Gospel Story Finder

Making the choice to be baptized was the hardest decision I have ever made. But nothing could have prevented me from joining the Church at that point, not even the opposition of my family and my Catholic friends. I knew that getting baptized was the right thing to do, and I have never regretted it. It has brought many blessings into my life and the lives of my family. My brother Jerry joined the Church ten weeks after I did, and eight years later, we baptized one of my sisters and her husband. I have also been able to do temple work for many of my ancestors, including my own father and my grandfathers.

In my own life, it was my good fortune to have met Connie while I was still in college. We married and were blessed with a beautiful daughter when we were still in school. We had barely enough money to pay our bills. Our baby slept on a pillow in a cardboard box and we slept on a mattress on the floor. Following graduation, our first purchase after a few months of saving was to buy a bed for our daughter. The floor was good enough for us. The baby crib lasted for five wonderful children. We are now in our 45th year together. Our first purchase of a baby crib is a wonderful memory associated with starting our family.

Connie has always been my support, really my helpmate. Without her indefatigable loyalty, the interesting path that has been our life together would not have been possible. Never looking back, she has supported our partnership with a willing heart and complete fidelity. Whether we have had famine or abundance, her desire has been like Ruth of old:
"Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go: and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy god my God." Her desire has always been to go where the Lord would have us go.

Sissy was crying again. She didn’t want to cry, but the warm, wet tears kept sliding down her cheeks. Ever since Pa had died last winter, she found herself crying almost every time she was alone.
Today she had run home from the little pioneer church and climbed into the hayloft. It was the Sunday before Easter, and her Primary lesson had been about the Resurrection. Sister Nelson had reminded the class that when people we love die, we can be comforted knowing that they will live again and that we can be with them at some future time. Sissy knew that Sister Nelson was speaking especially to her and was trying to be kind, but her teacher just didn’t understand! What good is it to think about resurrection when I need Pa right now? she thought.
Sissy had been very close to her father. Pa had always said that she was special. He called her his “own little angel right from heaven.” The tears rolled down her cheeks, and she cried, “Oh, Pa, why did you have to die? How can I ever be happy again?”
Her thoughts were interrupted by her brother Joe’s husky voice calling her from the barn door. “Sissy! Sissy, are you in here?”
“I’m coming, Joe,” Sissy said slowly as she dried her tears and began to climb down.
Joe stood at the bottom of the ladder; he lifted her off the rungs, swung her around, and gently set her down. “What’s the matter, Sis?” he asked as he bent his tall frame over and looked into her reddened eyes. “Has it been raining in the hayloft again?”
Sissy gave him a little smile and held his hand as they left the barn. She loved Joe. He was kind and gentle, like Pa, and Sissy knew he understood her sorrow and loneliness. She wondered if he still missed Pa too. She hadn’t thought about that before. Joe always seemed so strong and sure of everything.
“Joe,” Sissy said, stopping suddenly, “what do you do when you feel sad and lonely without Pa around?”
Joe walked slowly over to the cottonwood tree and sat down. Sissy sat down beside him. He was quiet for a moment and seemed to be studying the daffodils that Pa and Sissy had planted last spring. Then he looked up into Sissy’s eyes and spoke softly. “Missing Pa is natural and will probably last all our lives, Sissy. But when I’m sad, I try to get busy doing something that I know would make Pa happy. You see, I know that someday I’m going to see Pa again, and I want to be the kind of man he always wanted me to grow up to be. Somehow that seems to take my mind off my sad thoughts and put it on the happy thoughts of how proud I can make Pa when I see him again.”
Sissy thought about Joe’s words as he got up and headed toward the woodpile. She knew that Pa would be sad to think that the only thing she did when she thought of him was cry. Maybe if she tried Joe’s plan, it would work for her too. She wrinkled her forehead as she tried to think of something to do that would make Pa happy and proud of her.
In a minute Sissy was on her feet, running to catch up with Joe. “Joe,” she asked, filling her arms with kindling, “do you think we could take some daffodils over to Sister Harding this afternoon? I noticed she wasn’t at church today, so maybe she would like a little visit. We could take over some of those good molasses cookies too!”
Joe gave her a quick smile and a gentle squeeze and nodded his head. “That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time,” he said.
Later, as Sissy gathered the flowers, she found herself thinking about Pa and smiling for the first time in a long while. She could almost see Pa smiling too!

There are a lot of things I’m not good at. For example, I am not a great chef—my idea of gourmet is adding crushed potato chips to my tuna fish. With regard to sewing, I’m top notch as long as I have a stapler or hot-glue gun handy. And when it comes to drawing, well, my stick figures don’t even look like sticks!
But there is one thing I think I’m particularly good at. I can talk.
It’s not that I’m better at enunciating than other people, or that I have superior grammar and diction; I just enjoy making good conversation. My teachers in grade school would always tell my parents, “She’s quite the little chatterbox.” In junior high, the common statement was, “My, isn’t she enthusiastic.” By the time I got to high school, it had delicately evolved to, “Does this girl ever stop talking?”
Then, a few years later, I was serving a mission in North Carolina—the perfect reason for me to use my talent to its fullest extent. The only problem was that I didn’t want to. I discovered that being on a mission was a little scary at first.
When my first senior companion, Sister Hubbard, invited me to teach a discussion, I would reply, “You teach it. I want to watch you first.” When we knocked on doors, she would sweetly remind me when it was my turn to greet them. I would stiffly utter a bland hello and pray that they wouldn’t have any questions to ask me.
This went on for a little while until I woke up one morning with a bad cold and sore throat. When I tried to tell my companion how rotten I felt, I found that I had lost my voice too. At first, it was pretty good. I had the perfect excuse to sit quietly through every appointment, not saying a word. After a few days, though, the novelty began to fade. I couldn’t chat with anyone, use the phone, or sing. Life wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be without a voice. Soon I was more down than ever.
Toward the end of the week, while I was studying the scriptures, I came to Matthew 25 [Matt. 25], where it talks about the parable of the talents. As I read, I slowly realized that I had acted like the slothful servant. Heavenly Father had given me the talent of communication and had provided me with the means to use my talent by calling me to share the gospel. But what did I do? “I was afraid, and went and hid [my] talent in the earth” (Matt. 25:25). My days of silence taught me what it would really be like to lose my talent for good if I didn’t use it.
Well, I’m still on my mission and I’m happy to report that my voice came back, and I’ve decided to use it as much as I possibly can. At every appointment, I try to teach with a grateful heart, thanking the Lord for the opportunity to bear my testimony of Jesus Christ. When it comes to knocking on doors, I greet people with a cheerful grin and a hearty “How y’all doing today?” (That’s southern for hello.) And when I walk through town, no one gets by without a friendly invitation to learn more about the plan of happiness.
I may not be a master chef, a superior seamstress, or a modern Monet, but I am using the talent that I do have to do the very best I can. And I find special meaning in these words from the Doctrine and Covenants: “And thou must open thy mouth at all times, declaring my gospel with the sound of rejoicing” (D&C 128:16).

Have you ever wondered how it might feel to go through life deaf, blind, or confined to a wheelchair? The youth of the Pleasant Grove 19th Ward in Utah recently found out when they participated in a “Handicap Awareness Week.”
“I can’t even get through the door into the bathroom!” exclaimed one girl who tried a few turns in a wheelchair. Getting a drink of water from the fountain was also difficult.
The youth listened to speakers and voluntarily took on disabilities of their own while participating in different activities. Experiencing handicaps first-hand helped the youth develop a new-found compassion for their disabled brothers and sisters. But they were also consoled. “We were actually relieved to realize that one can have lots of fun even with a serious disability,” said one participant.

The fifth decision that I wanted to recount for you, was the decision I made to call myself on a mission again. I served a wonderful mission in Korea. As I mentioned I did most of it only being able to say that I believed the Book of Mormon was true, and I testified of those things that I knew to be true, and I felt the Spirit with me almost everyday when I was a missionary. But when I returned I began to feel the Spirit less and less as my life progressed. We moved to Boston and I enrolled in the MBA program at Harvard, and I was called at the time to serve as a counselor to our bishop, and I was a busy guy. I just did everything I could to magnify my calling. I was studying the scriptures everyday, I was praying, and yet on a day to day basis it just seemed like I was feeling the Spirit less and less as time wore on. And I yearned to have the same spirit return to me that I had felt when I was a missionary, and yet it didn’t seem like any of the usual levers of magnifying my calling or study or prayer brought the same spirit back into my heart
Then we moved to Washington and I had the chance to take a job in the Reagan Administration. All of a sudden we were living with new people and I was working with new people and I was riding in on the bus with new people, and it gave me many more opportunities than I had had living in a stable situation in Boston to begin talking with people about my church. Some of those opportunities then resulted in deeper opportunities to discuss the gospel, and I then invited one of my co-workers to come to our home with her boyfriend to hear the missionary discussions. I remember it was a Sunday afternoon, and my wife and I were scrambling around trying to clean up the living room before they and the missionaries arrived and I put on a cassette tape of the Mormon Youth Symphony and Chorus in our stereo, and they were singing “The Spirit of God,” like a fire is burning. They came to the third verse where they sang “We’ll call in our solemn assemblies in spirit/ To spread forth the kingdom of heaven abroad/ That we by our faith may begin to inherit/ The visions and blessings and glories of God.”[1] As they sang those words, I felt a beautiful spirit again come into the room and into my heart, and I realized that as I had begun working again to spread for the Kingdom of Heaven abroad as a member missionary, that the visions and blessings and glories of God had returned to my life. I was dreaming spiritual dreams and thinking happy, spiritual thoughts as I walked to the bus in the morning, and joy had come back into my heart, just as it had been there when I was a missionary.
This is what I realized: Just imagine that you’re the general of an army, and you’ve got some state-of-the-art-weapons, and you’ve got to decide which of your soldiers you’re going to give these state-of-the-art weapons to. You’ll give your best weapons to those soldiers who are right in the front line, engaged in direct combat with the enemy. Those soldiers who are operating behind the front lines, who are driving the supply trucks and cooking the soup and keeping the records, they won’t need the state-of-the-art weapons because they never really confront the enemy, per say. I realized what had happened to me is I had been released from my mission and had begun engaging in service in the church as a member that most of my assignments were in fact administrative in character, and as they were administrative in character, plain old Clay Christensen, with his plain old talents, was perfectly capable of doing most of the assignments that I was given as an administrator in the Church. But when I made that decision to become again a missionary for the Lord Jesus Christ, it was as if geographically I repositioned myself right on the front line, engaged in direct combat with Satan in this vicious war that he is waging over the souls of the children of men.
It turns out that missionary work is an assignment in the church at which we cannot succeed if we don’t have the Spirit with us at all times. And I am so grateful that I came to make that decision to be a missionary again because it has blessed our family in profound ways. The next year, 1984, I was listening to General Conference, and Elder M. Russell Ballard gave a talk at that time where he invited us as members of the church to set a date, a point in the future, as a commitment to our Heavenly Father. He invited us-don’t pick a person that we were going to share the gospel with but to set a date. He promised us that if we would do all that we could to engage in conversations about the gospel, with as many people as we could, that God would bless us by that date, that we would intersect with somebody who would accept our invitation to meet with the missionaries. His talk just sunk into my heart. That night I went home and knelt by my bed and committed to my Heavenly Father that by a date I would find somebody for the missionaries to teach. That was in 1984. That year, by the date, Heavenly Father blessed me to find a man who we could bring into our home to teach with the missionaries. I have set a date once, twice and now three times every year as a commitment to my Heavenly Father that I’m going to be a missionary, and every Sunday I fast that God will help me to intersect with somebody who I can invite to learn of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Every time I pray, I pray that God will put somebody in my path, and I’m grateful to be able to say that God has answered my prayer every time. It’s been 20 years.

I’ve known great love in my marriage, with my children, as the president of the Relief Society, and as I grew up in a loving family who looked forward to the occasional visits of one of my mother’s older cousins whom we called Aunt Lillian. She had been a teacher in the public school system for more than 30 years. We were entranced as we listened to her tell of the problems she had as a teacher with disruptive students and of those in the school system who made a great impact for good upon the life she lived alone.

One day she invited me to her apartment to help her entertain the young daughter of a school teacher friend. Everything was meticulously prepared for us—the food she served and all of her surroundings. Her thoughtful ways evidenced a life-style of noble living. I was deeply impressed with the love she showed both of us that day, and it continued year after year for me.

When she was 70 years old, she bought her first car, a beautiful brand-new blue Plymouth, and she took driving lessons. When she got her license she decided to drive to California to visit her sister and invited me to go along to keep her company. I was then about 12 years old. I was so excited. I’d only been to Wyoming and felt that if I went to California, I’d become a world traveler. However, because she was such an inexperienced driver, I saw very little other than the road and other cars and was frightened most of the time. But we arrived safely and enjoyed our time with the family members I hadn’t known before.

She always gave so much of herself to make me happy. This continued on through my growing years and even when I married. Doug and I decided to name our second daughter after her. Her love was showered upon me and all of my children. At Christmastime, she would bring them lovely gifts. She knew the value of good books and beautiful flowers and people. She often tended my children and gave them a love for these things. All through those years I was the recipient of her love. And the day came when I was able to have her with us and do for her and ease some of her lonely hours. I received so much more love and enrichment to my life because of her.

That, you see, is what love is. It is the investiture, the immersing of ourselves in the lives of others and watching that change us and our surroundings.

Because of her I know that love is the life-giving force that renews the spirit of men and women and brings a new life to the world, a life that brings a longing for immortality.

Elder Bruce Porter of the Seventy recounts an experience: “As a missionary in Germany nearly 25 years ago, I arrived in the city of Wuppertal as a new zone leader shortly after the missionaries who preceded me had had phenomenal success in baptizing several families and individuals. Their baptisms represented a substantial addition to that branch, which had nearly 100 members. We decided as missionaries to concentrate a great deal of effort on integrating and fellowshipping these new members so that they would remain active members of the branch for the rest of their lives. We taught them all of the new member lessons, as well as additional lessons of our own making; we enrolled them in a yearlong Gospel Essentials class taught by the missionaries; we worked with the branch leadership to ensure that they received callings and were integrated into the branch through socials and fellowshipping by members; we arranged for them to meet one another and help teach other investigators so that they would form bonds among themselves that would help them as a group remain active in the future. In short, we spent more than six months after their baptism doing what we could to ensure that their testimonies were strong and that they were integrated into the Church.
“Today, 25 years later, almost all of those families and individuals are still active and faithful. Many of their children have served missions and have been married in the temple. We now have a second and even a third generation of activity in the Church. The one couple who did go inactive had a daughter who remained active and has since been married in the temple. Although this is only one case, my experience then persuaded me that time spent by missionaries working with members to integrate new members into the Church will pay off richly in the long term” (letter to Elder Richard G. Scott).

One day Zoltán Szücs of Szeged, Hungary, surprised his kayaking coach by telling him that he wouldn’t be going to Germany for a competition.
“It was on the same day as my baptism, so I said no,” Zoltán said.
At age 17, Zoltán had won many competitions in kayaking. It’s a popular sport in Hungary, and Zoltán was good—good enough that becoming a professional was a real possibility. Beyond deciding to miss just one competition, Zoltán would soon give up kayaking entirely. He had something better to do.
Kayaking had been good for Zoltán. Over the years working with his coach, he had learned self-control, obedience, and hard work. Zoltán had also learned to avoid substances and habits that would hurt his performance. It wasn’t an easy life; it was lonely, and going pro would take up more time. Pros practice 12 hours a day and have to compete on Sunday.
“Kayaking took most of my time,” Zoltán says. “I was fanatical. Because of that, I left a lot of things out of my life.”
That’s why Zoltán decided that he couldn’t devote himself to both the gospel and kayaking. In 2004 he told his coach he wasn’t going to kayak anymore.
Earlier that year the missionaries started teaching Zoltán’s mom. He didn’t take part in the lessons. He grudgingly accepted his mom’s invitation to her baptism. But his heart was touched by what he felt once he entered the church building. Szücs agreed to meet with the missionaries, partly because he could identify with them.
“Missionaries were interesting to me because they were normal people but lived a higher standard,” he says.
Because of the higher standard that Zoltán was already living as a kayaker, he readily accepted the teachings of the gospel as valuable. He was baptized two months later.
At first he thought he could continue kayaking but not do competitions on Sundays. But because he’s the type of person who, once committed to an activity or course, wants to do well at it, he chose to give up kayaking entirely.
He tried once to kayak as a hobby after his baptism. When he did, his coach asked him to help teach others and organize trips since he wouldn’t compete. But he didn’t want to make commitments to kayaking—or any other activity—that could get in the way of his discipleship.
So Zoltán hung up his paddle and dedicated himself to Church service in a decision reminiscent of one President Howard W. Hunter (1907–95) made when he got married. President Hunter was an accomplished musician who played dozens of instruments. In the evenings he had been playing in an orchestra, but the lifestyles of those he associated with conflicted with gospel standards. So President Hunter put his instruments away and brought them out only occasionally for family sing-alongs.1
Zoltán misses kayaking, but he realized that his love for kayaking was strong enough to compete with, and possibly overcome, his love for the Lord if he stayed too close to the sport.
The same principle can apply to any activity that takes us away from who God wants us to be. For each of us it may be better to go through life without certain things—even if they are good things—rather than risk our eternal life to have them.
“The Church became my life,” Zoltán says. “Knowing that kayaking couldn’t be a living if I wanted to be active and that it would be just a hobby, it became easy to give up. Instead, I wanted to make Heavenly Father my focus.”
Zoltán began to study the gospel with the same intensity he brings to any pursuit. He set a goal to serve a mission. He wanted to stay in his country and teach others.
He served in Hungary and now works as a high school English teacher. He continues to set his priorities on the gospel. “There are things we need to give up because they get in the way of God,” he says. “It’s easy to give up the bad once we know we should. Often we don’t realize when we should give up something good for something better. We think that because it’s not bad, we can hold onto it and still follow God’s plan.” But Zoltán knows that we must give up the good if it keeps us from following God’s plan for us.

All through school, I had had the same group of friends. But one year, a new student started at our school, and unlike me, he was popular. But I still somehow became his friend. In the months following, we became closer until we were best friends.
I was in the habit of going to seminary immediately after school. One day he asked me where I went every day. I decided to explain all about the Church, but from the look on his face, I realized this wasn’t the best way to talk to him. So I stopped talking so insistently.
A few months later the elders were coming over to my house at the same time some friends and I were meeting there to do homework. This friend was one of them, so I asked the elders to talk a little about the Church. He was interested in what they were saying. He realized that some things in my life were different from what he and other friends were doing, and he wanted to find out why. He started coming to church, Mutual, and seminary, and he saw that all my Church friends were like me, with the same principles. Soon he decided to be baptized.
At his baptism, the bishop asked him to bear his testimony. He stood and said: “I am here today thanks to a friend and how different he was from other people. I hope that everyone will see the differences in all of you too.”

I used to farm with my dad. I didn’t always enjoy it, but when lunchtime came we’d sit in the shade of the tall poplar trees, eat our lunch, and talk. My dad didn’t use this as a golden teaching moment to lay down the law and straighten out his daughter. We just talked—about anything and everything.
This was the time I could ask questions. I felt so safe I could even ask questions that might provoke him. I remember asking him, “Why did you embarrass me in front of my friends last week when I had stayed out too late and you came and got me?”
His answer leads to another aspect of love. He wasn’t being arbitrary. There were certain standards of behavior I was expected to live. He said, “Having you out late worried me. Above all, I want you safe.” I realized his love for me was stronger than his desire for sleep or the inconvenience of getting dressed and driving down the road looking for me.

Now a final example. C.O. Woody was an executive at a large power company. The company's executives asked me and some colleagues to interview employees and managers, and design a leadership program to help them improve. Everywhere I went, people's response was "Oh, C.O. helped us do that"."C.O. was the person that directed that, he will be the one to figure it out in the future." My last appointment of the day was with C.O. Woody. As I sat down and I said something like, "C.O. you are a legend around here. How do you work with these people?" C.O. was very self effacing and gave some general answers about working hard and getting other people involved. I finally pushed him a little and he said, "Well look around the office and tell me what you see." The walls were filled with pictures of his family, groups he had worked with, workers at plants he had visited. He explained, "A couple of years ago, I had a heart attack but the good Lord gave me another chance. As I was lying in the hospital recovering I decided when I came back to work I was going to treat everyone like family." We talked a bit and I think I understood what he was saying. But I finally really understood later in the lunch room. Mildred, and that is the best I can remember her name, was doing her job of cleaning tables and straightening up the area. She was looking radiant. I had seen her before so I knew a bit of her history as a single mom just trying to make it through, and I said, "Mildred, must be a good day," She said "great day, I am finally graduating." So I said "congratulations on finishing High School". And she said. "No, college". College? And then she told me how years before she was moping around the cafeteria doing her job, when C.O. asked her what was up. She explained the challenges she was facing and she reported he said something like, "Tell you what, we will support you to start taking classes at the community college. You keep going and keep your grades up and we will help you get a degree that will qualify you for a better paying job." C.O. held people to high expectations, helped them and held them accountable. Mildred was graduating and moving on. Can you think of anything Mildred would not do for C.O. Woody? Of course the answer is, Mildred would devote her full energy and creativity to helping C.O. Woody. He treated everyone that way, and they responded with high energy and high performance. The Lord's way of leading really works.

Nobody was a stick-in-the-mud when everyone got stuck in the mud at the annual Lethbridge young adult football game. Part of one of Rex Brandley’s fields on his farm in Raymond, Alberta, Canada, was flooded in anticipation of the “Mud Bowl,” and everyone wanted to play.
At the kickoff there were two opposing teams. But soon jersey colors were obliterated by a covering of goo. It was hard to tell one squad from another, let alone find the ball or execute a play!
Some of the players did score a first down or two, but whether or not there were any touchdowns is still being debated. A few hats and boots remain buried in the quagmire.
Following the battle, irrigation canals and the main irrigation ditch in the center of the town served temporarily as wash sites for the grungy gridders, who then topped off the afternoon with a barbecue.

Eliza learned as a child to respect the Bible. She attended a Baptist Sunday School, where she often memorized chapters from the New Testament. She remembered, “My heart yearned for the gifts and manifestations of which those ancient Apostles testified.” She desired to “see, and listen to a true Prophet of God, through whom He communicated His will to the children of men.” But her teachers taught her that those days and blessings had passed.2

Oliver and Rosetta Snow, Eliza’s parents, taught their children to listen to people with different religious beliefs and choose for themselves. Eliza soon realized that with so many diverse religious practices, she searched for something firmly founded in Bible teachings. In the fall of 1830, when Eliza was 26, the Snows heard about Joseph Smith, “a Prophet to whom the Lord was speaking from the heavens”—the very model that she had been looking for since her childhood. As much as she wanted the news to be legitimate, she wrote, “I considered it a hoax—too good to be true.” Eliza continued to study the ancient prophets in order to learn their patterns.3

In the winter of 1831–32, Joseph Smith came to the Snow home. As he sat by the fire, Eliza “scrutinized his face as closely as I could without attracting his attention, and decided that his was an honest face.” Even so, her investigative nature led her to observe what happened over time. She attended a local meeting where Joseph and two Book of Mormon witnesses spoke, and she was deeply impressed. Her mother and sister, Rosetta and Leonora, believed and were baptized that spring.4 Still Eliza waited, studying the Book of Mormon, watching and listening.

In the spring of 1835, Rosetta and Leonora went to Kirtland, Ohio, where other Latter-day Saints lived. They returned with stories about the Church, the priesthood, and great spiritual manifestations. Five years had passed since the time Eliza first heard about Joseph Smith. The accounts of her mother and sister brought Eliza an undeniable witness of the truth. She had waited until she knew it was true. “My heart was now fixed,” she wrote. She decided to be baptized.5

Even then, baptism was a challenge for Eliza, a humble woman who followed social rules and propriety. She prayed for someone to come baptize her, but no one came. When she heard of a meeting of the Saints about two miles from home, she asked her father’s permission to go and be baptized—as an adult, she respected her father, and he readily consented. At the meeting, there was no discussion about baptism, but Eliza gained courage to stand up and request the privilege. Before she could arise, a dark fear came over her. She pushed through the fear and was baptized in a nearby stream on April 5, 1835. “From that day to this I have not doubted the truth of the work,” she wrote.

That night, Eliza reflected on her baptism: “I felt an indescribable, tangible sensation, … commencing at my head and enveloping my person and passing off at my feet, producing inexpressible happiness.” She saw in a vision a candle with a long, bright flame, and a voice told her, “The lamp of intelligence shall be lighted over your path.” She was satisfied.6

Eliza moved to Kirtland to join the Saints for a time and taught school. When she returned to her family’s home at the end of the term, her old friends and neighbors asked about the “strange people” with whom she associated. “I was exceedingly happy in testifying of what I had both seen and heard,” she later wrote. Eliza determined to change her life and live permanently with the Latter-day Saints. Her conversion deepened even further in 1837 when she lived with Joseph Smith and his family. Again, she observed. “I had ample opportunity of judging his daily walk and conversation,” she recalled. She saw much more than the miraculous events of the Kirtland Temple dedication—she saw the life and relationships of a prophet of God. “The more I made his acquaintance, the more cause I found to appreciate him in his divine calling.”7

Thirty-seven years after her baptism, with a heart firmly fixed through persecutions in Missouri and the eventual assassination of Joseph Smith, Eliza remained a committed Latter-day Saint. On June 22, 1872, she shared about her conversion with a group of women in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA: “When I heard it announced that the Lord had spoken from heaven and a record had been brought forth I was deeply interested. I prayed unto the Lord to let me know if the work were true, covenanting with him if he did so that I would ever praise his name.” After her baptism, she said, she attended Church meetings. “We were called upon to speak; I dared not refuse for I had promised God I would ever praise his name in the congregation of the Saints.”8 Her continual conversion required her continued witness.

Eliza bore her testimony over a thousand times as she traveled throughout Utah Territory to teach the Relief Society, young women, and Primary children about the Restoration. Her heart was fixed, and she invited others to experience their own conversions and become firm and steadfast.

Nicole’s mother encourages Nicole’s journal-writing habit. When Sister Igor was young, she wrote in a journal too. Unfortunately, she lost it when she moved to Santiago and got married.
“I was really sad to lose it,” Sister Igor says. “That was my life, everything that had happened to me. It was a personal treasure beyond price.”
So when Nicole’s older brother, Boris, was born, Sister Igor started over. She wrote about what she was thinking and feeling as first Boris and then Nicole were born.
Now Boris and Nicole enjoy reading about their mom. “It helps me understand what my mom has gone through,” Nicole says. She hopes her own children will learn about her the same way.

Finally, I’ll always remember a man I met when I was driving a delivery van through downtown Seattle. I was earning money for my mission. I met a wide variety of people, but Larry was the most interesting by far. I had just run some boxes into a store and was hustling back to my van when he came up alongside and extended his hand.
“Hi, my name is Larry. Will you be my friend?”
“You bet,” I agreed with a smile. It was plain that Larry was mentally disabled. I’m sure some thought it was funny he would walk up to a total stranger asking for friendship. But I believe Larry was only innocently asking out loud the same question so many ask silently, Will you be my friend? If we would all just say, “Sure,” wouldn’t it be cool? Cool-aid.
We all know how it feels to be thirsty, so thirsty we can hardly stand it. I’m convinced that’s how many in the world feel right now, thirsty for attention, approval, acceptance, and love. We can do something about it! By giving cool-aid—the coolest aid of real selfless service—to those around us, we can quench the thirst that our brothers and sisters have and leave joy that will last longer than the purple mustaches on my upper lip ever did.

One of these challenges came when I chose to pay an honest tithe when I was away from home. Every year my dad would take us to tithing settlement. He would help us calculate our tithing, and we would pay it. All during the time I was growing up, I developed this habit of paying tithing. If you had asked me at the time, I would have told you that I had a testimony of tithing.

When I finished high school, I had been admitted to Harvard University, so I worked that summer and earned money to pay for the expenses that weren’t covered by my scholarship. By the end of the first semester, I had foolishly spent all the money that I had earned to get me through the whole year.

At the start of the second semester, I got a job. I couldn’t work very much because I was a full-time student, but I worked a few hours a week and received my first paycheck. Of course, it wasn’t very much, but it was all I had to get by until the next paycheck.

Then the question arose in my mind, “What about tithing?” I had been in the habit of paying my tithing but had always had sufficient money to pay the tithing. Here I was faced with the challenge: do I pay my tithing when I don’t know if I’ve got enough money to get through the next two weeks?

As I thought about it, I remembered the scripture in Malachi 3:10, where the Lord promises, “Prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”

So I realized that was my answer. I would leave it up to the Lord. I paid my tithing, not sure if I had enough money to carry me until the next paycheck. And a miracle happened. I made it through that two weeks.

It came to me so powerfully that the Lord keeps His word. The Lord came through the way He promised. Just as the scriptures say, if we pay our tithing, He will bless us. That same miracle happened every two weeks throughout the rest of the semester. Before, I had thought I had a testimony of tithing, but now, because of my correct decision, I had a powerful testimony of tithing. The Lord always does what He says, so my testimony continued to grow step-by-step.

When I began high school, I participated on my school’s athletic team. Running was my passion—I had been a runner since I was nine years old—and I worked hard at it. I attended training sessions at least three times a week in the evenings. I even had opportunities to represent my city at Costa Rica’s national games.
Often, the practices went until late at night. That made getting up early for seminary, which started at 5:00 a.m., extra challenging, but I continued to make that sacrifice.
Halfway through high school, however, when I was 16 years old, I realized that I wasn’t putting my heart into seminary. I went, but I wasn’t as well rested, prepared, or attentive as I could have been. I also knew that being stretched thin by my very late and very early hours was affecting my physical performance, which wasn’t fair to my team.
Even though I had always thrived on participating in many activities and had been able to juggle church, academics, and sports up to that point, I no longer felt a sense of balance. I began to wonder if I needed to give something up. Running was a wholesome, healthy activity, one I was good at. It was an opportunity for me to use my talents and to establish patterns of discipline. And at my school, being an athlete was prestigious. I had good friends on my team, and if I left it, I’d miss those associations.
On the other hand, I had a goal of graduating from seminary, and I knew if I stayed on the team, I wouldn’t be able to do that.
As I weighed my decision, I thought about what would most benefit all aspects of my life, both during my high school years and for the rest of my life. I thought about my long-term goals. I realized that my attitude about seminary had implications for the rest of my life—for eternity, really. I realized what I needed to do.
At the end of my second year of high school, I told my coach and teammates that I wouldn’t be participating on the team anymore. They were shocked. No one understood why I would give up my passion for running competitively—something I had done for nearly half of my life—“to go to church at 5:00 a.m.” I explained to them that it was my responsibility and my priority and that in choosing these right things, I would be a happier person. Fortunately, even though they didn’t understand my decision, most of my peers respected it.
During the next two years of school, I had more time to read the scriptures and to ponder them. Because I wasn’t so rushed all the time, I found myself receiving inspiration more frequently. Those things gave my life balance, peace, and happiness that I had never experienced before.
At the end of high school, I graduated from seminary. That achievement meant a great deal to me. I gained a love of the scriptures and the stories and lessons they contain, I learned discipline in getting up early, and I was blessed with good friendships strengthened by that early-morning hour we spent together each day. But most important, I learned through seminary about making sure that I always put the Lord first.
That pattern continues to bless my life now as I study at a university. My classes are more difficult than they were in high school. I have more responsibilities at church. But because I established a habit of putting the Lord first, it has been easy to continue to set correct priorities, and I hope I can continue that pattern for the rest of my life.

When Jerry's sweet wife Delores passed away, we all worried about Jerry because we knew how much he loved her and how well she cared for him. In another sacred moment he described for me his overwhelming loneliness and depression in the weeks following Delores' funeral. As he put it to me, "I did not want to live. Nothing about me or my family seemed worthwhile, without Delores. I asked my bishop to please give me a blessing. During that blessing, Delores appeared to me, dressed in wonderful white. But her appearance was not as she looked when she passed away, frail, wrinkled, and gray. She appeared to me in the prime of her life, a brunette with the sweetest smile of love. My loneliness and depression were swept away."
Jerry Loveland later met and married a wonderful woman named Edna who cared for him until he passed away.

Annelise Scott had just moved into her new ward in Irvine, California. So had several other new senior widows. Nobody really knew each other. Then two sisters in the ward planned a luncheon for others, and from that day on, these sisters have been friends, sitting together in Church meetings, celebrating birthdays, carpooling to activities, and helping each other as needed.
“We watch for new senior sisters when they first come to Relief Society, then get their names and phone numbers so we can keep them active and enjoying our little group,” says Sister Scott.