Gospel Story Finder

About this time, a seminary teacher in our branch challenged me to write in my journal every day for 20 days. She said if I did, it would become a habit. I decided to try it.

Writing was hard at first, but it got easier. I found that by writing down my feelings and thoughts, I naturally included feelings and thoughts of a spiritual nature. I made my record fun by trying to include information I thought my children might be interested in someday—for example, how much things cost. I figured it would be interesting for them to see what daily life was like when I was young.

I received my 20-day challenge five years ago. I’m still writing in my journal every night. I get it out before I go to bed. I read my scriptures; then I write in my journal. Now it’s automatic, and I plan to keep writing in it throughout my life.

Several years ago I served as a temple worker in the Santiago Chile Temple. During one evening shift I began to experience difficulty breathing, so I reluctantly requested to leave early.
As I walked to the subway station, I prayed that the train I needed would be there so I could get home soon. I thought my prayer was answered when I saw the train stopped at the platform. But as I approached, I saw the train staff rushing to help a passenger who was experiencing a possible heart attack. The words of my favorite hymn pierced my mind: “Have I done any good in the world today?”1 I immediately felt impressed to help.
I hurried to where the staff took the young man to wait for the ambulance, and they allowed me to stay. I prayed to know what to do and pled with Heavenly Father to spare the young man’s life. I didn’t want to leave him alone and scared, so I held his hand and tried to help him remain calm. I assured him that he had a long life ahead and that God had a purpose for him. I found out his family’s phone number, called them, and let them know their son was on his way to the hospital and was not alone.
When the paramedics arrived, I followed them to the ambulance. I felt I should stay with the young man until his family arrived. To my surprise, the paramedics decided I should come with them, so I held the young man’s hand all the way to the hospital.
Shortly after we arrived, they took him to the emergency room, and I went outside to watch for his family. When they came, his mother broke into tears, threw her arms around me, and said she was so glad there are still good people on earth.
A week later I received a phone call from the young man. He told me the doctors said that remaining calm had been critical during that time before he reached the hospital.
Until that day, he did not believe in God. I was speechless when he exclaimed, “You saved my life, and I am forever grateful to you! Now I know there is a God.”
When I left the temple early that day, the Spirit led me to the right place at the right time. I feel grateful to our Heavenly Father for guiding me and giving me courage to do as the hymn says and not let the opportunity pass by, even if the only thing I could do was hold the hand of a stranger.

A group of young men and women busily feeding a work crew at a ward chapel gave up a few of its members to show a New Era reporter a thing or two, including the Kentucky Training Center where many Thoroughbred owners train their horses and where Aaronic Priesthood groups make money for service projects by cleaning and caring for the stables, a pasture complete with horses, and an Argentine stallion worth a million and a quarter. In the process of the visit there were a few bonuses such as a Sousa march played on blades of grass, a couple of handmade clover necklaces, and a horseless race from a convenient starting gate.

I know it is important for me to keep in mind your perspective. This truth I learned from a granddaughter. I was speaking to her family about the importance of having sufficient numbers of young men and young women in a ward to maximize social opportunities and to learn together the principles of the gospel. I commented, “Why, do you know that when Elder Joseph Wirthlin was a bishop here in Salt Lake City, he had a full quorum of forty-eight boys who were priests.”

My granddaughter, who had been listening but saying little, suddenly exclaimed, “Oh, that would be wonderful!”

I came to appreciate the importance of having the right perspective. It has been said that the young want to change the world—and the old want to change the young!

Teacher council meetings are helping Sandra Cattell (center) improve her teaching abilities.
I’m fairly old, so when I was called to teach the Young Women, I thought, “My goodness! I wonder why they’ve called me?”
I put a lot of effort into preparing lessons appropriate for the young women’s needs, and I hoped they would be willing to share what they have learned and what they have done with it during the week. But my questions were often met with silence.
In one of our ward’s first teacher council meetings, one of the teachers said she too was finding it difficult to get the youth to communicate during the lessons. Another teacher in the meeting said, “Well, you can allow silence, you see.” Sometimes people need a little time to think about a question before answering.
That comment in teacher council meeting made a difference not only in the way I teach but for my students as well. I thought a lot about it. In my next Young Women lesson, I asked the class what gospel principle they had applied during the week. As usual, there was silence. But instead of immediately jumping in to fill the silence, I remembered our teacher council discussion and quietly said, “There’s no rush.”
The moment I said that, the conversation started to flow. The young women started to open up, and they shared some tender experiences. I immediately wanted to thank the teacher who had made that simple comment in teacher council meeting about silence. I was amazed how practicing that one principle had such a big difference so quickly.
But I didn’t realize until later what a difference that and other principles I’ve been learning are making. After church the mother of one of the young women told me that her daughter had said she knows that I’ve been called of God.
I can’t tell you how special hearing that comment was to me. There I was thinking, “What have I got to teach these young women?” But I must be teaching them something. I’m called for a purpose, and teacher council meetings are helping me fulfill that purpose.

With 11 kids in our family, we eat a lot. We share extra produce with friends, and they share with us. One summer, though, we got more than we ever dreamed of.
We awoke one morning to find 150 torn plastic bags disgorging potatoes onto our front lawn. Why were they there? Where had they come from? Had a fiendish french fry franchiser gone insane? Had frivolous aliens traveling the states for food samples jettisoned Idaho potatoes in favor of Iowa sweet corn?
Nothing so exciting. Dad’s reputation as a pack rat reached the ears of a green grocer with potatoes that weren’t quite good enough to sell, but not quite bad enough to throw away. His solution was to give them to my dad, who brought them home, slit open the bags to let them air, and then, of course, left for work. Getting rid of them was left to us.
There were many suggestions. Drop them off a cliff and watch them splatter far below. Save them until they were really rotten and then throw them at each other. Let them ferment and use the alcohol to run the car.
Mom decided to stage the first and only GPPM (Great Potato Peeling Marathon). We began by sorting them. The good ones—probably about 1,000 pounds worth—were piled on the lawn. Out came the lawn chairs, towels, and the little kids’ wading pool full of water. Divided into teams, we began washing, wiping, peeling, and hauling them into the house to be canned in one of our three pressure canners.
Joshua, then two, came toddling out. Seeing what looked like a beach party, he ran over to the pool and jumped in. Up he sputtered from the slimy water with his mouth full of starch, his hair plastered with peels, and a betrayed look in his eyes.
We peeled until our fingers blistered. Countless quart jars later, we quit. The storage shelves were full, the lawn was clear, and I thought that I would never look another potato in the eye again.
My parents thought otherwise and called a family council to discuss how to eat them. Have you ever thought about how many ways there are to eat potatoes? There’s a Walt Disney song about Johnny Appleseed in which he says, “Apple fritters, oh so tasty, apple tarts, and apple pasty—You can cook an apple any way.” If I were a musician I would write a ditty like this, “Scalloped potatoes and au gratin, mashed, souped, but not rotten—You can cook a potato any way.” The P file in our recipe box expanded beyond the pumpkin section, and all of us tried a lot of new casseroles.

The temptation your children will face will not come at home nor in the seminary class. It will come later, when they are away from both teacher and parent. One day you must set them free. When that day comes, how free will they be, and how safe? It will depend on how much truth they have received. I know of a young missionary who, half a world away from his parents and teachers, faced the testing that comes to young manhood. There, beyond the control of either of them, he made a decision. Later he wrote: “I’m so glad I stayed, because during this last month I found something—I found myself.”

Sasha was called to serve as branch Relief Society president at age 18. “At first I thought, ‘I have a lot of energy. I can do everything by myself. It will be so easy.’ But then I realized there were more than 90 sisters in the branch—most of them much older than I—and I couldn’t do anything by myself!”
She humbled herself and called upon the Lord for help. Her branch president encouraged her to unite the sisters in friendship. “We felt that visiting teaching was our most important work.”
For decades, Christmas had not been celebrated in Russia. But after a great deal of prayer, Sasha felt the importance of emphasizing the holiday as a celebration of the Savior’s birth. “I wanted every sister to feel the spirit of Christmas,” she says. In Homemaking meetings, they learned how to make stuffed animals out of fabric. Then small groups of sisters visited everyone in the branch—more than 50 homes—sharing Christmas greetings and delivering the toys to the children.
Sasha had been so busy with all the preparations and visits that she had never given any thought to receiving a visit herself. “But on December 23, the coldest night of the winter, my doorbell rang and four of my Relief Society sisters entered my apartment,” she remembers. “One of them hadn’t been active in the Church for a year and a half. They had already visited several sisters that evening, but they decided to come and visit me, too! It was so cold—they were frozen. But they lit candles and sang ‘Silent Night’ with me. They said a lot of kind words and gave me one of the Christmas cards we had made in Homemaking meeting! I felt so much love from them and from Heavenly Father.”
Later, many of the women told Sasha how much they had enjoyed making and receiving their Christmas visits. “As they told me their experiences, they were full of feelings, full of light and fire. I could feel warmth from them, even though it was the coldest time of the winter!”

Long ago the renowned author Charles Dickens wrote of opportunities that await. In his classic volume entitled Great Expectations, Dickens described a boy by the name of Philip Pirrip, more commonly known as Pip. Pip was born in unusual circumstances. He was an orphan. He wished with all his heart that he were a scholar and a gentleman. Yet all of his ambitions and all of his hopes seemed doomed to failure. Do you young men sometimes feel that way? Do those of us who are older entertain these same thoughts?

Then one day a London lawyer by the name of Jaggers approached little Pip and told him that an unknown benefactor had bequeathed to him a fortune. The lawyer put his arm around the shoulder of Pip and said to him, “My boy, you have great expectations.”
Tonight, as I look at you young men and realize who you are and what you may become, I declare, “You have great expectations”—not as the result of an unknown benefactor but as the result of a known benefactor, even our Heavenly Father, and great things are expected of you.

Recently Sister Nelson and I were in Denmark during the commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Church in Scandinavia. Between meetings, we took a few hours to search for villages where two of my father’s grandparents were born. They were among the early converts to the Church in Denmark. Father’s paternal grandmother’s family lived in the western part of the country. His paternal grandfather’s family lived in northern Denmark. Thanks to a good driver and a superb map, we found each town on our list and obtained treasured information. During the entire journey, my hands were riveted to that valuable map so essential to achieve our goals.

In our journey in Denmark, we met an unexpected detour that led us astray. In order to get back on course, we stopped the car. We studied the map with great care. Then we made the necessary course correction.

Several weeks ago I returned to my old high school for the first time in years. I was visiting a stake conference that was being held in the school’s auditorium. As I walked down the halls, a flood of memories began to pour into my mind. I remembered exactly how I felt when I attended high school as a young woman—insecure, unsure of myself, self-conscious, and so, so desirous to fit in. I went into the auditorium. Again a flood of memories came to mind. I was familiar with every detail of that auditorium. Only one thing had changed—me.
That day I had the opportunity to stand on the stage as I had done in high school many times as a student officer. I even saw some of my former classmates in the audience—some I had dated! But this time, instead of conducting an assembly, I had the privilege—there in my high school auditorium—to “stand as a witness” and bear my testimony of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

In 2022 I ran the 3,000-meter steeplechase in the United States national championships. The race is about seven-and-a-half laps around the track, and there are five wooden barriers per lap that you have to jump over, including one right before a pit of water.
I was two laps into the race when the guy in front of me stumbled, and I almost ran into him. He made it over the barrier, but I didn’t—I fell.
I popped back up kind of slowly because I felt a little deflated. I thought, “Do I quit and just step off the track?” But I was prepared. I’d decided beforehand that I’d keep going if I fell, so I started running again. I still wanted to give it everything I had even if I didn’t win.
It took me two laps before I even caught up to the guy at the back of the front pack. Soon there were three laps to go and then two laps to go. I started to think I might be able to make the top three. But I was pretty tired, and I got passed by a couple of guys with half a lap left. I was in fourth, but then I had a really good last water jump. And I thought, “Oh man, I might be able to win this thing.”
As I finished that last 50 meters, I realized I was going to win. It was very surreal. I thought, “Wow, am I actually winning this thing right now?” And I did. I won the race after falling.

My priests quorum was pretty much like any other quorum. We had an adviser, inspiring lessons by the bishop, assistants to the bishop, and then the rest of us. Our ward was neither huge nor small, but we had a number of members who seldom or never came to any meetings. In one particular quorum meeting we spent a lot of time discussing those young men who had not been to church in a while. Brother Wheeler, our quorum adviser, had prepared a list.
When I was young, many considered me shy and quiet, and I did not especially go out of my way to make noise or be seen. I was not the first to volunteer to visit the young men on Brother Wheeler’s list. All he was asking was for us to pick a name, make a friendly visit, and invite them to our upcoming weekly activities.
Hands went up when Brother Wheeler called out names from this list. He said it was a plus if you were already friends, neighbors, or schoolmates. I started to feel guilty as the list grew smaller and smaller. Finally there was one name left. The other boys were chatting about their plans of how they were going to take care of this assignment. Brother Wheeler looked at the name on the list and then at me. I lifted my hand. Smiling, he wrote down the boy’s name and sketched a map for me. He said the family had moved in a while ago and a visit could really benefit the young man.
We lived in an area of southeast Idaho where it was a mixture of farms and homes. Many of the parents commuted to work in town. As in many communities like this, we were fairly close-knit, and everyone pretty much knew everyone else. But I didn’t recognize the name I was given, nor did anyone else in our quorum.
Sunday passed, and I considered the name I’d received. Monday came and went. I still considered. Tuesday passed, and I considered with increasing gravity. How was I going to approach a total stranger and ask him to come to church?
Wednesday came, and my consideration began to change into worry. The week was already passing by, and all I could consider was a gut feeling of dread. This young man I was to visit had never been seen at church, he had never been seen at Scouts, he had never been seen at school, he had never even been seen, period.
The school bus dropped me off at my house. I pulled out the folded note I had been carrying with me since Sunday. The young man’s house was about two-and-a-half miles from mine. I wanted to get it over with and release this burden. I told my sister where I was going and, with grim determination, headed out.
Imagination fed on anticipation. I pictured a family where the dad answered the door with a shotgun in his hands and vicious dogs were ready to attack. I walked half a mile. I pictured a family that only spoke Russian. I walked along. I pictured a family with so much wealth that they only wore tuxedos and ball gowns. Was this how Nephi and Sam felt while they were on their way to get the brass plates? Or worse, perhaps this is how Laman and Lemuel felt. Suddenly, there I was in front of the house.
I rang the doorbell. I heard heavy footsteps. The door swung open, and an older man stood there. He looked at me. “Hello,” he said.
A rush of relief came over me. He was not holding a shotgun, he spoke English, and he was not wearing a tuxedo. “Uh, can uh …” I looked at my note. I couldn’t remember his name. “… Bill …” I couldn’t think straight. “… play?” I finally blurted out. I felt like a little kid. What kind of word had I used? “Play?”
The man looked very surprised.
“Is Bill … available?” I corrected myself. Did I read the map wrong? Was I at the wrong house? “Does a Bill, Billy, or even a William live here?”
The man’s expression changed from confusion to smiling enlightenment. “Oh, yes, of course. Come in. You must be from the ward. Brother Wheeler called last week and told me someone would be coming.”
An entire flood of relief swept through me. I followed the man through the front room, past the kitchen, down a hallway, to a bedroom. The house was neat and modest. I saw a picture of the Salt Lake Temple on the wall. The Ensign magazine sat on the kitchen table, opened. I saw scriptures on the shelf. “But these people never come to church,” I thought with more than a touch of confusion. And what about Bill, who was a total hermit apparently—and a very lazy one, because it appeared he was still sleeping.
The man softly knocked. “Billy?” he said as he gently opened the door.
Instantly everything was explained. I felt so small. A wheelchair and a hospital bed sat in the center of the room.
An emaciated boy lay there staring out the window. He turned his head to look at us. His eyes widened. “Help me sit up, Father. Do I have company? What is your name?”
I did not have to worry about carrying the conversation; Billy was very good at assisting me with that. I returned regularly to his house for the next several weeks. I brought various games; he especially liked chess. I learned that he was actually a foster child and had not seen his birth parents for years. Billy’s disease was critical, and the older couple he was now with had taken him in so that he wouldn’t have to stay by himself in the hospital. He was a member of the Church but could only remember being baptized.
Brother Wheeler arranged for us to have our priests quorum meet for class at Billy’s home. His bed had been moved to the front room to help accommodate the extra visitors. Our bishop came and even helped bless the sacrament for Billy and his foster parents.
I felt pretty good about the whole thing. Over the past few months I had made a friend, and I had helped this friend make other friends in our quorum. I did not anticipate the phone call I received from the bishop later that week. He told me he had interviewed Billy and found him worthy to hold the Aaronic Priesthood. Billy had asked the bishop if I could ordain him.
We held our priesthood meeting again at Billy’s house the following Sunday. I do not remember what I said during the ordination. I do remember Billy’s smile and the tears he was pushing back—the tears Brother Wheeler, the bishop, and all of us were pushing back.
A few weeks later, Billy was not available for “playing” anymore. His condition had worsened, and he spent most of the time in the hospital. About six months from my first meeting with Billy, he died.
Now what I remember most about Billy is not what I did for him on my visits, but what he did for me. A young man whose name I came to know from a simple list had become one of the most treasured memories of my youth.

In the spring of 1844, Parley P. Pratt and most of the other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles were serving missions in the eastern United States. In June, Elder Pratt felt inspired to return to Nauvoo, Illinois. On the way, he heard that Joseph and Hyrum Smith had been martyred at Carthage, Illinois. “I felt so weighed down with sorrow and the powers of darkness that it was painful for me to converse or speak to any one.”*
Now that great leader was gone. As Parley approached Nauvoo, he was worried. He didn’t know if Brigham Young, the President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, or any of the other members of the Quorum were there. What should he tell the people? Should he tell them to flee from Nauvoo? Or should they stay and complete the temple? Parley prayed to know what to do. “On a sudden the Spirit of God came upon me and filled my heart with joy and gladness indescribable. … The Spirit said unto me: ‘Go and say unto my people in Nauvoo, that they shall continue to pursue their daily duties and take care of themselves. … Exhort them that they continue to build the House of the Lord which I have commanded them to build in Nauvoo.’”
At Nauvoo Elder Pratt found that the people had already resumed work on the temple under the direction of John Taylor and Willard Richards, two other members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles who had been in jail with the Prophet when he was killed. The three men worked together to keep the people united and at peace until the return of President Young and the other members of the Quorum.

It’s been a long time since then but I can still remember the details of the shearing pens, the strong smell of the sheep and the sweating men, the steady soft rhythm of the machines, the men constantly moving, bent over the animals, the wool rolling off in great folds.
There was usually one boy tying fleeces for every three or four men, but I worked only with my father. I was young but my father was also fast, shearing over 200 sheep on his best days.
There was usually a contest, the men chipping in a quarter and the rancher putting up a five or ten dollar bonus, which my father almost always won. Two other men in this camp were also fast. One, a giant, big-boned Scot, worked right next to my father; and before the week was out it was their contest. They were both passing the other men by 20 sheep.
On the last night, after supper, the big Scotsman lit a large cigar and leaned back.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “I think I’ll be taking the bonus with me, and I’ll bet you a hundred dollars on it.”
My father smiled and tipped his milk glass in a circle.
“I’ll take another glass, Mama,” he said. He turned to the Scot. “Well, I won’t bet with you, but I will beat you.” He lifted the glass of milk and drank half of it. “You’re pretty good,” he said. “But I got the edge on a man that smokes and takes a drink. You won’t last in a hard contest.”
The Scot looked at the cigar.
“We’ll see about that,” he said. “We’ll see about that.”
Cal Fredricks, the rancher, stood from his chair. “I’m upping the bonus for tomorrow.” He hesitated and rubbed his hand on his pants. He was a short, tough looking man. “To a hundred dollars, just to make things interesting.”
Word got around. “The Mormon and the big Scot are going at it.” Before it was finished there were a hundred men and women and children watching. My father would pass the Scot by one and two sheep, only to have the Scot pass him a little later. They were tied for nearly an hour. Locked into a strange mirrored cadence, hands rose, coming down with choreographed smoothness, cutting thick folds of lanolin-rich wool.
“One hundred and fifty,” someone shouted. “One sixty.”
My arms began to ache and sweat streamed down my face, burning my eyes.
“Three hundred for the Scot.” The Scotsman had broken the cadence and moved ahead one. Then my father did what I’d seen him do before. He picked up his pace and put all his reserve energy into it. Slowly he passed the Scot.
“Three hundred and eleven,” the voice boomed over the drone of the machines and the crowd and the sheep.
When it was over my father had won by only three sheep. The two men, breathing hard and drenched with sweat, collapsed next to each other in a pile of bundled wool.
The Scotsman pulled a small handbag close to him. He took out a small box of cigars, opened it and picked one up looking at it. Raising it to his nose, he sniffed in a deep breath. Then he took the cigars into his hand and threw them out into the mud.
“Next year,” he said grinning, “I’ll give you a real run for your money.”
My father laughed, wiping sweat from his forehead with a red handkerchief. “We’ll just have to wait to see about that,” he said.

I had a difficult childhood; my parents separated when I was still a teenager. This separation was a big blow to me and my three siblings, I being the eldest. Despite my mother’s meager resources, she did her best to provide for our needs. During this challenging situation, we learned to live with little, wake up early, appreciate life and people, and to think seriously about life and the existence of God: Does God really exist? If so, why did He allow us to live such experiences? We wondered what we did to deserve that. These questions went unanswered until I met the missionaries.
I brilliantly passed my baccalaureate exams in 2010 and gained admission to the faculty of psychology at a university in Abidjan. Despite our poverty, I had decided to take a chance with this as I could not accept the fact that my brilliant school career was going to stop due to lack of financial means. I contacted one of my uncles living in Abidjan, asking him to take me in to further my education. He was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints; I had never heard of it before. What impressed me from the first moments in this home was the love and joy filled there. I had no difficulty fitting in. I grew up in a Christian sect; however, I had begun to lose interest because of everything that had happened to me. I found it unjust and I began to question the very existence of God. It was just at this moment of desperation that my host family asked me if I was ready to receive the missionaries. In fact, it did not interest me anymore, this matter of religion, but for the respect that I had for my uncle, I accepted.
After several unsuccessful visits and discussions with the missionaries, I came to recognize the fact that the Church was true, but I had a problem: The Book of Mormon. I did not accept the idea that there was another scripture besides the Bible that would testify of Christ. I had a keen interest in reading and my supposed broad knowledge of the Bible and other philosophical books did not facilitate my discussions with missionaries.
Finally, I began to read the Book of Mormon. At first, I read it just out of curiosity, but once I started, I could not find the strength to stop. After a full reading in a month, I began to feel something deep inside me, a warm feeling in my heart, a light in my mind, a transformation, a voice.
At night, I could not close my eyes because my mind was revealed about the sacredness of the Book of Mormon. I was baptized in February 2010. As a result, I served a full-time mission and married Prisca Ebi, a lovely daughter of our Heavenly Father!
I am grateful to the Lord for using the Akoi family in making me an instrument in His hands to do a lot of good for His children.
I testify that God is hiding in the Book of Mormon, and I invite everyone who wants to discover it to make it their personal experience to gain their own testimony.

“Every time I start reading the scriptures, I fall asleep!” one missionary told his mission president. “It’s like the scriptures are a sleeping pill!”
His president responded, “Do you ever take notes when you read?”
“No,” said the missionary.
“It’s easy to fall asleep or let your mind drift when you are only reading,” the president said, “but it is impossible when you add writing!”
The advice this mission president gave his struggling missionary made a big difference. So if you’re looking for a new way to strengthen your scripture study, give it a try. As you write about what you’re reading, you’ll likely find yourself more engaged and learning better, too.

I shall always remember the great experiences I had at the open house prior to the dedication of the Washington D.C. Temple. For part of a week, I stood in the entrance to the temple as a host to special guests. Those guests included the wife of the president of the United States, justices of the Supreme Court, senators and congressmen, ambassadors from various nations, clergymen, educators, and business leaders.
Almost without exception, those who came were appreciative and respectful. Many were deeply touched in their hearts. Upon leaving the temple, the wife of the president of the United States commented: “This is a truly great experience for me. … It’s an inspiration to all.”

Thus the Lord, by revelation, brings inspiration into one’s mind as though a voice were speaking. As a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, Elder Harold B. Lee (1899–1973) gave this testimony: “I have a believing heart because of a simple testimony that came when I was a child, I think maybe I was around ten—maybe eleven—years of age. I was with my father out on a farm away from our home, trying to spend the day busying myself until father was ready to go home. Over the fence from our place were some tumbledown sheds which had attracted a curious boy, adventurous as I was. I started to climb through the fence and I heard a voice as clearly as you are hearing mine—’Don’t go over there!’ calling me by name. I turned to look at father to see if he were talking to me, but he was way up at the other end of the field. There was no person in sight. I realized then, as a child, that there were persons beyond my sight and I had heard a voice. And when I [hear] and read these stories of the Prophet Joseph Smith, I, too, know what it means to hear a voice because I’ve heard from an unseen speaker” (Divine Revelation, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [15 October 1952], 5).

At age 30, Eric James of New Mexico, USA, was diagnosed with a kidney disease. As a young father, he was devastated and wondered if he would be able to provide for his family.

He read in the Book of Mormon that Nephi wondered the same thing when he broke his bow made of fine steel. But after making a bow out of wood, Nephi was again able to feed his family. (See 1 Nephi 16:18–23, 30–32.)

“Nephi’s story filled my soul like a brilliant light,” Eric said. “The health I had enjoyed up until that point was like Nephi’s steel bow. When my health failed, it was like my bow had broken. But I realized that the Lord had blessed me with a wooden bow in the form of a kidney transplant. The transplant would give me the strength to care for my family. This gave me hope. Almost 10 years later, I continue to provide for my family and serve the Lord the best I can.”