Gospel Story Finder

I had just turned 14 and my bishop had invited me to enroll in seminary. By a stroke of severe timing, my bishop’s invitation came right when I was embarking on a system of scholarly torture known as the General Certificate of Secondary Education. In England (I live in Manchester), we refer to it as the GCSEs. So here was the bishop inviting me to seminary while the never-ending storm of exams, homework, mock exams, projects, tests, and experiments that are the GCSEs were just beginning.
Consequently, apathetic would be the best word to describe my approach to seminary. There was the initial excitement of studying in the same class as my big brother, but that quickly wore off. It wasn’t until I decided to find out about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon that I began to appreciate what seminary could do for me.
When I began the course, we had been taught that Moroni 10:4 [Moro. 10:4] was our key scripture for the year. I had marked that scripture in red and green, and I had felt prompted to pray to Heavenly Father and ask for a special witness concerning the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon.
As I knelt by my bed to talk with my Father in Heaven, I realized I had not prepared myself very well. I remembered the passage in the Doctrine and Covenants when the Lord told Oliver Cowdery that he “took no thought save it was to ask me” (D&C 9:7). I knew I was doing the same thing, and when I prayed to Heavenly Father I felt nothing different except a feeling that I was right to ask. But I didn’t feel like I’d received an answer to my prayer. I knew I had to do all that the Lord asked of me before I was to find out whether the Book of Mormon was a book of scripture or just a very clever novel.
Then one night I was alone in the house when my answer came. My homework was already completed, and usually such times are a welcome opportunity to veg out in front of the TV or get stuck in another science-fiction book. But that night I felt like doing neither.
On impulse, I went upstairs to my room and brought down my new brown triple combination. I sat in the living room and searched for the final chapters of Nephi’s life in 2 Nephi.
Somehow I felt that these were important chapters, so I said a short and simple prayer before I began to study, asking that the Spirit be with me. I had often asked for the same thing when I would pray before seminary lessons, yet this time my request seemed to mean more. I felt I needed to feel these words as I read them, so I began to read the scriptures out loud to myself.
As I read one chapter, then another, I began to feel as if I could actually hear Nephi himself saying those things to his people. As I read of his love for his people, I could feel the words of a prophet crying out, each sentence filled with the anguished cries of a loving man who had served God all his life. I read through chapter 32 [2 Ne. 32], spellbound by the words of a man who was suddenly becoming so real to me. The things he said were so beautiful and right. When I turned the page and began to read chapter 33 [2 Ne. 33], my empathy for this man overflowed. I could not contain my tears as I read how this prophet cried day and night for his people, and so I cried with him—desperately aware that those words were the last written in the Book of Mormon by such a great man.
I finished the final testimony of Nephi with a clogged throat and bleary eyes. Yet inside I felt on fire, alive with a knowledge that had settled in my heart. Nephi was a prophet of God, a real man, with a real life.
Many weeks after I had first prayed to know if those words were God’s words, I had fulfilled my end of Moroni’s promise and received a testimony that I hope will stay with me forever.

As she became more active in the Church, Sharon had a great desire to go to the temple. “After many months, my bishop assured me that I had done all possible to [qualify for] a temple recommend,” she says. But she wondered: “Was I really worthy? Would I be able to live up to the covenants I would make? …

“Upon entering the temple that day, I felt a definite warmth and comfort. My loneliness eased away because I felt that many seen and unseen sisters and brothers stood near. … Tears filled my eyes as feelings of uneasiness and unworthiness slipped away.”

Like Israel, 17-year-old Madhu Bunga remembers the first time he attended a Church meeting and felt the Spirit.
“I was glad to see so many strangers come and sit beside me and talk to me about my life,” says Madhu, who attended his first Church meeting in December 2000. “I was amazed how people taught and approached things by the Spirit of God. I loved it, and I ran to my house, thinking all the world was in my hands.”
Madhu and other young members of the Church keep the Spirit in their lives by attending church and seminary and participating in service projects in the community.
“I am the only member of the Church in my family,” says Madhu. “To stay strong, I attend seminary regularly. We have done many service projects, like going to a charity to teach children English, fun stories, and games. I went with the young men and women to a government hospital to paint the walls, and we helped Church members when they moved.”
Joseph Cornelius, president of the Hyderabad First Branch, also recognizes the importance of service and attending Church meetings to feel the Spirit.
“Members have service projects like collecting clothes for the orphanage once a year,” says President Cornelius. “We attend all the Church meetings an dactivities. WE have family prayer and family home evening.”
Recently members from the Hyderabad First and Second Branches collected old clothing and bought rice and cereal to give to a boys’ shelter. The people who run the shelter go to a train station in the area, find boys who are living there, and bring them back so they have a place to sleep. Schooling and counseling are also provided at the shelter.
When Church members arrived at the shelter, they were warmly greeted. After much visiting and an exchange of games and laughter, members sanded down the walls of the shelter, which were in dire need of repair. Paint was donated and applied, giving the shelter a clean, cheery appearance.
Whether it is at the service projects or in friendly gospel discussions, the Spirit continues to whisper the gospel to many in Hyderabad. Though soft, the language of the Spirit is clear, uniting Saints across one of the most populous countries in the world.

The fourth miracle came soon after. A family in the United States adopted me. My new father picked me up from the orphanage and took me home. We started the process of becoming acquainted, and I began to settle into my new environment.
Numerous challenges surfaced immediately upon my arrival. Everywhere I went people laughed at my English. My limited education caused problems in school. I prayed for help, and then I worked harder and smarter to close the knowledge gap, especially with English. Once again Heavenly Father answered my prayers. Two years later I proudly skipped a grade.
Then my home life fell apart. Prayers to the Lord, high personal goals, and a deep desire to succeed carried me through that extremely tough time. Finally, with a social worker’s help, my father and I agreed to terminate the adoption. This was a time for prayer, patience, faith, and help from Heavenly Father.
Now 15 years old, I went to live with a foster family for about a year. That was when the fifth miracle came. While sleigh riding with two friends, I met an LDS family with two nice daughters. During the ride home, one of the daughters spoke up, saying, “I think the Lord wants us to adopt Ephrem Smith.” Remarkably, the other three members of the family had also received the same inspiration. The father worked with the Department of Social Services, and soon I moved to my new home. From the very beginning my amazing new father gave me agency. For example, he explained that their family goes to church on Sundays. He allowed me to choose to join them or stay home; he said that they still would love me if I chose not to attend church. I chose to attend church, and I have since made many other righteous decisions.
Miracle six came as I received a testimony of the gospel. One Sunday I sat in sacrament meeting singing “I Stand All Amazed” (Hymns, no. 193). Huge tears began running down my cheeks as I received a personal testimony that Jesus is the Christ and that the Church is His Church.
Finally, nine years later, I knew how to become like those missionaries! The missionary age was now 18, but my adoption had not yet been finalized. I waited seven long months until my adoption was completed. Finally, my missionary papers could be submitted. Four days later I received my mission call. In just one week the Lord blessed me with final adoption papers and a mission call. I treasure both papers exceedingly! They are my seventh miracle. Yes, indeed, it took many miracles along the way from that mud hut in Ethiopia to my treasured mission.

Well, one day when we’d piled into Uncle Chadwick’s office, he wasn’t there. What was there was his big Colt dragoon revolver, lying on his desk in a patch of windowlight. It was a handsome piece, full of mystery. Uncle Chadwick had used that very gun to shoot a huge bush pig that had come snorting into Horse Creek one day. The pig was foaming at the mouth and chasing Cylus Thombson’s girl who’d been playing marbles in the street. All it had taken was one shot from the Colt dragoon, and that prairie hog was laid out flatter than the road through town!

For a moment let me take you with me back to my college days. As a student at the University of Utah, I was attending a dance on campus. I was dancing with my date, a girl from West High School, when a young lady from East High School danced by with her partner. Her name was Frances Johnson, although I didn’t know it at the time. I just took one look and decided that there was a young lady I wanted to meet. But she danced away. I might never have seen her again.

About two months later I did. One day while waiting for the streetcar in Salt Lake City, I looked across the way and couldn’t believe my eyes. There was the young lady I had seen dancing across the floor. She was standing with another young lady and a young man whom I remembered from grade school days. Unfortunately, I couldn’t remember his name. I had a decision to make. What should I do? I found in my heart an appreciation of the phrase: “When the time for decision arrives, the time for preparation is past.” I squared my shoulders and plunged toward my opportunity. I walked up to that young man and said, “Hello, my old friend from grade school days.”

He looked at me blankly and said, “I can’t quite remember your name.” I told him my name. He told me his name, and then he introduced me to the girl who later became my wife. That day I made a note in my student directory to call on Frances Beverly Johnson, and I did. That decision, I believe, was perhaps the most important that I have ever made.

Like the Semeonovs, other Soviets have learned of the restored gospel through friends outside the country. Among the earliest to be baptized were Yuri Terebinen and his wife, Ludmilla, of Leningrad. They joined the Church in the fall of 1989 in Hungary while visiting with friends. “We went to church with them,” says Yuri, “and felt something different in the people’s relationship with God and with each other. It seemed right that we should be free to communicate directly with God for ourselves, rather than through professional clergy. You are taught, and you teach; this brings you closer to God.
“For me, the rituals and language of other churches I had visited often came between me and God. Here, I felt intimately connected with Him, which made me also feel closer to people.”
When the Terebinens returned to Leningrad after being baptized, they relied on friends in Helsinki to put them in touch with the Finnish mission president, who at the time was Steven Mecham. President Mecham and his counselor Yusi Kempainen had already been visiting with members in Viborg and Tallinn. They visited with the Terebinens and other members in Leningrad. By December 1989, small branches of the Church were established in those three cities.
Yuri became the first branch president in Leningrad. Since then, the branch has been divided into two, with a total of over 160 members. There is now also a branch in Moscow.

Recently my husband, Mel, and I met a volunteer tour guide named Mollie Lenthal as we visited a museum in Australia. We found out that Mollie, a lovely woman in her 70s, has no children and has never married. She is an only child, and her parents have been deceased for many years. Her closest relatives are two cousins who live on another continent. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with the Spirit testifying to me, almost as if Heavenly Father were speaking: “Mollie is not alone! Mollie is my daughter! I am her Father! She is a very important daughter in my family, and she is never alone!”
Just as the Lord has testified to me that He has not forgotten His precious daughter Mollie Lenthal, I testify that He has not forgotten you! Whatever sin or weakness or pain or struggle or trial you are going through, He knows and understands those very moments. He loves you! And He will carry you through those moments, just as He did Mary and Martha. He has paid the price that He might know how to succor you. Cast your burdens upon Him. Tell your Heavenly Father how you feel. Tell Him about your pain and afflictions and then give them to Him. Search the scriptures daily. There you will also find great solace and help.

When I was 14, my dad left our family, and my mom was forced to flee the country. I was left with my three younger siblings, Ephraim, 9; Jonathan, 6; and Grace, 3 (names have been changed). Nothing could have prepared us for this sudden change. For the first time, we were alone.

Extended family soon offered to take each of us in, but if we went to live with them, we would be separated. It was a difficult decision. How could we reject their well-intentioned help? But at the same time, how could we give up years of playing, laughing, caring for one another, and watching each other grow?

Initially, my brothers and I turned down their help, thinking I could work to support us and we could stay together. But we knew that we could not provide the care our youngest sister needed, and so, with tears in our eyes, we let her go.

For the next few months, I worked as a building painter to buy food for my brothers and me. My income was insufficient to pay the bills for electricity and water, so we had to live without them.

Despite this trial and the gossip of others that accompanied it, our faith didn’t waver. Every night, I would gather Ephraim and Jonathan around a lamp to read the Book of Mormon. I would trim the wick so that it would produce less smoke, but we would still have to clean our noses that had turned black by the time we finished reading. But it was worth it.

Reading the Book of Mormon brought us closer to Christ. After we read, we would kneel together and take turns saying our prayers. We asked for comfort for our problem that seemed to be without a solution. We finished reading the Book of Mormon, and our faith in Jesus Christ grew stronger.

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

But Rigmor does not see her willingness to speak up as especially courageous. “I don’t really need courage,” says Sister Heistø. “I just think, ‘Oh, here is something I can do.’” One day, for example, she picked up the newspaper and read an interesting article in which Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn, the attorney general of Norway, lamented the state of family life and cultural values in Norway. He warned that the pursuit of materialism could destroy the country and called for the state church to teach values with authority.
Sister Heistø thought the attorney general needed to know that a church is already doing the very things he advocated and that its name is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So she wrote a letter to him.
A week later, the attorney general himself called, asking Sister Heistø to meet with him. As a result, she spent several hours explaining the Church to Mr. Rieber-Mohn. “I think the Lord knows two things about me,” says Sister Heistø. “He knows I am not afraid of other people. Why should I be? … And,” she adds, smiling, “he knows I can talk.”

While on a school trip to Las Vegas, my brother and I were wandering along “the Strip” looking for souvenirs and seeing the sights. We proceeded innocently into a large and impressive hotel, which, we discovered only after we went inside, had a casino attached. We had no intention of gambling, but everywhere we turned were opportunities to do just that.
We wandered deeper and deeper into the building, looking for a store with souvenirs we might be interested in. Built like a maze, the corridors of the casino all seemed to lead from one area of slot machines to another. At last we realized we were lost. The lights were dim, and we were surrounded by all sorts of flashy and offensive advertising. We knew that the buses to go back home would be leaving without us if we didn’t find an exit soon.
Finally we found a security guard and asked him about the quickest way out. He had an annoyed expression, but after giving a disgruntled cough he told us the way. The instructions were complicated, and we had to ask him to repeat them several times. Luckily, with his directions, we found a well-hidden set of doors which led out to the sunlight. We found ourselves on the main street and soon met our supervisors.

In April 2009 former Presiding Bishopric counselor Richard C. Edgley told the story of an exemplary quorum that mobilized to assist a fellow member who had lost his job:
“Phil’s Auto of Centerville, Utah, is a testament of what priesthood leadership and a quorum can accomplish. Phil was a member of an elders quorum and worked as a mechanic at a local automobile repair shop. Unfortunately, the repair shop where Phil worked experienced economic trouble and had to let Phil go from his job. He was devastated by this turn of events.
“On hearing about Phil’s job loss, his bishop, Leon Olson, and his elders quorum presidency prayerfully considered ways they could help Phil get back on his feet. After all, he was a fellow quorum member, a brother, and he needed help. They concluded that Phil had the skills to run his own business. One of the quorum members offered that he had an old barn that perhaps could be used as a repair shop. Other quorum members could help gather needed tools and supplies to equip the new shop. Almost everyone in the quorum could at least help clean the old barn.
“They shared their ideas with Phil; then they shared their plan with the members of their quorum. The barn was cleaned and renovated, the tools gathered, and all was put in order. Phil’s Auto was a success and eventually moved to better and more permanent quarters—all because his quorum brothers offered help in a time of crisis.”

After attending Brigham Young University for a year, Elder Walker served as a full-time missionary in the Tennessee Nashville Mission.
To assist his father’s recovery from a serious accident, Elder Walker delayed his plans to return to school following his mission and returned to Argentina. That’s when he met Ines Marcela Sulé at an institute dance. Eight months later, on August 12, 1993, they were married in the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple. The next day, the young couple moved to Provo, Utah, USA, where Elder Walker completed his bachelor’s degree in economics in 1996.

A more recent example, former Eastern States Mission President James H. Moyle, writing in the 1940s, pointed out how his call to be a deacon actually changed his boyhood behavior. When called by his bishop to be a deacon, young James, who had been hanging around with the rougher boys in the ward, hesitated briefly and then accepted:
“I gradually broke away from the roughs, and so devoted myself to the duties of deacon that the bishop said I was the best in the ward. We cleaned out the meetinghouse, swept, mopped, and dusted, filled the coal-oil lamps, trimmed the wicks, made the fire, did all the janitorial work, and put the house in order generally, and looked after the door and entrance. … We took our turns cleaning the meetinghouse and had to do it frequently. I was very conscientious about it, and never thereafter allowed myself to be wayward or irreligious.”

Sister Katy Key, school teacher and Young Women President from the St Helier Ward in Jersey, works very closely with the Church of England Reverend Helen Gunton of the Grouville Parish Church.
Leading up to Remembrance Sunday, Katy got the pupils from the school and their parents involved to help make poppies that would convert a local meadow into a poppy meadow that the Grouville Remembrance Service Parade would pass by. A teaching assistant at the school made the silhouette of the soldier that was standing guard over the meadow.
The parish news and social media has been very positive about the installation of the poppies saying, “the praise for the poppy installation has been wide and generous”. The Connétable (Constable) and the Seigneur of the local manor have also highly praised the installation.
Katy said “It was lovely and quite moving to help a new generation understand the sacrifice that soldiers made in the First World War in such a practical way.”
On Armistice Day, Katy’s school class went to the poppy meadow where they took part in the two-minute silence. Every class from the school has spent time visiting the poppy meadow since the poppy meadow was created.

I would like to relate the experience of an ancestor of my wife, Jeanene. Her name is Sarah DeArmon Pea Rich. Her commentary shows the impact that the temple can have in our lives. When she was 31 years old, she received a calling from Brigham Young to work in the Nauvoo Temple, where all the ordinances possible were performed before the Saints had to abandon that temple. This is what she wrote:
“Many were the blessings we had received in the house of the Lord, which has caused us joy and comfort in the midst of all our sorrows and enabled us to have faith in God, knowing He would guide us and sustain us in the unknown journey that lay before us. For if it had not been for the faith and knowledge that was bestowed upon us in that temple by the influence and help of the Spirit of the Lord, our journey would have been like one taking a leap in the dark. To start out on such a journey in the winter as it were and in our state of poverty, it would seem like walking into the jaws of death. But we had faith in our Heavenly Father, and we put our trust in Him, feeling that we were His chosen people and had embraced His gospel, and instead of sorrow, we felt to rejoice that the day of our deliverance had come.”

While I was serving as mission president in Scotland from 1975 to 1978, the Church had much opposition and criticism. On one occasion three ministers made derogatory statements publicly in a particular city. I wrote an open letter to the local newspaper announcing that we would be holding a public meeting there to dispel some of the misunderstandings which were being voiced around. It was a wonderful meeting. We first showed the fine Church filmstrip Meet the Mormons, and then I spoke to the large group concerning our beliefs and way of life. When we opened the meeting for questions, a number of people who were not members of the Church stood and said kind things about the Church and the Latter-day Saints they knew. Positive results ensued, and the work moved forward.

In 1955 I became an officer in the United States Air Force. My bishop at home gave me a blessing just before I left for my first station, which was in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
In his blessing he said that my time in the air force would be missionary service. I arrived in church on my first Sunday at the Albuquerque First Branch. A man walked up to me, introduced himself as the district president, and told me that he was going to call me to serve as a district missionary.
I told him that I would be there for training for only a few weeks and then I would be assigned somewhere else in the world. He said, “I don’t know about that, but we are to call you to serve.” In the middle of my military training, by what appeared to be chance, I was chosen from hundreds of officers being trained to take the place in headquarters of an officer who had died suddenly.
So, for the two years I was there, I worked in my office. On most evenings and every weekend, I taught the gospel of Jesus Christ to people the members brought to us.
My companions and I averaged more than 40 hours a month in our missionary service without once having to knock on doors to find someone to teach. The members filled our plates so full that we often taught two families in an evening. I saw for myself the power and the blessing in the repeated call of prophets for every member to be a missionary.
On the last Sunday before I left Albuquerque, the first stake was organized in that city. There is now a sacred temple there, a house of the Lord, in a city where we once met in a single chapel with Saints who brought friends to us to be taught and to feel the witness of the Spirit. Those friends felt a welcoming home in the Lord’s true Church.

As a young man living in Kirtland, Ohio, Lorenzo Snow, fifth president of the Church, was converted and baptized in 1836. He had studiously and conscientiously compared the teachings of the missionaries with the teachings of the Savior. Becoming convinced of the truths of the gospel, he had sought baptism by immersion.

Following confirmation, he constantly anticipated an assurance that he had received the Holy Ghost. Two or three weeks following his baptism, he reflected that he had not yet received a testimony of the truth. Being uneasy, and laying aside his books, he left the house and wandered through the fields. A gloomy spirit and indescribable cloud of darkness seemed to envelop him. It was his custom, near the close of day, to retire to a nearby secluded grove and engage in secret prayer. This night he had no inclination to do so. The spirit of prayer had departed, and the heavens seemed like brass over his head. But, determined not to forgo his evening practice, he sought his accustomed place and knelt in solemn prayer.

“I had no sooner opened my lips in an effort to pray,” recalled President Snow, “than I heard a sound, just above my head, like the rustling of silken robes, and immediately the Spirit of God descended upon me, completely enveloping my whole person, filling me, from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, and O, the joy and happiness I felt! No language can describe the almost instantaneous transition from a dense cloud of mental and spiritual darkness into a refulgence of light and knowledge. … I then received a perfect knowledge that God lives, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and of the restoration of the holy Priesthood, and the fulness of the Gospel. It was a complete baptism—a tangible immersion in the heavenly principle or element, the Holy Ghost; and even more real and physical in its effects upon every part of my system than the immersion by water.” (Eliza R. Snow, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, p. 8.)

In this manner Brother Snow received comforting assurance as the Spirit of the Lord came upon him, and the Holy Ghost blessed him with a testimony that remained with him to the close of his earthly existence.