Gospel Story Finder

That summer, Louisa Pratt moved her family into a cabin she had purchased for five dollars. It was her third home in Winter Quarters. After the chimney failed on her sod home, she had moved the family into a damp dugout, which was little more than a five-foot hole in the ground with a leaky roof.
In the new house, Louisa paid some men to install a floor of split logs. She then had a bowery built in front of her house that could seat twenty-five people, and she and her daughter Ellen opened a school for children. Her daughter Frances, meanwhile, planted and tended a garden and chopped wood for heating the home and cooking.
Louisa’s health was still poor. After recovering from her fever and shakes, she took a bad fall on the snow and ice and hurt her knee. While living in the dugout, she developed scurvy and lost her front teeth. But she and her daughters had suffered less than many of the Saints. Everyone had neighbors and friends who had died from the sicknesses that raged through camp.25
After purchasing the home and making repairs, she had little money left. When her supply of food was almost gone, she visited her neighbors and asked if they would be interested in purchasing her feather bed, but they did not have any money either. While speaking with them, Louisa mentioned that she had nothing in her house to eat.
“You do not seem troubled,” one of them said. “What do you expect to do?”
“Oh, no, I do not feel troubled,” Louisa said. “I know deliverance will come in some unexpected way.”
As she made her way home, she visited another neighbor. During the conversation, the neighbor mentioned Louisa’s old-fashioned iron crane, which was used for holding pots in a fireplace. “If you will sell it,” the neighbor said, “I will give you two bushels of cornmeal.” Louisa agreed to the bargain, recognizing the Lord was blessing her once again.
That spring, Louisa felt healthier and ventured out to worship with the Saints. The women in the settlement had begun to meet together to strengthen each other by exercising their spiritual gifts. During one meeting, the women spoke in tongues while Elizabeth Ann Whitney, who had been a spiritual leader among the Saints for many years, interpreted. Elizabeth Ann said that Louisa would have health, cross the Rocky Mountains, and there have a joyful reunion with her husband.
Louisa was startled. She had assumed that she would reunite with Addison in Winter Quarters and then make the journey west with him. Without his help, she could see no way, physically or financially, to make the journey.26
As the members of the advance company headed into the heart of the Rocky Mountains, the trail grew steeper and the men and women tired more easily. Ahead of them, clearly visible above the rolling plains, were snowcapped peaks much taller than any mountain they had seen in the eastern United States.
One night in early July, Brigham’s wife Clara awoke with a fever, a headache, and intense pain in her hips and back. Others soon complained of the same symptoms, and they struggled to keep pace with the rest of the company. Every step they took on the stony ground was agonizing for their feeble limbs.27
Clara felt better as the days passed. The strange sickness seemed to attack quickly, then subside a short time later. On July 12, however, Brigham came down with a fever. He became delirious through the night. The next day, he felt somewhat better, but he and the apostles decided to rest most of the company while Orson Pratt pressed on with a band of forty-two men.28
About a week later, Brigham instructed Willard Richards, George A. Smith, Erastus Snow, and others to continue on and catch up with Orson’s advance company. “Halt at the first suitable spot after reaching the Salt Lake Valley,” he instructed, “and put in our seed potatoes, buckwheat, and turnips, regardless of our final location.”29 Remembering Jim Bridger’s report on the region, he cautioned the company against going south into Utah Valley until they had become better acquainted with the Ute people who inhabited it.30
Clara, her two young half brothers, and her mother stayed behind with Brigham and the other sick pioneers. Once the company felt strong enough to continue, they followed a crude trail across uneven terrain choked with underbrush. In some places, the canyon walls were so high that heavy dust became trapped in the air, making it difficult to see what lay ahead.
On July 23, Clara and the sick company climbed a long, steep trail to the summit of a hill. From there they descended through a thick grove of trees, winding their way down a path riddled with stumps left by those who cut the trail. A mile down the hill, the wagon carrying Clara’s brothers overturned in a ravine and smashed against a rock. Men quickly cut a hole in the wagon cover and pulled the boys to safety.
While the company rested at the bottom of the hill, two riders from Orson’s company arrived in camp with reports that they were near the Salt Lake Valley. Exhausted, Clara and her mother pushed ahead with the rest of the company until the early evening. Above them, the sky looked ready for a storm.31
The next morning, July 24, 1847, Wilford drove his carriage for several miles down a deep ravine. Brigham lay behind him in the carriage, too feverish and weak to walk. Soon they traveled along a creek through another canyon until they arrived at a level bench of land that opened to a view of the Salt Lake Valley.
Wilford gazed with wonder at the vast country below. Fertile fields of thick green prairie grass, watered by clear mountain streams, stretched for miles before them. The streams emptied into a long narrow river that ran lengthwise down the valley floor. A rim of tall mountains, their jagged peaks high in the clouds, surrounded the valley like a fortress. To the west, glistening like a mirror in the sunlight, was the Great Salt Lake.
After a journey of more than a thousand miles through prairie, desert, and canyons, the sight was breathtaking. Wilford could imagine the Saints settling there and establishing another stake of Zion. They could build homes, cultivate orchards and fields, and gather God’s people from around the world. And before long, the Lord’s house would be established in the mountains and exalted above the hills, just as Isaiah had prophesied.32
Brigham could not see the valley clearly, so Wilford turned the carriage to give his friend a better view. Looking out across the valley, Brigham studied it for several minutes.33
“It is enough. This is the right place,” he told Wilford. “Drive on.”34
Brigham had recognized the spot as soon as he saw it. At the north end of the valley was the mountain peak from his vision. Brigham had prayed to be led directly to that place, and the Lord had answered his prayers. He saw no need to look elsewhere.35
Below, the valley floor was already alive with activity. Even before Brigham, Wilford, and Heber Kimball descended the mountain, Orson Pratt, Erastus Snow, and other men had established a base camp and begun plowing fields, planting crops, and irrigating the land. Wilford joined them as soon as he reached the camp, planting half a bushel of potatoes before eating his evening meal and settling in for the night.
The following day was the Sabbath, and the Saints gave thanks to the Lord. The company met to hear sermons and partake of the sacrament. Though feeble, Brigham spoke briefly to encourage the Saints to keep the Sabbath, take care of the land, and respect each other’s property.
On the morning of Monday, July 26, Brigham was still convalescing in Wilford’s carriage when he turned to Wilford and said, “Brother Woodruff, I want to take a walk.”
“All right,” Wilford said.36
They set out that morning with eight other men, traveling toward the mountains to the north. Brigham rode in Wilford’s carriage part of the way, his hands clutching a green cloak around his shoulders. Before they reached the foothills, the ground leveled off into a plain, and Brigham stepped out of the carriage and walked slowly over the light, rich soil.
As the men followed Brigham, admiring the land, he stopped suddenly and thrust his cane into the ground. “Here shall stand the temple of our God,” he said.37 He could already see a vision of it in front of him, its six spires rising up from the valley floor.38
Brigham’s words struck Wilford like lightning. The men were about to walk on, but Wilford asked them to wait. He broke off a branch from a nearby sagebrush and drove it into the ground to mark the spot.
The men then continued on, envisioning the city the Saints would build in the valley.39
Later that day, Brigham pointed at the mountain peak north of the valley. “I want to go up on that peak,” he said, “for I feel fully satisfied that that was the point shown me in the vision.” The round, rocky peak was easy to climb and clearly visible from all parts of the valley. It was an ideal place to raise an ensign to the nations, signaling to the world that the kingdom of God was again on the earth.
Brigham set out immediately for the summit with Wilford, Heber Kimball, Willard Richards, and others. Wilford was the first to reach the top. From the peak, he could see the valley spread out before him.40 With its high mountains and spacious plain, this valley could keep the Saints safe from their enemies as they tried to live the laws of God, gather Israel, build another temple, and establish Zion. In his meetings with the Twelve and the Council of Fifty, Joseph Smith had often expressed his desire to find such a place for the Saints.41
Wilford’s friends soon joined him. They called the place Ensign Peak, evoking Isaiah’s prophecy that the outcasts of Israel and the dispersed of Judah would assemble from the four corners of the earth under a common banner.42
Someday they wanted to fly a massive flag over the peak. But for now, they did their best to mark the occasion. What happened is uncertain, but one man recalled that Heber Kimball took out a yellow bandana, tied it to the end of Willard Richards’s cane, and waved it back and forth in the warm mountain air.43

Missionaries taught my family the gospel in our home in Singapore. My father did not join the Church, but my mother did. She taught us of Jesus Christ and of His gospel. Even as a child, I proudly told my friends that I was a Latter-day Saint.
I always trusted my mother’s teachings. But when I became a young adult, a missionary asked me how many times I had read the Book of Mormon. I had been asked this question before, but this time I realized that because I had not read the Book of Mormon, I did not know whether it was true.
I could no longer dodge an undeniable fact: the truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon are intertwined. If the gospel is true, then the Book of Mormon is true. Since I didn’t know whether the Book of Mormon was true, I now felt uncertain of everything I had grown to believe in. Confusion filled my mind, and the question—“Is the Book of Mormon true?”—remained in my heart.
My growing relationship with the Savior, Jesus Christ, also led me to a desire for the truth. The day I realized that I could not learn enough about Jesus Christ without seriously reading the Book of Mormon was the day I profoundly desired to know whether it was true.
I prayed for guidance. During this time, my branch president called me to teach about the Book of Mormon in the Gospel Doctrine class. I accepted the calling because I felt it might be the Lord’s answer to help me know the truth of the Book of Mormon and to draw closer to the Savior.
Teaching was hard. After the first few Sundays, I knew that I would never be effective until I believed in the Book of Mormon.
I began studying the Book of Mormon each week and soon found joy in my reading. The stories in the Book of Mormon unfolded chapter by chapter and drew me closer to Jesus Christ.
I read of Christ’s birth, which Nephi saw in a vision:
“And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white. …
“And [the angel] said unto me: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh” (1 Nephi 11:13, 18).
I read of the plan of happiness and learned that faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for our salvation. Amulek taught:
“I do know that Christ shall come among the children of men, to take upon him the transgressions of his people, and that he shall atone for the sins of the world; for the Lord God hath spoken it.
“… For according to the great plan of the Eternal God there must be an atonement made, or else all mankind must unavoidably perish” (Alma 34:8, 9).
I read of Jesus Christ ministering to His other sheep in ancient America, and I knew that He is the God of all nations. He told the Nephites: “Ye are they of whom I said: Other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd” (3 Nephi 15:21).
As I read the Book of Mormon, my faith in Jesus Christ brightened and my understanding of His plan expanded (see Alma 32:28).
I testify that the Book of Mormon is the keystone of our religion. The Holy Ghost has revealed to me that Joseph Smith is a true prophet who restored the Church of God upon the earth and who translated the Book of Mormon from the gold plates. The Book of Mormon testifies of Jesus Christ and works hand in hand with the Bible. Together they testify that Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God and that He is the God of all nations, not just one.

Going to seminary often means you’ll have to give up something else you enjoy doing in order to find the time to attend. But it’s a sacrifice that’s worth making. Elijah Bugayong of the Philippines chose to make that decision during her last year of high school. Throughout high school, she had always been second in her class. She was determined to place first her senior year and had even considered foregoing seminary, which she had attended in the years before, in order to meet her goal.

Then one day her thoughts changed. “I [looked at] my study table,” she says. “I saw a pile of books near it, my quadruple combination together with my seminary notebook and manual. Deep inside I asked myself, ‘Which matters most?’”

Elijah found her answer in Matthew 6:33: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” She decided to faithfully attend seminary and find other ways to balance her time in order to work on her academics. At the end of the year, she was named valedictorian and even won a university scholarship.

These events seemed quite unimportant to us then. Even today few attach any significance to them. I, like others, just acknowledged them as part of my adviser’s experience and merely shared them with my family. I realized how important they are, however, when my wife and I later attended the American Fork High School graduation ceremonies. They were held in the community tabernacle, and an estimated 1,200 people attended.
During the program Scott Squires, an articulate senior class president, began to address the audience. He described the graduating class as a group who dreamed important dreams and cared about important things. As an example of their character he described the events of the tournament game in which Scott participated, telling that members of the graduating class were those who cared unselfishly. He was not from our ward and was a witness because his ward’s team was to play a later game. He obviously was impressed because he retold the story weeks after it happened. Unwittingly he made Scott’s gift available to more people because of his telling. Now, many others were to be uplifted.
I tried to gauge the reaction of the audience to this story, but found I could not get a clear indication of what they thought. Afterwards, though, standing on the lawn talking with friends, more than once I heard comments about “that nice story.” Scott’s gifts to us were carried beyond our quorum and ward to our community. As I rode home that night, I reviewed all that has happened this last year and knew how great his gifts have been.

While I was growing up, my father was a very busy man because he had a demanding job as a truck driver for construction projects. But he always took time for me. When I was in high school, my father would ask my five sisters when he came home from work, “Where is Benjamín?”

My sisters would come to me and say, “Father wants you.”

I would leave playing with my friends and run to ask him, “What do you need, Father?”

He would say, “Bring your scriptures, and come with me.”

Two or three times a week we would read the scriptures together like that. He was a master teacher of the scriptures. At that time we did not have seminary in Mexico. Now I think of those study sessions as my own seminary class with my father as the teacher.

While reading the scriptures and hearing my father explain them to me, I learned for myself what the Spirit feels like in my heart and in my mind. Many times the Spirit was very strong as he would explain the scriptures.

These kinds of experiences with my father were the beginning of my own testimony of Heavenly Father and the Church. I always thought that the Church was true, but just thinking so was not enough. My father took my hand and put it on the iron rod. His manner of taking care of me was the key for my testimony and my inner security in the gospel.

During those meetings, not only did I learn many things from him about the scriptures, but I learned that my father loved me in a way that I couldn’t quite understand at the time. Many other times he would invite me to a movie or to eat, and I know that I was protected by my father’s care for me. Now I am a father, and I know that he loved me in a special way.

The last year of World War II was the very worst for Holland. The Nazis took absolutely everything. Grace couldn’t go to school. There was no coal to heat their house. Grace and her family had to eat tulip bulbs to keep from starving. They tasted horrible! Worst of all, Dad was still a prisoner of war.
But hope was in the air. People said the Nazis were losing the war. And in May of 1945, the Nazis surrendered. Holland was finally free again! People celebrated in the streets. Now Grace could go back to school. There were no soldiers to be afraid of.
Best of all, one day when Grace and her brothers were walking back from school, they saw that the flag of Holland was flying in front of their home. They knew that could mean only one thing.
“Dad’s home!” shouted Heber.
Grace and her brothers ran inside. Grace threw her arms around Dad and gave him a big hug. He hugged her back tightly. It was so wonderful to have Dad home.
Soon after that, packages of food, clothes, and medicine began arriving in Holland. The Church leaders in Salt Lake City sent a lot of supplies to help people after the war. Grace even got a new dress! She had worn the same dress for five years, so she was very happy to have a new one.
For the first time in years, Grace had enough to eat. The mission presidency and the government in Holland decided to start a potato project to grow more food. Church members planted lots of potatoes in nearby fields. By fall they would have thousands of potatoes to eat.
“Look!” Grace told Dad, pointing to a sprouting potato plant. “We’ll never go hungry again!”
Dad nodded but didn’t smile. He said, “I was talking to President Zappey. He told me that the Latter-day Saints in Germany are still starving, just like we were. They are not getting help from the government like us.” Dad put his arm around Grace’s shoulders. “President Zappey has asked if we would give our potatoes to the German Saints.”
“Give up our potatoes!” Grace cried. But the Nazis were from Germany! “They might be Latter-day Saints, Dad, but they’re still Germans.”
“I know it’s not easy,” Dad said. “But they are also children of God. He loves them too. I forgave them for making me a prisoner. The Lord can help us all forgive.”
Grace looked up at Dad. He was the bravest person she knew, but she didn’t know if she had the courage to forgive like him. Then she remembered one of her teachers in school during the war. Her teacher had said that not all Germans were Nazis, and not all Nazi soldiers were bad. And now the girls and boys in Germany were starving, just like Grace had been.
Grace took a deep breath. “I understand,” she said. “Let’s give them our potatoes.”
Dad hugged her and smiled. “You are such a brave girl. This is a hard thing to do. But we are disciples of Jesus Christ, and so are our German brothers and sisters.”
Grace smiled. The angry feelings in her heart melted, and she felt calm and warm. She could forgive the Germans. And Jesus could help her love them too.
Latter-day Saints in Holland gave 140,000 pounds (70 tons) of potatoes and 180,000 pounds (90 tons) of herring to the German Latter-day Saints. Later, in 1953, the German Saints sent supplies to Church members in Holland after a huge flood.

One spring day I discovered that death can be closer than I ever expected. Until then, death seemed to be for people, old and ready, or for reckless people who knew death could come suddenly. That was what I thought before my day on Mount Timpanogos, near Provo, Utah.
There it was! Timpanogos peak in all its splendor towering above us. The streaked brown and gray of its steep cliffs drew dizzying contrast to the rolling snowfield of the basin below it. My friend and I had hiked a good portion of the day to conquer the peak, but we could see there was far too much snow to proceed to the summit. Nevertheless, the view was wonderful enough to make us feel the hike was worthwhile.
After savoring the moment, we started our descent, and it was a mutual decision that we should take a different, somewhat harder, route down. Then we saw a perfect place to do some sliding on the snow. We traversed the steep downhill slopes easily as we angled toward a large snowfield in the deep saddle between two rocky outcroppings.
As we came closer to the snowfield, we discovered we were not as close as we expected. We were 25 feet above it. We stood at the top of a sheer drop. At the base of the small cliff stretched acres of snow. The perfect ski run!
I looked at my friend. He smiled, sensing what I was thinking, and at that moment I knew what I was going to do. I sprinted from where I stood and jumped into space, straightening my body and spreading my arms. After endless seconds, I plunged into the snow, shoulder deep much to my surprise.
But my depth was only part of the problem. I discovered water was flowing underneath the snow, melting from above. Much to my dismay, I was being sucked underneath the crust of snow.
My friend, standing on top of the cliff, saw what was happening. He scurried down the hill to a much lower spot and hurled himself off the cliff. I watched him fall, praying he could avoid breaking through the snow’s crust.
He hit with a thud and immediately ran in my direction. My friend grasped my hand and began to haul me out. After he pulled me free, I lay on the snow breathing heavily.
He said to me, “Jon, that was stupid.” I knew he was right.
As I hiked the rest of the way down the mountain, wet from my knees down and a bit stunned by my close call, I was grateful my friend had saved me from the results of my stupidity. Because he was there, I did not have to pay the ultimate price for my unwise choice.
I know that in my life, I have another friend who has hiked alongside for as long as I can remember and is there to pull me out and rescue me from many pitfalls. Jesus Christ, my friend and Savior, is always willing to help when I reach out to him. Because his atonement made repentance possible, there is, through him, always a way out.

As a 14-year-old, Rick became fascinated with engineering design and seemed to have some aptitude for the work. He began researching design engineering and drafting. He read about it, talked to his school teachers and career guidance counselor, and interviewed engineers in his ward and stake. The more he learned, the more it appealed to him.
As part of his investigation he met a man who owned a small mechanical engineering firm. The gentleman was willing to hire Rick part-time in the summers. Rick found he really loved computer-assisted design. During his senior year of high school, he designed a piece of equipment that the company now produces and markets.

An elders quorum presidency decided that to truly bless the lives of the quorum members, active and less-­active alike, they needed to know which saving ordinances were missing in the lives of their quorum members. They then shared this sensitive but important information with the ministering brothers for their ministering families. With this information, the assigned ministering brothers were able to help many to prepare to receive these missing saving ordinances. How great was their joy to see their brothers return to and follow the “covenant path.”

My friend Tammy stopped attending church when she was just 15 years old. Around the corner from Tammy lived a young man who also decided in his mid-teens that he didn’t want to be part of the Church. They both developed habits that took them further away from Church activity. Eventually, they married and began to raise a family.
Tammy loved her husband and her two daughters very much, but deep in her heart bubbled a longing to go back to the life she had known as a child. She faintly remembered feeling her Heavenly Father’s Spirit and influence with her, and she missed Him. Reluctant to share these thoughts with her husband for fear he would not approve, she kept them hidden. She wanted to come back, but she just didn’t know how to begin. Let’s listen to her own words as she tells the ripple effect of two wonderful visiting teachers who “[drew] water [from] the wells of salvation” and shared it with Tammy.
[Video transcript of Tammy Clayton]
I’m grateful to this day for my visiting teachers because they loved me and they didn’t judge me. They really made me feel as though I really was important and that I did have a place in the Church.
They’d come over to my home and we would sit and we’d visit. After a while, they’d ask me if I wanted a lesson, and they would leave me a message each month.
And when they came every month, it made me feel as if I really did matter and as though they really did care about me and as though they really loved me and appreciated me.
Through their visiting and coming to see us, I decided that it was time for me to go back to church. I guess I just really didn’t know how to come back, and by their coming and reaching out to me, they provided a way that I could return.
We need to realize that the Lord loves us no matter who we are, and my visiting teachers helped me see that this was right.
Now my husband and I have been sealed in the temple.
Thank heaven for faithful visiting teachers. Yes, sisters, the actions of righteous women do ripple on and on through space and time and generations. Certainly there could be no more enduring ripple than to have a family sealed in the temple for eternity. Let us be like the faithful sisters who have come before us. Let us drink deeply of the “water out of the wells of salvation.”

I would like to share two examples of the one-on-one persuading power of the Book of Mormon. The first comes from a letter a student of mine received from her sister:

It came as an incredible shock to me one day to find my testimony gone. I was studying in Paris at the age of nineteen. Culture shock, removal of familiar faces, places, and habits all took their toll. Discussions with ‘intellectual’ associates left me grappling for words to support my religious beliefs. The Church seemed narrow and naive in the wake of the wide, wide world I was discovering.

It was after many long weeks that I sat down one afternoon in my little Paris room and opened the Book of Mormon. Alma 32 says that the beginning of faith is desire. Did I desire to believe? I turned to 3 Nephi and began to read the account of the resurrected Christ visiting the Nephites. Suddenly I was struck with a realization. No man could have written this from his own mind! A rush of hope and light came pouring back into my hungry spirit. The Book of Mormon could not be explained away. It had a divine origin.

I mark that point as a profound beginning in my life. The testimony I have now has its roots in the warmth and hope of that moment. Twelve years have passed, during which time I have married in the temple, had five beautiful children, and served in many Church callings. I wonder where life would have taken me had I not reopened that wonderful book. I have heard it said that the Book of Mormon is the most correct book ever written. To me it was a lifesaver.

When Bennett was ten and Kevin 13, they decided there were better things to do after school than just play driveway basketball, so one day they took a two-mile hike up a nearby mountain. That tiny crack in their routine broke the dam wide open, and since then they’ve hiked thousands of miles. Almost every day finds them out-of-doors, and they’ve climbed every mountain in the area many times over. Their compulsion to be up and doing has carried them into rock climbing, snow climbing, hiking, camping (including snow cave and igloo camping), fishing, hunting, spelunking, ice climbing, outdoor photography, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, fossil hunting, and other miscellaneous adventures hard to classify. On, over, around, under, in, among, through—it’s hard to think of a preposition they haven’t tried out on a mountain.

It was an important occasion. The president-elect of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower, had assembled his cabinet members for their first meeting. He greeted his new advisers warmly, smiling broadly as he chatted and shook hands.
But when everyone was seated, his smile gave way to seriousness. He turned to his Secretary of Agriculture. The incoming administration had great need of divine inspiration, the president said. Because of that, he was asking Ezra Taft Benson to open the cabinet meeting with prayer.
Even though he was taken by surprise, Ezra Taft Benson was a man used to praying, both in public and private. He offered a beautiful, sincere prayer, and it became a tradition to begin all cabinet meetings with an appeal to the Lord.
That was in January 1953. In November 1985, the same man who prayed at that cabinet meeting took another giant step in a life filled with service to God and country. Following the death of President Spencer W. Kimball, the Lord called Ezra Taft Benson to be President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Photo by Eldon K. Linschoten
Throughout his life, President Benson has set an example in both public service and his private life. He brings to his latest calling a wealth of experience and an unquestioned reputation for integrity, love of family, and knowledge of the gospel.
Ezra Taft Benson was born in Whitney, Idaho, on August 4, 1899. He was the first of 11 children of George T. Benson, Jr. and Sarah Dunkley Benson. The birth was difficult. The doctor said he would try to save the mother, but he held little hope for the baby.
President Benson tells the story, “The faith of my father, the administrations of the priesthood, and the quick action of my two grandmothers, who placed me first in a pan of cold water and then in a pan of warm water alternately, brought forth a husky yell to the joy of all” (Ensign, Oct. 1974, pp. 22–23).
The new baby was named after his great-grandfather, the first Apostle selected by Brigham Young after the death of Joseph Smith. That Ezra T. Benson served in the Nauvoo Legion and came west with the first company of pioneers.
As he grew up on the farm, Ezra, or “T” as he was nicknamed, learned the value of work. At age four he could drive a team, and he was soon herding cattle, thinning beets, milking cows, and doing general farm work. When Ezra was 12, his father was called on a mission. The family sold half the farm and shared their two-room home with the family that operated part of the remaining acres. President Benson’s mother was left to care for seven children, and the eighth was born shortly after his father arrived in the mission field.
“Never did I hear a murmur from her lips,” President Benson recalls.
In this time of hardship, the family pitched in. Ezra was known as a “tease” at school, but he worked hard. He also found time to trap muskrats to help meet expenses, and to round up cattle in the mountains. At 16, he single-handedly thinned an entire acre of sugar beets in one day. He loved sports, especially basketball and baseball, and was a friend and teammate of Harold B. Lee, who later became the 11th President of the Church.
Young Ezra also learned lessons from his father, who, after his two-year mission, served in the bishopric and the stake presidency. “Remember,” his father said, “that whatever you do or wherever you are, you are never alone. Our Heavenly Father is always near. You can reach out and receive his aid through prayer.”
As a student at Utah State Agricultural College (now Utah State University), Ezra mustered the courage to ask Flora Amussen for a date. The youngest of the six children raised by her widowed mother, Flora was “the most popular girl in town,” a tennis star, actress, student-body vice-president, and a leader in many activities. Nevertheless, the “farm boy” continued what he described as an “inspirational and soul-satisfying courtship.”
But the romance was postponed by Elder Benson’s mission call to England. He labored in Newcastle, where he became a mission leader. He often dressed in the plain clothes of a workman while preaching to the unemployed on the streets. After two and a half years, he returned home and proposed to Flora. But she decided to serve a mission herself. When she returned from Hawaii, he had graduated from Brigham Young University. They were finally married in the Salt Lake Temple on September 10, 1926.
After further studies in Iowa and graduation with an M.S. in agricultural economics, they returned to the family farm. Ezra Benson was so helpful to other farmers that county commissioners drafted him to be the county agricultural agent.
In addition to his employment, he was an active Scoutmaster. He still loves to tell stories about how he shaved his head to fulfill a promise to his Scouts, about hiking through the mountains, and about winning singing contests. His dedication to Scouting would eventually earn him positions on the National Advisory Board and the Executive Board of the Boy Scouts of America. His service would earn him the Silver Beaver, the Silver Antelope, and the Silver Buffalo awards, the highest awards in Scouting.
His success in the county led to other positions with the University of Idaho Extension Service and a move to Boise. He helped organize the Idaho Cooperative Council and became its secretary in 1933. One of the campaigns for which he was largely responsible made Idaho potatoes famous throughout the land.
After holding many other Church callings, he became president of the Boise Stake in 1938.
In 1939, he was asked to serve as executive secretary of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives, representing two and a half million farmers nationwide. He moved to the nation’s capital, where he served as the first president of the Washington D.C. Stake.
Over the next five years, he developed a national perspective on farm issues and won the confidence of government officials and business leaders. He was offered a position at triple the salary and decided to discuss the offer with his former mission president, President David O. McKay of the First Presidency.
While in Salt Lake, he was told that Church President Heber J. Grant wished to see him. President Benson recalls:
“President Grant took my right hand in both of his and looked into the depths of my very soul and said: ‘Brother Benson, with all my heart I congratulate you and pray God’s blessings to attend you; you have been chosen as an Apostle of the Church.’”
Although he could hardly believe it was true, he accepted the calling and put aside the high-salaried position he had originally come to discuss. He was sustained at the October conference and set apart on October 7, 1943.

Elder Crockett was born on 15 January 1934 and grew up in Pima, Arizona, a rural community founded by LDS pioneers. His parents, Wilford W. Crockett III and Jacy Boggs Crockett, were strong in the gospel and taught him righteous principles. One time when he wanted to go to a dance instead of fulfilling a Church responsibility, his father said, “A man who can’t be depended on isn’t worth anything.” From then on Elder Crockett determined to do whatever he was assigned in the Church, whether serving as Primary teacher or stake president or mission president.

I looked at the photograph of her in my mother’s scrapbook, pasted in next to Grandma’s certificate of blessing. She wore plaited hair wound in a crown above her oval face. Her eyes were fine and slanted.
“That’s your great-great-grandmother Totshauna.” My mother used to point her out to me when I was a child and the relatives first started saying I favored her. “She crossed the plains with the pioneers, pulling a handcart for more than a thousand miles.”
“Is a thousand miles farther away than Grandma’s house?” We lived in Salt Lake, and my grandmother Harris lived in Spanish Fork.
“Oh, lots farther, honey. A thousand miles is … is almost as far away as the moon.” Mom was proud of her pioneer heritage, and she wanted to be sure her children appreciated their ancestry sufficiently. I still remember at five years marveling over the woman with the funny hair who pulled a cart to Utah from as far away as the moon. Now I’m 20, and three nights ago when I looked at the photograph (faded, and taped in one corner), I remembered again, and marveled.
I was born in Salt Lake City, the city that she, and others like her, built more than a hundred years ago with adobe bricks and irrigation systems fed from the streams of the Wasatch. The call to gather to Zion brought tens of thousands of Saints from the East and converts from Europe, mostly England, to the Great Salt Lake Valley between 1846 and 1900. The Church in those days, struggling for its existence, desperately needed the strength found in unity, for a scattered church stood little chance of developing into the powerful organization that would be necessary to carry out the Lord’s latter-day work.
Twenty-three-year-old Totshauna Svenstrup, her husband, Christian, and their two small daughters were four of those who responded to the call. They came out of Denmark and, after sailing to the United States, joined one of two ill-fated handcart companies that headed westward to Zion. Totshauna’s daughter, Anna Karil, at that time only five, years later wrote briefly of the trek in her journal:
“Father died just outside of Florence [Nebraska] in a wagon accident. Mother pulled the cart, and she with child. We buried Gury in the snow by the Sweetwater [Wyoming]. She froze one night next to me and Mother in the tent. We reached the Salt Lake Valley in October. In December Mother delivered a son.”
In the old museum on Temple Square there used to be a statue of two pioneers, husband and wife, their cloaks windswept, standing together beside a small grave. My seminary class once took a tour of Temple Square. We stopped and looked at the statue, and one girl said, “Isn’t that so sad?” and the girl next to her solemnly agreed, “It’s awful. How did they ever stand it?” Then we continued on to the Assembly Hall to exclaim over how beautiful the stained glass windows are.
My seminary class saw the granite temple that day, too. Totshauna died three years before its completion. Every summer thousands of tourists park their heavily loaded automobiles in the spaces posted “Out-of-State Cars Only” that surround the temple block. They go inside and listen attentively to how the seagulls ate the crickets, then flick coins into the fountain. They file into the Tabernacle where once she, too, shifted her weight on the hard, narrow benches, and they lean a little forward in their seats to hear a pin drop. They snap photos of the spired temple and murmur with admiration: “Forty years to build. Imagine that!” Totshauna’s second husband, Samual Hoopes, was killed while quarrying granite for the temple up Little Cottonwood Canyon in June 1872.
Sometimes when I stand outside the temple, my fingers clutching the iron gate, my head thrown back as I stare at the golden words “Holiness to the Lord,” I remember a widow with eight children. Anna Karil, by that time married, wrote: “Mother embroiders linens for pay. Her fine Danish needlework is admired by many. The children work as they are able. Mother also takes in boarders and washing.”
The spires of the temple and Moroni sounding his trump no longer dominate the Salt Lake skyline. The modern Church Office Building across the street now holds that position of prominence. The office building, 28 stories high, took three years to build. The project was financed by the tithes and offerings of Church members. Totshauna, I think, would be proud to see the tall building. (I can picture her craning her neck toward the top: “Twenty-eight stories high. Imagine that!”) I am proud, too, but sometimes I think of the days when a temple cost 40 years, and even lives, to build. I will be careful not to forget.
After reaching the Salt Lake Valley, Totshauna settled in what is today known as Holladay. Not long after her arrival, she became the plural wife of Samual Hoopes. (I wonder if Samual was as enchanted as I am by her plain and lovely crown of plaits.) She had nine children by Samual; only seven lived past infancy. Her husband, at one time, was two and a half years absent from his family, which included three wives and numerous children, while serving a mission for the Church in the British Isles. Totshauna later sent three sons on missions after Samual’s death, with each son proving an added hardship, for her boys were among the eldest of her children and were depended upon to aid in the support of the entire family. Her own sketchy journal (now kept treasured in soft cloth in my grandmother’s bureau), which she kept for a brief period following Samual’s death, reads: “Hyrum left with elders Whitney and Williams in a wagon and went to take the rail to Canada. I packed him two beef tarts and two loaves bread with chokeberry jam, and Samual’s Book of Mormon, and an extra shirt and pair socks. He is seventeen.”
When my older brother, Jeff, left on his mission to Quebec, we stood in the airport terminal and watched the big jet take off. In his two large suitcases he carried a missionary Bible and leatherbound triple combination, three new suits, five white shirts, and a brand-new woolen coat that Mom saved for three months to buy. He had a notebook with the missionary discussions in it, and he’d already memorized them in French. I asked my mom if we could pack him beef tarts and bread with jam for his send-off, but she just smiled and said, “Oh, don’t be silly,” and baked him a shoebox full of tollhouse cookies instead.
As I reflect upon Totshauna’s life, I can’t help but contrast her harsh and simple life-style with my own. I attend Brigham Young University (named for the prophet-colonizer she followed and revered) where I study English and music and religion. Occasionally I may wash a pair of socks in the sink (she washed all her clothing with a scrub board and lye soap) or take a break from my daily routine by baking wheat bread, but these interruptions are rare. I often wonder while buzzing down the freeway in my Volkswagen or listening to the prophet at conference time on television or radio, what part of her remains in me.
Somewhere inside me I feel a bittersweet ache as I reflect upon those early days of Mormonism. There is in me a kind of wistful longing to return to the days of seagulls and crickets, days when temples took 40 years to build, days of missionaries who traveled on foot or by rail with neither purse or scrip, days of adobe bricks, and martyrs. Such days formed my roots and the roots of my church. They are a part of me in ways that I feel though do not fully understand.
Yet, despite my shadowy longings for past times and things, I am immersed in modern Mormonism—the organization she spent her life building a foundation for. That it is an exciting and marvelous age I live in I cannot deny. (Totshauna would thrill to hear about the 25,000 missionaries who now tract the earth. I thrill, too.) But as the modern church grows in strength and size, and I grow along with it—full of vast and varied possibilities for personal development and eager to discover what part in the growth and development of today’s church I might play—I will be careful to remember and strive to understand that part in me that is Totshauna, that part that is there because of her. I will go to Brigham Young University and exert my mind in the study of Faulkner, Hemingway, and Shakespeare. I’ll learn how to be a writer and maybe one day write for Church publications. I’ll practice my violin for at least one hour each day, and I’ll study the scriptures and struggle to comprehend, as well as live, the gospel of Jesus Christ. But in the mornings as I prepare to meet each day of work and study, I will plait my hair and sometimes even fashion it in a crown above my oval face.

Several years ago I heard Elder Gerald N. Lund of the Quorum of the Seventy describe a magazine article about a school that taught people how to rock climb. The article discussed the concept of belaying—the fail-safe system that protects climbers. One climber gets into a safe position, fastens the rope securely in a fixed position, then calls to his companion, “You’re on belay”—meaning, “I’ve got you.” The director of the school, Alan Czenkusch, described his experience with belaying to the author of the article:

Belaying has brought Czenkusch his best and worst moments in climbing. Czenkusch once fell from a high precipice, yanking out three mechanical supports and pulling his belayer off a ledge. He was stopped, upside down, 10 feet from the ground when his spread-eagled belayer arrested the fall with the strength of his outstretched arms.

“Don saved my life,” says Czenkusch. “How do you respond to a guy like that? Give him a used climbing rope for a Christmas present? No, you remember him. You always remember him.” [In Eric G. Anderson, “The Vertical Wilderness,” Private Practice, November 1979, 21]

At BYU-Idaho we have exceptional faculty. When our students speak of their teachers we see big smiles and sometimes tear-filled eyes of gratitude. Last winter semester, I walked our campus with a film crew to capture a few of these stories. Before being recorded, we asked permission to share students’ responses.
One student looked especially surprised, pulled me aside, and humbly asked, “But Sister Meredith, I’m a convert. Do you still want my story?” I was taken aback by her response and reassured her that yes, her experience is just as valuable as any other student’s experience. We are thrilled that she has chosen BYU-Idaho to continue her journey of discipleship while receiving an education.
As I have pondered her question, I have wondered if I adequately communicated just how loved she is. Though each student who attends this university comes through a unique path with differing life experiences, we hope you understand your true identity and the great love our Heavenly Father and His Son have for each of you. We feel it keenly every day. You are meant to do great things!

Last year, my wife, Maggie, and I ran the Jungfrau-Marathon in Switzerland. Set in the heart of the Swiss Alps, it is considered one of the most difficult marathons in the world. From start to finish, the course climbs over 6,400 feet, or 1,900 meters, as it winds through beautiful alpine villages and rugged, high-mountain terrain. The views carry you through the early miles, but the final stretch turns steep and narrow, forcing runners to hike the rocky path in single file. The last ascent demands careful attention to every step. In this race you are not just crossing a finish line; you are conquering a mountain.

So imagine our surprise when we learned that one of the runners who finished this race was blind. This courageous man ran tethered to a guide. For most of the race, they ran side by side, but as the course turned steeper and more demanding, the guide moved ahead, calling out every obstacle and directing each step. Because he was bound to a guide, the blind runner accomplished what would otherwise be impossible alone.

Brother and Sister Willes Cheney were called as missionaries to the Canada Halifax Mission and assigned to the far north, to Canbrook, Newfoundland. The instructions from their mission president were: “Go up there and strengthen the branch. Find some housing so the people will have their own place to meet in. And be ambassadors of good will.”

This faithful couple touched many lives. Brother Cheney reported of their numerous successes with people and concluded with this tribute to his lovely companion:

“Aside from the many examples, the major contribution to our success was Sister Cheney. Her whole mission was a labor of love—teaching how to make a garden, can, sew, quilt, and give compassionate service. She was loved by all because of her excellent example as a wife, a mother, and as a friend.”

He went on to say, “We helped the branch acquire a chapel and saw twenty-seven new members come into the Church, and many who were inactive return.”

This lovely couple had shown their love for the Lord and for their newly found neighbors, though they were far away from home.

It was December, 1886, Mary Ann Stokes Rich watched grimly as her tenth child fought to live. Born with rickets because his mother was malnourished during her pregnancy, the infant cried feebly. Mary Ann had already buried four children under similar circumstances; and how her husband had abandoned the family, leaving her with six children on an unproductive farm in Cassia County, Idaho.
Grieving, Mary Ann knelt to pray that her son might die quickly, thus sparing him a life of pain and poverty. But instead, she found herself pleading that her son’s “life would be spared, that he would be a comfort and a blessing to her in her old age.”
Her prayer was answered. Edward Stokes Rich grew to manhood, and when Mary Ann became old and feeble, he provided financially for her.