Gospel Story Finder

After the meeting two young ladies approached me.
“Are you already meeting with the missionaries?” they asked.
“No.”
“Could we teach you about the gospel?”
“Of course,” I said. “That would make me very happy.”
At one of our discussions they began telling me about three kingdoms. I stopped them and said, “May I tell you what my grandmother told me when I was little?” Now it was their turn to be surprised. The more we talked, the more I wanted to learn. On August 15, my missionaries asked if I would like to be baptized.
“Yes.” That was already my desire.

I visited the hospital room of an old friend who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. I took with me my two young daughters. I did not expect that she would even be able to recognize them. Her own family were gathered, standing around her bed as we entered.
She looked up and smiled. I will always remember her look as she saw that we had brought our daughters with us. She motioned them to come close to her on the bed. She sat up, held them, and introduced them to her family. She spoke of the greatness of those two little girls. It was as if she were presenting princesses to a royal court.
I expected our visit to end quickly. Surely, I thought, she is tired. But as I watched, it was as if the years melted away. She was radiant and obviously filled with love for all of us.
She seemed to savor the moment as if time had stopped. She had spent most of her life succoring children for the Lord. She knew from the account in the Book of Mormon that the resurrected Savior had taken little children one by one, blessed them, and then wept for joy. She had experienced that joy long enough herself to be able to endure in His loving service to the end.

Illustrations by Matt Sweeney
Hey, Matt. Wanna hear a joke?
Mmmmaybe …
Come here, then. We don’t want the playground aide to hear it.
Oh, I guess maybe I don’t want to hear it either.
What’s the matter? Chicken?
No. But Stretch is, and he doesn’t like those kinds of jokes either. He thinks they’re gross.
Who? What?
I mentioned your name to some guys at school. Hope you don’t mind.

In our world of skepticism, confusion and wickedness, to know the truth, to have a deep, humble, and solemn conviction that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, is a very precious thing. I have received the witness of the divinity of my Savior through the sweet influence and power of the Holy Ghost. I have received this witness in my own heart, which exceeds all other evidences. It bears record to me, to my very soul, of the existence of my Redeemer, Jesus Christ.
This silent, sweet conviction came early in my youth, while I was on my knees in deep supplication in our humble hogan, and at other times, after reading the Book of Mormon while tending the sheep out in the hot desert on the reservation. Just as I know that my life did not begin when I was born, just as I know that it will not end when I die, likewise I know for certain that the life of Christ did not begin at Bethlehem; neither did it end on Calvary. Of himself, the Lord Jesus Christ said:
“I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work … thou gavest me to do.
“And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory … I had with thee before the world was.” (John 17:4–5.)

I recently had the opportunity to visit my home town, Maputo, where I received the Gospel of Jesus Christ as a single adult in 2000. My first calling in the church after a month of being a member was Primary President. At the time, I could not comprehend why I got that calling. Besides the fact that it was to look after the children during church hours, I knew nothing about Primary and the way that was supposed to be run. I was totally unsure what I was to do in this organization. I thought that the branch presidency was mistaken on their choice.
As I think about it today, it was not a choice of the branch president. It was a calling from Heavenly Father and His son Jesus Christ. In my human understanding, there were many sisters in the branch that I could point out as more prepared and capable of fulfilling that calling. Sisters that were mothers and were probably more experienced in dealing with children of different ages. Despite my feelings of inadequacy, I accepted the calling and learned line upon line and precept upon precept.
It was a great and humbling journey of learning and service. I remember many Sundays when I was the only teacher for the whole Primary. On those Sundays I had to teach music, run sharing time, and teach primary lessons. The best thing was that we always had a senior missionary sister that would play piano for our sharing time. I grew to love Primary music timewhere I could teach the gospel to the children through music. Almost every Sunday, we sang the primary songs “I hope they call me on a mission” and “Follow the Prophet” from the children’s songbook at the request of the Primary children. These were our Primary favourite songs. During my service in Primary, I learned the most basic and valuable principles that helped me grow and understand the fullness of the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. I grew to love my Primary children. My Primary class varied from five to twenty and sometimes even more children on some Sundays. But I strived to know each child by name.
It felt overwhelming at times – trying to coordinate Sunday activities, music, lesson, assigning children for the following Sunday. But as I reflect upon the experience, it was a time that Heavenly Father helped me establish deep roots in the Gospel. I often felt loved and needed by the children. It was hectic, yet very rewarding calling.
I loved seeing them having the desire to come to Primary, and my favourite part was the big hugs that I would get from the children at the end of our time together. I often never knew how I was doing as a teacher, until I would hear from a parent or two that their child or their children speak about me at home. Thinking back, I realize that this was the most rewarding calling in the church – there were great needs and a huge opportunity for service.

Jean B. Bingham
(6) A girl who rides her bike to a house with “golden windows” sees that her own house’s windows are also golden.

After my baptism, I had a lot of victimization in my neighborhood and family. There were false testimonies and all sorts of mockeries, but I endured. Two weeks after my baptism, I left for north Togo to continue my studies. Though the Church wasn’t there, nothing could prevent me from obeying the principles and reading the Book of Mormon every day. The missionaries called often to find out how I was doing, and that comforted me.

3. For example: A teacher was very sick. She had “lost” her good health. Many people prayed for her. Heavenly Father blessed her by restoring her good health.

When I was 16, I didn’t get along with my twin brother at all. We fought about everything. One day he humiliated me at school with an intensely critical and personal attack in front of a group of friends. His actions and hurtful words left me devastated in a way my teenage self could not bear. Even when our parents confronted him about the incident, he never said he was sorry. For years I held onto the pain.
He was still on his mission when I received my own mission call. I was preparing to enter the temple and began to reflect on my life to find where I needed to change to feel prepared to go to the temple. I realized that even though I didn’t often think about what my brother did, I still needed to forgive him.
My brother had hurt me more than anyone else, and I knew it wasn’t going to be easy to forgive him. So I prayed for help from Heavenly Father.
With His help, I decided to start writing my brother regularly on his mission. Before that, I’m sorry to admit, I hardly wrote him at all. Then I sent him a package. When I left on my mission, he came with my parents to the missionary training center and gave me a hug. He even wrote me a few times.
I know that even though it may take time, with Heavenly Father’s help, we can let the past remain in the past.

On December 22, 1841, less than a day before Joseph Smith’s 36th birthday, 13 wagonloads of merchandise, purchased in St. Louis, Missouri, arrived in Nauvoo, Illinois. The Prophet was pleased to receive the goods because he was preparing to stock the shelves in his new general store.
The store’s double doors were opened for business on January 5, 1842, and Joseph was delighted with the response of the public. He wrote: “The store has been filled to overflowing, and I have stood behind the counter all day, dealing out goods as steady as any clerk you ever saw, to oblige those who were compelled to go without their usual Christmas and New Year’s dinners, for the want of a little sugar, molasses, raisins, …
“Our assortment is tolerably good—very good, considering the different purchases made by different individuals at different times and … I rejoice that we have been enabled to do as well as we have, for the hearts of many of the poor brethren and sisters will be made glad with those comforts which are now within their reach” (History of the Church, 4:491–92).

About a year ago the missionaries of the Mexico Vera Cruz Mission working in Tuxtla Gutierrez challenged the members to help convert enough people to form a new branch. Knocking on doors wouldn’t do it. They needed references. The Saints listened, nodded, planned, and started asking Golden Questions. They asked them at school, at work, on soccer fields, on buses, and anywhere else there were people to be asked. Each Sunday afternoon after church they would head for the parks and plazas, whole families going together. There they divided into pairs and started talking to passers-by. This method sometimes produced more than 200 solid references for the elders in a single afternoon. Even the youngest members did their part, and there are faithful Mormons today who are grateful that a couple of little children stopped them in a park and bore their young testimonies.
Today Tuxtla Gutierrez has its new branch, but the missionary work continues. Outstanding as the missionary zeal of the branch is, it is matched by the enthusiasm and energy of the young people for sports and other activities. The Aaronic Priesthood and the Young Women organizations offer instruction and competition in dance, soccer, basketball, singing, oratory, dramatic reading, drama, swimming, volleyball, judo, karate, folk dancing, track and field, English, and whatever else any young person wants. The lights of the chapel are on almost every night of the week because young people are inside having the time of their lives and learning at the same time. Last summer there was a district conference and sports day with several hundred young people in attendance, and the competition for sports honors was tough.

About a year ago, I woke up in a trailer someplace in Illinois, full of drugs and alcohol, and I didn’t remember anything I’d done. I remembered only that on my business trip, as soon as the plane landed, it took me all of about 10 minutes to ditch my colleague, go straight to the bar, and disappear for three days. The second day—the day I was supposed to fly home—was my daughter’s birthday. Just a year ago.
A year ago Mark (names have been changed) didn’t know how he would overcome his addiction to drugs and alcohol. He had already tried to quit. He had visited with his bishop, been to professional counselors, gone through rehabilitation centers, and exerted all the willpower he could, but nothing brought permanent change. Soon after that critical moment in Illinois, he found the Church’s 12-step addiction recovery program, sponsored by LDS Family Services. In the program, he found the principles and direction that would change his life.
The change occurred as he studied and applied the principles taught in the program workbook and weekly recovery meetings. The workbook guides readers toward recovery using 12 steps, each of which addresses an essential principle of recovery such as honesty, hope, or trust in God. At the weekly meetings, participants are able to gain strength from others and share their own experiences of applying the principles.
Mark learned that the journey from addiction to recovery is a difficult one, but knowing people who have already made that journey can give hope to those who struggle. At each meeting a facilitator—someone who has experienced recovery—encourages others by sharing insights based on his or her own recovery. Mark is now a facilitator. Each week he shares his experiences (included in this article in italics) to help others understand that they are not alone and that addiction can be overcome.
After each time I gave in, I would say, “This time is going to be different. Please, Lord, help me. I don’t want this to be a part of my life.” Yet it continued to be.
An oft-repeated phrase among program participants is that an individual seeks recovery “when the pain of the problem becomes greater than the pain of the solution.” When Mark reached that point, he took a friend’s suggestion and came to a Latter-day Saint addiction-recovery meeting. Some people decide on their own to come. Others are encouraged to attend by friends or priesthood leaders. Some have been ordered by a court of law to attend 12-step recovery meetings.
Working the steps of this program simplified the gospel in a way that I could apply the testimony I had always had.
As Mark discovered, the steps of the addiction recovery program are a systematic way of implementing gospel principles. The 12 steps are adapted from the original Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, but the Church’s program is unique because it puts the steps into “a framework of the doctrines and beliefs of the Church.”1 In the addiction recovery program, the 12 steps are actually steps to accessing the power of the Atonement.
The change that has happened to me is I’m not miserable all the time. Sometimes it’s not easy. Perhaps the Lord doesn’t see fit to take it all from me right now, but He strengthens me so I can bear it patiently and cheerfully, and I can progress. He lightens it just enough that I learn the most that I can.
In the past I was able to abstain for periods of time. I’d get myself back in good standing with the Church and serve in callings, and everyone would tell me how great I was. But I didn’t feel great on the inside at all. And that’s why abstaining is just one part of it. True recovery is not doing it and not wanting to do it because our nature is changed.
Every day I seek my Heavenly Father in prayer and through the scriptures. In the morning I read books about recovery, and I write my feelings and my impressions. I call a support person in the program to help clarify my thinking. I go to the meetings. I try to serve. And I have never relapsed on a day that I have done those things.
Those daily tasks keep Mark spiritually well. Others who have been through the program have discovered the same truth: maintaining spiritual strength requires continuous effort. No one is completely safe from relapse, but through daily gospel living, those who struggle with addiction come unto Christ and receive strength and hope.
“I’m learning bit by bit, precept upon precept,” says Mark. “My nature is changing, and it’s the first time since this started that I can say I have hope. I truly believe that I never have to relapse again.”

As Joseph Smith was translating the Book of Mormon and Oliver Cowdery was acting as his scribe, they came across the story in 3 Nephi of the resurrected Savior visiting the Western Hemisphere. As they learned of His teachings about baptism (see 3 Nephi 11:23–28), they wondered about the many forms of baptism being used in their day and about who had authority to baptize.

Joseph and Oliver decided to appeal to the Lord, praying in the woods near Joseph and Emma’s home. There, the great revelation occurred wherein John the Baptist appeared, put his hands on their heads and said: “Upon you my fellow servants, in the name of Messiah I confer the Priesthood of Aaron, which holds the keys of the ministering of angels, and of the gospel of repentance, and of baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; and this shall never be taken again from the earth, until the sons of Levi do offer again an offering unto the Lord in righteousness” (D&C 13:1).

That was a glorious event. I hope all priesthood bearers remember May 15, 1829, as a sacred event in the history of the Church and as a special event in the history of the world.

4. Sarah answered the telephone after supper, and a man left a message for her father about a time change in a meeting he was to attend the next morning. Later that evening Sarah went to a friend’s house to play without giving her father the important message. When Father came home from the office the next evening, he told Mother at dinner how upset he was that no one had notified him that the time for the meeting had been changed. Should Sarah tell her father that she had forgotten to give him the telephone message?

I can still picture them. Those unforgettable, incredibly quiet Sundays spent outside in a neighborhood filled primarily with Latter-day Saints—and I wasn’t one of them.
I used to imagine a tumbleweed rolling slowly down my street as they did in old Western films, indicating that no one was around. I knew where my neighbors were (at church), I understood why my friends couldn’t play on Sundays, and I knew why only my family would be outside doing yard work on a blistering Sunday afternoon. At least, I thought I knew. Little did I realize that seminary and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would give me true insight and change my life for the better.
Fast-forward a few years from those childhood days: I was baptized when I was 11 years old. I’m not sure if an 11-year-old can choose to be baptized for the wrong reasons, but I believe I did. I didn’t fully understand the role of the Holy Ghost, and all I remember about my baptism was thinking, “I will finally be like my friends.”
To my dismay, I was still nothing like them. I assumed that once I was a member of the Church, my family would automatically attend church with me. When I realized my family was not going to attend church, I wondered if my friends knew how lucky they were. They would talk about how they didn’t like going to church or how they seemed to dread saying family prayers. I wanted so badly to tell them they shouldn’t be wishing away something so precious. I knew they had something special.
Yet I also didn’t fully embrace all that the gospel and the Church had to offer, even though I was baptized.

After we made Christmas crackers and filled them with some of our Halloween candy, we took them to a nursing home and gave them to the people who live there. I felt happy and warm inside.
Abigail C., age 5, Pennsylvania, USA

Years ago, following a mission tour, my wife, Jeanene, told me about an elder she had met. Jeanene had asked him about his family. She was surprised as he responded that he had no family. He further explained that at his birth, his mother had given him to the government to raise. He spent his childhood going from one foster home to another. He was blessed as a teenager to find the gospel. A loving ward family had helped him to have the opportunity to serve a mission.

Later Jeanene asked the mission president’s wife about this fine elder. She learned that a few months earlier this elder had been in the mission home for a few days due to an illness. During that time he had joined them for a family home evening. Before he left to go back into the field, he asked the mission president if he could spend two or three days at the end of his mission in the mission home again. He wanted to observe how a Christ-centered family functions. He wanted to be able to pattern his family after theirs.

One morning the telephone, which had not worked for months, rang to bring the news that my husband had received a job as a teacher. The phone immediately stopped working again, but it didn’t matter. My husband had work!

One day I joined my siblings at the table to do our family scripture study. My mom started our Come, Follow Me lesson, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was thinking about something else: Is Jesus really real?
In church and in Primary we learned that He is real, but I didn’t know for myself. I thought and thought, but I couldn’t find the answer.
After scripture study, I asked my mom, “Is Jesus real?”
“Good question,” she said. “How about you pray about it?”
“OK,” I said.
That night I said a prayer and asked, “Heavenly Father, is Your Son real?” Then I felt a really warm feeling inside. I knew God had answered my prayer. After that, I said a thank-you prayer to Heavenly Father for answering me. I know He listens to my prayers and that He will also listen to yours.

Ever since I was young, that’s how I’ve felt—Joseph Smith is my prophet. More than anyone, this prophet of the Restoration has helped me come to know Jesus Christ and His gospel. I studied the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants. And when I was a teenager, my dad gave me a book of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s teachings, and I ate it up. Studying those teachings became a major building block of my testimony of the restored gospel.