Gospel Story Finder

Trials and adversity are an essential part of our mortal journey. It is the process that refines and strengthens us. If you will allow me, I’d like to share a personal experience of a trial that was a defining moment for our family. May 2001 started off as a promising month. Our second daughter, Mehana, was born on May 2nd, and I had just been offered a new job on May 3rd. As my wife was released from the maternity ward, she complained of some tingling in her ear. We didn’t think anything of it and proceeded for home. As the day progressed, the tingling started in her fingertips and toes and got a little stronger. By the next morning, it had progressed through her hands and up her feet. We went to the Emergency Room to seek some answers. After a battery of tests, nothing was found and we were about to be sent home. Luckily, a neurologist heard about our case and came down to the ER to investigate. Within minutes, Moana was diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare disorder that causes the body’s immune system to attack the nerves. Within two days, she lost her ability to control her muscles which affected her capacity to walk, swallow, and breathe. She was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and put on life support. Her situation continued to worsen and she eventually became paralyzed from the neck down. In a matter of days, we went from feeling on top of the world, to having our world turned upside down.

Although my wife was the one in the hospital affected by the disorder, the weight of the trial was felt by many. I felt like I was being pushed to the edge. I had a two-year old and a newborn at home, I was supposed to start a new job, and my eternal companion was lying lifeless in the ICU full of tubes, and my mind was full of unanswered questions. I remember coming home early one morning after staying at hospital all night. My parents, sister and brother-in-law were at my house taking care of my children, so my mom suggested I go to her house to get some uninterrupted rest. As soon as I entered their home, I felt as if the weight of everything that was happening hit me all at once and I literally fell to the floor and poured my heart out to my Heavenly Father. I was exhausted, scared, and overwhelmed. I don’t remember what I said other than, “Heavenly Father, please help me.”

When I awoke the next morning, I felt different. The worries and concerns were still there, but I felt a reassurance that Heavenly Father was in control, that this adversity was part of a divine plan, and things would be okay. Without realizing it, I started to notice all the blessings Heavenly Father had given us. We had two beautiful, precious children at home. Our families and friends came out in droves to offer food, money, service, and their love and support. Moana’s co-workers donated sick leave, some of whom she had never met. Her students at school wrote get well cards and we had them plastered all over her hospital room. I remembered the ward held a special fast on our behalf the day she was admitted to the hospital. One of the bishopric counselors called and asked what he could do to help. I asked him to fast and pray for us. By that afternoon, our ward had gathered at the chapel, and as a ward family knelt in prayer and started a fast. My dad was asked to offer the prayer. Though I wasn’t there, I can bear testimony that I felt their genuine love and concern for our family. I was strengthened because of it.

My new job allowed me to delay my start date a full month until things started to settle down. Though Moana was still paralyzed, she was no longer on morphine and other painkillers, so she was awake. She couldn’t move her hands and feet, but she could blink her eyes and move her head. The nurses gave us a chart with letters listed in rows and we would spell words. A head shake to the right meant “no,” a blink meant “yes.” We got to be pretty good at communicating and could actually have conversations. It became a challenge to see how fast I could guess what she was trying to say. As the nerves started to heal, and feeling and sensation slowly returned, her favorite phrase became, “I’m itchy.” She started to regain her motor skills, and movement slowly returned in her arms and legs. Soon she was sitting up and learning to breathe without the breathing machine. Within four-and-a-half weeks she was out of ICU and on to rehab. Within another two weeks she was home. She needed a wheel chair for a while, but with hard work, patience, the love and support of others, and the tender mercies of the Lord, she quickly progressed to a walker, then a cane, and eventually a full recovery. I cannot adequately express all the blessings we received from so many people. But I know without a doubt my Heavenly Father knew exactly what was happening, and knew exactly what we needed.

These profiles can have a profound influence for good. Two months ago a young man named Zac—a freshman in college—saw an ad for mormon.org on television in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He connected with the Web site and was intrigued by the profiles of Church members. At our Web site he found the link that informed him where he could attend church. The next Sunday, dressed in a white shirt and tie, he attended church, was introduced to members of the ward, and enjoyed all three hours of meetings. He was invited to a member’s home for dinner, followed by his first missionary lesson. In less than two weeks, he was baptized and confirmed as a member of the Church.21 Welcome, Zac! (He is listening.)

Our family was very involved in community and political efforts in support of the family, so we talked about these things often and had many robust conversations where opinions were shared and debated. As a result, each of our children grew confident in their own beliefs and their ability to express them.
For example, my youngest son took a biology class from a teacher who had been openly hostile to our beliefs. The teacher challenged him, “Does your mother know you’re in my class?”
“Yes, sir,” he responded.
About a month later I asked my son, “How is your biology class going?”
“Mom, the teacher challenges me every day,” he responded.
I was upset. “We can pull you out of that class immediately!” I said.
“No way, Mom,” he replied. “Every day he challenges my beliefs, and every day I repeat what I believe in,” he explained. “And almost every day someone comes up to me after class and thanks me. They say they believe like I do but are too afraid to say anything.”
I was so proud of him for being strong in the face of such direct challenges and questions.
At the end of the semester, the teacher approached him. “Well, I have to give you credit,” he said. “You have done a great job of standing up for what you believe.”
Having all of those family discussions had prepared him well.

There it was, just lying on the sidewalk! I stopped and stared at it. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?” I looked up to see my new friend, Sally, standing beside me. “Look,” I said, “someone’s wallet.”
Sally had just moved to our neighborhood, and I was glad to finally have a member of the Church who was my own age around. “Let’s see if there’s any money in it,” she said, picking it up. “Wow! Have you ever seen so much money in your life!”
My eyes nearly popped out of my head. There must have been a thousand dollars in it. “See who it belongs to,” I said. But Sally was too busy counting the bills in the wallet to pay any attention to what I said. I tried again. “Stop that—it doesn’t belong to us.”
“It isn’t our fault somebody lost his wallet,” she said. “Besides, haven’t you ever heard of ‘finders, keepers—losers, weepers.’”
“But it isn’t ours,” I repeated.
“Don’t be such a baby!” Sally was getting angry. She made me promise not to tell anyone about the wallet.
“Come on,” she said, “we’re rich! Let’s go buy some candy.”
I didn’t want her to be mad at me, so I went along.
Later that night, when I was in my room, Mom came in. “Are you feeling OK?” she asked. “You hardly ate any supper.”
“Sure,” I mumbled.
“Are you worried about your talk next Sunday?”
I had completely forgotten about my talk. It was supposed to be on how the Holy Ghost can guide us.
After Mom left my room, I tried to work on it, but all I could think about was the wallet and whoever it belonged to.
A few days later my older sister, Beth, said she’d help me work on my talk. “What’s wrong with you, Shortstuff—you’re not paying attention.”
I started to cry. I’d promised not to talk about the wallet, but I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Sally and I found a wallet with tons and tons of money in it. We spent some, and now I feel just awful!” I blurted out as fast as I could. I felt better just having told her.
“No wonder you’re having so much trouble writing this talk, kiddo.” She smiled.
“Huh?”
“Your talk is on how the Holy Ghost can guide us, and you’re experiencing that firsthand.”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it—about what you’re feeling now about the wallet. Where do you think those feelings are coming from?” She looked at me, waiting for an answer.
“You mean it’s the Holy Ghost trying to guide me to do what’s right?”
“You’re a smart kid! Now I think you need to talk to Mom and Dad.”
I went to my dad and told him the whole miserable story. He called Sally’s dad, and they came over. I could tell that Sally was really upset with me. My dad had me replace the money I’d spent. Sally grudgingly promised to repay her dad for the money she had spent. Then my dad called the owner of the wallet, who came over right away. Dad told him the whole story.
The man shook our dads’ hands and smiled at us. “Thank you for returning my wallet,” he said. “I was worried about it. It must have been very hard to find that much money and give it back.”
I looked down at my feet and mumbled, “Yes.”
“Well, I’d like to give you a reward.” He reached into the wallet and took out a twenty-dollar bill.
“We can’t take that,” I said. “We should have returned the wallet to you right away.”
The man nodded, put the money back into his wallet, thanked us again, and left.
Sally wouldn’t even look at me, let alone talk to me. But I was glad that I’d told, even if it meant losing Sally as a friend. I felt good inside knowing that I’d followed the promptings of the Holy Ghost and finally made the right decision.
That Sunday I gave my talk on how the Holy Ghost can guide us, even when we don’t want to listen at first. Sally sat in the front row and smiled at me. I think she was as glad then as I was that we’d returned the wallet.
After church we walked home together and talked a lot. I hoped that we wouldn’t find anything else. But I knew that if we did, the Holy Ghost would guide us to do what we should.

One Sunday afternoon when I was in eighth grade, I was playing touch football. We have been counseled by prophets to keep the Sabbath day holy, and I’m sure someone had told me that playing sports was not a good Sunday activity. But I was playing football anyway. Another player elbowed me in the mouth and gashed my lip. I had to get stitches. From that day forward, I committed to never play sports, work, nor do anything else on Sunday that was unholy. I have successfully kept that commitment to this day.

Few residents knew or even noticed the Smiths. But when anti-Mormon writers in the 1830s wanted to smear the peculiar new faith, they came up with affidavits from Palmyrans that called Joseph Smith and his family ne’er-do-wells. But the neighbors who knew the Smiths best held better opinions. One such, Orlando Saunders, went on record to vouch for the persecuted family’s character:
“I knew all the Smith family well … the old man was a cooper; they all worked for me many a day; they were very good people; Young Joe (as we called him then), he worked for me, and he was a very good worker; they all were. … They were the best family in the neighborhood in case of sickness; one was at my house nearly all the time when my father died; I always thought them honest; they were owing me some money when they left here. …
“One of them came back in about a year and paid me.”1

Ultimately, our lives can be healed only through the Atonement. A member described his feelings as he went through the repentance process and discovered the healing power of the Atonement: “The time between transgressing and confessing was terrible. I constantly lived in the knowledge of the terrible thing I had done. I was in a state of deep darkness, depressive and lethargic, first hopeless and tortured by fears, however, never doubting the truth of the gospel and the saving power of the Atonement. I knew that for me there was only one way to get healed.

“To confess to my wife and my children what I had done was the most difficult thing that I ever did in life. Thereafter, the further way of repentance, to confess before my bishop and the stake president, was not so difficult. Finally, I could relieve myself of the burden which I had brought upon myself. I felt relieved with the excommunication and the resulting perspectives.

“What joy it was when I was permitted to be baptized and again could have the Holy Ghost with me. Finally, the promise of the Atonement was fulfilled in the clearest and most beautiful way when my blessings were restored again.

“During the course of years, my wife and I experienced that the Atonement brings relief and healing not only to the sinner, but further than that, it has the power to heal and restore the victim as well. Of this I testify with deep gratitude.”

Although I was disappointed by Brother Kelly’s answer, he spoke the truth. Had I spent high school dating only one person, I would have missed out on meeting people who helped prepare me to recognize my husband when I met him years later. No wonder I couldn’t know the answer to my secret question. Some of my classmates married old friends, but I didn’t. At age 16, I was nine years away from meeting my future spouse!
In the years following high school, I dated a few men seriously until the Holy Ghost confirmed that “the appropriate time” and person had come into my life. I’m grateful I waited for the best time to pursue exclusive relationships and received all I’d hoped for: a sense of belonging in a marriage that could last for eternity, and a confirmation that Heavenly Father was happy with my decision.

I sat alone at the edge of my bed, balancing my thick biology book as I attempted to study for the next day’s test. I slowly turned through the complicated chapter on cellular respiration, my jaw tight as I tried to concentrate. But it was useless.
I looked up at the glow-in-the-dark stars clustered above my bed, dull in the light of my lamp, the sharp edges blurring as my eyes filled with tears. I had done a horrible job that evening trying out for the play. It had been my first attempt at high school theater. Although untrained in the arts of dancing, acting, and singing, I had undertaken the challenging musical tryouts at the urging of my friends. I hadn’t done well. My dancing on the first night and my singing audition seemed about average. But tonight had been the final test, the portion I had counted on for success—a memorized humorous monologue, performed in under a minute, before the critical eyes of the director and audition board. I had prepared for my monologue days in advance, writing and memorizing the script carefully until I was certain I could perform it even in my sleep. But when I had reached the school, I couldn’t think clearly. I was not only nervous but also tired and worried about my two difficult tests scheduled for the next day. I tried to remember my lines, those words that I knew so well, but they slipped from me in fragments and spilled out shaky and uncertain.
A hot tear brushed my lips, and I tried to muffle a sob. Nothing seemed to be going right the past few weeks. Between the recent cold distance of one of my closest friends, the stress of my difficult schedule, and the nagging doubts of applying to college, I was finding my senior year to be nearly impossible. And now, after the embarrassment of tonight’s audition, I didn’t know how I could study or even sleep. I shut my biology book and placed it on the floor, emotions roiling as I buried my head in my pillow.
Then I heard my door open and the concerned voice of my mother. “Do you need a blessing?” she asked softly. I looked up, tempted to send her away. My puffy red face, streaked by wetness, held the imprint of my pillow’s seams. But I knew, even as I pulled myself into a sitting position so that I could see both my parents in my doorway, that tonight a blessing was what I needed most of all. I nodded wordlessly, sniffing a bit as I stood and followed my parents across the hall into their room.
I’ve heard of blessings given by pioneers. And even in modern times I’ve heard of blessings for fire victims, children in comas, and people who are not expected to survive. I had a testimony of the priesthood before that night. I had been given my patriarchal blessing two years prior and knew of the unique truthfulness and love it contained. But as my father placed his hands on my head that evening, I could feel divine power in his phrases, in the gentle pressure of his hands. His blessing swept past my superficial wants into what I needed to hear most. And as he concluded, my heart sang at the power in those words, those simple, healing words that I knew were not his. My father couldn’t remember what he had said, but I could, and my dark tangle of stress and fears had loosened into a soft and gentle peace.
I smiled at my mother, grateful for her inspired suggestion. As I turned around and hugged my father, I could feel in the warmth of his arms an echo of the love of my Heavenly Father and His Son, both watching and caring for me more than anyone else ever could. I felt so grateful for that single modest blessing, those quietly powerful, comforting words. That night I slept deeply for the first time in weeks, unworried and sure of my future as a beloved daughter of God.

When Juliet was a tiny baby, she had severe pains in her stomach and needed two operations before she was even a year old.
One day when she was older, Juliet’s temperature went higher and higher. Her mother tried to make her little girl more comfortable, but nothing seemed to help. Finally she decided to go to the mission home nearby and ask the elders to give her daughter a blessing.
The missionaries did as she asked, and when they returned a few hours later to see how Juliet was feeling, she was sleeping quietly.
Juliet was treated at the Primary Children’s Hospital two different times, but she was never completely well. However, the blessings given helped to make her more comfortable.
Juliet kept urging her family to become members. Finally in March 1968 they were all baptized. Within the Church they found friendship and happiness. They remember with special love Juliet and her testimony and are grateful that she influenced them and many others to join the Church.

Almost exactly one hundred years ago, when the Church already had several stake academies, including Brigham Young Academy in Provo, the First Presidency released James E. Talmage from heading LDS College in Salt Lake City and assigned him to create the plans for what Talmage’s biographer called “a genuine Church university.”46 Talmage was stirred to the core at “the prospect of . . . founding . . . an institution . . . that would merit recognition by the established centers of learning throughout the nation and the world. It was a dream he had cherished for many years.”47 The proposed name: Young University.48

Think of it: just months after the Manifesto had been issued, the Church barely rescued from the jaws of utter destruction, Utah not yet a state, and already a network of Church academies in place, those Saints in their poverty wanted to create a genuine university. This early plan was shattered by the Panic of 1893, but the dream lived on. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Church withdrew from higher education, creating a system of institutes of religion and offering to state governments all of its academies except for our very own Brigham Young Academy, which the First Presidency determined to keep in order to develop one genuine university.49 The dream was still alive.

We are all aware of Hurricane Mitch, which devastated Nicaragua and Honduras last October and November. With terrific force it flooded homes and caused mud slides. More than 10,000 people died and another two million were left homeless. This very strong hurricane destroyed homes and covered streets with mud that seemed as hard as cement.

Almost immediately the Church began sending life-sustaining food, clothing, medicine, and blankets to help both members of the Church and those of other faiths. Once the shipments arrived at their destination, Church members came by the hundreds to unload the trucks and assemble the supplies into boxes. The items in each box would sustain a family for a week.

Our dear President Gordon B. Hinckley, who is the chairman of the General Welfare Committee, felt troubled by the suffering in Central America. One sleepless night he felt a prompting to go and offer his love and support to those who had endured this great loss. The prophet’s visit lifted the spirits and gave hope to thousands. “As long as [the Church] has any resources,” he told them, “we will stand by you in times of trouble.” And I testify to you, brothers and sisters, that he truly is a prophet of God. And I sustain him with all my heart.

Many years ago, I traveled on a small plane with a newly certified pilot at the controls. At the end of our flight, we were cleared to land. But as we neared the ground, I heard an alarm in the cockpit warn the pilot to “pull up.” The pilot looked to the more experienced copilot, who pointed in a downward direction, away from the runway, and said, “Now!”

Our plane rapidly moved to the left and down, then climbed back to an appropriate altitude, reentered the landing pattern, and arrived safely at our destination. We later learned that another aircraft had been cleared for takeoff. Had we followed the instructions of the alarm, we would have veered into, rather than away from, the oncoming plane. This experience taught me two important lessons: First, at critical moments in our lives, we will hear multiple voices competing for our attention. And second, it is vital that we listen to the right ones.

I have written and spoken elsewhere about the greatest loss and heartache of my life, the autism diagnosis of our only son, Samuel.22 Although he was not formally diagnosed until he was four, he had clear developmental delays and challenges with emotional self-regulation from the time he was a baby. Still we were frantic when he soon began to regress: he stopped smiling, would not let us hold him, and began to lose some of the little language that he had had. On the day he was finally diagnosed, the child we thought we would have and the dreams we had for him died. Still, with early intervention, the help of trained specialists, and lots of prayer and inspiration, we have seen miracles small and great. We taught him to smile again, and he learned how to receive our love and better express his own. In March 2015 I ordained him as a deacon, and he now faithfully passes the sacrament each week. This last year, with the help of his dedicated aide, Kelly Snelson, he successfully completed his freshman year of high school. While our worries for the future remain, with love, testimony, and support in our heartache, we have much room for joy.

Let me recall for you the story of Mary Ann Baker. Her beloved and only brother suffered from the same respiratory disease that had taken their parents’ lives, and he left their home in Chicago to find a warmer climate in the southern part of the United States.
For a time he seemed to be improving, but then a sudden turn in his health came and he died almost immediately. Mary Ann and her sister were heartbroken. It only added to their deep grief that neither their own health nor their personal finances allowed them to claim their brother’s body or to finance its return to Chicago for burial.
The Baker family had been raised as faithful Christians, but Mary’s trust in a loving God broke under the strain of her brother’s death and her own diminished circumstances. “God does not care for me or mine,” said Mary Ann. “This particular manifestation of what they call ‘divine providence’ is unworthy of a God of love.” Does that sound at all familiar?
“I have always tried to believe on Christ and give the Master a consecrated life,” she said, “but this is more than I can bear. What have I done to deserve this? What have I left undone that God should wreak His vengeance upon me in this way?” (Ernest K. Emurian, Living Stories of Famous Hymns, Boston: W. A Widdle Co., 1955, pp. 83–85.)
I suppose we have all had occasion, individually or collectively, to cry out on some stormy sea, “Master, carest thou not that we perish?” And so cried Mary Ann Baker.
But as the days and the weeks went by, the God of life and love began to calm the winds and the waves of what this sweet young woman called “her unsanctified heart.” Her faith not only returned but it flourished, and like Job of old, she learned new things, things “too wonderful” to have known before her despair. On the Sea of Galilee, the stirring of the disciples’ faith was ultimately more important than the stilling of the sea, and so it was with her.
Later, as something of a personal testimonial and caring very much for the faith of others who would be tried by personal despair, she wrote the words of the hymn we have all sung, “Master, the Tempest Is Raging.” May I share it with you?
Master, the tempest is raging!
The billows are tossing high!
The sky is o’ershadowed with blackness.
No shelter or help is nigh.
Carest thou not that we perish?
How canst thou lie asleep
When each moment so madly is threatening
A grave in the angry deep?
Master, with anguish of spirit
I bow in my grief today.
The depths of my sad heart are troubled.
Oh, waken and save, I pray!
Torrents of sin and of anguish
Sweep o’er my sinking soul,
And I perish! I perish! dear Master.
Oh, hasten and take control!
Then this beautiful, moving refrain:
The winds and the waves shall obey my will;
Peace, be still! Peace, be still!
Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea
Or demons or men or whatever it be,
No waters can swallow the ship where lies
The Master of ocean and earth and skies.
They all shall sweetly obey my will.
Peace, be still! Peace, be still!
They all shall sweetly obey my will.
Peace, peace, be still!
Too often, I fear, both in the living of life and in the singing of this hymn, we fail to emphasize the sweet peace of this concluding verse:
Master, the terror is over.
The elements sweetly rest.
Earth’s sun in the calm lake is mirrored,
And heaven’s within my breast.
Linger, Oh, blessed Redeemer!
Leave me alone no more,
And with joy I shall make the blest harbor
And rest on the blissful shore.
(Hymns, no. 106.)

Years later, I had a disagreement with a coworker. When he came by our house to apologize, he left a book titled Our Heritage: A Brief History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In it, I read about the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. This story touched me deeply.
I also found a photo of two young men wearing white shirts, ties, and name tags. They shared the gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world. I wondered if there were such missionaries in my town.
That evening I prayed and asked God to help me find His missionary church. The next day I looked for the missionaries. I checked with every person I saw who was wearing a white shirt, but I had no success.
Outside my home a few days later, I saw three people wearing white shirts, ties, and name tags! I ran inside, got the book, and hurried after them.
When I caught up with them, one of them asked, “Can we help you?”
“Is this book from your church?” I asked.
“Yes, it’s our book,” he replied enthusiastically. “We are the missionaries.”
After several weeks of learning about the restored gospel, I was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A year later my father was baptized.
Because I still wanted to serve the Lord—a desire that had remained with me since I was young—I began preparing to serve a full-time mission. What joy I felt the day I received my own call to be a full-time missionary!

As I grew older, I learned about the blessings of doing things that at the time you don’t realize are important and good for you. When I was very little, I came down with a lung disease, but no one knew it at the time. When I grew older, I joined the air force. The doctors saw spots on my lungs. Because of the hard work of pedaling that heavy load, somehow my body had healed itself. I had built up endurance. I had built up strength. The doctors said that the disease took care of itself and that I passed my physical. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to become a pilot.

It was autumn of 1997 and Gabin Mendene had just passed the baccalaureate examinations at his high school in Libreville, the capital city of Gabon. This was a great personal achievement, and he looked forward to a continuation of his studies at the university level. He was hoping to take advantage of a scholarship program that years before had been created by the government of this French-speaking African country. The program sponsored college-eligible students who were accepted at a public or private university anywhere in the world.
Gabin had applied to, and had been accepted at, L’institut Supérieur Industriel à Mons, a technical university in the southern Belgian city of Mons. The government’s scholarship would provide tuition, supplies, housing, and food assistance. He also received a one-way airline ticket for the 8,000-mile journey from Libreville to Brussels. The return ticket would be sent to him after graduation.
For the next four years he studied in an electrical engineering program and upon his graduation in 2002, Gabin prepared to return to Libreville. His program of study was finished, and he had received the last of his scholarship funds. He communicated with the program office in Gabon about his return airline ticket and was surprised to learn that due to bureaucratic complications, funding for his return airfare would be delayed. Gabin was crushed and felt completely stranded in a very difficult situation. He had no money, no place to live, and no prospect of finding even a temporary job since he was living in Belgium with a student visa.
It was during this period of struggle that he met two young men, Elder Roueché and Elder Marin, in Charleroi, Belgium. They taught him about the Book of Mormon and about the gospel of Jesus Christ. “These were some of the craziest ideas I had ever heard—angels, gold plates, and prophets living in our modern times,” Gabin recalls. After a few lessons, the missionaries invited him to go to the Charleroi Ward with them. Gabin protested, “I did not want to go to church with them.” But he finally told the missionaries that he would go to church once, and then he wanted them to leave him alone.
The following Sunday, they met on the sidewalk in front of the Charleroi chapel and walked through the front door. To this day, Gabin remembers the moment when his feet touched the carpeting inside the building. He heard a voice—more of an electrified feeling, really—telling him that this was a place where he belonged. After church services were over, he told the elders that he wanted to be baptized. This happened not long afterward.
Meanwhile, Gabin’s return ticket to Libreville remained undetermined. Fortunately, the kind-hearted Havrenne family, members of the Charleroi Ward, invited Gabin to live at their home in Erquelines, a small town near Charleroi, while his situation in Gabon was being resolved. After several weeks, his hosts insisted that he stay and proposed to have him help with the gardening around the house. “It was a difficult time in my life,” Gabin recalls. “Here I was, a trained electronics engineer with no money and no job—stranded in Belgium, pruning bushes and pulling weeds. But through it all I learned humility and this experience was one of the best lessons in my life.”
By 2005, Gabin still worked for his room and board as a gardener—and he was still struggling with the government of Gabon to organize his return. His Belgian student visa had long-since expired. In limited correspondence with his older brother in Libreville, Gabin learned that his family was very discouraged by the situation and desperately wanted him to return home.
By this time, he had received the Melchizedek Priesthood and had been ordained an elder. He also received his patriarchal blessing. In separate interviews, his bishop and stake president asked if he might be interested in serving a full-time mission. Gabin responded, “Yes, I would.” A missionary application was completed and submitted—and a few weeks later Gabin received his mission call from Salt Lake City. He was instructed to enter the missionary training centre on 20 June 2006—and then report to the Brussels Belgium Mission—a mere 60 kilometers from where he was then living.
Missionary preparation began in earnest and Gabin went to The Hague Netherlands Temple where he received his endowment. He was anxious to serve the next two years as a full-time missionary, but after having informed his family in Libreville of his plans, they became angry with him. They could not understand why he was interested in running off on a mission. “You must return home”, he was told. “After all, we supported you and it is selfish not to return home to help out the family.” Gabin became conflicted and during this personal struggle, he met with President Kevin S. Hamilton, who at the time was President of the Brussels Belgium Mission and who was to become his mission president. He asked for advice and counsel. President Hamilton, told him, “Trust in God—things happen for a reason. Everything will turn out all right, but in unexpected ways”.
A few days before his departure—and in a twist of fate that can only be understood by going forward in time to several years later—Gabin received two official letters in the mail. One, from the government of Belgium, indicated it had recently discovered that he was living in Belgium on an expired student visa and ordered him to be immediately deported back to Gabon. The second letter was from Libreville—and included his return airline ticket.
The stake president recommended that Gabin fly home and then he would work with the missionary department in Salt Lake City to get things sorted out. So, in the spring of 2006—nine years after first having left his family in Libreville—Gabin was finally going home. He packed a suitcase, and among his personal possessions were two copies of the Book of Mormon, his mission call, DVDs of both 2004 general conferences, his patriarchal blessing, a few tithing slips, and some temple garments.
Over the next few weeks, the stake president in Charleroi worked with the missionary department in Salt Lake City to resolve this unusual situation. Things became even more complicated because in 2006 the Church was not officially recognized by the government of Gabon and no ward or stake was organized in the country. Gabin, now living in Gabon, had no local priesthood leader. The Belgian government was not prepared to issue a missionary visa due to the expiration of the student visa. Finally, a decision was made to cancel his mission call. Gabin was home to stay.
He moved in with his older brother, and during that year, found a job as an electronics technician in a local business. The dreams of his higher education were beginning to come true.
With no organized Church unit in Libreville, Gabin held unofficial meetings on Sundays and family home evenings on Mondays at his home. Some friends and a few family members attended with interest. Gabin would teach from the Book of Mormon and they would watch 2004 general conference sessions.
Throughout this time, Internet services inside Gabon were unreliable and costly—and accessing websites outside the country was almost impossible. From time to time, Gabin was able to access Church websites and download a general conference talk or two. These he would print out and add to his Sunday “lesson plans”.
In 2008, he met Fleur and fell deeply in love. Gabin remembers, “I found a girl!” Fleur had a daughter, Eve, and he fell in love with her, too. Fleur and Eve usually attended a local Protestant congregation, but throughout their courtship, he taught them missionary lessons. They started attending his Sunday meetings and family home evenings on Mondays. Gabin and Fleur were married in 2013 in a civil ceremony.
At the beginning of 2014, Gabin found an article online reporting that Elder David A. Bednar, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, had a few months earlier been in Libreville. It was just after the Gabonese government had officially recognized the Church and had permitted the beginning of missionary activities. Elder Bednar had dedicated the country of Gabon for the preaching of the gospel and he had organized the Libreville Branch. Gabin was stunned. For more than eight years he had likely been the only endowed member of the Church living in Gabon and suddenly there was a branch organized in his home city.
Using an email address found in the article, Gabin wrote to the Africa Southeast Area office, asking questions about the Church situation in Libreville. Elie Monga, president of the Brazzaville mission in the Republic of Congo, was informed and a few days later, while at work, Gabin received a visit from Elder Michael Moody, the first senior missionary to serve in Gabon.
After their initial greeting, Gabin said to Elder Moody, “I have a few questions. First, where can I pay my tithing?” For more than eight years, Gabin had carefully kept his tithing money in a small box.
“Second,” he asked, “Where can I buy new temple garments? Eight years ago, I brought a few to Libreville, and every night since I have been carefully hand washing them.” Elder Moody went to the car, opened his suitcase, and gave Gabin a brand-new pair of garments that he had been prompted to pack in his travel case that morning.
The next Sunday, Gabin, Fleur, Eve, Gabin’s nephew Yann, plus Annaïck and Pauline, Fleur’s nieces were six of the ten people sitting in the Libreville Branch sacrament meeting. Fleur was taught the missionary lessons and shortly afterward was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church. And so were Eve, Yann, Annaïck, and Pauline.
In 2015, Gabin adopted Eve. And later that year the three of them—Gabin, Fleur, and Eve—flew to Johannesburg, South Africa, where this unlikely story concludes with significant eternal consequences. Fleur received her endowment, she and Gabin were sealed together, and Eve was sealed to them both in the Johannesburg South Africa Temple.
In 2016, Elie Monga, president of the Republic of Congo Brazzaville Mission, travelled to Libreville to preside over a division of the Libreville Branch. Gabin Mendene was called to serve as president of the Libreville 2nd Branch. Shortly afterward, while attending district conference, Elder Kevin S. Hamilton—former Brussels Belgium mission president and now a General Authority Seventy and president of the Africa Southeast Area—looked out from his seat on the rostrum. And sitting there in the middle of the congregation was someone he had not seen in ten years—a patient man with an extraordinary conversion story and a church pioneer in Africa—Gabin from Gabon.

I sat in an unfamiliar chapel on Sunday while visiting another ward with my dad. What wasn’t unfamiliar, however, was my grumpy 9:00 A.M. attitude. Sacrament meeting began, and the organist played the introduction to the opening hymn. I leafed through the hymnbook pages and found the right hymn about halfway through the first verse.
Rather than using the little energy I had on singing, I began listening to others around me. Right in front of me was a woman that I noticed because her rusty, scratchy, off-tune voice could be heard over the clear voices of the congregation. Not only did she sound terrible, but she sang as loudly as she possibly could. Embarrassed for her, I looked around me to see if anyone else had noticed. No one else seemed to be bothered by her, and so I turned my attention back to my hymnbook and tried to ignore the unpleasant sound.
I found it was impossible to ignore her, however, and I became more and more irritated. “Somebody should just tell her to stop singing,” I thought to myself. “How is the Spirit supposed to be here with that kind of racket going on.” I again tried to focus on the words that were on the page in front of me and began singing, hoping I could drown her out.
“Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee, How great thou art! …” The power and depth of these words suddenly struck me, and I began to feel incredibly guilty as I realized that this woman had more right than I did to be singing this song. I’m sure she could tell that her voice didn’t blend with the congregation. Yet instead of letting that stop her, she was determined to sing her praises to Heavenly Father. The meaning of the words were more important to her than what she sounded like. Rather than keeping the Spirit away, she was actually bringing a spirit into the meeting for those who had the right attitude and could recognize it.
Hymns have a completely different meaning for me now. Whenever I hear unpleasant sounds from a singer somewhere in the congregation, I pay special attention to the words and realize that I shouldn’t be singing hymns just because it’s what I’m expected to do, but that I should be trying to show my Heavenly Father my respect and gratitude towards him.

A simple thing happened many years ago that I have always remembered because it caused me to think about the Savior’s mission. Although it was just a childish incident, it has some meaning. It happened when our twins were only about five years old. They were just learning to ride their bicycles. As I glanced out the window, I saw them speeding down the street on their bikes going very fast! Perhaps they were going a little too fast for their level of ability, because all of a sudden Adam had a terrible crash! He was tangled up in the wreck, and all I could see was a twist of handlebars and tires and arms and legs. His little twin brother, Aaron, saw the whole thing happen, and immediately he skidded to a stop and jumped off his bike. He threw it down and ran to the aid of his brother, whom he loved very much. These little twins truly were of one heart. If one hurt, so did the other. If one got tickled, they both laughed. If one started a sentence, the other could complete it. What one felt, the other did also. So it was painful for Aaron to see Adam crash! Adam was a mess. He had skinned knees, he was bleeding from a head wound, his pride was damaged, and he was crying. In a fairly gentle five-year-old way, Aaron helped his brother get untangled from the crash, he checked out the wounds, and then he did the dearest thing. He picked his brother up and carried him home. Or tried to. This wasn’t very easy because they were the same size, but he tried. And as he struggled and lifted and half-dragged, half-carried his brother along, they finally reached the front porch. By this time, Adam, the injured one, was no longer crying, but Aaron, the rescuer, was. When asked, “Why are you crying, Aaron?” he said simply, “Because Adam hurts.” And so he had brought him home to help, home to someone who knew what to do, to someone who could cleanse the wounds, bind them up, and make them better—home to love.