Gospel Story Finder

I was born in Utah, but most of my memories begin in Boston, Massachusetts. I do have a faint recollection at age two and a half of a white-topped buggy with my grandfather in the driver’s seat. My parents, myself, and my six-month-old brother were being taken to the nearest railway station forty miles away. My next recollection is looking out of a rain-streaked window from a hotel room in Boston. I see in memory the round drops of rain rolling down the window as I pressed my nose against the cold glass.
During my life I have found that it is very important for children to listen carefully to their parents. They can learn much from them. My father was a music student in Boston. He sat at a rented piano and played the music of Edvard Grieg, Frederic Chopin, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Robert Schumann. I can still hear that music and over the years I have learned to play most of it myself. It has added greatly to my appreciation of the world into which I was born. Those beautiful sounds have made a great contribution to my life, crowding out many of the uglier sounds we occasionally hear.
Best of all, I remember sitting on my mother’s lap, hearing her tell me the story of the boy prophet Joseph Smith, who went into the woods to pray. Near our apartment were many churches. I heard their bells and saw their domes and steeples when we took walks together. So when Mother told me of Joseph’s concern over which church he should join, I was able to understand his confusion before the First Vision.
I distinctly remember my mother telling me in those early years that everything I said or thought or did was in some almost magical way recorded—that someday I would have to be judged according to what I had said, thought, and done. This did not frighten me, but it gave me a growing sense of responsibility for my actions. Today with cassettes, video tapes, and other inventions, I have gained a fuller understanding of what she was telling me about the record of my life.
I hope that you will have the experience of being taught to read by your parents. Since my father was busy at the New England Conservatory of Music all day, my mother taught me to read when I was about four years old. One day we walked down Huntington Avenue to the shops in the center of Boston. We went to the publishing house of Little, Brown and Company. There we were shown a lot of children’s books. Mother bought several that were suitable for my ability. One was an attractive little primer that inspired my imagination. It was called The Brownie Book, a story about imaginary little creatures who did good deeds and went on a trip to the moon! I could see the moon out of our window at night. It seemed such an important object in the sky. The idea of anybody going to the moon brought many stimulating thoughts to my eager, young imagination.
Another book was a primer describing the coming of the Pilgrim fathers, the establishment of the American colonies, and the development of the nation into which I had been born. I was deeply impressed by it.
About this time, President Joseph F. Smith and his counselors in the First Presidency suggested to members of the Church that they hold a family home evening once each week. Accordingly, my father would gather us around a little table after supper to read the Book of Mormon. We read it from cover to cover that year. Because Mother had taught me to read, I was privileged to take my turn in reading aloud. What excitement I experienced as we approached the Third book of Nephi and the coming of the Savior! With feelings of sadness we continued through the books of Mormon, Ether, and Moroni. These feelings were strongly reinforced by my father.
Father told me the story of Grandfather Durham, who had been inspired to compose a melody called “The Nephite Lamentation.” Thomas Durham had been promised in a patriarchal blessing that he would hear music as it was sung in the heavens. My father related how one night my grandfather had a dream. In it he saw twenty-four men by a stream. They looked very sad. Their leader arose and addressed them. Then he heard a melody played on what sounded like a trumpet. The impression came to him that it was a dream concerning Moroni and the last twenty-four Nephites. He awoke. In the late hours of the night he went to his little organ and played the tune he had heard and wrote it down. Later, a choir in the Parowan Ward in southern Utah sang the tune to the words of “O My Father.” It was published in modified form in the old Primary songbook as arranged by Henry E. Giles.
Hearing this music and reading the Book of Mormon in these early years with my parents made a forceful impression upon my mind as to the reality and truth of the Book of Mormon.
I hope that each of you will watch and listen carefully to what your parents say and do. I pray they will teach you well. I also hope that the music you hear in your home will be uplifting and inspiring, because we believe that “if there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” (A of F 1:13.) The place to begin with good things is at home with your family.
Finally, let us all remember the commandment: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.” (Ex. 20:12.)

During my second year of college, I worked at the university library as a student assistant. One day in December I was assigned to work with another student assistant. I had never met him before, so as we worked I tried to strike up a conversation. We talked about school, work, and our families.
Later in the afternoon he started to sing songs that mentioned God. I asked him about his religion. I hoped he would ask me the same thing so I could talk to him about the Church, and he did. I was so excited, because this was a great missionary opportunity. With a big smile, I told him I was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He looked surprised and, in a not-very-pleasant tone of voice, replied, “The Mormons? You’re a Mormon? Those people don’t believe in Jesus Christ.”
His words were hard for me to hear. Whatever I was expecting, it certainly wasn’t to hear that I didn’t believe in Jesus Christ. I had heard stories like this, but now it was happening to me. What should I say? How could I respond to such a remark? The only thing that came to mind was, “But it’s the Church of Jesus Christ!”
I knew I had to repeat in my mind the Young Women motto—“Stand for Truth and Righteousness”—and put it into action. But how?
I proceeded to tell the other assistant that our church is the Church of Jesus Christ, that we believed in Him as our Savior, and that I understood the love He has for God’s children. I expressed from the depths of my soul that I believed in Jesus Christ, that I was a member of His Church, and that I had been taught to love Him and to follow His example.
My coworker did not want to listen anymore. He responded reproachfully to the things I said even while I kept trying to explain. He also talked about the Book of Mormon in the same manner as he had spoken about the Church. I could tell he didn’t want to listen. I didn’t want to listen to what he was saying either because he was trying to contend with me. I knew I shouldn’t go on explaining, so I bore my testimony. I told him that I knew everything I was saying was true. I could feel it in my heart.
As I left the library, I wondered how anyone could possibly talk about the Church that way. I thought about what I had felt as I testified to him and wondered if I should have allowed him to express himself the way he did. I felt anger and fear and thought of things I could have said. I felt frustrated and doubted my own level of spirituality because he had not changed his mind. Had I failed?
On the way home, I prayed. I wanted to get rid of my negative thoughts. I wanted to feel sure of what I had been taught my whole life, and I wanted to feel that Heavenly Father was pleased with me for what I had done. Prayer was the best tool I had. Prayer and the Holy Ghost had helped me know what to say and how to testify to my coworker, and they also helped me to know that my Heavenly Father was pleased with me.
This experience helped me to know with a greater certainty that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ and that, just as He was persecuted, so is His Church. I learned the importance of having a firm testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ and His Church.

The note was written on blue paper with zigzags drawn around the corners, so even though Jeremy handed it to her, Melanie knew the note was from Rachel. Melanie glanced around. Reading time was over, and her classmates were putting away their books.
Melanie knew how the note would start: “Dear Best Friend.” She smiled to herself. She and Rachel had been friends since second grade. “We’re still best friends, even though we’re very different,” Melanie thought as she unfolded the note.
Dear Best Friend,
Do you smoke?
—Rachel
Melanie was surprised. “Rachel and I are together all the time,” she thought. “Doesn’t she know I don’t smoke?”
She wrote on the bottom of the paper:
No. I think it’s gross. Why do you want to know?
—Melanie
Melanie handed the note back to Jeremy. Soon he passed it back again. Melanie read:
I snuck a pack of cigarettes from my aunt’s house. Do you want to try some with me after school?
—Rachel
Melanie stared at the note. Then she wrote:
Rachel! Why do you want to smoke? It’s bad for you! I know you like to try new things, but I don’t want to see you get hurt.
—Melanie
Rachel wrote back:
A few cigarettes aren’t going to hurt me. I might not even finish the whole pack.
—Rachel
Melanie felt like she was going to cry. She wrote:
You’re my friend, and I love you. Don’t smoke.
—Melanie
Melanie watched Rachel as she read the note. Now Rachel looked like she was going to cry. She held onto the note for a long time. Then she wrote back. When Melanie got the note, she read:
Thanks. I love you too. I won’t smoke the cigarettes.
Melanie was grateful she had chosen to be an example. She felt relieved that Rachel had made the right choice.

Throughout his life, President Spencer W. Kimball faced many health challenges.
Doctor: You may have cancer in your throat. I recommend we operate.
Elder Kimball: My sister died of cancer. I’d better have the operation.
The surgeries that worried him the most were on his throat.
Elder Kimball: How can I continue to serve as an Apostle of the Lord if I lose my voice?
After Elder Kimball had surgery on his vocal chords, he traveled with fellow Apostle Elder Harold B. Lee.
Elder Lee: I’d like to invite Elder Kimball to bear his testimony.
Elder Kimball: I’m too embarrassed to keep speaking. I rasp and make terrible noises. Maybe in our next meeting I shouldn’t speak.
Elder Lee: Spencer, your testimony needs to be heard. You better get your voice back.
Elder Kimball did all he could to regain his voice. He followed his doctor’s orders, received priesthood blessings, and took voice lessons.
Elder Kimball: Camilla, I realize I cannot quit for anything, though the temptation is terrific when I stumble and stammer and halt.
The true test came when Elder Kimball returned to his home—the Gila Valley in Arizona.
Elder Kimball: Forgive my voice. While in the East, I fell among cutthroats.
Woman: His voice is different, but he still has the same sense of humor!
President Spencer W. Kimball never stopped preaching. In fact, his soft, deep, mellow voice became something people loved about him.

Brother Cox learned to appreciate the culture when he served as a missionary in Samoa, beginning in 1973. But it wasn’t always easy, recalls Daniel Betham, first counselor in the Apia Samoa Temple presidency. “His mother told him that whatever the Samoans place in front of you, you eat it all to show your respect. The first village he went to was in Savai‘i. He was given breadfruit, the whole breadfruit, cooked. So he ate everything in the breadfruit, even the seeds.
“He didn’t understand that inside the breadfruit is a part Samoans don’t eat—they throw it away. They call it fune. But he ate it all. While he was eating, the kids in the village were laughing, and when he went out to proselyte that day, everyone was calling him ‘the palangi (white man) who eats the fune.’” However, people were touched by his willingness to try to adapt to their culture. “From then on he became very popular with the people here,” Brother Betham recalls.

Joseph was ten when his parents decided that they had had enough of stingy New England—their crops were frozen out the third summer in a row. Late that season the family followed their father to new farmland in western New York. Young Joseph hobbled over snowy roads with a severe limp from a crippling bone operation three years before. Yet he outgrew this as he worked in the forests with his brothers, clearing 40 acres of heavy timber and underbrush, fencing and erecting buildings for themselves, and hiring out on neighboring farms. By such hard work Joseph built a body that served him well in the travels and trials required of the first leader of the restored church.

I stared as a new boy entered the Primary room. A woman pushed him in a wheelchair toward the front of the room.
“Everyone, this is David,” Sister Olive said. “He and his grandmother have just moved into our ward.”
David smiled and waved to the Primary. I tried not to stare. David’s body was covered in red scars, and he carried a cane across his lap. His right hand was just a nub, and his left ear was completely missing. I had heard about David. When he was a baby, he had been burned in a fire. Whenever he grew, he had to have surgeries because his skin did not stretch with him as he got bigger.
David’s grandmother wheeled him to the end of the row of the CTR 7 class. I was in the back in the Valiant 11 class, too far away to try to help David feel welcome. Would any of the children in his class be brave enough to talk to him?
Just then, Joseph jumped out of his chair. He sat down on the seat next to David and started talking to him. Sister Olive had to tell them to be quiet so we could start singing time.
Sister Olive took out a big black paper music note. “We’re going to play ‘Hide the Note,’” she said. “I will choose one person to hide this note somewhere in the Primary room and another person to leave the room so he doesn’t know where the note is hidden. When the second person comes back into the room, we’ll all sing louder when he gets closer to the note.”
“And quieter when he gets farther away!” Joseph said.
“That’s right,” Sister Olive said. “Who wants to hide the note?”
Almost everyone raised their hands. We really liked this activity.
“Julia, you can hide the note,” Sister Olive said. Julia jumped up from her chair and walked to the front of the room.
“Who wants to find the note?” Sister Olive asked. We all raised our hands again. “David, you can be our finder.”
“I’ll help!” Joseph volunteered. He wheeled David outside and closed the door.
Julia hid the music note under the piano. It was a good hiding place.
Sister Olive called David and Joseph back into the room. Joseph slowly wheeled David down the aisle, and we started singing quietly.
David pointed to the left with his cane and Joseph wheeled him left, toward the CTR 6 class. We sang more quietly. David pointed to the right with his cane and Joseph wheeled him right, toward the Sunbeams. We sang even quieter. David looked confused. He thought for a moment and then pointed his cane backwards, toward the piano. Joseph wheeled him closer and closer to the piano, and we sang louder and louder.
David pointed his cane at the piano, and we all sang as loudly as we could. Joseph looked all over the piano until he finally found the music note on the ground, under the piano legs.
“We did it!” David cheered. He grinned from ear to ear and patted Joseph on the back.
“We make a great team,” Joseph said.
David and Joseph sat down and Sister Olive chose other children to hide and find the note. I could tell that David and Joseph had become friends. Joseph didn’t seem to notice David’s wheelchair. To Joseph, David wasn’t different.

You know what to expect at girls’ camp—tents, outdoor cooking, dirt.

During a week spent in the high mountains of southern Utah, girls and leaders from the Las Vegas East Stake found something more, something magic. They discovered in each of their fellow campers something special to love.

Mary Beth Long, a first-year camper, came to camp reluctantly, but that soon changed. “Our camp leaders are crazy. You should have seen what they did!” What they did had something to do with a zany sense of humor and red licorice in their ears. Somewhere between flag ceremonies and foil dinners, magic touched Mary Beth’s heart, and she knew her leaders loved her. “I will never be the same person I was before girls’ camp,” she exclaimed.

Photo illustration by Cody Bell
I can still picture them. Those unforgettable, incredibly quiet Sundays spent outside in a neighborhood filled primarily with Latter-day Saints—and I wasn’t one of them.
I used to imagine a tumbleweed rolling slowly down my street as they did in old Western films, indicating that no one was around. I knew where my neighbors were (at church), I understood why my friends couldn’t play on Sundays, and I knew why only my family would be outside doing yard work on a blistering Sunday afternoon. At least, I thought I knew. Little did I realize that seminary and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would give me true insight and change my life for the better.
Fast-forward a few years from those childhood days: I was baptized when I was 11 years old. I’m not sure if an 11-year-old can choose to be baptized for the wrong reasons, but I believe I did. I didn’t fully understand the role of the Holy Ghost, and all I remember about my baptism was thinking, “I will finally be like my friends.”
To my dismay, I was still nothing like them. I assumed that once I was a member of the Church, my family would automatically attend church with me. When I realized my family was not going to attend church, I wondered if my friends knew how lucky they were. They would talk about how they didn’t like going to church or how they seemed to dread saying family prayers. I wanted so badly to tell them they shouldn’t be wishing away something so precious. I knew they had something special.
Yet I also didn’t fully embrace all that the gospel and the Church had to offer, even though I was baptized.
Then one day when I was a freshman in high school, something happened that changed everything: I ran into Brother Esplin.
“Excuse me,” he said as I tried to walk past him.
“Yes?” I replied.
“I’m Devin Esplin, Melissa Esplin’s husband. My wife talks about your volleyball potential all the time, and I just wanted to formally introduce myself.”
I stood there silently until a lightbulb finally went off in my head.
“Oh! Right, I love Coach Esplin!”
“Me too!” he said. “Anyway, I’m the seminary teacher here, and I was wondering if you would like to transfer into my class.”
“Well, I would, but I can’t,” I replied. “But I promise that next year I will!”
“I sure hope you do. It will be a great experience.”
“I will! I promise,” I said as I walked away. As I walked back to class, I couldn’t hide the smile on my face. This was my opportunity to find out for myself what the Church had to offer. This time I was going to learn about the Church for the right reasons. I was given a second chance, and I wasn’t going to pass it up.
My sophomore year was incredible. I was so excited to go to seminary and learn! The first few weeks were pretty crazy. I felt like a little child—I had a lot to learn. People would use words like repentance and the Atonement, and I felt ashamed because I had no idea what those terms meant. Mercifully, my class helped me learn and never made me feel like an outsider.
As the year progressed, I found myself craving more knowledge. I was amazed by the things that my peers would discuss. I learned that I wasn’t the only one who suffered trials. I was saddened that I had made it so far in life without focusing on the Savior and the gospel. As I began to understand what being a Latter-day Saint is all about, I knew I never wanted to give it up.
My junior year was the major turning point of my life. Because of seminary, I read the Book of Mormon for the first time. As I studied daily, my testimony grew, and I grew closer to my Heavenly Father. I learned that I can strengthen my testimony every day. I understood that I’m never alone.
Seminary is a blessing that has altered the course of my life forever. Every day, I now think about how grateful I am that I have my Savior to get me through trials and temptations.

While serving as a member of the Council of the Twelve, Elder McKay owned a big boar named Caesar. One Sunday morning Caesar broke out of his enclosure. Not having time to repair the fence before boarding a train, Elder McKay put him in the chicken coop. But he forgot to tell any of his boys about it. That night at 2 A.M., the McKay household was awakened by the incessant ringing of the telephone. Answering it, and fearful that a tragic message was involved, they received a telegram over the phone: “Caesar in chicken coop. Water him!”

Sometimes we make poor choices when we yield to peer pressure. Kieth Merrill had such an experience when he was a young man. He and his friends were diving from sheer rock walls at the East Canyon Reservoir, northeast of Salt Lake City. It inevitably turned into a teenage contest when one young man climbed up to the top of the dam and dived 50 feet into the deep water of the reservoir. The rest of the young men all went to the top of the dam and made the same high dive. One boy wasn’t satisfied with that, so he said, “All right, I’ll do one better!” He climbed 60 feet up the side of the cliff. Not wanting to be outdone, Kieth climbed up beside him. After the other boy had dived into the water and seemed to be all right, Kieth took courage and made his dive. The contest was now down to these two boys. Kieth’s friend then climbed up to 70 feet and dived. He came up from the water laughing, rubbing his shoulders and his eyes. He then challenged Kieth, “Well, are you going to do it?”

“Of course, I’m going to do it!” And everybody on the shore said, “Of course, he’s going to do it!”

So Kieth swam back to the shore and climbed up the rocks. He knew if he jumped from the same height of 70 feet that his friend would want to go higher, so he scrambled up 80 feet to the very top of the cliff. No one could go any higher than the top. As Kieth looked down, he was terrified to see the water so very far away. He had made a rash decision. It was not what he wanted to do nor what he felt was right. Instead he had based his decision on the prodding and dares of a half dozen young men whose names he cannot now even remember.

He backed up and ran as hard as he could toward the edge. He found the mark he had carefully laid at the edge of the rock and sprang out into space. On the way down he remembered his parents teaching him to be careful when making decisions, because a wrong one could kill him. And now he thought, “You have done it, because when you hit the water you’ll be going so fast that it might as well be concrete.” When he hit the water, it even felt like concrete. How grateful he was when his head finally popped above water.

Why did he jump? What was he trying to prove? The young men who dared him didn’t care and probably don’t even remember that foolish act. But Kieth realized afterward that he had made what could easily have been a fatal decision. He had yielded to the pressure of friends expecting him to do what he didn’t want to do. He knew better. He said: “I was living in the world, and at that moment I was of the world because I was not in control of myself. I was not making decisions about my own life. The world made the decisions for me, … and [I] had barely avoided being in the world about six feet deep.”

Lucy’s Heart
Lucy and her older sisters entered an art contest at their school about making the world a better place. Lucy knew she wanted to paint a heart. She said, “The world would be a better place if we have love in our hearts.”
A Loving Sister
When Lucy found out that her painting won the contest, she told her sister Ruby, “Yours is so good. I wish you would have won instead of me.” Lucy couldn’t believe it when she found out her painting won the contest for the whole United States too!
A Special Way to Communicate
It’s hard for Lucy to tell others what she is feeling. But she wants to help people feel loved and happy. And her paintings do that!

In the Owego New York Stake, members evacuated their homes, and some lived temporarily in a meetinghouse. One couple in Binghamton was rescued by a helicopter, and some in Owego were rescued by boat. Many stayed at shelters until the water receded.
Richard Miller, president of the Owego New York Stake, said that as the floods abated members were able to go in, clean up, and help the people affected.

I hold in my hand a first-edition copy of the Book of Mormon. It was printed in 1830 on a hand-operated letter press at the E. B. Grandin Company in the village of Palmyra, New York.
In June of 1829, Joseph Smith, then 23 years old, called on 23-year-old Mr. Grandin in company with Martin Harris, a local farmer. Mr. Grandin had three months earlier advertised his intent to publish books. Joseph Smith provided pages of a handwritten manuscript.
If the content of the book did not doom it to remain obscure, the account of where it came from certainly would. Imagine an angel directing a teenage boy to the woods where he found buried a stone vault and a set of golden plates.
The writings on the plates were translated by use of a Urim and Thummim, which is referred to a number of times in the Old Testament and described by Hebrew scholars as an instrument “whereby the revelation was given and truth declared.”
Before the book was off the press, pages of it were stolen and printed in the local newspaper, accompanied by ridicule. Opposition was destined to excite mobs to kill the Prophet Joseph Smith and drive those who believed him into the wilderness.
From that very unlikely beginning to this day, 108,936,922 copies of the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ have been printed. It has been published in 62 languages, with selections of it in another 37 languages, and 22 more translations are in process.
Now 60,000 full-time missionaries in 142 countries pay their own way to devote two years of their lives to testify that the Book of Mormon is true.
For generations it has inspired those who read it. Herbert Schreiter had read his German translation of the Book of Mormon. In it he read:
“When ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.
“And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.”
Herbert Schreiter tested the promise and joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
In 1946, released as a prisoner of war, Herbert returned to his wife and three little daughters in Leipzig, Germany. Soon thereafter, he went as a missionary to Bernburg, Germany. Alone, without a companion, he sat cold and hungry in a room, wondering how he should begin.
He thought of what he had to offer the war-devastated people. He printed by hand a placard which read, “Will there be a further life after death?” and posted it on a wall.
About that same time, a family from a small village in Poland came to Bernburg.
Manfred Schütze was four years old. His father had been killed in the war. His mother, with his grandparents and his mother’s sister, also a widow, and her two little girls, were forced to evacuate their village with only 30 minutes’ notice. They grabbed what they could and headed west. Manfred and his mother pulled and pushed a small cart. At times, the ailing grandfather rode in the cart. One Polish officer looked at the pathetic little Manfred and began to weep.
At the border, soldiers ransacked their belongings and threw their bedding into the river. Manfred and his mother were then separated from the family. His mother wondered if they might have gone to Bernburg, where her grandmother was born, perhaps to relatives there. After weeks of unbelievable suffering, they arrived in Bernburg and found the family.
The seven of them lived together in one small room. But their troubles were not over. The mother of the two little girls died. The grieving grandmother cried out for a preacher, and asked, “Will I see my family again?”
The preacher answered, “My dear lady, there is no such thing as the Resurrection. They who are dead are dead!”
They wrapped the body in a paper bag for burial.
On the way from the grave, the grandfather talked of taking their own lives, as many others had done. Just then they saw the placard that Elder Schreiter had posted on the building—“Is there further life after death?”—with an invitation from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At a meeting, they learned of the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
The book explains:
The purpose of mortal life and death;
The certainty of life after death;
What happens when the spirit leaves the body;
The description of the Resurrection;
How to receive and retain a remission of your sins;
What hold justice or mercy may have on you;
What to pray for;
Priesthood;
Covenants and ordinances;
The office and ministry of angels;
The still, small voice of personal revelation;
And preeminently, the mission of Jesus Christ;
And many other jewels that make up the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
They joined the Church. Soon their lives changed. The grandfather found work as a baker and could provide bread for his family and also for Elder Schreiter, who had given them “the bread of life.”
Then help came from the Church in the United States. Manfred grew up eating grain out of little sacks with a picture of a beehive on them and peaches from California. He wore clothes from the welfare supplies of the Church.
Soon after I was released from the air force, I went to the welfare mill at Kaysville, Utah, to help fill bags of wheat for shipment to the starving people in Europe. I like to think one of the bags of grain that I filled myself went to Manfred Schütze and his mother. If not, it went to others in equal need.
Elder Dieter Uchtdorf, who sits with us on the stand today as one of the Seventy, remembers to this very day the smell of the grain and the feel of it in his little-boy hands. Perhaps one of the bags I filled reached his family.
When I was about 10, I made my first attempt to read the Book of Mormon. The first part was easy-flowing New Testament language. Then I came to the writings of the Old Testament prophet Isaiah. I could not understand them; I found them difficult to read. I laid the book aside.
I made other attempts to read the Book of Mormon. I did not read it all until I was on a troop ship with other bomber crew members, headed for the war in the Pacific. I determined that I would read the Book of Mormon and find out for myself whether it is true or not. Carefully I read and reread the book. I tested the promise that it contained. That was a life-changing event. After that, I never set the book aside.
Many young people have done better than I did.
A 15-year-old son of a mission president attended high school with very few members of the Church.
One day the class was given a true-or-false test. Matthew was confident that he knew the answers to all except for question 15. It read, “Joseph Smith, the alleged Mormon prophet, wrote the Book of Mormon. True or false?”
He could not answer it either way, so, being a clever teenager, he rewrote the question. He crossed out the word alleged and replaced the word wrote with translated. It then read, “Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, translated the Book of Mormon.” He marked it true and handed it in.
The next day the teacher sternly asked why he had changed the question. He smiled and said, “Because Joseph Smith did not write the Book of Mormon; he translated it. And he was not an alleged prophet; he was a prophet.”
He was then invited to tell the class how he knew that.
In England, my wife and I became acquainted with Dorothy James, the widow of a clergyman who lived at the Close of Winchester Cathedral. She brought out a family Bible which had been lost for many years.
Years before, the possessions of a family member had been sold. The new owner found the Bible in a small desk that had remained unopened for over 20 years. There were also some letters written by a child named Beaumont James. He was able to find the James family and return the long-lost family Bible.
On the title page my wife read the following handwritten note: “This Bible has been in our family since the time of Thomas James in 1683 who was a lineal descendant of Thomas James first librarian of the Bodleian Library at Oxford, who was buried in New College Chapel August 1629. [Signed] C. T. C. James, 1880.”
The margins and the open pages were completely filled with notations written in English, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. One entry particularly touched her. From the bottom of the title page, she read, “The fairest Impression of the Bible is to have it well printed on the Readers heart.”
And then this quote from Corinthians: “Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in the tables of stone, but in fleshly tables of the heart” (2 Cor. 3:2–3).
My Book of Mormon also has many notes in the margins and is heavily underlined. I was in Florida once with President Hinckley. He turned from the pulpit and asked for a copy of the scriptures. I handed him my copy. He thumbed through it for a few seconds, turned and handed it back, saying, “I can’t read this. You have got everything crossed out!”
Amos prophesied of “a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord.”
In a world ever more dangerous than the world of little Manfred Schütze and Dieter Uchtdorf, the Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ has the nourishing power to heal starving spirits of the world.
Manfred Schütze is now a member of the Third Quorum of Seventy and supervises our seminaries in Eastern Europe. His mother, now 88, still attends the temple at Freiberg, where Herbert Schreiter once served as a counselor to the president.
With Elder Walter F. González, a new member of the Seventy from Uruguay, I attended a conference in Moroni, Utah, a town with a Book of Mormon name. There is no doctor or dentist in Moroni. They must leave town to shop for groceries. Their students are bused to a consolidated high school across the valley.
We held a meeting with 236 present. Lest Elder González see only ordinary rural farmers, I gave this sentence of testimony: “I know the gospel is true and that Jesus is the Christ.” I asked if someone could repeat it in Spanish. Several hands went up. Could someone repeat it in another language? It was repeated in:
Japanese
Chinese
Finnish
Spanish
Tongan
Maori
German
Italian
Polish
Portuguese
Tagalog
Korean
Russian
Dutch
French—15 languages
Again in English: I know the gospel is true and that Jesus is the Christ.
I love this Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ. Study it and one can understand both the Old Testament and the New Testament in the Bible. I know it is true.
In this 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, printed by 23-year-old Egbert B. Grandin for 23-year-old Joseph Smith Jr., I read from page 105: “We talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.”
And that, I assure you, is exactly what we do. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Daughter Maja (Mrs. Paul Wensel) remembers that her father’s approach to discipline was always to reason with her, never to threaten. He would often say, “Jesus would do something different.”
“Once when I broke a window, he came out and calmly said, ‘You’ve done something wrong, and you need to do something so that you can understand that you can’t do this.’ Then he asked what kind of penalty I thought would be fair. As a result, I never felt rebellious.” In fact, the Busches found that the children would usually assign themselves stricter penalties than their parents would have.

Last fall I found myself with a wonderful but challenging opportunity to develop and teach Primary training through a video made entirely in Spanish. At one time in my life I was a Spanish speaker, but recently I had been speaking Portuguese and knew what it would take to relearn Spanish. I did all the things each of you do to complete a task that feels extremely difficult. I found help from capable and dedicated Hispanic sisters. Together we studied, prayed, fasted, and worked long hours. The day arrived to go and do the thing the Lord had asked, and we not only were fearful but felt our work was inadequate. We had worked up to the moment of delivery, and nothing more could be done. I wanted to start over.
Each of our husbands gave us priesthood blessings, and peace and calm started to come. Like angels, help came in the form of a sweet husband who set the alarm on his watch so he could pray for me every half hour during the recording, a cameraman whose eyes radiated “Good job,” and Primary leaders who had confidence in the workings of the Spirit and were able to communicate that with power. We ended up with a finished film that was helpful for our Spanish-speaking leaders. All who participated in it were partly surprised and entirely grateful for its success. We walked as far as we could go, and when we thought we might abandon our carts and drop by the wayside, angels somehow pushed from behind.

President Smith then married Jessie Evans, former contralto and soloist with the Salt Lake Tabernacle Choir, on April 12, 1938. A born entertainer with a vivacious and cheerful nature, she was at the president’s side for thirty-three years, buoying him up and caring for him with a love and devotion that was truly beautiful. She lived to see him become president of the Church and traveled extensively with him on his many Church assignments, sharing not only his rigorous schedule but also the loving reception of the Saints of many lands. When she succumbed to a heart ailment on August 3, 1971, millions shared President Smith’s loneliness and sorrow. On seeing the compassion and concern extended to him at this time by President Harold B. Lee, President Smith assured his counselor that the Lord would give him strength to continue in his duties. “I’ve been through this before, you know,” he said.

When I was a senior in high school, I was on the varsity cheerleading team. Every day at practice, the girls on my cheerleading team talked about what was going on in a daytime soap opera on television. I had never watched it and knew that it was a show with low morals. However, I felt left out every day at practice as the girls excitedly talked about the show. The Spirit whispered to me not to watch it, but I desperately wanted to be included in their conversations, so I started watching.

It didn’t seem so bad to me. I rationalized that it wouldn’t affect me. I knew that I wasn’t going to do the bad things that I saw the characters do. I got hooked and watched the show every day. When I went to Brigham Young University, I arranged my class schedule so I could watch it every day. I never missed an episode.

I got married and had my first baby. I put him down for a nap every day during the show so I could watch it.

As the years passed, the Spirit whispered to me many times that I should stop watching that show. But I refused. I was so involved with the characters and their lives. It was my way to relax, so I continued watching. I was convinced that it was not hurting me.

Nineteen years after high school, I was still watching the show every day. At general conference, Sister Sheri L. Dew, then Second Counselor in the Relief Society General Presidency, was speaking about walking away from the world and things that are unholy. She then said, “I invite each of us to identify at least one thing we can do to come out of the world and come closer to Christ.”2

When she extended that invitation, I felt a tremendous outpouring of the Spirit, and I heard the words in my mind, “You have to stop watching that show now!” It was so powerful; it was like a smack to my face. I knew in that instant that I could not ignore this prompting any longer. I felt an urgency to never watch the show again. I realized that not one character was doing anything virtuous or honorable. I was inviting trash into my life every day. I committed to the Lord, right then and there, that I would never watch it again.

It was not easy! Nineteen years of habit and addiction was hard to break. Monday came and it was time for the show to start. I walked over to the TV remote. I wanted so badly to turn it on. I remembered my commitment to the Lord that I wouldn’t watch it ever again. I walked away.

Then I thought about my favorite character and wondered what might happen to her and walked back to the remote. I knew I needed God’s help, so I got down on my knees and prayed for strength to be able not to watch it. I thought of my promise to Heavenly Father, and I walked out of the room. I chose to follow the promptings I had received from the Holy Ghost and to honor my commitment.

That scenario repeated itself every day that week and into the next. Every day, I knelt and prayed and pleaded for strength to not watch, and every day I chose Jesus Christ and walked away from a television show that was immoral. I received strength to overcome from the power the Savior offers through His Atonement.

After some time of doing this, a miracle occurred. I completely lost all desire to watch the show, after watching it daily for 19 years. It was amazing! I also lost the desire to watch all the questionable shows I had been watching, so I stopped completely.

My conscience became sharpened, and I recognized evil for what it was. I honestly wanted to avoid any appearance of evil (see 1 Thessalonians 5:22). I was not desensitized to it anymore.

But the most amazing thing that happened was that I felt the influence of the Holy Ghost magnified in my life beyond anything I had experienced before. My spiritual progress accelerated tremendously! All those years I had thought I enjoyed the companionship of the Holy Ghost, but I had been experiencing only a sliver of what I might have. I realized that watching those shows all that time did affect me. I had missed so many years of having a stronger companionship with God. When I used my agency to give up unholy, worldly things, the Spirit was free to come to me in much greater measure, and what an incredible difference that has made in my life to strengthen, comfort, and guide me.

We tend to hold on so tightly to things of no worth—things that actually hold the door closed to the blessings that God wants to bring into our lives. Why do we trade the powerful, enabling influence of the Spirit for the fun or the popular? Maybe watching a television show is not a big deal or a huge sin, but it kept me from having the Holy Ghost in great abundance in my life and slowed down my spiritual progression.

I am so thankful that the Lord didn’t give up on me but patiently kept asking me to give up something unholy so He could fill my life to overflowing with His influence.

The doctrine of repentance allows us to correct or fix defects, but it is better to focus on meeting God’s standards than to plan on invoking the principle of repentance before the Judgment. I learned this lesson when I was young.

As a teenager I spent my summers working on my grandfather’s ranch in Wyoming, USA. It was a sheep and cattle ranch of more than 2,000 acres (810 ha), plus additional rangeland. The ranch operation required a lot of equipment. Because the closest repair center was far away, my grandfather taught us to carefully maintain the equipment and to inspect everything before we left the ranch house. If we had a breakdown, it was usually miles from the ranch house, and that meant a long walk.

It didn’t take long for me to learn the law of consequences. It was always better to avoid problems than to take a long walk. The same is true with the commandments of our Heavenly Father. He can tell the difference between someone who truly is striving to become like Him and an individual who is pushing the edges but trying to stay just inside the acceptable limits.

While we were expecting our ninth child, an examination revealed that I had cancer. The doctors could not determine the source or extent without endangering the baby, and she wasn’t old enough to survive birth. But they did know the cancer was spreading. So we were asked to decide whether the doctors should operate despite the risk, or if they should wait until the baby had developed more fully.
To me there seemed to be no answer. I wanted to live and to rear our eight children. But I also felt protective of the child I was carrying. We struggled for several weeks, giving the baby more time to mature, prayerfully seeking to know the will of the Lord. Our answer came when, after much prayer and fasting, Dan said to me, “Barbara, it will be all right. I have scheduled surgery.”
Because of priesthood power, he could do more than make that difficult decision. He called our home teacher, a neighbor who had had his own struggle with cancer, and my brother. In the name of Jesus Christ, my husband, assisted by those men, blessed me and our baby that what was done would be best for both of us.
Dan again wrote me a letter the night before surgery: “These past days have been filled with more anxiety and soul searching for me than any time in my life. … As we have passed through swells of faith and depths of fear, I have experiences a purging I didn’t know I needed. The priesthood blessings you have received are from the Lord. Tonight as we sat in your hospital room, I was aware of your struggle between fear and faith. I experienced it myself for many hours after I returned home. Just now I have received, with burning assurance, the Lord’s seal upon the blessings you have received. … [The doctors], as instruments in the hands of our Father in Heaven, will do what is needed to perform His work.”
The surgery was successful. Our healthy daughter, now fifteen years old, was born seven weeks later.