Gospel Story Finder

When President Spencer W. Kimball was 15 years old, he attended stake conference and heard a speaker ask everyone who had read the entire Bible to raise their hands. I heard President Kimball say, “I cared not what others were thinking. I knew that I had not read it and I was filled with shame.” After the meeting was over, he ran home as fast as he could, grabbed the Bible off the shelf, and climbed the stairs to the attic. His brothers teased him, saying, “Why try? You’ll never finish it.” But he did. Almost a year later he finished reading the Bible. The integrity he had as a 15-year-old boy was one of the things that made him a great prophet of God.

“Even though I forgot to read a few times, overall it was a success. I realized that before I started Elder Stevenson’s invitation, I was really only reading about 3 minutes each night, and by increasing my reading to 10 minutes each night, I saw a difference in my life. When I read, I feel more in tune with the Spirit and I can feel the blessings of spiritual protection every day. The same way that it can be hard to start reading after not reading the scriptures for a while, once I started the habit of reading, I couldn’t stop.
“I noticed that for me, when I read the scriptures right before bed, I normally fell asleep or didn’t get as much out of my reading. It worked best to read either in the morning or after school.
“I had a blast doing this and would challenge everyone to try it.”
Rachel A., age 15, Colorado, USA

Some years ago I worked in the Missionary Department of the Church. We were developing materials to help missionaries be better and do better. One of the General Authorities shared this experience about repentance:
“A little over a year ago, I had the privilege of interviewing a young man to go on a mission. Because he had committed a major transgression, it was necessary for him under then-existing policy to be interviewed by a General Authority. When the young man came in, I said, ‘Apparently there’s been a major transgression in your life, and that has necessitated this interview. Would you mind telling me what the problem was? What did you do?’
“He laughed and said, ‘Well, there isn’t anything I haven’t done.’ I said, ‘Well, let’s be more specific then. Have you … ?’ And then this General Authority began to probe with some very specific questions. The young man laughed again and said, ‘I told you, I’ve done everything.’
“I said, ‘How many times have you …’ He said very sarcastically, ‘Do you think I numbered them?’ I said, ‘I would to God you could if you can’t.’ He said, again quite sarcastically, ‘Well, I can’t.’
“I said, ‘How about …’ And then the General Authority probed in another direction. He said, ‘I told you. I’ve done everything.’ I said, ‘Drugs?’ He said, ‘Yes,’ in a very haughty attitude. I said, ‘What makes you think you’re going on a mission then?’ He said, ‘I know I’m going. My patriarchal blessing says I’ll go on a mission, and I’ve repented. I haven’t done any of those things for this past year. I have repented, and I know I’m going on a mission.’
“I said, ‘My dear friend, I’m sorry but you are not going on a mission. Do you think we could send you out with those clean, wholesome young men who have never violated the code? Do you think we could have you go out and boast and brag about your past? You haven’t repented; you have just stopped doing something.
“‘Sometime in your life you need to visit Gethsemane; and when you have been there, you’ll understand what repentance is. Only after you have suffered in some small degree as the Savior suffered in Gethsemane will you know what repentance is. The Savior has suffered in a way none of us understands for every transgression committed. How dare you laugh and jest and have a haughty attitude about your repentance? I’m sorry, you are not going on a mission.’
“He started to cry, and he cried for several minutes. I didn’t say a word. Finally, he said, ‘I guess that’s the first time I have cried since I was five years old.’ I said, ‘If you had cried like that the first time you were tempted to violate the moral code, you possibly would be going on a mission.’
“He left the office, and I think he felt I was really cruel. I explained to the bishop and the stake president that the boy could not go on a mission.”
About six months later the same General Authority returned to that city to speak in a lecture series held in the evening. When he finished, many young adults lined up to shake hands with him. As he shook hands, one by one, he looked up and saw the young man that he had previously interviewed standing in the line about four back. The General Authority relates the following:
“My mind quickly flashed back to our interview. I recalled his laughing and haughty attitude. I remembered how sarcastic he was. Pretty soon he was right in front of me. I was on the stand bending over, and as I reached down to shake his hand, I noticed a great change had taken place. He had tears in his eyes. He had almost a holy glow about his countenance. He took my hand in his and said, ‘I’ve been there; I’ve been to Gethsemane and back.’ I said, ‘I know. It shows in your face.’ We can be forgiven for our transgressions, but we must understand that just to stop doing something is not repentance. If it had not been for the Savior and the miracle of forgiveness, this young man would have carried his transgressions throughout all eternity. We ought to love the Savior and serve Him for this reason and this reason alone” (Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone, Sweden Area Conference, Youth Session, Aug. 1974).

On this faithful day, Saturday 14 November, 2015 while serving at Lugbe as a full-­time missionary, my first interview as a zone leader was with a baptismal candidate named Brother Amada, when I interviewed this young gentle man, I felt the spirit of the Lord and was really touched with the testimony of this young man about the message of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, in his own words he said, “Among all the missionary lesson pamphlets that has been taught and given to me, the one I so much love and cherish is the message of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and each time I read it, I get to learn new things about God and I read it frequently” he then turned to me and asked an inspired question; Do you know what makes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints different from every other churches? I replied the “priesthood authority with its keys.” this young man from this moment made me to know the importance of the message of the Restoration and because of the Restoration cometh the priesthood authority.
He further said what he felt was missing in other denominations was the priesthood and the message of the Restoration. He testified that the prophets in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-­day Saints are the Lord’s chosen servants in this dispensation and that the living prophet of the church is indeed the chosen prophet in our day.

After 15 months, I was reassigned to the American Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa. I was selected as the first black Marine security guard ever to serve in South Africa. In each place I was assigned, I was handpicked because of my standards. Interestingly, President Bill Clinton phoned to ask me to accept the South Africa assignment. Those were some of the reasons that I received many recognitions and awards.
It was in South Africa that I met the Cleverlys, who were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The mother of the family invited me to their home at various times. She always told me about young single adult activities, but I could never attend due to my job schedule. Then she invited me to attend church, and I accepted. But before Sunday came, I had three nights of night-shift duty. I went downstairs to the library of the embassy where there was a computer with a huge search capacity. I just typed in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All this information came up, so I just read it for eight hours the first night, eight hours the second night, and eight hours the third night. What I looked at most of all was what Latter-day Saints believed and how they applied it in their lives. Did they live according to what they had established as laws or standards of the Church?
The week preceding my visit to church, I had a dream. I was sitting at a table, and there were two young men with white short-sleeved shirts and black tags. They were sitting on the sides of a table, and I was seated at the head. I woke up, but I didn’t think much about the dream.
The first time I walked into an LDS ward, I knew there was something different about this church. Also, it happened to be the first Sunday of the month, which meant that the members had an opportunity to stand and bear testimony. Now this is the true order of church, I thought.
I was introduced to two missionaries who began to teach me. One of the young men was one of those in my dream, the exact person. Sister Cleverly invited the missionaries and me to her home for dinner. She placed us at the table exactly as my dream had predicted.
Later, when we got to the principle about baptism for the dead, I thought it was so amazing that one could go to a sacred place and do these things for people who had passed away. I just thought that was incredible, and I thought about my two grandfathers and my grandmother who had passed away. That’s when I started to feel the Holy Ghost. The teachings sounded right to me.
We got to the next principle, which is about families, and I just always knew that was true. When I heard about eternal families, I told the missionaries, “I knew this existed.”
Then the missionaries taught me about the Word of Wisdom, and it was then that I had a discovery. I don’t want to call it a paradigm shift, but it felt like my soul unfolded, and I just shed this shell and a new person came out. I felt like I was three feet off the ground. I had always lived the Word of Wisdom, and I wanted to know why I was the way that I was. No one ever had the answer to that for me, but the Lord did through the missionaries and the discussions. I knew that everything they had taught me previously was true, and everything that they would teach me would be true. I never felt the Spirit so strongly reading scriptures before, and when I read Doctrine and Covenants 89:18–21, I knew it was true. I always knew that my body was important, and I knew that it was never to be defiled.
From this point forward, I began to experience mixed emotions about becoming a member of the Church. I was concerned about my father’s opinion and his reaction to my decision. The night of the sixth discussion was a very eventful night.
During the sixth discussion, I received the message that I had an incoming call from my father. The phone rang. I picked it up, and it was indeed my dad.
He said, “Your mother informed me that you’ve made a decision to join the Latter-day Saints.”
I said yes.
He said, “I’m here to prevent that from happening.”
And I said, “You know what, Dad? I love you, and you’ll always be my dad. You’ve done a great job with me. But I’m 22. I’m a man now, and these decisions are for my family and my future. I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me and that you will continue to do for me, but this is my decision. I’m going to do it, and I know that the Lord wants me to do this.”
My dad wasn’t too happy when he hung up the phone. Immediately I got on my knees in the kitchen and asked the Lord to help me see and understand that what I was going to do was correct. I was thousands of miles away from home. I was all alone, and nothing was going right. Only when I was with the missionaries did I feel good. At that moment the Spirit testified to me that it was the Lord’s will and that the Lord wanted me to be baptized. It was a very clear voice that just said, “You’re to do the Lord’s will. You are to follow His example.” Then I knew. I never looked back after that. I was baptized on October 12, 1995.
It was a year to the day of my baptism, October 12, 1996, that I entered the Washington D.C. Temple to be endowed in preparation for serving a full-time mission to the Spain Madrid Mission.
During the first year of my mission, my parents were not supportive about my missionary service. The Lord revealed to me while I was on my mission that my family was fine, and they would be taken care of. Then things changed all of a sudden. The last six to eight months of my mission my family was very supportive. They said they were receiving blessings, and they knew it was because of my serving a mission.
After I returned from my mission, I stayed with my family for three weeks before I had to leave to enter Brigham Young University. Before school started, my father visited me, meeting my friends and seeing Salt Lake City. When I took him to the airport, he embraced me and told me, “Out of all 46 years of my life, never ever have I felt more love or the Spirit of God in my home than when you were home the last few weeks. I know that we owe it to the service that you gave in Spain for two years.”

The bell rang. The first-grade students raced for the door.
“Quietly!” Mrs. Mills said.
Eric stayed at his desk.
“Aren’t you going out?” asked Mrs. Mills. Eric didn’t look up. “Recess is fun. Don’t you want to play?”
“Not really,” Eric whispered.
Eric didn’t like recess. Usually he just wandered around by himself. The other kids already had lots of friends. One boy called him names. He didn’t want Mrs. Mills to know.
“I’m sorry, but we have to go outside,” Mrs. Mills said. “I can’t leave you here by yourself.”
Eric felt like crying. He looked out the window again. He saw someone he knew. Eric smiled and waved.
“Who’s that?” Mrs. Mills said.
“That’s my brother, Pete,” said Eric. “He’s in fourth grade.”
Eric ran outside.
“Why aren’t you playing football?” Eric asked. The older boys always played out on the field.
“Because I’m going to the swings with you,” said Pete.
“Really?”
Pete led the way. They walked past kids hanging on the monkey bars and jumping rope. Eric loved being with his brother. Then they walked by the field where the boys were playing football.
“Hey, Pete,” one of the boys said. “Who’s the kid with the glasses?”
“He’s my brother, Eric. I’m showing him around today.”
“So you’re not playing with us?”
“No,” said Pete. “Today I’m with him.”
Eric smiled as they walked to the swings. A kindergarten girl was standing nearby.
“Want to swing?” Pete asked.
She walked over. “I just lost a tooth!” she said. She showed Eric.
“Cool,” said Eric.
Eric climbed on one swing. The girl climbed on another. Pete pulled back the first swing and gently let go. Then he pushed the other one. Eric felt the wind on his face. The girl was laughing. Pete made sure the swings didn’t go too high.
“You could play together again tomorrow,” Pete said.
“That would be fun,” the girl said.
Maybe, thought Eric, recess would be better from now on.

I was a teenager when the missionaries brought the gospel into my home. I remember listening to their message and thinking that the Father and the Son appearing to 14-year-old Joseph Smith and an angel leading Joseph to golden plates sounded too good to be true. The missionaries also said that there was a living prophet on the earth. That also sounded too good to be true. But I noticed positive changes in our home as the missionaries taught our family. Soon I joined the Church.
Changes in my own life, however, didn’t come immediately just because I was baptized. I began attending church on Sundays, but other than that, I still did the same things I was doing before. It wasn’t until I was 17 years old that I made a promise to the Lord that I would read at least 10 pages of the Book of Mormon every day.
One of the first things I read was that the Book of Mormon was “written to the Lamanites,” and I was taught that the Lamanites “are among the ancestors of the American Indians” (Book of Mormon, Title Page and Introduction).
I am proud of my name and of my heritage. Because of my heritage, I felt that the Book of Mormon had special messages for me. I was eager to continue reading.
I never missed a day. As I read, I marked in red all the great truths everyone needs to know. Then I marked in yellow the promises the prophets made to the descendants of the Lamanites. As I did so, their words seemed to fly off the page!
After reading the last page, I got on my knees and asked Heavenly Father if the Book of Mormon was true, if Joseph Smith was a prophet, and if the Church had a living prophet. As I prayed, I felt the Spirit powerfully witness to me the truth of these things.
“Because of my heritage, I felt that the Book of Mormon had special messages for me.”

I remember the story of Emma Smith trying to escape the persecution in Missouri. The Mississippi River was only partially frozen—not enough that a wagon with people and their possessions could travel on it. It is a wide river, and it was dangerous to cross. Emma had a six-year-old child holding onto one side of her skirt, an eight-year-old on the other side, a two-year-old in this arm, and an infant in that arm.

The sister-in-law of one of Joseph’s scribes had sewn cotton bags that buttoned around the waist. In those bags under her skirt, Emma carried the only copy of Joseph’s translation of the Bible, which he had been working on for months. With the documents and with her children, she took one step after another across that frozen river, hoping she wouldn’t fall in.

To me, that is the consummate signal of courage and faith—that when you need to do something for what you believe, you just move forward, one foot in front of the other.

His help has come to me on countless occasions throughout my life. During the final phases of World War II, I turned 18 and was ordained an elder—one week before I departed for active duty with the navy. A member of my ward bishopric was at the train station to bid me farewell. Just before train time, he placed in my hand a book which I hold before you tonight. Its title: The Missionary’s Hand Book. I laughed and commented, “I’ll be in the navy—not on a mission.” He answered, “Take it anyway. It may come in handy.”

It did. During basic training our company commander instructed us concerning how we might best pack our clothing in a large seabag. He then advised, “If you have a hard, rectangular object you can place in the bottom of the bag, your clothes will stay more firm.” I thought, “Where am I going to find a hard, rectangular object?” Suddenly I remembered just the right rectangular object—The Missionary’s Hand Book. And thus it served for 12 weeks at the bottom of that seabag.

The night preceding our Christmas leave, our thoughts were, as always, on home. The barracks were quiet. Suddenly I became aware that my buddy in the adjoining bunk—a member of the Church, Leland Merrill—was moaning in pain. I asked, “What’s the matter, Merrill?”

He replied, “I’m sick. I’m really sick.”

I advised him to go to the base dispensary, but he answered knowingly that such a course would prevent him from being home for Christmas. I then suggested he be quiet so that we didn’t awaken the entire barracks.

The hours lengthened; his groans grew louder. Then, in desperation, he whispered, “Monson, aren’t you an elder?” I acknowledged this to be so, whereupon he pleaded, “Give me a blessing.”

I became very much aware that I had never given a blessing. I had never received such a blessing; I had never witnessed a blessing being given. My prayer to God was a plea for help. The answer came: “Look in the bottom of the seabag.” Thus, at 2:00 a.m. I emptied on the deck the contents of the bag. I then took to the night-light that hard, rectangular object, The Missionary’s Hand Book, and read how one blesses the sick. With about 120 curious sailors looking on, I proceeded with the blessing. Before I could stow my gear, Leland Merrill was sleeping like a child.

The next morning, Merrill smilingly turned to me and said, “Monson, I’m glad you hold the priesthood!” His gladness was only surpassed by my gratitude—gratitude not only for the priesthood but for being worthy to receive the help I required in a time of desperate need and to exercise the power of the priesthood.

When many of us think about pioneers, we think about the long walk to the western United States 150 years ago—and the blisters, exhaustion, and frozen toes that came with all that walking.
Cesar Gaspar, a 15-year-old from Guadalajara, Mexico, has never ridden in a covered wagon. He’s never pushed a handcart, and he’s never been to the United States. But he knows all about walking. He walks to seminary, to school, to church, to activities, and home again. Walking is a constant in Cesar’s life.
“Sometimes I feel like that’s all I do,” he says with a smile. He’s not complaining. It’s just a fact. But walking isn’t all this young man has in common with the early pioneers.
Cesar began looking for the gospel without realizing it. Although he was already active in a church, Cesar became interested in other religions and started taking his first steps toward the restored gospel.
“I would read literature from other churches, and then I would pray to Father in Heaven, saying, ‘If this is the true church, send your servants to me and have them teach me.’”
Cesar started his search, he says, without thinking about the changes it would cause in his life. But not long after Cesar started praying for an answer, one came.
Cesar’s last name is Gaspar. Fortunate for him, his name followed Betty Garcia’s on the alphabetical seating charts for most of his junior high school classes. Since they sat next to each other most of the school day, they became friends, sometimes studying together after school.
“One day she mentioned that she was a member of the Church,” says Cesar. “I got very interested and started asking her what her beliefs were, what her principles were.”
Soon Cesar needed to know more. He followed Betty’s brother home from school one day. After building the courage to knock on the door, Cesar was invited into the house, and Betty and her family talked with him about what it means to be a Latter-day Saint.
But it was another name that gave him the desire to find the Garcia family’s house in the first place.
“When I was first learning about the Church, the thing that impressed me the most was its name. There was something very special to me about the fact that the Church had Jesus Christ in its name. That name has a very spiritual and good feeling.”
Soon Cesar had a copy of the Book of Mormon—compliments of the Garcia family—and lots of questions.
Attending sacrament meeting for the first time was strange for Cesar. It wasn’t anything like the meetings he was accustomed to.
“There was a man carrying the sacrament trays. He was very busy fixing the microphone and saying hello to everyone. There were so many people there that I wondered if they would all fit in the church! It seemed funny that the man fixing the microphone was the bishop.
“It was also a change to be in church for three hours; that seemed like a long time. I still remember that first Sunday School class. We talked about the birth of Jesus Christ, and I asked a lot of questions. After class, Betty’s brother, Isaac, helped me find the missionaries. I didn’t go to priesthood meeting that day; instead, I had my first discussion with the missionaries.”
That discussion led to more discussions during the week. By Thursday, the bishop had interviewed Cesar, and the following Sunday—exactly one week after his first attendance at Sunday meetings—Cesar was baptized.
“It was pretty fast,” Cesar admits, “but by that time I had already read the Book of Mormon. Before meeting the missionaries, I had also read Doctrines of Salvation, Truth Restored, and The Miracle of Forgiveness, and I had started Jesus the Christ. I felt ready.”
That was two years ago. Cesar is the only Church member in his family. It would be easy for him to miss church once in a while or to decide against attending seminary—especially since he almost always has to walk to get there! But he doesn’t even think about that. Instead, he thinks about the people who see what he does.
“I have to be an example to my family,” he says. “I try to be as perfect as I can because I know they’re watching me.”
As Cesar and any other convert knows, joining the Church can be a big change. “The Church is more than principles. It’s a way of life,” Cesar says. “Keeping the Word of Wisdom, blessing the food at every meal, praying morning and night, attending early-morning seminary—that was a big change! And there are other things, like studying the scriptures on my own and getting up early on Sundays for church.”
But after two years, Cesar seems comfortable with all those changes, so comfortable that he shares the gospel message with anyone who will listen.
“I try to be very careful about comments I make to my friends so that I can teach them about the Church without offending them,” he says.
Although he’s still relatively new in the gospel, you’d never know that Cesar hasn’t been a member all his life. He learns quickly and has a great desire to know the truth. But Cesar says that there’s another, more important reason he’s learned so much so fast.
“When I was reading the Book of Mormon before I joined the Church, I came to the part about Jesus Christ in America, and I knew it was true,” says Cesar. “At the time, I didn’t recognize the Holy Ghost, but I felt very peaceful. That moment was a new beginning in my life. I felt I could start over and do things in a different and better way.”
That strong prompting has translated into bold action. It’s the secret to Cesar’s great energy in living and sharing the gospel, despite obstacles and weaknesses that he, like all people, has to overcome. Cesar keeps a journal to remind himself of, and to eventually share with others, the reasons he lives the gospel. It helps him keep his spirits up when life is hard.
“Being an example and writing in my journal will help me leave a legacy. When my children and grandchildren read what I have written, they will know that being the only member of the Church in my family isn’t easy at all, and I have had to work very hard.”
They’ll know a lot of other things about him, too—that he loves his calling as a stake missionary; that he loves to be around other Church members, especially the young men and women in his ward and stake; and, most important, that he has a testimony.
“I’ve noticed that many people think I’m not old enough to know or to receive an answer about something important, like religion. But I have a testimony that no matter your age, if you have a sincere heart and if you ask, you will receive an answer for sure,” says Cesar.
Cesar hasn’t ever sung the lyrics “Pioneer children sang as they walked and walked and walked and walked” (“Pioneer Children Sang As They Walked,” Children’s Songbook, 214), but when he hears those words, he says with a smile, “That’s my song! I walk a lot.”
There are differences, of course, between Cesar and the pioneer children of old. Cesar walks through the busy streets of Guadalajara, not the open plains. And Cesar doesn’t gather fuel for the evening’s fire or feed livestock at the end of the day. But he, too, is a pioneer.
One day his children and grandchildren will talk about their ancestor, Cesar Gaspar, and how he loved to gather friends together and give them the wonderful gospel message. And they’ll talk about the fact that, even though he had to walk most of the places he wanted to go, he was always singing a song—even if you couldn’t hear it. It was a song not about walking but about how happy the gospel made him and how strong his testimony was. He may or may not have been a good singer, but it was a tune he loved to carry—and to share.

I always wanted to have a testimony of the Book of Mormon. I knew my parents had testimonies because they had read the book and prayed about it. Having never read all of the Book of Mormon, I couldn’t say the same.
I had started attending church when I was small. My faith grew, and I was baptized as an adolescent. I had read several parts of the Book of Mormon that contained beautiful and interesting things, and I had heard the testimonies of my parents and others who said the book was true. But I knew I needed to obtain my own testimony.
In seminary, I set a goal to pay attention to what I was being taught and to spend more time studying the scriptures. During my last year in seminary, we read the Book of Mormon. I started to pray more, to read more, and to pay closer attention. I took careful notes in my seminary notebook.
Eventually, there came into my heart the simple but profound witness of the Holy Ghost that the Book of Mormon is true. I felt in my heart that this knowledge was something precious.

Sam pedaled his bike as fast as he could up the hill. He leaned forward. The air whipped through his hair. His friend Liam pedaled next to him.
“Getting tired?” Liam said.
“No way!” Sam said.
Their friend Eric was already at the park at the top of the hill.
“Komm schon! Come on!” he yelled.
Sam and Liam reached the top of the hill. The boys parked their bikes and sat under a tree.
Liam picked up a rock and threw it. “I’m bored.” There weren’t many places to go in their small village in Switzerland.
“Me too,” Eric said. He scratched the dirt with a stick.
“We could keep biking,” Sam said.
Liam scrunched up his face. “That’s all we ever do.”
“Let’s do something funny!” Eric said. He hopped up and walked over to the bike rack, where lots of bikes were parked. Sam and Liam followed him.
Sam’s stomach felt tight. Sometimes what Eric and Liam thought was funny wasn’t funny to him. Eric and Liam liked to tease other kids and say rude things in class. But maybe this time would be different.
Besides, there weren’t many boys in Sam’s class. If he wasn’t friends with Eric and Liam, who would he be friends with?
“Let’s take the valve caps off all the tires,” Eric whispered. “We can hide them by the tree.” He knelt down by a shiny red bike and twisted a little plastic cap off one of the tires.
Liam laughed. “Yes! That will be so funny.”
Sam sighed. Nope. This time wasn’t different. “I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe we should just go.”
Eric shoved Sam’s arm. “Aw, come on!” he said. “No one is even looking.”
“They’re just little parts,” Liam said. “No one will even notice they’re gone.”
Sam tried to ignore the sick feeling in his stomach. Taking the valve caps wouldn’t ruin the bikes. He shrugged and nodded.
The three boys quickly took all the valve caps off the bike tires and ran back to the tree. They hid all the caps under a rock and sat down to watch the bikes. Liam and Eric were giggling.
Soon a man walked up, unlocked his bike, and rode off.
“See? He didn’t even notice,” Liam said.
But I did, Sam thought.
The rest of the day, Sam couldn’t stop thinking about the valve caps. He wished he could give them back, but he had no way to find the bikes’ owners. He knelt down and told Heavenly Father about it.
“I feel awful,” Sam said. “I wish I had never done it. Please forgive me, Heavenly Father.”
The next day, Sam and his friends rode their bikes to the park again.
Once again, Eric said, “Let’s take the valve caps!”
Once again, Liam agreed.
Sam remembered his prayer. And this time, he felt a little braver.
“I don’t think we should,” he said.
“Why not?” Liam said, frowning. “No one even noticed yesterday.”
“I wouldn’t want someone messing with my bike,” Sam said. Before either boy could answer, he hopped on his bike. “Race you to the bakery!” he yelled. Then he started pedaling as fast as he could.
Eric and Liam grabbed their bikes too.
“No fair! You got a head start,” Liam called.
Sam grinned as his friends raced after him. He whispered a thank you to Heavenly Father. He felt much better.
This story took place in Switzerland.

Melinda left her house holding the key Mrs. Roberts had given her. “I’m off to work,” she said. She liked the way that sounded. “Not every 11-year-old has a job,” she thought.
She walked to the Robertses’ house and opened their mailbox. The Roberts family would be gone until Thursday, and they had hired Melinda to get their mail and do other chores at their house every day.
Melinda went into their house, put the mail on the kitchen table, and filled the cat’s food dish. Then she went into the family room to water the plants. It felt strange to be in her neighbors’ house alone.
In a corner of the room she saw a shelf filled with glass figurines. Each one was a little girl in a fancy dress. She picked one up and looked at it carefully. On the bottom it said, “Michelle.” Melinda wondered if each of the figurines had a name. She picked up another and turned it over. It was named Rebecca.
Melinda picked up another glass girl, one in a pretty yellow dress. As she turned it over, it slipped from her hand and fell to the floor. Melinda gasped and knelt down quickly to pick it up. Its head and one of the legs had broken off.
“Oh no,” she thought. “What am I going to do? Mrs. Roberts is going to be so mad at me!”
She put the head back on the figurine and was surprised to see that she could hardly tell it was broken. When she put the leg back, she found that the little girl could still stand up.
“If I put it back just right, Mrs. Roberts won’t even know it’s broken,” she thought. “If she picks it up or bumps the shelf, it will fall apart, but she’ll think she broke it herself. No one will know it was me.”
Melinda had a sick feeling as she walked home. She wondered if she should tell Mrs. Roberts about breaking the figurine. “But she trusted me,” Melinda thought. “She’ll never trust me again if she knows I broke something in her house.”
Melinda went to the Robertses’ each morning for the next two days. She was careful not to go near the shelf where the figurines were. She didn’t even want to look at them.
On Thursday afternoon, the Robertses’ car was back in their driveway. Melinda walked over to return their key. Mrs. Roberts thanked her for doing such a good job and gave her an envelope with money inside. Melinda could hardly speak. She felt awful. “It’s just a little glass girl,” she thought. “It’s not a big deal. And they’ll never know I did it.”
That night after dinner, Melinda’s father opened the Book of Mormon for family scripture study. They were reading about Helaman’s stripling soldiers.
Melinda and her brothers listened as Dad read Alma 53:20: “And they were all young men, and they were exceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity; but behold, this was not all—they were men who were true at all times in whatsoever thing they were entrusted.”
“They were super brave,” Nathan said.
“And strong,” Tyler added.
“They were strong and brave enough to fight,” Mom agreed. “That’s what the first part of the scripture says. But in the next part, it says something more about them—that they used their courage to be true. They stood up for what was right.”
Melinda looked at her Book of Mormon and read the words again. She had been entrusted with something, and she had not been true.
A little while later, Melinda stood at the Robertses’ door. Mrs. Roberts looked surprised to see her. “Hello,” she said. “Did you forget something?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I need to tell you something.” She took a deep breath. “I broke one of your little glass girls. I put it back so you couldn’t tell it was broken. I’m sorry I broke it, and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it before. I was just scared, I guess.”
“Why don’t you come in and show me what you broke?” Mrs. Roberts said.
Melinda followed her neighbor into the family room and pointed out the girl in the yellow dress. When Mrs. Roberts picked it up, its head and leg fell off. “I would never have known it was broken if I hadn’t picked it up,” she said. “Well, it can be glued. I broke another one once, and I glued it.” She picked up another figurine and showed Melinda. “You can hardly tell, can you?”
Melinda shook her head. She hadn’t noticed the crack in the other one. “I really am sorry,” she said.
“It’s OK. I’m glad you came back to tell me the truth. That took a lot of courage. You know, we’ll be going out of town again next month. Would you like to help out at our house then too?”
Melinda looked up. “Do you trust me? Even after I broke something?”
“You’ve shown that you are very trustworthy. You told the truth when you didn’t have to. I’ll be glad to have you work for us again.”
“I won’t touch the figurines. I promise.”
“That’s fine. Thank you, Melinda, for coming over tonight.”
The heavy feeling Melinda had felt for days was gone. She felt as light as a feather as she skipped home.

Thank you for publishing the June 2001 special issue about standards. As I read it, it was as though the whole issue was written for me. In particular, I wanted to thank you for the article “Speaking of Kissing.” A year ago at Especially for Youth, I made a decision to not kiss until I was married. The past year when thinking about that decision, I worried that by refusing to kiss I might offend someone. That article caused me to realize my decision would not offend a young man willing to honor my standards. Thank you again for that issue and for that article.
Becky KendallRichardson, Texas

In order to keep the Sabbath day holy, I once had to lose my job. But I know now that God lives. This is a great joy, isn’t it? Another time, shortly after my marriage, I became seriously ill. For two years my condition worsened and doctors gave no hope for my recovery. Finally, however, through a powerful priesthood blessing, my health was fully restored. Without your help and the help of other missionaries, I might never have known about the restoration of the priesthood. I don’t know how to thank you all enough for your sincere hearts and your love for me.

Eighteen-year-old Shaun Larsen isn’t exactly small. He stands six feet, four inches tall and weighs more than 250 pounds. He spent most of last summer lifting weights and running to get in shape for football. It seems incredible that anybody would refer to Shaun as a “mini” anything.

But in the Oregon Portland Mission office one morning, that’s the way Shaun was describing himself.

“I’m a minimissionary,” he said. “But I give it everything I’ve got.”

He smiled as he explained. “My dad’s the mission president,” Shaun said. “He’s been asking the teenagers in the mission to help the missionaries. One of the most successful programs has been assigning the young men who are 16 or older to accompany the full-time missionaries for a short period of time—a few days, a week, or a month. So when I finished high school and came up here to live with my parents, I got invited to serve a minimission too.”

When Shaun wasn’t working with the elders full-time, he spent an evening with them now and then on “splits” (where a missionary companionship divides with members) or shared his testimony when the elders were teaching. “For a whole summer, I was learning that there are ways for each of us to share the gospel. It really opened my eyes,” Shaun said.

Shaun doesn’t live in Portland anymore. He’s attending Ricks College in Rexburg, Idaho, and just received a call to serve in the Ecuador Guayaquil Mission. “Working with the missionaries in Portland was good preparation for me,” Shaun said. “I know some of the challenges I’ll probably face, and I’ve seen some of the rewards. How can you not get excited about seeing somebody baptized?”

The first real test of my young testimony came when I had to decide between going on a mission and playing basketball,” says Dean Reid Burgess. Brother Burgess had spent his freshman year playing basketball for the College of Southern Utah on scholarship.
It was 1965, the height of the war in Vietnam, and not every young man had the chance to serve a mission because of the United States military draft. But Brother Burgess had the chance and the choice. “It took a lot of prayer and a lot of fasting,” he says. “But I knew serving a mission was a real privilege, so I left school to serve.” While serving in the Brazilian Mission, Brother Burgess solidified his testimony of the restored gospel.

Grant was only six weeks old when his father, H. Grant Heaton, was called to preside over the Southern Far East Mission. Unlike most children in the United States, Grant spoke his first words in Chinese. His little sister, Lisa Lee, who was born a year and a half after the family moved to Hong Kong, also learned Chinese first.
The mission home was filled with happiness until March 1958, when Grant was three years old. One day his neck became stiff, and there was pain in his chest. Soon he could not walk on his legs. President and Sister Heaton asked the missionaries to fast and pray for their son, but still his condition grew worse.
Grant’s father gave him a special blessing before taking him to the hospital. After tests, the illness was diagnosed as paralytic polio. The doctors said Grant would soon need an iron lung to help him breathe. Polio is not common among the Chinese, however, and the only iron lung in the country was being used by a British sailor.
By the end of a week in the hospital, Grant was completely paralyzed. Only his eyes moved, and the little body that had seemed healthy just a week before was quickly wasting away.
One morning Sister Heaton was with Grant. It was so hard for him to breathe that she thought surely he would soon return to our Heavenly Father. Two men came to the hospital that morning. They represented the Chinese Saints who had held a special fast and a prayer meeting the day before.
Both men had been members of the Church less than a year and neither held the priesthood, but they wanted to help. They asked permission to pray for Grant. Sister Heaton readily agreed and bowed her head to join them. She felt the faith of these humble Chinese men as they knelt beside Grant’s bed and prayed that this little boy’s health might be restored.
As they rose to their feet and left the room, Grant’s mother followed them down the hall. She thanked them and then went to the refrigerator where special food for Grant was stored.
Just as she opened the door, a familiar little voice called from down the hall and she turned around quickly to see Grant coming toward her.
“Look, Mommy,” he exclaimed with a happy smile. “I can walk!”
The doctors were amazed, but when the polio symptoms did not return, they let Grant go home. President and Sister Heaton and the missionaries gratefully acknowledged the power of the Lord and the faith of the Chinese Saints in behalf of their son.
Grant is now eighteen and lives with his family in Salt Lake City, Utah. He doesn’t remember his illness in China. His strong legs that helped him make the football team and wrestle for his high school don’t remember either!
Not long after the Church was organized in 1830, the General Authorities thought of sending missionaries to China. It was not until October 1852, however, that three elders left Salt Lake and arrived in Hong Kong on April 27, 1853. They had many problems and were not successful in converting anyone. Before long they returned to Utah.
In January 1921 David O. McKay, who was then an apostle, and Elder Hugh J. Cannon visited China. It was at this time that Elder McKay dedicated all of China for the preaching of the gospel. Now there are three missions for the Chinese people: Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. Although the first missionaries were very discouraged, later ones have had thrilling experiences in China. “I Can Walk!” is one of them that took place in Hong Kong.

Alexandr Masenkov, 17, of the Nevsky Branch, St. Petersburg Russia District, was nervous the first time he blessed the sacrament. “I prepared for it all week,” he remembers. “As I blessed the sacrament that first time, the Spirit touched my heart. Once my father and I were assigned to take the sacrament to a man who was blind and paralyzed. It was the first time I had blessed the sacrament outside of the meetinghouse. I felt I had a responsibility to be a servant and a witness of Jesus Christ and to do what He would do if He were there.”

When I first learned to write, I wrote everything backwards, in a mirror image. Later I learned to write my letters in the right direction, but my handwriting was very sloppy. My mother was worried, but Mrs. Leroy, my second-grade teacher, said, “He’s doing well in math and in other areas, so don’t worry about his handwriting. It will improve.”
Sometimes you wonder if you’re progressing or not. But if any of us looked back to when we were in kindergarten, we could certainly see we have made progress. You’re getting better and better in every way.