Gospel Story Finder

John Taylor’s youth had prepared him well for a lifetime of dedicated service to the Lord. He sensed even when he was young that a guiding hand was over him, watching and protecting him until he was ready to fulfill his foreordained mission in life. As he left Liverpool in 1832 to join his family and eventually his life’s work in the kingdom, he experienced a severe storm soon after the ship was out to sea. Undaunted, he recalled, “So confident was I of my destiny that I went on deck at midnight, and amidst the raging elements felt as calm as though I was sitting in a parlor at home. I believed I should reach America and perform my work.” (Life of John Taylor, p. 29.) That work and the formative influences of his youth in accomplishing it stand as a remarkable example for us to the present day.

“I have seen that promise fulfilled in my own life and in the lives of others. A friend of mine served as a mission president. He told me that at the end of every day while he was serving, he could barely make it upstairs to bed at night wondering if he would have the strength to face another day. Then in the morning, he would find his strength and his courage restored. You have seen it in the lives of aged prophets who seemed to be renewed each time they stood to testify of the Lord Jesus Christ and the restored gospel. That is a promise for those who go forward in faith in their priesthood service.”
President Henry B. Eyring, “Faith and the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood,” Liahona, May 2008, 62.

Mother sighed. “It’s a picture of my cousin Kenny and me. Kenny was my best friend too. We both loved the early spring, when buds began to form on brown branches, green grass peeked out from patches of melting snow, and the river roared through the farm with spring runoff. Kenny was deaf and couldn’t hear it, but he could feel the spring sun warm his back as he played with Bridget, his huge pet sheep who was about to have baby lambs.
“We were both five. We talked to each other with our own made-up sign language. I loved playing with his large collection of farm toys, and he was always willing to share them.
“On that beautiful spring afternoon, the snow had been totally replaced by a carpet of green grass, and the creek had calmed from a roar to a strong, pleasant chuckle. Our mothers decided to let us go fishing.
“I was eager to try out my new bamboo fishing pole. A real fishing pole. Always before I had used a thick stick, like the one Kenny was still using.
“We sat side by side on our little perch, not moving so that we wouldn’t scare the fish. I threw my line into the creek, just the way my mother had shown me, being careful not to get it tangled. Kenny just sat there with his stick-pole, a sad expression on his face. Oh no! I thought. He wants a new pole too.
“Soon he motioned to me in our own private language that he wanted to use my new fishing pole. I shrugged him away, pretending not to understand. He tried again, more insistent this time. I looked away, pointedly ignoring him. Frustrated, he tried to pull the pole out of my hands.
“I pried his fingers off my pole and pushed him away. I wanted to tell him, ‘Just let me use it first for a little while. I’ll let you try it if you’ll only wait until I’m ready.’ But I didn’t know how.
“He was hurt and turned away. I reached over to pinch him, angry because he wouldn’t let me enjoy my new pole even for a moment.
“I looked up to see my mother taking our picture. My face burned with shame. I felt small and little and mean. I didn’t feel like fishing anymore.
“Handing my precious new pole to Kenny, I left to go play with Bridget. I loved to put my fingers deep into her soft wool. I looked back to see that Kenny was offering me his thick stick and motioning for me to come back and sit by him, but I ignored him.
“We had a picnic that day on the vast green lawn, with fancy little sandwiches cut in the shape of hearts, pink lemonade, and Aunt Dorothy’s angel food cake. We laughed when Bridget tried to steal a nibble.
“That was the last time I ever got to play with Kenny. Our mothers had planned this special day for us because Kenny was going into the hospital to have surgery, which the doctors hoped would help his ears.
“But something went wrong. Kenny died. My mother said that Kenny went to live with Jesus. I didn’t understand why he couldn’t stay right here with us.
“I missed him terribly. His mother put away all his farm toys and never got them out again. I wanted to play with them because then I could pretend that he was playing with me.
“Mom’s pictures came back from being developed, and the pinch was in that picture! Mom had the picture made big and ordered several copies so that Grandma and all my aunts and uncles could have a picture of Kenny.
“I have always felt sad about that mean pinch. Every time I see that picture of Kenny and me fishing, it makes me feel bad.”

Just twenty-four hours after my call as an Apostle last June, I left for a Church assignment in southern California where, in due course, I found myself standing by the bedsides of Debbie, Tanya, and Liza Avila. These three lovely sisters, aged thirty-three, thirty-two, and twenty-three, respectively, each developed muscular dystrophy at age seven. Since that tender age, each has had her rendezvous with pneumonia and tracheotomies, with neuropathy and leg braces. Then came wheelchairs, respirators, and, finally, total immobility.
Enduring the longest period of immobility of the three sisters, Tanya has been on her back for seventeen years, having never moved from her bed during that period of time. Never once in seventeen years has she seen the sun rise or set or felt the rain upon her face. Never once in seventeen years has she picked a flower or chased a rainbow or watched a bird in flight. For a lesser number of years, Debbie and Liza have also now lived with those same physical restrictions. Yet somehow through it all, these sisters have not only endured, they have triumphed—earning Young Women personal achievement awards, graduating from high school (including seminary), completing university correspondence courses, and reading the standard works over and over and over again.
But there has been one other abiding ambition these remarkable women were determined to see fulfilled. They rightly saw themselves as daughters of the covenant, offspring of Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, and Jacob and Rachel. They vowed that somehow, some way, someday they would go to the house of the Lord to claim those eternal promises. And now even that has been accomplished. “It was the most thrilling and fulfilling day of my life,” Debbie said. “I truly felt I was home. Everyone was so gracious and helpful with the innumerable and seemingly insurmountable arrangements that had to be made. Never in my life have I felt more loved and accepted.”
Of her experience, Tanya said: “The temple is the only place I have ever been where I felt truly whole. I have always felt I was a daughter of God, but only in the temple did I understand what that truly meant. The fact that I went through the experience lying horizontally with a respirator took absolutely nothing away from this sacred experience.”
Elder Douglas Callister, who, along with the presidency and workers in the Los Angeles Temple, assisted these sisters in making their dream come true, said to me, “There they were, dressed in white, long black hair falling down nearly to the floor from their horizontal position, eyes filled with tears, unable to move their hands or any other part of the body except their heads, savoring, absorbing, cherishing every word, every moment, every aspect of the temple endowment.” Debbie would later say of the experience, “I now know what it will be like to be resurrected, surrounded by heavenly angels, and in the presence of God.”

When we respect the confidences granted us, our friends can speak of their inner feelings or reach out for help. Marie and Heather shared this kind of trust. Heather had four children and demanding home responsibilities. Marie was often prompted by the Spirit to call just when Heather needed to confide. Heather said, “I couldn’t hide my feelings from her question, ‘How are you doing?’ I’d cry and explain, and she would listen, and I’d feel better. I knew my words would go no further. I thank the Lord for Marie.”

When elevated to the rank of inspector, he was called in by Chief J. Edgar Hoover.
“Find John Dillinger. Stay on him. Go anywhere the trail takes you and capture him alive, if you can, but protect yourself.”
Directing a special squad of agents, Sam’s investigation zeroed in on Dillinger. A telephone tip reported that Dillinger was thinking of going to one of two Chicago movies the next night. All avenues of escape from both theaters were blocked off by federal agents the following night as they awaited Dillinger’s exit. Sam directed East Chicago and Indiana agents as well as city policemen in the ambush. Walking from the Biograph Theater on July 22, Dillinger spotted the agents and reached for his automatic. The agents opened fire. Dillinger fell.

The youth in Ucon aren’t the only ones who knew that acting out scenes from the Book of Mormon could help to make the scriptures more meaningful. Youth from two stakes in Canada, the Calgary Alberta East Stake and the Medicine Hat Alberta Stake, spent time in wilderness areas near their homes for their annual youth conference reenacting different events from the Book of Mormon. The two youth conferences were similar in format and included reenactments of battles, holding to the iron rod (avoiding worldly temptations, which were represented by tempting candy and treats), and the appearance of Christ on the American continent.
The conferences weren’t all smooth, of course. The youth in Medicine Hat wandered through a “wilderness” so muddy that some of them had the shoes sucked right off their feet! But walking among the wildflowers on the Canadian prairie, listening to an actor playing Samuel the Lamanite, and writing their feelings during a private journal time gave the youth in both stakes a chance to really think about their testimonies of the Book of Mormon.
“I didn’t want to leave to go home when the conference was over,” said one participant. “We were surrounded with good feelings.”

“Each one of us had a job, a goal, and an objective. We knew we had to make Sauniatu stand up and be independent,” said Ed Kamauoha as he began relating the incredible story of a service project that has continued for years and dramatically influenced hundreds of lives.
The village of Sauniatu is tucked in the crater of an extinct volcano 20 miles east of Apia on the island of Upolu in Western Samoa. Most of the island’s roads parallel the sea coast; very few lead into the interior. And though it is only four miles from the coast highway, Sauniatu is isolated. You can almost walk as fast as a car can drive up the bouncy, twisting volcanic path that appears to be a giant green tunnel through the lush growth on either side of the trail.
The Samoan word Sauniatu means “a place to prepare.” The early Saints who established Sauniatu had a vision about the importance of this place in the Samoan history of the Church. They knew they needed a place where they could prepare and build strength. In 1904, when they established Sauniatu, they had been expelled from their villages, persecuted, and unfairly taxed for being Mormons. Later they started a school at Sauniatu, and it became one of the Church schools in Samoa. From time to time, during the ensuing years, the people of Sauniatu and the various school administrators talked about the advisability of keeping such a remote school operating.
In 1921, when Samoan officials were wondering about continuing the village, Elder David O. McKay and Hugh Cannon visited Samoa on their around-the-world tour of the Church. It was on this visit that Elder McKay pronounced an apostolic blessing on Sauniatu and its inhabitants. Among other things, he blessed them that they would have an abundance of food and clothing, that their plantations would be fruitful, and that peace would abide in their hearts and homes. (See Improvement Era, May 1966, p. 366.)
In December 1967, Brother Ed Ka-mauoha was appointed to be the new headmaster at Sauniatu. For years, Sauniatu had been functioning as a school, but when he arrived, the future of Sauniatu was once again in question.
“There were real administrative questions about the efficiency and quality of the school,” he explained. Everyone in Samoa is required to take a standard government education test when they leave high school, and the Sauniatu scores were an average five points below the scores of students from the other Church schools in Samoa. In addition to the low test scores, it was costly to operate the remote school. Many of the students were from very poor families and could not afford to pay more tuition. Enthusiasm among students and teachers was low.
“I felt bad about the school,” he said. “As an administrator, I understood the problems, but I also understood what the tradition of Sauniatu means to the Saints in Samoa. I knew the place was not what it could be because it was not living up to President McKay’s 1921 blessing.”
Ed Kamauoha believed Sauniatu had a prophetic future yet to be fulfilled if each person living there cared. His mind remained restless and his wirey Polynesian body became charged with nervous energy as he began planning to meet the many requirements needed to make the students of Sauniatu self-sufficient and proud and to help the community of Sauniatu reap the promised blessings.
The projects he outlined for the betterment of Sauniatu were big projects. In many people’s minds, they were too big for a handful of teachers and a few dozen school children to handle. Yet Brother Kamauoha felt they could do it.
“Getting everyone to work on big projects is like starting a large machine. You just can’t let it idle; you have to really rev it up and keep it going,” said Brother Kamauoha.
He also felt that the students’ performance in school would improve and the morale among the teachers would also improve if they knew they had some control over their own future. “We had been waiting for others to help us at Sauniatu,” explained Brother Kamauoha. “I tried to teach the people that they had depended too much on outside help and assistance from others. I told them the Lord gives us brains and a pair of hands but they won’t help us unless we use them. And so we started building roads, and we did it by hand.”
As soon as the roads were passable, the young people at Sauniatu began working on other major projects. Groups worked simultaneously on a trail down the side of a cliff to the swimming hole, on roads, a nature trail, improving the plantation, and on the construction of a traditional Samoan village, including a special chief’s house in memory of President McKay’s apostolic blessing.
It took one year to build concrete steps down a volcanic cliffside to the swimming hole and the beautiful waterfall below. Four boys worked on this project. They had two picks, two crowbars, and one sledgehammer, and they worked every night after school and every Saturday for six months. Little by little, they chipped the rock away until they had a pathway wide enough to support some concrete clear to the bottom of the waterfall. It took them another six months of backbreaking labor to make the steps. They hauled sand from the beach in an old pickup truck. They added cement and took gravel from the river and mixed the concrete by hand in a shallow pocket hollowed out of a large stone. Then they shoveled the wet concrete into buckets and lowered them down the cliff with ropes attached to a long bamboo pole. One step at a time they worked until the trail was completed.
While the waterfall project was underway, Brother Kamauoha challenged the young girls to make a path that would lead people from the village to the waterfall. They planned one pathway, but upon inspection they could see it wasn’t right, and so Brother Kamauoha challenged them to try another one. This still wasn’t any good. They reported to him, and he confirmed that it wasn’t right and told them that the reason it wasn’t right was because they hadn’t tried hard enough. “The third time they did their best, and the planned path was perfect. It curved properly, they had avoided the boggy spots, and the entire path was ideal,” he said.
Every evening after school, the girls carried baskets of pebbles up from the river and placed them on the path. Each of them would carry 25 to 40 baskets of rocks each evening, and with everyone working, it took only a few months to complete.
Then the boys and girls brought young trees from the mountains to plant beside the trail. They also brought orchids, tree ferns, and other plants to make the trail beautiful. And they named their trail Losa (Rose) Lane.

There are thousands and thousands of Latter-day Saints who have courageously proclaimed the name of the Church. As we do our part, others will follow. I love this story from Tahiti.
Ten-year-old Iriura Jean resolved to follow the counsel of President Nelson.
“In her school class they discussed their weekend … and Iriura talked about … church.
“Her teacher, Vaite Pifao, said, ‘Oh, so you are a Mormon?’
“Iriura stated boldly, ‘No, … I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!’
“Her teacher replied, ‘Yes, … you are a Mormon.’
“Iriura insisted, ‘No teacher, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints!’
“Ms. Pifao was amazed at Iriura’s conviction and wondered why she was so insistent on using [the] long name of her church. [She decided to learn more about the Church.]
“[Later, as Sister] Vaite Pifao was baptized [she expressed gratitude] that Iriura heeded the counsel of President Nelson.”

This is how President Thomas S. Monson (1927–2018) lived his life. Many years ago, I had an assignment with him. As part of the assignment, we were to be in a four-hour training meeting on a Saturday afternoon. However, he felt the prompting of the Holy Ghost to visit some people with great needs in order to lift their spirits and help them to be of good cheer. So for the first two hours, while I and other brethren were in the meeting, he was out doing good to others, ministering as the Lord did in His mortal life. President Monson joined us for the final two hours of the training meeting and did a marvelous job of teaching and training.
After the meeting, I commented on how well he taught in the meeting and then thanked him for the most powerful teaching: his example of going out and ministering to individuals, one by one. He smiled and said: “One thing about me, I am never confused about my priorities.” I thought about what he had said and after taking him to the airport and bidding him goodbye, I headed for home. Then I changed direction and went to visit a sister who was ill and needed some cheering up. Since that time, I have tried to live in my very imperfect way to be a light to others as the Savior commanded us to be and to do so in word, action, and deed.

It was when he turned 18 that Enoch faced a bigger challenge. Wanting to grow his knowledge and understanding of the gospel by learning what the world thought of his faith, he began to encounter ideas and philosophies that caused him to question his beliefs. He began to wrestle with his testimony, becoming more and more confused by what he was finding. He tried to find his own answers to resolve the growing confusion, but they were not forthcoming. He turned to others with his questions, but they couldn’t resolve his doubts. Finally, he approached the missionaries, challenging them to answer his questions, but they declined to give him easy and quick answers, which he found surprising. Instead, they returned the challenge and gave him a Book of Mormon with the promise that if he read with a sincere heart, asking God in faith, his confusion would be resolved. He accepted their challenge.

Enoch devoured the Book of Mormon in 10 days. Frequently, as he encountered stories of conversion such as those of Alma, King Lamoni, and others, the Spirit moved him to tears. In his reading he recognized the same Spirit he had felt in reading the New Testament in his youth. He felt a calming comfort that helped him remember and renew his relationship with his Savior, and his confusion began to fade. The answers to some of his questions never came, but he didn’t worry as he realized that his questions didn’t have to be answered. What mattered was his knowledge of the truthfulness of the plan of salvation and of the divinity and role of Jesus Christ, and especially of the Saviour’s love for him. He regained his footing on the covenant path with a newly strengthened relationship to God.

At the age of 18, Olivia Nez has been around the longest of any of the girls in the Young Women program on the reservation. She has played a large part in helping to plan this first girls’ camp, working closely with the leaders to make sure that all the girls had the equipment and skills necessary to have a great time. Even though her senior year was chock-full of activities, including being the student body president, Olivia made time to act as the youth camp director.
“Since I just graduated [from high school], this is my first and last camp with our branches,” she says. “The girls in my branch and the other branches face a lot of challenges, and this is a good opportunity to learn more about the gospel and recommit ourselves.”

The cooperative effort of both priesthood and Relief Society in these councils continues to be a significant factor in successful ward and stake welfare services operations. Such cooperation was exemplified recently when a flood swept over many of the homes in an Ogden, Utah, stake. The stake president reported, “The stake Relief Society president didn’t wait for me to go to her. She came to me first.”
At his direction, she mobilized the sisters and obtained food for the victims and their rescuers. She quickly set up serving areas in mobile “kitchens” improvised in vans and station wagons, taking hot, home-cooked food to the actual work sites. As the flood waters receded, men and women worked together to clean muddy walls and floors.

My friend Wendy is a fantastic cook. From the day she moved in down the street from our family, she has been sharing food with us. She always has an excuse: “This won’t fit in my fridge,” or “I made too much!” No matter what she says when she brings her offerings, what I always hear is, “I love you.”
I felt her love for our family particularly after one very difficult day. One of my children had recently been diagnosed with an eating disorder, and everything about food was getting complicated and stressful at our home.
One night my daughter and I were meeting with her therapy team. At this meeting she was given a meal plan, and I was tasked with making and planning three meals and three snacks for her every day. These meals and snacks had to meet certain dietary guidelines that would help restore her weight.
For me, this task was overwhelming. I’m not much of a cook, so receiving such specific guidelines and anticipating trying to get my reluctant child to eat so much food nearly brought me to tears. As we drove home, my mind fixated despondently on one thought: “I don’t have anything that’s right for her evening snack tonight.”
Arriving home, I trudged through the door and immediately smelled something delicious. There, sitting on the kitchen counter, was a loaf of banana bread Wendy had delivered while we were gone. It contained a grain, a fruit, and a fat—perfect for the evening snack we needed! Even better, my daughter ate it willingly.
When I called Wendy later to thank her for the bread, I didn’t share the backstory. She probably wondered why I was a bit emotional over her gift. Wendy didn’t know we were struggling. She had simply made “too much” banana bread and didn’t want it to go stale.
A few months later, as I listened to a podcast about being covenant keepers, I wondered what being a covenant keeper really means. Then Wendy’s gift of banana bread popped into my mind.
When Wendy followed her heart and brought us bread that day, she had mourned with those who mourned and comforted those who stood in need of comfort (see Mosiah 18:9), even without knowing the whole story. And it made such a difference.

Weather, distance, and school schedules prevent many Thai members from attending church, so the Ubon Ward decided to set a date and encourage as many people as possible to attend.
A lot of members here in Thailand have difficulty coming to church because of school meetings, bad weather (most of our members travel by motorbike), and distance. The members in my ward, the Ubon Ward, face all of these challenges and more, which makes attending church difficult.
One Sunday, I was wondering how we could help the members recognize the blessings of exercising the faith to worship together more often. The idea came to me, “What if we picked a Sunday to focus on getting every member to church that day?” If we were able to get everyone to come on the same day, it would allow members to really see and feel the strength of the ward.
Other leaders and members in the ward liked the idea and became involved in planning for it. We decided on a date, June 17, 2018—the Sunday closest to the anniversary of when the Ubon Thailand Stake was founded—and started sending messages about it through social media. We named the event “Let’s Come to Church on the Same Sunday! 200 Sacrament Meeting Attendance—Ubon Ward Can Do It.”
Practically the whole ward was involved in encouraging each other to come. Everybody kept sending messages persuading others to join the event. Members also invited returning members and friends who weren’t members. And so many people said yes!
We realized that this was more than just a fun event to see how many people could come. We wanted it to be an especially spiritual experience to help motivate members to make attending sacrament meeting a priority. So in the months leading up to the event, the bishopric encouraged people to avoid any activities that might minimize the importance of the sacrament or the worship of the Lord.
We even made bookmarks to help people remember the event and the Spirit that we knew would be there because of everyone’s efforts to attend. The bookmark had the name of the event and also a scripture: “I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High” (Psalm 82:6). We chose this scripture because we wanted everyone to realize that they are children of God and have the potential to be like Him.
Members planned for a long time to all be able to attend on the set day. Finally, the day came. But so did obstacles. It rained heavily the evening before and continued raining all through the night. Another obstacle for some members was that an important school meeting was happening at the same time as church.
We asked everybody to pray for these obstacles to be removed or overcome. At about 7:00 a.m. Sunday morning, the rain stopped. And when we arrived at church, we found those families who needed to go to the school meeting. When we asked them about their other meeting, they said, “We have to come to sacrament meeting first.” It was a great testimony to me of the importance of the Lord’s sacrament.
Members brought a lot of friends and neighbors to the meeting. One sister in the ward brought eight friends who had never been to church before! As more and more people arrived, we needed to open the overflow room. The count of the sacrament attendance was 215 people! All through the meeting, I could feel that the Holy Ghost was with us and that God helped us to be successful in this endeavor.
After this amazing Sunday, the number of people who regularly attend sacrament meeting increased. This included three Melchizedek Priesthood holders who began attending church regularly with their families. One family even had two of their children baptized and confirmed the following month.

I love the account of the arrival to the Salt Lake Valley of a large number of converts from England and Wales in 1852. The group was met by the First Presidency at the mouth of Emigration Canyon, accompanied by Captain Pitt’s Band. The Deseret News described them as “a band of pilgrims [including] sisters and children, walking, sunburnt, and weather-beaten, but not forlorn; their hearts were light and buoyant, which was plainly manifest by their happy and joyful countenances.”

As they “passed the Temple Block, … thousands of men, women, and children, gathered, from various parts of the city, to unite in the glorious and joyful welcome.” President Brigham Young addressed them: “May the Lord God of Israel bless you. … We have prayed for you continually; thousands of prayers have been offered up for you, day by day, to Him who has commanded us to gather Israel, save the children of men by the preaching of the gospel, and prepare them for the coming of the Messiah.”

Yves also found a way to help several of his friends who wanted to share with each other what they were learning in the scriptures. They were attending church and seminary or institute, speaking when assigned and participating in lessons. But they wanted to talk with each other, youth to youth. So once a week they started reading the Book of Mormon together for about half an hour, and they started inviting others, especially some youth who were less active, to join them. Now they’ve been reading together for months, sometimes at one person’s house, sometimes at another’s.
“It started with my friends Larry Roseval, who’s in the Wanica Branch, and Saffira Zeegelaar from my branch. But now there are eight of us,” Yves says. “We read a chapter, talk about it, bear our testimony about it, and share something we learned during the week.”
These scripture readers have also encouraged each other in additional ways. For example, they challenged themselves to make fast Sundays more meaningful by fasting with a purpose. “Last fast Sunday we thought about specific people who are less active and fasted and prayed that they might return to full activity in the Church,” Yves explains.

From South America we received word of a woman who, when approached by missionaries to accept baptism, said, “You don’t want me. I am nothing.” But the missionaries persisted. She accepted the gospel, and it brought hope and love to her life; it brought learning and growth and progress. In time she became a Relief Society president, and through her devoted concern she could give that same hope and love to others.

Her three brothers—Miguel, Angel (called Micky), and Jorge—are quite a bit older than she is. When Miguel returned from his mission, his little sister didn’t really remember him, but she stayed by his side all the time. About four months after he got home, JoAnnie became very sick with a high temperature. Their mother asked him to give his sister a blessing. JoAnnie had faith that if he did, she would be healed. Miguel changed into his Sunday clothes and prepared himself to give the blessing. After the blessing, JoAnnie immediately became better.

My thoughts return again to a beautiful summer day in August 1964. The sun rose early on a day assured to be very hot but ideal for farm work. It was the time of year we harvested the straw and the hay, and I was working for a local farmer on the bench in Mapleton, Utah.
We had put in a very productive day, and since the afternoon was so hot, we decided to go to our favorite swimming hole up in the dry lands on the bench. An irrigation canal brought life to this part of the country, and in a clay embankment the water had washed away a small swimming hole, where, for generations, boys had found pleasure cooling off during the hot days of July and August.
On the east side of the hole was an embankment perhaps ten feet high. As I stood atop it that afternoon in 1964, a summer thunderhead was rolling slowly toward the bench, creating a rather ominous atmosphere.
I looked down into the water and a strange shiver came over me. Not pausing to wonder about it, I set my position and lunged forward in what was supposed to be a shallow dive, but for some uncanny reason, I turned in midair and arched straight down toward the small shelf of clay that lay underneath the water. At the time I could not see this shelf because the water was kind of muddy; but suddenly, with all the force of my body, I rammed into the bottom.
The impact, I later learned, was sufficient to fracture my neck and sever my spinal cord. The thoughts that flooded through my head were so many and so multiplied that I can’t recall now what they were, but I remember realizing that a person’s life really does pass before his eyes during the fleeting moments that seem to precede the end. I was filled with panic, shock, and confusion of a kind that cannot be described. Only those who have experienced such a moment of dreadful finality can really understand.
As the strong currents dragged me toward the bottom I suddenly realized that every sensation I had ever known now existed only in my memory. From the neck down, my body was totally paralyzed. It was as if a giant circuit breaker had been pulled, rendering my body helpless.
I had a growing awareness of the seriousness of my position. I was paralyzed, forced to the bottom, and unable to move a muscle to get to the surface. At this age we don’t live in fear of death or in fear of anything; we believe that youth is to be lived. But I encountered thoughts down there that awakened me from the impression that my life was indestructible at the early age of sixteen.
To try to struggle and have nothing happen, to try to swim—to move my arms and legs in a natural swimming movement—and to have no response, and to be cut off from any sensation from my body whatsoever were almost too much to bear. I knew I was within seconds of drowning.
As I tumbled helplessly with the current, my mind became clouded. A humming sound—a rushing in my ears—began to grow and grow and then fade slowly, and I helplessly resigned myself to the fact that death was very near. Suddenly I began to float to the surface! Vaguely I could see daylight and could feel a lifting sensation, as my friend who had been working with me that day pulled me from the water. The urge to take a breath while still underwater had been intense, and the feeling of relief as my bursting lungs drank in the air was overwhelming. Seven of my friends came down into the water, carried me up the bank carefully, and laid me down in the middle of the nearby dirt road.
I looked down at my body. Though it was still a part of me, I could not feel it. It was unreal. My body and soul had been stunned beyond belief, and through my excruciating emotions I hoped that this would all be over soon. Little did I know that in some respects, an endless nightmare had just begun.
The Mapleton ambulance, a blue Edsel, was not the best in the world. After I had been lifted into it, the engine wouldn’t start, and we had to be pushed down the road until it turned over. I had always hated the sound of sirens wailing the news of another’s misfortune. This siren announced my own tragedy and ushered me unwillingly into an experience that few ever encounter.
The corridors became darker as I was rolled to the older section of the hospital. I saw a sign over a doorway. It said “Intensive Care Unit,” and everywhere around me I could hear the sounds of the hospital: the gasping of an oxygen unit, the bleeps of pacemakers, people in crises, trying to survive.
The doctors took X rays and discovered that my spinal cord had been almost severed and my neck had been fractured between the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae. They didn’t tell me then that I would not walk again in this life. Their immediate concern was keeping me alive through the night. They transferred me to a specially designed frame for spinal injuries, applied some local anesthetic to two tiny areas on my skull, made two small indentations with a drill into the first layer of bone, and applied traction to the skull and neck area. This was to be my position for the next thirteen weeks. I was unable to make any movement other than to blink my eyes, and I could feel the pulling against my neck constantly. Never in my life have I felt more helpless or bewildered.