Gospel Story Finder

As a little girl, I would tag along with my father on our little farm, beg to work with him, and try to help him with his many projects. I loved riding in his truck and helping him shift the gears. I remember him reading stories to us children and taking us on sleigh rides, fishing trips, and camping adventures. Riding horses with Dad, especially in the mountains, will always be a special memory.
After I started high school, I began to wonder about things I had been taught about the gospel. Things some of my friends said created questions and doubts in my mind.
One night I stood in our living room looking out of our big window at the stars. It was late, and I thought everyone had gone to bed. But Dad came up beside me, and we started to talk.
I told him of my questions and concerns. In response, my father testified that he knew the gospel was true. We talked about getting hung up on “the mysteries” and how foolish that can be. Dad said I had to come to my own conclusions and that it might take me some time. Then he told me something I have never forgotten. He said that when I had questions or concerns, I could lean on his faith and testimony.
I loved my dad and knew he would never intentionally lead me astray or tell me something that was not true. If he felt sure about what he believed, I knew I could trust him.
So, lean I did.
During my working years, when I was exposed to many ideas, theories, lifestyles, and beliefs that challenged me, I looked to my dad and leaned. During my years as a wife and mother, as experiences have tested my faith, I have looked to my dad and leaned. Even now, as I think about current circumstances in the world, I look to my dad and lean.
I often think about that night long ago and my conversation with Dad. I wonder how different my life would have been without his calm assurance and steady example.
As a child, I never wanted for the necessities of life. My goodly parents took care of me. But of all the things my parents gave me, I am most grateful for the values they taught me, the firm foundation in the gospel they gave me, and the simple, exemplary life they led.
I am also grateful Dad was there for me to lean on—not once but always. He was and is a great example of the things that matter most. My dad is my hero.

When we got home I invited my best friend on the team, Rosa, to go to church with me. She enjoyed the meetings and felt peaceful there. After that, Rosa came to church almost every week. It was so wonderful to see the gospel touch her life.
About a month later I received an unexpected phone call from a young man on the men’s cross-country team, Brendan. He told me that he had taken the missionary lessons and was getting baptized in a week! I was so happy and thrilled for him. Both Rosa and I attended Brendan’s baptism. Rosa also took the missionary lessons and later chose to be baptized.

Carlos was too small to walk the dog or mow the lawn. But he was big enough to help.
He could help Dad wash the dishes, and he could help Mom fold clothes.
One day Carlos was helping Grandpa pull weeds when Mrs. Lopez walked past.
“I need to pull my weeds today too,” she said.
Mrs. Lopez looks busy, Carlos thought. When she went inside, he grabbed a big bucket and started pulling weeds in her flowerbed.
Carlos worked until the weeds were all gone. Then he grabbed his bucket and hurried back to his house.
Mom’s probably cooking dinner, Carlos thought. And I’m big enough to help!

For example, my full name is Clarence Weldon Tom Collins III, but I go by Tom. Every once in a while, especially at the beginning of school while teachers are still figuring out their rolls, someone will laugh and say, “Ha! Your name is Clarence!”
Now I could get upset about it, but that wouldn’t stop the teasing. So I just say, “Clarence means bright. What does your name mean?” They find out it’s something I’m not ashamed of and won’t be teased about, and they end up respecting me.

Moving to a new place is never easy, but moves overseas can be especially difficult. Kristine Murrow wasn’t sure what she would find when she moved to Landstuhl, Germany, where her father is filling a military assignment.
But as soon as she contacted LDS youth in the area, “I was immediately welcomed, accepted, and brought into the close-knit group. Because we are stationed overseas, people move in and out all the time and no one is ever left out,” says Kristine.
Kristine also discovered that many of the LDS kids in Germany, like other areas of the world, set high standards of excellence in academics, drama, sports, and student council.
“I was astounded that people were involved in so many activities and still had time for Church activities,” she says. “Even early-morning seminary is looked on as a blessing and a joy to attend.”
For Kristine, the move to Germany was one in which she learned about love, friendship, and support. “Because of the love I have been offered here, I have learned the value of true friendship,” says Kristine.

For the first time ever, a youth conference was held in the Republic of Kiribati, a group of islands straddling the equator in the central Pacific. The islands are part of the Fiji Suva Mission, and there are branches of the Church on some of the islands.
For two days, 500 young people gathered on the campus of Moroni High School on the island of Tarawa. The first day was spent getting acquainted in games, races, and field events. Everyone enjoyed participating in the activities regardless of who won. A dance was held in the evening.
The next day started with a testimony meeting, the highlight of all youth conferences. The testimonies expressed dealt with the depth of feeling the youth had for the gospel.
One of the outstanding stories about the conference took place before the conference began. Youth from the North Tarawa Branch, which is separated from South Tarawa by a strip of ocean half a mile wide, were not able to get transportation. They waded through the shallow water at low tide, then hiked 15 miles through much of the night to arrive at the conference on time. They were so pleased with the conference that they said the effort they made to get there was well worth it.
The youth enjoyed the conference and getting to know each other better. They tried to persuade the adult leaders to hold another conference the following month.

For a number of years we have lived outside of the city. We have horses and other farm animals, including chickens. Some of the chickens are free to roam the barnyard. The children have to be alert to find where these chickens lay their eggs, for sometimes they are found in the haystack or in the woods or under the woodpile.
One spring a little speckled hen hid her nest under the manger in a small place where she could not be seen. None of us knew where she was, but we were sure that she must be sitting on a nest somewhere.
One day when I arrived home, the children came running to tell me that they had found the little hen and her nest. They had found the nest because the chicks had hatched and had begun to make little peeping noises.
They pulled me to the barn, and I carefully reached back under the hen and brought out a handful of little chicks. As the children gathered around, touching the soft little chicks, one of our daughters took a chick and held it carefully.
“That will certainly make a nice watchdog when it grows up, won’t it?” I asked. She looked at me like I didn’t know very much, telling her a chick would grow to be a dog.
I quickly corrected myself and said, “It won’t grow up to be a watchdog. It will be a nice riding horse, won’t it?”
She looked at me again with a puzzled expression, for even though she was only four years old, she knew that the little chicken would not grow up to be a dog or a horse or even a pheasant or turkey. Somehow she knew that the little chick would grow up to be either a hen or a rooster—much like its mother or father.

At 53, Elizabeth seized another learning opportunity. She and her daughter Jessie were walking down the street in Bendigo when a man in a black coat and top hat introduced himself as a missionary from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He offered them a book and said it would teach them God’s plan for His children. Elizabeth always eagerly accepted free books, but this one would change their lives.

All through that night, Jessie read The Book of Mormon to her mother, and the Holy Spirit affirmed to them this book was true.

Elizabeth and three of her children were baptized on 2 February 1902. A couple years later, her two grandsons were baptized.

Climbing the long stairway to the highest dome of Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Italy, the tourists paused halfway up to rest—all except a slender Japanese man. Although he looked older than some of the others, he climbed to the top energetically and without stopping. Several in the group asked the man why he had so much energy. “Because I am a Mormon,” replied Brother Masao Watabe with a chuckle.
A curious American asked him how the Catholic cathedral might compare with a Latter-day Saint temple. Calmly, as if he had been waiting for just such a question, Brother Watabe took some cards from his pocket and passed them around among the group. On the front was a photograph of the Hawaii Temple, where Brother Watabe was serving as a temple missionary. On the back, pointed out Brother Watabe, were the Articles of Faith.
In fact, Brother Watabe probably was looking for just such an opportunity to share his faith. Now second counselor in the presidency of the Taipei Taiwan Temple, Brother Watabe has talked about the gospel to people on trains and buses, to military officers and employers.
Perhaps he feels such missionary zeal because the gospel has so deeply changed his own life. Masao Watabe was born to Japanese parents in the An-Tung Province of China, and he belonged to one of the sects of Shintoism. He was an intelligent young man with an interest in languages. After graduating from college, he married and was sent by the Japanese foreign office to study the Mandarin language in Peking. He worked at the Japanese embassy in Peking and at the Japanese foreign office in Tokyo.
An idealistic young man, Masao Watabe had had a lifelong dream of unifying the nations of the world. Then World War II began, bringing death, devastation, and defeat. A year before the war ended, young Masao was drafted into the Japanese army. The experience of war plunged him into a period of despair. “Life was like wandering in the darkness with no hope or purpose,” he recalls.
After the war, Masao was transferred to the city of Sendai, Japan. There he met a Catholic priest who introduced him to Christianity. “When I talked to him about the religion of Jesus Christ,” Brother Watabe remembers, “I felt good in my heart. I asked many questions about Christianity. As I listened to his answers my heart, which had been struggling in the darkness, gradually became enlightened, and it seemed to me the Lord’s voice began to whisper to it.”
After a short time, Masao became disillusioned with Catholicism. He sought out a Bible class at a local university, which he attended for a year. His teacher, the wife of a Methodist minister, took him to church. She and her husband encouraged him to be baptized into the Methodist church. Because he had unanswered questions about that faith, he hesitated.
While he was still considering becoming a Methodist, one of his students told him that two American missionaries had begun boarding at his house. Masao was eager to meet them, and the next day the student brought them to school. “As I shook hands with them, I had a very good feeling,” says Brother Watabe. When he attended Sunday School with them, he was impressed with the simplicity of the services and the sincerity of the people.
A missionary pamphlet, Joseph Smith Tells His Own Story, fascinated him so greatly that he read it all night. But it was the Book of Mormon itself that rekindled the hope he had lost during the war. When he first read the prophecy contained in 1 Nephi chapter 10 [1 Ne. 10], concerning the scattering and gathering together of Israel, his heart was filled with joy. All his life he had yearned to help bring about unity in the world. He was also excited to learn that his deceased ancestors could receive baptism and other saving ordinances.
Ever since that cold day in November 1949 when he was baptized in the Hirose River, Brother Watabe has dedicated himself to sharing the joy he has found in the gospel. He was able to baptize his wife, Sister Hisako Watabe, in July of the next year. Their oldest son, nine-year-old Masahisa, was baptized that same day. And he has baptized their two younger sons, Masaji and Masakazu, and two daughters, Seiko and Yasuko, at age eight.
When Brother Watabe learned that each member of the Church should be a missionary, he committed himself to go tracting every day. He began by tracting in the train on the way to work, giving pamphlets to those who were interested. While serving a mission in Brazil, his third son, Masakazu, had the unusual experience of baptizing a man who had first heard of the gospel from Masao Watabe on a train in Japan fifteen years earlier.
As the first native Japanese member of the Church in Sendai City, Brother Watabe has been a faithful servant. He became the first president of the Sendai Branch. When the first stake in Asia was established in Japan, he served as stake patriarch. Because he feels that the best advice is the word of God, he prepared himself to give blessings by studying the scriptures. One of his favorite scriptures to quote is from Matthew: “And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it.” (Matt. 10:38–39.)
Shortly after Brother Watabe joined the Church, his commitment to his faith cost him his job at the Japanese foreign office in Sendai. As a new convert, Brother Watabe stopped attending office parties, where drinking wine and pouring wine for others to drink was customary. His superior officer warned him several times that he must attend these parties and that he must stop taking part in missionary street meetings. But Brother Watabe remained steadfast. Finally his superior called him in and said, “You would rather go to your church than work here; we don’t need you anymore.” Soon Brother Watabe was offered a job in a U.S. Army camp. After working there for five years, Brother Watabe was called to the mission home in Tokyo to work as a translator for the Church.
The Watabes’ commitment to their faith has brought a life filled with joy, including the joy of a faithful family. In 1968, the entire Watabe family was sealed in the Salt Lake Temple. The Watabe children are all married, and Brother and Sister Watabe have twenty grandchildren. All the Watabe sons have served missions for the Church.
In 1979, Brother and Sister Watabe were called to a work they love, serving as temple missionaries in the Hawaii Temple. Later, Brother Watabe received the authority to act as a sealer. The Watabes enjoy their work in the Taipei Taiwan Temple, where Brother Watabe serves as second counselor.
Already Brother Watabe is planning another way to share the gospel after he is released from the temple presidency. He hopes to return to Japan and write books that will express his testimony to his fellow countrymen. For Brother Masao Watabe, life is a mission every day.

I wanted to invite those blessings into my life, so when I returned home from my mission, I spoke to my bishop about becoming a temple worker. I was eventually called to serve in the Washington D.C. Temple for a few months while I was working to save money for school.
I served in the temple during the 6 p.m. shift every Friday night. This schedule required me to leave my job early and travel for two hours. It was a big and sometimes tough commitment to keep every week.
At the time, I was working long hours doing lots of physical labor, so I was usually pretty tired for my temple shift. I was also mentally exhausted most of the time with preparing to go back to college and figuring out what I was going to do for the rest of my life.
But during my shifts, I was always excited to learn more about the ordinances. And despite my constant fatigue and endless to-do list, I somehow found peace in the temple. I always left feeling grateful for the chance to serve the Lord there, and I felt spiritually renewed at the end of each shift as I focused on the Savior. The peace I felt also helped me find direction and answers for my life.

We didn’t see them, but we know that angels were with us on May 21, 2021. My husband was on his way home from work when he felt a strong impression to get home quickly. When he arrived at home, he sat with me on the porch where I was working on an online assignment. We had been talking for a few minutes when we heard a thumping noise. We ran to the bedroom where our 4-year-old daughter, Selena, had been playing on her bed next to the window, only to find that she was not there. Where was she? The screen was broken. She had fallen out of the window a long way to the ground! We found her under the house; my husband scooped her up in his arms and said that we needed to get her some water quickly. She was not crying until she saw how worried we were.
I took her and held her close to my chest, thanking God for saving her life. I was grateful that she was not even badly injured. I felt inspired to take her to the water faucet and get her wet, tap her body all over, massage her, and give her something to drink, which I did. When we brought her into the house and my husband gave her a priesthood blessing, I opened my eyes to see Selena with her eyes closed, reverently receiving her blessing.
A nurse came by to check her heart and oxygen levels, and they were good. After that, the doctor examined her and declared, “Mummy she is okay, God was watching over her.” The only injuries she received from her fall were a few scratches on her arm. I thank God for his blessings and for this miracle in Selena’s life. All the glory and honor be to His mighty name!

But before my promised blessing came, a rich blessing for the entire family came to us. It was during the time, many years ago, when sacrament meeting was held at 2:00 P.M. in the rural wards. We usually went to meeting in our white-top buggy, which would hold the entire family. But at this particular time there was much sickness—an epidemic—and parents were asked to attend sacrament meeting but to leave the children home, so Father and Mother went alone in our one-horse buggy.
When they returned, we saw something we had never seen before. Both Father and Mother were crying at the same time. Being the oldest, I asked what was wrong. Mother assured us everything was all right.
“Then why are you crying?” we asked.
“Come into the house and we’ll tell you all about it,” she answered.
As we gathered around the old sofa in the living room, they explained the tears.
When sacrament meeting was over, the country store was opened just long enough for the farmers to get their mail, as the post office was in the store. There was no rural mail delivery in those days, and opening the store briefly on Sunday saved the farmers a special trip to the post office.
On the way home from sacrament meeting, they had stopped at the store for the mail. Then, with Father driving and Mother opening the mail, they had found a letter from Box B. This was a call for Father to go on a mission. In those days no one was asked if he were able, ready, or willing to go. The bishop was expected to know, and a mission call came without warning.
Mother said that they were happy and grateful that Father was considered worthy to fill a mission. Father explained, “We’re crying a bit because we know it means two years of separation. Your mother and I have never been separated more than two nights at a time in all of our married life, and that has been when I’ve been in the canyon for poles, fence posts, or derrick timbers.”
Father went on his mission, leaving Mother at home with seven children. The eighth was born four months after he left. Our small dry farm had been sold to finance the mission. A family moved into part of our expanded farm home to rent the row cropland. We children, under Mother’s day-to-day encouragement and Father’s letters of blessings, took care of the dairy herd, the hay, and the pastureland.
It was hard work, but it was a rewarding two years. Not once did we ever hear a murmur from Mother’s lips as she sang at her work the songs she and Father had enjoyed. Letters from Father came from Davenport, Iowa; Springfield, Illinois; Chicago, Illinois; and Cedar Rapids, Iowa. These letters, along with family prayer and unity, brought a spirit of missionary work into our home that never left it. Later, seven sons went on missions from that home.

Then again, who would have figured that Lindsay was going to contract cancer—non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma—right after her sixth birthday? Doctors thought it was growing pains, or maybe children’s arthritis. But cancer?
“At the beginning, it was really confusing. I had a lump in my neck, and my legs were really sore,” Lindsay recalls. “Once [the doctors] found out I had cancer, I didn’t even know what it was, so it didn’t really make a difference to me. I knew I had to stay in the hospital and everything, and I felt sick. But I didn’t know how serious it was.”
It was serious. Lindsay was hospitalized in Hamilton, 90 minutes away from Port Colborne, where she underwent chemotherapy for two years. Doctors pronounced her cancer in remission six months after it was first diagnosed, and things did get back to normal within about 18 months. She hasn’t had a problem since, and nine years later you can tell she’s doing great. Her constant smile, that brightens even the grayest Canadian winter day, proves that.
“The cancer made me look at life in a different way. I know what kids who have cancer are going through, and I decided I wanted to help them. Had I not had cancer, I don’t think I would want to help people as much as I do now,” she says. She talks about her cancer like it was a blessing. Without the trial, she’s convinced none of this would have taken place.

Stranded in an airport because of bad weather, a young mother and her two-year-old daughter had been waiting in long lines for hours trying to get a flight home. The child was tired and fussy, but the mother, who was pregnant and at risk of miscarriage, did not pick her up. A doctor had advised the mother to avoid lifting the two-year-old unless absolutely necessary. The woman overheard disapproving comments from people around her as she used her foot to slide her crying daughter along in the line. Nobody offered to help. But then, the woman later recalled, “someone came towards us and with a kindly smile said, ‘Is there something I could do to help you?’ With a grateful sigh I accepted his offer. He lifted my sobbing little daughter from the cold floor and lovingly held her to him while he patted her gently on the back. He asked if she could chew a piece of gum. When she was settled down, he carried her with him and said something kindly to the others in the line ahead of me, about how I needed their help. They seemed to agree and then he went up to the ticket counter [at the front of the line] and made arrangements with the clerk for me to be put on a flight leaving shortly. He walked with us to a bench, where we chatted a moment, until he was assured that I would be fine. He went on his way. About a week later I saw a picture of Apostle Spencer W. Kimball and recognized him as the stranger in the airport.”17

And, as Michael and Debbie have found, they experience tremendous revelatory moments and attendant blessings when they are working on the Lord’s temples.
“We needed some bigger stencils for a temple we were working on, but since we didn’t know anybody in that particular city we just went to the internet and found two or three stencil suppliers.” Debbie said. “We felt drawn to one in particular, but it was 11 o’clock at night and we needed these stencils as soon as we could get them. We couldn’t find their trading hours on the website but out of the blue the impression came to me, “Why don’t you just call them?”
“We discussed that if we did that maybe their answering machine would give us their hours,” Debbie continued. “So, I called the number and the owner of the business answered.”
He was at the office that night because of some problems his own people were having with a project they were working on. Later, when Michael and Debbie went in to pick up their new stencils, the man told them it was very unusual for him to be at the office at that time of night.
“He said he had to come in to recut all the stencils for his own project and that he was going to be there until two or three in the morning. That had never happened before,” Debbie said. “But Mike had been fasting and praying all day about this, and we believe the Lord led us to the business that could help us complete what we were working on.”
“We’re so grateful for moments like these.”

“You must have a personal conversion to the gospel, especially if you are going to share it with someone outside of the Church,” says Torfin Christensen, 18, of Kent, Washington.
Share your beliefs.
In the summer of 1991, Tor went to work for AnaMarie Hollenbach, a 72-year-old invalid confined to a wheelchair. He still does odd jobs around her house and brings her groceries in every Friday evening. He says, “At first, she was just curious about the Mormons, and we would talk about our beliefs with each other. Then a few months later, she asked for the missionary lessons. She accepted everything right down the line and gave up a lifelong habit of smoking.” On March 26, 1992, Tor baptized Sister Hollenbach.
As first assistant in the priests quorum of the Kent Third Ward, Kent Stake, Tor sees that Sister Hollenbach receives the sacrament in her home at least once a month since her health does not allow her to attend Church services on a regular basis.
Tor is working and saving money and hopes to be in the mission field by fall of this year. He says quietly but with conviction, “I believe the gospel. I live it. I’ve never experienced life without it, and I don’t ever want to.”
Live the gospel.
Here are a few more of the teachings of the gospel Tor lives by:
Service: His mother, Sherie Christensen, says, “Tor is keenly aware of the needs of others, and he is always doing something for someone. Here at home, if he sees something needs to be done he gets right after it without being asked or told.”
Scripture study: Tor graduated from seminary and continues to fit daily scripture study into his busy schedule. He feels that his seminary experience has given him a more thorough understanding of the gospel and has better prepared him for a mission.
Tithes: The first thing out of each paycheck is Tor’s tithing. He works at an apartment complex doing maintenance projects to earn money for his mission and personal needs.
Self-sufficiency: Tor worked to pay for a small truck he uses to help ease his own, as well as the family’s, transportation needs.

I carried a tray of food, prepared by my mother-in-law, into a cluttered and dusty home. The sole occupant sat where she always sat, on a big armchair positioned so she could see out the window. Her swollen legs were stretched in front of her and her cane, which she used only with great effort, leaned against her arm. She smiled when she saw me, thanked me for the food, and apologetically asked who I was. As I sat next to her and listened to her stories, I was filled with warmth and peace.
Three years later, I was on the floor with my two young children, bouncing them on my legs and singing a racehorse tune. Only a few feet away, my kitchen was in disarray and toys were scattered across the floor. I suddenly felt a reassurance from the Spirit that I was right where I needed to be. Warmth and peace flooded my soul, filling its worn edges and giving energy where there was none.
Another two years forward, I was lying on the bed. A pile of laundry was visible on the floor, and a stack of papers littered the desk to my left as I fed my newborn son for the fourth time that night. I brushed my fingertips against his long lashes, felt his soft bald head, and was thrilled when fingers curled around the lace of my shirt. I was so filled with warmth and peace that I didn’t even mind that I was sometimes awake at three in the morning.
In each of these cases, the Holy Ghost was with me, telling me I was in the right place and doing the right thing, and in each of these cases, I was in a messy home.
I still remember the shock I felt the first time I made this connection—I began questioning my experiences. After all, I had always thought growing up that the Holy Ghost doesn’t dwell in unclean places—so I took that to include dirty homes. And these thoughts were nearly always accompanied by a scriptural reference. We learn in 1 Nephi 10:21 that “no unclean thing can dwell with God.” And the Lord tells us in Doctrine and Covenants 88:124 to “cease to be idle; [and] cease to be unclean.”
The irony in all of this is that I missed the deeper meaning of these scriptures—the importance of keeping our personal temples, our minds and bodies, clean—and instead jumped straight to the physical meaning. I had somehow learned from all of these lessons that my worth as a young wife and mother was all wrapped up in how perfect and clean my house was—and the effect of that belief was devastating.
I was always paralyzed with fear when the state of my home was not so perfect. I often didn’t listen for whisperings from the Spirit because I would look around my apartment and think, “No, there’s no way the Spirit can dwell here.”
I can’t remember the exact moment I realized I could feel the Spirit in a home that fell far short from the temple’s standards of cleanliness. But I do remember when I realized that the Lord, with His infinite capacity for compassion and empathy, saw the less-than-perfect efforts I offered, accepted them, and still sent me the spiritual companionship I desperately needed. He doesn’t need me to be perfect right now—He just needs me to do the best I can.
It hasn’t happened overnight, but slowly I’ve let go of what Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles refers to as “toxic perfectionism” (see “Be Ye Therefore Perfect—Eventually,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2017, 42). I’ve started allowing myself to believe that I can have the Holy Ghost with me even if I don’t have the energy to stay up all night with a teething baby and keep up with the laundry. Instead, I make sure I give the best I can give, and I accept the love Heavenly Father sends in return. I haven’t given up on becoming a better homemaker, I just say yes to the grace and inspiration the Lord has been trying to give me for so long. Because when I keep myself spiritually clean and do what He asks me to do, the Holy Ghost comes, messy house or not.

I have seen this verified in my own life. While we were living in California, one of our sons was seriously injured in an automobile accident. His skull was badly fractured, and doctors gave us very little encouragement that he would survive. Three days after he was admitted to the hospital, he contracted meningitis, and his condition worsened. Our family doctor and neighbor came to our home and said, “All we can do now is pray.”
And pray we did. For several weeks our neighbors, friends, and business associates joined us in praying for our son and for our own strength. After almost a month, our son’s condition finally stabilized and then improved, and we were blessed to see him eventually recovered and smiling again.
I would not wish a similar experience on anyone, but that terrible, difficult period taught us the principle that President Thomas S. Monson has taught the Church. Said he, “Prayer is the passport to spiritual power” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1990, p. 61; or Ensign, Nov. 1990, p. 47). During our son’s illness, we saw and felt the spiritual power of prayer! Our ward had never prayed harder than it did then, and I don’t think the members had ever been closer to each other. Our family was sustained by the collective faith and prayers of our friends. And even as our hearts were breaking in fear that we might lose our son, we felt closer to our Heavenly Father and more aware of our dependency on Him than at almost any other time in our lives.

Our son Justin grew up with a difficult disease. Sometimes he was very weak. He couldn’t always do things like everyone else, even though he tried. He knew what it felt like to be different.
One day Justin and his friends got together to play a game. They had to hit a ball with their arms to keep it in the air. One of the girls who came to play had a broken arm.
It would have been easy to say, “OK, we’re all playing, and she’s just going to watch.”
But instead, Justin said, “I have a great idea. We’re all going to play with one arm.” Everybody played the game using just one arm, including the girl who was wearing a cast. No one was left out.
Justin is my hero. He always looked at other people and thought, How do they feel? Justin was sick for most of his life, but he was happy because he helped other people and followed Jesus Christ.

Scripture study has helped a lot, both personally and in my family. When our children were young, like all families with young children, it was not easy to get the attention of our children. We had to be very creative. Fortunately, Sister Villanueva was very talented at teaching our little ones. For example, when we were learning about the Word of Wisdom, she would have us cut out different pictures from magazines, such as pictures of fruits, vegetables, boxes of cereal or some other nutritious foods. Also, she would ask us to cut out advertisements of alcohol, tobacco, coffee, etc. After reading some scriptures and explaining the Word of Wisdom, she asked our children to throw away those things that affected our bodies badly. This process kept the little ones entertained. It did not stop them from being restless and noisy, but they did learn.