Gospel Story Finder

Our membership in the Church has blessed our lives so much. When we first joined the Church we could not understand, speak, or read English. We would come to church each week and we enjoyed being there, even though we did not understand English. The branch president would invite us into his office after church was over and explain to us the teachings. We were nurtured by the leaders and other Church members.
Soon we were introduced to the Church’s literacy program. The senior missionary couples were our teachers. I especially wanted to learn to read, to write, and to speak English so that I could do God’s work and also teach my family. Through the Gospel Literacy program, we can now understand, speak, read, and write English. I do not know what we would do without the couples who contributed so much to our learning, serving as our teachers, and helping us to develop self-reliance skills. Our couples were Elder and Sister Brinks, Elder and Sister Renfroe, and Elder and Sister Wight. Without these couples we would not have been able to accomplish so much, but with their help and with God’s power, we are better now!
We love serving in our branch where Abraham is the elders quorum president and I am the Relief Society president. I can give lessons now and read from the scriptures.
We love holding family home evenings with our children. We are learning from the Come, Follow Me manual and we also pray together. I read scriptures stories to them from the Book of Mormon and the Bible.
We are so happy that our family is sealed together in the temple. It made my heart happy when I read, on the outside of the temple, those holy words! When I went inside, I thought, “This is a small heaven”. I loved it!
Ministering is a big part of what we do as members. We visit and support our other members. We have many members of our branch now. They are coming!
God has blessed us too much! We are so happy to be members of the Church and as we look back at our lives and how they have changed and been blessed because of our membership in the Church, we are so grateful. Our progress has been small but now we have strong testimonies and we will never leave the Church, not ever! If you ever come to Tamale, we hope that you will visit our branch.

Lizzie: My senior year of high school, I remember a teacher giving us some “advice.” She had married right out of high school, and it ended badly, so she basically told us that “there are a lot of fish in the sea.” She meant that there are a lot of things for us to try, a lot of candidates to try out. I remember being shocked that my teacher would say that. Since that time I have thought that, yes, there are a lot of people, but I don’t want a lot of people!

I saw that same happiness in the faces of people who helped for the Lord in Idaho years ago. The Teton Dam burst on Saturday, June 5, 1976. Eleven people were killed. Thousands had to leave their homes in a few hours. Some homes were washed away. And hundreds of dwellings could be made habitable only through effort and means far beyond that of the owners.
Those who heard of the tragedy felt sympathy, and some felt the call to do good. Neighbors, bishops, Relief Society presidents, quorum leaders, home teachers, and visiting teachers left homes and jobs to clean out the flooded houses of others.
One couple returned to Rexburg from a vacation just after the flood. They didn’t go to see their own house. Instead, they found their bishop to ask where they could help. He directed them to a family in need.
After a few days they went to check on their home. It was gone, swept away in the flood. They simply walked back to the bishop and asked, “Now what would you like us to do?”
Wherever you live, you have seen that miracle of sympathy turned to unselfish action. It may not have been in the wake of a great natural disaster. I have seen it in a priesthood quorum where a brother rises to describe the needs of a man or a woman who seeks an opportunity to work to support himself or herself and his or her family. I could feel sympathy in the room, but some suggested names of people who might employ the person who needed work.
What happened in that priesthood quorum and what happened in the flooded houses in Idaho is a manifestation of the Lord’s way to help those in great need become self-reliant. We feel compassion, and we know how to act in the Lord’s way to help.

In 1926, LeGrand responded to a call from President Heber J. Grant for short-term missionaries. Elder Richards left his business and family to serve six months in another part of the country. In 1929 he responded again, when President Grant asked him to sell his home and business and move to California, where he served first as a bishop of the Glendale Ward and then as president of the Hollywood Stake. Such a call was quite unusual by this point in Church history, but Elder Richards said when the call was delivered to him by a messenger: “Tell the President that I think enough of the Lord, the Church, and him that if this is what he wants, I will go.”

Through EnglishConnect, Haustia Rocha Ballam took responsibility for her education as she increased her testimony of the gospel.

“Don’t give up on your dreams,” says Haustia, who completed a degree through BYU–Pathway Worldwide.

Photograph courtesy of BYU–Pathway Worldwide
Haustia Rocha Ballam wanted to learn English so she could pursue a university degree through BYU–Pathway Worldwide. As a new member of the Church, she also wanted to learn more about the gospel. EnglishConnect was her ticket to do both.
“I did not speak English,” recalls Haustia, from Bahia, Brazil. “I could only say ‘Hi’ and ‘How are you?’”
Haustia says she will always remember her first EnglishConnect in-person gathering, where she wondered if she would ever expand her English beyond simple greetings. That changed when one of the service missionaries bore his testimony at the end of the gathering.
“I was not understanding anything during the class, but I understood everything he said because I felt the Spirit,” she says. “That helped me not to give up. When I left the gathering, I was so happy, with determination to learn English and to keep studying with EnglishConnect.”
Photograph courtesy of BYU–Pathway Worldwide
With that determination—and a lot of hard work, prayer, and faith—Haustia overcame her shyness and fear. She learned gospel principles “that helped me take responsibility to become what I want to be in the future.” And she became a “lead student,” making lifelong friends, helping others, and gaining confidence.
After EnglishConnect, Haustia continued to BYU–Pathway Worldwide, where she completed foundational courses (called PathwayConnect) and then a bachelor’s degree online in applied health from Brigham Young University–Idaho. She said her education has opened doors to many job opportunities. Today she works in health-related customer support.
“When we learn English and learn about the gospel at the same time, Heavenly Father helps us by giving us revelation to learn,” she says. “I would tell new students, ‘Don’t give up on your dreams. Embrace this incredible opportunity to study through EnglishConnect and BYU–Pathway Worldwide. It will bring you important opportunities to achieve your educational and spiritual goals.’”

I received a letter recently from a young friend in California who served a mission in Chile. He wrote of a never-to-be-forgotten baptism in which he had participated of a man and a wife and their two children. He recalled the incredible faith of the father, who had worked as a humble horse-racing stable hand, with very limited education but with great faith in gospel principles. This man accepted the gospel and lived it and taught his family by example.
“As missionaries, we considered this family perhaps our best conversion,” he wrote. “The father had an unusual attitude about work—hard work—so as to provide for his family and to be able to serve the Lord.”
My friend had just learned that this good man has now, thirteen years later, been called to serve in the stake presidency in his stake.

A defining moment of Elder Von G. Keetch’s life came as he was completing a judicial clerkship with Chief Justice Warren E. Burger and Justice Antonin Scalia of the United States Supreme Court and preparing to enter full-time law practice.
He could have worked in any city in the United States for a multitude of big law firms. Instead, he and his wife, Bernice Pymm Keetch, prayed for inspiration to know what they should do. After a period of searching, the couple returned to Salt Lake City, Utah, where he went to work for the law firm of Kirton McConkie.
At the time, Elder Keetch thought he might be sacrificing his ability to work on cutting-edge legal cases in order to be near family. Instead, as the chief outside legal counsel for the Church, Elder Keetch argued constitutional issues and precedent-setting cases on religious liberty. He has represented almost every major religious denomination in the country. “I have loved being able to work for such a great client and being able to work on such great issues,” he said.

“With the knowledge we have, we may mourn, but we need never despair. We have a little granddaughter in Seattle, Washington. There the daily rain keeps the sun and stars alike hidden much of the time, so she hasn’t really seen stars. We think there are lessons to learn from them; they are brighter in winter’s night, you know. I explained this to this little girl when we stood on a clear night looking into heaven. I smiled at her wonderment at first seeing stars crowd the nighttime.
“‘Are they there every time it gets dark, even if I don’t see them?’ she asked. I assured her they were, even behind the clouds.
“‘Then darkness isn’t so bad, is it? If you know the stars are there.’
“It has application to life, doesn’t it?”

Orphaned at the age of eleven, Daniel Webster Jones traveled from his home in Missouri to the western United States in 1847 with a company of volunteer soldiers who went to fight in the U.S.-Mexican War. “Gambling, swearing, fighting, and other rough conduct” were part of his every day activity he later wrote in his autobiography, Forty Years among the Indians, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Juvenile Instructor Office.) So Daniel Webster Jones in his early years seemed an unlikely person to join the Church, spend forty years proselyting among the American Indians, and with little formal training in Spanish help make the first Spanish translation from the Book of Mormon. As it happened, he was a good person to do all of these things.
He does not talk about his early life, but somewhere he had gained a strong belief in God. During the three years he spent in Mexico with the volunteer army, he “took part in many ways in the wild, reckless life that was common in the army;” but still would not partake of “strong drink and other worse vices that I could see were destroying the lives of my friends.”
Because of his life-style, he says, “I felt condemned, and often asked God in all seriousness to help me to see what was right, and how to serve Him; telling Him I wanted to know positively, and not be deceived.” In his rough way, he felt that people living in his time were entitled to a prophet too; that it was not right “to leave them without anything but the Bible.”
He left Mexico in 1850 with a large trading company traveling to Salt Lake City. On the way, he was badly wounded by a gun accident, but managed to survive until his companions got him to the Latter-day Saint settlements near Provo, south of Salt Lake City.
In that day, the Saints were often ridiculed by travelers, but when he overheard some of his friends reading the Doctrine and Covenants and making fun of it, he thought of his prayer asking for modern revelation. He left his companions, moved in with a Latter-day Saint family, and began investigating the gospel as he recovered from his injury. “Everyone was kind and treated me with great confidence,” he remembered. “I listened to the elders preaching and soon concluded they were honest and knew it, or were deliberate liars and deceivers. I was determined, if possible, not to be fooled, therefore I commenced to watch very closely.” He was particularly impressed by the lack of bitterness that Latter-day Saints felt toward the Indians, in spite of recent battles.
When he learned about the Book of Mormon, “it seemed natural to me to believe it. I cannot remember ever questioning in my mind the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, or that Joseph Smith was a prophet. The question was: Are the Mormons sincere, and can I be one?” When he decided that he could be, he spoke to Isaac Morley, who had been one of the first converts to the Church in Ohio.
It was 27 January 1851, wintertime, and Brother Morley “was just going out to get a load of wood with his ax under his arm.” Remarking quietly, “I have been expecting this,” Brother Morley used the ax to chop through thick ice formed over the nearby lake—and Dan became a member of the Church.
The next twenty-three years were busy ones. He farmed, traded with the Ute Indians, was ordained a seventy, married Harriet Emily Colton, acted as Brigham Young’s interpreter when he dealt with some Mexicans in Sanpete County, helped rescue the handcart pioneers stranded by winter storms, and continued his friendly contacts with the Indians, both as a member of the Church and as a government official.
Then in 1874, he was summoned to Brigham Young’s office and was called on a mission to Mexico. “I had expected this call to come some time. I had both desired and dreaded the mission,” he says frankly, knowing how hard a mission would be in Mexico. He and Harry Brizzee were both called and told to prepare themselves. Since “Brother Young said he would like to have some extracts from the Book of Mormon translated,” they “began to study and prepare to translate.”
Although both spoke Spanish, Daniel “often thought how good it would be to have a Spanish-speaking native to help us.” A few months later, Brother Brizzee met a stranger, Spanish-speaking Mileton G. Trejo, who had heard about the Church in the Philippine Islands and had come to Utah to investigate it. He soon was baptized and began translating selections from the Book of Mormon into Spanish with Daniel’s help and support.
In 1875, Daniel reported to President Young that they were ready to start on their mission. Authorized by President Young, Daniel soon raised $500 to pay for the printing of the first set of Spanish selections.
In a later conversation with President Young, Daniel was asked how he proposed to prove to the satisfaction of the authorities of the Church—none of whom spoke Spanish—that the translation was correct. Daniel suggested this test: they would select a book, Brother Trejo would translate a passage into Spanish, Daniel would take the Spanish translation and, without looking at the original book, translate the text back into English. President Young accepted the suggestion, and when the Brethren received a copy of Daniel’s translation from the Spanish, President George A. Smith, then a member of the First Presidency, “laughingly remarked, ‘I like Brother Jones’ style better [than the original]. … The language is more easily understood.’”
But that was not the only exceptional experience Daniel had in connection with the translation. He says:
“When the printing started, Brother Brigham told me that he would hold me responsible for its correctness. This worried me so much that I asked the Lord to in some way show me any mistakes [as we proofread the printed sheets].
“Brother Trejo’s manuscript was written in modern language style. When I called his attention to errors he invariably agreed with me. He often remarked that I was a close critic and understood Spanish better than he did. I did not like to tell him how I discerned the mistakes.
“I felt a sensation in the center of my forehead as though there was a fine thread being pulled smoothly out. When there was a mistake, the smoothness would be interrupted as though a small knot was being passed out through the forehead. Whether I saw the mistake or not I was so sure it was there that I would show it to my companion and ask him to correct it. When this was done we continued on until the same thing happened again.”

When I was six years old, I struggled to learn to read. My teacher said I would need to repeat the first grade. My father was concerned when he heard this. So every night after dinner, he practiced reading with me. Dad made a game out of it so I would stay interested. Soon I was recognizing words when I saw them, and Dad rewarded me with praise and encouragement. We spent hours reading together, and my ability improved.
My teacher decided to promote me to the second grade. Dad was proud of me. He was always interested in my progress at school. For Christmas he bought me books he knew I would enjoy.
A few months after I completed high school, my father died of cancer. He didn’t live to see me graduate from college or medical school, but he did live long enough to know that I had learned to love to read. That gave him great satisfaction.

It was fast and testimony meeting in the ward. Several young people had stood up and testified of the goodness of the Lord and his blessings unto them. Then an elderly gentleman stood on his feet. There were lines of care on his face, and time had turned his hair to a silver color. But his voice was clear like the tones of a bell on a frosty morning:
“I know that God lives and guides our destinies. I am here today because he heard my prayers as a boy and guided my footsteps.”
To understand his words we must go back many years to the time when a 12-year-old boy became a man and went to work.
He lived in a coal-mining village in the little country of Wales, where almost all of the male inhabitants worked at the colliery (coal mine and its connected buildings). In a few weeks he would be 12, and like other boys in the village he would go down the pit to dig coal. He was a normal boy who understood that he must leave school to go to work to help support the family. But one morning as he was on his way to school, an incident occurred that was to affect his life. He was to learn the meaning of fear.
Coming up the hill toward the cottages where the miners lived was a small cortege. Two men were carrying a stretcher while one walked in front. Their faces were black with coal dust. On the stretcher was a body, a small body covered with a brown blanket.
“And who is it now?” someone asked.
“It is little Davey Edwards,” the man in front replied. “Part of a tunnel caved in on him, poor lad.”
The boy continued on to school, but his thoughts were not of schooling but of Davey Edwards. Together they had roamed the hills. They had picked chestnuts from the thicket of trees on Mynyddyslwyn Mountain and picked wild blackberries along the bank of Gwyddon Brook. They had stood together where the golden gorse ended and the woodland began and listened to the plaintive call of the cuckoo bird telling of the approach of spring.
“Yes,” he thought to himself, “those days are gone. Soon Davey will be in the graveyard in Llanvach Hill, and it will be the coal pit for me.” For the first time in his life he knew the meaning of fear. But he kept the fear inside of him.
His 12th birthday came, and his father informed him he was to start work at the colliery the following Monday. On Saturday afternoon they went down to the village where his father took him to the haberdashery and bought him a pair of moleskin trousers and a Welsh flannel shirt. He also bought him a box for food and provisions and tea can, and a pair of leather straps to buckle below his knees to prevent the coal dust from going up his trouser leg.
Monday morning was cold and wet, but not as cold as the boy’s heart. He was assigned to work as a partner to Dai Jenkins, an experienced miner. The management discouraged father and son from working together because it looked bad if two members of a family were killed in one accident.
He stood by the side of Dai Jenkins as the elevator cage descended. Through the glimmer of the miners’ lamps he looked across the cage at his father, who smiled back at him. By his father’s side was another 12-year-old boy from the village.
The cage landed on the bottom with a bump. As the gate was opened and the men stepped out, the smell of horses and donkeys assailed the boy’s nostrils. These animals were used to pull the loaded coal wagons out of the tunnels and the empty wagons back in. A man with the title of hostler took care of the animals.
The boy followed his partner along the narrow tracks until they reached the end of the tunnel where they were to work. Dai removed his jacket and hung it on the nail that protruded from a timber that supported the roof. He did the same with his lunch box and tea can. The boy did the same.
The coal bed was only a meter thick so Dai spent most of his time on his knees swinging his pick. It was the boy’s responsibility to load the coal into one wagon and the muck into other wagons. The hostler would then come and take them to the elevator cage at the bottom of the shaft where they would be hauled to the surface.
So the days went by, and each day the boy’s hatred for the darkness grew. There were times when there was a squeeze, a time when the earth settled and it seemed the timbers supporting the roof must snap and he and Dai would be crushed. It was at times like this he thought of his friend Davey and wondered if he too would be taken home on a stretcher covered over with a brown blanket.
There was, however, a time during the day that he really enjoyed. Dai would lay down his pick and say, “Come, bachen (term of endearment), it’s time for a little food and a sip of tea.”
Together they would sit in the dim light of their lamps and eat the food in their lunch boxes. Occasionally, Dai would give the boy a Welsh cake that his wife made. This seemed like heaven to him.
One day while Dai was digging with his pick, a strange and unusual thing happened. They broke through the end of the tunnel into a small cave. It was no bigger than a small room, and the roof seemed to be of solid rock. At about shoulder height a shelf ran across one side of the wall.
One can only wonder why on that same day as they sat together eating their lunch there was a sound like thunder that echoed through the mine. The earth shook. Dai jumped and grasped the boy by the arm.
“It’s an explosion, bachen (term of endearment); there may be fire. We must put the brattice cloth (temporary partition of cloth) across the opening. It could be the only chance we’ll have.”
Hurriedly they nailed the heavy cloth across the mouth of the little cave and then sat and waited. Soon they felt the heat as the flames approached.
On the surface the villagers crowded around the mine top. Rescue squads had been sent down but came back almost immediately.
“No one could live down there,” was their report. “The main is on fire. God help those who are down there.”
The mine owners met and made a quick decision. A canal that ran close by must be turned into the mine to extinguish the fire.
A woman cried out, “What about our men?”
Her anguished cry was answered with a shake of the head. In the little cave the heat was almost unbearable, but somehow a little air was coming in. Time seemed to stand still and hours went by. Then they heard the water. It came seeping into the cave, first to shoe tops, then to the knees, and it continued to rise.
Dai climbed up onto the shelf and pulled the boy up beside him. As the water rose, the heat subsided. Then came an eerie silence.
“Bachen,” whispered Dai, “can you pray?”
“Yes, I can,” replied the boy. “Before my mother died, she taught me.”
“Then pray for us. It is all we have left.”
The boy closed his eyes, and for a few moments no words would come. Then they came slowly as from a troubled heart:
“Gentle Jesus, we reach out to you in this darkness, having nothing left but your help. If it be thy will, let us see the light once more. Let our feet climb the hill to our homes. Let us hear the song of the birds and see the sun rise over Rhysog Mountain. We are alone and we need your help. Amen.”
He felt Dai’s arm around his shoulder and heard his voice. “Thanks, bachen. I am not afraid anymore.”
Hours went by and night must have come because they slept. When they awoke, their lamps had gone out. Now there was complete darkness, darkness that was black and foreboding. With the blackness came fear, cold, trembling fear. The boy saw himself being carried up the hill on a stretcher, his body covered with a brown blanket. Dai sensed his fear and put a comforting arm about his shoulder.
“Bachen,” he said, “could you sing a little bit?”
The boy hesitated for a while, and then in a fear-stricken voice, he sang: “Jesus lover of my soul, let me to thy bosom fly, While the nearer waters roll, when the tempest still is nigh.” In his boyish tenor he sang the chorus: “Hide me, oh my Savior, hide, till the storm of life is past.” He felt Dai shaking with emotion, so he could not continue.
It is hard to know how fast or slow time passes in the darkness, but the pangs of hunger and thirst came to them.
“Chew on a bit of leather, bachen,” Dai reminded him. “It will help the hunger.”
The boy removed the leather strip from below his knee and chewed on it. It was new leather, and the taste of the tanning was still in it. But it helped to relieve the pangs of hunger.
Sleep came again and another day passed. Dai was quiet now, as if realizing the end was close. As a result of hunger and thirst, the boy had become quiet and listless. The complete darkness had settled on him like a shroud. He only waited now for death.
Then suddenly from far away a voice was heard: “Is anyone there?” The voices came closer. Then someone threw aside the brattice cloth, and his light shone on Dai and the boy.
“It is a miracle,” he shouted to the other rescuers.” They are alive!”
Dai was able to walk, but they carried the boy to the elevator cage that transported them to daylight and life.
The boy’s father had been killed in the explosion, so Davey Edwards’ family took him in. In a few days some relatives from farther down the valley came to get him and take him to their home. They were lovely people, it was said, except they had joined some strange church that had originated in America.
Together the boy and his new family made plans, and the day came when they emigrated to America. Here they made their home in the valley of the mountains.
The old man was bringing his testimony to a close. “So, my brothers and sisters, out of fear came faith, and out of darkness came living light.”

Radmila was fourteen years old when her family moved from Yugoslovia to Switzerland. She didn’t think that it would make any difference whether she went to school in Switzerland or in Yugoslovia. But, four years later, in Switzerland, missionaries from the Church knocked on her door.
“I was an only child and my parents didn’t want to send me away to Yugoslovia,” says Radmila. “When I look back on those years, I think Heavenly Father must have wanted me to stay in Switzerland. I was being prepared to receive the gospel.”
Radmila was born and went to school in Sarajevo, in central Yugoslovia. There she was taught that religion was not necessary. Her father didn’t believe in God, and her mother was not an active member of her church. “I didn’t even know what the Bible was,” Radmila laughs. “I had heard of David and Goliath, but I thought that they were characters out of Greek or Roman mythology.”
But at school in Switzerland, Radmila met people who were active in their religious faith. Now she began asking herself questions about God, Jesus Christ, and the purpose of life. During this time, she began writing to a pen pal she found through a Finnish organization. Her pen pal was a girl in New Zealand who was a member of the Church. Although she never mentioned religion in her letters, she told Radmila that she had some friends in Switzerland who would come and visit her. Radmila was excited.
A few months later, in September of 1974, four neatly dressed young men appeared at her door. Radmila said, “Oh, yes, I have been waiting for you. Come in.” Radmila smiles as she remembers their excited faces at her welcome.
When she finally realized that they had never been to New Zealand and that they represented the “Mormon” Church, she told them she had no interest in their message. They surprised her by politely beginning to leave. But as they were going out the door, one of the missionaries asked, “By the way, do you know Kresimir Cosic?”
Well, that changed everything. “Everyone in Yugoslovia knows Kresimir,” she says. “He’s a real sports hero in Yugoslovia.”
In the early 1970s, Kresimir Cosic played basketball for Brigham Young University, was baptized into the Church, and then returned to Yugoslavia. There he played for the Yugoslav national basketball team, helping them win a world championship and a gold medal in the 1980 Olympics.
“I wondered how the missionaries had heard of him,” says Radmila. As they discussed Brother Cosic, the missionaries mentioned his relationship to Brigham Young University and the Church. They invited Radmila to a presentation at the local branch, and she agreed to come.
When Radmila walked into the small chapel in the basement of an apartment building, the first thing she noticed was a sign that said The Glory of God Is Intelligence.
“I was immediately impressed and moved,” she says. “I had always been taught that religious people were not intelligent and that they didn’t ever seek to learn. I wanted to learn.” The presentation was on the Book of Mormon. “Everything in the presentation seemed to focus on the fact that I could learn for myself whether or not what I was hearing was true,” remembers Radmila. “I didn’t need someone to tell me it was true—I could study and ask God for myself.”
She accepted a German-language Book of Mormon, took it home—and put it on a shelf.
A few months later, during Christmas time, Radmila began to hear more about Jesus Christ. There were shows on television about his life, and people talked about him more. She wanted to learn about him, and she remembered the Book of Mormon. She began to read it. “I couldn’t understand a thing,” she recalls. “It wasn’t that the German was too difficult for me, it was just that I didn’t understand words like repentance because I had never heard of them before.”
She decided she would call the missionaries for help. At the same time, two new missionaries were praying for inspiration about which investigators on their list to visit. They both felt that Radmila needed them. When they knocked, she opened the door and said, once again, “Oh, come in—I’ve been waiting for you.”
She still didn’t want to hear the missionary discussions, but she set up a study schedule with them. Each week she would read ten chapters in the Book of Mormon, write down her thoughts, and then discuss them with the missionaries.
“They were so patient with my sometimes provoking and unimportant questions,” she says. “One time I told them not to come in because I hadn’t read that week. They suggested that we read together. We started reading about Ammon, and then they said they had to leave. I couldn’t believe it. For the first time, I was beginning to feel the Spirit and get excited about the book. As soon as they left, I went to my room and finished the story.”
Then Radmila began to pray about the Book of Mormon. One day while she was reading in 3 Nephi about the Savior’s visit to the American continent, she suddenly felt very strongly that it had all happened. She felt that the Savior was real, and she couldn’t deny it any more. “Everything made sense,” she says. When the missionaries returned, they helped her understand how the Holy Ghost answers prayers, and she accepted their baptismal challenge. “Now,” the missionaries said, “we have to teach you the discussions.”
“Since I knew it was all true, I was able to accept all the commandments—tithing, the Word of Wisdom, everything—from the beginning,” says Radmila. “For example, from that moment, I never had a desire to smoke again.”
Radmila was baptized on 22 February 1975 in Zurich, Switzerland. She later moved back to Belgrade, Yugoslovia, where the Church was just being organized. In 1981 she served a mission to Montreal, Canada, the first missionary to be called from Yugoslovia. Now she is finishing a graduate degree in physical therapy at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. She also helps translate Church materials into Serbo-Croatian, the Yugoslav national language.
As she look back, Radmila says she feels Heavenly Father performed many miracles in her life. Once she questioned the existence of God. Now she knows that God has a strong love for her, and she wants to serve him any way she can.

I got invited to a birthday party for a boy in my class. I was super excited. My mom told me the party was on a Sunday. She said I could make the choice about going to the party. I really wanted to go, but I knew that we are supposed to keep the Sabbath day holy. I told my mom I knew the right choice—I was going to skip the party. We took a present to my friend’s house on Saturday. I asked his mom if we could play on another day and explained why I couldn’t go to the party. I know I will be blessed because I chose the right and decided to keep the Sabbath day holy.

For 50 years, I have studied culture, including gospel culture. I began with fortune cookies.
In San Francisco’s Chinatown, Gong family dinners concluded with a fortune cookie and a wise saying like “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”
As a young adult, I made fortune cookies. Wearing white cotton gloves, I folded and tucked into shape the round cookies hot out of the oven.
To my surprise, I learned fortune cookies are not originally part of Chinese culture. To distinguish Chinese, American, and European fortune cookie culture, I looked for fortune cookies on multiple continents—just as one would use multiple locations to triangulate a forest fire. Chinese restaurants in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and New York serve fortune cookies, but not those in Beijing, London, or Sydney. Only Americans celebrate National Fortune Cookie Day. Only Chinese advertisements offer “Authentic American Fortune Cookies.”
Fortune cookies are a fun, simple example. But the same principle of comparing practices in different cultural settings can help us distinguish gospel culture. And now the Lord is opening new opportunities to learn gospel culture as Book of Mormon allegory and New Testament parable prophecies are fulfilled.
Everywhere people are moving. The United Nations reports 281 million international migrants. This is 128 million more individuals than in 1990 and more than three times 1970 estimates. Everywhere, record numbers of converts are finding The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Every Sabbath, members and friends from 195 birth countries and territories gather in 31,916 Church congregations. We speak 125 languages.
Recently, in Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Switzerland, and Germany, I witnessed new members fulfilling the Book of Mormon allegory of the olive tree. In Jacob 5, the Lord of the vineyard and his servants strengthen both olive tree roots and branches by gathering and grafting together those from diverse locations. Today children of God gather as one in Jesus Christ; the Lord offers a remarkable natural means to expand our lived fulness of His restored gospel.
Preparing us for the kingdom of heaven, Jesus tells the parables of the great supper and wedding feast. In these parables, invited guests make excuses not to come. The master instructs his servants to “go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city” and “the highways and hedges” to “bring in hither” the poor, maimed, halt, and blind. Spiritually speaking, that’s each of us.
Scripture declares:
“All nations shall be invited” unto “a supper of the house of the Lord.”
“Prepare ye the way of the Lord, … that his kingdom may go forth upon the earth, that the inhabitants thereof may receive it, and be prepared for the days to come.”
Today those invited to the supper of the Lord come from every place and culture. Old and young, rich and poor, local and global, we make our Church congregations look like our communities.
As chief Apostle, Peter saw heaven open a vision of “a great sheet knit at the four corners, … wherein were all manner of … beasts.” Taught Peter: “Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons. … In every nation he that feareth [the Lord], and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him.”
In the parable of the good Samaritan, Jesus invites us to come to each other and to Him in His inn—His Church. He invites us to be good neighbors. The good Samaritan promises to return and recompense the care of those in His inn. Living the gospel of Jesus Christ includes making room for all in His restored Church.
The spirit of “room in the inn” includes “no one sits alone.” When you come to church, if you see someone alone, will you please say hello and sit with him or her? This may not be your custom. The person may look or speak differently than you. And of course, as a fortune cookie might say, “A journey of gospel friendship and love begins with a first hello and no one sitting alone.”
“No one sits alone” also means no one sits alone emotionally or spiritually. I went with a brokenhearted father to visit his son. Years earlier, the son was excited to become a new deacon. The occasion included his family buying him his first pair of new shoes.
But at church, the deacons laughed at him. His shoes were new, but not fashionable. Embarrassed and hurt, the young deacon said he would never go again to church. My heart is still broken for him and his family.
On the dusty roads to Jericho, each of us has been laughed at, embarrassed and hurt, perhaps scorned or abused. And with varying degrees of intent, each of us has also disregarded, not seen or heard, perhaps deliberately hurt others. It is precisely because we have been hurt and have hurt others that Jesus Christ brings us all to His inn. In His Church and through His ordinances and covenants, we come to each other and to Jesus Christ. We love and are loved, serve and are served, forgive and are forgiven. Please remember, “earth has no sorrow that heav’n cannot heal”; earth burdens lighten—our Savior’s joy is real.
In 1 Nephi 19, we read: “Even the very God of Israel do [they] trample under their feet; … they set him at naught. … Wherefore they scourge him, and he suffereth it; and they smite him, and he suffereth it. Yea, they spit upon him, and he suffereth it.”
My friend Professor Terry Warner says the judging, scourging, smiting, and spitting were not occasional events that occurred only during Christ’s mortal life. How we treat each other—especially the hungry, the thirsty, those left out alone—is how we treat Him.
In His restored Church, we are all better when no one sits alone. Let us not simply accommodate or tolerate. Let us genuinely welcome, acknowledge, minister to, love. May each friend, sister, brother not be a foreigner or stranger but a child at home.
Today many feel lonely and isolated. Social media and artificial intelligence can leave us yearning for human closeness and human touch. We want to hear each other’s voices. We want authentic belonging and kindness.
There are many reasons we may feel we do not fit in at church—that, speaking figuratively, we sit alone. We may worry about our accent, clothes, family situation. Perhaps we feel inadequate, smell of smoke, yearn for moral cleanliness, have broken up with someone and feel hurt and embarrassed, are concerned about this or that Church policy. We may be single, divorced, widowed. Our children are noisy; we don’t have children. We didn’t serve a mission or came home early. The list goes on.
Mosiah 18:21 invites us to knit our hearts together in love. I invite us to worry less, judge less, be less demanding of others—and, when needed, be less hard on ourselves. We do not create Zion in a day. But each “hello,” each warm gesture, brings Zion closer. Let us trust the Lord more and choose joyfully to obey all His commandments.
Doctrinally, in the household of faith and fellowship of the Saints, no one sits alone because of covenant belonging in Jesus Christ.
Taught the Prophet Joseph Smith: “It is left for us to see, participate in and help to roll forward the Latter-day glory, ‘the dispensation of the fullness of times … ,’ when the Saints of God will be gathered in one from every nation, and kindred, and people.”
God “doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; … that he may draw all men [and women] unto him. …
“… He inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; … and all are alike unto God.”
Conversion in Jesus Christ requires us to put off the natural man and worldly culture. As President Dallin H. Oaks teaches, we are to give up any tradition and cultural practice that is contrary to the commandments of God and to become Latter-day Saints. He explains, “There is a unique gospel culture, a set of values and expectations and practices common to all [the] members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Gospel culture includes chastity, weekly attendance at church, abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, tea, and coffee. It includes honesty and integrity, understanding we move forward, not upward or downward, in Church positions.
I learn from faithful members and friends in every land and culture. Scriptures studied in multiple languages and cultural perspectives deepen gospel understanding. Different expressions of Christlike attributes deepen my love and understanding of my Savior. All are blessed when we define our cultural identity, as President Russell M. Nelson taught, as a child of God, a child of the covenant, a disciple of Jesus Christ.
The peace of Jesus Christ is meant for us personally. Recently a young man earnestly asked, “Elder Gong, can I still go to heaven?” He wondered if he could ever be forgiven. I asked his name, listened carefully, invited him to talk with his bishop, gave him a big hug. He left with hope in Jesus Christ.
I mentioned the young man in another setting. Later I received an unsigned letter that began, “Elder Gong, my wife and I have raised nine kids … and served two missions.” But “I always felt I would not be allowed in the celestial kingdom … because my sins as a youth were so bad!”
The letter continued, “Elder Gong, when you told about the young man gaining hope of forgiveness, I was filled with joy, beginning to realize that maybe I [could be forgiven].” The letter concludes, “I even like myself now!”
Covenant belonging deepens as we come to each other and to the Lord in His inn. The Lord blesses us all when no one sits alone. And who knows? Maybe the person we sit next to may become our best fortune cookie friend. May we find and make place for Him and each other at the supper of the Lamb, I humbly pray in the holy name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Many of the most important lessons Robert learned as a child came from the example of his parents and from his experiences in the Queens Ward. As deacons quorum president, Robert learned to respect his priesthood leaders after an experience with the bishop. At that time, the ward met in the Citizen’s League Hall. The sacrament table was on the main floor in front of the stage. The deacons used to take the sacrament trays, climb up onto the stage, put the trays away, and then run and jump off the stage, grab another tray, and repeat the process until all the trays were put away. “I came sailing off of that stage,” says Elder Hales, “and our new bishop was standing there. He caught me in flight. I said, ‘Well, everyone else is doing it,’ and he said, ‘Yes, but you are the president of the deacons quorum.’ The bishop said he wanted the sacrament taken care of properly, with reverence. That was when I began to learn an important lesson. I’ve appreciated priesthood leaders who have taken the time to teach me.”

Twins Vince and Wayne Watson of Anchorage, Alaska, saw the wheels of big government really roll on a recent visit to “Washington Workshops.” The brothers’ trip, sponsored by four area banks and the local Teamsters Union, gave them the opportunity to spend two weeks touring historic landmarks, sitting in on legislative sessions, and enjoying the spectacular beauty of the nation’s capital. While in Washington the two also visited the temple and did baptisms for the dead.
Vince and Wayne have long been interested in government and leadership. For four years they alternated as class president and vice president; this past year Vince served as senior class president and Wayne as student body head at Bartlett High School in Anchorage. Both attended the .American Legion Boy’s State, earned Duty to God Awards, hold the rank of Eagle, and have participated in Church and school dramas and musicals, including Saturday’s Warrior.
Vince and Wayne have also completed four years of seminary, which in Alaska means getting up at 4:30 A.M., while holding down 20-hour-a-week jobs.

My wonderful parents welcomed four sons and me, their only daughter, into their home in close succession. We have always been close to each other’s hearts even more than we are in age. We have supported each other and had many precious memories of time spent together. We have always been such good friends!
That is why I felt so broken when one of my brothers ended his life. I worried my heart would not be able to survive the pain—pain is not really the right word. There is no word strong enough to convey the awful experience of losing a loved one to suicide. It turns your world upside down.
I relied on the Lord to help me care for my family and meet my other commitments while I dealt with soul-distressing questions about my brother and his death.
When I asked the Lord for help, I felt prompted to write my questions to the prophet in a letter. I truly believed that my questions were so big and deep that only a prophet could answer them, but I knew it probably wasn’t necessary to send the prophet a letter. I hesitated but then recalled the success I’ve had acting on past promptings.
I went ahead and wrote a tearful letter to President Russell M. Nelson. I wrote about how I felt and how I could move forward if I just knew the answers to the questions swirling in my mind. I concluded my letter, put it in an envelope addressed to President Nelson, and tucked it into my scripture bag.
I forgot about the letter. I noticed it in my scripture bag some time later and opened it. As I read through the letter, I realized that through faith and my own scripture study, prayer, temple attendance, and patience, the Holy Ghost had led me to the answers to every single question I had written down! I felt close to the Savior and His love.
I am so glad I did not mail the letter! Instead, I gained important experiences that taught me again that the Lord cherishes me and all His children individually, and that He will guide and direct us.
I once believed that my questions were so complex that only a prophet could answer them, but I have come to know for myself the truth of the Savior’s words: “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you” (John 14:18).

Some years ago, an acquaintance of mine who was moving to Washington, D.C., went to the district offices to take the driver’s license examination. He had to fill out a form that asked for his business address and his occupation. He had just been appointed a justice of the United States Supreme Court, so he used that as his business address. In the blank marked “occupation” he wrote the word justice. The person at the counter examined this answer, frowned, and said, “Justice? Justice! Well, I guess that’s all right. Last week a fellow wrote peace.”

One particular trial (that I’m still going through) started a few years ago, when I realized I needed to make a change in my career path. I decided to take the Church’s Find a Better Job self-reliance class and felt confident that I had the tools necessary to find a better job right away.
But as it turned out, that wasn’t what the Lord had in mind for me.
I did everything I could to find a new job. And I initially thought I was doing well with my search, until I got rejected from the first job I interviewed for, and the second too. And then another.
I received countless rejection emails. A few times I even made it to the final interview in the hiring process, but someone else was always chosen over me.
After all these crushing blows, I wasn’t sure if I’d recover my confidence. I started losing faith in myself. I felt like I was worthless and incapable, and I was convinced I would never experience the joy of working somewhere I truly loved.
One night during this time of soul-crushing agony, I realized that I hadn’t been counseling with Heavenly Father about my job search. Through tears, I apologized for not communicating with Him and pleaded to know what I was missing and why it wasn’t working out. In a quiet moment, the Spirit calmed my aching heart, soothed my nerves, and whispered in my mind, “Have faith; it’s not the right time yet.” That message equally calmed and broke my heart.
I was positive that I needed to be working elsewhere, but that soft impression from the Spirit helped me have faith that Heavenly Father would lead me to blessings at the right time.
So I halted my job search and focused on other things in order to prepare myself for a change. I focused on things I could control. I attended more training classes at work, began seeing a therapist, started studying my scriptures more fully, and began counseling with the Lord regularly about everything in my life.
Over the next few months, I still didn’t have the job I wanted, but I felt peace.
And then the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
Although I was devastated at first, I came to realize what a blessing it was that I hadn’t gotten a new job, because I probably would have been laid off and suddenly found myself unemployed, in a new city, and completely alone in the pandemic. So I took time during quarantine and social distancing to reflect, ponder, pray, and deepen my faith.
When the April 2020 general conference rolled around, a message from Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in which he compared the foundation of the Salt Lake Temple to our own testimonies resonated with my soul. He said that our earthly trials, “similar to an earthquake, are often difficult to predict and come in various levels of intensity—wrestling with questions or doubt, facing affliction or adversity, working through personal offenses with Church leaders, members, doctrine, or policy. The best defense against these lies in our spiritual foundation.” 1
The Spirit testified to me that if I worked on my spiritual foundation, Heavenly Father would guide me to the job I had been praying for. I committed to studying Come, Follow Me, reading the scriptures, serving more faithfully in my calling, and having weekly chats with a trusted friend.
As I worked on my spiritual foundation daily, I saw my faith grow. I felt greater hope, and my understanding of Heavenly Father’s timing developed as I began to see His hand in my life each day. And most importantly, I discovered how the Spirit speaks to me.
President Dallin H. Oaks, First Counselor in the First Presidency, once said, “The gospel of Jesus Christ is a plan that shows us how to become what our Heavenly Father desires us to become.” 2 I realized the Lord was sanctifying me through this trial and teaching me how to truly become who He needed me to be.
As I have looked back on this journey, I’ve realized that being sanctified through the power of the Savior is never going to be easy. It hasn’t been for me. But as I have relied on Him and also done my part to have faith and take steps like improving my professional skills, strengthening my spiritual foundation, applying for jobs, and waiting upon Him, I’ve witnessed how He can help us get through the difficult yet beautiful middle with faith.
I don’t know how long the middle of my trial of finding a steady, enjoyable career path will last, but I’ve grown so much through this experience. And I know Heavenly Father and the Savior want me to walk with Them so They can help me keep moving forward.

While these stakes were involved in teaching homemaking skills, scheduling girls’ time around school and other activities was difficult. One father worried about his daughter’s involvement, especially with her heavy homework load. In expressing his concern that his daughter might be wasting time in her homemaking workshops, he asked the girl’s leader about the program. The leader told him to ask his daughter if she felt it was worth her time. After talking with his daughter and hearing her strong favorable reaction, he reported back to the Young Women leader. His daughter would be attending the workshops. “I had no idea she would feel that way about going to a church meeting,” he said.