Gospel Story Finder

Three years later I went to Rome, Italy, to visit my uncle. He kept telling me about this church he went to. One Sunday, he took me with him. I will always remember walking toward the church’s doors for the first time and feeling the love of Heavenly Father when I went in. It felt like home.

I started going to church every single Sunday and to every activity during the week. I loved being with the youth of the Church. They made me happier. They thought and believed in the same things that I did. Then, after three months, my summer holiday finished and I had to go back to Albania.

When I returned home, I told my dad about the feelings I had had and how happy I had felt during all that time. He didn’t like it. He told me he wouldn’t allow me to continue to go to church or learn more about it. So I would have to be patient for the next three years until I turned 18 years old. Then I could decide for myself and get baptized.

During this time I was blessed with so many people who would tell me about what they learned each Sunday at church. One of those people was Stephanie. She had been living in Italy when my uncle joined the Church, but she had returned to her home in the United States. My uncle thought it would be good for us to write to each other, so I added her as a friend on Facebook.

Even though we had never met in person, I will always be grateful to her for helping me build my faith and learn more about the gospel of Jesus Christ. She wrote to me almost every Sunday and told me everything she learned in church and then would answer my questions. She was a great friend to me.

Finally, after years of being patient, I was baptized just two days after my 18th birthday. And soon I will share with my mother the happiness I felt that day, because I will be baptized for her. I know she will be proud of the life I have chosen.

I feel blessed by Heavenly Father because He was with me during my entire journey in so many ways. I just had to wait and be patient because He had a plan for me. He’s the one who gave me strength to go through all the challenges I faced. He was always there, helping me be happier.

I had been trying hard, and yet I wanted to know: “Isn’t there something more I can do?” And Elder Tuttle told me there was and that I would need the Atonement of Jesus Christ working in my life to go where I wanted to go. Elder Tuttle said he had taken a trip to South America on assignment with Joseph Fielding Smith, then a member of the Council of the Twelve. That was in the days when you went to South America by ship. Elder Smith could have used the time to rest. And he could have let Elder Tuttle rest. But he didn’t. He organized daily scripture study, sitting on the deck in those wooden slat chairs most of you have only seen in old movies. They read their scriptures together, and they discussed them, and they marked them. And so what I have written on this page, in the margins, was written by Elder Tuttle in his Doctrine and Covenants on the ship’s deck as Elder Smith taught it to him. I can only imagine who passed it to Elder Smith. And now I’m passing it on to you.

I made a mistake similar to the one you wish to avoid because I was afraid I would not be accepted. This is the biggest mistake I have ever made. I was enslaved to that habit for the next eight years. I am just now getting over my addiction.

Drugs caused my love for life to slowly fade. I was ready to give up on life when I decided to turn my life around. I had to get rid of a “friend” to let go of the ties that held me back.

I now love myself enough that nobody can shake who I am. I do not know you personally, but I love the person you wish to be. If you ever have to give up a friend to protect yourself, do it. If your friends insist on falling, don’t tumble with them.

Hurry! Hurry! Emily walked down the long, gray hallway. Passengers clogged up the narrow corridor. Come on—hurry! I want to see my mom! Emily stood on her tiptoes, trying to see, but all she could see were backs, shoulders, and heads. Finally she came to the doorway. A warm feeling washed over her as she saw the familiar face of her mother.
“Emily!” Mom waved and ran up to gather Emily in a hug. “You’re home! How was it?”
“Good.”
“How did you like the village? How was your flight?”
Emily’s bottom lip began to tremble.
“Uh-oh,” Mom said, sensing Emily was near tears. “You’re probably exhausted from the trip. Well, you’re home now, and Dad’s waiting in the car.”
“Well, hello there, kiddo!” Dad said when he saw Emily. “Welcome home!”
Mom got into the car with Emily while Dad went for her luggage. From the vent on the dashboard warm air blew into the car. It was August, but the Alaskan sun was buried deep among gray clouds. Emily let her tired body sink into the seat; she was asleep before Dad returned.
“I don’t know if it was a good idea to send her up there alone for her first visit to the village. It’s such a long way, and she’s so young.”
Emily recognized her mother’s concerned tone. She wiggled around, trying to get comfortable.
Dad looked in his rearview mirror and caught Emily’s eye. “Good morning!” he said.
Emily swallowed and rubbed her eyes. Mom twisted around to face her. “Well, tell us about the trip. How is Grandmother?”
Emily’s grandmother lived in a small Indian town in central Alaska. She had been to see Emily many times in Fairbanks, but before this trip, Emily had never been to the village, Ausila, because the journey was expensive and long. Her mind flashed back to the Athabaskan village and to the log cabin where her grandmother lived. The village sat on the Koyukuk River.
Emily had been surprised at her grandmother’s lifestyle. Grandmother lived so simply and so far from any large stores! Mom had grown up in Ausila and had warned Emily that it would be very different from Fairbanks.
“Grandmother is fine. She told me to give you both big hugs, and she sent some smoked salmon.”
“Mmmm.” Dad licked his lips dramatically.
“She introduced me to everyone in the village and taught me how to sew beads onto clothing. I made a beaded purse all by myself!”
“Really? Oh Emily, I’m so glad that you learned to sew beads. Beadwork was my favorite thing to do as a girl. I always dreaded smoking the fish, though.”
Emily had heard stories about catching and smoking the fish. “Grandmother said that I have a special knack with a needle. She even gave me an Athabaskan name—Nakon. It means—”
“Good with a threaded needle.” Mom and Emily said together.
Emily had felt comfortable immediately in the tiny village. She liked the tall fir and birch trees that reached their green tops into the sky. She liked the soft gurgle of the river and the reflections and patterns that appeared on its surface in the morning and late afternoons. She liked the smell that lingered in her coat from the fire and reminded her of Grandmother’s nightly stories about Great-grandmother.
“I loved the village, Mom. It was so beautiful, and I just fit in.” In a way, Emily had felt that visiting her grandmother in the village was like returning home, home to the place her mother had talked about in stories of her childhood.
Emily paused. “But now I’m all confused. Our house and neighborhood are so different from the village. Dad is from Fairbanks, and you’re from the village, but where am I from? When am I Emily and when am I Nakon?”
Mom smiled. She remembered having the same question about herself when she left Ausila to go to college in Fairbanks. Her one-room school in the village was very small and different from the large university. She didn’t know where she fit in. Now she said, “You have a rich and wonderful heritage with Grandmother in the village, and with Nana and Grandpa Phillips here in Fairbanks.”
“Grandmother told me some stories about her mother, too.”
Mom nodded. “We can trace our relatives back many generations on both sides. In fact, it would take a stack of papers to trace the history of your earthly ancestry.
“But the history of your spirit is much easier to trace,” Mom went on. “You are a daughter of God. He is the father of your spirit, and part of Him is in you.” She reached over the seat and squeezed Emily’s knee. “You have a goodly heritage through Dad and me, but more importantly, you have a Godly heritage.”
Emily felt the worry that had knotted within her stomach release. I am Emily and Nakon. And I am a child of God.

A Super Fireside including everything from dancing to milking cows was planned and carried out by the youth of the Bozeman First Ward, Bozeman Montana Stake.
With a core group of about 15 youth doing the planning and organizing, all of the youth from the Bozeman and Helena Montana stakes were invited.
The event began with a roast beef dinner followed by a speaker. The older youth pushed back the tables for a dance, while the deacons and Beehives traveled to another location for get-to-know-you games and a magic show.
Early the next morning, the group assembled dressed in work clothes for the day’s activities. After breakfast and an early-morning speaker, the group departed for the stake dairy, the largest dairy in the Gallatin Valley.
Assignments were made for the service project. Some painted the siding on one of the homes. Some helped put up fence. Others painted the calf pens, and the lucky ones got to clean out the barn. With a few paint and water fights, the work was finished in time for lunch in the hayloft. It had been a great success for both the youth and those they served.

One of my finest missionary companions was Elder Nolan Bergeson. Though certainly not unfriendly or without a sense of humor, Elder Bergeson was reserved; most people thought of him as a quiet, serious-minded young man.
We made a good team, and as we found success and satisfaction in our labors, we also shared some of our previous experiences. One incident he mentioned almost casually I have never forgotten; it showed the complete dedication of Elder Bergeson.
It seemed he had been in a small congregation where a lady who was deaf and could not speak often attended. For a number of years she had told those who understood her that she would like to join the Church. However, she had not been baptized because she had never been taught the discussions by the missionaries.
It was a mission rule that all converts had to be taught the six missionary lessons before baptism. This lady could communicate only by sign language, and since none of the missionaries could speak the sign language of the deaf, none of them could teach her. Elder Bergeson met her and learned that she had been converted through reading the book A Marvelous Work and a Wonder. He also received from her a card with the signs for the alphabet on it.
Elder Bergeson was not a fast learner but he had a great desire to do the Lord’s work. He went to his apartment that night and memorized the sign for each letter of the alphabet. And the next day, in an intense six-hour finger-spelling session, he taught that lady the entire first missionary lesson, spelling each word to her and watching patiently as she spelled back the answer to each question.
Elder Bergeson might have stopped there and still been richly blessed. Instead, he went to the library, borrowed some books on sign language, and practiced continually. Each discussion became easier. The last discussion took only a little more time than it would have if both participants had been speaking audibly. The sister was baptized, and to this day in sign language she blesses Elder Bergeson’s name.
As I think of Elder Bergeson’s example, I am grateful that I was able to learn from such a fine companion. And I’m humbled, wondering how many times I have passed by a brother or sister who could have used my help if I had only had that kind of dedication.

Some years ago in the Salt Lake Tabernacle, Elder Marion D. Hanks conducted a panel discussion. Included in that panel was an attractive and able young woman, divorced, the mother of seven children then ranging in ages from 7 to 16. She said that one evening she went across the street to deliver something to a neighbor. Listen to her words, as I recall them:
“As I turned around to walk back home, I could see my house lighted up. I could hear echoes of my children as I had walked out of the door a few minutes earlier. They were saying: ‘Mom, what are we going to have for dinner?’ ‘Can you take me to the library?’ ‘I have to get some poster paper tonight.’ Tired and weary, I looked at that house and saw the light on in each of the rooms. I thought of all of those children who were home waiting for me to come and meet their needs. My burdens felt heavier than I could bear.
“I remember looking through tears toward the sky, and I said, ‘Dear Father, I just can’t do it tonight. I’m too tired. I can’t face it. I can’t go home and take care of all those children alone. Could I just come to You and stay with You for just one night? I’ll come back in the morning.’
“I didn’t really hear the words of reply, but I heard them in my mind. The answer was: ‘No, little one, you can’t come to me now. You would never wish to come back. But I can come to you.’”
There are so very many like this young mother, who found herself in loneliness and desperation but was fortunate enough to have faith in the Lord, who could love her and help her.

I said I was speaking to the young. I still am. A 14-year-old boy recently said to me a little hesitantly, “Brother Holland, I can’t say yet that I know the Church is true, but I believe it is.” I hugged that boy until his eyes bulged out. I told him with all the fervor of my soul that belief is a precious word, an even more precious act, and he need never apologize for “only believing.” I told him that Christ Himself said, “Be not afraid, only believe,”12 a phrase which, by the way, carried young Gordon B. Hinckley into the mission field.13 I told this boy that belief was always the first step toward conviction and that the definitive articles of our collective faith forcefully reiterate the phrase “We believe.”14 And I told him how very proud I was of him for the honesty of his quest.

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.

The look on my mother’s face broke my heart. Shock. Dismay. Disappointment. All filled her eyes one after the other and then merged into one emotion—betrayal.
Despite her teaching me all my 15 years to honor Heavenly Father in word and deed, there I stood, guilty of letting a particularly offensive word slip past my lips.
I hadn’t meant to swear. Before that year, I had never used foul language. But that summer I had worked for Utah’s Fish and Game Department and picked up the habit from other boys working alongside me.
Our main job was cutting burdock off the side of state roads. We quickly decided that Arctium minus is a particularly evil weed. It grows in volumes just about anywhere, and it crowds out most other plants. Its burs stick to anything that comes near.
Shovels in hand, we battled that nemesis all summer to the point of exhaustion—and dirty language. At first I found my comrades’ language offensive. Then I tolerated it. Finally, I adopted it. By the end of the summer, swearing was sticking to my words as securely as burdock burs to dog hair.
My mother’s reaction to my slip of tongue, however, convinced me that I needed to change.
It wasn’t easy. Swearing is not just a choice of words. It is also a pattern of thinking. The conversations we allow into our lives, the words we read, and the images we view shape our thoughts. I soon learned that I needed to change what I invited into my mind if I wanted to change the words I used.
Thankfully, I was active in attending church and seminary. Swearing had crowded out higher thoughts, but being in an environment where I was exposed to those higher thoughts allowed them to take root again. I concentrated on reading the scriptures every day and praying. I stayed away from movies and television programs that reintroduced dark thoughts.
Gradually, I found my language improving. By the end of the year, I was free of my swearing habit.

When I was five, my family traveled from Tonga to New Zealand to be sealed in the temple. First, we sailed from Tonga to Fiji. The Church members traveling with us sang the entire way. A storm came. The waves were bigger than the ship we were on! As the storm got bigger, we sang louder. Finally the storm passed.
When we got to Fiji safely, we had to ride a bus to the airport. Then we got on a plane to New Zealand.
After the plane landed in New Zealand, we had another two-hour bus ride. It was a cool morning with low clouds. Everyone on the bus was talking. It was loud! Then the temple came into view, and suddenly, the bus was totally quiet. Everybody rushed to that side of the bus to see it. I thought the bus was going to tip over!
Dad lifted me up against the bus window so I could get a good view of the temple. The temple seemed to float in the clouds. It looked heavenly.
Even though that happened many years ago, I can still feel that same special spirit today. We knew we were looking at the house of God. Before, we had only seen it in pictures. We were amazed. I remember thinking, Is God in there? And just as quickly, I thought, This is God’s house. Of course He is. We may not see Him in the temple, but we know we can feel His Spirit there.

The Stevenson family lived in Japan for several years. In 2004 Elder Stevenson was called as president of the Japan Nagoya Mission. Following his call to the Seventy in 2008, he served as a counselor and president in the Asia North Area. He was serving as Area President in 2011 when a major earthquake struck off the coast of northern Japan, triggering a massive tsunami that killed thousands. That experience proved to be a defining moment in his life.
Elder Stevenson helped shape the response of the Church, which provided food, supplies, support, and longer-term assistance.
“That was a manifestation of the Church of Jesus Christ filling one of its divinely appointed responsibilities of caring for the poor and needy,” he recalls. He said it was a sacred privilege to “minister, and bless, and organize assistance.”

President Nelson shared the story of a young man who had to give up his smartphone for a bit. At first, he panicked. (Can you relate?) But then, he was grateful. He felt “free for the first time in a long time” and loved being “free from the fake life that social media creates” and had much more time and energy to be outside, serve others, listen in church, and prepare for his mission. And he was so much happier.

My locker slammed shut as I turned and hurried up the stairs so I wouldn’t be late for my seventh-grade science class. I was supposed to have something in mind for a science project. I thought a papier-mache volcano would be great, but I knew that instead Mom would probably help me figure out something on capillary action with a stalk of celery and some red food coloring.
Just as the bell rang, I sat down in my assigned seat at the back of the classroom. I was beginning to hate being assigned seats alphabetically because I always ended up in the rear of the room.
I hardly had time to say anything to Julie Westergaard, one of the few students who sat further back than I did, when my science teacher started talking. He was obviously upset by something, and we were going to hear about it. He started the day’s lesson, not on science, but about the fact that the United States was facing a major military crisis. The Soviet Union was sending ships loaded with missiles to Cuba. Our president had set up a blockade to stop them.
“It could mean war,” my teacher said, pounding the desk for emphasis. “The world as it is right now could end in half an hour. Do you all realize what a nuclear war would be like? It would be the end of the world.”
I was riveted to my chair. The sound of my teacher’s voice seemed very far away, and the loudest noise was my blood pounding in my ears. I was terrified but old enough now that the terror and panic I felt was kept bottled up. The rest of the day was a blur.
I walked home from school that day with my science teacher’s words replaying in my mind. “The world could end in half an hour. The world could end in half an hour.”
I didn’t mention my concerns to my parents. I was a grown-up 12-year-old and was showing my independence by not confiding every fear to my mother.
After dinner, I sat down at my desk in my bedroom to do my homework. I wasn’t usually so prompt about getting to my homework first thing in the evening, but nothing else seemed to distract my mind from the worry over the threat of world war. After a while, I was tired of homework and I began to fiddle with other things I found lying around. As I was sorting through a stack of paper, I picked up a bookmark that had been given to me as I had entered Beehives earlier that year. On the back was a suggested reading list for the year. I had never noticed the list before, but since I was trying to postpone getting back to my school books, I decided I would start reading a little of the first thing on the list—the book of Matthew as translated by Joseph Smith, located in the last few pages of the Pearl of Great Price.
Soon tears blurred my vision and a feeling of warm calm enveloped me as I read the 23rd verse: “And you also shall hear of wars, and rumors of wars; see that ye be not troubled, for all I have told you must come to pass; but the end is not yet” (JS—M 1:23).
I read on about the last days and the signs of the times before Christ would come again. But the fear and panic I had felt that day in science class were gone. I knew that our Heavenly Father was aware of us and that world events were proceeding as had been prophesied. I had no need to fear.
Since that night, alone in my bedroom with the Pearl of Great Price open on the desk, I have kept that calm feeling as events that seem so world threatening unfold. I do not accept the violence of the world and I yearn with most of mankind for peace, but I am well aware of the prophecies in the scriptures and have a promise that I should not be troubled.

A few days before he died, he was in the temple on the fourth floor with his associates of the First Presidency and the members of the Twelve. He was so week and frail that there was every good reason that he never should have been there. Before our meeting started, as he sat, members of the Twelve walked by to shake his hand and greet him. There was almost no response at all because of the physical drain that had come to him over the last number of months. There was almost no capacity to communicate or respond in the present situation. His hearing was very limited, his eyesight failing, his frail body filled with aches. As I shook his hand privately and felt little or no response, I gave it an extra squeeze. I said, “President Kimball, I’m Marvin Ashton.” How can I ever forget his last words to me when he looked up just a little and said very softly, “Marvin Ashton, I love you.”

Years later, at the far side of Oslo, Norway, a tall, fair-haired Otto Monson could see his destination a stately mansion. The day was pleasantly warm, and it felt good to be out.
After half an hour Otto decided the walk to the mansion would take longer than he had time for. Not wanting to be late, he turned off the main road and cut through a maze of narrow back streets in the poorer part of the city. A short distance from the mansion he came to a lone row of houses.
It was a rule in the mission that missionaries were to speak Norwegian, and it had been over a year since Otto had heard a word of spoken English. He was passing close to one of the small houses when he heard a commanding voice in English:
“Go into that house,” it demanded.
Otto stopped, his face a little pale. He looked around; there was no one in sight. The streets were vacant. Why go in there? he thought. He seriously doubted if anyone could live in that rotting shack. Looking around he continued walking. As he walked, the voice, now small but strong, repeated the command.
“Go into that house.”
I have another appointment, he thought. Besides, what could be more important than an appointment with the wealthiest man in Oslo, an educated man, a man of importance, a man of influence?
Two days before, the man had contacted President Christopherson, the president of the Norwegian Mission, and asked if someone could come and explain the principles of the LDS doctrine to him. Otto, a clerk in the mission offices, had felt a sense of pride when President Christopherson asked him to go. How could he stop now? He couldn’t be late.
“Go into that house,” the voice repeated.
Otto could see the gate of the mansion when he stopped and turned back. I must be crazy, he thought. I’ll bet no one even lives there.
He knocked on the door of the shack. From inside the building he heard the sound of shuffling feet and the creak of boards. His skin shivered. The door swung inward on leather hinges, and the sallow face of an old, old woman appeared. She looked as old as time itself, he thought. She smelled of sickness and old age, and he knew from her appearance that she was near death, but she looked up and smiled at him, a little painfully. He could sense a terrible loneliness in her. A loneliness that pricked at his conscience so deeply and painfully that he wanted to turn and run, to get away from her sight, from the warm, brown eyes.
“Yes?” she said; her voice was weak but pleasant sounding.
Otto wondered what he should say or do.
“I’m from America,” he said. It was all he could think of.
“I once knew a boy who went to America,” she said.
“What was his name?” Otto asked politely, wondering what he was doing here when he was late for another appointment, an important appointment. He wanted to tell her he had made a mistake, that he had knocked on the wrong door.
“His name,” she said, with a warm, faraway look in her eyes, “was Christian, Christian Monson, but that was a long time ago, nearly 50 years.”
Otto felt a burning humbling excitement flood unexpectedly over his body at the sound of the name. Breathless, he asked what her name was. It couldn’t be, he thought, not after all these years!
“I am Mrs. Hotvedtvien,” she answered.
Otto felt an indescribable pleasure deep inside, and he felt warm tears on his cheeks.
“I am Otto Monson; Christian Monson is my father, and I know you well, Ann Hotvedtvien, very well.”
The street was quiet. It seemed to Otto that time stood still. Then, suddenly, he felt the boney arms of the old woman embrace him, heard her crying softly, and felt the terrible loneliness leave her.
Later Otto learned from her that not long after Christian left for America, the Hotvedtviens moved from Drammen to Oslo. The letters Christian sent from America never found them. Five years after they moved, Moen Hotvedtvien became ill and died. Since then his wife had been alone, and for the last few years she had been sick and unable to earn a living. There was no one to help. She said she had been afraid she would die alone and had prayed for help.
Otto visited the old woman often, saw that she was cared for, arranged for her to have a good house to live in, good food, and medicine. Several months later she died, but she didn’t die alone or without love.

I would like to tell a story about my Grandfather Nelson. They called him A.C. When he was just 27 years old, his father died. A few months later, his deceased father came to visit him in a vision. He was in bed when his father came and sat on the side of the bed.
“What have you been doing since you died, Father?” Grandfather asked.
“I’ve been very busy preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ,” his father answered. “You cannot imagine, my son, how many spirits there are in the spirit world that have not yet received the gospel.”
He said many spirits were learning about the gospel and were looking forward to the time when their friends would do their temple work for them.
Grandfather had another question.
“Father, can you see us at all times, and do you know what we’re doing?”
His father said, “No, I am usually busy doing my work there. But today I am allowed to visit for a little while.”
Grandfather had a third question.
“Father, is it natural to die?”
His father said it was as natural as being born. It was like walking through a door from one room into another room.
Grandfather had one last question.
“Father, is the gospel as taught by this Church true?”
His father pointed to a picture of the First Presidency that was hanging on the wall.
“Just as sure as you see that picture, just as sure is the gospel true,” he said. He testified that the gospel can save everyone who obeys it, and that it’s the only way to be saved in the kingdom of God. “Always cling to the gospel.”
My grandfather’s father told him to be humble, prayerful, true, and faithful.
“Never do anything that would displease God,” he said. “My son, be a good boy.”
Grandfather wrote this special experience in his journal. I took his journal entry and made a copy for every member of my family. And now I want to share the story with you, my Church family.

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.”

My dear brothers and sisters, as October general conference approached last year, I prepared my conference talk to highlight the 100th anniversary of the vision of the spirit world given to President Joseph F. Smith on October 3, 1918.
A few days after I had submitted my talk for translation, my beloved eternal companion, Barbara, completed her mortal probation and passed into the spirit world.
As the days have turned into weeks, then months, and now a year since Barbara’s passing, I find myself more fully appreciating this scripture: “Thou shalt live together in love, insomuch that thou shalt weep for the loss of them that die.” Barbara and I were blessed to “live together in love” for 67 years. But I have learned in a very real way what it means to “weep for the loss” of those we love. Oh, how I love and miss her!

My parents established a family tradition in our home which was fun for me in my early years and has become even more meaningful as I reflect back on it as the years have passed. On the first birthday of each child, the family would gather in the living room. In the center of the living room floor, our parents would place articles for the one-year-old child to select. The selection to be made might indicate an interest the child would pursue in life. The articles were the Bible, a child’s bottle filled with milk, a toy, and a savings bank filled with coins. The child was placed on one side of the room and the family on the other side. Family members would encourage the child to crawl toward the objects and make a selection. This was all in fun, of course.
I was told that I selected the bank and went into finance as my profession. I watched my brother Ted select the scriptures, and he pursued law as his chosen profession. Over the years he has relied on the scriptures as a basis for his judgments. My youngest brother, Bob, was the well-rounded member of the family. He crawled over, sat down on the Bible, put the bottle of milk in his mouth, and then held the toy in one hand and the bank in the other.