Gospel Story Finder

Nina Lyn Oliver is a young woman who cares a lot about her country and her community.
The 17-year-old from West Jordan, Utah, knew that when war broke out in the Persian Gulf, there would be a lot of turmoil and concern. She wanted to do something to comfort families that were torn apart, as well as to support those serving overseas.
“Nina Lyn is a get-things-done kind of person,” comments her mother, Pat Oliver. “She got this idea and away she went!”
First of all, Nina Lyn and her sisters canvassed the entire ward community (approximately 200 homes) in the West Jordan 66th Ward, West Jordan Stake, and asked each neighbor, both LDS and non-LDS, if they’d like a yellow ribbon decoration for their mailbox or door in support of the troops. “The response was remarkable. Only one family did not wish to participate,” comments Nina Lyn.
Next, Nina Lyn and her mom blitzed several fabric stores and bought up 500 yards of yellow ribbon. “We cleaned them out!” she laughs. The neighbors shared in the costs. “They were very generous,” Nina Lyn comments.
Along with more help from her mom and her three sisters, Heidi, 15, Julie, 13, and Mandi, 11, and her two brothers, Brant, 9, and Mark, 6, Nina Lyn plunged into her ambitious project. Everyone worked all day on Saturday, and on Sunday evening, six of the Beehives and four of the Laurels in her ward’s Young Women program pitched in and helped, too.
Early Monday morning, on Human Rights Day, Nina Lyn and her family members set out in freezing snow flurries and high winds to tie the yellow ribbons on mailboxes and doors throughout their neighborhood. “It was a challenge,” comments Nina Lyn, “but on occasion the weather was kind of nice to us.” Several hours later, they returned home chilled to the bone and with fingers sore from tying on the bows with wire fasteners. The entire project from start to finish took over 100 hours of work.
Where did Nina Lyn get her idea? “My dad, Klare Oliver, is in the army reserves, and although he doesn’t have to go to war because he is diabetic, it’s important to me to support the troops—to be patriotic. They are carrying out their responsibilities to our country and helping others to have their freedom. I believe it’s important that we all support them. And the yellow ribbons are a way of showing this.”
Nina Lyn is a senior at West Jordan High School. “She is highly motivated and a bundle of energy,” comments her mom. Nina Lyn’s alarm clock goes off every morning at five o’clock so she can attend early-morning seminary. She sings with the concert choir and madrigals, and plays viola in the orchestra. She also teaches 15 piano students through the week. Nina Lyn is a member of the Peer-Leadership team, which is teens against drug and alcohol abuse. “I keep busy to make life fun,” she says with a smile.
Nearly every hour of every week in Nina Lyn’s life is accounted for, and yet during a crisis she took time out of her hectic schedule to involve herself, her family, and her neighbors in a show of patriotic support.

All of us, for some reason, have come to BYUH. We are not here by chance but there is a reason. Before graduation, I usually send out an email to the prospective graduates inviting them to share something unique about themselves. Usually the Commencement speakers want to know the graduates and perhaps what has brought them here to BYUH. Usually I get answers like, I have siblings who graduated from this school or I have this many kids and I am graduating, or my husband and I are graduating together. Occasionally I will get a reply that is so uplifting and so touching that it brings me to tears. One student told me that although his family were not members, his father had suggested that he come to BYUH. He had been online and came across our website and was impressed by what we offered. In his understanding he was coming to go to school and get an education but he said this experience here changed his life. Unlike many of you who have found your spouse here, he left single, but he left as a member of the church. He shared how the faculty and students and friends that he met here had helped him have an experience that he could not have had elsewhere. He left not only with a degree but with a testimony of the gospel and for that he was grateful. He knows that because he showed faith and came to BYUH that he was blessed.

When he came to the office one day, just after this, I recognized his name and talked to him more about his experience. He told me he still didn’t quite understand how or what made his father go online to check out schools, but it was a blessing in his life. Many of us do not understand why we have come here but if we trust in the Lord, keep his commandments and be obedient, the Lord will be able to guide us and direct us to do what he wants us to do.

After I returned from my mission, I stayed with my family for three weeks before leaving to enter Brigham Young University. Before school started my father visited me, meeting my friends and seeing Salt Lake City. When I took him to the airport, he embraced me and said, “Out of all 46 years of my life, never ever have I felt more love or the Spirit of God in my home than when you were home the last few weeks. I know we owe it to the service you gave in Spain for two years.”

A ribbon of black asphalt wends its way through the mountains of northern Utah into the valley of the Great Salt Lake, then meanders southward on its appointed course. Interstate Highway 15 is its official name. This super-freeway carries the output of factories, the products of commerce, and masses of humanity toward appointed destinations.
I remember a time when driving to my home years ago, I approached the entrance to Interstate 15. At the on-ramp I noticed three hitchhikers, each one of whom carried a homemade sign that announced his desired destination. One sign read “Los Angeles, California,” while a second carried the designation “Boise, Idaho.” However, it was the third sign that not only caught my attention, but also caused me to reflect and ponder its message. The hitchhiker had lettered not Los Angeles, nor Boise, on the cardboard sign he held aloft. Rather, his sign consisted of but one word and read simply “Anywhere.”
Here was one who was content to travel in any direction, according to the whim of the driver who stopped to give him a free ride. What an enormous price to pay for such a ride! No plan. No objective. No goal. The road to anywhere is the road to nowhere, and the road to nowhere leads to dreams sacrificed, opportunities squandered, and a life unfulfilled.

With my baptism, my life changed. I learned that you can’t have one foot in the world and one foot in the gospel. I learned that work is not the most important thing in life. I learned that the Lord and my family come first. Finally, I understood the sadness my mother felt in my absence, and I asked her to forgive me.
I quit traveling the world, got married in the Bern Switzerland Temple, started a family, and took a job cooking at a local hospital, where I used my talents to help sick people recover. Now I am in charge of human resources at the hospital. Working locally gives me time to dedicate to my family and Church callings.

Turning to our own time, let me share with you an example of faith, of courage, of compassion, of victory. It illustrates how it is possible to meet life’s challenges—head-on. It exemplifies the ability to suffer physical impairment, endure pain and suffering, and yet never complain. Such are Wendy Bennion of Sandy, Utah, and Jami Palmer of Park Valley, Utah. Both are teenagers; both have borne similar afflictions. Their situations run almost parallel. Since Wendy’s battle has been of a longer duration, I shall speak today of her.
Stricken with cancer at a tender age, subjected to long periods of chemotherapy, Wendy persevered valiantly. Teachers cooperated, parents and family helped—but the mainstay in her affliction has been her indomitable spirit. Wendy has brought cheer to others similarly afflicted. She has prayed for them; she has sustained them with her own example and faith.
After Wendy completed eighteen months of chemotherapy, a balloon-launching party was held in her honor. The public media covered the event. One of the many balloons launched that day was found miles away by Jayne Johnson. It had landed in her backyard, and she discovered it just as she was starting her own chemotherapy treatments. She wrote to Wendy, indicating she had been feeling sad and frightened but that finding the balloon and the note inside—which told about Wendy, her cancer, and the completion of her treatments—had given her the strength and that Wendy was a real inspiration to her. Wendy said, “I think she was supposed to find that balloon so that she would know that it’s not the end of the world and that people do get better.”
Though Wendy’s cancer recurred and a second round of therapy was needed, this choice young lady has not wavered, nor has she shrunk from her course. Rarely have I witnessed one with such courage, such determination, such faith. The same can be said of Jami Palmer. They personify the words of the poetess Ella Wheeler Wilcox, who wrote:
It is easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows by like a song,
But the man worth while is one who will smile,
When everything goes dead wrong.
For the test of the heart is trouble,
And it always comes with the years,
And the smile that is worth the praises of earth
Is the smile that shines through tears.

Brothers and Sisters we have a prophet today that has a life full of practicing serving others. The lesson of service came early to President Monson. As told by Elder Holland,
President Monson was a Twenty-three-year-old, relatively new bishop of the Sixth-Seventh Ward in the Temple View Stake, and was uncharacteristically restless as the stake priesthood leadership meeting progressed. He had the distinct impression that he should leave the meeting immediately and drive to the Veterans' Hospital high up on the Avenues of Salt Lake City. Before leaving home that night he had received a telephone call informing him that an older member of his ward was ill and had been admitted to the hospital for care. Could the bishop, the caller wondered, find a moment to go by the hospital sometime and give a blessing? The busy young leader explained that he was just on his way to a stake meeting but that he certainly would be pleased to go by the hospital as soon as the meeting was concluded.
Now the prompting was stronger than ever: "Leave the meeting and proceed to the hospital at once." But the stake president himself was speaking at the pulpit! It would be most discourteous to stand in the middle of the presiding officer's message, make one's way over an entire row of brethren, and then exit the building altogether. Painfully he waited out the final moments of the stake president's message, then bolted for the door even before the benediction had been pronounced.
Running the full length of the corridor on the fourth floor of the hospital, the young bishop saw a flurry of activity outside the designated room. A nurse stopped him and said, "Are you Bishop Monson?"
"Yes," was the anxious reply.
"I'm sorry," she said. "The patient was calling your name just before he passed away."
Fighting back the tears, Thomas S. Monson turned and walked back into the night. He vowed then and there that he would never again fail to act upon a prompting for the Lord. He would acknowledge the impressions of the Spirit when they came, and he would follow wherever they led him, ever to be "on the Lord's errand.

President Paulo Kretly of the Mozambique Maputo Mission shared this experience: “It is common in Mozambique [for] couples to live their lives together [without being married because] African tradition require[s] an expensive dowry to marry, a dowry most couples can’t afford.”
Members and missionaries thought and prayed about how to help.
The answer to their prayers was that they would emphasize the law of chastity and the importance of marriage and eternal families. And while helping couples to repent and legally marry, they would teach of the happiness that only comes through following Jesus Christ.
This is a picture of couples from two different cities in Mozambique. Married on Friday, they were baptized with their older children on Saturday. Friends and family were invited to “come and see,” and hundreds did “come and see.”
Following the baptism, one sister said, “We needed to choose whether to follow the traditions of our fathers or to follow Jesus Christ. We chose to follow Christ.”

Robert Muhile joined the Church while working and studying in Cairo, Egypt. After being ordained an elder, he returned to his home village in Tanzania, Africa, so he could share the gospel with his family. Unfortunately, he was more than 960 kilometers (a three-day bus ride) from the nearest branch of the Church, in Dar es Salaam. He was completely isolated from other Church members. After six months without partaking of the sacrament, he sought permission from his mission president to administer the sacrament to himself each Sunday. His request was granted.
Each Sunday Robert invited his family to join him for worship service, but they chose to attend their own church. So he held his own service—alone. He said: “I prepared water and bread and more water to clean my hands, and a small towel. I sang a song to myself out loud. I had my hymn book. After that, I offered an opening prayer. Because I was alone I didn’t have any business to do, so I sang the sacrament hymn and prepared the sacrament. Then I knelt and blessed and took it. After the sacrament, I covered it, as we respect it always. I offered myself a talk—my testimony. Then I sang as in Sunday School and then read from Gospel Principles. I finished with a prayer. I then attended priesthood [meeting]. After singing a hymn, I’d have a prayer, then read from the priesthood manual the lesson I had chosen for that day. After that, I finished by singing and then offered the closing prayer” (quoted in E. Dale LeBaron, “Gospel Pioneers in Africa,” Tambuli, May 1994, 42–44).

Brett Hellbusch, 18, of the Denver Colorado North Stake started thinking seriously about a mission when some of his older friends started leaving. “A mission is something you really ought to do,” he says, “but you actually have to be ready and worthy to go.”
Part of Brett’s preparation has included sharing the gospel now. He frequently goes with the full-time missionaries to teach, and three of his friends have been baptized and confirmed in the past few years. From these experiences, he has witnessed the effects of the gospel of Jesus Christ in people’s lives. “You can see how much happier they are,” he says. “You can tell that their lives are better because of it.”
These and other experiences have also built up his motivation for serving a mission. “You have to come to a point where you really want to go, not just because your parents want you to,” he says. “Have that desire yourself, and work for it. Go on a mission for the Lord, yourself, and the people you’re helping to convert.”
The Savior is at the center of his desire to serve a mission. “Because of Him, you can return to live with Heavenly Father,” he says. “He atoned for all your sins, so the least you can do is go on a mission.”

The setting for my final example of one who persevered and ultimately prevailed, despite overwhelmingly difficult circumstances, begins in East Prussia following World War II.
In about March 1946, less than a year after the end of the war, Ezra Taft Benson, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, accompanied by Frederick W. Babbel, was assigned a special postwar tour of Europe for the express purpose of meeting with the Saints, assessing their needs, and providing assistance to them. Elder Benson and Brother Babbel later recounted, from a testimony they heard, the experience of a Church member who found herself in an area no longer controlled by the government under which she had resided.
She and her husband had lived an idyllic life in East Prussia. Then had come the second great world war within their lifetimes. Her beloved young husband was killed during the final days of the frightful battles in their homeland, leaving her alone to care for their four children.
The occupying forces determined that the Germans in East Prussia must go to Western Germany to seek a new home. The woman was German, and so it was necessary for her to go. The journey was over a thousand miles (1,600 km), and she had no way to accomplish it but on foot. She was allowed to take only such bare necessities as she could load into her small wooden-wheeled wagon. Besides her children and these meager possessions, she took with her a strong faith in God and in the gospel as revealed to the latter-day prophet Joseph Smith.
She and the children began the journey in late summer. Having neither food nor money among her few possessions, she was forced to gather a daily subsistence from the fields and forests along the way. She was constantly faced with dangers from panic-stricken refugees and plundering troops.
As the days turned into weeks and the weeks to months, the temperatures dropped below freezing. Each day, she stumbled over the frozen ground, her smallest child—a baby—in her arms. Her three other children struggled along behind her, with the oldest—seven years old—pulling the tiny wooden wagon containing their belongings. Ragged and torn burlap was wrapped around their feet, providing the only protection for them, since their shoes had long since disintegrated. Their thin, tattered jackets covered their thin, tattered clothing, providing their only protection against the cold.
Soon the snows came, and the days and nights became a nightmare. In the evenings she and the children would try to find some kind of shelter—a barn or a shed—and would huddle together for warmth, with a few thin blankets from the wagon on top of them.
She constantly struggled to force from her mind overwhelming fears that they would perish before reaching their destination.
And then one morning the unthinkable happened. As she awakened, she felt a chill in her heart. The tiny form of her three-year-old daughter was cold and still, and she realized that death had claimed the child. Though overwhelmed with grief, she knew that she must take the other children and travel on. First, however, she used the only implement she had—a tablespoon—to dig a grave in the frozen ground for her tiny, precious child.
Death, however, was to be her companion again and again on the journey. Her seven-year-old son died, either from starvation or from freezing or both. Again her only shovel was the tablespoon, and again she dug hour after hour to lay his mortal remains gently into the earth. Next, her five-year-old son died, and again she used her tablespoon as a shovel.
Her despair was all-consuming. She had only her tiny baby daughter left, and the poor thing was failing. Finally, as she was reaching the end of her journey, the baby died in her arms. The spoon was gone now, so hour after hour she dug a grave in the frozen earth with her bare fingers. Her grief became unbearable. How could she possibly be kneeling in the snow at the graveside of her last child? She had lost her husband and all her children. She had given up her earthly goods, her home, and even her homeland.
In this moment of overwhelming sorrow and complete bewilderment, she felt her heart would literally break. In despair she contemplated how she might end her own life, as so many of her fellow countrymen were doing. How easy it would be to jump off a nearby bridge, she thought, or to throw herself in front of an oncoming train.
And then, as these thoughts assailed her, something within her said, “Get down on your knees and pray.” She ignored the prompting until she could resist it no longer. She knelt and prayed more fervently than she had in her entire life:
“Dear Heavenly Father, I do not know how I can go on. I have nothing left—except my faith in Thee. I feel, Father, amidst the desolation of my soul, an overwhelming gratitude for the atoning sacrifice of Thy Son, Jesus Christ. I cannot express adequately my love for Him. I know that because He suffered and died, I shall live again with my family; that because He broke the chains of death, I shall see my children again and will have the joy of raising them. Though I do not at this moment wish to live, I will do so, that we may be reunited as a family and return—together—to Thee.”
When she finally reached her destination of Karlsruhe, Germany, she was emaciated. Brother Babbel said that her face was a purple-gray, her eyes red and swollen, her joints protruding. She was literally in the advanced stages of starvation. In a Church meeting shortly thereafter, she bore a glorious testimony, stating that of all the ailing people in her saddened land, she was one of the happiest because she knew that God lived, that Jesus is the Christ, and that He died and was resurrected so that we might live again. She testified that she knew if she continued faithful and true to the end, she would be reunited with those she had lost and would be saved in the celestial kingdom of God.

When I was about your age, my father became seriously ill. We thought it was just the flu, but as the days progressed, he became more and more ill. It was during that time that I really learned what it means to “pray always” (2 Nephi 32:9). I had a constant prayer in my heart, and I would seek solitary places where I would pour out my soul in prayer to my Heavenly Father to heal my father. After a few weeks of illness, my father passed away. I was shocked and frightened. What would our family do without our father whom we loved so dearly? How could we go on? I felt that Heavenly Father had not heard nor answered my fervent prayers. My faith was challenged. I went to Heavenly Father and asked the question—“Heavenly Father, are you really there?”

Over a period of many months, I prayed for help and guidance. I prayed for my family, and I prayed to understand why my father had not been healed. For a time, it seemed to me that the heavens were silent, but as a family we continued to pray for comfort and guidance. I continued to pray also. Then one day, many months later, as I was sitting in a sacrament meeting, my answer came in the form of a scripture. The speaker said: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths” (Proverbs 3:5–6). A feeling came over me, and I felt I was the only person in the chapel. That was my answer. Heavenly Father had heard my prayers!

That experience happened many years ago, but I still remember it vividly, and I testify that He has directed my paths. I know that when we believe and trust in Him, “all things [will] work together for [our] good.”

Recently, too, we have had indirect contacts with leaders of the Armenian Christian community, and the question has arisen whether we should attempt to do something with Armenian manuscripts. This is an interesting possibility; Armenia was the first country in the world to declare itself Christian, and many ancient documents, their originals long since lost, are now preserved only in Armenian. But, I worried, Armenian is a very much neglected language in the West, and we had literally nobody who could handle it. But not to worry: Suddenly there appeared an Armenian woman, Irena Abramian, with a graduate degree in engineering and computer science, a specialist in databases who speaks Russian and Armenian natively and who studied classical Armenian at the university. Additionally, she speaks fluent Hebrew. Thus we hired her to help us finish up the scrolls database while we prepare to launch an Armenian undertaking. If we had designed someone to assist us in an Armenian project, we could not possibly have improved on her. It is experiences like these, almost too numerous to mention—indeed, almost uncanny—that impel me to see some sort of divine purpose in these things, and to expect further such experiences.

Four years after Grandfather joined the Church, my father, then a young lad eight years old, accompanied his family and the members of two other families to a baptismal service. Grandfather was to baptize his young daughter and the daughters of a neighboring family on that cold December 3, 1899. As they traveled toward the stream at Reynold’s Mill, they were approached by three men on horseback. When the men asked where they were going, Grandfather explained their intentions. The leader threatened to bring a mob upon them if they carried out the baptismal service. Grandfather informed him that he and the 20 people with him would complete their errand regardless of what the man and his associates did. Grandfather and his party continued their journey to Reynold’s Mill.
Arriving at the mill they located a secluded spot for the baptism. The hill above the river was covered with trees, scrub oak, and ivy. My father, young John, was perched on a fallen tree that stretched out across a sandbar into the slow-moving stream. Here he could observe every detail of this sacred ordinance. Grandfather waded out into the stream to find the right depth and then returned to the riverbank for prayer. In the quiet of the prayer John heard the sound of a cracking limb. Opening his eyes and glancing quickly up the hill through the trees he saw the men who had stopped them earlier. They had arrived with a mob to carry out their threat. One of them was by a pile of rocks and was ready to pelt the baptismal participants. Suddenly all eyes were opened as a big redbone hound owned by the leader of the mob bounded down to within a few feet of my father. Young John looked fearfully at the hound as it growled menacingly. These men and their associates were determined to stop the baptisms from being performed. My Grandfather Pinegar courageously proceeded with the services.
Convinced now that these Mormon families were unafraid of his threat, the mob leader commanded his dog to attack Grandfather Pinegar. At this moment an amazing thing happened. The dog let out a low growl and his hair bristled like that on an angry hog’s back. Suddenly it bared its teeth and turned on its master, leaping at his throat and knocking him to the ground. The rest of the mob fled in fear when they saw the dog turn on its owner. As soon as the astonished leader could free himself from his dog, he left in hurried pursuit of his associates, with the dog yelping close at his heels.
A miracle had occurred! The Pinegar family and their neighbors thanked the Lord for their deliverance, and the baptismal service continued without further interruption.
That evening the families returned to Grandfather’s home. After darkness had fallen upon the mountain cabin, the troublemakers returned and again threatened to mob my grandfather and his Mormon friends. As they taunted him from the gate, Grandfather commanded them in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to leave. The mob departed and did not return.

During the summer of 2003, I was in Michigan, USA, researching my great-great-uncle Robert Hall. At the end of my trip, I revisited a cemetery I had been to 20 years earlier.
When I had visited the cemetery before, I noticed flowers on one of the headstones with the last name Hall. This time I wrote a note, dated it, and laminated it to protect it from the weather. Then I prayerfully left the note at the headstone, hoping that someone who could help me learn more about Robert Hall would find it. I returned home to California hopeful but skeptical that anything would come of this note.
I prayerfully left a note at the headstone, hoping that someone who could help me would find it.
A week later I received a letter from a distant cousin named Deke Bentley.
“Yesterday I had a strange experience,” he wrote. “At 3:00 p.m. I was headed to buy strawberries when I decided to stop by the Plains Road Cemetery to check out my ancestors’ graves. I had not been there for several years. Next to the graves was your postcard.”
Deke had gone to the cemetery the same day I had left the note. I called him immediately. During our conversation I found out that he lived in Hillsdale, more than 50 miles (80 km) from the cemetery.
A few months later I eagerly returned to Michigan to visit Deke. He told me he had relatives buried in the cemetery directly across from his home, and he asked if I would like to go there. He told me that the cemetery had four gravestones of Halls, two that he knew nothing about.
At the cemetery, Deke showed me the gravestones. The two he didn’t know about belonged to Martin and Anna Hall. I hadn’t brought my records, but I distinctly remembered having researched a Martin Hall.
We rushed to the county courthouse an hour before it closed, hoping a death record would identify Martin’s parents. It did! Martin’s father was Robert Hall! The Holy Ghost confirmed to me that my long search had ended.
Deke, not a member of the Church, said finding Robert Hall seemed “almost spiritual.” I smiled, knowing that the Spirit had led me.
“You may have been disappointed that you didn’t leave your note 20 years ago,” Deke said, “but the fact is that I moved to Hillsdale just three years ago!”
This experience was a lesson to me that family history is indeed part of God’s work and that He leads us in our righteous efforts.

You can do this, you can do this, Sydney thought as she walked into the stake Primary activity. She saw the girls from her ward and thought about what Mom had said in the car. Maybe things would be easier once she got to know them better.
She took a deep breath and smiled. “Hi, guys!” One of the girls shot her that look—the look that screamed you don’t belong here.
Sydney’s smile wavered. Then she noticed what Libby, the leader of the group, was wearing. “Hey, we have the same hat!” Sydney exclaimed.
“It’s not a hat. It’s a beanie,” Libby said slowly, like Sydney wasn’t smart enough to understand. The girls giggled. “Or don’t you know that word? You were held back a grade, right?”
Sydney turned and walked away, trying not to cry.
Why were they always so mean to her? Ever since Sydney had moved here a few months ago, Libby and the other girls had made church and school miserable. They’d been especially horrible since finding out that Sydney had been so sick last year that she’d had to repeat a grade.
She glanced at the clock. Maybe she could call her mom and just go home.
“Want to sit in our row?” Sydney looked up to see a tall girl from another ward grinning and patting the chair beside her. Her nametag said Lauren.
“Sure.” Sydney sat down and kept her eyes glued to the ground. That was how she noticed the socks.
Cool socks. Crazy socks. Socks decorated with purple polka dots, pink stars, lime zigzags, blue smiley faces, and everything in between. Every girl in the row was wearing them.
Lauren noticed Sydney’s gaze and stuck out her foot. “Like them? They’re our mascot!”
“Mascot?” Sydney asked.
“Yup! We’re Sisters of Courage, Kindness, and Service—S.O.C.K.S.,” Lauren explained. “We made these at an activity and wear them to remind us who we should be.”
Being one of the S.O.C.K.S. sounded pretty amazing to Sydney. “Can I be one too?” she whispered.
“Of course! Anyone can join the S.O.C.K.S. That’s the best part!”
Sydney smiled and settled back in her chair as the stake Primary president started speaking.
From that day on, Sydney was a S.O.C.K.S., whether she was by herself or with the other S.O.C.K.S. girls. She made a pair of her own crazy socks, and they reminded her to be a Sister of Courage, Kindness, and Service, no matter what.
A few weeks later, she was put to the test. She and Libby were standing outside, waiting for rides home after a Primary activity, when Libby’s cell phone buzzed.
“Dad! I can’t wait to see you this weekend!” Pause. “Oh.” Longer pause. “Are you sure you can’t come?” Long pause. “OK. Bye.” Libby’s voice quavered.
Sydney knew that Libby’s parents had split up, but she never thought about how hard that must be. Libby, so cool and popular, had hard times too.
“So I guess now you’re going to tell everyone that my dad doesn’t want to see me, huh?” Libby scowled down at the sidewalk.
This is a perfect chance to get back at her! Sydney thought. What should I say?
Sydney glanced down at her socks and knew the answer.
“Of course not. I’m sorry you can’t see him this weekend.”
Libby looked up, surprised, just as both of their moms pulled up.
“I’ll see you at school,” Sydney said.
“OK. See you then.”
That night Sydney put her crazy socks away extra carefully. Today she had proved that she was a true S.O.C.K.S.—a sister of courage, kindness, and service—no matter what.

Importantly, forming these critical relationships is often not connected to highly successful activities. When I was 13 or 14, my own Young Men group was bonded together with our leader on a California snow campout. As we slept in the very first snow that most of us had ever touched, it started to rain in the middle of the night, seeping into our tents, saturating our sleeping bags and clothes, leaving us all miserably freezing. Drenched and nearly hypothermic, after building a pathetic fire from wet wood that would not melt a snowflake, we eventually huddled together into a drafty crew-cab pickup truck and barely escaped with our lives as we headed home before the sun had even fully risen.
The activity was a disaster—except that the most important things that could have happened did happen. We came to know we could do hard things and that we could trust each other and our leaders. As time went on, these leaders helped us along the covenant path. When they said, “Missions matter,” missions came to matter more to us, to me.

“Hurry up, Jared, or we’ll be late for church,” Mother called from the bottom of the stairs.
Rushing down the stairs and out the front door, Jared remembered that he needed his scriptures for Primary. Rather than taking the time to go back upstairs, he grabbed an old set from the living room bookshelf.
On the way to church, he flipped through the Bible to find his favorite scripture about baptism. He wanted to recite it in Primary opening exercises. He was surprised to find that the scripture he was looking for was already underlined in red and that there was a date written in the margin. “What happened on July 2, 1982?” he asked, reading the date.
Mother pursed her lips. “Let me think,” she said. “That was about the time Samuel turned eight years old. Why, I believe that was when he was baptized.”
Samuel was Jared’s big brother. He had recently married and moved to another state to go to college. Even though Samuel lived far away, Jared loved him very much and still felt close to him.
Jared turned to the first page of the Bible and saw Samuel’s full name printed in a child’s scrawl. Jared realized this must be the set of scriptures his brother had used when he was in Primary. And he must have had the same favorite scripture about baptism that Jared had now. That made Jared feel even closer to Samuel. Turning to it in Matthew 3:16–17 [Matt. 3:16–17], Jared carefully wrote his own baptism date in the margin next to Samuel’s.
He happily carried his brother’s scriptures to his Primary class. When the teacher asked the students to open their scriptures to Doctrine and Covenants 4, he discovered that there was a bookmark there. It was old and worn around the edges.
Jared turned it sideways so that he could read the words written on it: “Every young man should serve a mission.” He thought about Samuel’s mission to Mexico and about how he had begun saving money for it while he was still in Primary. Jared wondered if Samuel started his mission fund when he got this bookmark.
After Primary, Jared carried Samuel’s scriptures to sacrament meeting. He was glad when one of the speakers invited the congregation to read D&C 131:2 with him. Jared was not surprised to see that the scripture was already underlined. He also found a card there on which Samuel had written five reasons why he wanted to get married in the temple. Jared thought about his brother’s recent temple marriage. Samuel must have started planning to get married in the temple when he was my age!
When Jared got home from church, he wrote a letter to Samuel.
Dear Samuel,
Thanks for letting me borrow your scriptures today. I hope you don’t mind that I wrote my baptism date in the margin next to yours. I’ve always wanted to be just like you when I grow up, and now I know how I can start. I want you to know I am going to save some money each week for my mission. And after my mission, I want to get married in the temple. Thanks for being a good example to me your whole life.
Love,
Jared

Years ago my mother was reading in the newspaper that a large church in our area of Detroit, Michigan, was having a meeting to expose the “Mormon cult.” We were shocked when my mother announced she was going. This was not something she would normally do.
The evening came, and my mother went and sat in the middle of several thousand people. The pastor read some literature against the Church and criticized its doctrine. At the end he asked, “Are there any questions?”
My little mother raised her hand and stood up. “I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I categorically deny everything you have said as falsehoods!” she stated boldly. Then she continued sweetly, “If anyone would like to know the truth about the Church, I’d be happy to answer their questions in the foyer afterward.” There was dead silence.
After the meeting, it was like the parting of the Red Sea as my mother walked out resolutely and stood in the foyer. Thousands filed past her quietly, knowing that what they had heard that day about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was simply not true. She then shook the pastor’s hand and left. She came home and shared her experience. We were stunned. I have never been prouder of my courageous mother in my life.

They’ll both tell you that the Church and its teachings have helped them in every phase of their lives. From the time they first became brothers, gospel teachings were evident. Brent was adopted as a baby, and Bill, along with his sister Karla, was adopted from Korea at the age of five. In preparing five-year-old Brent for his new brother and sister, their father, Roland Hiltscher, told him, “You know, your toys and things will be new to them when they first come. What will you do if they break them?”

“I’d tell them that’s all right, because sometimes I break them too,” responded Brent.
More recently, their church experience helped them with their election. Since they’d been brought up giving talks in church, they weren’t too nervous when they had to give speeches to the entire student body. And they say that leadership positions in the Church help them with leadership positions at school.
The brothers claim that seminary has also helped them. “Going to church just once a week wouldn’t cut it,” says Brent. “Around school, it’s not always easy thinking about church things. But if you go to seminary every day, it helps you keep your mind where it should be.”
With all that involvement, however, they don’t flaunt their religion. “I don’t run around saying, ‘Ho—I’m a Mormon, so I’m cool, and you’re not,’” Bill says. “But I don’t try to hide it from anyone. It’s just a fact of my life—like having dark hair. If other people accept it, fine. If they don’t, that’s fine too.”
People usually accept it. Mormonism is pretty widespread in southern California, and most people have at least a marginal knowledge of it. But there are some people in the community who are decidedly anti-Mormon. How do Brent and Bill handle that? “Some of our friends hear wild, terrible stories about the things we supposedly believe, but most of them realize that what they’ve been told is wrong,” says Brent. “They get a pretty good impression of what Mormons are about and what we do by the way we act.”
But there is also a lonely side to being known as LDS. As well liked as the Hiltschers are, there are some activities, particularly on the weekends, that the brothers are excluded from. “Sometimes we wish there wouldn’t be drinking at the parties so we would go,” Brent explained. “But it’s not like we wish we could drink. A lot of weekends, we just go our separate ways from our school friends.”
What do they do then? They found an answer one weekend when they decided to throw a party of their own. They had lots of games, lots of food, and lots of fun. That showed their school friends that you can have fun without drinking. The Hiltschers are also heavily involved in Church and school activities, homework, stake dances, service projects, part-time jobs (Bill tutors, Brent assists their father with his professional photography). They don’t have an awful lot of time to sit around and mope.
Now, just because these two brothers share the same standards and values doesn’t necessarily mean they’re clones of each other. “We both have a lot of strengths and weaknesses,” says Bill. “But it seems that my weaknesses are Brent’s strengths, and vice versa. I sometimes think that a better person would be made if you combined us both in one. For example, in academics, Brent seems to have this talent for English, history, and social science, while I have a talent for math and sciences.”
And the differences don’t stop there. They range from taste in food (Brent likes it plain and simple, Bill likes it hot and spicy) to basic personality types—Bill goes more with his mind, while Brent goes more with his heart. Bill leans more toward being intellectual, while Brent leans more toward being athletic, although they’ve both participated in sports and get good grades. Their differences show, though, that there is not one ideal way to be in order to be accepted.
Fitting in with your family is another important aspect of acceptance that the Hiltschers talk about. “Our parents are really supportive of the things we do, but we had to earn their trust,” Brent says. “Back in junior high, it seemed like they wouldn’t let us do anything we wanted to, but now they trust us.”
How did they earn that trust? “By hanging around with good people who have the same standards we do, for one thing,” says Bill. “Our parents know that we won’t go out looking for trouble with our friends. We also always try to be where we say we’ll be when we say we’ll be there, and we call if we’re going to be late. That helps,” he adds.
All this doesn’t mean these two are perfect, by any stretch of the imagination, and they’ll be the first to tell you that. Like any brothers, especially so close in age (they’re four months apart), they have their fights. And fears and pressures affect them as much as anyone else. Brent’s main fear in life is of unintentionally offending someone. Bill worries about the future and what it will hold for him.
The near future, however, they have mapped out already. Once they graduate from high school, they’ll attend college until they’re 19, and then serve missions. There will be more schooling when they return. Bill is thinking about becoming an engineer or architect, and Brent would like to maybe teach high school, or join in the family photography business.
Wherever they fit in the future, they’ve managed to fit in the present pretty well. Their secret lies in Bill’s advice to others: “Don’t try to change yourself to fit in with someone else. Know who you are. Then look around and find others who fit with you.”