Gospel Story Finder

Still, things weren’t perfect after that. Most of my family was not happy that I joined the Church. My dad even offered me a brand-new pickup truck if I would just forget about it. But my brother Roger supported me. When I told him I wanted to serve a mission, he told me to give it 110%. Whether I was serving a mission or not, he told me to always do my best.
When I told him I wanted to serve a mission, he told me to give it 110%.
I tried to prepare the best I could by studying the scriptures, praying, and going to a mission prep class. While I was on my mission in North Carolina, I lost myself in the work and did my best to follow Roger’s advice to give it 110%.
Ten years later, I lost my dad to cancer. Even though he and I had hard times, I love him so much. As I leaned down to hug him and say “I love you” one last time, he said something I will never forget. He told me he was proud of me and that he was glad I served a mission. Two years later, Spencer got to baptize me for my father in the temple.
My family may not have approved of my joining the Church, but because of their unfailing love and the example of my friends and their families, I was able to serve a mission, be married in the temple, and help my dad after he passed on. I am grateful to be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

When Aaron and his family got home from church, the seven-year-old boy asked his mom if he could go down the street and see his friend Toby’s new remote-controlled race car. Mom knelt to his level, looked deep into his eyes, and smiled affectionately. “Whose day is this, honey?”
“Well,” Aaron replied after giving her question some study, “I guess it’s the Lord’s day.”
“That’s right,” Mom answered. “What do you think the Savior would do today if He were here?”
Aaron wrinkled up his face as if trying to squeeze out the right answer. It worked. “He’d help people? Maybe visit someone who was sick … or lonely … or sad?”
Mom’s smile widened, but Aaron sighed unhappily. “I don’t know anybody like that, Mom.”
“I bet Heavenly Father does, honey. Why don’t you ask Him?”
Aaron spoke softly to himself, but his mother heard the words as he drifted toward the living room. “I’m just a little kid, anyway. How can I help anybody?”
When Aaron stepped into the living room he spied their dog, Nick, lying on the floor asleep. Aaron knelt beside the big dog, resting his head on Nick’s slowly rising and falling side. He closed his eyes and prayed, asking Heavenly Father to help him figure out who he could serve. When he opened his eyes, he found himself staring up at a picture of his Grandma McKillop hanging on the wall in a little patch of window light. Her husband, Grandpa Eugene, had died just a few months before, and Aaron’s father had told him that she was very lonely. “I wish we could go visit her today, Nick,” Aaron informed the sleeping dog. “But she lives far away from here, clear over in California.”
His eyes brightened. “I know,” he said, “maybe I could write her a letter.” And with Mom’s help, he did.
Dear Grandma,
Do the raccoons still bang on your sliding-glass door with their fists if you don’t put food out for them by five o’clock? I caught a big bug last week, Grandma. I let him go, and watched him walk down into the turnips. He walked kind of like a wind-up toy. I miss you, Grandma. I love you. And I even like your broccoli. Heavenly Father loves you too. Be happy, Grandma, and good luck with the raccoons. God will bless you for loving His creatures. As Dad says, “We’re all in this together.”
Love, Aaron
One afternoon about two weeks later, when Aaron returned home from school, his mother announced that he had received a letter from Grandma McKillop. Aaron beamed with surprise. “Grandma wrote me a letter?”
His mother laughed. “Unless there’s another Aaron at this address!”
“Can we read it together, Mom?” Aaron asked excitedly, setting his lunchbox on the kitchen table. “Just in case there are any words bigger than I am?”
Mom smiled and nodded, and they sat down together at the table. Aaron opened the letter and began reading, carefully sounding out the words.
My dear, precious grandson Aaron,
Your letter came unexpectedly on a day that was especially difficult for me. You see, I miss your grandpa so. Your heartfelt words lifted my spirits and gave me cause for joy. They were like a warm spray of sunlight on a dark, bleak afternoon. Your letter made my day. You’ll never know what a big difference it made. And yes, I am surviving the raccoons. We are the best of friends, you know. And they also like my broccoli!
All my love, Grandma McKillop
Aaron’s eyes lifted to his mother’s, shining with wonder and delight. “She said my letter made her day!”
Mom’s eyes shone back, and her chin quivered with emotion. “You see,” she said, her voice as shaky as her chin, “a child can help others and do good on the Sabbath day.”

I was taught how a quorum works in these three aspects many years ago when I attended a high priests group meeting in a small community in southern Wyoming. The lesson that week was on justification and sanctification. It was evident, as the lesson began, that the teacher was well prepared to instruct his brethren. Then a question prompted a response that changed the whole course of the lesson. In response to the question, one brother commented: “I have listened with great interest to the lesson material. The thought has crossed my mind that the information presented will soon be lost if we do not find application to put the material presented into practice in our daily lives.” Then he went on to propose a course of action.
The night before, a citizen of the community had passed away. His wife was a member of the Church, but he had not been. This high priest had visited the widow and offered his sympathy. As he left the home after the visit, his eyes wandered over the beautiful farm of the deceased brother. He had put so much of his life and labor into building it up. The alfalfa was ready to cut; the grain would soon be ready to harvest. How would this poor sister cope with the sudden problems now falling on her? She would need time to get herself organized for her new responsibilities.
Then he proposed to the group that they apply the principles they had just been taught—by working with the widow to keep her farm operating until the widow and her family could find a more permanent solution. The balance of the meeting was spent in organizing the project to assist her.
As we left the classroom, there was a good feeling among the brethren. I heard one of them remark as he passed through the doorway, “This project is just what we needed as a group to work together again.” A lesson had been taught; a brotherhood had been strengthened; a service project had been organized to assist someone in need.

As I drove to the hospital last night to visit my sister, who was very ill, I had in the back of my mind the assignment given me by the New Era editors to prepare this article, and I realized that the deadline had arrived.
At the hospital I had a humbling spiritual adventure that gave dimension to what I would like to say to you. In a room there I found a wonderful family gathered around the bed of their very ill wife and mother, having their family home evening. A choice son, just returned from missionary experience abroad, was telling about his mission and showing some slides on the wall of the hospital room. I was privileged to join with the family.
When I arrived home, my own family gathered for the home evening we had postponed while I visited the hospital. We talked and sang together and read the scriptures, and then, having fasted for the occasion, we knelt in our home to join our faith in seeking the Lord’s blessings for our dear one who so desperately needed his help.

When an administrator in Africa rode out to inspect land that had been devastated in a storm, he came to a place where giant cedars had been uprooted and destroyed. He said to his official in charge, “You will have to plant some cedars here.” The official replied, “It takes 2,000 years to grow cedars of the size these were. They don’t even bear cones until they’re 50 years old.”
“Then,” said the administrator, “we must plant them at once.” And this is the admonition to you.

This past summer a brief article I had written appeared in the Liahona and Ensign. My son emailed me saying, “Dad, maybe you could tell us when you have an article coming out.” I responded, “I just wanted to see if you were reading the Church magazines.” He wrote back explaining that his 10-year-old daughter had “passed the test. She got the Ensign from the mailbox, came into the house, and read it. Then she came up to our room and showed us your article.”
My granddaughter read the Ensign because she wanted to learn. She acted on her own by exercising her agency. The First Presidency recently approved new learning resources for youth that will support the innate desire of young people to learn, live, and share the gospel. These new resources are now available for review online. In January we will begin using them in classrooms. (Learn more about the new learning resources for youth at lds.org/youth/learn.)

This cookie made of phyllo dough and pistachio nuts is a thank-you. It was made by the Kadado family who, for decades, owned three bakeries in Damascus, Syria. When war came, a blockade stopped food and supplies from reaching their part of the city. The Kadados began to starve. At the height of this desperate situation, Latter-day Saint Charities and some very courageous staff at Rahma Worldwide began serving a daily hot meal, along with milk for the little children. After a difficult time, the family began their life—as well as their bakery—once again in a new country.

Recently, a box of cookies arrived at the Church offices with the following message: “For more than two months, we managed to get food from the Rahma–Latter-day Saint [Charities] kitchen. Without it we would [have] starve[d] to death. Please accept this … sample from my shop as a small token of thanks. I ask God the Almighty to bless you … in everything you do.”

A cookie of gratitude and remembrance. It is meant for you. To all who prayed after watching a story on the news, to all who volunteered when it was not convenient or who kindly donated money to the humanitarian fund trusting it would do some good, thank you.

In 1849, President Brigham Young called a small number of men to travel to various parts of the world to preach the gospel. A former Swedish sailor, John Forsgren, who had joined the Church in Massachusetts, USA, and traveled to the Salt Lake Valley, asked President Young to be sent to Sweden as a missionary. He was called to serve and arrived in Sweden in June 1850.
Elder Forsgren first visited his younger siblings in Gävle. His brother Peter was ill, and doctors said he was beyond help. Elder Forsgren explained the purpose of his mission to his siblings, then anointed and blessed Peter, who was restored to full health. On July 19, 1850, Elder Forsgren baptized his brother, who became the first convert in Sweden.
In 1850 Peter Forsgren, above, was baptized by his brother John.
Photograph courtesy of Susan Easton Black

The organ music was playing softly as Johnny followed his dad, mom, and little sister into the chapel. He stuck his hands into his pockets, resisting the urge to give Kevin a friendly poke as he walked past. Johnny had learned from an earlier experience that this was not the time or place for greeting a friend that way.
His family quietly filed into the fifth row where they customarily sat. As Johnny sat there, he ran his fingers along the crease of his new pants. It was hard to pay attention to the man at the pulpit. He was just talking to the grown-ups, anyway.
Johnny began thinking about his birthday. Soon he would be eight years old. In three weeks he would be baptized. He had talked to Dad about it last night.
“When you have been baptized, Johnny,” Dad had told him, “all the things you do wrong will be your responsibility.” Dad talked to him about how the Holy Ghost would help him make good decisions so that he would do the right things.
Dad also talked to him about the importance of the sacrament and the reverent feelings he should have. “Now that you’re old enough to be a member of the Church, you’re also old enough to try to be more reverent at church and to know about the blessings of the sacrament. It’s important for your thoughts to be reverent too. The sacrament reminds us of the promises we make at baptism.”
Johnny didn’t understand how his thoughts could be reverent. His teacher had talked about being reverent during sacrament meeting, and she seemed to think that Johnny knew just how to do it. Maybe it means just being quiet, Johnny decided. I’ll try sitting here as quietly as I can and see if I feel different while the sacrament is being passed.
He sat there quietly for a while, his legs dangling over the seat of the pew. Then his toes started to feel funny. He began swinging his legs back and forth. He swung them harder and harder until he was making a kicking sound against the bottom of the bench.
“Shh!” his mom whispered. “Johnny, be reverent!”
Johnny thought he was being reverent—he hadn’t been talking. I guess being reverent means you don’t kick your feet—even if your toes feel funny, he decided.
Johnny sat very quietly. He was trying to feel reverent during the sacrament, but all he felt was tired from sitting on that big, hard pew. He saw Brother Willey sitting in front of him. He was an older man with large glasses. The glasses had thick lenses. If Johnny wiggled up onto the edge of his seat and Brother Willey held his head just right, Johnny could look right through his glasses. They made everything look funny. Ricky, Johnny’s friend, looked fuzzy, as if he were underwater. Johnny moved around so he could see how Brother Willey’s glasses made other things look.
“Stop wiggling, Johnny. Be reverent,” his mom whispered.
Johnny had forgotten about being reverent. He slid back against the hard bench. He tried to get comfortable so that he could sit quietly and be reverent.
Then he noticed a man with a mustache sitting next to his Primary teacher. As Johnny watched, the man fell asleep. Then the most remarkable thing happened. Each time the man breathed out, his mustache wiggled, just like the wind was blowing it. Johnny had never seen anything quite like it. The longer he watched, the funnier it looked to him. All of a sudden, the man made a long, soft, whistling noise. His whole mustache looked like it jumped. Johnny started to giggle.
“Shh! Don’t giggle, Johnny! Try to be reverent.”
Johnny turned the other way so that he couldn’t see the sleeping man. As he turned, he noticed the speaker standing at the microphone. It’s Brother Curtis, our home teacher, Johnny thought. He listened to Brother Curtis.
Brother Curtis was talking about when the Savior died. Johnny remembered the picture that his Primary teacher had shown the class of Jesus hanging on a cross. There were nails through his hands and feet, and blood—
Blood! That reminded Johnny of the day the previous week when he was trying to ride his new bike. He had fallen from it onto a sharp rock and cut his knee. Blood had streamed down his leg and onto his pants. Boy, it sure hurt! Johnny thought, pulling up his pant leg. His knee still looked pretty bad, even with a bandage on it.
Johnny sat there very quietly. He thought about how it would feel to have someone pound a nail through his hand. Why would Jesus let those men hurt Him like that? he wondered.
“I know the Savior suffered, bled, and died because He loves us so much,” Brother Curtis was saying. “And when we partake of the sacrament, we promise to always remember Him.”
Jesus really must have loved me to die for me, Johnny thought. When I ate the bread and drank the water during the sacrament, it was in remembrance of His body and blood. Suddenly it was almost as if Jesus was sitting there beside him on the pew. Is this the reverent feeling that Mom, Dad, and my teacher were talking about? Johnny remembered a song he liked to sing in Primary: “This is God’s house, and he is here today. He hears each song of praise and listens when we pray.”
When Sister Watene offered the closing prayer, Johnny folded his arms and bowed his head and listened carefully.
Next week, he promised himself, after adding his “Amen” with the other members’, I’m going to be reverent all during sacrament meeting. I won’t talk, or wiggle, or giggle, or kick my feet. And during the sacrament, I’ll think about Jesus and try to feel Him close to me again.

A few years back I went through an especially dark season of my life. I faced many difficult challenges, and I felt depressed and overwhelmed by heavy burdens.
At church one Sunday, I looked around at all the happy families singing hymns and tasting of the love of God. I wanted to feel the same way, but something felt physically wrong with me.
I had felt the Spirit in the past, but I had been unable to for some time. As in Lehi’s vision of the tree of life, I felt as if I were completely surrounded by mists of darkness—I couldn’t even see the tree (see 1 Nephi 8:2–24).
When the sacrament prayers began, I closed my eyes and reached out to Heavenly Father, pleading for assurance of His love. I asked Him why I couldn’t taste of the fruit of the tree of life.
As I pondered Lehi’s dream, I had a piercing realization. “Why haven’t I remembered this before?” I thought. Traveling through mists of darkness is a completely normal part of God’s plan. He allows us to experience difficulties from time to time so that we can completely depend on Him and His Son. The key is to cling to the iron rod. I still saw myself in mists of darkness, but I had hope.
As this impression left my mind, I felt a sweet reassurance from the Holy Ghost that my trials would pass. The Spirit testified that Heavenly Father was there. I wiped the tears from my eyes, grateful that I had been able to feel the Spirit again.
I began to immerse myself in the scriptures. I still had many dark days, but I had faith that if I clung to the iron rod—the word of God (see 1 Nephi 11:25)—I would be freed from the mists of darkness. I’m not sure how long it took, but one day I could at last taste of God’s love again. It was like warm sunshine after a long winter.
As I have struggled off and on with life’s challenges, I have remembered my promise to cling tightly to the iron rod by studying the scriptures and the words of the prophets. I know that when the mists of darkness come, I have the tools necessary to see my way through them and the promise of a warm reception on the other side.

I recently was made aware of a touching example of loving kindness—one that had unforeseen results. The year was 1933, when because of the Great Depression, employment opportunities were scarce. The location was the eastern part of the United States. Arlene Biesecker had just graduated from high school. After a lengthy search for employment, she was finally able to obtain work at a clothing mill as a seamstress. The mill workers were paid only for each of the correctly completed pieces they sewed together daily. The more pieces they produced, the more they were paid.
One day shortly after starting at the mill, Arlene was faced with a procedure that had her confused and frustrated. She sat at her sewing machine trying to unpick her unsuccessful attempt to complete the piece on which she was working. There seemed to be no one to help her, for all of the other seamstresses were hurrying to complete as many pieces as they could. Arlene felt helpless and hopeless. Quietly, she began to cry.
Across from Arlene sat Bernice Rock. She was older and more experienced as a seamstress. Observing Arlene’s distress, Bernice left her own work and went to Arlene’s side, kindly giving her instruction and help. She stayed until Arlene gained confidence and was able to successfully complete the piece. Bernice then went back to her own machine, having missed the opportunity to complete as many pieces as she could have, had she not helped.
With this one act of loving kindness, Bernice and Arlene became lifelong friends. Each eventually married and had children. Sometime in the 1950s, Bernice, who was a member of the Church, gave Arlene and her family a copy of the Book of Mormon. In 1960, Arlene and her husband and children were baptized members of the Church. Later they were sealed in a holy temple of God.
As a result of the compassion shown by Bernice as she went out of her way to help one whom she didn’t know but who was in distress and needed assistance, countless individuals, both living and dead, now enjoy the saving ordinances of the gospel.

Apr. 13, 1853 I went to Cranberry Head, near to Yarmouth (2). Here I found Brother John Robinson and Brother Benjamin T. Mitchell at Mr. Moses Shaw’s. The Brethren (Robinson and Mitchell) said that they were going to travel together. The Brethren both said that I was too young and inexperienced to travel with either of them. They said I had better go to Halifax and see Brother A. D. L. Buckland and get counsel from him.

Apr. 14, 1853 I went into Yarmouth. Came back to Mr. Grace’s. He treated me kindly. I stayed until Saturday. Started for Halifax. (3) Left Cape Sable to my right hand. Traveled two hundred ten miles around the coast capes and bays to get to Halifax. I had to rely upon Him whose business I was on. I felt my weakness. A poor, ill-clothed, ignorant boy in my teens, thousands of miles from home, amongst strangers. The promise in my Blessings, the encouraging words of President Young to me, with the faith I had in the Gospel, kept me up. Many a time I would turn into the woods and brush in some desolate place, with a full heart, wet eyes and face, to call on my Master for strength and aid. I believed the Gospel of Christ. I never had preached it. I knew not where to find it in the scriptures. I had to give my Bible to the boatman at the Digby Gut for passage across.

There was a time in our lives when my wife, Ceci, and I did not attend church regularly. But we missed the Church, and finally I decided to fast and pray to know if our Heavenly Father would permit us to return to his fold.
A short time later, the doorbell rang when I was having my personal prayers. It was our branch president, President Pinos. He had come to ask me to be a counselor in the branch presidency. My prayer had been answered, and I knew that my Heavenly Father still loved me as his son. I felt that warm feeling which comes only from God.

In another ward the bishop asked a semi-active priest to tutor a deacon having problems in school. After balking at the request, the priest found the young boy began to follow his example of attending Church. They decided to go to MIA together. When the deacon asked if he should go on a mission, the priest said yes, and his new friend replied, “When are you going?”
“Well, what could I say? I couldn’t let him down. So here I am an elder and on my way to serve the Lord for two years in Norway. I know this is what I must do and want to do with my life right now. School can wait.”

A couple of years ago a humor columnist for a local newspaper wrote on a serious and thought-provoking subject. I quote from this article: “Being a go-to-church Mormon in Utah means living so close to fellow ward members that not much happens that the entire congregation doesn’t know about in five minutes tops.”
He continues: “This kind of cheek-to-jowl living can be intrusive. … It also happens to be one of our greatest strengths.”
The author goes on to say: “At work on Tuesday, I caught the noon news broadcast on television. A van had been obliterated in a traffic crash. A young mother and two small children were being rushed to emergency rooms by helicopter and ambulance. … Hours later I learned that the van belonged to the young couple living across the street from me in Herriman, Eric and Jeana Quigley.
“Not only do I see the Quigleys in church, … we ate dinner with them at a neighborhood party the night before the crash. Our grandkids played with daughters Bianca and Miranda. …
“Fourteen-month-old Miranda suffered serious head injuries and died three days later at Primary Children’s Hospital.
“Here’s where all that nosiness … pays off. Although the accident occurred several miles from home, the dust literally had not settled before someone from the ward stopped and was pulling through the wreckage. The rest of the ward knew about it before the cops and paramedics showed up.
“Ward members went to all three hospitals, contacted Eric at work and organized into labor squads. People who didn’t get in on the immediate-need level were frantic for some way to help.
“In 48 hours, the Quigley yard was mowed, home cleaned, laundry done, refrigerator stocked, relatives fed and a trust fund set up at a local bank. We would have given their dog a bath if they had one.”
The author concludes with this insightful comment: “There is a positive side to the congregational microscope my ward lives under. … What happens to a few happens to all” (Robert Kirby, “Well-Being of Others Is Our Business,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 30, 2005, p. C1).

One of my most memorable experiences was with another young convert to the Church who had found in the home of a Latter-day Saint friend a spirit and a caring family relationship she had never known in her own family. She said that since her baptism things had not materially changed in her home; there was still abuse and argument and conflict and alcohol and foul language and a hateful spirit. “But,” she said, “there is one room at my house where I can go and shut the door and read the scriptures and listen to good music and pray and feel the Spirit of the Lord. In my little room I can have that blessing. One day, if the Lord will help me, I will marry a man and establish a home where we and our children can have the Spirit of the Lord always and everywhere.”

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

The cool grayness of the concrete on which I was standing matched the lonely feelings growing inside of me. It was my first day—in fact my first hour—at THE DORM, and I had contracted a severe case of homesickness.
“Why have I come so far away?” I moaned to myself. “Why did I let my father just drive away and leave me here?”
Here was May Hall, and I was beginning my freshman year at Brigham Young University. I soon discovered that most of the others on my floor felt similar apprehensions (“We can always transfer to the state university at semester time,” we comforted ourselves), yet at semester time none of us transferred. And by the time spring came, despite our excitement to go home and visit our families and hometowns, we left our roommates tearfully. During the course of only eight months, we had made lifelong and eternal kinds of friendships.
When I think back on my freshman year now, I remember Mary and Suzanne and the pizza they had delivered to their first-floor window so that the rest of us wouldn’t know they were breaking their diets. I remember five of us dragging Christmas trees to the dorm from the grocery store four blocks away. I remember the fun of sharing care packages from home, and eating crackers with Linda on the grassy lawn of Helaman Halls. I remember fasting together and kneeling in prayer with all the girls on my floor.
By the time I graduated from college, I had had 18 roommates (not counting the other 35 girls on my floor my freshman year), and more important, 18 girls I considered my lifelong friends. Looking back I realize my roommates and I became close because we shared so many things together. We had to learn a lot about sacrifice, giving, and working things out. There had been some tears, some moments of frustration, some sadness. But through it all, we had discovered the beauty in each other and the joy that comes from loving the people you live with.

My life was changed by a saintly patriarch. He married his sweetheart. They were deeply in love, and soon she was expecting their first child.
The night the baby was born, there were complications. The only doctor was somewhere in the countryside tending to the sick. After many hours of labor, the condition of the mother-to-be became desperate. Finally, the doctor was located. In the emergency, he acted quickly and soon the baby was born, and the crisis, it appeared, was over. But some days later, the young mother died from the very infection that the doctor had been treating at another home that night.
The young man’s world was shattered. As the weeks wore on, his grief festered. He thought of little else, and in his bitterness he became threatening. Today, no doubt, he would have been pressed to file a malpractice suit, as though money would solve anything.
One night a knock came at his door. A little girl said simply, “Daddy wants you to come over. He wants to talk to you.”
“Daddy” was the stake president. The counsel from that wise leader was simply “John, leave it alone. Nothing you do about it will bring her back. Anything you do will make it worse. John, leave it alone.”
This had been my friend’s trial. How could he leave it alone? A terrible wrong had been committed. He struggled to get hold of himself and finally determined that he should be obedient and follow the counsel of that wise stake president. He would leave it alone.
He said, “I was an old man before I understood and could finally see a poor country doctor—overworked, underpaid, run ragged from patient to patient, with little medicine, no hospital, few instruments, struggling to save lives, and succeeding for the most part. He had come in a moment of crisis, when two lives hung in the balance, and had acted without delay. I finally understood!” He said, “I would have ruined my life and the lives of others.”
Many times he had thanked the Lord on his knees for a wise priesthood leader who counseled simply, “John, leave it alone.”

Elder Smith then married Jessie Evans, a well-known vocalist and member of the Tabernacle Choir, on 12 April 1938. A born entertainer with a vivacious and cheerful nature, she was at Elder Smith’s side for thirty-three years, buoying him up and caring for him with a love and devotion that was truly beautiful. She lived to see him become President of the Church and traveled extensively with him on his many Church assignments—sharing not only his rigorous schedule, but also the loving reception of the Saints of many lands. When she succumbed to a heart ailment on 3 August 1971, millions shared President Smith’s loneliness and sorrow.

At that difficult time, President Harold B. Lee, who served President Smith as a Counselor in the First Presidency, expressed compassion to the prophet over his loss. President Smith assured his friend that the Lord would give him strength to continue in his duties: “I’ve been through this before, you know,” he said.