Gospel Story Finder

“Given the situation, we conduct ministering via Facebook Messenger, by call, or by virtual meeting,” shares Sister Maria Criselda “Love” de Jesus of Sumag Ward, Bacolod South Stake. “But we also try to minister personally by going out and keeping proper distance,” she also says. For several Sundays, Love’s husband Neil visited his assigned brethren and was able to commit several Young Men to attend virtual sacrament meeting. The couple also encouraged ward members to seek out senior-age members who might need spiritual support.
When religious gatherings at 30% capacity was allowed, the De Jesus family, as much as they wanted to resume full fellowship, decided to sacrifice and give up their “seats” so that families without priesthood holders at home could go to church instead. “We conducted sacrament meeting at home,” Sister de Jesus says, “but amazingly, it helped our 11-year-old daughter Samantha participate more as she offered prayers, conducted the hymns and bore her testimony.”

Then another memory comes. It’s 1974, and my brothers and I are visiting with our great-grandfather Curtis Ellsworth. It is the last time I will see him in this life. He will die a short time later, at age 90, while I serve a mission in Guatemala.
In this moment from the past, I wonder: “What is Grandpa Ellsworth thinking as he looks upon us, his posterity? Does he remember when his own children were small? Does he worry about our future? Do we remind him that life passes swiftly?”
As we said goodbye in that long-ago moment, I remember that Grandpa Ellsworth wept. For decades I wondered why. Now I think I know.

I once visited a family in Chile. One of the children was a boy named Benjamin. He was 10 years old. One night, Benjamin gave a home evening lesson. It was about the stripling warriors from the Book of Mormon (see Alma 53:16–21; 56:42–56). He talked about how brave they were and how they trusted God.
Sometime later, Benjamin’s dad died in an accident. When Benjamin’s mom heard about the accident, she thought of Benjamin’s lesson. She told her family, “We need to be brave like the stripling warriors. We have another battle to fight.”
It was hard for Benjamin’s family. It felt like their lives were turned upside down. They had to move to another house to live with their grandma. They really missed their dad. But they knew they would be together with him again someday. They decided to be a striplingwarrior family.
I walked into their house wanting to comfort them. But I was the one who left feeling blessed. Benjamin told us, “I’m being brave.” Benjamin and his family are fighting this battle so bravely. Their faith is inspiring to me.

A mzungu in a tree? What was a mzungu doing up in a tree? And what was this tool he was using to cut through branches so quickly?
Such questions ran through the minds of Ugandans watching a foreigner (mzungu) using a battery-powered reciprocating saw to trim dead limbs from a massive shade tree. The tool itself was a marvel to the locals. Many of them had never seen anything like it before.
But even more amazing to them was the mzungu himself. Elder Roland Harris, a senior missionary from Utah, USA, trimmed branch after branch, cutting dead limbs from lofty perches. The people below were amazed that a foreigner would do such a thing for one of their own.
Ultimately, Elder Harris’s simple act of service would mark the beginning of a friendship with someone who had wanted nothing to do with the Church or anyone in it.
Elder Roland Harris and Sister Janet Harris were serving a 23-month mission in the Uganda Kampala Mission. Sister Harris, a registered nurse, was called as medical adviser to the missionaries. Elder Harris, a retired construction superintendent who can fix almost anything in the universe, cared for Church facilities and mission vehicles.
Shortly after arriving in Uganda, Elder and Sister Harris hired a local Church member, Mary, to assist in cleaning their home.
Mary had been baptized three years earlier. “We just grew to love her,” says Sister Harris. “She helped teach us the ways of Uganda.”
The more they got to know Mary, the more their friendship deepened. They learned quickly about her husband, Godfrey—a good man who nevertheless kept his distance from members of the Church, especially missionaries. “He wouldn’t let missionaries in his home,” explains Sister Harris. However, Mary still wanted Godfrey to meet them.
She invited the Harrises over for a brief visit. “We had no expectations,” Sister Harris explains. “We told Godfrey that Mary is our dear friend now, and we want to know her family.” Godfrey chatted with them but didn’t really warm up to the idea of getting to know them more than as acquaintances.
That all changed the day Elder Harris showed up with power tools, a ladder, and an offer to serve.
Godfrey and Mary’s home was surrounded by towering shade trees full of dead branches and overgrown limbs that stretched precariously above their roof.
Elder Harris set to work straightaway. He spent four hours in the treetops lopping off limbs up to 10 inches (25 cm) in diameter. The task was definitely overdue. “I was at least 20 feet (6 m) off the ground,” Elder Harris says. As people walked by, they could hardly believe their eyes.
For his part, Godfrey was astounded. “He thanked us profusely,” says Sister Harris. Even relatively simple activities like tree trimming can carry serious risk. “They have no money for medical attention,” Sister Harris explains. If someone fell out of a tree and broke an arm or leg, for example, they would likely have to heal on their own.
That large pile of tree clippings on the ground laid the foundation for a cherished friendship. “Godfrey would come out and greet us from then on,” Elder Harris says. Godfrey and Mary also began welcoming other Church members into their home.

Janet lay in a hollow on the sand dune and watched the surfers swimming off the beach below her. There were only a dozen or so swimmers this afternoon. The gusty Australian westerlies whipped the stinging sand around bare legs and into eyes. Most people waited to go swimming until evening when the wind died down. Tonight the beach would be crowded with people trying to cool off from the hot day.
Janet snapped a ti-tree twig from a bush close by and swiped at the small bush flies clustering around her legs. It isn’t fair, she thought. Other people are able to go to New Zealand. I wish we could.
Her father was the branch president, but his family didn’t have enough money to go to the New Zealand Temple with those who were going there next month to be sealed as families.
“When baby Richard was born, we used the money we had saved for the trip to pay the doctor and hospital,” her mother had explained. “So we won’t be able to go with the group this year.”
Janet slammed the screen door and rushed out to the sand dunes, her favorite place to think.
There is just no place we could get the money for the trip, she decided. She knew Grandfather Turner had money, but he wouldn’t help. He had never forgiven Mother for joining the Church and marrying Daddy.
Janet loved her grandfather, even though she seldom saw him. Maybe I should visit him, she thought, as she wiped her eyes. Maybe he is just a lonely person. Thinking about him now, Janet decided she would like to see him.
After school the next day, she walked slowly up the hill toward Grandfather Turner’s house. She was anxious to see him but she was also a little nervous.
A few minutes later, she stood on the wide veranda knocking on the front door of the big house. No one came. But Bluey, Grandfather’s cattle dog, barked furiously. Janet looked around the side of the house and saw the dog tied up in the shade of the peppercorn tree. Perhaps Grandfather was in the back yard.
Janet walked around the side of the house. “What’s up, Bluey?” she asked. “Don’t you remember me? I haven’t seen you for a long time. Where’s Grandfather?”
Just then Janet noticed that the dog was panting by his empty water bowl. “You’re thirsty, Bluey! Grandfather must be ill, for he’d never forget to give you water on a hot day like this.” She ran back to the house.
“Help!” A voice sounded very faint. From far away it came again, “Help!”
Across the yard, through the vegetable garden, and under the jacaranda tree Janet raced. And there, sprawled in the doorway of the chicken house, lay Grandfather.
“I tripped over the jacaranda root,” Grandfather moaned. “I meant to chop it out long ago. I think I broke my hip, and I’ve been lying here since early this morning when I came to feed the chickens. I thought help would never come.”
“Oh, Grandfather, I’m so sorry,” Janet comforted, “but I’ll go for help.” She ran into the house, found the telephone, and dialed the district hospital. Speaking quickly but carefully, Janet told them to send an ambulance to Mr. Turner’s house on the top of the hill on Murray Road.
A few days later when Grandfather was feeling much better, a small family gathered around his hospital bed. Grandfather held Janet’s hand. “I never was so glad to see anyone as I was to see you, young lady. But how did you happen to come just when I needed you?”
“I was lonesome to see you and thought I’d ask you to be friends with us,” Janet replied.
“For a long time I’ve been sorry that I’ve been so stubborn,” Grandfather admitted. “But I was too proud to say so. What happened the other day showed me that I need my family.
“A church shouldn’t divide a family,” Grandfather continued, “so when I’m all better I’ll visit your church with you.”
“That would be great,” Janet said as she squeezed Grandfather’s hand.
“Our church unites families,” Daddy explained. “We’d like to tell you all about it. We had hoped to go to the New Zealand Temple next month, where we could be sealed to each other as a family, but we aren’t able to do so. Maybe if we wait another year, we’ll have another important member of our family going with us.” Daddy smiled at them. “That will certainly be worth waiting for!”
And Janet felt a warm glow of promise.

I’ll never forget the day I met my bishop after that lonely January night in my motel room. My friend who had given me the Book of Mormon helped me get in touch with him. When I met the bishop in his office before church, I told him about my past, and I was prepared for him to say that they didn’t need someone like me in their ward.
Instead, he invited me to go into sacrament meeting.
So I did. I was convinced that I had the word convict tattooed across my forehead and that when I walked in, everyone would shun me. But that didn’t happen. Instead, I found the most welcoming people I had ever encountered. The next Sunday, I came back. Not long after I began attending church, a counselor in the bishopric asked if I would speak about forgiveness in sacrament meeting.
“Me? Talk about forgiveness?” I asked. But when he affirmed that he meant it, I took on the assignment. When I spoke to the congregation, I was sure they would only see me as a former convict. But the longer I talked, the more confident I became, and afterward I was met with nothing but love from these members, who greeted me with a hug or a handshake. That day I truly felt what it was to “love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matthew 22:39).
More importantly, I finally understood that when the Savior suffered in the Garden of Gethsemane and bled from every pore (see Mosiah 3:7; Doctrine and Covenants 19:18–19), He was bleeding for me too. This was a turning point—even though I had accepted the truth of the Book of Mormon and had invited Jesus Christ into my life, I was convinced that I was not going to be invited to heaven. I could not be forgiven. His Atonement was for everyone else, but not for me—because of what I had done.
But in this moment, I realized that I could be forgiven. This knowledge helped me move forward with my life. After more meetings with the missionaries, I was baptized in March 2012—my first step on the covenant path. Although I previously wouldn’t have thought it possible, I was able to marry a wonderful woman from my ward. We were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple in June 2013.

The second reason is much more personal because there is another story that comes out of that Stake Conference. But it’s a story that President Monson never knew about. The Sunday General session convened the next day at the Kangaroo Point Chapel. It generally took my family about an hour and a half to get to that chapel, but for Stake Conferences we would always leave our home at about 7:00 am for the 10 o’clock session. My mother and grandmother always wanted to get there early so that they could get “a good seat in the chapel.” I must have been around 12 years old at the time, and I remember that I certainly did NOT appreciate my mother’s preparation. Frankly, I did not like attending Stake Conference. I thought that it was boring. As kids we weren’t just sitting for the 2 hours of the Conference: we ended up sitting for about 6 hours, taking into account all of the driving and all of the sitting before the session started. There was absolutely no way that my mother would let us run around while we were waiting for the session to start—we spent that time sitting in the pew! On this particular day my Mum was even more eager to be there early enough to get good seats because an Apostle of the Lord was going to be there and we didn’t have that opportunity very often as I was growing up.

Some forty years later, there are only two things that stand out vividly in my mind about that Stake Conference: the first is that President Monson told a joke—surprise, surprise!, and the second is the impact that joke had on me.

How I wish that President Monson was here to recount that story in his own inimitable style! Of course, I don’t do it justice, but the story is not my point. The point is that, on that day, this 12 year old girl, who most certainly did not want to be at Stake Conference, was mesmerized by this large, imposing, and entertaining speaker who I had never heard of before, but whom I would never forget. That day was the first day that I remember enjoying Stake Conference. Six months later I came back with a very different attitude, and I have loved attending Stake Conferences ever since. President Monson knew something of the impact he had on the Louden family, but he never knew the impact that he had on this young kid. I will be eternally grateful to him for that.

As some of my companions engaged in practices that Latter-day Saints don’t think highly of, such as smoking or drinking, profanity or immorality, it was evident that they didn’t concern themselves about what the Lord would like them to do. When moments of stress came, however, their attitudes changed. I remember when one of these boys, who was not particularly impressed with the life of a former missionary, was scheduled for what was called an elimination flight, and he knew that if he failed the test that day, he would be eliminated from flying in the United States Air Force. He came to me in a very solemn mood and quietly said with tears in his eyes, “Bill, please pray for me. I need it.”

One day my instructor was giving an explanation to five of us in the ready room. In order to explain a certain maneuver, he went to the blackboard. Inasmuch as he was smoking a cigarette, he handed it to me to hold while he made the demonstration, and by this means I had the “privilege” of holding my first cigarette. After he had finished his demonstration at the blackboard, he took his cigarette back, and then he said, “Mr. Bangerter, I apologize for handing you my cigarette. I know you don’t smoke, do you?”

I said, “No, sir, I don’t.”

He said, “You don’t drink either, do you?”

I said, “No, sir.”

He asked, “Do you drink tea?”

“No, sir.”

“Do you drink coffee?”

“No, sir.” He turned to the other four students standing together and said, “Now, men, that’s the Word of Wisdom. We would all be much better off if we lived that way.” You can appreciate that I felt uplifted by that experience.

Another day I was riding in the airplane with my squadron commander. I was about 23 years old, and he was about 40. He was a man of fine manners and polite expression. After we had finished our flight and had landed the airplane, we were taxiing back to the parking area when another airplane came driving past in a way that my squadron commander did not appreciate. He looked over at the other pilot and said to me in a disgusted voice, “Where does that so-and-so think he is going!” And he uttered an oath. We parked the airplane and shut off the engine. As I climbed out, he turned to me and said, “Mr. Bangerter, I am sorry I spoke the way I did back there. I forgot for a moment it was you who was riding with me in the airplane.”

Of course, I realized throughout those years that I was considered different. Some people may have thought me strange. Those with whom I associated, however, frequently expressed admiration for the way I lived. I never found it necessary to break my standards, to remove my garments, or to apologize for being a Latter-day Saint. On more than one occasion during our training, my classmates gathered together for a farewell party or some other special event and had a dinner that, of course, was liberally supplied with liquor. Several of my companions would come to me before the dinner and ask me if I would please be so kind as to drive their car home for them because they would not be able to trust themselves at the conclusion of the party.

I can honestly say that no nonmember of the Church has ever tried to induce me to discard my standards. The only people I remember trying to coerce me to abandon my principles or who ridiculed me for my standards have been non-practicing members of the Church.

I know it is a blessing to stand up for the principles of truth and righteousness. People who value their character and their reputation will be honored to be of the chosen generation and to stand out as representatives of a peculiar and a noble people. I hope I may always find young people who are square. They are the solid kind, and their foundations are secure.

I didn’t do much schooling, so I couldn’t read or write well. The only thing I could do was write my name. A friend I worked with gave me a phone number and said I should call. I called and it was a lady who was a teacher at the high school. She invited me to a reading class. After a while, she invited me to church and activities.
I went to church one day and met the missionaries. They said they wanted to teach me the gospel. One thing that drew my attention was the plan of salvation. There was this emptiness inside of me because I always said to myself that there has to be more to life than what I was seeing.
I had questions. “Where did all of this start?” “Where did I come from?” The missionaries said to me, “You existed before this life. You lived with your Father in Heaven. You came here as a test to do what is required for you to go back to live with Him.” This answered my questions!
The missionaries also taught me that the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored. I didn’t know anything about that. The only thing I knew was that Jesus Christ died for me. After a month, I was baptized at age 25.

There was a young girl. She had sacrificed her worldly plans to spend long, tedious hours in work in order to provide for and raise her younger orphan brother; but now she lay on her bed, dying of a sickness. She called for her bishop, and as she talked to him in her last moments, he held her rough, hard, work-calloused hand in his. Then she asked the question, “How will God know that I am his?” Gently he raised her wrist and answered, “Show him your hands.”

I love seminary. I have often felt the Spirit there and have left feeling like a better person. On one particular day, however, I not only left feeling the Spirit, but I left with an answer to prayer.
The night before that particular day, I had asked Heavenly Father if the Church was true. After my prayer, I felt peaceful, but I was still not sure. I decided I would sleep on it.
The next day, my seminary teacher started the lesson with a video of some of the General Authorities bearing their testimonies. I felt the Spirit burning inside of me as we talked about testimonies and how little things can strengthen them.
He then put in another video of testimonies of kids who went to my school. I stared at the screen waiting for someone I knew. I saw some people I recognized, but I saw no close friends.
Then it happened. A girl I look up to so much appeared on the screen. As I looked into her eyes, she bore her testimony about Christ’s Atonement. Then she said these words: “I know this Church is true.” The Spirit overcame me. I realized my prayer was answered, and it was answered by one of the people that I look up to the most.
Heavenly Father knew that I needed to hear someone very close to me share her testimony of the Church. I am so grateful for the strong testimonies my friends have. Heavenly Father does answer our prayers.

Susan seemed afflicted with a similar ailment. But hers came when she looked in the mirror.
“Oh my gosh, I look so awful. Other girls have bad hair days—I have bad hair seasons. Why can’t I be thin, tall, blonde, and from Sweden? Is that asking too much?”

And here’s Susan, back in front of the mirror, but with a new attitude:
“Wow, that ribbon Mom gave me really does look good with my hair! It matches my dress, too. Maybe Jennifer would like one. It would look really good with the T-shirt she wore to Young Women last week. Whoah! Look at the time! I’d better hurry. I promised I’d make my famous Swedish meatballs for Mutual tonight!”

The pulpit in the Conference Center has a unique story. Following is President Gordon B. Hinckley’s account:
“I love trees. When I was a boy we lived on a farm in the summer, a fruit farm. Every year at this season we planted trees. I think I have never missed a spring since I was married, except for two or three years when we were absent from the city, that I have not planted trees. …
“Some 36 years ago I planted a black walnut [tree]. It was in a crowded area where it grew straight and tall to get the sunlight. A year ago, for some reason it died. But walnut is a precious furniture wood. I called Brother Ben Banks of the Seventy, who, before giving his full time to the Church, was in the business of hardwood lumber. He brought his two sons, one a bishop and the other recently released as a bishop and who now run the business, to look at the tree. From all they could tell it was solid, good, and beautiful wood. One of them suggested that it would make a pulpit for this hall. The idea excited me. The tree was cut down and then cut into two heavy logs. Then followed the long process of drying, first naturally and then kiln drying. The logs were cut into boards at a sawmill in Salem, Utah. The boards were then taken to Fetzer’s woodworking plant, where expert craftsmen designed and built this magnificent pulpit with that wood.
“The end product is beautiful. I wish all of you could examine it closely. It represents superb workmanship, and here I am speaking to you from the tree I grew in my backyard, where my children played and also grew.
“It is an emotional thing for me. I have planted another black walnut or two. I will be long gone before they mature. When that day comes and this beautiful pulpit has grown old, perhaps one of them will do to make a replacement. To Elder Banks and his sons, Ben and Bradley, and to the skilled workers who have designed and built this, I offer my profound thanks for making it possible to have a small touch of mine in this great hall where the voices of prophets will go out to all the world in testimony of the Redeemer of mankind.”

Elder Lawrence described a friend who decided to pray for the gift of charity. He related her experience: “She wrote: ‘I have been praying specifically for an increase of charity for several months. … Gradually my perception of others has changed. … I have begun to not just love the people around me but to enjoy them. Before, I may have kept my distance, but now I am genuinely interested in everyone.’”2

As ward missionaries, my wife and I fellowshipped a young couple. We loved them and their children. Eventually, they accepted our invitation to come to church.
When we arrived to pick them up one Sunday morning, however, they apologized because they weren’t ready. But their six-year-old son, Keaton, pleaded with his parents to go. So, with their permission, he got dressed and came with us to church.
Arriving late, we slipped in the back of the chapel. Suddenly I felt a tug and turned to find Keaton gripping my suit coat. With an anxious expression and his eyes fixed on the front of the chapel, he asked, "Who died?"
"What?" I responded, following his gaze. "No one died."
As I pondered Keaton’s question, I looked at the sacrament table. For a boy with little experience in the Church, it would be easy to see what seemed to be a body lying under the cloth covering the sacramental bread and water. Then it hit me: someone had died. The sacred emblems representing Jesus Christ’s body were right in front of us. With so much experience in the Church, why hadn’t I seen the sweet symbolism?
I thanked Keaton for his question and explained that the sacrament cloth covered bread and water and what they mean to us. His simple question had reminded me that the Savior really did die so we could live.
Since that day, Keaton’s question has continued to resonate in my soul. It has helped me approach the sacrament table more focused on the Savior. The emblems of the sacrament have become more vivid, and their meaning lingers with me longer throughout the week. I’ll be forever grateful for Keaton’s innocent question.

Recently my wife and children were very ill from an unusual bacterial infection. I gave them blessings and prayed for them. Then, not wanting to expose anyone else to their sickness, I arranged my work schedule to be able to be home to care for their needs. It was soon apparent that my acts of service to help them through three weeks of illness became a strong binding force for us. Such struggles in life sometimes push marital partners apart, but crises can serve as the training ground for commitment. We often perform such acts of service because we are committed beforehand, but in many instances service precedes commitment. It is in serving each other that we become committed to each other.

Even an unbelievable spring blizzard didn’t stop the modern-day pioneers of Kearns and Ogden (Utah) who found out firsthand what their ancestors went through.
No one expected as much snow as the two groups ran into in their April handcart and covered wagon treks. But it didn’t stop either group from experiencing doughy scones, burnt skirts, raw-potato stew, and square dancing in mud.
More than 100 Ogden High School Seminary students hiked down the top of North Ogden Pass into Liberty, Utah, where they set up their two-day camp. Wearing handmade pioneer clothing and carrying old rifles and muskets, the group pitched tents and cooked over open fires. The heavy snowfall dampened their surroundings but not their spirits as the group joined in for square dancing, skits, and storytelling, as well as watching tribal war dances performed by some Indian students in full native costume.
Splattered with mud, the group was unanimous in their praise for Mormon pioneers who withstood even greater sacrifices.
“Having to perform guard duty at night, eat pioneer food cooked on a fire. and everything else we did helped me appreciate the hardships of my pioneer ancestors,” said Steve Belnap.

Jerry Abram came out and sat down. “Rochelle is not a spectator; she is a participant,” he said when I asked him to sum up his daughter. “I don’t know what she’ll contribute to the Church—whether she’ll ever be a Relief Society or Young Women president—but I know what she’ll contribute to other people. She always has time for others.”
For example? “In our stake there was a young man, a ninth grader, who was not participating. So Rochelle went to his house every morning, woke him up if necessary, and took him to early-morning seminary. It wasn’t an assignment; she just did it. I asked her about it, and she said, ‘It’s there to do.’”

Thirty-three years ago, as a young boy, I received the ordinance of baptism. The baptizer was my father, Samuel E. Otuonye, who had just found the new faith and embraced it with the greatest joy. Though we had no full-time missionaries posted in our area then, as the Church was relatively new, I saw my father proselyting from home-to-home sharing the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. As a farmer, he would gather us, his children, for a service to those he was sharing the gospel with. The Church was very far from us, and my father would use his motorcycle to carry the investigators three to four times every Sunday to church and bring them back in the same manner.
During our family home evening or family council, he would always emphasize that all his sons would serve a full-time mission eventually. It was very easy for me and my other siblings to make the decision to serve a mission when it was time. We are all happy today for the good example of my father as we were growing.
In April of 2000, I was called to serve in the Ghana Accra Mission. It became the greatest opportunity for me to show my love, share my beliefs and invite others to join me to come unto Christ. Four of my siblings have also served in various missions.
I then realized that there are many yet on earth who are kept away from the truth because they know not where to find it. (See Doctrine and Covenants 123:12). Because of this, I join my voice to encourage the stake presidents, the bishops, and the parents and guardians to prepare all our young men to serve a full-time mission and the young women, if they so desire. This period of 24 and 18 months, respectively, provides a time of great devotion to them. They deny themselves of worldliness and only focus on the Lord’s errand.
My wife, Kate, and I are both in the medical field. After our marriage, we looked at our circumstances and began to think of how to share our blessings with others. We both worked in the state hospital as a medical doctor and a laboratory scientist. We realized that it would not give us the full opportunity that we needed to share our love with others. After much consideration, we established our own hospital, Ensign Hospital, which has become a great avenue to show our love to others.
As a leader in the Church and a medical practitioner I often encounter those who are in pain, those who are depressed, some who suffer with substance abuse, some who are near the point of suicide, accident victims, etc. It offers a great opportunity for me as I help to restore life. During my one-on-one visits with patients, after giving medical attention, I restore hope to them by sharing my belief and how my family and I have been blessed. Several times, I have pulled out my family picture and shared the joy we feel together. Many develop an interest and listen to the missionaries and are brought to the waters of baptism.
Sharing the gospel alone may not be very productive. Rather, it is our lives and those of our family members, the joy that radiates within us, the unity and how we live our lives that becomes the nonverbal message that we share to those around us. This has the greatest impact in their lives.
Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said, “Whenever we show Christlike love toward our neighbor, we preach the gospel even if we do not voice a single word.
“Love for others is the eloquent expression of the second great commandment to love our neighbor; it shows the refining process of the Holy Spirit working within our own souls. By demonstrating Christ’s love to others, we may cause those who see our good works to ‘glorify [our] Father which is in heaven.’
“We do this expecting nothing in return.
“Our hope, of course, is that they will accept our love and our message, though how they react is not within our control. …
“Through Christlike love to others, we preach the glorious, life-transforming properties of Christ’s gospel and we participate significantly in the fulfilling of His great commission.”
Brothers and sisters, there is no hard and fast rule on how and where the gospel of Jesus Christ should be shared. Sharing can be done directly or indirectly as you bear your testimony of the divine help of the Lord, during your discussions with friends.
Because I have lived almost all my years within my environment, my life has become a testimony to those who know me as I have been growing. Many are now coming to me to express their feelings after I invite them to join the Church. One of their questions in responding to my invitation is often “Will your Church take me to America if I join?”
I will then answer with my usual joke, “We better write in front of our Church gate ‘express visa to America after baptism’”.
I then tell them no, but what they will get is the everlasting gospel that brings peace and restores hope. I explain that they will learn about the plan of happiness and that their family will experience a great unity of love.
I bear witness and testimony that my family and I have been blessed tremendously beyond measure, we have a living prophet, God lives, Jesus is the Christ, and this is His Church.

Sometime back I had the privilege of attending a stake conference in the company of President Spencer W. Kimball. He was not the president of the Church at that time. Elder Kimball worked tirelessly holding one meeting after another until late Saturday night. On Sunday we held a meeting with bishoprics and high councilors at 8:00 A.M. This was followed by the general session, a meeting with the seventies quorum, an interview with the patriarch, the dedication of a chapel, and a talk to the seminary students in the evening. We went to the stake president’s home about 9:00 P.M. to wait for our plane that did not leave until nearly 11:00 P.M. The kindly stake president’s wife wanted to fix us dinner. Elder Kimball said, “Please, all I need is a bowl of milk and some of your homemade bread to break up in it.” These are not men to be conquered.