Gospel Story Finder

I’m grateful for the gift given to me of ears to hear. One of my great-grandfathers, John Bennion, walked or rode his horse from over Jordan to this place to hear his name called out to go on a mission to Dixie. His journal doesn’t say much, except just that the next day he prepared to go, and he went. His assignment was to be a sheepherder. In his journal there is a record of an evening in which he met with Erastus Snow. He said another man was in the room; his name was Henry Eyring. And somewhere in St. George that night was Bishop Miles Romney. They talked about sheep. And you might have thought they were talking about something temporal. But not to those men, because they knew they were God’s sheep, and they knew they were for God’s people. And they knew how to listen, and they knew how to do what they heard.
John Bennion went on another mission to Wales and back again to this valley. Henry Eyring went on to Colonia Juarez, as Miles Romney did. And they left for me a tradition which I deeply appreciate. They were the yeomen of the Church, the soldiers of the Church, and my great-grandfathers. You can’t find in their journals records of the positions they held, just of the instructions they heard, and knew were from God, and followed. I’m grateful to my parents who handed me that heritage undiminished. I’m grateful to my wife, who more than once has heard when I did not and gently said, “Would you pray about it?” If my sons and daughters will listen to her, and hear through her what God has in mind for them, we will pass the heritage on again.

When I was first called as a General Authority, I was serving as an assistant administrator of seminaries and institutes and as a member of the administrative council of BYU. They were kind enough to have a dinner to see me off with Elder Marion G. Romney, representing the board of education, as the speaker.

President William E. Berrett made a very brief response in which he said that Brother Tuttle (who by then was one of the Seventy) and I had something of a motto. It was “Follow the Brethren.” Brother Romney responded with some humor that he was glad for that motto since I already had been given an assignment to assist him. “Now I know that Brother Packer will do everything I tell him to do.”

I was asked to respond. I did not know Brother Romney very well at that time or I should not have said what I did. Nevertheless, I lived to learn that the very intimate relationship I had with him in years to come began that night when I said, “Brother Romney misunderstood! Our motto was ‘Follow the Brethren,’ not ‘Follow the Brother.’” He drew close to me thereafter because I had shown respect for a principle that was precious to him. There is only one “Brother” to follow, and that is our Prophet President. But even he does not act alone, for he has counselors.

Pray. When Chad, our new baby, started taking more and more of my wife’s time, I sensed a feeling of resentment. With Chad came new financial responsibilities, and the pressures on me mounted. Often I felt my wife did not understand me. The need to feel understood left me wanting to look outside our marriage for friendship and emotional support. Then I remembered the feeling I had when I took my sweet wife by the hand in the sealing room of the Boise Idaho Temple. There the Spirit of the Lord bore pure testimony to me of the sanctity of our marriage. I will never forget that moment.
I was asked once if we pray for a successful marriage. We do now. At the end of each day we kneel with our son and have family prayer. The gospel is full of tools to help a marriage. Having a strong relationship with our Heavenly Father has become the backbone of our marriage.—Scott A. Carlson

When I looked at my brother’s Christmas tree, there, hanging as a decoration, was a tiny molded figure of a swimmer with a snorkel and diving mask. “What’s this on your tree?” I asked. “We’ve started a new tradition,” he said. “Each year we are going to make decorations that represent something that happened to us that year. This year I learned to snorkel. Here’s one of the Washington Monument because we moved from Washington, D.C., and here’s one of the sun because we had a fun summer.”
Every year when my brother unpacks the Christmas decorations, his family will remember some of the special things that have happened to them during past years.

Trevor sat down on the couch and put his chin in his hands. His brothers were playing with Grandpa. He wished he could have fun too, but he couldn’t stop worrying about his baptism.
Mom sat down next to him and ruffled his hair. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “Don’t you want to play?”
Trevor shook his head, frowning.
Mom looked at him a moment, then put her arm around him. “Are you still afraid to go under the water?”
Trevor nodded.
The thought of being underwater always scared Trevor. When he was three, he had fallen into a swimming pool. He could never forget how scared he had felt as he sank deeper and deeper into the water until someone pulled him out. He had been nervous around water ever since.
“Why isn’t anything working?” Trevor asked. “We prayed, and we even visited the font. Nothing worked!” Springing up from the couch, Trevor ran into his room.
Shutting the bedroom door behind him, Trevor fell onto his bed. Soon he heard a soft knock on the door.
Trevor looked over as Dad sat down beside him. “Mom told me you’re still nervous about getting baptized,” Dad said.
Trevor nodded. “I keep praying, but the scared feeling won’t go away.”
Dad thought a minute. “Sometimes when we pray for something, it doesn’t happen right away. You might feel scared now, but maybe by tomorrow you’ll feel better.”
Trevor shook his head, but then he remembered when he was nervous about starting school last year. Dad had given him a blessing. Maybe a blessing could help him get baptized too. He looked up at Dad. “Do you think you and Grandpa can give me a blessing?”
Dad nodded. “I think that’s a great idea.”
A little while later, Trevor sat down in a chair in the family room. Dad and Grandpa placed their hands on his head. Dad blessed him, saying that if he had faith, Heavenly Father could help him to feel calm and peaceful.
The next day as he sat at his baptism in his white clothes, Trevor still felt nervous. He was glad he had received a blessing, but what if he stayed scared? How would he get baptized?
After hearing a talk about baptism, Dad leaned over. “It’s time to go to the font,” he said. Trevor nodded and followed Dad to the font. Dad went in first.
It was Trevor’s turn. He hesitated, but then he remembered his blessing. “Heavenly Father, please help me to have faith,” he prayed silently to himself.
Slowly, Trevor put one foot in the water. It was nice and warm. Trevor took another step.
With each step, he could feel his worry and fear melting away. Dad took him by the arm and smiled. “Ready?”
Trevor felt calm and peaceful. This was the feeling Heavenly Father had promised to give him. He nodded. “Ready.”
Dad raised his right arm and said the baptismal prayer. As Dad lowered him under the water, Trevor wasn’t afraid. All he could feel was that calm, peaceful feeling growing stronger.
Trevor came out of the water smiling. He knew that his faith had helped him overcome his fear so he could be baptized. He knew Heavenly Father would always help him when he was trying to choose the right.

Finally, I testify that we do not walk alone.
Stan, a dear friend of mine, was taken seriously ill and rendered partially paralyzed. He had been robust in health, athletic in build, and active in many pursuits. Now he was unable to walk or to stand. His wheelchair was his home. The finest of physicians had cared for him, and the prayers of family and friends had been offered in a spirit of hope and trust. Yet Stan continued to lie in the confinement of his bed at the university hospital. He despaired.
Late one afternoon I was swimming at the Deseret Gym, gazing at the ceiling while backstroking width after width. Silently, but ever so clearly, there came to my mind the thought: “Here you swim almost effortlessly, while your friend Stan languishes in his hospital bed, unable to move.” I felt the prompting: “Get to the hospital and give him a blessing.”
I ceased my swimming, dressed, and hurried to Stan’s room at the hospital. His bed was empty. A nurse said he was in his wheelchair at the swimming pool, preparing for therapy. I hurried to the area, and there was Stan, all alone, at the edge of the deeper portion of the pool. We greeted one another and returned to his room, where a priesthood blessing was provided.
Slowly but surely, strength and movement returned to Stan’s legs. First he could stand on faltering feet. Then he learned once again to walk—step by step. Today one would not know that Stan had lain so close to death and with no hope of recovery.
Frequently Stan speaks in Church meetings and tells of the goodness of the Lord to him. To some he reveals the dark thoughts of depression which engulfed him that afternoon as he sat in his wheelchair at the edge of the pool, sentenced, it seemed, to a life of despair. He tells how he pondered the alternative. It would be so easy to propel the hated wheelchair into the silent water of the deep pool. Life would then be over. But at that precise moment he saw me, his friend. That day Stan learned literally that we do not walk alone. I, too, learned a lesson that day: Never, never, never postpone following a prompting.

A second way we fail to feel blessed is by giving God a timeline. I have a darling three-year-old grandson named Dalan. His family arrived at my home late one night after a seven hour drive. My exhausted daughter wanted to sleep in the next morning, but Dalan did not. He jumped on her bed very early and said, "Wake up mommy; I'm hungry."

She opened one eye and said, "Oh, Dalan, I am so tired. Just give me five more minutes."

To her surprise, he said "Ok." Then he leaned down and whispered in her ear, "one, two, three, four, five. I did it mommy. I gave you five minutes."

He was so cute she just had to get up with him. I think that sometimes our perception of time is close to Dalan's. We tell God that we have waited for five, ten, or even twenty years and that is long enough. We think God asks too much of us. What if Columbus had finally told God that he knew he was inspired with the idea to sail west and he knew he had been told he would succeed. However, he had been doing everything he could to accomplish this for almost six years--and that was long enough. We need to be faithful, patient and know that we will be blessed.

A third way we deny ourselves the blessings of the Holy Ghost is that we listen when the prompting and revelation deals with serving someone else, but fail to listen when it requires a change in our lives. Years ago I was serving in a stake Relief Society here on campus. I was driving home late one Sunday afternoon when I noticed a young woman standing on the sidewalk and received the strong prompting to pull over and offer her a ride. I pulled over, rolled down the widow and asked her if she would like a ride. She looked at me for a minute, then she said yes. She told me where she lived and I drove her to the steps of her apartment. She thanked me but didn't say more.
I spoke in stake conference the next Sunday and I received a card from her during the week. She said she didn't share her experience with me that day because she didn't know who I was. She had had knee surgery and as she was walking home, her knee began to hurt so terribly she knew she would be unable to make it to her apartment. She prayed and asked Heavenly Father to either lessen the pain so she could stand to walk on her leg, or to send someone to give her a ride. She said, "I opened my eyes and there you were. You are the fastest answer to a prayer I have ever had." I was grateful I had been blessed to receive that prompting.
However, I also received some direction from the Holy Ghost that was not as easy to follow. I had developed the habit of turning on the television at night and I was watching more than I should. The words came into my mind very clearly telling me to turn off the television and to be wise in the way I used my time. That was not as easy for me to follow. The importance of responding to guidance was emphasized by former General Relief Society President Julie B. Beck, "The ability to qualify for, receive and act on personal revelation is the single most important skill that can be obtained in this life."[13]

“Are you going to paint this Saturday?” has been the familiar question among many college youth in Las Vegas, where they have painted the inside and outside of a church built by the Afro-Methodist Episcopal Church whose members were having trouble getting the building finished. The congregation lacked funds. The Student Association of Las Vegas Region pitched in and raised $4,000, in addition to painting the building. Under the direction of priesthood leader James Seastrand, president of the Las Vegas North Stake, and Reverend Charles Wyatt, the project got under way. It was a great time of togetherness, with the Relief Society and the ladies of the Afro-Methodist congregation providing lunch each workday. Funds were raised through dances, bake sales, car washes, and concerts. “The unity among the students and with people of another race was something wonderful to behold,” said Shauna Rollins, vice-chairman of one M Men-Gleaner Council in the area.

When we know and act, I believe the third fundamental is to have this blessing called testimony, or the witness that the Spirit brings. I thought and thought and had a hundred examples and am going to use the simple one of the bishop in Taiwan. Some of you will have been there and may know the bishop in Taipei. He had to leave the mainland of China with the defeated armies thirty years or so ago. He has been there thirty years, totally out of communication with his wonderful wife and his children, unable to write, unable to let her know or her him of present things. He joined the Church a few years ago. He has been a marvelous, strong, unselfish bishop for a number of years. I keep thinking about him. What gives a man enough hope, enough faith, enough endurance, to put up with that when most of us scarce stand a day or a week or a month away from those we love the best? There is something that strengthens us, that testifies this is true and that motivates us to move in this way.

While she was still very young, Louisa began working as a seamstress and as a housemaid. Whatever money she earned Louisa gave to help support her family. At about the age of sixteen Louisa began teaching school also. The same barn where her first play had been presented now became her classroom. Her students delighted in the fairy tales Louisa made up to entertain them. Louisa’s first book, Flower Fables, was a collection of these tales.

When I was a child in the 1950s and 1960s, our Christmas traditions were not elaborate—except for the stockings. Because we children enjoyed our Christmas stockings so much, we continued the tradition when we married and had children of our own. Buying surprises and assembling dozens of Christmas stockings, however, soon became too much for my aging parents, especially my mother, who had a serious case of rheumatoid arthritis that limited her mobility and energy.
Eventually, I volunteered to take over the project. Our annual extended family home evening, in which we acted out the Christmas story and opened our stockings, found me exhausted from the demands of being the mother of several small children and juggling the events of an active life. As I watched everyone dump treasures out of the gingham Christmas stockings I had carefully prepared, I was feeling a little sorry for myself.
As expected, my stocking was empty except for the standard candy cane and Japanese orange that I had placed there earlier. But as I shook them out, I noticed a little bedraggled mouse made of a walnut and hazelnuts. One ear was much bigger than the other, and the whiskers were crooked. The tail had been cut too short, and the loop to hang it on the tree was off center. I was confused. Had someone’s kindergarten project ended up in my stocking?
I looked up and saw my mother watching me from her wheelchair across the room. With a gnarled, bent finger, she beckoned to me.
“I wanted to do something for the Christmas stockings,” she said. “They made these little mice in Relief Society, and they were so cute.”
Her tears were close to the surface, and her gentle voice shook as she continued.
“I couldn’t get my fingers to work, so I made only one. It didn’t turn out, but I knew you wouldn’t mind.”
I looked again at the little mouse in my hand. She was right. I didn’t mind. In fact, her little bedraggled mouse became the most precious treasure of all that Christmas.
For more than 20 years, I have tenderly removed the tissue paper from the misshapen mouse crafted by misshapen fingers and carefully placed it on a branch. My angel mother has been free of her crippled body for several years, but her Christmas mouse reminds me of two profound truths.
The first is that my mother honored me by believing that I could look past the mouse’s crooked ears and feel the love and sacrifice that went into its creation. The second is that if I, as an imperfect mortal, am capable of finding beauty in a humble little mouse, how much more is our Father in Heaven capable of seeing past our imperfect efforts and understanding our pure intentions.
I know that when we do our best to give to others and to Him, our gift is not just good enough—it is of incalculable worth.

We have seen the manifestation of the Savior’s power in a widow who lost her husband while they were on the Lord’s errand in Bolivia. We have seen it in a young woman in Argentina who fell under a train and lost her leg, just because someone wanted to steal her cell phone. And in her single father, who now must pick up the pieces and strengthen his daughter after such an unexplainable act of cruelty. We have seen it in the families that lost their homes and every possession during fires in Chile just two days before Christmas in 2022. We have seen it in those who suffer after a traumatic divorce and in those who are innocent victims of abuse.

This is the kind of faith we saw when we visited the families after the fires in Chile. Their houses had been burned to the ground; they had lost everything. Yet as we were walking in what used to be their homes and they were telling us about their experiences, we felt that we were standing on holy ground. One sister said to my wife, “When I saw that nearby houses were burning, I had the impression that our house was going to be burned, that we were going to lose everything. Instead of desperation, I experienced a sense of indescribable peace. Somehow, I felt everything was going to be OK.” Trusting God and keeping our covenants with Him bring power to our weakness and comfort to our grief.

Joseph Smith is not generally remembered as a general, mayor, architect, editor, or presidential candidate. We remember him as the prophet of the Restoration, a man committed to the love of God and the furthering of His work. The Prophet Joseph was an everyday Christian. He was concerned about the small things, the daily tasks of service and caring for others. As a thirteen-year-old boy, Lyman O. Littlefield accompanied the camp of Zion, which went up to Missouri. He later narrated this incident of a small yet personally significant act of service in the life of the Prophet:

“The journey was extremely toilsome for all, and the physical suffering, coupled with the knowledge of the persecutions endured by our brethren whom we were traveling to succor, caused me to lapse one day into a state of melancholy. As the camp was making ready to depart I sat tired and brooding by the roadside. The Prophet was the busiest man of the camp; and yet when he saw me, he turned from the great press of other duties to say a word of comfort to a child. Placing his hand upon my head, he said, ‘Is there no place for you, my boy? If not, we must make one.’ This circumstance made an impression upon my mind which long lapse of time and cares of [later] years have not effaced.” (In George Q. Cannon, Life of Joseph Smith the Prophet, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1986, p. 344.)

Darrin lost his right leg to cancer in June of 1991. But he hasn’t let his loss hold him back. His only regret is having to interrupt his mission to Chile, where his condition was diagnosed.
“I never wanted to leave,” he says. “I enjoyed every single day.”
But it was decided that Darrin should go home for further tests. Within an hour or two after arriving in Salt Lake City, doctors told him he definitely had a cancerous tumor on his knee.
Surely he was worried, right?
“I was a little bit scared about cancer because I didn’t know what it was,” Darrin says. “When you hear cancer, you think something really scary.”
What helped Darrin’s outlook was a little scripture reading on his plane ride to the United States from Chile. He had been reading in Alma about the Anti-Nephi-Lehis, and how they didn’t fear for their lives when the Lamanites came to attack them.
“I looked at that and I said, ‘I’m not going to fear for my life.’ I told that to people on the plane.”
After getting home, Darrin decided to maintain a positive attitude. “We had some long discussions,” says Darrin’s dad, Ronald Shamo, “and Darrin said, ‘I can approach this one of two ways. I can accept it and make the most of it, or I can be bitter. People don’t like to be around people who are complaining and unhappy. But when you’re positive and can look forward to getting better, people enjoy helping you along the way. They enjoy being with you.’”
And that has made all the difference. Darrin admits chemotherapy sickness had him depressed at times, but he even managed to conquer that. “I made sure no matter what I was doing in the hospital, I was happy. I especially enjoyed going to the fourth floor from three to five in the morning and looking at the babies.”
But Darrin’s condition required more than chemotherapy. His knee had to be removed, and doctors let him choose between joint replacement surgery and amputation just above the knee. Joint replacement would let him keep his leg, but it might leave him with little or no control over that leg because the muscles running through the joint would be cut.
With amputation, however, Darrin could get an artificial leg and soon be back to his old hobbies, like basketball, volleyball, bowling, and rappeling. Yes, rappeling. Having fun with his friends was important to Darrin, so the decision to amputate was not overly difficult. His bowling scores are down since the operation, but he’s confident that will change with practice.
What made Darrin most happy was when he learned he would be able to complete his mission. He was sent to the California Sacramento Mission and returned home this fall.
“Whenever we have a trial, there’s always something we can learn if we’re looking for it. There’s always some blessing,” Darrin says. “Cancer just made me look harder for the blessings, but they’re still always there.”
Hmmm. Maybe I exaggerated about Darrin. Maybe he’s not so crazy after all.

By 9:00 her morning work was done, and she was kneeling in her chrysanthemums, acting very busy with weeding, looking for any evil little bug that would bring harm to her small, delicate beings. Her thoughts kept wandering to the events that had happened just last week.

Her morning had started as usual, but at 7:30 her phone rang and it was bad news from her daughter. Her grandson, one of those with the long hair and bad habits, had been involved in what started as a stay-out-of-Africa rally and ended in a blood bath between students with rocks, signs, and knives and a local garrison of guardsmen with their clubs, shields, and guns. The rally ended with one dead national guard member and five dead students, of which her grandson had been one.

The shock lingered long after the telephone call. She sat staring at the kitchen wall for an hour, and finally she had dragged herself down to her flowers. There she sat, trying to forget.

The July morning was already hot when Jennie walked to the barn to feed Skipper. When she opened the barn door, he whinnied noisily and stamped his hooves impatiently. Jennie put his grain into a pail and took it into his stall, then filled his manger with sweet-smelling hay. She took his water bucket outside to clean and fill it and noticed that the warm summer air was very still. There wasn’t even a hint of a cooling breeze.
It’s going to be too hot again to go riding, she thought. The past several weeks had been much warmer than usual, and not a drop of rain had fallen. The fields were so dry that they made crunching sounds underfoot.
After giving Skipper his fresh water, Jennie walked up through the meadow and the old apple orchard to the edge of the woods where Grumpy, the fat woodchuck, had made his burrow. Sometimes he would come out and nibble at the clover while she watched, and occasionally he came close enough to snatch a carrot from her hand. If she moved too quickly, he would sit up and chatter as though he were scolding her for interrupting his meal. But this morning he was nowhere in sight. Except for a squeaking chipmunk dashing along the old stone wall, everything was quiet. Not even the birds were twittering in the woods. It almost seemed that all the wild creatures that usually scurried around the farm had gone away.
Jennie walked back to the barn and opened the door to Skipper’s stall. He nudged her with his soft nose, then cantered out of the barn with a clatter of hooves and headed for the far end of the field, where he could graze in the shade of the old apple trees.
Seeing her mother headed for the vegetable garden, Jennie ran to join her. The peas and beans were ready for picking, and some of the tomatoes were turning red.
“Are you going to ride over to Marie’s today?” Mother asked.
“No, it’s still too hot. I let Skipper out in the meadow, it’s cooler for him there.”
For half an hour they worked at filling a basket with plump green peas. Now and then Jennie would open a pod and eat the sweet sun-warmed peas. When the basket was brimming, they started back to the house. Suddenly her mother said, “What’s the matter with Skipper?”
At the far end of the meadow, Skipper was galloping back and forth, sometimes pausing to gaze into the woods. He gave a loud, shrill whinny, then raced toward the barn. When he saw Jennie and her mother approaching the fence, he ran to them, snorted, then dashed frantically back across the meadow, stopping at the stone wall to paw the ground.
“He acts as though something is frightening him,” Jennie’s mother said. “Do you suppose there’s a bobcat up there?”
As she spoke, Skipper galloped back to where they stood at the fence. He nickered and nudged Jennie’s shoulder in the direction of the woods. He seemed to be asking her to go with him. Then he was gone again to the end of the field, where he pranced and reared near the edge of the woods. Normally Skipper was quiet and gentle, but now he was acting like a wild horse.
Jennie’s big brother, Tim, joined them at the fence. “Something sure is upsetting Skipper,” he said. “Better stay here, Jen, until I find out what’s the matter.” As Tim climbed over the fence and headed into the field, he thought that he detected a wisp of smoke.
Skipper saw Tim and raced toward him, whinnying loudly. He skidded to a stop, nudged Tim, then galloped back to the edge of the woods where he stood shaking his head and tossing his mane. Jennie and her mother waited and watched.
Tim reached the horse, climbed over the stone wall, and disappeared into the woods. A moment later he came pelting back, shouting, “Call the fire department! There’s a big brushfire just beyond the edge of the woods, and it’s burning this way! It could destroy everything! That’s what Skipper has been trying to tell us.”
Soon two fire trucks came roaring up the road, their sirens wailing. Close behind them were two forest-service trucks with large water tanks.
All the long day Jennie stayed close to the house, wondering what was happening in the woods. Twice the forest-service trucks returned to fill their big tanks at the water hole near the house.
In the late afternoon Tim returned to the house—dirty, hot, and covered with soot.
“Is the fire out?” asked Jennie as she handed him a sandwich and a glass of cold milk.
“Not quite,” replied Tim, “but they have it under control, and they’re digging trenches so that it won’t spread anymore.”
It was nearly dark when the fire trucks rolled out of the woods and turned into the driveway. Jennie and her mother carried platters of sandwiches and jugs of cold water and milk to the tired, soot-begrimed men. The fire chief came over to Jennie and smiled as he said, “Your brother told us that it was your horse that discovered the fire. If it hadn’t been for him, the whole woods might have gone up in flames.”
The next day when Jennie went to pick up the mail, on top of the mailbox was a big bag of carrots with a note that read: “To Skipper, our honorary fireman, from everyone in the fire department.”

When Ofelia Trejo de Cárdenas was called to teach young adults in her Mexico City ward, she felt that having a close relationship with each of her Sunday School students would increase her ability to teach and strengthen them.
“If I don’t have a close relationship with my students and if they don’t feel my love, they may not believe me when I’m teaching a class or bearing my testimony,” she says. “They may feel that I’m just a Sunday School teacher.”
But how could Sister Cárdenas develop such a relationship if she taught only once every two weeks? She found the answer through technology. Using the mobile phone application WhatsApp, she and her students were soon connecting daily through text and voice messages. Now, every day before the next Sunday School lesson, a class volunteer sends to other class members a verse of scripture from that next lesson with a related personal thought. After reading the verse and the thought, class members respond with their own thoughts.
“When they read the scripture, they send a happy face so I know they have read or studied the scripture and that they have thought about it,” says Sister Cárdenas. When it’s time for the next Sunday lesson, the students are prepared to participate.
This daily connection recently blessed one young adult whose parents are not active in the Church.
“I love it when I see him come to church because I know that to get there, he had to go through several challenges,” says Sister Cárdenas. “I’m sure that the scriptures and thoughts his classmates have sent out and the scriptures and thoughts he has sent out when it was his turn have strengthened him a lot.”
Sister Cárdenas says ministering through the scriptures doesn’t stop with her Sunday lesson and her class’s daily scriptural connection.
“My preparation includes praying for my students,” she says. “I think of them not only on Sunday but every day of the week as well. Each of them has specific and different needs. Each is a child of God. I think about them while I’m preparing my lessons.”
And when she teaches, she listens—both to her students and to the Holy Ghost.
“The teacher is the Spirit,” which she often hears in the voices of her students. “I have to pay attention because what they say is the revelation that the Spirit is giving to them.”

All the way down the long hall, Susan held on to her mother’s hand. She tried to hang back and keep from going into the Primary room.
Her mother gently pulled her along, then opened the door and tugged her into a room filled with children. They were seated with their arms folded, listening to the quiet music. Susan hid behind her mother’s skirt.
A woman came up and talked to Mother. Susan peeked around and up into the woman’s face. It looked nice. The woman smiled at her, and Susan ducked back. Then the woman beckoned to another lady, who came forward. Susan hid again.
The three women talked together, but Susan couldn’t tell what they were saying. She peeked out again at the new lady, who had gray hair and a merry face full of wrinkles. Susan knew that her smile was a permanent part of her, because all the wrinkles curved upwards.
With a flutter of her skirts, the woman knelt beside Susan so quickly that Susan didn’t have time to hide. She looked away, but the lady turned Susan’s face back toward her. Then her hands began a graceful dance.
Susan stared in amazement. Then a warm feeling began to grow inside her.
The hands were talking to her! “Hello, my name is Sister White. I am your Primary teacher. Welcome to our ward.”
Susan’s hands moved. “How do you know sign language?”
“My son is deaf. I learned so that I could talk to him.”
Susan nodded. That was good.
“Come,” her teacher’s hands insisted. “Let’s sit with your Primary class. The Star-A class is over here.”
Susan disappeared behind her mother again. She was afraid. Sometimes children made fun of her because she couldn’t hear.
Mother drew her gently out. “It will be all right,” she signed. “They will take good care of you.”
Susan put her hand into Sister White’s and walked over to her class. Her head hung down so that she couldn’t see the other children’s faces. Then she watched her teacher reverently talk with her hands, signing the scripture and the prayer. Then Sister White added, “We need to stand and sing the song.”
Susan was bewildered. She looked at Sister White, who beamed and nodded.
The children stood, and Susan watched in amazement. They were singing with their hands! Soon she recognized the song. Her hands joined in too.
As I have loved you, Love one another.
This new commandment: Love one another. … *
When the song was finished, everyone sat down. Then one by one children turned around and smiled shyly at Susan. She held her head high and smiled back. No one in this ward would laugh or make fun of her. They all welcomed her, just as Jesus welcomed everyone.

Erin, from North Carolina, USA, and her family (left) have always had one goal in mind: to become an eternal family. However, Erin’s father was not a member of the Church.
“Of course my mom and siblings wanted my dad to share in the blessings of the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ made us happy, and we wanted Dad to share in that happiness. We also all desperately wanted to be sealed together as a family,” Erin says.
Determined to become a forever family, Erin and her siblings and mother did all they could to keep the commandments and develop strong faith, and they prayed together for their father’s heart to be touched by the gospel.
Though it took several years, Erin’s father was finally baptized and confirmed. Ten days after his baptism, he was able to baptize Erin’s younger brother and sister. Soon their family will reach their goal of being sealed in the temple.

“I can fly,” laughed Carlos as he went spiraling into the cool Idaho evening. He landed in the playground sand and rolled like a movie stuntman.
He brushed himself off and ran back to the merry-go-round, but it was spinning too fast to get back on. The four of us, all college roommates, had the thing moving so fast that I was afraid it would spin off its braces and take flight. I guessed we’d break out of the earth’s gravitational pull somewhere near Boise, and I’d never get home for Christmas.
“Is there a point to this?” I yelled at Dave, who was leading our family home evening activity that night.
“Yep. And remember, I buy pizza for whoever stays on the longest,” he called from his position in the middle of the twirling merry-go-round.
Our roommate Brad, however, was standing near the edge of the contraption, and I could see his grip was not that secure. From the ground Carlos saw too and began spinning us until we were moving at particle-accelerator velocity. Finally, Brad slipped and was sucked off like he’d just opened the door of a flying 747. He crashed right into Carlos. The two of them landed on the sand in an awkward heap.
“Okay, I win,” I yelled. “Now stop this thing before I throw up.”
We eventually slowed the ride, and Dave gathered us on one of the park benches to give us his lesson.
“Anyone know why I put us through this merry-go-round exercise tonight?” he asked.
“Mental instability?” Brad guessed.
“A sadistic streak?” I asked. My world was still spinning.
“Thanks, but wrong. Did you notice why Carlos and Brad flew off?” Dave asked.
“Yeah, because you took the middle,” said Brad.
“Actually, there was room for all of us,” Dave added.
“Yeah, but it’s not as wild a ride in the middle,” I added.
“True,” said Dave, “there are greater risks on the outside—which is my point tonight. It’s safer when we are in the center—on the merry-go-round and in the Church.
“You’ll find that when you move away from the teachings of the Savior and the prophets, you find yourself taking risks you know you shouldn’t. And then you can suddenly find yourself far away from the Church. And it can be really hard to get back on the ride again once you’re off. Right, Carlos?”
Carlos nodded and brushed a few flecks of sand off his jacket.
Dave opened his scriptures and read from Moroni 10:32 [Moro. 10:32]. “Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.”
Dave closed the scriptures. “Being a member of the Church is the greatest blessing in the world,” he said. “This scripture reminds us that if we come unto Christ and do all He has asked of us, we won’t be led astray. And if we stay centered on Him, following the teachings of the Church and the prophets, we won’t be tempted to take the risks that will throw us off the path that leads home.”
I have never forgotten Dave’s lesson. Every year the world seems to move faster and the distractions and temptations are greater, but I know if I stay centered I will avoid the greatest risks.
As Dave reminded me, by staying close to Christ I can overcome anything.