Gospel Story Finder

Hadley Peay is now seven years old. Hadley was born with a very serious hearing impairment requiring extensive surgery to bring even limited hearing. Her parents followed with tireless training to help her learn to speak. Hadley and her family have cheerfully adapted to the challenge of her deafness.

Once, when Hadley was four, she was standing in the checkout line at the grocery store with her mother. She looked behind her and saw a little boy sitting in a wheelchair. She noticed that the boy did not have legs.

Although Hadley had learned to speak, she had difficulty controlling the volume of her voice. In her louder voice, she asked her mother why the little boy did not have legs.

Her mother quietly and simply explained to Hadley that “Heavenly Father makes all of His children different.” “OK,” Hadley replied.

Then, unexpectedly, Hadley turned to the little boy and said, “Did you know that when Heavenly Father made me, my ears did not work? That makes me special. He made you with no legs, and that makes you special. When Jesus comes, I will be able to hear and you will get your legs. Jesus will make everything all right.”

“Except ye … become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

Hadley knew enough.

Hearing stories got me excited to serve a mission. I couldn’t wait! I wanted to serve in Mexico, just like my grandpa. But the Lord called me to Guatemala. Years later I had the opportunity to serve as a mission president. I thought, “This time I’ll go to Mexico.” But the Lord wanted me to serve in Spain. When we serve where the Lord wants us, we’re blessed. I love the people of Guatemala and Spain.

Ask for a father’s blessing. Matt had a special experience with this. Asking his dad for a blessing led him to date his now wife.

After a spiritually trying summer, Matt was eager for the fresh start that a new semester of school would bring. He asked his dad to give him a father’s blessing. In that blessing, Matt was specifically told to “listen to and counsel with” his mother. In the past, he hadn’t talked to his mom frequently while at school. That semester, however, he felt inspired to call his mom to talk about his dating life. He said that doing so helped him stay “focused on why I was dating and where I wanted my future to go.” His mom’s advice proved valuable: that semester Matt met a woman who became his wife. About this experience, he said, “I’m incredibly grateful for the worthiness and guidance of my father and the focus and direction from my mother that helped me through that time of meeting and courting my wonderful wife!”

Drusilla’s great-grandson—my father, Vance Hendricks—also was a sparrow alone. My sister, Cathy Housley, recorded this recollection:
When my 14-year-old brother Chris fell under the tires of the tractor Dad was driving, Dad had limited options. They were in the back field with no immediate way to get help. Dad directly knelt and gave Chris a priesthood blessing, commanding him to live while my dad sought help. Leaving Chris unconscious in the field, Dad ran to the nearest house to call 911. When he got back to the tractor, Chris was still breathing.
While Chris was in the ICU, we believed that he would recover because we were a family who tried to choose the right. We thought we would be blessed for that. Besides, Chris looked so big and strong lying in the bed. He was hooked up to several machines and monitors, but he was still breathing on his own.
However, after all the medical interventions and tests, a neurosurgeon reported that Chris had no brain wave activity. She urged us to accept that Chris was gone and to consider organ donation. After she left, it was silent for a minute as we sat there reeling. Then my dear, sweet, faithful mom looked up and said, “Vance, we need to release him.” Dad stood up, responding “No. I don’t accept that.” And then he walked out of the waiting room.
He was gone for several hours. He found a treadmill in Physical Therapy and ran for as long as he could stand it. Then he went somewhere and prayed. He poured out everything to the Lord. Eventually he returned to the waiting room, looked to my mom and nodded yes. He was willing to turn it over to the Lord.
We gathered around Chris’s bed. Dad knelt and offered prayer, telling Heavenly Father we wanted His will to be done. It was a beautiful prayer. In those moments it was overwhelming and hard to accept Chris’s death but we knew we were not alone.

Are these training sessions effective?
Yes, say the young men and their priesthood leaders. Randy Beddes, a priest from Lovell, Wyoming, remembers that when he was deacons quorum president, he tried to do everything himself—planning all the special activities, making all the arrangements, running the whole program. “But I’ve learned that there’s a better way to do things,” he says. Now, as the bishop’s first assistant in the priest quorum, he makes a lot of assignments to others, giving clear instructions on what is expected, and providing an opportunity for following up. “We get a lot more done” says Randy, “and a lot more priests get involved.”

Illustration by Red Hansen
While teaching and serving many wonderful people in the Texas Fort Worth Mission, I often reflected on my blessed life. I marveled particularly at seven of my experiences, which I consider to be miracles.
First, I survived my early life, which started out in the humblest of circumstances. I was born on the dirt floor of my mother’s hut in Dessie, Ethiopia. Mom was the only relative I ever knew, and she built our eight-foot (2.4 m) dome-shaped hut by herself, using sticks and mud that she covered with grass and leaves. Our community had no running water and no restroom facilities. Illness and death ran rampant in our kebele, or neighborhood. Food was very hard to find and impossible for us to purchase. My mother and I never knew a day without hunger.
When I was four, my mother became deathly ill. With her last bit of effort, we trudged to a hospital, where my beloved, weary mom died. The hospital staff saved me from life in the streets and death by starvation by arranging for me to live in an orphanage in the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital.
The second miracle came as my life changed dramatically. In this orphanage I lived in a clean building, slept in a real bed, and ate all the food I wanted. Other orphans had also experienced the loss of a loved one, and they taught me how to deal with the loss of my mother. In the evenings we gathered to sing songs in English and pray in Amharic, our mother tongue. We prayed for each other and asked God to bless us to be adopted into “nice, kind, loving homes.” Both the music and the prayers impacted my life in a huge way. I never quit praying.
Third, I was introduced to the missionaries and the Church when I was eight. I was invited to see the dedication of the first LDS Church building in Ethiopia on Sunday, November 30, 2003. At the dedication I felt the powerful influence of the Holy Spirit, and the missionaries in attendance radiated joy, happiness, and that same powerful spirit. I remember thinking that I wanted to be just like them. But I had no idea how I could ever reach this goal.
The fourth miracle came soon after. A family in the United States adopted me. My new father picked me up from the orphanage and took me home. We started the process of becoming acquainted, and I began to settle into my new environment.
Numerous challenges surfaced immediately upon my arrival. Everywhere I went people laughed at my English. My limited education caused problems in school. I prayed for help, and then I worked harder and smarter to close the knowledge gap, especially with English. Once again Heavenly Father answered my prayers. Two years later I proudly skipped a grade.
Then my home life fell apart. Prayers to the Lord, high personal goals, and a deep desire to succeed carried me through that extremely tough time. Finally, with a social worker’s help, my father and I agreed to terminate the adoption. This was a time for prayer, patience, faith, and help from Heavenly Father.
Now 15 years old, I went to live with a foster family for about a year. That was when the fifth miracle came. While sleigh riding with two friends, I met an LDS family with two nice daughters. During the ride home, one of the daughters spoke up, saying, “I think the Lord wants us to adopt Ephrem Smith.” Remarkably, the other three members of the family had also received the same inspiration. The father worked with the Department of Social Services, and soon I moved to my new home. From the very beginning my amazing new father gave me agency. For example, he explained that their family goes to church on Sundays. He allowed me to choose to join them or stay home; he said that they still would love me if I chose not to attend church. I chose to attend church, and I have since made many other righteous decisions.
Miracle six came as I received a testimony of the gospel. One Sunday I sat in sacrament meeting singing “I Stand All Amazed” (Hymns, no. 193). Huge tears began running down my cheeks as I received a personal testimony that Jesus is the Christ and that the Church is His Church.
Finally, nine years later, I knew how to become like those missionaries! The missionary age was now 18, but my adoption had not yet been finalized. I waited seven long months until my adoption was completed. Finally, my missionary papers could be submitted. Four days later I received my mission call. In just one week the Lord blessed me with final adoption papers and a mission call. I treasure both papers exceedingly! They are my seventh miracle. Yes, indeed, it took many miracles along the way from that mud hut in Ethiopia to my treasured mission.

When Gina Randall joined the Church in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1969, she was recently divorced with two young children. She had no family support and no friends in the Church. Her new branch was a large one. Coming to church was a daunting experience.
“At first I was very dependent on the missionary who had introduced me to the Church, but as he neared the end of his mission, he realised I needed another friend,” she says. “He introduced me to another, older sister who had been baptised at a similar time as I was.
“We clung together like monkeys!” says Sister Randall. “Just having somebody around when everything seemed new and strange gave me a lot of comfort. She really was my lifeline.”
Now, still an active member 52 years later, “I often wonder if I would have made it if it wasn’t for her,” she says.

Carly W. from Rexburg, Idaho, is a busy helper. At home Carly helps out by taking care of her family’s cats, dogs, and chickens. Because Carly is one of the best students in her class at school, she helps other children with math and reading. In Primary Carly’s singing helps other children to feel the Spirit.
Because Carly has done such a good job helping others, some of her friends decided to help her too.
Carly was born with a disease called spina bifida. This disease makes it hard for Carly to use all of her muscles. Doing things like walking on uneven ground and climbing up stairs can be hard for her. At school, Carly wasn’t able to play on the playground because the playground equipment was hard for her to use. There were other children who also couldn’t play on the playground equipment.
“Sometimes I felt bad and frustrated at recess because I couldn’t play on the playground,” Carly says.
One of Carly’s friends, Halli Jo, and Halli Jo’s mom decided to earn money to build a playground that Carly and all the other students at the school could use.
Halli Jo, her mom, and a lot of other people worked to earn money for the new playground. It took a lot of work, but they were able to earn enough money to build a new playground that all the students could play on.
“It was a lot of hard work,” Halli Jo says. “But it never made me sad to do the work—it just made me love Carly more.”
Carly is happy to be able to play on the playground with her friends. She says, “I like walking up the ramps and going down the slides. Me and my friends have fun together.”

I was supposed to wake up, hop in the shower, get dressed, and then head to seminary. That’s how it always went, anyways.
But this morning, my routine was interrupted by my mom coming in to tell me that one of my soccer teammates had died in a car accident the night before. I was stunned. My teammate was gone?
Only a few weeks after the death of my teammate, one of my close friends took their own life.
I attended two funerals that month—my first encounters with death.
In a lot of ways, my friends’ deaths didn’t seem real, and they had a big impact on my testimony. As time went on, I found myself wondering again and again if what I had been taught all my life about resurrection and the plan of salvation was true. And although I might have tried to say the words, I wasn’t sure if I really believed that I would see my friends again someday.
But I hoped that I would.
I thought of my two encounters with death while I was studying 2 Nephi 9:21–22, which talks about the Savior, saying, “He suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children … that the resurrection might pass upon all men.”
I really wanted the plan of salvation to be real. I wanted to believe that Jesus Christ had overcome death and that because of Him we would all be resurrected. So, I acted according to that hope. I did my best to believe, even if I wasn’t completely sure.
Then came my third encounter with death.
A few years later, my family and I drove across the country to visit my grandparents. My grandpa had been battling cancer for several years, and the chemotherapy treatments were taking a significant toll on him. It was painful to watch him struggle.
At the end of our trip, we woke up early to start on the long drive home. We all hugged our grandpa goodbye, and the realization began to hit us that this would likely be our last goodbye. He asked if he could pray for us, which we gratefully accepted. Then we left.
A few weeks later, he passed away.
At his viewing, my grandmother reminded all of her children and grandchildren of how much our grandfather had loved us and how grateful she was for the plan of salvation. As I looked down at my grandfather’s body, his spirit now gone, I didn’t want this to be last time I saw him.
Suddenly, I felt that this wasn’t the end. My grandfather was dead, but he wasn’t gone. I felt the Spirit testify to me that Heavenly Father’s plan for us is real.
I felt in my heart the words of Elder Patrick Kearon of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles regarding the plan of salvation: “The Father’s design, His plan, His purpose, His intent, His wish, and His hope are all to heal you, all to give you peace, all to bring you, and those you love, home.”
Death, though painful, is part of God’s plan for us. But we can trust in the Savior, who died that we all might live again. This is the amazing promise of Easter. Knowing this doesn’t always make the pain of losing my loved ones go away. But now I have hope and peace that I, and everyone I love, will be resurrected and that if we are sealed in the temple and keep our covenants, we can live together again (see Doctrine and Covenants 88:14–17, 27–31; 132:15–21).
This Easter, learn about the truthfulness of Jesus Christ’s Atonement, the Resurrection, and everything joyful that’s encompassed in the plan of salvation. Choose to believe. Know that because of Christ’s sacrifice and perfect love for us, death is not the end.
It’s OK if all you can do now is have faith that the plan of salvation is true. As you continue to live the gospel and to hope, your hope, like mine, can also blossom into a testimony.

One sister shared that she and her husband had often attended a weekly game night with friends in her ward. After the divorce, she was saddened when the invitations to game night stopped coming because it was only couples who had attended. Another sister shared that many ward members assumed that because she was now a single mother, she wouldn’t have time to attend activities with friends like she did before; therefore, they didn’t invite her so that she wouldn’t feel sad in not being able to come. However, this simply left her feeling more isolated and alone. This sister shared that it would have felt nice to simply continue to be invited (even if she couldn’t join)—to know that others wanted her there.

An inspiring example is found in the touching production The Miracle Worker, a dramatic work derived from the autobiography of Helen Keller, who suffered an illness as an infant that left her deaf and blind.10 In their Santa-like approach to raising their daughter, Helen’s hovering parents were overprotective and overindulgent, with the counterproductive results of stunting Helen’s intellectual, spiritual, social, and emotional growth.
Conversely, Anne Sullivan, Helen’s private teacher, recognized that Helen had received too much indulgence and therefore began helping Helen confront her problems and become more self-reliant. In the end, it was Anne Sullivan, not Helen’s parents, who helped Helen live up to her true potential.

One of the best examples I have seen of a bishop who helped provide this kind of vision for his youth was Bishop Moa Mahe. He was called to be the first bishop of the San Francisco Tongan Ward. He was an immigrant from Vava‘u, Tonga. His ward was located near the San Francisco, California, airport, where he worked.
The ward had a large number of youth, most from families who had recently immigrated to the United States. Bishop Mahe not only taught them in word and by example how to be righteous disciples of Jesus Christ, but he also helped give them a vision of what they could become and helped them prepare for the temple, missions, education, and employment. He served for almost eight years, and his dreams and desires for the youth became a reality.
Nearly 90 percent of the young men in the Aaronic Priesthood quorums served missions. Fifteen young men and women were the first members of their families to attend college. He met with the principal of the local high school (not of our faith), and they forged a friendship and collaborated on how to assist each young person to achieve worthwhile goals and overcome problems. The principal told me that Bishop Mahe assisted him in working with immigrants of all faiths who were struggling. The young people knew that the bishop loved them.
Sadly, Bishop Mahe passed away while serving as bishop. I will never forget his touching and inspiring funeral. There was a huge crowd. The choir was composed of more than 35 faithful young members who had served missions or were attending college and who had been youth during his service as bishop. One speaker expressed the intense feeling of appreciation from the youth and young adults in his ward. He paid tribute to Bishop Mahe for the vision he had given them in preparing for life and righteous service. But most important, Bishop Mahe had assisted them in building faith in the Lord Jesus Christ as the foundation of their lives.

The raw wind stung my legs, and I was certain that my nose—the only part of me that was exposed—would get frostbite and fall off as I waited for the bus that would take me to church. I was in Voronezh, Russia, as an English teacher, and although I had quickly fallen in love with the country and the people, the notorious Russian winter threatened to freeze my enthusiasm.
When the old bus pulled up, I paid my four rubles and squeezed myself uncomfortably into the fur-covered mass of people. As I stood there, it became utterly apparent how far from everything familiar I was.
And yet, when I finally made it to the chapel, after trudging through more snow, I felt at home just as I did in my ward back in Canada. I could not understand more than a few words of what the speakers said in sacrament meeting, but I understood the spirit they spoke with. From my first Sunday in the Voronezh Levoberezhny Branch, the members welcomed me with warm smiles when words failed because of our language barrier. And activities with the ward members warmed my spirit even more than my Russian grandmother’s soup could warm my insides.

Maybe it was his height—six feet, five inches from his toes to the top of his flyaway hair. Perhaps it was the way he walked—a jerky, foot-flapping gait that gave him the look of a crane. Or it could have been his glasses—canning jar thick, perched halfway down his nose, held together at the bridge with (no kidding) masking tape.
And there was one thing more: the expression on his face. It’s difficult to describe, but it reminded me of a puppy begging for a pat on the head.
I’d been told there was a new boy in the ward. But when I saw Crawford amble into the chapel during sacrament meeting, my first reaction was, “He’s too big to be a teenager.” He didn’t sit next to anyone.
After the closing hymn, I walked over and extended my hand.
“Hi. I’m Jon North. And something tells me you’re a teacher, right?”
“Uh, yes. You’re quite right.”
His voice was crisp and deep. He looked surprised but pleased that someone would speak to him.
“My name is Crawford,” he said. “Crawford P. Jones. Most people mistake me for someone older because of my size. You’re very astute.”
“Thanks, Crawford. I try to be astute. Are you going to be in the ward for a while?”
“We just moved here to Oregon from Arizona. We’ll be staying some time, I think. Sorry I missed the earlier meetings. The change of time zones left me perplexed.”
“Perplexed we can deal with,” I said, wondering about his vocabulary. “Meetings start at nine, priesthood meeting first. I’m the teachers quorum adviser. I’ll come around with the president and visit you this week.”
The Jones’s small home sat by itself on a couple of acres a mile or two from town. Crawford and the quorum president, Dan Quayle, were chattering outside. I was in the kitchen, talking with Sister Jones. I found out she was a widow who had moved here to take a teaching job at the community college.
“Crawford’s a good son,” she said softly. “Kind to his sisters. A good student. The last couple of years, he’s taken on a lot of responsibility. When his father died, he started a paper route and washed cars for a dealer. He’s already looking into a part-time job at the grocery store here. The extra money helps, but I worry that he’s missing out on other things he needs. Sports. Church dances. His dad taught him a lot about photography, but he hasn’t done much lately. It would be nice if he could make some friends here …”
Her voice trailed off.
“It was his father who chose the name Crawford,” she continued. “He wanted him to have a distinctive first name because he thought Jones was so common. Sometimes it’s seemed like a big name for him, but I guess he’s growing into it.”
I could hear the back door open and the shoe-flapping sound of Crawford and Dan coming back to the living room.
“Listen,” I said before the boys could hear. “We’ll make him feel at home.”

I received a letter from a missionary in California. He said that one of the women’s clubs was putting on a luncheon at the hotel. The lady in charge had an extra plate placed at the table, and she said, “When the next soldier comes along, we will invite him to occupy this place at the table.” Well, he happened to be a Mormon boy.
When they passed the coffee around, he didn’t touch the coffee. You see how easy it would have been for the boy to say, “Oh, shucks, Mother isn’t here. Father isn’t here. My bishop isn’t here. I am the only man with all of these women. A little cup of coffee won’t hurt me.”
But he had to show forth the praises of the Lord who had called him out of darkness into the marvelous light, and he wouldn’t touch it. They offered to get him tea, and he didn’t want that. Then they wanted to know all about him. That opened the door so he could tell them about how he was raised. And then when they were through eating, they lighted their cigarettes and passed them around. Of course, the young soldier refused. Well, right there one of those women decided, “If the Mormon elders ever call at my home, I will let them in. I want to know more about a people who can raise a boy like that boy who sat at our table today.”

I think of Levi Savage, a member of the Willie handcart company. After expressing his concern that the handcart company was leaving too late in the season, Levi nonetheless supported the decision of the captain and the other Saints. He assumed leadership for 100 persons in the company, and worked tirelessly to aid them. In the difficult river crossings, he was often the first in the water and the last one out. A fellow traveler said of him: "No man worked harder than he to alleviate the suffering which he had foreseen."[4]

His military obligation fulfilled, Hal enrolled in the Harvard Graduate School of Business, where he earned a master’s degree in 1959 and a doctorate degree in 1963, both in business administration. Though he had the intellect to succeed in a career in science, Hal found that his passion lay in teaching, lifting, and strengthening others.
While attending Harvard during the summer of 1961, Hal met Kathleen Johnson, the daughter of J. Cyril and LaPrele Lindsay Johnson, of Palo Alto, California. She was attending summer school in Boston, and Hal was smitten the first time he saw her. He felt an immediate desire to do his best when he was in her presence—a feeling that has continued throughout their lives together.
They dated that summer and continued their courtship through phone calls and letters after Kathleen returned to California. They were married in July 1962 in the Logan Utah Temple by Elder Spencer W. Kimball. That same year Hal became an assistant professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Tomorrow is the one-year anniversary of the terrible events that occurred in New York, Washington, D.C., and Pennsylvania, when terrorists hijacked four airplanes in an attempt to rob America of its safety and security. On September 11, 2001, Sister Bateman and I were scheduled to give the first devotional of the school year. We awoke early to prepare for the day. During the morning we turned on the television to listen to the news. It was not long before the cameras shifted to New York and the north tower of the World Trade Center, which had just been hit. The announcer noted that an airplane had crashed into the tower, puncturing the building just below the 100th floor. They were uncertain as to whether it was an accident or a deliberate act. A short time later, while the cameras were still focused on the twin towers, another plane came into view headed for the second tower. What followed was an unbelievable sight. United Flight 175 continued its course, crashing into the south tower. At that point it was apparent that the acts were deliberate, the planes had been hijacked, hundreds of lives had been taken, and thousands were now in danger. The floors that had been hit became drenched with airplane fuel, and soon the towers were raging infernos in the upper reaches of the buildings. All of us watching feared for the lives of those who were on the upper floors. Little did we understand what was about to happen. Within an hour the blazing heat generated by the fireball melted the steel infrastructure, bringing the south tower crashing to the ground. The north tower followed 29 minutes later.

As Sister Bateman and I watched, we became concerned about the students at BYU. It did not seem appropriate to move forward with the regular devotional, but we felt a strong need to gather the BYU community together to briefly discuss the events and then counsel together regarding the challenges that lay ahead. In the special devotional one year ago, we indicated that there was no reason to fear for our lives or the lives of loved ones unless they were in the planes or at the sites of impact.

When Australian Latter-day Saints Bob Love and Maggie Henry were married in 1929, they had the ceremony performed by the local Presbyterian minister in his church. Then the bridal party traveled to the Enmore Latter-day Saint branch chapel, where Mission President Clarence H. Tingey held what was called, in the mission’s year-end report, a “confirmation service” to bless their marriage.
Brother and Sister Love did what circumstances forced many young Latter-day Saints to do. The nearest temple was almost 10,000 kilometers away in Hawaii, and the round trip passage for two was the equivalent of several years’ wages. The state government of New South Wales would not license Latter-day Saints to officiate at marriages, so the Loves and others like them had to have a civil marriage, in another church or at a government registry office. It was not until 1952 that the Loves were able to take their five children to the Salt Lake Temple to be sealed.

Thirty years ago a colleague and I were asked to read through, analyze, and look for patterns in a massive amount of anti-Mormon propaganda. It was drudgery. It was laborious. It carried a bitter and draining spirit, and consequently I had to just push my way through it to complete the assignment. After a period of addressing certain questions, my partner shook his head and indicated that the constant barrage of issue after issue was simply wearing him down, and that he wasn't sure he could stick with it. I suggested that we were almost done, that a few more hours of work would enable us to make our report. He stared at me for a moment and asked: "This isn't damaging to you, is it? I mean, you don't seem to be very upset by what we are reading." I assured my friend that there were obviously other things I would rather be doing, and that the hateful and contentious spirit did in fact weigh on me, but no, I wasn't particularly bothered by it. "Why?" he followed up. "I can't say for sure," I responded. "It's ugly but doesn't really affect my faith."