Gospel Story Finder

The young women in the Fort Wayne Indiana Stake were in the habit of sharing their talents and service with everyone all year round. So when it came time to have An Evening for Sharing program, they decided to have something a little different and share with each other some fun and some good learning experiences. First of all they called a steering committee of young women. Then they handed out questionnaires to all the young women in the stake to find out what they would like to do. It seemed unanimous—they all wanted to have a 24-hour time for sharing (really a one-day girls’ conference) and call it “Unlimited.”
They began the event with a Friday evening filled with games, food, a special introduction of the theme, and an original song written by one of the Beehive girls, Becky Wall. The next morning, workshops in the six areas of focus in the Young Women program were conducted. Adult specialists from the stake presented workshops on the Treasures of Truth book, quilting, social dancing, macramé, speaking to the deaf, and other topics. (The girls sang “I Am a Child of God” in sign language for weeks after the activity.) After the workshops they held a testimony meeting and shared their most priceless possession with each other.
Eighty girls and leaders participated. They turned what is usually one evening into 24-hours of sharing.

In January 1521, Luther was excommunicated from the church, and soon after he was summoned to the city of Worms to meet before an assembly of princes and representatives from the free cities of Germany. At the meeting Luther was given the opportunity to deny that he had written certain books against the church, but Luther refused. He replied, “… I cannot and will not retract anything, since to act against one’s conscience is neither safe nor right. God help me, Amen!”

Luther received safe-conduct from the meeting and for the next twenty-one days. After that he would be considered an outlaw and could be killed on sight. Midway on the trip back to Wittenberg, Luther was “kidnapped” by prearrangement with his friend, Frederick of Saxony, and taken to Wartburg Castle where Luther would be safe.

Disguised as a knight, and wearing a sword and a beard, Luther spent several months in the castle studying, writing letters to friends, and translating the New Testament from Latin into German. He completed the translation of the whole Bible thirteen years later, which allowed the common people to read that sacred book for the first time. More than three centuries later, Joseph Smith said of Luther’s Bible: “I find it to be the most correct that I have found.”

I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in the Diala ward in the Kolwezi Stake. I would like to share my testimony dating back to my years of secondary school when I admired a young couple who apparently lived in happiness. After beginning my university studies, I made the decision to get married before completing them, and today I’m blessed with a happy family.
The motivation behind this decision is based on the belief that the best place to nurture light and truth is in our home. The family is regarded as the Lord’s workshop where we learn and live the gospel. Each family member has a sacred duty to help strengthen others spiritually. Eternal families and homes filled with the Spirit don’t just happen by chance! They require substantial efforts, time, and the participation of each member.
Although each home is unique, it is essential that everyone seeks the truth to help make a difference. Today, my greatest joy is that my family and I have been sealed in the Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple for time and for all eternity. We express our gratitude to God, our Heavenly Father, and His Son, Jesus Christ, for the blessings bestowed upon us. Our marriage is a success, and we strongly believe that anything can happen except separation. The Mutobola family remains grateful and united.

Brother Thomson has told his children that a mission is like a university education in the school of life, and Matthew plans to enroll. His family helps him prepare for that experience as they helped him prepare for his baptism. For many weeks before he turned eight, the family home evenings were modified missionary discussions, preparing Matthew as any convert to the Church would prepare. When his baptism day came, he was thoroughly grounded in the covenants he was making and in the eternal meaning of this earthly ordinance.

In the book Daughters in My Kingdom, we read about Sister Hedwig Biereichel, a woman in Germany who suffered much sorrow and deprivation during World War II. Because of her love and charitable nature, and even in her own great need, she willingly shared her food with starving prisoners of war. Later, when asked how she was able to “keep a testimony during all [those] trials,” she replied in effect, “I didn’t keep a testimony through those times—the testimony kept me.”

It was one year ago today, in a solemn assembly, that we had the privilege of raising our hands to sustain the authorities of the Church, much as we have done this morning. It was on that April morning that I heard my name read as one presented for your sustaining vote as a member of the Quorum of Twelve Apostles. It became my obligation to stand with those other living men who have been called as special witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ upon the earth.
You must have wondered, as I did, why this call should come to me. It seemed accidental at times, that I was preserved in worthiness, yet there was always the constant, quiet, lingering feeling about being guided and being prepared.
It has been our privilege this morning to raise our hands to sustain the President of the Church. I count that a great privilege and special obligation, for I have a witness about him.
Some weeks before the meeting of last April, I left the office one Friday afternoon thinking of the weekend conference assignment. I waited for the elevator to come down from the fifth floor.
As the elevator doors quietly opened, there stood President Joseph Fielding Smith. There was a moment of surprise in seeing him, since his office is on a lower floor.
As I saw him framed in the doorway, there fell upon me a powerful witness—there stands the prophet of God. That sweet voice of Spirit that is akin to light, that has something to do with pure intelligence, affirmed to me that this was the prophet of God.
I need not try to define that experience to Latter-day Saints. That kind of witness is characteristic of this church. It is not something reserved to those in high office. It is a witness, not only available but vital, to every member.
As it is with the President, so it is with his counselors.
North of us in the Wasatch Range stand three mountain peaks. The poet would describe them as mighty pyramids of stone. The center one, the highest of the three, the map would tell you is Willard Peak. But the pioneers called them “The Presidency.” If you should go to Willard, look to the east, and up, way up, there stands “The Presidency.”
Thank God for the presidency. Like those peaks, they stand with nothing above them but the heavens. They need our sustaining vote. It is sometimes lonely in those lofty callings of leadership—for their calling is not to please man, but to please the Lord. God bless these three great and good men.
Occasionally during the past year I have been asked a question. Usually it comes as a curious, almost an idle, question about the qualifications to stand as a witness for Christ. The question they ask is, “Have you seen Him?”
That is a question that I have never asked of another. I have not asked that question of my brethren in the Quorum, thinking that it would be so sacred and so personal that one would have to have some special inspiration, indeed, some authorization, even to ask it.
There are some things just too sacred to discuss. We know that as it relates to the temples. In our temples, sacred ordinances are performed; sacred experiences are enjoyed. And yet we do not, because of the nature of them, discuss them outside those sacred walls.
It is not that they are secret, but they are sacred; not to be discussed, but to be harbored and to be protected and regarded with the deepest of reverence.
I have come to know what the prophet Alma meant:
“… It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him.
“And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.” (Alma 12:9–10.)
There are those who hear testimonies borne in the Church, by those in high station and by members in the wards and branches, all using the same words—“I know that God lives; I know that Jesus is the Christ,” and come to question, “Why cannot it be said in plainer words? Why aren’t they more explicit and more descriptive? Cannot the apostles say more?”
How like the sacred experience in the temple becomes our personal testimony. It is sacred, and when we are wont to put it into words, we say it in the same way—all using the same words. The apostles declare it in the same phrases with the little Primary or Sunday School youngster. “I know that God lives and I know that Jesus is the Christ.”
We would do well not to disregard the testimonies of the prophets or of the children, for “he imparteth his words by angels unto men, yea, not only men but women also. Now this is not all; little children do have words given unto them many times which confound the wise and the learned.” (Alma 32:23.)
Some seek for a witness to be given in some new and dramatic and different way.
The bearing of a testimony is akin to a declaration of love. The romantics and poets and couples in love, from the beginning of time, have sought more impressive ways of saying it, or singing it, or writing it. They have used all of the adjectives, all of the superlatives, all manner of poetic expression. And when all is said and done, the declaration which is most powerful is the simple, three-word variety.
To one who is honestly seeking, the testimony borne in these simple phrases is enough, for it is the spirit that beareth record, not the words.
There is a power of communication as real and tangible as electricity. Man has devised the means to send images and sound through the air to be caught on an antenna and reproduced and heard and seen. This other communication may be likened to that, save it be a million times more powerful, and the witness it brings is always the truth.
There is a process by which pure intelligence can flow, by which we can come to know of a surety, nothing doubting.
I said there was a question that could not be taken lightly nor answered at all without the prompting of the Spirit. I have not asked that question of others, but I have heard them answer it—but not when they were asked. They have answered it under the prompting of the Spirit, on sacred occasions, when “the Spirit beareth record.” (D&C 1:39.)
I have heard one of my brethren declare: “I know from experiences, too sacred to relate, that Jesus is the Christ.”
I have heard another testify: “I know that God lives; I know that the Lord lives. And more than that, I know the Lord.”
It was not their words that held the meaning or the power. It was the Spirit. “… for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.” (2 Ne. 33:1.)
I speak upon this subject in humility, with the constant feeling that I am the least in every way of those who are called to this holy office.
I have come to know that the witness does not come by seeking after signs. It comes through fasting and prayer, through activity and testing and obedience. It comes through sustaining the servants of the Lord and following them.
Karl G. Maeser was taking a group of missionaries across the Alps. As they reached a summit, he stopped. Gesturing back down the trail to some poles set in the snow to mark the way across the glacier, he said, “Brethren, there stands the Priesthood. They are just common sticks like the rest of us … but the position they hold makes them what they are to us. If we step aside from the path they mark, we are lost.”
The witness depends upon sustaining his servants as we have done here in sign and as we should do in action.
Now, I wonder with you why one such as I should be called to the holy apostleship. There are so many qualifications that I lack. There is so much in my effort to serve that is wanting. As I have pondered on it, I have come to only one single thing, one qualification in which there may be cause, and that is, I have that witness.
I declare to you that I know that Jesus is the Christ. I know that he lives. He was born in the meridian of time. He taught his gospel, was tried, was crucified. He rose on the third day. He was the first fruits of the resurrection. He has a body of flesh and bone. Of this I bear testimony. Of him I am a witness. In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

For Damien, serving others was a natural part of growing up. He enjoyed going with his dad to help others move. “Service is what I am meant to do,” Damien says. He has often looked for ways to serve others—for instance, landscaping or sharing his technical abilities. So when he was asked to help with the Just Serve Club at his high school, Damien was ready to make it happen.
Damien had been a member of the Just Serve Club before. But when the previous leaders graduated, he was mostly on his own. Damien began the process of rebuilding the club.
It took a lot of work to recruit new members. During the week at the beginning of the school year when students promote the school clubs, Damien worked every day inviting people.
One young woman, Abby R., was excited to join. “I always wanted to be in the Just Serve Club,” she says. Her older sister had been president of the club a few years before.
She loves doing simple acts of service like opening a door or bringing treats for a friend. But the Just Serve Club provided a way to serve in bigger ways. “I went to every service activity I could,” Abby says.
At club meetings, members work together to write encouraging notes in cards for people in the local hospital or gather supplies for boxes to go to disadvantaged children. “It felt good to serve and help others during their struggles,” Abby says. “And service is a great way to connect with your peers.”
Damien says, “Watching students come together talking and laughing while they make cards helps me feel the Spirit.”
Damien and Abby have both found that service gives you an opportunity to think more about others and not just yourself. “You can get caught up in yourself and what you need to do for school,” Abby says. “Taking time to think about others and what’s going on in their lives helps you think about the Savior. It brings you peace and makes you happy.”
Abby has found that service brings her closer to the Lord as she is doing what He would want her to do. Damien has discovered serving and giving back is a way he can follow the Savior’s example. “The pure love of Christ is charity,” Damien says. “I try to embody charity, and it has helped me to grow so close to Christ.”
“Anywhere there is a need, you can make a difference,” Damien says. “That’s what Christ’s work is all about.”

This was well illustrated in my father’s patriarchal blessing. He was told in his blessing that he would be blessed with “many beautiful daughters.” He and my mother became the parents of five sons. There were no daughters born to them, but of course they treated the wives of their sons as daughters. This last summer when we had a family reunion, I saw my father’s granddaughters moving about tending to the food and ministering to the young children and the elderly, and the realization came to me that father’s blessing had been literally fulfilled; he has, indeed, many beautiful daughters. The patriarch who gave my father his blessing had spiritual vision to see beyond this life. There was a disappearance of the dividing line between time and eternity.

When President Hinckley was a young man, he served a full-time mission to the British Isles. He tells us some of his experiences.
The boat on which I traveled to England docked at Plymouth the night of July 1, 1933. The three of us missionaries aboard took the boat train to London, arriving late at night. The next day I was assigned to go to Preston, Lancashire. After what seemed like a long, lonely train ride, I met my companion at the station, and he took me to our “digs,” a short distance from Vauxhall Chapel where the first LDS missionary sermon had been preached in 1837.
My companion then announced that we would go into town and hold a street meeting. I was terrified. We sang a hymn and offered prayer. Then he called on me to speak. A crowd gathered. They looked menacing to me. The world was then in the bottom of the Depression, and Lancashire had been particularly hard-hit. The people were poor. They wore wooden clogs on their feet. Their dress reflected the hard times in which they lived. They were difficult to understand; I was a westerner from the United States, and they spoke with a Lancashire dialect.
Those first few weeks I was discouraged. I wrote a letter home to my good father and said that I felt I was wasting my time and his money. He wrote a very short letter to me which said: “Dear Gordon, I have your recent letter. I have only one suggestion: forget yourself and go to work.” Earlier that morning my companion and I had read these words of the Lord: “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel’s, the same shall save it” (Mark 8:35).
Those words of the Master, followed by my father’s letter, went into my very being. I went into our bedroom and got on my knees and made a pledge to the Lord. I covenanted that I would try to forget myself and lose myself in His service.
That July day in 1933 was my day of decision. A new light came into my life and a new joy into my heart. The fog of England seemed to lift, and I saw the sunlight. I had a rich and wonderful mission experience, for which I shall ever be grateful.

While preaching the gospel in Ohio, Lorenzo had a dream one night in which he saw an angry mob attacking him in a schoolhouse. He awoke frightened and prayed for the Lord to protect him as he preached the gospel.
Later that same day, two well-dressed men came to Lorenzo and asked him to come to a schoolhouse where a crowd was waiting to hear him preach. Remembering the dream, Lorenzo refused to come. The men tried harder and harder to get him to come, but Lorenzo would not. The men finally left, shouting angry words at him. Lorenzo soon found out that they weren’t really wanting to hear him preach. Instead, they and a group of other men were waiting to attack Lorenzo at the schoolhouse.

It was only a few weeks later when a similar situation occurred. Some of our ward members, including many of our young men, were practicing for an upcoming theatrical performance. Todd, a priest, was one of the performers. During a rehearsal, someone mockingly mimicked Todd’s performance. He was offended and started walking toward the door dejectedly.
“Oh no,” I thought, “here we go again.” I felt compelled to follow him outside and encourage him to ignore the offense and come back.
What happened next was a beautiful surprise.
This time it was not Dennis who hurried past me, but David. David, who only a few weeks earlier had been the dejected one, was now the inspired one. He ran up to Todd and, putting his arm around him, pleaded with him to return. Todd accepted the invitation, and within minutes both boys were standing side by side on the stage. David had now successfully convinced another to stay.

When I served as president of the Canadian Mission, headquartered in Toronto, one missionary came to our mission without some of the talents of others, yet he devotedly plunged into his missionary labors. The work was difficult for him; however, he valiantly struggled to be his best self.
At a zone conference, with a General Authority attending, the missionaries had not done too well in a scripture quiz conducted by the visitor. The visitor, with a little sarcasm, commented, “Why, I don’t believe this group knows even the names of the basic missionary pamphlets and their authors.”
Well, that was the proverbial “straw” that broke the camel’s back. I spoke up: “I think they do know them.”
“Well, we will see,” he said, and then he had the missionaries stand. In making a selection of a missionary to prove the point, none of the bright-appearing, experienced, polished missionaries was selected, but rather my new missionary, who had a hard time gaining knowledge of such things, was singled out. My heart literally sank. I looked at the pleading expression on the elder’s face; I knew that he was paralyzed with fear. How I prayed—oh, how I prayed: “Heavenly Father, come to his rescue.” And He did. After a long pause, the visitor said, “Who authored the pamphlet The Plan of Salvation?”
After what seemed like an eternity, the trembling missionary responded, “John Morgan.”
“Who wrote Which Church Is Right?”
Again the pause, and then the reply, “Mark E. Petersen.”
“How about The Lord’s Tenth?”
“James E. Talmage wrote that one,” came the response.
And so it went through the list of missionary pamphlets we used. Finally came the question, “Is there another pamphlet?”
“Yes. It’s called After Baptism, What?”
“Who wrote it?”
Without hesitation the missionary answered, “The name of the author isn’t shown in the pamphlet, but my mission president told me it was written by Elder Mark E. Petersen by assignment from President David O. McKay.”
But what about the missionary? He completed an honorable mission and returned to his home in the West. Later he was called to serve as the bishop of his ward. Every year I receive a Christmas card from him and his wife and family. He always signs his name and then adds this comment, “From your best missionary.”

Thirty-five years ago, my parents were also blinded and were desperately seeking to know the truth and were concerned about where to turn to find it. My parents were both born in the village, where the traditions were rooted in individuals’ and families’ lives. They both left their village when they were young and came to the city, looking for a better life.
They married and started their family in a very modest way. We were almost eight people in a small house—my parents, two of my sisters and I, and a cousin who used to live with us. I was wondering if we were truly a family, as we were not permitted to have dinner at the same table with our parents. When our dad returned from work, as soon as he entered the house, we were asked to leave and to go outside. Our nights were very short, as we could not sleep because of the lack of harmony and true love in our parents’ marriage. Our home was not only small in size, but it was a dark place. Before meeting with the missionaries, we attended different churches every Sunday. It was clear that our parents were seeking for something that the world could not provide.
This went on until we met with Elder and Sister Hutchings, the first senior missionary couple called to serve in Zaire (known today as DR of Congo or Congo-Kinshasa). When we started meeting with these wonderful missionaries, who were like angels that came from God, I noticed that something started to change in our family. After our baptism, we truly started to progressively have a new lifestyle because of the restored gospel. The words of Christ began to enlarge our souls. They began to enlighten our understanding and became delicious to us, as the truths that we received were discernible and we could see the light, and this light grew brighter and brighter daily.
This understanding of the why of the gospel was helping us to become more like the Savior. The size of our home did not change; neither did our social conditions. But I witnessed a change of heart in my parents as we prayed daily, morning and evening. We studied the Book of Mormon; we held family home evening; we truly became a family. Every Sunday we woke up at 6:00 a.m. to prepare to go to church, and we would travel for hours to attend Church meetings every week without complaining. It was a wonderful experience to witness. We, who had previously walked in darkness, chased darkness from among us (see Doctrine and Covenants 50:25) and saw “great light” (2 Nephi 19:2).

Near the end of the testimony meeting, when there were a few moments for me to speak, I asked the young lady who had brought her child up to be blessed if she would come up and stand by me, which she did. In the meantime, while the testimony meeting was going on, I asked the bishop, whispering into his ear, “Where is her husband?”

The bishop said, “He’s in jail.”

I asked, “What is her name?” and he told me her name.

She came up and stood by my side, carrying the little baby. As we were standing at the pulpit, I looked down at this little precious baby, only a few days old, and this mother—the mother of that little daughter, who had brought her to receive a blessing at the hands of the priesthood. As I looked at the mother and looked at that precious little child, I wondered what she might become or what she could be. I spoke to the audience and to this young mother about the proclamation that was issued five years ago by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve—a proclamation on the family—and of our responsibility to our children, and the children’s responsibility to their parents, and the parents’ responsibility to each other. That marvelous document brings together the scriptural direction that we have received that has guided the lives of God’s children from the time of Adam and Eve and will continue to guide us until the final winding-up scene.

As we talked about it and as I looked at that beautiful little baby, I thought of last summer. Ruby and I were up in Idaho for a short visit, and we met some people from Mountain Home, Idaho—the Goodrich family. Sister Goodrich had come to see us and had brought her daughter Chelsea with her. In part of the conversation that we were having, Sister Goodrich said Chelsea had memorized the proclamation on the family.

To Chelsea, who is now 15 years old, I said, “Chelsea, is that right?”

She said, “Yes.”

I said, “How long did it take you to do that?”

She said, “When we were young, my mother started a program in our house to help us memorize. We would memorize scripture passages and sacrament meeting songs and other types of things that would be helpful to us. So we learned how to memorize, and it became easier for us.”

I said, “Then you can give it all?”

She said, “Yes, I can give it all.”

I said, “You learned that when you were 12 years old; you’re now 15. Pretty soon you’ll start dating. Tell me about it. What has it done for you?”

Chelsea said, “As I think of the statements in that proclamation, and as I understand more of our responsibility as a family and our responsibility for the way we live and the way we should conduct our lives, the proclamation becomes a new guideline for me. As I associate with other people and when I start dating, I can think of those phrases and those sentences in the proclamation on the family. It will give me a yardstick which will help guide me. It will give me the strength that I need.”

One day, caught in an unexpected windstorm, they sliced over the corner of the state prison and made a panic landing just a little beyond, opening the rip panel just before touchdown. Tony says of that adventure, “We ripped before hitting and slid for 300 feet before the air emptied out. The basket was dragging along on its side. You just crouch down at times like that and pull the rip panel and try to get the thing open. You just close your eyes and hope it stops before you come to the barbed wire fence. Someone from the prison called the sheriff’s department, and they came and checked us out.”

Association with other LDS students offers a vital support system. Harvard University sophomore Mary Carol Jones located three other LDS students when she arrived on campus her first year. The four of them came up with a creative way to support each other. Each morning they rolled out of bed early enough to spend an hour jogging through campus before classes. Not only did they exercise physically, but spiritually too. They took with them their scripture mastery cards from seminary and memorized them together, reciting in between breaths.

While in Germany, I attended a series of lectures delivered by a prominent professor at the University of Regensburg, one of which was on chiasmus (kiazmus) in Matthew and Mark. Chiasmus is an ancient literary art form, often used in the Bible. A chiastic passage is one that is arranged so that the first element in the passage parallels the last, the second parallels the next to the last, and so forth into the center. In his lectures, the professor made several strong statements about the way in which the presence of chiasmus, especially in Matthew, was evidence of Near Eastern rather than Western thought. Shortly after these lectures, I arranged a conference with the professor in his office. My purpose was to show him four of the intricate chiastic passages I had located in the Book of Mormon. (Mosiah 3:18–19, Mosiah 5:10–12; Alma 36, and the book of 1 Ne., for example.) The meeting was brief since this evidence of ancient Near Eastern thought in the Book of Mormon needed little explanation, and the professor, openly frustrated by the inescapability of the conclusion for which he himself had laid the premises, was convinced and had little to say.

“There was a boy named Ike,” Grandpa began. “He took delight in pushing people around. He wasn’t much bigger than me, but he had a meanness that made him scary. If he had put notches in the hitching post in front of the mercantile store for every kid he beat up, he would have needed a second post for want of room!
“I didn’t know at the time that he was being mistreated at home. All I knew was that he had it in for me. Like you, I tried to stay clear of him. But the harder I tried, the more he singled me out.”
Grandpa reached into his overalls and pulled out a pocket watch. “Your great-grandpa gave this to me,” he said, “and I treasured it. Then one day Ike stole it from me at school. He told me about it that afternoon when he saw me in the mercantile buying a candy stick—which he also took and ate right in front of me.”
Melody’s eyes were big. “How did you get the watch back, Grandpa?”
“Ike said that he had left it in the hills, just inside an abandoned mine called Yellow Spur. He said that he was curious to see if I wanted it badly enough to go up there after it. What he didn’t tell me was that at night the place crawled with scorpions.”
Melody grew tense as Grandpa continued. “I didn’t want to tell your great-grandpa about the missing watch—he had prized it so. Besides, I often hiked in the hills. But never after dark. Anyway, to make a long story short, I found the watch just inside the mine. It was right at my feet—along with a dozen scorpions! I didn’t know yet that Ike was hiding on a rock just outside and above the cave. I guess he was going to wait for me to get stung by one of those scorpions, and then take the watch back.”
“What happened, Grandpa?”
“I heard a yell, and the next thing I knew, Ike came tumbling off the rock and landed at my feet. He had been stung by a scorpion himself. And before I could help him up, he was stung by another one.”
“You tried to help him? Weren’t you afraid of getting stung too?”
“I was indeed, Pumpkin, but I remembered what my father said about our deeds being recorded in heaven. Besides, I felt sorry for him. So I helped him down the hill to our place, and my folks doctored him up. He was pretty sick from those bites, but he was back on his feet by morning.”
Grandpa leaned forward, his eyes shining. “The next day after school it rained, and I was getting soaked clear through. To my surprise, I felt something warm being dropped over my head.” Grandpa touched the poncho he was wearing. “It was this poncho, Melody. And to my total disbelief, it was Ike who was placing it on me. He gave me his poncho, the one he always wore as if it was his most treasured possession. He didn’t say anything. He just stared at me awhile and then went on his way. I never saw him again. His family moved somewhere after that. But I’ll never forget the look he gave me. And to this day I don’t know if the wetness on his face was all rainwater.”

Bishop Glenn L. Pace remembers from his childhood the mountains to the east of Provo, Utah, his hometown. “I fell in love with the mountains,” he said, “and haven’t gotten over it yet. As a child, I lived within a half mile of the base of the mountains and climbed them often. In fact, at age four I took off unannounced for a hike with a four-year-old friend. I was gone for two or three hours, and my parents couldn’t find me. They called the police, and many people started looking for me. It so happened that someone asked my parents, ‘Do you know where your son is? I saw him and a friend partway up the mountain.’ When my parents found me, I had a rope in my hand because I was planning to catch a bear.”

“Eight, nine, ten. Hooray!” I cheered as I counted my last dollar. “Mom, I’ve finally earned enough money to buy the space shuttle.”
“That’s great, Jacob,” Mom said. “You’ve worked hard, and you’ve wanted that model for a long time.”
She was right. For the last month, I’d been mopping floors, watering plants, taking out garbage—and thinking about the space shuttle model. It had cool flag stickers for the wings and booster rockets that snapped off.
“Can we go to the store now?” I asked.
“It’s almost dinnertime,” Mom said. “Then it will be time for family home evening. But we could go tomorrow after school.”
“OK,” I said. One more day wouldn’t hurt.
After dinner, Dad spread out 10 pennies, 10 dimes, and 10 one-dollar bills on the living room floor.
“Tonight we’re going to talk about tithing,” Dad said.
“What’s that?” asked my four-year-old brother, Willy.
“It’s money we give to Heavenly Father,” Dad said. “It’s one-tenth of what we earn.”
“What’s one-tenth?” I asked. I knew it was a fraction. But in second grade we had only learned about halves and thirds.
“There’s a simple way to remember,” Dad said. “It’s a dime from a dollar, a penny from a dime.”
“What happens to our tithing?” Tod asked.
“It helps the Church grow,” Dad said. “Some of it is used to build new church buildings and temples.”
We practiced paying tithing with the dollars, dimes, and pennies on the floor. It was fun to play with all that money.
But then I thought of my own dollars. I had a sinking feeling. Did I owe one of those dollars for tithing?
“Do I have to pay tithing on my space-shuttle dollars?” I asked. But I didn’t really want to hear the answer. I was tired of mopping floors.
“Well,” Dad said, “one of those dollars you earned belongs to Heavenly Father. But no one forces you to pay tithing. It’s something you choose to do.”
For the rest of the night, I thought about doing the right thing—that is, when I wasn’t thinking about the space shuttle. Would it hurt to skip tithing this time? Surely one dollar wouldn’t make much difference to the Church.
The next day I raced home after school. “Let’s go buy the space shuttle, Mom,” I called.
“OK,” she said. “Get your brothers, and we’ll be on our way.”
In the car I wondered if I was doing the right thing. I wanted to pay tithing, but I really, really wanted the space shuttle.
At the store I went straight to the model aisle and grabbed the box. For some reason, though, holding the box didn’t feel as good as I thought it would. And the longer I held it, the worse it felt.
Holding the dollars in my other hand didn’t feel right either. Maybe it was because I knew one of them didn’t belong to me. Last night Dad said one-tenth isn’t very much to give to Heavenly Father when you think of everything He gives to us.
“Mom,” I said quietly, “are there any jobs I can do to earn some more money?”
“There are always lots of jobs,” Mom said.
“Maybe I should buy the space shuttle in a few days. Can we come back?”
“Sure,” Mom said.
On the way home, I held nine dollars in one hand and one in the other. I felt a little disappointed. But I didn’t wonder if I was doing the right thing. I knew I was.