Gospel Story Finder

Following the children’s baptisms, we continued to meet frequently in the family’s home. We held family home evenings, shared scriptures and uplifting experiences, and introduced them to many ward members and helped them to get integrated into the ward. However, despite the continued gospel experiences and the regular Sunday attendance of the children and their mother, Kuk-Won and Mi-Jung were no closer to setting their own baptismal date. We just continued to love them and support them the best we knew how.
As the months went by, Elder Ricks was transferred, and my new companion, Elder Minor, was an elder straight from the missionary training center. He was full of faith, energy, and excitement, and I honestly had a difficult time keeping up with him! After meeting with Kuk-Won and Mi-Jung on a few occasions, Elder Minor approached me and asked whether or not my previous companion and I had fasted with them. We had not. In fact, I was a bit embarrassed to admit that the thought had not even occurred to me! So we met with this loving family and suggested a fast. I was amazed to discover that after learning of fasting from us, they had already been periodically fasting on their own, both for the health of their son and for a change in work schedule that would allow Kuk-Won to attend church with his family. We asked if we might join them in their family fast, and soon their faithful prayers were answered: Kuk-Won’s work schedule was changed. While we thought this was the only thing keeping them from getting baptized, Mi-Jung still did not feel ready to get baptized.

Back to your problem of repeatedly repenting for the same thing. To change, you must resolve to stay as far away as possible from the situation or people that encourage you to sin again. Elder Spencer W. Kimball in his book The Miracle of Forgiveness told this story about three men applying for the job of driving buses for a transportation company. The first one said he was such a good driver that he could drive steep mountain roads with the tire at the edge of the precipice and never go off.

The second driver boasted that he could drive so accurately that half the tire could be over the edge and the bus would not leave the road.

The third driver pleased the employer and was awarded the job when he said, “Well, sir, I can keep just as far away from the edge as possible” (pp. 217–18).

Of course, holiness to the Lord in everyday life includes coming more often to the Lord in His holy house. This is true whether we are Church members or friends.
Three friends came to the Bangkok Thailand Temple open house.
“This is a place of super healing,” said one.
In the baptistry, another said, “When I am here, I want to be washed clean and never sin again.”
The third said, “Can you feel the spiritual power?”

Over the course of six months, the Primary children of the Fuji Ward in Shizuoka, Japan, created a chigiri-e, a collage from hand-torn paper, illustrating President Thomas S. Monson. It took a lot of time and work, but everyone worked together while thinking and learning about President Monson.

I woke up too late and didn’t say my morning prayers.
I went to bed early and woke up with plenty of time to pray.

For 50 years, I have studied culture, including gospel culture. I began with fortune cookies.
In San Francisco’s Chinatown, Gong family dinners concluded with a fortune cookie and a wise saying like “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
As a young adult, I made fortune cookies. Wearing white cotton gloves, I folded and tucked into shape the round cookies hot out of the oven.
To my surprise, I learned fortune cookies are not originally part of Chinese culture. To distinguish Chinese, American, and European fortune cookie culture, I looked for fortune cookies on multiple continents—just as one would use multiple locations to triangulate a forest fire. Chinese restaurants in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York serve fortune cookies, but not those in Beijing, London, or Sydney. Only Americans celebrate National Fortune Cookie Day. Only Chinese advertisements offer “Authentic American Fortune Cookies.”

Many years ago I told a story in conference that I think I will repeat. It is a story about a baseball player. I realize that some of you in various parts of the world do not know much about baseball. You do not even care about it. But this story brings with it a tremendous lesson.
The event occurred in 1912. The World Series was being played, and this was the final game to determine the winner of the series. The score was 2-1 in favor of the New York Giants, who were in the field. The Boston Red Sox were at bat. The man at bat knocked a high, arching fly. Two New York players ran for it. Fred Snodgrass in center field signaled to his associate that he would take it. He came squarely under the ball, which fell into his glove. But he did not hold it there. The ball went right through his grasp and fell to the ground. A howl went up in the stands. The fans could not believe that Snodgrass had dropped the ball. He had caught hundreds of fly balls before. But now, at this most crucial moment, he had failed to hold the ball, and the Red Sox went on to win the world championship.
Snodgrass came back the following season and played brilliant ball for nine more years. He lived to be 86 years of age, dying in 1974. But after that one slip, for 62 years, whenever he was introduced to anybody, the expected response was, “Oh, yes, you’re the one who dropped the ball.”

The mental image of his wife also gave Viktor Frankl the strength to survive the agonies of a Nazi concentration camp: “As we stumbled on for miles, … dragging one another up and onward, … my mind clung to my wife’s image … her look was then more luminous than the sun. … for the first time in my life … I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love.” Therefore, “He who has a why to live can bear with almost any how” (Man’s Search for Meaning, 1984, 56–57, 12). His “why” was the vision of being together with his sweetheart. Full of such hope, he could live with the awful “how” of imprisonment.

Last summer, youth in the Val Vista Ward in Mesa, Arizona, participated in what they called the “STEP” program: Students Trying Elijah’s Promise. First the youth became familiar with the Church’s Web site new.familysearch.org, where they each got a sign-in name and password. Then they went to work researching their ancestors to find those who needed temple work.
The ward also held an all-day Especially For Youth program on July 24. The event was designed to focus on family history and temple work and featured workshops, games, food, and research time on computers. “It was one of the most amazing events I have ever been a part of,” said Bishop Charles Doane. “In one day the youth found over 500 family names for ordinance work.”
The young men and women continued searching for names, and by the time they went to the temple in August they had nearly 1,200 names ready.

The Thordersons learned this one because they lived it. Even sports, which can pull some people away from family time, became a family activity under the 3F plan. Eric, the oldest, started the tradition by playing basketball in grade school, and the others followed him. Kurt said, “I just followed along because he needed somebody to play with. And then he went to junior high ball, and then high school, and that kind of dragged the whole family in.”
Jim agreed. “We all went to everyone’s games. Jed (the youngest) was practically raised at basketball games because we were involved in so many different leagues and stuff.” Julie, the only sister in the group, who is now on a mission at the Salt Lake Visitors’ Center on Temple Square, said, “Our parents were always there at everything we did, and so were the rest of us. If you went to all the different games everyone was involved in you were busy five nights a week!”
By supporting each other’s activities, the Thordersons realized that doing things together as a family really can be fun, and they learned about each other’s talents and likes so they could become closer as friends.

“I want you to knock all the cement off these steel posts,” the boss said as he handed me the sledgehammer and stood back to watch me begin. Anxious to impress him with my eagerness for the task, I planted my feet in a wide stance, raised the sledgehammer high above my head, and brought it down hard on the barrel-sized keg of cement caked on the first leg of the extracted guardrail.

Six … seven … eight solid follow-up strokes to the same spot, but all I could feel was the stunning reverberation up the handle of the sledgehammer. Not a single chip of the hard cement seemed to yield under the blows. After resting the hammer head on the ground for a moment and rubbing my right shoulder, again I raised the hammer high above my head and repeated the effort, but with no better result.

I felt a little embarrassed as the boss watched a minute longer. Then, starting to walk toward the tool shop, he said, “I’ll get you something that may help.”

I took a firmer grasp on the handle, holding it a little lower this time to get a better weight advantage from the heavy steel head. Several more strokes, and now I could feel myself becoming angry. How could I strike any harder? Why didn’t the cement break?

“I hope he doesn’t get back before I’ve shown some kind of progress,” I said to myself, glancing toward the tool shop.

When I had told the boss on Monday morning that I had quit school to work for a few months so I could go on a mission, I had hoped he would be kind of proud of me. Instead he had said, “Why do you want to waste your time like that?” Ever since then he had seemed bent on going out of his way to make snide comments about the Church and other crude remarks that, I suspected, were designed to shock me. But he was the boss and the one who would let me stay or let me go.

I looked again at the long I-beam rail with 13 steel legs extending from it like a giant comb with most of its teeth missing. It had long ago served as a bumper guard, preventing cars in the parking lot from hitting the adjacent building. It had been installed by digging 13 large holes in the ground in a straight line, spaced at eight-foot intervals. A steel post was cemented into each hole, and the connecting bumper rail welded to each post. Recently the entire rail had been removed by having two large “hysters” extract the whole thing in one piece, and it was lying in the driveway with each post encased in a barrel-sized cement block.

As I heard boots scuff the loose gravel on the asphalt pavement leading from the tool shop, I let loose a wild flurry of blows. I was glad that a few beads of sweat had formed on my forehead. “Here, try this,” the boss said as he handed me a heavier sledgehammer. That wasn’t quite the kind of help I had in mind.

I smiled as I traded him the smaller hammer, but I could tell that he sensed it wasn’t a completely honest smile. He watched me for a few minutes more, and then without further comment, turned away to supervise the crew working on the remodeling project in the steel fabrication plant.

“The only difference between the hammers is that this one is heavier and harder to lift,” I grumbled silently as the steel head collided with the stone-hard cement. Finally one small chunk broke off. After several more strokes my arms started to ache, but the cement still remained intact.

At this rate I knew it would take me three days to complete the job. I also knew that if I didn’t show substantial progress by noon, I’d be out of a job and back standing in the labor lines at the Employment Security Office taking any kind of work available. Three days of that had made me especially anxious to keep this job.

Besides, it was 1954, and thousands of striking workers with families to feed were looking for short-term, full-time employment. How was a 20-year-old youth going to compete with them for the few jobs available?

It took only a few more hard but unsuccessful strokes to persuade me that I had reached my limit and that it was time for me to treat the problem as one needing more strength and wisdom than I possessed.

Resting the heavy hammer on the ground and trying to compose my anger and frustration, I felt the need and desire to discuss the problem with the Lord. Without either kneeling or closing my eyes, I started praying aloud to the Lord and explaining the task I faced. In a conversational but sincere way I reminded him that I wasn’t asking for the money so I could buy a yellow convertible. He had called me on a mission, and I knew he wanted me to go. This job had already been an answer to my prayers, but I needed to keep it. I didn’t expect him to send a host of angels from heaven with sledgehammers, but I knew he could help me.

Never in my life has a prayer been answered more immediately or clearly. Suddenly my mind was filled with a thought so lucid and strong that my heart started pounding. It was a simple solution, as I later considered it. To brighter or more experienced minds it might have occurred earlier, but to me it came as a direct answer to my prayer.

The compelling instruction said to me, “Instead of striking the cement, strike the steel.”

Still not fathoming exactly why, I raised the hammer and brought it crashing down five or six times on the steel post right next to the cement. As a large section of the cement cracked into big chunks and fell off, I realized that the blows to the steel had started a series of strong vibrations that were transmitted all along the steel shaft.

I quickly forgot the weight of the hammer. With new energy I struck the steel again and again, then moved on to the next post, amazed at the magnification of my efforts as the steel vibrated and the cement cracked.

Less than two hours later I had removed the cement from all 13 posts and stacked the large chunks in a pile. With the sledgehammer on my shoulder and a prayer of gratitude in my heart, I went to find the boss.

“I’ll need some help moving the railing out of the driveway,” I said, trying to conceal the excitement I felt inside. Thinking I was giving up on the project, he motioned me to follow him to the parking lot.

As we rounded the corner of the building and he saw the railing and the pile of cement, he stopped quite suddenly. His eyes blinked and opened wide. His chin started to drop a bit. For a full minute he stood silently, looking first at the railing, then at the cement. After a moment more he turned, motioned me to follow him again, and said, “Come on, I’ll give you another job.”

Nothing more was said about the incident, but the following morning when I arrived for work, he simply said, “Lloyd, you’re welcome to stay on as long as you like.”

I worked there for nearly three months before entering the mission home. He then let me come back to work again for another ten days until I departed with my group for the mission field. Never after that memorable morning did he, in my presence, make a disparaging remark about the Church or my plans to serve a mission.

Some of my favorite entries are about my friends. When my brother was on his mission, I wrote to him every week—and included in my journal are a lot of the same thoughts I sent him. I’ve written about my own baptism, about Young Women activities, and just recently about sharing the gospel with a friend I’ve known for six years who finally took the missionary discussions and decided to be baptized. If she can’t remember who attended her baptism and how we all felt, I have all that recorded so I can share it with her. Now I’m trying to convince her to keep a journal of her own.

You can’t help but like Andrea* when you meet her. She’s warm and friendly and fun, and she knows how to make you feel good about yourself.

But she wasn’t always like that.

For a long time, she carried around a dark and tragic secret that she could confess to no one. She cried a lot. She was usually depressed. She withdrew from people—wasn’t close to anyone, and didn’t have the self-confidence to excel in school or anything else. Andrea had been sexually abused when she was younger.

“I thought I had committed a terrible sin,” she said. “I thought it was too gross to tell anyone. I felt disgusting and totally worthless, until a very understanding bishop explained to me that it wasn’t my fault, that the Lord still loved me, and that I could get help.”

The help Andrea got, which included professional and spiritual counseling, is enabling her to put those traumatic experiences in the past and become emotionally and spiritually healthy again.

Going through these stages has helped Andrea begin to lead a happier, more fulfilling life. Others like her who have experienced sexual abuse can also begin to recover. It is important for them to realize that they have a right not to be abused, and that they need to get help if it happens. They need to know that they are not at fault, that they are not impure, nor are they any less chaste. And most of all, they need to know that Heavenly Father still loves them, has great hope for them, and has provided ways for them to recover.

The year I turned eleven, I went on a three-day camp-out with my friend Don, my older brother, and my dad. And Bear. Bear is our black and white Border collie. He loves to run and chase outdoors.
We had a great time on that trip with Bear. We camped on a big cattle ranch among a lot of sagebrush and lava rock, and near a good fishing creek.
My brother, Nick, and I took Bear down to the creek every day. Bear loves to play in the water. He must think he’s fishing, but he sure doesn’t fish like the rest of us. He puts his left paw in the water and splashes all over the place. He also snaps at the water with his mouth. He makes such a commotion in the water that I’m sure that all the fish are soon at least ten miles downstream.
The last morning we were there, my brother and I left Bear at camp so we could do some real fishing at the creek. Don and Dad stayed in camp to clean up after breakfast.
After a little while Don came down to the creek. “Hey, Mike,” he said. “Your dog is dead.”
“He is not!”
“Well, he’s nearly dead. A rattlesnake bit him.”
My brother and I ran for camp as fast as we could. Don ran after us.
Sure enough, by the time we got to camp, Bear was lying real still by Dad’s tent. Dad had killed the rattlesnake, but there didn’t seem to be much he could do for Bear.
Bear had been bitten twice on the nose. It was swollen really bad, and he was barely breathing.
I started to cry. I didn’t know what to do. My brother started to cry, too, but he knew what to do. “Dad, can we say a prayer for Bear?”
My dad nodded. “Bear is a very sick dog,” he said. “You can say a prayer for Bear, but are you willing to accept it if he doesn’t live?”
“Yes,” my brother said. I could only nod.
All four of us gathered in a semicircle around Bear. Dad looked over at my big brother. “Nick,” he said. “I would like you to say the prayer because you have so much faith.”
I don’t remember what my brother said in his prayer, but I remember how I felt kneeling there with my head bowed.
When the prayer was over, Bear got up. He walked around a little, and then he ran. He seemed happy to be alive.
I was happy! I was so happy that I kept hugging Bear over and over. My big brother just stood there and cried some more. I didn’t understand then why he was crying when we were all so happy. I did understand one thing though—I knew that my brother had a lot of faith in prayer. And so did I.

One Sunday in the summer of 2002, I woke up thinking of my mother, who had recently passed away. I was visiting my old home ward in Pacific Palisades, California, USA, where my mom had worshipped for almost 50 years.
I knelt in prayer to tell the Lord how much I missed her and to ask for a spiritual experience that day.
That afternoon I planned to attend the rededication broadcast of the Nauvoo Illinois Temple at the stake building in Santa Monica, California. Unfortunately, I arrived too late to be admitted to the session. I returned to my car and headed back onto the freeway.
As I drove, I heard a voice say, “Randi, go check on Mary!” Mary is a dear friend of our family and a devout member of another faith. She and her daughter Natasha lived next door to my Aunt Ruby for more than 25 years. Because they had no family nearby, they became part of ours. After my aunt passed away in 1984, my mother often dropped by to visit Mary, always bringing a small gift or something she had baked.
At first I ignored the prompting. I couldn’t just drop in unannounced, and I didn’t have my cell phone to call her. Suddenly the voice came again, louder this time: “Randi, go check on Mary!” This time I heeded the counsel, although I barely had enough time to make my exit off the freeway.
When I arrived at Mary’s, she greeted me but looked ill. I could tell she had been crying. I asked her what was wrong. She responded that she had been quite sick and in pain from a neck injury. Also, she was extremely low on food. She said she had been too ill to walk to the pharmacy or the market.
When I asked her why she hadn’t called someone in our family, she said, “I prayed and asked Heavenly Father to send someone to help me.”
I told her that Heavenly Father had heard her prayers and sent me. We hugged, and then she told me something I’ll never forget. She said, “When you arrived on my doorstep, I saw your mother’s face, not yours.”
I immediately felt my mother’s sweet spirit near me, and I felt prompted to serve just as my mother would serve. Her life, after all, was filled with serving others.
I hope that I never forget the importance of heeding the voice of the Spirit and the example my mother set for me of serving others.

In August 2005, when President Gordon B. Hinckley (1910–2008) issued a challenge to Church members to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year, I promised myself I would read the entire book. I was familiar with stories in the Book of Mormon but had never read it all the way through. Now I meant to keep my promise.
I had been taught to apply the scriptures to my life and make them my very own. So as I read, I wrote in the margins of the page what I thought the main idea of the passage was. I also underlined repeated words and phrases to show emphasis.
I placed my name next to names in the scriptures to help me remember that the word of God spoken to others can also be the word spoken to me. For example, in 2 Nephi 2:28 I wrote my name: “And now, [Hillary], I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments.” The more I made the Book of Mormon my own, the more excited I became about reading it every day.
As I read daily, my prayers became heartfelt and personal. I was also able to focus on my classes and follow promptings of the Spirit to befriend others. On the last night of the year, I finished the Book of Mormon.
I then understood the importance of reading the whole Book of Mormon, along with other scriptures, and want to do so many more times in my life.

At Aaronic Priesthood and Young Women youth activity night, I had another opportunity to try out my new goal. We took our roadshow to the infirmary. It was a wonderful experience. We loved putting it on for the patients, and they loved watching it. These people had few visitors, so we talked with some after the performance. They all expressed gratitude that someone listened and cared about them. It really made us feel special too.

Cathy Carmode made a commitment to pray and read her scriptures daily, and she has kept that commitment. And her dedication has opened the door for many gospel discussions.
Cathy has been very involved in school and participated in the band and on the speech team. She also served as president of the foreign language club. She placed second in the state Latin competition and first in the state Spanish competition. She was editor of the school newspaper and maintained a 4.0 grade point average.
A member of the Murray Branch, Hopkinsville Kentucky Stake, Cathy has served as chorister in either Sunday School or sacrament meeting since she was nine. She has also served as the president of her Young Women classes.

Many of you have participated in treks to experience and appreciate the dramatic rescue of the Willie and Martin handcart companies. I first became aware of this rescue when I was a teenager. My mother gave me a book written by Orson F. Whitney, who would later be an Apostle. Elder Whitney’s book acquainted me with the heroic effort directed by Brigham Young to rescue the handcart companies. They had been overtaken by winter storms on the high plains of Wyoming. Some had died and many others were on the verge of death. Brigham Young became aware of their plight, and at the October 1856 general conference he instructed the Saints to drop everything and rescue those stranded on the plains.
The response was dramatic. Elder Whitney reported, “Brave men by their heroism—for it was at the peril of their own lives that they thus braved the wintry storms on the plains—immortalized themselves, and won the undying gratitude of hundreds who were undoubtedly saved by their timely action from perishing.”
One reason my mother had given me the book was Elder Whitney had made special mention of my great-grandfather David Patten Kimball, who had participated in the rescue when he was 17 years old. All the rescuers battled deep snow and freezing temperatures during much of the rescue of the handcart companies. At great personal sacrifice, David and his associates helped carry many of the pioneers across the freezing, ice-filled Sweetwater.

While living in Argentina, Luis’s Polish parents, though not Christian, raised him in a good, religious environment. Invited one day when he was 17 years old to talk to a seminary class about the Old Testament, he gladly obliged. He felt at home with the youth in the class and continued to attend the early-morning meetings to answer their questions. “I thought I was teaching them,” he says, “but they were teaching me.” Luis became interested in finding out about the Book of Mormon, and one day he began reading it. “As I read, it slowly came to me who Jesus Christ really was—the Messiah!” he recalls. “This affected me profoundly. I read all night long.” After receiving an answer to his prayers, he decided to be baptized, despite the strong disapproval of his family. “I had a great desire to study and make up for all I felt I’d missed,” he says. In time he married Laura Moltó, the daughter of his seminary teacher, and soon after began serving in leadership positions, first in the ward, now in the stake.