Gospel Story Finder

When I was 15, I wasn’t making the best decisions. I was mingling with the wrong crowd, and I was often surrounded by many temptations—some of which I indulged in. At first my decisions were inconsequential, but eventually I found myself in a very dark place. I hid a lot of what I was doing from my family, and I felt so alone. I wasn’t sure where to turn. I truly believed that God didn’t love me.
On one particularly difficult day, I suddenly had the thought that I should start reading the Book of Mormon. I had read it before, but not with a true desire to learn from its messages. On every page I felt warmth in my heart as I found truths from the Savior telling me that I could change with His help. I felt like I wanted to “sing the song of redeeming love” (Alma 5:26).
After studying the Book of Mormon and its Christ-centered messages, I was able to gain the courage I needed to open up about my choices to my mother. As we were returning home from the bus station one day, I talked to her and told her about some of the poor decisions I had been making. I expected her to be angry, but she wasn’t. She didn’t even judge me. Instead, she expressed how much she loved me, and through her love, I felt God’s love for the first time in my life as well.
As I continued praying and reading the scriptures, I mustered up courage once again to speak with my bishop and begin the repentance process. As I asked him if I could meet with him, he invited me into his office, and we began with a prayer. After we spoke, I began to cry in a way I hadn’t ever cried before. I shared all my mistakes with him, and I could literally feel the love of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ lifting the shame and heavy load I had been carrying off my shoulders.
My bishop was nothing but compassionate, causing me to feel the love of Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ again. He taught me that the process of repentance was the way to be sanctified and, along with it, forgiven of our mistakes. In that moment, I realized how repentance is truly a gift of love from our Heavenly Father and Savior. I always think of just how much They love me because of the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 19 where the Savior says, “For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent” (verse 16).
I appreciate that because of Jesus Christ and His Atonement, we have the chance to improve and become better. I have experienced the truth that our hearts can be changed when we have sincere intentions and realize Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love us.
Repentance is truly a gift of love from our Heavenly Father and Savior. The blessings I have gained from this experience and many others are greater than I imagined, and “my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain!” (Alma 36:20). Experiencing the Savior’s healing power in my life has reminded me of how deeply loved we are and always have been.

On a warm August morning in Aurora, Colorado, 30 children armed with brand new soccer balls and kickballs gathered in the local park to play sports and have a good time. But when the game ended, the children and their parents left 150 unused balls behind.
That may sound strange, but 14-year-old Brandon Campbell had planned it that way. Brandon, a teacher in the Fox Hollow Ward, Arapahoe Colorado Stake, knew that his Eagle project would provide the Aaronic Priesthood holders in the ward with an opportunity to bless the lives of children locally and all over the world.
An avid sports fan, Brandon found a way to use his love of athletics to create a project that would benefit children in developing nations. Brandon organized a sports day in his area, and the participants at the event donated balls to a charitable organization that helps communities all over the world establish stable political and social environments. With the help of his family and the youth in his ward and Scout troop, Brandon was able to provide struggling children with a little bit of fun and relief.
Brandon says he’s learned the importance of serving others through his Church membership. He notes that giving meaningful service is one of the purposes of the Aaronic Priesthood. “Scouting is the activity arm of the priesthood,” he says. “Because of the activity we organized, now kids are going to have things to play with. Helping children is a way of respecting them.”
As he progresses in the Aaronic Priesthood and other areas of his life, Brandon recognizes the benefits of Scouting. “I came up with the idea for my Eagle project and organized it,” he says. “Learning to be a leader is a big part of Scouting and Church. Learning to be a leader now prepares you to be a leader in your Church callings later. That’s why we do it.” Brandon and his fellow quorum members were leaders on the field, acting as referees of the games and ensuring the safety and enjoyment of the participants.
So now that he has finished his Eagle project, what’s next?
“I’ve finished my Duty to God requirements as a deacon,” Brandon says. “But I’m now a teacher, so I’ve started working on my Duty to God requirements as a teacher.”

A few weeks ago at a fast and testimony meeting at our ward, I watched a little boy on the back row mustering up courage to bear his testimony. He made three or four false starts and then sat down. Finally it was his turn. He squared his little shoulders, walked bravely up the aisle to the stand, took the two steps up to the level of the pulpit, stepped over and put his hands on the pulpit, gazed into the congregation, smiled—and then turned around, went back off those two steps and down the same aisle to his mother and father. I looked at you tonight in this vast Conference Center and thought of those listening in and could appreciate more fully the actions of that little boy.

A dozen years ago, in one of the countries of Africa, we had faithful members of the Church who had been meeting in their homes for several years. I went to that country to see if we could receive permission from the government to bring in missionaries and establish the Church. I met with a high-ranking government minister. He gave me 20 minutes to explain our position.
When I finished he said, “I do not see where anything you have told me is any different from what is currently available in our country. I see no reason to approve your request to bring missionaries into our country.”
He stood up to usher me out of his office. I was panic-stricken. I had failed. In a moment our meeting would be over. What could I do? I offered a silent prayer.
Then I had an inspired thought. I said to the minister, “Sir, if you will give me five more minutes, I would like to share one other thought with you. Then I will leave.” He kindly consented.
I reached for my wallet and removed this small For the Strength of Youth booklet, which I have always carried.
I said, “This is a little booklet of standards we give all of the youth in our Church.”
I then read some of the standards I have mentioned tonight. When I finished he said, “You mean to tell me you expect the youth of your church to live these standards?”
“Yes,” I replied, “and they do.”
“That is amazing,” he said. “Could you send me some of these booklets so that I could distribute them to the youth of my church?”
I replied, “Yes,” and I did.
Several months later we received official approval from the government of that country to come and establish the Church.

Two years ago, Brother Bradley Jones* from South Africa decided to quit his full-time job, take the plunge, and start his own consulting business. The months that followed were, in his own words, “intense.”
With little capital saved up, he was under pressure to turn a profit almost immediately. In addition to that, he had a family to take care of: grocery bills, school fees, a car instalment, and a mortgage on his house to pay. Before long, the family found themselves struggling to make ends meet. “When it was rough, it was incredibly rough. It made me question myself: ‘Did I get an answer from the Lord about starting my business?’” says Bradley. “‘Am I lying to myself?’”
But through that “spiritually affirming” experience, Bradley learned a wealth of lessons. Today, he shares some of the ways in which he and his family have learned to manage their money in the true spirit of self-reliance.
Involve the Lord in the details. “I was very, very prayerful in all of my financial decisions,” says Bradley. “That allowed me to feel safe about the choices I was making, even though I was taking substantial risk. I felt like I had the Lord’s sanction. Without that, I don’t think I could have been as confident.”
Ask the Lord to help you recognise the difference between needs and wants. “We tried really hard to follow the Spirit in terms of what to let go of and what not to,” says Bradley. “That’s difficult, because there are no hard and fast rules as to what’s a reasonable standard of living. Allow the Lord to tell you what your needs versus your wants are.” After much prayer, the family decided to sell their house in order to help pay off debt.
Counsel together as a couple. “This experience was an affirmation of the importance of being on the same page as a couple,” Bradley says. “These decisions can’t be made in isolation. It’s easy as a business owner to say, ‘Hey, I’m making business decisions,’ but they spill over into your personal life and your family bears the brunt of them.” Because Bradley and his wife made financial decisions together, “my wife was always fully supportive of the risks I took.”
Drastically downscale your lifestyle, if that’s what it takes. “Make sure that you live within your means, whatever your means are, and change your lifestyle as drastically as you have to in order to do so,” says Bradley. “Never sustain a lifestyle on credit. If you can’t pay for something now, then wait until next month. Don’t count on money before it’s in the bank.”
Don’t think you’ll be the exception to the rule. “If it takes the average business three to five years to be profitable, it is arrogant to think that you can do it in one,” says Bradley. “Accept that there are things you don’t know. If it takes everyone else five years, it will take you five years too.”
The family now follows a strict monthly and daily budgeting practice. They take their monthly earnings and deduct all their fixed monthly payments: tithing, rent, school fees, insurance, car payments, and so forth. “Then we are left with an amount with which we must fill the variables—including the groceries and petrol,” Bradley explains. “We divide that amount by 31 to come up with a daily cash allotment. We see that as the amount we earn each day. We follow the principle of “you can’t spend money you haven’t earned.”
The family uses an app, but you could use envelopes with cash inside them: anything that helps you break down your income into daily amounts. They stick to this principle rigidly: “if you want to buy pizza tonight, but you know you need to buy petrol tomorrow, then you forego the pizza,” he says.
As we are “faithful over a few things,” the Lord will make us “ruler over many things” (Matthew 25:21).
Following this level of financial discipline has helped Bradley see the hand of the Lord in his life. “When I do my very best to do everything in my power: to be disciplined and take ownership of my situation, then the Lord performs miracles,” he says.
*name has been changed

Skull Valley, Utah—that was where I spent two summers as a youth. I lived on Long Island, New York, but my father, who had grown up on a farm in Idaho, told me, “You’re never going to learn how to work until you work on a ranch.” My uncle had a ranch in Skull Valley, and so I, a city boy, was sent to live and work there.
The first few days I spent on the ranch left me exhausted. My entire body ached, and I wondered how I could get through each day. I was discouraged and wanted to go home, but I didn’t tell this to my relatives.
One day I was moving bales of hay with my cousin, and I was having a hard time because I was so tired. My cousin gave me a little push and said, “You aren’t lazy—you just don’t know how to work.” I decided then that I’d learn how to work—and I did. And as I worked on the ranch that summer, I came to enjoy it and my body thrived on it.
I had many aunts and uncles who lived in the Utah area, and I stayed in their various homes throughout the summer months. I helped round up wild horses, bale hay, care for the animals, and do other tasks. We worked from before sunrise until sundown, and as time wore on, I became very close to my cousins. I loved the joy of just sitting and talking with them in the evenings when our chores were through.
During those two summers, I came to appreciate all the work it takes to plant and irrigate, and then, after all of that is done, how hard it is to harvest. The first summer I spent at the ranch was during a very dry year, and the fields were swarming with crickets. The farmers didn’t give up, however, and they didn’t blame God that things were not going well. They just prepared to plant the next year.
Even if conditions are perfect for farmers, there still is an incredible amount of work to do. They know that you don’t get something for nothing. My experience in Skull Valley helped me understand the law of the harvest, as described in Galatians 6:7 [Gal. 6:7]: “For whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” We reach most of our important goals only after a great deal of effort and hard work.

Last June I couldn’t bring myself to attend girls’ camp, but the reports I have received are beautiful. Shannon’s group of fourth-year girls performed “Walk Tall, You’re a Daughter of God” at the first night fireside and dedicated it to my daughter. Every night thereafter they used “our song” as the closing song at the campfire meeting. The new Beehives did not know Shannon, but they could feel the Spirit as the tears flowed and the notes were sung.

The answer is one that Latter-day Saints would hardly call coincidence. In a little known note to the Manuscript History of the Church, Joseph named his doctors: “Smith, Stone and Perkins” of Dartmouth Medical School in Hanover, New Hampshire, 8 kilometers from the Smith home.

These were not the ordinary, poorly trained country physicians so commonly found in those days. Nathan Smith, graduate of Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, sole founder of the Dartmouth Medical School, later to found three additional New England medical schools, was also president of the New Hampshire Medical Society and had, prior to treating Joseph Smith, accepted the position of the first professor of medicine and surgery at Yale Medical School in New Haven, Connecticut. He had delayed moving to New Haven so he could care for the victims of the 1813 typhoid epidemic in the communities surrounding Hanover, New Hampshire.

Cyrus Perkins was Nathan Smith’s former pupil and a graduate of the Dartmouth Medical School. Perkins had later returned to the area to become the professor of anatomy and join his former teacher in a medical practice.

Stone was very likely also a former student of Smith’s: earlier class rolls of the Dartmouth Medical School lists several Stones.

Even more significantly, Nathan Smith was one of early America’s greatest medical men and had, on his own, devised an operation for osteomyelitis as early as 1798 that he published in 1827 but that was not used for two generations. In other words, generations ahead of his time, he was the only man in America who could have saved Joseph Smith’s leg.

Without a college education, Nathan Smith apprenticed himself to a country physician for three years, then began his own practice in Cornish, New Hampshire. Dissatisfied with his preparation, he applied to the newly founded Harvard Medical School in Cambridge, Massachusetts three years later. He became its fifth graduate and returned to his country practice in 1790.

Now he felt his mission included raising medical standards and proficiency among his colleagues as well. He petitioned Dartmouth College trustees to establish a medical school and spent a year in Edinburgh, Scotland, accumulating equipment, books, and clinical experience. His opening lecture in 1797 was the beginning of Dartmouth’s medical college.

For thirteen years, he single-handedly taught anatomy, chemistry, surgery, remedies, and the theory and practice of medicine, until the New Hampshire legislature allowed Perkins to join him as professor of anatomy in 1810.

Neither one received a salary for the teaching: tuition fees and their joint medical practice made up their income. Since Dr. Smith had trained many of the physicians in upper New England, he was consulted on many difficult cases, which meant travelling as much as 160 kilometers on horseback over rough dirt roads. He routinely invited ten to twenty of his medical students along on these trips as part of their training.

This pattern was repeated in Joseph Smith’s case. After Dr. Stone had unsuccessfully performed two operations on Joseph’s diseased leg, his mother insisted on another opinion and requested a “council of surgeons.” Nathan Smith, his partner, Cyrus Perkins, and medical students from Dartmouth came to do the necessary surgery.

At first an amputation was suggested: Lucy Mack Smith instead asked for the experimental operation of removing only the diseased bone. Her description of the procedure is accurate and parallels the description of the operation found in early Dartmouth medical student notebooks.

The operation was successful, and Joseph’s wounds healed. The fact that a wound with the exposed shaft of bone healed so readily is truly miraculous; however Nathan Smith had achieved an unusual record of good results—he never described amputation following his operation. Joseph used crutches for three years but his life and his leg were spared.

After the epidemic and the operation, both Nathan Smith and Joseph Smith left New Hampshire, Nathan Smith to become a professor at Yale Medical School and Joseph to return to Vermont for three years before moving to Palmyra, New York, where he eventually began his great work.

It is hard to call it an accident—a boy plucky enough to refuse amputation despite two unsuccessful operations; a mother who requested the experimental procedure, not knowing Nathan Smith was the only surgeon in the United States who had such a successful experience treating osteomyelitis; and the undramatic conjunction between the right man and the right time.

Sister Vicki Fujii Matsumori went to Primary even before she was a member of the Church. Her parents wanted her to attend a church when she was a child, and their home in Murray, Utah, was close to a meetinghouse of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
“I always knew it was true,” says Sister Matsumori. When she learned about tithing, she wanted to pay it. When she learned about fasting, she wanted to fast. When she was about to turn eight, she wanted to be baptized.
However, when she asked for permission to be baptized, her parents, George Yasuyuki Fujii and Yoshie Matsumoto Fujii, told her they wanted her to know more about the church she was joining. Her father knew a little about the Church and told her that she should learn the Articles of Faith before the bishop interviewed her for baptism. So she did.
The bishop did not ask her to recite any of them, but Sister Matsumori still treasures the gospel knowledge she gained while she was in Primary.

With his first preaching trip ended, Erastus worked on the family farm a winter and attended a short term of school. In the spring of 1835, still 16, he “labored what I could, some in the neighboring churches and some in the adjoining towns until the first of June when I went to the state of New Hampshire and laboured a while in Lisbon and the adjacent country … but none at this time obeyed the truth.” That year, 1835, he helped his father with spring and summer work. “I was father’s chief help on the farm,” he recalled, “but always carried a pocket Bible or some of the religious works with me to the field, and when my team was resting, I was reading. Father sometimes thought my team owed a debt of gratitude to my Bible.”

Gail Whereatt and her family in St. Paul, Minnesota, enjoy canoe camping. Although not as limited as a backpacker, Gail must still be careful of the food they take. The Whereatts enjoy exploring the Boundary Waters, but this area is restricted and no cans or bottles are allowed. Since they have to portage (carry over land) the canoes up to a mile in places, weight is a concern.
“We have to tie the food up every night to protect it from animals,” says Gail, “but on the last trip, our dog, not the bears, ate the bacon.”
Gail has learned a trick to making a refreshing dessert that would work in any cold stream or lake. She mixes a gelatin dessert according to direction, adds dried fruit, and seals it in a plastic bag. She then places this bag in another larger plastic bag with a few rocks, ties it securely with a rope, and drops it in a cold lake or stream. The rocks make the bags sink to a cool depth, and the rope is tied to a branch so the package can be retrieved. The dessert will set up in several hours.

There were some pretty strange pageants. The year that Mom was pregnant, she pulled out the slip of paper that said she had to be a Wise Man. My father drew out Mary. He said it ended up being the most moving Christmas pageant for him, even though most of us kids thought it was pretty funny. He said he had begun to understand what it meant to be Mary that year. And even at 14, I got pretty choked up when my pregnant mother appeared to give her gift to the baby Jesus. David was born that January.

“Ready … set …”
I heard Mom’s voice prompting the Cub Scouts as I peeked in from the doorway of the cultural hall. The ten boys in her Bear den were matched into pairs, standing back to back with their elbows linked. I could sense energy and tension pent up in their nine-year-old bodies.
Dad spied me in the doorway. “Hi, Temberly!” He started walking toward me, and I blushed because everyone was looking in my direction to see who was interrupting their fun. Even though the boys were two years younger than me, I still felt embarrassed. Dad wrapped his arm around my shoulder and gave me a quick sideways hug.
“Go!” Mom shouted, and the boys began pushing and straining against each other. I figured out right away what they were trying to do. Each boy was pushing against his opponent, trying to force him to cross a masking-tape line about ten feet away. Whoever crossed the line, lost. Little did I know, I’d have my own serious wrestling match that very afternoon.
Dad walked back closer to the group. “That’s it, keep pushing, don’t give up!” he yelled several times, coaching the red-faced Bears. I noticed that Sister Brandt wasn’t there. She was the assistant den leader, but she’d had a baby last week. I assumed Mom must have asked Dad to help her out. He was smiling widely, obviously enjoying helping with the boys.
Eventually there were five winners and five losers. My brother, Warren, was one of the losers. He was unhappy, but Dad mixed up the pairs of boys and told them all to try again. This time some of the losers became winners, including Warren.
I could tell that Dad was trying hard to make sure that everyone had a fun time. He wasn’t a member of the Church—yet—but I loved him, anyway. He had watched Mom, Warren and me get baptized last year after being taught by the missionaries.
Because it had been a long day of testing at school, I didn’t want to hang around. Mom was busy explaining the next game, so I turned to Dad and asked, “May I walk home?”
He seemed concerned. “Now?”
“I want to get started on my homework. And I’m really hungry, too.”
“I don’t like the idea of you being at the house by yourself,” Dad fussed, hoping I’d change my mind.
“I promise I’ll lock the door behind me.”
“Well, all right. We should be done here in about twenty minutes. But ring the foyer phone once for us so that we know you got into the house OK. Do you know the number?”
“It’s on the ward phone list. Thanks!” I said excitedly, feeling suddenly a little older and more confident in taking responsibility for myself. I turned and walked through the silent foyer and out the double doors. Our house was less than a block away, and I jogged all the way there.
At home, I followed up on my promises to lock the door and ring the phone at the meetinghouse. I was really thirsty at the moment, and something cold and wet sounded good. I went to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator.
That’s when I saw them. The lighting inside seemed to draw my attention to the six cans of beer, right beside the milk jug. At that moment, I was faced with a fierce temptation, an inner wrestling match: my gospel standards versus sinful desires. I just stood there and stared at the appealing-looking cans. I wondered what beer tasted like. My dry mouth needed quenching. It would be easy to open one, try a sip, then throw it away when I was done. Who kept count of how many cans were in the fridge, anyway? No one would ever know.
Who was I kidding? I knew who would know what I’d done. Me. More importantly, Heavenly Father and the Savior would know. That’s too many of us, I decided. I slammed the refrigerator door shut and repeated the words from My Gospel Standards we had been memorizing in Primary, “I will not partake of things that are harmful to me.” Trembling, I went to my room and lay on the bed.
Temptation, my powerful opponent, had tried to push me to step over a line my spirit knew I shouldn’t cross. I sat up and opened the blinds in the window above my bed and let the late afternoon sunshine fill the room. Deep inside, I felt as bright and glowing as the sun’s rays coming through the windowpanes. I was the winner!
After dinner, Mom loaded the dishwasher and Dad and Warren watched baseball on TV. I had gone back to my bedroom to finish my math homework. I decided it was time to ask Dad to help me.
“Dad?” I leaned my head out of the doorway.
“Am I in demand?” He tilted his head to the side to hear my answer.
“I need a greater brain than mine,” I replied, trying to sound exasperated. I watched him stand up, stare at the screen a few more seconds as a batter struck out, then walk down the hall toward me. My smile waned as I saw him carrying a beer can in his hand. He set it down on my desk. I could smell the beer, and I wished he had left it in the other room. We worked together until the fifteen math problems were solved.
“Thanks, Dad.”
“You’re very welcome, Tembers.” I liked his nickname for me. “Is there anything else you need my intelligence for, before I finish watching the ballgame?”
The moment had presented itself, just as I’d hoped. “Dad, why do you drink beer?”
“Where did that question come from?” He looked surprised and embarrassed.
I took a deep breath and confessed, “This afternoon when I was home by myself, I was tempted to drink some and it scared me.”
He eyed me seriously, “But … you didn’t?”
“No.” I looked straight into his eyes and saw relief on his face.
“I’m proud of you, Temberly,” Dad said sincerely. “You made a wise choice today. I knew that as you and Warren grew older, this would be an issue we’d need to discuss. I didn’t realize it would come up so soon.”
“Oh, Dad, I don’t like having that stuff in our house. I know you don’t drink a lot—just when you’re watching ballgames. But when will Warren be tempted to try it? …”
“Tembers, you can be pointedly honest sometimes.” Dad ran his hand through his dark hair. “I suppose, deep down inside, I already knew you felt this way. I’d appreciate your love and patience with me as I try to find the willpower to quit.”
I wiped the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand and rubbed it dry on my jeans. I felt the Holy Ghost strengthen me, and I found the courage to say, “Today, I heard you tell the Cub Scouts to ‘keep pushing and not give up.’ Can I keep pushing you about this?”
“Yes, Coach,” he said, squeezing my hand before he left the room. I was startled when he suddenly leaned his head back in the doorway and said, “Don’t ever give up.” He winked.
I smiled to myself. Dad hadn’t exactly promised to stop, but somehow I knew he was a lot closer to it. And that hope made me feel like a winner … again.

After a get-acquainted dinner with all of the mission presidents and their wives, Lee and I, with our wives, went to my hotel room for a visit. Our conversation, of course, centered on missionary work. Lee explained what had happened to his missionaries since President Hinckley asked us to raise the bar on qualifications for missionary service. He reported a decided improvement in the preparation of the missionaries arriving in the mission field. The conversation led us to recall an experience Lee and I had while he was attending high school.
Lee was a member of his high school track team—he both sprinted and high-jumped. During the 1968 Summer Olympic Games held in Mexico City, the world became enamored with a little-known high jumper named Dick Fosbury. He had experimented with a new high-jumping technique that involved sprinting diagonally toward the bar, then curving and leaping backward over the bar. It came to be called the Fosbury flop.
Like many others, Lee was intrigued by this new technique, but until the new school year started, he didn’t have a place to practice it. I came home one evening to find him practicing the Fosbury flop in our basement. He had set up two makeshift standards by stacking chairs, and he was jumping over a broomstick set on the chairs, using a sofa to cushion his landing. It was very clear to me that the sofa would not hold up under such treatment, so I called a halt to his indoor high-jumping. Instead, I invited him to go with me to a sporting goods store, where we purchased some foam padding to use for landing and high-jumping standards so he could move the activity out of doors.
After experimenting with the Fosbury flop, Lee decided to return to the western-roll technique that he had used previously. Still, through the end of the summer into the fall, he practiced high-jumping for many hours in our backyard.
One evening as I returned home from work, I found Lee practicing his jumping. I asked, “How high is the bar?”
He said, “Five feet, eight inches.”
“Why that height?”
He answered, “You must clear that height to qualify for the state track meet.”
“How are you doing?” I asked.
“I can clear it every time. I haven’t missed.”
My reply: “Let’s raise the bar and see how well you do then.”
He replied, “Then I might miss.”
I queried, “If you don’t raise the bar, how will you ever know your potential?”
So we started moving the bar up to five feet, ten inches; then to six feet; and so on, as he sought to improve. Lee became a better high jumper because he was not content with just clearing the minimum standard. He learned that even if it meant missing, he wanted to keep raising the bar to become the best high jumper he was capable of becoming.

I recently read the account of a man who, just after the passing of his wife, opened her dresser drawer and found there an item of clothing she had purchased when they visited the eastern part of the United States nine years earlier. She had not worn it but was saving it for a special occasion. Now, of course, that occasion would never come.
In relating the experience to a friend, the husband said, “Don’t save something only for a special occasion. Every day in your life is a special occasion.”
That friend later said those words changed her life. They helped her to cease putting off the things most important to her. Said she: “Now I spend more time with my family. I use crystal glasses every day. I’ll wear new clothes to go to the supermarket if I feel like it. The words ‘someday’ and ‘one day’ are fading from my vocabulary. Now I take the time to call my relatives and closest friends. I’ve called old friends to make peace over past quarrels. I tell my family members how much I love them. I try not to delay or postpone anything that could bring laughter and joy into our lives. And each morning, I say to myself that this could be a special day. Each day, each hour, each minute is special.”

I can attest to the truth of President Snow’s statement. Relief Society has always been comprised of those who put others first and self last. I remember that when I was a small boy during the Depression, my mother was the secretary-treasurer of the ward Relief Society. Back then dues were paid to assist those in need. Mother was not really a bookkeeper, so Dad would help her. The individual contributions were never so much as a dollar, but rather would be a quarter, a dime, a nickel, a few pennies.

I learned many lessons from my mother. I must have been a very active boy, for Mother was always telling me, “Slow down, Tommy, slow down. You’re on the verge of Saint Vitus’ dance!” You know, I never did know what Saint Vitus’ dance was. All I knew was that Mother said I was on the verge of it—and the way she spoke the words, I assumed it was a drastic ailment.

Since we lived just a block or two from the railroad tracks, frequently men, unemployed, without funds for food, would leave the train and come to our house for something to eat. Such men were always polite. They offered to do some work for the food. Indelibly imprinted on my mind is the picture of a gaunt and hungry man standing at our kitchen door, hat in hand, pleading for food. Mother would welcome such a visitor and would direct him to the kitchen sink to wash up while she prepared food for him to eat. She never skimped on quality or quantity; the visitor ate exactly the same lunch as did my father. As he wolfed down the food, Mother took the opportunity to counsel him to return to his home and his family. When he left the table, he had been nourished physically and spiritually. These men never failed to say thank you. Tears in their eyes revealed ever so silently the gratitude of their hearts.

Illustrations by Ben Simonsen
Wally wanted to sit still in sacrament meeting. He did. Really. But it was hard.
He wiggled.
He squirmed.
He bounced.
Mommy put her hand on Wally’s shoulder. “This is Heavenly Father’s house,” she whispered. “We need to be reverent.”
Wally sat still. For a minute. Then he wiggled again. How could he beat the wiggles?
Wally looked at Robby. Robby was his little brother. Robby was two years old.
Robby had the wiggles too. When you are two, the wiggles are even worse.
Wally whispered, “Robby, let’s look at your book.” It was a picture book. It was about Jesus.
Wally opened the book. Robby saw a picture of Jesus. Robby smiled.
“Jesus,” Robby said.
Wally nodded. “Let’s think about Jesus,” he whispered.
Robby was quiet. And Wally’s wiggles went away.

After learning of this counsel, the Lugo family of Valencia, Venezuela, felt inspired to begin their own home storage. Each week they began setting aside a small amount of food, water, and money. Even with their limited resources, they were able to gather a modest reserve after only a few months. Later that year a workers’ strike in Venezuela put many local workers’ jobs in jeopardy. Brother Omar Lugo was among those who eventually lost their jobs.

It took nearly two years for Brother Lugo to find new employment. During that time, Brother Lugo and his family lived on their savings and food storage. Despite the difficult challenges of unemployment, the Lugos experienced peace and comfort because they were prepared. They faced the uncertain future with confidence, knowing they had followed the counsel to gradually build their home storage.9

Elder Oaks was born in Provo, Utah, 12 August 1932, and grew up a worker. He began working for pay only three or four years after his father died, to help his widowed mother. Dr. Lloyd Oaks’ death (of tuberculosis) left his young widow Stella with three children: Dallin, eight at the time, and the oldest; Merrill, now a Provo, Utah, ophthalmologist; and Evelyn, now Mrs. H. Ross Hammond, of Salt Lake City.
“I was blessed with an extraordinary mother,” Elder Oaks recalls. “She surely was one of the many noble women who have lived in the latter days.” He lauds her as a woman of “great faith,” a “very skilled parent,” and a woman possessed of great natural executive ability. Many outside the family would agree. Before her death in 1980, Stella Oaks was known as a force for good in Provo, in both Church and civic service.
“She gave me a great deal of responsibility and freedom. She encouraged me to have a job,” Elder Oaks explains. From the time he first worked for pay, “at eleven or twelve,” he has been continuously employed.
That first job was sweeping out a radio repair shop. He had to learn to test the radio tubes he found on the floor, to find out which were good, and that led to an interest in radio. He threw himself into study with characteristic intensity. Before he was sixteen, he had obtained a first-class radiotelephone license, which allowed him to operate a commercial radio station’s transmitter, and found a job in radio. Station managers liked to hire a “combination man”—an engineer who could double as an announcer—“but my voice hadn’t changed,” he recalls, laughing. Before long, however, that change took care of itself, and he was working regularly as an announcer.

Jan peered into the room. All neutral tones and silence. She stepped across the threshold. Suddenly the walls turned to soft, warm yellow, and the modular arrangement at the far end of the “hospitality sector” blinked on with patterns of fairy tale-like whimsy. Some tinkling, teasing music played softly all around.
Jan was delighted. “How lovely to think that this is me!”
Paul entered the room. The walls now turned slightly rust. Panels opened to reveal textured symmetrical patterns. The music took on a low, slower melody.
Paul smiled playfully at Jan. He made a sweeping gesture with his hand. “Aha! My personality is overshadowing yours.”
There were quick flashes of red all around the room. Loud percussion came and went.
Paul showed surprise. Bright patterns appeared on all sides of the couple. A classical selection with bursting crescendos boomed forth.
“Why, Jan! I’m sorry that stupid comment made you angry.”
Jan was gazing again with wonder at the marvelous constructions around them. She almost expected to hear breathing or feel beating.
Isn’t it eerie Paul? Eerie and exciting!” She paused, deciding which words to choose. “I … wasn’t really mad. But I guess there was a second of resentment or something …” She stopped, glancing to each side, then upward. “And this house picks up those just-barely-there vibrations!”
“Well, you knew I was just kidding, didn’t you?” Paul put his arm around Jan and squeezed her shoulder.
A sudden change around them: pastel flurries, a heavy scent of spring, a Strauss waltz.
Paul jerked his hand off of Jan’s shoulder. It was a reflex movement, as if his fingers had been burned. Both Jan and Paul burst out laughing and the house seemed to laugh with them.
When the comfortable rust-and-gold decor returned, Jan and Paul sat on one of the two stabiles in the sector. Paul leafed through the pamphlet. The two of them discussed the pending decision. The real estate agent was waiting outside. He had told them to take as much time as they wanted. It wasn’t more time they needed, it was more money. The budget would be strained to the breaking point, no question about it. But, oh, the house, this marvelous house! Mirrormood Estates meant not only upper-crust living, it meant lifetime insurance against the deterioration of human relationships through misunderstanding. Jan and Paul, newly married and wonderfully in love, were determined to maintain their open communication, thus fortifying their lives against unhappiness. This house would be a tender touchstone if the going ever did get rough.
“Listen!” Jan pulled at Paul’s arm “What are we doing sitting here? We should be looking around.”
So Jan and Paul explored.
In each “living sector” (as the pamphlet was wont to call the room arrangements), Jan and Paul had fun trying to toss out a variety of feelings and to watch the bouncings. But the newlyweds soon found that the house did not react as readily and as dramatically to conjured emotions. Still, it was so much fun to shout or grimace—or whatever—and to see, hear, and sometimes feel and smell echoes that were more clearly understood than had been the original outputs. Time passed too quickly.
“We’d better get on with it,” Paul noted just as Jan was turning to again review the possibilities of the food preparation sector. “That real estate man will be coming in here to pry us out before long.”
Jan and Paul returned again to the hospitality sector and sat on the stabile closest to the front entrance. They hated to leave the house. Together they looked through the pamphlet. On the last pages of the pamphlet were more explicit descriptions, in quasi-technical terms, of the equipment built into the house: computers to record and decipher even a slight odor of perspiration, a sudden tightening of a muscle, a quick flutter of an eyelid. Diagrams attempted to show the intricate networks of sensors and reactors built into various walls and arrangements. Mathematical data followed.
Jan lost interest. She didn’t care that much about explanations and proof. She knew only that she loved the house. The real estate agent had shown wisdom in simply unlocking the door and telling them to wander through the model home at their leisure. The house was its own best sales agent.
“I love it,” Jan enthused.
“Well, I do too. But we have to look at this from the practical standpoint, you know.”
The house went bland. Too much black and white. There was some kind of clean and crisp electronic music playing. The temperature in the room cooled.
Jan stuck out her tongue. “Ugh!” And there was a waver of greenness, a few droning notes.
Then Jan and Paul found themselves giggling. And surrounded by merry pulsations and wild colors, they decided that, oh, yes, they had to live in the house.
Jan was awake. Her eyes were still closed. It had become a game. Guess what’s out there. Then, bang! Open the eyes! See how close you came.
It was difficult to win in this game. The many computers in the house that worked separately and together made countless environmental expressions possible. And the waking scene was a mixture of the blurring dreams of two people and the crystallizing thoughts of the waker. Jan could inventory her own fading dream glow—whether or not she was able to remember having dreamed. She could note her bent for the day. But how unlikely to be able to wild-guess the dream of someone else. That was the mystery factor: Paul’s dream. But that’s what made the game intriguing.
Hmmm. A trailing melancholy … anticipation of a busy day. And maybe Paul had had a scrapbook-type dream last night.
During the first two weeks after they had moved into the house, Jan and Paul had alternated their waking and sleeping times in order to experience the dream flicker excitement spoken of by so many Mirrormood residents. A couple of those times when Paul had been asleep and she had been awake, Jan had watched with interest very homey and nostalgic happenings in the room. So she would choose a scrapbook-type dream for last night. A vague supposition, but at least something to work with. Jan mixed the ingredients together and decided: A warm plaid on the folio-panel, coordinated wide stripes on the overhead and …
No music!
Jan’s eyes snapped open. All was neutral. She listened carefully. Sometimes the morning audios were very soft. Funny she hadn’t noticed. She usually allowed herself the audio clues. Nothing. A fear was rising from Jan, was rising and dispersing. No reinforcements wrapping all around. The wavers of dismay weren’t being caught and labeled and hung out for display. Jan heard herself emit a strange wail. She reached for Paul.
“Paul! Wake up, wake up! The house is broken!”
The week had been a waiting time—long and blandly tedious. Technicians had come, had checked, had consulted. Nothing was resolved. Nothing was fixed. Jan had had a bothersome feeling of uneasiness with her for most of the weary week. At least, she had supposed it was uneasiness. She couldn’t be sure. It was hard to decide how she really felt. She and Paul had lived in Mirrormood for six months. She had not had occasion for some time to concern herself with careful introspection and then to arrive at conclusions without aid of “outside corroboration”.
The passive house did not now demand attention. Jan was free to look elsewhere. Several times she had caught herself watching Paul surreptitiously. Jan supposed that Paul was equally suspicious of her actions, unsure of motivation and intent. Paul had been quieter this week, had seemed to be spending more time thinking. Jan decided that she felt very uneasy. If only those people would get the house fixed.
Drab. It was so drab. The magic was gone. Too bad there wasn’t a nice yard outside with living plants, a place where she could go for some deep breathing and smiling. Mirrormood houses had only small, hard courtyards. The Mirrormood Development Corporation didn’t concern itself with outdoor life-styles. Geode living, Jan decided. That’s what it was like. All the glory was sealed inside. And now there was no glory. The geode looked like it had been sacked and scoured. The magic was gone.
Jan knew, of course, that not even the intensifiers were working; yet, it seemed that with each succeeding day of house inactivity the house became gloomier. It was as if more and more layers of grayness were being stretched tautly and uncomfortably over the whole. Jan could almost feel a cloudy film hardening on her very skin. She rubbed her arms. Maybe it was just a damp chilliness she felt. The heat, humidity, and ion regulators weren’t working either.
Jan bit her lower lip in thought. How ironic! Now she was reacting to the house instead of the house reacting to her. And it was getting worse and worse. Maybe if she had a good cry she would feel better.
A defiance welled inside her. She let the defiance come out in a glare of her eyes. She wanted to direct the glare toward the very heart or brain or core of this pompous house! But Jan had never been interested enough in the systems of the house to find out if there was a central something-or-other control unit. So she had to be content with pressing the glare up one wall, across the ceiling, and down another wall.
“I’ll decide my own mood,” she threatened to the gray hollowness about her. Jan went to the sleeping sector, grabbed her purse, and left the house.
Jan stood rearranging and reconsidering, moving an orange marigold closer to a purple columbine, adding a few more sprays of baby’s breath. She stood to admire the bouquet, then glanced toward the walls to consider the effect of the two wall hangings. Jan would never have imagined that she, who professed to have quality taste, would have purchased such garish items. But they had been cheap; and, she did like the way they worried the grayness. She hoped Paul would approve. Jan paced back and forth, stopping twice to touch the warmth of the flowers.
She was startled when the door burst open. Paul was not one for bursting into rooms. But there he was, standing too still now. There was an unusual gleam in his eyes.
Jan gestured toward the spots of colors in the room. “I hope you like it. I used money from the food budget, but …”
“It’s beautiful! It’s beautiful! You’re beautiful!” Paul grabbed Jan and danced her around the room.
She certainly hadn’t expected such an enthusiastic reaction. They stopped the twirling in front of the bouquet.
“I wished I could have bought basketful of flowers and bright, plastic doodads to scatter and hang in every room. But I knew we couldn’t afford it.”
“Speaking-of-affording-things.” Paul pranced the statement out. Jan, who had been pushing the flowers into a tighter arrangement, turned to devote her full attention to Paul.
No careful parade of phrases now. Paul let the words tumble happily. The tone was pure joy.
“Do you know that the guarantee contract has been violated? We weren’t repaired within six days. I got a solemn phone call at work today. Do you know we have the option to take possession of a new Mirrormood or to terminate the mortgage agreement? We’re free!”
It was the moment to toss something into the air. But Jan and Paul merely stood looking at one another, smiles of satisfaction on their faces. The smiles stretched to laughter, which propelled them into one another’s arms.
Oh, life was a parade! They could both feel the tingle of confetti-and-balloon time with booming drums and banners unfurling.
Paul kissed Jan. The happy glow Jan felt seemed to light up the gray room. The magic wasn’t gone, Jan realized. It had been inside her, waiting.
“Let’s find a nice, drab, cheap apartment to rent.”
Jan nodded. “Yes. And, oh, please, let’s go looking right now.”
They hurried out of the house, taking the magic with them.