Gospel Story Finder

A few years after the Smith family moved into the log home, 24-year-old Alvin, the oldest son, planned and began construction on a frame house. “To the neighbors who watched the progress of the new house, he often said: ‘I am going to have a nice, pleasant room for father and mother to sit in, and everything arranged for their comfort. They shall not work any more as they have done.’ But Alvin never lived to see the house completed.” In the middle of November 1823, he became ill and died.

As you were listening to this beautiful rendition by the choir, I was thinking of William Clayton. His father was a teacher, and William had received a good education. He was a good penman, he was good with figures, and he was good at writing and keeping records. He was taught and baptized by the Heber C. Kimball missionary group in the early days of the Church in England. They understood and accepted him readily because of his education and his penmanship. He was just a bright young fellow, 23 years old. Soon he was being used as a secretary, a scribe, or as a bookkeeper by the little organization of the Church over there.

By the time he was 24, he and his wife wanted to go to Nauvoo, so they sailed for America. In Nauvoo he met the Prophet and other leaders of the Church. They used him in interesting ways again because he wrote a beautiful hand and he was a good speller. They could use a young man of that kind. But after the martyrdom of the Prophet he sided with Brigham Young and the Twelve and became one of their scribes and the secretary.

After the martyrdom of the Prophet, he left with the Brigham Young company and had the experience in Iowa that inspired the writing of this wonderful song that we have today. They left in February; it was now April. Slogging through the fields with the wagons and the horses and the teams and the rain and the mud in Iowa, they were discouraged. The going was difficult; people were dying, and babies were born. They were moving slowly, only traveling a few miles a day. In their discouragement, William Clayton wrote in his journal that he sat on a wagon tongue and wrote a song, hoping it would encourage and give some renewed hope and faith to the Saints.

So he wrote “Come, come, ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear.” It was difficult. They were discouraged. “But with joy wend your way. / Though hard to you this journey may appear, / Grace shall be as your day.” He was giving them encouragement to keep going, that the situation would get better.

Then he wrote those wonderful lines, “We’ll find the place which God for us prepared, / Far away in the West.” Even though we’re stuck here in the mud and discouraged, this will all change. If we have the courage and the faith, the Lord will answer our prayers; it will all come about. It gave them hope and encouragement. “We’ll find the place which God for us prepared, / Far away … / Where none shall come to hurt or make afraid”—stirring, inspirational words.

And then the last verse that the choir sang so beautifully this morning, “And should we die before our journey’s through, / Happy day! All is well!” So if we die, we’ve done our best. We’re going to die sometime, as we all know. So “Happy day! All is well!”

“But if our lives are spared again / To see the Saints their rest obtain.” We’ll see if the wagon wheels will stay on and if the rims will stay on the little handcarts and if we can keep up that courage and the strength through our prayers and we’ll get there. “If our lives are spared again / To see the Saints their rest obtain.” If we get there, then “All is well! All is well!”—if we get there and if we have the courage to make it work.

And in his journal he wrote, “I’ve composed a new song—‘All is well’” (William Clayton’s Journal [1921], 19). I like that original title, “All is Well! All is Well!” which explains our lives if we live as we should. We have the outline, we have the procedures, we have the information, and if we can get there and if our lives are spared again, then we will be able to sing “All is well! All is well!” That hymn has become the Church’s “national anthem.”

Bishop Brown’s interest in and love for horses has continued throughout his life. “When I became a member of the Presiding Bishopric,” he said, “I bought a horse, even though I didn’t have a place in town to keep her. Over the years she has had several colts that I have given away. The last colt has been trained by a lovely fifteen-year-old girl and has become a prizewinner. I had not given him an official name, so she picked the name ‘Your Eminence the Bishop.’

On several occasions I have heard versions of a story, presumably based on fact, that goes something like this: A guide or host at one of the Church’s visitors’ centers was one day approached by a man well advanced in age. He acknowledged that he was a member of the Church but said that he had not been associated with the Church since his years as a youth. He told of one day being expelled from a Sunday School class—apparently for misconduct. He said he had never been inside a church building since that day, and he further explained that his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren numbered more than one hundred, and not one of them was a member of the Church.
When I have heard this story retold, it has generally been to illustrate the dreadful price that was paid because of the rash act of an irate Sunday School officer. But we do not hear the Sunday School officer’s side of the story. Nor do we take into account the responsibility of the young man for his own conduct and his years of unrelenting, unrepentant bitterness and animosity that have poisoned his own life as well as the lives of so many of his offspring.
The story is filled with tragedy. Who is responsible for the tragedy, and how could it have been avoided?

I was born the youngest of six children in a small town called Bindura, Zimbabwe, Africa. My parents divorced a few years after my birth, and my good, loving mother had to raise us—four girls and two boys—by herself.
Life was tough for us. I had to walk four or five kilometers (3 miles) to school, and I would go without shoes or anything to eat. Each year I could never complete the term because we could not pay the school fees. There was no place in the world to get money to pay the fees on time. Whenever we did get money, I tried to trace how we got it, but it was untraceable. It’s miraculous to consider how well we were raised. It’s all because of the love and will of our Father in Heaven.

Ombeni frowned down at his lunch tray. The food at his new school was way too sweet. He wished he could just eat his mom’s homemade rice and beans.
Ombeni and his family had only lived in the United States for a few weeks. Their home country was too dangerous to live in, so they had to move to the USA as refugees. Moving was hard. Getting used to his new school was hard too.
Ombeni found an empty spot near a group of boys and sat down. They all turned to look at him. One boy said something, but Ombeni couldn’t understand him. He didn’t know much English yet.
Ombeni tried to say something back. “Jambo,” he said. (“Hello.”)
The boy looked confused. He frowned at Ombeni and turned away. Ombeni felt like curling up into a little ball, but he just sat quietly at the end of the table. Sometimes it felt like he was on an alien planet in this new school.
When school was finally over, Ombeni hurried and zipped up his coat. Back home, he never needed a coat, no matter what time of year it was. But here it was cold in the winter. The other children put on fuzzy gloves and hats, but Ombeni didn’t have any of those things.
Ombeni could see his breath in little white puffs of air as he walked. He started to run so he could get home faster. He burst through the front door and almost ran into Mama.
“Ombeni! Punguza mwendo!” she said. (“Slow down!”)
“Sorry, Mama,” he said, shivering.
Ombeni sat down and tried to warm up while his mom cooked dinner.
After a few minutes, Ombeni couldn’t stay quiet anymore. “Mama, I don’t want to go back to school! It’s scary and lonely, and I can’t make any friends. I miss my friends back home.”
Mama stopped stirring and knelt down next to Ombeni. He quickly wiped away his tears. He didn’t want Mama to see how sad he was.
“I know things are hard right now.” Mama gave him a warm hug. “But they will get easier.”
Ombeni looked away. “But how are things supposed to get easier if I can’t understand anyone?”
Mama frowned. Ombeni could tell she was thinking hard.
“Remember when we were in the refugee camp?” she asked. “Whenever I felt really lonely, I would look for people I could help. It always made me feel better.”
Ombeni nodded. He remembered how Mama would always find people who came to the camp alone and show them where to go.
Mama smiled. “And think about Jesus! People were often mean to Him. But He always looked for people to help.” She wiped another tear from Ombeni’s face. “Sometimes when we’re sad, the best thing we can do to help ourselves is look for ways to help other people.”
Ombeni nodded. That sounded like a good idea. He wanted to be like Jesus.
The next day at lunch, Ombeni looked for someone to help. Lots of kids were sitting with big groups of people. Then he noticed a girl who was sitting at a table by herself.
He walked over to her and set his tray down. He waved and said, “Jambo!”
“Hi,” she said.
Ombeni smiled big. The girl smiled back. Then they quietly ate their food together.
Ombeni felt happy. Things at this new school were still going to be hard. But he was glad to know there were people here he could help.

Not long ago while sitting on the stand during the closing session of a youth conference, just as the young priest conducting the meeting stood to bring the meeting to a close, Kathy, sitting next to me, jumped up and unhesitatingly slipped in front of the young man, took her place at the pulpit, faced the audience, raised both hands in front of her with outstretched fingers, and said, “I’ll bet you’ve all been wondering why I’ve been wearing this ugly green nail polish.” A soft ripple could be heard across the audience, and I realized I was not alone in my curiosity.
“Well,” she said, “it’s like this: I knew my responsibilities as one of the leaders of this conference were big. I knew I had some real challenges ahead, and I didn’t want to be sorry after the chance was gone that I didn’t do what I really wanted to do.
“You see, I needed something that would remind me of what I really wanted to do and help me through the things I didn’t want to do. So I thought of a plan. And it worked! You see,” she went on, “I wanted something that would remind me of what I really wanted to make myself do. I knew my fingernails would always be right there.”
After further details, and bearing a strong testimony of the joy that comes when you do what you should, she took her seat. From this insight I was reminded of the message of the Apostle Paul as he was counseling the Corinthians:
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things” (1 Cor. 13:11).
Kathy had helped us all understand the importance of reminders, but it was the combined voices of young people singing the closing song, resounding like a sacred sermon, that brought forth new appreciation for sacred reminders. They sang:
I marvel that he would descend from his throne divine
To rescue a soul so rebellious and proud as mine;
That he should extend his great love unto such as I,
Sufficient to own, to redeem, and to justify.
(“I Stand All Amazed,” Hymns, no. 80)

Three years later, young Patrick found himself in boarding school back in England feeling great loneliness for his parents, a loneliness cushioned only by their encouraging letters.
“Harry Potter definitely had it cushy at Hogwarts by comparison. It was hard,” he says of boarding school. “I’d go home only for Christmas, Easter, and summer. I made little calendars on sheets of paper, putting a line through each day, counting down the days until I could return to my family.”
A few years later, while Patrick was at his second boarding school in England, a powerful storm blew in from the Irish Sea. The resulting storm surge flooded 5,000 homes in the surrounding area. Patrick and his classmates were called upon to help with the massive cleanup.
“I still remember the weight of the sodden carpets and the stench of it all,” he says. “But I remember digging in and getting the work done with my fellow school friends. And I remember the people and their gratitude.”
That experience was perhaps Patrick’s first glimpse into the mutual blessings of rendering and receiving service. Later, he realized that his teenage feelings of insecurity had left him “while I was involved in this great effort to assist our neighbors.”

“Hey, look at this.” Jack pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket. “I found it in a magazine this morning.” He unfolded it and held it out to Taran.
But Taran could see right off it wasn’t something he wanted to look at. He turned away. “I don’t want to look at that.”
Jack shrugged and put the paper back in his pocket. “Baby.”
Taran didn’t really care.
When Taran got home, he helped Mom make flatbread for dinner. He dragged a chair over to the counter, and Mom tied his apron.
“Mom,” he said, “when I was at Ian’s house, his friend tried to show me a picture of a person without clothes. I turned away and walked away.”
Mom set down the bowl of dough and gave Taran a hug. “That was a really good choice. Thank you for telling me about it.”
“In family night that’s what you said to do.” Taran patted his hands with flour and lifted the dough onto the counter.
“I’m glad you remembered. Is that the first time someone’s shown you a bad picture?”
Taran nodded.
“Well, I’m really glad you told me. You know you can ask me about anything or tell me anything, right? Even if you made a bad choice, I’d still want to know so I could help. I wouldn’t be mad.” She dabbed a bit of flour onto his nose.
Taran smiled and wrinkled his floury nose. “Yup. I know.”
After dinner that night, Dad said, “Today someone tried to show Taran a bad picture, the kind we’ve talked about in family night.”
Reena’s hand shot up in the air. “I remember talking about that!” Dhara wasn’t old enough to remember much, but she nodded too.
“So what did you do?” Sonia asked Taran.
“I didn’t look at it, and I walked away.”
Mom nodded. “We’re really happy Taran made such a good choice. And we’re so proud of him for letting me know what happened.”
Dad reached across the table to give Taran a high five. “Way to go, bud.” Reena and Dhara clapped, and Sonia gave Taran a big smile.
“So to celebrate we have a special treat!” said Dad. That made everybody cheer.
Mom got up to pull the ice cream out of the freezer, and Taran and Sonia ran over to grab bowls and spoons.
“OK, bud,” said Dad, pointing the ice-cream scoop at Taran. “Which flavor do you want?”
As they all dug into their ice cream, Mom said, “Dad and I just want you kids to remember that if you’re worried or have questions, you can always come and talk to us, no matter what. It makes us happy.”
“And gets us ice cream?” Sonia asked as she held up a spoonful of chocolate.
Mom laughed. “Sometimes. But mostly it just makes us happy.”
Taran nodded as he finished his last bite of ice cream. Telling Mom had made him happy too.

“I knew I needed to help a lot, and I even prayed to know what I should do. I felt an answer came when my grandmother, who was staying with us for a few weeks, told me a story about one of my ancestors who at age 11 had driven a covered wagon by himself across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley. His parents had died along the way, and he was left to care for four younger sisters, including a baby, and take them to Zion. This story made me realize that I could be like my great-great-great-grandfather and push forward.
“I decided it would help my family if I made sack lunches for my sisters or do other duties like folding clothing and ironing and other extra chores.
“I gathered my younger sisters and brother every morning before school and carried on our family scripture reading, even though my father had left earlier for work and my mother was too sick to lead us.
“My family … grew closer together because [we] had to help each other. The greatest blessing happened on May 1, 1997, when Hannah Ada Quinn was born” (personal letter in author’s possession).
Thank you for the letter, Katie.
She learned about determination and courage and loyalty to family from her third great-grandfather who lived so long ago, and then she used those qualities as she helped her family who needed her. Many of you are doing similar things to bless and strengthen your families.

Recently, you may have read about Sister Ella Hoskins, who at 100 years old was called to help the young women in her ward with Personal Progress.20 About two years later, at 102, Sister Hoskins earned her Young Womanhood Recognition award. The young women, the ward and stake Young Women and Relief Society presidencies, and family members gathered together to celebrate her accomplishment. Boundaries of age, organization, and marital status faded away in faithful service. Young women expressed gratitude for Sister Hoskins, for her teaching, and for her righteous example. They want to be like her. Afterward, I asked Sister Hoskins, “How did you do it?”
She promptly responded, “I repent every day.”

During my youth I had cultivated my spiritual soil. I had planted the seed of prayer in my heart and had felt the growth of knowing that there is a God and that he answers prayers. I had planted the seed of service by home teaching and performing other Church tasks, and I had felt the growth that told me that there is joy in such deeds and that in serving my fellow beings I was truly in the service of my God. I had paid my tithing and had felt the joy of having the windows of heaven opened to me.

Because of these and other thoughts and feelings and commitments, I was in a springtime condition when I planted a mightier seed than I had ever planted before. I accepted the call to serve a mission.

After my bishop announced to me that the Lord would like me to serve a mission, I left his office and went directly to the service station where I worked and told my boss that I was going on a mission. He replied, “That’s good. It’s great training. You’ll be able to speak up and have a lot more confidence when you come home.” Then he added, “Just don’t stand up in church and say you know the gospel is true, because you can’t know that. Those who say such a thing are liars. They don’t know it’s true.” I could not tell him at the time that I knew the Church was true, but I did tell him that I thought it was.

The most abundant harvest came for me some two months after I arrived in England as a missionary. Those first weeks were difficult, and I had been homesick and heartsick. But at the same time I had an intense desire to be a good missionary. I had been assigned to tell the Joseph Smith story to the other seven missionaries in the Hull District. I stood up to recite that which I had diligently and prayerfully prepared and planted within my heart. At first my message was just words, but then something happened. I felt a swelling within my soul which filled me with such joy I could scarcely speak. In my heart I could see the Sacred Grove and I could see Joseph Smith and I could see that he could see God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ. Then I knew it was good and was true. I didn’t think anymore that the Church was true—I knew. When I returned from my mission, I said in the presence of my former boss that I knew the Church was true. To have not done so would have been a denial of the very real harvest that had grown within me.

I grew up in the Methodist Church. Even though my family usually attended church only on Christmas and Easter, I always knew I had a Father in Heaven. My brother and I used to pray with my mom. What my parents taught me as a child prepared me for what I would learn in the future.
In sixth grade I learned that my parents were getting divorced. I was heartbroken and felt very alone. My friend Courtney could relate to me because her parents divorced when she was a little girl. She became my best friend.
Courtney and I were sitting on my bed talking when she first introduced the Church to me. She didn’t go into detail about it. She just asked me if I wanted to attend church with her on Sunday. I started going to church with her every once in a while, and then I went every Sunday. After I turned 12, I even attended Mutual. There was something there. I didn’t know what it was, but I enjoyed it.
In seventh grade Courtney and another good friend, Aubrey, introduced me to the missionaries. I soon learned what the missionaries meant when they talked about feeling the Spirit. I knew the Church was true after the second discussion.
Despite my testimony of the gospel, I was scared to death to ask my parents if I could be baptized. I continued to go to church and have incredible testimony-building experiences, but I put off the “big question” for two years.
In my freshman year of high school, I enrolled in seminary, and by November I knew I had to ask. I talked with my mom. She told me the Church had only made changes in me for the better, and if being baptized was what I really wanted, then I should go ahead and do it. My first thought was, “Why in the world did I wait so long?”
Then I called my dad, but he wasn’t very excited. When I asked him if I could be baptized, he said no. He said he wanted me to attend some other churches first. So I went to some other churches, and I met some amazing people—people who lived very righteous lives. But nothing could change the feeling I felt when I stepped into a Latter-day Saint chapel. In February I called my dad and said, “I’m getting baptized on March 7th. I hope you’ll be there.”
My whole family came, including my dad. To have my family there meant the world to me. It was the most incredible day of my life.

“Dad has always had great faith in prayer and in the healing power of blessings for the sick. Once his mother was very ill and he remembers the neighbors coming to the house to assist. My father knew that his mother’s illness must be very serious and that frightened him. He ran into the cornfield and dropped to his knees, saying aloud, ‘Heavenly Father, please don’t let my mother die.’ After awhile he went back to her bedroom and asked, ‘How are you, Mother?’ She replied, ‘No better.’ He went back to the corn patch again to repeat his fervent plea. This continued until five o’clock in the afternoon when he again entered his mother’s room. ‘How do you feel, Mother?’
“‘Better, son!’ she answered. And the next day she was able to sit up.”

Consider that you are invited to a friend’s house for breakfast. On the table you see a large pitcher of freshly squeezed orange juice from which your host fills his glass. But he offers you none. Finally, you ask, “Could I have a glass of orange juice?”

He replies, “Oh, I am sorry. I was afraid you might not like orange juice, and I didn’t want to offend you by offering you something you didn’t desire.”

Now, that sounds absurd, but it is not too different from the way we hesitate to offer up something far sweeter than orange juice. I have often worried how I would answer some friend about my hesitancy when I meet him beyond the veil.
A story related by Elder Christoffel Golden, of South Africa, refreshed my concerns. He was recently in Lusaka, Zambia, attending a meeting of new converts. A well-spoken, well-dressed stranger with a Book of Mormon in hand walked in. He stated he had driven past the chapel many times and had wondered what church met there and what they taught for doctrine.
At the conclusion of the meeting, this gentleman stood up, raised his copy of the Book of Mormon high in the air, and asked, “Why have you kept this book hidden from the people of Lusaka? Why have you kept it a secret?”
As I heard this story, I flinched that one day some friend might ask me, “Why have you kept this Book of Mormon, with its message of truth and salvation, a secret?”
My reply, “I was afraid I would damage our friendship,” will not be very satisfying to either me or my friend.
Brothers and sisters, I pray that we may put our fears and our hesitancy behind us and no more keep secret the great treasure that is ours.

I had been a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints only a short while, and I was very happy. I arose early every Sunday to attend church with my young daughter, and I knew I was being well fed spiritually. Then one Sunday I had a disturbing experience.
It was ward conference, and when our stake president spoke, his words were very special to me. Then he said, “Brothers and sisters, I would like you to raise your right hand to show that you sustain President Gordon B. Hinckley as our prophet and President of the Church.” All 50 or so members of my ward raised their hands—except me. The stake president then asked that we sustain the other General Authorities. Once again I did not raise my hand. Finally he asked us to sustain our local leaders. “Now I can raise my hand,” I thought. “I know these leaders, so I can sustain them.”
No one asked me why I had not raised my hand to sustain the prophet and the General Authorities—probably because they knew I was a new member of the Church. But the experience continued to disturb me. “How can I sustain President Hinckley when I do not know him?” I wondered. “And how can I possibly know him when I live in Brazil and he lives in the United States? To sustain him, I need to know him and see him face to face.”
Then the Spirit began to speak to me: “You never saw Jesus Christ face to face, but you sustain Him.”
“Yes, but I know Him through the scriptures, which testify of Him.”
“You can also know the prophet, even without seeing him face to face.”
“How?”
“By reading and pondering his words. Pray for guidance from Heavenly Father, and He will help you to understand how to sustain the prophet.”
And that is what I did. During the following days I read several of President Hinckley’s talks. I watched him and listened to him speak on videos, observing every detail I could about him and his teachings. And I prayed for understanding.
Then one day as I was reading an article in the Liahona, President Hinckley’s words penetrated my soul deeply: “It is never too late to learn. I believe this with all my heart” (“A Conversation with Single Adults,” Liahona, Nov. 1997, 22; Ensign, Mar. 1997, 62). I also believed with all my heart and felt that it was not too late for me to learn.
For a long time I looked at the picture of the prophet printed beside his article. Suddenly I felt as though I were right in front of him. I looked at his eyes—eyes that seemed to speak of eternity. I looked at his face—which radiated peace. I had studied his teachings and felt the Spirit testify of them. For the first time I knew that I knew President Hinckley and that I could trust him and sustain him.
Profound well-being enveloped me, and I felt a desire to raise my right hand, not only in front of the members of my ward, but in front of the entire world. Through the witness of the Spirit, I could declare with complete conviction, “I too sustain the prophet.”

Sue washed the last pan and handed it to her sister Betty. “I wish we lived in town and had a dishwasher,” Sue grumbled.
“If we lived in town, we couldn’t go down to the pond and sail the new boats Daddy helped us make. Mother said we could go as soon as we finished the dishes.” Betty paused and then asked, “What about the monster?”
“The monster” was the girls’ name for the big cast-iron kettle with a lid that their mother called a Dutch oven. It was heavy and hard to handle, and usually something had been burned in it.
“It doesn’t look dirty,” Sue declared.
“I don’t remember anything being cooked in it,” Betty added.
“But if it’s clean, why isn’t it put away?” Sue asked.
“Maybe Mother plans to use it tonight.”
“If we don’t have to wash the monster, we can go to the pond right away. If Mother asks us about it, we can always say we thought it was clean.”
So it was decided. Sue drained out the dishwater, and Betty went to get their toy boats and to put their cat, Ladybug, outside. When Betty came back, she was surprised to see Sue filling the sink with water again. ”What are you doing?” she asked.
“I just don’t feel right about leaving the monster. I’m going to wash it.”
“I’ll help you,” said Betty. “I don’t feel right about it either.” She took the cover off the Dutch oven.
Both girls gave a surprised “Oh!” Inside the monster were oranges, sandwiches, cookies, and a note that read: “For my two good helpers. This is for a picnic at the pond. Have fun. Mother.”

John Martin is one who had to wait until he was 18 to get baptized. Unlike most of these recent converts, however, some of John’s family—his dad, grandmother, and some cousins—are members of the Church. With their support and the help of two friends in the Danville Second Ward, Adam Broderick and Matt Peterson, John started going to church a couple years before he was baptized.
John ran on the cross-country team with Adam, who encouraged him to read the Book of Mormon. At school, John occasionally talked to Matt about the Church. One summer, they invited John to attend youth conference.
After the conference, John’s friends invited him to church. He went and kept going because “it was a good atmosphere, and I learned a lot,” John says. “They also talked about values I believed in, like not drinking or swearing.”
That summer John was working at a grocery store until 10 p.m. each night. Before and after work, he’d read the Book of Mormon for an hour or two. He thought, “There’s something to this book, because it gives me a good feeling.” During that summer, he and Matt would talk about verses they liked.
The day before school started, John began taking the discussions, with Matt there to support him. At the first discussion, the missionaries invited John to be baptized. Though he wanted to say yes, his mom objected. But he was allowed to attend church and seminary, where they studied the Book of Mormon that year.
The Book of Mormon is the foundation of John’s testimony. He says, “The missionaries told me that if I have a testimony of the Book of Mormon, everything else falls into place.” John has a strong testimony of the Book of Mormon, so he believes the Church is true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet.
A month after he turned 18, John was baptized. About 100 people were there, including his friends in the ward and relatives from as far away as Michigan.
In addition to the gift of the Holy Ghost, John has noticed some other blessings: “Since I’ve been interested in the Church, things have gone well, like school and family and deciding everyday things. Most things have improved.”

I was raised on a small farm near the town of Cleveland, a rural area in southeastern Utah. In the region there were many stories of Butch Cassidy, a cowboy outlaw, that remained in the conversations of the older generation. As a 12-year-old boy, I, along with seven of my buddies, became intrigued by the stories and planned an adventure. We wanted to ride the trail of Butch Cassidy and explore his hiding places in Cedar Mountain.
After much persuasion, we talked our parents into letting us ride our horses to Cedar Mountain. Two adults would join us—one to ride with us, the other to drive a truck to a designated camping area carrying our bed rolls, food, and hay for the horses.
We arrived at our campsite at dusk and started to prepare for the night. I remembered the instructions given to me by my parents. They had taught me how to tie up my horse to a strong live tree; how to leave the rope just loose enough for him to feed from the ground, but not so loose that the horse might step over the rope. I also remembered them telling me, “Never eat your dinner until your animals have been fed.”
Everyone took care of his own horse before turning his attention to his own needs—everyone, that is, except one. In haste to fix his dinner, my friend Billy tied his horse to a small dead tree and hurried off to the campfire. By the time we finished our duties, it was dark. Billy finished his dinner and then turned his attention to his horse. When he approached his horse in the dark, the horse spooked. Billy then made the fatal mistake of striking a match too close to the horse’s face. The horse reared back and pulled the dead tree from the ground. The tree, attached to the rope, hit the horse, which sent him off on a dead run. I will never forget the sound of that horse running into the darkness and the crashing of the tree he dragged behind him. The noise continued for 10 to 15 seconds, and then there was silence … followed by a loud crash.
One of the adults had run after the horse and was first to reach him. We grabbed our flashlights and followed. After searching in the dark, we found the horse at the bottom of a 50-foot cliff. As long as I live, I will clearly remember watching that horse die.
We were a group of solemn boys as we worked our way up the cliff and returned to camp that night. Each one quickly and quietly bedded down. All that could be heard throughout the night was Billy’s sobbing and the rustling of nervous horses that seemed to sense what had happened. It was a very long night.
That experience became a life-changing moment. As I lay in my bed gazing at the millions of stars in the heavens, the events of the day passed through my mind. I began thinking about the advice my parents had given me as I was growing up. Suddenly it all began to make sense. I had come to a point in my life where I was responsible for my actions. The decisions I was making now not only affected me but those around me. I began to see that the results of my disobedience could be disastrous, especially to those who depended on me. My mother had entrusted me with her treasured horse. How grateful I was that I had been obedient to her instructions.

Shortly after I returned from my mission, I received an invitation to go to a dance. At the dance, I misplaced my phone and a young man offered to help me find it. As we talked, we discovered we were both returned missionaries and shared many ideas and goals.
Our relationship continued to develop, and we became engaged. It was our dream to be sealed in the Washington D.C. Temple before it closed for remodeling in March 2018. But after making that decision, we were tested. First, I lost my job and had no way to save money for our trip to the temple. Next, a hurricane was on track to hit Puerto Rico just before our wedding date.
When Hurricane Maria struck, it devastated our beautiful island. Stores closed. We lost electricity; water, food, and other basic items became hard to find. We lost everything we had planned to use for our reception. We had to cancel the reception, and it looked like we would also have to cancel our wedding. Travel in and out of Puerto Rico was limited, and no one knew for how long. I began to feel discouraged, and I was filled with doubt and confusion.
One night, my fiancé and I talked about our situation. Travel was uncertain, and we would have no reception or wedding clothes, but the Spirit confirmed that we needed to trust the Lord. The most important thing was to be sealed in the temple. We prayed to Heavenly Father for help.
Once flights out of Puerto Rico resumed, we had to make new flight plans and reschedule our sealing date. We were without communication for weeks after the hurricane, but a friend’s cell phone worked. She let us use it to contact the temple. We were able to rearrange everything so we could still be sealed! A few weeks before our trip, family members and friends donated shoes and clothing and helped us obtain many things for our wedding.
When we finally entered the temple, we left all our worries behind. We held each other’s hand to enter our future together. I can truly say I felt the Lord’s hand guiding and reassuring us that as long as we trusted Him, everything would be OK. Today, we are blessed with a beautiful son and we are a family sealed for all eternity.