry meet was a disaster. Afterward, Colin told his team, “I’m not angry at our loss. You don’t have to win everything; you just have to give it your best.”
From then on, the team worked together toward the same goal, and everything changed. They started building success. As he worked with and instructed others, Colin’s own wrestling improved. “The greatest way to learn is to teach,” he said. At the end of the season, the team won their league and sent seven wrestlers to postseason tournaments.
Looking back, Colin will always remember two things about his wrestling career. First, being a leader is really about service. “I didn’t make state but it was a good year anyway, because my focus was on helping others; that helped me improve too.”
Second, Colin learned that you can have a greater effect on others than you might ever suspect. “You have a great ability to shape how others see their experiences and to influence their perspective. Independent of the team and my own success, I will always remember Kyle and talking to him in the parking lot.” True leadership really can have a lasting effect.

But I’ve also had friends who have motivated me to do good things—things that have made my life better, not worse. When I was in the eighth grade, my friend Ali convinced me to try out for drill team for the next school year. This wasn’t an easy feat, since the thought of trying out for an activity as a new freshman in a big high school terrified me. Ali convinced me to do something worthwhile that I might never have done without a little encouragement from a friend. And because of this friendly peer pressure, my adjustment to high school life was a lot easier.

It was ten-year-old Joshua’s turn to teach the family home evening lesson. It was on faith. When he finished, he told his family, “If you have faith, you can do anything.”
His mom replied, “Well, almost anything.”
“No sir, Mom,” Joshua said. “You can do anything.”
Little did the Dennis family know that within days their faith would be tested. On Friday, September 22, 1989, Joshua’s dad, the Varsity Scout coach in their ward, let him go with him and other leaders and members of a Boy Scout troop from Kearns, Utah, to explore the Hidden Treasure Mine. After looking around for some time, Joshua and some of the Scouts decided to turn back. On the way out of the tunnel, they met Joshua’s dad and some other Scouts heading out of the mine. Then Joshua decided to follow some older Scouts back into the mine tunnel, and he gave his flashlight to his dad, who was leaving the tunnel with a visually handicapped boy.
The older Scouts did not know that Joshua was behind them. They began to run. Joshua couldn’t keep up with them and was soon left behind in total darkness. He couldn’t even see his hand in front of his face.
He turned around and tried to feel his way back to the entrance, but he made a wrong turn and slid down a slope. He climbed back up but went too far and ended up in an ore stope—a cavity where ore has been mined out—six feet wide and twenty-five feet deep. The stope was almost impossible to see from the main tunnel below because of rocks.
“I tried to find my way out for a long time,” Joshua recalled. He yelled, but the stope muffled his cries, and no one heard him. By this time, he was tired and cold and his feet were wet. “I knew that I was lost, and I realized that I had better just sit down and wait,” he said.
Joshua slept a lot. Sometimes he would stand up and stretch or just sit and think—hamburgers and pizza were on his mind quite a bit. For five days Joshua had no food or water and only his coat to keep him warm in the 50° F (10° C) temperature.
But he wasn’t afraid. “I prayed a lot that Heavenly Father would help me,” he said, and his prayers were answered with a feeling of comfort and a knowledge that he would be found. “I felt that I was being watched over by Heavenly Father.”
While Joshua was praying, friends and family were also fasting and praying that he would be found in safety. His parents waited anxiously at a local motel for reports on the search for their son.
Many volunteers from his Kearns 30th Ward and the Kearns Utah Stake helped search the surrounding foothills, which are full of abandoned mines and air shafts. At least seven times some of them passed within 150 feet (46 m) of Joshua.
The longer the search continued, the more certain many people became that Joshua was not in the mine but had wandered away from it. Search dogs, helicopters, and people on horseback and on foot combed the cliff-lined hills of nearby Dry Canyon. There was no trace of the blond boy.
Inside the mine, Joshua waited calmly for someone to find him. To help pass the time, he sang “I Am a Child of God,” “Everybody Has to Have a Hero,” and a song about America that he had learned in school.
As each day passed, the chance of finding Joshua alive grew smaller, but members of the rescue team were determined to not give up. “You would have to drag some of those men off the mountain,” said Ray Guymon, one of eleven Church members on the fifteen-man Utah Power & Light Company rescue team.
“We all had a feeling that we were overlooking something. We just couldn’t give up hope,” said Gary Christensen, another Church member of the same rescue team.
When the search party came out of the mine after another unsuccessful rescue attempt on the afternoon of the fifth day, another Church member, John Skinner, persuaded the men in charge to let him go in with the other searchers for a final attempt. “I just had a feeling that he was still in the mine and that he was still alive,” he explained.
John Skinner had explored the Hidden Treasure Mine 120 times and was very familiar with the dozens of passages that wind through the eight levels. He could picture in his mind at least three places where Joshua might be. One of those places was the ore stope.
As the searchers made another sweep through the mine, he, Ray Guymon, and Gary Christensen—these three men were to become the heroes Joshua had been singing about—separated from the group, and John Skinner led them to the sections of the mine where he thought the boy might be. When they finally came to the ore cavity, they heard a faint cry for help but were not sure what it was. They remained still until they heard it again. The excitement grew as they and Joshua yelled back and forth, trying to find each other in the darkness.
“My heart just started pumping and pounding,” recalled Gary Christensen, the first to reach Joshua. “I wrapped my arms around him, and he wrapped his arms around me.”
“I felt like we were led there by the Lord,” Ray Guymon said.
All three men said that it was very difficult to describe the feelings that they had when they found Joshua, whom they had never seen before.
“I felt like he was my own,” Gary Christensen said. “I was just really happy inside.”
“It was an overwhelming feeling when we found him,” John Skinner said.
As Joshua was brought out of the mine, there were tears of joy and relief on the faces of many. Joshua, although excited, remained calm—he had not doubted that he would be found.
Because there was no light inside the mine, Joshua had lost track of time. He was surprised when he found out that he had been lost for so long. Dehydrated from going so long without water, and suffering mild frostbite on his feet, he was flown to Primary Children’s Medical Center, where he rested and doctors examined him.
At first the doctors thought that they would have to amputate his little toes. But all he lost was some skin from his feet. He had to be in a wheelchair for about a week. Physical therapy strengthened his leg and foot muscles, and before long he was walking, running, and even riding his skateboard again.
Joshua received more than a thousand letters, many from other school children who wanted to know more about him and his experience. While he was lost, the students at Fox Hills Elementary School, where he was a fifth-grader, tied yellow ribbons on the fences all around their school to show that they were thinking about him and hoping that he would be back soon. It really made Joshua feel good to know that so many people cared about him. He tells everyone, “Heavenly Father does answer your prayers. Have faith, and don’t give up.”

Brian took a deep breath. Three balls, two strikes—full count. He squinted at the pitcher and tightened his grip on the bat. Fast ball, he thought. No doubt about it. The pitcher wound up and let loose. Brian planted his right foot and swung hard. The ball curved smoothly around his bat—thwack—into the catcher’s mitt. “Strike three. You’re out!”
Brian watched the ground as he walked back to the dugout. Andrew jogged past on his way to the plate. “Good goin’, Brian. Why don’t you just go on back to the tee-ball league so they can teach you how to play?”
Brian clenched his fists. “Oh, be quiet, Andrew. Just play, OK?”
On the way home after the game, Brian sat slumped in the back seat.
“What happened out there today?” his mom asked. “The team looked pretty good in the first inning, but after that you fell apart.”
“It’s Andrew,” Brian mumbled. “He’s really good, and he knows it, so he tries to make the rest of us feel stupid. Nobody likes him.”
“You like him, don’t you?” his dad asked, looking at him in the rearview mirror.
“I guess so,” Brian answered, but mostly because he knew that’s what his dad wanted to hear.
“Good. The Savior teaches that we should love everyone, even people who are mean to us. Maybe if you showed Andrew a little love, he wouldn’t act that way.”
Brian sighed and looked out the window. His dad was always saying stuff like that. But his dad didn’t have to play on the same team with Andrew. How could anyone possibly love him?
“You know,” Mom said, “there was a girl on my basketball team in high school—Sarah—who had the worst attitude. She was always yelling at everybody and making us feel terrible when we made mistakes.”
“She must be related to Andrew.”
Mom laughed. “Well, I got pretty fed up with Sarah’s bullying. So one day I decided to show her what real team spirit was all about. Every time somebody made a mistake, I jumped in before Sarah had a chance and said, ‘Good job, Karen,’ or ‘Nice try, Susan.’ And if somebody did something really great, I jumped up and down and yelled and screamed and really whooped it up.”
“So did Sarah stop being so mean?” Brian asked hopefully.
“No.”
Brian looked out the window again. “I didn’t think so.”
“But everyone else was too busy watching my spirited pep shows to notice her anymore,” Mom said with a smile. Brian smiled, too, in spite of himself.
That night during family prayer, Dad prayed that Brian would find a way to show love for Andrew. Brian didn’t have much hope, but he said “amen” anyway, just in case.
The next day at practice, Brian decided to try out Mom’s idea. When Ryan let an easy grounder slip under his glove, Brian started clapping wildly and shouted, “All right, Ryan! Nice try! Go get ’em, dude!” Ryan busted up laughing so hard that he didn’t hear Andrew call him a name. The other guys laughed too.
Hey, what do you know? Brian thought. It works!
It worked through the next two practices too. “Go get ’em, David!” “All right, Jason!” Brian was becoming a regular expert in whooping and hollering, and it was contagious. Pretty soon, all the boys were too busy clapping, giving high-fives, and laughing to notice Andrew’s insults.
By Saturday’s game, the boys were starting to play like a team again, and they were having a good time doing it. At the end of the fifth inning, the score was tied, 8–8.
Then, with two out in the top of the sixth, it happened: Andrew misjudged a pop fly ball, and it dropped behind him in the grass. The runner scored from second, and Andrew was so flustered that he overthrew the second baseman, and the batter took third base. The score was now 9–8.
At first, Brian wanted to scream at Andrew. How could he be so stupid? But just as Brian was about to open his mouth, he saw Andrew’s face. A small, quiet voice seemed to whisper in his ear, “Andrew could use a little love right now.”
Brian ran over to Andrew and slapped him on the back. “Nice try, Andy. It’s OK—don’t worry about it.” Then he shouted to the whole team, “All right, Pirates! Let’s go!” and clapped all the way back to third base.
When Brian turned around, Andrew was staring at him in astonishment. Brian socked his glove and grinned at him. “Let’s play ball!” he shouted, and Andrew turned away.
The pitcher struck out the next batter, and the Pirates came to the plate down a run. The first two batters struck out, but the next three singled, so Brian stepped up to the plate with two outs, the bases loaded, and the winning run on second.
The first pitch whizzed over the plate. “Strike one.” The second pitch looked high, but dropped into the strike zone at the last second. “Strike two!” Brian’s lips drew tight as he took his stance for the next pitch. The pitcher let it fly and Brian swung with all his might. The ball thwacked into the catcher’s mitt. “Strike three! You’re out!”
The Pirates had lost, 9–8.
Brian kicked the dirt and started walking slowly back to the dugout while the other team jumped up and down and gave each other high fives.
When Brian reached the dugout, a pair of cleats blocked his way. Brian looked up into Andrew’s face and waited for the usual insults. But this time, it was Brian’s turn to be surprised.
“Good game,” Andrew said slowly. “We’ll get ’em next time.”

When I turned 14 and was called to go home teaching, I was assigned to be his companion. He didn’t have a car and I didn’t drive then, so I rode my bike over to his place, now just a little way out of town since things had grown so much since he first moved there.
His living room had a round kitchen table with four chairs around it, with a shaggy throw rug on the floor and a reading lamp that hung from the high ceiling. Lying on the table were a large copy of the Book of Mormon and a Bible.
He shuffled over to the reading lamp and switched it on. Once he told me a horse had kicked him and left him with a limp. He stood there looking at me and then reached in his back pocket and pulled out a large handkerchief and wiped his nose.
“Jamie, we got to have a word of prayer.” He grabbed the edge of the table for support and lowered himself to a kneeling position with his hands folded on the seat of the chair. Then he looked up at me and said, “You kneel, don’t you?”
I knelt down.
“Father in heaven,” he began, “Jamie and me come to ask thee to help us as we go as home teachers into the homes of thy Saints.” It was a long prayer, and my knees were soon aching, so I tried to shift my weight around to get a better position, but by the time I found it, he had finished.
“Jamie, help me up.”
I reached down and put my arm under his elbow and pulled. He was a big man, and it was a struggle to get him on his feet.
He walked over to the window and looked out.
“Come over here. Do you see the place over there by the big tree, and the place next to it down the road? On the way here, do you remember seeing the place with the ‘Rhubarb for Sale’ sign nailed to the fence?” I nodded my head. “The Lord’s given us stewardship over those families. Do you know what that means?”
“Yes sir.”
“What does it mean?”
“Well, we have to visit them once a month.”
He rubbed one hand over his stubble beard. “Is that what you think it means?”
“I think so.”
“You got a long way to go, son.”
The nurse came in and gave him some pills. He didn’t look very good. But when he talked, and you forgot about the chalky grayness of his face and his short, quick breaths, he was the same.
“Did you go fishing yesterday?”
“No, I’m waiting for you to get out so we can go together.”
He looked out the window for a long time, and I thought he hadn’t heard me. But after a few minutes he turned to me.
“Jamie, you better learn to tie your own flies. I can’t furnish you with free equipment your whole life.”
“I will.”
“I would have taught you before, but you were such a slow learner at fishing. I thought I’d better wait.”
The first time he offered to take me fishing behind his place, I brought the stuff my friends and I used when we fished from the old country bridge.
“What kind of a rig you call that?” He looked at my large lead sinker and a treble hook with a wad of dried-up cheese stuck to it. “Here, let me see that. You’re not supposed to club the fish to death.” He took the sinker from the line. “And what’s this?” he said, pointing to the cheese. “You bring your lunch?”
“I usually use worms or cheese for bait.”
He shook his head. “I’ll teach you to fly fish. Then you’ll know something about fishing.”
He stepped a little ways into the river so he could get a free swing with his fly rod. “Look over there, just in front of the boulder.” He whipped the fly line back and forth a couple of times to let out line, and then cast. The fly landed gently on the water and glided into the swirling water downstream from the boulder. Suddenly the water boiled as a German Brown rose up and took the fly. He carefully fought it to his side and then reached down and swished it up in his net. “You think you can learn to do that?” he said as he reached down into the net and pulled out the trout and dropped him gently back into the water.
Nearly every weekday afternoon that summer I’d go over to his place with my rod, and we’d walk across his field to the river. He taught me how to cast a fly rod, and where to stand, and what kind of flies to use for each part of the summer. “You got to find out what they’re feeding on, Jamie. That’s the secret.”
He slept a while because of the pills. The bishop stopped by to see him, but saw him asleep, and said he’d come back later.
The second month that we went home teaching, Brother Johnson had just bought a new horse. And so we walked out to the corral and took a look.
“Mort, how much you pay for that mare?”
“About a thousand dollars. Why?”
“She’s a fine horse. How come you spent so much money for her?”
“She’s got a good line.” Then he stopped and looked at the old man. “Why are you asking me a question like that? You been around horses most of your life.”
“I never had a horse worth a thousand bucks. What will you do with her, sell her to the glue factory?”
“You know I’m not going to do that.”
“Yep, I know that.” He looked at the mare for a while and then turned to Brother Johnson and said, “Mort, how long did your dad serve as a bishop?”
“About ten years, I guess. Why?”
“You come from a good line, Mort. As far as the Lord is concerned, you’re registered stock. But you’re no good to the Lord the way you are now. It’d be less of a waste to sell that horse to the rendering plant as for you to keep away from church any longer. The Lord wants you back in harness, Mort.”
Brother Johnson took the toothpick out of his mouth and dropped it on the ground. “You may be right,” he said simply.
When the old man woke up, he was embarrassed that he’d fallen asleep. But I said it was okay; I didn’t mind, and it would make him get better fast.
“Jamie, you been here too long. Your folks’ll be worrying about you.”
“It’s okay. They know I’m here.”
He turned his head so he could see outside. “What day is it?”
“June 13.”
“June 13. Now starting in a few days, I’d try an Adams with a number 14 hook. You got enough flies? If you need any, you know where they are.”
All of a sudden he seemed to get some strength, and he leaned forward. “Now, you keep visiting them families, you hear? The Johnsons are coming along fine, but you ask the bishop to get the Scoutmaster over there to get their boy Brad in Scouting.” He grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard, and there was an urgency to his voice. “Jamie, you keep yourself clean so you can marry a pure and beautiful LDS girl in the temple when the time comes. And get ready to go on your mission. You need to read the scriptures more than you do.”
“I will.”
He still was holding onto my hand. “Jamie, once on my mission I went and saw the changing of the guards … Jamie …”
Before he could finish, a nurse stuck her head into the room. “I’m sorry but visiting hours are over.”
He released his grip. “You’d better go, Jamie. Come back tomorrow if you can.”
The next day when I got home from my softball game, my mom told me he had died that afternoon.
I walked over to his place and down the path to the fishing spot on the river where we used to go, and sat down on a rock. The river takes a bend just upstream from that point, and there was a hole where the eddy currents curled around in slow lazy loops, and there, he told me, the fish stayed when they were feeding on a hatch of flies coming down the river. The spot was hard to find because of the growth of trees on both sides, and most people who fished it probably got their line tangled in the fallen branches that lay in the water. But he told me where to stand and how to cast so you avoided the hidden traps.
My thoughts were interrupted by a trout jumping clear of the water for a fly. And then, for a moment, I could hear in my mind the old man say, “Don’t whip the water, just let it slide down nice and easy. You’re supposed to make the fish think a fly is landing on the water and not that a tree has fallen into the river. Use the Royal Coachman now, Jamie. How come you’ve never read the Book of Mormon? I want you to read it, and in three months I want you to tell Brother Johnson about it and bear your testimony.”
I sat there for a couple of hours thinking about him, until finally it was too dark and I got up and walked back down the path to my home.

One day, when Sister Gurney and Sister Sasaki came to teach a lesson to Andrea, they told her that Theresa was going to be baptized and asked her if she would also want to get baptized. Andrea told the sisters that she would pray about it. She had experienced the influence of the Holy Spirit in the past and said that if she had that same feeling when she prayed about joining the Church, then she would be baptized. If not, then the answer was “No.”
She later shared her experience, “When I prayed about baptism, I had this eagerness; I became so anxious to do it. I discussed it with my husband because he was waiting for me to be ready, so we could get baptized together. I said, ‘Let’s continue to pray.’ So, we did, and I kept having the eagerness.”
Andrea’s husband, Wusu, was going to be leaving in two months, so when they attended Theresa’s baptism, they told the missionaries that they wanted to be baptized right away. The whole family spent the next three weeks learning about the gospel, and on June 4, Wusu, Andrea, and Patricia, their oldest daughter, were all baptized, and then confirmed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

I think of her. I think of my father. I think of all those General Authorities who’ve influenced me, and others, including the widows whom I visited—85 of them—with a chicken for the oven, sometimes a little money for their pocket.
I visited one late one night. It was midnight, and I went to the nursing home, and the receptionist said, “I’m sure she’s asleep, but she told me to be sure to awaken her, for she said, ‘I know he’ll come.’”
I held her hand; she called my name. She was wide awake. She pressed my hand to her lips and said, “I knew you’d come.” How could I not have come?
Beautiful music touches me that way.

In just a few years, the efforts of the Simarrón family bore great fruit. May 30, 1999, became a day of celebration in Guayacana when a large baptismal service was held. President Intriago recalls, “We arrived with Roberto Garcia, the mission president, and both participated in that glorious day, where on the beaches of the Canandé River, two missionaries baptized 60 people. Then, President Garcia on one side and I on another confirmed as members of the Church all who were baptized. It was a privilege that will never be erased from my life.”

“We have some great progenitors on the Paramore side of my family,” Elder Paramore continued. “My grandmother left Denmark alone at the age of eight. Her mother put her on a boat with a tag around her neck addressed to Ephraim, Utah. When she arrived in New York, some Mormon missionaries who had arranged to meet her there helped put the child aboard the train that would take her to her destination. What an experience for an eight-year-old girl! It makes me weep to think about it. I’m sure her mother thought that this was a wonderful chance for her daughter to be where the Church was strong.”

Second, humility. “Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven.” (Matt. 18:4.) How wonderful to hear the humble prayer or testimony of a child. I think of the young boy I heard relate the Joseph Smith story in great detail and bear his testimony in the Xhosa language in southern Africa as we met in a one-room African home in Cimizile.
We live in a world where men have largely turned away from righteousness and are self-seeking, gratifying their pride and vain ambition. We have the challenge to humble ourselves before God and become, in King Benjamin’s words, “as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon [us], even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19.)
All over the world, people of different races and cultures are overcoming traditions to accept the truth and submit themselves humbly to baptism. How inspiring to see them overcome hardship and affliction. I remember interviewing a fine young Shona man, a Church member in Zimbabwe, to be the first missionary from his nation. Although permanently on crutches because of polio, Elder Peter Chaya submitted happily to the call to serve.