Gospel Story Finder

Photo illustrations by David Stoker
The reverberating dance music echoed loudly down the church hallway into the lobby where I sat with a set of scriptures open in my lap. I could hear the other youth laughing and socializing in the cultural hall, and I knew that somewhere down there the handful of young men from my small branch were catching up with old acquaintances.
I was the youngest person from my branch there and was still fairly new to Church dances. I wanted to meet other LDS youth and wanted to dance with some of the young women from my stake, but I always felt too out of place and self-conscious. So, I sat in the lobby.
This wasn’t my first dance, either. I’d been to a handful before, and some of the older young women had even asked me to dance, but that only made me more self-conscious. A hundred personal flaws would rush through my mind, and I knew that they were just being nice to the new kid. I felt that no one really wanted to dance with me.
That’s why this time I decided to stay in the lobby and leave them to enjoy themselves without worrying about me. Several times youth leaders and others from my branch tried to convince me to join the activity, but using the scriptures as a shield, I argued that I was happier studying the scriptures, idly reading about the bravery of Nephi, Captain Moroni, and the stripling warriors without putting their examples into practice. I went home that evening feeling miserable and alone.
At subsequent dances, I began to notice something when I went to the gym: as slow songs were played, most of the young women would sit down and remain seated until the next fast song. Though the more confident young men asked some girls to dance, they always seemed to pick the same two or three young women (generally from their wards). This meant that most of the girls sat through the slow songs watching from the sidelines.
I don’t remember exactly when the dance challenge first came about, but a couple of the young men from my branch decided that the young women should be able to dance to the slow songs. The challenge was simple: Ask a different young woman to dance for every slow song, and never sit out a dance.
Taking strength from the stories of Nephi, Captain Moroni, and the stripling warriors, I took the challenge to heart. For every dance after that, I did what I could to ensure that every young woman at every dance would have the chance to dance.
I started by asking any young women who were away from the center of the dance floor or who were from wards or branches that didn’t appear to have any young men there. I often had enough time to ask some girls twice, having danced with every young woman at least once.
Because of this goal, I had the opportunity to get to know dozens of incredible young women over the years, and a girl declined to dance with me on only two or three occasions.
The last youth dance I attended was held immediately after seminary graduation. I looked around the small gathering and noticed the faces of dozens of young women I’d danced with during the last three years. I felt grateful for the experiences I’d had, so I began the dance challenge again for one last time, inviting many girls to dance. Some of the young women were new, but most were now old acquaintances.
As one young woman eagerly jumped up to dance with me, I remembered the first time I’d asked her to dance three years before. I’d been very intimidated to ask her, because she was very beautiful, modest, and mature, and it seemed to me that if any young woman deserved to dance with someone better than me, then it would be her.
As we talked about our plans for college and careers during that last dance, she changed the topic very abruptly.
“I just want to tell you thank you,” she said with a sincere smile.
Caught by surprise, I croaked out a confused response: “For what?”
“When I first started coming to these dances,” she said, “no one would dance with me or the other girls from my branch. I really wanted to get to know other LDS people, but I’m shy. So I would sit in a chair and wait and wait, but none of the boys would ever ask. It was so humiliating that one time, while sitting and watching other people, I vowed that I would never come to a Church dance again.
“That was just before you asked me to dance for the first time. Because of that, I came to the next dance, where you asked me again. I kept coming to dances these past few years because I knew that even if no one else would ask me to dance, you would. So, thank you.”
I found myself at a loss for words. This amazing daughter of God, whom any young man should be honored to dance with, had experienced the same struggles I’d felt while sitting in that lobby.
I realized that all my fears hadn’t been anything to worry about and that by applying the principles of courage, faith, and consistency, I was able to bring happiness into both my life and into the lives of those around me.

On a beautiful sunny morning, I invited my almost eight-year-old granddaughter, Vicki, to walk with me near a lake, which is actually a water reservoir for our beautiful city.
We walked happily, listening to the soft noise of the crystal clear brook running alongside our path. The path was lined with beautiful green trees and sweet-scented flowers. We could hear birds singing.
I asked my blue-eyed, cheerful, and innocent granddaughter how she was preparing for baptism.
She answered with a question: “Grandpa, what is sin?”
I silently prayed for inspiration and tried to respond as simply as I could: “Sin is the intentional disobedience to God’s commandments. It makes Heavenly Father sad, and its results are suffering and sadness.”
Clearly concerned, she asked me, “And how does it get us?”
The question first reveals purity, but it also reveals a concern for how to avoid involvement with sin.
For her to understand more clearly, I used the natural elements we had around us as an illustration. Continuing down our path, we found by the side of a barbed-wire fence a stone post of considerable size; it was a heavy structure with flowers, bushes, and little trees growing around it. Over time these plants would become bigger than the post itself.
I remembered that a little farther down the path, we would find another post that had already been taken over little by little, almost unnoticed, by the vegetation that grew around it. I imagine that a post would not perceive that, despite its strength, it could be encompassed and destroyed by fragile plants. The post would have thought, “No problem. I am strong and big, and this small plant will do me no harm.”
So as a nearby tree grows bigger, the post does not notice at first; then the post starts enjoying the shade the tree provides. But the tree continues to grow, and it encircles the post with two branches that at first seem fragile but that in time intertwine and surround the post.
Still the post does not realize what is happening.
Soon, in our walk, we found the proverbial post. It had been plucked out from the ground. My little granddaughter looked impressed and asked me, “Grandpa, is this the tree of sin?”
I then explained to her that it was only a symbol, or an example, of how sin gets us.
I don’t know what the effect of our conversation will be on her, but it made me think of the many faces of sin and of how it sneaks into our lives if we allow it to.

One morning a family gathered to study the scriptures as usual. As they gathered, the father felt a negative spirit: some members of the family did not look very excited to participate. They had family prayer, and as they started to read the scriptures, the father noticed that one of the children did not have her personal set of scriptures with her. He invited her to go to her room and bring her scriptures. She reluctantly did so, and after a period of time that seemed like an eternity, she returned, sat down, and said, “Do we really have to do this now?”
The father thought to himself that the enemy of all righteousness wanted to create problems so that they would not study the scriptures. The father, trying to stay calm, said, “Yes, we have to do this now because this is what the Lord wants us to do.”
She responded, “I don’t really want to do this now!”
The father then lost his patience, raised his voice, and said, “This is my home, and we will always read the scriptures in my home!”
The tone and volume of his words hurt his daughter, and with her scriptures in hand, she left the family circle, ran to her bedroom, and slammed the door. Thus ended the family scripture study—no harmony and little love being felt at home.
The father knew that he had done wrong, so he went to his own bedroom and knelt down to pray. He pleaded with the Lord for help, knowing that he had offended one of His children, a daughter whom he truly loved. He implored the Lord to restore the spirit of love and harmony at home and enable them to be able to continue studying the scriptures as a family. As he was praying, an idea came to his mind: “Go and say, ‘I’m sorry.’” He continued to pray earnestly, asking for the Spirit of the Lord to come back into his home. Once again the idea came: “Go and say, ‘I’m sorry.’”
He really wanted to be a good father and do the right thing, so he stood up and went to his daughter’s bedroom. He gently knocked on the door several times, and there was no answer. So he slowly opened the door and found his girl sobbing and crying on her bed. He kneeled next to her and said with a soft and tender voice, “I’m sorry. I apologize for what I did.” He repeated, “I’m sorry, I love you, and I don’t want to hurt you.” And then from the mouth of a child came the lesson that the Lord wanted to teach him.
She stopped crying, and after a brief silence, she took her scriptures into her hands and started to look up some verses. The father watched as those pure and delicate hands turned the pages of the scriptures, page after page. She came to the verses she sought and started to read very slowly with a soft voice: “For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.”1
While he was still kneeling next to her bed, humility overcame him as he thought to himself, “That scripture was written for me. She has taught me a great lesson.”
Then she turned her eyes to him and said, “I am sorry. I am sorry, Daddy.”
At that very moment the father realized she did not read that verse to apply that scripture to him, but she read it applying it to herself. He opened his arms and embraced her. Love and harmony had been restored in this sweet moment of reconciliation born of the word of God and the Holy Ghost. That scripture, which his daughter remembered from her own personal scripture study, had touched his heart with the fire of the Holy Ghost.

It was a momentous decision for the Hunters when Howard decided to go to law school, beginning in 1934. “I worked eight hours a day and took most of my classes at night. I did my studying at night and over the weekend,” President Hunter recalls. At first, he would study until two o’clock in the morning. Then he found it was less tiring if he went to bed earlier and got up at two in the morning to study.
It was, he says, a period of rigorous training that helped him learn the discipline required to handle the demands of a career, Church work, and family life. He graduated with honors, passed the California law examination, and began his law practice in 1939.

On March 1, 1842, Margaret Cook visited Sarah Kimball to do some sewing for her. They discussed the recent appeals for support of the temple laborers. Margaret’s means were meager, but her sewing skill could be useful to those needing clothing. If fabric could be made available, Margaret said she “would be pleased to contribute needlework.”2 Sarah said she would provide the material, and as they continued conversing, they wondered if others might want to help as well. They spoke with friends about organizing a sewing society.
This conversation, prompted by Margaret and Sarah acting on inspiration, led to further interactions with others, including the Prophet Joseph Smith. In response, the Lord told His prophet that He had “something better” for the women and inspired Joseph to organize them under “the pattern of the priesthood.”3 This laid the revelatory foundation of what we know today as Relief Society, one of the world’s oldest and largest women’s service organizations.

Henry Moyle, a curious young boy, could be found having lunch with his dad on almost any day at the Knox Carpenter Shop on the Temple Block. Known as the “Lunch-Bucket Brigade,” many of the young boys joined workmen gathered at the shop to discuss the topics of the day as they ate lunch together. Young Henry gladly took his father’s lunch to him and lingered as long as possible to listen to the conversation. Later, the young man helped his father, James Moyle, a stone mason, build the temple itself.

Elder Steven Hanks and Sister Jean Hanks are serving in Liberia and are living in Kakata, a village outside of Monrovia. They recently had the joyous opportunity and privilege of helping two young men in their mid-20’s, John Gbakoya and Baby Ya, receive new wheelchairs.
Elder and Sister Hanks left their apartment one morning at seven and drove to Bong Mine, an old mining town 30 miles northwest of Kakata, out into the bush, to pick up the two men with medical conditions requiring wheelchairs. Their current chairs were running on the rims and falling apart.
The Teerlink family, in collaboration with LDS Charities, had recently shipped 350 new wheelchairs to JFK hospital in Monrovia. It was a 3-hour drive through country roads and snarled African city traffic jams to the hospital where John and Baby were measured and fitted with brand new chairs.
The Hanks disassembled the chairs, loaded them and the men back in their truck, drove back to Bong Mine and then reassembled the chairs. John’s wheelchair took a little work, but they got it done, thanks to some bicycle-repair experience.
John and Baby Ya were overjoyed and so thankful. Their community gathered to rejoice with them. Everyone in town knows them and everyone was thrilled they were given these beautiful new wheelchairs.
It was a beautiful, sweet day. Special thanks to LDS Charities, the Teerlink family for their generosity, and to the Hanks for serving in Liberia and being just the right people to bless these young men and assemble their chairs.

I was taught this lesson powerfully a number of years ago by our then-16-year-old daughter, Jennifer. She was about to have a double lung transplant, where the five diseased lobes of her lungs would be completely removed and replaced by two healthy smaller lobes, donated by two amazing Christlike friends. It was a very high-risk procedure, yet the night before her surgery, Jennifer almost preached to me with all of her 90 pounds (41 kg), saying, “Don’t worry, Dad! Tomorrow I will wake up with new lungs, or I will wake up in a better place. Either way will be great.” That is faith; that is eternal perspective! Seeing life from an eternal vantage point provides clarity, comfort, courage, and hope.
After the surgery, when the long-awaited day came to remove the breathing tube and turn off the ventilator that had been helping Jennifer breathe, we anxiously waited to see if her two smaller lobes would work. When she took her first breath, she immediately started crying. Seeing our concern, she quickly exclaimed, “It’s just so good to breathe.”
Ever since that day, I have thanked Heavenly Father morning and night for my ability to breathe. We are surrounded by innumerable blessings that we can easily take for granted if we are not mindful. Conversely, when nothing is expected and everything is appreciated, life becomes magical.

Thump! went the backpack on the living room end table. “Put your bag in your room, Petey!” Mother said as she rounded the corner, wiping her hands on a kitchen towel. Her smile faded as she noticed Peter’s somber face. “Are you OK?”
“I guess so.” Peter shrugged as he hung his coat on a hook by the door.
“Then why the glum face? Did you have a fight with Justin?”
“Well, no … It’s just that whenever I ask him to come to Primary with me, he says he’s too busy or has stuff to do or something. Why can’t I make him come? Primary is so cool!”
“Let’s sit down a minute,” Mother said, heading for the couch. She tossed the towel onto the end table next to Peter’s backpack. “Do you remember the eleventh article of faith?” she asked when they were seated. “I think that’s one you’ve already learned.”
“Hmmm, let me think.”
“‘We claim the privilege …’” she started him off.
“Oh, yeah! I remember now. That’s the one that says ‘how, where, or what they may.’”
“That’s right! It says, ‘We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship …’”
“‘how, where, or what they may!’” Peter finished proudly.
“That’s very good, Petey. But do you know what it means?”
Peter began to fidget on the couch.
Mother smiled thoughtfully. “Let me see if I can help. Remember last week, when Dad was out of town and we had that snowstorm?”
“Do I ever! We had to shovel the walks and driveway before school. It was a lot of work. And then the neighbor kids wanted to walk through the snow, so they tromped across our lawn, instead! What a waste of time!” Peter shook his head, remembering the footprints across the front lawn.
“Well, no it wasn’t,” Mother corrected gently. “Because our walks were clear, it was easy to get the car out to take you to school.”
“OK, OK.” Peter’s nose wrinkled slightly. “I still don’t get what that has to do with the eleventh article of faith—or Justin.”
“Well, we worked hard to clear a path in the snow—that’s what we wanted to do. It was important to us. But the neighborhood children chose to walk in the snow, instead—because that’s what was important to them. Right?”
“Right,” Peter said. “So what?”
“Well, you want Justin to go to Primary on Sunday because it’s important to you, right?”
“Oh. I think I get it,” Peter said slowly. “Even though I choose to go to Primary, that doesn’t mean that Justin has to, right?”
Mother smiled. “That’s right. Heavenly Father has given us a very precious gift called agency. It is the right to choose and act for ourselves. We can’t force someone to follow the same path we choose to follow. However, while you need to let Justin have his agency, it’s also very good for you to love him and be his friend. You can keep showing Justin the ‘clear path’ that’s important to you. And maybe—just maybe—he’ll want to follow it one day.”
As Peter grabbed his backpack and headed up the stairs, he turned and smiled. “I’m glad I have my agency so I can choose to go to Primary.”

Over the last nine years I have observed hundreds of young men receive the Melchizedek priesthood and go on missions. I always listened carefully to the testimonies of these young men as they received the higher priesthood or left for missions. I was particularly listening to hear if they had a testimony of the living God and the atonement of Jesus Christ. I frequently heard things like, “I am thankful for my family or for my friends who are always there for me. Or, I know the church is true and that President Hinckley is a prophet.” While these things were all appropriate, to me the telling point was if they understood their relationship to God and Jesus Christ and had somehow personalized that knowledge. During this same period of time I have heard literally hundreds of young men and women report their missions. How gratifying it was to have almost 100% of them say they knew God lived and they knew that Jesus Christ had died for their sins. One young man left a lasting impression on me when summarizing his mission he simply said, “I did it for Christ”. The spirit told me that he knew why it was important to do things like serve a mission.

On the morning of September 12, 2005, Keone and Naomi Kamauoha welcomed a brand new baby girl appropriately named Faith into their family.
Naomi shared the following: “all the pain from the labor and delivery went away as she was handed to me to hold.” Yet within a few hours, their happiness would unexpectedly be interrupted when their new born baby was diagnosed with a serious condition called Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia. Her intestines and spleen had gone through a small hole in her diaphragm up into her chest cavity. When we finally got to see her our hearts broke.
Faith went through 3 surgeries within 16 days of her life. The family fasted and prayed daily for her. During this difficult time when they were unable to hold her, the parents took advantage of talking and singing primary songs to her everyday and telling her they loved her.
Faith was put on an ECMO machine which helps to oxygenate her blood as an artificial lung. A day after Faith was put on the machine; she had opened her eyes and began to move her hands and feet. “It was just like Christmas for us” shared her parents. “It was so awesome to see her beautiful light brown eyes. We comforted her when she was scared and just spent the day talking to her and singing her to sleep. After a couple of days, the doctors needed to sedate her again to allow her lungs to rest before trying to open them up again. It was a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs but we prayed everyday for her comfort that she may have the strength to overcome this.”
On the early morning of October 12, we received a phone call from her doctor that we needed to come in and be with our daughter. “She was bleeding in her lungs and it could not be stopped. When we arrived, she was put into a deep sleep. The nurses removed the many tubes and IV’s that were in her, gave her a bath, clothed and wrapped her in a blanket, and gave her to us.
“As we held her, we sang and talked to her and told her how much we loved her. Our Bishop came to be with us and we asked him many questions about our daughter and what was going to happen with her spirit. His knowledge of the Plan of Salvation helped give us comfort. Faith returned back to a loving Heavenly Father that day.”
What could have been as stumbling block for this young couple became a stepping stone for them. As the mother expressed: “Although I may not understand at times, I know that the Lord knows who I am and hears my prayers. This experience taught me to be even more grateful for the gospel in my life for it has brought me peace and comfort throughout this time” (Kamauoha, 2005).

My father touched me on the shoulder.
“Mrs. Gleaves was my Sunday School teacher,” he said. Mrs. Gleaves laughed.
“That was a long time ago. Your wife was in the class too. She wasn’t your wife then, was she though?”
My father was silent. He kept eating like he hadn’t heard her.
“She had a temper, didn’t she? I remember we were building models of the city of Bethlehem out of Epsom salts one Sunday. I don’t remember what you did, but she got mad at you and dumped the whole bucket of salt on you right there in church.”

An incident from the life of a bishop in my youth helps me understand what it means to be willing to take upon us the name of Christ. When I was a young man, I had a wonderful bishop who taught me about the responsibility of maintaining the legacy of a good name. His name was David Lawrence Cook (he was known as Lawrence, but was named after his father, David). In fact, Bishop Cook and his wife, Cleon, served as missionaries here on this island some years ago.

One afternoon, while a young Lawrence Cook and some friends were walking along the road, they came to the elementary school in which they were enrolled. One of the boys suggested that they throw rocks at the school. They did, and in the process, a window was broken. They all ran home. The next day at school, David Lawrence Cook was called into the principal's office. The principal asked him if he knew anything about the broken window in the school. Not surprisingly, to those who have known Bishop Cook, even as a young boy he could not be dishonest. He told the principal that he had broken the window. The principal startled him by saying that Lawrence could not have broken the window, because Dave Cook's son (Lawrence's father) would never have done such a thing. Lawrence, no doubt embarrassed, replied that he, indeed, did break the window. The principal would not hear of it, again saying, "Dave Cook's son would never do such a thing." He then sent Lawrence back to class. I remember Bishop Cook telling us how deeply ashamed and embarrassed he felt to have sullied his father's good name by his actions. He vowed never to bring shame to the name of his father again. If we felt about the Savior's name, as Bishop Cook felt about his father's name, in our willingness to take upon us the name of Jesus Christ, we would live a more Christ-like life.

Sister Emily Belle Freeman shared this experience in general conference. Please pay attention to the simple way she accessed His power in her personal life:
“Recently my husband, Greg, received a diagnosis that would require an intensive surgery and months of chemotherapy. Like many of you who have faced a similar situation, we immediately began praying for heaven’s help and God’s power. The Sunday following Greg’s surgery, the sacrament was delivered to our hospital room.

“On this occasion, I was the only one taking the sacrament. One piece of bread. One cup of water. At church, my mind often focuses on the delivery system of the sacrament—the preparing, the blessing, and the passing. But on that afternoon, I pondered the gift of God’s power available to me through the sacred ordinance itself and the covenant promise I was making as I took that piece of bread and that cup of water. This was a time when I needed power from heaven. In the midst of great heartache, exhaustion, and uncertainty, I wondered about this gift that would allow me to draw upon the power from Him that I so desperately needed. Partaking of the sacrament would increase my companionship with the Spirit of the Lord, allowing me to draw upon the gift of God’s power, including the ministering of angels and the Savior’s enabling strength to overcome.

“I don’t think I had ever realized with this much clarity before that it’s not only who officiates in the ordinance that matters—what the ordinance and our covenant promise unlock also deserves the focus of our attention.” [13]

I decided to start my own Web site. But after a few days of making the site, I felt very uncomfortable because I hadn’t asked my parents for permission first. I didn’t want them to know that I had a Web site, but something inside me told me to tell them and show them my site. When I showed Mom and Dad my Web site they were pleased that I had been careful not to use my last name, but told me that I would have to delete it because they couldn’t be sure it would be secure (safe). I’m glad that my parents are helping me understand what dangers are out there and how I can be safe. Most of all, though, I’m thankful to the Holy Ghost for warning me to tell my parents.

I have also seen this principle work among other friends of mine. One week in Sunday School, the class was laughing about a girl they called “pit face” who had asked one of the boys, Mike, to the girls’-choice dance. I brought in a filmstrip about a girl renowned in her village for her ugliness. The filmstrip taught the class that after a young man was willing to treat her as if she were beautiful, the girl became very attractive. The class was touched, and they learned the Dulcinea principle. Mike went out with the girl and had a great time. Within a few weeks, two of the girls were able to report that they were becoming good friends with this girl and that she was really very nice.

In October 1977, they attended a conference in Berlin so that Enzio, a Church regional representative, could translate for President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985). At the end of the conference, President Kimball spoke privately with Enzio and called him to serve in the First Quorum of the Seventy—a full-time position that would require the Busches to move.

Their first assignment was in Munich, Germany, where Enzio led the mission for two years; then they moved to Utah in 1980. They traveled a great deal, visiting Church members all over the world, and Jutta spoke at regional conferences with her husband.

“How long are you going to keep me?” Lily asked.
My mother looked down at Lily’s smooth, dark face and replied, “You’re a part of our family now. I’m going to keep you forever.”
Lily’s puzzled expression gave away her confusion, so my mother tried again. “I’m going to keep you until tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day, and the next day. And every day, because I’m your mom forever.”
Our family adopted four-year-old Lily while we were living in Hong Kong. At least once a day for three years Lily would ask, “How long are you going to keep me?”
Slowly this repeated question transformed into a game for our family. Each member of our family gave a different answer. “As high as you can count—I’m going to keep you longer than that” and “I’m going to keep you for a million days times infinity” were a couple of Lily’s favorite responses.
Every day in Hong Kong Lily saw faces like her own. But when our family moved back to the United States, she went weeks without seeing another person with her same sleek black hair and deep brown eyes. Once while in the store, Lily saw a Hispanic woman and excitedly asked, “Mom, is she Chinese?”
Lily had her own system of deciding who was Chinese. She decided our mother, who has dark brown hair, was Chinese because, as Lily put it, “Your hair is like mine.” When my skin became brown in the sun, Lily would say, “You’re kind of Chinese because your skin is like mine.” Lily looked for and found ways each member of our family was like her.
Although Lily does not look like any other member of our family, she is sealed to my parents by the same authority that I am. I know that Heavenly Father has restored priesthood power to the earth and that this power can bind families together for eternity. I am so grateful for that power and my opportunity to be with my family—my whole family—together forever.

The best part about the pageant is the spirit that surrounds it. Eighteen-year-old Janna Halcomb’s brother encouraged her to try out for the pageant with him just before he left on his mission to Hungary. “That year we were able to be angels together,” she says. “It was such an incredible experience. The Spirit on the temple grounds is so strong, and as we bore witness of the Savior and His life my testimony was strengthened.”

An example of this comes in the context of Joseph Smith’s gift of the interpretation of tongues needed for the translation of the Book of Mormon. David Whitmer recounted: “One morning when [Joseph Smith] was getting ready to continue the translation, something went wrong about the house and he was put out about it. Something that Emma, his wife, had done. Oliver and I went up stairs, and Joseph came up soon after to continue the translation, but he could not do anything. He could not translate a single syllable. He went down stairs, out in to the orchard and made supplication to the Lord; was gone about an hour – came back to the house, asked Emma’s forgiveness and then came up stairs where we were and the translation went on all right.”9