Gospel Story Finder

Duffie and Victor Hurtado’s friendship developed through their acquaintance in the choir, and they eventually married. Singing together in the choir is a “beautiful experience” although it does create some hardships on the family with both parents being away. However, the Hurtados have largely solved that problem as Victor’s mother, who, like Victor, joined the Church in Peru, lives with them. She cares for the two children when Victor and Duffie are rehearsing or performing with the choir.

When a young mother in South Africa recently became ill with cancer, the sisters in the ward rallied around her family, bringing meals almost every day. They cared for her children. And as the young mother became more ill and depressed, her Relief Society sisters took turns staying with her in her home until evening, when her husband returned from work. When she had to go to the hospital, her Relief Society sisters continued to remain at her side. They were with her and her family when she died.
Says one woman who joined in this charitable work, “She left behind a sisterhood greatly saddened, yet unified and strengthened by their opportunity of service and love.”

Preston ran down the court. He caught a pass from his teammate. Swish! He made a basket just as the recess bell rang!
I wish I could have made one more basket, Preston thought as he walked into the classroom and sat down at his desk. He could hear his classmates laughing behind him and turned around to see what was going on. They were making fun of a boy named Jacob. Again.
Preston didn’t know Jacob very well. He knew Jacob liked to draw. The boys were passing around one of Jacob’s drawings and laughing at it. Jacob was looking down at his desk.
I need to do something, Preston thought.
He walked over and grabbed the drawing. It was a picture of a police officer. “Hey, I like this picture. Do you have any others?” he asked Jacob.
Jacob smiled. He showed Preston drawings of a robot, a dog, and a dinosaur. They were good! The police officer was Preston’s favorite.
“Can I have it?” Preston asked.
“Sure,” Jacob said.
That night while Preston was doing his homework at the table, Mom saw the picture of the police officer. “What’s this?” she asked.
“A kid named Jacob in my class drew it,” Preston said. “Some of the boys were making fun of it, so I asked if I could have it. Everyone stopped making fun of him after that.”
Mom smiled and hung the picture on the refrigerator with a magnet. “That was a kind thing to do,” she said.
Seeing Jacob’s drawing on the fridge gave Preston an idea.
“Hey, Mom, you know how we’re submitting drawings to the county fair?”
“Yeah,” Mom said.
“What if we submitted Jacob’s drawing? I bet it’d win a ribbon!”
“That’s a great idea!” Mom said.
“Can we make it a surprise?” Preston asked. “I want to see Jacob’s face when he sees his picture!”
Mom nodded. “I’ll give Jacob’s mom a call to make sure it’s OK with her.”
The next day, when Preston was playing basketball at recess, he saw Jacob sitting alone. Preston walked over.
“Hey,” he said as he sat down next to Jacob.
“Hey.”
“My mom and sisters and I are going to the fair next week,” Preston said. “Want to come with us?”
“Sure!” said Jacob.
The next week, Preston and his family picked up Jacob and drove to the fair. There were lots of fun games and rides, but Preston wanted to go straight to the art booth before anything else.
Preston looked at all the drawings, but there was one he especially wanted to find.
“All right!” Preston shouted. There was Jacob’s police officer. And attached to the drawing was a blue ribbon!
Jacob’s eyes got big. Then he smiled. “That’s my drawing!”
Mom and Preston’s sisters caught up. “Mom, look what Jacob got!” Preston said, pointing to the drawing.
“That’s great!” Mom said.
“And look at yours,” Preston’s sister said. Preston’s drawing of a tiger had won a blue ribbon too!
Preston gave Jacob a high five. No matter what other people said, he was glad they could be blue-ribbon friends.

Not far from here are some nuclear facilities that include prototypes for nuclear submarines. A nuclear prototype is a place that looks exactly like the real thing, only it is in a controlled environment so people can be taught without life-threatening danger. In those facilities, the individuals who man the nuclear fleet are trained to respond to emergencies automatically.

One day during the shakedown cruise of a real submarine, an accident occurred. The testing was almost over, and the ship was at full submergence depth at flank speed, the fastest it could advance in the water. The helmsman noticed they were at a slight up-angle, so he tilted the bow planes down. In that moment, the power went out. The boat locked in a down dive, and everyone knew that shortly they would be at a depth that would crush the hull. There was panic on board. But one engineer began to pull himself along the floor of the engine room to a compartment. He reached in, turned some switches, and reserve power came on. The emergency was over.

Later he was asked, “How did you know what to do? How did you know how to respond?”

The simple reply was, “I don’t know. I just did it.” Can you imagine him scrambling through the manual trying to find out what to do under that kind of pressure? He had learned in a prototype environment like your homes, like this campus with its classes and church environment. When the pressure came, he was ready. You will be ready because of the quiet resolve and determination in your life to live worthily as you learn from this prototype experience.

Experience #1
A caring student asked my suggestions one day of how she could help her inactive sister. This sister had fallen away from the Church and wanted nothing more to do with it. As the student explained her sister's tragic situation, I simply said, "I wish your sister could come to Ricks College. This is such a great place for young people to gain a testimony. I just know that would help." With a sad face the student responded, "Sister Bednar, my sister has been a student at Ricks College."
A sower goes out to sow seed. Some seed falls by the wayside and is eaten by the birds. Maybe the heart that is long and skinny could represent this sister. She hears the word of God. But with no room in her heart for the gospel, she allows Satan to take the word from her heart, and she falls away.

I learned something of preparation many years ago, fresh out of school. A partner and I were pleased when the White House took note of our work identifying and coaching high potential leaders. The president’s staff asked for a proposal from us within a few days to help follow up on the State of the Union address scheduled for the next week. As it turned out our proposal was soon the heart of a Presidential Executive Order mandated for implementation by the entire Federal government. When the request came from the president’s office, there was no time for more preparation.

Recently I listened to a new convert tell in a meeting how he had three Church assignments. First, he put the flag up each day in front of the chapel. He then briefly explained the meaning of the flag to him. Second, he kept the hymnbooks in repair. Here he mentioned how these hymns were so inspiring and contained much doctrine and prophesy. He briefly referred to the hymn “O, My Father” and its reference to a Mother in Heaven. Third, he was a home teacher and explained what this service can mean to both the teacher as well as to the person being visited and taught.

This man enjoyed and appreciated these three opportunities to serve and was blessing the lives of others as well as magnifying his talents.

Our first meeting occurred 30 years ago. I was a newly appointed secretary to the stake MIA. She was a board member from one of the wards. My job was to call the roll at our stake leadership meeting. In those days when we had a standing roll call, I remember a particular evening when I was calling out the various wards. I had no difficulty in making an accurate count of the young men in attendance; then I started on the young women’s roll. Suddenly my eyes met a charming, beautiful young woman. I completely lost my ability to count. I confess to the Church Historian today that those records that are in the archives of the Church are not accurate for that particular meeting.
Eight months later I was kneeling at an altar in the house of the Lord, holding her hand, and hearing the most glorious words ever to be uttered on earth, “For time and all eternity.” I realized that I was receiving the greatest gift of God. I was being sealed in marriage by one having the authority to act for the Lord in uniting myself and my lovely companion together for time and all eternity, if I would but live worthy of her. We had only been married a few days before I found out I had married a woman with great empathy in her heart for her fellowmen. All of those wonderful aromas which came from the air around her kitchen were not all intended for me, for when she would find someone in need, she could not rest until she had made an effort to supply a relief.

Even the physical presence of the temple has changed people’s lives. I know of a young man who was very much involved in the drug scene during the turbulent 1960s. One night as he and a friend drove through a heavy rainstorm on their way home from a rock festival, he looked out the window of his car, trying to clear his drug-fogged brain. He saw the Washington Temple, beautiful and serene, bathed in brilliant light. It had a startling effect upon him. He couldn’t erase that image from his mind. Upon returning to his apartment, he called the bishop of his home ward and asked what he needed to do to get his life in order so that he could attend the temple. With the passing of time, his sincere repentance brought him to the house of the Lord where, in stark contrast to the counterfeit stimulation of drugs, he experienced the sanctifying power of our Heavenly Father.

Sir Thomas More was a victim of injustice and irony. Generously and meekly, just as he was about to be martyred, he said:

Paul . . . was present, and consented to the death of St. Stephen, and kept their clothes that stoned him to death, and yet be they [Stephen and Paul] now both twain Holy Saints in heaven, and shall continue there friends for ever, so I verily trust and . . . pray, that though your lordships have now here in earth been judges to my condemnation, we may yet hereafter in heaven merrily all meet together, to our everlasting salvation. [Anthony Kenny, Thomas More (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), p. 88]
Meekness can be present in moments of injustice and crisis at the hands of lesser men.

One day our Primary visited the São Paulo Brazil Temple. The gardens were more beautiful than any I had ever seen. We learned that through the covenants we make in the temple, we can live with our families for eternity. The president of the temple spoke to us in the waiting room, where we saw beautiful paintings. I had a very warm and happy feeling, and my mother told me it was the Holy Ghost testifying to me that what I was learning was true. I gained a testimony that the temple is the house of the Lord.
Renato B., age 8, Brazil
Renato and his family at his baptism

Regional coordinator for Seminaries and Institutes, Julian Jones, has connections with this anniversary year too. In 1968, whilst attending Loughborough University to become a P.E. teacher, he also came under the influence of Brother Madsen.

“I think I could easily have drifted into a wilderness if it hadn’t been for that seminary year,” says Brother Jones. “I was away from home for the first time since joining the Church five years previously. The challenge of that strong nucleus, enjoying gospel study in such depth, drew me into the group activity at exactly the right moment.”

Brother Jones has since served as bishop twice, baptized his own father (now mission president of the Bristol England Mission), and served as a counsellor in the Wandsworth Stake presidency. “And my final connection with this 20th year is that our eldest daughter, Hannah, begins seminary this year.”

There are many examples that can help us develop the strength to make righteous choices. Mohandas K. Gandhi is one such example:
His mother taught him that to eat meat was wrong, inasmuch as it necessitated the destruction of life, so Gandhi pledged to his mother that he would remain a strict vegetarian throughout his life. . . .
Then Gandhi was taken very ill and his life was despaired of. His physicians tried to persuade him that if he would drink a little beef broth, his life might be saved, but Gandhi said, “Even for life itself we may not do certain things. There is only one course open to me—to die, but never to break my pledge.”
. . . As a result of this trait of integrity, Gandhi’s followers renamed him the Mahatma, or the Great Soul. [Sterling W. Sill, The Laws of Success (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1975), pp. 186–87]

As mayor of Palo Alto, he brought about a number of civic developments and projects that serve Palo Alto’s needs today. But his warmth and goodness also helped him win friends for the Church. They grew to understand and respect the standards he lived by. Still, few of his non-member acquaintances realized the depth of Mayor Haight’s commitment to his church—until one night in 1963.
At the end of a city council meeting, Mayor Haight told city officials, citizens, and reporters that there was one additional item of business not listed on the agenda. “I want to announce,” he said, “that as of tonight I am resigning as the mayor of Palo Alto and as a member of the city council, as Mrs. Haight and I have been asked to go to Scotland for the Mormon Church. The meeting is now adjourned.”
Non-member friends on the city council tried to persuade him not to go, but he explained that the call to service had come from President David O. McKay, a man he regarded as a prophet. David Haight felt the only matter to be resolved was when he would be needed in Scotland.
“The Savior talked about putting your hands to the plow and not looking back, and I’ve thought of that many, many times,” Elder Haight says now. “You don’t look back with regrets, with a sense of wishing for what you had been involved in.”
That day, twenty-four years ago, he put his hand to the plow and has never looked back with regret.

Fast forward 30 years. I was working at BYU–Hawaii and raising a young family of my own. My schedule that year included attending and presenting at a professional conference in Salt Lake City. I had wanted to stay close to the conference venue so that I could attend the early and late sessions, but I had hoped to visit and help my parents with any projects they had for me to do around the house. They lived north of the city in the same home I had grown up in. I arrived early and spent most of the day helping my father replace windows in their TV room. It was a long process with several trips back and forth to the home supply store.

At the end of the day, when we were finished and I was preparing to leave, my father embraced me, thanked me, and said I love you. He was getting older and saying I love you had come easier for him in his later years. I told him that I loved him too. On my way back to the hotel, I reflected on my life and my father’s love. In my mind’s eye, I was immediately transported back to my four-year old self kneeling each night asking my Heavenly Father for an earthly father that would help raise me and teach me the things that are right. Immediately upon recalling that thought in my mind, my heart filled with the Holy Ghost, and I was overpowered by the feeling of my Heavenly Father’s love for me and for answering my sincere prayer of faith. The feeling was so strong that I had to pull the car over. It took me a long time before I was able to drive back to the hotel.

I was born into a good family. My father and mother were Christians, and they raised seven children in love of God, Jesus Christ, His gospel, and love of neighbor. My father was not a rich man, but he was able to provide for all the needs of the family. We lived in modesty and had everything we needed. But an unfortunate event would happen in my father's life, and it was going to change the course of my future.
When I was 16, my father fell ill and was no longer able to provide for the family. He no longer had the financial means to send us to school, and it was a dark period in my life's history. This situation meant that I couldn't go to school for two years, and I stayed at home without furthering my education because there was no one else to help me continue with my high school education. After several months of illness, my father recovered, but his whole life had changed because he had lost many of his material and financial possessions.
All my dreams seemed to end and my whole future became dark. I had lost hope for a better future. I lost the opportunities to continue my studies and become the man I wanted to be—or the man I dreamed of becoming.
But a year after this situation happened, I got closer to my father, and we had a very open and comforting conversation. I asked him if I still had the opportunity to return to continue my studies because education was the only guarantee in our time to be able to survive and provide for his personal and family needs.
My father was very sincere with me, and he told me, “Alfred we have to work hard to save money that will allow you next year to go back to school and continue your path of education.”
The work we had to do was to make the fields—farming. He was a man who was already fielding in the past. He also enjoyed breeding animals because he was a veterinarian by training and career. So, we decided to work the land. It was necessary to prepare the soil for the seed. Preparation meant cutting down trees and grasses, uproot tree trunks, do ploughing, sowing, weeding. We should use axes, machetes to cut down trees and grasses, and use hoes for ploughing, sowing, and weeding. So, everything was manual.
For a young person (my age of 16) who did not live in these living conditions, it was very difficult for me to have strength for this work of the land that requires endurance and perseverance. It was a very difficult job, and my body was not used to this kind of heavy work. So, I suffered from it the first days and months. My hands were wounded and bleeding. I wanted to give up everything. But because I knew the goal I had to work hard for, I didn't stop trying. I learned, I picked up the pace, and I started working the land.
We had made a field of cassava, maize, and groundnuts. But the main project was cassava.
I am not a specialist of agriculture, but I am telling you the story and the experience that I personally lived.
The cassava species we planted would have to wait a year to grow and be ready for harvest and sale. This work took us practically a year under the sun, in the rain, in the cold, and in the wind.
It was necessary work to watch over the land so that birds or wild beasts did not come to destroy our seeds. From time to time, we would check that there were no weeds growing. The field had to be weeded to allow the plants to grow in favorable conditions.
Eventually, God blessed our efforts and our field. We had a very good harvest. We sold our products and were able to save money. Finally, I went to continue high school after two years of inactivity.

I still can’t believe this.
It’s a fine morning in June—the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the bees are buzzing—and I’m standing around in the stake center parking lot with about 200 other people, waiting for rides to girls’ camp. One of the 200 other people is my own mother. She’s going to girls’ camp too. With me.
Please!
Mom’s idea of roughing it is staying at a hotel without room service. Now don’t get me wrong. Mom’s great. It’s just sometimes hard for me to believe we’re actually related.
She likes skirts and heels. I like jeans and tennies. She likes her hair sleek and chin-length. I like mine wild and long. She keeps the house (or most of it, anyway) perfectly straight. I keep my room, well, comfortable. She’s interested in art, literature, and the theater. I’m interested in basketball. She wants to teach English at the community college again someday. I want to be a forest ranger. She prefers the great indoors, and I think you know what I prefer.
Which is why I was completely shocked when she made her announcement over Sunday dinner last January.
“Guess what, everybody,” she said brightly as she helped herself to some steamed cauliflower. “I’ve been called to the stake Young Women camp committee. Sister Kaye (she’ll be the camp director) wants me and Sheila Taylor to be her assistants.”
I felt like one of those cartoon characters whose jaw drops and bangs against the dining room table. Sister Kaye, the original outdoors woman and one of my personal heroes, wanted Mom to be her assistant?
My two little brothers started to hoot. “You?”
“Excuse me,” Mom pretended to be very offended. “Do you two have a problem with that?”
Dad laughed, and Mom cracked a sideways grin at him.
My big brother Jared, who’s waiting for his mission call, got up, walked over to her seat, and wrapped one of his big old bear arms around her shoulders.
“Whatever you do, you’ll do better than anybody else,” he said. “You’ll be terrific.”
Me, I cringed inside.
Later that night as I lay in bed, watching the shadow of falling snow through my drapes, I heard my parents talking in the hall.
“I just don’t know if I’m up to it, Glen,” Mom said.
“Of course you are,” Dad answered.
Pause.
“Did you notice Wendy’s reaction?” Mom dropped her voice. “She didn’t say a word.”
“Look, Joyce,” Dad said, “I’m sure the two of you will manage to have a good time together.”
Mom didn’t answer right away. “She doesn’t even want to be seen in public with me. I have to walk ten paces behind her whenever we go to the mall.”
Dad burst out laughing. “She’s just going through a stage right now. You watch, sweetheart. You’ll win her over. You’ll win everybody over.”
I turned over in bed, my face totally flaming.
For the record, I do not make my own mother walk ten paces behind me whenever we go to the mall. And another thing: I hate the way adults dismiss the way you feel by dishing up that tired old line about going through a stage.
I buried my face in my pillow and talked to Heavenly Father in my head the way I sometimes do when I’m upset or scared.
I love my mother just fine. I promise I do. It’s just that camp is my thing, not hers.
So here it is. I’m going. Mom’s going. Right now she’s rotating among the groups of leaders and girls standing in tight little clusters around the parking lot. She’s smiling, cheerfully asking everybody questions about themselves.
After standing around for about 30 minutes, we begin loading up. Finally. My best friends (Melissa and Amy) and I crawl into Sister Kaye’s big orange van. There’s already a group of girls inside, rocking back and forth singing old Beatles’ songs at the top of their lungs. Sister Kaye sits behind the steering wheel while Sister Taylor sits by her in the passenger’s seat.
The only thing I can think is how glad I am there’s still room in Sister Kaye’s van for me.
“Hey there,” Sister Kaye greets us with a smile as warm as an old quilt. “Make yourselves comfortable, okay?”
Sister Kaye is probably about 50. She has short wavy hair, and she has a perpetually tan face (cross-country skiing in the winter, tennis in the summer) full of friendly creases.
Sister Taylor’s okay, too, I guess. It’s just that sometimes I wish she weren’t quite so nice. I think I’d actually like her better if I ever saw her really lose her cool.
“I’ll bet you’re just so thrilled to have your sweet mom going to camp with you, aren’t you, Wendy?” Sister Taylor asks in her whispery voice.
I smile at her politely as I watch Mom crawling into a waiting minivan.
Sister Taylor pokes her blonde head out the window. “Joyce. Wait a minute. Trade me places right this very second. I want you to ride with your cute little Wendy.”
I practically choke on the piece of licorice Melissa has just given me.
Mom blinks. “Really, Sheila. I’m fine.”
“I insist,” says Sister Taylor, who leaps out of the van, then sprints across the parking lot toward the waiting minivan. “I’ll just grab my things out of the van when we get there,” she calls back to us.
Mom hesitates for a second, then joins us.
“It’s lovely to have you with us, Joyce,” Sister Kaye says in a low, friendly voice.
Then we’re off. The drive to Camp Hunt takes about two-and-a-half hours. At first everybody sings and talks and shouts, but the van grows quiet after a while and I realize people are piping down so they can listen to the stories Mom is telling Sister Kaye. She’s talking about the year she lived in Europe when she was 19. Right now she’s telling a story that even I haven’t heard before.
Everyone is fascinated.
“I didn’t know your mom lived in Europe,” Amy whispers in my ear. “That’s so exciting.”
“Welcome! Welcome!” Sister Kaye says after everyone has dribbled into camp. “I’d like to take a few minutes for orientation.”
Sister Kaye breezes through the camp rules quickly, then reminds us of our candlelight values hike later that night. “There will be ward skits tomorrow night, and testimony meeting the next night.”
I cringe a little. To tell you the truth, I don’t really like the testimony part of camp. It’s not that I don’t have a testimony. It’s just that when there are 200 people in a group and they all stand up, there’s just a little bit of pressure on you to do the same thing no matter how you’re feeling inside.
“And now,” Sister Kaye continues, “it gives me great pleasure to introduce my two assistants—Sister Sheila Taylor and Sister Joyce Evans.”
Sister Kaye pulls down a big quilt hanging like a curtain from a tree limb to reveal my mother wearing my dad’s shirt, sitting at a card table covered with cosmetics. Sister Taylor is crouched and hidden behind Mom with her arms stuffed through Dad’s huge sleeves.
“Time to get ready for camp!” Mom trills in her best stage voice. “Maybe I’ll start by taking a look in the mirror.”
Sister Taylor’s hands fumble around the table, sending bottles of perfume and tubes of lipstick flying. Well, it goes on like this for a while, but here’s a newsflash on what happens. Mom hams! Girls go wild! I fake a smile.
That’s the way things have been ever since we got here. Every time I turn around, Mom’s right there, being funny and chummy—everybody’s best pal.
I don’t know what’s gotten into her.
At home she’s always nice to my friends, but she doesn’t sit down for heart-to-heart chats with them. She doesn’t run around home playing practical jokes on Dad and my brothers, either. Up here, however, she’s turned into a regular maniac. Now and then I can tell she’s trying to catch my eye to see if everything’s okay with me. So what am I supposed to do? Lie?
I don’t want to feel this way, but things are definitely not okay with me. I can’t explain it, but I just wish she weren’t here. Do you think that makes me a terrible person?
Mom tries to get my attention as we all file into the outdoor amphitheater for tonight’s skits.
“Wendy,” she calls and waves.
I give her a little wave back, then sit on the front row between Melissa and Amy.
Our skit, which Amy and I wrote, goes pretty well, I think. I’m just glad we go first so I can sit back and relax while the other wards perform. Everything’s great until it’s the stake leaders’ turn. Sister Kaye, Sister Taylor, and Mom wander out onto the stage dressed like that old singing trio, the Supremes, and start singing this truly stupid song about peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in breathy voices.
Everybody else seems to think it’s funny, but I feel the back of my neck go hot.
Singing’s bad enough, I say to her in my head. Please just please don’t dance in front of all my friends.
Before I know it, Mom’s flipping her feather boa all over the place.
I can’t stand this. Not another minute of it.
“Pea-nut,” Mom gushes, “Pea-nut buttuh!”
Sister Kaye and Sister Taylor back her up. “And jelly! And jelly!”
Before I can stop myself, I’m on my feet. I look straight at Mom. And then I run, stumbling over startled girls as I go.
I head for the road leading out of camp, and by the time I get there, I already start to feel dumb. You know how it is when you’re mad—you feel completely justified. And then once you start to calm down, you realize what a complete idiot you’ve just made of yourself.
A single hot tear slides slowly down my cheek.
I don’t know how long I’ve been gone—it feels like forever. Amy and Melissa are in our tent when I get back. They grow quiet when I crawl inside. And they don’t look at me either.
“Hey there,” I say.
“Hi, Wendy,” Melissa says in a flat voice.
Amy nods.
I plop down on my sleeping bag. “How’d the rest of the show go?”
“Okay.”
Silence.
“Did, did my mom come looking for me?” My voice quivers a little.
“No,” says Melissa, “she didn’t.”
More silence, then Amy finally speaks up. “You really shouldn’t have done it, Wendy.”
I start crying all over again. Amy and Melissa look at each other, then slide next to me and drape their arms over my shoulders.
“It’s going to be okay,” Melissa soothes.
“Honest,” says Amy.
I take a deep breath, give them both one last squeeze, then draw back.
“I’ll go find her in the morning,” I tell them. Crying gives me a headache, but I manage to go to sleep.
As it turns out, the first person I find in the morning is not Mom but Sister Kaye. She’s walking from the mess tent toward the stake leaders’ tent. I’d give anything if I didn’t have to face Sister Kaye right now.
“Wendy?” At least her voice is friendly.
“Hi, Sister Kaye.”
She steps toward me and gives me a big hug. “I don’t know what I’d do without you or your mother. You’re both terrific in your own ways, you know? You, you’re so supportive of everything I do, so helpful and eager to learn. And your mother, she can rally a group around her like nobody else. I needed her so much for that. She’s a real star.”
I know, I want to say. That’s part of the problem.
“Do you know where my mom is now?” I ask.
“I just left her alone in the mess tent.”
“Thank you,” I whisper.
Mom greets me with chilly eyes when I join her there. She’s sitting at an empty table.
“Here you are!” I say in a cheerful, fake voice.
“Yes,” she agrees crisply. “Here I am.”
I take the seat next to her and notice that she doesn’t even look up. I search for the right words and the right way to say them. But before I can open my mouth, Mom stares straight at me.
“Sometimes,” she says in a high clear voice, “you can be a perfect little brat.”
Then she gets up and walks out.
Remember how I told you Mom isn’t like me—that she doesn’t get mad?
Well, guess what. She’s plenty mad right now. At me. Even after a good night’s rest.
All day long she’s gone out of her way not to look at me. And if by chance we’ve happened to make eye contact, she’s given me the kind of brief, polite smile strangers give one another.
My stomach is rolling, and I don’t know how I’m going to make it through testimony meeting. I’m supposed to be helping build the bonfire, but I can’t go. Not until I’ve fixed things with Mom. Not until I’ve apologized.
I left a note in her tent. “Mom, please meet me at 8:00 in the clearing near the camp entrance. Wendy.”
Right now I’m sitting on a log, waiting and wondering if she’ll even come.
“Wendy?”
I practically leap out of my hiking boots. It’s Mom, coming up behind me.
“Mind if I sit down next to you?” she asks.
I scoot over, making room for her, and she joins me on the log. Neither of us says anything for a minute. We just sit there, listening to the wind sing through the tops of the trees.
“I’m so sorry about last night,” I blurt out, tears jumping to my eyes.
“Oh, honey,” she sighs. “We need to talk, don’t we?”
Mom slips an arm around my shoulder and pulls me close. I don’t resist at all. “It’s just that last night when you stood up and stared at me, then ran off in front of everybody, I felt so hurt. You embarrassed me, Wendy.”
“You embarrassed me too,” I say in a tiny voice.
Mom looks truly surprised. “How?”
I shrug. How can I explain it to her without hurting her feelings. How can I tell her it’s tough being the daughter of the camp star, especially when the camp star doesn’t even like to camp?
“I embarrass you because I’m your mother?”
Miserably, I nod.
She sits still for a moment, then laughs softly. “You know, when I was your age, everybody always used to tell me how much I looked like your grandmother. Well, she was an enormously good-looking woman, and if I’d had a fifth of her looks, I should have turned cartwheels of joy on our front lawn. But instead I practically died whenever somebody said we looked alike. I wanted …” She cast about for the right word.
“Space,” I fill in the blank for her. I think I understand now. I think I know why I’ve been acting the way I have.
Mom blinks at me, then smiles like I have given an unexpectedly brilliant answer.
“Yes, space. Space to be just you. I’d forgotten all about that,” she adds, almost as an afterthought.
It’s starting to get dark, and any minute now the testimony meeting will begin.
“To tell you the truth, Wendy, I really didn’t want to come here at all. I didn’t want to leave Dad. I didn’t want to sleep in a tent with a bunch of women. I didn’t want to hear Sister Taylor say the word special.”
I burst out laughing, and this time Mom gives me a full-court grin.
“And quite frankly,” she lets out a long, deep sigh, “I didn’t want to feel pressured into bearing my testimony in front of a group of people I don’t know.”
Mom doesn’t want to bear her testimony either? Imagine the two of us having a thing like that in common.
“You’ve done pretty well for someone who doesn’t want to be here,” I point out, not even feeling resentful.
“Well,” she shrugs, “I figured since I was here, I might as well get into the spirit of the thing. Besides, it’s been fun.”
The moon is just beginning to crest. It’s huge and gold, and it begins to rise like some great bird.
“Look at that,” Mom breathes. “Have you ever seen a more gorgeous moon in your entire life?”
I shake my head. Together we sit and watch it climb the sky.
“Maybe we ought to join the others,” Mom says finally, her voice laced with regret. She stands and stretches. “Come on, kid.”
I get up and shake the stiffness out of my knees.
“Fine,” I say, “but you have to walk ten feet behind me.”
She throws back her head and roars out a laugh.
The sound of it plays like music through the evening air.

Eighteen-year-old Annie Poulsen knows that the art of making new friends requires plenty of supplies—art supplies, that is. Several months before youth conference, Annie began to gather markers, scissors, and glue from local businesses as part of a Laurel project. When the conference began, Annie and all the other volunteers used the supplies she gathered to cut, color, and paste different projects.

“Here in the art room, everybody is sitting down,” says Annie. “We’re all coloring together and having a good time. You don’t even think about the fact that some of us are in wheelchairs.”

When I was an undergraduate student at BYU, I had a number of great opportunities to choose from. All were excellent, worthy options, but I felt a lot of pressure to make the “right” choice. I worried that if I didn’t choose correctly, I would “mess up” God’s plan for me. After weeks of feeling unsettled and confused, I devoted a Sunday to fasting and prayer. Still unsure, I called my brother that night and asked him to give me a priesthood blessing. In that blessing, I was given very specific instructions as to what the Lord wanted me to do. This clarity brought me great relief, and I happily trusted and obeyed.

About a year and a half later, I had just graduated with my bachelor’s degree and was beginning a graduate program in dance. During the first few days of the semester, I suddenly got cold feet. I was worried that what I was doing was self-indulgent and impractical. I already had one degree that didn’t have immediate job prospects, and now I was going for another! I visited an advisement office and learned that I could enroll in a postgraduate course of study to get licensure to teach English in secondary education in just one year. This sounded like a more practical choice because it was shorter and had more obvious job prospects.

Once again, I sought a priesthood blessing to help me decide what to do. I was confident that Heavenly Father would once again instruct me on which choice He wanted me to make. However, this blessing went very differently than the previous one. This time I was not told what He wanted me to do. Rather, I was advised that I should choose the one that I felt would make me happiest. This answer came as a big surprise to me, and I actually wasn’t too excited with the counsel because it put the responsibility of choosing back on me. In my disappointment, I also interpreted it to mean that my schooling and future employment didn’t matter to the Lord.

In the years that have passed, I have realized how wrong my reaction was. I was actually given a gift of love and trust that day by a loving parent who wanted me to grow. First, I was given permission to choose what I thought would make me happy without any financial strings attached. Deep down I knew what I wanted to do, but I hesitated to give myself permission to follow my heart. I now see that my Heavenly Father knew me well enough to know what I would choose and that that choice would lead me to this wonderful career. But He wanted me to learn to trust myself and to take ownership of this big decision. It was as if He was saying, “I know what you want, and it’s a good thing. I trust you. Now trust yourself.”

Several months ago, I heard a grandmother recount the heartbreaking experience of her young daughter who suffered the devastating loss of an infant girl just days after her birth. Amid overwhelming grief, her daughter sought comfort in God’s plan and held fast to the hope that one day she would be reunited with her baby girl. In a quiet moment of compassion, a caring doctor offered words of comfort to the grieving mother. With remarkable resolve, the mother replied, “Do not worry about us. We know where she is going, and we will see her again.” [4]
This kind of faith, holding to God’s promises even in life’s most difficult moments, empowers us to overcome every challenge. It also serves as a foundation that leads us to a life full of deep and lasting joy.