Gospel Story Finder

Like many college freshmen away from home for the first time, I gained 20 pounds my first year at Dixie College in St. George, Utah. While my gym teachers affectionately called it the “Freshman 20,” my brothers and I just called it fat.
As spring approached I became determined that I would somehow make time to include daily exercise. I really love to run, and I decided this would be the way for me to get back down to my normal weight. I plotted my running course very carefully. It was a beautiful one-mile route which included the block around the St. George Temple.
My only obstacle was getting out of bed. Morning after morning I would just turn off the alarm, roll over, and go back to sleep. One morning, however, I felt unusually alert and awake as I turned off the alarm. I decided this would be the day I would begin my running program. I quickly dressed, stretched, and walked outside, only to find that a light fog had settled in the valley. It was still fairly dark, and I began to feel discouraged.
As I ran I could sometimes hear other joggers’ footsteps coming from the other direction, but I could not see them until they were right in front of me.
I expected to see the temple soon with its beautiful whiteness illuminated by lights, but block after block I couldn’t see the temple. I found myself wondering why I couldn’t see the temple and many questions entered my mind. “Am I on the right route?”
Finally, though, I could see a faint glow as soft as candlelight in the distance. I came upon the west side of the temple. I can’t express the excitement I felt in my heart as I circled the temple, rejoicing in its beauty, marveling that I had not been able to see it just seconds before.
After my experience that foggy morning, I knew without a doubt that just as the temple was still there, though I couldn’t see it, so is eternal life and exaltation. Though some of our long-range goals are not tangible, they can be reached if we will just keep going in the right direction, despite the clouds of doubt.

A couple of weeks ago, I met a stake Young Women president in California who told me that her 81-year-old mother had recently been called to be a Mia Maid adviser. I was so intrigued I gave her mother a call. When Sister Val Baker’s bishop asked to meet with her, she was looking forward to being called as a librarian or ward historian. When he asked her to serve as a Mia Maid adviser to the Young Women, her reaction was, “Are you sure?”
Her bishop solemnly replied, “Sister Baker, make no mistake; this call is from the Lord.”
She said she had no other answer to that except, “Of course.”
I love the inspiration this bishop felt that the four Mia Maids in his ward have much to learn from the wisdom, experience, and lifelong example of this mature sister. And guess whom Sister Baker will go to when she needs help setting up her Facebook page?

Ironically, one of the most painful arguments James and I ever had occurred during companionship council. The conflict quickly and unexpectedly escalated past the point of rational conversation, and we were both hurt in the process. But that heartbreaking conflict that began in companionship council was also resolved in companionship council. We knew we would have another chance the next week and the next.
So after a week of pondering and cooling off, we tried again, and we eventually worked through our differences. I felt keenly the “personal peace and a burst of spiritual momentum” promised to us when we resolve conflicts in the Savior’s way. Every conflict we resolve with creativity and love will propel us forward and invite further influence from the Holy Ghost in our relationships.

A few years ago I read an article in the Friend called “Primary Pianists” (April 2010). It was about some children my age learning to play the piano so they could play during their Primary sacrament meeting program. I said to myself, “I can do that!” I started playing prelude music for Primary, and by the end of the year, I was able to play a song during the Primary program! I really love using my talent to serve the Lord.

In elementary school, I always heard about the “popular” kids. Being popular wasn’t something you did, it was who you were—and by the beginning of my first year in middle school, I was at the top of the middle school popularity chain. I hung out with the popular kids in the popular part of the hallway, had the same popular brand clothes, and most importantly, ate lunch with them at the exclusive Popular Table in the cafeteria.
The Popular Table had the perfect location, right by the lunch line but far away from the teachers. Even better, it was the only table where boys and girls sat together. I felt so cool as I sat with them, and we talked about our TV shows and our clothes.
But one thing was just a little off—these popular kids weren’t really that nice. When I was with them I felt popular, but I didn’t feel happy. Sometimes we all gossiped or made fun of others. There was a lot of swearing and talking about things I knew were not appropriate, and I didn’t feel like they cared about me. My “friends” rarely did anything really nice for me, and eventually I began to feel like a doormat.
“You should try to make some new friends,” my older sister said. “By the time those kids get to high school, they’ll probably be drinking and maybe even doing drugs. That’s what happened to a lot the popular kids from my middle school.”
I was shocked. “These are my friends,” I thought, “and they’re not going to do anything that would bring me down. Besides, even if they aren’t that nice, at least they still let me hang out with them.”
One day, as I was walking to my lunch table, I saw Cindy, a girl from church who was in the grade above me. She sat on the complete opposite side of the cafeteria.
“Hey there!” Cindy called to me. “Do you want to sit with me and my friends?”
“Ah … no thanks,” I said, “I have my own lunch table.”
But one day, at the Popular Table, one of the girls was rude to me. She hurt my feelings, and I was tired of feeling like my friends just tolerated me. But where else could I go?
Then I remembered Cindy’s offer.
“All right,” I thought. “I’m going to sit with Cindy. But just today.”
I picked up my lunch tray and tried to hold back the tears as I walked away from the best table in the cafeteria.
Cindy saw me, smiled, and said, “Hey, Meredith! Want to sit with us?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “Sure,” I said and sat down at her table.
Cindy and her friends welcomed me to their table and were really nice. It was a completely different feeling from sitting with the popular kids. I was surprised. Not only were these girls nicer, but we also had similar standards, and that made it easier to go through lunch without having to listen to swearing or crude stories.
I decided to eat with them the next day, and the day after that, until eating with Cindy and her friends became routine. I was still nice to the popular kids, and we got along fine in class, but I stopped hanging out with them in the hallways.
One day, at the end of the year, Cindy and her friends had a field trip and were gone during lunch. I walked over to the popular side of the cafeteria and sat with my old friends again. During lunch, there was all the old swearing, telling crude jokes, and making fun of people, but now they were also talking about drugs and immoral activities. I couldn’t believe how much they had changed over the course of the year, and I was so grateful I had moved to the other side of the cafeteria when I did.
My sister was right; their standards were different from mine, and it would have become more difficult to follow the counsel of the prophets and stay close to the Lord if they had been my only friends. That year I made friends who were not of my faith but who shared a lot of the same standards and made it easy for me to practice my beliefs. They stayed my friends all the way through high school.
I’m grateful for my friend Cindy, who invited me sit with her, and to the Lord for giving me courage to change lunch tables. It seemed like such a big deal, but having friends with different standards was an even bigger deal.
The Lord blessed me to find friends who were fun, encouraging, and shared my standards. Trading being “popular” for being happy was definitely worth it.

After the operation to fix my tongue so I’d be able to talk, Mama and I went across the street to buy some candy. The doctor had given me a nickel for being so brave. Imagine a whole nickel’s worth of candy! I could get the biggest stick of peppermint in the store. I wouldn’t even have to suck it to make it last a long time. There would be enough for me to chew.
I should have sucked it. That newly loosened tongue got between my teeth like it never had been free to do before, and I chewed it along with the peppermint until it was bleeding and sore. Oh, how it hurt! I learned to close my mouth very carefully after that.
Gradually the soreness healed enough so I could start eating again. But it was many months before I learned how to make my tongue behave. As for talking, that was going to require a great deal of practice. The words still did not come out crisp and clear. My mumbled efforts were laughed at and I decided I would rather practice in private. But there is no place for privacy in a covered wagon, especially our wagon, for it was the social center for all the children of the camp.
Our twelve-wagon train set out from Salt Lake City for Harmony, New Mexico, the day after I had my tongue cut. All the families gathered together in a big circle for prayer before we left. Then we sang as we loaded up: “Come, come ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear; But with joy wend your way …”
With joy we wended our way, south and east to a land that held the promise of a good new life for us. The Indian summer days were beautiful and crisp enough in the morning to make us anxious to start moving—golden and warm during the day, but not too hot.
Most of all, I remember the singing in the daytime and the dancing at night. From the place where we slept under the wagon, we could watch the grown-ups whirl in a fast polka or line up for the Virginia reel while Brother Lenstrom played his fiddle.
At the last minute before we left Salt Lake City I had grabbed my jump rope from the nail behind the door. Caroline forgot hers so I shared mine with her, and before long most of the other children wanted a turn too. As soon as the wagon stopped for evening, the girls came running to our place shouting, “My turn with the jump rope, Dora!” If the girl jumped past 21 without missing, we began to call out: “Mabel, Mabel set the table, And don’t forget the red-hot-pepper.”
At this signal the rope started whirring at double time. No one could last forever on red hot pepper. Should the lineup for the jump rope seem too long, those at the end would scratch a hopscotch in the dirt, number the squares, select their markers, and begin to play.
By this time the boys would be starting their third or fourth game of marbles. Each one carried his favorite taw for shooting in one pocket and in the other a handful of aggies that he didn’t mind losing in a game of keeps.
I played with the boys more than the girls because I didn’t need to talk with Ed around.
“Let’s break the record,” he’d shout, and they’d race off to the tailgate of our wagon to begin jumping. A line was marked where the jumper’s feet landed, and each succeeding boy tried to go past the farthest mark.
They couldn’t play break the record if Mama were baking though. She threatened to skin them alive if they caused her cake to fall or disturbed the light bread she made every few days. She had to be careful to keep the yeast going by saving enough of the start in a jar each time she baked and adding potato water and a little sugar. She covered the bottle with a cloth and wedged it in a tight spot by her seat so she could watch it as we rode along.
Mama mixed and kneaded the dough early in the morning before we started our day’s travel, punched it down two or three times along the way, and at night baked a big dripper pan full of biscuits and six loaves of bread. The smell of light bread cooking beats any smell in the world, and a thick slice or a biscuit became both plate and meal when served with a fried egg, a slice of meat, or a chunk of cheese. Our two cows walked along behind the wagon and provided us with milk.
When we could find one, we set up camp next to a stream. One time when we did, Ed and I took off with the fishing pole to look for a deep hole in the nearly dry creek. We found a beautiful spot out of sight of camp but close enough that we could still hear the cries of Annie-I-over. There was a strict rule that no one got so far away that he couldn’t see or hear the camp.
When we got off alone together like this Ed tried to show me how to talk, and I learned to say a few new words. “Look at that frog,” he shouted and bounded across the mossy stones to grab it.
“Frog,” I said. “Frog.”
“What a beauty! Look how big he is. I wonder how far he can jump.”
We stayed until nearly dark testing his ability. By the time we heard Papa coming to get us, the frog’s record was six feet, measured with Ed’s feet.
“Papa, look at my pet,” Ed called as he came closer. “Can I keep him? Can I?”
“That’s a fine frog all right,” Papa said. “But you’d better leave him here. He’d only die if we took him with us.”
“I can take him in a bucket of water. He won’t die.”
“A bucket of water is not the same as a stream. This is his home.”
“Please, Papa.”
“No, Ed. Now put him down, and I’ll tell you a story on the way back.”
“What about?” Ed asked.
“About a frog.”
“A true story?”
“Absolutely.”
Papa’s stories were always worth whatever we had to give up to hear them. Ed put his pet down carefully in a sheltered spot by the stream and took hold of Papa’s other hand. Then the three of us began to walk toward camp.
“What’s the story?” Ed asked.
“How butter was discovered.”
“You said it was about a frog.”
“So it is. You see, a long time ago, a frog jumped into a bowl of cream that was left by a dairymaid to keep cool at the edge of a stream. All night long he paddled around trying to get out, and when the girl came the next morning to get the cream, it had turned to butter.”
“Was the frog still alive?”
“I don’t remember that, but since there was no cream to spread on the bread, the dairymaid used the butter. She was afraid she’d be scolded for being careless enough to leave the lid off the cream, but everyone said the new spread was better. ‘Betty’s better spread’ they called it and wanted her to make more.”
When we got back to the wagon Mama had a good hot supper ready. Afterward we had a campfire program and evening prayer. Then the children were put to bed, and soon the fiddle began its tune and the grown-ups were moving their feet in time to the music. We happily watched them from the place where we slept beneath the wagon.
The next morning was washday, which meant the clothes were put into a half-full water barrel with a bar of homemade lye soap and jostled clean as we rode along. When we stopped, they’d be rinsed, wrung out, and hung on ropes stretched between trees. It wouldn’t take long to dry them if there were a little breeze.
Washdays were always planned between two stops where there was plenty of water so we wouldn’t run short. And since it was an extra busy day for Mama we had to help more than usual. Before camp broke up she assigned the chores.
“Caroline, you take care of the chickens,” she said. “Make sure they get fed and watered and don’t let any of them get lost when you turn them out to run.
“Dora, I’ll need you to watch Frank and Georgie while I do the washing. And Ed, you can churn the butter.”
Just then I saw the look come into Ed’s eyes that meant he had an idea, and I knew what it was because I had it too. Although he didn’t need to, he jerked his head at me in a way that said come on. Grabbing a bar of soap and a towel, we ran off in the direction of the stream.
“Where are you two going?” Mama called, and Ed shouted, “To wash our hands.”
“You told a lie,” I accused.
“No, I didn’t. We’ll wash our hands.”
The frog hadn’t got warmed up enough to move around yet so he was still where we had left him.
Ed started to lather him with the soap, and he slipped away. He picked up the slick frog again and said, “Have to get him clean enough.”
After he’d washed and dried the frog, he put him inside his shirt. We stayed by the stream cutting willows until the camp was ready to leave and then ran and jumped in the back of the wagon.
Mama was riding up front with Papa, holding Frank on her lap, and Georgie was asleep in his wash-basket bed. Caroline was walking with her friends.
Ed plopped the frog into the butter churn, and we settled into the back of the wagon for a leisurely ride. We reached over the tailgate, dragging our willows in the dust to make patterned trails behind us.
Several times we peeked into the churn where the frog was still swimming around, but there was no sign of butter. Ed started to work on teaching me some new words, and we forgot about everything else.
At lunchtime Mama asked, “Did the butter come yet?”
“Not yet,” Ed said.
“Well, it will pretty soon,” she encouraged. “Even the bouncing wagon helps it along.”
Then Papa told her the frog story. “Now don’t go giving these children any crazy ideas. It would be just like Ed and Dora to try that out.” She looked at us. “AND DON’T YOU DARE!” she warned.
We were glad she didn’t check out the butter churn before the wagons started up again. We decided that as soon as it was safe, we’d get the frog out of the cream and churn the way we were supposed to. When we lifted the lid, there sat the frog on an island of butter it had made. We laughed and laughed, and Ed put the frog inside his shirt to keep him safe until later. He wasn’t going to turn him loose here where there was no water.
As soon as we stopped, we took off for the stream to release the frog, and no one but us ever did know how the butter was churned that day.

My great-aunt Ada never married. Perhaps she believed in the philosophy: “When fretted by this single life, which seems to be my lot, I think of all the many men whose wife I’m glad I’m not.” In any event, she was one of the first female medical doctors in the state of Utah. When I was a young boy, my brothers and I slept out in the enclosed back porch of our small home. One day I was jumping on the bed, trying to see how high I could go. I jumped too close to the wall and tore part of my face on a nail that was sticking out. I need some excuse for the way I look! Aunt Ada was called to come and sew up the wound. At other times, when we didn’t feel well, she fed us castor oil and milk of magnesia. She came with mustard plasters and burned our chests when we had colds. Today when I have aches and pains, which is becoming more frequent as I get older, I wish Aunt Ada were here to keep me healthy. Every time I look in the mirror and see the scar—a permanent record of my encounter with the nail—a great love for Aunt Ada swells in my consciousness. She filled a precious, loving role in my life.

As a youngster of eighteen, a pretty young model found her dreams shattered by an automobile accident that confined her to a wheelchair with partially paralyzed legs. Because of the accident, she learned to play the piano.
Because of what the accident had done to her budding career, she learned to develop a sense of humor and to find that there is a funny viewpoint to almost any subject. And, in time, her legs regained their strength, and she became an actress gifted with a sense of humor that made her one of the outstanding comediennes of our day. You have seen her in motion pictures but particularly on television, and you have heard her on the radio, and you know that Lucille Ball was not stopped by adversity. On the contrary, it was the plus sign that made her grow in stature.

I had joined with a few other brothers in my ward to help a sister move. But as we arrived at her apartment, a van that had been parked improperly prevented us from accessing her place with our van.
I called the phone number on the side of the van to ask that someone come and move the van. A man answered and promised he would come soon.
After 15 minutes, I called again, but he didn’t answer. Finally, after one more call, he appeared with two children. He was angry and said something that got under my skin. I tried to forget about it as we proceeded with the move.
That evening I thought about the experience. I prayed that Heavenly Father would help me forget my feelings and forgive the man. He answered my prayer.
A little while later, however, I was reading a local newspaper and noticed an article about this man. It included his picture. My negative feelings toward him returned. So, I again went through the same process. I asked the Lord that this insignificant matter not bother me any longer and that He help me forgive the man. A good feeling came.
It wasn’t long before I happened to meet this same man in a store. My bad feelings returned yet again. I was amazed. I asked the Lord why I wasn’t able to get over this experience. A few days later, He taught me a lesson.
I was pulling away from the grounds of the Helsinki Finland Temple when I noticed this same man working in the temple gardens. I couldn’t believe my eyes. My mind opened and I understood that he, like me, was serving the Lord and that he, like me, has frustrating days when things don’t work out. I was then able to see this man as my brother. With new eyes, I felt respect and love toward him. After that, all the earlier feelings left, never to return.
When we see others as the Lord sees us, we can follow His commandment to forgive completely (see Matthew 6:14–15; Doctrine and Covenants 64:9–10). This experience was a memorable, tender mercy of the Lord, which I still ponder in my heart.

“We should be home tomorrow night at seven.” Mom’s voice on the phone sounded comforting, but Desiree was still worried.
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes,” Mom replied. “We shouldn’t have any trouble.”
Desiree shuddered at the word trouble. Ever since Mom and Dad had gone to Illinois, Desiree had been afraid that something bad might happen to them. Now they were coming home, but she still felt afraid.
After hanging up the phone, she tried to concentrate on helping Grandma give her younger brothers and sister a bath. When you’re the oldest child, you have to be a good helper, even if you’re only 11. Sometimes Desiree wished she could be the youngest child in her family and have everyone take care of her, but she knew that Mom and Dad were depending on her to help.
The next day was Sunday. Even though Desiree was tired, she got up early to help her brothers and sister get ready for church. When her brothers made a game of running away from her instead of getting dressed, she missed her mom. When her baby sister threw her breakfast cereal on the floor, Desiree missed Mom even more.
After church, Desiree tried to read her scriptures, but she was too worried to pay attention. She stopped reading to pray that Mom and Dad would come home safely. As she said “amen,” she had a strong feeling that she should keep praying. She wondered why she felt this. Wasn’t one prayer enough? She kept praying, knowing that she was doing the right thing. For some reason, Mom and Dad needed the extra prayers.
At seven o’clock, Mom and Dad still hadn’t come home. Desiree waited anxiously as an hour went by, then two.
Then the phone rang. Desiree ran to answer it, but Grandma got it first. Desiree could tell it was Mom and Dad. Finally Grandma said, “OK, she’s right here,” and handed the phone to Desiree.
“Hello,” she said nervously.
“Hi, sweetheart.”
Hearing Mom’s voice made Desiree miss her even more. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Oh boy, did we ever have a scary trip!” Mom exclaimed. “We were caught in a terrible snowstorm in Colorado. The winding mountain roads were packed with ice and snow. Cars were slipping and sliding all over the road. There were many accidents. Dad and I worried that we wouldn’t make it home safely.”
“Oh no!” Desiree gasped.
“But while I was praying for our safety, the Holy Ghost whispered to me that you were praying for us, too,” Mom said.
Desiree’s eyes grew wide. “That’s right, Mom! I was worried about you, and I prayed. And then I had a feeling that I should keep praying.”
“I’m so thankful you did,” Mom told her. “I know we made it out safely because of those prayers.”
“When will you be home?”
Mom sighed. “I’m sorry, but we traveled so slowly through that snowy mess that we won’t be home until tomorrow morning. We don’t want to rush. We just want to get home safely.”
“Yes,” Desiree agreed. “Take your time.” As she hung up the phone, a warm feeling of peace came over her. She knew that Mom and Dad would come home safely. As she hurried to her room to say a prayer of thanks, she was glad she had obeyed and kept praying.

The many Beehive and Mia Maid girls in this audience remind me of this little anecdote written by a sister who was preparing for a Young Women activity. She said: “My 5-year-old daughter asked me how many ‘Honeyhives’ I had. After a little discussion, I determined she was talking about Beehives. I counted the young women who were Beehives and told her. She had made a paper airplane for each young woman, and proceeded to count out the appropriate number of airplanes.
“When she was finished, she still had a few paper airplanes left. After a moment of thought, she asked, ‘How many Mermaids do you have?’”

When he was fourteen years old, Elder Kikuchi was attending night school and arising before four o’clock in the morning to make tofu at a nearby factory. Tofu or bean curd is a staple of the Japanese diet, and he had to prepare the tofu and have it ready by 6:00–7:00 A.M. so that customers could buy it for their breakfast. Finally, he fell ill from exhaustion. While he was resting, and trying to recuperate at his uncle’s house in Muroran, two Mormon missionaries knocked at the door. Elder Kikuchi, in recalling the occasion, said, “In those days missionaries wore hats, heavy rubber boots, and overcoats. They seemed so big compared to me, and yet their eyes were sparkling and pure. I was very impressed by their courtesy and invited them in for a few minutes.”

After this brief introduction to the Church, Elder Kikuchi was baptized thirteen days later. “It was manifest to my spirit” he said, “that the story of Joseph Smith was true. I had really searched for the truth through all the years of my boyhood, but I never had any knowledge about the true church.”

When I was a teenager, my dad and I enjoyed challenging each other to see who had the strongest grip. We would squeeze the other’s hand as tightly as possible in an effort to make the other grimace in pain. It doesn’t seem like much fun now, but somehow it was at the time. After one such battle, Dad looked me in the eyes and said, “You have strong hands, Son. I hope your hands always have the strength to never touch a young lady inappropriately.” He then invited me to stay morally clean and help others do the same.

When I was young, one of my passions was playing football. For many years, I looked forward to high school so that I could try out for the team. Finally the day came, and I made it! During a practice not long before our first game, someone blocked me from the side. I hit the ground, and a few boys landed on me. I felt something in my shoulder snap. When I got up, my left arm hung like a wet noodle.
At the hospital, a doctor told me that my arm was broken. He wrapped it in a heavy, three-inch-thick cast, saying that the weight of the cast would pull the bone into place. It really did feel like someone was pulling on my arm! He prescribed some pain pills, told me to sleep in a chair for a few nights, and sent me home.
My shoulder kept hurting, and after a few days, my parents became worried. They asked another doctor to look at my X rays, and he thought that maybe the ball of my shoulder had been broken instead of the bone below it. When he took me into the operating room, he said, “If you wake up with your arm raised above your head in a cast, you’ll know that we were able to properly set the bone. If your arm is lying down, you’ll know that we had to operate.”
Eight hours later, I woke up with my arm at my side. My shoulder had been broken through the growth center. It was a good thing that I was nearly full-grown at age fourteen! My left arm is now an inch and a half (about 4 cm) shorter than my right arm. The doctors had had to break the bone again because it had healed in the wrong place. They also had to insert two metal screws to hold the bones together. Those screws are still in my shoulder today.
The doctors told me I should never play football again. If I were to get injured, the metal pins could splinter my bones and I could lose my arm. I was disappointed that I could no longer play the sport I loved so much.
After a few days of thinking about it, I accepted my limitation and decided I could switch to basketball. While my left arm was still in the cast, I found that I could shoot baskets with my right hand. I worked hard to compensate for this injury, and after three successful years on the high school team, I accepted a basketball scholarship to Brigham Young University.
This experience taught me to always keep a positive attitude, to never lose hope. Even when bad things happen, have the courage to alter your course and find new things to do.

Stephen Fairbanks and Heather Colbert have lots of experience living in different worlds. Both of them should still be in high school but left a year early to attend a special college program at Clarkson University in Potsdam, New York. Then, on Sunday, they cross the U.S. border to attend their church meetings in Montreal.
“We have strong testimonies,” says Stephen. “It doesn’t matter where we come from, whether we are at an activity in Canada or in New York. We are all God’s children. Because of the way we are living, it doesn’t matter.”
Heather says she couldn’t agree more.
“It’s kind of neat to know the Canadians because we get to see what they are like and they get to see what we are like,” she says. “It kind of broadens our minds that we are all members of the Church. It’s like a universal language.”

When I was a little boy, about five or six years old, I sat at the dinner table with my large family and listened as the others discussed tithing. They told me that tithing is one-tenth of all we earn and it is paid to the Lord by those who love Him.
After dinner I got the little money I had saved and figured out what I owed the Lord. I then went to the only room in the house with a lock on the door, the bathroom, and there knelt by the bathtub. Holding the three or four coins in my upturned hand, I asked the Lord to accept them—certain that He would do so. I remember pleading with the Lord for some time, but when the money remained in my hand, no little boy could have felt more rejected. The Lord had accepted tithing from my parents and from all of my older brothers. Why not from me? As I rose from my knees I felt so unworthy that I could not tell anyone what had happened. Only the Lord knew.
Primary day arrived a few days later. The teacher said that she felt impressed to talk about something that was not in the lesson. I sat amazed as she then taught us how to pay tithing. What I then learned was far more important than knowing how to pay tithing. The Lord had heard and answered my prayer. I learned that the Lord loved me and I was important to Him.
So tender was the memory of that occasion that for more than thirty years I could not share it. Even today, after sixty years, it is still difficult or impossible to tell without it bringing tears to my eyes and a quiver to my voice. The pity is that that wonderful teacher never knew that through her the Lord spoke to a small boy.

CeLisa Wathen of the Virginia Branch, Minnesota Minneapolis Mission, was selected as SnoWeek Princess at her junior high school. This was special to CeLisa since she was nominated just two weeks after moving to Minnesota from American Fork, Utah.

For CeLisa it was interesting to move from a school that had predominately LDS students to one where she is one of two members of the Church in the student body. But after her selection as princess, most of the school knew of her beliefs.

I was never the most popular girl in my school, but I had tons of good friends, people to talk to and trust. Most of the students at school, including some of my friends and I, made fun of a girl in my class because she was different. We would tease her and call her names. We thought she looked funny, so we were just using her to entertain ourselves.
One Friday night some of my friends and I were at a friend’s house. We stayed up late talking, and we started talking about this girl. Then one of my friends said that she used to be friends with this girl and that she was made fun of last year, too. She told us that when they were friends, this girl used to call her on the phone every day after school. She said that sometimes it sounded like she was crying.
This made me think twice about how this girl must have felt. So I decided to stop making fun of her. That next week, instead of saying something mean or laughing at her, I would smile at her. After a few weeks, we began saying hi to each other in the halls. The next month we started talking more. We became very good friends.
One day we were walking to the bus, and this girl looked at me and said, “You mean the world to me, and I am so glad you’re my friend because you’re so nice to me. You respect me for who I am, and you make me so happy. You give me a reason to come back to school every day.”
After she told me this, I couldn’t speak. All I could do was say thanks and think about how much our friendship meant to her. It made me feel like someone out there loved me and respected me for how I acted toward them. It made me feel like I was worth something.

Illustration by Jim Madsen
A missionary activity had been planned in the stake where I was serving. My companion and I were to briefly explain a gospel principle to the investigators who would attend. However, when we arrived at the meetinghouse, we discovered that hardly any investigators had come. Instead of teaching the principle as we had originally planned, we were asked to go out into the street and invite the people passing by to come and take part in the activity.
Truthfully, I couldn’t help but think, “This is not going to work.” I felt that our efforts would be fruitless—that no one would accept the invitation to just come to the activity, particularly with such little notice.
But we understood the importance of obedience, so my companion and I tried to invite people to come in. Not much later, a woman and her daughter and her daughter’s boyfriend passed by. We invited them to come in. At first they were hesitant, but finally they accepted the invitation and joined the group inside. I was surprised but very happy.
The activity started: a gospel-centered musical presentation. The activity lasted more than an hour. I worried that our guests were angry because the event lasted so long, but I had a prayer in my heart asking for everything to work out well.
When the activity ended, I approached them to apologize for taking so much of their time. Before I could say a word to them, the woman said, “Thank you. Thank you so much. It was very beautiful. Thank you.”
I was astonished; they were thanking us for the experience, and they weren’t concerned about the time. It was marvelous, and there was joy in my heart. (And to think that I had been saying that inviting people on the street wasn’t going to work!) The woman wanted to know more about the Church and to attend our Sunday meetings.
I learned something great from this experience: exercising just a little faith, even if it is nothing more than a desire to believe, can yield great fruits (see Alma 32:27–28).
This experience changed my attitude for the rest of my mission. From that time on, at each missionary activity, I would see the fruits of my labors when I went forth with hope and an eye of faith.
If we exercise faith, even when we think it cannot come to pass, we can obtain delicious fruits. What we see as impossible is not impossible for God.

The same allegiance to tradition that makes missionary proselyting difficult also demands ingenuity in doing member-missionary work. About fourteen years ago, in Premia de Mar, a small suburb of Barcelona, Mari Carmen Clavet and Carol B. Rivero began holding home Relief Society. No branch existed in the town. The majority of the twenty-five women who attended were not members of the Church, but they still seemed to enjoy the prayerfully selected lessons prepared each week.

When four baptisms resulted from the Premia sisterhood, missionaries were sent to the small town and established the Premia de Mar Branch, although there were no priesthood holders at the time. For several years missionaries served as branch presidents, until a returned missionary, Javier Garriga—once a Primary student of Sister Rivero—moved to Premia de Mar. He now serves as branch president.

In another suburb, Hospitalet, Ramón and Gloria Arriaga regularly invite nonmember friends and family to their weekly family home evenings. “Sometimes we’ve had as many as ten to twelve visitors,” they say. “We make goals during the week of whom to help or invite, always trying to show love to someone lonely.” Their two children were called at the same time to serve missions in Madrid, Spain’s capital. “You might say we’ve been on a mission through our children,” their mother says. “We lived every minute of their service for the Lord and felt the blessings flow.”