Gospel Story Finder

I hate going to the doctor. I always dread the fuss, the wait time, the shots, the orders to “take it easy.” When I was really little, I thought nurses and doctors were just mean people who thought I was a pin cushion, but as I got older I figured out they weren’t evil; they were helping. And I almost always felt better soon after seeing them. No matter how boring the waiting room was, how much I yelped getting a shot, or how disappointed I was when the doctor told me I needed to stay off my feet, in the end, it was always worth it.

Elder Hunk was the talk of the mission. Never had a missionary swept an area as he had. There had been talk of closing that area, but single-handedly Elder Hunk had swelled convert baptisms until conservative estimates ran in the thousands. His picture was on the cover of the Church News under the caption “Wonder Missionary,” and he was being compared to missionaries in the early days of the Church.
“How do you do it?” asked his mission president.
“Dexter. Dexter. How do you do it?” questioned his seminary teacher, Brother Larsen.
A classmate poked Dexter in his ribs, “Hey, wake up.” Brother Larsen patiently repeated his question. “How can we be member missionaries?”
Dexter looked up. “I dunno,” he said.

As a young woman, I participated in Personal Progress. There were activities to do, projects to create, and goals to achieve.
For one project, I decided to read the words for all the songs in the hymnbook, look up the scriptures referenced for each song, and learn to play them on the piano.
I thought it was a practical project that would help me in the future, so I went to work reading, studying, and practicing the hymns.
Fast-forward a few years.
I served a mission in Argentina, and one of my challenges was speaking a different language. At first it was very hard to put words together fast enough to be able to share my thoughts with anyone. However, I learned that I could find a hymn that said just what I wanted to say faster than I could translate my thoughts. I would find the hymn I wanted to share, and even though the words were in another language, the tune and the message were the same. I sang my testimony to many people and was able to share gospel truths this way until I became fluent in the Spanish language. I had the Lord to thank for the inspiration behind my Personal Progress project.
Because I know the words of the hymns, God has been able to send very specific messages to me many times. If I didn’t know the words, I wouldn’t have been able to receive the messages of hope, encouragement, and love that were there. I may have been able to feel the Spirit and be uplifted by the music, but without knowing the words, I would have missed the full message.
This was an unforeseen blessing of my practical Personal Progress project. Heavenly Father has been able to send profound and timely messages to my heart through the hymns.

Several days after I returned home, the missionaries asked me to help them teach a lesson. The investigator was a science student, and he was struggling with some of the same questions I had confronted when I was studying the same subjects. I explained to him how I had found answers to the questions, and when we left he seemed satisfied and happy.
A few days later, the missionaries called to tell me he was joining the Church. “How about that,” I told myself. “Here I am, able to help someone else accept baptism, and not myself. This has lasted long enough!” I felt I had a testimony, but I fasted and prayed. I stayed up the whole night pleading with the Lord to seal this testimony in me. Finally, early in the morning, a sweet, peaceful calm filled my soul. I knew I had to tell the elders I was ready to be baptized.

Every day at school four-year-old Brandon looked out for Jonathan, an autistic classmate. He helped Jonathan line up for recess. In the classroom, he would often find Jonathan’s crayons and paper for him. One day the teacher told Brandon’s mother about Brandon’s unusual kindness. Later the mother shared the teacher’s observations with her son and asked him why he was so kind. Brandon looked at his mom in disbelief that she would have to ask a question with such an obvious answer: “Why, Mom, Jonathan is my friend, and he would get lost if I didn’t help.” To Brandon, Jonathan was not a child who was different; he was a friend.

As the only Church member in my family, I had to overcome many obstacles to serve a full-time mission. One of these was financial, and I spent countless hours looking for jobs so I could earn enough money for my mission. Finally I found a job watching over someone’s home. Although I made only a small amount, I managed to pay tithing. Then I found another job teaching English to three children. It more than doubled my salary, and I could keep both jobs. What a blessing! After working for some months—always paying my tithing—I finally received my call to serve in the Cambodia Phnom Penh Mission.
Sometimes I think of the Lord as a master and myself as one of His servants. If I am a lazy servant who does nothing but sleep, eat, and entertain myself, will He be able to reward me? No. But if I labor diligently, will our Master withhold His blessings from me? No. He will reward me more than I deserve. And if we are obedient to the law of tithing, how generous will our blessings be then? He has said that there will not be enough room to receive them (see Mal. 3:10; 3 Ne. 24:10). This is the Lord’s wonderful promise to all who pay tithing.
Eng Bun Huoch, Ta Khmau Branch, Phnom Penh Cambodia South District

When the teachers in Kaiserslautern, Germany, begin to wonder if all the days of classes, grading papers, school lunch, and noisy students are worth it, the youth of the Landstuhl Ward like to remind them of their value. Each year for the last six years, the youth have honored their teachers with a teacher appreciation night.
The theme the Landstuhl youth chose for this year was “For the Strength of Youth.” They made a memory and quote book for their teachers and thanked them for their guidance, knowledge, and service. The youth also treated them to dinner in the cultural hall, which they decorated especially for the occasion, and they put on a show that kept them entertained. On each dinner table were copies of For the Strength of Youth for the teachers to take home with them. Their teachers really appreciate being appreciated.

I remember the same mixture of feelings on a much smaller scale when I was a teacher in Provo Ninth Ward. When the presidency of the quorum became vacant, I felt qualified to assume the position. However, another young man was selected. I did not question his worthiness and capacity, but I did ask myself if I were not as worthy or prepared as I should have been. I resolved to try to keep my life constantly in order and to improve myself so I would be ready for any future church calling which might be extended to me.

This was the first youth conference Chris Windham, 14, of the Nacogdoches Ward, Longview Texas Stake, had attended. He had fun at the dances, listened to the speakers, and filled up on good food. But his strongest memory might be when his group came to the final house as they installed their last smoke detector. It was Chris’s turn to talk to the homeowner and explain their purpose. Each group member had taken a turn being the one to handle the screwdriver, hold the ladder, or do the talking.
At this house, it was Chris’s turn to talk. He reached for a picture of Christ. It was supposed to have someone’s testimony written in the accompanying paper. But they had run short, and the paper was blank.
Chris handed the picture to the man they had just met. He said, “I don’t have a written testimony to give you with this picture of Christ.”
He paused. The adult leaders, who were standing behind him, glanced at each other. What was Chris going to do?
As Chris said later, the Spirit was urging him to tell this man what he believed. So, without hesitation, Chris bore his testimony with power and conviction to someone he had just met. “I know that Christ lived, and that He suffered and died for us. …”
As Chris spoke, tears sprang to the eyes of the man listening. He carefully held the picture of Christ, with head bowed, and listened to the words of a 14-year-old boy.
For a few days, the LDS youth in these two stakes didn’t feel so few in numbers. They were a force for good, and they pulled strength from being together. They bore their testimonies, in writing and in testimony meeting.
Melanie Paul, 16, Coushatta Branch, Shreveport Louisiana Stake, said about their written testimonies, “These are going to people who may change their lives. I stressed the influence of Jesus Christ in my life. They may never get another chance to hear a testimony from a member of the Church. When you start writing, you aren’t just saying empty phrases. It’s true.”
This group also wanted to take sides against a chorus of bad influences. “The advertising is all aimed at kids our age,” said John Daniels, 18, Queen City Ward, Shreveport Louisiana Stake, “encouraging us to smoke, to drink, to do other things. We need someone on the other side, warning us, telling us where we can go wrong and how to avoid it.”
The voice of warning against the vices of the world may not be as loud and strident as a smoke detector, but for those with ears to hear, it is just as compelling, a voice of warning that may save someone’s life eternally.

I remember the excitement I felt when I first got a skateboard. I loved going to the skate park with my older cousins and seeing how creative they could be with their tricks. I was amazed at the way they could flip or spin a skateboard in the air just to land back on it with both feet and roll away in style.
Perhaps the best part about it was their ability to make their complicated tricks look so effortless. This gave me courage. If it looked so easy for them to do, I reasoned, then maybe it wouldn’t be too hard for me to learn the same things.
So I picked up my new skateboard and got to work.
Because I wanted to be a good skateboarder, I thought learning would be effortless and there wouldn’t be any major challenges. No mental blocks, no injuries, no pain. Skateboarding would be just as easy as my older cousins made it look.
It didn’t take long before I was overcome with discouragement. I would spend hours and hours attempting to pop my board up into the air, the most basic trick in the book. But it would take weeks until the ollie trick was good enough.
Looking back through my years of skateboarding, I’ve noticed a pattern I tend to follow with other parts of life. When I am excited to try something new and it is harder to accomplish than I expected, my enthusiasm surrenders to discouragement and my inspiration turns to doubt.
This often applies most to when I am trying to follow promptings from the Holy Ghost, only for things to not turn out as expected.
These unexpected feelings of uncertainty have always felt like a heavy blow to my initial excitement and eagerness to progress. But thankfully the scriptures have provided me a fresh view on how I can change my perception when I face challenges like these.
The opening chapters of the Book of Mormon tell about a family that faced serious trials. Little did they know how far they would have to go or the unseen challenges they would have to face. Yet their journey demonstrates how God can work in all of our lives.
Early in their journey, Nephi’s father, Lehi, received a revelation that Nephi and his brothers would have to go back to Jerusalem and convince Laban to give them the brass plates (see 1 Nephi 3). After two attempts to retrieve the plates and two death threats, it could have been easy for even Nephi to doubt the revelation his father had received and ask, “If God commanded me to do it, why isn’t this working?!” But there’s no indication in the scriptures that he went down this road of doubt.
I’ve discovered new insights upon pondering how this story applies to me. How much more did Nephi and his brothers learn to rely on God because they were presented with unexpected difficulties?
Is it possible that some things that God asks us to do are impossible? Just so that we can learn to rely on Him and discover how He makes the impossible, possible? Maybe God had to make it clear in Nephi’s mind that there was no way he could get the plates without Him.
This is a pattern I’ve found in the scriptures that I’ve seen in my own life. God inspires His children to do something beyond themselves—like making a change or accepting a time-consuming calling— and then unexpected challenges always seem to follow.
Whenever I feel the quiet tug from the Holy Ghost to do something important, I expect the results from following the prompting to come easily and quickly. In retrospect, I’ve discovered that it’s the difficult promptings to follow that give me the chance to see God’s grace. I recognized the truth of Moroni’s observation that “ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith” (Ether 12:6).
Sometimes it’s only when things don’t seem to work out the way I had envisioned that I see that God actually has been involved in every detail.
As President Russell M. Nelson promises us, “When you know your life is being directed by God, regardless of the challenges and disappointments that may and will come, you will feel joy and peace.”1 That is a promise I wouldn’t have been able to experience for myself if everything I had set out to do hadn’t required that I give God all my “heart, might, mind and strength” (Doctrine and Covenants 4:2).
I’ve learned that God’s vision is much clearer than mine, whether that be through my attempts at skateboarding or trusting Him to do the seemingly impossible. He cares not only that I trust in Him to reach my destination but also that I find faith in Him along the journey.

Now the third story, if I might skip another four years. At age 16 it became necessary for me to make a decision as to what I was going to spend my life doing. I lived within six blocks of Stanford University, and I was influenced by this university. Two of my friends had fathers who taught there. One of them, for instance, was a polio research scientist. He was trying to find, like many others, the way to prevent polio. He didn’t discover it—others did—but he made a contribution. One of the physicists helped direct my thinking. “Do I want to become a physicist? Do I want to become a research bacteriologist? Do I want to become this? Do I want to become that?” This is a common experience to teenagers.
I was active in music but I thought, “I don’t want to become a musician. Who wants to become a musician?” My view of a musician was that he was a drunken dance band bum or else that he was a long-hair who starved in a garret. So I dismissed, for a period, the idea of becoming a professional musician. I determined that very few of them ever made any money. Many of them, I thought, starved half to death, and that aspect didn’t attract me particularly.
During this period in which I investigated a number of other professional areas, and after thought and prayer, I finally came to a decision. I studied it out in my own mind. I finally came to a conviction within my heart—a burning within my bosom—that regardless of my previous views of what a musician was, how much money he would or would not make, or any of these other factors, my conviction was in this direction; this is how I was to make my contribution to the world; this is how I would make my professional life a reality.
That came like many of our decisions come. I studied it out in my mind, trying to perceive what would be the results if I went in any of several different directions, and then I asked the Lord to guide me in receiving a confirmation through his Spirit concerning the correct direction.
When I had made that decision, I told my father and my mother that I had arrived at a decision. They, of course, were cognizant that this churning process was going on. We communicated many times during the process. I still have this little slip of paper in one of my scrapbooks: “Today I know what I want.” My father, who was a businessman, couldn’t carry a tune in the bathtub. He had not much sympathy for music as a career. When I said, “I want to go into music,” he said, “All right, son [these words have come back to me many times], but don’t be a second-rater.”
Now that is a hard challenge. I do not believe that we need necessarily to compete with the great ones of the world. We need to compete with our own best selves. And isn’t that the challenge we all have? Isn’t it hard to be a first-rate John Jones or Mary Smith? It is easy to be a second-rate John Jones or Mary Smith. I find myself qualifying, frequently, for a second-rate Crawford Gates. And I am sorry that I qualify so frequently.
It is hard for us to measure up to our own potential. I find it very difficult to be equal to the Lord’s blessings. Don’t we all have that same problem in our lives—the necessity to creatively measure up to our own potential?
And so those words of my good father have rung in my ears many times since then, and they have spurred me to try to jump one step higher in the creative act of becoming better in any number of different individual achievements.
I went to the College of the Pacific my freshman year. They had a good music school there and it was close by my home. At the beginning of that first year there was a sign out on the bulletin board of the music department, and it said, “Composition Contest,” and I said, “That’s for me!” It had a huge prize for the one who won—twenty-five dollars! That would take you almost through a whole semester of school in those days. But more important than the financial prize was the fact that the winning composition would be played by the Stockton Symphony Orchestra.
So as a young freshman—it was still before my 17th birthday and I looked much younger than that—I started to brag to my colleagues that I was not only going to enter this composition contest, but I was going to win it. I became very unpopular. In fact there was a master’s degree candidate who played cello in the symphony orchestra of the school—he was very old, about 22 or so—who would come by on campus, look at me, pat me on the head, and say, “How is your tune coming, Buster?” He was referring to my masterpiece for symphony orchestra—and he called it a “tune”; that was very insulting to me.
In the course of time the “tune” was finished and submitted to the necessary authorities in the Stockton Symphony Orchestra. The conductor was one of the judges, and soon the word got back that I had won first prize. But there was a note on the front of the score, and the note said, “This composition is written for much too large an orchestra. Please have the student composer reduce it for the size of the Stockton Symphony.” Now that was one detail I had overlooked. I had read in Life magazine that the Boston Symphony had 104 pieces, so I had written for a 104-piece symphony. I didn’t take time to check that the Stockton Symphony Orchestra had only 52 pieces in it. The reduction of a score intended for 104 players down to 52 is a very unpleasant task, so I said, “Well, I hear it in my head this way.” This is the brashness of a freshman mind. I said, “Nuts to the Stockton Symphony Orchestra. I’ll find an orchestra that is big enough to play this tune.”
So I looked around California and found that San Jose State, which was also near my home, had a large symphony orchestra of over 100 pieces in their school, and in my sophomore year I changed from the College of the Pacific to San Jose State on the sole motivation that they had a big enough symphony orchestra to play my piece.
The first day after I had arrived there I went to the office of the director of the symphony orchestra; his name was Adolf Otterstein. I said, “Professor Otterstein, I have a composition I would like to have the college symphony orchestra play.” He took a dim view of a new brash young sophomore, but he was kind and said, “Leave it here; I am busy right now, but come back next week.” So I came back the next week and, sure enough, he had taken a moment or two to glance through it, and he said, “Well, it isn’t too bad.” He asked, “Have you copied the parts?” And I indicated that I had.
When you write a piece for an orchestra, it isn’t like writing a hymn for the hymnbook, where you write the soprano, alto, tenor, and bass so that you can play the result with the right hand and left hand or sing it with a congregation; you have to write the music on a score sheet that may be 18 to 20 inches high and 12 to 15 inches wide, and has many music score lines on it. And you have to write a note or a line for every instrument of the entire orchestra.
Orchestration is, in a sense, the coloring of a musical line, so you have to write that out to complete the reality of the musical thought. Maybe you have three or four or five or six hundred sheets of paper. You can’t gather the orchestra around the package of sheets and expect them to all play or blow at the same time. You obviously have to do something with the score, or someone else has to. If you’re fortunate, you can get someone else to do it or hire someone else to do it; or if you aren’t, you do it yourself.
You get a stack of blank manuscript paper and you label one page “first flute,” and then you copy off every note from the “full score” onto the new blank sheet—every sharp, every accent, every dot. And finally you get through with the whole book for the first flute part and you put it to one side. Then you start again with a new blank set of sheets and do the second flute part, and thereafter you start over again, using the same procedure. Well, by the time you get through a 104-piece orchestra, you wish you were working for a ten-piece combo. It is a very laborious task.
I had spent all summer at a Boy Scout camp as a director. I would tuck my Scouts in every night and then go down to my little tent and light the oil lamp and copy my parts. I had 25 pounds of parts for this piece.
So when Professor Otterstein asked me, “Do you have the parts copied?” I said, “Yes, I do.” He said, “We rehearse on Monday nights in the Morris Dailey Auditorium, and next Monday you come with your parts, and after the intermission we will let the orchestra read through it.”
Then he asked me a strange question. He said, “Would you like to conduct it?”
Now, if he had said, “Can you conduct it?” I would have had to answer differently, but he said, “Would you like to conduct it?” Well, who wouldn’t like to conduct a 100-piece orchestra playing his own piece? The fact that I had only conducted “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” in my Sunday School class wasn’t much preparation to conduct a 104-piece symphony orchestra. But he phrased the question the way he did and I answered the way I did, “Of course I’d like to conduct.”
I went home and the whole next week I checked my orchestral parts over trying to see if it really would sound right, and I felt squeamish inside because I had imagined this piece but I had never heard it played. I thought that I had checked everything; I felt that it ought to sound all right.
Although it was actually a Monday, and though the previous day had been a fast Sunday, this was a fast Monday to me—I couldn’t eat at all, I was so excited. I wheeled a wheelbarrow full of parts out to the car—I had borrowed my father’s car—and put them in the rumble seat and then drove down to San Jose.
All day long I fidgeted through my classes. I couldn’t eat my lunch. That night I placed the parts in the seats in the front row of the Morris Dailey Auditorium and waited while the symphony orchestra rehearsed the Beethoven Fourth Symphony or some other obscure work.
Finally Otterstein turned around and said, “Where’s Gates?”
There I was, hidden behind this stack of parts, and I said, “Here I am, sir.”
He said, “Do you have your parts with you?” What a ridiculous question! Here they were.
He said, “Well, pass the things out.”
I went up there during the intermission and I passed the cello parts out this way and the violin parts out that way and the heavy artillery out here—the “garbage can” section in the back, with the timpani, bass drum, cymbals, etc. The parts were all passed out when Professor Otterstein came up after the intermission.
I had written my name very big on all the parts—CRAWFORD GATES—and it was terrible. I should never have done it because the players thought, “Well, who is Crawford Gates?” Otterstein apologized vaguely to the players concerning the experience he was about to subject them to, suggesting it would perhaps have some value for them or for me.
Players don’t like to play from handwritten music manuscript, and my manuscript was horrible. Otterstein said, “This is Crawford Gates. He is from the College of the Pacific!” Well, that would be like saying at BYU, “He is from the University of Utah!”
He then said, “I’m going to let Mr. Gates conduct.” He boosted me up on the podium and gave me the baton, and the coward went out of the auditorium into the safety of the darkness—there was no audience; this was a rehearsal.
I held the baton up very shakily. I remember there was a cello player just like the one at the College of the Pacific. He was down to my right and he was older. He had his finger on the string, on the first note of the cello part. As I held my hand up there, shaking like a leaf for this first note, he said something to this effect: “Just drop the baton, Buster, and we’ll play the notes.” So I dropped the baton, and the cellos and basses came out on the pianissimo and it didn’t sound too bad. (Anyone can write that, cellos and basses in unison; that is not very hard.)
I knew that it was 3/4 time, so I conducted 1—2—3, so the music moved along. A few minutes later the French horns came in. I knew that you were supposed to point to them, so I gave a signal to the French horn section, and they came in much like a cow taking its foot out of the mud—it was a terrible sound.
The conductor at the back of the hall called out, “It isn’t that modern, is it, Gates?”
I said, “No, sir, something is wrong.” I was turning red and purple as I went to the back of the horn section, and everyone was fidgeting. I found that I had left all the sharps off the French horn parts, which I corrected in a moment or two, and then I came back. Well, this experience was excruciating. The orchestra droned and grunted along and the players were saying, or looking like, “Oh how can we bear this terrible stuff?” It was a frightful experience.
Well, something happened. I suppose that if it hadn’t happened at the end of that 40- or 45-minute period, whatever it took to grind through the thing, I would have probably decided that my conviction of a few years earlier had been in the wrong direction. I would have gone back into physics or something else. But what happened in the last moment of that piece was the fact that somehow there was a tune. It had been orchestrated to some degree with natural instinct from the orchestra, and it soared up to a climax and relaxed away from it in a pattern that changed the whole spirit of the orchestra. The feeling changed immediately during the last few minutes of the piece. Instead of saying, or looking, “How can we bear this?” I saw their expressions, as though they were saying, “Not bad! Not bad!”
At the end they started to applaud, and the conductor came running down the aisle, saying, “Well, the first part was pretty terrible but the last part wasn’t so bad!”
I recall all the way home that night I could hear that wonderful big sound of the ending and I forgot the terror of the first part. I remembered that for the last few moments I was raised about a foot off the podium—I conducted sort of instinctively, feeling that “This is why I’m alive! This is my contribution to the world!” I felt that “men are that they might have joy” is no longer just a statement in the Book of Mormon (2 Ne. 2:25), but it is a reality for me right here, right now!
I thought, this is how the Lord must have felt when he said that “it was good” (see Gen. 1:4). What a remarkable understatement the Lord made about his own work. And one reason God exists is because he has joy, and what does he have joy in? In the creative act—in the act of creating a galaxy or in creating a human soul.

Some years ago I was serving as a bishop. At the same time I was working on a doctor’s degree at a university and working a full-time job. I was under some strain, fearing that because of my desire to succeed in so many areas I was really failing as a father.
One Sunday evening I stayed late at church to complete some work. As I walked into the chapel to turn off the lights before going home, I suddenly felt lonely. I felt that my back would not bear for another day the heavy burdens I was carrying.
I fell to my knees near the pulpit and cried to the Lord. I poured out the feelings of my soul to him and described in detail my seemingly insurmountable tasks. When I finished I remained kneeling. And then I heard the Spirit speak to me in my heart. The answer it gave me was all I needed. It said just three things: Go forward. Do your best. Love your family.
I arose a new man.

The Lord taught the Nephites, “Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up” (3 Ne. 18:24). An example of the light of the Lord touching someone who needed it desperately came when I called upon a very close friend shortly after the death of his eternal companion. I asked him, “What can I now do to help?” He answered, “Help my son to understand.” You see, this son loved his mother very much. When he saw her suffer month after month, he began to feel that the prayers and the priesthood blessings went unanswered. This caused his faith in our Heavenly Father to waver, and he lost the light of the Lord in his life.
The words rang in my ears: “Help my son to understand.” I asked myself, “How? What can I do?” Finally, I invited him to come to Church headquarters to talk with me. When he arrived and we went to the lunchroom, a most unusual circumstance unfolded while we were eating. During our visit, many General Authorities came by our table and greeted us. He shook hands with eight of the Twelve Apostles. Never before or since have I seen that many members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in the lunchroom at one time.
As we were leaving the Church offices, another unusual thing happened. We caught a glimpse of President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), and my young friend asked, “Does President Kimball ever talk to someone like me?” Circumstances that would rarely happen again placed us with President Kimball for a few minutes. The short time with him was unforgettably impressive. His instructions were eternal, and his love for this young man was unquestionable. My friend’s heart and mine were touched deeply during those few minutes.
President Kimball’s final statement to this young man, after he gave him a loving embrace, impressed my friend very much. He said, “My boy, when you come home from your mission, you will understand more fully the things we have been talking about.” That day a prophet of God reached out as I suppose only a prophet can. Through him, the Savior touched the life of my friend and turned him toward the light of the Lord.
As we returned to the parking area, I put my arm around him and said, “I know that your mother knows you are here today. Because of her love and devotion to the Lord and her great love for you, I am sure our Heavenly Father has allowed her influence to be felt here today.” Tears flowed, attitudes changed, directions became clear, and commitments were made.
What a thrill it was to report a few months later to President Kimball that this fine young man was serving faithfully and diligently as a full-time missionary!

Then a young couple with several young children came into my office. Earlier that day in sacrament meeting, we had read a letter from the First Presidency, announcing that an additional category of voluntary contributions was now available to Church members—a “humanitarian fund.” Money donated to this category would be sent to Church headquarters and used for projects benefiting people worldwide, regardless of religious affiliation. This couple had lived in a developing nation and had witnessed the great needs there. Now they were donating a substantial sum to that fund, trusting that it would be put to the best possible use. I looked at their little children and then back at the parents. And I thought, “How can you do without this money at Christmastime?” But I had an idea that perhaps their Christmas would be even more fulfilling as a result.
Then there were the people who had contributed freely to the ward missionary fund, even though they had no missionary sons or daughters. There were those who had given to the general missionary fund and to the general Book of Mormon fund. And there were those who had contributed toward the yet-to-be-built Bountiful Utah Temple—even though they knew that the Church now pays for building projects through tithing, rather than through a separate building fund.
Later, another couple came in. They, too, had contributed liberally throughout the year. As we were about to conclude our visit, the husband said, “Bishop, is there anyone in the ward who has special needs this Christmas? We don’t have a lot of extra money, but we would like to give what we do have to someone who needs it.”
Immediately I thought of a single mother in our ward. She was doing her best to be self-reliant and certainly wasn’t looking for a handout. But money was tight. She was going back to school, and there were medical bills to pay. Surely she would be a worthy recipient of this couple’s generosity.
I accepted their offer in her behalf. They told me they weren’t interested in knowing the name of the receiver. And they, too, wanted to remain anonymous.
The husband pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and stacked several twenty-dollar bills on my desk. As he was doing so, his wife said, somewhat apologetically, “It’s not much. But now that our children are grown, we don’t feel that we’re doing as much in the ward as we used to. This is the least we can do.”
I protested at her apology, knowing they were doing much in their Church callings and in their quiet service to neighbors and to an elderly parent. And I thanked them for being so generous.
The next day, while taking the money to the recipient, I became a little uneasy. How would she receive this gift? Would she be offended? Would she hesitate to accept it?
When I handed the money to her, I described the spirit in which the gift had been given and encouraged her to receive it in that same spirit.
She accepted the money gratefully.
“I can accept this,” she said, “because when times were better for me, I often gave anonymously, just like this.” Then she told me about the secret projects her family had done over the years. She told me about times when she had purchased a frozen turkey and left it, with all the trimmings, on someone’s doorstep. She told me about anonymously mailing money to people who needed it, and about purchasing a coat and boots for the child of a needy friend. Now, in her time of need, she was a gracious receiver.
As I reviewed the monetary contributions so many ward members had made during the year, I couldn’t help remembering, too, their year’s worth of donated labor: The people who, week after week, had provided lessons and leadership—wherever they had been called to serve. The young men and young women who had cleaned the yards of elderly members, both in spring and in autumn. The sisters who had helped a member with wall-papering and painting. The elders and high priests who had done heavy yard work and repairs for those who were unable to do it alone. The young women and Relief Society sisters who had visited a homeless shelter several times—taking food, supplies, and encouragement. The young men who, without needing to be reminded, had gone out in teams and shoveled elderly members’ walks and driveways each time it snowed. The Scouts who had collected toys and books for the Primary Children’s Medical Center. The sisters who had taken meals and reassurance to the sick, the grieving, and the homebound. The priesthood brethren who had given countless blessings of health and comfort. The members who had donated time at the Church cannery to fill the shelves at the bishops’ storehouse. The many people who had quietly listened—and cared—and lifted. And the ones who had served in many ways without anyone else knowing anything about it.
And I thought of the many thank-yous from gracious receivers.
One was from a nine-year-old boy. Following is the letter he sent our Relief Society president and me after his family had received a load of food from the bishops’ storehouse (I have changed his brother’s name in order to preserve anonymity):
“Dear Bishop Gardner and Sister Thomas,
“I just got home from school. Ricky walked in first and said, ‘What in the … ?!’ Then I saw what he just saw. Food … Food! Food all over the place! Boxes, bags, cans, and even cartons of milk and eggs! Ricky said, ‘Look! There must be a million oranges!’
“We wanted to thank you, Sister Thomas, and the whole Church (especially our ward) for all the help you’re giving us right now, especially all this nice food donated from the bishops’ storehouse. It’s such a wonderful feeling to feel so loved, so cared for, and thought about.
“Gratefully.” (And he signed his full name.)
Then it was Christmas Eve. My own family of young children and teenagers were just finishing our annual Christmas pageant—complete with scriptures, carols, costumes, a real-live baby playing the part of the Christ child, a three-year-old Mary, a six-year-old Joseph, an angel, a shepherd, and a Wise Man. (I always somehow end up with the role of the donkey.)
There was a knock at the door. It was Santa Claus! In living color! He ho-ho-hoed himself into the living room, made a big fuss over each child, reached into his enormous sack, and pulled out a gift for each member of the family. As he did so, I noticed a vague resemblance between Santa and a member of our ward.
Then he wished us all a Merry Christmas and was off. Two of the youngest children were determined to see the reindeer for themselves, and they raced out to the front porch. But Santa must have parked his sleigh down the street somewhere. We watched and listened to his sleigh bells jingle as he trotted merrily through the neighborhood and disappeared into the snowy darkness.
What a Christmas it was—my first Christmastime as bishop! How could I ever express my gratitude for the many ward members who had made it a joyful time of giving and receiving—and for all who carry that spirit with them throughout the year?
And how could I ever express my gratitude and love for the Savior, Jesus Christ, who had set the pattern and had given the greatest gift of all?
Certainly, my nine-year-old friend is right: “It’s such a wonderful feeling to feel so loved, so cared for, and thought about.”

Walking down the steps that led to the basement of our meetinghouse, I caught sight of my mother, hunched over a strange-looking machine, peering at illuminated pages in a darkened room and straining to read old documents. Still a young child, I didn’t understand what my mother did every Tuesday night for two hours in this quiet room. I had been sent to retrieve her from the church’s depths because Mutual had ended and my family wanted to go home.
My mother’s dedication to family history confused me for years. I often heard Church leaders stress the importance of participating in family history, but it seemed like an overwhelming task to me. Besides, it looked so boring.
“What satisfaction could she possibly receive from poring over lists of dead people’s names,” I wondered one afternoon as a teenager after dropping her off at the family history center. I continued in this vein of skepticism until, little by little, I began to wade into the waters of my ancestry.
The first time I felt the appeal of family history occurred during the Christmas break of my freshman year at BYU. One evening, as the rest of the family boisterously played a board game in the living room, I found myself seated at the kitchen table with my mom and older sister. The conversation soon turned to relatives, particularly my mother’s dad and his parents.
My great-grandparents, Orla and Roger, died in their 20s, leaving my grandfather and his brother in the care of Roger’s family. After Orla’s death, her father, Robert, died of appendicitis. A short time later, her mother fell, cracked her skull, and suffered several strokes, becoming bedridden. Orla’s oldest sisters, Thelma and Ena, then carried the full burden of supporting the family—a difficult task for two young, unmarried women in the late 1920s.
It was all so fascinating to learn about people I felt connected to but had never met. I was amazed by the trials my family had faced. Hearing it all made my own problems seem so small in comparison.
Several months later, with my mother’s story crowded into the recesses of my mind by school and work, I received an assignment in one of my classes at Brigham Young University to find 8 to 10 primary documents containing the name of one of my ancestors.
My genealogical training to that point consisted of singing the Primary song “Family History—I Am Doing It,” but grades weren’t negotiable in my mind, so I began at the only place I could think to start—Orla’s family. I looked her up on a pedigree chart and traced her line back until I found her grandfather, Joseph Argyle Jr.
One afternoon, I made the trek across the BYU campus to the library and into the family history library. I explained to a worker who Joseph Argyle was and the little information I knew about him.
For the next two hours, that worker guided me through a treasure hunt, which took us all over the library. We searched records of Mormon passengers on emigrant vessels, discovering that Joseph and his family crossed the Atlantic on a ship. Later that year, he traveled to Salt Lake Valley with the Ellsworth handcart company, which we found in a record book of handcart companies. We looked through the Endowment House records (found where he received his temple ordinances), the Utah death index (he lived to 84), and old Church membership records (there he was).
In an online database of Utah newspaper archives, I found a front-page obituary for my great-great-great grandfather. Published in the Davis County Clipper in February 1927, every sentence contained an interesting fact, such as Joseph’s contribution to the building of the Salt Lake Temple.
“He has the credit of having hauled the largest stone put in that building which weighed 13,000 pounds,” the article read.
I began to get a glimpse of the impact we can have on future generations when I discovered he had 88 descendants at the time of his death, a number which increased exponentially in the past 79 years.
Every time I found another document with my ancestors’ names on it, I felt a little tingle of excitement run through my body. It was like a mystery novel, putting all the pieces together, little by little beginning to understand who this man was. I became so immersed in learning about my ancestor, I didn’t leave until late in the afternoon, almost missing work!
I completed the assignment and received an A, but even more importantly, I created a tangible connection with one of my relatives. Joseph Argyle left his home, sailed across the ocean, traveled to Utah and helped build the temple, all because he believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ, a legacy which I inherited and which gives me the strength to fight my own battles in the 21st century.
I am a link in the chain of Joseph Argyle, and I can pass on his example to strengthen my children and their children. There are others I can help as well. The temple work for the vast majority of my ancestors has yet to be completed, and hundreds, even thousands, of my ancestors are waiting for me to do my part.
For more information on how to get started on your family history, visit your local family history center or go to www.familysearch.org.

One of those I would like to mention this morning was President David O. McKay, who came into my life as the first prophet to teach and influence me personally.
I was called to be a stake president in California just before President McKay was sustained in a solemn assembly as the President of the Church and as our prophet. My wife, Ruby, and I drove to Salt Lake to be in attendance at that conference. I felt of that spirit, of that leadership, and of the direction that President McKay gave to the Church at that time. Later on I invited him to come to California to dedicate a Church building that we had just finished. That was in the days when we would raise half the money to buy the land and half the money to pay for a building—not like it is today, but where we felt a real ownership in the Church property and in buildings. President McKay came as a result of my invitation, which surprised me. We met him at the train and were pleased to have him in our home. That gave me a new vision of the magnitude and the breadth and the importance of the mission that we have here upon the earth to fulfill.

Even without Isabela Quiroga to worry about, that day was every bit as discouraging as all the others I had struggled through in Bolivia. Like every other morning of my week-old mission, the heavy rain of a monsoon squall had quickly beat the dirt until it danced in muddy splashes, and just as quickly had rolled away over the flat horizon. By the time Elder Skye and I started our trudge through the muddy streets of Montero, the sun was milking the moisture out of the ground in a heavy vapor that rolled over our skin. As usual, Elder Skye led the way while I followed behind, wiping the sweat off my face and picking at the shirt plastered to my body.
“Why do we have to go back there?” I asked him. “After all, she said ‘Come by if you can.’ Let’s just go home for lunch and tell her we were busy.”
“You don’t understand,” Elder Skye told me. “We’ve gotta go back. You’ll see how it is after you’ve been here awhile.”
The only thing I understood right then was that I wouldn’t be able to eat anything at Isabela’s house. As I followed Elder Skye’s confidently squared shoulders through streets I didn’t ever expect to be able to tell apart, I longed for the assurance I had felt one short week before.
On the flight down from Miami, I had joked with the other missionaries about the stern warnings we received from our teachers in the Missionary Training Center. Our brash enthusiasm let us laugh at all their talk of strange foods, alien customs, and a way of life that was far less comfortable than the one we’d known. Nothing could intimidate brand-new missionaries with new suits, shiny shoes, and a spiritual high—at least that’s what I thought.
That confidence in my ability to cope began to fade almost as soon as I stepped off the jet into the thick, moist air of the Bolivian lowlands. The first day in mud-bound Montero, my cozy optimism was replaced by shock almost as fast as my shiny new shoes were replaced with knee-high rubber boots. Not one sight, sound, or sensation was familiar. The language everyone spoke bore little resemblance—in either speed or accent—to the Spanish I had been practicing. There was everything to learn from scratch. When I arrived in Montero from the mission home, I couldn’t even hail a taxi, and ended up dragging my suitcases across town to meet my companion.
Sights, sounds, smells. Learning to clap before entering a dooryard, making purchases in a bustling market without checkout stands. The hundreds of new images of that first week kept me awake at night, trying to sort them all out.
That particular morning, however, it was a stateside memory that preoccupied me. As we neared Isabela’s house, I was remembering with recently acquired fear that someone had told me, “Don’t eat in the homes of the poor people.”
For several days before Isabela’s lunch invitation, my maladjustment to Bolivia had reached the point where I couldn’t even eat in our own apartment. My appetite disappeared every time I found myself facing a plate of guiso or a strangely-spiced soup. Even the vaguely American dishes prepared by that kind sister couldn’t overcome the problems of a stomach—and a mind—that had never been south of the border before.
Just when I began to seriously worry that I might not be able to make it in Bolivia, Isabela invited us to come to lunch the next day and doubled my distress. The home where Isabela lived with her five children was the type I had been warned about. The adobe walls of the lot enclosed a mud courtyard, two rooms with only beds and chairs for furniture, and a ceilingless kitchen where the clay tiles showed above the rafters. The money Isabela made selling vegetables in the marketplace couldn’t pay for anything more.
On our previous visits, Elder Skye and I had sat on the only two chairs while Isabela and her children crowded the beds. In their rapt attention to the discussions, they didn’t notice how uncomfortable I was in those meager surroundings. That uneasiness, however, was nothing compared to the alarm I felt when Elder Skye accepted the invitation to actually eat in their home. Twenty-four anxious hours later, as we headed down her street, I was so afraid my stomach hurt.
As we approached the house, the little boy watching the street ran inside to let Isabela know we were coming. At the open gate, we paused and Elder Skye clapped his hands, bringing the boy flying out again to take us both by the hand and laugh, “Pasen, pasen no mas!” “Come in, just come in!” Elder Skye laughed with him as he tugged us across the flat stepping-stones dropped in the mud, and I looked around the courtyard and remembered that the elders in the mission home had said the water in Montero had amoebas.
At the door to the kitchen, we paused to kick the clods from our boots. In the middle of the room Isabela and her sons and daughters stood around a table set with only two places. With a guilty feeling, I realized she had never doubted we would come.
“Pasen, sientense.” “Come in, sit down.”
With simple grace, Isabela offered us her two chairs, her smile showing her pleasure that we had come to eat at her table. Isabela was a short, quiet woman with the harshness of Bolivian widowhood etched in her face, her sinewy arms, and her strong brown hands. Nevertheless, there was beauty in the dignity, strength, and kindness evident in the features inherited from her Inca ancestors.
Once we were seated, the children clustered around the table, their smiles flashing in their dark faces. They joked with Elder Skye and laughed when I didn’t understand the Quechua words they mingled with their Spanish. Coming back from the stove, Isabela shooed them away and set a steaming bowl of gray mush before each of us. With the poetic phrasing of her Kolla people, she told us, “He esperado su buenallegada con trigo.” “I have awaited your good arrival with wheat.” Then, while our sweat dripped onto her table, she asked us to forgive her for not having anything better to offer.
I almost trembled as I looked at that bowl of boiled wheat. But then a strange thing happened. As Elder Skye offered a blessing and I sat with my eyes closed, another voice replaced his in my mind. “I have awaited your good arrival with wheat.” Amidst all the jumbled images of the past seven days, those words were something I finally understood. I realized how much that gruel meant to the family, and that they would wait until we left to share what remained in the pot. When Elder Skye finished, I stared at my bowl for a long time, and then, with a look at Isabela’s smile, I ate the wheat.
In the months that followed that meal, I learned to love Bolivia and its food. I ate chicharrón and picante, and not only survived, but thrived. I also grew to love the people I met, and again and again during my stay there, I experienced through them the joy the gospel brings to those who embrace it. Isabela’s act of Christ-like love helped me to put aside my own cares and serve others, and I never forgot the words that were so sweet and delicious to a lonely and discouraged soul.

It started, as such things often do, with an unkind remark. Something faded now, totally forgotten. And yet it turned her father away. Church became too long a drive, too inconvenient. Wouldn’t it be better to spend the time with the family? A cloud settled over Jean-Claude Ferland, something foggy and chilling.
Mother fretted, worried, talked to the branch president. She finally decided it was better to stay home. Marie Claude—always so constant—and Clément—tall, strong Clément, who used to tease the elders so—they stopped bothering with church.
Maybe it was the years in elementary school that made the difference for Christine, all those times of quietly defending what she knew to be true. Somehow, she would stand up this time, too.
She didn’t defy her family. She simply kept going to church. It meant hitching a ride into town with a member on Friday or Saturday night, staying with a family through Sunday. Sometimes she couldn’t get a ride back until Monday morning at 4:00 or 5:00 A.M. And then, if she missed the bus she’d have to pedal her bike for an hour to get to school.
But it also meant that she could keep her family in touch with the Church. In time, she was able to get Clément and Marie Claude to join her for meetings or activities. And mother fasted and prayed, and kept the hope alive that someday father would return to activity.
Christine stopped to catch her breath. She exhaled a cloud of white mist which slowly disappeared. Then she leaned against a green railing thick with chipped enamel. Out on the water, the sailboat maneuvered, tacking against the wind. She found herself wondering about the sailors on the boat. The gliding that seemed so effortless to her—was it work for them, the muscle-straining labor of tugging ropes and trimming sails, of leaning hard on the rudder? Did they find joy in the sailing, in the combat with deep currents and stiff winds? And it made Christine look to the past again, a deep look to a time when struggle seemed worthwhile.
Dinner at the Ferland’s was always a glorious affair—plates heaped with home-grown tomatoes, beans, and pickled beets, with lamb and potatoes browned together until the meat was tender and the vegetables sweet. In the wood-burning oven, an apple pie simmered. The room spoke of families and of love.
It was at such a dinner that father called his wife and children near. Christine noticed a happy mischief in his eyes, a spark of something that for too long had been distant.
“We have to make your mother happy,” he said, looking each teenager firmly in the eye. He let them guess what he was planning to do.
After a minute he said, “Whatever it takes, we’re going to the temple.”
Of course, saying and doing are two different things. But even when he wasn’t attending his meetings, Jean-Claude Ferland had never thought of himself as anything less than a Latter-day Saint. He was still friendly with people from the branch, still in contact with home teachers, still “active” in his heart. So when he decided to be involved, he gave full dedication.
Sunday meetings were not considered optional. Service projects, branch parties, cottage meetings, whatever was asked, the Ferlands would gladly participate. Callings were willingly accepted, instructions from the branch president explicitly heeded. Even tithing, which had been a struggle in the past, was now a privilege. Once, when it was paid twice by mistake, mother and father decided to “let the Lord keep it.”
Time passed quickly. In August 1986, interviews were held and recommends were signed. The dream was coming true.
Christine can see it still, every time she closes her eyes—the Washington D. C. Temple, its white spires bright against the woods. Inside, everything is calm and bright. People smile and share a great peace.
In a sacred room, maman and papa, dressed in white, kneel at the altar. Christine, Clément, and Marie Claude, also in white, kneel beside them. Hands are placed on hands, children and parents sealed. By the power of the priesthood they are given the promises of eternity.
It was a cold day, though the sun was bright and clear. Christine looked upriver now, searching for other ships. But the sailboat was by itself.
“I wonder if sailboats ever feel lonely?” she said to herself. “Do they ever wonder if anyone notices how well they turn, or how they bump when they hit a swell?” Clément might, she thought. Then again, so might father. They were both fascinated by movement.
From the day when father first brought home his truck, Clément was admiringly by his side. There was a wonder to all that chrome and steel, the thrill of thunder roaring under the hood. Clément wanted to climb in the cab, fire up the engine, shift the gears and roll through mile after mile of freedom. Whenever he could, he rode with his father, and he dreamed of the day when he would have his own rig and a route like his father’s to Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania.
Now, however, there was a competing dream. Not a barrier, not even a detour. A different road, but a good one.
“The prophet said it,” Mother would begin the conversation, like a dozen others already held in the kitchen. “All young men should serve a mission. You’re a young man. You should serve a mission.”
“But the openings in the military won’t wait. Or I could take that job working on cars. Or I could drive with Papa …”
“And those are better ways to spend the next two years?”
Clément would review his options, again and again and again. The chances for work were exciting, all that he’d hoped for. But the mission? It was a better thing.
He prayed. He spoke to the branch president, then the district president. He submitted his papers. One by one the obstacles to serving disappeared.
The job with cars would wait. He couldn’t get a license to drive a big rig for at least two years. He had signed a preliminary agreement with the military, but turned it down the same day his call to the Louisiana Baton Rouge Mission arrived in the mail.
Then Christine thought of another day, just last October. It was overcast, gray, cool. The heavy air smelled of rain. Papa and Clément were up early, as usual on a Monday. The big diesel engine was already throbbing, mildly vibrating the entire house.
Clément stuffed the compartment behind the cab with blankets, canned pudding, instant soup, snack food. He ran inside to get some tapes, his earphones, and a tape player.
Then he thought again, and laid them aside. This was his last trip to Mechanicsburg for two years. He and father would be talking all the way there, talking about his mission.
The stairs were steep at the south end of the terrasse, but Christine took them easily. Hours of volleyball practice had conditioned her to run, and her lungs pulled in air that was crisp and pure. She reached a narrower boardwalk, the Promenade des Gouverneurs, which stretches along the cliffs to reach the Plains of Abraham.
The French love to tell of a great struggle here, when the Chevalier de Lévis, battling to reclaim Quebec, lured the British far from the city and beat them. But those assigned to cut off the retreat failed, and the rest of the army, too tired to pursue, let the enemy escape. British reinforcements arrived soon, and what should have been a French victory turned to defeat.
Christine breathed deeply and let the air out slowly. It surprised her when she thought of a scripture: “Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live” (3 Ne. 15:9).
“Endure,” she said aloud. “Sometimes you just have to endure.” And then she was remembering again.
It was a routine, the same routine Marie Claude had followed every morning for years. Get up early and care for the animals. Feed Daisy, Belle, and Lady, the horses. Feed Fido, the bull in the barn. Feed three pigs, three sheep, two dogs, four ducks, and any other animals calling the farm home at the moment.
From upstairs, Christine heard Marie Claude come in the house and bolt the back door against the wind. She could imagine her hanging her flannel coat on the peg in the kitchen. Then she heard her pull a chair across the floor and put breakfast dishes on the table.
For as long as Christine could remember, Marie Claude got up early to take care of the animals. But today the routine was different—the movements slower, the pauses longer, the sighs heavy and audible.
And Christine knew why. Last night, Marie Claude had finally told her boyfriend good-bye. He was a decent fellow, a nice man. But he didn’t understand. He’d had the missionary discussions, even been to church a time or two. But all this religion, meetings every Sunday, marriage in a temple—for him it just wouldn’t do.
And now Marie Claude, who loved him and had dated him for a couple of years, who had argued with him before, had sent him away. She sat at the breakfast table, numb, almost crying, wrenching solace from the everyday routine.
At the end of the promenade, there’s a gazebo. To get there, Christine had to mount steps again. Quickly she bounded up them, the end of her run in sight. And as she ran, her mind flashed ahead, like a video on fast forward.
Here was Marie Claude again, but this time she was smiling. Dressed in embroidered chiffon, she sat by a cheery window in a friend’s house, holding hands with an amiable young man in a blue sweater.
It was amazing. When they laughed, it was the same laugh. The smile was the same smile. They looked like each other, they talked like each other. They both had kind eyes. You’d think they were brother and sister, not fiances.
Yet there on the table was their wedding announcement, and it really did seem like a dream come true—“C’est avec joie que nous vous annonçons notre mariage qui aura lieu au Temple de Washington, D.C., mercredi le six mai.” (It is with joy that we announce our marriage in the Washington, D.C. Temple on May 6, 1987.)
André and Marie Claude. They met at church, and fell in love quickly. But after years of struggling to feel right about something that was wrong, it was easy for Marie Claude to do something that felt so true.
At the gazebo, Christine stopped.
She thought about the family. She pictured her mother, joking with the visiting teachers, happily discussing her hobby of decorating cakes. She saw Father, smiling broadly, the proudest sacrament meeting usher the Branche de Québec has as ever had. She imagined Clément, Elder Ferland, teaching missionary lessons in broken English. And she pictured Marie Claude, in her own home as a newlywed, so happy she was almost dancing.
Then she thought of spires of white, rising from a green woodland, and she cherished the promises of eternity.
Christine looked across the ancient battlefields. The rolling hills seemed to be resting, calm now as she was calm. In the distance, a calèche, a carriage, bobbed along the folds of green. From so far away, it seemed to be in slow motion. But in the evening air, she could hear the clip-clop, clip-clop of the horse’s hooves.
She turned and looked again at the river. It was shining still, but it was no longer silver. The setting sun had turned it to gold. And the sailboat, still a silhouette, pulled up to its moorings.
Dusk was past. The time for returning was here.

When I was in high school, I decided to join the Church after meeting the missionaries at English classes and studying with them. My parents reacted pretty badly when I told them I wanted to be baptized. They didn’t know a whole lot about the Church, and they were afraid I would be caught up in something dangerous. They thought that the Church would get in the way of my education and that because of all the rules, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy life. They wouldn’t let me get baptized for two and a half years.
I was tested right from the start. In the years before I could be baptized, I prayed over and over again for strength and the necessary faith to keep believing. I couldn’t attend church or associate with members or missionaries. I had to build my faith and my testimony with prayer, scripture reading, and the words of modern prophets—by myself. I missed out on a lot of interesting programs and fun activities.
When I moved to Rome for college, my bishop became a true friend who stood by me when my parents were really angry. He taught me that it was essential to love my parents regardless.
When I finally got baptized, many ward members came and supported me. I joined the choir and made a lot of friends there. Their friendship and kindness made me feel at home.
When we are true to the teachings of Jesus Christ and follow His example in loving and caring for others, recent converts and investigators will see that we don’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk.
Ottavio Caruso is from Italy and is currently serving a full-time mission.

Don Stout was drafted during World War II. In 1943 he wrote me a letter from Europe. The tank in which he was riding had turned upside down in a pond of water, and he and his comrades were there for several hours not knowing if they were going to drown or suffocate. He shared some of his experiences with me, and then in the last paragraph he said, “Vaughn, I want you to know I have never had a beer or a cigarette, never a drink of liquor or tea.” He said, “I have never had coffee or even a cola drink in spite of all the pressure from the boys in my company.” I told a friend about Don’s not drinking or smoking, and he said it was impossible; no man could do that. And I said, “If Don said he did it, he did it.”
I was 12 when I read his letter, and even then I wept as I thought about him, and I decided right then and there that I was going to walk in high places like Don Stout.