Gospel Story Finder

I’m very pleased to say a few words to you before we close this meeting. I feel very blessed this afternoon as I sit here by our President [President Spencer W. Kimball], whom I miss more than I can possibly say whenever he is not with us. We’ve appreciated very much having him come and attend the Council of the Twelve and First Presidency meetings. When we had all of the General Authorities of the Church meet in the temple last Thursday, President Kimball came in and expressed his love and appreciation for us. We still have him directing us.

Years ago, while I was serving as a bishop, a handsome young man resisted my invitation to become worthy to live with God in families forever. In a belligerent way he told me of the good times he had with his friends. I let him talk. Then he told me about a moment during one of his parties, in the midst of the raucous noise, when he suddenly realized that he felt lonely. I asked him what had happened. He said that he had remembered a time as a little boy, sitting on his mother’s lap, with her arms around him. For that moment while he told that story, he teared up. I said to him what I know is true: “The only way you can have the feeling of that family embrace forever is to become worthy yourself and help others to receive the sealing ordinances of the temple.”

Priesthood leaders have been instrumental in encouraging the Ivorian saints. In preparation for their first visit to the Accra Temple, each member was asked to bring a gift to the new temple. The members brought the gift of family names. For all subsequent trips, members have been encouraged to continue this tradition.

As a young boy, Banyan was so attentive in his Methodist services that he could often repeat entire sermons, and soon became known among the children as “the priest.” When many unanswered questions left him dissatisfied, he drifted into an informal Christian scripture union, but had trouble accepting all of their doctrine of being saved by grace alone. Faith without works was a doctrine which caused deep conflict in him. “Every Christian ought to demonstrate that he believes in the Lord,” Brother Dadson says.
At twenty-two, Banyan separated from the group and joined another religious brotherhood. The group gave him the spiritual support he needed during the next eight years while pursuing his bachelor’s, master’s, and doctor’s degrees in organic chemistry. “The brotherhood forbade alcohol, tobacco, and immorality and even had a story similar to Joseph Smith’s experience,” Brother Dadson recalls.

I met lots of Primary children in Africa. Many of them are the only members of the Church in their families. But they keep coming to church on their own each week. Primary helps them feel God’s love.

I raced from math class to my locker. I couldn’t wait to meet my friends for lunch. Starting middle school was pretty scary. But after a few weeks I had made some new friends. I could even make it to my classes without getting lost!
When I got to my locker, I saw my new friends standing around Alex. They were looking at something he was holding.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“It’s Alex’s lucky day!” Josh said. “He went to the library to buy a mechanical pencil, but someone put too much money in the machine, so he got an extra pencil for free!”
Alex held out the pencils for me to see. They had green and blue stripes with yellow erasers.
“Wow,” I said. “But … what about the person who lost the money?”
“Come on, Maya. Whoever lost it is long gone,” Josh said. “It’s their fault they put in too much money.”
“Well, yeah, but the money still belongs to someone else, doesn’t it?”
Alex’s smile faded a little. “I guess it does, but I don’t know who put in the extra money.”
“Don’t listen to her, Alex. It’s yours!” Josh turned to me. “Why are you trying to make him feel bad?”
Everyone seemed to agree with Josh. What if I ruined my new friendships because I disagreed?
I took a deep breath. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad,” I said to Alex. “But maybe you could talk to Mr. Reed in the library about it.”
“Hey, guys,” Liz interrupted, “we’d better get to the cafeteria before they run out of pizza!”
The group headed to the cafeteria, leaving Alex and me alone. Alex looked at the pencils and then at me.
“I think I want to talk to Mr. Reed,” Alex said. “Will you come with me?”
“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go.”
We walked to the library, and Alex explained to Mr. Reed what had happened. Mr. Reed checked the vending machine where Alex got the pencils.
“There’s nothing wrong with the machine,” Mr. Reed said. “Someone must have put in money for two pencils but only turned the knob once. I don’t have a way to find out who did it, so you can keep the extra pencil. Thanks for being honest.”
As we left the library together, I worried that Alex would be mad at me for talking him into going to the library for nothing. We were halfway down the hall before Alex spoke.
“Thanks, Maya. I didn’t feel totally good about keeping the pencil, but I wasn’t sure what to do. I feel OK about it now.”
I was so relieved. “I’m glad you’re not mad at me,” I said.
“Mad?” Alex looked surprised. “Why would I be mad? I made my own choice. Thanks for going with me to see Mr. Reed.”
“No problem,” I answered. “I still need to get my lunch from my locker. I’ll meet you in the cafeteria.”
I grabbed my lunch from my locker and ran to the cafeteria. I was glad I’d spoken up and that everything turned out OK. I was smiling all the way to the cafeteria. Today felt like my lucky day too!

As children we used to delight in waving thistledown stalks to watch the seeds float on the wind. Only later did we realize the effect that this had on our own and neighboring gardens. Many of us delight in flirting with temptation, only later to learn how we and others have sown the seeds of our own unhappiness and how we can also affect our neighbor’s happiness.

“I love being in the mission field,” a Laurel said. “I take a Book of Mormon to school with me everyday and put it on top of my books, and people say, ‘What’s that?’ And I get to talk to them about the Church. It’s a thrill to get nonmembers and inactive members out to church. Some of my inactive friends are coming out now.”

I turned the wheel and guided the car around the corner, resisting the urge to glance at my driving instructor’s face to see how I was doing. If I passed this test, I would finally get my driver’s license.
A parked truck caught my eye on the road ahead. Immediately, I felt uncomfortable and slowed down. My instructor said, “The speed limit here is 35 miles an hour.” I didn’t know how to respond—I couldn’t tell my teacher I just had a bad feeling. The girls in back shifted, and I felt my face getting red. I decided to drive faster. But then I looked at the truck again and changed my mind.
“What are you doing?” my instructor asked, confused. I had slowed the car to 10 miles per hour, and I didn’t know how to explain why. As I got closer to where the truck was, the feeling grew stronger. I hovered over the brake, holding my breath. If I wasn’t watching so closely, I would never have seen a basketball bounce from behind the truck. I slammed on the brakes, and the car skidded to a halt. The front bumper was just inches from a four-year-old boy who had run after the ball.
I couldn’t breathe, and it took a moment before I could relax enough to keep driving. My instructor and the other girls didn’t say a word. I finished the test in silence, trying not to notice the stares from the backseat.
I passed the driving test, but it didn’t seem to matter anymore. The focus of my whole summer had shifted the second that boy ran in front of my car. I know that the most important test for me was listening to the Spirit and obeying His counsel.

When my husband and I had been married for less than a month, he had to attend basic military training. I was not allowed to accompany him, so for the six months he was gone I stayed in Provo, Utah, and worked. This was not my idea of a married life—my husband almost 2,000 kilometers away and unable to come home for even a visit. I was a very unhappy bride.
One night during this time, I was awakened from a deep sleep by a voice which came into my mind. As I listened to what was being said, I realized that my great-great-grandfather was speaking to me. I lay there for a moment, listening and thinking. My great-great-grandfather was telling me to have his family sealed to him. He had lived in the United States in the mid-1800s. Due to the American Civil War and the economic conditions prior to the war, my great-great-grandfather George Wilkie had been away from his beloved wife and four sons a great deal. Eventually he died while serving his country in the Civil War.
My ancestors were not Latter-day Saints and did not have the blessings of the gospel. Now, in the middle of the night, here was my great-great-grandfather Wilkie saying to me, “Terry Lynn, please have my family sealed to me. I want to be with them through eternity. Please have our temple work done! You are now away from your husband—imagine that for eternity. It is awful! I want to be sealed to my wife.” Then, as suddenly as it had come, the voice was gone. At first, I thought I must be imagining things, and I lay there and thought about my great-great-grandparents. I decided I should do their genealogy and would start the work when I had the time. Then I began to fall asleep again. I was startled when the voice returned and said much the same thing, only this time urging me to have the work done soon. I decided to do something about it the next day. Apparently, however, my grandfather knew I would probably be distracted the next day, because he spoke to me yet a third time, and told me to do something NOW!
I could not quite believe what was happening, but in the middle of the night I got up and began working on genealogy. I sorted through miscellaneous papers and records and found the information I needed to begin. I then wrote letters requesting birth, marriage, and death certificates. When I had done all that I could do at that time, I finally went back to bed.
I worked on genealogy a lot during the six months my husband was gone. Eventually, I was able to go to the temple with my cousin and have my great-great grandparents sealed. I can testify that I felt their presence there in the temple and knew that, at last, they could be truly happy and together eternally.

Pioneers Traveling to the Temple, Maria Alicia Matos Strauss, 10, Bolivia. “This is one of the first caravans to travel to the temple. They had a few car troubles.”

Peter, James, and John restored the Melchizedek Priesthood …
… and now I can have the gift of the Holy Ghost!

A great way to have these truths become cemented in our children’s minds is to have them memorized. I was inspired by the Primary children in my ward in California who memorized the proclamation together. Each month they would stand and recite sections of the proclamation until they had memorized it all.

How that wonderful transformation will happen is captured for me in a song written for children, “I’m Trying to Be Like Jesus” (Children’s Songbook, 78). I remember watching the faces of a room full of children singing it on a Sunday. Each of the children was leaning forward, almost to the front of the chair. I could see light in their eyes and determination in their faces as they sang with gusto.

It seemed to me that they were not just singing; they were declaring their determination. Jesus Christ was their example. To be like Him was their goal. And their eager looks and their shining eyes convinced me that they had no doubts. They expected to succeed. They were sure He had prepared the way.

Girls in the Idaho Falls Idaho East Stake, working for their Summiteer Award in the Young Women camp program, mounted horses and headed for Dead Horse Point on a riding adventure.
For most, riding horses on mountain trails with a sleeping bag tied on behind was a new experience. After receiving instructions on the care of her horse (each girl was expected to brush, saddle, bridle, feed, and hobble her assigned horse during the trip), they headed into the mountains. Past camp experience prepared them for making camp with a minimum of equipment, but long hours in the saddle had the girls discovering new, untested muscles.
After maneuvering up a steep trail to a site appropriately named Dead Horse Point, the group was treated to a spectacular view of the Teton Range from the summit.
At the end of the three days, the girls and their leaders were becoming accustomed to the skills needed to ride the mountain trails. With rain threatening, the group broke camp, loaded the horses, and headed home from an adventure that brought them closer together and left them confident of their abilities to survive and enjoy the outdoors.

On November 3, 1973, a great, winged shadow bumped swiftly across the tortured grey landscape of the Gila wilderness in New Mexico. Six miles above, the interrupted sunlight shone on the back of a National Airlines DC10 jetliner that seemed to hang in the four o’clock blue afternoon while the world moved underneath. Inside, just in front of the craft’s eastern wing, Elder Leonard Dobson was riding home in style.

While the ragged mountains slipped away under his right elbow, he relaxed, reading a little from the book of 2 Nephi in his battered, Spanish-language Book of Mormon and turning occasionally to snap a photo from his cabin window.

And sometimes he just leaned back and thought about some of the wonderful people he was leaving behind in the Venezuela Mission where he had served faithfully for two years, and he thought, perhaps, of an LDS lawyer in Sonora, California, who had given a copy of the Book of Mormon to a 26-year-old non-Mormon civil engineer named Leonard Dobson.

A brief year as a member, a mission call, the mission (could it really have been two years?), and now he was sitting on a six-mile-high cushion of air, waiting for the red and yellow lights of the San Francisco airport to come and gather him home.

Suddenly the sleepy rumble of the three jet engines was shattered by a deafening explosion; far below the huge shadow faltered; inside the plane there were screams of shock and horror, quickly dying into stunned silence.

“I looked back over my left shoulder into the cabin area to see what had happened, because it sounded like the explosion was in back of me,” Leonard reports. “Then I looked back over my right shoulder and saw the engine coming apart, pieces falling away, and flames. My first thought was, ‘Oh no; you’re going to be one of those people who go in a big airplane crash.’ The very first thing I did was pray. It just didn’t make any sense for me to die at that time, but if I was going to I wanted to talk to my Maker about it, so I started praying.”

As he prayed, all fear left him. The words, “You are a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ; the plane will get down safely,” kept running through his mind. Certain passages from his patriarchal blessing also came into consciousness, reassuring him that his mission on earth was not yet completed. It was a calm and confident young man who finished his prayer and turned to see what he could do to help.

“Some passengers were screaming and some were rushing around the cabin. The stewardesses were very busy. At that time I noticed the condensation in the cabin area, a fog that looked like smoke, and I realized that I couldn’t hear.” He found out later that the fog and the temporary deafness both resulted from a broken window two seats back through which the cabin had decompressed.

As oxygen rushed from the cabin through the broken window, oxygen masks began dropping from their compartments overhead. Leonard’s didn’t drop, and he had to pry off the panel with his fingernails and remove the mask manually. Many of the masks didn’t work properly.

“People were moving from one seat to another trying to find a mask that worked. Some of them were fainting, and as they fainted their arms would fall away from their faces and their masks would fall off.”

There was a real spirit of brotherhood in the little airplane community, passengers helping passengers as best they could. The stewardesses moved about with amazing energy and efficiency, administering oxygen and first aid to those in need.

And so, with an engine gone, the cabin depressurized, and an ocean of thin air under them, the huge craft dipped its nose and went looking for its shadow.

“The pilot put the plane into a steep dive to get some thicker air into the cabin. I got up to help some people across the aisle who had fainted but a stewardess came to them with a portable oxygen supply and motioned for me to sit down and buckle up. They had to communicate by gestures because no one could hear.”

Wanting to help somehow, Leonard began taking pictures of the disintegrating engine as the plane plummeted earthward. These pictures later proved to be an invaluable aid to the National Airlines investigating team.

The jet leveled off a few thousand feet above the rugged desert floor, and the passengers were told to get into crash landing position with their heads between their knees. The last thing Leonard saw before putting his head down was jagged peaks flashing by. A few minutes later they all felt the beautiful jolt of rubber against concrete. The wounded plane with one engine destroyed had managed to limp into Albuquerque, New Mexico, thanks to the skill of the crew and the blessings of the Lord.

On the ground the passengers slid to safety down emergency chutes and then embraced one another as old friends, shouting words that no one could hear.

The happiness of the occasion was marred by a tragedy that some of the passengers didn’t even know about yet. The man sitting by the broken window had been sucked out of the plane by the force of the decompression. There had also been several heart attacks and cases of shock.

It was a day of stark tragedy, lightened only by the fact that according to all the laws of probability, the tragedy should have been much much worse.

In retrospect Leonard says, “Life is a gift and is very precious. We are in the Lord’s hands at all times, and we must use the life, light, and guidance we have in his service. All we have and are we owe to him.”

And just as a great jet found its own shadow in the safety of the Albuquerque airport, Elder Leonard Dobson found a faint shadow of God’s great love for his servants in those few terse words: “You are a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ; the plane will get down safely.”

April 6, 1830, is a significant date for Latter-day Saints. It is the day The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized. The translation and printing of the Book of Mormon had been completed, the priesthood had been restored, and now the Lord directed that His church should again be organized here on the earth.
Prospective members of the Church gathered at the home of Peter Whitmer, Sr., in Fayette, New York, for this special occasion. The meeting was simple. Joseph Smith, then twenty-four years of age, called the group to order and designated five associates to join with him in satisfying New York’s legal requirements for the incorporation of a religious society. After kneeling in solemn prayer, Joseph Smith proposed that he and Oliver Cowdery be called as teachers and spiritual advisers to the newly organized Church. Everyone raised their right arms to the square, and the pattern of sustaining Church leadership was established.
At that meeting, the revelation contained in the twenty-first section of the Doctrine and Covenants was received. In that revelation, the Lord said to the Prophet Joseph Smith:
“Behold, there shall be a record kept among you; and in it thou shalt be called a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the church through the will of God the Father, and the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ,
“Being inspired of the Holy Ghost to lay the foundation thereof, and to build it up unto the most holy faith” (D&C 21:1–2).

After our marriage, surgical treatment was necessary to help make it possible for me to bear children. I was afraid of the surgery because during my teens I had suffered problems with my heart; even though I had been given reassurances by my doctor, I feared anesthesia, thinking it might somehow affect me adversely. The night before the operation, my husband stayed at the hospital with me and we read the Book of Mormon together. As I started to feel the effects of the medication I had been given, I prayed to the Lord to help me control my fear. These words of Mormon came into my mind: “Know ye not that ye are in the hands of God? Know ye not that he hath all power?” (Morm. 5:23).
Awakening after the operation was an unpleasant experience. I could not talk. I heard my husband’s voice and wanted to speak, to thank him for his support, but I could not. My physical faculties were so limited that I thought about Alma the younger when he fell down, chastised by an angel, and spent two days unable to talk or move (see Mosiah 27:10–23; Alma 36:5–23). I remembered that Alma was born to a new life at that time, repenting to fulfill his important mission, and I realized that I was suffering through my own experience to fulfill the important mission of being a mother, to participate in providing bodies for our Heavenly Father’s children.

The Church recently published a rendering of what the temple in Bengaluru, India will look like. Great joy filled my soul as I cast my eyes upon so lovely a sight, that for so long was a cherished dream! This dream shared by many, was talked about for years in our testimony meetings, church lessons and homes. It is now a dream come true for not only the Saints in India, but also those who have served in this land. It was a dream that fueled our missionary efforts. And now we get to see it with our own eyes. This is the sweet fruit of our labors. This is the grand grace of God. This is (as we recited so often on our missions) the standard of truth erected and going forth “boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished, and the Great Jehovah shall say the work is done.”1

The last time a hurricane made landfall in Florida, USA, I was a little boy. The year was 2005. At the time we lived in Utah and were visiting Florida on a family vacation. My parents say I was not happy to wake up at 3 a.m. to evacuate when the eye of the hurricane was headed directly toward us.
The day after that hurricane passed, we woke up and went outside. My mom said the sky was a beautiful blue and the ocean was calm, but the city looked more like my little sister’s bedroom—a disaster zone.