Gospel Story Finder

For a time the Saints could not be comforted. The mourning, the black miasmic depression that descended upon Nauvoo was overwhelming. When Mary Fielding Smith, Hyrum’s wife, after midnight heard the high-pitched voice of Porter Rockwell, riding on a sweaty horse, shouting, “They’ve killed them! they’ve killed Joseph and Hyrum!” she screamed. And young Joseph wept. Soon all Nauvoo knew. Some felt bitter and wanted vengeance. Some who held command positions in the Nauvoo Legion went immediately and asked that they be marshaled. But the leaders had been told by the Prophet to stay home. That was that.

Letters came to Nauvoo from both Willard Richards and John Taylor. To reassure John Taylor’s family, Elder Richards wrote, “Taylor’s wounded, not very badly.” And peace prevailed in spite of the anguish. Many of the brethren absent on missions felt forebodings that day, even at the hour of the martyrdom. Only seven days previously the Prophet had sent letters to all the Twelve asking them to return to Nauvoo immediately. So it was that the returning Parley P. Pratt walked depressed across the plains of Illinois until he could hardly endure it. Finally he knelt and prayed for comfort; and then it was made known to him that the newspaper headlines he had seen in Chicago told the truth, that Joseph and Hyrum had in fact given their lives for the Lord’s cause, and that he was to go back rapidly to Nauvoo and tell the Saints to do nothing until the Twelve had reassembled.

Despite the provocation, then, peace and not war came in the aftermath of the Prophet’s death. With their Nauvoo Legion the Saints had power to win in any skirmish had they so chosen. But they who had been stereotyped as warlike and bitter and hostile and filled with vengeance demonstrated that they were not any of those. They were peaceful.

When he came to Ghana, his closest friends, family and even his mother thought he was going insane. They asked, “Why would you abandon your studies and come back to Ghana simply because you have met the Church?” He explained that he was taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and he wanted everyone to join. They didn’t understand and many spoke ill about him.
The family lived in Mankessim, in the central region about 1 ½ hour’s drive from Cape Coast. Alison said, “Later we moved to Yamoransa because my daddy had learned that the Church was there, and our family could go to church every Sunday.” The family stayed there for 1 year and Abraham got a job teaching geography at Adisadal College, a secondary school in Cape Coast.
While there, the Abura Branch was formed, and he was made the branch president. The children were all baptized in a river in Mankessim. His next idea was to get his mother and siblings to join the Church. He left Cape Coast and moved to Assin Fosu which is on the Cape Coast Kumasi Highway and is closer to their hometown. “My father went to his hometown almost every day trying to teach them. He wanted them to join so badly,” she said and added “at first, things didn’t go so well. They were heavily involved in their churches. His brothers were in the choir and without them the church would not be as nice. His mother was the treasurer of the women’s group.”
He would fast almost every week for his family. Eventually, his mother, then brothers, then aunts joined the church until about 95 percent of all his family members were part of the Church.
His next goal was to set up an orphanage and school. He adopted 78 of the children and about 40 of them went on missions. Alison and her sisters also served missions.
Alison has a strong admiration for her father. “He is very generous, honest, forgiving and spiritual”, she says, “He was a district president while he served as a parliamentarian. He would drive 4-5 hours each weekend so that he could be back for church”.
She also relates this story about her father:
“One time when I was at home, a man came to the door asking for my father. He was not around. The man gave me an envelope and asked me to give it to him. I thought it was a letter, so I took it and put it under his pillow, which is what we always did with anything that came for him. When he got home and found that envelope, he was very upset, and I heard him screaming from the bedroom. He said, ‘Who put this under my pillow?’
“I told him I had done it. He said, ‘You are my first born and I would expect you to know better’.
“I did not understand what I had done. He said, ‘Take this and give it back to the owner, he is not going to take care of me and my family’.”
“I still did not understand and asked him to explain. He told me it contains money. The man had a problem with his land and my father was trying to help him. The following morning the man came and asked me if I had given my father the money. I told him that if he had told me yesterday that it was a bribe he wanted to give to my father I would have warned him against doing that. I told him that my father was very angry and did not ever want him to enter his office again. If he was the rightful owner of the land, my father would help him without accepting money.”
“When it was time for me to go back to the town where I taught. I asked him if I could use one of his office cars to take me there since he was the district chief executive. He said, ‘the cars at my office are not for family use, they are government cars. I will help you pay for a taxi if you don’t have enough money.’”
Alison shared more thing about her father. “Because he would not be dishonest, some people wanted him out of office. One morning we woke up and there was a can of petrol in front of our house with matches on it. A week later a guy came on his knees apologizing. He said he was hired to burn our house. He had come one night, and it looked like our whole house was sparkling and it scared him, so he ran away. I believe it was an angel of the Lord that stopped him from burning our house down.”
In October 2019, Abraham returned to the United States. One Sunday, he was teaching a lesson at church. There was a man in the class that got up and went out. Unknown to Abraham, this man was a doctor and had called an ambulance. He recognized that Abraham was exhibiting signs of a stroke. The family is so grateful their father went to church that day and that the doctor was there too. Even though he is currently down with a stroke and uses a wheelchair, he still sees himself as blessed and he’s forever grateful to Heavenly Father.
Many people joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints because of Abraham Kwaku Fokuo. His legacy runs deep within the Church and in the communities in which he has lived.

When I turned 14, I moved to Texas, USA, to join my parents and siblings. I found a local church and began attending regularly. Because of my experiences with God, I wanted to share His name and gospel with everyone who would hear me. At age 15, I enrolled in ministry school to become a minister. For two years, I attended Bible classes before school, after school, and on weekends.
One morning at high school, I heard noise in the boys’ locker room. “You Mormon!” someone yelled. I had never heard that term before, but it sounded like an insult.
Later I found out that the person being yelled at was my good friend Derek.
“I am sorry you got called a Mormon,” I said.
Derek smiled and asked, “You don’t know what a Mormon is, do you?”
He told me it was a nickname for members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“So, are you a Christian?” I asked.
When he said yes, I was happy to know that we shared faith in Jesus Christ.
“Who are these Mormons,” I wondered, “and what do they believe?”
I went to the internet to find out. After a few minutes, I decided that my friend was not a Christian after all and that he was going to hell. So, I embarked on a mission to save him.
For the next two years, I read every book I could find about the Church, including the entire Book of Mormon—twice. I also met with Derek and the full-time missionaries to try to help them.
When I turned 17, I graduated from ministry school, was ordained a minister, and became the pastor of a small congregation in Texas. Two months after my ordination, I had another discussion with the missionaries.
One of them asked, “You’ve read the Book of Mormon, and you’ve taken every lesson we can offer, but have you asked God if our message is true? You would recognize an answer from Him, right?”
“Of course,” I proudly responded.
“The way I see it, it’s a win-win situation for you,” the missionary responded. “If you ask God if what your friend believes is true and God says no, then you have accomplished the mission for which you began this journey. But if He says our message is true, then think about how much you could gain.”
I had never thought about it like that. That night I knelt in my room after reading Moroni 10:3–5. My answer from God was simple but powerful. In a still, small voice, He answered me: “You’ve always known.”
Now that I had a testimony of the restored gospel, what about my ministry? I still had 10 months left in my contract as a minister. After much prayer and counseling with God, I decided to complete my service. For the next 10 months, I continued to share traditional Bible truths, but when possible I added the perspective of the restored gospel. People resonated with those truths, and my little flock grew from 20 to nearly 150.
After I had completed my contract, I was offered a permanent position, but I knew it was time to be baptized into the Church. It was time to begin a new chapter in my journey of discipleship.
When I told members of my family, they were not happy—at first. But three months after I joined the Church, I baptized my mother and two of my siblings. After serving a full-time mission in the Oklahoma Oklahoma City Mission, I baptized my younger sister.
If someone asks why I changed my religion, I always answer, “I didn’t change my religion—I am still a devout Christian. Rather, I simply strengthened my relationship with the Savior by becoming a baptized member of His Church—The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I know Him more personally and intimately now than before because of the Restoration of the gospel, the Book of Mormon, modern prophets, and the sacred ordinances of salvation and exaltation available in the temple.”
Today I have the privilege of working as a full-time seminary teacher. I am still dedicating my life to Jesus Christ and His gospel. And I am still telling anyone who will listen about the “good tidings of great joy” (Luke 2:10).

A couple of years ago, my dad found out that one of his employees had embezzled a lot of money from him. This man had also been his close friend, and it crushed my dad that his friend would do something so horrible.
When confronted about the situation, my dad’s employee got extremely angry and defensive. My dad didn’t want to go to the authorities because the embezzlement could put the man in prison, so he decided to go through a legal mediator. The employee refused to repay the money he had stolen.
The mediator finally asked my dad, “Why are you doing all this? He’s being difficult and unreceptive. If you just turned in all the evidence to the authorities, it would all be over and done with. Why are you putting yourself through so much hassle for someone who won’t even apologize to you?”
And my dad answered, “Because I don’t want to ruin his life.”
After everything was settled, my dad never complained about it. I complained about it a lot, and I wasn’t even involved directly.

Indeed, our Heavenly Father has a special love for each person who makes the covenant with Him in the waters of baptism. That divine love deepens as additional covenants are made in the house of the Lord and are faithfully kept.
Nathalie and I experienced this divine love during a very difficult time in our lives as husband and wife and eternal companions. We have been blessed with 10 children. When I mention this, many younger people ask, “How?” And I respond, “This is simply how it is.”
We experienced the death of four of our children at the beginning of our marriage. After the passing of three of our children, Nathalie and I wondered and asked ourselves so many questions, like the Prophet Joseph Smith in Liberty Jail: “Heavenly Father, where art Thou? Do You hear our cries and prayers?”
We soon learned that this was not the end of our trials when Allan Mutombo, our nine-month-old baby, passed away. I found him in his crib. Holding his body in my arms, I cried that day, begging for a miracle. However, as you know, God’s plan for us is perfect, and that day He decided to take Allan back to Him. My prayers did not change His mind and will.
To add to this challenge, after the funeral, our extended families gathered and decided, without consulting us, that tradition required Nathalie and me to separate, and they asked me to take my wife’s belongings outside the house because we had lost many children.
I went into the house and prayed, asking for strength to face this adversity. The words of the wonderful hymn, written by Emma Lou Thayne, came to my mind: “Where can I turn for peace?”
I also remembered the words of our temple sealing and the promises we made to God and to each other. I felt great peace and reassurance that Nathalie and I are a daughter and a son of a loving and caring Heavenly Father.
I felt the Savior’s love and His hand lifting me up.
I came out with empty hands and told the people who were there, “I’m sorry, but Nathalie is my eternal companion. We are striving together to build an eternal family, and the Savior is helping us achieve it.”
They opposed my decision, but exercising my faith in Jesus Christ made me stronger.
The miracle Nathalie and I prayed for happened after we stood for the truth and the light that is in Jesus the Christ. We received a strong confirmation that Christ works miracles according to our faith in Him. Sometimes things do not work out in mortality as we hope, and sometimes we need the faith in Jesus Christ that all will work out in the end.

Deanna’s CTR B teacher held up a picture. “Does anyone know what this is?”
Deanna raised her hand. “The temple.”
Sister Dench smiled. “That’s right. Do you know which temple it is, Deanna?”
“The Denver Temple.” Deanna knew because her mother had hung a picture of it in their home.
“Why do you think Heavenly Father wants us to have temples?”
Mark raised his hand. “So that we can do baptisms for the dead.”
Danny said, “Families can be sealed there.”
“Those are both good reasons,” Sister Dench said. “What can you do now to prepare to go to the temple?”
“Pay our tithing.”
“Go to church.”
“Be honest.”
Sister Dench nodded after each answer. “During the week, I’d like each of you to think of other ways you can prepare to go to the temple.”
Deanna thought a lot about her Primary lesson that afternoon. She wanted to go to the temple someday. On the last Friday of each month, her parents drove to Denver to attend it. When they came home, they always seemed extra happy. They smiled at each other in a special way that made Deanna feel happy too.
She was imagining her own temple wedding, when five-year-old Robbie asked, “Can I use your crayons? I want to draw a picture for Grandma.”
Deanna frowned. “You broke one the last time I let you use them.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I don’t care. You can’t use them.”
Robbie turned away, but not before Deanna saw a tear roll down his cheek. She tried to ignore the stab of guilt she felt.
As she helped set the table for dinner that evening, Deanna told her mother about her Primary lesson. “How else can I prepare to go to the temple?” she asked, glancing at the picture of it on the dining room wall.
Her mother placed a casserole dish on the table. She didn’t answer Deanna’s question but asked, instead, “Do you know why Robbie was crying this afternoon?”
Deanna was surprised. Usually her mother wanted to talk about her Primary lesson. “I wouldn’t let him borrow my crayons,” she said reluctantly. “The last time he used them, he broke one.”
“He’s still learning how to color,” her mother said. “You could help him.”
“Are you going to make me share?”
“No, but I hope that someday you’ll want to. One thing we learn in the temple is how important families are.”
Deanna thought about that the rest of the evening. After school the next day, she noticed that three-year-old Kevin had messed up the jigsaw puzzle she’d been putting together. It had five hundred pieces, and it had taken her a long time to do as much as she had.
She started to yell at him, then remembered her Primary lesson. “It’s all right, Kevin,” she said. “I know you just wanted to help me with it.” She went to his room and found a simple wooden puzzle. “Here, I’ll show you how to work this one.” She spent an hour helping Kevin fit the pieces of his puzzle together over and over again.
After dinner, she took her box of crayons to Robbie’s room. “Do you still want to use these?”
He nodded eagerly. She sat down beside him and helped him with his picture.
For the rest of the week, she tried hard to help her brothers. Sometimes they still annoyed her, but they also made her smile—like when Kevin planted a big kiss on her cheek, and when Robbie threw his arms around her and said, “You’re the bestest big sister in the world!”
“How many of you remember what we talked about last week?” Sister Dench asked on Sunday.
Everyone raised his hand.
“What are some ways you thought of that we can prepare now to go to the temple?” she asked.
“Obey the Word of Wisdom,” Danny said.
“Keep the Sabbath Day holy,” Janet volunteered.
“Those are both good ways,” Sister Dench agreed. “Does anyone else have any other ideas?”
Deanna raised her hand. “Be nice to my brothers.” Someone snickered, and she ducked her head in embarrassment.
When she raised her head, she saw that Sister Dench was smiling. “Thank you, Deanna. That’s one of the most important things we can do to prepare to go to the temple.”
“Why is it so important?” Danny asked.
“The temple is about families. How do you think Jesus feels when we can’t get along with our brothers and sisters?”
“He probably feels sad,” Danny said.
“I think you’re right. Jesus wants us to treat our families here the way we’ll treat them in heaven.”
Deanna remembered Robbie’s hug and Kevin’s kiss. She could hardly wait for Primary to be over so that she could tell them how much she loved them.

Photograph courtesy of Ian Jonsson/Lodi News Sentinel
The final whistle sounded, and Kyle* left the mat feeling discouraged about losing the match. Team captain Colin Anderson from California, USA, put his arm around Kyle and offered him a ride to get burgers with the rest of the team.
They sat in the restaurant parking lot while Colin listened to the freshman pour out his frustrations. Kyle had done well in middle school, but he was struggling with the switch to high school competition. Colin hadn’t been very good as a freshman either, but he had kept trying. So he turned to his teammate and encouraged him: “Look, you’re just a freshman. You have time. You’ll do fine.”
Encouraging his teammates was something Colin tried to do as often as he could. But it certainly wasn’t the norm when he was coming up in the program.
By the time Colin reached his senior year and was made a cocaptain of his high school wrestling team, he’d worked hard and learned a lot. He’d begun “at the bottom of the food chain,” kept his head down, and tried to improve. At that time the team was run like a boot camp, using fierce competiveness and hazing to try to toughen the wrestlers and build camaraderie. But when it was his turn to lead, Colin knew that wasn’t right. “I didn’t feel I could do what had been done in the past.”
Colin’s mother often drove him to wrestling meets, and on the long drives they talked about his wrestling and the team. These conversations helped shape the idea of how Colin would lead if given the chance. “I decided to lead in the Lord’s way, as I’d learned in priesthood.” When he was made a captain, he used encouragement, love, and persuasion to help his team members improve.
Things didn’t turn around all at once. The coaches considered it a building year because the team was so young, with Colin and his cocaptain as the only seniors. The “building year” was evident early in the season, when a rivalry meet was a disaster. Afterward, Colin told his team, “I’m not angry at our loss. You don’t have to win everything; you just have to give it your best.”
From then on, the team worked together toward the same goal, and everything changed. They started building success. As he worked with and instructed others, Colin’s own wrestling improved. “The greatest way to learn is to teach,” he said. At the end of the season, the team won their league and sent seven wrestlers to postseason tournaments.
Looking back, Colin will always remember two things about his wrestling career. First, being a leader is really about service. “I didn’t make state but it was a good year anyway, because my focus was on helping others; that helped me improve too.”
Second, Colin learned that you can have a greater effect on others than you might ever suspect. “You have a great ability to shape how others see their experiences and to influence their perspective. Independent of the team and my own success, I will always remember Kyle and talking to him in the parking lot.” True leadership really can have a lasting effect.

The personal miracle I speak of had its earliest beginnings with the Prophet Joseph. He introduced the concept of constructing temples where sacred ordinances and instruction could be received. You’ll remember the first temple was built at great sacrifice in Kirtland, Ohio. It was completed and dedicated in 1836.

The saints had hoped to build additional temples; but, during the next few years, circumstances prevented them from doing so. In 1839, the main body of the Church moved to a bend on the Mississippi River known as Commerce. Now it is known as Nauvoo, meaning beautiful.

Under the direction of the Prophet Joseph, the Saints drained the swampland and created one of the most prosperous and populous cities in the state of Illinois. That was a big miracle.

The following year, plans were underway to construct a temple, a sacred House of the Lord. The Prophet Joseph appointed Brother William Weeks as the architect of the temple. Yet it was the prophet who gave significant instructions regarding the design of the building: “I have seen in a vision the splendid appearance of that building”, he said, “and [I] will have it built according to the pattern shown me.”[6]

An official cornerstone laying ceremony was conducted on April 6, 1841.

In addition to their financial contributions, Church members also gave a tithe of their time – one day in ten to working on the temple. Men labored in the construction areas and women sewed clothing for the workers and provided food, as well as raiment.

Because of donated labor and the donation of many building materials, it is very difficult to accurately calculate the cost of the six-year construction project. However, some estimate that in the monetary value of the time, the temple cost in excess of $1,000,000.00. That was a very big miracle!

Portions of the temple were dedicated and used prior to its completion in the spring of 1846. The first of several public dedication services for the Nauvoo Temple took place on May 1, 1846.

An uncontrolled lawless element forced the Saints to leave Nauvoo, broken-heartedly, leaving their temple behind. In October 1848, an arsonist destroyed the interior of the temple. In May 1850, a tornado knocked down one wall of the gutted structure and weakened the other walls. They were eventually taken down.

Now move forward with me almost 100 years.

In 1937, ninety-one years after the main body of the Church left their beautiful city and headed west, the Church purchased portions of the original temple site in Nauvoo. Over the next half a century, other properties, formerly owned by the Church and its members, were purchased and restored.

One day in early 1999, at the conclusion of a regular Temple Sites Meeting, President Hinckley mentioned that he was very seriously considering rebuilding the Nauvoo Temple. He said something like, “My father wanted to rebuild it back in 1946, when he was serving as President of the Northern States mission. Father actually wrote a letter to the First Presidency and he was turned down. Now you brethren, Elder Sorensen and Bishop McMullin and your associates, need to find a way to reconstruct the temple. The plans we have in the historical department are inadequate and incomplete.”

In April 1999, President Hinckley announced the Church would rebuild the Nauvoo Temple on the original site. He said, "The new building will stand as a memorial to those who built the first such structure."[7]

Groundbreaking ceremonies for the temple took place on October 24, 1999. "A sense of joy and spirituality returned to the Temple Lot,” wrote a newspaper columnist."[8]

Traditional cornerstone ceremonies were conducted on November 5, 2000. Under priesthood direction, prayers and talks were given on each of the four cornerstones. This tradition dated back to April 6, 1841, the original Nauvoo Temple dedication date, in the days of the Prophet, Joseph.

The dedication of the restored Nauvoo Temple commenced on June 27, 2002. It was the 158th anniversary of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith and his faithful brother, Hyrum. The limestone exterior of the restored temple is a near duplicate of the original temple, including the design elements.

The restored building has six floors, circular stairs, and is crowned with an upright statue of the Angel Moroni with the trumpet in his hand.

This is a facsimile of the original Angel Moroni that adorned the first temple until it was destroyed.

Yet, 150 years later, Sister Sorensen and I and several members of our family were at the dedication of a beautiful temple, the exact replica of what once was, in that beautiful city, Nauvoo, being led by a Prophet of God, Gordon B. Hinckley. We were now a prosperous and blessed people. His watchful eye had prevailed.

The terrible sacrifice and loss of those early saints made everything possible. In that moment, when everything seemed lost, everything was actually being won. As real as the suffering was, Heavenly Father was working in His mysterious way to bring to pass a great miracle.

Some time ago, when I was living in the mission field, the missionaries invited me to come see a couple they had been teaching for some time. The missionaries reported to me what a choice couple they were. However, they were very much afraid to make the change and the commitment of baptism. As we entered the home of this wonderful family and found ourselves in their living room, I recognized their fear and anxiety over this visit. I understood that they had been taught the gospel, that they had received all of the discussions, and that they already had a testimony that the gospel is true. I felt prompted to ask them, “What do you think the Lord expects you to do when you enter into the bond of the covenant of baptism for the forgiveness of sins?”

I remember that the woman looked at him and the man looked at her with the sweetness of two wonderful persons in their first years of marriage, and finally he said, “I think we will have to pay our tithing.” I remember that I answered, “Yes, that is true, but there is something of more importance. What do you think the Lord will expect you to do when you enter into this covenant?”

After some inquiring glances from her to him and from him to her, he said quite hesitantly, “We must give up our drinking, our coffee, and our smoking.” Again I told him, “Yes, that is true, but there is something of more importance.”

After we had discussed all the necessary requirements for baptism and I was still insisting that there was something of more importance, they became even more uneasy about what else there still was to do. I felt inspired to say to them, “I can see that you have learned to love the Lord and understand the basic principles of the covenant which you are about to make with him. Now the Lord wants you to take the Spirit, which will be given to you as his gift after baptism, and make it the greatest objective of your life—to let this Spirit be unfolded within you to its fullness of power. Thus, the Lord wants you both to love one another with an even deeper, more sensitive, caring love—a love of a new dimension that is different from the way the world knows—even to such a dimension that you will be overwhelmed by your insight, your patience, your caring, and sensitivity so that you will both be filled with a new dimension of joy and peace.”

The expressions on their faces changed from fear, anxiety, and despair to relaxed smiles of rejoicing. He reached for her hand, looked dearly into her eyes, pressed her hand to his lips, and said with conviction, “I think we are ready.”

I went once as a frightened new hiree to a Boy Scout summer camp. Royal Stone was its director. A few of you will remember the man, a great man. He came to BYU and worked with boys and the teachers of boys for a time. Royal was a kind of remote figure in the camp, though he soon made it otherwise; but I became quickly attached to, as my mentor and leader, a man named Don Carlos Kimball. Surely someone here would have heard of him or know him. Lank and lean, a professional Scout executive, he was spending his summer there. He helped us learn how to be leaders. And the lesson I remember best is that he, beginning one morning with an adze and an ax and a tree, carved out—from sunup past sundown, without stopping—a two-bladed canoe paddle and then knelt in a canoe with that paddle and beat the old motor boat across the lake.

I saw all of that in one day. He took his adze and his ax, and out of available materials he created an instrument and used it, and I will never forget him.

The remaining youth split off into two groups, to undertake two projects for Colchester Borough Council, in an area local to the Colchester chapel. Tasked with clearing the overgrown boundaries of Westlands Country Park and the Prettygate Library car park and nearby shop parade, the youth and leaders got to work and made quite a difference. Residents came out of their homes to praise them for their efforts and expressed thanks on the local community Facebook page. Comments included, “Wonderful to see the youngsters, who worked great as a team in the cold and the wind. They are role models for the community”, “Thank you to the young people of the parish for all their hard work and especially to the young man who helped me tip heavy rubbish into our council bin, thank you”, and “I stopped to thank them on behalf of the people of Westlands. It’s so great to see young people getting actively involved in community work. Well done.”
Councillor Leigh Tate, who was present, wrote to Ipswich Stake President Robert Schwartz, to express thanks:
“We were completely and utterly blown away by what they achieved in such a short space of time, and the enthusiasm with which they did so.
“As Councillor Buston said to the teams, ‘I hope they understand the impact they have made and felt good about their day yesterday; with the sense of achievement and the knowledge of how doing small, kind things for others has a real impact on the community. I hope these are lessons that they will take forward with them in life, that kindness costs nothing and is always the best way and that so much more can be achieved when you work as a team.’
“Once again, I offer my sincere thanks on behalf of us all and I do hope that you can extend our very grateful thanks to the young people for making such a positive difference to our community.”

A few weeks later I started to struggle with school, friends, family, and even my faith. I was reading my scriptures one night, and as I was about to stop, I felt the urge to keep reading. I followed the prompting and read several scriptures that mentioned prayer. I then recalled my patriarchal blessing and how it said that I need to pray often and have a close relationship with my Heavenly Father and the Holy Ghost. I had not been the best at saying my prayers. I realized that I was missing out on one of the blessings I would have been getting.

When we refer to the Holy Ghost as the still, small voice, it is not an understatement. He truly speaks in still and small ways. We must pay close attention to make sure we don’t miss what the Lord is trying to tell us or advise us to do. I know that we will be blessed if we always listen to the still, small voice.

In 2014, while serving a full-time mission, our family experienced an unexpected turn of events. When riding down a steep hill on a longboard, our youngest son fell and sustained a life-threatening injury to his brain. As his situation deteriorated, medical personnel rushed him into emergency surgery.
Our family knelt on the floor of an otherwise empty hospital room, and we poured our hearts out to God. In the midst of this confusing and painful moment, we were filled with our Heavenly Father’s love and peace.
We did not know what the future held or if we would see our son alive again. We did know very clearly that his life was in God’s hands and the results, from an eternal perspective, would work out for his and our good. Through the gift of the Spirit, we were fully prepared to accept any outcome.
It was not easy! The accident resulted in a two-month hospital stay while we were presiding over 400 full-time missionaries. Our son experienced a significant loss of memory. His recovery included long and difficult physical, speech, and occupational therapy sessions. Challenges remain, but over time we have witnessed a miracle.

Kali walked into the lunchroom and looked around. All the other kids were running straight to their friends and sitting down at tables. The room was noisy with excited voices and happy laughter. It was only the second day of school, but it seemed like everyone had someone to sit with but Kali.
She squeezed the handle of her lunchbox and walked to one of the tables. “Can I sit by you?” Kali asked.
A girl with a long, brown braid looked up. She huffed and shook her head. “No. It’s taken,” she said.
“OK.” Kali moved to another empty seat and set down her lunchbox.
“You can’t sit here! I’m saving that seat,” a boy in a red-striped shirt said. He pushed Kali’s lunchbox onto the floor. His friends all laughed.
Kali bent down and picked up her lunchbox again. She walked across the lunchroom and sat at an empty table. She saw someone from her neighborhood and waved, but he looked the other way. Kali frowned. Why didn’t anyone want to be her friend?
Kali looked down at her food. She didn’t feel like eating anymore. She wiped her eyes, closed her lunchbox, and walked outside.
Everyone was already playing with their friends. Kali sat by herself on a bench and watched the other kids having fun without her. Then Kali noticed a boy about her age sitting alone on the grass. He was wearing a stained yellow shirt, and his hair stood up in the back.
Kali looked away. She saw a group of girls from her class playing foursquare. She wished they would invite her to play with them.
Kali looked at the boy again. His head was hanging down, and he was picking the grass around his feet. Kali remembered something Mom sometimes said: Look for the kids who are lonely.
Kali frowned. She was lonely too. Nobody was trying to be her friend!
But then Kali thought about when she got baptized last year. She promised to listen to the Holy Ghost. Maybe the Holy Ghost was helping her remember what Mom told her. Maybe the Holy Ghost was trying to tell her to play with the boy in the yellow shirt.
Kali got to her feet. A warm feeling spread in her heart. She walked over and sat next to the boy in the grass.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he mumbled back.
“What’s your favorite color?”
“Um … green.”
“That’s cool. I like pink,” said Kali. “Do you have a favorite animal?”
The boy sat up a little straighter and looked at her. “Yeah. I really like dinosaurs.”
“Oh, me too. My favorite is a triceratops.”
The boy smiled.
Soon the bell rang. Kali got to her feet and waved goodbye to the boy. She smiled as she walked back to her classroom alone. She might not have a best friend, but she felt happy knowing she had made someone else’s recess a little better too.

Once there was an old, wise, and prudent king who had three sons. As the king grew older, he decided it was time to confer his kingdom upon one of them. So he called his sons to him and said, “Soon I will go the way of all the earth. Before I die, I will crown one of you the next king. I know that all of you are good men, so I am going to give you a test: Here are three small coins for each of you to take to the marketplace and buy something that is useful and that will fill my whole house.” Then he told them to come back the next day with what they had bought.
The three sons left their father’s house and went to the marketplace, which was very big. It was full of all kinds of things that were interesting and beautiful, simple and useful. Wonderful smells were floating in the air. Here you could find anything you needed or wanted.
The oldest son scurried around the marketplace, wondering what he could buy with his three small coins. Although he was a very busy husband and father, and had a business to take care of, he would honor his father’s unusual request. If only he could find something quickly!
Glancing at the rugs, he thought they were very beautiful. The rugs were useful, too, and could fill his father’s house—but they were far too expensive. Then he saw something else that was quite useful, and he could buy enough of it to fill his father’s house. He made his purchase and hurried home with it, thinking, That was easy!
The second son slowly wandered in and out of the stalls and shops. He was becoming very discouraged because he simply could not see a thing that he could buy with only three small coins. He thought that his father’s request was really impossible to fulfill. He was hungry and ready to go home, when something caught his attention. The son bought several with his coins and went home. At least he wouldn’t go back to his father empty-handed.
The youngest son was also very puzzled over his father’s strange test. He walked around the marketplace all day, looking and looking. Once he stopped to help a lost little girl find her mother. Another time he helped an old woman load her donkey with bundles of firewood. He talked with the men and laughed with the children playing games. But his search for something useful that could fill his father’s house seemed in vain. He had just about given up finding anything, because it was getting dark and the market was closing.
I’ll try once more, he decided. And as he passed a small shop for the last time, he saw exactly what he needed! “Why didn’t I think of it before?” he said out loud. He spent his three small coins and carried his treasure home.
The next day, the three brothers again found themselves before their father, the king. Each was ready to show what he had bought with his coins.
The oldest son carried in a large, bulky bundle of straw. He scattered the straw across the floors in all the rooms of the king’s house. It smelled sweet and made a crunchy, swishy sound as all in the household went about their chores. But soon the children were playing in it, and it stuck to their hair and got in their clothes. Then the chickens came into the house to scratch in the straw and to make their nests. And the women in the king’s house complained that they could not keep the house clean and that they couldn’t find small things that were dropped.
The king frowned. He decided that the straw was too troublesome to really be useful.
The second son filled small bowls with burning sticks of incense. Carefully, he placed a bowl of the incense in various places in the house. Its sweet smell started drifting through the rooms, and the people stopped their work, trying to catch a whiff of it. But the delicate scent was soon gone with the gentle breeze that came through the open windows.
The king shook his head and decided that the incense did not fill his whole house long enough and that when they smelled it, people didn’t seem to want to do their work.
Finally the youngest son came in. In each room of the house he set out a candle and lit it. A soft, warm glow filled the corners and hallways. Everyone began chatting amiably as they busied themselves around the house, for the light had chased away the shadows. The children giggled and played, or practiced their lessons. Women sang while they did their housework and took care of the babies. And the men were able to do their work faster, and more safely too.
The old king sighed a happy sigh, and smiled with contentment. The new king would be his youngest son, who filled the castle with light and helped his people enjoy their labors.

It must be close to freezing this morning. David can tell, even though the apartment is still draped in shadow, and he is still lying in a tangle of bedding on the sofa that passes for his bed. It must be 20 degrees outside, David is thinking. He can imagine flowers of ice spreading on the window panes. His mother snuffles and shifts in her sleep. She is nearly always cold, so yesterday David helped her shove her bed closer to the radiator, beneath the window at the front of the studio apartment that the two of them share. It is already late January, but today is the first day it has dipped below freezing. It’s an unusual winter for New York City.
“Morning, Lobo,” David whispers to the warm nose nuzzling his neck. “You ready for your walk?” He scratches his Siberian husky under his chin, then slides out of bed and kneels in his sweat pants at the side of the sofa. While Lobo paces the floor, his toenails clicking on the hardwood, David says his prayers. He prays silently, so as not to disturb his mother, and he prays for what he has been praying for ever since he joined the Church over a year ago. The words are familiar by now. They tumble together in his head like a well-rehearsed hymn.
“Please,” he murmurs into his pillow, “please, let me be able to go.”
It can’t hurt, David figures, to ask for something he doesn’t need for five more years. This ought to give Heavenly Father enough time to work something out.
“David?” his mother’s voice is barely a rasp.
“I’m here, Mom.”
“What are you doing?”
“Taking the dog out in a minute. Why? You need something? Some breakfast, maybe? I could make oatmeal—oatmeal with butter and brown sugar.”
His mother’s eyelids are swollen. She rubs her palm over her forehead and clutches her quilt tighter. “No, baby,” she whispers. “No, that’s all right. You go on.” She waves him away with a flick of her fingers.
On regular mornings, David walks his dog Lobo all the way to Riverside Park. But this is not a regular morning. This is Sunday, and it is not even a regular Sunday because David still has some finishing touches to do on the talk Bishop Wendall asked him to give in sacrament meeting today. Light is just beginning to creep over the horizon, but cars and people are already bustling along the streets. Steam boils from manhole covers as David makes his way up the street, sidestepping the potholes that yawn in the sidewalk. He waves to old Mr. Gerard, who is busy stocking Snickers bars in his newsstand on the corner.
“Whoa, boy,” David says to his dog, which is straining at his leash, wanting to go all the way to the park. David feels bad he has to pull him back. Finally, though, Lobo seems to catch on that they are only walking around the block this morning. Lobo stops and David carefully attends to his needs.
Mr. Gerard is watching. “You know,” he calls from his newsstand, “it’s refreshing to see a young man clean up after himself.” He hobbles over and slips a Snickers bar into David’s hand, grinning his gap-toothed grin at him.
David shrugs. “Thanks, Mr. Gerard, but it’s no big deal. It’s the law.”
Mr. Gerard lets out a half snort, half laugh. “Maybe you haven’t noticed,” he says, shaking his knobby finger at the cement walls surrounding them, “but a lot of people around here don’t care about the law.” The walls are smeared with paint, red and blue and green, pictures and words with sharp angles.
“Seems like a good boy is harder to find than a three-headed rooster these days.” Mr. Gerard chuckles to himself.
David nods, then clears his throat and says, “I’m a Latter-day Saint, you know.”
“Is that so?” Mr. Gerard is shuffling away. “Good for you,” he calls over his shoulder. “I’ve seen those Mormon missionaries riding around here on their bikes. They look like good boys, those missionaries. You going to do that someday?”
“I hope so,” David says, but Mr. Gerard is now handing his first customer a newspaper and doesn’t hear. “I hope so,” David says again.
Back at the apartment David shakes dry food into his dog’s bowl and fills the water dish. He sprinkles plant food on the potted geraniums growing on the window sill. He toasts two pieces of bread and pours a glass of milk. Then he puts on his dress shirt. It is short-sleeved, and David knows he looks funny wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt in the dead of winter, but it’s his only one.
After he’s dressed, David goes around the apartment picking up empty liquor bottles and stuffing them into a trash bag so he can dump them down the chute in the hallway. Before he goes, he places the plate of toast and the milk next to his mother’s bed. “I’ll be back by lunchtime,” David says to the dog, who whines and rubs against his legs. Then he scoots out the open door but pauses when his mother starts making small hiccuping noises. He waits until she rolls onto her side, then pulls the door closed gently behind him.
Lobo is the reason David started going to church in the first place. He was out one morning when some boys from the neighborhood ran up and asked if they could pet his dog. They were three brothers, all younger than David, and they weren’t allowed to have a dog themselves. So David let them pet his dog. After that, the boys started coming around all the time to see Lobo, and eventually they told him they were LDS. Did David want to come to church with them some time?
That’s how it happened. The rest was simple. David prayed about it, and he gained a testimony of the gospel. Unfortunately, those three boys moved away.
Now David goes to church by himself. He takes the 7:45 one train to Lincoln Center, then walks across the street, skirting the construction at the corner of 65th and Columbus. It’s the seven-story building with the gold lettering above the door that says “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” “Visitors Welcome” is the sign on the corner, but David is not a visitor.
Two missionaries are relaxing in overstuffed armchairs when David pushes open the lobby doors. One, Elder Hindmarsh, is from Florida, and Elder Simmons is from California. Even though they are indoors now, they still have their trench coats buttoned up and their scarves wound tightly around their necks. They glance up from their worn copies of the Book of Mormon. “Hey, man,” Elder Hindmarsh says. He stands to slap David on the shoulder. “We heard you got roped into speaking today. Good luck.”
“Yeah,” Elder Simmons says. “Don’t choke.” He grabs his own throat with both hands and pretends that he can’t breathe.
“Cut it out,” David says, but he’s laughing. He fingers the two sheets of notebook paper that are folded neatly in his jacket. Please help me not to trip over my words, he pleads silently.
“Seriously, though, good luck,” Elder Hindmarsh says. He squeezes David’s arm for reassurance.
David steps into the elevator at the far end of the lobby and punches the button for level four. Level two is the Family History Library, and level three is the Relief Society room and the cultural hall and some classrooms. Level four is the chapel.
“Well, good morning,” Bishop Wendall greets as he puts his arm around David when he enters the chapel. “Nervous?” he asks. The chapel is nearly empty because David has arrived 45 minutes early to help prepare the sacrament.
David gives the “just a little bit” sign with his thumb and forefinger, and the bishop smiles and pats him on the back. Bishop Wendall says he will do fine, just fine.
After the sacrament is passed, and the bishop excuses the Aaronic Priesthood members to sit with their families, David slides into a seat next to Sister Greene on the stand. Sister Greene used to be a school teacher before she retired. She wears glasses and bright scarves with tropical birds printed on them, and she paints pictures in the air when she talks. David likes Sister Greene. She is one of the first people he ever heard speak in sacrament meeting after he was baptized. She talked about what it means to make a leap of faith.
David looks down and sees Sister Logan smiling up at him from where she’s sitting with her husband and two children. She wants to take David in as a foster child. “You’re only 14,” she told him the other day when he dropped in after school for some snickerdoodles and a glass of milk. David has stayed with Sister Logan and her family off and on for days at a time, when his mother has had to go to the hospital for treatment for her depression. Even when he’s not crashing on the Logans’ sofa, David likes to drop in every now and again.
But the other day, while he was munching his snickerdoodle and sipping his milk, Sister Logan had stood over him, her face a tight mask of concern. She had jiggled her baby on her hip and she said, “That neighborhood of yours …”
She had let her voice trail off, but David knew what she was thinking. She was scared David would never have a chance.
What Sister Logan doesn’t know is how very much David would like to be her foster son. He can picture himself tromping home from school in the afternoon and pushing open the slick glass doors of her building’s lobby. He’d stop and visit with the doorman for a while, then zip up to the 12th floor, where he’d sit at the spotless Formica table in Brother and Sister Logan’s white kitchen. He’d work on his math problems until it was time to help with dinner.
But this, David knows, is only a dream. It is like the dream he used to have about his father coming back to live with him and his mom. It is like the dream that one morning he will wake up and his mother will have stopped drinking. She will be standing in the kitchen, whipping up a batch of blueberry waffles and telling him it’s time to get ready for school. It is only a dream.
David returns Sister Logan’s smile.
Five years, David is thinking while the bishop announces who today’s youth speaker will be. A lot can change in five years. But, then again, a lot can stay the same. Before he knows it, it is time for him to speak. Sister Greene pats him on the knee as he stands up. A leap of faith, Sister Greene said in her last sacrament talk, is when the Lord asks you to walk to the edge of the light and step into the darkness, trusting that He will guide your steps.
While David walks to the microphone, he slips his talk out of his pocket. He spreads the wrinkled sheets of paper on the pulpit and stares at them. His own words, scrawled in a blue ballpoint pen, stare back at him. Please, David prays silently, I’m afraid I’ll never have a chance.
But then he looks out at the hodgepodge of faces in the audience. Dark and light, wrinkled and rosy. Pairs of eyes gaze back at him, young eyes and tired eyes and eyes with crow’s feet. Familiar eyes. You can do it, these eyes say. You can do anything. We’ll help you.
So David clears his throat. He grips the sides of the podium, and he opens his mouth. “I’d like to speak to you today,” he begins, “about what I am doing now to prepare to serve a mission.”

For me as a young teenager, school was about putting on an act. You know, the way the bad guy in the movies delivers the smooth, clever lines and comes off super cool in the process? I yearned to be able to do that. I tried to rule the screen just like the best of the bad guys. I pretended my morals were low because I wanted to impress my friends at school. I loved the sound of laughter when I used inappropriate language or joked about people.
I wanted to be the one audiences rooted for. So I figured out how to be a people pleaser. I became a regular comedy act in my biology class, managed to convince my volleyball team I was a party animal, and demolished my reputation as an innocent, naive young woman. I thought, “I don’t want my friends to think I’m a goody-goody!”
Since I wasn’t actually committing the serious sins people thought I was, I desperately tried to convince myself that it was OK to have a rough attitude. I was so wrong! My real-life movie-screen hit reached the point that I couldn’t stand to watch it myself. The more popular I became, the less I liked the character I played.
One day, two of my friends were talking about a sweet, friendly athlete named Jennifer who wasn’t embarrassed to stand up for her beliefs. One of my friends, the most gorgeous, popular, and smartest girl in the seventh grade, said, “Jennifer is so different. I wish I was brave enough to believe in my church like she does. She’s the only person I know who lives her life like that.” I was stunned.
“How could she say something like that without even mentioning me?” I wondered. “After all, my church has high standards!” I was furious that she hadn’t even considered me a good example. Then, suddenly, I felt like I was sitting on the front row of a movie theater showing my life as the main feature.
I reflected on the poor example I had been to my friends. What kind of kid was going to watch me and think, “I wish I was brave and unique like her”? I really disliked who I had become.
Changing my character and reputation was a long process, and I’m still trying to keep my mouth shut instead of blurting out crowd-pleasing insults. But I realized I could make my friends laugh without hurting someone else’s feelings, and I could leave the room during a crude joke without being ridiculed. No one has to be a “bad guy” to have lots of friends. I changed my attitudes and behaviors because being at peace with what I believe is so much cooler than trying to hide who I am.

“Since you’re friends with us now, you can’t be friends with anyone else,” Jada told me.
“OK,” I said. I couldn’t believe I was friends with the popular girls! I was so lucky! This year was going to be so cool. I could hardly wait to see what popular kids did to be, well, popular.
After school my old friend Aaliyah met me. “Hey, La-Neisha, are you ready?” she asked. We lived on the same street, and normally we walked home together.
I looked around me. I didn’t want Jada to see me talking to Aaliyah.
“No, I don’t want to walk home with you,” I said. Aaliyah looked confused and sad as I turned and walked home alone, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want to risk losing my new, popular friends.
That Sunday in Primary, I looked for a place to sit. Aaliyah waved at me. There was an empty seat by her, but I didn’t sit there. Even at church I couldn’t risk sitting by someone who wasn’t popular, I decided. Besides, who needed friends at church? Having the right friends at school was more important.
The next few days, Aaliyah kept asking me to walk home with her, and I kept saying no. Why won’t she leave me alone? I thought. Can’t she see I’m not her friend anymore? I was hanging out with my new friends a lot. Being popular was fun! I tried not to notice Aaliyah at school or church. I told myself she had other friends, so I didn’t have to talk to her.
One night the phone rang. Mom answered it and frowned as she listened.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll talk to her. Thanks for calling.” Mom hung up the phone.
“La-Neisha,” Mom said to me. “That was Aaliyah’s mom. She says you won’t walk home with Aaliyah or even talk to her. Aaliyah is really sad. She doesn’t understand why you keep ignoring her.”
My stomach got tight. I tried to come up with something to say, but I didn’t think Mom would understand how important my new friends were to me.
“I just don’t want to be friends with her anymore,” I said. But I felt guilty. I knew that wasn’t true. I thought of how mean I had been to Aaliyah lately. We used to be good friends. I knew in my heart that the way I was treating Aaliyah was wrong.
On Sunday, Sister Hong gave a lesson on repentance. She said, “If you do something wrong, you need to ask the person you have hurt for forgiveness.” I kept thinking about those words. I knew what I needed to do. I didn’t care what Jada, or any of my popular friends, thought. I was going to talk to Aaliyah and say sorry.
After church I saw Aaliyah. My stomach knotted, but I knew I should ask her for forgiveness. I needed to be kind at school and church—and everywhere in between. I swallowed hard and took a deep breath.
“Hi, Aaliyah,” I said. “Can I talk to you?”
Aaliyah’s face lit up. “Of course.”
The knot in my stomach came undone. Aaliyah didn’t have to forgive me, but I still wanted to ask. Maybe we could start walking home together again. And we could be new, old friends.

I remember an incident in my home growing up when my mother’s sensitive spirit was affected by a physical indulgence. She had experimented with a new sweet roll recipe. They were big and rich and yummy—and very filling. Even my teenage brothers couldn’t eat more than one. That night at family prayer my father called upon Mom to pray. She buried her head and didn’t respond. He gently prodded her, “Is something wrong?” Finally she said, “I don’t feel very spiritual tonight. I just ate three of those rich sweet rolls.” I suppose that many of us have similarly offended our spirits at times by physical indulgences. Especially substances forbidden in the Word of Wisdom have a harmful effect on our bodies and a numbing influence on our spiritual sensitivities. None of us can ignore this connection of our spirits and bodies.

I stared at the note on my desk. For a long time I tried to ignore it. But finally I unfolded it and read:
Nicole, I am soooo sorry! Please forgive me.
Your friend 4ever,
Laurie
I crumpled up the note—loudly, so that Laurie would get my point. Then I threw it in the wastebasket and glanced over at her. She looked as though she was going to cry.
When the bell rang, I headed out the door as quickly as possible. I could hear her calling to me, but I just kept walking. When I got to the gate of the school, I finally turned around. “Stop following me,” I told her. “I’m not going to forgive you, Laurie—not ever.”
“But—”
“You told lies about me!” I yelled. “I was nice to you. I was your friend. And what did you do? You told lies about me!”
Laurie’s eyes were full of tears. “Nicole, please, I’m so sorry.”
I just gritted my teeth. “I hope it’s worth it to you—being friends with Sharon and Beth.”
“They’re not my friends.”
“Then you really blew it, didn’t you?” With that said, I stormed away.
When I got home, I was still so angry with Laurie that my stomach was in knots. Around five o’clock, my best friend, Audrey, called. “Laurie just left here,” she said. “She wanted me to talk to you and ask you to forgive her.”
“She walked all the way to your house?”
“Yes, I guess so.” Audrey sighed. “Anyway, she wanted me to tell you why she lied. She went over to Beth’s house after dance class, and Sharon was there, and …”
Audrey continued talking, but I hardly listened. I didn’t care why Laurie lied. All that mattered to me was that she did.
“Anyway,” Audrey said when she’d finished her story, “Laurie feels really bad. She wants you to forgive her.”
“I’m not going to—not ever.”
The next day, Megan talked about uninviting Laurie to her party. “The only reason I even invited her was because you told me to.”
“Or she could come,” Kim put in, a mischievous grin on her face, “and when she’s not looking, we can squirt ketchup down her back, and …” Kim continued, suggesting all sorts of mean things we could do.
Everyone seemed to think it was a great plan. Everyone but Audrey and me. I glanced over at her, and she gave me a grim look. Audrey is really nice. She’s not into doing mean things—that’s one reason she’s my best friend.
“Maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” I told them.
“What do you mean?” Kim asked. “We’re doing this for you. Laurie told lies about you.”
“I know. And I’m mad at her, but—”
The bell rang and we went back to class.
For the rest of the week, my friends came up with meaner and meaner things to do to Laurie. I felt sick. I couldn’t forgive Laurie, but I couldn’t do horrible things to her, either. I didn’t know what to do.
On Sunday, I didn’t want to go to church. I had to give a talk in Primary on forgiveness. The week before, when Sister Sharp assigned me the talk, forgiveness had seemed like a good topic. People do things wrong sometimes, and it’s important to forgive them. When we do things wrong, we want Heavenly Father to forgive us. We should do the same for others.
Well, all of that seemed great last Sunday when I wrote the talk—but that was before I knew about Laurie’s lies.
Still, no matter how hard I begged, my mom wouldn’t let me stay home. “Sister Sharp is counting on you to give your talk.”
So I went to Primary and gave my talk. But I felt like a big fake. There I was, talking about how Jesus forgave everyone, even the people who nailed Him to the cross. And I couldn’t forgive Laurie. I felt awful.
Sunday night, I finally knew that I had to forgive her. But knowing you should do something and actually doing it are two different things. I didn’t like feeling upset and angry, yet how could I forgive Laurie for betraying me? I couldn’t even pray anymore because of the guilt I was feeling.
I woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare. I’d dreamed that Laurie came to Megan’s party and we were all really mean to her. Somehow—I’m not sure how we did it—we knocked out all of her teeth. Laurie was crying and looking at me with no teeth. “Will you forgive me now?” she asked.
I couldn’t go back to sleep. Finally I threw off my covers and knelt at the side of my bed. “Heavenly Father,” I cried, “Please help me forgive Laurie.”
I explained to Him why it was so hard for me to forgive her. “I was nice to Laurie. She was new in our class, and no one else would talk to her. But I went out of my way to be her friend, and I had my friends be friends with her, too. And then she told lies about me.”
I told Heavenly Father what Audrey had told me on the phone the other day, that two of our classmates, Beth and Sharon, had made her feel stupid. Laurie had told them the lies so that they would not be mean to her anymore.
“What she did was wrong,” I told Heavenly Father, “but—”
Suddenly I didn’t feel angry anymore. I mostly felt sorry for Laurie—sorry that she’d felt that she needed to lie. It’s hard to go to a new school and have to make new friends, especially when some are being unfriendly.
So I forgave Laurie. But talking my friends into forgiving her wasn’t easy. After talking with Audrey, I told them, “If you’re still planning on doing mean things to Laurie, then Audrey and I won’t come to your party. We’ll have our own party and invite Laurie.”
“Nicole, calm down,” Kim said with a laugh. “If you think she’s worth another chance, we’ll give her one.”
“She’s worth it,” I told them. “Everyone is worth it.” Jesus Christ taught me that.