Gospel Story Finder

It was a hot summer day, that day long ago. I sat listening to the snip, snip of the barber’s scissors around my ears, anxious to have him finish so I could get out of there. And it wasn’t only the heat that seemed oppressive. My barber was some kind of missionary for the Mormon church: a “stake missionary,” I believe he said—whatever that was. He had sensed my negative attitude to his church on previous visits.
“What church was it you said you belong to?” There it was, the subtle remark to pull me into a conversation on religion. Instinctively I knew what was coming, and just as instinctively came my reply. “Just cut my hair and don’t preach to me!”
The next week was a fun one. I hurried to my barber. “Give me a special haircut. I’m going to join the Church.” His mouth popped open, and he couldn’t speak for a short time. When he regained his composure, his reply, in all seriousness, was, “Which church?”
Then I talked with the barber and learned that he would be my first bishop after my baptism. To our mutual surprise and joy, we discovered that we had met once before, two years previously, when he was on a stake mission and a rude person had shut the door in his face and left him standing on the doorstep.

After I graduated from college, served a mission, and got married, my wife and I moved to the eastern United States, where I found a job. Through a series of what I now see as unusual experiences, I was interviewed to have a job as an engineer in a new and exciting activity: the design and development of nuclear power plants for submarines. As I look back, it should have been virtually impossible for me to get that job. There were more experienced people applying for it. It just worked out that the Lord helped me.

“Kent?” I whispered into the dark, but my brother was already asleep. Just minutes ago we had raced downstairs, said our prayers, and hopped into bed. How could he fall asleep so fast?
“Kent!”
Still nothing.
I squirmed down under my covers until my eyes barely peeped out above my cowboy blanket.
I glanced to the left. There was my favorite stuffed animal. It should have made me feel better. But my stomach flip-flopped inside of me. What if a tiger crept out of the laundry room next door?
I glanced to the right. There was the hat I got at an amusement park this summer. But my heart was thump-thumping. What if spiders attacked from under the porch?
I glanced up. Hanging from the ceiling were the model airplanes Dad and I had pieced together and painted so carefully. I squeezed my eyes shut and imagined them flying above me at night, warning me of danger.
My eyes popped open. I had an idea! On the dresser by my bed was a picture of Jesus that I had gotten in Primary. Slowly I reached out and propped up the picture. The light from our nightlight seemed to make the words at the bottom of the picture glow.
I am the way. Come and follow me.
I rolled onto my side so that I could see the picture and read those words again and again. I looked at Jesus’s hands and thought about how He blessed little children. My stomach stopped flip-flopping. I looked at Jesus’s feet and thought about how He went to find people who needed help. My heart stopped thump-thumping. I looked at Jesus’s face and thought about how He knew my name.
Tigers and spiders faded from my mind as I snuggled into my blankets. Heavenly Father and Jesus loved me! I felt warm and peaceful and safe.
And very, very sleepy.

Becka stood at the kitchen sink, looking through snow-covered pine trees at the sloping meadow beyond. She was dreaming of using her brother’s old skis.
“Honey, when are you going to gather the eggs?” her mother asked. “I’d like to make some custard pies.”
Becka turned from the window with a sigh. “I’ll get them now,” she replied. “I just wish Tim had shoveled the walk before he decided to go somewhere.”
Mother chuckled. “He didn’t just ‘go somewhere.’ He’s helping your father with the snowplow. They’re both out working in this cold right now. That’s more important than clearing a path to the barn, don’t you agree? First things first.”
Becka shrugged and went onto the sun porch. “I suppose,” she mumbled as she rammed her feet into her fur-lined boots and shoved her arms into the sleeves of her jacket. Wrapping a scarf around her neck, she called, “Need anything else while I’m out there?”
“Potatoes and a cabbage,” Mother called back. “I’ll make a pot of ham, cabbage, and potatoes for later.”
With a sigh, Becka grabbed the egg basket and opened the door. Winter greeted her with a blast as she stepped out onto the drift-filled back steps. Grumbling, she struggled through the snow toward the barn. It wouldn’t have taken Tim very long to clear this snow, she thought as clumps of it fell into her boots.
Becka forgot all about Tim and the cold when she saw fresh tracks leading to the back barn door and disappearing inside! She put her boots next to the tracks and saw that they weren’t much bigger than her own. The wind rose and the door swayed slightly.
Quietly Becka stepped over the worn threshold. The farm equipment stood silent guard by the back doors, and everything seemed in order. Not even the straw on the floor seemed disturbed. Still, Becka knew that someone was in the barn with her. She tiptoed forward past the empty stalls. Hearing potatoes rattling in the bin, she quickly ducked into the last stall and peeked cautiously over its side. Someone with his back to her was taking potatoes. Becka counted one, two, three, as they dropped into a burlap bag. Then the intruder turned toward the apples—it was Scott Halligan!
Scott counted out three apples, then moved on to the carrots. He smoothed the dust from one long tender carrot and bit into it. He chewed thoughtfully, then took a handful of carrots and a handful of beets. Finally he stood upright and threw the bag over his shoulder.
Becka couldn’t believe it—Scott Halligan was stealing food from them! She wanted to say something but waited to see what he would do next. When he stooped and crept through the door of the attached chicken coop, she tiptoed forward and pressed an eye to a knothole.
“Sorry, old girl,” Scott said gently, to a chicken, “but Gramps is sick and we need food. He’d kill me if he knew what I was doing, but you understand, don’t you?” He took an egg from a nest. “Two more and I’ll be gone.” Scott wrapped the eggs in a ragged towel and nestled them gently in the burlap bag.
As he turned to leave the chicken coop, Becka flattened herself against the wall and squeezed behind an old butter churn. She watched him leave the barn, then thought about what she’d seen.
She didn’t know Scott very well. All she knew for sure was that his cranky old grandfather had taken him and his little brother to raise after their parents were killed in an automobile accident late in the fall. Scott sometimes wore ragged clothes to school, but they were always clean.
Now she hurried out of the barn and followed his tracks through the snow to the thicket at the edge of the fence. When she heard Scott ahead, she crouched behind the snow-covered branches. Scott was kneeling in the snow, tying the burlap bag to a sled. That done, he pulled it carefully toward the hill that joined their properties. Becka watched him quietly. Scott hadn’t taken much.
Becka hurried back to the house. She clomped inside the sun porch and stood in the doorway of the kitchen.
Mother looked up and smiled. “Did you get the eggs, cabbage, and potatoes, honey?”
Becka shook her head slowly. “No,” she said in a whisper. “I didn’t.”
“Becka? What’s the matter, honey?” Mother stopped stirring, sat down with the bowl on her lap, and called Becka to her.
Becka’s eyes sparkled with tears. “I just saw Scott Halligan stealing food from our barn,” she said quietly. “And I didn’t stop him.”
Mother’s eyes widened. “What?”
“Scott Halligan. I don’t think you know him—he and his little brother live with their grandfather, Mr. Kelly.”
“You mean Seth Kelly, who lives over the hill?”
Becka nodded. “I’ve only seen Scott at school. He’s real quiet there, but I heard him tell our chickens that his grandfather is sick and they need food. I didn’t stop him, Mom. I know stealing is wrong, but we have so much. …”
Mother pulled her close. “You did the right thing, honey. Now the right thing for me to do is to make a phone call.”
“You won’t report him, Mom!” Becka pleaded.
Mother smiled. “I’m calling the Relief Society president. I don’t think finding out that he took food is nearly as important as finding out that they need it. We’ll get a basket of food ready and pay Mr. Kelly a neighborly visit. He’s never wanted to bother with his neighbors, but it’s time for us to bother with him. I don’t think a custard pie would go to waste there, either,” she added.
Becka grinned. “Thanks, Mom! I hoped you’d feel like that. I’ll get those eggs now.”
“Bring extra potatoes and another cabbage, Becka,” Mother called.
Becka waved and hurried back outside. She looked at the snow-clogged path and smiled. “Then I’ll clear this walk,” she said happily. “First things first.”

Danny found his mother’s best shoes all caked with mud and dirt after a rainstorm. He cleaned, polished, and shined them. Then he polished and shined them again. Finally, when they looked like new, he took them to his mother. She was very surprised and very pleased. She hugged him, then took some money from her purse and put it into his hand. Later, when she put on those newly polished shoes, she felt something in the toe of one of them. It was the money she had given Danny. It was wrapped in a small note that said, “Mother, I did it for love.”

With flexible, low-cost online courses available through BYU-Pathway Worldwide, obtaining an education is possible for more people than ever, including Samantha Winterdal.
Samantha, from the Dominican Republic, always planned to go to university, but her plans didn’t work out the way she envisioned. After high school, she got a job but felt like something was missing. “Every year that passed, I saw my schoolmates graduating, and I was just working,” Samantha said. “I thought, ‘What am I doing with my life?’”
She decided to pray for guidance. One Sunday, a sister from church mentioned BYU–Pathway to her. Samantha registered and began her first course. Although she couldn’t complete it at that time, she returned to BYU–Pathway years later to resume her studies.
When Samantha was ready to start classes again during the COVID-19 pandemic, she enrolled at a local university. However, the school wasn’t designed to run online and wasn’t accommodating of her schedule, so she left. With the encouragement of her husband, Mario, she decided to go back to BYU–Pathway—she loved it so much that Mario enrolled too!
“We love the flexibility of BYU–Pathway because it allows us to work and take care of my 94-year-old grandfather, who has cancer,” Samantha said. “I know that I will continue to climb to the work level I want, and it will also help me with my own business.”

In a little Mormon town like Whitney, religion was in the very air everyone breathed. It was the center of the community’s existence. “Father and Mother taught their family complete devotion to the Church and full integrity in the payment of their tithes and offerings,” President Benson declares. He often recounts the time when his father had to choose between paying his tithing or a $50 debt. He paid the tithing, and almost immediately received an unexpected offer of $50 for a hay derrick he had built.

I went to a conference in President Rex Reeve’s stake. He took me through the building and showed me 2,000 chairs prepared for the people. I asked him how he knew there would be 2,000 people present, and he answered, “We sent the home teachers out to invite everyone to come, and they have given us their report. They have informed us that 2,000 people will be here tomorrow.” Evidently the word got out that I would be one of the speakers because seventy-five of those 2,000 didn’t show up. But they had an attendance of 49 percent and it has since grown much higher.

“Going to church isn’t always a picnic,” I thought to myself as I studied the congregation. There must have been 200 people in the room, but I felt painfully alone.
All around me families sat snuggled cozily together on the benches, and Bishop Campbell was up at the pulpit talking about the joys of eternal families. “Right,” I thought sadly. “Sometimes that seems like a fairy tale.” My parents were divorced; my sister, the only other member in my family, was away at school; and I had no one to sit with in sacrament meeting. I felt warm tears forming in the corners of my eyes. Once again, the depression inside me began to swell and completely overwhelm the messages that were being taught from the stand.
There are probably a lot of you who feel the same way at times. More teens than ever are joining the Church on their own, without having other family members join them in the waters of baptism. Or maybe your parents stop coming and you continue to attend. You wish your family were with you—you wish they were feeling the same spirit, learning the same things, receiving the same blessings. You wish you had someone to lean on, to talk to, to discuss the talks with after the meeting. I know. I’ve sat through countless meetings alone because I didn’t think my friends and their families wanted an intruder to squish in with them on their bench.
Now, for those of you who have always had loving, supportive families to sit with and can’t understand the loneliness your friends are experiencing, you might take a look around and see just how many of them there are. They come in all shapes, sizes, colors, and ages. Consider going out of your way to invite them to sit with you, even if it means your family will have to sit on two rows. You have no idea how grateful your friends will be.
But for those of you who are going it on your own, here are a few suggestions:
1. Avoid sitting by yourself. Find someone else who is sitting alone, and ask if you can join them. They’ll probably be just as grateful to have a friend by them as you are.
2. Try not to let self-pity get the best of you. It’s easy to think, “I put a lot of effort into coming to church—no one’s dragging me here. I’m here because I want to be. Yet sitting alone reminds me that these people are way ahead of me in the blessing department. They’ve got celestial families, and I’m by myself.” When these thoughts come into your head, concentrate extra hard on the speaker. Pull out the hymnbook and start singing something to yourself (maybe not “Love at Home”). Say a quiet prayer. Read your favorite scripture. Think about the blessings you do have. Do anything to get your mind off the loneliness.
3. Realize that you, and only you, are responsible for your attitudes about church. Don’t try to blame your negative feelings on the actions of others. It’s how you react to those other people that counts. And try not to expect ward members or the Church in general to solve all your problems. That responsibility lies with you.
4. Whatever you do, don’t start resenting those who do have families, and are happily seated with them. They’re not purposely trying to hurt or ignore you, and they’re probably not aware that you’re in so much pain. Be happy for them, and use them as good examples. Vow that one day your children will be able to sit cozily with their family and will never have to suffer the same ordeal that you’re going through.
5. Make a commitment that you’ll always come back. Don’t even consider neglecting church because of the loneliness you sometimes feel there. As you sit in church alone, you might feel bad about your family situation, but at least you can feel good about yourself because you’re doing what you know the Lord wants you to do. If you stay home, you won’t feel good about anyone. Besides, many times the Lord reaches out to you and answers prayers through speakers and through your fellow ward members. Why deprive yourself by missing out on important learning, inspiration, and fellowship?
6. Know that you’re not completely alone. The Lord is with you and is very mindful of you. He’ll bless you for your diligence. He knows that it’s not easy for you to sit there by yourself, and he shares your sorrow. But he also knows that in the long run, the experience can prove useful to you.
7. Realize that you can benefit from the experience. You have to stand on your own two feet when you don’t have anyone to lean on, and this can help you develop inner strength and endurance. You’ll build your own testimony, and not be dependent on anyone else for your devotion. If your mind is open and your heart is pure, the Lord will supply you with the understanding you miss by not having someone there to discuss the meeting with. You’ll develop a strong relationship with Heavenly Father, because there aren’t a lot of other places to turn. And you’ll develop compassion for others in similar circumstances.
Maybe these pointers sound a little idealistic, but I can tell you they work. Every now and then, I still have to sit alone in Church, and it’s still not fun. But these days, I try to relax and count the blessings I’ve received from the experience. I’ve become more aware of other’s needs. While serving a mission, I was able to successfully battle the loneliness a missionary feels when there is no one familiar around. I gained a bit of spiritual self-confidence, because I knew I could do something difficult that the Lord asked of me. But best of all, I developed a very strong relationship with Heavenly Father.

The Best Christmas Present of All Mr. Merriweather took Buster in when he had been abandoned. They loved each other. When Mr. Merriweather had to go to the hospital, his grandchildren took the little dog to their house. But he didn’t understand and ran away home. The children found him and took him to their home again. Can you guess what his Christmas present—the best of all—was?Linda Jennings4–7 years

Men of the priesthood, I remember a story about a schoolteacher who asked a returning class what their fathers had taught them about self-reliance during a summer vacation. After several accounts were told, she asked Johnny what his dad had done. And Johnny replied, “My dad taught me how to swim; he took me out in the middle of Utah Lake, threw me overboard, and told me to swim back to shore.” “Wow,” the teacher said, “that took a lot of courage.” And Johnny replied, “It wasn’t bad at all after I got out of the gunnysack.” Well, my young friends, life will be a challenge, but our Father in Heaven has given us the means to get through it safely. Let’s talk about that for a few minutes.

My daughter Norma says the following about the way Relief Society has been a blessing in her life: “When Darren and I were newly married and expecting our first baby, we were living in a small college town. We were both full-time students with very little income. Our nearest ward was in a town about 30 miles [48 km] away, and our only means of transportation was an old car that didn’t work most of the time. When the sisters in the ward discovered our circumstances, they immediately joined together to arrange for one of them to always give us a ride to and from church on Sundays and for other Church activities. Some of the sisters lived in other towns and drove 20 or 30 miles [32 to 48 km] out of their way just to pick us up. Additionally, many of the sisters would invite us to their homes for nice family dinners after church. No one ever made us feel like a burden to them. I will never forget the true love and charity that the Relief Society sisters extended to us during that short but challenging time in our lives.”

It had only been two weeks since Dad had died. I hadn’t gone back to school yet. My little brother Jamey and little sister Tammy were attending school again, and Mom encouraged me to go. “It’ll be easier if you stay busy,” she said, but the emptiness I felt made the thought of being among all my cheery friends repulsive.
“Would you talk with a counselor?” she asked. “No,” was all I could answer.
I spent most of the day in my room among the things I knew so well: my poster of the Great Nebula in the constellation Orion, my collection of Louis L’Amour and Ray Bradbury books, my stake softball trophy, a picture of Dad and me heading out for a fishing trip to Molly Lake in the Sawtooths, and next to that the scriptures Dad had given me on my 12th birthday.
On a blank page in the fron Dad had written: “These scriptures are the word of God; they contain the truth. If you will study them and follow what they say you will know what you need to know for salvation and find the peace you seek. … I love you, Your father.”
I loved the scriptures. During the two years since Dad had given me that set I had read the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and Pearl of Great Price, the New Testament, and about a third of the Old Testament. Since Dad’s death I had read every scripture I could find on death and the resurrection. I understood as well as any LDS 14-year-old that only Dad’s body had died and that Dad was alive and busy in the spirit world, but the pain and loneliness wouldn’t go away.
During the days after the funeral I prayed to Heavenly Father often for faith and strength, but my sorrow remained. I thought God might be displeased with me for feeling so bad about Dad’s death because I knew the plan of salvation. I asked for forgiveness. I told God that I knew that if I lived right I could be with Dad again in the celestial kingdom, but that I just couldn’t stop missing him so much right now. I privately hoped that Dad would come visit me in a dream or vision and tell me that everything was okay, but it never happened.
I felt a strong need to cry, but I didn’t, not even that first day when the principal got me out of geometry and took me to his office where Mom was waiting to tell me Dad had been killed in a tractor accident. Not during the funeral when everyone was watching to see how I would react. And not when I was alone, because I knew death wasn’t really anything to righteous people, and to cry about it would be weak. I found that not crying took a lot of energy.
It was on a Wednesday night when Mom told me Grandpa Anson was coming to stay for a while. He had been one of the speakers at the funeral. He had told how his son had been a little rebellious when he was young but had turned his life around and gone on a mission, of how wonderful it was to see his son married in the temple, and of the joy it brought him to hear the good things people have to say about Rodney because of the service he had given them. There had been no sorrow in Grandpa’s voice. I guessed that Mom had asked Grandpa to come now because of me. I resented that. I just wanted to be left alone.
Thursday afternoon, when Grandpa was supposed to arrive, I went out for a walk. I wanted to avoid Mom calling me from my room like she always did to formally greet Grandpa. I walked across the back lawn, jumped the cement ditch, and crossed the rows and rows of sugar beets that covered 200 acres. The green leaves were just pushing out of the dirt. I knew I would be spending my afternoons and Saturdays thinning them soon. At the lower southeast corner of the field I came to a pile of large rocks that had been taken from the field years before. This is where Dad’s tractor had turned over. I couldn’t understand it—Dad knew about these rocks. He had warned me not to drive the tractor over them.
“Sometimes it only takes one mistake,” he had said.
I walked out of the field into the sagebrush. Dad said that a lot of people thought sagebrush was ugly and that he couldn’t understand why. He loved the way it smelled.
After about an hour I climbed the fence and began walking up the road that led to my home. When I got closer I could see Grandpa’s car in the driveway. A surge of anger flowed through me. The anger was so strong it scared me. Grandpa was a good man. Mom said he had done nothing but spoil me ever since I was a baby. “You’re his first grandson. He’s proud of you!”
I stopped and tried to get a hold of myself. Why? I thought. Then it came to me. Grandpa is 85 years old. He’s the one who should have died, not Dad. It was a mean thought, but there it was. Forcing my feet to move, I began walking home.
At dinner Grandpa didn’t have much to say to me. He asked Mom about the affairs of the farm, whether Uncle Barney was able to spend enough time here to get things done right. Grandpa had been a farmer and a good one. He had survived two droughts and numerous hail storms. The index finger on his right hand had been cut off at the knuckle by a combine.
After dinner Mom took me aside and asked me not to go straight to my room. I sat in the family room and watched TV with Grandpa for a couple of hours. He held Tammy in his lap and spoke with Jamey, but he pretty much ignored me. I guess that’s what I wanted.
The next morning I slept in until almost eight o’clock, which was unusual. There was a knock on the door and in walked Mom.
“How’re you feeling this morning?”
“Fine.”
“Grandpa would like to go for a walk with you along the river today. That is ‘if he’s feeling up to it,’” she said, trying to imitate Grandpa’s deep voice. Then she smiled.
“Okay,” I said. Mom’s smile faded. She looked long into my eyes, then left. She had cried in the principal’s office when she told me about Dad. She had cried since then too, but she hadn’t neglected the family. She had even made breakfast the day of the funeral.
We drove in Grandpa’s car to the recreation area—a picnic table underneath a shelter amid the sagebrush. The Snake River moved slow and deep in its lava channel, but just downstream a half mile it went over a falls and roared for the next 20 miles though a narrow canyon. We could hear it as we sat and threw rocks into the water. You could see them sink for a ways, but then they disappeared in the murky green. As we walked up the old Oregon Trail he told me some Indian stories that had happened in the area and about the pioneers that had traveled this way “not so long ago.” I already knew the stories, but listened anyway. As we ate the lunch Mom had packed, he told me how to cook biscuits on a stick and how to cook fish over a fire without a pan. Dad had done those things with me on our camping trips.
It wasn’t until we were on our way home that he actually talked about Dad.
“Your dad was a great farmer,” he said looking over the beet field.
“I know,” I said.
“I taught him everything he knows.” I realized too late that he meant that as a joke.
“It’s ironic the accident he had. That kind of avoidable accident seems to happen only to the best farmers. I can name five other good farmers something like that has happened to.”
You’re making me feel a lot better, I thought.
“Shoulda happened to me years ago,” he mumbled.
Suddenly I felt guilty. “No …” I said, but I couldn’t go on.
We drove the rest of the way in silence. Mom looked up hopefully when we came in. I went straight to my room. I lay on the bed and held Dad’s picture to my chest, staring at the ceiling.
After dinner that night Mom told me not to go to my room until at least nine o’clock. I couldn’t bring myself to watch TV so I went outside. The lilacs were in bloom. Their smell was soft and alluring. Dad had planted them when he built the house. They were a Mother’s Day gift for Mom. “They’re a gift that gives every year,” he had said. I sat under them on the far side so no one from the house could see me. The hollow feeling inside me was getting bigger. I wondered how much longer it would be before there was nothing left of me. I was scared, but I didn’t know what to do. I knew that God cared, but why did he let me hurt so much? And why did Dad’s death hurt so much? I believed in the plan of salvation.
I didn’t notice Grandpa until he was sitting down beside me. I pretended not to notice him and watched a robin hop across the lawn, stop to listen, and fly underneath the juniper bush.
“You’re in a lot of pain aren’t you, Jarren?” Grandpa said, abruptly breaking the silence.
I swallowed and nodded.
“Your dad’s death hurt a lot of people,” he said. “I don’t know how your mother is getting along without him. She’s stronger than I thought.”
I didn’t want to speak; I just wanted to curl up and go away, but Grandpa’s presence seemed to draw the pain to the surface. “Dad was a righteous man—we know the plan of salvation—there’s no reason to be sad.” My anger was apparent and my voice shook on sad.
Grandpa stared at me for a long moment while I stared at a dandelion next to me in the grass. Finally he spoke. His voice was old but he had a veteran farmer’s strength and roughness in it.
“Plan of salvation or no plan of salvation, death can hurt.” He reached down and pulled a few blades of grass. “Jarren, you know the scriptures. In the New Testament Heavenly Father mourned for Christ, in 3 Nephi Christ mourned for those who died in the great destruction, and what’s that scripture in Moses? It ‘How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains?’” (Moses 7:28).
I thought for a moment how beautiful those words sounded. Then Grandpa spoke. “It seems that feeling sorrow is a part of being like God,” he said.
Still trying to hold onto my anger, I said, “You didn’t sound sad at the funeral!” He stared at me again.
“Jarren, everybody takes death differently, but I think you need to know I bawled like a baby right on the phone when your mom told me.” Then, his voice trailing off almost to a mumble he said, “I never guessed one of my children would die before me.” For an instant I felt Grandpa’s pain.
I knew the answer, but I had to ask him before I could surrender, “Do you miss him, Grandpa?”
“I miss him, Jarren.”
I smelled the lilacs again and I thought about the way Dad had looked when he planted them. I began to cry. Grandpa didn’t move until I put my arm around him, and then he hugged me.

When John Lewis, the Frederick Stake Young Men’s second counselor, was thinking about what his stake should do for its 1993 youth conference, this thought hit him: Let’s build some houses. Let’s show the youth what their limits are and prove to them that they can accomplish more than they believed possible. He was enthusiastic. He pitched the ideas to other stake leaders. They were enthusiastic. He contacted the Chester Valley Habitat for Humanity, a Christian housing ministry that helps provide decent housing for low-income families in the northern part of the state. They were excited to get the LDS youth involved. Now all Brother Lewis had to do was convince the kids—all 180 of them—that building two houses is what they should do for youth conference.
“When I found out we were going to build a house for youth conference, I was, like, ‘There’s no way. Not in two days,’” said 16-year-old Lindsay Meyers.
Yes way.
Last July, the Frederick youth arrived at the two job sites—located about a block apart from each other—and found the foundation poured for each home. That was it. The materials—the nails, shingles, plywood, two-by-fours, siding, doors, windows, showers, and plumbing equipment had been delivered to each house. Installing it all was up to them.
The youth assigned to each house were separated into 15 different groups, with an adult build-team leader delegated to each team. Each house site also had a professional builder serving as foreman to oversee the project. Everyone was asked to bring a hammer and a pencil. And to control who was doing what, each team wore a different colored T-shirt. Everything was set. Then the weather decided it wasn’t going to cooperate.
For the first time in several decades, three consecutive days in Chestertown were over 100 degrees. Throw in some intense humidity (the 90–95 percent variety), and things heated up considerably.
Nicole Spencer, a Laurel in the Mt. Airy Ward, noticed the heat but didn’t mind it. “Being able to work and drive nails and stuff kind of makes you forget about how hot it is,” she said. “When I first heard what we were going to do, I was kind of excited we were actually going to build a house.”
Edward Rice, 17, and Samantha Gabriel, 15, both got their day started by holding pieces of wood together so it could be measured for door and window openings. Rick Orchard, 15, did his part by moving wood closer to the job site. “Yeah, I’ve been sweating. I also get the feeling that I know what I’m doing is right. I can feel the Spirit with me,” he said.
As for Lindsay, by the time the first day was complete, she was a believer. “I had a few doubts in my mind whether we could accomplish it. Not now,” she said. “Seeing what you’ve made, and accomplishing a goal and seeing a finished product makes it fun. I think the main reason it’s worth it is we’re helping somebody. I feel like this is totally worth my time. Being in the heat and sweating doesn’t matter.”
Working alongside the Frederick youth were several members of the two families who would move into the homes once they were completed. One girl, 16-year-old Chalita Rochester, was excited about the project and enjoyed working alongside the LDS youth. “I didn’t know any Mormons before this. To get kids to go out and build a house is great,” Chalita said. “They could be just sitting home watching TV, but they’re out here doing it. They are very active teenagers.”
With 90 kids on each job site and plenty of adults helping out, it’s amazing how fast a house can go up. One day it’s a barren lot with only a foundation in the middle of it. Twenty-four hours later a house is being built along with testimonies.
“I’m grateful for the opportunity to be here. Every time I come to a youth conference, a piece of my testimony grows. These last two days I have really gained a testimony of service,” said Brooke Sattley, a Laurel in the Damascus Ward.
“The fact that we’re all doing this for the service and not getting paid makes me feel good inside,” said Nicole. “And it means a lot more to me because we’re doing this for someone we have gotten to know.”
Nicole had no trouble keeping busy. One of her first jobs was to help install joists, the horizontal beams running from wall to wall to support the floor. Theron Virgin, a priest in the Monocacy Ward, helped work on the subfloor once the joists were in place. Dawn Rowzee, 16, took some two-by-fours and helped build the frame for the wall, while Jay Wahlquist, 16, helped nail in the support beams before the floor went in. With sweat pouring down his face, Jay sincerely said, “You can have fun doing this, and I have really enjoyed myself the last couple of days. I was able to start new friendships and strengthen others. But the greatest thing was the service that we did. And it isn’t the kind of service we sometimes do because we’re forced to do it. This has really strengthened my testimony.”
By Saturday night, it was time to clean up for a testimony meeting held at a nearby Methodist church. Both sites looked considerably different. Two houses were now standing, where 48 hours before all the youth could look at was a blueprint of what was hoped would be built there.
Everybody was grimy and extremely tired. But the youth of the Frederick Maryland Stake were smiling. They had provided in volunteer labor the equivalent of one man working full time for 18 months. They did that in two days. They built 75 percent of two houses. The remaining 25 percent was completed by other Habitat for Humanity volunteers. Those volunteers included many of the LDS youth, who made the two-hour drive back to Chestertown a few days later so they could help finish what they had started.
“This whole project depended on our attitude,” said Cassie. “We could have sat here the whole time and not worked. But that wouldn’t have been any fun. It’s a really good feeling to know we can do things like this.” Adds 14-year-old April Hough, “This has taken more time and more work, but it has been so useful because we’re helping someone who is less fortunate.”
Maybe Jay said it best. “Ignorance is sometimes good because when you don’t know how hard it is to do something, you don’t think of it as being hard when you do it. Heavenly Father has given me a chance to see things in a wonderful way and to live in a church that gives us so much.”
This youth conference was a chance for these young Latter-day Saints to give something back. The two houses in Chestertown, Maryland, will always stand as testaments to that.

Micah serves as an ambassador at his school. An ambassador helps new students. They give school tours, show how the curriculum works, and help new students fit in.
“I helped one of my friends when he first came to our school,” Micah says. “During lunch, he asked me questions about school, and I answered them. I tried to make him feel comfortable. It’s nice to stand up for friends who might be feeling down, sad, or lonely. It makes me feel like I’m becoming more like Jesus Christ.”

“One of my earliest recollections is that of putting canned goods on the shelves in my father’s grocery store after they had been priced. I didn’t think that I was helping much, but I remember Dad saying, ‘Every can that you put up is one that I don’t have to put up.’ I also distinctly remember being baptized by my father in the Blackfoot River that ran through a neighbor’s farm near our home. I was confirmed immediately afterward on the sandy riverbank.

Just off the road on the far end of the island of Tubuai, Ronny Harevaa and his wife, Sandrine, tidy up the ground around a small stone monument. It is dedicated to the memory of Elder Addison Pratt, the first Latter-day Saint missionary to visit this island 450 miles (700 km) south of Tahiti. Addison Pratt grew up in New Hampshire in the United States of America, but at age 19 he became a seafarer. He traveled to what are now the Hawaiian Islands, then sailed the Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean before marrying and settling in New York. In 1838 he and his wife joined the Church. By 1841 they had gathered with the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois. In May 1843 Addison Pratt was called by the Prophet Joseph Smith to help begin missionary work in the Pacific. On April 30, 1844, he and two other elders, Noah Rogers and Benjamin Grouard, arrived on Tubuai.
The islanders were eager to have a missionary among them, and Elder Pratt remained. He began learning Tahitian and preaching. The first convert was his interpreter, another American. Six of seven sailors on the island were also baptized and confirmed. Then on July 22, 1844—three years before Latter-day Saint pioneers arrived in Utah—the first Polynesian converts were baptized. By February 1845, 60 of the 200 inhabitants of Tubuai had joined the Church. From these beginnings and from the work of Elder Rogers and Elder Grouard on other islands, the Church spread throughout what is now French Polynesia.

During a combined priesthood and Relief Society meeting in 2009, our high priests group leader explained our stake presidency’s desire for every adult to take a family name to the temple within a year. He introduced stake and ward programs to help members achieve that goal. As he concluded, he gave an authoritative promise by virtue of his responsibility for the family history program that if we would try to achieve the stake’s goal, we would succeed.
After the meeting my wife and I discussed the promise and agreed that it could not apply to me; we had already spent 40 years investigating every branch of my family tree. My ancestors were difficult to find, and we had made no significant progress for several years. We believed nothing more could be done. Nevertheless, the group leader’s promise echoed in my mind for the next few days. I decided to take him up on his promise. Staring at my pedigree chart, I tried to think of what I could do.
After three days of careful thought, I felt inspired to look in a specific place for information about one of the end-of-line people on my chart. In less than half a day of research on the Internet, I discovered that another man had researched that family name in an English parish. One of the most recent names he’d located was my end-of-line person. Using his data, I was able to extend my line another five generations—back to 1650—and include the maiden names of several women in my line and the names of several brothers and sisters. My wife and I were stunned and delighted.

A violent wind pulled at my hair and hurled me towards the automatic doors. “I hate hospitals,” I murmured to myself as I entered. “Why do I always have to be sick?” I was at Primary Children’s Medical Center in Salt Lake City for yet another round of tests, which would later reveal that I had epilepsy. I felt as if all I ever did was spend time in the hospital.
On this autumn day, I was feeling particularly unpleasant and detested the fact that at 14, I was still forced to stay at a hospital that I thought was just for babies. It just wasn’t fair! How could all my other friends live in one big whirlwind of teenage fun while I was forced to bear such a heavy burden?
In the midst of my self-pity, my eyes were drawn to a boy who was about five or six years old, sitting in a wheelchair in the gift shop with his mother.
“Please, Momma,” he said softly, holding up a toy, “please can I get this?”
His mother looked at the toy, then at the little boy and said, “No, sweetheart, we can’t afford that.”
Although I was sure he was disappointed, the little boy’s reaction surprised me. He smiled and set the toy back on the shelf.
As his mother wheeled him back down the hall, I picked up the toy, paid for it, and rushed out of the gift shop. When I caught up with them, I handed the little boy the toy and said, “This toy wants to go home with you!”
The little boy’s face turned serious, and he said, “You got this for me?”
I smiled and looked at his mother, who had tears coming down her cheeks, but she was smiling.
I turned to walk away, and as I turned the corner down the hall, I heard the little boy say, “I know who that was, Mommy. That was an angel.” His mother laughed quietly and said, “I know.”
Giving him a small gift seemed to make a big difference, not only for him but for me too. At that moment, I forgot to be selfish, and despite the fact that my problems didn’t magically disappear, I suddenly felt a whole lot better.

When our youth group was planning to do baptisms for the dead, I wondered what it would be like in my Heavenly Father’s house. With great anticipation, I stepped inside the Los Angeles California Temple. I was overwhelmed at the feeling of peace there. Nothing could have been more opposite from my earthly home. I almost didn’t dare breathe for fear the feeling would go away. But it was constant and calm.
I loved being in the temple. In His house, I did not need to be afraid. It was safe, calm, peaceful, and comforting. I wanted to live there. Heavenly Father’s house was full of love. I was so happy. I promised myself I would be worthy to come back to His house again.