Gospel Story Finder

Much of the perseverance of our pioneer ancestors can be traced to the blessings they received through serving the Lord of Hosts valiantly by building the temple, then making the covenants and receiving the ordinances in it.
“Erastus Snow summarized the feelings of many as he testified: ‘The Spirit, Power and wisdom of God reigned continually in the Temple and all felt satisfied that during the [short time] we occupied it in the endowments of the Saints, we were amply paid for all our labor in building it.’"[52]
Sarah Rich expressed what the temple blessings meant to her:
"The work of giving endowments commenced. President Young chose many brothers and sisters to come to the Temple and assist in giving endowments. Among those chosen was Mr. Rich and myself. We were to be there in the morning and remain until work was done at ten or twelve o’clock at night if necessary. . . . We helped in the House of the Lord to give endowments . . . until the house was closed and we as a people commenced to prepare ourselves to depart to the Rocky Mountains."
"Many were the blessings we had received in the House of the Lord which has caused us joy and comfort in the midst of all our sorrows, and enabled us to have faith in God, knowing He would guide us and sustain us in the unknown journey that lay before us. For if it had not been for the faith and knowledge that was bestowed upon us in that Temple by the influence and help of the spirit of the Lord, our journey would have been like one taking a leap in the dark, to start out on such a journey in the winter as it were, in our state of poverty, it would seem like walking into the jaws of death. But we had faith in our Heavenly Father and put our trust in him feeling that we were his chosen people and had embraced his gospel and instead of sorrow we felt to rejoice."[53]

I would like to give a modern day example of how the Church prospered in a certain area because of the diligent work of one man. Back in the year 2000 we were working on an Encyclopedia of Latter-day Saint history at BYU in Provo. As part of that project we asked experts to write short articles on the history of The Church in over 180 different countries. We had completed the manuscript and sent it to the publisher. Then I received a telephone call from Kenya, Africa. It was from Dale LeBaron, one of the authors who had written several of our articles on the countries of Africa. He asked if we had sent the manuscript in for publication. I answered, yes. Then, with considerable emotion he said: “Stop the press! Let me tell you what is happening in Mozambique right now. A man named Francisco Dique Sousa has unofficially organized about 500 unbaptized followers into nine branches and they have built six meetinghouses. They have been waiting for the Church to send authorized missionaries to teach them. This week four missionaries have finally arrived and they are teaching scores of investigators. Some people are literally waiting outside their huts all day long to be taught.” Well, many of those investigators joined The Church and an official Branch was soon created. I think Francisco Sousa is an excellent example of one who “Labored without ceasing to bring souls unto Christ.”

The bell rang out across the playground. Recess was over. Alvin put away his basketball and walked to the classroom.
“Please sit down and take out your math books,” his teacher, Mrs. Hall, said.
Alvin slid into his seat and reached into his school bag. Then he heard a knock on the classroom door. Mrs. Hall answered it and started talking with another teacher.
Just a few desks over, Blake and Jared started whispering.
“Pssst! Look what I found!”
“Whoa!”
“Wanna try it after school?”
What’s going on? Alvin wondered.
He could just barely see Blake and Jared out of the corner of his eye. It looked like one of them was pulling a little plastic bag out of his pocket.
Wait, were those drugs?!
Alvin’s heart beat faster. His parents had talked with him and his siblings about drugs before. He knew that drugs were against the Word of Wisdom and that they could hurt your body and brain. He also knew it was dangerous to take medicine that wasn’t yours.
What should I do? Alvin thought. He glanced around. Those drugs could hurt someone! None of the other kids seemed to be paying attention. Should I tell someone? Or just pretend I didn’t see it?
Alvin had trouble concentrating during math. He couldn’t focus during reading time. By lunchtime, he felt like a rock was sitting in his stomach.
“Are you OK?” his friend Mitch asked.
Alvin shrugged.
“What’s going on? Tell us,” his friend Hazel said.
So Alvin told them about what he had seen. “I think I need to tell Mrs. Hall.”
“But what if they find out it was you?” Mitch said. “They might be really mad at you.”
Alvin agreed. But the yucky feeling in his stomach wouldn’t go away. Finally he made a decision. He was going to tell their teacher.
“I’ll go with you,” Hazel said.
Alvin and Hazel found Mrs. Hall in her classroom.
“Mrs. Hall?” Alvin asked. “Can we talk with you in private?”
“Of course,” Mrs. Hall said. “How can I help you?”
“Um … ,” Alvin said. Mrs. Hall smiled kindly. That made him feel brave. “I saw Blake and Jared with drugs in class today. I felt like I needed to tell you.”
“You did the right thing,” Mrs. Hall said. “You can always come talk to me when you see a problem. I’ll take care of it.”
Alvin let out a big sigh. The heavy feeling had disappeared.
That afternoon, the principal’s assistant came to their room and called Blake and Jared to come out in the hall.
The boys didn’t come back to class for three days.
When they finally came back, Alvin was nervous to see them again.
What if they figured out I was the one who told the teacher? he thought. What if they’re really mad at me?
But they just sat and joked with each other, like usual.
“Where have you been?” another classmate asked them.
“Oh … uh … we got caught with something bad at school,” Blake said. “So we got sent home.”
Everyone kept talking, and eventually Alvin relaxed. He was glad he’d spoken up about the drugs to help keep others safe. He wanted to make good choices to keep his body safe and healthy.

There is a man I hope someday to meet—a brother of yours and mine in the kingdom. He lives somewhere behind the Iron Curtain. Another man, a priesthood leader behind the Iron Curtain, was told that there was such a man, who had not seen another member of the Church for many years. This good brother, moved by the Spirit, saved his money (which he didn’t have much of), made his way through the red tape of crossing borders, and found this brother of yours and mine; he learned that he who was found had not seen another member of the Church for over twenty years. And when the man who was the finder indicated that it was possible, because he had been so authorized, to give this brother a patriarchal blessing, this good brother demurred momentarily until he got the tithing which he had saved for over twenty years and gave it to this other man so that he would be fully worthy of that blessing!

I don’t know what the divine design is in the challenge of that kind of solitude. I know that this man, our brother, is meeting that challenge. Some of us will have to be most courageous, not when we’re alone, but when we’re in a crowd. Whatever the form the test takes, we must be willing to pass it. We must reach breaking points without breaking. We must be willing, if necessary, to give up our lives—not because we have a disdain for life as some do, but even though we love life—because we are the servants of him who did that in such an infinite way for all of us.

Several months ago, I reconnected with a classmate from business school. It had been nearly forty years since we had spoken. My friend had gone on to extraordinary success in the world of finance. After we had briefly caught up on our personal lives, he then stunned me with this comment:

Kevin, I am envious of your life. I have never really understood the whole religion thing that drives you and why you left your career to serve in the Mormon Church. But I wish I had what you have. I managed to marry the only Jewish woman in the world who did not want children. Our marriage eventually ended. I remarried and have two lovely daughters, but I am not sure whether I will ever have grandchildren. I am envious of the family you have.

My friend had clearly “crushed it” when it comes to affluence and influence, but he lacked what he now desired most. You and I have been taught principles of an abundant life; my friend had not. “Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

My grandfather was also the source of several stories about living conditions and other circumstances that existed during that late nineteenth-century colonization period. Let me share one of them with you.

In the 1890s, as the Salt Lake Temple was nearing completion, a request went out from the First Presidency under Wilford Woodruff that members of the Church contribute whatever money they could toward the completion of the temple. My great grandfather called a family council, and all agreed that they should donate their entire savings, consisting of about $5, which they kept in a jar on the top shelf in the kitchen. It was the family’s mite—everything they had—and they gave it for a cause in which they believed and in response to a prophet’s request. It was the same spirit, undergirded by the same conviction, that had sustained their own forebears in Missouri, in Illinois, and on the trek across the plains—a conviction that Joseph Smith really saw the Father and the Son, that once again there are prophets on the earth. The account of this $5 contribution has come down from generation to generation as a valuable part of our family heritage.

Several years ago I attended a BYU football game with some of our young children. We lost the game. I really hate it when that happens. We listened to the coaches’ show on the ride back to our home in Bountiful. When it was over, my children had no alternative but to listen to my own postgame show. Just as I had completed my final analysis of what went wrong in the game, my seven-year-old daughter asked, “Dad, when you see the temple, do you get a good feeling inside?” I wondered, Where in the world did that come from? As I was trying to figure out what that comment had to do with the football game, I glanced over at her and could see she was looking out the window at the Salt Lake Temple. For some reason the game no longer mattered.
My whole life has been enriched by experiences of the temple. Our parents would take us to Temple Square in Salt Lake City on a regular basis. They would point to the temple and tell us that they were married there and because of that we would always be together as a family. What comfort that brought to a little boy whose biggest fear was that his parents might die. Now what comfort it brings to a grown man whose parents have passed on to the other side.
When I was 10 years old, in the shadows of the Salt Lake Temple I first read the Joseph Smith story and received a powerful testimony of the truthfulness of the Restoration.
I remember with thanksgiving going to the temple with my parents and receiving my endowments prior to departing for my mission.
My wife and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple about three years later. In subsequent years I have had the honor of performing the temple marriages of each of our six children.
We know many members of the Church have not had the luxury I have had of growing up around temples. Because of this knowledge we were all thrilled with the announcement made by President Hinckley in October of 1997 when he said, “We are determined … to take the temples to the people and afford them every opportunity for the very precious blessings that come of temple worship” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1997, 69; or Ensign, Nov. 1997, 50).
Since that time we have rejoiced and marveled as we have heard announcements of numerous temples and subsequently read of their open houses and dedications. We are witnessing a modern-day miracle and fulfillment of prophecy. What a wonderful time to be alive!
Our excitement over the building of temples is not shared by all. The adversary in particular is having a major temper tantrum as he sees his power threatened.
Over the last two years I have witnessed his wrath firsthand in West Africa. He has been very active, trying to prevent the building of a temple in that part of the world. Two years ago President Hinckley announced that there would be a temple in West Africa located in Accra, Ghana. Since then the adversary has been relentless in trying to prevent that from happening. Why is Lucifer so concerned?
We have 85,000 members in West Africa, and the Church is growing very rapidly. Sacrament meeting attendance is over 50 percent, but currently only 400 members have been endowed because of the prohibitive expense of traveling thousands of miles to Johannesburg or London. We have over 700 full-time African missionaries serving in the mission field, and very few of them have been endowed.
The African people have waited for centuries to receive the fulness of the gospel and have been through much pain and suffering. Now, at last, they can receive every blessing available to God’s children. Worthy members can receive the temple endowment and be able to have their families sealed together for time and for all eternity.
Faithfulness to temple covenants brings an acceleration of spiritual progress. As Elder John A. Widtsoe explained, “They will attain more readily to their place in the presence of the Lord; they will increase more rapidly in every divine power; they will approach more nearly to the likeness of God; they will more completely realize their divine destiny” (Evidences and Reconciliations [1960], 300).
That is why Lucifer is so concerned. In addition, he is aware of the large number of Africans who have accepted the gospel on the other side of the veil and are anxiously awaiting their proxy baptism and temple endowment as well as being sealed to their families. When a temple is dedicated, the dam in the spirit world will break and there will be a flood of humanity who have lived on the African continent flow into the temple of the Lord as their descendants do their work for them. We should not be surprised that Lucifer is using every means at his disposal to keep a temple from these people.
Through centuries of suffering, the people in general have not become bitter. They are humble, teachable, and God-fearing. They know the scriptures, and they recognize the Shepherd’s voice.
I have faith in their faith. I know the Savior loves the African people. Therefore, to paraphrase verse 33 of the 121st section of the Doctrine and Covenants, “As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the [Congo] river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from [building a temple for the African Latter-day Saints].”
As the Savior has said, “I will not suffer that [the enemy] shall destroy my work; yea, I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil” (D&C 10:43).
It has been inspiring to see the Lord’s hand in bringing the forces together which will lead to an inevitable victory. There will be a temple in West Africa.
Last week we were driving from Provo to Bountiful again. As we left Provo we could see the temple up on the hill. Before it was out of sight, the Mount Timpanogos Utah Temple came into view, and then the Jordan River Utah Temple appeared, followed by the Salt Lake Temple. And immediately thereafter we could see the Bountiful Utah Temple standing like a jewel above that city.
I thought back to my daughter’s question, “Dad, when you see the temple, do you get a good feeling inside?” I realized the overwhelming answer is, “Yes, when I see a temple I have a wonderful feeling inside.” However, my heart aches for our African brothers and sisters who have never seen a temple in their whole life.
It is my hope and prayer that we will never take temple blessings for granted. I also have a prayer in my heart for West Africa and any other place in the world where outside influences are preventing the Saints from enjoying the blessings of a temple.
I testify to the divinity of this work. Jesus is the Christ. He stands at the head of this Church, and He is orchestrating the building of His kingdom here on earth. We are witnessing miracles, and therefore I can testify they have not ceased. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

One day the three of them took Old Brownie and Belle and went up City Creek Canyon for a jag of firewood. As soon as they’d found a good place to stop and load up, Pa had Jeremy unhitch the team so that they could graze while the wagon was loaded.
“There,” said Pa, when the wagon was full. “That’ll do it for this trip. Hitch the horses back to the wagon, Jeremy, while Brose and I fasten the chain around the load to keep any logs from falling off.”
“Let me hook up the horses, Pa!” cried Brose. “I can do it, honest! I watched you and Jere do it every day, coming across the plains! Let me hook ‘em up, Pa!”
Pa hesitated, then said, “All right, Brose. Don’t forget to fasten the crosslines, so you can drive the team together without their trying to go off in all directions.”
“So you can drive them!” That’s what Pa said! Maybe, if I hook ‘em up just right, thought Brose, Pa’ll let me drive all the way home!
Brose didn’t have any trouble leading the horses into place. Brownie stepped right over the wagon tongue into her place while Belle stood quietly waiting on the other side. Then, just as Pa had cautioned, Brose fastened the crosslines, snapping the one from Belle’s harness onto the ring on Brownie’s bit, and the other onto the ring on Belle’s bridle.
Next he took the wide leather strap on the front of Brownie’s harness, slipped it through the big ring on the end of the yoke, and fastened the snap to the ring on the other side of the harness. “There! That was just the way Jeremy would have done it,” Brose murmured, pleased. He fastened the strap on Belle’s harness to the yoke the same way. Then he took the driving line from where Jeremy had hung it on Brownie’s hame and threw it ever so gently over Belle’s back, just the way Pa would have done it—quiet, easy, so as not to frighten the team.
When he walked around to put Belle’s line with the other, Brose heard a bird call. It was a new sound, something like a meadowlark’s, yet different. It was more like that little brown bird he used to hear back in Connecticut before the family had come west. Maybe it was! Maybe that very same little brown bird had followed him, Ambrose Dodd, all the way to the Valley!
Brose didn’t know how long he had listened to the bird before he saw Pa and Jeremy. They had walked a little way down the canyon and had stopped, waiting for him.
Brose was to bring the team and wagon! He was going to drive! He climbed up onto the seat, picked up both of the lines, and slapped them against Brownie’s side, just as Pa would have done.
“Giddap!” he cried, loud enough for Pa and Jeremy and the horses to hear. The horses stepped forward. But the wagon did not move. Only the yoke went with the team, the ring on it sliding off the end of the wagon tongue and the lines slipping through Brose’s hands.
Jeremy ran toward him just as the wagon tongue banged to the ground. “Brose!” he called. “Hey, Brose! You forgot the wagon! It won’t move unless you hitch the tugs!”
Brose couldn’t move. How could he have been so dumb! How could he possibly have forgotten about the tugs?
Jeremy reached out and took the lines and drove the team around in a little circle, putting the team right in place. Brose came out of his daze and scurried around to pick up the end of the tongue and slip it through the ring of the yoke, which was still fastened to the horses.
Jeremy was just hooking the last tug to the doubletree when Pa came. Brose watched Pa climb over the front wheel and take his place on the front of the load. Pa reached for the lines, and Jeremy handed them up to him. Pa took them without a word, and Brose knew that he had lost another chance.
There wasn’t much talking during chores that night. When supper was over, Brose sat on the little stool beside the fire, listening to the crackling and hissing of the pine knot and watching the sparks it sometimes sent up with the smoke.
Jeremy took Pa’s fiddle from its case, and music began to fill the little cabin, then float away on the night air. Brose leaned back against the warm cabin wall near the fireplace and listened. He wished—oh, how he wished!—that he could play like Jere. Pa had been fair about it, though. He had tried to teach both of them. Brose still remembered Pa’s words: “Seems as though you’ve got ten thumbs, Brose, and they all want to go in different directions.”
Pa had quit trying to teach him soon after that, and at the time Brose had been relieved. But now every time he listened to the fiddle singing under Jere’s fingers, Brose wished Pa hadn’t given up quite so quickly.
He’d much rather be standing there by Pa’s chair, playing the fiddle, with Ma and Trudy and Willie giving him all the smiles Jeremy was getting, than do the job he was supposed to be doing. He saw Ma looking at him from time to time, but she didn’t interrupt the music with talking, and after a bit Brose made himself get started.
He knew someone had to straighten out the kinks in the wool so that Ma and Trudy could knit it into socks for winter. Brose hated to card. Mostly women and girls did it, but Ma said that Trudy was as fast at knitting as she was, herself. With both of them knitting, they could have twice as many socks ready when winter came. They could, that is, if Brose would just keep ahead of them with the carding.
Brose had his problems with this job too. Sometimes he got the wool so tangled up that Ma said it was worse for knitting when he got through with it than before he started. But she had more patience than Pa. Or maybe she needed the wool carded more than Pa needed another boy to play the fiddle.
Across the firelight Brose saw both Ma and Trudy knitting, each tapping a foot in time to the music. The only time either of them stopped was if one of them happened to drop a stitch. Then the stitch-dropper would move closer to the fire so that she could see to pick it up. Brose sighed as he pulled the big basket of wool closer to him and reached for the cards.
He laid one card close to the fire so that the wire brush would warm. He picked up a handful of wool and drew it across the other card. Then he took the card he had warmed and pulled it carefully across the wool, trying to get the strands straight.
“Learned that fiddle quicker’n I did,” said Pa, as Jeremy stopped for a moment. “Never did see a boy pick it up as fast as that.”
Pa will never be that proud of me, thought Brose, even if I did the carding perfectly! Ma would be pleased, but Pa and Jere wouldn’t care about it at all. Maybe … just maybe someday I’ll do something that they’ll think is important …
“Brose!” He was startled from his daydream by Ma’s voice. “The wool, Brose! I can smell it! You’ve got it too close to the fire!”
(To be concluded.)

Some years ago, while on a family vacation, my wife, Pat, and I enjoyed a picnic lunch with our four small children in a city park somewhere in the middle of Kansas. When it was almost time to be on our way, a man approached Pat’s side of the car and asked if he might have something to eat. We nervously glanced at each other and then said no. The man thanked us and sat down at the table we had just left.
Suddenly, I felt heartless. I realized that I might have misjudged someone who may have truly been in need. Now I did want to help him.
When I expressed these feelings to Pat, she seemed relieved. “We do have plenty of food,” she replied. “I’ll prepare a plate, and you can take it to him.” She fixed a heaping portion.
The man was pleasant and friendly and seemed unconcerned when I apologized for our earlier response. He thanked me for the food and said he was returning from the wheat harvest in the Dakotas and hadn’t had anything to eat for a long while.
It was a simple thing, so simple that it makes me ashamed to think I yielded to my first impulse to say no.
From experiences such as these, each of us can begin to perceive the difference in the way we feel after we have been selfish or generous. Certainly, we all want to feel the latter more often—and we can do so as we give of ourselves to others.

The Sunday after my 17th birthday, I had my first epileptic seizure. It was terrifying to lose all control and slip into darkness. When I awoke, I struggled to remember basic things like where I was or what day it was. I was prescribed medication to help the physical condition, but the psychological terror remained. I constantly monitored myself, paranoid that I would have another seizure. I was afraid to fall asleep, and I lost some of the freedoms I’d had before. I even thought that I might leave this world soon.
But then I remembered who I am. I am a son of God. I remembered one of my favorite scriptures, Joshua 1:9, which says, “Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.” This scripture brought me much-needed comfort. As I prayed for comfort each day, the terror was replaced by a stronger reliance on God and a stronger testimony that He is always watching over me and keeping me safe. I know I have a bright future ahead of me, because no matter what happens, God is always at my side.

When I was 20, the missionaries baptized my girlfriend and her family. The missionaries taught me too. After I read the Book of Mormon, I received a testimony and was baptized. When I was 23, my girlfriend, Walkyria, and I were married. Several years later, we traveled to the Los Angeles California Temple to be sealed together. We couldn’t afford to take our children with us, so they were sealed to us when the first temple in Brazil, the São Paulo temple, opened.

The big glass jar had the words “Fill Your Life with Service” on the side. Each week the young women and their leaders from the Titusville Ward in Florida anonymously wrote down the acts of service they had given during the week. The slips of paper were then rolled, taped, and placed in the jar. The young women used yellow paper, and the leaders used green. Plus, on one Mutual night for each of the six months of the project the young women held a service activity.
The first month focused on service to family, week two on friends, and then the priesthood, neighbors, community, and the world. The slips of paper revealed all kinds of service: “I helped my brother with his homework,” “I baked my friend a cake,” “I volunteered at the animal shelter,” “I sent some mail to missionaries from our ward.”
Jessica Crook, a Beehive, said, “I think the activities helped all of us understand more about helping and serving others.” In the end there were more yellow papers than green, so the young women were rewarded with a dinner prepared and served by their leaders.

“When I was 12,” says Loukia, “I went to church for the first time and was so happy, but then I realized that I was the only one my age. Now, two years later, we have so many young women that for the first time we were able to have Young Women Camp.” As they met together, she says, “I realized what it means to be a Latter-day Saint. When we live the gospel, a light surrounds us.”
...
“Loukia C., 15, bore her testimony for the first time at Young Women camp and was later baptized.”

A big forward with biceps the size of pot roasts skates over the blue line and fades away from us. Without slowing he lets rip a 20-foot wrist shot at the goal, or more precisely at Scott Tollestrup, the poor guy in net.
The puck meets Scott’s face mask with a slap, and he sits down hard on the ice, shaking his head.
“That happens when you play goal,” says Scott’s dad, Barry.
Scott takes a break from practice and skates over. He pushes up his helmet. Behind him the rink resounds with the heavy echo of voices. All around figures are moving, sticks and skates zigzagging on the ice. “You get hit; you shake it off,” Scott says, and grins.
His mother folds her arms and rolls her eyes. “People say hockey goalies have rocks in their heads,” she says. I like this family already. They are real people.
The fact that Scott, 14, would allow burly hockey players to fire 90-mile-an-hour pucks at him may be beyond comprehension for most of us. But to Scott, hockey is part of him. The shots he faces in a game are like the challenges of life. He realizes he can’t be perfect, get a handle on everything, but he’s getting better all the time.
Almost every boy in Canada has batted around a hockey puck at least once, and most have dreamed of playing professional hockey. Scott is no exception. Growing up in this hockey-crazed town of Lethbridge, Alberta, Scott longed to be the last defense on the ice, 15,000 fans watching as he shut out the Edmonton Oilers, taking MVP honors in the Stanley Cup finals.
Still, the odds are against him ever making it to the pros, so he’s enjoying the experiences along the way. He’s especially proud of representing Southern Alberta at a tournament in Vancouver last year. He played well enough to be selected a Canadian All-Star.
But being an all-star can go to your head. Every now and then Scott has to remind himself what’s really important.
“Once you put the hockey jacket on it’s instant popularity,” he says after practice. Scott’s with his older brother, Troy. They sit cross-legged in their basement, trading hockey cards and playing video hockey. “Some of the guys think they’re pretty hot. Once in a while I might join them and put somebody down—let it go to my head. When I put somebody down I always end up thinking about my brother, Troy.”
Troy, 17, has had a slight motor-skills problem and learning disorder since birth. It’s not serious enough to affect his life much, but it does make him a little different from the other kids. “When he was in elementary school he got picked on a lot,” adds Scott. “I think about that and stop. I try to get the others to stop, too.”
Not to be outdone, Troy starts talking about something he intends to do for Scott. He’s planning on a mission. One of the main reasons is to be an example to his younger brother.
“It’s very important I go on a mission,” says Troy. “Scott probably feels if I don’t go, he won’t have to.” I notice a sideways glance he gives his brother. It’s obvious they’ve had this conversation before.
“I see a mission,” Scott counters. “I hope to go. I want to keep the Holy Ghost with me and that’s a good way. If you’re fooling around with your friends you lose the Spirit, but if you pray and think about it hard, it’ll come back.”
Barry and Mary wander down to join their boys in the basement. Dad picks a black Pittsburgh Pirates cap off the floor.
“We have to pry this hat off Scott’s head,” Barry tells me. Scott grabs the hat and pulls it on. His blond hair disappears and his ears look bigger—I decide not to mention that. “He’s listed as 163 pounds on the team roster, but he’s really only 162. The hat.” Barry points to his head. Scott ignores him.
A son in the National Hockey League—that’s a dream a dad can get excited about. Barry goes to all of Scott’s practices, every game. He admits he had to control his enthusiasm.
“The first few years I pushed him,” Barry says, “but I’ve learned you can’t be too critical or push too hard.”
It took some time for Scott and his dad to find a good mix, but the relationship they have now seems to help them both. For Barry, the payoff is in the time with his son. While Scott, Troy, and their mom are very active in the Church, Barry is not. So he counts on the hockey tie to bring them close.
According to Mary, the boys’ mom, “When Scott’s in a game, he’ll look up into the stands at his dad. They have a silent message system. When Scott makes a good play he’ll look up and know his dad’s happy, and not too happy if he makes a mistake.”
And Dad has good things to say about Scott. He tells about the time Scott tried out for Bantam hockey. One of the other goalies was cut. “Some of the kids started giving him a hard time,” adds Barry. The coach was moments away from having a bad situation on his hands when Scott stood up for the goalie and got the players to settle down. “Scott knows what it’s like to be cut. But I think it’s more than that, something you can’t teach. He tries to care about other people’s feelings.”
Perhaps Scott has learned there is always somebody watching. On the rink it may be a scout or a future coach. In life it could be anybody.
“When Scott played on the Southern Alberta Select Team,” says Mary, “the coach told the team they needed to drink coffee to get going for the games. Scott and another LDS player wouldn’t.”
Scott smiles. “The funny thing was all the other kids ordered coffee, but they ordered caffeine free.”
Scott starts pulling out the odd collection of pads and equipment he needs for an afternoon game in Red Bluff. It’s a typical Saturday with typical commitments to hockey. But while the game does take up a good part of Scott’s life, he wants to be a balanced person.
He stops organizing his hockey gear to show me the saxophone and guitar he likes to play. He says he’d take me for a ride on his motorbike but it’s seized up. And he talks about seminary as if it’s the greatest invention since face masks for goalies. The gospel, he’s discovered, is important in being a well-rounded young man.
“Seminary has opened a lot of doors for me. There’s so much to know,” says Scott. “My seminary teacher is really good. With him it’s easy to understand the scriptures. The Millennium and the Second Coming are really interesting. Reading the scriptures is like reading a story—not a fairy tale, but about a different time. It could be a perfect movie, if you shorten it up a bit.”
But in trying for balance, Scott has discovered he needs to set priorities. A year or so ago, he was playing several sports, going to school and seminary, taking music lessons, spending time with friends. “I was thinking of quitting hockey,” he says. “I wasn’t happy, and it took up so much of my time. I realized if I wanted to play hockey I had to give up some of the other stuff.” He decided to put aside other sports and his guitar for a while. The NHL, the crowds, the excitement—it’s a hard dream to let die.
But other goals are approaching fast. A mission, marriage, and all the decisions in living the gospel are almost here. Just talking to Scott you get the feeling he’ll make the right choices when he needs to. You hope hockey will help him get where he wants to go, but that it will be a part and not the whole.
The last word on Scott is saved for his coach, Kirby Nishikawa. Something Kirby said at practice—something you may have already guessed about Scott. “He’s an all-around great guy to work with. He has a great work ethic and is a good example to the other players. What he does with his talent is all up to him.”
But before I can start wondering where they will put the statue of “Scott Tollestrup—The Perfect Young Man,” Coach Nishikawa sees our hero goofing off at the other end of the ice and bellows, “Tollestrup! Get over here!”
It’s a command that has echoed through this arena more than once, Scott’s mom admits.
Scott takes his place in goal. In front of him a line of players stands waiting to challenge. By now Scott knows he can’t be perfect or get a handle on everything. But remember, this is one goalie who is getting better all the time.

Interfaith Scotland collaborated with Edinburgh Women’s Interfaith Group to organise their annual summer trip. A diverse group of 45 women from various faith backgrounds recently embarked upon a journey to the Kagyu Samye Ling Monastery in Scotland, a renowned Tibetan Buddhist Centre known for its peaceful environment and spiritual teachings.

The women departed from Edinburgh by bus and travelled the winding roads and through the beautiful green countryside that surrounds the River Esk before arriving at the location. They were joined by women from Glasgow and Ayrshire.

Located in the Scottish Borders, Samye Ling offers a perfect setting for reflection and introspection. Founded in 1967, Kagyu Samye Ling was the first Tibetan monastery in the West and it has expanded over the decades to include not only an impressive shrine room, meditation rooms, butter lamps and prayer wheels, but also monastic quarters, a tearoom and shop. The attendees, some of whom had never visited a Buddhist monastery before, engaged in a range of activities to foster understanding, mindfulness and spiritual growth. The women shared lunch in the shining sun and enjoyed each other’s company before taking a tour of the monastery’s stunning grounds, vegetable and flower gardens.

The highlight of the trip for many was attending the Mahakala prayers inside the temple. Mahakala prayers are often chanted to invoke blessings, protection, and guidance. The temple gleamed with ornate furnishings, bright paintings and vivid hues of red, yellow and gold.

Throughout the trip, the women shared their personal spiritual journeys, exchanged insights on common values such as compassion and respect for all beings, and discussed the unique challenges they face within their own communities. These candid conversations transcended religious boundaries and highlighted the universal quest for inner peace and understanding. As the trip concluded, the women left with renewed inspiration to continue interfaith dialogue with one attendee summarising the day as: “A wonderful day in the company of interfaith friends that was both educational and peaceful.”

On that occasion thousands of curious but earnest people stood in long lines to gain entry to the building. A policeman stationed to direct traffic observed that it was the first time he had ever seen the English eager to get into a church.
Those who inspected the building were asked to defer any questions until they had completed the tour. In the evenings I joined the missionaries in talking with those who had questions. As a young couple came down the front steps of the temple, I inquired whether I could help them in any way. The young woman spoke up and said, “Yes. What about this ‘marriage for eternity’ to which reference was made in one of the rooms?” We sat on a bench under the ancient oak that stood near the gate. The wedding band on her finger indicated that they were married, and the manner in which she gripped her husband’s hand evidenced their affection one for another.
“Now to your question,” I said. “I suppose you were married by the vicar.”
“Yes,” she responded, “just three months ago.”
“Did you realize that when the vicar pronounced your marriage he also decreed your separation?”
“What do you mean?” she quickly retorted.
“You believe that life is eternal, don’t you?”
“Of course,” she replied.
I continued, “Can you conceive of eternal life without eternal love? Can either of you envision eternal happiness without the companionship of one another?”
“Of course not,” came the ready response.
“But what did the vicar say when he pronounced your marriage? If I remember the language correctly, he said, among other things, ‘in sickness and in health, for richer or for poorer, for better or for worse, till death do ye part.’ He went as far as he felt his authority would permit him and that was till death separates you. In fact, I think that if you were to question him, he would emphatically deny the existence of marriage and family beyond the grave.
“But,” I continued, “the Father of us all, who loves His children and wants the best for them, has provided for a continuation, under proper circumstances, of this most sacred and ennobling of all human relationships, the relationships of marriage and family.
“In that great and moving conversation between the Savior and His Apostles, Peter declared, ‘Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God,’ and the Lord responded, ‘Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.’ The Lord then went on to say to Peter and his associates, ‘And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven’ (see Matt. 16:13–19).
“In that marvelous bestowal of authority, the Lord gave to His Apostles the keys of the holy priesthood, whose power reaches beyond life and death into eternity. This same authority has been restored to the earth by those same Apostles who held it anciently, even Peter, James, and John.” I continued by saying that following the dedication of the temple on the following Sunday, those same keys of the holy priesthood would be exercised in behalf of the men and women who come into this sacred house to solemnize their marriage. They will be joined in a union which death cannot dissolve and time cannot destroy.
Such was my testimony to this young couple in England.

“I’d like to say that I grew up in the Church,” says Bert, “but I didn’t. I’m considered a convert by Church standards, because I wasn’t baptized until I was twelve, although I went to Primary. I came from a part-member family.”
Bert’s father, a tough, determined, highly-respected police officer, refused to give permission for his son’s baptism; then, “when I was twelve, I really got emphatic. He finally consented, and my brother and I were both baptized. I was ordained a deacon shortly after that.” Within a year, however, Bert was enrolled in a military boarding school, complete with its own non-denominational Protestant church. During the next five years, he recalls, the influence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “just started fading away.”
Amanda was not a member of the Church when she and Bert met, nor was she a Latter-day Saint when they married a few years later. Bert had become somewhat active during his air force training in California; but, he says, “things were moving slowly for me.” Shortly after their marriage, however, “my life started to change because of her.
“We were married after I was commissioned as an officer in the air force.” (Amanda, by this time, had earned a degree in secondary education from the University of Hawaii.) “For a while we lived in California; then we moved to Kansas after some air force training in Texas. Two weeks after we arrived in Kansas, I think the Lord felt it was time that Amanda found out about the Church. Although we had been attending meetings, we hadn’t gotten really serious about the Church.
Bert was sent to Greenland for 109 days, and since the couple had not yet found an apartment in Kansas, Amanda stayed with Bert’s cousin and his wife. The relatives were active Church members, and they and the stake missionaries began encouraging Amanda to schedule her baptism for the same day as the cousin’s eight-year-old daughter’s.
Amanda was unhappy about the situation. “I didn’t think they should know when I was going to be ready; but they said they knew, and they had set the date.”
“I felt a little bad about that,” says Bert, remembering the letter Amanda sent him at the time. “I was a little embarrassed, because that was my church. But then the next week I got another letter saying, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t wait any longer. I’m being baptized Saturday.’”
“They did know,” smiles Amanda. “I was ready.”
Following Amanda’s conversion, Bert began to progress in the Church as well. He was ordained a priest, then an elder, and the DuPonts were soon sealed in the temple.
Still, Bert had questions. “I’m not ashamed to admit it—I had some doubts about the Church, and one of them concerned the reality of a modern-day prophet.” In time, Bert would receive that testimony in a very personal way—from a prophet of God himself.
Along with continuing spiritual growth came additional Church responsibilities, the adoption of two sons, and rapid professional advancement. As a colonel in the air force, Bert was known and respected for his integrity, willingness to work, and his ability to get the job done. Such a reputation made him a top candidate for assignment in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the early 1970s as an adviser to that country’s military services. He was offered the position, but the decision to accept or refuse it was his. “I looked at a Church directory to see if the Church was there,” he says. “There were two stakes, so I thought, ‘Well, we’ll go.’” Then he and Amanda went to Washington, D.C., where he took an intensive six-month course in Spanish language and culture.
But then came a telephone call for Bert from his superiors. “They said, ‘We need you more in Bogota, Colombia, than we do in Montevideo, so we are changing your assignment.’ I could find no Church listings for Colombia, so I refused, and there was nothing they could say to change my mind.
“Then one day I had another telephone call from an officer. I tried to explain to him that I was a member of the Church and why I didn’t want to go to Colombia. It turned out that he was a member of the Church, the senior president of the seventies in his stake, and he said, ‘Brother DuPont, have you ever thought that maybe the Lord has a job for you to do in Colombia?’ It was the first time we had thought of it like that. We decided that we would go.”
Once in Colombia, the DuPonts found that the Lord did indeed have a job for them—several jobs, in fact. “I really feel,” says Bert, “though I didn’t feel that way at the time, that we were sent there to help with the Church. When the Church moves into a new area, the people who are converted are not the bank presidents or the university professors; they are the humblest and the poorest people. And all we had there were missionaries from the United States, who often weren’t accepted by the people. I was somewhat different because of my rank in the air force; being in the military helped. And I wasn’t white; that helped, too. Missionaries would tell the people something, and they wouldn’t believe it; but if we walked in the door and said the same thing, they would listen.”
Soon after the DuPonts arrived in Bogota, Bert was called to be a counselor in the district presidency; later he served as a branch president in Bogota. Amanda, warmly interested in her Colombian sisters, learned the language and was called to assume leadership responsibilities in the Relief Society and Young Women organizations. Both the DuPonts were loved and honored for their commitment to the gospel and their daily acts of Christian service.
A good part of their service embraced the missionary effort; still developing in Colombia some twelve years ago, the Church needed all the strong testimonies and good examples it could get. One returned missionary who served in Colombia recalls that the DuPonts were “great examples for the Saints. They demonstrated what home teaching and visiting teaching really were; what home evening is all about, and what it means to love and serve each other.”
The DuPonts’ home was a much-loved gathering place for the elders and sisters. Bert remembers, “We’d sometimes have as many as sixty missionaries over for dinner for the big U.S. holidays—Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas.”
From their earliest days in Colombia, the matter of heritage played a significant role in the DuPonts’ remarkable success story. Consider, for example, their participation in the Church’s first youth conference in that country. Invited to provide some Hawaiian entertainment, they drove ten hours over a tortuous mountain road to attend the conference.
Once there, Bert was asked to speak. “As I looked out into that group—the leaders and the youth—I was struck by the impression that it was like I was in Hawaii. They all looked like my relatives; their Indian background matched up with the Hawaiians and the Polynesians. So I decided I would tell them about Hagoth, the Nephite shipbuilder; I started out talking about that, and about how they looked like my uncles and aunts back in Hawaii. Our relationship with them grew from that. I told them, ‘When I say hermanos y hermanas to you, I don’t mean brothers and sisters only in the gospel; I really mean that we have a blood relationship—the blood of Israel is here.’”
The “blood of Israel” image became still more personal when Bert and Amanda invited his parents to visit them in Bogota. It was a new beginning.
“My dad was a good man,” reflects Bert, “but we couldn’t convince him to join the Church—even though whenever he visited us, he would comment about the happiness we had in our family, and how he wished the other children could have it.”
Late one night during his parents’ visit, Bert was awakened. “I was prompted,” he recalls, “to go and challenge my dad—again—to be baptized, even though he had refused many times before. I woke Amanda (I always have to confer with her, because she’s got the Spirit!), told her my feeling, and she said, ‘Well, I guess you’d better go do it.’ So I went into his room … it was like Daniel going into the lions’ den.”
Bert woke his father, bore testimony, issued the challenge. The response? “My dad put his arms around me and hugged me and cried. He had been shot, stabbed, and injured many times during his life as a police officer, and he had never before shed a tear as far as I knew.”
Within weeks, Brother DuPont had fully embraced the gospel. “The missionaries from the U.S. could not teach him in English,” Bert explains, “because they only knew their discussions in Spanish. So I interpreted for them. My parents came to church with us every Sunday even though they couldn’t understand what was going on because everything was spoken in Spanish. But evidently my father could feel something—and I believe it was the spirit of the people. There was standing room only the day he was baptized.”
It wasn’t until 1975, after Bert and Amanda had returned to Hawaii, that Bert’s testimony of the living prophet was solidly confirmed. Bert had been asked to assist with security measures for President Spencer W. Kimball who was making a short visit to Bogota. Bert’s description of the experience is a moving testimony of the prophet’s influence:
“President Kimball shook my hand, and it felt like electricity going up my arm. He looked into my eyes, and that was it; I knew. We were together a good deal of the time, and it was the most wonderful experience.
“We had family home evening at the mission home, and I was the only one without my family. I sat right next to President Kimball, and he put his arm around me. Then we knelt down, and the mission president asked the President to give the family prayer. My whole life changed in those moments; I just knew he was a prophet. It was the full conversion.”
Meanwhile, Amanda recalls with a knowing smile, while Bert was with the President, “things weren’t going too well back home. I was in a car accident; I wasn’t hurt, but the car was damaged.”
“You have to understand,” adds Bert, “that I was a person who had to have everything neat and clean. You didn’t touch my car, because you might leave a fingerprint on it.”
Amanda says their two sons, “Duane and Doug, kept saying, ‘Oh, boy, wait until Dad comes home and sees the car.’ The day Bert arrived home, they wouldn’t even go to the airport with me to meet him, so I went by myself; there hadn’t been time to get the car fixed.”
But something had changed. “Bert came off that airplane, and I think he was walking above the ground. When he saw me, all he could talk about was what a great experience it was to be with the prophet. He went right past the damaged fender on the car and didn’t even see it.
“When we got home, the boys were peeking out from behind the drapes. Bert said, ‘Okay, when my boys are hiding, something’s happened.’ So I had to show him the damaged fender. He looked at it, turned to me, and said, ‘Oh, Mom, I’m really glad you didn’t get hurt.’ Then he gave me a big hug.”
The stories go on and on. The DuPonts have opened their arms and home to a procession of foster children, less-fortunate Colombian friends and fellow Saints, missionaries whose finances and confidence needed help, and anyone else who can use a warm Hawaiian greeting, a generous sampling of Amanda’s expert cooking, or a gentle but persuasive nudge in the general direction of truth and righteousness.
“We love people,” says Amanda, “and the gospel gives us direction in serving and helping them wherever we can.”

On 29 November 2018, my dear wife, Ruth, went into labor with our fourth child. Although this was an exciting and joyous moment for us as a family, there was some major concern. The pregnancy was at 32 weeks and the expected delivery was to be late January 2019. This was approximately eight weeks early. The thought—and the now-evident reality—of getting our baby preterm was disturbing.
Before we rushed to the Aga Khan University Hospital in Nairobi that night, I said a silent prayer and beseeched the Lord so that both the mother and baby would be protected. As we arrived at the hospital, the doctors warned me of the possible dangerous outcomes of preterm delivery. They mentioned that the baby’s development could be affected due to incomplete time in the womb. In the worst-case scenario, loss of life happens, and mom and baby could be lost. Although this terrified me, I knew that God was in the details. I knew that the Lord would do His will upon my wife and baby. This assurance gave me a lot of peace. I had prayed many times for other pressing matters in the past, and I had seen the hand of the Lord. He had answered all my prayers from the days of my youth. I knew He would not forsake us even in this case however difficult it seemed.
Around this time of trial, my ward, Zimmerman, was split and I received a call to become the bishop of one of the two newly created wards. This was a very challenging moment for me, but I knew that God would provide a way to accomplish this immense task. I could juggle between my new calling, taking care of the three children at home—all of whom were still young—making regular visits to the hospital, and give honest labor to my employer.
From my past interactions with other bishops, it was evident that the calling of being a bishop was considered one of the most challenging callings in the church—feared and loved in equal measure. However, I confidently knew that whom the Lord calls He qualifies and that He would provide a way for me to be a successful bishop as well as fulfill all other responsibilities placed on my shoulders. As Nephi states: “And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know 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 hath commandeth them” (1 Nephi 3:7).
Things went on well and our baby, David, was born weighing 1.5 kg (approximately 3.3 pounds). The doctors said he looked good for his age and that he was not in any extreme danger. He was placed in the neonatal intensive care unit and he responded very well to the care given by the doctors and nurses. Like many other times in the past, I saw the hand of the Lord and His choicest blessing in my wife’s and son’s lives. This experience helped me appreciate our great medical technology and the selfless acts of the hospital personnel. David is healthy and thriving now and has been a great addition to our family. He is a source of joy to us all. His siblings Payson, Precious, and Natasha love him dearly. He is a constant reminder of the greatness of God.

“One of the first things my parents acquired for their home was a piano. Mother sent me for piano lessons. But at about age ten, I decided that I would rather work in my dad’s office than sit long hours practicing the piano. Much to Mother’s dismay, I terminated her plans for my musical career. Of course I have lived to regret that shortsighted action. I have since spent many hours trying to teach myself to play the piano and the organ. I believe my deceased mother would be happy knowing that I now play the organ at the regular meetings of the General Authorities in the temple.”

Upon Bob’s completing his four-year military commitment, his commanding officer recommended him to Harvard Business School. That is where he reconnected with my father, a fellow student. The rigor of the first-year MBA curriculum was known to be very high. A crusty professor started the semester by saying, “Look at the two people sitting next to you. One of you three won’t be here next semester.”

Bob was already concerned about his relative lack of emphasis on academics in college, and his time in the Air Force left him feeling rusty as a student. He wasn’t bookish, to say the least.

Then, early in the first semester of the Harvard MBA program, Bob was called as an Elder’s Quorum President. That responsibility came on top of being the father of two young sons. Without Mary’s generalship at home, there would have been an emotional and academic train wreck. After much prayer and discussion, Mary said, “I’d rather have an active priesthood holder than a man who holds a master’s degree from Harvard, but we’ll do them both.”

Bob distinguished himself as a Harvard graduate. Thanks to baseball and the Air Force, he had “street smarts.” At graduation, he had his pick of business opportunities. In the succeeding decades he held senior-leadership positions in four large companies.