Gospel Story Finder

I was in the Navy at the end of World War II when I was a very young man. My training took place near San Diego, California. Everyone in the Navy had to know how to swim, or they wouldn’t let him out of boot camp (training camp). I had learned to swim as a boy and could do it quite well.

One day an officer said, “All of you who can swim get to go to San Diego for the day. Those who can’t must have a full day of swimming lessons. So those of you who can swim, line up over here, and we’ll put you on a bus and take you into town.” I lined up with the swimmers—there were about 30 or 40 of us. But instead of having my group get on a bus, the officer marched us into the gym, where the swimming pool was.

I thought, You’re mixed up, fellow. We’re the ones who can swim. But, of course, I said nothing. We prepared for swimming and were ordered to jump into the deep end of the pool.

Most of us obeyed, but about 10 men in our group didn’t know how to swim. They had thought that they could go to San Diego without measuring up. The officer didn’t let them just stand there—he pushed them into the water. He let them go under the water, come up gasping for air, and then go down again. When they came up for the second time, a big bamboo pole was held out to them, and they were pulled to safety. Then the officer said sternly, “Don’t you ever lie to me again!” I tell you, I was glad I hadn’t tried that! The experience taught me the value of being honest and true to yourself at all times.

Until one Sunday. I don’t know what got into me. (It certainly wasn’t pancakes! Might have been a past Sunday School lesson, though.) At any rate, I decided that I would really see if I could get something out of fasting besides killer breath. Why go through the discomfort and come away with nothing more than relief that it’s over?
So when I woke up that Sunday morning, I made a deliberate effort to be pleasant and patient. I didn’t prowl the kitchen, growling like an echo of my stomach. Yes, I spent some time reading the Sunday paper, but I also spent time (and effort) in the scriptures. When I went off to my room, it was not to sulk, but to pray—for patience, for understanding, for an increase of testimony.
My mouth still tasted like something small and furry had hibernated in it. But mouthwash helped. My stomach still threw tantrums for a while. But then the hunger pangs faded into the background, partly because I was tuning them out, and partly because my body seemed to shift into another gear.
As the day progressed, I actually became happy. (No, it wasn’t delirium.) In fast and testimony meeting I found myself watching the speakers and listening to their testimonies, rather than watching the clock and listening to my stomach. Being there felt good. When dinner time finally arrived, I discovered that I was able to sit calmly. A new sense of self-control allowed me to eat reasonably, instead of giving way to the usual gluttony of the “feast of the fast over.”

Before Wade Holmstead passed away I had the opportunity of being his Primary president. All his life he had serious health problems, but he also had an insight and understanding that few eleven-year-olds have.
When I interviewed Wade for Primary graduation, he was well prepared and anxious to become a deacon and a Scout. Then we spoke of missionary work and his future plans. Some of his neighbors were inactive and the children did not attend Primary. I asked Wade if he would be a missionary and try to get these children to attend Primary. He agreed.
The next week, Primary was about to begin when Wade and these children entered the chapel. I was stunned! What a miracle. Later I asked him, “How did you ever get the children to come to Primary?”
Wade looked at me with wonder and answered quietly, “It wasn’t hard at all, Sister Haynie. I just reminded them. All they needed was to be reminded.”

The zeal of the Korean Saints for missionary work also played a great role in the growth of the Church. One great member missionary was Lee Sung Man of the Jamsil Ward, who joined the Church in his 50s. He had many ups and downs in his life; however, he always had a positive attitude in his religious life. A shoe repairman, he piled up copies of the Book of Mormon in his shop and invited customers to take one for free if they would read it. Over 50 people, including his relatives, joined the Church because of him. He read the standard works dozens of times. They were found beside him when he died.8

“Matthew, Brother Erickson is here!” These were the words I had been dreading to hear all day. It was the type of situation you knew you would have to face eventually but hoped desperately would always be one more day away. But this was the day.
Earlier that morning, just before opening exercises for priesthood, 80-year-old Brother Erickson had caught me. “You have been called as my home teaching companion. Would it be all right if we visited one of our families later today?”
I was shocked. All my friends had been assigned to be their dads’ companions. At least when they made a fool of themselves it would be in front of a family member, not someone who has had eight decades to get to know everything about the gospel. I muttered to him that it would be fine.
He replied, “We will be going to the Wiseman family. You are going to love it!”
I was convinced this was a rather large lie.
The Wiseman family truly lived up to their name. Like Brother Erickson, they were older and wiser members of the ward. They had known apostles and even prophets and had a reputation for having a great understanding of the gospel. If that weren’t enough, there were two of them; what one didn’t know, I was sure the other one would. So I trudged out the door and into the car where Brother Erickson waited, smiling.
We talked a bit about school and my family on the way to the Wisemans. I think Brother Erickson sensed I was nervous. We finally arrived at the door, and I forced a smile. When I entered the home, warm smiles and hearty handshakes greeted me. The Wisemans were as amazing as I had thought, only they were so much cooler than I imagined they would be.
“Will you be starting school soon, Matt?” Sister Wiseman asked.
“I will be in ninth grade in August,” I responded quickly, not knowing how Sister Wiseman would react.
“That’s wonderful!” she exclaimed, and she actually meant it.
“What things do you like to do in school?” she said, diving in for more.
“Well, I’m in the choir,” I said a little less timidly.
“I used to love to sing too,” Sister Wiseman said, and the conversation continued more fluidly from there as my nervousness slowly eased away.
We continued talking about school, skiing, television, and everything else imaginable. I was amazed that I actually had things in common with these people! And more than that, they seemed to enjoy talking to me. To my great surprise I found that when the lesson was over and the closing prayer said, I didn’t want to leave. My fear of home teaching turned into a fear of the clock telling us it was time to go.
As I continued as a home teacher I grew to love my companion, Brother Erickson, and the Wiseman family more than I thought I ever could. They taught me much and allowed me to teach them as well. I never knew I had so much in common with other members of the Church, regardless of age, background, or education.
I know that even though the home teaching program is meant to bless the lives of the families taught, it also has a great impact on the home teachers. To this day I still consider Brother Erickson and the Wisemans as three of my best friends.

Anita said she felt fine, but I moved away from her bedside, knelt, and prayed.
Illustration by Katie Payne
I was single and self-employed when I was new in the Church, so I had days when I had extra time. On one of those days I called the Relief Society president and asked if anyone needed help that afternoon. She mentioned an elderly sister named Anita (name has been changed) who had recently come home from the hospital and was lonely. I had met Anita before and was happy to visit her.
I called and then went to her apartment. She asked me to make lunch for her, and afterward we had a great visit. She had a good sense of humor and loved to laugh and tell stories about her life.
After lunch she said she was tired and asked me to help her from her wheelchair to bed. Soon I had her tucked in. Suddenly, the still, small voice I had heard so much about spoke to me: “Get her to the hospital now!”
Anita hated hospitals and had just returned home. I asked her if she felt OK. She said she was fine but felt tired.
I moved away from her bedside and knelt. As soon as I started to pray, the voice repeated, “Get her to the hospital, and get her there now!”
I hesitated, asking myself, “What am I going to tell the doctor at the hospital?”
I called a friend, who also prayed and then told me to follow my prompting.
Anita was angry that I would even mention taking her to the hospital, but I called an ambulance anyway. When it arrived, two paramedics entered and took her vital signs. Without asking questions, they put her on a gurney and sped off in the ambulance.
I followed in my van. After arriving at the hospital, I sat and waited. Soon a doctor came out. He asked me, “She didn’t tell you that she had fallen before you came to her apartment, did she?”
“No,” I responded.
He told me that Anita had injured her spleen and was bleeding internally. Without immediate medical attention, he said, she might have died.
I felt a mixture of remorse and exultation—remorse that I had hesitated and exultation that ultimately I had listened to the Holy Ghost. Most of all, I felt grateful to know that the Lord had trusted me to help this injured sister and had inspired my Relief Society president to send me to her.
My own health has deteriorated since this experience, but the Lord still prompts me. I pray always for the strength to follow those promptings.

The funeral was held on Tuesday morning. I didn’t go. I couldn’t stand to see them put her into the cold earth. Besides, I had been to LDS funerals before. Always they were so cheerful and positive, telling us to have faith in God and that things would be fine with the departed loved one. I wasn’t sure I even believed in God anymore. I went fishing in an effort to forget the pain I was feeling.
I arrived home as the sun was sinking in the evening sky. My fishing expedition had been a failure, and I badly wanted to speak to my father. Jason and Bronwyn were solemnly seated in the living room, but Dad was nowhere to be found. I went to look for him in the yard.
When I was a little boy, I had a pet dog called Bunyip. He was my best friend. We were inseparable. But one day Bunyip was bitten by a snake and died. I was shattered, and there was nothing my parents could do to console me. So my father went into one of the fields and painted a huge smiling face on a large granite boulder. He called it the Happy Rock. After that, whenever I felt sad, I would go to the Happy Rock, and my sorrows seemed to magically vanish.
It was here that I found my father, perched atop the boulder, its great, smiling face showing the strains of time. He looked pathetically vulnerable as he sat, gazing sadly at the retreating sunset. I quietly announced my presence. For a moment, he didn’t respond. Then a wistful smile briefly crossed his sun-browned face.
“I guess the old rock has lost its magic,” he said. Then, for the first time in my life, I saw my father cry. Again I felt bitterness within. How could the Lord give us a Christmas gift like this?
Weeks passed and I quit going to church. There was nothing there for me. A few people visited, encouraging me to go back, but I wouldn’t listen. How could I ever feel comfortable in church again?
One day I got a call from Sister Robinson, the Relief Society president. “Oh Brad, I’m so glad you’re home,” she said. I immediately felt my defences go up. If this was something to do with church, she could forget it.
“Yes, Sister Robinson, what can I do for you?”
“Well, it’s like this,” she began. “I’m supposed to be at the hospital tomorrow to read to some of the children, but I won’t be able to make it. I was wondering if maybe you could go in my place.”
“Gee, I don’t know,” I started to object.
Sister Robinson cut in: “Brad, you don’t have to if you don’t want to, but I don’t know who else to ask.”
I finally agreed to go because I didn’t know how to refuse her. Putting down the phone, I wandered into the living room. With four days left before Christmas, it looked as if the Christmas spirit had passed right over our place. There were no decorations, no trees, no Christmas cards. Instead we had sympathy cards lined up along the mantelpiece. If my Christmas was to be miserable, at least I could try to take some of the Yuletide cheer to some little kids in hospital.
At the hospital the next day, I was assigned to a frail little girl named Marcie. They told me she was nine years old. She looked about four. She was hooked up to some kind of machine which kept her alive, yet she smiled as if she hadn’t a care in the world. I felt awkward, dressed in my robes of self-pity, while she lay upon her deathbed as cheerful as spring sunshine. We visited for a while. As we talked, I marvelled at her wisdom and perspective. I didn’t know what was wrong with her—I didn’t have the heart to ask. She knew that she probably wouldn’t see her tenth birthday, yet she wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t bitter.
I surveyed the pile of books at her bedside. There were many to choose from. “What would you like me to read to you?” I asked.
She pointed to a worn copy of the Easter story. “That one,” she said.
I picked it up. “Honey, you don’t want to hear this. It’s Christmas,” I told her.
“No,” she repeated, “I want to hear that one. It’s my favorite.”
So, during the hot Christmas season, I read of the sufferings of Christ to a little girl who loved God. When I finished, she was staring into my eyes with a look that pierced my soul. Placing her tiny hand into mine, she said, “I have lots of pain, but never as much as Jesus had. When I’m really hurting and I’m all alone, I speak to the Lord because he knows how I feel. He loves me.”
I hurried home that afternoon because there was someone I wanted to speak to. When I got back to the farm, the first place I headed for was the Happy Rock. It was out of sight of the house and was an ideal spot for what I was about to do. Dropping to my knees, I opened my mouth to pray, but nothing came out. My heart was thumping. Finally, in desperation, I cried out, “Oh God, where are you?”
From a million miles away, deep within my own mind, I heard the glorious tones of an orchestra. The music grew louder, until it crashed over my being like a wave from the ocean. Then, as clearly as any spoken voice, I heard the words of a favorite carol: “Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: ‘God is not dead, nor doth he sleep . …’”

On June 11, 1979, I climbed aboard a DC-3 that was headed for the Moose Creek Ranger Station in northern Idaho where I was to spend my summer working for the forest service. The station is 21 miles from the nearest road and about 60 air miles from the forest headquarters at Grangeville.
At about 9:30 A.M. the plane left the Grangeville airfield. Everything went fine until about halfway through the 30-minute flight. Suddenly the plane’s engines got very quiet. When I looked out the windows, I noticed that only one engine was running. A few seconds later the starboard engine exploded, and flames enveloped the entire right side of the plane. Everyone aboard (10 forest service employees and 2 crew members) was very quiet and frozen with fear, it seemed.
Never in my life had I been as terrified as I then was. All I could think about was the life I had led up to this time. I wasn’t so much afraid of dying, but I was terrified at the thought of having to come to judgment so soon. I have a terrible habit of procrastinating, and I had always had the idea that I could “play today and repent tomorrow.”
Meanwhile, the plane was steadily losing altitude and was pitching and bucking fiercely. I wanted desperately to get out alive so that I could get my life in order.
In the midst of this turmoil a voice seemed to speak to me. It said, “Bryant, why don’t you pray?” So I prayed, desperately and fervently. I asked for many things, but I clearly remember asking the Lord to help me accept his will. I also asked him to comfort me and to help my family understand. As I finished praying, we were just on the verge of crashing, perhaps 100 feet above the treetops. The pilot had been giving us instructions to fasten seat belts.
I was at this time very calm and collected. I no longer feared dying. In fact, I was actually curious as to what it would be like to die and who I might meet in the next world. About this time the plane hit a tree and veered sharply into the river. Authorities say that the plane hit the water at about 100 miles per hour.
When the plane hit, there was a terrific jolt, and several aftershocks. As the plane came to rest in the Selway River, I was thrown hard against my seat belt. I then came to my senses and thought, “I’m alive.” But what I saw made my blood run cold. The plane was floating down the river, which was at flood stage. The water was very high and very rough. Debris from the wreck was floating all around, and there was a sickening silence. I was still fastened to my seat by my safety belt, and I was sitting waist-deep in water. The water itself was colored a deep red with the blood of the passengers whom I could see in the plane. They looked unconscious. I tried to release some of them from their seat belts, but I couldn’t because the swirling water made it too difficult, and I was forced to abandon the plane.
The cargo doors of the plane were ripped open, so I let myself down through them, then tried to swim. The water was very fast and extremely hard to keep afloat in. I was caught in an undertow and forced to the bottom of the river.
One more time I asked the Lord to preserve my life and give me the strength I needed to pull myself from the river. Once again, as instantly as in my earlier prayer, confidence came to me. I felt a terrific amount of renewed energy, and when I was released from the eddy, which was holding me to the bottom, I found myself being swept down the river, right next to the bank. I grabbed hold of a tilting rock and easily pulled myself from the river.
Upon getting ashore I saw two other survivors, so I treated one for shock, then stopped the bleeding of the other and splinted his fractured leg. Then I started to walk the 12 miles to the Moose Creek Ranger Station to obtain help. The first two miles were very steep and without trails, but I’d worked in that area before so I knew which direction to go. I got very tired but eventually found help. Later I found out that one of the people I’d helped didn’t live. Only I and one other person survived the crash.

This afternoon I want to describe and discuss a spiritual impression I received a few moments before I stepped to this pulpit during the Sunday morning session of general conference last October. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf had just finished speaking and had declared his powerful witness of the Savior. Then we all stood together to sing the intermediate hymn that previously had been announced by President Gordon B. Hinckley. The intermediate hymn that morning was “Redeemer of Israel” (Hymns, no. 6).

Now, the music for the various conference sessions had been determined many weeks before—and obviously long before my new call to serve. If, however, I had been invited to suggest an intermediate hymn for that particular session of the conference—a hymn that would have been both edifying and spiritually soothing for me and for the congregation before my first address in this Conference Center—I would have selected my favorite hymn, “Redeemer of Israel.” Tears filled my eyes as I stood with you to sing that stirring hymn of the Restoration.

Near the conclusion of the singing, to my mind came this verse from the Book of Mormon: “But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance” (1 Nephi 1:20).

My mind was drawn immediately to Nephi’s phrase “the tender mercies of the Lord,” and I knew in that very moment I was experiencing just such a tender mercy. A loving Savior was sending me a most personal and timely message of comfort and reassurance through a hymn selected weeks previously. Some may count this experience as simply a nice coincidence, but I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are real and that they do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence. Often the Lord’s timing of His tender mercies helps us to both discern and acknowledge them.

One of the ways Heavenly Father helps us find happiness is through righteous parents and Church leaders. They see things differently than we do, and we must listen to them and obey them. Once a group of young men went to a lake. They took a bow and ten arrows with them and decided to shoot at birds flying overhead. Each time they aimed at a bird and shot, they missed. The bird flew away, and the arrow fell harmlessly into the lake.

After they had shot the last arrow, one boy decided to swim to the middle of the lake to retrieve the arrow. He dove in and headed toward it. He got it and then turned back to swim for shore. By this time he was extremely tired. His wet clothing weighed him down. Holding the arrow in his hand made swimming very difficult. He began to fear that he might drown, and he called out desperately to his friends for help.

“Put your feet down and walk to shore,” they called back to him. He couldn’t see things clearly, but his friends, who were looking at things from the shore, knew that he was in shallow water. All he had to do was stand up, and he would be safe.

Among the lessons taught me by my father was gratitude for what it meant to be a General Authority. Some years ago Father, then over eighty years of age, was expecting a visit from a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles on a snowy winter day. Father, an artist, had painted a picture of the home of the Apostle. Rather than have the painting delivered to him, this sweet Apostle wanted to go personally to pick the painting up and thank my father for it. Knowing that Father would be concerned that everything was in readiness for the forthcoming visit, I dropped by his home. Because of the depth of the snow, snowplows had caused a snowbank in front of the walkway to the front door. Father had shoveled the walks and then labored to remove the snowbank. He returned to the house exhausted and in pain. When I arrived, he was experiencing heart pain from overexertion and stressful anxiety. My first concern was to warn him of his unwise physical efforts. Didn’t he know what the result of his labor would be?
“Robert,” he said through interrupted short breaths, “do you realize an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ is coming to my home? The walks must be clean. He should not have to come through a snowdrift.” He raised his hand, saying, “Oh, Robert, don’t ever forget or take for granted the privilege it is to know and to serve with Apostles of the Lord.”

“Erin, would you mind tucking the blanket down around my socks? My toes are cold.”
Erin tucked the colorful afghan around Grandma’s feet. Just then, Dylan and Jason came racing through the living room and almost knocked over a lamp. Mom went after them, calling, “No running in the house! You two head outside if you want to play tag.”
Grandma chuckled and winked at Erin. “Your brothers are getting restless, aren’t they? I guess my house is a little boring.”
Erin sat on the edge of the couch next to Grandma. “We love visiting you, even if you don’t have toys. The boys like finding pill bugs in the garden, and I love reading your old books.”
“But you can only do those things for so long. Hmmm. I have an idea.” Grandma called Mom from the kitchen. “Lucy, will you go into my bedroom and get my purse?”
Mom came back with Grandma’s purse and asked, “Do you need us to go to the store for you?”
“Actually, Lucy, I need you to get three ten-dollar bills from my purse and take the kids shopping. Let them each pick out something fun. How does that sound, Erin?”
Erin grinned. “Sounds great,” she said.
“That’s awfully generous of you, Mother,” Mom said, patting Grandma’s hand.
At the store, Dylan and Jason pulled Mom toward the toy aisle.
“I want a dinosaur,” Jason said.
“I want a robot,” Dylan said.
Erin wasn’t sure what she wanted. Maybe a new book?
Dylan and Jason hugged their toys and marched toward the checkout stands.
“Erin,” Mom said, “you’d better choose something. The boys are ready to go.”
Erin looked around. She thought about getting a box of stationery and writing letters to all of her friends back home. But then she saw another stack of boxes, and she knew exactly what she wanted to buy with her ten dollars.
Back at Grandma’s, Erin carried the bag into the house.
“Let’s see what you all got,” Grandma said.
Jason showed Grandma his stegosaurus. Dylan held up a robot that could turn into a car.
“And what did you get, Erin?” Grandma asked.
Erin reached into the bag and pulled out a box. She removed the lid and held up a pair of cozy slippers. “I got these for you,” Erin said. “To keep your toes warm.”
As soon as Grandma’s arms wrapped around her, Erin felt warm inside and out. She knew she had made a good choice. Grandma’s hugs and happy tears were worth every penny.

They recently moved from Eagar, Arizona, to nearby Show Low, where their family business includes a hotel and car wash. Devastating wildfires struck the area last summer. Elder Shumway recalls that for three nights in a row, a television announcer stated the fire would be in Show Low by the next morning. The fire never reached the town, and the announcer finally said that there was a power at work higher than he had ever seen—he could not explain it.
“Had the fire come through, I do not think I would be sitting here today,” says Elder Shumway. “It would have been devastating.”
His family and business were spared, and he is grateful for the new opportunity to serve. “I deem it a privilege to go preach the gospel of Jesus Christ,” he says.

We’re used to having fires in this area, so when I saw the sky looking really smoky that morning, I wasn’t too worried. I was somewhat new to the area, but those who’ve lived in Paradise for a long time—especially those who live by the canyons—have been evacuated before.
This time, however, high winds carried the fire so fast that officials completely underestimated how long it would take to reach us. Most of us had no idea what was going on until the town was burning everywhere. Our situation went from “slightly concerned” to “emergency! Get out!” within one hour.
The evacuation was chaotic—and fast. Most people had to drive through fire to get out of town. As I drove out with my kids, smoke was everywhere. Embers had blown all over town and fires erupted everywhere. A lot of people left with their homes on fire or their neighbor’s home on fire. I didn’t know if our home would be destroyed or not.
As we drove, I had a conversation with God. I prayed that we would get out safely and that our home would be spared. We had only been in our house about two years. As a family, we worked together on improvements. My husband and children helped me redo the countertops and the floors. We called it our “cabin in the woods.” I loved my home, but I tried to be strong enough to submit my will to God’s will.
A few days later, we found out our home was gone. We had made it beautiful, and now it had burned down. But looking back, the time we spent in our house was such a wonderful time. I’m so grateful that God gave our family that time in that house.

Recently, three fellow priesthood holders and I were in the home of a mother who was the head of the household and caring for at least four children. After a brief visit, one of my colleagues asked this matriarch to share her favourite hymn. Without hesitation she responded with “Come, Ye Children of the Lord”. They had not attended church for years, and we asked if we could sing that hymn for the family. Her face lit up as we sang, and the room reverberated with the beautiful words of the hymn. There were smiles on every face as the Spirit of the Lord filled the room. It was easy for us to invite this wonderful family back to church and share with them how our Savior wants them to return.

Melusi and the two families we visited are once again actively participating in church. Elder Mervyn B. Arnold of the Seventy said, “As we go to the rescue, God gives us power, encouragement, and blessings.”1 I have learned that we will receive help and inspiration when we are on the Lord’s errand. We surely do not go alone when we go to rescue His children. He has indeed graven us upon the palms of His hands and will therefore never forget any of His children.

Years passed, and I got my mission call. Before leaving to go to Argentina, I dropped by Will’s house to say good-bye and tell him I’d miss him. He wasn’t home at first, but his mom was. Surprisingly, she shared with me how much she appreciated the friendship I had offered Will. His dad had abandoned them when Will was two, and with no male role model for him, she felt helpless as she watched him grow up. She felt she was losing touch with her son. After her husband had left, she had prayed that her son would make a friend, a friend who would help keep her son out of trouble.
“You were that friend,” she told me. “Thanks for helping me raise my son. Thanks for answering my prayers.”
I couldn’t help but hug her. She was the mother of my best friend through high school. The mother of a friend who had always been there for me. All this time she thought Heavenly Father had answered her prayer, and I thought He had answered mine. I know God hears our prayers. And sometimes, some very special times, He uses us to answer them too.

Mary Stark Pratt was the wife of Elder Rey L. Pratt, a member of the First Council of the Seventy and president of the Mexican Mission during the first decades of this century. This remarkable woman was the mother of thirteen children and, in addition to her family and mission responsibilities, served as the mission Relief Society president. She was an outstanding example of the ways Relief Society allows women to serve and bless others.
Mary gave homemaking lessons in which she taught unskilled sisters how to clean house quickly, mending and darning techniques, and sewing ideas so that they could make their homes places in which they could take pride. But she realized that the greatest need of any person is to feel a sense of self-worth. She encouraged the sisters to become skilled in native Mexican embroidery and make embroidered clothing and household items. People came so enthusiastically from all over the city to buy the handworked items that the sisters took great pride in their work and redoubled their efforts to perfect their skills.

I know that from my own experience. I remember when I was a boy of 15 and we had been expelled from Mexico in the revolution. My folks went to Los Angeles from El Paso, Texas. I got a job there among a bunch of Mormon-haters, and I didn’t tell them that I was a Mormon. Sometime after that, President Joseph F. Smith came to Los Angeles and had dinner with my parents—a very humble dinner; I can remember that it was very scant. He put his hand on my head and said, “My boy, don’t ever be ashamed that you are a Mormon.”
You know, I have worried all my days that I didn’t have the courage to stand up to those ribald men.

Mother’s Day—Dad accepted my invitation and brought Mom out to the branch’s Mother’s Day program today. Bill came too. After sacrament meeting, I went with the elders to my parents’ home for a missionary lesson. After the first discussion Elder Johnson tried to make an appointment to come again and teach my family.
“How about right now?” Mom asked.
So the second lesson was given. Dad had to leave then to do the farm chores. Mom quickly prepared some sandwiches and salads for the elders and our family. About an hour later Dad came back in and ate, and the third lesson was given. Three in one night!
July 27—Tonight I baptized my family. It is three months to the day since I joined the Church. Our family is finally united. As I brought Mom up out of the water, she embraced me and shed tears of joy. We are recipients of life’s greatest blessings.

“My dream was to be a humanitarian, and this was the door to it,” Loni reflected. “Working in the library, I always wanted to give back . . . but I didn’t see the [opportunity] until Cyclone Gita hit [Tonga].”
It was in the aftermath of Cyclone Gita, that Loni’s engagement on the national level began. Being a librarian and also Tongan, and well-known for her work in the T?maki community, she was asked to help establish the first public library in her beloved island nation of Tonga and serve as the first librarian.
With schools and educational resources destroyed, Loni worked tirelessly with founders, Kahoa and Brendon Corbett, as donations of thousands of books from over 50 Auckland Council libraries, as well as computers, and even bicycles, were brought to the renovated community fale (centre).
The library opened in October 2019, in the village of Kolovai, with plans for a second library underway in a nearby town.
Loni paid her own fare on her trips to Tonga, lived by herself, and donated her time and talents to establish the library. She started weekend English classes, children’s programs, computer and family history classes, job application skills classes, and even bicycle rentals.
She says, “Tongans now understand that a library is more than a building—it is a safe place for growth and development, connections, and learning for many different reasons.”