Gospel Story Finder

When I was very young, my father moved our family to Provo, Utah, where he operated a dental laboratory. After school, I would run to his lab and watch him make special false teeth. Often I would take a piece of wax and try to mold a tooth or a full denture. My efforts were awful! In my early teenage years, he would have me work by his side to learn each part of his trade. He was a perfectionist, and he constantly taught me how to remake the delicate, detailed work without any criticism from him but with continued explanations and demonstrations of how to improve. Each time I made a correction, he would tell me how much he appreciated my work and my effort. This gave me self-confidence, and my work improved.
Our time together, his constant encouragement and listening ear, and the many thousands of corrective counseling moments in the dental lab led to many discussions about God, the gospel, the plan of happiness, and the various aspects of life. This was how he guided me into a framework—a template, if you will—for me to try to order my own life.

Growing up, I always wanted to be a member missionary. I knew how important sharing the gospel with people not of our faith is. I even prayed for opportunities. However, none of the people I knew who weren’t members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints were interested. That all changed when I entered high school and met Robbie.*
Robbie and I became friends when we performed in a musical at the community theater. After it was over, we stayed in touch and would occasionally hang out.
One evening we were messaging. Because of early-morning seminary the next morning, I needed to stop so I could go to sleep.
“Thanks for chatting, but I’ve got an early morning!” I sent the message.
“How early?” Robbie asked.
“5:30 a.m.” I replied. I wasn’t sure if I should explain why, but I felt a small nudge from the Spirit to share.
“I have early morning seminary at 6 a.m.,” I said. “It’s a class at my church where we study the scriptures and learn about God before school. I always feel really good after the class.”
Then, I felt another small nudge: “You should come sometime,” I said.
Robbie was excited when I explained what seminary was. “That sounds cool! I could bike there. Maybe I’ll come tomorrow.”
At first, I thought Robbie was kidding. But the next morning as my dad and I drove into the parking lot just before 6 a.m., there was Robbie waiting outside the church with his bicycle. I was shocked.
That day our class learned about temples as we studied the Old Testament. Robbie was fascinated through the entire lesson—he loved all the pictures and learning from all the students about the ways temples unite us with God and our families.
The teacher and other students welcomed Robbie even without any warning that he was coming. Robbie kept coming throughout the rest of the school year. He also came to a couple of youth activities. He made friends with the other youth in my ward and stake. At the end of the school year, Robbie came to the end-of-the-year seminary fireside with us.
That next summer my family moved to a different ward, but when school started again, Robbie kept going to seminary, and the entire class welcomed him back.
Robbie didn’t join the Church, but he always talked about his good experience with me when we would see each other later.

One group of people he has especially loved and served in his lifetime are the descendants of Lehi.
“I do not know when I began to love the children of Lehi,” said Elder Kimball in general conference in April 1947. “It may have come to me at birth, because those years preceding and after I was born, were spent by my father on missions among the Indians in Indian territory. He was president of the mission. This love may have come in those first years of my childhood, when my father used to sing the Indian chants to us children and show us souvenirs from and pictures of his Indian friends. It may have come from my patriarchal blessing which was given to me … when I was nine of age. One line of the blessing reads:
“‘You will preach the gospel to many people, but more especially to the Lamanites.’”
In 1945 President of the Church, George Albert Smith, called Elder Kimball into his office. “I want you to look after the Indians,” he said. “They are neglected. Take charge and watch after the Indians in all the world.”
Elder Kimball traveled thousands of miles to visit the Indians, to teach them, and to bless them. Discovering they needed and wanted more schools, he tried to help. Finding them sick or sad, he blessed them and taught them how important they were to their Father in Heaven. Finding them cold and hungry, he went to those who could help.
In 1947 the Navajo Indians on the reservation needed help desperately. Many had little to eat and nothing warm to wear. Elder Kimball spoke to the Church Welfare Committee, and truckloads of food and warm clothing were sent. Then he called a newspaper. A reporter and a photographer were sent to check the situation. When the article they wrote was printed, an Indian Aid Caravan was organized. Elder Kimball wrote to a senator in Washington, D.C., as well. He wrote to service clubs and mailed out pamphlets asking for aid.
His friends were helped, and they were grateful. One said, “Thank you. I will not freeze now.”
Traveling throughout the world to help these people he loved, Elder Kimball also spent weeks and months visiting Lehi’s children in Central and South America and in the Pacific Islands. He taught them about the Savior, Jesus Christ, and helped them with their problems. No matter how tired he was, he was never too tired to help.
“By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,” said Jesus, “if ye have love one to another” (John 13:35).
Through his actions President Spencer W. Kimball has shown his love for his brothers and sisters. To follow him is to always be “doing the right thing.”

Let me just conclude with a little experience I had recently in New England.

I think one of the greatest thrills that a mission president experiences is to receive a new missionary. I received notice from the First Presidency that eight young men were to be assigned to New England. Shortly they arrived. This was a great treat for Jeanne and me, as we greeted these new missionaries in the mission home. One by one, as they came in, we tried to set them at ease.

The first one was a brilliant-looking boy. I won’t describe him, but I thought, “Thank heaven he is here.” The second was just like him, and the third and the fourth. Now this, I thought, will put our mission on top.

Then I got down to number seven, and I don’t mind telling you some of the concerns of my heart. I thought, This will be a challenge. I couldn’t believe it; and unlike the counsel that President Tanner gave us not to judge our neighbors, here I was judging him. I thought, This kid just doesn’t have the image.

My wife gave me a glance, and her look said, “Good luck for the next two years.”

Let me just describe him to you. He was wearing a shirt that was size 17; his neck was an 11. I could have pulled out his collar and put another elder in it. He had on a coat that he inherited from his dad, and you couldn’t see his hands. He had a trench coat that he got from an uncle from World War I, and he had a haircut that was an Idaho original.

The New England Mission contains six of the United States and four provinces of Canada, including Labrador. As my wife and I lay in bed that night, she said, “What are you going to do with him?”

I said, “It’s time to open up Labrador.” I thought I had to protect the Church’s image from this interesting-looking elder.

Well, that morning before I made my assignments, I knelt in prayer—thank the Lord for prayer—and I asked the Lord what I should do now; and the Spirit whispered, “Keep him in Cambridge.”

And I said, “Spirit, I won’t.” I said, “I am the president of this mission.”

And the Spirit seemed to respond with the counsel, “Yes, but you will keep him in Cambridge.”

Cambridge is a very sophisticated area, with all of those universities and art centers. Well, I kept him. When I went down to breakfast, my two assistants were sitting there; and they said, “What are you going to do with him?”

I said, “We are going to keep him in Cambridge.”

And they said, “President, you are kidding.”

I said, “I have been seeking guidance all night, and we will keep him in Cambridge.”

Two days later I got a call from a distinguished professor. I haven’t time to give you the details. He said, “Paul, Friday night may I be baptized?”

I questioned him a bit. He had been through several score of missionaries the past nine years. I said, “What happened?”

He said, “This little fellow you sent me.” (He was referring to my new elder.) And then he described the experience.

He said, “No sooner had he and his companion entered the office and shook my hand when he asked, ‘Would you mind if we had a word of prayer?’” (This was a meeting over in his school office.) The professor said, “Not if it will do you any good.” Then he remarked, “Before I could get back to my desk, this little fellow fell on his knees and started to talk to the Lord.” And he said, “Paul, I looked up three times to see if the Lord was standing there.” He said, “I don’t know what happened to me; you describe it, but I had the most wonderful feeling come over me, and I now know what the Spirit is. I want to be baptized.”

We baptized him, and he is doing a fine work for the Church and is a great asset on campus. It was all accomplished because this young elder from Idaho, whom I had misjudged, guided by the Spirit, gave himself to the Lord.

And I learned as President Tanner has taught us. Don’t judge! “Within the oyster shell uncouth, the purest pearl may hide, but oft you’ll find a heart of truth within a rough outside.”

When a fire swept through Santa Barbara, California, and destroyed over 500 homes and businesses, the Young Women in the stake were on hand to help clean up the ashes.
At least 14 LDS homes burned, including that of Young Women president Bobbi Boden. In the six inches of rubble that had once been her two-story home, the young women donned air masks and gloves, then with shovels and sifters began searching for Sister Boden’s wedding ring. They found an heirloom ring that had been in the family for over a century.
The young women spent many hours helping LDS and non-LDS members alike rebuild their lives and homes. “It really makes you realize that earthly things aren’t very permanent,” they agreed.

Another experience illustrating his love for family occurred at the death of his firstborn, a little daughter, Mercy Josephine, whom he affectionately referred to as “Dodo.” Little Dodo died when she was three. After watching over her night after night, holding her, and encouraging her, Elder Smith grieved when she went sleepless one entire night. The next morning when she said, “I’ll sleep tonight, papa,” the words “shot through my heart.” Shortly thereafter, she died.
He expressed the sorrow of his heart in a letter: “I scarcely dare to trust myself to write, even now my heart aches, and my mind is all chaos; if I should murmur, may God forgive me, my soul has been and is tried with poignant grief, my heart is bruised and wrenched almost asunder. I am desolate, my home seems desolate and almost dreary … my own sweet Dodo is gone! I can scarcely believe it and my heart asks, can it be? I look in vain, I listen, no sound, I wander through the rooms, all are vacant, lonely, desolate, deserted. I look down the garden walk, peer around the house, look here and there for a glimpse of a little golden, sunny head and rosy cheeks, but no, alas, no pattering little footsteps. No beaming little black eyes sparkling with love for papa; no sweet little enquiring voice … no soft dimpled hands clasping me around the neck, no sweet rosy lips returning in childish innocence my fond embrace and kisses, but a vacant little chair. Her little toys are concealed, her clothes put by, and only the one desolate thought forcing its crushing leaden weight upon my heart—she is not here, she is gone! … I am almost wild, and O God only knows how much I loved my girl, and she the light and joy of my heart.”
Forty-six years later, just two years before his own death, President Smith wrote in his journal, “This is the 49th anniversary of the birth of my firstborn child, Mercy Josephine. A most beautiful and intelligent little girl. She died June 6, 1870, nearly three years old, leaving but the memory of the sweetest, happiest, loveliest three years of my whole life up to that time. O how I loved and cherished that little angel of love and light.”

Missionary work has been an important part of Sister Rinne’s life in many ways, although she did not at first expect that it would be. “When I returned home from the baptismal service, I thought, ‘Well, I have done the right thing in joining this church, but I will never tell anyone.’ But when we arrived home, Heikki changed his clothes and ran to tell all the neighbors that we were Mormons now,” Sister Rinne remembers, smiling.

One of the experiences that Brother Ottley still laughs about occurred several years ago when the Tabernacle Choir was performing with the Utah Symphony Orchestra at the University of Utah commencement exercises. As he was conducting the two groups, he recalls, “Somehow my baton got away from me and flew clear over the orchestra and dropped down in front of the choir. We just continued with the performance, and I noticed my baton coming along the floor as orchestra members kicked it forward toward me. The principal violist picked it up to hand it to me but realized that at that moment he had to play so he dropped it. Then the concert master picked it up and handed it to me just at the time I was to cue the choir for a big entrance. It got us giggling to the point where we almost didn’t make the entrance.
“But that wasn’t the end of the story; that was only the beginning. The next day my brother, who had been at the commencement exercises, gave me a tube of glue and instructions on how to stick the baton to my fingers. Then a day or two later a choir member presented me with a glove with the index finger cut out of it so that I could slip the baton in through the hole. Several weeks later a lady member of the choir stopped us in the middle of a rehearsal (and you have to remember that our rehearsals generally have a lot of observers), walked down to me and said, ‘Brother Ottley, something must be done before we can proceed.’ On behalf of the choir, she presented me a package which I was forced to unwrap in front of everybody. In it was an archer’s quiver containing a whole bunch of batons so that if I lost one I could grab another one quickly.”

Our Heavenly Father is infinitely kind. When we keep his commandments, he “doth immediately bless” us (Mosiah 2:24). As we remember his kindnesses, we are again blessed, and our confidence in him grows stronger. Another sister, assigned to help the young women in her ward prepare for a sacrament meeting program, felt a spirit of peace, even though their final practice had concluded in confusion. She reflected, “We had practiced diligently. We had been called by God through his servants to this assignment. I had seen his blessings in similar situations in the past, and I knew that we could trust in him. We felt his Spirit during the program.”

Not long ago the boys faced another challenge. Their eighty-four-year-old grandfather was recovering from a severe stroke. After leaving the hospital, he still couldn’t walk or talk; he was sent to recuperate at the farm where he lived. Twelve days later someone killed him. “We don’t know who killed him,” Sister Lopez said.
“One of our priesthood leaders told our family to pray for whoever it was who killed my father-in-law,” Brother Lopez said. “And for ourselves, so that we would be able to forgive that person.”
“Two or three days later,” Sister Lopez added, “Benjamin came to me crying, ‘Mommy, I want to be able to pray to Heavenly Father for the person who killed my grandfather. But I can’t do it; I’m too mad at whoever did it.’ For me it was something special that he wanted to be obedient. So we talked about how Heavenly Father can help us to forgive others. Then my husband and I said, ‘Let’s pray as a family for the person who did this,’ because it was just too hard for Benjamin and the other children to do on their own. With Heavenly Father’s help, we have forgiven the killer and pray that one day he will have the gospel in his life. It has been a very special experience for our family.”

Before reaching Nauvoo, Kane described the area of Iowa through which he traveled by boat and horsedrawn carriage as being a sanctuary for “horse thieves, and other outlaws.” He said he grew tired of seeing “everywhere sordid, vagabond and idle settlers; and a country marred, without being improved, by their careless hands.”
I was descending the last hillside upon my journey, when a landscape in delightful contrast broke upon my view. Half encircled by a bend of the river, a beautiful city lay glittering in the fresh morning sun; its bright new dwellings, set in cool green gardens, ranging up around a stately dome-shaped hill, which was crowned by a noble marble edifice, whose tapering spire was radiant with white and gold. The city appeared to cover several miles; and beyond it, in the back ground, there [were well-tended fields]. The unmistakable marks of industry, enterprise and educated wealth, everywhere, made the scene one of singular and most striking beauty.
Kane obtained a small boat and rowed across the river to the city’s shore.
No one met me there. I looked, and saw no one. I could hear no one move; though the quiet everywhere was such that I heard the flies buzz, and the water ripples breaking against the shallow of the beach. I walked through the solitary streets. The town lay as in a dream, under some deadening spell of loneliness, from which I almost feared to wake it. For plainly it had not slept long. There was no grass growing up in the paved ways. Rains had not entirely washed away the prints of dusty footsteps.
Kane walked through workshops where materials of wood, leather, and iron were stacked ready for use, and equipment and tools lay where they had been left by the craftsmen. He then walked into well-cared-for gardens; examined fruits, vegetables and flowers; and helped himself to a drink from a well.
No one called out to me from any opened window, or any dog sprang forward to bark an alarm. I could have supposed the people hidden in the houses, but the doors were unfastened; and when I timidly entered them, I found [cold] ashes white upon the hearths, and had to tread tiptoe, … to avoid rousing irreverent echoes from the naked floors.
Bedroom of the Jonathan Browning house. Browning, a convert to the Church, invented one of the earliest automatic rifles.
On the outskirts of the city was the graveyard. But there was no record of the Plague there, nor did it in anywise differ much from other Protestant American cemeteries. Some of the mounds were not long sodded; some of the stones were newly set, their dates recent, …
Kane said that beyond the houses fields upon fields of grain lay rotting on the ground with no one to harvest it. As he walked around the suburbs at the southern edge of the city, he made two important discoveries.
Houses looking out upon the country showed, by their splintered woodwork and walls battered to the foundation, that they had lately been the mark of a destructive cannonade. And in and around the splendid Temple, which had been the chief object of my admiration, armed men were barracked, surrounded by their stacks of musketry and pieces of heavy ordnance. These [men] challenged me to render an account of myself, and why I had the temerity to cross the water without written permission from a leader of their band.
Though these men were generally more or less under the influence of ardent spirits [alcohol]; after I had explained myself as a passing stranger, they seemed anxious to gain my good opinion. They told me the story of the Dead City: that it had been a notable manufacturing and commercial [center], with 20,000 population; that they had waged war with its inhabitants for several years, and had been finally successful only a few days before my visit, in an action fought in front of the ruined suburb; after which, they had driven them forth at the point of the sword. The defence, they said, had been obstinate, but gave way on the third day’s bombardment. They boasted greatly of their prowess, especially in this Battle, as they called it; but I discovered they [could not agree on the details]; one of which, as I remember, was that they had slain a father and his son, a boy of fifteen, not long residents of the fated city, whom they admitted to have borne a character without reproach.
Kane was then shown around the “massive sculptured walls of the curious Temple,” which the invaders had vandalized. He was shown various features of the building including the baptismal font, “a large and deep chiselled marble vase or basin, supported upon twelve (life-size) oxen, also of marble.”
They permitted me also to ascend into the steeple, to see where it had been lightning-struck on the Sabbath before; and to look out, East and South, on wasted farms like those I had seen near the City, extending till they were lost in the distance. Here, … close to the scar of the Divine wrath left by the thunderbolt, were fragments of food, cruses of liquor and broken drinking vessels, …
It was after nightfall, when I was ready to cross the river on my return. The wind had freshened since the sunset; and the water beating roughly into my little boat, I headed higher up the stream than the point I had left in the morning, and landed where a faint glimmering light invited me to steer.
Here, … sheltered only by the darkness, without roof between them and the sky, I came upon a crowd of several hundred human creatures, whom my movements roused from an uneasy slumber on the ground.
The “faint glimmering light” that had guided him came from a candle that provided poor illumination for a woman tending a man dying of fever. Two little girls, sobbing, sat in the darkness nearby. Kane was to discover that this was a typical scene.
Dreadful, indeed, was the suffering of these forsaken beings. Cowed and cramped by cold and sunburn, alternating as each weary day and night dragged on, they were, most of them, the crippled victims of disease. They were there because they had no homes, nor hospital nor poor-house nor friends to offer them any. They could not satisfy the feeble cravings of their sick; they had not bread to quiet … hunger cries of their children. Mothers and babes, daughters and grandparents, all of them alike, were [camped] in tatters, wanting even covering to comfort those whom the sick shiver of fever was searching to the marrow.
These were Mormons, famishing, in Lee county, Iowa, in the fourth week of the month of September, in the year of our Lord 1846. The city—it was Nauvoo, Illinois. The Mormons were the owners of that city, and the smiling country round. And those who had stopped their ploughs, who had silenced their hammers, their axes, their shuttles and their workshop wheels; those who had put out their fires, who had eaten their food, spoiled their orchards, and trampled under foot their thousands of acres of unharvested bread; were [now] the keepers of their dwellings, the carousers in their Temple, whose drunken riot insulted the ears of their dying.
The party encountered by me at the river shore were the last of the Mormons that left the city. They had all of them engaged the year before that they would vacate their homes, and seek some other place of refuge. It had been a condition of a truce between them and their assailants; and as an earnest of their good faith, the chief elders … , with their families, were to set out for the West in the Spring of 1846. It had been stipulated in return, that the rest of the Mormons might remain behind in their peaceful enjoyment of their Illinois abode, until their leaders, with their exploring party, could with all diligence select for them a new place of settlement beyond the Rocky Mountains, in California, or elsewhere, and until they had opportunity to dispose to the best advantage of the property which they were then to leave.
[But] the enemy had only waited till the emigrants were supposed to be gone on their road too far to return to interfere with them, and then renewed their aggressions [against the Saints remaining in Nauvoo].
The Joseph Smith family may have used this log cabin while adding to the Joseph Smith Homestead, their first home in Nauvoo. The cabin has been reconstructed by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Photo by Dick Brown.
Kane said that during the truce while the Saints were still allowed to remain in Nauvoo, they worked on the temple.
Strange to say, the chief part of their respite was devoted to completing the structure of their … beautiful Temple. Since the dispersion of Jewry, probably, history affords us no parallel to the attachment of the Mormons for this edifice. Its erection had been enjoined upon them as a most sacred duty: they were proud of the honor it conferred upon their city, when it grew up in its splendour to become the chief object of the admiration of strangers upon the Upper Mississippi. Beside, they had built it as a labor of love; they could count up to a half-million [dollars] the value of their tithings and free-will offerings laid upon it. Hardly a Mormon woman had not given up to it some trinket or [money saved]: the poorest Mormon man had at least served a tenth part of his year upon its walls; … Therefore, though their enemies drove on them ruthlessly, they succeeded in parrying the last sword-thrust, till they had completed even the gilding of the angel and trumpet on the summit of its lofty spire.
The completed temple was dedicated in May 1846. With the sacred rites of consecration ended, the Saints emptied the structure of anything of value, and anything that could be desecrated by the mobs.
[The work] went on through the night; and when the morning of the next day dawned, all the ornaments and furniture, everything that could provoke a sneer, had been carried off; and except some fixtures that would not bear removal, the building was dismantled to the bare walls.
It was this day that saw the departure of the last elders, and the largest band that moved in one company together. The people of Iowa have told me, that from morning to night they [the Saints] passed westward like an endless procession. They did not seem greatly out of heart, they said; but, at the top of every hill before they disappeared, were to be seen looking back on their abandoned homes, and the far-seen Temple and its glittering spire.
Prior to his visit to Nauvoo, Kane had observed the westward-bound Saints at work and at play in the Camps of Israel. He was impressed that they were honest and sincere in their testimonies of the gospel. He expressed amazement at the sacrifices many of them made and at the love that existed in the camps in spite of the hunger and hardships the Saints suffered. In later years, he made three visits to the Saints in Utah, where he was very welcome. His last visit, in 1877, was at the death of Brigham Young to whose “masterly guidance,” he said, the Saints were indebted for their prosperity. Hours before his own death in 1883 in Pennsylvania, he asked his wife to send “The sweetest message you can make up to my Mormon friends—to all, my dear Mormon friends.”

The second example of lives filled with service, with which I shall conclude, is the missionary experience of Juliusz and Dorothy Fussek, who were called to fill an 18-month mission in Poland. Brother Fussek was born in Poland. He spoke the language. He loved the people. Sister Fussek was born in England and knew little of Poland and nothing of its people.

Trusting in the Lord, they embarked on their assignment. The living conditions were primitive, the work lonely, their task immense. A mission had not at that time been fully established in Poland. The assignment given the Fusseks was to prepare the way so that the mission could be expanded and gain permanence, that other missionaries be called to serve, people taught, converts baptized, branches established, and chapels erected.

Did Elder and Sister Fussek despair because of the enormity of their assignment? Not for a moment. They knew their calling was from God, they prayed for His divine help, and they devoted themselves wholeheartedly to their work. They remained in Poland not 18 months, but rather served for five years. All of the foregoing objectives were realized. Such came about following an earlier meeting where Elders Russell M. Nelson, Hans B. Ringger, and I, accompanied by Elder Fussek, met with Minister Adam Wopatka of the Polish government, and we heard him say, “Your church is welcome here. You may build your buildings, you may send your missionaries. You are welcome in Poland. This man,” pointing to Juliusz Fussek, “has served your church well, as has his wife. You can be grateful for their example and their work.”

Girls in Grand Forks, North Dakota, got a real-life taste of what Noah’s Ark was like. But instead of braving a flood, these girls sailed toward friendship, love, and a stronger testimony of the scriptures.
Besides the normal camp activities of hiking, tying knots, and building fires, these girls spent part of their camp time constructing and spending time inside a mock ark. The ark helped the girls understand how involved building the ark must have been, and protected them from heavy summer rains!
Testimony meetings and other campfire activities were held inside the ark. These events helped the girls grow closer to each other and to their Heavenly Father.
After camp was over, the girls agreed the project helped them “get on board the gospel.”

That year we also learned that Brother Reynolds needed a new set of scriptures. His were old, dog-eared, and tearing at the seams. We pooled our money and bought him a beautiful leather quad with his name engraved on it. We gave it to him at our ward Christmas party. I’ll never forget the way his face glowed and his eyes twinkled with tears and excitement from seeing us boys do something that meant so much to him.

I got baptized when I was a teenager, and I loved the gospel of Jesus Christ. However, over time, I felt less motivated to live the gospel because none of my family were members and it was hard to keep up with my spiritual habits all on my own.
I always knew that the Church is true, but I didn’t want to give my full heart to it, because it was such a commitment. My church attendance became inconsistent. Then I started prioritizing my social life rather than living the gospel, and eventually I stopped living the commandments. I justified my actions by saying that it was fine to do whatever I wanted, as long as I tried to be a good person.
But that decision cost me a lot.
After living outside the Church for a long time, I tested positive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). This condition is chronic, progressive, and has no cure. I was devastated.
I asked the same questions I’m sure a lot of us ask when faced with crippling diagnoses or other chronic challenges: How was I supposed to ever enjoy life again? How could I have hope for anything?
The answer?
Jesus Christ.
In that moment of darkness, when I received my diagnosis and pleaded for relief, I felt like Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ were fully aware of how I was feeling. The Spirit offered me clarity that helped me reflect on my decisions.
I realized that I needed to invite the Savior into my life again if I was going to find lasting peace. So, I made an appointment with my bishop and stake president to begin the repentance process.
As I worked with these wonderful leaders, I felt their love and support, and the enabling power of Jesus Christ entered my life again. My leaders helped me make goals. I began progressing on the covenant path. I put my whole heart in the gospel for the first time in my life, and I could see the difference in myself when I put my relationship with Heavenly Father and the Savior first.
This truth of joy has manifested in my life as I have continued focusing on Him and, once again, holding fast to the iron rod—the word of God—each day (see 1 Nephi 15:23–24).
As I continued to find solace and cope with my illness, my bishop directed me to the Church’s self-reliance course “Finding Strength in the Lord: Emotional Resilience.”
I believe that this course is God given, inspired, and miraculous. I learned how to transform this illness, which was making life look bleak, into a learning experience. This course taught me how to develop deep faith in the Savior, learn healthy thinking patterns, manage stress and anxiety, and ultimately move forward in my life with hope.
Even with materials like this, some days are hard and tiring. The anxiety and the sadness that sometimes accompany those moments are crippling. But following the counsel of the prophet has helped me find my path in these hard times.
So, following President Nelson’s counsel, this is what I do to help my mental health—I focus on the good. I do my best to take care of my mental health through both spiritual and temporal resources. I look at the big picture—the eternal perspective. I remember and keep my covenants.
Most of all, I look to my Savior, Jesus Christ, for hope and strength.
I thank Heavenly Father every day for helping me become more resilient in my chronic health struggles. I never thought I would give thanks for a challenge like this, but I am grateful that this struggle helped me realize how much I need my Savior in my life. I feel my heart becoming more aligned with His every day.

Elder McKay’s horse Dandy wasn’t as wise. He could escape any pen or corral by opening the latch or chewing off the lead rope.
Elder McKay: That horse has done it again.
Dandy wandered into the street and was hit by a car. He survived but did not learn his lesson.
Elder McKay: That should teach you not to go running off, Dandy!
One day Dandy escaped again. He and another horse wandered into an old house used to store grain and started eating poisoned oats—bait for gophers.
Elder McKay was very sad to lose his favorite horse. He often told Dandy’s story to show the danger of disobeying rules.
Elder McKay: Young people, you must always know where the limits are. Keep the commandments and you will be safe.

The automotive stars were beginning to align. I had just returned from a camping trip that involved lots of driving through rural areas. All at once, my car stopped working. The engine shut down and I coasted to a stop … right in front of the metal shop where I worked.
Weird timing.
Because I had conveniently stalled out across from the place where I worked, I was able to push the car into the driveway without paying for a tow truck. A coworker connected some charge cables, and a bit later I could drive to a mechanic. They replaced a bad alternator.
A couple of weeks later I took an even longer road trip, this time visiting my parents out of state. I had a grand time, once again enjoying a journey without car trouble. That is, until I got back into town and once more drove past where I worked. At that point, my engine shut down. Again. Just as before, I coasted to a stop in front of my workplace.
Double weird. With a side helping of almost eerie.
As Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles once said when something similar happened to him, “Obviously the most precise laws of automotive physics were at work.”1
Another push up my employer’s driveway, another battery charge, and a short drive to the mechanic revealed that they had unknowingly placed a faulty alternator in my car. They replaced it for free and I was soon back on the road.
For my vote, both cases of car trouble were a type of blessing we don’t always recognize.
Sometimes “bad luck,”2 as we call it, has excellent timing. Things would’ve been much worse if I’d broken down in the wilderness on my camping trip or along an empty highway while driving to visit my folks.

When I received this call as a General Authority, on the last day before our travel to Salt Lake, all my children and their families were together in our home for a family home evening, where we expressed our love and gratitude. After the lesson, I gave a priesthood blessing to each one of my children. Everyone was in tears. After the blessings, my oldest son expressed words of gratitude on behalf of everyone for the great love that we had given them from the day they were born until then.

Jake stared unhappily at his Primary teacher while she gave the lesson. He knew that she didn’t know that he was upset, because she kept smiling at him. It wasn’t that he didn’t like his teacher. The problem was that he didn’t like the lesson. It was about how we can follow the prophet. The more she taught, the sadder he became. Finally he raised his hand and asked, “Why do they always want us to do such hard things?”
Sister Roper looked confused. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
Jake sighed deeply. How could he explain it? “I just don’t know why we have to do so many hard things. How are we supposed to follow the prophet? We’re not big enough yet.”
“Well, yes, you are,” Sister Roper told him. “Jesus even said that all of us should try to be like little children, so you must be able to do things right.”
Jake looked at the other children in the class. They didn’t seem to know what he meant, either. “But it’s just too hard to remember everything,” Jake explained. “And I can’t do what older people do.”
Sister Roper thought for a minute, then said, “I think I know what you mean, Jake. And if you listen really closely, I’ll tell you a story that might help.”
Jake and the other children shuffled in their seats for a moment until they were comfortable. They liked to hear Sister Roper’s stories.
“Is it a true story?” Jake asked.
Sister Roper nodded. “A few years ago, when my son Micah was your age, we had a similar lesson in Sharing Time. We were talking about how we can follow Heavenly Father. The counselor in the Primary presidency had a big banner in front of the Primary room. She told the children to raise their hands when they thought of a way to follow Heavenly Father. Then she would write their answers on the banner.
“The children began giving wonderful answers, like ‘Read your scriptures’ and ‘Say your prayers’ and ‘Be a good example.’ Micah raised his hand, and when the counselor called on him, he said, ‘Brush your teeth.’”
Jake laughed with the other children in the class. “How can that show that you’re following Heavenly Father?” he asked.
Sister Roper was laughing, too. “You know, I think we all wondered that. I thought that Micah hadn’t been paying attention. Poor Micah! Everyone was laughing, and I could tell that he was really embarrassed. He looked like he was ready to cry. I know that he was sorry that he had raised his hand.”
“Did everyone stop laughing then?” Lisa asked.
“Well,” Sister Roper went on, “there were still a few snickers, but almost everyone stopped. The great lesson that I learned that day came when the counselor said, ‘Very good, Micah. We do show Heavenly Father that we love Him when we take care of the bodies that He has blessed us with. I’m glad you thought of that.’
“No one was laughing while she wrote ‘Brush your teeth’ on the banner. I looked at Micah, and he was happily beaming. I was glad the counselor had helped both him and the rest of us see that his answer really was correct.”
“But does that really show Heavenly Father that we love Him?” Jake asked.
“Absolutely,” Sister Roper replied. “That’s what I learned that day. We don’t have to make following Heavenly Father by following His prophet’s counsel something hard. It’s as simple as brushing our teeth. We just obey and do what’s right. They don’t ask us to do anything that we can’t do. It’s really simple—just obey.”
“But what if he asks us to do something hard?” Jake was still worried.
Sister Roper cocked her head to one side as she carefully thought how to answer. “If you study it over in your mind, I think you’ll find that there isn’t anything really hard that we are asked to do. Is it too hard to say nice things? Or go to church? Or pay our tithing?”
Jake thought for a minute, then shook his head.
“I think you’re right,” Sister Roper said and smiled. “Following the prophet is like brushing our teeth in another way, too—we need to remember to do it.”
Jake sighed happily. He felt as if a heavy backpack had been lifted off his shoulders. He was grateful to learn that following the prophet wasn’t a problem. “Teacher?” Jake raised his hand as another thought came to his mind.
“Yes, Jake?”
“Does that mean we follow the prophet in lots of little ways? You know, doing little things like picking up a pencil someone drops, or answering the telephone politely, or waving at our neighbor?”
“That’s a great question, Jake,” Sister Roper told him. “What do you think?”
Jake thought for a minute, then nodded. “I think ‘yes.’”
“And I think,” Sister Roper concluded, “that if we start with little things and keep working and working at it, whatever the prophet asks us to do will be simple. Even if we are asked to leave our homes and move to the desert, like the early Saints who went to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah, we can do it. If we follow the prophet with the little things and take a step at a time, we can always do it.”
Most of us think that the price of discipleship is too costly and too burdensome. … But [it] is not as heavy as it appears to be because we acquire through obedience a much greater strength to carry it:
“Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls.
“For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matt. 11:28–30).
What is the cost of discipleship? It is primarily obedience. … It is a price worth paying, considering that the great promise of the Savior is for peace in this life and eternal life in the life to come. It is a price we cannot afford not to pay.President James E. Faust, Second Counselor in the First Presidency (Ensign, April 1999, page 4.)

“We’d better find out where the well goes before we begin,” he declared. “It should be close to both the house and the barn. We’ll try out that divining rod the Indian gave us.”
When we went back to the dugout for lunch, Papa found the forked branch we’d brought with us from southern Utah. “It should be thirsty enough to find water by now,” Papa said with a wink.
Holding the branch horizontal to the earth with one prong in each hand and the other pointing straight ahead, Papa walked slowly around the area where he hoped to have a well. Suddenly the free end of the stick seemed to tip toward the ground.
“Here’s the spot,” Papa said. “That’s just the way they said it would work. Dora, you stand here while I try it again. I can’t believe it’s that easy to find water.”
He tried the rod several times again, and it always tipped at the same place. Papa was so excited I thought he was going to dig the well right then. He grabbed his shovel and started a hole. When he had it about a foot deep and three feet across, he leaned on the shovel to rest and said, “There, that ought to mark the spot. The well’s the next project after the barn. Let’s go to Texaco and see if we can buy some lumber to get started. I have a feeling there’s going to be a storm before long.”
After we got back with the lumber, Ed and I lifted and held the boards while Papa nailed them in place. Soon we had a good start on the barn.
One morning we woke up to find the ground covered with snow—in New Mexico, imagine! Enough to make angels, or play fox and geese, but not enough to stop work on the barn. The snow melted during the day, and that night when we got home Mama showed us where the water was running down inside the dugout. The next day Papa went to town for something to seal the leak.
Mama went with him and left Caroline in charge. Ed and I thought we were old enough to take care of ourselves and didn’t like her bossing us around, so we went out to the barn to plan our day.
“Let’s go see the Indians,” Ed said. His curiosity was pulling him like a magnet. I liked to talk about danger more than I liked to experience it, so I wasn’t so eager.
“Caroline won’t let us,” I offered as an excuse.
“Pooh! She can’t stop us. Come on. Let’s go.”
I followed obediently, but slowly.
“Hurry up,” he urged.
“W-what if they ch-chase us?” I whispered.
“They won’t chase us, and even if they do, we can run faster. And you don’t need to whisper. No one can hear you.”
“What if the braves are there?”
“They won’t be. They come in the middle of the night.”
“I’m scared.” I couldn’t help whispering, even though Ed had told me not to.
“That’s all right. It’s fun to be afraid.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Go back then, scaredy-cat, and I’ll go by myself.” Ed started off. He knew I’d follow. Frightened as I was, I couldn’t stand to miss a chance to be with Ed.
I followed slowly. Ed picked up a stick.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he answered.
“You could hit with it if you needed to,” I suggested.
“Yeah, but I probably won’t,” he replied. Even so, we both felt better now that Ed was armed.
We walked more slowly as we approached the first hut, and Ed put his finger up to his lips to warn me to keep quiet. The air was still except when a small breeze whispered through the grass. Our bare feet left silent prints in the damp ground. No sound at all came from inside the dugout, and we could see only a black square where the door was ajar. We tiptoed closer and closer, trying to see inside.
Suddenly a voice came from the darkness, gentle and coaxing. “Come on,” it encouraged.
We stood in the doorway and gradually out of the darkness emerged a great shape, a woman who seemed large enough to half-fill the room. No wonder she didn’t want to move. She was beckoning to me with her finger. “Come on,” she invited again.
Ed gave me a little push. “Go on,” he said. “I won’t let her hurt you.”
When I got close enough, the squaw grabbed me, lifted me onto her ample lap, and nearly took my breath away, hugging and kissing me. She touched my hair gently and murmured, “Palomino, Palomino.”
When Ed said we had to go, it was hard to pull away, but I did. As we left she said, “Come back. I want to be your grandma.”
We checked the other dugouts, and what Mr. Talbot said was true. Each had an old squaw in it. We were never welcome in any of the houses but the first, however. “Grandma” became our first and best friend in New Mexico. Until she died, she loved my golden hair and called me Palomino.
When we got back home that day Papa was already there and fixing the leak.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“To see the Indians,” Ed answered.
“Not clear up on the reservation?”
“No, just those old squaws over there.” Ed pointed to the dugouts.
“I thought you heard Mr. Talbot say to stay away and not to bother them.”
“They don’t mind. They’re lonely for little kids.”
“One likes me,” I said. “She calls me Palomino.”
“Palomino’s a horse,” Papa said.
“I think she means my hair,” I explained.
“Maybe so,” Papa agreed. “A palomino is a blond horse.”
Before the next storm came the barn was nearly finished and the animals were cozy inside. We had some hay in the loft and Ed and I coaxed to sleep there.
“Not until we move into the house,” Papa said. “It’s too far away from the family now.”
The barn was built like a shed, with a steep roof slanting to one side only. The day Papa was hanging the door, Mr. Lenstrom, who had come over to help, was busy on the roof. I climbed up to see what he was doing and saw he was working with a plane, scraping up curls of wood.
“Why are you doing that?” I wanted to know.
“I’m making this board smooth.”
“What for?”
“So you can slide down it without getting slivers in your backside.”
I wondered if he’d tried it once. “That’s a good idea,” I told him. “I’ll help you.”
We worked until we had the board so slick that Ed and I could shoot down it like a slippery slide, with a scary sail into the air before we hit the ground.
In a few days Papa started to dig the well. When he dug so deep he couldn’t throw the dirt out, he rigged up a bucket on a pulley. Ed and I pulled it up, emptied the dirt out, and sent it back down for Papa to fill again. He had to put in boards as he went along to support the sides so they wouldn’t cave in. He shoveled deeper and deeper until the hole was three times as tall as he was, and still there was no water. He began to doubt the power of the Indian’s stick.
One day he called up, “The ground’s too hard for the shovel; send the pickax down in the bucket.”
For a foot or two he dug through rock, but underneath that, the ground was moist.
“Hadn’t better dig any deeper,” he said when he came out of the hole. “Water might come in and drown me before I could get out. We’ll just wait awhile and see what happens.”