Gospel Story Finder

For the next appointment I was to meet the elders at their home. I was late and had not read the pamphlet nor the few pages in the Book of Mormon they had asked me to before our meeting. When I got to their home, no one was there. I sat on the porch and waited a few minutes. Then it began to pour down rain. I thought that instead of going home and getting soaked I could wait and see if the elders made it back.
While waiting I decided to read in the Book of Mormon about Christ visiting America. I read of cities being destroyed and of the calamities and suffering. I was captivated with the story and I had to keep reading. Soon I got to the part about God introducing his son. I could not believe what I was reading. The words were so powerful, yet they brought peace to my soul. I believed them. I knew that book contained the word of God. I knew it was true!

“For I remember the word of God which saith by their works ye shall know them; for if their works be good, then they are good also” (Moroni 7:5).
My bishop, a great friend and example to me, continually invited me to minister with him even when I was no longer attending Church. He was such an important person to me that I couldn’t refuse his invitations. We had countless wonderful experiences serving those whom we visited, and he always offered to share gospel insights with them so that I would not be uncomfortable.
He served me while also inviting me to serve others, and that made a huge difference in coming back to Christ.

My first encounter with preaching the gospel was also exciting. In a park near my office in Bogotá, I saw a multitude, and since I had some time, I went down to see what was happening. My surprise was great when I saw the missionaries with displays about the Church and with copies of the Book of Mormon. They recognized me and asked me to stand in the middle of the park with a banner saying, “Be happy; be a Mormon.” I stood for a while in that place. I was a Mormon, but at that moment I was not so happy! But I started to feel better about my ability as a missionary, losing my fear to talk with people about the Church. I let go of my own restrictions—so many “don’ts”—and realized that this is the Church of love and service, of sacrifice and blessings, of happiness and eternal life. My message to the missionaries, to the people that are investigating the Church at this time, and to the members is, “Don’t give up; continue looking for the best results in this wonderful work.”

Each of us must courageously and firmly stand up for what we are and what we believe. When President Joseph F. Smith was a young man, he was faced with this predicament:
“One morning when he and several other missionaries were returning to Salt Lake City, a group of rough Mormon-haters rode up on horses, firing their guns and cursing.
“The leader jumped off his horse and shouted, ‘We will kill anyone who is a Mormon!’ The other missionaries had fled into the woods, but Joseph F. bravely stood his ground. The man shoved a gun in Joseph F.’s face and asked, ‘Are you a Mormon?’
“Joseph F. stood tall and said, ‘Yes siree; dyed in the wool; true blue, through and through!’
“The man was surprised at his reply. He put the gun away, shook Joseph’s hand, and said, ‘Well, you are the pleasantest man I ever met! I’m glad to see a fellow stand up for his convictions.’ He jumped back on his horse and rode off with his companions” (Friend, Aug. 1995, p. 43).

Melinda was almost eight, and she was eager to be baptized and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. She was ready to make a covenant—a sacred promise—with Heavenly Father.
Melinda had already practiced making and keeping promises. When her mother asked her to read to her little brother each evening, Melinda promised to do it—and she did! And each time she went to her friend’s house, she promised she would be home on time. She kept that promise, too.
Most of all, Melinda was trying to always remember Jesus. When she was tempted to pretend she didn’t hear her father call her to come home, she thought, What would Jesus want me to do? She quickly ran home.
Now she was eager to promise Heavenly Father to keep His commandments and to take upon her the name of His Son and always remember Him. She knew when she was baptized and made that promise, He would promise her that she would always have His Spirit to be with her.
In family home evening, her father taught about the Liahona, a special compass the Lord gave to Lehi’s family to guide them through the wilderness (see 1 Ne. 16). The Liahona worked only when the people were faithful and diligent in keeping the commandments (see 1 Ne. 16:28). Melinda knew she must also be faithful and diligent in keeping her baptismal covenant so she could have the Holy Ghost to guide her. She knew if she kept her promise, Heavenly Father would keep His promise.

For me, parenthood has been a refiner’s fire. My weaknesses seem to come out as I become stressed, sleep deprived, worried, or upset. Of course, parenthood’s blessings make up for those moments, but I have found that I have a temper. It’s humiliating to admit, but I used to yell or throw things to get my children’s attention.
I would resolve time and again not to lose my temper, but I would still lose it in times of stress. Heavenly Father knew I needed something dramatic to help me.
One evening after a long day of bottling peaches, I put on the last batch and decided to take a short nap. I was sure I would wake up in time to take the bottles from the steamer.
I didn’t.
My husband, Quinn, and I were startled awake by the sound of exploding jars. I ran to the kitchen and saw shattered glass and gluey peaches over every surface of the room. Apparently, the steamer water had evaporated, heat and pressure had built up, the top of the steamer had blown off, and six of seven peach jars had exploded.
“I think I’ll clean this up in the morning,” I said.
Bad idea.
By morning the hot peach muck had solidified into hardened, glass-filled mounds all over the kitchen and dining room. The plastered peach-glass tidbits had even found their way behind countertop appliances and into every nook and cranny, including behind the fridge.
Cleanup took several hours. I had to soak the glass-filled mounds with wet paper towels and then try to wipe them up without cutting myself.
As I cleaned, a familiar voice whispered to me: “Mary, when your temper explodes, as did these jars, you cannot easily fix things. You cannot see where and how your anger hurts your children and others. Like this mess, that hurt hardens quickly and is painful.”
Suddenly, the cleanup took on new meaning. The lesson was a powerful one. Like my anger, there was no quick cleanup. Weeks later I was still finding little clumps of peach rock embedded with glass.
I pray that someday my patience will become as great a strength as it was a weakness. Meanwhile, I am grateful that the Lord’s Atonement is helping me better control my temper so that I can spare my loved ones any more messes caused by exploding anger.

When I heard about his passing, though, I couldn’t help but be sad and frustrated that my grandfather hadn’t been baptized in this life. So when my sister suggested a year later that we go to the temple and do ordinances for my grandfather, I had mixed feelings. Why would it matter now if he hadn’t accepted it when it was right here for him?
But I prayed about doing my grandfather’s work in the temple, and my heart softened. I knew I needed to do it. When I went to the temple and was baptized for him, something happened to me in that font: I felt the Spirit come into my heart along with a sense of forgiveness and love that I didn’t know I had for my grandfather. My heart was truly turned to him. I felt the truth of the promise that “he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers” (Doctrine and Covenants 2:2). It was real.

While firefighters were battling roaring forest fires in the West recently, two grandmothers—Altha Clark, from Texas, and Hazel Stills, from Florida—kindled countless spiritual flames by creating new “interest of people who [had] investigated the Church for years, but who needed a firm, loving nudge to accept baptism,” and with caring fellowshipping, reached out to the less-active members.

“They don’t take no for an answer,” the second counselor in the Altamont Utah Stake presidency said, “and they [teach] without offending anyone.” They combine the Spirit with hard work.

A rancher said the two sisters “have kept us so busy I don’t have time to get my hay in. We … keep them [booked with people] to teach. In this stake, the full-time missionaries teach very few discussions without a stake missionary or fellowshipper going along.”

The two grandmothers travel about one hundred miles a day on unpaved country roads, and the dust and ruts don’t slow them down.

While visiting a member’s home, these remarkable missionaries asked if she knew someone they could teach.

The sister replied, “my husband.”

Directed by the Spirit how to approach this husband, they taught him the gospel and rejoiced with his wife at his baptism.

Fourteen families have now become active and will go to the temple this year because of the efforts of these full-time grandmother missionaries coordinating with the stake missionaries and properly following a plan in fellowshipping new members. A change has come about in the whole stake that has influenced the less active as well as nonmembers. (See Church News, 10 Sept. 1988, pp. 8, 9, 12.)

Before I left to run some errands one evening, I asked my children to do their homework and told them I would correct it when I returned home. Upon my return, I was surprised to find my seven-year-old son, Mayco, riding his bike with a friend. I asked him if he had done what he was supposed to do, and he answered with a resounding yes. I then asked if he was telling the truth, and he said, “Mama, I can’t lie to you.”
This caught his friend’s attention, and he asked Mayco why he could not lie. Mayco replied with total certainty, “How could I lie when I’m a Mormon?”
I went into the house to look over his homework, and not only was it done, but there were no mistakes.
I am grateful for the gospel principles that my son is learning and for his example of becoming more like Jesus.

You take these pumpkin seeds, Brose. Plant them and take good care of them. Who knows—when pumpkin pie time comes this fall, your pumpkins might be just what we need!”
It seemed to Brose that even her eyes smiled as Granny handed him the little bag of seeds. The seeds were his! Not Jeremy’s, not Willie’s, but his, his very own! He was pleased that Granny had given them to him instead of to his older brother.
Brose took care of the pumpkin patch, all right. In fact, he did it so well that it began to bother Pa. “Every time I need you, Brose,” he complained, “you’re in that pumpkin patch. Why, the weeds in the rest of the garden could grow as high as cornstalks, and you’d be out there lifting up pumpkin vines, trying to find another weed to pull. Well, at least I always know where to find you.”
This second year in the Salt Lake Valley was proving to be about like the rest of his nine years, Brose decided. Being in the middle, a boy could scarcely move either way. No one paid him the attention that they did Willie, who was only two and a half and who had hair the color of the brightest sunset over Great Salt Lake. Why, even strangers would stop Willie and ask his name. All they ever said to Brose was, “Is he your brother?”
When Willie did something wrong, no one made a big fuss because Willie was still so young. But when Brose did something that Pa didn’t like, Pa would say, “Brose, you’re big enough to know better!” And whenever it came to deciding which boy would get the best jobs—like riding the pony and herding the cows on the east bench—Pa would say, “Wait up a spell, Brose. You’d best help Ma with the wash and let Jeremy do the herding this year. You’re still a mite small for that job, and Ma can use a little more help than Trudy can give her.”
Brose didn’t give up, though. He wanted Pa to know that there were lots of the good jobs that didn’t have to be left for his older brother to do.
One day the three of them took Old Brownie and Belle and went up City Creek Canyon for a jag of firewood. As soon as they’d found a good place to stop and load up, Pa had Jeremy unhitch the team so that they could graze while the wagon was loaded.
“There,” said Pa, when the wagon was full. “That’ll do it for this trip. Hitch the horses back to the wagon, Jeremy, while Brose and I fasten the chain around the load to keep any logs from falling off.”
“Let me hook up the horses, Pa!” cried Brose. “I can do it, honest! I watched you and Jere do it every day, coming across the plains! Let me hook ‘em up, Pa!”
Pa hesitated, then said, “All right, Brose. Don’t forget to fasten the crosslines, so you can drive the team together without their trying to go off in all directions.”
“So you can drive them!” That’s what Pa said! Maybe, if I hook ‘em up just right, thought Brose, Pa’ll let me drive all the way home!
Brose didn’t have any trouble leading the horses into place. Brownie stepped right over the wagon tongue into her place while Belle stood quietly waiting on the other side. Then, just as Pa had cautioned, Brose fastened the crosslines, snapping the one from Belle’s harness onto the ring on Brownie’s bit, and the other onto the ring on Belle’s bridle.
Next he took the wide leather strap on the front of Brownie’s harness, slipped it through the big ring on the end of the yoke, and fastened the snap to the ring on the other side of the harness. “There! That was just the way Jeremy would have done it,” Brose murmured, pleased. He fastened the strap on Belle’s harness to the yoke the same way. Then he took the driving line from where Jeremy had hung it on Brownie’s hame and threw it ever so gently over Belle’s back, just the way Pa would have done it—quiet, easy, so as not to frighten the team.
When he walked around to put Belle’s line with the other, Brose heard a bird call. It was a new sound, something like a meadowlark’s, yet different. It was more like that little brown bird he used to hear back in Connecticut before the family had come west. Maybe it was! Maybe that very same little brown bird had followed him, Ambrose Dodd, all the way to the Valley!
Brose didn’t know how long he had listened to the bird before he saw Pa and Jeremy. They had walked a little way down the canyon and had stopped, waiting for him.
Brose was to bring the team and wagon! He was going to drive! He climbed up onto the seat, picked up both of the lines, and slapped them against Brownie’s side, just as Pa would have done.
“Giddap!” he cried, loud enough for Pa and Jeremy and the horses to hear. The horses stepped forward. But the wagon did not move. Only the yoke went with the team, the ring on it sliding off the end of the wagon tongue and the lines slipping through Brose’s hands.
Jeremy ran toward him just as the wagon tongue banged to the ground. “Brose!” he called. “Hey, Brose! You forgot the wagon! It won’t move unless you hitch the tugs!”
Brose couldn’t move. How could he have been so dumb! How could he possibly have forgotten about the tugs?
Jeremy reached out and took the lines and drove the team around in a little circle, putting the team right in place. Brose came out of his daze and scurried around to pick up the end of the tongue and slip it through the ring of the yoke, which was still fastened to the horses.
Jeremy was just hooking the last tug to the doubletree when Pa came. Brose watched Pa climb over the front wheel and take his place on the front of the load. Pa reached for the lines, and Jeremy handed them up to him. Pa took them without a word, and Brose knew that he had lost another chance.
There wasn’t much talking during chores that night. When supper was over, Brose sat on the little stool beside the fire, listening to the crackling and hissing of the pine knot and watching the sparks it sometimes sent up with the smoke.
Jeremy took Pa’s fiddle from its case, and music began to fill the little cabin, then float away on the night air. Brose leaned back against the warm cabin wall near the fireplace and listened. He wished—oh, how he wished!—that he could play like Jere. Pa had been fair about it, though. He had tried to teach both of them. Brose still remembered Pa’s words: “Seems as though you’ve got ten thumbs, Brose, and they all want to go in different directions.”
Pa had quit trying to teach him soon after that, and at the time Brose had been relieved. But now every time he listened to the fiddle singing under Jere’s fingers, Brose wished Pa hadn’t given up quite so quickly.
He’d much rather be standing there by Pa’s chair, playing the fiddle, with Ma and Trudy and Willie giving him all the smiles Jeremy was getting, than do the job he was supposed to be doing. He saw Ma looking at him from time to time, but she didn’t interrupt the music with talking, and after a bit Brose made himself get started.
He knew someone had to straighten out the kinks in the wool so that Ma and Trudy could knit it into socks for winter. Brose hated to card. Mostly women and girls did it, but Ma said that Trudy was as fast at knitting as she was, herself. With both of them knitting, they could have twice as many socks ready when winter came. They could, that is, if Brose would just keep ahead of them with the carding.
Brose had his problems with this job too. Sometimes he got the wool so tangled up that Ma said it was worse for knitting when he got through with it than before he started. But she had more patience than Pa. Or maybe she needed the wool carded more than Pa needed another boy to play the fiddle.
Across the firelight Brose saw both Ma and Trudy knitting, each tapping a foot in time to the music. The only time either of them stopped was if one of them happened to drop a stitch. Then the stitch-dropper would move closer to the fire so that she could see to pick it up. Brose sighed as he pulled the big basket of wool closer to him and reached for the cards.
He laid one card close to the fire so that the wire brush would warm. He picked up a handful of wool and drew it across the other card. Then he took the card he had warmed and pulled it carefully across the wool, trying to get the strands straight.
“Learned that fiddle quicker’n I did,” said Pa, as Jeremy stopped for a moment. “Never did see a boy pick it up as fast as that.”
Pa will never be that proud of me, thought Brose, even if I did the carding perfectly! Ma would be pleased, but Pa and Jere wouldn’t care about it at all. Maybe … just maybe someday I’ll do something that they’ll think is important …
“Brose!” He was startled from his daydream by Ma’s voice. “The wool, Brose! I can smell it! You’ve got it too close to the fire!”
(To be concluded.)

Around the turn of the previous century, two missionaries were laboring in the mountains of the southern United States. One day, from a hilltop, they saw people gathering in a clearing far below. The missionaries did not often have many people to whom they might preach, so they made their way down to the clearing.
A little boy had drowned, and there was to be a funeral. His parents had sent for the minister to “say words” over their son. The missionaries stood back as the itinerant minister faced the grieving father and mother and began his sermon. If the parents expected to receive comfort from this man of the cloth, they would be disappointed.
He scolded them severely for not having had the little boy baptized. They had put it off because of one thing or another, and now it was too late. He told them very bluntly that their little boy had gone to hell. It was their fault. They were to blame for his endless torment.
After the sermon was over and the grave was covered, the elders approached the grieving parents. “We are servants of the Lord,” they told the mother, “and we have come with a message for you.” As the sobbing parents listened, the two elders read from the revelations and bore their testimony of the restoration of the keys for the redemption of both the living and the dead.
I have some sympathy for that preacher. He was doing the best he could with such light and knowledge as he had. But there is more that he should have been able to offer. There is the fulness of the gospel.
The elders came as comforters, as teachers, as servants of the Lord, as authorized ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I have a brother who was associated with a large university. He told of a student athlete who was an outstanding hurdler. The young man was blind. Rex asked him, “Don’t you ever fall?” “I have to be exact,” the athlete responded. “I measure each time before I jump. One time I didn’t, and I nearly killed myself.” The young man then spoke of the countless hours his father had devoted over the years teaching, helping, and showing him how to hurdle, until he became one of the best.
How could this young man fail with a team like that—a father and a son.

When our children were younger and we would be on our way to Sunday church meetings, occasionally we would pass a car pulling a boat. My children would become silent and press their noses against the windows and ask, “Dad, why can’t we go waterskiing today instead of to church?”
Sometimes I would take the easy but cowardly way out and answer, “It’s simple; we don’t have a boat.” However, on my more conscientious days, I would muster up all the logic and spirituality available to a patriarch of a family and try to explain how much happier our family was because of our Church activity.
I first realized I wasn’t getting through when on a subsequent Sunday we saw a family laughing and excited as they loaded their snow skis onto their car. One of my teenage sons said with a sly grin, “They’re not really happy, huh, Dad?” That statement has become a family joke whenever we see someone doing something we cannot do. When I see a teenager driving a beautiful, expensive sports car, I say to my sons, “Now there’s one miserable guy.”

One Saturday night when I was about eleven, many of Mother’s relatives came from out of town to have dinner with us. Such visits were rare, so she spent the whole day getting the dinner ready. She prepared a pot roast and all the vegetables to go with it, mashed potatoes and gravy, salads, hot rolls, and dessert. She cooked all day, and soon the dirty dishes started stacking up.
After dinner, everyone brought the leftover food to the kitchen, then went into the living room and began to visit. I remember going back to the kitchen, thinking, Mother works all week long, and now she’ll have to do the dishes late at night after everyone leaves. Then I thought, I’ll do the dishes for her.
In those days, we didn’t have a dishwasher; the dishwasher was either me or someone else. I filled up the sink and started washing. I stood there for three hours, washing every dish—and I learned that when dishes or pans are dirty, it’s best to clean them immediately, before the food hardens!
Finally I finished drying the last dish, wiping off all the counters, and scrubbing the floor. I heard the relatives walking out onto the porch, and I heard Mother bidding them good-bye.
The kitchen door swung open, and Mother entered. She stopped and looked around and then looked at me. I cannot describe the look on her face. I think that at first it was shock, then appreciation, and then I think it was more than that. It was a feeling of love and pride, and of something I couldn’t measure. I think you understand. There was a light in her eyes. I made the decision then that I would like to put that kind of light into people’s faces.
Mother hugged and thanked me, and I went to bed contented and happy, knowing that she wouldn’t have to stand there doing dishes until two o’clock the next morning.

Baptized in snowy weather during the early spring of 1832, Brigham Young was confirmed at the edge of the water and ordained an elder in his home two miles away before the clothes were dry on his back. And before that year was over—an important year involving the death of his first wife and his initial meeting with the Prophet Joseph Smith—Brigham Young was out in the snow again, this time in an effort to share his new-found orientation to life with his friends in Canada.

In the cold of December, Brigham Young and his brother Joseph set out on foot for Kingston, upper Canada. This journey was to take the two young elders over a distance of 400 kilometers in snow knee deep with a thick layer of mud under it. Only those who have trudged through snow into mud can really appreciate the arduous task that these two missionaries underwent. To add to their discomfort, nearly ten kilometers of this journey was on ice—ice so thin that it bent beneath their feet, allowing the water to seep in until it was “half a shoe deep.”

For two months the missionaries labored in that area and baptized forty-five souls. Anyone who has seen his own inadequacies will appreciate knowing that missionary work was not an easy task for Brigham Young. He considered himself “about as destitute of language as a man could well be. …

“How I have had the headache, when I had ideas to lay before the people, and not words to express them; but I was so gritty that I always tried my best” (in Journal of Discourses, 5:97).

Another year and another mission passed before Brigham Young could finally settle his little family in Kirtland, where he drew close to the Prophet Joseph Smith. Twenty more souls came into the kingdom through his efforts as a result of a second mission, and he then led them to Kirtland, much as he would later lead the westward trek of the Saints. Once he had settled in the quiet little town of Kirtland in northern Ohio, Brigham Young began to learn about Zion, the dwelling place of the pure in heart, from the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Another major sacrifice for the cause of Zion came in 1834, as Brigham accompanied Joseph Smith on the march of Zion’s Camp. Word was received in Kirtland that the Saints in Missouri had been driven from their homes by mobs and that help was needed. An appeal was made to the brethren in Kirtland. Joseph and 205 others answered this plea for help. Force would be met by force. Those who marched knew that death might await them on the other end of their 1600-kilometer trek.

Brigham’s generation was acquainted with long walks, but nothing like this march. President Young later talked about walking month after month with blood in his shoes as he worked as a missionary, but even missionary work was nothing compared to the intensity of this march, day after day, in the heat of the early summer.

As the march proceeded, exhaustion resulted, patience became short, and tempers flared. Finally, the dreaded cholera hit, with its terrifying cramping and sudden death. Two years before that time, North America had experienced a major epidemic of cholera, and its symptoms were well known—diarrhea, spasmodic vomiting, and painful cramps, followed by dehydration that left the face blue and pinched, the extremities cold and dark, and the skin on the hands and feet puckered.

Death could follow in a day, even in an hour, and sometimes the victim would just keel forward as if hewn down by an axe. Some members of Zion’s Camp attempted to flee, but Brigham Young remained. Joseph Smith listed Brigham’s name as one who was most active in caring for the sick and burying the dead.

Not long after his experience with Zion’s Camp, Brigham Young was called to be a member of the first modern Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, organized in 1835. With the new calling, Brigham experienced many changes and felt the weight of added responsibilities. But his goal in life remained constant: to continue the work that Joseph had commenced, until everything was prepared for the coming of the Son of Man.

Two scenes from Brigham Young’s apostolic years give an insight into his continuing dedication to this goal. Both are from the year 1839.

The first occurred in February. Joseph Smith was imprisoned in Liberty Jail, and Brigham Young was directing the affairs of the Church as President of the Quorum of the Twelve. The problem at hand was to move the Saints from Missouri to Illinois. Few persons were well equipped for the move; many were destitute, and in their haste to leave, the temptation to run for one’s own life was strong. But in Brigham Young’s mind, this was not a course of action for true Saints of God. Surely society would never endure unless men could learn love, compassion, and concern for each other.

Accordingly, a meeting was called and a covenant drawn up, stating in effect that the signers would never leave until they had aided all of the poor to leave with them. Brigham Young and his family, accompanied by the family of Heber C. Kimball (Elder Kimball having remained in Missouri), set out in the cold February climate, with their wagons aimed toward Illinois, in one of the strangest processions in the entire Mormon emigration experience.

After traveling as much as thirty-two kilometers across the frozen Missouri plains, Brigham would stop, establish a temporary shelter for his wife and five children, and then retrace his journey to its point of origin. There he would load up some of the poor and destitute Saints and return to his family. In this way he actually covered three times the distance of most of his fellow travelers. Later, at the ending of their journey—Quincy, Illinois—an impressive meeting was held. The Saints in Quincy learned that fifty families were still in Far West and were too poor to leave. They pulled together once more, offering to sell what little they had left—their hats, coats, and shoes—to raise funds for this movement. Brigham Young comments:
“We broke bread and partook of the Sacrament. At the close of the meeting $50 was collected in money and several teams were subscribed to go and bring out the brethren. Among the subscribers was Widow Warren Smith, whose husband and son had been killed at the massacre at Haun’s Mill. She sent her only team on this charitable mission.”

Through these experiences and many others like them, Brigham Young was buoyed up in his conviction that people can be drawn together in love, that they do have the ability to create a more Christian society founded on love and concern for others.

A second scene from that same year, which depicts the determination of Brigham Young to sacrifice everything to the upbuilding of the kingdom of God, took place between September 1839 and February 1840 and involves his mission to Great Britain.

Our focal point concerns his journey to New York. The time had arrived for the Twelve Apostles to leave for a special mission. But Brigham Young, like so many of his brethren, was sick with what appears to have been malaria. Aching in all the parts of his body, he managed somehow to struggle out of his bed in Montrose, Iowa, and to dress for his journey. Having no coat of his own, he used a quilt from the cradle as a makeshift wrapping. All of his children were feverishly ill in bed. His wife was also ill and in need of help with her little ten-day-old baby. The Mississippi River was only 165 yards away, but Brigham could not even walk to its banks. A neighbor drove up with a wagon, and President Young crawled in. Met at the river, he was rowed to the other side, where Israel Barlow transported him by horseback to the home of Heber C. Kimball in Nauvoo. There he collapsed and was not able to continue for four days.

Eventually the time for departing arrived, and the missionaries left, moving eastward as best they could. President Young rode in the back of a wagon. Those who have felt the discomfort of flu can well imagine how one might feel being jostled across the countryside between Illinois and Indiana. Four months later, Brigham arrived in New York City—well at last, but not beyond hardships. In Brooklyn, New York, while boarding a ferryboat, he fell somehow and, landing against a large iron ring, dislocated his left shoulder. While two of his brethren held him firmly against the deck, Parley P. Pratt took hold of his hand and pulled, with his foot against Brigham’s side. Agonizing though this ordeal was, Elder Young guided the bone back into the socket with his right hand. Then he passed out and was not able to dress himself for several days.

Others may have become discouraged and dropped out long before that point. But Brigham Young would never give up when the establishment of God’s kingdom was involved. He carried on, boarded the ship, and was seasick most of the way to Britain. So emaciated was he upon arriving in England that his own cousin, Willard Richards, did not even recognize him.

After months of strenuous missionary work, he returned home to his family. His sacrifice had been acceptable to the Lord. Upon arriving back in Nauvoo, Elder Young received this commendation:
“Dear and well-beloved brother, Brigham Young, verily thus saith the Lord unto you: My servant Brigham, it is no more required at your hand to leave your family as in times past, for your offering is acceptable to me.

“I have seen your labor and toil in journeyings for my name.

“I therefore command you to send my word abroad, and take especial care of your family from this time, henceforth and forever. Amen” (D&C 126:1–3).

Archie noticed the red-orange reflection in the mirror as he walked through the family room on his way out the door. He had seen that color thousands of times in his life. He had grown fondly accustomed to the vibrant orange hue that surrounded his roundish face. Every time Archie looked in the mirror he was reminded of the fact that he was not only a redhead, he was the personification of the brightest, most intense, flaming red that ever graced the top of a young man’s head.
He recalled several years earlier when he was living with his parents in Africa that people would pat him on the head because they thought red hair was an omen of good luck—a symbol of good fortune.
His pleasant reflection was startled by the “MEEOOOP!” of the horn from the enchanted yellow bus that would carry him to his first day of junior high.
Archie anxiously gathered his books and papers and rushed to the front door where he was greeted by a proud reception line composed of his mother, his two little brothers, his grandmother, and his dad. After all, it isn’t every day that the oldest son in the family takes off for the first day of junior high. A little embarrassed and hurried, Archie kissed his mom on the cheek, waved to his grandma and brothers, and shook his dad’s hand as he galloped off to his new adventure.
Archie slipped through the folding doors of the bus, only to find himself staring into the faces of dozens of different and older students who would also be attending Jefferson Junior High School.
With a sigh of relief he focused on Jimmy, his best friend, who had saved a seat for him by the window.
Archie plomped into the seat as the bus rumbled down the road. Jimmy said, “Greg said that we’d better watch out today at school or he and his ninth grade friends will sit us on the fountain or write on us with lipstick.”
Archie asked, “Why do they do that?”
“He said it is called initiation to junior high. Sort of like when you have to do something scary to join a club.”
While Archie’s face showed no fear, he suddenly became intensely aware of the bigger kids at the back of the bus who were laughing and joking.
Finally the bus halted in front of the big sign that said Jefferson Junior High. As he and Jimmy jumped down from the bus, his combined excitement, joy, fear, and anticipation made his heart thump twice as fast as normal.
As he reached the top of the stairs he pulled open the big metallic doors that led into a whole new world. He gazed down the hall and saw hundreds of jostling, laughing, bustling students who all seemed to know where to go and what to do. Even his friend Jimmy had wandered down the hall on his own. Now Archie was alone in the strange and exciting new environment. As he walked down the hall he felt as if everyone was staring at him. Just then he saw one of his pals from grade school.
Walt yelled across the hall, “Well, if it isn’t red Archie!”
Archie cringed when he heard the word red, and his face blushed to fit the description. Suddenly he wished that he had a hat to cover his bright thatch of red hair.
Just then the “ZZIINNGG!” of the bell sounded to go to class. He hurried down the hall to his locker and spun the dial to his combination, but nothing happened. Again he tried … 37 to the left … 15 to the right … and 22 to the left. His locker still wouldn’t open!
Frantically he pulled on his locker door but to no avail. “ZZIINNGG!” went the second bell, and Archie realized that he was tardy for the first period. He gave up on his locker and ran down the hall to his first class. As he-entered the room everyone looked at him and he hurriedly went to one of the empty desks and sat down. The teacher called the roll, “Steve Cranbrook … Archie Crenshaw … Richard Daines …” until he had called out all twenty-six students in the homeroom.
Mr. Williams, the teacher, closed the rollbook and said, “I remember the first day I went to junior high. I was so scared that I had to walk around the block twice before I dared go in. Then I couldn’t remember where my locker was and was late to every class for the first week. The worst thing was that everyone teased me.”
As Mr. Williams talked, Archie felt a grin blossom on his face. The teacher went on to explain how the first day is always the worst, and after that you get to know your way around and have a good time.
From that moment on, Archie felt a lot better about being in junior high. He didn’t even mind if kids called him Red. In fact, his bushy red locks became his trademark. Archie became confident and happy (and finally figured out how to open his locker). And it all started with Mr. Williams in social studies class.
Archie’s parents were both proud and happy that their son was doing so well in school. Nearly every day Archie had something good to say about Mr. Williams and what he had learned in social studies.
Both Mr. and Mrs. Crenshaw were interested in meeting Mr. Williams, the man they had heard so much about from Archie. Finally the day came for parent-teacher conferences for Jefferson Junior High. Archie couldn’t wait for his folks to go and talk to Mr. Williams. He even drew them a map of how to get to his room so they wouldn’t get lost!
Archie’s mom and dad walked into room 29 with the sign that said Mr. Williams and suddenly understood everything they had heard about him. As they went in Mr. Williams gave them a glowing grin that was accented by the brightest, curliest, flaming red hair imaginable.

Ward members made very effort to make Sage’s return from Galveston as smooth as possible. During a Sharing Time just before she returned, the Primary presidency held an activity to show the children that although people may be hurt or maimed, they are Heavenly Father’s children and need our help.
Nancy Eldridge, then Primary president, had a video tape made of Sage speaking to the children. On the tape Sage talked about her experience and hopes for the future. She closed by assuring her friends that she was still “the same old Sage.”
Nancy says that each of the children had to adjust to Sage in his or her own way. Her own son had a particularly difficult time. “He loved Sage, but he was afraid, and it bothered him. So he wrote her letters of love and friendship until he was able to work through his feelings.”

A few months ago I had the opportunity of attending a ward fast and testimony meeting. One who stood to bear his testimony was an Aaronic Priesthood adviser. His testimony provided me with a new appreciation of what it means for an Aaronic Priesthood bearer to hold the keys of the ministering of angels.
This adviser described some of his experiences with the ward Aaronic Priesthood that morning. As he was walking to church, he noticed two young deacons with fast-offering envelopes going to the homes of the members. He was impressed with the way they were dressed in their Sunday best and how they approached their assignment with quiet dignity. He then accompanied two priests to administer the sacrament in a residential home for physically and mentally disabled men. This was the first opportunity for these two young men to visit this home, and their adviser noted the respectful and caring way in which they approached their priesthood assignment.
Then the adviser shared a brief experience that deeply touched his heart, because one of the priests reminded him of what it really means to be a true minister of Jesus Christ—literally a ministering angel. The young priest who was passing the water to the congregation came to a man who appeared to have Down syndrome. The man’s condition prevented him from taking the cup from the tray to drink from it. This young priest immediately assessed the situation. He placed his left hand behind the man’s head so he would be in a position to drink, and with the right hand he took a cup from the tray and gently and slowly lifted it to the man’s lips. An expression of appreciation came to the man’s face—the expression of someone to whom someone else has ministered. This wonderful young priest then continued his assignment to pass the blessed water to the other members of the congregation.
The adviser expressed in his testimony the feelings he had at that tender moment. He said he wept silently with joy, and he knew the Church was in good hands with these young, caring, obedient bearers of the Aaronic Priesthood.

Scripture study was a welcome break for Angel, even if her friends didn’t understand why she would take time away from her school classes to bother with religion. “A lot of them think it’s strange that I spend time with my church. Most of my classmates don’t have any religious beliefs,” says Angel, who was the only Church member in the Taipei First Girls’ School student body of 4,000-plus. “Some students will discuss religion with me, but most of the time they just think being LDS is strange because it takes me away from my schoolwork.”
One of those classmates is a friend Angel invited to church one Sunday. Angel says her friend had a generally positive experience at church. She even told Angel afterward that she felt religion was good and that she might think about becoming religious herself—after she graduates from the university. “She just didn’t think she had the time for church,” Angel adds.
Even Angel’s father, Liu Chuen Hsin, isn’t completely convinced the time his daughter spends learning the gospel is all that productive. He often questions if Angel’s time wouldn’t be better spent studying or going to the library. When Angel’s mother, Catherine, joined the Church in 1984, Angel was only seven. Although Liu Chuen Hsin didn’t object to his wife’s baptism, he had no interest in joining the Church with her. However, he did allow Angel to be baptized when she turned eight.
“My father is interesting,” Angel adds. “Sometimes he will say, ‘Since you have an exam coming up, maybe you shouldn’t go to church.’ But there are other times when he’ll tell me to hurry up because he doesn’t want me to be late for church.
“My parents have high expectations of me. My father thinks I can have a great impact on our family by continuing my education and doing well,” Angel adds. Angel is quick to point out she can also have a great impact on her family by staying active in the Church.
“In Taiwan, parents who are members of the Church set examples for their children,” says Kent Liang, a former regional representative and stake president. “They go to church and perform their callings, and the children are able to see this. But some kids whose parents aren’t members are often tempted to rest and not go to church on Sundays. And the school competition is so high that school is sometimes all they see. They think, Should I go to church or go to the library? Sometimes they don’t worry that much about church things because they don’t see that far into the future. Right now, many of the kids in Taiwan are worried only about school.”
And that is what is so amazing about Angel. She graduated near the top of her high school class, yet she doubts she could have done it had she not had the gospel’s guiding influence in her life. “The Church was especially helpful to me during my senior year of high school. I noticed a lot of my schoolmates were easily depressed because of school,” she says. “But I knew if I did my best, Heavenly Father would help me. Usually, my grades were better than I expected.”
Today, college life keeps Angel busy as she studies to become a doctor. As Angel returns home from a full day, she still takes time to read from the scriptures. When she closes her scriptures, it’s 10:30 P.M. Angel’s day is over—finally. She can close her eyes knowing she is doing well in school, and, more importantly, she is finding time to include the gospel in her busy life. In less than eight hours, her day will begin all over again. Angel will undoubtedly enjoy a very sound sleep.

On a quiet November night in 1943, Nellie Middleton heard her doorbell ring. It was dark outside, but she knew enough not to have the lights on when she opened the door. Nearly three years had passed since German bombs had first fallen near her home, and Nellie continued to darken her windows at night to keep herself and her daughter safe from air raids.
With her lights out, Nellie opened the door. A young man was standing on her front step, his face in shadow. He extended his hand and quietly introduced himself as Brother Ray Hermansen. His accent was undeniably American.4
A lump came to Nellie’s throat. After their branch disbanded, she and other women in Cheltenham had longed to take the sacrament more regularly. The United States had recently sent troops to England to prepare for an Allied offensive against Nazi Germany. Once it had occurred to Nellie that some of the American soldiers stationed in her town might be Latter-day Saints who could bless the sacrament, she had asked her stepsister, Margaret, to paint a picture of the Salt Lake Temple and place it in town. Below the picture was a message: “If any soldier is interested in the above, he will find a warm welcome at 13 Saint Paul’s Road.”5
Had this American seen her poster? Did he have authority to bless the sacrament? Nellie shook his hand and welcomed him inside.
Ray was a twenty-year-old Latter-day Saint soldier from Utah and a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood. Although he was stationed ten miles away, he had heard about the Salt Lake Temple painting from another Church member and obtained leave to visit the address. He had walked to Nellie’s home on foot, which was why he had arrived after dark. When Nellie told him about her desire to take the sacrament, he asked her when he could come to administer the ordinance to her.
On November 21, Nellie, her daughter, and three other women welcomed Ray to their Sunday meeting. Nellie opened the meeting with prayer before the group sang “How Great the Wisdom and the Love.” Ray then blessed and passed the sacrament, and all four women bore testimony of the gospel.
Soon other Latter-day Saint soldiers heard about the meetings at Saint Paul’s Road. Some Sundays, Nellie’s living room was so full that people had to sit on the staircase.6