Gospel Story Finder

Several years after the Prophet Joseph Smith was martyred, he appeared to President Brigham Young and shared this timeless counsel: “Tell the people to be humble and faithful and [be] sure to keep the Spirit of the Lord and it will lead them right. Be careful and not turn away the small still voice; it will teach [you what] to do and where to go; it will yield the fruits of the kingdom. Tell the brethren to keep their hearts open to conviction so that when the Holy Ghost comes to them, their hearts will be ready to receive it. They can tell the Spirit of the Lord from all other spirits. It will whisper peace and joy to their souls, and it will take malice, hatred, envying, strife, and all evil from their hearts; and their whole desire will be to do good, bring forth righteousness, and build up the kingdom of God. Tell the brethren if they will follow the Spirit of the Lord they will go right” (Teachings: Joseph Smith, 98).

“School fairs were put on each year, too, with all kinds of opportunities to develop talents. I remember taking a speech class while I was a young child and winning a prize for saying a little poem.

One couple made this observation: “We fell in love a long time ago and made a commitment to team up in this life and the next. Some of the time we have had difficulties but we’ve worked at it, and we love each other more as the years go by. Some of the hardest things were when most of the children were starting to get older, but we stuck it out. We really do love each other, and our children sense that. We talk and share; we pray together and do a lot of planning about our family. We think the Lord helps us in our family and with our children.”

At the Mandarin Branch conference of the Singapore District, President Ho stands up to speak at sacrament meeting. He relates a Chinese folktale, substituting a branch president for the wise man: The branch president advises a man who complains about the crowded conditions of his one-room home to move his duck, pig, and cow in with his family. After a few months of pandemonium, the president finally advises the man to let the animals live outside, and the man is so grateful he never complains again. An interesting sidelight of the meeting is that President Ho, as well as his counselors, Tan Su Kiong and Francis Tan, who also speak at the conference, do not have Mandarin backgrounds, though they are Chinese.

After a lifetime of practice and patience together, what will your last earthly threshold look like? Will it look and feel something like John and Therissa Clarks’? In 1921 John Haslem Clark of Manti, Utah, wrote what became his last journal entry:
“The folks have been here today, but have gone to their homes. The clatter of racing feet, the laughter and babble of tongues have ceased. We are alone, We two. We two whom destiny has made one. Long ago, it has been sixty years since we met under the June trees. I kissed you first. How shy and afraid was your girlhood. Not any woman on earth or in heaven could be to me what you are. I would rather you were here, woman, with your gray hair, than any fresh blossom of youth. Where you are is home. Where you are not is homesickness. As I look at you I realize that there is something greater than love, although love is the greatest thing in earth. It is loyalty. For were I driven away in shame you would follow. If I were burning in fever your cool hand would soothe me. With your hand in mine may I pass and take my place among the saved of Heaven. Being eight years the eldest—and as the years went by and I felt that the time of parting might be near—it was often the drift of our thought and speech: how could either of us be left alone. Alone, after living together for 56 years. I scarcely dared think of it and though a bit selfish comforted myself thinking [that] according to our age I would not be the one left alone.”
Another handwriting then appears later on the same page. It is Therissa’s voice, gently closing John’s journal:
“Almost two years and a half since the last writing, and its following events are so sad, so heartbreaking for this, his life’s companion that this pen has been laid down many times ere this record is made. Loss and loneliness [are] ever present and will be with me to the end. … Will time soften this sadness, will I be able to leave the Old Home and not feel that he is waiting for me, calling me? I am only content at home where I feel that he is watching over me, his presence always with me.
“On March 11, 1923, John Haslem Clark passed away after an illness of only one week. He seemed so like himself, talking and active. We had no thought that the end was near until he passed into unconsciousness a few hours before his death. Oh, may we all be as clean and pure, ready to go before our Maker.”10
We do not know the details of John and Therissa’s life as they crossed over the thresholds of their days. But we do know how 56 years of daily conversations finally shaped the kind of people they became, the kind of love they knew.

In a recent meeting with President Thomas S. Monson, I noticed that he greeted each of us by name. He spoke to us about his boyhood Sunday School teacher Lucy Gertsch, noting that she was a teacher who knew the names of each student in her class. President Monson has said of her: “She unfailingly called on those who missed a Sunday or who just didn’t come. We knew she cared about us. None of us has ever forgotten her or the lessons she taught.”

In one of my hardest classes, the lecturer taught for two hours without ceasing each time we had class. It was difficult to understand not only the content of the class but also the accent of the lecturer, so with permission, I recorded his lectures for review. One day I received an email from a woman I did not know. She introduced herself as a classmate and asked if I could share my recordings because her work schedule sometimes kept her from attending class.
Of course I was happy to give her copies of my recordings. I thought I was helping her, but I soon found that she was another angel whom God had arranged to help me. To pass the class, we had to submit two assignments and take a three-hour exam. She helped me complete the assignments and prepare for the exam. Without her help, I don’t think I would have passed.

Not far outside of Santiago, on the road to Valparaiso, is the town of Peñaflor. It is a leafy green world totally removed from the big city bustle of Santiago. Although it is the residence of about 40,000 people, it is so well insulated with trees and shrubbery, that no matter where you go you feel you are in a village. This is the working area of Elder Delgado from Arica, Chile, and Elder Holyoak, from the United States. They are zone leaders in the Chile Santiago South Mission. Every day they walk through these streets—moving through the leaf-colored sunlight that filters through the trees—going about the business of the Lord.

One morning after breakfast, study, and prayer, the two elders walked out of their apartment, neat and handsome in their dark suits, their white shirts brilliant in the morning sun. They went down a long, dirt road with a canal on one side. The sun ignited the trees, turning every branch into a gold and green torch. The canal ran silver. A lingering morning chill fell like mist on the quiet street. The clink of a milk can against a ladle preceded the milkman’s donkey down the street.

“My mission is something very special to me,” Elder Delgado said. “I’ve always wanted to understand people and help them, and that’s what I’m doing. feel that anyone can realize his potential in life without the gospel. I have seen many changes in people’s lives. I have seen homes where conditions were very bad economically and morally, and these homes have progressed tremendously when family members accepted the gospel. I also see my mission as a way of bettering my country. I love Chile, and want it to be the best possible place to live. The best way to achieve this is to increase the number of faithful members of the Church in Chile. As more Chileans are baptized, the country will progress in many other ways, too.”

In one of the poorer neighborhoods of town, they walked past makeshift dwellings and beautiful children whose moon-sized chocolate eyes reflected spring sunflowers and blue sky. “There are so many people who don’t understand the things that we understand. They don’t realize that they are really important people with great potential. I have seen great changes here in Chile because of the gospel.”

In another part of town, whitewashed walls and ironwork fences fronted the homes of well-to-do families all along a shady street. As Elders Delgado and Holyoak knocked on doors they usually found themselves talking to a maid. Occasionally they were invited in through the carefully landscaped gardens to talk to the owners. Coming out of one of these homes, they met two other missionaries, both Chilean. They saluted each other and passed on.

“The most important thing on a mission is feeling oneself growing closer to God,” Elder Delgado said. “It is feeling oneself a servant of Christ. It is a good feeling to find others who want to leave the evil ways of the world behind them. The Lord will need missionaries until he comes with earthquakes and signs in the heavens. I am grateful for this opportunity to prepare for something really important—the coming of Christ.”

By late morning the two were tired and a little thirsty, so they stopped for a soft drink at a corner store. Relaxing under a tree in front of the graffiti-rich store, they took a moment to catch up with themselves.

Afterwards they walked down a long, arbored lane to a house with a fresco painted on the plaster. No one was home, so they walked back. Surrounded by green they seemed to be in the countryside. “I feel close to the Lord when we teach people,” Elder Delgado commented. “Each day I have the wonderful experience of knowing that the Lord is approving the things I am saying and that this is the place where I should be right now. I know that the Lord has great things in store for me and all his children. Our only obligation is to search for those things and work for them.”

They walked to the home of a member to harvest referrals. “I love the people of Chile,” Elder Holyoak said. “They are very open and want to be friends with everybody. Even when they reject your message, they will usually invite you in for a snack. They are so open that they are able to change and progress. Many times people with no interest progress till they get testimonies and afterwards are a great help to their neighbors in accepting the gospel. Many people here are ready. They are looking. They only need someone who has the truth.”

Elder Delgado agreed and added, “Unfortunately, many people have strange ideas about the Church, and in a small town like this there can be quite a bit of social pressure against listening to the missionaries. But if someone has enough courage to overcome this pressure and the weight of tradition and let the missionaries in, that person is almost ready for baptism.”

Karen Spencer treasures the memories of her Danish grandmother’s Easter celebrations and still likes to dye eggs with boiled purple onion skins just as her grandmother did. Her family finds it is a good time to talk about the egg as a symbol of new life and the Resurrection.

Part of being worthy to enter the temple is obeying the Word of Wisdom. Seth Robinson, a teacher from Reno, Nevada, decided to share the benefits of the Word of Wisdom as part of his Eagle Scout project.
Seth—at left with fellow Scouts Greg Handlon and Caleb Sumrall—set up a display on the dangers of tobacco in a busy shopping mall near his home. He then talked specifically to teenagers walking through the mall, answering questions and distributing information.
“Meeting with the general public made me aware that many people think the use of tobacco will not harm them,” says Seth, who spent a lot of time telling people that nothing could be farther from the truth. “I think this project was a success.”

As a boy and a young man, I prepared to serve a full-time proselytizing mission for the Church. Like Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counseled us, I wanted to be a missionary, not just to go on a mission.1 But because of my medical challenges, the Missionary Department informed me that it was not in my best interest to face the stress of a full-time mission. Although it would have been easy to become bitter, I had prepared to serve my Savior, and I was prepared to accept His will for me.
What happened to me is called being honorably excused. That means that Church leaders saw my worthiness and my desire to serve but encouraged me to serve in other ways. Like many others who cannot serve a full-time mission, I felt prompted to do more than just “get on with my life.” I wanted to serve, so I did—as a local Church-service missionary. With help from my bishop and stake president, I found a way to serve the Lord while living at home.
There was a need at the Church’s Audiovisual Department, and since I live near the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City, I could help. My stake president extended a call, set me apart, and developed special rules for me during my year of service. Though the rules seemed strict to me, I learned that I was blessed when I followed them. While other service missionaries with different stake presidents may have different rules, these were the ones I followed:
Stick to a daily schedule: arise at 6:30 a.m.; study the scriptures and Preach My Gospel for two hours each day; exercise for 30 minutes each day; go to bed at 10:30 p.m.
Follow the Church’s dress code.
Listen to classical or Church music only.
Limit computer use to e-mail; limited television viewing; no video games.
Participate only in group activities—no dating.
Have monthly interviews with my bishop.
Sometimes when I was down in a crawl space under a building in 100-degree heat (38ºC) winding up cable all day, I found myself wondering what it had to do with bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man (see Moses 1:39). Was I really part of the team sharing the gospel around the world? I knew that Mosiah 2:17 says that when we are in the service of our fellow beings we are in the service of God, but it took me a while to believe that was true.
I learned that just like a proselytizing mission, a service mission isn’t about you. It is about learning to do what the Lord needs done. During my service, I helped set up and take down lights, run sound for meetings, and transport equipment. It was hard, dirty work, and I will never take general conference for granted. In fact, now when I watch any broadcast, my whole body aches because I know the intense work involved.
During my Church-service mission, I learned the importance of punctuality, responsibility, doing the job right, and giving my best effort. While my parents had tried to teach me these things, I didn’t understand until I saw how wasting time and effort can directly affect the work of others. Before my mission, it was easy to focus on just having fun. But once you are on your mission, you realize it will not be fun to be the companion who doesn’t know how to work. Part of preparing to serve is learning how to work.
I also learned to appreciate those who work behind the scenes. I saw how hard Church leaders work without drawing attention to themselves or expecting special treatment. I saw others serving who had greater challenges than I did, teaching me that everyone can serve in some way.
I realized that I have been blessed with strengths and abilities and that through hard work I could do more than I had been doing. I learned that as I respect other people, I like myself better. It’s easy to get in the habit of looking down on people in order to try to feel better about ourselves. But respect works both ways, and those who represent Jesus Christ must be respectful.
The most important lesson I learned, however, was that the Lord will help you do difficult things. It was hard to stay home, hard to do menial chores, hard not to be the center of attention, hard to obey mission rules, and hard to hear people tell me I wasn’t on a “real” mission. But the Lord helped me. I know He will help you do the things you need to do to be happy, to feel good about yourself, to grow, and to be a better person. Get down on your knees, bow your head, and be honest with yourself as you pray. Then get ready to serve wherever and whenever you are called.

At school in Ireland, all students are required to take religion class. Even though they go to early-morning seminary, these Latter-day Saint students are not excused from their school religion requirement. But their study of the scriptures has paid off. Louise said, “We have Franciscan friars that visited our school. When they were asking questions, they would point to me and put their fingers to their lips as if to say, ‘Shhh, don’t answer the question.’ They know I can answer it.”

Recently I received an assignment to minister to a sister neither my companion nor I knew well. As I counseled with Jess, my 16-year-old ministering companion, she wisely suggested, “We need to get to know her.”
We immediately decided that a selfie and an introductory text were in order. I held the phone, and Jess pushed the button to take the photo. Our first ministering opportunity was a companionship effort.
On our first visit, we asked our sister if there was anything we could include in our prayers on her behalf. She shared a tender personal challenge and said she would so welcome our prayers. Her honesty and confidence brought an instant bond of love. What a sweet privilege to remember her in my daily prayers.

It was during this time that I felt inspired to start a Welsh Interfaith Choir, with our stake choir director, Lisa Pengilley, as chorister. It was popular and attracted around 50 people for regular monthly practices. Being involved in this choir and learning to sing the words of MP Jo Cox, who died in 2016, “We have far more in common than that which divides us,” led to many moist eyes in the room, not to mention mine.

Yearning to find the truth, Wilford Woodruff attended many religious meetings in the area around his home. At one such gathering, permission was given for anyone in the congregation to speak. Young Wilford stood, knowing that 40 or more ministers of various churches were in attendance. He stepped into the aisle and said:

“My friends, will you tell me why you don’t contend for the faith once delivered to the Saints? Will you tell me why you don’t contend for that Gospel that Jesus Christ taught, and that His Apostles taught? Why do you not contend for that religion that gives unto you power before God, power to heal the sick, to make the blind to see, the lame to walk, and that gives you the Holy Ghost and those gifts and graces that have been manifest from the creation of the world? Why do you not teach the people those principles that the ancient Patriarchs and Prophets taught while they were clothed with the revelations of God? They had the administrations of angels; they had dreams and visions, and constant revelation to guide and direct them in the path in which they should walk.”

The people at the meeting must have been surprised to hear such bold language from such a young man. Immediately, the presiding minister tried to discount the ideas Wilford Woodruff had shared. “My dear young man,” he said, “you would be a very smart man, and a very useful man in the earth, if you did not believe all those foolish things. These things were given to the children of men in the dark ages of the world. … Today we live in the blaze of the glorious gospel light, and we do not need those things.”

Unconvinced by this minister’s comments, Wilford replied, “Then give me the dark ages of the world; give me those ages when men received these principles.”3

Parents and siblings of a 14-year-girl in Uruguay follow her example and join the Church.

In the 1970s, the Bricknells had saved enough money to take their family to the temple to be sealed. But when Church leaders asked for donations from South African members to help fund the building of the Sao Paulo temple, the family sacrificed their travel savings.
“We contributed all we had saved for that family trip,” said Jennifer Bricknell. “And within a year, we had the money to take all five of our children to the Salt Lake Temple.”

In 1846, more than 10,000 people left the thriving city of Nauvoo, which had been built on the banks of the Mississippi River. With faith in prophetic leaders, those early Church members left their “City Beautiful” and struck off into the wilderness of the American frontier. They did not know exactly where they were going, precisely how many miles lay ahead, how long the journey would take, or what the future held in store for them. But they did know they were led by the Lord and His servants. Their faith sustained them. They hoped “for things which [were] not seen, which are true” (Alma 32:21). Like Nephi of old, they were “led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which [they] should do” (1 Ne. 4:6).
Fearing more of the mob violence that had claimed the lives of the Prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum on 27 June 1844, Brigham Young, leading the Church as President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, announced in September 1845 that the Saints would leave Nauvoo in the spring of 1846. Most of those in Nauvoo believed fully that when Brigham Young announced that they must leave, they were hearing what the Lord wanted them to do. They responded in faith to the direction of the Lord. Throughout the fall and winter months of 1845–46, Church members set about vigorously making preparations for the journey.
Though winter’s chill was not yet past, heightened fear of mob attacks and swirling rumors of government intervention compelled President Young to set things in motion to get the Saints under way. He directed the first company of pioneer families to leave Nauvoo on 4 February 1846, a cold winter day. They drove their laden wagons and their livestock down Parley Street to a landing where they were ferried across the river to Iowa. Chunks of ice floating in the river crunched against the sides of the flatboats and barges that carried the wagons across the Mississippi. A few weeks later, temperatures dropped even further, and wagons could cross the river more easily over a bridge of ice.
Once across the river, they camped temporarily at Sugar Creek before starting their trek west toward the Rocky Mountains. The journey had begun.
When President Brigham Young joined the departing pioneers at their campsite in Iowa on 15 February 1846, the Lord revealed to him to begin organizing a modern “Camp of Israel.” On the first of March the advance company began its push westward across Iowa. Hardships caused by cold, snow, rain, mud, sickness, hunger, and death challenged the faith of these hardy pioneers. But they were determined to follow their leaders and to do, no matter the cost, what they believed fervently to be the will of God. Their faith was challenged, and for some it faltered in especially difficult times. But it did not fail them. Many were sustained by the assurances they had received in temple ordinances performed in the Nauvoo Temple.

Our ward needed a new deacons quorum president. My counselors and I knelt in our bishopric meeting, as we always do, to seek the Lord’s approval on this and other callings.
Feeling a confirmation of the Spirit, I set up an interview with Víctor Leonardo Jiménez Gonzáles, a young man who had recently turned 12 and was already serving as the deacons quorum secretary.
During the interview, I asked Víctor about his current calling and how he was feeling.
“I’m worried, Bishop,” he answered. “I’m really concerned.”
“Why are you concerned?”
“Well, I want all the deacons to be at church. So today on my way over here, I went to Nicholas and Anthony’s house and woke them up, and then I went over to Jimmy and Luis’s to get them to come. I really get worried, Bishop,” Víctor said.
I was amazed by what he was saying and that a 12-year-old deacons quorum secretary could be so concerned about the other members of his quorum.
“I’m here to serve,” he went on, “and I want to do it right, but I’m one of the lowest leaders.”
“What do you mean ‘one of the lowest leaders’?” I asked.
“Because I’m the secretary. I’m not the president or a counselor. I’m a secretary, and that makes me one of the lowest leaders. But the deacons should be here and they’re not, so I have to go get them because this is where they’re supposed to be. I don’t know why they don’t come. But I have to go get them, Bishop!”
My tears could no longer be restrained, and they spilled from my eyes. Choked with emotion, I said, “You have made me remember why I was called as the bishop. It’s to be concerned about others, to visit and serve them as King Benjamin did. We need to be in the service of others, and then we will be in the service of God. You are not the lowest leader. Everyone who serves plays a role important to our Heavenly Father and His Church.”
To this, he said, “That’s what I learned from my dad. And now when I see you crying, I remember this one time when he talked to me—he was crying and he told me, ‘When you have a responsibility, you have to do it right.’ ”
The tears refreshed my soul, and the young man’s words refreshed my memory. I remembered the great worth of our Heavenly Father’s children when I saw the worth this young man placed on each of the members of his quorum.
I extended a calling as president of the deacons quorum to Víctor. In response he said, “Now I’m really going to work hard. I’m not going to disappoint you, Bishop.”
Even now, some time later, the tears return as I remember this unforgettable interview. I know the divine potential this young man has. He has the future firmly in sight, and his vision of what is important is clear.

As all of you are aware, last fall a terrible storm hit Central America. For six days and nights, Hurricane Mitch locked in over that area and particularly over Honduras. The winds blew ferociously and the rains fell without letup. Rivers swelled and took with them houses that had been built along their banks. More than 200 bridges were washed out in Honduras, destroying means of travel. The soil from the highlands washed towards the sea in a deluge of filthy mud. Houses were filled to the tops of the windows. Yards and streets were filled. People fled in terror, leaving all behind them.
One of our bishops secured a big truck and went about gathering his people, taking them to higher ground. When the truck could no longer get through, he somehow secured a boat. He was looking after his flock.