Gospel Story Finder

One reader wrote about the difficulty—and necessity—of getting involved in more of the process: “One cold December night, I came to realize that until I believed the Lord and received his counsel through priesthood blessings and the scriptures, I could not progress. My emotional and spiritual health, as well as my eternal progression, hinged on this. I had to trust my Heavenly Father!

“How does a person learn to believe spiritual things that are so different from earthly experiences? After many hours of prayer and tears, I found the answer in Alma 32:27: ‘If ye will awake and arouse your faculties, even to an experiment upon my words, and exercise a particle of faith, yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of my words.’

“When I read those words, I burst into tears. I did have a desire, and as I let it work in me, as the scripture promised, I found a place for a portion of his words. On my knees, I felt the Lord ‘take [my] stony heart’ and give me a ‘heart of flesh’ (Ezek. 11:19). In the months that followed, I could feel a change in me.”

A most touching letter was received recently from a mother expressing her appreciation for her bishop and for a social services worker who had provided assistance in her family. May I quote from that letter:
“The summer will be remembered as ‘the best thing that has happened to Roseanne and David to date’!
“As you know, life has presented both children with special problems, and my heart has ached as I have seen David withdraw from social situations, and Roseanne offend and lose friends in her effort to make them.
“There are those who can help with their physical problems—therapy for a boy and medication to help calm a hyperactive daughter—but where could I turn to find someone to understand and help with the resulting emotional problems?
“When my bishop suggested LDS day camp I thought, ‘Good! This will be a good summer for them and will solve my baby-sitting problem, since it is necessary for me to work.’ Those two benefits would have made me feel the money invested was worthwhile—but they were just the beginning. Before the summer was over, I saw my son insist on taking the lead in a difficult hike up the canyon. In the past he had been content to follow behind. I saw him ‘rappel’ down the side of a building with the use of a rope, and the look of self-pride as he exchanged smiles with his counselor cannot be bought. By the end of the summer Roseanne had learned to put her frustrations into words and will most often try to reason with me in reaching a solution. This is a new experience for us.
“Raising a hyperactive child is a lonely position to be in, because even though friends try to understand, they cannot and usually react as though the child has problems because she is spoiled. It has been great therapy for me to meet weekly with people who do understand.”

A friend of mine told me how she had once handled a situation that embodies the same principle. Married in a civil ceremony, Anne and Bob had set a goal to be sealed in the temple. For a time they were both active in the Church, but Bob gradually lost interest. He and his sports-minded friends looked forward to watching Sunday afternoon football on television.

Anne rose early each Sunday morning, made breakfast for her family, straightened the kitchen, and got herself and their two small children ready for church meetings. She left Bob with a kiss and a smile. In sacrament meeting, she struggled alone with the children, even though her husband had offered to care for them at home.

She said, “I knew it was critical that I set a good example for him and my children. I prayed that Bob would come around if I kept my faith in him. After church, I would pause before entering the house, clear my mind of any negative feelings, and remember how much I loved him. Sometimes the living room was messy with popcorn and cans, but I wouldn’t allow those things to interfere with our relationship.”

After asking her husband’s permission, Anne started preparing to receive her own temple endowment. At first, Bob made only small concessions to living gospel principles. Later, he resumed attending church with his family and finally joined in preparing to attend the temple. Eventually, they were sealed as a family for eternity.

Anne said, “I think he saw the difference the gospel had made in my life. He also noticed that his family was progressing. One day, he just decided to catch up.”

On February 27, 2010, at 3:34 a.m., an earthquake of magnitude 8.8 on the moment magnitude scale violently shook much of Chile, causing panic, fear, and concern in millions of people.
A few days later, I was assigned to preside over a stake conference at a location close to the epicenter of this great quake. I wondered if the earthquake and the continuing aftershocks would affect attendance at the conference. I was surprised when attendance at each session of the conference was greater than it had ever been at previous conferences.
Apparently, the earthquake reminded stake members, at least temporarily, about the importance of getting close to God, sanctifying the Sabbath, and attending meetings. Several weeks later I telephoned the stake president. I asked if attendance at Church meetings was still high. He replied that as the number and magnitude of the aftershocks declined, so did attendance at church.

It is entirely possible that 99 percent of the population of the United States dreads the jolting buzz of the alarm clock. But piano lessons make the alarm obsolete. For example, just the other morning while sleeping as soundly as Cinderella in a feather bed, my conscience began mumbling: “5:00 A.M. … piano lesson … self-discipline … out of bed … 5:00 A.M.”
“Quiet!” I yelled.
Hearing my own voice woke me. Since I was awake anyway, I decided to get out of bed and practice. I perched myself on the piano bench. First came the scales. C major. One-two-three-four—up and down the piano endlessly. The repetition tended to hypnotize me; my head dropped.
At breakfast, over strawberries and muffins, my little brother complained that he had been awakened at 5:00 A.M. by a C major scale. My mother told me she didn’t mind if I practiced, as long as I didn’t wake the family and then quit. I explained that I had merely dozed off in the middle of a scale. At this point my father added a gem of advice: “JoAnn,” he said, “discipline yourself to eat right and be in bed before 9:00, and you will be alert and awake at the piano.” I quickly ate another strawberry.

A few years ago, Sister Monson and I were in the city of Toronto, where we once lived when I was the mission president. Olive Davies, the wife of the first stake president in Toronto, was gravely ill and preparing to pass from this life. Her illness required her to leave her cherished home and enter a hospital which could provide the care she needed. Her only child lived with her own family far away in the West.

I attempted to comfort Sister Davies, but she had present with her the comfort she longed to have. A stalwart grandson sat silently next to his grandmother. I learned he had spent most of the summer away from his university studies, that he might serve his grandmother’s needs. I said to him, “Shawn, you will never regret your decision. Your grandmother feels you are heaven-sent, an answer to her prayers.”

He replied, “I chose to come because I love her and know this is what my Heavenly Father would have me do.”

Tears were near the surface. Grandmother told us how she enjoyed being helped by her grandson and introducing him to each employee and every patient in the hospital. Hand in hand, they walked the halls, and during the night he was close by.

Olive Davies has passed on to her reward, there to meet her faithful husband and together continue an eternal journey. In a grandson’s heart there will ever remain those words, “Choose the right when a choice is placed before you. In the right the Holy Spirit guides” (Hymns, no. 239).

Through my letters home, I continued my efforts to share the gospel. I remember inviting my father to meet with the missionaries. He said frankly that he was not interested. Reading his response was one of the hardest experiences of my mission, but it gave me a greater drive to work hard and share the gospel with anyone willing to listen. I came to realize that everyone is someone’s family member and that by helping one person I might be answering someone else’s prayers. I strive to continue in my efforts in sharing the gospel, even though I am no longer a full-time missionary.

When her nine-year-old cousin rushed in, bleeding badly from an injured arm, Terri Edwards, 13, approached the emergency calmly and correctly.
The youngster had torn his arm severely on a piece of metal. Terri remembered the first-aid training she received at girls’ camp and used clean cloths to stop the bleeding. While she kept pressure on the boy’s arm, she told her sister to call for help. The boy was rushed to the hospital where he had emergency surgery.
Terri received a commendation from the Madison County sheriff for the correct manner in which she responded to the emergency. Terri is a member of the Rexburg Seventh Ward, Rexburg Idaho Stake.

Champion Koruea Kaburara estimates that she and her husband assist about 100 people every month. She is very careful to help those she gives her seedlings to by providing instruction and supervision.
Sometimes she helps them by giving them soil or compost that she produces.
Koruea gives her tender plants to those who are serious about following through. “Many members come to me and so do people at my work and in my community. I feel like I want to help both. They are happy to get the plants.”
When the champion has seedlings left over, they can transplant them into their own garden for their personal use or they may sell their excess produce to neighbours.
Koruea is able to feed her family and to generate some extra income through her skillful management. Her neighbours are grateful to be able to purchase the fresh vegetables from her. The creative system benefits all involved and can be sustained.

Well do I remember the comment of a family in the mission field who were investigating Church membership. The missionaries brought them to the basement of the local Moose Lodge, where the branch met, and said to them, “This is where you will find the Spirit of the Lord—here in His true church.” Hesitatingly, but with curiosity, the parents turned to the moose-head on the wall and asked, “What is the significance of the animal head as pertains to your religious beliefs?” When the missionaries explained that these were temporary meeting facilities, the next question was, “Is your church here in Sudbury on a temporary basis?” The new program will help to eliminate this problem.

Finally, the culmination of forty years of effort and sacrifice climaxed when President Woodruff entered the temple the morning of 6 April 1893. “The Temple Block gates opened at 8:30, and the street was packed long before that hour,” one priesthood leader noted. Two hours were required “to admit, one by one, the 2200 people” into the large upper assembly hall of the temple.

Thomas Griggs, a member of the Tabernacle Choir, arrived at the south gate at 8:20, but the line was so long that “it was 9:55 a.m. when I was 10 feet [3 meters] from the [gate],” he wrote. “Wind, dust and a little rain had come and it was very uncomfortable, to be ended by the door keeper announcing … ‘No more can be admitted.’ … Being well known as a member of the choir [I was] … soon at the south west entrance and hurriedly passed through.”

My father never did join the Church, but he was a fervent supporter of it because he could see its blessings in the lives of his wife and four children. (My sister and two brothers were also baptized.) Prior to his death, he asked me to give him a priesthood blessing, and I did. We had a very special conversation, and he confided in me for the first time that he had faith. Coming from him, this was a major step.

For most of the four years I played high school basketball, I’d been a starter and never missed a game. So when my coach told me that I wasn’t doing enough for the team and wouldn’t be starting the next game, something inside me broke. I’d been benched.
Trying not to cry, I ran out of the gym and, for the first time in my life, felt like giving up. And right then, for some reason, the word fortitude came to mind.
Fortitude means “courage in pain or adversity.” I lifted my head. Fortitude. No one was asking me to do this alone. Hands shaking, I opened my phone and searched the lyrics to “Come, Come, Ye Saints” (Hymns, no. 30). As I read the words, I felt I was being gently reminded of two things.
First, the lyrics ask, “Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard? ’Tis not so; all is right. Why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight?” And I remembered to be grateful.
Then, second, I read, “Gird up your loins; fresh courage take. Our God will never us forsake; and soon we’ll have this tale to tell—all is well! All is well!” And I remembered to be brave.

Often I have felt the priesthood power, power outside myself, moving through me to the person being blessed. I remember blessing a young mother who came seeking renewed strength to endure a difficult pregnancy. She had great faith, and as I blessed her as her bishop, I felt power streaming down my arms and through my fingers into the crown of her head. I felt it course through her body, even to the tips of her toes. It was a powerful, cleansing, rejuvenating force, almost electric in its energy, yet calm and soft and assuring. After the blessing, she arose, and with tears in her eyes said, “I felt that all the way to the tips of my toes.”

The senior and junior seminary class from the Monrovia California First and Second Wards found out. The 12 students in the combined early-morning seminary class were planning some activities for the year. They had planned some parties and worked on some service projects, but their teacher, Sue Cornwall, encouraged them to think of an activity that might include some of their friends from school. Instead of serving breakfast one morning just to themselves, they decided to invite a few of their friends just to show these friends where they went and what they did every weekday morning before school.

“In October, we each invited a friend,” said Jenny Dequer. “We had about 25 total. We just sat around, talked, and had breakfast.” It was supposed to be such a simple thing. They had an opening prayer and a spiritual thought. It was low key, just a chance to let friends see where they met and what they talked about.

It worked once, so why not try again? By February, the seminary students held their second Bring a Friend to Seminary Breakfast. This time they wanted to see how many people they could get to come. Many in the class weren’t shy about inviting friends, acquaintances, anyone they ran into from school. They wrote notes to people and made it the topic of conversation around their lockers. And if they hadn’t mentioned the breakfast to their friends, the friends were soon asking what was going on. “My friends came and asked me about it,” said Chris Miller. “I hadn’t said anything to them. But they wanted to come.”

“We tried to get as many people as we could,” said Nora. “Everyone invited a lot of people. We had about 70.” What Nora didn’t mention was that she had invited 30 or 40 people herself.

This time they prepared a fun, lighthearted video. The class had been studying the Old Testament, so a Bible story seemed a natural. They made a rather humorous and certainly unique version of the story of David and Goliath. David Vaughn seemed the natural choice to play David, and new class member Doug played Goliath. The audience loved it. Some of their friends, who had little religious background, asked, “Who were David and Goliath?” The class members were glad to fill in the more serious details of what can be learned from this story.

The third and final Friend Breakfast was held right before school let out. They went all out, cooking a full-fledged breakfast with the help of some members of the two wards. More than a hundred people attended. This time, the video was more personal and direct. Each class member was interviewed about the things they believe. The humor was still there with baby and growing-up pictures mixed in with each class member speaking from the heart.

Did anyone listen? Was anyone fed anything besides fruit, sausage, and eggs?

Apparently so. Since that final breakfast of the school year, four more of their friends have joined the Church. Although seminary isn’t held when school is on vacation, the students pull these new members into their Mutual activities and into their Sunday School classes.

These seminary students started with a simple plan just to explain to their friends what seminary is. It turned out that when they presented what they had, those who were hungry for direction in their lives feasted on the words of Christ.

Just a few days after Joseph’s talk with Carlos in the woodlot, Alvin lay desperately ill. At the sound of a door opening, Joseph’s glance flew in the direction of the sleeping room where his oldest brother had lain for three days in pain and distress. “How is he, Mother?” he inquired anxiously as Lucy emerged from the sickroom.
“Not good, Joseph. Not good at all.” She pushed back a wisp of hair from her pale face and studied the strings of herbs hanging from the rafters as though to find a remedy that would heal her beloved firstborn. “The doctors have tried everything they know. But nothing helps, Joseph. Nothing!” She shook her head hopelessly, and for a moment hid her face in her apron. When she looked up, an ashen calm had settled over her. “Alvin has called for each of you to come to his bedside.” Her voice trailed away to a whisper. “He wants to say good-bye.”
Joseph thought he couldn’t bear to see Alvin so white and still. Alvin, whom they all looked to, whose great strong arms had felled huge trees and had gently lifted Baby Lucy high up to the rafters. Now his eyes burned feverishly, and his tired voice rose and fell in a last farewell to each loved one.
He asked Hyrum to see that the new house was finished for their parents and admonished Sophronia to take care of them in their old age. He talked to each one in turn—Sam and William, then Catherine and Carlos. Each brother and sister listened with tear-filled eyes and heavy heart.
Then, calling Joseph to his bedside, Alvin leaned forward. “My time is short, Joseph. Be a good boy and do everything in your power to obtain the record.” His voice became stronger, urgent. “Be faithful to every instruction and keep every commandment given you.” There were a few more words and then Alvin, sinking back upon the pillow, asked for Baby Lucy, his little playmate sister.
“Oh, Amby, Amby!” she cried again and again, her wet cheek against his and her tiny arms wrapped tightly around his neck as though to rouse his once-strong body.
But as quietly as a clock stops ticking, Alvin’s great heart stopped beating. Outside a star fell and the night was darker than before.
Everyone in the neighborhood grieved over Alvin’s death. “A noble young man,” they said. And in the family there was an emptiness that didn’t ease.
Joseph shivered in the December wind as he helped pile earth and straw against the foundations of their log house to keep out the winter blasts. Less than three months had passed since Joseph’s visit with the angel Moroni, but the world about him had changed from burnished leaf to barren bough, and soon a cold whiteness would cover the ground.
His world had changed too. Where before he had felt vibrantly alive, every sense sharpened and intensified, there was now an actual physical ache as though part of him had been amputated. If I had lost my leg long ago, it couldn’t hurt worse, he thought numbly.
Then one evening Father Smith ignored the tightening in his throat. “Maybe we should talk about it—about Alvin,” he said gently. “He was taken from us in the bloom of youth, but the Lord was good when he sent Alvin to our family.” He dabbed the moisture from his eyes. “Life does take up after trial and tribulation.”
“Alvin was the one who started the new house,” Sam began.
“He told me to be a good girl and to help Mother and Father,” added Catherine.
Joseph didn’t know if it were proper to tell about the time he and Alvin were in a crowd watching two Irishmen fight. He remembered that when one was about to gouge out the other’s eyes, Alvin took him by his collar and breeches and threw him over the ring. But aloud, he only said: “Alvin stood for the right. He was the strongest and bravest of all.”
Winter melted into spring. It was time to mend the fences and stone walls that marked the boundaries of the Smith farm. In the grinding labor of plowing, sowing, and cultivating, there was no time for Joseph to rest. But there was time for pondering the things the angel had taught him. He would resolve with every fiber of his being to become worthy of such a trust.
Joseph still longed to share his thoughts with Alvin. But gradually he discovered that though his yearning need to talk with him didn’t diminish, his grief subsided. As the shoots of pale green pushed up through the black earth, Joseph took comfort in a new closeness to God and his creations. Never had the violets seemed so velvety, the leaves so tender, the birdsongs so poignant. Laboring with his hands day after day, he felt himself growing in strength and power. And always there was the awareness of the high hill and the records and the angel Moroni. Four years seemed forever. Even one September to another was a lifetime.

“When we left Germany, the country was in the midst of skyrocketing inflation; a million marks wouldn’t even buy a loaf of bread. Upon arriving in America, we found it in the throes of the Depression. My father’s professional skills as a tool and die maker were in short demand, and he couldn’t find work. My mother, however, was able to find housework. Because she was an extremely good cook, she also was able to get a job with a German salad-making company. She worked hard just to put food on the table for us. Then Dad got a job as a maintenance man, and I helped him during much of my growing-up years. We would go early in the morning to about fourteen or fifteen different buildings and shovel coal into the furnaces.
“Because we had to work hard, we developed strength. My brother and I participated in basketball, baseball, football, tennis, table tennis, and swimming and became quite good. Our classmates began to accept us more readily. Our family still enjoys sports together.
“My father was the oldest of eleven children, and he was the only one who accepted the gospel. Some of our children who have gone on missions to Germany have testified to my relatives, but none of them have yet accepted the gospel.
“I was born in a land that is now behind the Iron Curtain. Probably one of my choicest experiences was to be at the dedication ceremony of the Freiberg Temple. The temple is very near the place where I was born. It was a soul-stirring experience to see my own people waving white handkerchiefs to President Gordon B. Hinckley and Elder Thomas S. Monson as the bus pulled away at the conclusion of the dedication.
“My suggestion to children is this: Live each day so that the Holy Ghost will be your constant companion. Serving the Savior will bring abundant blessings to you, and family ties will be made stronger and homes will be more heavenly. Sustain your leaders and follow their counsel.”

For some of the youth, the mere mention of the word genealogy used to conjure up images of endlessly searching through dusty manuscripts that led nowhere.

“I wasn’t too excited at first,” says Tyson Thacker, 15. The term family history seems more inviting, but still there are challenges.

“I just wondered how I would find names,” adds Tyson’s sister Miriam, a Laurel. “I knew a lot of work had already been done in our family.”

But with four young people in the program and lots of help from their mother, they had plenty of support. And support was needed when they didn’t find any names from February until July, despite lots of looking.

Things were getting pretty discouraging until one night when three of the Thacker youth and their mother ventured down to the library again.

“We were all looking on different films and would say to each other, ‘Go look here and go look over there,’” says Sister Thacker. “Everyone was running around getting names and checking them. We accomplished much more than one person could have done alone, and that was the night we finally found someone! It’s hard to describe how exciting that was. After that it seemed like everything opened up and we just kept finding names.”

Back in Salt Lake City, Janet McMurrin was tending to her dying father. In a conversation about the spirit world, she asked him when he went beyond the veil to tell Grandfather McMurrin that the family were unable to find any of his genealogy to do work for in the temple. He agreed to deliver the message, and shortly thereafter died.
A little time later, about the time that Elder McMurrin was being transferred to Ireland, Janet had a dream in which her father appeared to her. He informed her that he had delivered her message and had now come to tell her that “42 Islington” would do all the rest. With this she awoke and wondered what he could have meant by 42 Islingto”. Members in England at the time would have been able to tell her, but she had to wait for Elder McMurrin’s letter telling her of his changed assignment, one given him by the British Mission President, whose office was at 42 Islington, Liverpool.
When we do all we can, the Lord will do the rest.

President Hinckley’s optimism also influenced his sense of humor—an upbeat, congenial wit that built affinity with others. One time he stayed with a stake president whose family lived in an old schoolhouse that they had converted into a home. That night, a classroom served as President Hinckley’s bedroom.
During stake conference the next day, he quipped, “I [have] slept on a great many occasions in classrooms before—but never in a bed.”8