Gospel Story Finder

Clown Unit 207 began when the ward youth planned a visit to the hospital. The Explorer Scouts decided to present a clown act as their part on the program. Their adviser, Ron Buchanan, asked the help of his next-door neighbor Howard Pressy, who just happened to be a professional clown. With Howard’s help the scouts prepared an act and presented it at the hospital. Brother Buchanan (also known as “Classy Clown”) recalls, “It gave us all a new perspective. Those young patients weren’t worried about social activities. They were worried about whether they were ever going to be able to walk! You can’t be the same after that experience. You come out of there changed.
“We talked afterward about the words of King Benjamin, ‘When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God’. (Mosiah 2:17.) We decided that we were going to keep right on clowning. We would serve through laughter.”

I speak tonight especially to the 12- to 25-year-olds who hold the priesthood of God. We think about you a lot and we pray for you. I once told the story of our four-year-old grandson giving his little brother a strong push. After consoling the crying child, my wife, Kathy, turned to the four-year-old and thoughtfully asked, “Why would you push your little brother?” He looked at his grandmother and responded, “Mimi, I’m sorry. I lost my CTR ring, and I cannot choose the right.” We know that you try hard to always choose the right. We love you very much.

Tui M., 12
When I perform, I don’t feel nervous. I feel a thrill. I’ve learned that even if I mess up, I can turn it into something beautiful. It’s almost like painting. When a painter makes a mistake, they might make it into something new. Sometimes I drop my fireknife, but I pick it back up and keep dancing.
Self-encouragement has helped me a lot with my fears. Instead of having thoughts like, “What if I mess up?” I try to have more thoughts like, “Well, what if I do good!”
It’s also become a routine for me to say a small prayer every time before a fireknife performance. Praying protects me and helps me have a good dance. When I pray, I feel confident that I’m going to do good.

On a spring morning some years ago, my wife and I planted a little cherry tree on a sunny corner of our lot. We looked forward to a bountiful harvest eventually. The next morning, however, my wife stepped outside for a few moments and came back with a look of astonishment: "Someone took our tree!" Sure enough, a thief had dug it up, leaving us with an empty hole.
While we did not lose much in terms of money, we lost all the time involved in preparing the spot, buying the tree, and planting it. Still, we were fortunate compared to others whose losses have been much more damaging. I have wondered if the person who took that tree gave any thought to the spiritual price he or she might have to pay for it.

I would like to share a personal experience of the Lord's grace. Please note that I am not the hero in the story; every good thing that came to pass was a gift of the Savior.

After teaching here for two years, I received a distinct prompting-a personal commandment-to get a Ph.D. in Statistics. My wife encouraged me to obey, and the university granted a temporary leave of absence. About two years after the prompting, I began a Ph.D. program in Statistics at Purdue University.

It was terrifying to be in graduate school on a strict timeline. The burden was overwhelming. I could recite the famous words of Nephi, "that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them."[21] I knew this was true for other people, but I did not liken it unto myself.[22] President Henry B. Eyring taught, "Faith is not simply to know God could do something. Faith is to know He will."[23] I realized I needed more faith.

Recognizing that my fear was not from God, I sought His help in prayer. In this process, strength was granted. My faith grew, leading to a deepened realization that the Lord knew all things. He already possessed all the statistical, research and writing skills I needed to develop. He knew the questions and answers for exams yet to be written. He knew every detail of my future research. All things are before him continually.[24] It was my responsibility and privilege to learn that our Savior is a personal teacher and tutor, who ministers one by one.[25] After much prayer and fasting that first semester, I received the calm assurance that the Lord would help me complete the degree in the allotted time. Doubt was completely replaced by faith.[26] The program was still difficult, but I approached it with peace and confidence.

We cherished the Sabbath day and enjoyed serving in our callings. Great care was required to balance family, church, and school responsibilities. After giving my best in earnest study and prayer, the Holy Ghost inspired solutions to homework and exam problems.[27] A suitable research topic eventually became apparent.

The process was still difficult, but I knew it would all work out-I just did not know how. The burden was not removed, but it was made light.[28] Our family memorized and recited a scripture that brought us comfort: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."[29]

The Savior, by His grace, magnified our offering. The assurance previously seen only with an eye of faith[30] yielded evidence as I completed the degree in the time allowed.[31]

The idea of experimenting with our requests to the Lord opens up multiple avenues of conversing Him. I'd like to share a personal experience to illuminate what I mean. In my Patriarchal Blessing I was told that I would have the health I need to meet the challenges of raising my family. However, about ten years ago I began to develop some very challenging health problems, one of which was not being able to sleep. It is no accident that sleep deprivation is used by those who torture others, because sleep deprivation is agony. Finally, after years of not getting enough sleep, I wondered if my Patriarchal Blessing included the promise of health so that I would have the faith to pray for sleep. I pled with the Lord that I would sleep through the night. I put my name in the temple. I researched the topic of sleep, reading any article I could find on it. I went to doctors. I tried everything I could think of. Still I was a walking zombie, who could barely get through the day. This situation was puzzling to me because I believed the Lord had put the blessing of health in my Patriarchal Blessing as a prompt, or a seed, for me to pray about. Yet sleep did not come. Then I thought about what Alma said. Maybe I needed to experiment with the prayer I took to the Lord. I altered my prayer. Instead of asking the Lord to bless me with sleep, I asked that I be led to information that would help me sleep. Within a couple of weeks of experimenting with this prayer, I was searching on the internet on a completely unrelated topic, and within minutes found two new pieces of information regarding sleep deprivation and its causes. I was able to adjust my behavior and have moved from sleep approximately four hours a night to seven.

I am so grateful that the Lord tutored me in my prayers. He gave me a prompt in my Patriarchal Blessing of what question, or seed, I should choose for my prayers. It took some experimenting to fi
nd exactly the right one. I am so grateful that the Lord did not give me my request with my first prayer but gave me the room to experiment. If He had immediately answered my pleadings for sleep, I might never have learned what was preventing me from getting a good night's rest and that might have meant that I would have had to spend energy for the rest of my life on prayers for sleep. Instead, when I altered my prayer, it opened the way for the Lord to bless me with knowledge. That knowledge is bringing sleep and energy. And part of the blessedness of it, is that I now can spend my time conversing with the Lord about other things besides sleep.

The city of Athens, capital of Attica (Greece) in 490 B.C. and center of Greek culture, was about to be attacked on two sides by the powerful Persian army. The enemy, numbering nearly 20,000, lay in wait on the nearby plains of Marathon. The Greek forces consisted of about 11,000 men.
Miltiades, the Greek commanding general, gave orders to prepare for combat. His men, armed with spears, shields, helmets, and breastplates, were assembled in groups. Common military practice at the time would have been for these groups to advance in one slow, uniform line. Miltiades, however, was a military genius. Distributing his men over as much territory as possible so that they wouldn’t be outflanked, he ordered them forward on the run.
The Battle of Marathon was on!
The Persians, who were fighting with inferior weapons, were outmaneuvered and outfought. They lost 6,400 men—the Athenians, only 192—as they were driven back to the ships that had brought them.
A young Athenian soldier named Pheidippides had been sent earlier to Sparta, about 150 miles (241 kilometers) away, to ask for their help. Then he had raced back to Marathon. At the end of the battle, Miltiades, afraid that the people of Athens would surrender because they didn’t know of the victory at Marathon, asked Pheidippides to deliver a message to the people of Athens, 25 miles (40 kilometers) away.
Without the slightest hesitation, Pheidippides took the note and ran mile after mile, without slowing down or stopping to rest, toward Athens, where the citizens were gathered in the streets and at the marketplace, awaiting news of the battle at Marathon.
Pheidippides quickly made his way to the center of a crowd of Athenians and, raising his arms in triumph, delivered his message: “Rejoice, we conquer!” Then he sank to the ground, dead.

The mission president in Sweden at the time of our visit was Reid H. Johnson, a cousin to my wife. As he and our group were journeying throughout that area, we went to a large Lutheran church. As we walked into the building, President Johnson said, “I think you would be interested in an experience my companion, Richard Timpson, and I had in this city at the termination of our missions back in 1948.”

He said, “We came to this town because we knew that our family history was recorded here and had been lived here. As we entered this large church, we were met by a most hostile keeper of the archives. Upon hearing that we had completed our missions and had a few precious days in which we would like to seek out the records which he maintained in his church building, he said that no one had ever been given the opportunity to peruse those valuable records, far less a Mormon. He declared they were under lock and key, and he held up to view the large key to the vault in which the records were stored. He said, ‘My job and my future, and the sustenance of my family, depend upon how well I safeguard this key. No, I am afraid it would be impossible for you to peruse these records. But if you would like to see the church, I’ll be happy to show you through. I’ll be glad to show you the architecture and the cemetery which surrounds the church—but not the records, for they are sacred.’”

President Johnson indicated they were profoundly disappointed. However, he said to the keeper of the archives, “We will accept your kind offer.” All of this time, he and his companion were praying fervently and earnestly that somehow something would change this keeper’s mind, that he would let them view the records.

After a lengthy journey through the cemetery and looking at the church building, the keeper of the archives unexpectedly said to them, “I’m going to do something I have never done before. It may cost me my job, but I’m going to let you borrow this key for fifteen minutes.”

President Johnson thought, Fifteen minutes! All we can do in fifteen minutes is open the lock!

But the keeper let them take the key. They turned the key in the lock and had made available to their view records which were priceless for their genealogical value. In fifteen minutes the keeper arrived. He looked at them and found they were still in a state of wonder over the find which they had discovered.

They said, “Can’t we please stay longer?”

He said, “How much longer?” And he looked at his watch.

They said, “About three days.”

He said, “I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t know why, but I feel I can trust you. Here is the key. You keep it, and when you are through, you return it to me. I’ll be here every morning at eight o’clock and every evening at five o’clock.”

For three consecutive days, those two missionaries studied and recorded for our current use information which could have been obtained in no other way. President Johnson, filled with emotion, explained this experience to us. He said, “The Lord does move in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.” As he made this statement of testimony to me, I realized that his experience had also blessed the lives of Sister Monson and me, for much of the information he and his companion had obtained happened to be on our family lines.

The same year that Lorenzo Snow set out on his first mission, the Prophet Joseph Smith gave Heber C. Kimball a very significant missionary assignment. The Prophet Joseph approached Heber while the latter was seated in the Kirtland Temple. Joseph said:

Brother Heber, the Spirit of the Lord has whispered to me: “Let my servant Heber go to England and proclaim my Gospel, and open the door of salvation to that nation.” [Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, an Apostle (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, Inc., 1967), p. 103]

The First Presidency and the Twelve hold the keys for opening the nations to missionary work (see D&C 107:35). When the pattern has been followed of calling an apostle to open a land to the preaching of the gospel, great success has resulted. Heber C. Kimball baptized more than one thousand converts in the western part of England during his mission. He and his companions laid the foundation for future growth in that great nation.

We also need a wide-angle lens to look beyond the obvious when is comes to apologies. With a zoom lens, an apology looks like something you offer to someone you have wronged. However, one man found that it was his apology TO someone who had wronged HIM, that was his key to freedom.
The man was President George Albert Smith. He offered what many would call a high level apology-some would even call it, "an impossible apology" -to a man who had spread false rumors about him. He was in anguish over this, and filled with such an abundance of negative feelings toward his perpetrator, that he felt unworthy to partake of the Sacrament.
George Albert Smith finally found freedom from his suffering, when he went to his perpetrator and said, "I'm here to ask forgiveness for the hateful feelings I've had toward you." The man became immediately apologetic himself, and the two became lifelong friends.[6]

I saw this happen recently when I was with BYU’s Young Ambassadors on their tour in Brazil. They are great examples of sharing light by giving of their time and talents. During the tour they spent time with many who are facing challenges. Whether in a dance studio for the blind, a nursing home for the elderly, a clinic for chronically ill children, or a hospital for at-risk newborn babies and destitute mothers, they shared light. They sang songs in Portuguese, gave gifts, and showed love and concern for everyone they met.
I wish you could have been there to see the weary looks on the faces of those destitute mothers when they came into the room with their tiny, frail babies—and the contrasting looks of pure joy and light in their eyes after being with the Young Ambassadors. I also wish you could have seen the looks on the faces of the Young Ambassadors when they left feeling the pure joy and light of giving.

When Tomás got home from school, everyone seemed busy.
“Shut the door,” Diego said when Tomás came in their room. “I can’t do my homework with so much noise!”
Tomás went into the living room. His younger sisters both wanted the same toy at the same time. “Give it to me!” Luiza said, trying to grab a doll away from Stella. “I had it first!”
Tomás went into the kitchen. Mom was holding the baby in one arm while she stirred the soup. “Dad is going to be late tonight. Will you set the table for me?” she asked.
When everyone had finished eating, Dad came home. He looked tired.
What can I do to help everyone be happier? Tomás wondered. Then he remembered what day it was—Monday! Family home evening would make things better!
But when he mentioned family home evening to Mom, she sighed. “I don’t know if we have time for it tonight,” she said.
Tomás thought about how the prophets said that family home evening was very important and that it would bless their lives.
“But, Mom,” Tomás said, “we really need family night!”
Mom thought for a minute. “You know what? I think you’re right,” she said. “Let’s clean up so we can get started.”
At the end of family home evening, Tomás knelt to pray with his family. He felt good inside. His brother still had a project due, his mom was still busy, and his dad was still tired. But everyone seemed a little happier, and his home felt more peaceful.
Tomás smiled. Following the prophets always made things better.

President Thomas S. Monson tells of a Robert Blatchford who, 100 years ago “in his book God and My Neighbor, attacked with vigor accepted Christian beliefs, such as God, Christ, prayer, and immortality. He boldly asserted, ‘I claim to have proved everything I set out to prove so fully and decisively that no Christian, however great or able he may be, can answer my arguments or shake my case.’ He surrounded himself with a wall of skepticism. Then a surprising thing happened. His wall suddenly crumbled to dust. … Slowly he began to feel his way back to the faith he had scorned and ridiculed. What had caused this profound change in his outlook? His wife [had] died. With a broken heart, he went into the room where lay all that was mortal of her. He looked again at the face he loved so well. Coming out, he said to a friend: ‘It is she, and yet it is not she. Everything is changed. Something that was there before is taken away. She is not the same. What can be gone if it be not the soul?’”

One such time occurred a few years ago in Colombia. A small group of teens were selected by their stake presidents to represent the youth of their country during a brief visit by President Nelson in August of 2019.

The youth received instruction and then waited for the prophet in the green room where a few of us from the media team covering President Nelson’s global ministry were unpacking our equipment. I do not speak Spanish, but as I listened to them talk, I could tell they were worried and anxious and filled with doubt. A colleague told me the youth questioned whether they were worthy to meet with the prophet.

Then, after turning my attention away from them for a few minutes, I looked back and saw them kneeling together and praying. I later learned they were asking for help to be calm and expressing gratitude to the Lord for His Church and His prophet.

At that time in Colombia’s capital city of 7.1 million people, the ratio of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to the general population was 67 to one. Referencing the daunting statistic, President Nelson promised the youth, “Anything worthwhile in life is difficult to do. But you can do hard things as you link yourself to the Lord.” [21]

As a youth I loved to play basketball. One of my biggest disappointments was when I didn’t make the school team. I stopped growing early, and I probably just was not good enough, anyway. Seeing other boys my age go on to become really outstanding basketball players was difficult—not because they achieved in the sport, but because I hadn’t.
However, that disappointment helped push me in the direction of the world of words, which, over the years, has been a blessing to me. At the time, it seemed a poor substitute for basketball, but as I look back on my life, the pushing in that direction meant that I was to have many opportunities I could not otherwise have had.
When I served in the army during World War II, I was asked to write letters of comfort to the wives and parents of those who had been killed. I was also asked to write letters recognizing men for their bravery in battle. So I became more involved in the world of words.
Later, that led quite naturally to the mission field. In those days there was no churchwide plan for the missionaries to follow, and I came up with one that my mission used.
So our talents can develop in a meaningful way, even though we can’t see it at the time. While I would rather, in my youth, have played basketball, it would end up being more important for me to develop a talent with words. We need to trust in God in the midst of our disappointments. Experiences that seem hard when we are in the middle of them may well be part of God’s tutoring and training.

At a time in the early Roman Empire; a long time even before Jesus walked the earth, the Romans were putting up with a rebellious group of people who inhabited the Italian peninsula among whom were a group called the Falerians. The Falerians had declared their independence from Rome and felt comfortable that the Romans could do nothing about it due to the exceptionally strong wall and other fortifications that encompassed their city. After the Falerians' independence was declared, the Romans sent one of their best generals, a man by the name of Camillus, to put down the rebellion and bring them back under Roman rule.

When Camillus saw the great fortifications, he knew he was in for a long and difficult siege. In fact, all he felt he could do was surround the city and wait until something, hopefully in his favor, might occur. But the siege went on and on with no end in sight.

Since the Romans were camped quite far away from the wall, to be out of range of the Falerian archers, occasionally Falerian citizens would venture a little ways outside of the wall for short periods. Sometimes even the children would go outside the walls to play. In fact, all of the Falerian children happened to be under the tutelage of one schoolmaster. This schoolmaster, occasionally, would lead them a little outside the wall so they could get some exercise. However, little did they know that this schoolmaster, who felt that the Romans would eventually win the war, saw an opportunity to gain the Roman's favor by betraying the Falerian children into their hands. Day after day, the schoolmaster led the children a little farther away from the wall, until the time came when he was able to deliver the children to the Roman camp. He explained to the Romans that they could use the children's lives as barter to force the Falerians to surrender their city.

Shortly after their children had gone outside of the wall, the Falerians realized what had happened. And looking afar off, and seeing their children as captives of the Romans, the Falerians experienced unimaginable agony. The city became a site full of weeping and wailing. Parents were screaming, terrified they would lose their children. Also, the Falerian leaders now knew that the war was lost.

Camillus, the Roman general, upon hearing of this betrayal, and seeing the Falerian children and their schoolmaster in his camp, realized that this act would win the war for him and bring him great glory. But Camillus was one of those rare individuals who put honor and integrity before dubious cultural rewards. According to the Roman historian Plutarch, Camillus said, "War, indeed, is of necessity attended with much injustice and violence! Certain laws, however, all good men observe even in war itself, nor is victory so great an object as to induce us to incur for its sake obligations for base and impious acts. A great general should rely on his own virtue, and not on other men's vices."

At that point Camillus ordered the schoolmaster's hands to be bound behind him. He then had his soldiers cut pieces of branches that the children could use to whip their schoolmaster. Camillus then ordered the children to whip their schoolmaster all the way back to the city. Well, you can imagine, the shock and the relief the parents felt when they witnessed their children running happily and laughing as they whipped the schoolmaster back to the city.

Well, after that incident occurred, the Falerians thought that maybe the Romans weren't so bad after all. They opened up peace negotiations with Camillus and the whole affair was soon settled. So, war was avoided and many people ended up being the beneficiaries of Camillus' willingness to put honor and integrity before his culture's strong emphasis on conquest, fame, glory, and victory.

The woodland was under a heavy shroud of cloud cover that weekend. Rain filtered through the air, and the cameramen waited patiently to expose their film. It rained, and they prayed. And it rained some more. If the filmmakers were unable to complete filming in that one week during the spring of 1975, the project would have to wait a year until the surroundings were right again. The season would soon change, and to add to the problems, the lead actor had to leave the following Friday. On Monday morning the crew awoke before dawn and began to set up all their equipment, thinking somehow they could compensate for the weather. But suddenly it stopped raining. When the sun came up, they beheld the loveliest mist they had ever seen. The tall, wet grasses sparkled, and the birds burst forth in song, and they knew they had been blessed with a beauty they could never have produced themselves.
That morning the Brigham Young University Department of Film Production began filming scenes for the First Vision. Stewart Petersen, who played the Prophet Joseph, walked through those tall grasses with thoughts of that other “beautiful, clear day, early in the spring of eighteen hundred and twenty” (JS—H 1:14) when Joseph Smith humbly prayed for an answer to his question, “Which of all the churches should I join?”

What do rabbits, postage stamps, and children’s music have in common? They are some of the things that have helped nine-year-old David Whitworth to save for his mission.
For nearly two years David raised Harry, then Jule, two Angora rabbits. Angoras need their loose fur plucked frequently, and David plucked the soft, fine fur and sent it to his grandmother in New Mexico. She paid David for the fur, which she combined with wool on her spinning wheel to make soft yarn for knitting.
He saved most of his rabbit money in a special missionary bank that his Uncle Tim made for him one Christmas. The bank looks like a brown leather book, and it sits on the bookshelf; but it is really made of wood and is hollow.
Although Harry and Jule died recently, David plans to get more Angora rabbits as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the savings in his missionary bank grows. Before the family’s recent move from California to Kentucky, his older sisters, Erin (16), Shaunda (14), and Katie (12), paid him for helping them deliver newspapers on their five routes. Now he gets paid for helping his parents in two small businesses that they run from their home. He helps his dad put postage stamps in vending machines, and he helps his mom with office work, booths, and workshops in her business of selling children’s music.
Besides saving money, David prepares in other ways for his future mission. He is learning to be responsible and dependable. He can cook a whole meal when asked, is learning to sew, and takes his turn at washing dishes and other household chores. He can even change the diapers on his two-year-old sister, Maryvonne!
Missionaries do not sleep in late, and David has learned to get up early: On school days, the family is usually awake by 6:00 A.M. so that everyone can eat, dress, have prayers, and read the scriptures before the bus comes at 7:15. During the summer, they get up at 6:00 A.M. to help in the family’s large garden for an hour before Dad leaves to work in nearby Lexington.
David is also following the prophet’s counsel to learn a second language. In California, David was in a bilingual classroom. At his Kentucky school, his mother teaches Spanish twice a week to David’s class and to the classes his brothers, Josiah (5), and Jonathan (7), are in.
David works hard in school. He is a member of his school’s Academic Team, which competes with teams from other schools to give the fastest correct answers to questions on many subjects. And for a special school project, he recently typed and illustrated a science fiction book that he wrote called “Survival in Z-P.”
David also has plenty of time for just having fun. He likes quiet activities like reading, drawing, and chess. And he enjoys basketball, baseball, tennis, swimming, Cub Scouts, and exploring the small woods around a clubhouse built in the hollow behind the family home.
If you ask David what he wants to be when he grows up, he’s likely to answer, “A missionary, a dad, an artist, a baseball player, and a cartoonist—maybe.”

I was born in 1986. Soon after birth, I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy secondary to congenital hydrocephalus. Hydrocephalus, called “water on the brain,” is a condition in which an individual has either too much or too little cerebrospinal fluid. In my now 28 years of life I have had more than 50 surgical procedures for these conditions.
Nevertheless, the Lord has richly blessed me. One of my first doctors counseled my parents, “Take him home and simply love him. He will never be anything more than a limp noodle on the sofa.” Thankfully, my parents didn’t listen. Throughout my life, they have encouraged me to do and accomplish many things. They never treated me any differently than they did my siblings. Thanks to them, in spite of my disability, I lead the fullest life that I can.

Fortunately, we have fine examples of meekness to help us, and I need go no farther than my own Quorum.

The Acting President of the Council of the Twelve, President Howard W. Hunter, is a meek man. He once refused a job he needed as a young man because it would have meant another individual would have lost his job. This is the same lowly man, when I awakened after a weary and dusty day together with him on assignment in Egypt, who was quietly shining my shoes, a task he had hoped to complete unseen. Meekness can be present in the daily and ordinary things.