Gospel Story Finder

Carolina affirms that the gospel has increased her love for her Heavenly Father and for other people. One Sunday while she was taking a taxi to church, the driver became interested in the books she was carrying—her standard works. Their polite conversation grew cordial, and after arriving at the meetinghouse, Carolina invited him to attend services with her and to meet the missionaries. As he learned about the Church, the taxi driver, Luis Campos, was deeply impressed with the importance given to the law of chastity and with the idea of a living prophet. Two months later he was baptized.

This is the testimony of two wonderful young people I met recently in Mexico, Brother and Sister Alvarez. They told me that since they were baptized eight months ago, rather than the estrangement from family and friends they had feared, they were finding a new love and respect being given to them, besides all the wonderful new friends that they had found among their brothers and sisters in the Church. They had prospered materially, and above all they had found a peace and nearness to their Heavenly Father that they had never known before.

Staff meeting in the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission offices had just ended when the phone rang. Elder Olson, who was working in New Orleans, sounded near panic. His junior companion, Elder Freeman, had been run over by an 18-wheel truck and was on his way to the hospital. Unable to contact his zone leaders, Elder Olson was calling his mission president to find out what to do.
I reassured him that within two hours my wife and I would join him. When we got to the hospital, we were greeted by Sister Margaret Simmons who works as a nurse in the facility. She described the damage Elder Freeman had sustained. His pelvis was broken in two places and cracked in a third. He had a ruptured spleen, cracked and broken ribs, a broken hip, and a massive blood clot lodged in the intestinal area, along with many lesser injuries.
More than an hour passed before Elder Freeman was wheeled out of surgery into the intensive care unit. “I’ve done all I can,” the doctors said. “If he can make it through the next 24 hours, he might have a chance to live, but there is little hope of that.”
A bone specialist arrived to put Elder Freeman in traction. When he was finished, I pulled him aside to ask for information I would need in making a full report to Salt Lake City. The specialist told me the breaks were clean, as if the bones had been snapped in half. Proper healing would take time—intensive care for a week, traction for eight weeks, six months to a year of waiting and analysis before a decision could be made about whether or not he would ever walk again.
I asked for permission to visit my young missionary and give him a priesthood blessing. Permission was granted, and I joined five concerned elders in a circle around him. His companion anointed him, and I pronounced the blessing, feeling inspired that he would heal and live. As we lifted our hands from his head, he roused and looked up at me. “I don’t have to go home do I, President Lemmon?” he said. What faith! I replied simply, “You haven’t finished your mission yet.”
As we left the room, I noticed the doctors standing nearby. They had a look of puzzlement on their faces; it was, perhaps, the first time they had seen the power of God’s priesthood at work. Sister Simmons pulled me aside and said they had all watched intently and listened silently as the blessing was performed.
On the third day in the hospital, Elder Freeman was released from intensive care, getting out five days earlier than predicted. The next few weeks he spent entangled in traction equipment designed to pull his bones back to their normal positions. Even though in extreme discomfort, he used his time to memorize the missionary discussions, to teach hospital employees about the gospel, and to share his testimony of the restoration with them. Everyone knew who he was, even the hospital president.
During the sixth week following the accident, Elder Freeman was released from the hospital and came to serve on the mission office staff in Baton Rouge. When he drove into the driveway, he got out of the car and, using crutches, walked into my office. Again he had beaten the doctor’s prediction—this time by close to nine months—even though he had lost so much weight he had to put his scriptures under his belt to help hold his pants up!
After one month’s service in the office, Elder Freeman asked to be reassigned. I sent him to Baker, Louisiana, as a district leader. Shortly after his arrival there, he used his crutches for the last time. Elder Freeman is now in Hammond, Louisiana, serving as a zone leader. When he walks or runs, it is with a slight limp, but he enjoys a normal range of activities.
Elder Matthew Freeman is a living example of the power of the priesthood, and a walking example of the power of faith. I thank the Lord for the priesthood, and I thank him for fine young men like Elder Freeman, who serve with all their might, mind, and strength.

Elder Byron J. Gilbert, a missionary, reported that in 1992 he and his wife, Emma, traveled from Nairobi to Chyulu to teach and interview eight candidates for baptism, but 75 people came for the discussion. During church, they had to fill the sacrament trays three times.9 Another missionary, Sister Linda Leavitt, who served in Chyulu for more than a year, said that many who desired to join the Church waited three months before their names could be placed on a waiting list to be taught the missionary discussions. During the three-month period, all attended church and most lived the law of tithing, kept the Word of Wisdom, and fasted.10

In closing may I share with you an example of one who determined early in life what his goals would be. I speak of Brother Clayton M. Christensen, a member of the Church who is a professor of business administration in the business school at Harvard University.

When he was 16 years old, Brother Christensen decided, among other things, that he would not play sports on Sunday. Years later, when he attended Oxford University in England, he played center on the basketball team. That year they had an undefeated season and went through to the British equivalent of what in the United States would be the NCAA basketball tournament.

They won their games fairly easily in the tournament, making it to the final four. It was then that Brother Christensen looked at the schedule and, to his absolute horror, saw that the final basketball game was scheduled to be played on a Sunday. He and the team had worked so hard to get where they were, and he was the starting center. He went to his coach with his dilemma. His coach was unsympathetic and told Brother Christensen he expected him to play in the game.

Prior to the final game, however, there was a semifinal game. Unfortunately, the backup center dislocated his shoulder, which increased the pressure on Brother Christensen to play in the final game. He went to his hotel room. He knelt down. He asked his Heavenly Father if it would be all right, just this once, if he played that game on Sunday. He said that before he had finished praying, he received the answer: “Clayton, what are you even asking me for? You know the answer.”

He went to his coach, telling him how sorry he was that he wouldn’t be playing in the final game. Then he went to the Sunday meetings in the local ward while his team played without him. He prayed mightily for their success. They did win.

That fateful, difficult decision was made more than 30 years ago. Brother Christensen has said that as time has passed, he considers it one of the most important decisions he ever made. It would have been very easy to have said, “You know, in general, keeping the Sabbath day holy is the right commandment, but in my particular extenuating circumstance, it’s okay, just this once, if I don’t do it.” However, he says his entire life has turned out to be an unending stream of extenuating circumstances, and had he crossed the line just that once, then the next time something came up that was so demanding and critical, it would have been so much easier to cross the line again. The lesson he learned is that it is easier to keep the commandments 100 percent of the time than it is 98 percent of the time.13

I discovered the following scripture during the years my husband was not a member of the Church: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.” (John 7:17.)
I took great comfort in knowing that in many ways my husband was doing God’s will. We had home evening, we stored a year’s supply of food, and he encouraged my children and me in church attendance and service. That scripture helped me realize that someday my husband would gain the testimony that what he was doing actually was God’s will.
He eventually did realize it and was baptized. Now this scripture reminds me that the more I live the gospel, the more assuredly I know it is of God.

A few years ago, while my wife, Anita, and I were serving in the Arkansas Little Rock Mission, I went out to teach with two young missionaries. During the lesson, the good brother we were teaching said, “I have been to your church; why do you have to eat bread and drink water every Sunday? In our church, we do it twice a year, on Easter and Christmas, and that is very meaningful.”

We shared with him that we are commanded to “meet together oft to partake of bread and wine” (Moroni 6:6; see also D&C 20:75). We read out loud Matthew 26 and 3 Nephi 18. He responded that he still did not see the necessity.

We then shared the following comparison: “Imagine you are involved in a very serious car accident. You have been injured and are unconscious. Someone runs by, seeing that you are unconscious, and dials the emergency number, 911. You are attended to and regain consciousness.”

We asked this brother, “When you are able to recognize your surroundings, what questions will you have?”

He said, “I will want to know how I got there and who found me. I will want to thank him every day because he saved my life.”

We shared with this good brother how the Savior saved our lives and how we need to thank Him every day, every day, every day!

We then asked, “Knowing that He gave His life for you and us, how often do you want to eat the bread and drink the water as emblems of His body and blood?”

He said, “I get it, I get it. But one more thing. Your church is not lively like ours.”

To that we responded, “What would you do if the Savior Jesus Christ walked through your door?”

He said, “Immediately, I would go down to my knees.”

We asked, “Isn’t that what you feel when you walk into Latter-day Saint chapels—reverence for the Savior?”

He said, “I get it, I get it, I get it!”

He showed up at church that Easter Sunday and kept returning.

A few months later I decided to continue my thesis research by visiting the famous genealogical facilities in Salt Lake City. I arrived in Utah the day before President Joseph Fielding Smith’s funeral, and I went to the public viewing with an LDS girl I had corresponded with while I was in France. I was impressed by the lack of despair at the services.
During this time, the photographer I met in Paris returned to Salt Lake City, and we became reacquainted. I asked him to help proofread my thesis, and as time went on, he noticed my comments in the thesis becoming more and more positive—starting with “the Mormons believe …” and later expressing, without my realizing it, “We believe …”
One evening, he asked if I would like to take the missionary lessons. I hesitated and gave my former response, “I’m only curious.” But there was less certainty in my voice, so he suggested, “What have you got to lose?”
I smiled and said, “Well, nothing, I guess. OK.” Three weeks later, I was baptized, and the wagon wheels turned again as I became a pioneer myself—the only member of the Church in my family. Soon I would be privileged to give many of my ancestors the opportunity to choose to become members of the Church of Jesus Christ.
A year and a half after my baptism, the photographer and I were married in the Salt Lake Temple. Little did he know when he met me how the wagon wheels shown in a French documentary would affect his life.

This story happened in Venezuela.
Ivette ran up the front steps to her abuela’s (grandma’s) house. Her parents came in behind her. It was Christmas, and they were going to celebrate with the whole family.
The house was crowded and noisy. All around her, Ivette’s family members laughed and joked with one another. They loved gathering together to make hallacas, a Venezuelan holiday food. This year, Abuela had promised Ivette that she could help make them. Ivette weaved through the maze of uncles, aunts, and cousins, looking for Abuela.
“Ivette?” Abuela called. “Ivette, where are you?”
“I’m right here, Abuela!” Ivette ran to Abuela and hugged her. Then she looked up, bouncing on her toes with excitement. “What’s my special job this year?”
“We’ll get to that!” Abuela chuckled. “First, let me show you everyone else’s jobs so you can see how hallacas are made.”
Ivette followed Abuela to the table. The delicious smell of onions, meat, and spices filled the air. She couldn’t wait to get started!
“First,” Abuela said, “Aunt Carmen will prepare the masa.”
Aunt Carmen placed a ball of soft corn dough onto a green banana leaf. Then she squished it into a flat circle.
“Next, Ana will add the stuffing,” Abuela said.
Ivette’s older cousin, Ana, tipped a scoop of meat stew onto the dough. She added olives, peppers, raisins, and shredded chicken on top.
“Now your mom will fold the leaves.”
Mom’s fingers gently wrapped the leaves into a perfect rectangle.
“Our job is next, Ivette.” Abuela passed the folded hallaca to Ivette. “We’re going to tie it closed.”
Abuela picked up a piece of cotton string. With careful hands, she crisscrossed the string around the hallaca. “Put your finger on top to keep it in place while I finish the knot.”
Ivette’s shoulders dropped. They’re making this job up, she thought. They don’t actually need me.
“Why can’t I have an important job like you or Mom?” she asked, feeling frustrated.
“Your job is very important, Ivette.” Abuela gently placed Ivette’s finger on the string. “Without you here to keep the string in place, we couldn’t tie the hallacas closed. Then they would fall apart while they cook. Everyone’s hard work would be wasted. We all play a special part in making hallacas—just like we all play a special part in Heavenly Father’s family.”
A special part just for her? Ivette thought about that as Abuela tied the knot over her finger. She slipped her finger out of the knot so Abuela could pull it tight.
“We are all needed in this family,” Mom added. “It’s how we stay strong.”
Ivette looked at her family gathered around the table. Everyone was different. Her aunt told the best jokes. Her mom gave amazing hugs. And Abuela always knew what to say to make things better. Heavenly Father had given them all different gifts, but that was what made them special.
Abuela placed the hallaca in a basket with the rest. They were all perfectly stuffed, folded, and tied by Ivette’s family members, each helping in different ways.
Ivette smiled. Each of her family members had a special place in Heavenly Father’s family, just like they had a special part in making Christmas hallacas. Even Ivette!
She placed her finger on the next hallaca as Abuela tied the knot.
Illustrations by Denise Damanti

A few years ago we would regularly receive on our home phone a number of sales or solicitation calls. I remember answering three of those calls in one day. At the conclusion of the third call I placed the phone on the receiver rather energetically and remarked to my wife that if salespeople were going to interrupt me on a regular basis, I was going to teach them the gospel.

A few days later I answered a sales call and thought, “Okay, here we go.” After politely declining the sales offer, I said, “I would like to ask you a question. Do you believe in Jesus Christ?”

The saleswoman replied, “Why, yes, I do.”

I then asked, “Have you ever heard of the visit of Jesus Christ to America after His death and resurrection in Jerusalem?”

“No.”

“Well, 600 years before His birth, God directed a small group of people to leave Jerusalem and travel to the Western Hemisphere. These people were taught by prophets whose words were written on gold plates. Their words have been translated in our time in what we now know as the Book of Mormon, and this record describes the visit of Christ to them.”

She said, “That is the most wonderful thing I have ever heard.”

A few days later I got another call. I’m on a roll!

After the initial sales pitch, I replied, “I don’t really want what you are trying to sell me, but I would like to ask you a question. Do you believe in Jesus Christ?”

The salesman replied, “No, I’m a Muslim, and besides, I am not supposed to talk about personal things, so I better hang up.”

I said, “Before you do, let me say one thing. Do you have a family?”

“Yes.”

“Do you care about them?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Before you hang up, I want you to know that I may be the only person you will ever talk to who can tell you how you can have your family after you die.”

He replied, “What’s that?”

I said, “I thought you said you had to hang up.”

“Oh, no, I want to hear about this.”

Sometimes you get a little surprise in these kinds of situations. A saleslady gave me her spiel, and then I asked her if she believed in Christ and knew of His visit to America. She replied, “Yes, I read the Book of Mormon every day with my family. I’m an LDS mom in Las Vegas.”

When I was about 10, we were on vacation in Mexico with another family. My friend and I made a lunch and took some games. Then we pushed ourselves out into the bay in a little rubber yellow raft. We ate lunch in the raft.
We finally looked up and realized we’d drifted a long way from shore. We were passing the edge of the bay. We thought, Oh no, the tide is going out! We knew we had to hurry and get back. We started rowing and rowing.
All of a sudden I saw a fin pop out of the water. Right away I knew it was a shark!
I thought, We need to tell Heavenly Father we’re in danger. So we said a prayer and kept rowing.
Soon two other fins popped up. But their shape was different, and their color was lighter. They were dolphin fins!
The dolphins swam around our boat until we reached shore. They kept the sharks from coming close. Then the dolphins drifted onto the sand, and we were able to get out of our raft. Our families hurried and helped the dolphins back into the water.
To me, the dolphins were Heavenly Father’s answer to my prayer. I’ve never forgotten that. It’s given me the courage to pray, no matter where I am.

I am grateful for the opportunity I had to portray the Atonement of Jesus Christ by arranging the room for the visitors to feel the Spirit of Easter during an open house. I got this assignment a month before the event, which enabled me to ponder and pray for the guidance of the Spirit. I prepared myself by fasting, which allowed me to see a picture of my display in my dream.
I chose to use real objects since it could bring the exact picture of the Atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ. With the help of missionaries, young adults and other members, the work got started. We gathered the dry leaves, twigs, branches of the tree and other props. We were determined to give the right spirit to the room with good lighting.
It was the Spirit which guided everyone to feel such reverence. The visitors and members who visited on the day of open house were uplifted and filled with the light of Christ by seeing the room with more of gratitude and love for the Savior who died for us.
This experience makes me feel more closer to my Savior and helps me to understand the Atonement more clearly.

At one time I worked on the immediate staff of a very hardworking, demanding, misunderstood man who became the father of the nuclear navy that provided great protection for the United States at a critical time in world conditions. His name is Hyman Rickover. I have great respect for him. After 11 years in that service, I received a call from the First Presidency to preside over a mission. I knew I would have to tell Admiral Rickover immediately. As I explained the call and that it would mean I would have to quit my job, he became rather excited. He said some unrepeatable things, broke the paper tray on his desk, and in the comments that followed, clearly established two points: “Scott, what you are doing in this defense program is so vital that it will take a year to replace you, so you can’t go. Second, if you do go, you are a traitor to your country.”
I said, “I can train my replacement in the two remaining months, and there won’t be any risk to the country.”
There was more conversation, and he finally said, “I never will talk to you again. I don’t want to see you again. You are finished, not only here, but don’t ever plan to work in the nuclear field again.”
I responded, “Admiral, you can bar me from the office, but unless you prevent me, I am going to turn this assignment over to another individual.”
He asked, “What’s the name of the man who wants you?”
I told him, “President David O. McKay.”
He added, “If that’s the way Mormons act, I don’t want any of them working for me.”
I knew he would try to call President McKay (1873–1970), who was ill, and that conversation would benefit no one. I also knew that in the Idaho Falls area there were many members of the Church whose families depended upon their working in our program. I didn’t want to cause them harm. I also knew that I had been called by the Lord. I didn’t know what to do. Then, the words of the song we sang tonight began to run through my mind: “Do what is right; let the consequence follow” (Hymns, number 237). While I had never contacted a General Authority in my life, I had been interviewed by Elder Harold B. Lee (1899–1973) of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, so I had a feeling to call him. I explained that the admiral would try to call President McKay and would make some negative comments, but everything was all right and I would be able to accept my call. While doing that, my heart kept saying, “Is this going to turn out all right or will somebody be innocently hurt who depends on our program for livelihood?” The song would come back: “Do what is right; let the consequence follow.” True to his word, the admiral ceased to speak to me. When critical decisions had to be made, he would send a messenger or I would communicate through a third party. We accomplished the changeover.
On my last day in the office I asked for an appointment with him, and his secretary gasped. I went with a copy of the Book of Mormon in my hand. He looked at me and said, “Sit down, Scott. What do you have? I have tried every way I can to force you to change. What is it you have?”
There followed a very interesting, quiet conversation. There was more listening this time. He said he would read the Book of Mormon. Then something I never thought would occur happened. He added, “When you come back from the mission, I want you to call me. There will be a job for you.”

Juan’s parents taught him as a child to follow standards that bless his life. These helped him grow and develop his talents. “Since I was little, I set goals in Primary and Young Men to learn instruments,” he explains. “I play the violin, flute, piano, and now the guitar. I like the guitar most of all.”

Juan also set personal fitness goals based on Fulfilling My Duty to God. Over the years he has studied tae kwon do, swimming, and gymnastics, and he was even on his school’s running team.

“I love to learn. That’s why I always took the challenge to learn a new instrument or sport, to learn something more,” he says.

These goals also supported a larger objective. “Everything I’ve done, all that I have studied, all the physical preparation, all the goals I’ve set—everything has been with the object of going on a mission,” he explains. “And going on a mission is just part of another goal: to be sealed in the temple and become a good husband.”

Experience 3: One night several years ago while my family traveled home from a campus concert on winter roads, our vehicle began to slide. Unable to regain control, we spun around several times, went off the road, took out a signpost, plowed out about 20 feet of farm fence, and came to rest in a ditch with the driver’s side wheels in the air. We had barely stopped moving when several other cars stopped and their occupants came on the run to administer help. Miraculously, my pregnant wife, my children, and I were shaken but unhurt and our vehicle was largely undamaged, but compassionate, heroic strangers came to our rescue and stayed with us until we could get back out and return home. They didn’t have to, but they did anyway, and it made a difference.

Milton Soares Jr. and his wife, Irene, are gracious hosts for visitors to the house they built in Recife. They have spent much of their lives in building—building a family and building up the Church, which began here with them.
They still have the first LDS pamphlet they received, the story of Joseph Smith, with a hand-drawn missionary diagram on the inside showing a church built on the foundation of Apostles. Another well-used Church book bears a message that the missionaries who taught Milton inscribed to him as the first person baptized in Recife in this dispensation. The date was 15 May 1960. His wife and children of baptismal age followed him into the Church three weeks later.
Irene Soares was skeptical when her husband first began investigating the gospel, but knowing him to be a good man, she thought that if he could accept it, it must be right. She received her own strong witness of the truth when President Joseph Fielding Smith of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles visited Recife with Elder A. Theodore Tuttle of the Seventy. “I felt in my heart the knowledge that all we had been learning was true and that [President Smith] was a prophet,” she recalls.
In the beginning, when both of their families questioned why they would join this unknown church, Milton and Irene had only their faith to cling to. His family’s feelings toward the Church softened over time. The feelings of her parents and siblings did not, but she could not give up the truths she had found.
Irene laughs when she remembers that “after just one week in the Church, I was considered an old-time member.” She felt a responsibility to meet and fellowship everyone. Her first sacrifice for the Church was to make cloths for the sacrament table. When their small branch moved to a different meetinghouse, Milton built the baptismal font and Irene found herself rounding up baptismal clothes.
Like many other Brazilians who joined the Church when it was just getting started in their area, they planted the seeds of gospel growth for their family. And as in many other Brazilian families, their example has borne fruit in succeeding generations. Their eldest son, Irajá, is just one example. After his baptism as a teenager, he quickly learned to enjoy working with the missionaries. In 1966 he became the first Brazilian elder called on a full-time foreign mission (he served in Chile). Today he serves as an Area Authority Seventy.

The first nutcrackers were made over 250 years ago. A favorite story with German children about how this kind of nutcracker came about goes like this:
There once lived a very rich farmer who had no friends because he would not share anything. He would not even share his nuts and fruits with friends at Christmastime, which is a German tradition.
The rich farmer was also very lazy. He did not like to crack his own nuts because he thought it was too much work. Once, when his laziness was stronger than his miserliness, he offered a reward to anyone who could find an easy way to crack nuts. His neighbors made all sorts of gadgets, but the rich farmer did not like any of them.
One day a puppet maker took his invention to the farmer. The puppet maker had carved a wooden puppet that was painted to look like a local miner in dress uniform. The puppet’s mouth opened and shut, and it was strong enough to crack nuts easily.
The rich farmer fell in love with this nutcracker. His love for the little wooden puppet changed his life. He started sharing his nuts and all his riches with his neighbors, and he was soon loved by everyone.

1834–1914
“God was with me.”
As a girl, she had a dream about missionaries teaching her family in Italy.
When she was a teenager, missionaries taught her family and baptized them.
One day when the missionaries were there, an angry mob came. Marie bravely held up her Bible and told them to leave. And they did!
She and her family sailed across the ocean and crossed the plains to be with the Saints.
Marie C. Guild autobiography, p. 15, Church History Library, Salt Lake City, Utah.

I have known the reality of answers to prayers. When our son was about thirteen, he was diagnosed with rheumatic fever. He had to stay in bed for six months. Because he couldn’t go to school, tutors came to our home. When he wasn’t getting any better, we had a family fast and prayer and then took him to a specialist. The doctor pronounced him well. Although because of the disease, he had been confined to bed for six months, our son stood up then and walked to the car and has never had another problem with his legs.

Trying to protect himself from the cold, Manco hunched with bent knees and pulled his pointed knit cap tightly over his ears. He was glad his brightly woven poncho hugged his body. A fierce wind swept up the rocky canyon, and there was snow in its breath.
Impatiently, Manco shifted his weight. When will Papacome? he wondered. He promised me that it would be today. The boy’s stiff fingers touched the bamboo flute that had been tucked into his belt earlier that morning.
“My son,” his father had said with just a trace of a smile pulling at the corners of his wide, wind-wrinkled mouth, “here is the flute I have been carving for you. Today, I will teach you to play it.”
Manco felt a flush of pleasure as he remembered his father’s words. His father was Túpac, the finest flute player in the region—perhaps in all Peru!
Manco carefully noted the location of each of the family’s llamas and alpacas. When he was certain that the flock was safe, he drew the flute from under his poncho.
Túpac had carved the tiny finger holes and the mouth hole with the greatest care as he hunkered down by the cooking fire in their home high on the mountainside. He and his family grew corn and potatoes on the steep slopes there, and he and Manco climbed even higher each day to tend their small herd.
Manco put the polished wood to his lips. He wanted to send a shimmer of sound—a sound like the ones his father made—into the crisp air. But he knew he could not. He would wait until Túpac returned and taught him how to do it properly. And, he thought, I will someday be the finest flute player in all Peru. Someday my fingers will fly over the tiny holes, rippling like the birdsong I will play. And someday the women will weep at my songs of mourning, even as they shed tears when Papa played for Sinchi, who was called to the land of spirits.
Manco stood suddenly. He saw a small, dark speck descending the white ridge high above him. As the speck grew larger, the boy could see his father’s bright red cap against the snow, his face bent down to protect it from the icy blasts. He was struggling awkwardly to keep the wind from blowing him off the ridge.
The boy quickly scanned the hillside. One of the young animals was missing! Why had he not noticed it before? He had failed in his task. Now he knew why his father was having such trouble coming down the mountainside; now he could see the young llama gathered securely into his father’s warm poncho.
Suddenly Papa uttered a sharp exclamation. His legs twisted under him. Snowslide!
The snow enveloped Papa’s dark figure, and Manco could see him no more. Manco plunged toward the rocky canyon that split the shoulder of the mountain. It would take a long time to descend to the bottom, then climb upward to where the snow had buried Papa.
Manco thought of going for help, but he knew there wasn’t time. Papa needed someone now, and Manco was the only one there.
When the boy reached the snow line at last, his arms and legs were like stones. His hands were bleeding, and his eyes were blurred with stinging perspiration and with his own tears. If only he could find Papa, he would never again fail to perform his tasks.
Searching the mass of snow and debris before him, Manco couldn’t see Papa anywhere! But wait—above the gasps of his own breathing, Manco heard a low moan. Swiftly he climbed higher and a little to the right. He saw a large, rough mound of snow moving slightly. “Papa?”
The boy tore at the snow with his bare hands. First he uncovered the young llama, which hobbled over to join the flock as soon as it was freed. Then Manco’s rapid digging uncovered an arm, then Papa’s shoulders, then his capped head. Túpac’s face was a strange color. His eyes were closed.
“Papa? Can you hear me?”
Túpac’s eyelids fluttered, then closed again. The look of tenseness and pain never left his face.
Manco pushed the snow from around his father’s limp form. He knew that he would not be able to get Papa home—it was too far.
There’s a shelter just over this ridge, he remembered. It’s only made of fallen tree limbs and branches, but it will be warmer there and out of the wind.
As Manco struggled to lift his father to a sitting position, Túpac came to and cried out with pain. But he struggled to his feet, saying, “I think that with your help, Manco, I can make it to the shelter.”
Evening shadows hurried behind them as they made their way over the ridge. A few meters before they reached the shelter, Túpac slumped to the ground, overcome by pain and by his exertion. Manco was forced to drag his father the rest of the way.
Manco laid his father on a hastily made bed of leaves. He took off his own poncho and covered Túpac with it. Then he quickly cleared a space near his father, built a small fire, and set out to get help.
Manco soon found his uncles, who climbed up the mountainside and carried Túpac to his home. The boy’s mother and Cora, his sister, carefully tended to Túpac, cleaning and bandaging his wounds, and giving him soup to eat, and administering medicine. Manco watched anxiously until he saw his father fall into a relaxed sleep. Then the boy went to his own bed, exhausted.
It was late the next morning when he opened his eyes. His father, still in pain but feeling better, spoke his name.
“Yes, Papa?”
“The flock—is it safe?”
“No, Papa. I—I left them on the mountain.”
“You are the man of this house now,” his father told him. “Gather them and care for them. Go. And God be thy friend.”
Manco could not believe his ears. He was “the man of this house now”? But it was his negligence that had caused Papa’s accident. Papa knew why Manco hesitated, yet he had called his son, who had erred, a man. The boy’s eyes stung suddenly. He bent over his father to hide tears of gratitude. “Yes, Papa. Thank you,” he whispered.
Manco stood, feeling somehow taller and older. He would not fail Papa this time. He would care for the herd alone.
Manco put on his poncho, pulled his cap over his ears, and went to the rough-hewn door.
“My son?” Túpac lifted himself slightly.
“Yes, Papa?”
“When you return, I shall teach you to be the finest flute player in all Peru.”