Gospel Story Finder

I was worried about going into Young Women. I was scared for a long time. I thought I wouldn’t have any friends. About a month before my birthday, I started praying about it. I even fasted. I asked Heavenly Father to help me get to know people better and to find good things about Young Women. My last Sunday in Primary, a couple of my Primary leaders were called to be Young Women leaders! I would like to say to all the boys and girls turning 12 to not judge by appearances! Get to know people. I have found that the youth are nice. You might not find a friend right away, but you probably will soon. Pray. I know it works.
Alexandra W., age 12, Maryland

Those who follow the game of rugby know that the New Zealand All Blacks, a name given because of the color of their uniform, is the most celebrated rugby team ever.3 To be selected for the All Blacks in New Zealand would be comparable to playing for a football Super Bowl team or a World Cup soccer team.
In 1961, at age 18 and holding the Aaronic Priesthood, Sidney Going was becoming a star in New Zealand rugby. Because of his remarkable abilities, many thought he would be chosen the very next year for the national All Blacks rugby team.
At age 19, in this critical moment of his ascending rugby career, Sid declared that he would forgo rugby to serve a mission. Some called him crazy. Others called him foolish.4 They protested that his opportunity in rugby might never come again.
For Sid it was not what he was leaving behind—it was the opportunity and responsibility ahead. He had a priesthood duty to offer two years of his life to declare the reality of the Lord Jesus Christ and His restored gospel. Nothing—not even a chance to play on the national team, with all the acclaim it would bring—would deter him from that duty.5
He was called by a prophet of God to serve in the Western Canadian Mission. Forty-eight years ago this month, 19-year-old Elder Sidney Going left New Zealand to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
A mission instead of a place on the New Zealand All Blacks team? Sid responded, “The blessing of [bringing others] into the gospel far outweighs anything [you] will ever sacrifice.”7
You’re probably wondering what happened to Sid Going following his mission. Most important: an eternal marriage to his sweetheart, Colleen; five noble children; and a generation of grandchildren. He has lived his life trusting in his Father in Heaven, keeping the commandments, and serving others.
And rugby? After his mission Sid Going became one of the greatest halfbacks in All Blacks history, playing for 11 seasons and serving for many years as captain of the team.8
How good was Sid Going? He was so good that training and game schedules were changed because he would not play on Sunday.9 Sid was so good the Queen of England acknowledged his contribution to rugby.10 He was so good a book was written about him titled Super Sid.
What if those honors had not come to Sid after his mission? One of the great miracles of missionary service in this Church is that Sid Going and thousands just like him have not asked, “What will I get from my mission?” but rather, “What can I give?”

Watching over new converts is a high priority in the Santa Cruz Bolivia Paraíso Stake, where stake missionaries follow the progress of new converts for 18 months after baptism. “Two of the men on the high council work directly with bishops and their new converts,” says Guillermo Quintana, who served as stake president. “When someone new comes in, we speak to them, we go to see them, and we see that they get callings and make friends. We are learning to apply President Gordon B. Hinckley’s counsel to help each convert find a friend, receive a calling, and be nurtured with the good word of God” (see “Some Thoughts on Temples, Retention of Converts, and Missionary Service,” Ensign, November 1997, 49). As a result, 72 percent of new members baptized recently in the stake are still active.

President Quintana knows the importance of finding friends at church. The night of his baptism at age 18, his best friend told him he would never visit him again if he joined the Church. Ten minutes before the service began, Guillermo decided to go ahead anyway and left for the meetinghouse. “I lost my dearest friend that night,” he recalls. However, within two weeks he met the woman who later became his wife, and she became the friend who sustained him during his mission.

After his mission, he had an experience that changed his life. Deathly ill, he was rushed to the hospital. As he hovered between life and death, he felt spiritual comfort as an impression came to him that there were many things yet for him to do. The experience confirmed to him that he had important work to do in the Lord’s Church.

“Since that time I have prayerfully sought to know what the Lord would have me do,” says President Quintana. As he sought for ways to strengthen the stake, he often asked, “What do we want to achieve?” Then he and his counselors set concrete objectives for leaders and members. “We teach members not to be afraid to keep the commandments,” he says. “It’s the perspective we must give. Then the blessings come.”

A couple of months ago, I was going through a rough time and felt that my life was falling apart. I’d been told many times that our trials make us stronger, but remembering that didn’t take away my pain. After one particularly rough day at high school and a stressful evening, I felt alone. I was in the midst of despair, and I couldn’t see a way to overcome what I was feeling. Then I had an overwhelming desire to pray. I resisted at first—that solution seemed too easy to bring the peace I was seeking—but then I changed my mind. I prayed for comfort and for the strength to rise above my trials. As I did so, my pain and grief were taken away and were replaced by an overwhelming, all-encompassing feeling of peace and joy.
I rarely cry, but that day I wept. That was the moment I really understood that I am a child of God and felt how much I matter to Him. Now, every time I feel alone or am in pain, I pray. Sometimes the relief doesn’t come instantly, but it always comes. Prayer is how I withstand the teasing, temptations, and other hard things that sometimes come into my life. I’m so grateful to have the gospel in my life and to be a child of God.

My sister and I had both been chosen to be on our school color guard (flag team). We were so excited, and we practiced daily so that we could be at the same level of expertise as the others who had been doing this for years. After a long summer of practice, it was time to take a picture of the entire color guard and marching band. For the picture the guard girls were asked to wear an outfit that was very tight and revealing. My sister and I were a little upset. We’d been taught to dress modestly, and we knew this should be no exception.
That night my sister and I made a plan. Color guard was important to us, and it was something we loved to do, but we knew that if we lowered our standards, we would be asked to do the same in the future because we’d already done it once. We knew we must be strong and stand up for what we represent, and if our coach and team couldn’t accept that, then we would quit color guard because our standards were too important to us to be changed by a sport.
The next day, after a lot of prayer that everything would turn out OK, we walked into the gym for pictures, wearing black slacks and T-shirts. The only comments we received from our teammates were that they wished they’d worn what we did because they were embarrassed to be wearing something so immodest. Even our coach agreed! My sister and I were so proud that we’d stood for what we believed in and that we could continue doing color guard! For the past two years, the uniforms had been short or sleeveless, but because we stood up for our beliefs, we’ve been able to modify them to our standards.
Though it may seem hard, if you stand up for your beliefs, the result may be something you never expected. It may not work out like it did for us, but you’ll never know if you don’t try.

Scott had asked. He had begged. When he was in first grade he’d worn out the dog pages in our encyclopedias. He’d bought books on dogs, too, and read them from cover to cover. (Scott could do that because he’d been reading since he was four.) But he never got a dog.

Daddy and Mother explained to him a dozen times maybe how dogs belonged in the country, how they were a nuisance in the city, and how it wasn’t fair to dogs or people to have dogs cooped up. “And besides,” they’d finally say, “Tom wanted a dog once, and he had to learn that a boy can’t always have everything he wants.”

Scott begged a whole yearful, but all he got was a rabbit. He kept him a few months and then gave him to Uncle George’s kids who live on a farm. But I didn’t want a rabbit. Rabbits don’t love you back the way a dog does. Scott’s rabbit hopped away without a backward glance when we turned him loose in Uncle George’s field.

“Joey’s dog would have howled his head off if he’d been turned out and left like that,” I said as the rabbit disappeared behind a haystack.

Some years ago, I prayed for the words to defend motherhood when I received an anonymous phone call.
The caller asked, “Are you Neill Marriott, the mother of a big family?”
I answered happily, “Yes!” expecting to hear her say something like, “Well, that’s good!”
But no! I’ll never forget her reply as her voice crackled over the phone: “I am highly offended that you would bring children onto this overcrowded planet!”
“Oh,” I sputtered, “I see how you feel.”
She snapped, “No—you don’t!”
I then whimpered, “Well, maybe I don’t.”
She started on a rant about my foolish choice to be a mother. As she went on, I began to pray for help, and a gentle thought came to mind: “What would the Lord say to her?” I then felt I was standing on solid ground and gained courage at the thought of Jesus Christ.
I replied, “I am glad to be a mother, and I promise you I will do everything in my power to nurture my children in such a way that they will make the world a better place.”
She replied, “Well, I hope you do!” and hung up.
It wasn’t a big thing—after all, I was standing safely in my own kitchen! But in my own small way, I was able to speak in defense of family, mothers, and nurturers because of two things: (1) I understood and believed God’s doctrine of the family, and (2) I prayed for words to convey these truths.

I have been trying to follow the counsel of the prophets by keeping a journal. When I started, I hadn’t yet learned to read or write. I’d save something, like a pamphlet or ticket from an activity we had gone to, and put it in my journal. My mom then helped me write the things I remembered beside the item. I love to go back through my journal and remember all the different things I have done. I have kept my journal for over a year now. I am now learning to read and write, and I love to write down memories for myself.Rachel Averett, age 6Waterloo, Iowa

I opened the door a little, but an enormous barrier divided us still. I stood back, away from her. I felt swollen and sore from so many tears, forever isolated by shame and disgrace, absolutely empty of any hope of future happiness. The girl at the front door was a numbing reminder of the most hateful part of all: that everyone knew.
But into my unyielding dimness, Karen spoke quietly. “Come back to school, Heather. No one will hold what your dad did against you.” That was all. I closed the door firmly without a word.
I listened to her walk away, my feelings unraveling with each footstep, my thoughts trailing backward.
My 13-year-old world fell apart when the local newspaper revealed, without feeling, the enormous surprise: Mr. David McPhie,* bookkeeper and owner of McPhie Accounting, was convicted of embezzlement and would serve his sentence in the jail across the river. It seemed so impossible, so comically bizarre. But it was so painfully real.
The subsequent events are unclear and without sequence to me now, obscured not only by time, but by the confusion and withdrawal I was feeling then. Dad was gone. He never said “I’m sorry I have destroyed you” or “I regret turning out to be a stranger you never really knew.” Mom was unreachable, struggling herself to cope. She offered no explanation of why this had happened or how to go on.
The sheriff came into our home. Everything of value was seized: records, books, furniture, the bed Dad had made me with the headboard shelf for pretty things, the piano. Mom and I slept on mattresses on the floor of one empty bedroom. Did we cook and eat? What activities filled the empty days? I can’t remember. Focused on my own grief in an intense and self-centered way, I clung to one determination: I would never go back to school.
I don’t know how many days I’d been away from school when Karen came. And I don’t know how many days it was after she came that I went back to school.
Karen was there for me when I went back, gentle, with no questions. And other friends I didn’t know I had were there, too: enough of them to elect me secretary of the student council; to teach a shy girl that if you are brave enough to smile first, others will smile back; to show me I could survive.
In the years that followed, our lives went different ways. My family was put back together. I learned to love my dad again. Then I moved miles away.
Through the rest of growing up, through high school and college and marriage and children and all the ups and downs in between, I’ve often thought about Karen. About a principal calling a few students into his office to show them a newspaper headline and to ask them how they could help. About one girl saying, “I’ll go.” About which way my life might have gone without that one pivotal act of reaching out.

In 1999, I was serving as the Harare Zimbabwe District president. By that time, I had a good job. Naume and I bought land in Norton, which was about a 40-minute drive from Harare, and we built a nice three-bedroom home on that land. We were excited to begin our new life in Norton. Our plan was to eventually build a bigger home on the property.

When the mission president learned about our plan to move from Harare, he counseled us not to leave. I reasoned that it was too expensive for us to stay in Harare. We continued to pursue our plans to move. A visiting General Authority also counseled us to stay in Harare. He suggested that we rent our house in Norton while continuing to live in Harare. I again said that it was too expensive to live in Harare. If we remained there, we would not be able to build the larger house we had planned.

On the way home from our conversation with the General Authority, Naume asked me why I was being so stubborn. I responded that our leaders did not seem to understand our situation. She said that she would support me only if I was willing to follow our Church leaders’ counsel. We remained in Harare, and we were richly blessed because of that decision.

I’m grateful that Naume had faith to stay.

My friend Cathy hadn’t been to school for several days, so I called her mom and found out that she was in the hospital being tested for mononucleosis. I went to see how she was doing and to give her a hard time about having the so-called “kissing disease.”

When I arrived at the hospital, she was sitting up in bed quietly. I asked if she had mono, and who she’d been kissing.

“I don’t have mono,” she said. “It’s leukemia.”

I was speechless. It couldn’t be true—not Cathy. I immediately tried to think of some way to make this all better. Then a thought occurred to me.

“You got your patriarchal blessing, right? Does it say that you will be married and have children?”

“Yes.”

“Then,” I concluded, “you’ll be okay.”

“I hope so,” she said. “But sometimes our blessings are for the next world as well.”

The next? I didn’t want to hear anything about the next world. She was living in this world, and I wanted it to stay that way. We hugged and cried, and finally I had to go.

Over the following several months Cathy went through chemotherapy. She lost all her hair. The lining of her mouth became so raw that it was painful for her to eat. She was nauseated all the time. Her immune system was weak, so she was susceptible to infection. Anyone who went into her room had to put on a hospital gown, gloves, and a mask.

I visited her almost every day. She was usually too sick to talk, so I just sat with her. Through all this she remained at peace with Heavenly Father. She said she had faith in His plan for her.

To me it was simple. Faith precedes the miracle. Cathy had great faith. I had faith in her faith. Her being healed was just a matter of time.

Eventually Cathy was able to come back to school. She wore a bandana and had planned to wear a wig until her hair grew back. But when her hair started to sprout, it was really itchy, and she couldn’t stand to wear a wig. A good friend of hers shaved his head as a show of support.

Cathy jumped right into her classes. She even started marching with the pep club and spending time with her friends. For me, it was a relief when things seemed back to normal. Toward the end of the school year she ran for a student body office and won.

I was so happy to have my friend back. Everything was just like it had been before the cancer. Her faith had worked, and she was healed—or so I thought.

Around Christmas, Cathy started to get sick again. She went back into the hospital for another round of chemo, but this time it was different. When I went to visit, she was weaker. Her body had already been through so much that she just didn’t have any strength. I think she knew that she didn’t have much time left on earth because she was quietly saying good-bye. I was devastated.

My friend Cathy died shortly after her 18th birthday. No one had more faith in Heavenly Father’s ability to heal than she did. So why had she died? What was faith good for if people like Cathy still died? I didn’t understand.

Slowly it dawned on me. I might not understand, but I knew that Cathy did. Her faith allowed her to have peace as she trusted in Heavenly Father’s plan for her. Sometimes we think that if only we have enough faith, our problems will be taken away. But because of Cathy I learned that faith is what helps us accept Heavenly Father’s plan. Then we can say, “Thy will be done,” and really mean it.

In 2002 I learned an important lesson about problems. While in Asunción, Paraguay, I met with the city’s stake presidents. At that time, Paraguay faced a terrible financial crisis, and many Church members were suffering and unable to make ends meet. I had not been to South America since my mission and had never been to Paraguay. I had been serving in that Area Presidency for only a few weeks. Apprehensive about my inability to give guidance to those stake presidents, I asked them to tell me only what was going well in their stakes. The first stake president told me about things that were going well. The next mentioned things that were going well and a few problems. By the time we got to the last stake president, he mentioned only a series of vexing challenges. As the stake presidents explained the magnitude of the situation, I grew increasingly concerned, nearly desperate, about what to say.

Just as the last stake president was finishing his comments, a thought came into my mind: “Elder Clayton, ask them this question: ‘Presidents, of the members in your stakes who pay a full tithing, pay a generous fast offering, magnify their callings in the Church, actually visit their families as home teachers or visiting teachers every month, hold family home evening, study the scriptures, and hold family prayer each day, how many have problems they cannot address on their own without the Church having to step in and solve their problems for them?’”

Responsive to the impression I had received, I asked the stake presidents that question.

They looked at me in surprised silence and then said, “Pues, ninguno,” meaning, “Well, no one.” They then told me that none of the members who did all of those things had problems they were incapable of resolving on their own. Why? Because they lived in the finest homes. Their faithful living provided them the strength, vision, and heavenly help they needed in the economic turmoil that surrounded them.

For example, think of the faith of a boy, about eight years of age, who was facing an emergency operation for acute appendicitis. As he lay on the operating table, he looked up at the surgeon and said, “Doctor, before you begin to operate, will you pray for me?”
The surgeon looked at the boy in amazement and said, “Why, I can’t pray for you.”
Then the little fellow said, “If you won’t pray for me, please wait while I pray for myself.” There on the operating table, the boy got on his knees, folded his hands, and began to pray. He said: “Heavenly Father, I am only a little orphan boy. I am awful sick, and these doctors are going to operate. Will you please help them that they will do it right? Heavenly Father, if you will make me well, I will be a good boy. Thank you for making me well.” He then lay on his back, looked up at the tear-filled eyes of the doctors and nurses, and said, “Now I am ready.”
His physical recovery was complete, and his spiritual power was developing.

I have a plastic star decoration in my room that I brought home from my mission. I love how it looks when it lights up. This little star hangs on a wall so I can see it every night as I go to sleep and first thing when I wake up.
Recently I noticed that my star wasn’t attached to the wall as securely as it normally was, but I didn’t give it much thought. I was confident that the single piece of tape holding it to the wall would stick.
Then one morning my star wasn’t there—it had fallen. I decided to resecure the star with more tape. This time I used five pieces—one piece for each point of the star—to make sure it wouldn’t fall again.
That’s when I realized that my little glowing star is like each of us, and the tape holding it could represent our spiritual habits. The light we have within us is entirely dependent upon the things we do to strengthen, or secure, our testimonies. Every piece of tape I put on the star reminded me of Alma 37:6: “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass.”
I also thought about how I had noticed that my star was about to fall for several days, but I did nothing to save it until it did fall. And it’s the same with our testimonies—if we become complacent and forget to do the small, spiritual practices that can help keep our faith strong, our testimonies can weaken.

Pa had always set great store in fasting and prayer. He never doubted that the Lord would answer a righteous prayer of faith. And my pa was a righteous man, so I never saw his faith go unanswered. But in the summer of 1876, during my twelfth year, his fasting and prayer brought about the most curious answer I’ve ever seen.
Whenever Pa was thinking hard about something, he would tug his left ear. He had been tugging that ear for three or four days, so I knew something important was on his mind.
He mentioned it to Ma that night at supper. “Emily, that upper five acres could mean the difference between meeting the payments at the bank and losing the farm.”
Ma stopped pouring the thick, frothy milk and looked at him. “What do you mean, Edward? You haven’t said anything before.”
“I can’t keep water on it, Em. No matter how I plot a course, the water either won’t flow across the field or it backs up and floods half the crop and leaves the other half dry. I don’t know what to do.”
Ma sat down heavily. “We could really lose the farm?”
“If we don’t get a good crop. And we won’t get a good crop unless I can figure out some way to irrigate that land.”
The next couple of days were really low ones for us. Pa would stand each morning, staring across those five acres, then tug his ear and walk off, glum-faced. Usually after supper he’d play with me and Baby Sam, read out loud from the big family Bible, or pick on his banjo. Now he just sat at the kitchen table, drawing figure after figure on pieces of paper—diagrams of an irrigation system.
It took me a minute to realize what was different that morning. There was no sound of sizzling bacon, no mouthwatering aroma almost lifting me out of bed. Then I remembered—we were going to fast today. I swallowed hard, wishing I had drunk one final glass of water before we had had prayer last night to start our fast.
The loft door lifted up, and Pa came in smiling and wrestled me out of bed. That kind of surprised me because Pa had been so quiet and preoccupied lately. I thought maybe he’d found a way to irrigate the cornfield, so I asked him.
“No,” he said, becoming serious again. “But we’re going to put it to Heavenly Father today during our fast. He knows how to get water to the crops. We just have to ask Him and have faith that He’ll give us the answer. I’ve done all I can.”
We knelt around the kitchen table for morning prayer, and I settled myself into a comfortable half-sleeping position, because Pa’s prayers can get pretty long sometimes. Suddenly my ears pricked up. Pa’s tone was different this morning, and his prayer was short and direct:
“Father, our crops are dying. I’ve tried everything I know to irrigate the land, but the water won’t flow on that hilly ground. We turn to Thee for help. We dedicate this fast to finding the answer we need. Please help us.”
After Pa finished, we knelt there quietly for a minute or two, then got up together. Pa looked relieved and ruffled my hair. I asked if he’d gotten an answer already. He smiled. “No, Son, not yet. But I will.” And much of that day he spent off by himself, praying.
The next morning Pa picked up a long stick as we walked out to the cornfield. Then he walked across the field, dragging that stick behind him! He didn’t turn to look until he was at the other end. And when he did turn to see that crazy wavy line, he stood a long time, tugging on his ear.
“Well, Son,” he said finally. “The Lord moves in mysterious ways, and this has to be one of His most mysterious.”
I couldn’t believe he meant what I thought he was saying! “You’re not going to follow that line to make the irrigation channel are you?” I asked.
Pa grinned. “If that’s what He wants me to do, then yes, I guess I am.” And he pulled the hand plow to the edge of the field. I stood at the side, watching his muscles bulge against his shirt as he plowed a deep, crooked furrow that looked more like a sidewinder’s track than an irrigation ditch.
This is one time, I thought, when Heavenly Father just hasn’t come through.
When Pa had finished plowing the furrows, he removed the board that held back the branch of the creek next to the field. The water rushed along his newly dug furrow, then slowed and found natural furrows that flowed throughout the corn patch and carried the life-giving water to every stalk of corn.
We had a successful crop that year, and I never again doubted the power of fasting and prayer. If ever my faith began to waver, all I had to do was remember my pa and the day that he plowed the crooked furrow.

On the third day, the group awoke to a terrible storm with winds blowing more than 50 miles per hour. Pegs pulled loose, tents collapsed, the rain pounded down, and dark clouds covered the entire sky. Fearing that the weather would stop the trek, the leaders knelt in prayer. President Randy Eberline of the stake presidency asked the Lord to calm the storm. Throughout the camp, trek families also knelt and prayed for relief from the weather. Suddenly, the clouds parted and a bowl of warm sunlight shone down. Kelly Maxwell, a priest from Sterling, described the answer to their combined prayers: “President Eberline prayed for there to be sunlight, and I was also hoping and praying that it would work. Minutes later we saw a break in the sky, and we started to see blue and then the sun just came out of the clouds.”

Kaylene described it this way: “The wind stopped, and you could see the clouds parting and the sun coming out. It was like seeing Moses parting the Red Sea, except this time God parted the clouds for us.”

Brother and Sister Matt and Jodi Clark arrived that evening to speak at a fireside. They reported that on the 100-mile drive from Anchorage it had been pouring rain. As they crested the last hill before reaching the camp, they saw the most incredible sight. Sunlight flooded the camp while the rest of the sky, as far as they could see in all directions, was full of dark clouds.

James Barrett, a priest from the Kenai Ward, said, “It was wonderful to feel the sun again, the warmth and the light that brought encouragement and hope. It was a miracle. It was as if the Lord had stretched out his hand and protected us from the harsh weather by surrounding our camp with sunlight.”

One such sister was inactive for several years. She didn’t remember why she had stopped going to church. Her only contact with the Church came from the visits of her home and visiting teachers. Whenever they encouraged her to come back to church, she insisted that it was “too hard” and “too late.”

Then, one day, she shared with her visiting teachers a poem she had written. They asked her permission to use it in the ward newsletter, and she said yes.

When the poem was printed, another sister was reminded of their earlier friendship, and she visited the woman. They talked about poetry, and the warmth of their former closeness was renewed. At the end of the visit, the visitor said, “I would give anything if you would come back. The ward is not the same without you.” The less-active sister’s reply surprised them both: “I think I will.”

She didn’t come that week or the next, but phone calls and visits to her home continued, and finally she came. The affection and excitement that greeted her gave her hope and courage, and she came again—and again. Gradually, her habit of inactivity was broken, and a new habit of involvement took its place.

Love and appreciation from others was the spark that ignited this sister’s desire to come back. Like her, many less-active members feel lonely and isolated. President Ezra Taft Benson has given us the charge of helping bring them back to the fold?: “We, as members of the Church and followers of the Lord, must extend and renew our love and heartfelt invitation to come back,” he said. (Ensign, September 1987, page 3.) How can we do so? By following four steps:

When I was eight years old, Papa died. It wasn’t easy without Papa there anymore. Even with my older brothers and sisters, who helped out a lot, there were still eight children to feed and take care of. Mama worked long hours with us in the cornfield. Sometimes when the rest of us were eating supper, Mama went outside and shucked corn. We didn’t know it, but she was using that time to pray and fast. She didn’t want my older brothers to see her fast, because sometimes they made fun of her religious beliefs.
One day while Mama was outside meditating and shucking corn, she was prompted to visit an elderly widower who lived down the street. She found two missionaries there, and they taught her the gospel. She received answers to her concerns about the death of my father and about what happens after death. She came home very excited.
When my brothers found out about it, they were upset and began to laugh at her. And when Papa’s folks found out about it, they, too, were bitterly opposed. I couldn’t understand why they caused so much trouble about it.
Because it caused so much friction in our home, Mama decided for awhile to give up the new religion. It just was not worth it.
But Mama was never the same. She could not deny the beautiful truths she had heard. She tried hard to convince my brothers, but they just wouldn’t listen. I did. And I had a warm feeling inside me when I went into the waters of baptism the same day Mama was baptized.
Mama wanted to go west with the Saints. She had no money for such a great undertaking, but she was a woman of faith and knew that her prayers would be answered.
Then Mama found a way for me to go. An elderly blind lady needed a companion to help her walk across the many, many miles of hazardous terrain to the mountains of Utah. So that is how I came to leave my mother and my family and cross the plains without them.
When I left, tears were streaming down my face. With all the courage I could muster, I clasped hands with the blind lady and walked away.
My eyes became her eyes. I guided her with my sight; she guided me with the wisdom of her years. Together we walked every step of the way through the dust and the dirt of the crude trails. After many long, tiring days and weeks and months, we made it!
But I felt so alone. I was in Zion, the place of peace and rest for the Saints. I was supposed to be happy. But I missed my family.
The blind lady allowed me to stay with her and keep house, and I tried my hardest to keep everything neat and clean for her. But she wasn’t my family. Mama was always in my thoughts. I knew that she would come. Somehow, some way, Mama would make it to Zion.
Whenever I heard of a wagon train coming into the Salt Lake Valley, I watched for the dusty sky—a sure sign that the wagons would arrive soon. Then I’d run to the fence and climb as high as I could to see the immigrants. At first they would be just a dust cloud on the horizon. But slowly, oh so slowly, I could make out the wagons and the animals and the people.
I studied the women passing by. Mama’s hair is that color—but no, it isn’t Mama. Over there is a woman with Mama’s posture—but no, it isn’t Mama, either. Could that one driving the team be she? No, no, no. With every incoming group, I thought, Surely Mama will be in this company with my younger brothers and sisters.
I searched and searched, and doubts would come. No one smiled at me. No one ran and wrapped me in her arms. As the wagons rolled past, another heartache began. With each disappointment, the tears coursed down my cheeks, and I cried until there were no more tears left.
Two long, hard years passed before Mama finally came. When she did, I could hardly believe my eyes. She was worn and tired and covered with dust. I almost didn’t recognize her. But she knew me, even though I had grown quite a bit taller.
I ran to her as fast as I could. I wrapped my arms around her and wept—this time tears of happiness. She had made it to Zion. I wasn’t alone anymore. Together we were home. At last I felt Zion in my heart.

The Primary girls of the Vernal Fifth Ward, Vernal Utah Ashley Stake, created a beautiful and original design for tissue box holders to be placed in the temple where needed. They stitched plastic canvas with white yarn, making sure that the boxes were perfect. They donated many hours to this gift for the house of the Lord.
The girls also tied a beautiful white baby quilt to be used for the baby crib in the temple nursery, where children wait to be sealed to their parents. Amy Lefevre said, “I’m happy and excited because I know I’m making something important and special for the temple.”
The ward Primary leaders also decided to use a penny bank to collect money for the temple. A counselor in the bishopric designed and built a bank that looked like the proposed temple, with a window in the bank so that the children could see their money grow. They donated $350, mostly in pennies, for their gift of love.

On one occasion, a missionary in the final week of his mission reminded me that I had given him clearance two years previously to serve a mission. The clearance had been extended with some reservations on my part because he had indulged in a number of transgressions before his mission. He said: “Elder Asay, you allowed me to go into the field after due repentance and after I promised that I would be strictly obedient and would work diligently. I can assure you that I have worked hard and have obeyed every rule.” Then he said something very significant. “I feel that my sins have been forgiven. I feel perfectly clean.” He had been cleansed through selfless service and by developing a close association with the Holy Spirit. He had been through the refiner’s fire, and impurities had been burned away.