Gospel Story Finder

On page 40, Elder Moisés Villanueva describes how he, as a 10-year-old convert to the Church, gained a testimony of tithing through watching his mother faithfully pay tithing. He then explains the importance of acknowledging the subtle blessings—both temporal and spiritual—that come as a result of paying tithing. As a family, you could read parts of his article and discuss the subtle blessings that come from paying tithing.

With hesitation they came
These would-be pioneers,
Aprons, bonnets, hats, suspenders,
Unfamiliar garb they donned
On that defining day.
Prayerfully patched together
Into families unfamiliar,
A new quiltwork of companionship,
Soon to be stitched together
In wondrous ways.
Now, a new perspective—
In the yoke, on the ropes,
Shoulders to the wheel.
Pioneer stories springing into reality
With each staggering step.
Challenged, confidence waning,
They groaned up steep slopes.
Questioning, How much longer?
This sweat, this dust,
These blistered feet.
High atop a mountain vale,
Where song and dance,
Laughter and quiet moments
Further honed and softened hearts,
And witnesses were borne.
Too soon came the last sunrise,
Charged with anticipation
And newfound strength.
Closer … closer … there!
The last cresting hill.
But somehow the journey’s end
Seemed to them familiar,
For their hearts arrived in Zion
Long before their handcarts.

I want to begin with a brief test and a self-evaluation. The following episode was presented in a general conference address in 1966 by President N. Eldon Tanner (1898–1982), a counselor in the First Presidency of the Church.
““A young man came to me not long ago and said, ‘I made an agreement with a man that requires me to make certain payments each year. I am in debt, and I can’t make those payments, for if I do, it is going to cause me to lose my home. What shall I do?’
“I looked at him and said, ‘Keep your agreement.’
“‘Even if it costs me my home?’
“I said, ‘I am not talking about your home. I am talking about your agreement; and I think your wife would rather have a husband who would keep his word, meet his obligations, keep his pledges or his covenants, and have to rent a home than to have a home with a husband who will not keep his covenants and his pledge.’”1

I have had the gospel in my home from birth, and thus my parents have always taken care to teach me good principles. In spite of that, I changed a lot during my junior high school years. I decided to take the way that seemed more fun and apparently easier too. I let myself be guided by my friends’ counsel to dress inappropriately, to go to undesirable parties, and even to use bad language once in a while.
At the same time, I started to have problems with my parents and I stopped reading the scriptures. Being popular was most important to me, and going to parties and dressing like my friends seemed good. But in reality I felt empty inside and more alone than ever. I had no peace of mind because I always had something to hide from my parents for fear of being scolded. Something always told me that I was doing wrong, but I still chose to follow my friends and be popular. It was not until the last part of ninth grade that I started feeling that everything that was said in church was especially prepared for me. During a sacrament meeting, the talks that were given were so much what I needed that I turned to my mother and asked her, “Mom, what have you told them about me?” She said that she hadn’t said anything to the speakers about me. It was then that I decided to change, and it was then that my friends turned their backs on me. I felt really bad. But I accepted that my parents had always been right. I came to realize that they were my only true friends.
It was not easy to make the change. I needed to be humble to recognize that I had been wrong. I really wanted to be different, so I began to work with Personal Progress. I started to feel better about myself little by little, experience by experience. Sometimes it was very hard to complete the value experiences, such as reading the scriptures. But even when I would just make the effort, I would feel better.
The first time I finished reading the Book of Mormon, I could feel that everything my parents had taught me about the Church was true, and I could draw nearer to Christ. When I began working on the Laurel projects, I started feeling satisfied with myself, and I began to feel the peace that I had been looking for through service to others in my Good Works projects.
I now have my medallion, and I think it was worth the effort. To me, it is more than a necklace. It really means my feeling of love to my Heavenly Father. It represents my personal worthiness, and it motivates me to go on doing what Christ wants me to do.
I am so grateful for the opportunity we have been given to choose between right and wrong, and I am also grateful for the opportunity to learn from our mistakes. The joy I now feel when I feel the love of Christ through my service to others and the knowledge of my worth has no comparison with my feelings of being popular in school. By now probably nobody in my junior high school remembers me, but I feel happy to know that Christ knows me and knows of my love for Him.
I know we can overcome the challenges that come our way because we are daughters of a Heavenly Father who loves us, and He will not let us be tempted more than we can resist. I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet, just like President Hinckley is a prophet. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

The news spread quickly. At Hyrum’s home on Water Street, not far from Joseph and Emma’s home, George D. Grant knocked at the door and delivered the sad tale to the family.

“The news flew like wild-fire through the house, and the anguish and sorrow … can be easier felt than described. But that will never be forgotten by those who were called to go through it,” recalled Mary Ann Smith, one of Hyrum’s children.5

“We have a tradition of having a dance party and playing hide-and-seek after home evening each week. This helps our children engage in the lesson because they know they will get to have fun afterward.” —Shannon T.

The family then began preparing for additional covenants and ordinances in the temple. “We knew that baptism was just the first step,” says Sister Calderón. “We set a goal to continue to progress, including going to the temple and being sealed as a family so that we can someday live with our Heavenly Father.”
In preparation for their temple sealing, the whole family spent time praying and fasting. Jared also participated several times in performing baptisms for the dead. Then on May 10, 2008, the family was sealed in the San José Costa Rica Temple.
Jared remembers what he felt that day. “When I entered the sealing room, the Spirit was so powerful. It felt so right to be there with my family,” he says.
His brother, James, recalls having to wait for a long time before he could enter the sealing room, but, he says, it was worth it: “I felt a lot of joy and happiness. I continue to feel happy knowing that I can be with my family forever.”

One of my fondest childhood memories is shivering in our car with the windows opened a bit as we waited and listened for our neighbor. My family had spent hours painting cute figures on giant barrels, and we had secretly delivered them to a young boy with muscular dystrophy. He would use them to do special exercises to build his muscles. We heard squeals of laughter and joy as he discovered the surprise on his front porch. I was excited as well to be a little girl who had helped make that boy so happy. I had discovered the joy of service.

I was seven years old, and I didn’t know how to swim, so my mom enrolled me in afternoon swimming lessons with my friend Angie. At the end of each lesson, our teacher would take us out into the center of the pool to practice our strokes. We were always safe in the middle since our teacher supported us under our stomachs and we wore “bubbles” on our backs.
One day Angie and I didn’t have our bubbles on, so we clung to the side of the pool. Angie decided she wanted to try to swim across the corner to the adjacent wall, about four feet (1.2 m) away. I was hesitant at first, but then she dared me. So even though I was scared, I took in as much air as I could and plunged under the water, hoping to reach the other side. Instead of floating with ease as I had done before with my back bubble, I began to sink. I was in a state of panic. I knew I was going to drown. Then I remembered what my teacher had told me a few weeks earlier: “If you lose control while swimming, just stretch one of your arms straight up out of the water, and someone will come help you.”
With this thought in mind, I stretched my arm in the direction I thought was up. I didn’t feel any air. I stretched my arm in every direction, never finding the top. Just then my head bumped against the side of the pool. Angie was there waiting for me. I guess she hadn’t realized I was “drowning.”

When I began teaching at the University of Kansas City in 1940, I spent a lot of time on the trains, going back and forth between Kansas City and Chicago. My salary just about kept the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe rolling. I would often find myself in the club car with the world’s traveling salesmen. They meet there. They would begin a ritual—a very tight ritual. It always seemed to have the same opening phrase. They would say, “What are you in?”
One man would say he was in glue, and they would talk about that for a while. Another man would say he was in brass doorknobs, and they would talk about brass doorknobs for a while.
Then they would turn to me and say, “What are you in?”
At first I used to invent things. I had a feeling that it would take too much explanation to tell a club car full of salesmen that I was a poet.
But one day, for the fun of it, when the question came to me, “What are you in?” I said, “I am a poet.”
I found that it took very little explanation. As a matter of fact, there was a long silence, in which people detached and regrouped. After a suitable interval, I went into the main body of the car and sat down. Soon a salesman slid into the seat next to mine and began talking in a low voice. He had something that he wanted to say to me that he could not say to other salesmen. This experience was repeated many times. Often the salesman would have a poem in his wallet. I think I have seen some of the world’s most miserable and most uninspired poems out of the wallets of salesmen.
Always they would make the terrifying mistake that all bad, over-enthusiastic poets make—the assumption that if the subject is large enough, it does not matter whether or not the poem is good. If you can just take the largest possible subject and begin the poem “Truth is … , “Beauty is … ,” “Life is … ,” you have got to end up beautiful. I am afraid such a poem is more likely to be a disaster. The size of the poem is not determined by the size of the subject. It is determined by the size of the mind that is trying to enclose it. The value of a science is not decided by the size of the subject it studies. Otherwise microbiologists would be insignificant people and only geologists would really count. They deal with mountains and whole continents.

Years ago, my wife, Ruth; our daughter, Ashley; and I joined other tourists on a kayaking excursion in the state of Hawaii in the United States. A kayak is a low-to-the-water, canoe-like boat in which the rower sits facing forward and uses a double-bladed paddle to pull front to back on one side and then on the other. The plan was to row to two small islands off the coast of Oahu and back again. I was confident because, as a young man, I had paddled kayaks across mountain lakes. Hubris never bodes well, does it?
Our guide gave us instructions and showed us the ocean kayaks we would use. They differed from the ones I had previously paddled. I was supposed to sit on top of the kayak, instead of down inside it. When I got onto the kayak, my center of gravity was higher than I was accustomed to, and I was less stable in the water.
As we started out, I rowed faster than Ruth and Ashley. After a while, I was far ahead of them. Though proud of my heroic pace, I stopped paddling and waited for them to catch up. A large wave—about 13 centimeters—hit the side of my kayak and flipped me over into the water. By the time I had turned the kayak upright and struggled to get back on top, Ruth and Ashley had passed me by, but I was too winded to resume paddling. Before I could catch my breath, another wave, this one truly enormous—at least 20 centimeters—hit my kayak and flipped me over again. By the time I managed to right the kayak, I was so out of breath I feared I would not be able to climb on top.
Seeing my situation, the guide rowed over and steadied my kayak, making it easier for me to climb on top. When he saw that I was still too breathless to row on my own, he hitched a towrope to my kayak and began paddling, pulling me along with him. Soon I caught my breath and began paddling adequately on my own. He let go of the rope, and I reached the first island without further assistance. Upon arrival, I flopped down on the sand, exhausted.
After the group had rested, the guide quietly said to me, “Mr. Renlund, if you just keep paddling, maintaining your momentum, I think you’re going to be fine.” I followed his advice as we paddled to the second island and then back to our starting point. Twice the guide rowed by and told me I was doing great. Even larger waves hit my kayak from the side, but I was not flipped over.
Consider how the expedition guide helped me after I flipped over in the kayak. He did not shout from afar an unhelpful question such as, “Mr. Renlund, what are you doing in the water?” He did not paddle up and chide me, saying, “Mr. Renlund, you would not be in this situation if you were more physically fit.” He did not start towing my kayak while I was just trying to get on top of it. And he did not correct me in front of the group. Instead, he gave me the help I needed at the time I needed it. He gave me advice when I was receptive. And he went out of his way to encourage me.

I have permission to tell you the story of a young man who grew up in our community. He was not a member of the Church. He and his parents were active in another faith.

He recalls that when he was growing up, some of his LDS associates belittled him, made him feel out of place, and poked fun at him.

He came to literally hate this Church and its people. He saw no good in any of them.

Then his father lost his employment and had to move. In the new location, at the age of 17, he was able to enroll in college. There, for the first time in his life, he felt the warmth of friends, one of whom, named Richard, asked him to join a club of which he was president. He writes: “For the first time in my life someone wanted me around. I didn’t know how to react, but thankfully I joined. … It was a feeling that I loved, the feeling of having a friend. I had prayed for one my whole life. And now after 17 years of waiting, God answered that prayer.”

At the age of 19 he found himself as a tent partner with Richard during their summer employment. He noticed Richard reading a book every night. He asked what he was reading. He was told that he was reading the Book of Mormon. He adds: “I quickly changed the subject and went to bed. After all, that is the book that ruined my childhood. I tried forgetting about it, but a week went by and I couldn’t sleep. Why was he reading it every night? I soon couldn’t stand the unanswered questions in my head. So one night I asked him what was so important in that book. What was in it? He handed me the book. I quickly stated that I never wanted to touch the book. I just wanted to know what was in there. He started to read where he had stopped. He read about Jesus and about an appearance in the Americas. I was shocked. I didn’t think that the Mormons believed in Jesus.”

Richard asked him to sing in a stake conference choir with him. The day came and the conference started. “Elder Gary J. Coleman from the First Quorum of the Seventy was the guest speaker. I found out during the conference that he also [was a convert]. At the end Richard proceeded to pull me by the arm up to talk to him. I finally agreed, and as I was approaching him he turned and smiled at me. I introduced myself and said that I wasn’t a member and that I had just come to sing in the choir. He smiled and said he was happy that I was there and stated that the music was great. I asked him how he knew the Church was true. He told me a short version of his testimony and asked if I had read the Book of Mormon. I said no. He promised me that the first time I read it, I would feel the Spirit.”

On a subsequent occasion this young man and his friend were traveling. Richard handed him a Book of Mormon and asked that he read it aloud. He did so, and suddenly the inspiration of the Holy Spirit touched him.

Time passed and his faith increased. He agreed to be baptized. His parents opposed him, but he went forward and was baptized a member of this Church.

His testimony continues to strengthen. Only a few weeks ago he was married to a beautiful Latter-day Saint girl for time and eternity in the Salt Lake Temple. Elder Gary J. Coleman performed his sealing.

I wanted to create this poem because I really am comforted by the knowledge I have that families are forever. On the first day of fourth grade, my grandma, who lived in my home all my life, passed away. I’m glad to know I have the opportunity to see my grandma and family again in heaven.

One Sunday evening the family’s home teachers visited. The family was struggling through unemployment at the time, and that night she had only a half cup of rice, a little bit of oil to cook it in, and two small tomatoes. But appreciative of these faithful home teachers, she asked them if they would like to stay for dinner.
“My daughter asked how I could do that,” Sister Daggi recalls. She told her daughter to set the table. Then she went into the kitchen and prayed, “Lord, Thou fed 5,000. I’m asking only for seven.”
“That rice fed seven people,” she testifies.

A spiritual highlight of Elder and Sister Kearon’s Cebu sojourn was when the couple climbed up a mountain to visit the Secuya family of Busay 2nd Ward, Cebu Stake. From their highland farm, the Secuyas traverse through rocky paths and streams just to reach public transportation that will take them to Church every Sunday.

“We were so happy to see Elder Kearon, he reminded us of Jesus Christ and His love,” said Mitzi Secuya, who with her family heartily welcomed the apostle and his wife. As the Kearons ministered to the family, son Ryle felt strengthened in his commitment to stay active: “We will continue to go to Church, for we know that the Lord loves us.”

“This is a beautiful memory we will have forever,” Elder Kearon imparted to the family at the conclusion of the visit. “You are beautiful, each of you,” Sister Kearon lovingly reassured the Secuya children, who had faced bullying for their situation.

As they’re learning how to save and speak, they’re also learning how to serve. Sister Harris can tell about the day she went visiting teaching to Sister Aidair, and there were Len and Lou. They were helping Sister Aidair fix her broken lawnmower. “It’s fun being needed,” Len says. “Monday we have a service project. We’re going to mow the lawn of an elderly couple over by the bayou.”

Looking in my bedroom mirror,
I see a playmate there.
He wears pajamas just like me
And has my color hair.
I clap my hands and show a smile,
Then get down on one knee.
I bob my head and touch my toes;
He does the same to me.
I say good-bye and walk away.
My friend is going too.
I think I know just where he went.
Don’t you?

Phoebe Carter left her home in Maine, USA, to gather with the Saints in Ohio in the 1830s. She recalled: “My friends marveled at my course, as did I, but something within impelled me on. My mother’s grief at my leaving home was almost more than I could bear; and had it not been for the spirit within I should have faltered at the last.”3

Phoebe followed the Prophet Joseph Smith and gathered with the Saints in Ohio and later in Utah, where she died a faithful Latter-day Saint and equally yoked as the wife of Church President Wilford Woodruff (1807–98).

Matthew got in the van with his family and put on his seatbelt. Today they were going to the parade!
Matthew loved parades. He was excited to see the bands marching along with their big drums and their shiny hats. Every year he tried to guess which float would win as they all rolled by, and he laughed at the clowns on their tiny bikes. He couldn’t wait to see the horses and hear the fire trucks blow their horns.
Dad parked the car, and they walked to where Grandpa and Grandma were waiting.
“Hey, buddy,” Grandpa said as he ruffled Matthew’s hair. “Ready to get some candy?”
Matthew nodded. He checked his pocket to make sure he had his plastic bag. He loved waiting on the curb and getting the candy and other things people handed out. Last year he got a whole bag full of candy and toys. He knew that Grandpa liked the candy as much as he did. He always looked through his bag afterwards to find something Grandpa liked.
“I hope I get lots of candy!” Matthew’s sister Abby yelled as she jumped up and down. “Look! It’s starting!”
Matthew quickly picked a spot on the curb. He felt his heart thud as a band began to play. Suddenly the air was filled with bubbles as a float covered with tropical fish passed by. The people walking behind it were handing out lollipops. Matthew and Abby both got one.
The next group handed out tickets to the bowling alley. Then the clowns came. Some were on stilts, one rode a unicycle, and some rode the tiny bikes Matthew liked.
The next group was dancing and handing out bright green water bottles. A water bottle like that would be perfect for soccer! Matthew and Abby both grabbed one. Then Matthew saw a little boy nearby crying because he hadn’t gotten one. Matthew looked at his bag filled with candy and toys. He looked again at the boy and then took out his water bottle and walked over to him.
“Here you go,” Matthew said, holding it out to the boy. The boy grabbed it, smiled, and wiped his eyes. The boy’s mom smiled and said thank you.
As Matthew went back to sit on the curb, he saw Grandpa wink at him. He felt good that he had shared the water bottle with the little boy, even though he could have used it for soccer. Matthew thought that sharing with the boy was what Jesus would have wanted him to do.
After the parade Grandpa asked Matthew what he liked most. Matthew thought about all the fun things in the parade. Then he thought about the boy and the water bottle. He knew he had done something even better than watching a parade and getting candy.

Because so many people constantly feel discouragement, bitterness, hatred, and grief, the happiness in their lives is slowly being destroyed. In the August New Era, Elder Boyd K. Packer wrote a hopeful message to all those who taste these feelings that come from the devil. In “The Balm of Gilead” he simply says to forget whatever caused your bad feelings, since it will only bring you sorrow, and to start anew. In the past I have felt bitterness, as many have, but I have tried to do as Elder Packer suggests, and happiness has come into my life once again. It all started with me changing my own attitude. Stay close to your Heavenly Father, and he will help you to overcome these bitter feelings.
Kellie RobertsonAmerican Fork, Utah