Gospel Story Finder

A good friend of mine recently died in a tragic car accident. I have found comfort through coming unto Christ. I had to gain a testimony of Christ’s love for each one of us; I had to understand who we are as children of God; and most importantly I had to understand God’s plan and will for His children. As I turned to Him through scriptures, church, and Church materials, I was able to gain that testimony and feel peace and comfort. Especially helpful was the youth lesson titled “How can I find comfort when someone I care about dies?” All of the scriptures, articles, and videos referenced in this lesson are amazing and have changed my life.
Madilin N., age 18, Iowa, USA

While reading about Lezlie Bowden in the November New Era, I was reminded of the time I was running for a national office of the Future Homemakers of America. Five days before our state’s delegation to the national convention was to leave, I ended up in the hospital with acute tonsillitis. While there I received a blessing that I will never forget. In it my branch president assured me that “the Lord has a hand in all things.” l was able to attend the convention and did my best in competition. I wasn’t disappointed when I didn’t get that national office because I knew that the Lord had a hand in it. I had already been elected to seven chapter and regional offices and one state office. I had never yet lost! This was my chance to experience losing. In life we have to experience losing as well as winning. I knew that while the Lord didn’t need me as a national FHA officer, he was surely watching over me and giving me many other opportunities and experiences for which I will always be grateful. I know that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true, and I’m happy to be a part of it.
Lisa BuzanOnaway, Michigan

Randol lived in Bolivia. He loved going to school, and he took good care of his schoolbooks. His favorite book had a yellow cover and interesting drawings.
One day Randol could not find his yellow book. His mom and dad helped him look, but they still could not find it.
Randol was very sad. “Let’s pray,” Randol’s father said. “We’ll ask Heavenly Father to help us.”
After the prayer, Randol’s father had an idea.“Let’s talk to your uncle,” he said. “Maybe his children used the same book and they will let you borrow it.”
“This will be the answer to our prayer,” Randol thought.
Randol’s family went to his uncle’s store. They asked him about the yellow book. Uncle said his children had never used that book.
Now Randol was confused. Wasn’t Heavenly Father going to answer their prayer?
Just then, some men came into Uncle’s store selling books. They had the book with a yellow cover!
Randol’s father bought the book. Randol thanked Heavenly Father for answering his prayer.

The first thing that Nathan Wakefield saw after he had climbed into the dimly lit attic of his family’s sod-roof cabin was his father’s old Civil War uniform hanging from a rafter. Nathan felt that he had nothing better to do than to explore the attic. Besides, on this rainy day his best friend, Eddy Fairfax, had taken a steamboat ride up Cedar River with his parents to visit his uncle in Springdale.
Nathan ran his finger along the dusty length of the army carbine that stood in the shadowy corner of the attic, and he thought about “the big sadness,” which is what his father called the Civil War. Then he saw something else—a coat draped across an old chest. It was made of hides and furs, and it looked and felt wonderfully strange. Nathan pushed his hand through its musty softness.
“That was your Grandpa John’s coat,” came his father’s voice from behind him. Nathan turned around with a start and faced his father, who stood on the attic ladder, a smile on his face. “Your great-grandfather made it for him when he was just about your age. It kept him warm on a lot of cold winter nights.” Sensing Nathan’s fascination with the coat, he added, “How would you like to have it, Nathan?”
Nathan’s eyes grew round. “You really mean it, Papa?” he asked happily.
“Coats are for wearing,” Papa returned. “And since you’re the only one in this family who can fit into it …”
So excited was Nathan over the gift of Grandpa John’s unusual coat, that he asked his mother the following morning if he could wear it to school.
She smiled and commented that it did look rather striking on him. And since the weather was still about as cold and wet as Cedar River, she guessed that it would be all right.
Cylus Murphy, a boy who lived nearby and who normally walked to school with Nathan, caught cold that day. Nathan didn’t. Maybe the coat’s magic, Nathan thought on his way home that afternoon. Then he decided that he simply hadn’t caught cold because the big coat had kept him warm and dry.
And the next day when Nathan discovered a gold coin on his way to school, he was sure that the coat had nothing to do with it. However, when Mr. Styker sprang a test on the class after Nathan had slipped into the coat because the classroom stove had been banked for the day—and he had received the highest score—he began to wonder if the unique garment really did produce “good luck” for its wearer.
After a few other good things happened while he was wearing the coat, the eleven-year-old boy was certain that the coat brought good luck.
Nathan’s parents didn’t seem to question their son’s unusually strong attachment to Grandpa John’s coat until they discovered that Nathan believed that his small good fortunes had come because he’d been wearing it.
“I think that you should talk to Nathan about it,” his mother suggested to Papa one day. “That coat is starting to take its toll on his faith in himself—and maybe on his faith in general.”
“I’ll talk to him,” Papa assured her. “But,” he added with gentle wisdom, “sometimes the lessons learned best are the ones we learn through our own experiences.”
The following Saturday morning Nathan’s mother asked him to go to Big Wood Lake and gather reeds for her so that she could make a few baskets to sell at Mr. Rowland’s store in Hasting’s Grove.
“Don’t cut them on the west side of the lake,” his father cautioned. “They are more plentiful there, but there have been reports of wild boars spotted in that area, and they can get as nasty as a hungry bear up a played-out honey tree! You’ll be perfectly safe, however, if you stay on the east side of the lake.”
Frost seemed to hang on the morning like Nathan’s mother’s clothes on a line, so he snuggled into Grandpa John’s big, warm coat and started off toward the lake. He decided that it would be easier to gather reeds on the west side of Big Wood Lake, even though he had been told not to. They really were more numerous there, and he would have time left over to do what he wanted to. Maybe he could talk Papa into coming back to the lake to fish with him. Besides, Nathan told himself, the coat would protect him.
Not more than an hour had passed before Nathan had cut all the reeds that his mother would need. As he started to bind them together with a strip of leather, he heard sounds of thrashing and snorting in the deadwood up the shoreline behind him. He whirled around and spied three large boars erupting from the brush, their foul, twisted tusks ripping and gouging in fits of frenzy at the misted air. Piercing Nathan’s dread was the thought, The coat will protect me.
But as the boars tore down the bank toward him, he jumped up and started to run. Stumbling over a rotted log, he fell into the mud on the lakeshore. Getting up, he started to run again, but the big coat kept snagging on protruding limbs and jerking him back, and the accumulated lake mud on it was slowing him considerably.
Nathan was barely able to grab onto a low-hanging tree limb and swing his legs up around it before one of the pigs snagged the bottom of the coat. Yanking on it, the boar shook its ugly head in a squealing rage, slashing its tusks through Nathan’s shirttail. The added weight of the boar was now starting to drag the boy down—down to where the other two pigs rooted about, waiting for him to fall!
Suddenly the pig that had hold of Nathan’s clothes squealed sharply, released its hold, and fell lifeless into the mud. At the same time, the remaining two pigs dashed madly up the bank and disappeared into the brushwood. Nathan blinked mud from his eyes and looked over his shoulder to where Papa stood along the shoreline, holding his still-smoking carbine.
Nathan dropped to the ground and started running toward his father. Just short of reaching his father’s strong arms, his legs gave out. Papa dropped his rifle and sank to his knees in the mud beside his son, pulling Nathan onto his lap. For a long moment they sat in silence, each holding on to the other. Nathan was thinking that his father would scold him for disobeying, but all Papa did was run his hand through the boy’s mud-clotted hair and tell him softly that he loved him.
“This coat almost got me killed,” Nathan finally said, his voice trembling with fear and shame. “It would have, too, Papa, if you hadn’t come along when you did.” Then he added, “Why did you come?”
“Something inside told me that maybe you could use a little help.”
Nathan’s eyes tried to meet his father’s, but they couldn’t—not yet. “How could I have been so stupid as to ever think that a silly old coat could do anything more than keep me warm.”
Papa smiled. “Anything seems possible when you’re young, I guess.”
Nathan lifted the muddy bottom of the coat and let it drop. “I imagine the closest thing to there being any real magic in the world is a body’s thinking that there is.”
Papa patted the youth’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” he said, pointing off across the lake to the misted mountains lit with gold. “I’d say it took Heavenly Father a fair share of ‘magic’ to put that together. Of course, what looks to us to be magic or miraculous is to Him a matter of perfect knowledge and the execution of natural law. We don’t understand it, so to us, it’s a wonder.” Papa helped Nathan up, adding, “Life, itself, is a kind of magic, a kind of miracle, wouldn’t you say?”
Nathan thought for a moment, then nodded excitedly. “You mean like a tiny seed growing into a big old oak tree?”
“And a lot more,” Papa said. “Like the power of the priesthood. An answer to prayer. What your mother does in the kitchen every day along about suppertime. Even failure.”
“Failure?” Nathan questioned.
Papa smiled. “It allows a person to start over again, giving him a second chance to do something better than he had done it before.”
Nathan thought about the second chance he was fortunate to have: The next time Papa instructs me not to do something, I’ll obey better than I ever have before!
Picking up his carbine, Papa rested his arm over the boy’s shoulder, and the two started toward home.
“There’s one more miracle that I almost forgot about,” Papa proclaimed as they tromped along, a jestful gleam in his eye.
“What’s that?” Nathan queried.
“Your mother’s homemade lye soap. I’ve seen it take a week’s worth of summer off you in less than a groan. But,” he added with a chuckle, “judging from all that mud on you today, it’s a miracle that will be sorely tried!”

Two young couples from the Northwest came, bowed in sorrow. The husband of one and the wife of the other had lost themselves in frustration arising out of disloyally finding comfort where no association should have been tolerated. Their problems reached the maximum, and sorrow resulted.
It is generally the same. The two young people, unfaithful to their spouses, had conversed and confided too much; then secret meetings followed, then disloyal disclosures concerning the spouse of each. And finally, that which surely could not have been dreamed of—the transgression.
Both couples had reduced their activity, become casual in their church-going. They had joined a social group who were also turning to spiritual casualness like themselves. Their new way of living was beyond their means, and debts crowded out tithing.
Too busy they were for home evenings and too rushed for family prayer, and when the great temptations came, they were not prepared. Their grass had been consumed, and with it the poles had been burned off and the dangling charred stubs were hanging to the sagging wires.
Sin comes when communication lines are down—it always does, sooner or later.

“Soldier!”
Meltiar Hatch leaped to his feet and saluted the man on horseback. The Mormon Battalion had been on the march since dawn. Meltiar had taken advantage of a break to bring his 16-year-old brother, Orin, to rest in the shade of a tree. He hadn’t heard the officer’s horse until it was right next to him.
Lieutenant Smith returned Meltiar’s salute. “At ease, soldier.” He looked down at Orin, who lay unmoving, his eyes closed. “Your companion looks to be very ill.”
“Yes, sir,” Meltiar said sadly. “He contracted the fever at Fort Leavenworth, but I know that in time—”
“Time? Time?” Lieutenant Smith loudly interrupted. “This troop has no time. The untimely death of our former commanding officer has set us back two weeks. We cannot defer to the sick and the weary. Leave him.”
Meltiar’s protests were ignored as Lieutenant Smith turned and gave the order to assemble. As the drums sounded, men began to scramble to collect their provisions and line up. Meltiar sat down heavily and put his head in his hands.
“Meltiar,” Orin’s voice was barely audible. “Forgive me. I joined up only because I wanted to finally be useful, like you were in Nauvoo. I never imagined it would end like this.”
“Well, none of us imagined we’d ever be led by Lieutenant Smith, either. Few of the non-Mormon leaders have been unkind; he’s just the worst of the lot. Let’s not forget the promises given by Brigham Young and the Twelve,” Meltiar said with conviction. “If we conduct ourselves properly on this march, our lives will be spared.” He put his pack and canteen in Orin’s hands. “Here is some extra food and some water. I must go now, but I’ll be back, I promise.” He got to his feet.
“I never meant to be a burden.”
“Brothers can never be burdens.”
When the battalion made camp for the night, Meltiar quietly slipped away and began his journey back to the place where Orin waited. Much in need of rest, he sat down by a tree and quickly fell asleep. Later, he awoke with a start. He couldn’t remember why he was alone in the woods in the middle of the night, but sensed that someone’s life depended on him. Meltiar shook his head to clear his jumbled thoughts.
His first thought was that he was still a messenger in the Nauvoo Legion.
He spoke aloud to himself. “The Prophet Joseph is dead. I couldn’t have prevented his assassination. However, I should have found help when my horse went lame, instead of trying to walk to Carthage. Then I might have been able to deliver the last message from his loved ones before he died.” He shook his head sadly. “But I was young and full of pride, just as Orin is now.”
At the thought of his brother, Meltiar stumbled to his feet. That’s whose life depended on him now! Weary as he was, he had to keep walking. The two previous nights, Meltiar had another soldier help him bring Orin back to camp on horseback. Each morning, when Lieutenant Smith discovered what had happened, he angrily ordered that Orin be left behind again. Last night Lieutenant Smith had informed Meltiar that if he wanted to keep up his “foolhardy venture,” he could no longer disturb the sleep of other men or beasts. That was why he was now alone and on foot. And he knew that he must be only about a third of the way back to where he’d left his brother.
Meltiar had prayed fervently for help when he’d set out. He knew he had an impossible task. Even if he had not been exhausted from lack of sleep, it would take him most of the night just to reach Orin on foot. Although Orin was much improved and could probably walk, he couldn’t travel very fast in his weakened condition. Meltiar knew that if he didn’t get back to the battalion before it pulled out at dawn, it would leave them both behind. But he also knew that he could never leave Orin.
Several times on these night trips, Meltiar had had the uneasy feeling that he was being watched. Now he was certain he saw movement by a large rock up ahead. He stopped walking and slowly reached for his pistol. But the pistol was gone! He must have dropped it back where he had fallen asleep. He started to reach for his knife but froze when an Indian stepped out of the shadows. In the light of the moon something glinted in the Indian’s hand. It was Meltiar’s pistol!
As Meltiar stood wondering what to do, he heard the sound of a horse approaching. Could someone from the battalion be following me? he wondered. Or could it be another Indian? The Indian appeared not to have heard the sound, but stood unmoving, the gun down at his side.
When the horse came into the clearing, Meltiar’s heart sank when he saw that it was an Indian pony with two riders. Meltiar closed his eyes and prayed for help.
“Meltiar?” a familiar voice said.
Startled, Meltiar opened his eyes to see that one of the riders had dismounted and was approaching him cautiously.
“Meltiar?” the voice repeated. “Is that you?”
“Orin?”
The two brothers rushed together in a brief, fierce hug, then turned to face the waiting Indians. The Indians had both mounted the pony, leaving the brothers’ guns and packs on the ground. One Indian slowly raised his hand in a salute. “Brothers,” he said before they turned and rode off into the shadows.
“That’s what he said when he came and got me,” Orin said. “I thought he meant that something had happened to you, so I went with him, even though I was scared. How did they know we were brothers?”
“They’ve been watching us these past few nights,” Meltiar said with sudden realization. “And maybe they could see how much we cared for each other. They could also see how much we needed their aid, so they helped us! Or—” he smiled at Orin— “maybe he meant that we are all brothers.”
“I’m grateful for their help,” Orin said softly, “but sometimes it isn’t easy to accept help from others.”
“I know what you mean.” Meltiar leaned on Orin. “But if you are as strong as you look, now it’s time for you to be useful. I need your help to walk back to camp. I hate to be a burden, but I am very tired!”
“I am much stronger now, Meltiar. Don’t worry,” Orin told him with a smile. “Brothers can never be burdens.”

I graduated from flight training and received my silver wings two days before my 20th birthday. Later I was stationed at Langley Field, Virginia, as copilot on a selected B-24 bomber crew trained to use a new secret weapon—radar.
My brother, Colonel Leon C. Packer, was stationed at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. A much decorated B-24 pilot, he became a brigadier general in the Air Force.
While I was at Langley Field, the war in Europe ended, and so we were ordered to the Pacific. I spent a few days with Leon in Washington before shipping out for combat.
He told me of things he had learned under fire. He flew from North Africa on raids over southern Europe; very few of those planes returned.
On April 16, 1943, he was captain of a B-24 bomber returning to England after a raid in Europe. His plane, the Yard Bird, was heavily damaged by flak and dropped out of formation.
Then they were alone and came under heavy attack from fighters.
His one-page account of that experience says: “Number three engine was smoking and the prop ran away. Number four fuel line was shot out. Right aileron cables and stabilizer cables were shot out. Rudders partially locked. Radio shot out. Extremely large holes in the right wing. Flaps shot out. Entire rear part of the fuselage filled with holes. Hydraulic system shot out. Tail turret out.”
A history of the Eighth Air Force, published just two years ago, gives a detailed account of that flight written by one of the crew.
With one engine on fire, the other three lost power. They were going down. The alarm bell ordered that they bail out. The bombardier, the only one able to get out, parachuted into the English Channel.
The pilots left their seats and made their way toward the bomb bay to bail out. Suddenly Leon heard an engine cough and sputter. He quickly climbed back to his seat and coaxed enough power from the engines to reach the coast of England. Then the engines failed, and they crashed.
The landing gear was shorn off on the brow of a hill; the plane plowed through trees and crumbled. Dirt filled the fuselage.
Amazingly, though some were terribly wounded, all aboard survived. The bombardier was lost, but he probably saved the lives of the other nine. When smoke poured from the engines and a parachute appeared, the fighters stopped their attack.
That was not the only time Leon had crash-landed.
As we visited, he told me how he was able to hold himself together under fire. He said, “I have a favorite hymn”—and he named it—“and when things got rough I would sing it silently to myself, and there would come a faith and an assurance that kept me on course.”
He sent me off to combat with that lesson.
In the spring of 1945 I was able to test that lesson Leon had taught me those months before.
The war in the Pacific ended before we reached the Philippines, and we were ordered to Japan.
One day we flew out of Atsugi airfield near Yokohama in a B-17 bomber bound for Guam to pick up a beacon light.
After nine hours in the air, we let down through the clouds to find ourselves hopelessly lost. Our radio was out. We were, as it turned out, in a typhoon.
Flying just above the ocean, we began a search pattern. In that desperate situation, I remembered the words of my brother. I learned that you can pray and even sing without making a sound.
After some time we pulled up over a line of rocks jutting out of the water. Could they be part of the chain of the Mariana Islands? We followed them. Soon Tinian Island loomed ahead, and we landed with literally seconds of fuel in the tank. As we headed down the runway, the engines one by one stopped.
I learned that both prayer and music can be very silent and very personal.

Two hours after Jay arrived, I knew I didn’t like my cousin. Two days after he arrived, I didn’t like myself. I knew that this would be my worst Christmas ever, and I began fervently wishing for it to be over with and for Jay to be gone. More than anything, I thought about how ashamed of me my father would be if he found out that I was a weakling who couldn’t stop somebody from rubbing my nose in the dirt.
A month ago Aunt Edith had written that she and Uncle Harley and Jay were coming to spend Christmas with us. On the day they were to arrive, we waited expectantly on the porch as we watched a moving cloud of dust appear far down the road. Soon a shiny green car pulled up in front of the gate.
“A brand new Studebaker!” my father said, wonderment in his voice. Since the drought and the dust storms and the depression had started, we had seen little that was new, much less a new car.
During the handshakes and hugs, I noticed that Jay was almost as big as Uncle Harley, although my cousin had just turned twelve, not quite a year older than I was.
“Jay’s the biggest boy in his grade,” Aunt Edith announced proudly.
“Yes, sir, this boy’s going to be a football star,” Uncle Harley boomed, even prouder.
“I reckon Andy’s like his dad,” my mother said, chuckling. “John says he got his growth late, but there was plenty of it—six-four in his stocking feet.”
My father didn’t say anything, and I wondered if he was wishing that I was bigger so that he could act proud too.
Later, upstairs in my room, Jay wandered around, restlessly touching things.
“You any good at marbles?” he asked. He sounded as if he was pretty sure I wasn’t.
“OK, I guess,” I answered.
While he got his marbles from his suitcase, I drew a chalk circle on the worn linoleum floor. “You go first,” I offered, since he was company.
He won the first game. I won the next two.
He scooped up his marbles. “This sorry old floor is uneven, and you have an unfair advantage, ‘cause you’re used to it. Without an unfair advantage you wouldn’t have won, kid.”
“Nuts! You’re just a bad loser,” I returned.
Before I knew what was happening, he had pinned me facedown on the floor, and with his knee in my back, he twisted my arm up behind my shoulder blades.
“Say uncle,” he ordered.
“I won’t.”
“Say uncle, you redheaded, freckle-faced runt. Say it!” He twisted until hot pain seared my shoulder.
“Uncle,” I managed to gasp.
Shoving my nose hard against the floor, he released me. When we were standing, facing each other, he said calmly, “If you tattle, I’ll get you again.”
“I don’t tattle.” I could feel my face flame at the insult.
“Dandy little Andy,” he taunted, with a mocking grin.
Around the grown-ups flattery just oozed from Jay, and he was extra polite to me. But when we were alone, he was something between barely tolerable and awful. In his tolerable state he talked incessantly but brushed aside anything I had to say as if he were shooing away a fly. When he prodded the cow I was milking and she put her foot in the bucket, he jeered, “Dandy little Andy.” My arms were sore from his constant knuckling me with his oversize fist.
On Christmas Eve, when we were chucking rocks at a fence post, Jay threw one that missed its mark and hit the door of his father’s car. It left a big dent and chipped the paint. My father and Uncle Harley, approaching from the well house, saw the damage and both of us with rocks in our hands.
“Son, did you do that?” Uncle Harley sounded stern.
Jay looked him directly in the eye and replied so earnestly that I would have believed him myself if I hadn’t known better, “No, sir, I did not.” Then he glanced at me with a pained expression.
After that performance my “I didn’t do it” sounded like a guilty denial.
My father stood silent for a moment, then turned and strode toward the barn.
Despite my misery, Christmas day did come. Jay and I took the firecrackers Uncle Harley had brought for us to a bare spot of ground near the windmill and spent the morning blowing up tin cans. I was so relieved that this was the last day of his visit that I actually had a good time.
Late in the afternoon Jay tagged along when I went to the pasture to drive in the milk cows. I rounded up the cows and was headed back with them when I saw a firecracker arc and explode under the lead cow. She tossed her horns and ran bellowing toward the barn.
I turned and saw my cousin, thumbs hooked in his belt loops, a satisfied smirk on his face.
Then I smelled it—prairie fire! I whirled around to see flames beginning to lick through the dry winter grass.
I ripped off my plaid mackinaw and beat out the fire nearest me, but the ever-present west wind fueled new flames that raced along, devouring the grass. I knew that if I couldn’t stop the blaze, it could burn up three counties. As I ran up and down beating the growing line of fire, I became like a piece of machinery, with no thought of heat or smoke or time. I didn’t even wonder where Jay was. I had completely forgotten him.
Finally I became aware of my father’s voice. “Andy, it’s all right. The fire’s out.”
I saw my father, his eyes red-rimmed from the smoke, holding wet gunny sacks in each hand. Blackened grass surrounded us. We walked wearily to the dry creek bed and dropped down on a flat rock.
From farther down the creek Jay suddenly appeared, striding purposefully. “I was going for help, sir. After I saw Andy drop that firecracker, I—”
My father’s voice cracked like a whip, “Don’t bother with another one of your lies, Jay. Go along to the house.”
My father turned back to me and put his hands on my shoulders. He said in his quiet way, “You did a man’s job today, Andy. With everything the way it is, if all the winter grazing had burned, I don’t see how we could have held on to the ranch another year. I’m grateful to you.”
I understood then that in ways that mattered to my father, I stood tall.
The next morning as we waved good-bye to the occupants of the green car, I found myself suddenly thinking that this was my best Christmas ever.

Elder Kikuchi’s background hardly made him a likely candidate for conversion to the Church. Born in 1941, he was raised in the rural “snow country” of Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island. Latter-day Saint missionaries had left Japan more than a decade before his birth, finding little success in a country steeped in tradition. During the 1930s, as Japan grew increasingly militaristic and anti-American, the last traces of Church organization virtually vanished.
Then, five months after Yoshihiko was born, Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, was bombed. And shortly before the end of the war, Yoshihiko’s father—serving in the Japanese military—died in an American bombing raid over Japan. Not many would have expected a boy in Yoshihiko’s situation ever to join an “American” church.
“I was prejudiced toward Americans because of my father’s death,” says Elder Kikuchi. “When I answered the door that day (in 1958) and saw two Americans—all bundled up in their hats and overcoats—I naturally told them, ‘No, thank you.’”
Even meeting the elders when he did would not normally have been a possibility because Yoshihiko should have been in school. But he was recuperating from an illness. A hardworking boy, he had been going to school at night and rising at 4 A.M. to work so he could help his mother support the family. This rigorous schedule completely exhausted him, and he collapsed one day on the job. After his release from the hospital, he was staying with his uncle, and was home alone when Elder Law and Elder Porter knocked on the door.
Just as Yoshihiko would have normally been elsewhere that day—either in school or at work—the elders normally would have been taking the day off because it was their preparation day. But they had not found many investigators in recent weeks, and were out going door-to-door because Elder Law had felt inspired to do so.
Elder Law persisted when Yoshihiko declined to talk to them, saying he and Elder Porter had an important message that would only take a few minutes. “My health crisis had put me in a position of seeking God,” Elder Kikuchi reminisces, “and I decided to let them come in. They told me the Joseph Smith story. I was very impressed.”
“Yoshihiko struck me as an exceptional young man,” says Brother Law, who now lives in Mapleton, Utah. “I knew he was ready for the gospel.”
“I’m grateful the elders went the extra mile,” Elder Kikuchi comments. Today, his appreciation for the work of the missionaries is often expressed. “I want to tell American Saints how much I appreciate my testimony,” he says. “I especially want the older brothers and sisters to know that I deeply appreciate the legacy—and heritage—they have preserved. I have met members of the Church in Bend, Oregon; Salmon, Idaho; Tooele, Utah; and many other places. These wonderful people live ‘common’ lives, attending church each week faithfully. They may wonder if they are really contributing to the kingdom of God. I want to assure them that they are. They are faithful individuals who raise their righteous sons and daughters and send them on missions. I want them to know they are doing a marvelous, marvelous work for the Lord.”
After his own contact with the missionaries, Elder Kikuchi turned out to be a “golden investigator,” eagerly receiving lessons and even coming to the meetinghouse when he did not have an appointment. In the spring of 1958, just a few weeks after meeting the elders, he was baptized by Elder Law. The date was April 6—the anniversary of the organization of the Church.

Although Mary managed to get some additional cattle to help pull the wagons to the Salt Lake Valley, the trek still tested and refined her faith. One day one of her best oxen became very sick, lay down, and was apparently near death. Had this happened, she could not have continued on the journey to the Valley. Mary got a bottle of consecrated oil and asked two brethren to administer to the sick ox. Although administration to the sick had only been used for humans, Mary believed that the Lord would heal the animal that she needed so desperately.

After the blessing, the ox got up and was soon ready to pull the wagon again. Two more times other oxen became ill, and twice more Mary asked the brethren to bless them. Each time, they were healed instantly. Despite all difficulties, Mary and her family arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on September 23, 1848, a full day before the rest of the company.

I too would like to give a special thanks to Jamie Glenn and Rayna Jones for being “in tune” with the Spirit when they composed the beautiful “Walk Tall, You’re a Daughter of God,” which was published in the April 1979 New Era. This song contributed much happiness, serenity, and peace of mind to my dear friend Lorna Smith during the last year of her life.
In May of 1981 Lorna had her first operation for cancer. The family was told that life expectancy for this type of cancer was about four months. However, she was given chemotherapy and her health improved. One year later, in May 1982, she became very ill again. One Sunday morning before she was taken back to the hospital, I was visiting her when she told me about hearing this song at a Relief Society function. It had so touched her heart that she had asked Kris Taylor, the sister who had sung it, to record it for her so that she might listen to it at home. This had been done, and that Sunday the two of us listened to it and shed tears as we heard the words, “He’s closer than you know—reach up, He’ll take your hand.” Lorna sent a copy of the tape to Nebraska to be played to her 92-year-old mother and aged aunt who are not members of the Church. She also shared the song with her daughters whom she wanted to realize that they are truly daughters of God.
She had another operation that May 1982, and the new growth was found to be inoperable. She was again given about four months to live. Her treatment was changed and she lived another 13 months, during which she had the privilege of enjoying the arrival of two new grandchildren. Throughout this last year of her life she often listened to “her song.” The words gave her strength, hope, and courage. Her display of these qualities touched the lives of many.
In May of 1983 she again became so ill that her digestive system could not tolerate even water. Another operation disclosed several cancerous blockages in her intestines. During this lengthy stay at the hospital I took a tape to her on which the Gunderson sisters had recorded some special songs for her. One of them was “Walk Tall.” As it was playing there in the hospital room, a nurse came in singing the words. She told us that this song was also special to her. She had heard it and sung it on her mission. This seemed to create an understanding between her and Lorna.
The cancer spread to Lorna’s liver, and she died at home on June 28, 1983. As I stood there by her, in my mind I could hear and feel the impact of the words, “He’s closer than you know—reach up, He’ll take your hand.”
Her special song was sung beautifully at her funeral by the Gunderson sisters, and on her headstone, as a reminder to her children and grandchildren, is engraved “WALK TALL, YOU‘RE A DAUGHTER OF GOD.”
Dorothy M. BolinderGrantsville, Utah

It was a cold spring in Denmark. I had just begun my full-time mission, and my testimony was struggling. I was a convert of only 19 months and full of insecurities about facing a foreign country, a language I couldn’t speak, and a maze of streets I couldn’t fathom navigating. My once gratitude-filled prayers soon became sour accusations: “God, why have you left me all alone?”
One morning I pled with Him in prayer. But instead of asking “why” with anger in my heart, I begged for a witness of the gospel’s truth and suppression of my doubts.
After praying, I flipped my scriptures open. I landed on Deuteronomy 31:6: “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be afraid of them: for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
My heart was full of joy as I realized the answer to my prayer: God had been there all along. He was simply waiting for sincere prayer rather than accusations of abandonment.
God will never leave me, even when all seems hopeless. And we can feel His sunshine through prayer and His scriptures.
Clayton E., Texas, USA

I hadn’t been reading the scriptures until my Young Women president suggested that I work on Personal Progress. It asked me to read the scriptures every day for some weeks. After doing this, I never stopped reading them. My best advice is that you ought to work on your Personal Progress or Duty to God. Challenge yourself to read the scriptures more and more, and you will see a change within yourself. I tell you this without a doubt—you will see that you have a stronger testimony.
Paola S., age 16, Cortés, Honduras

I made my first covenant on November 13, 1977. I don’t remember much about my baptism, but I do remember Elder Pistone helping me into the water and Elder Morasco confirming me while my hair was still wet. I also remember the joy I felt as new ward friends gave hugs and kisses in the Argentine way and the strong desire I felt to be a faithful daughter of Heavenly Father.
Young Sister Spannaus (middle) with her parents (left), her sister Silvina (far right), and Elder Morasco.
Later I realized that the joy I felt came from the gift of the Holy Ghost. I learned that as I faithfully kept my covenants with God, the Spirit would be with me. The Holy Ghost is just one of the powerful blessings that come from a covenant relationship with God and Jesus Christ.

I played a Nephite girl in the Mormon Miracle Pageant in Manti, Utah. When Jesus visits the righteous Nephites in the pageant, the children get to sit by Him and be taught by Him.
On the last night of the pageant, my group was assigned to go up to Jesus. I wanted to be the child to sit on the knee of the man playing the part of Jesus as he taught the children. I planned to walk quickly up the pageant steps where the man sat so I could sit on his knee. When it was time for the children to walk up to him, I tried to hurry, but my little brother Benjamin took my hand and said, “Wait for me. I want to be close to Jesus too.”
I listened to the Holy Ghost and held my brother’s hand and helped him so he could sit close to the man playing Jesus. Many children were able to get in front of us, so I didn’t get to sit on his knee. I was very sad and told my mom. She said that our Savior, Jesus Christ, is very pleased with me for helping my brother. The next day my mom asked the man who dressed up as Jesus if I could sit on his knee for a picture, and he said yes.

Sandra, a BYU Relief Society president, told the following story. “I got up one morning and went out to my car. The tire was flat. Luckily it was Saturday and I didn’t have to be anywhere right away, so I called my home teacher and asked him if he could come over and fix it for me. He said sure, and a while later, there he was at my doorstep. I walked out to the parking lot with him, all set to give him moral support and compliments on his chivalry in coming to my rescue. Was I surprised when, upon arriving at my car, he handed me the jack and said, ‘Okay, Sandra, this is your car. You had better learn how to change a tire.’ At the time I wasn’t so sure I agreed with his reasoning, but I did change the tire! And I’m kind of glad now that I know how.”

I first heard the gospel as a child when my parents welcomed the missionaries to our home in Antofagasta, Chile. I grew up in the Church, but I did little to gain a personal testimony. Consequently, I eventually fell from activity and found myself facing life’s challenges without the divine power of the gospel to help me. My faithful mother, however, continued to love me and remained a quiet example of righteousness.
Although I married a Church member, neither of us felt the urgency or necessity of living the standards we had been taught in our youth. But as time went by, life in our home changed radically for the worse.
Because of the difficult problems we were facing, my wife decided to start attending church with our daughter. I had no desire to go with them, yet they returned home each week and shared what they had learned. Some time later I began to receive visits from home teachers, two faithful brethren who somehow envisioned my divine potential even though I couldn’t.
Slowly, a change began to take place in my heart, but I refused to acknowledge it at first. Every Sunday my wife would iron my clothes with the hope that I would attend church with her. I was too stubborn to put on the clothes, but I started going to sacrament meeting in jeans and a T-shirt. As less-active members often do, I sat on the bench nearest the door so I could be the last one in and the first one out without having anyone speak to me.
After several months I realized I was not being a good example to my children or blessing my family with the priesthood as I should. I made the decision to never again miss a day of church. I had watched the application of gospel principles brighten my life, and I realized that this simple decision should have been made long ago.
How eager the Lord was to bless my family and me! My wife and I and our children were soon sealed to each other in the Santiago Chile Temple.
I am grateful for a mother who diligently taught me the principles of the gospel, for a wife who encouraged me through her love and example to live them, for faithful home teachers, and for a Father in Heaven who patiently waited for me to live the gospel so He could bless me more than I thought possible.

Shortly after my husband received his master’s degree, he considered returning to school for a PhD. This prospect daunted us since earning his master’s degree had been so difficult. We had two small children and longed to have a good job and maybe even a house.
That October conference, Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles shared some of his experiences related to moving his young family to Connecticut for graduate school. We had also moved to Connecticut for graduate school. Then he described how he and his family had fit all of their possessions into their little car—we had done the same. He explained that when the trip began, his car had overheated and broken down not once but twice! Our vehicle also broke down twice.
Finally, he described a more recent experience of driving a reliable car by the spot where his car had broken down 30 years earlier. In his mind’s eye, he saw himself as a young father and said these words: “Don’t give up, boy. Don’t you quit. … There is help and happiness ahead—a lot of it. … You keep your chin up. It will be all right in the end. Trust God and believe in good things to come.”1Elder Holland’s experience helped me feel understood and loved. His example gave me the courage to seek the spiritual witness that more education for my husband was the will of the Lord for our family. Five years and two babies later, my husband finished his dissertation. School was definitely challenging, but we were happy. We had followed the Lord’s will, and He had blessed us physically, spiritually, and financially.
Since that conference, I have often thought of Elder Holland’s talk. I have learned that as I strive to trust God through obeying the counsel of His prophets and apostles, good things really do come.
Melinda McLaughlin, Maryland, USA

An example of such service was the missionary experience of Juliusz and Dorothy Fussek, who were called to fill a two-year mission in Poland. Brother Fussek was born in Poland. He spoke the language. He loved the people. Sister Fussek was English and knew little of Poland and its people.
Trusting in the Lord, they embarked on their assignment. The living conditions were primitive, the work lonely, their task immense. A mission had not at that time been established in Poland. The assignment given the Fusseks was to prepare the way, that a mission could be established so that other missionaries could be called to serve, people could be taught, converts could be baptized, branches could be established, and chapels could be erected.
Did Elder and Sister Fussek despair because of the enormity of their assignment? Not for a moment. They knew their calling was from God. They prayed for His divine help, and they devoted themselves wholeheartedly to their work. They remained in Poland not two years but five years. All of the foregoing objectives were realized.
Elders Russell M. Nelson, Hans B. Ringger, and I, accompanied by Elder Fussek, met with Minister Adam Wopatka of the Polish government, and we heard him say, “Your church is welcome here. You may build your buildings; you may send your missionaries. You are welcome in Poland. This man,” pointing to Juliusz Fussek, “has served your church well. You can be grateful for his example and his work.”
Like the Fusseks, let us do what we should do in the work of the Lord. Then we can, with Juliusz and Dorothy Fussek, echo the Psalm: “My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth … : he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.”

“Before the concert at the Bolshoi,” said Ann Halversen, “I felt a hand on my arm. ‘Would you tell me more about Mormons?’ said a woman. ‘Do you speak English?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Are you Christian?’ I asked. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Did you know that Christ came to America after he was resurrected?’ I asked. ‘He did!’ she exclaimed, wide-eyed. I then briefly gave an overview of the Book of Mormon. I felt to keep going—to tell her how we obtained the Book of Mormon. When I got to the name of Joseph Smith, the Spirit was so powerful that the instant I said his name I started to cry. The Spirit was so strong that she started to cry, too. ‘What is it that I am feeling?’ she tearfully asked. I then explained about the Holy Ghost. Immediately she reached out and stopped me and said, ‘This is what I have been looking for.’ Before the evening was over, I was able to introduce her to the missionaries.”