Gospel Story Finder

One day when John’s shoes were delivered from the shoemaker, Anna found a Latter-day Saint missionary tract tucked inside each shoe. The tracts sparked her curiosity, and when another pair of shoes needed repairing, she took them to the shoemaker herself to find out the meaning of the tracts. After finishing her business with the shoemaker’s wife, Anna was told that the shoemaker would explain what the tracts meant.
“You may be surprised to hear me say that I can give you something of more value than soles for your child’s shoes,” (John A. Widtsoe, In the Gospel Net, page 54) the shoemaker boldly declared to Anna.
She was perplexed and told the man that he spoke in riddles. But he pleaded with her to listen and said that he could teach her about the Lord’s true plan of salvation for His children.
Anna couldn’t forget her conversation with the humble, courageous shoemaker. And as other tracts came from the shoemaker, she struggled mightily, for she knew her Bible well. She worried about the new concepts and certain points of doctrine. But after attending meetings with the missionaries and other Saints over the next two years, she accepted the gospel and was baptized.

As styles changed, more women were choosing to wear swimsuits that Rose Marie felt were immodest. Everyone thought she should start designing suits in the latest styles. But Rose Marie took a stand.
“I don’t like that style of swimsuit, and I don’t want to design for a company that makes them,” she said. Her business partners wouldn’t listen. Finally, Rose Marie decided to leave the company she had started. It was a hard choice. But she knew that standing up for what was right was more important than doing what was popular.

Some years ago I read an article in the Era of Youth section of our Improvement Era magazine entitled “Bind on Thy Sandals.” It told of the less-than-spectacular career of a quarterback on the football team of a small, rural high school. This young man managed to make the team, but it was clear he was not going to be all-state or all-American. Indeed, it didn’t look like he was going to be all-anything, except perhaps all battered and bruised. He was the fourth of the four quarterbacks.
By season’s end he had never been called into a game and had given up hope. During the final game of the year he pulled off his shoes, wrapped himself in a blanket, and settled down on the bench to watch his buddies play.
Midway through the game he heard the coach shout his name. He was startled and wondered if he had been mistaken. Then it came again, right from the coach’s lips, “Hey, you! Get in there and move the ball!”
What should he do? His first impulse was to lapse into a coma. His second was to pretend he didn’t hear. His third was to say, “Wait, coach. Wait while I put on my shoes.” He did the only manly thing. Strapping on his helmet as he ran, he made straight for the huddle; his white-stockinged feet were conspicuous to the players on both teams, as well as to the spectators and the coach, who also must have been ready to lapse into a coma.
He called the play, but the shock of his first game was obviously a little disconcerting. By the time he took the snap from center he had forgotten the play he had called. His teammates moved to the right, but he gamely went left. There, alone against the world, he met the opposition head-on and was swallowed up in the snarl of the onrushing linemen.
He said later, “No one expected me to make a touchdown. Even running the wrong way was understandable. But there was no excuse for a quarterback without shoes.” (See Improvement Era, Sept. 1969, p. 44.)

After a great deal of prayer and planning, we presented to our stake in September 1980 a program for raising funds to build our new stake center. Because of the projected high cost of the building, we knew that a lot of faith would be required of our people to raise the large amount of money needed. While we were considering the problem, I had an unusual experience that I shall never forget.
About 2:00 P.M. on a very busy day at the office, my secretary told me that Paul Goodwin would like to see me. I looked at my schedule and found I didn’t have an appointment with Paul Goodwin; furthermore, I didn’t even know a Paul Goodwin. I felt I should tell my secretary that because I was so busy and he didn’t have an appointment, I woudn’t be able to see him. But for some reason I felt prompted to talk with Paul Goodwin.
Still acting under the pressures of the day, I hurriedly opened my office door and was surprised to see a little four-year-old boy standing there. Recognizing his mother seated in the reception area, I knew immediately that this was the son of David and Marilyn Goodwin from the Four Corners Ward of our stake. Little Paul stood in the doorway with his hands in his pockets, looking up at me with such confidence that I sensed it was important to talk to him.
I invited him into my office. When we sat down, I could barely see his big eyes over the top of my desk. “Now, Brother Goodwin, what would you like to see me about?” I asked.
He didn’t say a word, but reached into his pocket, pulled out a very wrinkled one dollar bill, and laid it on the desk. Then he reached into his pocket again and pulled out 25 cents, laid it on the desk, reached into his pocket again, pulled out another 25 cents and then 10 cents and 5 cents. As he laid the 5 cents on the desk, he looked up at me and said, “That’s for the new building.”
“You mean our new stake center?” I asked.
He nodded.
“That’s wonderful!” I told him. “But where did you get one dollar and sixty-five cents?”
He said, “This summer I planted pumpkins in my garden and they’re ripe now, so I picked them and put them in my wagon. I went to all the neighbors on my street and sold them, and there’s the money. I want to give it for the new building.”
It was difficult to hold back the tears, and I couldn’t resist picking the boy up in my arms and telling him how very, very important that one dollar and sixty-five cents was and how very happy Heavenly Father must be that he had sold his pumpkins to raise money for our new stake center.
I felt sure then that there was sufficient faith among our people to raise the large amount of money needed.

Family was extremely important to Elder Perry. He met his first wife, Virginia Lee, as he was counting attendance for a stake leadership meeting in college. He said later that he did all right in taking the young men’s attendance, but when it was time to tally the young women, his math skills hit a roadblock. “Suddenly my eyes met a charming, beautiful young woman. I completely lost my ability to count.”
Eight months later, on July 18, 1947, L. Tom Perry and Virginia Lee were married in the Logan Utah Temple.4 Together they raised three children. Virginia Lee passed away in 1974. Elder Perry later fell in love again and married Barbara Taylor Dayton in 1976.

About the last thing Cindie and I had expected to find on our evening stroll was a tombstone. But there it was, at the base of a large oak tree where the forest met the meadow, not a hundred yards from Bottlerock Road.
Quickly 11-year-old Cindie ran to the stone, knelt beside it, and began trying to make out the inscription. Together we pulled away the dry moss that obscured some of the lettering and read:
MARYANN DEMING
wife of Rufus Deming
died Jan. 5, 1855
in the 56th year of her age
Her eyes shining, my auburn-haired Cindie said, “Oh, dad, I can just see what happened. There were Mormon pioneers crossing the plains, and poor Maryann was killed in an Indian raid, and her husband and children were heartbroken, and they buried her here and sadly left her and went on to Utah. It was so tragic!”
“I don’t think so, Red. The Mormon pioneers didn’t pass through Lake County, California, in 1855 or any other time. More likely she and her family were here as part of the gold rush or to find a good farm or something like that. But I’m sure you’re right about her family being very sad when she died.”
“Well, we’ll just have to do her temple work for her. I just know that Heavenly Father led us to this spot so we could find Maryann’s tombstone and do her temple work for her.”
“I’m glad you thought of that, love. But we can’t do her temple work with just a tombstone inscription. We’d have to have her birth date and other information—and anyway, her work may already have been done.”
“But what if it hasn’t? Oh, dad, I can just see it now: One of her great-grandchildren has been looking for her records for just years and years, and they need her death date, and they’re praying that someone will find her tombstone and send in the information to the Genealogical Library, and give me your pen and paper.”
Well, I’ve never been one to deter an 11-year-old daughter of mine from doing something good. We copied down the tombstone inscription so that it could be sent to the library in Salt Lake. Why not? My exuberant, fervent, firstborn might be right—maybe someone somewhere was looking for Maryann Deming.
When we got back to grandma and grandpa’s summer cabin, it was nearly dark. Cindie recounted our discovery of the tombstone and our plan to send the inscription to Salt Lake.
Cindie didn’t join the rest of us for our usual evening game of dominoes that night. She spent the entire evening at the kitchen table with the old portable typewriter, trying to get a letter to the Genealogical Library ready to go.
The next day was Sunday. Together with grandma and grandpa our family drove to the Lakeport Branch to attend our Sunday meetings and to enjoy a nice dinner and a leisurely drive.
On the way back to the vacation cabin grandpa took Bottlerock Road, and we were nearing home when Cindie cried out, “Grandpa! Stop the car! There’s a cemetery!”
Well, we stopped, and Cindie ran the hundred yards or so to a small cemetery atop a hill. She walked quickly from one stone to the next, peered intently at several inscriptions, and then ran back to the car. “It won’t take but a few minutes,” she announced. “If we divide up the cemetery, and if everyone helps, we can write down all of the inscriptions in 15 minutes! We’ll add these names onto the list with Maryann’s and send them all to Salt Lake!”
Now, I’m not one to discourage an 11-year-old daughter of mine from doing something good, but we were dressed in our Sunday clothes, and the cemetery was dusty and overgrown with dry weeds, and we didn’t have enough pencils, and it was really hot. “Tell you what, Red. You’ve got a great idea, and I’m all for it—but let’s do it this evening, okay?”
As it turned out, Cindie couldn’t wait until evening. As soon as we got back to the cabin she put on her dust-and-dry-weeds ensemble and began organizing a cemetery safari. Everyone else opted for hammocks and shade, so old dad got elected to provide transportation. Besides, I try never to discourage an 11-year-old daughter of mine from doing something good.
We took a couple of pencils and pads of paper and drove back to Mountaintop Cemetery. Working together, with one of us reading the inscriptions and the other writing, we finished the job in less than an hour. As we worked, I marveled at the unflagging enthusiasm of my tall redhead: It was a scorching day—there was no shade—dust and weeds were everywhere—we had nothing to drink—and yet she chattered continually and gave the impression that she was having the very time of her life.
That evening Cindie tried to type up the 85 new inscriptions so that they could be sent to the library in Salt Lake. At length her mom took pity on her and took over the typing chores.
I was enjoying my favorite Sunday evening activity: lying in a lounge chair, sipping lemonade, and looking up at the stars peeking through the pine trees. Cindie pulled a lounge chair over next to mine, helped herself to my lemonade, and thanked me for helping her with her cemetery project. “Oh, dad, I can just see it all,” she said quietly. “There are people somewhere who have been looking for those names for just years and years. I’m sure Heavenly Father guided us to take Bottlerock Road today so we could find that cemetery and copy down those names.”
“Could be, love. But it could also be that someone has already written down those inscriptions. They might already be in the library in Salt Lake.” It was several minutes later when Cindie broke the silence.
“Dad?”
“What, love?”
“Do you suppose there are other cemeteries around here?”
“Probably.”
“Like where?”
“Hard to say. There’s probably one down in the valley in Middletown. Why?”
“Oh, I was just thinking.” Well, that should have tipped me off, but somehow I completely missed it—until next morning at 5:30.
“Psst. Dad. Get up.”
“Hzmph?”
“Get up. It’s already light outside. We’ve got to get started before it gets hot.” There was urgency in my Cindie’s dark brown eyes.
“Hzmph? Frmms?”
“The cemetery in Middletown. I’ve got a jug of ice-water, and I’ve made a sack lunch—I mean sack breakfast—and I’ve got pencils and the note pads.”
“Prmp?” inquired mom.
“Hurry, dad,” implored my redhead. “And be quiet. We don’t want to wake anyone at this hour.”
Now that last statement was something I could believe in. But I’ve never been one to discourage an 11-year-old daughter of mine from doing something good, so I got up and got dressed.
When we got to Middletown the thermometer by the bank displayed 6:15 A.M. and 80° F. Just outside of town on Highway 29, we found what looked like the largest cemetery in the Northern Hemisphere, with major portions overrun with poison oak and blackberry vines. In my mind I pictured the rest of the family sleeping in.
We soon discovered that it’s hard to keep track of which stones have been copied and which haven’t, so we drove back to town and bought a box of chalk at a variety store. The display at the bank now, showed 97° F.
It took until lunchtime to get through the poison-oak-and-berry-vine section of the cemetery. Page after page of notes had been taken, but we had made chalk marks on only a few dozen of the hundreds of tombstones. We had barely made a good beginning.
We took time out to go back to town for a hamburger and a milkshake, and then checked out the temperature again: 105° F. In my mind I could see the rest of the family enjoying a swim at the resort near the cabin.
It was nearly dark when we finished, and both Cindie and I were exhausted. We left Middletown and its heat and drove back up the mountain to the cabin in the cool, shady grove. My redhead slept as we drove and was too tired to even eat supper.
But the next morning she was up and at it. All through the morning, while other family members swam and hiked and picked berries, Cindie hunched over the old typewriter.
After lunch I offered to help Cindie with the typing, and she gratefully accepted. Together we worked our way through the pile of notes: typing, proofreading, rechecking. It was evening before we finished the last page.
Grandpa went with Cindie to the store near the resort to buy a binder for the completed project. When they returned, Cindie reported that she and grandpa had decided one thing was lacking—an index.
All through the evening Cindie and her grandpa worked on the index. Twenty-six pieces of notebook paper—one for each letter of the alphabet—were laid out on the table. Slowly, carefully, the names were written down and organized. As portions of the index were completed they were handed to mom, who typed them. It was midnight before the title page was completed and we all stumbled into bed. The next day we sent Cindie’s book to the Genealogical Library in Salt Lake.
A few weeks later, with summer vacation behind us, Cindie came home from school to discover an impressive-looking envelope in the mailbox. Excitedly, she called me at my work and read, “The Genealogical Society wishes to thank you for your 41-page booklet, Cemetery Inscriptions of Lake County, California. You have provided important information which we did not have in our collection—information which will no doubt be very useful to many of our patrons in the years ahead. We congratulate you, at age 11, on having your own author card in our card catalog.”
As she read the letter and chattered happily over the telephone, I thought to myself how important it is to never discourage an exuberant 11-year-old from doing something good.
Then Cindie spoke again: “Dad,” she said, “when do you want to start on Los Angeles County?”

In January 2009, my husband and I flew to Germany. He had accepted a job there, and we spent a week in Berlin to prepare to move our family.
Instantly, I felt overwhelmed by the differences between Germany and the United States. That night, I didn’t dare leave our hotel.
But the next morning, Sunday, I gathered my courage to attend sacrament meeting. When we entered the chapel, a kind man recognized us as Americans and gave us an English hymnbook. As I sat on the back row and sang different words from everyone else, I felt like an outsider.
The ward offered English translation and gave us headphones. Halfway through the meeting, I wanted to tear mine off and return to my American ward. But when I sang the second verse of “How Firm a Foundation,” the Holy Ghost took hold of my heart.
At home or abroad, on the land or the sea—
As thy days may demand, … so thy succor shall be.1
The hymn felt like a message from the Lord. Tears poured down my cheeks as I hurried to the foyer, where a soft-eyed man gave me his trusty pocket packet of tissue. (Nobody in the ward was ever without one.)
Fast forward three and a half years. In the same chapel on a Sunday morning in June, the organist began playing a hymn. I opened my German hymnbook and started to sing.
That’s when the Holy Ghost enveloped me again. I was again singing “How Firm a Foundation,” but everything was different.
I looked around. Instead of seeing strangers, I saw friends. Behind me sat our former stake president, who had quickly learned our names. On the front row my deacon son rubbed shoulders with the young men who had visited him in the hospital when he was diagnosed with diabetes. Near them sat the ward Young Women leader, who had taught my daughter to make delicious potato pancakes.
Throughout the chapel sat young people I had taught and loved in an English-speaking institute class, my faithful visiting teachers, and others who cheerfully joined the ward ballroom dance classes the bishop had asked me to teach.
Tears blurred my vision, but this time I didn’t run from the chapel. Instead, I dug into my purse for my own trusty pocket packet of tissue.
Nobody in the ward was ever without one.

Digging in the mud isn’t necessarily Amanda Worthington’s favorite activity. But it’s something the 14-year-old from the Winchester Ward is often involved in. Her father, Tom, collects arrowheads and other relics left by the thousands of Native Americans who in ancient times camped and hunted throughout northern Alabama. And where Papa goes, the whole family goes.
“I like searching by the banks of rivers and looking in caves,” Amanda says. “We come home all hot and tired and muddy, but we’ve found arrowheads, spearheads, tools, paint pots, pieces of pottery, all kinds of things. A friend of Dad’s even found a little statue of a quail carved in stone.”
Now don’t start thinking that the Worthingtons would dream of taking artifacts from a historical site or intruding on territory that’s been set aside as a preserve. That’s illegal, and there are places in some states and countries where even touching old things is prohibited. But in Alabama, arrowheads are so plentiful that people discover them every day while digging in their gardens or walking by cotton fields that were freshly plowed. Often such remnants are broken or destroyed if they aren’t rescued.
The Worthingtons have books that help them put dates on their finds. And that has helped Amanda think a lot about the Book of Mormon. Of course, nobody knows exactly where the events ancient prophets describe in that scripture took place, but “when we find something that’s from the same time period, it makes me stop and think that at least there were real people who lived then, that maybe a Nephite or a Lamanite actually held this. It brings it all to life and helps me know that the scriptures are real. They aren’t just a story somebody made up.”
Finding relics also helps Amanda feel thankful. “I’m grateful for technology,” she says with a smile. “Can you imagine spending all day chipping pieces off of rocks just so you could have a tool?”
But then her comments turn serious. “Sometimes we find Civil War bullets along with the arrowheads,” she says. “When I think of all the wars that have been fought, it makes me feel grateful to live in a time of peace.”

Walnetta’s musical skills strengthened as she continued to serve. She witnessed the miraculous growth of the Church in her area, and with it came the opportunity to develop her talent. In her early teens, her branch became the Auckland 5th Ward, and its new chapel featured an electric pipe organ. Walnetta had never played an organ before. “The installer handed me a pamphlet and gave me a very quick rundown – it took about fifteen minutes,” she says. It would be the only organ-playing instructions she would ever receive—but she was not fazed. “I knew the Lord would help me. I then made it my business to learn all I could and to practice, practice, practice!”
For 70 years now, Walnetta’s dedication to music has blessed so many. When President Steve Midgely, a former stake president for the Whangarei Stake, had difficulty finding an organist for a stake conference, Walnetta was happy to meet his request. And, whenever Area President David Baxter presided at Takapuna Ward sacrament meetings, he would always stop by the organ after the service to thank Walnetta for the music.
“I’m sure I speak for all music personnel when I say we feel appreciated when the brethren and members are grateful for the music we provide,” she says. “I have played for ward, stake and Pacific Area meetings [and] accompanied Church choirs, particularly in local music competitions.” She feels honoured to have been able to work with so many talented singers and instrumentalists in the Church as they performed musical numbers.
Over the years, Walnetta has served in many other callings and enjoyed those experiences too. Today, she feels just as privileged to provide prelude music in her current Taupo Ward, to invite the Holy Spirit and set a reverent tone for their sacrament meetings. Reflecting on her love for her calling, she is so grateful for the gift that Elder Ashman gave her all those years ago when he asked for a volunteer pianist. “His invitation to play for our meetings and [his] confidence in me has blessed my life,” she says.
Music quickly became her expression of love for Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and each of the hymns she has learned holds so much meaning for her. The first hymn she ever played was, “Lord, Dismiss Us with Thy Blessing.”
“It is a prayer that God’s Spirit will always be with us,” Walnetta says, “and over the years, that truth has been manifest in my life.”
Could she ever choose a favourite hymn? After some thought, Walnetta’s conclusion is, no. “What is more important to me is that no matter which hymn I play, I am always grateful to feel the Spirit as I have played that hymn.” She continues: “Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) once said, ‘We are in a position, as musicians, to touch the souls of those who listen.’1
“I feel that responsibility.”

These hymns, with others added through the years, served the Church through many printings until 1886. In that year President John Taylor called together five prominent musicians of the Church: Thomas Griggs, Joseph J. Daynes, Ebenezer Beesley, Evan Stephens, and George Careless. Each had served or would yet serve as either Tabernacle Choir organist or conductor. He requested that they write original music for the hymn texts that then comprised the hymnbook. Each musician took one-fifth of the total hymns (several hundred by then) for which to compose melodies.
Meeting each Sunday after the Tabernacle services, these men played to one another their respective tunes for approval and criticism. Finally, three years later, their work was completed and published. Known as the Latter-day Saint Psalmody, the book included both words and music—the first of its kind in the Church. (From an address by Joseph J. Daynes, Jr., on the life of his father delivered on Nov. 20, 1952, as included in an unpublished master’s thesis, Joseph J. Daynes, First Tabernacle Organist, BYU, 1954, by M. Peter Overson.)

I had been dating a young man whom I was madly in love with for about a year. I truly thought I was going to marry him! But I never thought that dating him would bring me face to face with a problem I had once struggled to overcome with all my strength.

When I found out this man I was planning on marrying was using pornography, I was eager to help him and support him in overcoming it. I had been through the repentance process and the effort of overcoming pornography before, and I knew what the Lord could do for Him. But it seemed like every time I tried to guide him to the help he needed to overcome his problem, things always went wrong. He didn’t seem to want help. After a while, I realized we didn’t have the same ideas about pornography. Yes, we were both members of the Church, but the teachings of the gospel didn’t seem to mean the same thing to both of us.

I was frustrated. I loved him, and I believed that with help, he could beat this problem. I was also feeling vulnerable because I was having to face the same problem I had worked so hard to overcome in the past. I decided to pray one night and ask for wisdom from my Father in Heaven on how to move forward because I needed the power to resist temptation, and I also wanted to know how to support the person I was planning to share my life with.

When the answer finally came, I felt peace and knew I had to talk to the man I was dating with a purpose in mind. I wanted to let him know what I expected from dating someone, which was getting married in the temple and having children. I needed to know if our futures aligned and if he was moving toward the Savior. I needed to know if we should continue our relationship. I had high hopes for it and believed that after we talked, everything would work out.

It was a sunny afternoon when I shared with him my dreams and goals about my future family and raising my children in the gospel. To my surprise, after listening to me, he got irritated with me. I realized we had very different ideas about the future. I was devastated, but surprisingly I felt at peace, and I knew my answer was to end the relationship. He wasn’t in a place where he was willing to try to overcome his problems with pornography or turn to the Savior for help, and I couldn’t help him if he didn’t want the help.

For a while, I wondered why even after doing the right thing and doing everything I could to help him, my heart still ended up being broken into a million pieces. But eventually, I shed my last tears for him and I focused on that peace I had felt when I ended the relationship. I knew that answer had come from heaven.

It has been a few years since my relationship with that man ended. And I still see him as the good person he always was. But I know that he needs to be the one who goes to the Savior for help—I can’t force him to. He has his agency and I have mine. Since this experience, I have tried to follow the voice of the Holy Spirit without hesitation. I know that Heavenly Father has a plan for all of us and that we can trust that as we make decisions based on the Spirit’s promptings, He will never let us be led astray. He is always preparing us for good things to come.

As Kevin sat resting his chin on his fist, he saw a little gray spider starting a web in the corner of the porch. The spider swung out from one wall on a tiny silken thread, but the thread didn’t quite reach across to the other wall.
Gathering up its thread, the spider started again. One, two, three, four times the spider missed, dangling from its own thread.
“C’mon, try again!” Kevin coaxed the spider.
At last, the little creature spun out far enough to attach its thread to the opposite wall.
“Good for you,” said Kevin, getting up from the step.

Kendra:
At the beginning of 2018, I kept hearing the name “President Monson.” At this time, I didn’t know this was the prophet. One night the missionaries came over and asked how I was doing.
“I’m doing fine,” I said, “but a person’s name keeps coming to my head, and I don’t know who it is.”
“What’s the name?” They asked.
“President Monson.”
“Kendra, that’s not just any name,” they said. “That’s the name of the prophet who just passed away. You should look at some talks he gave and see what the Lord wants you to learn from him.” I looked at some of his messages, and they were really touching and helped me. From there, it just seemed that the gospel kept coming back to me.

Joseph permitted teachers to use the large upper room to conduct their classes. However, the boisterousness of some students frequently disturbed the clerks, who were often at work writing the history of the Church. One of the Prophet’s sons, Joseph Smith III, recalled: “As schoolboys we had good reason to remember Doctor Willard Richards [one of the clerks], for often in going down the stairway from the schoolroom we were noisy, which seemed to annoy him considerably. Upon one or two occasions he met us at the foot of the stairs and refused to let us pass, the while he cautioned us to be more quiet. Doubtless we were annoying as we trampled and jostled, crowding the steps and surging through the door. He especially scolded the larger children. We learned it was better to go quietly than to cause such real distress” (Mary Audentia Smith Anderson and Bertha Audentia Anderson Hulmes, editors, Joseph Smith III and the Restoration, Independence, Missouri: Herald Publishing House, 1952, p. 28).

It bothered me for some time that a grocery store had magazines with offensive covers in full view of everyone in the checkout line. After I returned home one day, I called the manager and explained that I enjoyed shopping at the store, but it offended me that magazines with sexually suggestive covers were in full view of everyone. The next time I shopped there, I was grateful to see that the magazines had been moved to a less conspicuous location.

I went to the bishop to get a recommend for my patriarchal blessing. Through that experience, I learned that God had a plan for my life. That knowledge helped me form my own plans for the future. My grades improved, and I started getting involved in clubs and activities at school. I was assigned to be a home teacher with a neighbor, who taught me about service and how a priesthood holder should live.
Despite the changes I made, my life wasn’t easy. In some ways it became more difficult. Going to church meant more conflicts with my family over the kinds of activities we engaged in on Sunday and the kinds of movies we watched. Most of the time I went to church by myself. I missed out on dinners, movies, and visits to amusement parks. But that was more than made up for by the Spirit I felt. The Holy Ghost comforted me in difficult times and taught me as I read the scriptures.
When I graduated from high school and seminary, my grandma gave me the promised check for $100. I thanked her and told her I didn’t want it, but she insisted. The testimony I had gained of a loving Heavenly Father, the Savior, the Holy Ghost, the restored Church, and prophets who lead us today was worth far more than any amount of money.

The balloons made their journeys, and much like the parable in the scriptures, some seeds fell on fertile ground. A message written by Laura West in the Salt Lake Cottonwood Height Stake was found by one who desperately needed her encouragement. Laura had written, in part, “Keep your hopes up and rise like the balloon. Always have faith in Christ and Christ will have faith in you.” Her balloon was found only a couple of miles from where it was released. The man who found it wrote to Laura that he was a member of the Church but had fallen away 18 years earlier while he was in his teens. He told of his struggle to be reunited with his wife and children and the decision he made to come back to the Church. He wrote, “I’ve been reading the Book of Mormon and praying since Sunday night (the day after I got your letter). I went to the bishop of my ward that night and told him I knew it was time for me to straighten out my life. … If only you could feel the peace and tranquility that has come to me since I began the reading and prayer. It’s truly like the difference between night and day. To top off my own feelings that I’m on the right track, I picked up your letter. You said you hoped your letter would brighten my day. It not only brightened my day, it was a godsend! I will remember your letter forever.” He signed it “Your friend you’ve never met” and his name.

We please Heavenly Father when we look for ways to serve others. When I was Young Men president in a ward in San Antonio, Texas, the bishop suggested that the priests quorum help a woman whose husband was on military deployment. She lived in a trailer home with her small children. The steps to her trailer were rotted and damaged. She needed help replacing them.
We met at her home and got to work. Shortly after we started, it began to rain. The priests decided to work through the rain. Soon new steps were in place. They were high quality when we were done! Some years later I had an occasion to talk to one of those priests. I asked him what he remembered from our time in the priests quorum. He remembered that service project. He said he was sure that what the service did for him was much more important than what it did for this dear sister and her family.

To you comes a second question: “Whom shall I marry?” May I make personal application of this question? At a dance for the freshman class at the University of Utah, I was dancing with a girl from West High School when a young lady from East High School danced by with her partner. Her name was Frances Johnson: I didn’t know it at the time. I just took one look and decided that there was a young lady I wanted to meet. But she danced away, and I didn’t see her for three more months. Then one day, while waiting for the old streetcar at Thirteenth East and Second South Street in Salt Lake City, I looked and couldn’t believe my eyes. Here was the young lady whom I had seen dancing across the floor, and she was standing with another young lady and a young man whom I remembered from early school days. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember his name. I had a decision to make, and I thought to myself: “This decision requires courage. What should I do?” I found in my heart an appreciation of that phrase, “When the time for decision arrives, the time for preparation is past.”

I stood up straight, gathered my courage, and plunged toward my opportunity. I walked up to that young man and said, “Hello, my old friend from my early school days,” and then he said to me, “I can’t quite remember your name.” I told him my name, and he told me his name. Then he introduced me to the girl who later became my wife. That day I made a little note in my student directory to visit Frances Beverly Johnson, and I did. That decision was one of the most important decisions that I have ever made. Young people who are at that particular time in their lives have the responsibility to make similar decisions. They have the important responsibility to choose whom to marry—not only whom to date.

Two weeks after my 16th birthday my family moved to North Africa. This was not my idea of fun, and I suspected my parents of plotting the entire thing just to make me miserable. The driving age in Morocco is 18, so I wouldn’t be getting a driver’s license, and the school I would be attending had no newspaper or track team—the two things I enjoyed doing. Worst of all, in my junior class at the international school, there were 11 girls and only 3 boys. It was going to be a long year.
At home I had a big group of friends. We went to church and acted like we were doing what was right. But on the weekends we went to parties together, and we sometimes did things I knew weren’t right. I felt torn apart, wanting to keep myself clean, but also wanting to prove that I could do what I wanted. That feeling hadn’t gone away when we moved.
After we’d been in Morocco about a week, I started to make a few friends. My new friend Amy wasn’t a member of the Church, but she was different. She didn’t just pretend to do what was right; she did it. She didn’t seem to have anything to prove. Angie and Lisa, on the other hand, didn’t even try to hide the wrong things that they did. There is no legal drinking age in Morocco, and they took advantage of it. They were having a party at Lisa’s house that weekend, and I was invited.
After my first day of class at my new school, I met the cutest guy I’ve ever seen.
“Are you Rebecca?” he asked as he walked toward me. My heart was beating loud and fast, but I managed to say yes.
“I’m Tony. I hear you’re a Mormon.”
I nodded, wondering what this was all about.
“Are you a real Mormon?” he asked, “or do you just go to church because your parents make you?”
I fumbled with my backpack and said, “I don’t know.”
“Well, when you figure it out, let me know,” he said. Then he left.
I didn’t go to the party at Lisa’s house that weekend. My mom said she needed help unpacking, so I stayed home opening boxes and hanging up clothes.
After I had worked for a while, I stopped my chores and told my mom that I needed a break. I went outside to think.
I walked outside the wall around our house where there was a dusty dirt road that shepherds walked down every morning and evening, taking their sheep and goats to pasture. I soon came to a field where garbage had been burned. A tangerine peel lay in the road, and I angrily kicked it into the grass. Why do I have to be here? I wondered. Why does anything ever have to change? Why does life have to be so hard?
I thought about Tony and his question. What did he want me to say? Am I a real Mormon? Who do I want to be? Would he ever think about dating me if I said I was a real Mormon?
As I turned the corner to go back home, I saw something that made me stop. Across the street, in the middle of an empty field, stood a beautiful little tree. It was not much taller than I was, and its leaves and branches were thin and delicate.
I looked at that tree for a long time. I thought about the parties I had gone to in the States and the things I had done. I thought about the choices I needed to make and about who I wanted to be. I thought about standing alone, sort of like that tree.
It was two weeks before I talked to Tony again. He found me serving refreshments in the school gym on parents’ night. Because parents were invited, wine was being served along with soda and punch.
“So, Rebecca, I brought you a drink,” Tony said. “A toast to a new school year.” He held out a plastic cup half filled with wine.
My heart started pounding again.
“No thanks, Tony. How about a doughnut?”
“No thanks? I bring you a drink, and you don’t want it? Why? Are you afraid your parents will find out?”
“No.”
“Are you afraid you won’t be a real Mormon? Don’t worry, no one in your church will find out.”
I looked down at the table and then up at Tony. “I am a real Mormon. This doesn’t have anything to do with my parents. I just don’t want to.”
Tony looked disgusted. “Well, that’s too bad,” he said. “We could have had fun together.” He dropped the cup into the trash can and walked off. I watched him go and then leaned back against the wall and let out a sigh.
I didn’t have many dates that year, although Tony let me know that if I changed my mind he’d be happy to take me out. But I had a great year anyway. Amy and I got to know some of our Moroccan neighbors, and although we didn’t speak French or Arabic very well, we had a good time laughing together. I went to the prom that year with my brother (he turned out to be a great dancer).
It’s not easy feeling left out, but I felt so good about my decision to be a “real Mormon.” I felt more happy and peaceful than I had in a long time.
I was learning to stand alone.