Gospel Story Finder

I was baptized when I turned eight years old, though it wasn’t until the summer after my junior year of high school that I found out what it meant for me to have a testimony of the Church and gospel.
We had a combined stake youth conference that year, and it was held in a beautiful valley. For two days we were given tasks to perform, helped around campsites, and played lots of games.
On the third day, we were given a packet and told not to open it until instructed. After a prayer, we each found a quiet spot not too far away where we would be alone. Once settled, we could open the large manila envelope.
There was a spot, serene and shaded, with a gorgeous view and a log to sit on. I perched on the log feeling like there was no one else around me. I opened the packet and pulled out all the papers inside.
The top sheet told me this was my very own opportunity to talk with my Heavenly Father. Then there was a white envelope, which held a letter from each of my parents. Tears sprung to my eyes as I read the loving words my parents wrote me.
Next, I looked at my goal sheet. It listed a few suggestions for me to tell and ask my Heavenly Father in prayer. There was also space for me to write my own ideas.
There I knelt, eyes closed and hands clasped, and had a good talk with my Father in Heaven. I can’t remember everything that I said or felt. One thing stands out clearly, though. A wonderful truth slipped into my mind.
“Heavenly Father,” I said, “I know—I KNOW the Church is true. It just is.”
At that moment, something warm crept over, around, and through me. I felt so light I could have been floating. Everything seemed bright, peaceful, and perfect. A feeling of love enveloped me so fully I almost couldn’t breathe.
I remained on my knees, soaking in the Spirit for several minutes. When my eyes opened, the world around me didn’t seem real. It was quite a shock to come back to dirt, bugs, and heat. I was happy, though. I gathered my pages and headed back to my group.
Yes, I was baptized when I was 8, but this experience at age 17 truly strengthened my testimony.

Mr. and Mrs. Duck had five new ducklings. Their names were Dora, Dolly, Dinah, Daphne, and Harold.
When it was time for their first swimming lesson, Mrs. Duck took them to the pond. She showed them how to float. She showed them how to wiggle-waggle their feet.
“Now,” she said, “away you go!”
And splish-splash! Away went Dora and Dolly.
Splash-splish! Away went Dinah and Daphne.
Glub-glub-glub! went Harold. And he sank straight down to the bottom of the pond.
“No, no, no!” cried Mrs. Duck, as she fished Harold out. “That’s not right at all! You float like this. You wiggle-waggle your feet like this. And away you go!”
And away Harold went, glub-glub-glub! Straight to the bottom again.
It happened the next time he tried to swim, and the next, and the time after that. By the end of the day, poor Harold had seen more of the pond’s bottom than he’d seen of its top.
When Mrs. Duck told him the news, Mr. Duck roared, “Harold can’t swim? Nonsense! You must have been doing something wrong, my dear. Tomorrow I will teach Harold.”
And the next day he took Harold to the pond.
“You float like this,” said Mr. Duck. “You wiggle-waggle your feet like this. And away you go, Harold! Harold?”
“Glub-glub-glub!” said Harold.
By the end of that day, the fish were getting to know Harold very well.
“Hello again, Harold,” they said.
“Glub-glub-glub!” said Harold, on his way to the bottom.
Mr. and Mrs. Duck took Harold to the family doctor.
“A sinking feeling?” said Doctor Quack, as he stroked his chin. “Straight to the bottom, you say? Hmmm!” Then he said, “I can’t find anything wrong with him at all. He’ll learn to swim soon, you’ll see.”
But Harold didn’t learn to swim, not that day, nor the next, nor the one after that.
Harold didn’t seem to mind at all. He practiced floating when his mother asked him to. He practiced wiggle-waggling his feet when his father asked him to.
And sometimes, because he knew his parents were worried, he pretended to swim in the shallow water. But he always kept one foot on the bottom.
Then early one morning, Harold disappeared. Mrs. Duck couldn’t find him anywhere.
She set up a terrible fuss.
“Don’t anyone leave this duck pond!” she shouted. “Someone has stolen my Harold!”
“I saw a duckling in the middle of the pond,” said a frog. “Don’t ask me who he is. All you ducks look alike to me.”
Mr. and Mrs. Duck dived and dived under the water. They found a rubber tire, some rusty cans, and an old boot. But they didn’t find Harold.
“I shall never hear his little glub-glub-glub again!” sobbed Mrs. Duck.
“Glub-glub-glub?” asked a voice behind them.
And there was Harold.
“Harold’s floating!” gasped Mrs. Duck.
“Harold’s wiggle-waggling his feet!” cried Mr. Duck.
“Harold’s swimming!” shouted Dora, Dolly, Dinah, and Daphne.
And he was.
Mr. and Mrs. Duck watched proudly as Harold swam with his sisters.
“Sometimes things just take patience,” said Mrs. Duck.
“Sometimes things just take practice,” said Mr. Duck.
But Harold only smiled.
Little as he was, he had known all along that sometimes things just take time.

In France Elder Ballard met with missionaries in Versailles. He also stopped to visit the site of the future Paris France Temple, which was announced in the October 2011 general conference.

It was my turn to stop someone and talk to them about the Church. I had been in Germany only two days and I was already terrified of the people and my calling as a missionary.
I frantically searched the street for someone I thought might react positively. I wondered how I was ever going to do this for the next 18 months.
I didn’t want my companion to know how scared I was, so I held my breath and walked up to a woman in her early 40s. But instead of asking her the questions I had intended to, I turned from her and ran. The anticipation was more than I could handle—I had to escape.
When I was finally able to collect my thoughts, the embarrassment swelled inside of me and I desperately wanted to hide. My fear had been exposed, and it was preventing me from being a good missionary.
Unfortunately, as the days went by, my fear did not subside, and I began to worry I would never be a happy, brave, and successful missionary. My fear became the main topic of all my private prayers.
Nothing seemed to help until I had been in the mission field about two weeks. It was a chilly spring morning and my companion was making breakfast. I was sitting on the floor looking up scriptures on missionary work and reading them out loud.
“Doctrine and Covenants 84:88,” I said. “And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also.” [D&C 84:88] My voice broke. My mind raced as I realized the support I had as a missionary.
I started again, “And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up.”
I had no reason to be afraid of teaching people about the gospel. Heavenly Father was on my right hand and on my left, and his angels were around me to make me strong. From that morning on, whenever a wave of fear came over me, I just imagined those angels all around my investigator, my companion, and me. There was no way I could lose with that kind of support.

Since middle school I’ve sold magazines for a fund-raiser. Each year, I tried desperately to find the right magazine for me. Little did I know that the perfect magazine for me was already in my home. I used to just read “The Extra Smile” and then toss the New Era aside. But a few years ago, I began to read more and more of the articles. I found that they were directed to people my age and discussed situations I could relate to. It wasn’t full of degrading articles or beauty ads. It described true beauty, answered my questions, and uplifted my spirit. The New Era is “The Perfect Magazine for Anne.” It just has a different title.Anne Sheffield, Moorpark Ward, Saratoga California Stake

In 1878, President John Taylor called Saints to settle in the San Luis Valley of southern Colorado. Early in the twentieth century, Pa moved our family to that desolate land.
Our new farm was littered with rocks. Before we could till the ground, we had to clear them away. Using a wheelbarrow, Ma and I carted away the small rocks. There was only one way to remove the boulders—blow them up with dynamite.
Pa dug under each one as far as he could and placed the dynamite underneath. He was careful to set each charge in just the right place so that the blast would tear the boulder completely apart. Finally everything was ready for Pa to light the fuse. Mama herded us children out of danger.
Boom!
The first boulder exploded into hundreds of fragments and a cloud of dust. When the dust settled, the boulder had disappeared. I now had to pick up the pieces and fill the hole with dirt.
We repeated the process, Pa lighting the dynamite and I clearing away the shattered rock. By the end of the third explosion, I was growing tired of picking up rocks and wanted to be in on the “real” work—lighting the dynamite. I took a few steps toward Pa.
“Willard, stay back!” my mother called.
I scowled. At nine, I was the oldest and believed I was a man.
As I started back to the homestead, a sense of danger ran through me. A whispering in my heart warned me that something was wrong.
I didn’t understand. I wasn’t in any danger. I was well away from the blasting. Certain that I had imagined the voice, I concentrated on what Pa was doing. Maybe he’d see that I was nearly grown and ready to work alongside him.
The feeling of danger grew.
I recalled the promise my father had made at the time of my confirmation: “I bless you with the power of discernment. Listen to the Spirit. It will guide you and protect you from harm.”
I tried to ignore the voice, but it wouldn’t be still. I could no longer pretend that I didn’t hear the insistent whisper.
I bless you with the power of discernment.
The words were as clear now as they had been when Pa pronounced the blessing more than a year earlier. If I wasn’t in danger, maybe the voice was telling me that someone else was. Ma was hanging clothes on the line, my little sister pulling at her skirts. I grinned at the picture they made. My smile faded as I realized that I couldn’t see three-year-old Hyrum.
“Hyrum!” I shouted. “Hyrum!” Shading my eyes from the sun, I squinted into the distance. Then I saw him—heading straight toward the field, chubby legs churning.
I took off after him, running and praying and shouting all at the same time. “Pa!” I screamed, waving my arms to attract his attention.
His back turned to me, Pa couldn’t see my warning or Hyrum toddling toward disaster.
I reached Hyrum at the same moment the boulder exploded. Throwing my body over his, I shielded him the best I could. Sharp rock fragments rained down on me, pummeling my head, back, and legs.
Hyrum began to squirm. “Heavy,” he said. “Let me up.”
I rolled off. My body screamed with pain, but I scarcely noticed. Gently, I ran my hands over my little brother. “Are you all right?”
He wiggled away from me and stood. His chin wobbled, but he appeared unhurt. “Scared,” he said.
“I was scared, too.” I pulled Hyrum to me and hugged him.
By then Pa had reached us. Tears tracked through the dirt and grime on his face. His big arms circled us, squeezing tight. “How did you know that your brother was in danger?”
I hesitated, not sure how to explain. “A voice told me that something was wrong. I didn’t pay attention at first, but it kept poking at me until I had to listen.” I paused, then confessed the part that stung my conscience. “If I had listened the first time, Hyrum wouldn’t have wandered away. He’d never have been in danger.”
Pa laid his big hand on my shoulder. “But you did listen. That’s the important thing.” Pa took a deep breath. “That was a mighty brave thing you did, Willard.”
“I prayed, Pa. I was praying so hard the words nearly choked me.”
“So was I, Son. So was I.”
Ma and my little sister came running. Laughing and crying at the same time, Ma hugged me and Hyrum. Soon, all of us were hugging and crying.
A sweet feeling of peace settled around my heart as I knelt by my bed that night. My prayers took longer than usual as I thanked Heavenly Father for the whisperings of the Spirit in my heart.

Then, at the July mission conference, President Young inaugurated an extensive, continuing missionary force for the British Mission to supplement and extend the work of the apostles with the help of British converts. He also gave the Saints an inspiring taste of prophetic vision by calling and ordaining a member of the English army who was on his way to the East Indies to carry the gospel there as a missionary. He also ordained 17-year-old William J. Barrett to preach the gospel in the new English colony he was going to in South Australia.

Illustrated by Shauna Mooney Kawasaki
Here comes the Snuggwuzzle to snoodle all doodles!
Mommy, Daddy’s being silly again!What a surprise!
OK, you doodles, prepare to be snoodled!Help! The Snuggwuzzle’s got us!
Off to the Snuggwuzzle’s lair and into the snoodling machine!We will defeat you, you evil Snuggwuzzle!
LaterYou’re a fun daddy.Well, it’s fun having two magnificent doodles and a wonderful wifewuzzle—forever!

Eliza was hungry. Her stomach churned and rumbled so loudly she was certain everyone at the table could hear it. But no one paid any attention. They were all too busy pushing the small portion of greens around on their plates, and waiting for their mother to sit down so they could say the blessing.
It had been a long winter, and the growing season in their small farming town had been too short, leaving little money for food and supplies. Now the Forsyth family was going hungry. For the past three weeks, all they’d had to eat was pigweed. Eliza didn’t want to complain, but pigweed was yucky and she didn’t want to eat it anymore.
“Do we have to eat this again?” she asked, poking at the stringy greens with her fork.
“Count your blessings, Eliza,” Father said in a quiet voice. “Be thankful that you have something warm to fill your stomach. It’s more than a lot of people have right now.”
Eliza hoped she hadn’t made her father feel bad. He worked so hard to take care of their family. It wasn’t his fault that they were having hard times.
“Soup’s on,” Mother said, carrying a large pot to the table. “Move your elbows and pass your bowls.”
Eliza’s stomach grumbled in anticipation. Her mother made the best soup in town, and she couldn’t wait to sink her teeth into a sweet carrot or meaty potato.
But as she watched her mother fill the bowls with hot, steaming liquid, Eliza’s heart sank. There were no carrots in sight. No potatoes. No beans. No meat of any kind. Just rocks. There were rocks in her soup!
At the sight of the stones in the bottom of her bowl, her eyes filled with tears and she groaned. “I’m hungry, Mother. Don’t we have anything else to eat?”
“Yuck,” said Eliza’s sister Agnes as she plucked a large brown chunk from her bowl. “What’s this?”
“That’s part of Uncle George’s saddle,” Mother said, looking around the table at the faces of her unbelieving family. “He doesn’t need it anymore, so I cut it up and boiled it to give the soup some flavor. Just set it aside. It’s not for eating.”
“What are the rocks for?” asked Neal, scrunching up his face as he pushed the rocks around with his spoon.
Mother smiled. “Those are just for fun. Now please fold your arms. Eliza, will you bless the food?”
Eliza didn’t want to. She wasn’t grateful for weeds and rocks and boiled saddles.
“Don’t forget to thank Heavenly Father for keeping us safe, and for giving us so many blessings,” Mother said.
Eliza looked into her bowl of rock soup, then around her at the bowed heads of her family. Despite the long, cold winter they had endured, all of them were safe and healthy. They had a house to live in, clothes to wear, and plenty of firewood to keep them warm. And in spite of their suffering, they were kind to their neighbors and each other. Mother was right. They really did have much to be thankful for.
“Thank Thee, Heavenly Father, for the food our mother has prepared,” Eliza prayed.
She thanked Him for the pigweed that grew plentifully on the farm.
She thanked Him for the rocks that covered the west pasture, because without them, they wouldn’t be having rock soup.
And she thanked Him for her family and the love they shared.
When Eliza finished her prayer, she had a warm feeling and knew that Heavenly Father loved her.
When dinner was over, the aching emptiness of her stomach was filled with the best soup Eliza had eaten in a long time.

Recently I had an engaging conversation with a young man who was contemplating a mission. As we talked, it became apparent that he was struggling with his decision, because he was questioning the strength of his testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He wanted to know why he had not received more clear answers to his prayers and study of the scriptures.
This young man, whom I will call Jim, was raised in the mission field in a home with loving parents who were doing their best to teach gospel principles to their children.
He is an outstanding athlete and popular among his friends at school. However, he is only one of a very few LDS students in a large high school.
Having raised my family in the mission field, I quickly related to Jim’s challenges of wanting to stay true to gospel principles while being accepted by good friends, yet friends whose values and beliefs generally differed from his.
He was looking for further confirmation of his testimony of Jesus Christ and the Restoration of the gospel.

Jason Knight was a 14-year-old nonmember at Frost Valley for the first time. “I’d like to be a part of this church—that’s why I came,” he said. “All right!” cheered his friends around him. “I heard this was a fun place, and my mother is a member of this church, so I decided to come. I’m having a great time,” he smiled.

As children, we learned how to keep darkness away by turning on a light. Sometimes when our parents went away for the evening, we would turn on every light in the house! We understood the physical law that is also a spiritual law: light and darkness cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

On November 7, 1843, Joseph recorded that: “Mr. [Joseph M.] Cole moved the tables back into the hall, when [Willard] Richards and [William W.] Phelps called to report that the noise in the school disturbed them in the progress of writing the History. I gave orders that Cole must look out for another place, as the history must continue, and not be disturbed, as there were but few subjects that I have felt a greater anxiety about than my history, which has been a very difficult task, on account of the death of my best clerks, and the apostasy of others” (History of the Church, 6:66).

There are many types of progress that one can make in life, but as I was recently preparing to teach Relief Society (for the first time ever), I started to wonder if I was lacking when it came to spiritual progress. I was teaching about a general conference talk given by Sister Jean B. Bingham, former Relief Society General President, about how making covenants helps to prepare us for eternal glory.1
I kept thinking, “Well, I can’t physically see or touch eternal glory, so how can I even know if I’m progressing on the covenant path?”
Lately I’ve felt a bit stuck. As a young single adult who has been baptized and received her endowment but hasn’t been sealed in the temple, I sometimes feel like I am at a standstill on the covenant path. I feel like I’m a board game piece that can’t move forward no matter how many times I roll the dice. I want to get married and make covenants with God and my eternal companion, but what do I do in the meantime?
How do I know if I’m moving forward?
I felt so inadequate to teach a lesson about the covenant path when I was uncertain of how I could move forward on the path myself. I had a lot of questions, so I started seeking out answers in the scriptures. And I was surprised to discover a treasure trove of truths. I truly enjoyed reading as I studied Gospel Topics, followed footnotes, and felt the Spirit guiding me to the specific answers I needed at that exact moment.
At one point I felt an overwhelming feeling of peace and actually looked up at the light in my room because I felt a sort of brightness around me.
That’s when the Spirit brought the words, “This is how,” to my mind.
Those words were the answer. I changed my perspective and realized that just by reading my scriptures I had progressed closer to Heavenly Father that day, and I could continue every day as I took steps to come closer to Christ. I recognized how keeping my covenants was helping me become more like Him, little by little.
I felt like I was finally moving my game piece forward on the board game of life.
Since that moment of personal revelation, I have made a more sincere effort to study and learn more about the gospel. I’ve changed my focus to daily progress to understand how my choices lead to eternal progress.
Elder Michael A. Dunn of the Seventy has taught that simply doing “one percent better”2 makes all the difference in progress. And looking back, striving to do a little better each day really has put my movement on the covenant path in perspective. And I’ve noticed many blessings:
Deeper love for the gospel
Excitement about scripture study and spiritual habits
More time to serve others
Deeper understanding of my divine potential
More hope and joy about life
Some days I feel like I am not progressing as much as I would like, and I am still faced with a lot of uncertainty about the future. But as I align my will with God’s, I feel gratitude for this time because I am learning and growing and deepening my faith, which means I really am progressing every day—receiving the blessings of God’s promises, focusing on the Savior’s gift of repentance, and moving forward on the path, one move at a time.

One day, my aunt babysat me in the waiting room when my parents were in the Chicago Temple. When they were finished, I asked my mom, “Did your heart feel good when you came into the temple?”
My mom said, “Yes. Did yours?” I said yes. I know temples are Heavenly Father’s house.

The children also like to do things to make other people happy. For example, whenever a missionary is about to finish serving a mission, the children surround him and sing and clap and dance to show their love and appreciation.

I took Christmas meals to lonely people. I feel good when I help.

Guillermo Soto, his wife, Pilar, and their children are like many Chileans who have found the Church during the past four decades.
“The missionaries would always greet us in the street,” Pilar recalls. “One day they asked whether they could come over for a visit. I told them we wouldn’t be able to hold a conversation in our home because our eight children made a lot of noise. One of the elders replied, ‘Excellent! I have five brothers and sisters myself.’”
The missionaries came, and their message rang true. Soto family members, who had often spent evenings together singing and playing games, embraced the family home evening program. Word of Wisdom warnings against tobacco coincided with familial prohibitions against smoking in the home, but posed a challenge for Guillermo, a professional musician who directs music for television programs.
“As a teenager I had found peace and love by studying the Bible,” Guillermo says. “But I later lost my way and began living a worldly life.”
The Soto children who were old enough were baptized in 1994, but Pilar waited until her husband was ready. Guillermo struggled with the Word of Wisdom until his prayers about the gospel’s truthfulness were answered.
“I received an answer many times,” he says. “Once I imagined seeing myself come up out of the waters of baptism pure and clean, and I began to weep. I felt something very special and decided that I needed to get baptized.”
Brother Soto left behind his struggles with the Word of Wisdom but kept his musician friends. “My presence in my group of friends is important,” he says. “I am preaching the gospel by leading a new life. Little by little my friends will become interested in the Church.”
These days the sounds coming from the Soto home include prayers of thanksgiving and the harmony of Guillermo, Pilar, and their children singing gospel hymns. The closeness they shared before baptism has increased as their understanding of the gospel has grown. In their Tierra del Fuego Ward in north Santiago, Brother and Sister Soto serve respectively as elders quorum president and Relief Society president.
“I had always asked God to put me on a path where I could grow with my family, where Pilar and I could do the right things for our children, where they could grow strong and find some heaven on earth,” Brother Soto says. “It has been a long journey, but at last we are on that path.”

For many years, I dreamed of serving a full-time mission. But when I returned home after university graduation, I saw how badly my family needed me. My father’s health was challenged, and the family needed financial help. As the eldest of four children, I felt I should stay home and help. Heavenly Father blessed me with a decent job. Though it didn’t pay much, it was enough to get by.
Whenever I was asked about serving a full-time mission, I answered that I would. Every time I said this, however, my mother would look at me with a mixture of excitement and sadness in her eyes. I knew that if I asked to go, she would say yes and quietly keep in her heart her apprehension of losing family income.

On the day of my baptism, I was a 22-year-old college student. I was part of a small group that assembled at a swimming pool in Brussels, Belgium. We didn’t have a chapel at that time. There was no baptismal font, no bishop, just two missionaries and a few branch members to support us. I had no family members with me. I had a sure testimony of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer; of Joseph Smith, a prophet; of the Book of Mormon; and of the Church, the only true one.
Three months passed before I was interviewed and ordained a deacon. That Sunday morning I stood in front of the sacrament table to distribute the emblems of the atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ. I still remember the surroundings: the dining room of a home had been transformed into a meeting hall for sacrament meetings that were attended by a few members. It was my first opportunity to magnify my priesthood calling. Nine months later, I was ordained a teacher and learned how to teach and to watch over the few members of the branch.
Another four months passed, and I was ordained a priest. Now I stood on the other side of the sacrament table. The decor was the same, but I felt different. It impressed me that now I was blessing the emblems of the Atonement and memorizing “that they may eat in remembrance of the body of thy Son, and witness unto thee, … and always remember him and keep his commandments … ; that they may always have his Spirit to be with them” (D&C 20:77).
Two years passed after my baptism, and the day arrived for me to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood and to be ordained an elder. The mission president once again laid his hands upon my head. The higher authority and power to act in the name of the Lord were given.