Gospel Story Finder

Leah had the jitters. That’s what Mommy and Daddy called it when she got a little scared.
Leah was a Sunbeam. Her Primary had been practicing their sacrament meeting program for the past few weeks. She had enjoyed saying her part during the practices.
But today was the real program, and she was nervous. She wanted to stay with Mommy and Daddy. She did not want to look out at all the grown-ups.
“There are too many people,” Leah whispered to Mommy.
“Do you have the jitters, Leah?” Mommy asked.
Leah nodded.
Mommy put her arm around Leah and hugged her tight. Leah sang some of the songs in her mind that she had learned for the program. She felt calmer, but she was still a little nervous.
The bishop invited the Primary children to the stand. Mommy walked with Leah up to her seat in the front. Mommy showed her that the chair had a special tag with her name on it.
When Mommy gave her a kiss and turned to leave, Leah felt full of jitters again. Then she noticed Daddy and her little brother Taylor smiling as Mommy left to sit down. Daddy gave her a little wave, and Taylor blew her a kiss.
Leah paid attention as Sister Cassidy raised her hands to tell everyone to stand up. Leah knew exactly what to do. She knew the song the pianist started to play. Leah sang as loud and as pretty as she could, just like her teachers had shown her. Soon it was her turn to say her part.
She walked to the microphone and said, “I know Heavenly Father loves me. He hears me when I say my prayers and helps me to be good.”
Leah reverently walked back to her seat. The jitters were gone.

Most people are glad to get away from home for a couple of weeks when they get a vacation. I’m glad to come home. Concert dates can keep our performing group away from home for months at a time. That’s probably why I felt so relaxed being back in Salt Lake, standing in line with a girl I liked, ready to see a movie I thought I’d rave about.
It was a popular space science fiction film, and the line was long. Waiting gave us time to talk but also time to think. My mind wandered to parts of section 88 in the Doctrine and Covenants. Section 88 [D&C 88] talks about the judgment day.
Verses 108 through 110 [D&C 88:108–110] talk about a great revealing that will take place, during which our actions will be shown to all. These verses even mention that our thoughts will be unveiled and imply that our life’s journey will be recreated to prove that the judgment is just.
I had heard people describe this as an epic motion picture on a giant screen, but that thought had never really been clear to me before. Now the thoughts came rushing to me. If a movie were made of my life, would I be half as excited to see it as the one I was standing in line to see now? Would I want to take a girl I liked to see it? Would I take my bishop? My friends? Would I invite the Savior?
What started as a simple thought evolved into deep reflections about my life and the motion picture I would make. The concept remained in my mind long after the true film ended and I had driven my date home. In fact, I kept thinking about it for weeks. I couldn’t get rid of the concern I felt wondering what type of movie it would be.

I would now like to share an experience my husband, Dave, had when he was reminded of his divine identity.
About six years ago, he was accepted to a Holocaust education conference in New York City. He is a high school teacher here in Rexburg and teaches classes on the Holocaust and human rights. A significant portion of the two-week conference was to be on “identity”—rebuilding and celebrating the identities of those killed in the Holocaust. One of the activities they would complete as an introduction to the other attendees was to build an “identity box.”
Before Dave left for the conference, he was told that each of them would be given a box roughly the size of a regular piece of paper, but about 1 inch deep. They were asked to bring small “artifacts” to decorate their identity boxes that would illustrate their lives and that they would use to introduce themselves.
He thought it sounded like an interesting exercise and set about thinking what he would take for his identity box. He grabbed a Boise State University keychain for his alma mater, a picture of one of his most recent Holocaust classes, an identification card he had from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, trinkets from his travels, a snowmobile key, pictures of our family, and a photo of the last note his mother wrote him before her death. He thought these items did a pretty good job of illustrating different aspects of his identity, but he had yet to illustrate the single most important element, which is his identity as a child of God It took him days to think of something that he could take that would adequately illustrate that identity. He finally settled on something. He bundled up his artifacts and flew to New York.
As a Holocaust educator, Dave has attended several conferences in several locations around the United States and Europe. He is almost always the only member of the Church in attendance. He has never shied away from discussing his faith, but it can be lonely when you are a minority of one.
As promised, the morning of the first day of his conference, they were set to work on their identity boxes. As you can see, he decorated his box with the items I’ve mentioned. He thought it was fitting to put the more superficial aspects of his identity on the outside and the more personal items on the inside. But what about his core identity as a son of Heavenly Parents? He chose to use his temple recommend. The divine destiny that this recommend represents is at the core of his identity. The path that this recommend represents is one of hope in Christ. It is a path of repentance, covenants, strength, and eternal life. The end of that path is certain; the only thing in question is if Dave, or any of us on this path, will do his part and keep those covenants and thus share in exaltation. He summarized this experience by stating, “Knowing my identity as a child of God helps me build the faith to move forward in a difficult world with infinite distractions and temptations. It helps me build faith in a Father in Heaven who loves me and wants more for me than I can imagine or ever plan for myself.”

In the beginning, there were only five families in the branch, and they met in President Manoï’s home. Meetings eventually moved to a theater, then to another (where classrooms were created by pushing boxes of beer and soft drinks together), and then to a Chinese restaurant.
“The branch was my heart,” Brother Manoï says. “But where we met was not good. During our meetings, people were either lining up to go to a movie, or the proprietor was banging whiskey bottles around. We needed a chapel of our own.”
Land for a chapel was finally purchased in 1970. Part of the branch’s fund-raising effort was performing Polynesian dances for the cruise ships that brought tourists to Nouméa. After one of their performances on board ship, the captain invited the branch members to his room. There they discovered he was a Latter-day Saint from Utah. Their mutual membership in the Lord’s Church created an immediate bond. That experience was a highlight because there was little contact with Church members outside the islands during those early years.

I was, therefore, deeply impressed when I read an account of Sabbath observance from an article in a Church Magazine.

Those of you who know something about agricultural communities know that haying season on a ranch can be quite challenging. The hay is ready for baling when the dew settles on and moistens the hay so as to not shatter the precious leaves during baling. After a warm summer day, the dew rarely comes until near or after nightfall.

The author of the story wrote that many years before he had determined to always observe a proper Sabbath, no matter the consequences. One Saturday evening during haying season when the conditions were right, he went out late in the evening to bale knowing that he would not have sufficient time to complete the work before the Sabbath began. Given the pressing nature of the harvest, he said it was a temptation to continue working beyond the midnight hour.

As the baling proceeded he could see in the distance the tractor headlights of his neighbor also taking advantage of the favorable harvest conditions. Knowing that his neighbor was a dear friend and member of the Church, he wondered what his neighbor would do as midnight approached.

Near midnight he pulled his tractor up to his truck and shut off the lights and motor. Almost immediately he noticed that his neighbor's tractor lights had gone off as well.

Some years later after telling the story in a Sacrament Meeting he turned to his neighbor who was then the bishop of their ward and asked if he remembered that night when both were out baling hay. The bishop nodded that he did remember and then said, [Yes, I remember because] "I didn't have a watch and I was watching you."[11]

You have undoubtedly had such experiences in your lives and will continue to do so in the future. Obedience to Gospel principles provides us the opportunity to truly define our values and thus bless ourselves and others. You will never know who is watching you and who will be influenced to do right because of your example.

Corey has an excellent example about trying something new. When his stake announced they were going to have a pioneer trek, he thought he wouldn’t go. He couldn’t imagine walking around in 19th-century-style clothing, pushing a heavy cart with all his gear in it. But as the time for the trek came, Corey found himself wanting to try. He says, “The experience was incredibly beneficial because it gave me an insight into what the pioneers had to go through. My understanding was broadened. It was hard, but it showed me that perseverance is necessary to gain a great testimony. I think you have to experience some pressure and difficulty in order for that testimony to be tested and then become strong.”

Hyrum peered over the bookrack and checked to see that his mother was still in the next aisle.
When he saw her standing there, he continued to look at the books on display. The crowded Brisbane airport in Queensland, Australia, buzzed all around him like a beehive next to a flowering gum tree.
Suddenly, he heard announced over the intercom, “Passengers for flight QF555 to Sydney, please proceed to Gate 12.”
Hyrum ran into the next aisle, but his mom wasn’t there. He searched the bookstore, but she was gone! Hyrum began to panic and his heart started to beat faster.
He made his way to the crowded corridor, looking up and down for his mom. She was still nowhere in sight.
“Maybe she’s waiting at the gate,” Hyrum thought. He ran as fast as he could, scanning the passengers’ faces as he weaved through them. When he reached Gate 12, he looked over the rows of seats, but his mom wasn’t there either. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw his reflection in the big glass window. Lost and alone, Hyrum began to cry.
As he sobbed, Hyrum suddenly felt a warm impression come over him. He imagined his mother kneeling beside him. He saw the gentleness of her smile and felt the softness of her hand. He remembered what she had told him earlier that morning: “Remember, Hyrum, if we get separated for any reason, I am only a prayer away.”
Hyrum immediately stopped crying. He closed his eyes. “Heavenly Father,” he prayed silently, “please help me find my mom.”
As he opened his eyes he heard someone say, “Excuse me, young man, are you OK?”
Hyrum looked around and saw a flight attendant looking at him.
“Are you OK?” she asked again.
“I’ve lost my mom,” he replied.
“Don’t worry,” she told him. “We’ll find her.”
An announcement was made over the intercom, and soon Hyrum saw his mom hurrying toward them. He thought she might be angry, but she just hugged him tightly. Then they boarded the plane, and soon they were flying high above the clouds.
As he gazed out the window, Hyrum thought about what had happened. He knew that the Holy Ghost helped him remember what his mom had told him. He could still feel the warmth in his heart as he prayed to Heavenly Father, and he was grateful to know that help was only a prayer away.

When I was a young missionary, my companion Sister Diaz and I had a wonderful experience. One time, our monthly allowance was delayed, and we had to choose between using our money to eat that week or pay our fast offerings. That was all the money we had—no parents' credit cards for emergencies!

We decided to pay our fast offerings, and trust that the Lord would take care of us until we received our allowance. And that fast Sunday, the Lord showed us His power. As the meetings were finishing, a sister approached us and told us she had some extra fish and wanted to share it with us. Another sister shared some fruit from her tree, and another gave us a loaf of homemade bread.

Only the Father and Jesus Christ knew our situation and our hearts.

Sometimes the Lord teaches us to be faithful to Him in extreme circumstances. If I paid my fast offerings on that extreme occasion, I would do it on other occasions. [11]

A few years ago, President Oldroyd, a member of the stake presidency, visited my ward and said something I will never forget: “I promise you that if you attend the temple, every part of your life will be blessed.”
As I thought about it, I couldn’t imagine how attending the temple could touch every part of my life. But after church, I decided I would take his challenge anyway and attend the temple on a more regular basis. I wanted to test his promise. My husband had wanted to go to the temple more often, but I was reluctant because we had young children. We would have to drive an hour and a half to the temple in San Antonio, Texas, USA, complete an endowment session, and then drive home. It didn’t work to ask someone to watch our kids for seven or eight hours.
At first we tried trading babysitting with another family, but someone inevitably got sick or had something come up. We decided that we just needed to set the dates for the entire year and go! We then came up with the “pizza and play” method. We would drive to the temple together. One parent would go to a temple session while the other would take the kids to get pizza. Then we would switch: the second parent would do temple work while the other parent walked the temple grounds with the kids. This worked well. Our kids knew the temple was important to us—they knew all the other things we could have been doing on a Saturday—and we got to spend time as a family.

May I share a brief but painful moment from my own inadequate efforts as a father?
Early in our married life my young family and I were laboring through graduate school at a university in New England. Pat was the Relief Society president in our ward, and I was serving in our stake presidency. I was going to school full-time and teaching half-time. We had two small children then, with little money and lots of pressures. In fact, our life was about like yours.
One evening I came home from long hours at school, feeling the proverbial weight of the world on my shoulders. Everything seemed to be especially demanding and discouraging and dark. I wondered if the dawn would ever come. Then, as I walked into our small student apartment, there was an unusual silence in the room.
“What’s the trouble?” I asked.
“Matthew has something he wants to tell you,” Pat said.
“Matt, what do you have to tell me?” He was quietly playing with his toys in the corner of the room, trying very hard not to hear me. “Matt,” I said a little louder, “do you have something to tell me?”
He stopped playing, but for a moment didn’t look up. Then these two enormous, tear-filled brown eyes turned toward me, and with the pain only a five-year-old can know, he said, “I didn’t mind Mommy tonight, and I spoke back to her.” With that he burst into tears, and his entire little body shook with grief. A childish indiscretion had been noted, a painful confession had been offered, the growth of a five-year-old was continuing, and loving reconciliation could have been wonderfully underway.
Everything might have been just terrific—except for me. If you can imagine such an idiotic thing, I lost my temper. It wasn’t that I lost it with Matt—it was with a hundred and one other things on my mind; but he didn’t know that, and I wasn’t disciplined enough to admit it. He got the whole load of bricks.
I told him how disappointed I was and how much more I thought I could have expected from him. I sounded like the parental pygmy I was. Then I did what I had never done before in his life—I told him that he was to go straight to bed and that I would not be in to say his prayers with him or to tell him a bedtime story. Muffling his sobs, he obediently went to his bedside, where he knelt—alone—to say his prayers. Then he stained his little pillow with tears his father should have been wiping away.
If you think the silence upon my arrival was heavy, you should have felt it now. Pat did not say a word. She didn’t have to. I felt terrible!
Later, as we knelt by our own bed, my feeble prayer for blessings upon my family fell back on my ears with a horrible, hollow ring. I wanted to get up off my knees right then and go to Matt and ask his forgiveness, but he was long since peacefully asleep.
My relief was not so soon coming; but finally I fell asleep and began to dream, which I seldom do. I dreamed Matt and I were packing two cars for a move. For some reason his mother and baby sister were not present. As we finished I turned to him and said, “Okay, Matt, you drive one car and I’ll drive the other.”
This five-year-old very obediently crawled up on the seat and tried to grasp the massive steering wheel. I walked over to the other car and started the motor. As I began to pull away, I looked to see how my son was doing. He was trying—oh, how he was trying. He tried to reach the pedals, but he couldn’t. He was also turning knobs and pushing buttons, trying to start the motor. He could scarcely be seen over the dashboard, but there staring out at me again were those same immense, tear-filled, beautiful brown eyes. As I pulled away, he cried out, “Daddy, don’t leave me. I don’t know how to do it. I am too little.” And I drove away.
A short time later, driving down that desert road in my dream, I suddenly realized in one stark, horrifying moment what I had done. I slammed my car to a stop, threw open the door, and started to run as fast as I could. I left car, keys, belongings, and all—and I ran. The pavement was so hot it burned my feet, and tears blinded my straining effort to see this child somewhere on the horizon. I kept running, praying, pleading to be forgiven and to find my boy safe and secure.
As I rounded a curve nearly ready to drop from physical and emotional exhaustion, I saw the unfamiliar car I had left Matt to drive. It was pulled carefully off to the side of the road, and he was laughing and playing nearby. An older man was with him, playing and responding to his games. Matt saw me and cried out something like, “Hi, Dad. We’re having fun.” Obviously he had already forgiven and forgotten my terrible transgression against him.
But I dreaded the older man’s gaze, which followed my every move. I tried to say “Thank you,” but his eyes were filled with sorrow and disappointment. I muttered an awkward apology and the stranger said simply, “You should not have left him alone to do this difficult thing. It would not have been asked of you.”
With that, the dream ended, and I shot upright in bed. My pillow was now stained, whether with perspiration or tears I do not know. I threw off the covers and ran to the little metal camp cot that was my son’s bed. There on my knees and through my tears I cradled him in my arms and spoke to him while he slept. I told him that every dad makes mistakes but that they don’t mean to. I told him it wasn’t his fault I had had a bad day. I told him that when boys are five or fifteen, dads sometimes forget and think they are fifty. I told him that I wanted him to be a small boy for a long, long time, because all too soon he would grow up and be a man and wouldn’t be playing on the floor with his toys when I came home. I told him that I loved him and his mother and his sister more than anything in the world and that whatever challenges we had in life we would face them together. I told him that never again would I withhold my affection or my forgiveness from him, and never, I prayed, would he withhold them from me. I told him I was honored to be his father and that I would try with all my heart to be worthy of such a great responsibility.

At the end of January 1831, Joseph and Emma Smith traveled to Ohio from New York in a horse-drawn sleigh. It was very cold, and Emma was expecting a baby. They arrived safely in front of Newel K. Whitney’s store in Kirtland during the first part of February. As they stopped, the prophet sprang from the sleigh, entered the store, and approached Brother Whitney, whom he had never met before. “Newel K. Whitney!” he declared, extending his hand to shake. “Thou art the man.” “You have the advantage of me,” replied Brother Whitney. “I could not call you by name as you have me.” “I am Joseph the Prophet. You prayed me here, now what do you want of me?” Joseph then explained that while he was still in New York he had seen Brother Whitney in a vision, praying for him to come to Kirtland. With great joy, the Whitneys made room in their home for the Smiths until they could find another place to live.

Just before the evening devotional, a reception for the Osmonds was held at the meetinghouse in Solihull where Justin reconnected with Richard Grant, who he had worked with during voluntary service to the UK deaf community years earlier. The pair’s previous assignment was part of their mission for the Church.
Justin said, “My heart is full tonight. The UK is my second home with its beautiful green pastures and to reconnect with my hero, mentor and dear friend, Richard, who changed my life.”
Richard said, “It has been 25 years since we last were together. Justin is a fantastic guy. He was when we were serving together, and he is now. He honestly wanted to serve with all his heart, and he has not changed.”

I remember as a young man receiving in my home two young men. (Strangely enough, they had the same first name: Elder!) They showed our family the Book of Mormon, a divine evidence of the Lord’s care and love for his children. They declared to our family the message of the restoration of the gospel, the divine sonship of Christ, the divine mission of Joseph Smith, and the divinity of this church. Their message and their willingness to follow the prophet’s call changed our lives.

Relief Society sisters in Billingham Stake came together to sort items for the Somewhere Else charity in Stockton. Assisted by missionaries, Elder Bevan and Elder Landers, the sisters enthusiastically transported bags of pasta, washing-up liquid, flour, stock cubes, and other items to fill care packages. A group of members and missionaries went to the Somewhere Else premises to complete and finish off the care packages ready for distribution. Carole Le Darcy, a member of Billingham Ward, founder and CEO of the charity Somewhere Else, recalls: “I was delighted with the offer of help to purchase much-needed items for our beneficiaries and overwhelmed with the response from church members who came together to sort and package in preparation for distribution. ...It was wonderful to have the missionaries and church members come to our building, and with a little help from some of our beneficiaries, the project was complete. We are so grateful for all the church has done to support our charity, I only wish that you could see the joy and gratitude in the faces of the recipients.”

The balloons made their journeys, and much like the parable in the scriptures, some seeds fell on fertile ground. A message written by Laura West in the Salt Lake Cottonwood Height Stake was found by one who desperately needed her encouragement. Laura had written, in part, “Keep your hopes up and rise like the balloon. Always have faith in Christ and Christ will have faith in you.” Her balloon was found only a couple of miles from where it was released. The man who found it wrote to Laura that he was a member of the Church but had fallen away 18 years earlier while he was in his teens. He told of his struggle to be reunited with his wife and children and the decision he made to come back to the Church. He wrote, “I’ve been reading the Book of Mormon and praying since Sunday night (the day after I got your letter). I went to the bishop of my ward that night and told him I knew it was time for me to straighten out my life. … If only you could feel the peace and tranquility that has come to me since I began the reading and prayer. It’s truly like the difference between night and day. To top off my own feelings that I’m on the right track, I picked up your letter. You said you hoped your letter would brighten my day. It not only brightened my day, it was a godsend! I will remember your letter forever.” He signed it “Your friend you’ve never met” and his name.

“Mormons sometimes discriminate against other Mormons.”
This feeling was expressed in a recent rap between returned Latter-day Saint servicemen and institute students and faculty at Idaho State University. The returned servicemen were invited to talk to student and faculty leaders and tell them how they felt about the institute. The surface niceties were soon forgotten because these men were encouraged to talk frankly about their problems.
The result? A new program of help and encouragement and a resolution on the part of members of the Student Association to go out of their way to make any newcomer to the institute feel welcome.
The servicemen’s comments were accepted at face value by faculty and students alike. President Robert E. Thompson, president of the Idaho State University Stake, summed up the feelings of most when he said, “We have always felt that we were extending the hand of fellowship, that we were welcoming the returned servicemen, but when the truth came out, we found we were falling down. We didn’t realize that they needed something special, something extra. Whether we agree that their assessment of us is correct or not is not important. The important thing is, they feel they need something more and we are not providing it.”
The returned servicemen expressed their feelings of being left out, of finding no place or organization for them.
“When you have been treated like a second-class citizen for so long, you expect to get shoved off the street. I spent four years in the Navy, and the whole time was an intensive training period on catching the cold shoulder. So I’m probably more sensitive than most about recognizing it,” said Terry Van Orden.
Of course, the problem is more complex than it seems. There are many reasons returned servicemen feel as they do.
“A soldier is often in a poor environment. It is unfortunate, but the worst of mankind seems to reveal itself during war. And maybe this is the reason returned servicemen don’t feel equal to returned missionaries. Missionaries are in a situation to see the most beautiful and uplifting parts of mankind; military people see the opposite. This naturally created a state of inequity in my mind; I didn’t feel as good as if I had been serving on a mission. And, of course, I wasn’t treated the same as a returned missionary. But the most important difference to me was that difference inside of me.
“For the first while it was natural for me to be hostile and suspect that people were not sincere because this is what I had been conditioned to expect. But finally I had to get hold of myself and say, ‘Look, these people are trying to help you, and they want to be your friends.’ It took me a while to realize this, but when I did, the change started happening to me, and I began to come around,” said Warren Mallen, a Vietnam veteran.
One ex-Navy man said, “I kept my testimony all the time I was in the service, but when I came back to my home ward, I didn’t feel accepted, and so I became totally inactive. Now because of this special effort at the institute, I really feel that I am on my way back.”
Of course, adjustments back to regular religious life have not all been negative. “The first few days at the institute were a pain in the neck for me because people were unfriendly. So I decided that I had to get involved. I got involved in everything I could, and soon people seemed more friendly,” commented Craig Naylor.
“I went into the service with four of my best buddies,” added Chip Herndon, an ex-marine who was wounded several times and spent a total of sixteen months in hospitals. “One stayed in and the other three died while they were in the service. So I felt like burying myself in the Church when I got home. I had a lot of time alone in the service, and I didn’t like being by myself. I was real glad to be active in the Church, even though it is still hard for me to open up at times.”
The institute panel learned other things about returned servicemen. They learned that there are more than a hundred of them on their campus alone who do not even feel welcome or wanted enough to let others know they are Latter-day Saints, let alone set foot in an institute class.
They learned that being busy and preoccupied with your own studies and assignments can easily be misinterpreted by someone else. “I’ve tried to come here several times during the last two years,” said Terry Van Orden, “but I couldn’t get used to walking down the hall and seeing my people walk by with their chins in the air.”
Those listening to the panel realized that it is common for people to prejudge others. Just as returned missionaries are loved, ex-servicemen are looked on with suspicion. “Talk to any mother; they will all tell you they would rather have their daughters associating with a missionary than with a serviceman,” commented one person. The group feeling was unanimous: “People don’t look at you as a person first and a serviceman second. They don’t care what kind of person you are; most people won’t even give you a chance.”
They talked about specific problems that seem to keep returned servicemen from trying to get back into Church life. Some haven’t been keeping the standards, and they feel they need help from someone who can understand them. Others expressed the idea that it is only natural after feeling the spirit of true love and brotherhood from sincere people to want to reevaluate their own lives.
As a result of this session, a special seminar is held regularly at the institute. Some twenty returned servicemen are now attending, and they have been assured that they are loved and wanted. Here they discuss everything from the gospel principles to career advice to how to combat the feeling that girls are afraid of them. During the seminar they are making friends and beginning to feel at home at the institute.
Discovering how any child of God should be treated was one benefit of the returned servicemen’s session and its resulting seminar. People now understand and practice the quintessence of the gospel. Once these wonderful principles were applied, the servicemen’s seminar became a living, breathing part of the Student Association at Idaho State University. At the same time it promises to be a very important missionary tool.
Institute students and faculty learned several important lessons from this experience that could help you not only to relate better to others but also to be a better follower of the Savior.
“We should not be interested in the history of a person’s problems. If a guy is smoking, we are not going to put him down for that. We simply need to let him know that we are his brothers and sisters, that we want to help him, and that we care about him. We are not interested in what he was but in what he can become.”
“Many people are basically shy and have a hard time communicating—not the passing-the-time-of-day kind of talk, but really expressing their feelings from deep down inside. In order to do this they have to want to express their feelings and then feel comfortable about how they will be received.”
“It is easy for people who are extra sensitive to feel that they are being looked down on. In addition to the servicemen, non–Latter-day Saints on this campus feel that the Mormons are cliquish and that we look down on them because they are different.”
“Those returned servicemen who seemed to feel the best adjusted were welcomed back into their home wards with a ward party. Then they were asked to report to the bishop and the stake high council about their experiences and their conduct as ward members while they were away. This personal interest made them feel accepted and on more of a par with others in the ward who were returning from school or missions.”
“The most positive experiences these brethren had while they were in the service were when others reacted to them first as people and then as soldiers or sailors, not the reverse.”
Whether in the United States or Japan, people belonging to branches were generally more friendly than people in wards. An ex-sailor said, “One sister in a little branch in Japan kept a three-by-five-inch card for every serviceman who visited there. She and her husband would take you home, and you knew you really had a friend and a place to go if you were ever there again. This kind of experience is the gospel in action to a serviceman.”
“Many returned servicemen have experienced what they call a crash course in growing up. Even though they may be the same age chronologically as other students, they had to grow up under fire on a night patrol or crouched in a bunker with mortar rounds zeroing in on top of them, and so they have good reason for seeming a little older and a little more serious in many ways.
“Because of these kinds of memories, it is harder for them to be as light-hearted and gay as the average college student. They require more drawing out than most.
“It is natural when we see a person from a minority race at the institute to sort of go out of our way to be friendly. But we often tend to by-pass the average-looking student because there are so many of them.”
“There are many Latter-day Saint returned servicemen on this campus, but you can’t recognize them. You go to the student union building and you know that some of the people you see are returned servicemen, and yet you don’t know which ones. We have had some success in locating them by working through the registrars office and also by asking returned servicemen. Terry knew twenty Latter-day Saint returned servicemen on campus who were not affiliated with the Church in any way.”

The same principle applies to children. There is an old and true proverb which says, “As the twig is bent, so the tree is inclined.” May I repeat a story I have told in general conference. Not long after we were married, we built our first home. We had little money, and I did a lot of the work. The landscaping was entirely my responsibility. The first of many trees that I planted was a thornless honey locust, and I envisioned the day when its shade would assist in cooling the house in the summer. I put it in a place at the corner where the wind from the canyon to the east blew the hardest. I dug a hole, put in the bare root, put soil around it, poured on water, and largely forgot it. It was only a wisp of a tree, perhaps three-quarters of an inch in diameter. It was so supple that I could bend it with ease in any direction. I paid little attention to it as the years passed. Then one winter day when the tree was barren of leaves, I chanced to look out the window at it. I noted that it was leaning to the west, misshapen and out of balance. I could scarcely believe it. I went out and braced myself against it as if to push it upright. But the trunk was now nearly a foot in diameter. My strength was as nothing against it. I took from my toolshed a block and tackle, attaching one end to the tree and the other to a well-set post. I pulled the rope. The pulleys moved just a little, and the trunk of the tree trembled slightly. But that was all. It seemed to say to me, “You can’t straighten me. It’s too late. I’ve grown this way because of your neglect, and I will not bend.”

Finally in desperation I took my saw and cut off the great heavy branch on the west side. I stepped back and surveyed what I had done. I had cut off a major part of the tree, leaving a huge scar about eight inches across and only one small branch growing skyward.

More than half a century has passed since I planted that tree. My daughter and her family now live there. I recently looked again at the tree. It is large, its shape is better, and it is a great asset to the home. But how serious was the trauma of its youth and how painful the treatment I had used to straighten it. When the tree was first planted, a piece of string would have held it against the forces of the wind. I could have and should have supplied that string with ever so little effort, but I did not. And it bent to the forces that came against it.

My experiences on this campus started many years before my employment here. Let me explain. My parents came to this part of Idaho in 1962 with the oldest two of their six children. My father was a recent graduate of BYU in Provo and took an opportunity to move to Southeast Idaho to work as a seminary teacher. With guidance from a loving Heavenly Father, my father was given an opportunity to work at what was then Ricks College. He worked for over thirty years in the Austin Building as a professor in Construction Management.

Dad was a skilled carpenter and woodworker; he loved working with his hands and creating all kinds of things out of wood. He especially loved working on the lathe and created some very unique and beautiful pieces of art. I recall spending many hours as a youth in the wood shop of the Austin building, where I watched, admired, and learned so many things by watching him.

Dad had an eye for potential, I was always amazed at what he could see in a piece of wood that may not have been noticed by an untrained eye. He had a vast knowledge of what species or grade of wood could potentially produce the most durable product or the most eye-catching grain pattern.

As I returned from my mission and experimented with my first college classes, some of them, of course, being taught by my dad, I thoroughly enjoyed once again being mentored by him in the wood shop and attempted to learn some woodworking skills.

At that point in my life, I had my eyes opened to see other qualities that my dad possessed: he saw the potential and beauty within people, students and co-workers alike; Dad loved people. It became more obvious to me that the time my father had spent working on this campus had helped him become a better disciple of Jesus Christ.

As I watched my father eventually finish his career on this campus and also his earthly mission, I reflected on the words of King Benjamin in Mosiah 2:17: ”I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God.” [1]

Dad loved building things out of wood, and Dad loved building people. He served many students over the years and gained lifelong friendships with them and the other people he was blessed to work with. More importantly, my father set a lifelong example of the importance of always building upon good things, with discipleship of Christ as the goal. My dad understood the mission statement of BYU-Idaho “to develop disciples of Jesus Christ who are leaders in their homes, the church, and their communities.” [2]

Recently I was privileged to meet a modern-day pioneer, a beloved daughter of God and recent convert to the Church in Chile. She is a single mother with two young sons. Through the power of the Atonement, she has been enabled to put her past behind her and is now earnestly striving to become a true disciple of Jesus Christ. As I think of her, a principle taught by Elder David A. Bednar comes to mind: “It is one thing to know that Jesus Christ came to earth to die for us—that is fundamental and foundational to the doctrine of Christ. But we also need to appreciate that the Lord desires, through His Atonement and by the power of the Holy Ghost, to live in us—not only to direct us but also to empower us.”
As this Chilean sister and I discussed how to stay on the path leading to eternal life, she enthusiastically assured me that she was determined to continue on the path. She had been off the path most of her life, and she declared that there was nothing “out there” off the path that she wanted to have back in her life again. The enabling power of the Atonement is living inside of her. It is being written in her heart.

Upon seeing the canvas-topped wagons inching toward the wide curve of our fishing creek, Peter sucked in his breath. “Mormons!” He grabbed my arm and pulled me through a mud puddle, and into the tall grass.
“Look what you did!” I wailed, wiping at the mud on my new birthday shoes.
Peter only slapped the willow stick that was meant to become my birthday whistle against his leg. “If they camp, we’ll need to warn Pa. He’ll get men from town to help drive them on their way!”
I looked at my brother’s grim face. “Are Mormons bad?”
“Maybe not. But nobody I know wants them around.”
I parted the grass and eased my face through, hoping I could get a glimpse of a Mormon. At the same time, my heart thumped for fear that I might. I saw their wagons circling under the cottonwoods, and I drew back. “I think they are camping, Peter!”
Peter slapped the willow stick against his leg again. “They’ll see us if we try to sneak for home.”
I crept farther into the grass and hunched down. What would happen if they saw us, I dared not ask. My heart was pounding. I knew it was important to be very, very still.
But soon my feet began to burn inside my new shoes. One cramped-up foot began to feel the stab of a thousand little needles. I squirmed and tried to carefully change positions. But I tipped over, shaking the clump of grass we were hiding in. Peter glared at me as I tried to right myself. And as I did, I saw the willows just beyond us wiggle!
A little girl, about my size, stepped through them. Her blue eyes opened wide with surprise when she saw us. Then she smiled. “Hello. Were you planning to fish here too?”
I thought Peter would answer her, but he didn’t, so I said, “We came to cut a willow stick. Peter is making a whistle for my birthday. We—we thought you were Mormons.”
She stepped closer to us, pulling her skirt through the willows behind her. Lifting her chin, she said, “We are.”
I was going to warn her about the mud puddle, but I was somehow speechless. She stepped into the mud with bare feet—bare feet already covered with dust.
She looked hopefully at Peter. “Would you make a whistle for my little brother, Billy? He’s awful sick. A whistle might cheer him some.”
Now Peter puffed himself up. “Not for a Mormon boy, I wouldn’t! And you have no right to stop here, you know!”
The little girl bit her lip. “We must stop somewhere to rest. I only wanted to find a willow to use for a fishing pole. I—I hoped to catch a fish for Billy’s supper.”
Peter growled, “The fish in this creek don’t belong to Mormons, either.”
I wanted to take away her hurt look. “They belong to God,” I piped up, ignoring Peter’s glare.
“Of course,” she agreed. “That’s why we stopped here. We pray to know where to stop, to know where we might find food.”
I thought of all the good things Mama had cooked for my birthday dinner, so much that we hadn’t eaten half of it: chicken dumplings, bread pudding swimming in fresh cow’s cream, and lots of other good things. Now just the thoughts of it choked me some.
“It’s high time we tell Pa, Amy,” Peter told me. “He’ll see that these Mormons move on!”
Peter broke out of the willows and began running across the fields toward home. I hung back, biting my lip and hurting inside for the Mormon girl. She turned away and started toward the wagons.
“Wait!” I called out, making a sudden decision.
She hesitated, and I sat down and tugged at one of my new shoes. “These are my birthday shoes,” I hollered to her. “They hurt me. I’m going to throw them in the creek!” I held the shoe high as if to throw it.
She came running back. “Oh, please don’t throw your shoes in the creek!”
She reached for the shoe, and I saw the plea in her eyes. Grinning, I handed her the matching one. I think she could tell, then, that I wanted to be her friend.
“Don’t worry about how my brother talked,” I told her. “Papa is a kind man. He’ll let you fish in our creek. I’m sure he will.” I turned and ran across the field in my bare feet. I hardly felt the dry stubble of the field, my steps seemed so light.
As I stood in the kitchen, trying to catch my breath, I studied the faces of my parents. Peter had already told them about the Mormons. “God told them to stop here because they’re hungry,” I burst out. “And there’s a little boy who’s very sick.”
Mama and Papa looked thoughtful. I touched Papa’s hand. “Couldn’t we help them? Do we need to drive Mormons away?”
Peter noticed my shoeless feet. “Look! I bet Amy gave her new shoes to that Mormon girl!”
I looked at Mama. “They hurt me,” I said.
Mama drew me close. “And they hurt you even more when another little girl had none, is that it?”
Oh, how I loved Mama at that moment. And I loved Papa extra special when he said, “I wonder how we’d feel right now, if we sat down to all those leftovers from Amy’s birthday dinner.”
I would choke, I knew I would. Papa knew I would too.
Peter frowned. “You mean you aren’t going to get the men in town to help drive them away?”
“No, I’m going to have you get a slab of side meat out of the smokehouse. And maybe a sack of that meal we still have in the pantry.”
Good, kind Papa!
“And chicken dumplings for little Billy?” I asked.
I heard the thwack of the willow stick against Peter’s leg. He still had the whistle stick in his hand. I looked at Mama and Papa and said, “Peter is making a whistle especially for a Mormon—for little Billy—aren’t you, Peter?”
Peter saw my grin, and the darkness in his face began to fade. “Well, I guess maybe I am.” Then he was grinning right along with the rest of us.