Gospel Story Finder

The Fireplug Is First Base It was only a neighborhood game, and the big guys made Flea and Mary and Matt do all the catching and fielding; they never got to bat. But after tagging Tank out trying for a double home run, Flea was allowed to swing. Then the fun began! An easy-to-read book.P. J. Petersen6–9 years

For example, I might say to you, “If you bring me a dozen bananas, I will pay you $100.” To accept my generous offer, you don’t need to sign an agreement or even say you will bring me bananas. You simply need to go to the store or marketplace, buy a dozen bananas, and bring them to me. Or, in some parts of the world, you might actually pick the bananas yourself. Either way, if you bring me a dozen bananas, I am contractually obligated to pay you $100. Why? Because you accepted my offer by your performance.

Not long ago I received a letter concerning a choice young deacon, Isaac Reiter, and the deacons, teachers, and priests who served, lifted, and blessed his life and their own lives.
Isaac fought cancer from the time he was seven months old until his death at age 13. When he and his family moved to a home near a hospital so that Isaac could receive proper medical attention, the Aaronic Priesthood members in the nearby ward were asked to provide the sacrament to them each Sunday. This weekly ordinance became a favorite of the Aaronic Priesthood holders who participated. Along with their leaders and Isaac’s family, they would gather around Isaac’s hospital bed, sing hymns, and share testimonies. Then the sacrament would be blessed. Isaac always insisted that, as a deacon, he pass the sacrament to his family and to those who had brought it. As he lay in his bed, he gathered the strength to hold a plate of either the blessed bread or water. All present would come to Isaac and partake of the sacrament from the plate. Nurses and other medical staff soon began to participate in the meeting as they realized that Isaac was close to his Heavenly Father and always honored Him. Though weak and in pain, Isaac always held himself with the honor of someone holding a royal priesthood.
Isaac was a great example to the young men in the ward. They saw his desire to fulfill his duties, even on his deathbed, and they realized that those duties were really privileges. They began showing up earlier in order to prepare the sacrament and to be in their seats on time. There was more reverence.
Isaac Reiter became a living sermon concerning honoring the priesthood. At his funeral, it was said that throughout his life he had one foot in heaven. No doubt he continues to magnify his duties and assist in the work beyond the veil.

It is easy to serve God if we give our all, all of the time, under all circumstances. But we can’t very well ride two horses in the same race. One man tried that once; and he just got everything going to his liking when the horses ran on opposite sides of a tree.

Becky Roller had cerebral palsy as an infant, and it left one leg twisted. At camp, that was all but forgotten. “It’s one place where everyone treats me as an equal,” she said.

This year Becky’s goal was to complete the fourth-level certificate. “The five-mile hike through the mountains was the biggest challenge,” she admits. “In a marshy spot I fell and couldn’t get up, but my friends came back. They wouldn’t leave me.

With the help of her friends, she made it. It was one more magic moment, and the magic of the moment was love.

Thank you for the Book of Mormon feast in the January 2012 issue of the Friend! Our family loves learning about the stories from the scriptures, and the Book of Mormon feast helped us read the scriptures together, even though we are all different ages. Each night, Teague runs to bring everyone a copy of the scriptures. Gavin says, “I feel close to Jesus when I read the scriptures.”
We love to read the scriptures at dinnertime, when we are all home. We try to read every day, but if we miss one, we don’t get discouraged and quit—we just try harder the next day!

“I wanted so much to dance professionally,” Bianca reflects. In her prayers she even told Heavenly Father how inspiring it would be to all the little dancers if she got into a ballet company without working on Sundays. “Looking back, I now laugh at trying to tell Heavenly Father what was best.”
Bianca ponders a lesson taught by Elder D. Todd Christofferson: “We ought not to think of God’s plan as a cosmic vending machine where we (1) select a desired blessing, (2) insert the required sum of good works, and (3) the order is promptly delivered.”1
“I knew Heavenly Father wanted me to dance,” she says. “I knew He wanted me to strive towards getting into a ballet company, but as the years went by it became very apparent that He never promised me I would actually get into one.”

That Olive! Andy likes to play hide-and-seek with his cat, Olive, and the reader gets to find Olive when Andy can’t. Then Andy hides from Olive in order to find her, and it works!Alice Schertle3–5 years

I recognized the beauty of music and the total satisfaction that comes from sharing it with others. When I played in church, I felt an inner fulfillment come to me as a performer and to my friends as an audience. I experienced satisfaction each time people would thank me for touching their hearts with my music.
Just as I was realizing my musical potential, I was asked to teach the three-year-olds in church. I discovered how much happiness comes when a small hand takes mine and two big blue eyes look up to me and say, “Thanks, Michelle, for being my special friend.” Serving the Lord through working with his little children helped me understand the real meaning of the scripture, “Suffer little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God” (Luke 18:16).

After Joseph received the gold plates in 1827, many people began to try to steal them. Joseph had to hide them every day. He often hid them under the bricks of this fireplace (right) and in the cooper’s shop near the home.

I saw his wagon coming across the flats, wheels churning up the dust, wagon top flapping in the wind. I slid off Red’s back and broke into a run for the cabin.
“Look, Ma!” I hollered. “The Bible man is coming!”
Ma came to the door. Shading her eyes against the sun with a flour-covered hand, she watched the dust cloud slowly moving our way. “If he stops here, help unhitch and feed his horses,” she said. “I’ll get the biscuits into the oven.”
I tied Red to the corral poles and sat on the fence to wait. I knew he’d stop. Anybody who knew about Ma’s biscuits wouldn’t pass on by. And the Bible peddler knew about them, sure enough. He’d stuffed down plenty of them every time he’d stopped by our cabin.
The peddler would likely be hauling the same wooden box filled with hymnbooks and Bibles. And he’d talk about how he was saving “lost sheep” by selling his books to folks.
He usually teased me about my red hair matching perfectly with my horse, Red. I didn’t much look forward to his teasing.
When the peddler drove into the yard, I hopped off the fence to help him unhitch.
“See you still got that red colt,” he said, first thing.
I nodded. “I ride him now.”
“Want to sell him?” he asked, all the while rubbing his thick mustache.
My head jerked up. “I won’t sell him for any price! He’s the best thing I ever had!”
He chuckled and slapped the flank of the nearest unhitched horse. I led his team to the corral and tossed them some loose hay. I gave Red some too. Then I sprinted for the cabin. Even though I dreaded the peddler’s teasing, I didn’t want to miss out on anything.
He was eating Ma’s biscuits like he’d never get another chance. Ma had set out fresh buttermilk for him too. I slid onto a stool, hoping she’d set some out for me. But she paid me no mind at all, and I saw why. She was holding one of his books and sliding her fingers over its pages edged with gold. “How much?” she asked.
I missed what he told her, his mouth being so full of biscuit. But Ma heard. She just sort of smiled, put the book down ever so gently on the table, and shook her head.
The Bible man glanced at me. “I’d take that red colt out yonder for it,” he told Ma. “This here is the finest Bible made. I’d throw in the latest hymnbook to boot.” He might have winked at Ma, but I didn’t see it.
I came off the stool, my eyes wide. “You can’t do that, Ma! Red’s my own!” I gave the peddler a dirty look. “Red’s worth more’n any old book; you know he is.”
The peddler gulped down the last of the buttermilk and rose from the table. “I’ll come by next year,” he said. He looked at me. “Maybe by then Ben can figure out a way for you to have that Bible, him being the man here now.”
I looked at Ma. What looked to be a tear slid down her cheek. I’d not seen Ma shed tears since Pa died, and it choked me. I knew she really wanted that Bible, and I wished that I could figure out a way. But I sure couldn’t part with Red to get it for her.
I was still choked some when I went to lead the peddler’s team outside and hitched them up again to the wagon. I held the team while the Bible man put an armload of books back into the wooden box at the end of the wagon bed and climbed up onto the wagon seat. I wasn’t sorry to see him go.
I watched him going toward the knoll that marked one edge of our homestead, his wagon wheels making dust again. He hadn’t teased me at all about my red hair, and I puzzled over it.
Right in the middle of my puzzling, Ma came running out of the cabin, hollering, “He forgot the Bible!” Her face was full of worry. “He’ll think I kept it on purpose!”
My mouth dropped open. Nobody could think that about Ma. “I’ll catch up to him,” I promised her.
I ran to untie Red, and sidled him over to the fence so that I could climb onto his back. Then I took off after the Bible man. Halfway to the knoll I slowed, thinking. What if I don’t catch up? Will he remember leaving the Bible behind? Ma would have plenty of pleasure from that book by the time he comes again.
I let Red plod slowly along in the dusty road, and the peddler’s wagon went out of sight behind the knoll. I reined Red in and sat awhile. Then I started feeling uncomfortable.
I had never done anything deceitful like I was doing now. It bothered me some that I had told Ma that I’d catch up to the peddler, and I wasn’t even trying. I kicked Red and sent him toward the knoll at a good lope.
At the top of the knoll I stopped and stared. The wagon was bouncing and rattling off through the sagebrush, the team looked to be on a dead run, and the peddler was pulling hard on the reins.
Runaway!
The clatter of the bouncing wagon was something fierce. It swerved through a boulder patch, hit a big rock, and bounced high in the air. The wooden box came flying out, sending books sailing. I closed my eyes for an instant and prayed that the Bible man wouldn’t go sailing off too. When I looked again, I saw that the wagon had slowed some and the peddler had the team circling.
I rode Red down through the brush to help look for the scattered books. Nobody will miss a gold-leaf Bible in all this mess, I decided. And with such excitement, even Ma wouldn’t hold me to remembering why I’d set out after the Bible man.
I slid off Red’s back, righted the wooden box, and gathered the books and loose pages the best that I could. It was a while before the peddler had the horses calmed enough to drive them to where I was. Then he just looked at the jumbled books and rubbed his mustache.
After a while he said, “An old sage hen and her young’uns flew up right under the horses’ noses. Scared them clean out of their wits for a spell.”
He picked up one of the books. “Not worth much now,” he said.
“There’s one book not hurt at all,” I heard myself say. “You left the gold-edged Bible back at the cabin. Ma sent me to tell you.”
I could have kicked myself for saying it. I looked away, chewing my lip, knowing that Ma’s only chance to read that Bible was gone.
“A good, biscuit-bakin’ woman like your Ma should have a Bible,” he said. “Now, I could be takin’ Red there as payment for it.”
My chin dropped, and my heart plumb sank inside me. I figured I’d best get Red out of the Bible man’s sight. When the peddler stooped to load the wooden box, I started scrambling onto Red’s back.
Then I heard him laugh.
“I meant her to have that Bible—to even up some for all those good biscuits that she’s fed me. You tell her so, Ben.”
He climbed up onto the wagon, grinning at me, and I knew then that he’d been teasing me all along. That was why he hadn’t mentioned my red hair. He had sparked more fire out of me over Red than he ever could have about my hair.
As the Bible man turned his team toward the road, I waved. “I’ll tell her!” I yelled.
And I was kind of sorry to see him go.

It was an uncommonly warm spring evening in Port Alberni, the small mill town on Vancouver Island where I lived. I was looking forward to attending Mutual and spending some time with Latter-day Saint kids. I was friendly by nature but was nevertheless struggling socially both at school and at church. It was nights like this that I welcomed the interaction with them.
As was our habit, we were standing in the foyer of our new chapel chatting with each other. I spent little time on center stage in these conversations, and from my outside vantage point I spotted two sister missionaries coming in the front doors with a boy beside them. I recognized him from my neighborhood.
While her companion stood off to the side speaking to the boy, Sister Eaton, the senior of the two missionaries, approached us and said, “Look, you guys. We’re really excited about this. We’ve been working with him and his family for months, and this is the first time he’s agreed to come. Would you make him feel welcome?”
We nodded half-heartedly, said our hellos, and made a small opening for him to stand with us. He stood there looking awkward and uncomfortable, mostly staring at the floor. In comparison to most of us, he was poorly dressed and unkempt. We continued conversing for a few more minutes until the adult traffic became too cumbersome. We then slipped away to the rest room for more privacy.
All of us, that is, except this new boy. We were so caught up in our discussions that we didn’t notice him turn and walk out the door alone. Nor did we miss him in the rest room.
A few minutes later the bell rang for the start of opening exercises. We filed out of the bathroom, joking among ourselves. Just outside the door, however, Sister Eaton was waiting for us, tears pouring down her face.
“What’s the matter with you?” she cried out, more in disbelief than anger. “All you had to do was be friendly to him, to include him. Was that too much to ask?”
“Where’d he go?” I stupidly asked.
“What do you care?” she snapped back. “You won’t have to worry about him again. He won’t be back.” With that, she turned, gathered her companion, and left the building to look for the boy. It was a three-mile walk back to our neighborhood.
Stung by her chastisement, we filed quietly and sheepishly into the chapel. Even when the others began to revive their spirits, my conscience burned. I was deeply disturbed by what we had done. Later that evening after I returned home, I talked to my older brother about it. Having recently returned from college, he was soon to go on his mission. I respected his advice on spiritual matters.
“What do you think you should do about it?” Laurence asked me after I had blurted out to him the whole story.
“I don’t know,” I answered glumly. “What can I do now? Sister Eaton says it’s too late.”
By now Laurence sensed how upset I was.
“Maybe not,” he said with a tinge of hope in his voice. “The sisters should be home by now. I’ll call over there.”
Within five minutes Laurence had the boy’s address, and we began walking there together. Although it wasn’t far, it was getting dark as we crossed Third Avenue into the poorly lit part of town where the boy lived. I was glad my brother was with me. I didn’t know what kind of reception awaited us, and I was nervous.
We approached an old house that needed a coat of paint. Laurence checked the number under a street light and pointed toward it.
“That’s it,” he announced. Taking a deep breath, I headed toward the front door with Laurence at my side. I knocked quickly before my courage failed. My heart was pounding. A few moments later, a lady I assumed to be his mother answered the door. She looked older than I had expected and seemed tired.
“Hi, is your son here?” I asked.
“What do you want with him?” she asked suspiciously.
“He came to our church tonight and we kind of ignored him,” I stammered. “I wanted to apologize and to invite him back.”
She folded her arms and looked directly at us. I saw in her eyes the look of disgust with the way we had just treated her son.
Ignoring me, she looked over at Laurence and said, “Thank you for coming by, but I don’t think he’ll want to come back.”
As she began to close the door, Laurence made a last attempt to reassure her of our repentance. “The boys made a mistake, and I know they’re sorry. I know them. It won’t happen again.”
But the door had closed before he could finish. For the second time that night, I felt stung by my actions.
“Do you think he’ll ever come back?” I asked apprehensively.
“I doubt it,” Laurence replied bluntly.
We said very little the rest of the way home. I had done wrong and I knew it. I had felt deep remorse, and I even tried to make restitution. But I had failed. I wondered why, after I had followed all the steps I had been taught, the Lord hadn’t recognized my repentance and lifted the burden of guilt from me. I felt awful.
The answer finally came from my heart. Inside I knew I hadn’t done enough. But I was too afraid to go back and try again. So I never did.
For me, this was a complete failure, one that I’m still deeply ashamed of. Yet in a curious way I learned an important lesson from it—one that still humbles me and reminds me of what it takes to be a true disciple of Jesus Christ.
“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep” (John 10:11–13).
Whether I cared to admit it or not, I was no shepherd. I had fled like the hireling. I didn’t seek after what was lost until I found it. After only one try, I left the boy in the wilderness to the wolves. In my heart I wasn’t willing to pay the price of being a true shepherd.
Since that incident, I still see that boy in my mind’s eye and I wonder what happened to him. I still feel the responsibility for what I did and what I didn’t do.
I need to be a shepherd and not a hireling and to find joy in serving and including my brothers and sisters, whoever they may be.

But Te Oranoa M., age 17, from New Zealand has a different take on things. “What inspires me about this scripture,” she says, “is that it doesn’t say they are lost forever.”

What an incredible insight! And it’s one that comes from personal experience. “I, myself, fell away from the Church,” she says, “but I have been able to come back.”

Te Oranoa grew up in the Church and talks about gaining her own testimony and even setting spiritual goals. “But that testimony grew cold,” she says.

In some ways, she found common ground with Amulek, particularly in the way he described himself to the people of Ammonihah: “I did harden my heart, for I was called many times and I would not hear; therefore I knew concerning these things, yet I would not know” (Alma 10:6).

For Te Oranoa, that scripture hits close to home. “Just like Amulek, I knew all these spiritual things, and the Spirit was telling me to do certain things, but because I was being a bit stubborn and a bit prideful, I wouldn’t do them. Afterward, my testimony kind of faded away.”

In the end, Amulek’s story would become more than merely familiar to Te Oranoa. It would also become a turning point on the road back.

Even during the time when her faith had grown cold, she could still remember sweet experiences from before. Te Oranoa never forgot how she’d felt when attending the temple with her youth group or going to a youth conference.

“There was a pattern,” she says. “I’d feel really good when I came to church, but I didn’t feel good when I missed church.”

There finally came a day when Te Oranoa decided to see if she could connect with those good feelings again. The first thing she did was to read through recent general conference addresses.

An October 2016 general conference address, “Learn from Alma and Amulek,” by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, woke something in Te Oranoa’s soul. She recognized a lot of her own life and feelings as President Uchtdorf described how Amulek’s faith had faded. She also remembered more strongly than ever the happiness she had enjoyed when her faith was stronger. Instantly, she wanted to make some changes.

“I was hoping to find something to reignite that fire of my testimony,” she explains, “so I read President Uchtdorf’s talk, and yes, I felt on fire!”

Te Oranoa’s path back to faith hasn’t always been easy, but there is a particular light at the end of the tunnel that keeps her going: the hope of an eternal family.

“Families can be together forever,” she says. “That’s my biggest dream, my biggest hope in life. Whenever I want to learn about something, or I find a doctrine hard to understand, I try and relate it back to eternal families. For example, why is Jesus Christ’s Atonement important to me? For one thing, I need His Atonement in my life so I can be worthy to enter the temple and be sealed to my family for all eternity.”

It’s perhaps worth remembering that the people in Lehi’s vision who fell away after tasting the fruit did, in fact, still taste it. They must have known of its goodness, even if only briefly. And they can discover it again. That’s the hope Te Oranoa clings to, for herself and for others.

“You don’t have to keep going down those forbidden paths for the rest of your life,” she says. “You can turn back to the Lord whenever you want.”

As I stood at the base looking up at this immense piece of stone, my mind wandered back in time to the first century A.D. when this land of the Jews was known as Judea and was one of the provinces of Rome. It was at this time, around A.D. 66, that the Jews started a revolt that was to become known as the Great Jewish War against Rome. After bloodshed and fighting that continued for five years, the Romans believed the end had finally come when they took over Jerusalem and destroyed the Jewish temple, the people’s holiest shrine. Thousands of Jews were either slaughtered or taken captive; but a few managed to escape. Eleazar Ben-Ya’ir was the leader of these few, and they were known as Zealots. They had escaped to this remote spot in the desert called Masada. It was the story of these men, women, and children that filled my mind as I looked up at their rock fortress, Masada.

As I began to wander through the remains of the fortress, I could feel the quiet dignity that seems to accompany it. I was surprised to find palaces and elaborate baths but learned that before this Jewish war, Masada was a Roman garrison where Herod the Great had built a fortress in fear that the Jewish people would dispose of him and also in fear of Cleopatra, the queen of Egypt. Herod strengthened and fortified Masada into a mighty stronghold able to withstand a long siege. Ironically Herod never occupied the fortress, and it came to serve the very people he had built it to protect himself from.

The story of Masada gradually seemed to come alive as I walked through the magnificent palaces, Roman baths, storerooms, and water cisterns. The Jews had taken over Masada early in the revolt and were holding it. Not long after the destruction of Jerusalem, the Romans turned their thoughts to the rebels who were still holding out in Masada. They were an embarrassment to the great Roman empire and had to be taken care of. Rome sent out possibly as many as 20,000 soldiers and prisoners of war to lay siege on them, a small group of 967.

Looking down from on top of the cliff, I could still see the clearly visible remains of the Roman camps circling around me and could imagine the feeling of the Zealots after months of being surrounded. The Romans built a siege wall and camps all about, but with the help of their supplies and water cisterns, the Zealots withstood the siege for two years. Then came the tragic fall of Masada.

I walked slowly beside the outer wall of the fortress as what I knew of the fateful day came to my memory. The lonely wailing of the wind around me seemed to cry from the dust. I looked over the edge of the cliff to where the Romans had built a ramp and had finally broken through the outer wall surrounding the fortress. The defenders had quickly improvised an inner wall that could withstand the battering ram, but the Romans soon flung fiery arrows onto the wall, and the wooden staves began to burn. A gust of wind came up behind me as I was remembering that moment. The Jewish rebels too had been surprised by this strange, lonely wind. Just at the moment their wall was about to be burned, the wind suddenly changed direction and blew the flames into the faces of the Romans. The defenders of Masada thought they had been delivered, but just as suddenly as before, the wind changed back and the fire continued its destruction of their wall. The Romans descended from the ramp and returned to camp to prepare for the dawn when they would finally conquer Masada. The power of their numbers assured them of victory over their enemies, the rebel Jews.

Eleazar, the rebel leader who had lived so long on top of the mountain in spite of the thousands of soldiers Rome sent against him, faced the defeat that would come with the rising sun. He called together all of his followers and in a powerful, moving speech cried to them to choose death rather than surrender to the slavery that would follow defeat. These are the words he spoke that night on the top of Masada, with the blaze of the burning wall behind him and his enemies waiting below for the dawn to come:

“My loyal followers, long ago we resolved to serve neither Romans nor anyone else but only God, who alone is the true and righteous Lord of men: now the time has come that bids us prove our determination by our deeds. At such a time we must not disgrace ourselves: hitherto we have never submitted to slavery, even when it brought no danger with it: we must not choose slavery now, and with it penalties that will mean the end of everything if we fall alive into the hands of the Romans. For we were the first of all to revolt, and shall be the last to break off the struggle. And I think it is God who has given us this privilege, that we can die nobly and as free men, unlike others who were unexpectedly defeated. In our case it is evident the day-break will end our resistance, but we are free to choose an honourable death with our loved ones. This our enemies cannot prevent, however earnestly they pray to take us alive; nor can we defeat them in battle.

“Let our wives die unabused, our children without knowledge of slavery: after that, let us do each other an ungrudging kindness, preserving our freedom as a glorious winding-sheet. But first let our possessions and the whole fortress go up in flames: it will be a bitter blow to the Romans, that I know, to find our persons beyond their reach and nothing left for them to loot. One thing only let us spare—our store of food: it will bear witness when we are dead to the fact that we perished, not through want but because, as we resolved, we chose death rather than slavery.

“If only we had all died before seeing the Sacred City utterly destroyed by enemy hands, the Holy Sanctuary so impiously uprooted! But since an honourable ambition deluded us into thinking that perhaps we should succeed in avenging her of her enemies, and now all hope has fled, abandoning us to our fate, let us at once choose death with honour and do the kindest thing we can for ourselves, our wives and children, while it is still possible to show ourselves any kindness. After all we were born to die, we and those we brought into the world: this even the luckiest must face. But outrage, slavery, and the sight of our wives led away to shame with our children—these are not evils to which man is subject by the laws of nature: men undergo them through their own cowardice if they have a chance to forestall them by death and will not take it. We are very proud of our courage, so we revolted from Rome: now in the final stages they have offered to spare our lives and we have turned the offer down. Is anyone too blind to see how furious they will be if they take us alive? Pity the young whose bodies are strong enough to survive prolonged torture; pity the not-so-young whose old frames would break under such ill-usage. A man will see his wife violently carried off; he will hear the voice of his child crying ‘Daddy!’ when his own hands are fettered. Come! While our hands are free and can hold a sword, let them do a noble service! Let us die unenslaved by our enemies, and leave this world as free men in company with our wives and children.” (Flavius Josephus, “Wars of the Jews,” The Works of Flavius Josephus, book VII.)

The defenders first slew their own wives and their children, then drew lots, leaving ten to execute the rest of the men. Each man went near the place where his family lay and willingly waited for the ten to carry out their job. Finally lots were cast for one of the ten to execute the other nine, leaving only one man to examine the masses of bodies to see if any needed his hand, then set fire to the royal palace. Then this one man, very much alone, with all the strength he had left, drove his own sword into his body and fell dead beside his friends.

On the dawn of the next morning, the Romans reached the top as the sun was rising over the quiet waters of the Dead Sea. They found the fortress destroyed, with only the faint crackling of fire, the smell of ashes in the air, and the bodies of nearly a thousand men, women, and children. Surely they must have asked themselves, “Who are the victors here?” It was an empty victory.

Although the defenders all died believing that none remained, two women and five children were found hiding in a water cistern. They lived to tell the story to the Romans.

Masada is a universal symbol of dedication to a cause. It symbolizes men, women, and children who chose death rather than slavery. It is a heritage that its defenders have handed down from generation to generation. It would be unwise to suppose that all the qualities of the defenders of Masada were to be admired or that what they chose to do was the only solution, but they were surely a people of great strength and courage, and that is important for us to know.

In October 1997, Sister Bednar and I hosted Elder and Sister Maxwell at Brigham Young University–Idaho (then Ricks College). Elder Maxwell was to speak to the students, staff, and faculty in a devotional assembly.

Earlier in that same year, Elder Maxwell underwent 46 days and nights of debilitating chemotherapy for leukemia. His rehabilitation and continued therapy progressed positively through the spring and summer months, but Elder Maxwell’s physical strength and stamina were nonetheless limited when he traveled to Rexburg. After greeting Elder and Sister Maxwell at the airport, Susan and I drove them to our home for rest and a light lunch before the devotional.

I asked Elder Maxwell what lessons he had learned through his illness. I will remember always the precise and penetrating answer he gave. “Dave,” he said, “I have learned that not shrinking is more important than surviving.”

His response to my inquiry was a principle with which he had gained extensive personal experience during his chemotherapy. In January 1997, on the day he was scheduled to begin his first round of treatment, Elder Maxwell looked at his wife, reached for her hand, breathed a deep sigh, and said, “I just don’t want to shrink.”

In his October 1997 general conference message, Elder Maxwell taught with great authenticity: “As we confront our own … trials and tribulations, we too can plead with the Father, just as Jesus did, that we ‘might not … shrink’—meaning to retreat or to recoil (D&C 19:18). Not shrinking is much more important than surviving! Moreover, partaking of a bitter cup without becoming bitter is likewise part of the emulation of Jesus.”1

Elder Maxwell also did not shrink. This mighty Apostle pressed forward steadfastly and was blessed with additional time in mortality to love, to serve, to teach, and to testify. Those concluding years of his life were an emphatic exclamation point to his example of devoted discipleship—through both his words and his deeds.

When I was young, I didn’t get to spend a lot of time with my dad; he went to college all day and worked most of the night. It was really wearing him out, but he had himself, my mother, and four children to support.
I used to play with the wooden toys my dad made for us. When he had time, he made such things as blocks, wooden animals, and puzzles. But my favorite was the little knife he carved for me from a small piece of wood. It wasn’t using the knife to fight an imaginary foe that intrigued me so much—it was the fact that my dad had made it himself, just for me and no one else.
I was so proud of my dad. I thought there was nothing better than someone who could turn an ordinary piece of wood into something as magnificent as my little knife. I would just sit and hold it in my hands, looking at it and thinking about the time he spent making it for me.
Years later, when my dad was out of school and had a good daytime job, I was able to spend a little more time with him, but the value of that knife never lessened.
One day I walked outside. What I saw sent a flood of memories into my mind. My dad was sitting on the steps of our house, a pocketknife in his right hand, and in his left a piece of wood slowly taking the shape of a little knife. I could see little slivers of wood fly as he whittled and whistled a happy song. He turned to me and smiled.
Before I knew it, I was sitting right next to my dad, a pocketknife in my right hand and a piece of wood in my left. Twice as many little shavings of wood flew as my dad taught me how to carve a little knife by myself. Mine didn’t look nearly as good as his, but it was okay. My dad was sitting next to me, and that was all that mattered.
Every once in a while, I looked up at him, all smiles, to compare my knife with his, as he kept carving the wood and whistling his songs. Once he caught me looking at him and gave me a big smile and winked at me. That made me feel good because he would wink at me when he was really happy. I winked back.

After this call came the other day, I went out into the backyard, and in my mind’s eye I could see hosts of Aaronic Priesthood bearers—young men who are fine and good and true, who are dedicated to the Lord with all their heart and soul, who want to put that same look into their face which we see in the faces of the brethren here before us today. And they were doing it and they were obedient and following their leaders.

And in my mind’s eye, with great sadness, I saw another great group of Aaronic Priesthood bearers who were not able to put this into their faces because they were disobedient; they were being persuaded by friends and peers.

Then I saw a third group that troubled me even more, because these were they who would have been faithful had they had the leadership. If someone had reached out a hand and lifted them and picked them up and cared for them, they could have put integrity and love and purity of heart—all of these fine qualities—into their lives.

After a meeting with some of our servicemen in Da Nang, South Vietnam, one man in battle dress came up to me and asked if I would write a letter to his parents, who were nonmembers, explaining to them the great honor that had come to him that day. He said they knew nothing about the Church and asked, “Bishop Brown, would you mind telling them what a great honor it was for me to be ordained a priest in the Aaronic Priesthood today?”

Near the end of my time as a young service missionary, I followed a prompting to serve two days a week at a dude ranch in Utah for military and survivor families. I had absolutely zero experience with anything even related to ranching, but I was excited.
Early in my time there, I was asked to clean the horse stalls. My good friend and companion with whom I went teaching in the evenings, Elder Saltern, was assigned to show me what to do.
Reaching the last stall to clean one day, I followed Elder Saltern in. In my mind I received a gentle impression to ask about closing the gate behind us. I brushed off the thought and got to work cleaning.
The horse in the stall, Shrek, was one of the biggest horses at the ranch. He started shifting nervously as we cleaned. Suddenly, Shrek darted out of the stall through the open gate and raced past the other horses outside in the corrals.
Thankfully, one of the experienced folks at the ranch grabbed a bucket of oats and quickly lured the horse back. As she put Shrek back in his stall, she looked at me and asked amusedly, “What did we learn?”
The obvious lesson was to always close the gate. I was reminded of a scripture I had read that very morning that taught me to yield “to the enticings of the Holy Spirit” (Mosiah 3:19).
When Elder Saltern and I entered Shrek’s stall, I had ignored a prompting from the Holy Ghost to close the gate. I had pigeonholed the Spirit into advising me only on what I thought were “spiritual” things related to the scriptures or the commandments. This experience humbled me. I realized that the Spirit’s knowledge was greater than I had realized—even when it comes to ranching!

In the following months, Robert struggled to find and keep work due to uncertain economic conditions. He considered emigrating with his family. In January 1855, his mind was set: “I have been six weeks out of work, and we expect to emigrate this season for we are heartily sick of this land.” A month later, Robert was still out of work. The Hazen family, now resolved to emigrate and sold their furniture. They looked forward to “Gather with God’s people this year”. However, they still didn’t have enough money. Robert had been without work for over three months; what could they do to pay for passage to the United States of America?
The difference was made up by Robert’s elderly mother-in-law, also a member of the Church, who sold her house and joined them on the journey to Zion. On 25 March 1855, a small group of the Newcastle Saints set off for Liverpool on the first step of their journey. Ultimately, Robert and his family arrived safely in the United States of America and eventually made their way to join the Saints in Utah.