Gospel Story Finder

Merrell: Besides Indian and Three Warriors we have done Take Down and most recently Harry’s War. Would you like to hear the story connected with my doing Take Down?
Merrell: Kieth told me they probably wouldn’t use me on Take Down because the investors wanted someone with a big Hollywood name to help sell the film. My opportunity to do it began, strangely enough, when the BYU basketball team lost to the University of Utah. That night as I was trying to sleep, an arrangement of the “Cougar Fight Song” that I hadn’t heard before kept running through my mind. I finally got up, took a tape recorder, and dictated what I was hearing. A week later I orchestrated it, went to London, and at the end of the regular recording session, recorded the National Philharmonic playing my new “Cougar Fight Song.” It had a combination Star Wars-Rocky-disco sound and I loved it! I wanted it to be perfect because I planned to give it to Coach Arnold to help inspire his team to win.
Well, the day I returned to Utah I was in the studio listening to it and received a call from Kieth. He said, “Merrell, I’m totally frustrated; I’ve gone through composer after composer and no one strikes a bell. Do you have anything with a sports theme that sounds like Rocky and Star Wars combined?” I couldn’t believe it! I told him what I had and then sent him down a rough mix. After listening to it, he called in the investors and had them listen to it, and within three minutes they decided they wanted me to do the music for Take Down.
Later when Kieth talked to me, he said, “I don’t care what you do in the rest of the picture, but I want the end titles to sound like your Cougar song without the Cougar melody.” And that’s how close I came to getting the exact music he wanted before he had even asked me to submit a song. To me that was really a faith-promoting experience because I had been inspired several months earlier to be almost overwhelmed by a certain sound, write it down in the specific style Kieth wanted, record it, and have it ready the very day Kieth called.

“Last night I woke up and started to cry,” she said quietly.
“What for?”
“The problem I face is, what if your teachings are true?”
“They are.”
“Mark, you can’t be right. God would’ve told more people. How many Mormons are there?”
“Four million.”
“And those four million are right, and everybody else is wrong?”
“The priesthood has been restored.”
“I know that’s what you believe.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked her. “What’s really bothering you?”
“Okay, I’ll tell you. My mother. All last night I worried about my mother. She’s dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So am I,” she said, fighting back the tears. While she waited to gain composure, she picked up a small gold leaf from the ground and examined it.
“My mother was a good person. Dad and Mom were always dedicated Christians. I never was. When I was 14, I rebelled against them. I did everything I could to hurt them. When I was 17, I ran away from home. I wound up in California, living with a group of other girls who had also left their homes. We were pretty wild.
“One day I went with some other girls to hear an evangelist speak. We went on a lark, but as he spoke, my heart softened and all the bitterness left me. I made a promise to dedicate my whole life to Jesus. As soon as I could scrape up the money, I took a bus home.
“All the way home on the bus, I thought how happy Mom and Dad would be to see that I’d finally accepted Jesus as my Savior. When I arrived home, I found that my mother had died four weeks earlier. She never saw me as a Christian. We were never united as a family.”
She let the leaf slip from her hand and fall to the ground. “What about my mother? Is she to be condemned for never hearing about Joseph Smith?”

“During my recent meeting with some young members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a young woman asked for advice about dealing with emotional challenges while being engaged in the Lord’s work.
“I am grateful to my new friend Carol, who shared how her understanding of the Atonement of Jesus Christ has given her comfort through her anxiety.”
Video:
Carol: “I’ve experienced a lot of anxiety throughout my life. And so I feel like this has been a question that I’ve had on my mind a lot and I’ve struggled with a lot too. But these last few weeks in seminary, we’ve really been focusing on learning about the Atonement. And as I learned about Jesus Christ, and that he suffered every single thing I’ve felt, I felt so much comfort, knowing that any mental instability I may feel, for whatever reason, he’s felt that too. And I was able to find great comfort in that and just knowing that I’m not alone.”
President Oaks: “That’s a wonderful description of a part of the Atonement that many people overlook. He didn’t just suffer for our sins. He suffered for our pains, our inadequacies, including our depressions and anxieties. He’s felt it all.”

I recently learned about an experience in the life of Elder James E. Talmage that caused me to pause and consider how I love and serve those around me. As a young professor, before he became an Apostle, in the height of the deadly diphtheria epidemic of 1892, Elder Talmage discovered a family of strangers, not members of the Church, who lived near him and who were stricken by the disease. No one wanted to put themselves at risk by going inside the infected home. Elder Talmage, however, immediately proceeded to the home. He found four children: a two-and-a-half-year-old dead on the bed, a five-year-old and ten-year-old in great pain, and a weakened thirteen-year-old. The parents were suffering with grief and fatigue.

Elder Talmage dressed the dead and the living, swept the rooms, carried out the soiled clothing, and burned filthy rags covered with the disease. He worked all day and then returned the next morning. The ten-year-old died during the night. He lifted and held the five-year-old. She coughed bloody mucus all over his face and clothes. He wrote, “I could not put her from me,” and he held her until she died in his arms. He helped bury all three children and arranged for food and clean clothing for the grieving family. Upon returning home, Brother Talmage disposed of his clothes, bathed in a zinc solution, quarantined himself from his family, and suffered through a mild attack of the disease.20

Some months went by, and the family moved to a different town. The following December, Greg came into the house carrying an envelope. “We got a letter from Sister Fuhriman,” he called. He tore it open and read:
“I will miss your family this Christmas. I don’t believe I ever told you how much I enjoyed Christmas Eve in your home. I must tell you now what I did not tell you then.
“Some years before you moved into the house across the road from me, I had a dream. I could see your house, all lit up and glowing. When I awoke from that dream, I had the most wonderful, happy, peaceful feeling—something I had not experienced very often since my husband’s death.
“Months went by, and I forgot all about my dream. Then came your invitation for Christmas Eve. I had such a wonderful time sharing in your family celebration.
“After the boys walked me back home, I stood on my porch to make sure they returned home safely. Just then I noticed your house all aglow. It was the same picture I had seen in my dream years ago, and I had the very same feeling of peace. I just wanted you to know how I appreciated you.”
As Greg read Sister Fuhriman’s words, he remembered the warmth he had felt that night. He was grateful his family had shared their celebration with Sister Fuhriman, bringing her Christmas comfort and joy.

Yes, the older and more established members of the Church play a most important role in helping you, the new member, come into the kingdom and find your way. A recent convert, Alan John Nubeck, reflects on the recent conversion of his family and the role older members played.
“One of the greatest things that helped us to join The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was a meeting on a Thursday evening before our baptism. We were met by a family who they found had a lot of things in common with us. They talked about our pending baptism and explained things to us.
“When we went to our baptism, they greeted us at the door and said they were going to attend our baptism. It was quite an assurance for me to enter the waters of baptism and look up and see faces of friends.
“After joining the Church, they helped us in church meetings by sitting beside us with other families, and the spirit we felt from them was tremendous. They also helped to explain the various doctrines of the Church and helped us with our scripture studies. They fellowshipped us on weekdays and weekends and especially in family home evenings and helped us to design a special family home evening for our family. After fast and testimony meetings at church, we would attend a meeting at their home in which they invited other members of the Church to meet us. Even now they still remain our companions and still explain things we don’t understand.
“I know through this fellowshipping that this is the true Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

“I want you to knock all the cement off these steel posts,” the boss said as he handed me the sledgehammer and stood back to watch me begin. Anxious to impress him with my eagerness for the task, I planted my feet in a wide stance, raised the sledgehammer high above my head, and brought it down hard on the barrel-sized keg of cement caked on the first leg of the extracted guardrail.

Six … seven … eight solid follow-up strokes to the same spot, but all I could feel was the stunning reverberation up the handle of the sledgehammer. Not a single chip of the hard cement seemed to yield under the blows. After resting the hammer head on the ground for a moment and rubbing my right shoulder, again I raised the hammer high above my head and repeated the effort, but with no better result.

I felt a little embarrassed as the boss watched a minute longer. Then, starting to walk toward the tool shop, he said, “I’ll get you something that may help.”

I took a firmer grasp on the handle, holding it a little lower this time to get a better weight advantage from the heavy steel head. Several more strokes, and now I could feel myself becoming angry. How could I strike any harder? Why didn’t the cement break?

“I hope he doesn’t get back before I’ve shown some kind of progress,” I said to myself, glancing toward the tool shop.

When I had told the boss on Monday morning that I had quit school to work for a few months so I could go on a mission, I had hoped he would be kind of proud of me. Instead he had said, “Why do you want to waste your time like that?” Ever since then he had seemed bent on going out of his way to make snide comments about the Church and other crude remarks that, I suspected, were designed to shock me. But he was the boss and the one who would let me stay or let me go.

I looked again at the long I-beam rail with 13 steel legs extending from it like a giant comb with most of its teeth missing. It had long ago served as a bumper guard, preventing cars in the parking lot from hitting the adjacent building. It had been installed by digging 13 large holes in the ground in a straight line, spaced at eight-foot intervals. A steel post was cemented into each hole, and the connecting bumper rail welded to each post. Recently the entire rail had been removed by having two large “hysters” extract the whole thing in one piece, and it was lying in the driveway with each post encased in a barrel-sized cement block.

As I heard boots scuff the loose gravel on the asphalt pavement leading from the tool shop, I let loose a wild flurry of blows. I was glad that a few beads of sweat had formed on my forehead. “Here, try this,” the boss said as he handed me a heavier sledgehammer. That wasn’t quite the kind of help I had in mind.

I smiled as I traded him the smaller hammer, but I could tell that he sensed it wasn’t a completely honest smile. He watched me for a few minutes more, and then without further comment, turned away to supervise the crew working on the remodeling project in the steel fabrication plant.

“The only difference between the hammers is that this one is heavier and harder to lift,” I grumbled silently as the steel head collided with the stone-hard cement. Finally one small chunk broke off. After several more strokes my arms started to ache, but the cement still remained intact.

At this rate I knew it would take me three days to complete the job. I also knew that if I didn’t show substantial progress by noon, I’d be out of a job and back standing in the labor lines at the Employment Security Office taking any kind of work available. Three days of that had made me especially anxious to keep this job.

Besides, it was 1954, and thousands of striking workers with families to feed were looking for short-term, full-time employment. How was a 20-year-old youth going to compete with them for the few jobs available?

It took only a few more hard but unsuccessful strokes to persuade me that I had reached my limit and that it was time for me to treat the problem as one needing more strength and wisdom than I possessed.

Resting the heavy hammer on the ground and trying to compose my anger and frustration, I felt the need and desire to discuss the problem with the Lord. Without either kneeling or closing my eyes, I started praying aloud to the Lord and explaining the task I faced. In a conversational but sincere way I reminded him that I wasn’t asking for the money so I could buy a yellow convertible. He had called me on a mission, and I knew he wanted me to go. This job had already been an answer to my prayers, but I needed to keep it. I didn’t expect him to send a host of angels from heaven with sledgehammers, but I knew he could help me.

Never in my life has a prayer been answered more immediately or clearly. Suddenly my mind was filled with a thought so lucid and strong that my heart started pounding. It was a simple solution, as I later considered it. To brighter or more experienced minds it might have occurred earlier, but to me it came as a direct answer to my prayer.

The compelling instruction said to me, “Instead of striking the cement, strike the steel.”

Still not fathoming exactly why, I raised the hammer and brought it crashing down five or six times on the steel post right next to the cement. As a large section of the cement cracked into big chunks and fell off, I realized that the blows to the steel had started a series of strong vibrations that were transmitted all along the steel shaft.

I quickly forgot the weight of the hammer. With new energy I struck the steel again and again, then moved on to the next post, amazed at the magnification of my efforts as the steel vibrated and the cement cracked.

Less than two hours later I had removed the cement from all 13 posts and stacked the large chunks in a pile. With the sledgehammer on my shoulder and a prayer of gratitude in my heart, I went to find the boss.

“I’ll need some help moving the railing out of the driveway,” I said, trying to conceal the excitement I felt inside. Thinking I was giving up on the project, he motioned me to follow him to the parking lot.

As we rounded the corner of the building and he saw the railing and the pile of cement, he stopped quite suddenly. His eyes blinked and opened wide. His chin started to drop a bit. For a full minute he stood silently, looking first at the railing, then at the cement. After a moment more he turned, motioned me to follow him again, and said, “Come on, I’ll give you another job.”

Nothing more was said about the incident, but the following morning when I arrived for work, he simply said, “Lloyd, you’re welcome to stay on as long as you like.”

I worked there for nearly three months before entering the mission home. He then let me come back to work again for another ten days until I departed with my group for the mission field. Never after that memorable morning did he, in my presence, make a disparaging remark about the Church or my plans to serve a mission.

Sister Linda K. Burton told the story of a stake Relief Society president who, working with others, collected quilts for people in need during the 1990s. “She and her daughter drove a truck filled with those quilts from London to Kosovo. On her journey home she received an unmistakable spiritual impression that sank deep into her heart. The impression was this: ‘What you have done is a very good thing. Now go home, walk across the street, and serve your neighbor!’”3

About a hundred years ago, Sarah Young Vance qualified as a midwife. Before she began serving the women of Arizona, a priesthood leader blessed her that she would “always do only what was right and what was best for the welfare of her patients.” Over a period of 45 years, Sarah delivered approximately 1,500 babies without the loss of a single mother or child. “Whenever I came up against a difficult problem,” she recalled, “something always seemed to inspire me and somehow I would know what was the right thing to do.”3

After moving to Nauvoo, Illinois, Joseph and Emma Smith built the Red Brick Store. It served as Joseph’s office and as a business to support his family.
I’ll take 20 pounds of flour, Emma.
Do you need anything else?
James had recently moved from England to Nauvoo with his sister and her husband, Henry. James was not a member of the Church.
We’ve searched for work all day, Henry. I don’t think we’re going to find anything.
Let’s ask the Prophet for help.
James had never met Joseph Smith or been near him before. He felt an overwhelming spirit just by looking at him.
He is truly a prophet of the Most High God.
Brethren, how can I help you today?
Mr. Smith, have you any employment?
Can you make a ditch?
We’ll do our best.
Joseph took the men a little way from the store and stretched out a measuring tape.
Can you make a ditch three feet wide and two and a half feet deep along this line?
When they finished the ditch, they called Joseph out to inspect it.
I could not have done better myself. Come with me.
Joseph gave the men two of his largest and best pieces of meat and two sacks of flour.
This is too much, Joseph.
We’ll do more work for it.
If you are satisfied, boys, I am.
Because of this encounter with the Prophet’s kindness and because of other experiences in which he felt Joseph’s power from God, James learned the gospel and was baptized and confirmed later that year.

As walls in Europe break down, two LDS girls are doing their best to extend international understanding. Samantha Broadribb of the Norwich Ward, Norwich England Stake, and Geertje Bauerfeind, of the Leipzig Second Ward, Leipzig Germany Stake, have started their own exchange program.
Samantha, a 16-year-old studying German, decided to contact a fellow seminary student in what was then the German Democratic republic. Geertje invited Samantha to stay with her for several weeks to get a taste of life in East Germany. Then Geertje visited Samantha and her family in England for ten days. Geertje loved London’s lights at night.

In 1950, Betty met her husband, Bill, who had migrated from Belfast, Northern Ireland to also find work at the shipyard. They married a year later and had three boys and one girl, but sadly, a road accident would take their second eldest son, Donal, at the age of 21. Betty now has 11 grandchildren and 26 great grandchildren and says, “Every one of them is lovely.”
The passing of her son Donal and, more recently, her husband Bill have made Betty more grateful and aware of the blessing it is to know that God’s plan of happiness reunites families in the eternities.
She loves the gospel truth that families can be together forever. “It’s a great motivator to keep us on the straight and narrow path so that we can be reunited in the next life.”

Is it true that “with God nothing shall be impossible”? (Luke 1:37). José Javier Alarcón, 16, of Maracaibo, has tested this scriptural promise.
“When I was eight or nine years old, my parents divorced. Later a friend invited me to church, and eventually I wanted to be baptized. But my mother, who had been baptized but hadn’t been active for many years, wouldn’t let me. When I was 12, she finally allowed me to be baptized. As I grew in the gospel, I started to pray that my mom would come back to the Church. A couple of years later, she did!”
José Javier’s mother, Miriam, admits that she had been apart from the Church for eight years and “didn’t ever intend to come back. But when my son began praying with great faith for me … something started to happen inside me. I began to feel a strong desire to pray and read the scriptures. One night the Lord changed my heart, and from that night I changed completely. So I owe it to my son. I thank the Father for giving me such a wonderful son!”
“It’s a gift from God,” says José Javier. “I had to do part of it. But it was actually God who did all of these things.”
Now José Javier, his mother, and his younger brother, Jesús David, 10, have visited the temple. José Javier has been baptized for the dead, and their mother has received her endowment.

When Brigham was a youngster, all his friends wore hats, whether they were working, playing, fishing, or going to church. Brigham also wanted a hat, but he knew that his family had no money for one.
So Brigham learned how to braid straw and make his own hats! He wore his homemade hats during the summer when it was hot.
When it got colder, he wore a warmer hat that his sisters made for him. They called it a “Jo Jackson cap.”

Years ago President Monson attended a stake conference in Star Valley, Wyoming, USA, with the assignment to reorganize the stake presidency. But he did more than fulfill that duty. He touched the lives of all who attended with a simple gesture of love as he released the stake president, E. Francis Winters, who had served for 23 years.
The day of the stake conference, the members filled the building. It seemed as if each one was saying “a silent thank-you to this noble leader,” who obviously had done his duty with whole-souled devotion. As President Monson stood to speak, he stated how long President Winters had presided in the stake and had been “a perpetual pillar of strength to everyone in the valley.” Then he was prompted to do something he has not done before or since. He asked everyone who had been touched by President Winters’s life to stand. The outcome was electrifying. Every person in the audience rose to his or her feet.
President Monson told the congregation, many of whose eyes were filled with tears, “This vast throng reflects not only individual feelings but also the gratitude of God for a life well lived.”10

While living and working in Alaska a number of years ago, I had occasion to go on a fishing trip with a group of young men that included one of my sons. The other adult leaders and I knew that the area we would be camping in was bear country, so prior to the trip, we gathered the boys together to discuss certain safety measures.
We talked about four basic rules to remember when fishing in bear country: First, don’t do things that would invite a bear into the camp. For example, don’t store food out in the open that would attract the bears. Second, keep the camp clean. Take care of all garbage. If you catch and clean fish, get rid of the entrails and slime. Third, if a bear does come, know how to defend yourself. Drop down, be still, and play dead. Fourth, if someone gets hurt or is attacked by a bear, know how to get help. Signal to others that you are in trouble, and keep a good orientation of your surroundings so that you know the fastest way to go for assistance.
I am confident that all would have gone well on that trip had we kept all those rules. But we didn’t! On our last day we cleaned fish in the center of the camp and didn’t properly dispose of the remains. That night a Kodiak bear wandered into camp. We had just settled inside our tents, when we heard its panting. We literally froze in fear. We couldn’t talk.
Luckily for us, the bear got what it was after and nothing more. It found and ate some of the fish we had cleaned, and it ran off with two buckets, which were filled with the day’s catch. But it left us alone and didn’t do more harm.

A year and 10 months after my baptism, I received my first subscription to the Liahona (English). I read almost all its contents and realized the joy it brings. The magazine lifts me and gives me encouragement and ideas about how to deal with my problems. It increases my testimony of the truthfulness of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And it draws me near to Heavenly Father and His Son.
I am the only member of the Church in my family. Now I’m sharing the Liahona with my relatives and with Church members who don’t yet have a subscription. I just can’t keep the truthfulness and joy of the gospel inside.
Filipina Munsayal, Baguio Pacdal Ward, Baguio Philippines Stake

While attending a boarding school, I lived in a hostel with other students. I tried my best to live the principles of the gospel by praying and studying the scriptures often.
One day a classmate noticed me studying the Book of Mormon on my bed. She began to angrily list all the ways she thought that my church was false. She then told everyone else in the hostel about my “strange” beliefs. Some classmates began to mock me and my religion; others just avoided me. I finally hid my Book of Mormon under a box of my clothes and studied only the Bible so my classmates would stop taunting me.
I went on studying the Bible until I came across Romans 1:16, which proclaims: “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” I realized that by hiding the Book of Mormon, I was showing my classmates that I was ashamed of my beliefs. I retrieved my Book of Mormon and asked Heavenly Father for forgiveness. Then I went to my peers and bore my testimony of the restored gospel. Most of them stopped insulting me and became my friends again.
I know that God understands the trials we pass through. When we stand up for our beliefs and show that we are “not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,” He will provide us with His power, protection, and direction.
Pamela O., Abuja, Nigeria

The Gordon-Smith family’s cosmopolitan story begins more than twenty years ago in Prague, Czechoslovakia, where eighteen-year-old university student Rostya saw little hope for a future in her native country. Her parents were divorced. Her mother had escaped to Austria, and her father was in prison. Upon his release, “I told him I couldn’t live in Czechoslovakia any more,” she says. “I had seen a glimpse of freedom.” That “glimpse of freedom” had come during a student demonstration, when she and others of her generation had determined to live the ideals of liberty and equality, in spite of the opposition they faced.
Rostya obtained a visa that would allow her to leave for England, ostensibly to study English. “It was a sad and lonely time for me,” she recalls. “I arrived in London unable to speak English, with one suitcase and five American dollars.” Before leaving Czechoslovakia, she had arranged for a job as a maid with an English family in London. But after a year with the family, Rostya felt she wanted something more out of life.
With the encouragement of friends, she applied for admission to the University of London. “To pay for my studies, I sold newspapers at a railroad station from 5:00 to 10:00 A.M., attended classes in the afternoon, worked again from 6:00 to 11:00 P.M., and then returned home to my attic room to study and sleep.”
Two years later, she met Simon, also a student. A week after they met, he proposed marriage to her. At first, Rostya was hesitant. “I told him that I wanted to have a career and that I was not interested in marriage or children. But he persisted.” They were married eighteen months later. Both graduated the same year, Simon in civil engineering and Rostya in Eastern European studies. Simon’s first job was in Scotland.
Two years later, Simon came home from work and asked Rostya if she would like to move to Brazil on a company assignment. “When?” she asked.
“Tomorrow,” he replied. They were soon in Santos, Brazil, where Simon began work on an oil pipeline along the coast. They knew they had opened a new phase in their life. But the real change was yet to come.
The young couple soon joined a club for expatriates, where Rostya was attracted to a group of women that seemed enthusiastic and open. When Rostya introduced herself, one of the women said, “‘Gordon-Smith’ sounds English enough, but ‘Rostya’ certainly doesn’t.” “That’s because I’m Czech,” Rostya replied. To Rostya’s surprise, the women started speaking in Czech. Rostya had just met Zaza, a native Czech raised in Brazil, married to an American, Don Clark.
The Clarks and the Gordon-Smiths soon became friends, attending movies together, playing tennis, and just visiting. One day, two Latter-day Saint missionaries called at the Clark home while Rostya was there. “I did not know they were missionaries at that time,” Rostya says. “They were just two young men with short haircuts, dressed in shirts and ties. I asked them who they worked for, because I presumed any foreigner was working for a company. They gave me a very vague answer: they were working for a church, they said, and they were visiting people and reading scriptures with them in their homes. I thought it sounded very strange at the time.”
Don and Zaza Clark, who were members of the Church, began to talk to the Gordon-Smiths about the gospel. Soon, the Clarks invited their friends to attend a Church meeting with them. It was a fast and testimony meeting. “It was a shocker for me,” Rostya says. “All I could see was that everybody wept: men, women, and children. I was very, very embarrassed, and my husband was, too. When Don Clark asked me what I thought about the meeting, I looked at him and said, ‘I think it’s mass hysteria.’”
A short time later, Don and Zaza invited Simon and Rostya to an area conference in São Paulo, where President Spencer W. Kimball announced the building of the temple in Brazil. Rostya was impressed by the affection the people showed for the prophet. Following the conference, the Gordon-Smiths agreed to take the missionary discussions.
Nothing much happened until the lesson on repentance. “I was good at justifying any of my actions,” Rostya says, “but somehow the process of repentance seemed logical to me.” She found herself thinking about repentance, even writing letters of reconciliation. “But when the missionaries asked me to pray about the principle of repentance, I said, ‘How can I pray if I don’t believe in the existence of God?’ ‘How will you know if anyone lives on the tenth floor,’ they asked me, ‘if you don’t ring the bell? Ring the bell and see if anyone answers.’
“I was thinking about what they said while I was doing the dishes one day. I decided to follow their suggestion. I knelt down and said, ‘Heavenly Father,’ and a wave of warmth enveloped me. I started again, ‘Heavenly Father,’ and the warmth intensified. I felt enveloped in love and protection for the first time in many years. I asked all the questions: ‘Is this the true church?’ ‘Is Joseph Smith a prophet?’ ‘Is the Book of Mormon true?’ ‘Do you love me?’ My answers came in the affirmative by the power of the Spirit.
“I telephoned my friend Zaza Clark. ‘I’ve got it! I’ve got it!’ I cried. ‘What have you got?’ she asked in alarm. ‘A testimony!’ I exclaimed.”
Rostya and Simon were scheduled to be baptized after a stake conference. During the conference, Elder James E. Faust of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles called on members of the congregation to bear their testimonies. He motioned for Rostya to come to the podium. With Don Clark translating into Portuguese, she bore her testimony in English. When she finished, tears were running down her cheeks. “At the end, when I said, ‘Amen,’ Don Clark turned to me and smilingly said, ‘I don’t understand. What is all this mass hysteria about?’”
Before they left Brazil, the Gordon-Smiths introduced their friends Richard and Sally Hardwick to the Church. When Richard sustained a serious injury that required surgery, the Gordon-Smiths accompanied Sally to the hospital. Rostya said, “Simon, I wish you would give Richard a blessing.” Sally asked, “What is a blessing?” The blessing was given and fulfilled. The Hardwicks joined the Church.
From Brazil, the Gordon-Smiths moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, where Simon worked on another pipeline project. When construction ended in 1985, the way opened up for Simon to move his family to Hong Kong and work for the Church. Simon supervised the construction of meetinghouses for the Asia Area—Hong Kong, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, and Malaysia. He also provided management support for Japan and Korea.
During this time, political changes in Czechoslovakia made it possible for Rostya to return home for the first time in twenty-two years. “I cannot describe my feelings,” she says. “I know that the new wave of freedom and enlightenment will bring the gospel into the lives of the people and then they will achieve real freedom.”
As for the four boys, they enjoy traveling and have learned to adjust well. Rostya calls them “citizens of the world.” “We found they are learning tolerance and acceptance of other people, cultures, and beliefs,” she says. David sings and plays piano. He loves soccer and swimming. He wants to be a lawyer or businessman. He bears his testimony of the gospel almost every testimony meeting. George also sings and plays piano. He is a gymnast. He wants to be a doctor and serve a mission in Czechoslovakia. He gained a testimony of the gospel for himself by praying after reading from the Book of Mormon. Richard draws and excels in mathematics. He also plays piano and is a gymnast. He wants to be an architect. Henry tries to emulate whichever older brother he is with.
Rostya says that their many experiences in all parts of the world have helped her family understand better who they are. “I am raising my sons with the idea that we are all equal to each other,” she says. “It does not matter what sex or what nationality you are. I firmly believe that. I am teaching them that the world is a very small place, and that with love and with the gospel, we can conquer all the evil.”

When she first heard the restored gospel in Chester County, Pennsylvania, where she was born on July 29, 1831, Mary Jane Dilworth knew it to be true. Her family and many of their friends and neighbors also believed the teachings of the elders. All were baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
After the Prophet Joseph Smith was killed, the Dilworths traveled to Illinois to join the Saints preparing to leave Nauvoo and journey west. When the Dilworths arrived, they found that many Church members had already been forced to leave the city. Helped by her three married sisters and their husbands, Mary Jane and her family soon set out across Iowa for Council Bluffs (Winter Quarters) on the Missouri River.
At first, the younger children enjoyed running and playing alongside the wagons as they traveled through the tall grasses, but when the weather changed and they had to stay in their wagons, boredom set in. Fourteen-year-old Mary Jane decided to entertain them by pretending to be their school teacher. She sang with them, told them stories, and taught them spelling and arithmetic. The time seemed to fly. Part of every day from then on was spent “playing school.”
After they arrived at Council Bluffs, Mary Jane found herself appointed nursemaid to about a dozen young children. She did the same thing that had worked so well on the trail. She began amusing them with rhymes and pictures (drawing with charcoal on the tailgates of wagons) to teach them their ABCs. She sang songs, told stories, and played games.
One day Brigham Young paused to listen. He was impressed with her manner and with the attention she received from the children in her care. Months later, when he had led the first pioneer company to the valley and was returning to Winter Quarters for another group, he passed the company Mary Jane was traveling west in. After again observing her teaching the children, he said, “Sister Dilworth, … I have a special mission for you. As soon as you reach the city, I want you to start a school for the younger children. Let any who wish to, attend, and encourage all to do so. And God bless you.”
Two weeks and three days after arriving in Salt Lake Valley, on October 19, 1847, Mary Jane Dilworth, then sixteen years old, welcomed children to the first school in the area that would later be Utah.