Gospel Story Finder

When I opened my mission call and learned I would serve an English-speaking mission in America, I was relieved. I struggled in vain to learn a language in high school, and I was glad I wouldn’t have to deal with that again in the MTC.
During my mission I served in a Samoan ward. Most of the members spoke English as well, so we could easily work with them.
Then my companion and I began to teach a part-member family who had been raised in Samoa and had just moved to America. When one of the girls asked me to perform her baptism, I felt impressed to learn how to say the baptism prayer in Samoan. I knew my weakness in learning other languages, but my love for her and her family overcame my fear.
That night I went to another member’s house so he could teach me how to say the prayer in Samoan. Despite 30 minutes of practicing, I left discouraged and frustrated because I had not gotten very far. That night I asked the Lord to bless me with the gift of tongues if He wanted me to say the baptism prayer in Samoan.
When I practiced the next morning, I quickly found I was not only able to say the baptism prayer, but also recite it from memory. The day of the baptism came, and I was able to say the baptism prayer in Samoan nearly perfectly. I felt the Spirit work through me. I know the Lord can work miracles for us if we have the faith and allow Him to work through us.

An illustration may help. Many of you will face a decision my wife and I once faced: Which career path is right for us? Specifically, we were trying to decide whether I should go to medical school or return to graduate school to pursue another academic program. To us, this loomed as a large decision in our lives, one that might impact our family significantly for years to come. At the time we had three little boys and I had already been in school at the college level for five years. We were anxious to resolve this great uncertainty in our lives in a way that would let us be serviceable in the kingdom and have a good family life.

We applied the familiar pattern spelled out in the 9th section of the Doctrine and Covenants: "...study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right."5 We made lists of pros and cons, we talked to people in both fields, we talked to family members who knew us best, we talked to our bishop, we talked a lot to each other, and we prayed often. Finally, we felt we had accumulated all the information we could. We realized that doing our homework was a vital part of the process--we could not fairly expect heaven to answer our prayers if we didn't do our part first. We then made a tentative decision based on our best judgment. Then we set a time for us to fast together. During our fast, we prayed earnestly, asking Heavenly Father for divine confirmation of our tentative decision. We sincerely wanted to do what Heavenly Father wanted us to do. After our fast, after our prayers, after our best work, we talked about the promptings we felt that Sunday afternoon. Interestingly, both of us felt a "stupor of thought", a darkness, about the tentative decision we had made. It seemed unsettling, the wrong direction for our family. As we considered the alternative decision, we felt a clearness of thought and a peaceful assurance that the alternative decision was the right one for us.

Heavenly Father requires us to do our part. It was never His plan to do work for us that we can possibly do for ourselves. If He did, He would be robbing us of our chance to grow and develop our own decision-making skills.

When the McCanns first saw it set amongst acres of pine trees on idyllic Kangaroo Island, they knew they had to secure the holiday home. Evonne and David Sandelin McCann envisioned retreats here with their five children and youth camps for their stake in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In the years since, all their dreams became reality. The McCanns generously opened their home to friends and the Church’s youth groups, who have wonderful memories of staying there—experiencing dusk surrounded by kangaroos, wallabies, possums, and spotting koalas snuggled in the boughs of the eucalyptus trees.

While a stake president is normally found among the current leadership of the stake, there are exceptions. On one occasion we interviewed brethren into the late evening, unable to feel the confirming Spirit among the outstanding men we were meeting. Finally, after exhausting the prepared list of those to interview, we turned to respected men not currently serving in leadership positions. As we met with a Gospel Doctrine teacher at 10:00 p.m., the Lord powerfully confirmed this was His selection. Only after extending the call did we learn that he had been at his home, awaiting our phone call. Several months earlier, before any announcement of a change in the stake presidency, he and his wife were awakened in the night knowing that the calling would come to him.

In February 2017, my sister, and best friend, Sharon Mabuku, passed away while I was in boarding school. My twin brother and I received a message from the vice principal that our parents wanted to meet us on the way home. Most of our classmates walked with us to the school gate. They knew of the sad news about the death of my sister though they never told us that they knew. Instead, they only put on smiling faces.
The journey back home was not one to remember. We stopped at a small town called Mvuma because of a funeral car that overtook, and stopped, in front of the car we boarded. Suddenly I saw my father coming out of that same car. He walked to the car we were in and paid the driver. In a few minutes, a bus came by, and my father, with a sad face and red eyes full of tears, asked if we could get onto the bus. Tears started to stream down our faces as we boarded the bus and sat down by my mother. She then told us, “Be like men my children, be strong. She is gone.”
I cried because I was not able to see my sister during the viewing. Questions started to flow into my mind: Does God really exist? If so, why did He not answer our prayers? Instead, God answered my sister’s prayer when she cried, “Father, take my soul, I’m in pain.”
After that cry, everyone who was in the room stopped praying and saw Sharon pass away.

Early in President Gordon B. Hinkley’s life he experienced much tragedy. He was living in the midst of the Great Depression when few young men were serving missions. His mother had died 3 years earlier of cancer, and the family was experiencing a lot of hardship not only financially but in every other way President Hinkley recalled. His father and brother promised to support his efforts to serve a mission, and they found a small savings account from their mother. The funding that supported his mission was sacred to him. He left for his mission to England in the summer of 1933. When he got there, Elder Hinkley experienced a lot of discouragement and failure. He was feeling miserable and, I imagine, a bit guilty for what he felt like was wasting sacred money. He wrote home to his father stating, “I’m not doing any good here. I am just wasting my time and your money. I don’t see any point in staying here.” His father wisely knew how to respond. He wrote back, “Dear Gordon, I have your recent letter. I have only one suggestion: forget yourself and go to work. With love, Your Father.” These words weren’t meant to patronize or scold. Elder Hinkley’s father must have known the value in getting out of your own head and helping others. The next day Elder Hinkley pondered the response from his father and while reading his scriptures came across this statement:
For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it. [3]
This hit Elder Hinkley like a load of bricks. He prayed to his Heavenly Father that he would give himself over to the Lord. He states that “the whole world changed. The fog lifted. The sun began to shine in my life.” [4] This sounds exactly like the promise from Isaiah: “Then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday.” [5] There it is. President Hinkley experienced it on his mission: the joy of looking beyond yourself and helping others.

I still remember vividly some of the long flights I made during my professional life as an airline captain.
In one of them, I would take off in Germany at 11:00 a.m. and touch down in California at 1:00 p.m. on the same day. Comparing the local departure and arrival times, it might appear that a flight across the Atlantic Ocean and the North American continent took only two hours. The Boeing 747 was fast, but not that fast! In reality, it took us about 11 hours, depending on wind, to travel the 5,600 miles (9,000 km).
Because we were flying west, the sun never set during our flight. We enjoyed broad daylight all the way from Germany to California.
Returning to Germany, however, was a totally different story. Even when we took off in the early afternoon, as we flew east, the sunset came more quickly than it normally would, and before we knew it, night was upon us.
During these long flights, my soul was often filled with awe as I pondered the beauty of this earth and the order of God’s creation. Even while flying at night, in complete darkness, I knew with certainty that the sun would rise again, that bright light would return and bring warmth and life to a new day before our journey’s end. The circumstances of my flight might have made it seem like the sun was setting more slowly or more quickly, but I knew that the sun remained constant, steadfast, and reliable in the heavens.

My daughter Jacque and I once attended a Primary daddy-daughter party together. The girls had all prepared box lunches for the meal. For dessert, each father and daughter were to decorate a cake. Because I am a dentist, Jacque and I made a giant icing tooth on our cake. Of course, after the eating, there were games and contests.
One of the games we played that night was a relay contest. The Primary leaders had placed four plastic bowling pins in a pattern on the floor of the cultural hall. Each father was to blindfold his daughter. Then he was to direct her through and around the pins, across the cultural hall, and then back to the starting point, where the next pair would begin. He was not to touch her with his hands; he could only use his voice to tell her which way to go. We were divided into two teams.
It seemed such a simple game, but it was actually quite difficult. Most of the fathers would holler, “Go right!” or, “Go left!” or, “Stop!” or “Go straight!” But with both teams cheering loudly, it was easy for a girl to confuse the voice of the opposing team’s father with her own father’s voice. Often the two girls racing each other would get the instructions mixed up. Also, some of the fathers gave their instructions hesitantly, and so lost precious time. And some of the daughters did not follow the instructions accurately. They either went too fast or moved in the wrong direction and occasionally knocked down some pins.
But there was one father and daughter who surprised us all. This father had a serious disease that interfered with his coordination. His movement and speech were slow. When it was their turn and the blindfold was in place, I heard the father say to his daughter, “Don’t worry about left or right or fast or slow. Just walk at a steady pace and listen to my voice. I’ll keep talking the whole time, and you just follow the sound of my voice.”
At the signal they began, and he gently repeated over and over, “Just follow my voice,” or, “Don’t listen to the others, just to me.” I was amazed as they steadily walked with short steps right through the course, much faster than any of the others, so fast in fact that their team won.

Salote:
Two years after our son Esa died of lung cancer, our daughter Esalynn died of meningitis. In the temple, I felt a strong prompting to speak with a senior sister missionary there who also lost two children years earlier. She told me, “If you make your home a holy place, you can feel your children’s presence there.”
That has become our goal. Everything we do is to make our home a holy place. We want to feel them close.
We don’t know how to parent children beyond the veil. But if we do our best to live righteously, we believe they will feel our efforts. In our family devotionals, we welcome Esa and Esalynn by name.
In our home, even when we have a disagreement, we try to resolve it quickly. We want our home to stay a holy place as much as possible. As we’ve done so, we have all felt hope and healing and love.
Sakiusa:
The experience of losing Esa and Esalynn has ultimately brought our family closer together. We counsel together with our other children. We attend the temple as a family. We live our lives as simple as possible and choose gratitude every day. As we talk about what it means to be sealed as a family in the temple, that sealing becomes alive in us. And through all of this, we do feel the presence of our children.
One of the first things we did to make our home holier was to start reading the Book of Mormon daily. At first, we shared Book of Mormon stories with pictures for our younger children. Then we added videos. Now we’re reading more from the Book of Mormon. I can testify of the power of the Book of Mormon.

One warm June day, a friend called and explained that her family was planning a week-long float trip down the Middle Fork of the Salmon River, Idaho's pristine wilderness territory. In order to go on the trip, her family had applied and been selected for a permit for a group of about 25 people. A family that was scheduled to go had cancelled and, with just four weeks to prepare, my friend invited me and my family to join the group. The invitation excited me! I couldn't wait to go on such an adventure. I imagined forging large white water rapids, the sun shining on our faces as we smiled and whooped with joy. In my mind I could see my husband and daughters' delight, as we shared this incredible experience together.

That evening, I chatted with my husband about his day at work, making small talk as we prepared dinner. Just when he seemed most relaxed, I slipped in the offer to join our friend and her family in floating the Middle Fork. My husband looked shocked! He was surprised I would consider such a trip knowing I couldn't swim. And I wouldn't say we are a camping family. Our idea of camping involves indoor plumbing, air conditioning, and flattening irons. We had little time to prepare. My husband, always the cautious planner, wanted time to think about the trip before making a commitment.

Two days later I came home from work and there on our kitchen table were four new sleeping bags! Despite some reservations about my inability to swim and our overall lack of preparation, my husband agreed to the trip.

We began preparing for this unexpected adventure. My brother Marty, an experienced white water raftsman, talked to me about rafting safety. He told me that sometimes people just pop out of the boat. He explained that if I found myself in the water, I should pull my knees up close to my chest, placing my body in a sitting position, pull my elbows in close to my body, and use my hands to navigate my direction in the water. This whole idea seemed a bit preposterous to me. Why would someone just pop out of the boat? I asked. My brother carefully explained how that might happen, enjoying the naivety of the question. Our preparations continued. We purchased a tent, lanterns, clothing, and a map of the river. My family was given a large white cooler for food storage. I carefully organized our cooler, placing items that would be needed later in the week at the bottom of the cooler, with lunch and snack items that would be needed immediately on the top. The morning we were to depart, I checked the cooler one more time. It was perfect! In my mind's eye I could see my family asking for something; I would be able to find the desired item in seconds. My family would beam, knowing their wife and mom was the most efficient and organized woman on the trip!

My husband took the cooler to a central point to load on a trailer. When he returned he explained that the coolers had been reorganized. All our lunch food was placed in a cooler we would share with my friend and her family. The items that would be needed later in the week to prepare and serve dinner to the group were placed in another cooler and duct taped shut. Although this seemed like a logical decision to my husband, I felt my plan of perfection had been altered. We drove to an area near Stanley, Idaho, and spent the night. We were surrounded by majestic mountains and forests. The beauty that surrounded me filled my soul with peace. The next morning we launched our loaded boats down a long ramp. Once we were at the water's edge, we made final preparations to place our rafts in the water. My husband, youngest daughter, Ashlyn, and I were in the same boat. Our captain had floated the river several times, but had never oared a boat before. My oldest daughter, Karly, was placed in another boat with our Bishop, an experienced oarsman. We were finally ready! Everything was going just as planned. We floated through the splendors of the forest that enveloped us, cresting large whitewater rapids and enjoying the sunshine. Suddenly, our boat hit a very large boulder. The pressure of the water pushed against the raft, wrapping it around the rock. I remember seeing my daughter and husband catapulted out of the raft into the cold, rushing whitewater. And then I saw my own feet entering the same frigid water. Suddenly the current pulled me to the middle of the river. I looked back to see my husband reaching for Ashlyn and breathed a sigh of relief knowing they were safe. My journey, however, was far from over.

The current was so swift I had no control. At the mercy of the river. I was swirling around and couldn't see where I was going. Unable to control my course, I bashed into rocks. Within seconds I was thrust into whitewater. In the middle of the rapids I realized I was being pushed down into the water and my life jacket was floating up. I didn't know it at the time, but in order for a lifejacket to work correctly you must cinch it tight to your body. I prefer loose fitting clothing and so, I did not tighten my lifejacket. The end result was that the lifejacket floated and I was pushed under the water. So, I did what any reasonable woman would do in the same situation. I screamed, "I can't breathe! I can't breathe!" inhaling large amounts of river water in the process. At this point I realized I needed to follow the counsel I had received from my brother. I pulled my knees up to my chest and pulled my lifejacket down with my hands. With the lifejacket close to my body, I floated to the top of the water and could breathe. What a relief! That relief, however, was only momentary as I realized that holding on to the lifejacket meant I couldn't use my hands to navigate. The current continued to move me rapidly forward, throwing me against rocks as I spun, at times floating backward, with no ability to see where I was going.

As the current changed direction, I could see another section of large white water rapids looming ahead of me. I knew my only hope was to try to stop myself against one of the boulders I could see in the clear, cold water. I could see a rock ahead of me and decided to try to extend my legs in an effort to catch myself against the rock. Because the current was so strong, I was concerned I might break my leg, but knew I had to find a way to stop myself. I slowly stretched out my legs and caught myself against the rock. I used all my strength to push against the current that was relentlessly trying to force me off the rock. Exhaling with exhaustion, I examined my surroundings, noting more whitewater just downstream. I wasn't sure how long I could hold on before I would again be carried into the whitewater. I found comfort knowing my family was behind me somewhere, safe and sound.

The temporary safety of my rock shelter was shattered as I heard my youngest daughter, Ashlyn, call out, "Mom! Mom!" I turned to see Ashlyn in the middle of the current and realized she had just traversed the same frigid water and class three rapids I had. I yelled at Ashlyn to swim to the shore. As Ashlyn swam, I uttered a humble and sincere prayer, asking my Father in Heaven to protect my daughters and to keep my husband safe.

As soon as Ashlyn got to shore, she turned towards me and began to sob. She yelled, "Mom! Mom!" I could hear the terror in her voice and became frightened that she would try to swim to me. I told her to stay on the shore where she was safe. At that moment, I heard my husband's voice. I cannot begin to describe my joy when I saw my husband on a raft coming to my rescue. He was reassuring me and telling me to hang on. Inwardly I thought, "No problem! I'm not going anywhere, at least if I can help it." And then, he did what any great husband and father would do. He oared to the shore to check on Ashlyn, telling me that help was on the way.

I exhaled, looking down stream, unsure if my exhausted body could hold onto the safety of my rock much longer. As I began to mentally prepare myself to be carried away by the current, our bishop threw a line to me and pulled me into the safety of his boat. I later learned the current had pulled Ashlyn from her father's grasp, carrying her past the boat that held my oldest daughter, Karly.

Forgive me for a personal conclusion, which does not represent the terrible burdens so many of you carry, but it is meant to be encouraging. Thirty years ago last month, a little family set out to cross the United States to attend graduate school—no money, an old car, every earthly possession they owned packed into less than half the space of the smallest U-Haul trailer available. Bidding their apprehensive parents farewell, they drove exactly 34 miles up the highway, at which point their beleaguered car erupted.
Pulling off the freeway onto a frontage road, the young father surveyed the steam, matched it with his own, then left his trusting wife and two innocent children—the youngest just three months old—to wait in the car while he walked the three miles or so to the southern Utah metropolis of Kanarraville, population then, I suppose, 65. Some water was secured at the edge of town, and a very kind citizen offered a drive back to the stranded family. The car was attended to and slowly—very slowly—driven back to St. George for inspection—U-Haul trailer and all.
After more than two hours of checking and rechecking, no immediate problem could be detected, so once again the journey was begun. In exactly the same amount of elapsed time at exactly the same location on that highway with exactly the same pyrotechnics from under the hood, the car exploded again. It could not have been 15 feet from the earlier collapse, probably not 5 feet from it! Obviously the most precise laws of automotive physics were at work.
Now feeling more foolish than angry, the chagrined young father once more left his trusting loved ones and started the long walk for help once again. This time the man providing the water said, “Either you or that fellow who looks just like you ought to get a new radiator for that car.” For the second time a kind neighbor offered a lift back to the same automobile and its anxious little occupants. He didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry at the plight of this young family.
“How far have you come?” he said. “Thirty-four miles,” I answered. “How much farther do you have to go?” “Twenty-six hundred miles,” I said. “Well, you might make that trip, and your wife and those two little kiddies might make that trip, but none of you are going to make it in that car.” He proved to be prophetic on all counts.
Just two weeks ago this weekend, I drove by that exact spot where the freeway turnoff leads to a frontage road, just three miles or so west of Kanarraville, Utah. That same beautiful and loyal wife, my dearest friend and greatest supporter for all these years, was curled up asleep in the seat beside me. The two children in the story, and the little brother who later joined them, have long since grown up and served missions, married perfectly, and are now raising children of their own. The automobile we were driving this time was modest but very pleasant and very safe. In fact, except for me and my lovely Pat situated so peacefully at my side, nothing of that moment two weeks ago was even remotely like the distressing circumstances of three decades earlier.
Yet in my mind’s eye, for just an instant, I thought perhaps I saw on that side road an old car with a devoted young wife and two little children making the best of a bad situation there. Just ahead of them I imagined that I saw a young fellow walking toward Kanarraville, with plenty of distance still ahead of him. His shoulders seemed to be slumping a little, the weight of a young father’s fear evident in his pace. In the scriptural phrase, his hands did seem to “hang down.” In that imaginary instant, I couldn’t help calling out to him: “Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. You keep walking. You keep trying. There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it—30 years of it now, and still counting. You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”

A doctor named Rachel Remen tells a true story about a handsome, young football player who loses the feeling of love that light brings. His life had been good, with friends and an athletic body. Then he got cancer in his leg. His leg had to be cut off above the knee. Playing football and receiving fame were now things of the past. He grew angry, making his life dark and confusing. It was hard for him to know who he was.
Doctor Remen asked this young man to draw what his body looked like. He drew a simple sketch of a vase. Then he took a thick, black crayon and drew a deep crack down the vase. It was clear that he believed his body was like a broken vase that could never be useful again. This was not really true. They made him an artificial leg so he could walk. But his heart felt so dark that his body wouldn’t heal.
Then he talked to some people who had problems like his own. He understood their feelings. He started to help other people feel better. A light came into his own heart, and he started to heal.
He met a young lady with similar problems. Her heart was filled with shadows. When he entered her hospital room for the first time, she refused to look at him and lay in bed with her eyes closed. He tried everything he knew to reach her. He played the radio, he told jokes, and finally he took off his artificial leg and let it drop to the floor. Startled, she opened her eyes and saw him for the first time as he began to hop around the room, snapping his fingers in time to the music. She burst out laughing and said, “If you can dance, maybe I can sing.” They became friends. They shared their fears and helped each other feel hopeful.
In the young man’s last visit with the doctor, he looked at his old drawing of the vase with the crack in it and said, “That picture of me is not finished.” Taking a yellow crayon, he drew lines going from the crack to the edges of the paper. He put his finger on the ugly black crack and said, “This is where the light comes through.” (See Kitchen Table Wisdom [1996], 114–18.) I believe he meant that dark and difficult experiences help us to feel the light from Heavenly Father’s love.

Let me tell you about a woman who has woven her strand of kindness and compassion into my life. Sister Rosetta Colclough, a missionary in Hawaii, came to my junior high when I was eleven and invited all the students to a special religion class taught at the little Mormon chapel near the school. Three other Japanese girls and I, all Buddhists, accepted the invitation. That was the beginning of my Christian instruction, and four years later, I joined the Church.
Last March I received a letter from Rosetta Colclough Stark, now living in Arizona. She enclosed in her letter a little article she had written for her ward newsletter in 1978, fifteen years ago, describing those religion classes:
“One day on the eleven o’clock period, only four [Japanese girls] came to class. I was very disappointed there were so few. … [But] near the close of the period, we stood in the little chapel with bowed heads and closed eyes, repeating in unison the Lord’s Prayer. The soft Hawaiian sun filtered through the windows. As we prayed, I suddenly felt a bright light envelop us, coming from above like an inverted cone. A wonderful feeling of peace and joy filled my heart. I led the prayer very slowly as the bright light enfolded us. I was sure the girls felt it also, as their faces shone with an expression of deep reverence. We almost whispered ‘good-bye’ so as not to break the spell, and they tiptoed out. I thought, ‘One or more of those girls will join the Church and become a great influence for good.’”
She continued: “[After] I returned home, often the sweet faces of those four girls passed before my inward eyes, and I wondered about them. There was one, Chieko Nishimura, that lingered in my mind, and I often looked at the picture I had taken of them.
“Ten years later, my husband and I were attending our sacrament meeting in the Imperial Ward, Salt Lake City, when it was announced that a young Japanese couple from Hawaii would be the speakers. … My heart nearly jumped up into my throat. Yes, it was my little Chieko. … Chieko and I had a joyous reunion after the meeting. We marveled that out of all the many wards in that big city, they should have come to speak at my ward. We were sure the Lord had a hand in it.”
Rosetta lost track of me after my husband and I moved to Colorado but was surprised and delighted, when she was watching the Relief Society sesquicentennial broadcast on March 14, 1992, to hear my name announced. That afternoon she sat down at her typewriter in Arizona and began her letter to me. She said: “[When] I heard your name announced by Sister Jack … I sat up straight and watched the TV screen eagerly and saw your name appear on the screen. Then you started to speak. The dark hair has turned to silver, but that sweet face was easily recognized. Yes, this is my little Chieko whom I taught at the Honomakau chapel in Kohala so many years ago. As I listened to your voice, tears of joy ran down my cheeks. …
“I thank my Heavenly Father that I had the privilege of teaching you about Jesus Christ our Savior in that little chapel. … I have been blessed three times because of it; first, that I was there to experience that light from heaven with you; second, that you came to my ward in Salt Lake City to speak; and today, when I heard you speak to the women of the world via satellite.”
Rosetta says she was blessed, but Rosetta did not know how she was blessing me with her kindness. Even while she was writing that letter, my husband, Ed, was being taken to the hospital, stricken down by a cardiac arrest on the afternoon of the sesquicentennial broadcast. Her letter reached me with a special compassion and love when my sons and I were struggling to accept the fact that Ed would not recover. I did not see the light she felt while we four little Buddhist girls repeated the Lord’s Prayer with her, phrase by phrase. But I know the Spirit whispered to me during that experience, reminding me of my true identity as a daughter of God and prompting me to let those teachings sink deep into my heart so that I could also become a daughter of Christ in the waters of baptism.
Rosetta’s life has touched mine only three times, but the Savior’s love was in each encounter. Rosetta brought me the gospel, she rejoiced with Ed and me after our baptisms, and she brought me great comfort by reminding me of Heavenly Father’s profound love for me when I was suffering such pain while Ed lay dying. I needed that reassurance and love. I needed to remember that Heavenly Father, fifty years earlier, had reached down and laid his hand on a skinny little Buddhist girl and said, “You are my beloved child.”
I’ve shared this story with you because it illustrates so beautifully how our lives weave together in ways we cannot guess or plan. Because Rosetta acted with faith, with kindness, and with love, the pattern created by her life encountering mine is a beautiful one. I know that she has woven shining strands into the lives of many others.

The second incident comes from a story told by Elder Russell M. Nelson of the Quorum of the Twelve.

[A] beautiful young mother named Svetlana [living in Leningrad, Russia] had importuned the Lord in prayer to make it possible for her to obtain a Bible written in the Russian language. Such a Bible [was] rare, precious, and very expensive. In the fall of 1989, she and her [family] went to Helsinki in quest [of] a Bible. While walking through a park in Helsinki, she stepped upon an object hidden beneath the ground cover of autumn leaves. She picked it up and found it to be the answer to her prayers. It was a Bible written in the Russian language. So excited was she that she joyfully recounted the story of this great discovery to another mother who was also in the park with her youngster. The second mother then [asked] Svetlana, “Would you like to have another book about Jesus Christ, also written in the Russian language?” Svetlana . . . answered in the affirmative. [Russell M. Nelson, “Drama on the European Stage,” Ensign,December 1991, p. 15; emphasis in original]

The Finnish woman, wife of a district president, gave Svetlana a copy of the Book of Mormon and invited her to church. Svetlana took the missionary lessons, joined the Church, and returned to Leningrad with her family. She then invited friends into her home, and many of them responded to the message of the missionaries and were baptized. Svetlana, her friends, and others like them are the pioneer foundation upon which the Church has been built in that part of the world.

I have always loved the story of the son of King Louis XVI of France because he had an unshakable knowledge of his identity. As a young man, he was kidnapped by evil men who had dethroned his father, the king. These men knew that if they could destroy him morally, he would not be heir to the throne. For six months they subjected him to every vile thing life had to offer, and yet he never yielded under pressure. This puzzled his captors, and after doing everything they could think of, they asked him why he had such great moral strength. His reply was simple. He said, “I cannot do what you ask, for I was born to be a king.”

One winter was particularly bad for the Young family, and in early March they found themselves without food. John sent his two older boys, Phineas and Joseph, to find work anywhere to exchange for food, corn, or whatever, and he kept Brigham and Lorenzo in the cabin with him.
John Young had tapped the maple trees on his farm and boiled down the sap and made maple sugar. As they finally came to the end of their food supply, he told Brigham he was going to exchange the sugar for food. He said, “Now you stay here, Briggy, and tomorrow morning get out and work all day clearing the brush and chopping what you can. And Lorenzo, you stack the brush. It’ll take me all night and tomorrow to get there and back, but I’ll be back the next day.”
So early that next morning, strapping on his snowshoes and leaving about 300 grams of sugar for the two small boys to eat as best they could, he put on his pack and left.
Brigham and Lorenzo worked all that day, as they had promised they would, and at about four o’clock they started for home. As they were walking along they heard a robin sing. They stopped and finally located the robin on a bush some forty or fifty meters away. Brigham said to Lorenzo, “Now you watch. I’ll run around and get the gun ad we’ll have some supper.” So he circled around to the cabin and got the gun and ran back.
The gun must have weighed nearly seven kilograms, but Brigham managed to aim it. He pulled the trigger and shot it. They ran over and got the bird, skinned it and cleaned it, went to the cabin, and put the bird in a kettle on the fireplace with a little water and began to cook it. They tipped the flour barrel and beat on the bottom, catching what they could in the pan, and managed to get half a cup of flour. They thickened the stew with that and had bird stew and sugar for supper. The next night, John returned home bringing some corn meal and pork, and they were able to survive.

Last fall some friends came to our home with their children and brought with them a case of the most beautiful, large peaches I have ever seen. They were almost unbelievable in their size, their beauty, and their flavor. Brother Pitt explained that they had just won first prize at the county fair for their peaches, and they had an orchard full of them. I asked how they produced such remarkable fruit, and they were eager to explain. “We learned how to prune the peach trees and thin the weak fruit,” they said. “It’s hard work and must be done regularly.”

“We also learned what happens when you don’t prune,” said one of the children. Their father had wisely suggested that three trees in the orchard be left to grow without the harsh results of the pruning knife. They explained to me that the fruit from those trees was not only very small in size but did not have the sweet taste of the other fruit. The lesson was obvious. There was no question in their minds about the far-reaching value of careful pruning.

Four years later Joseph was finally ready. Obstacles to translating the plates, however, were immense. Newly married, Joseph needed to work to provide for Emma and himself, as well as for his extended family members, who still relied heavily on his contribution. Perhaps even more distracting, Joseph faced sweeping community opposition and avarice that threatened exposure and loss of the plates.

When a Palmyra mob demanded that Joseph show them the plates or be tarred and feathered, he knew he had to leave.4 So, in late 1827, Joseph placed the plates in a barrel of beans, packed up some belongings, borrowed $50 from his friend and early believer Martin Harris, and took his pregnant wife more than 100 miles (161 km) south to Harmony, Pennsylvania, to live with Emma’s parents. He hoped the change would ease their daily labors and free them of the cauldron of greed and animosity that gripped Palmyra.

Conditions improved enough that winter that Joseph was able to translate a few Book of Mormon characters. In April, Martin Harris moved to Harmony to assist Joseph as scribe, and the work of translation began in earnest. By the middle of June—roughly five years since the fateful day Joseph had first been directed to the Hill Cumorah to obtain the plates—they had produced 116 manuscript pages of translation.5

There is a better gift, but it will take effort now. My dad, when he was a boy, must have tackled the rowboat problem and lots of others. That was part of the equipment he needed to become a scientist who would make a difference to chemistry. But he also made a difference to me. Our family room didn’t look as elegant as some. It had one kind of furniture—chairs—and one wall decoration—a green chalkboard. I came to the age your boy or girl will reach. I didn’t wonder if I could work the math problems; I’d proved to my satisfaction that I couldn’t. And some of my teachers were satisfied that that was true too.

But Dad wasn’t satisfied. He thought I could do it. So we took turns at that chalkboard. I can’t remember the gifts my dad wrapped and gave to me. But I remember the chalkboard and his quiet voice. His teaching took more than knowing what I needed and caring. It took more than being willing to give his time then, precious as it was. It took time he had spent earlier when he had the chances you have now. Because he had spent time then, he and I could have that time at the chalkboard and he could help me.

And because he gave me that, I’ve got a boy who let me sit down with him one year. We rowed that same boat up and down. And his teacher wrote “much improved” on his report card. But I’ll tell you what improved most: the feelings of a fine boy about himself. Nothing I will put under a Christmas tree for Stuart has half the chance of becoming a family heirloom that his pride of accomplishment does.

Montreal—On the Montreal Star daily newspaper works a young Latter-day Saint, Margaret J. Ellis. Here is her report about what it was like to be in the middle of the recent Canadian crisis:
“As I stood conducting the music for sacrament service, I couldn’t help but notice the somber faces before me. Only a few hours before had come the news that Quebec Labor and Immigration Minister Pierre Laporte had been killed by terrorists. All of Canada was shocked.
After the meeting, everyone stood around and talked. Even now we keep talking about it. Said one youth: ‘I’m surprised this happened in Quebec. I didn’t think the FLQ (Front de Liberation du Quebec) was serious about things.’ It typified the thoughts of many others.
“‘The Quebec situation reminds me of the tower of Babel—it seems that the French and English can no longer communicate in love and brotherhood. So many think they must use violence,’ said one.
“Said another young adult: ‘I didn’t relate to it because it seemed remote. But then I realized that sick people were behind it, and I tried to imagine how I’d feel if I didn’t have the gospel. We Latter-day Saints stick together because of the gospel, but many others here seemed really tossed to and fro.’ Said another: ‘My two brothers were out until 2:00 A.M. the night of Mr. Laporte’s murder. I’ve never been so concerned for their safety or loved them so much.’
“Many of the Saints turned to speaking about the last days and about the sorrow and trouble and fear that will precede Christ’s second coming. We talked about how it seems to be Satan’s plan to frighten mankind. We talked of the importance of listening to the prophet’s voice and communicating with our Heavenly Father through fasting and prayer so we will know what is best for each of us when troubled times come. As we talked of prophecies, we agreed that, in general, conditions on earth apparently will worsen, but that each of us can be prepared.
“Later I joined the thousands of people who thronged to the stone courthouse in Old Montreal to pay their last respects to Pierre Laporte. I never put enough warm clothes on, I thought for an instant while waiting in the endless line. One hour, two, three. My feet were numb. I could hardly walk. There was still no visible sign of anyone going in.
“I now had time to ponder the events, which had not hit me with complete impact until I stepped out onto a dreary, barren street, lined with dingy warehouses, to hear the tolling bell. There were people from all walks of life—businessmen in suits and mustaches, hippies in long hair and jeans, fashion-conscious models, old ladies moving slower than the rest.
“‘I would have brought a friend along, but everyone I asked was afraid to come,’ one woman said.
“Soldiers paced the pavement, their heels clicking into the awesome silence. French and English mingled together. ‘Pardon, Madame. Avez-vous l’heure?’ ‘Yes, it’s almost 10:30.’
“There’s something humbling about a vast crowd, something that reaffirms the fact that you are one of many and must take your turn.
“As we shuffled on, I noticed that as the multitude thinned and dispersed, a chill went up my back. A cold, biting breeze hit me. Standing alone it seemed a cold world—people were warmed only by getting together. I thought, What can I do to help? How can I best serve a nation?
“To me, service is the act of supporting that in which you believe. I used to feel that because I was not a born leader with a responsible position, I could not serve mankind. But I realized that night on the street in Montreal that most of us must follow, but we can be responsible for choosing what we will support. Montreal still stands. But all Canadians have learned something about supporting one another—and choosing carefully the causes they support.”