Gospel Story Finder

Dewdrops hung on the tips of the long grass blades. Pam smiled as she made her way across the damp lawn. She loved early mornings in the country.
Stillness hung in the air. It was spring magic. She breathed in the sweet scent of lilacs. Everything was perfect.
One long, lonely howl filled the air.
“I’m coming, Lady,” Pam called, filling a bucket with water. She stepped inside the dog run and was immediately greeted by a wet tongue and happy barks. Trying to avoid Lady’s kisses, she filled the water bowl.
Suddenly, Lady ran to the gate of the dog run and barked.
Pam turned to see her best friend, Chuck, walking across the lawn.
“Hey,” he said. “You’re up early.” He reached over the fence to pet Lady. “My family’s going to an amusement park for the day, and Mom said we each could invite a friend. Do you want to go?”
Pam’s face lit up, but her smile soon faded. “I can’t. I promised Mom I’d watch my little brothers while she and Dad paint Grandma’s house.”
“Can’t someone else watch your brothers?”
She set the bucket down. “No.”
Chuck rubbed his chin. “Maybe your mom and dad could take them over to your grandma’s. Or maybe your grandma could watch them here.”
“It’s supposed to be a surprise for Grandma’s birthday,” Pam explained. “Dad took the day off from work so they could finish painting while Grandma’s staying with my sick aunt.”
“Oh.” Chuck’s smile disappeared. “I know it’s been a few years since you went to the amusement park. I thought it was a good idea.”
A sad smile crossed Pam’s face as she thought about the deep-red candy apples she loved, but wouldn’t be eating today. “It was a good idea. Thanks for inviting me.”
As Chuck said good-bye, Pam felt sad. No one had ever invited her to an amusement park before.
It was hard keeping her brothers happy all day long. They played with the dog. They rode bikes. They drew on the sidewalk with chalk. When her brothers grew tired, she put a blanket on the grass and read them the story of Noah’s ark.
Mom came home in time to put the boys to bed. Pam had never been happier to see her mom. Her brothers were a lot of work.
Glad for some quiet, Pam pulled a lawn chair off the porch and dragged it out onto the grass so she could sit under the stars. Fireflies swirled like sparks over the grass, flower beds, and trees.
“Hey there,” Chuck called from across the street.
“Hey, yourself,” Pam called back. “Did you get sunburned?”
Chuck laughed. “Yes, I did. It was awful. The lines were long, my favorite ride broke down, and the hot dog I ate was burnt. You didn’t miss much.”
“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“Maybe.” Chuck stepped into the dim light from the porch. “I thought you might be hungry.” Chuck pulled two deep-red candy apples from behind his back.
Pam’s eyes lit up. “Oh my! Those look great.”
Chuck grinned. “I’ll share, if you tell me why your family is so important.”
Pam knew what Chuck wanted to talk about. He wanted to hear more about the gospel and her belief in an eternal family.
He handed her one of the mouth-watering apples and then sat in the grass to listen while he munched on his own apple.
Somehow she had to help him understand that an eternal family was even more important to her than good friends and candy apples.

Of course, there were political and social conflicts in the lives of some of our ancestors, but even these become instructional in the ways they dealt with their circumstances. John Davies was a loyalist during the American Revolutionary War. He had been instrumental in the establishment of the Church of England in America, which became known as the First Episcopal Society of Litchfield. These early immigrants had been taught that next to religion, loyalty was the cardinal virtue. They honestly considered that none but the infidel and traitor would venture to speak of revolution from the motherland. Some argued that any attempt to independence was rank ingratitude. They considered the king to be the head not only of their state but also of their religion.
John Davies recounts the challenge of building the first church in Litchfield, Connecticut, only to have it seriously damaged by soldiers of the Revolution. His cattle were run off by revolutionists and much of his property severely damaged because of significant persecution of those who had remained loyal to the king. Listen to this about John Davies:
“After the close of the war a man who had taken an active part in driving off a number of cattle from his farm, and had committed other acts of plunder, having become destitute, applied for relief in his extremity to Mr. Davies, who not only pardoned him for the wrongs he had done, but liberally relieved his wants.”

When I was nine years old, I went on a fathers and sons’ campout. Fifteen men and boys went on a mountain bike ride. We were divided into groups of fast, medium, and slow riders. I was in the medium speed and my dad was behind with the slow riders. As I rode ahead I got my foot stuck in the chain and fell. As a result I was behind my group and I was way ahead of the slow group. I kept riding my bike hoping to catch up, but I was confused and somehow went off the main trail. I realized there was no one in front of me and I was getting tired and scared. I was lost! I shouted the names of my brothers and father, but no reply. So the only thing I could do was pray. I prayed on my knees and I prayed on my feet. After several hours I became very thirsty.
Suddenly I felt a warm feeling and two people came walking on the trail. They saw me and asked me if I was lost. And I said yes! They gave me one of their bottles of water to drink. I knew the Lord had sent these people. As we walked back up the mountain, they told me stories about their lives. When we reached the top, my group had just started looking for me. This experience taught me that the Lord does work in mysterious ways and that there are loving people in the world. But the biggest lesson learned was that I could not have made it out alone; it was the Lord’s answer to my prayer. I have a strong testimony of prayer and I know that the Savior lives.

Kam Fung stopped to peer through the gateway on the border between China and Macau. When Papa was away, it was lonely fishing in the South China Sea in the small boat with only Mama and her two brothers.

Today Papa had promised to return from visiting his sick mother in Canton. Kam Fung watched hopefully for the familiar figure with shoulders slumped from many years of carrying heavy loads. Her own shoulders ached now under the weight of the long pole balancing two large baskets of fish. If Papa only knew what lay hidden under the fish, she thought, he might hurry home faster.

Kam Fung was about to hurry on to the market when she caught sight of her father. His shoulders were even more stooped than she had remembered, and his face more haggard than she had ever seen it. As Papa passed through the gateway, Kam Fung set down her pole and baskets of fish and ran toward him. “Oh, Papa, we have missed you!”

He smiled tiredly and took her hand. “I have missed you too. I hope you have been selling a lot of fish in the market.”

“Oh yes, Papa! But I know that I can sell these twice as fast if you help me.”

He laughed, but it seemed a little sad.

“Is Grandmother not well?” she asked.

“I’m afraid that she will not live much longer. Maybe I will visit her again soon.”

Papa picked up the pole and shouldered the fish baskets. “We will not talk of it now. We have fish to sell. Besides, I know that my brothers in Canton will take good care of her.”

As they dodged through the market crowded with people buying squawking chickens, live snakes, and apples from America, Kam Fung again thought of her secret hidden under the fish.

Papa began slapping the fish out onto the little platform where their family usually brought their daily catches. Before he had finished unloading, people began examining the fish.

“This is a nice plump one,” said one woman. “How much?” The woman was already loaded down with a chicken stuffed into a pink plastic bag, a huge watermelon, and a sack overflowing with green vegetables.

Kam Fung plopped the fish onto the pan of a caddy-stick scale to weigh it and moved the weighted string along the stick to balance it. Out of the corner of her eye Kam Fung could see Papa reaching for the last fish in the bottom of the basket and pulling out a plastic sack, instead.

Peering inside, he asked, “Why are you carrying books in the fish basket?”

“It is the Bible, Papa,” exclaimed Kam Fung, as she handed the fish to the customer. “Don’t you remember that before you left for Canton, we passed by a Christian church offering Bible classes. You told me that you read the Bible as a small boy with your family in China. Then, when Bible reading wasn’t allowed for a long time in China, your family got rid of your Bible. You said that you wished you could remember some stories about Jesus.”

Shrugging vaguely, Papa pulled a book out of the sack. “Kam Fung, this isn’t the Bible. It’s a Book of Mormon.”

“But it talks about Jesus. I know. I already ready part of it,” she said.

Papa shook his head. “This is only an American book. I had some American boys try to give me one of these when we first came to Macau. I told them that it sounded like a good story made up in the head of an American and that I wanted no part of it.” He reached into the sack again and pulled out another book, and then another, and another. “Kam Fung, there are six copies of the Book of Mormon in here. How did you ever get six?”

Kam Fung looked down sheepishly. “Well, Papa, yesterday I was dashing across the street with my load of fish. I wasn’t looking where I was going and crashed right into two Chinese missionaries on bikes. We all fell down in a heap. Their books spilled out, and all my fish came down on top of them.” Kam Fung couldn’t help giggling. “The books came up smelling pretty fishy. I told them that I didn’t think anybody else would want to have their books smelling of fish but that I knew my papa would want to read one and that he was really used to fish smells.”

Papa wasn’t smiling. “I don’t want one, let alone six.”

Kam Fung said wistfully, “I thought that you would want to give them to your brothers and mother in China.”

“My mother bought another Bible a few years ago,” Papa replied, “and that’s all she needs.”

A huge gust of wind almost blew away his last words. A pole loaded with wet clothes plopped heavily on top of him.

Kam Fung stifled her laughter. “Oh, Papa, are you OK?”

He was still sputtering under the wet clothes when someone raced by their booth, yelling breathlessly, “There’s a typhoon headed this way! The other end of the market’s already closing up.”

Raindrops were starting to fall as Kam Fung and Papa rushed home. She hoped that the fishing boat, where she had lived all her life, would be safely anchored. But when they reached the familiar inlet of the South China Sea, her home was nowhere in sight.

Papa pursed his lips with worry. “We’ll have to take the sampan to find them. Your brothers aren’t that expert in handling a boat in a storm, and they may not realize how serious their situation is.”

Papa started the engine as Kam Fung clambered into the craft beside him. The sea was rolling angrily, but Kam Fung was never afraid when Papa was handling a boat. She could barely see the outline of the island of Tanzao. It seemed to bob up and down before her eyes. None of the few boats thrashing about looked like her home. She hoped that their fishing boat had not been forced out into the open sea.

Then she heard Papa yell above the wind and the motor, “I see them! They’re coming in!”

Mama ran out onto the deck as Papa pulled the sampan up beside the rolling fishing boat. She lowered a rope for securing the sampan to the larger boat.

Kam Fung felt herself sighing as Papa caught the rope. But she also felt something else. It was the powerful tremor of a gigantic wave roaring toward them. Without glancing up, she knew that it would engulf them. The sampan was capsizing! Kam Fung felt as if she were rolling in slow motion into the swirling sea.

The frightened girl was certain that Papa would come and scoop her out of the water, but no strong arms came. Thrashing wildly, she tried to escape the surging waves that threatened to envelop her and sink her to the depths. Thrusting her head above the foaming water, she gulped for air. The boat! Where is it? She suddenly glimpsed it between two waves. It was so far away—and it was slipping farther away with each forbidding wave! Then the sea grabbed her and pulled her under again.

Kam Fung opened her eyes, but nothing registered at first. Finally she could focus on Mama, who was leaning over her with a damp cloth. Kam Fung gradually became aware that she was lying on her own bed in their boat, and she jerked in panic and sat up. “Where’s Papa?”

“I’m right here,” he said soothingly and took a step toward her. Mama gently laid her back down.

“Everything’s going to be OK now,” said Papa. “For a while we thought that we’d lost you in that terrible sea—”

“And then it was like a miracle,” interjected Mama. “We found you battered against some rocks on shore. At first we thought that you were dead. But somehow Papa knew all along that you weren’t.”

“And it may have been a miracle, too,” said her brother Lung Fai as he held up a bright pink plastic bag. “I watched you capsizing,” he continued, “and couldn’t figure out why you kept clinging to a plastic bag. Now I think I know. We found your bag, still tightly knotted, washed up on the shore not far from you.” Lung Fai held up a soggy copy of the Book of Mormon. “I’ve already read a few pages,” he said. “There’s some reason that you were supposed to have these books.”

Soon Kam Fung was able to eat some of her mother’s rice soup. She could tell by the sound of the rain and the waves that the worst of the storm was over.

Kam Fung watched as Papa picked up one of her books. “I might read one of these books just for curiosity’s sake,” he said casually. He opened the front cover, looked at it in surprise, then set it down and opened another. “People’s pictures are inside the books, with words written in Chinese.” When he opened the sixth one, his eyes widened and he drew in a sharp breath. His words spilled out excitedly. “I know this man! He’s my cousin!” He rushed to Mama and jabbed his finger at the picture. “That’s the son of my mother’s oldest brother. My uncle and his family went away many years ago, after the big war, and my mother has wondered for years about her brother and his family. Look! Here’s an American address. Now I can tell my mother the happy news.”

Papa began reading his cousin’s words out loud: “I never knew when I was still living in China that I could find such a wonderful thing as the true gospel of Jesus Christ and its teachings about how we can live together forever as a family. I only hope that some of the people I have left behind may come to know this important message. I know that the Book of Mormon you are holding has been sent from God to help us. …”

Papa fell silent. Then he slowly turned to the first chapter of First Nephi and began reading.

“She can’t see! The fever has left Sister Stratton completely blind!” The news swept rapidly through the little pioneer town of Virgin, Utah. Sister Emily Amanda Gardner Stratton, beloved Primary president in the Virgin Ward, had lost her sight following a sudden illness. She had lovingly and faithfully served the children in the southern Utah town for fifteen years, and she had helped many of the ward members in times of trouble. Now it was she who needed help. But how could they help her?
The local doctor had done everything he could for her and had advised her family to take her to the nearest hospital, which was in St. George, Utah. It was her only hope if she was to see again.
For weeks, the doctors in St. George tried every treatment that they knew, but nothing seemed to work. When their last treatment failed, Sister Stratton sent word that she wanted to come home.
The children and Primary workers in Virgin had prayed diligently for her recovery. When they heard that the doctors had given up, they were even more determined to do whatever they could to help their dedicated Primary president.
Someone suggested that they hold a special fast for her. They knew that if they had faith and fasted and prayed, Heavenly Father would help her in ways they could not.
It was difficult to go without food all day, but even the youngest Primary children fasted and prayed for their beloved leader.
That evening, they all met at the tiny meetinghouse to close their fast with prayer. Afterward, they felt great peace and joy and knew that Heavenly Father had heard their prayers. The sunset was glorious, casting rays of red and gold throughout the western sky as they went to their homes.
A few days later, Sister Stratton’s wagon creaked as it rolled along the dusty road toward Virgin. The children and Primary leaders hurried to greet her and tell her of their special fast.
“What time was your fast meeting, children?” Sister Stratton asked.
“It was at sunset!” one child exclaimed.
Sister Stratton sat back. Her eyes filled with tears as she spoke. “At sunset on that day, I was sitting in a chair by the west window of my hospital room. As I looked up, I saw the sunset for the first time since the fever stole my sight. Yes, children, I can see!”
The loving prayers and faith-filled fasting of the Virgin Ward Primary had been answered with a miracle. For the rest of Sister Stratton’s life, she was blessed with perfect eyesight.

It was a moment that 42 Eagle Scouts from the Boise Idaho North Stake will remember for a long time. Following a banquet in their honor, each of them stood and made a solemn promise—to go on a mission. What made it even more memorable was that the banquet was part of a trip from Boise to Salt Lake City to honor the Eagles, 26 of whom received their award in 1978. And one other thing made it a special promise as well—they made the promise to their former stake president, Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone of the First Quorum of the Seventy.
“I had already planned on serving a mission,” said Tim Duffy, 14, one of the Eagles. “But this really reinforced the desire.”
While in Salt Lake, the group toured the Church Office Building, Temple Square, the Church Historical Archives, and the Genealogical Library. At the banquet they were also addressed by Neil D. Schaerrer, the Young Men general president, and Paul K. Cropper, member of the Young Men General Board.

Let me give you an example. When I was about nine years old, my older sister was a senior in high school, and I used to wonder what all those guys who came around knocking on the door could possibly see in her. They’d ask, “Is your sister here?” and I’d say, “Well, yeah, but why?” We saw so much of each other that there was a veil of familiarity drawn across my eyes so I couldn’t really see her. When she got married—which really amazed me—and moved away, she was taken right out of that old familiar context and plunged into a new one. Then I used to ride my bike across town all the time just to visit her and help her with stuff around the house. She was the same person and had the same qualities, the same beauties, but now all of a sudden I could see her. The veil of familiarity had been ripped off.

“I want you to knock all the cement off these steel posts,” the boss said as he handed me the sledgehammer and stood back to watch me begin. Anxious to impress him with my eagerness for the task, I planted my feet in a wide stance, raised the sledgehammer high above my head, and brought it down hard on the barrel-sized keg of cement caked on the first leg of the extracted guardrail.
Six … seven … eight solid follow-up strokes to the same spot, but all I could feel was the stunning reverberation up the handle of the sledgehammer. Not a single chip of the hard cement seemed to yield under the blows. After resting the hammerhead on the ground for a moment and rubbing my right shoulder, again I raised the hammer high above my head and repeated the effort, but with no better result.
I felt a little embarrassed as the boss watched a minute longer. Then, starting to walk toward the tool shop, he said, “I’ll get you something that may help.”
As I had arrived for work that morning wearing ankle-high work shoes, with cowhide gloves dangling from the back pocket of my denims, I had wondered, as I had on the two previous mornings, if this would be my last day on the job. I hoped not. With only three months before I would enter the mission home, I needed every penny I could earn to help cover my mission expenses, for the first few months at least.
Dad said no sacrifice by the family would be too great for the privilege of supporting me in the mission field, and he meant it. He knew what that kind of sacrifice was. I remember how the family had spread margarine on the bread and then scraped most of it off again while my older brother Ron was in the mission field. I also sensed dad’s special gratitude when occasionally I was able to spare a few dollars of the earnings from my part-time job to add to what was sent to Ron.
Yes, I knew it would mean sacrifice, gladly offered. I also knew I had to do all I could.
I took a firmer grasp on the handle, holding it a little lower this time to get a better weight advantage from the heavy steel head. Several more strokes, and now I could feel myself becoming angry. How could I strike any harder? Why didn’t the cement break?
“I hope he doesn’t get back before I’ve shown some kind of progress,” I said to myself, glancing toward the tool shop.
When I had told the boss on Monday morning that I had quit school to work for a few months so I could go on a mission, I had hoped he would be kind of proud of me. Instead he had said, “Why do you want to waste your time like that?” Ever since then he had seemed bent on going out of his way to make snide comments about the Church and other crude remarks that, I suspected, were designed to shock me. But he was the boss and the one who would let me stay or let me go.
I had been much more comfortable last week when I first got this job and was helping Bert Godfrey lay a brick wall to replace an old wooden one that had burned down. How could I help but like that leather-faced but kindhearted man who had served three missions, two of them building missions.
The company had hired me for ten days, mostly to help build that wall. But Bert and I had worked so well together that we had finished it in a week. He didn’t seem to mind that I was a bit clumsy and lacked experience. He knew I was trying and he knew why. He just kept talking to me about serving the Lord.
Bert hadn’t told me that the real boss was on vacation, and it had come as a surprise when I showed up for work the next Monday morning. So far, though, my strategy seemed to be working. Although I was earning more than I had ever earned before, I figured that if I worked so hard that I was worth still more than they were paying me, maybe the boss would feel he just couldn’t afford to let me go.
I looked again at the long I-beam rail with 13 steel legs extending from it like a giant comb with most of its teeth missing. It had long ago served as a bumper guard, preventing cars in the parking lot from hitting the adjacent building. It had been installed by digging 13 large holes in the ground in a straight line, spaced at eight-foot intervals. A steel post was cemented into each hole, and the connecting bumper rail welded to each post. Recently the entire rail had been removed by having two large Hysters extract the whole thing in one piece, and it was lying in the driveway with each post encased in a barrel-sized cement block.
As I heard boots scuff the loose gravel on the asphalt pavement leading from the tool shop, I let loose a wild flurry of blows. I was glad that a few beads of sweat had formed on my forehead. “Here, try this,” the boss said as he handed me a heavier sledgehammer. That wasn’t quite the kind of help I had in mind.
I smiled as I traded him the smaller hammer, but I could tell that he sensed it wasn’t a completely honest smile. He watched me for a few minutes more, and then without further comment, turned away to supervise the crew working on the remodeling project in the steel fabrication plant.
“The only difference between the hammers is that this one is heavier and harder to lift,” I grumbled silently as the steel head collided with the stonehard cement. Finally one small chunk broke off. After several more strokes my arms started to ache, but the cement still remained intact.
At this rate I knew it would take me three days to complete the job. I also knew that if I didn’t show substantial progress by noon, I’d be out of a job and back standing in the labor lines at the Employment Security Office taking any kind of work available. Three days of that had made me especially anxious to keep this job.
Besides, it was 1954, and thousands of striking workers with families to feed were looking for short-term, full-time employment. How was a 20-year-old youth going to compete with them for the few jobs available?
It took only a few more hard but unsuccessful strokes to persuade me that I had reached my limit and that it was time for me to treat the problem as one needing more strength and wisdom than I possessed.
Resting the heavy hammer on the ground and trying to compose my anger and frustration, I felt the need and desire to discuss the problem with the Lord. Without either kneeling or closing my eyes, I started praying aloud to the Lord and explaining the task I faced. In a conversational but sincere way I reminded him that I wasn’t asking for the money so I could buy a yellow convertible. He had called me on a mission, and I knew he wanted me to go. This job had already been an answer to my prayers, but I needed to keep it. I didn’t expect him to send a host of angels from heaven with sledgehammers, but I knew he could help me.
Never in my life has a prayer been answered more immediately or clearly. Suddenly my mind was filled with a thought so lucid and strong that my heart started pounding. It was a simple solution, as I later considered it. To brighter or more experienced minds it might have occurred earlier, but to me it came as a direct answer to my prayer.
The compelling instruction said to me, “Instead of striking the cement, strike the steel.”
Still not fathoming exactly why, I raised the hammer and brought it crashing down five or six times on the steel post right next to the cement. As a large section of the cement cracked into big chunks and fell off, I realized that the blows to the steel had started a series of strong vibrations that were transmitted all along the steel shaft.
I quickly forgot the weight of the hammer. With new energy I struck the steel again and again, then moved on to the next post, amazed at the magnification of my efforts as the steel vibrated and the cement cracked.
Less than two hours later I had removed the cement from all 13 posts and stacked the large chunks in a pile. With the sledgehammer on my shoulder and a prayer of gratitude in my heart, I went to find the boss.
“I’ll need some help moving the railing out of the driveway,” I said, trying to conceal the excitement I felt inside. Thinking I was giving up on the project, he motioned me to follow him to the parking lot.
As we rounded the corner of the building and he saw the railing and the pile of cement, he stopped quite suddenly. His eyes blinked and opened wide. His chin started to drop a bit. For a full minute he stood silently, looking first at the railing, then at the cement. After a moment more he turned, motioned me to follow him again, and said, “Come on, I’ll give you another job.”
Nothing more was said about the incident, but the following morning when I arrived for work, he simply said, “Lloyd, you’re welcome to stay on as long as you like.”
I worked there for nearly three months before entering the mission home. He then let me come back to work again for another ten days until I departed with my group for the mission field. Never after that memorable morning did he, in my presence, make a disparaging remark about the Church or my plans to serve a mission.
Many times since that day the Lord has helped me strike the steel instead of the cement in solving other problems. But as I departed for the mission field in late November 1954, I knew that I was called of the Lord. I knew that he was listening to my prayers. And I knew for myself that he would give no commandment save he would prepare a way for it to be accomplished.

Saturday morning, when Dad said he had to cut Brother Ballard’s hay, I told him that I could take care of things at home. Ever since I had turned nine, I had been bragging that I was almost a man and could handle things on the farm about as well as Dad could. “I’ll be all right,” I insisted as Dad headed for the tractor. “Just let me look after the farm.”
“What about taking the cows and the General to the meadow?” Dad asked. “Can you do that all by yourself?”
I swallowed hard. The cows were no problem, but I’d forgotten all about ornery old General.
“I can help Jacob drive the General down the lane to the meadow,” Mom spoke up from the steps. She knew I was a little afraid of our big roan steer, and she’d always been the one to drive him to the meadow when Dad wasn’t around.
“I don’t need any help,” I insisted. “A man doesn’t need his mom herding the cows for him.”
“The General isn’t mean or anything,” Dad pointed out, “but he does have a mind of his own.”
I nodded. I knew all about the General. I was the one who had practically raised him. I’d fed him from a bottle and later taught him to drink out of a bucket. And when he got older, I brought him lots of grass and grain. What he liked best, though, was carrots, so I often got a handful of carrots from the cellar and let him eat out of my hand. He’d close his eyes and munch on those long, crisp carrots like they were orange candy bars.
When the General was still a calf, he even let me ride him. But then he grew to be almost a thousand pounds. …
I still liked him, but I liked him from a distance, and I always wanted a fence between him and me. Even so, I said, “I’ll be able to handle the General.”
Dad nodded. “I know you can do it. You’re a good worker.” He started the tractor, then called to me, “Now, remember, Jacob, after you take the cows to the meadow, make sure that you close the gate at the top of the lane. I don’t want those cows in the alfalfa. They’d bloat for sure from eating it, and we could lose every one of them.”
“I know,” I said.
I fed the calves their grain and hay. I carried slop to our three pigs, Dandy, Pandy, and Mandy. I gathered the eggs from the chicken coop and gave the chickens their grain. I scattered fresh straw in the shed so that the cows would have a soft bed that night. Then I opened the corral gate so that I could herd our seven milk cows and the General to the meadow.
About that time the General decided that he wanted a drink from the water trough, so every one of those old cows decided she wanted a drink too.
Those cows always did everything he did. I yelled at them and waved a stick and threatened to throw a rock at them, but they didn’t care. They just followed the General. I had to just wait until that stubborn old steer decided he wanted to go to the meadow.
He sniffed at every clump of grass, every fence post, and every rock between the corral and the lane. And what did the cows do? Why, they sniffed at every clump of grass, every fence post, and every rock too.
Since I couldn’t hurry those cows and the General along, I started day-dreaming. Then a big old green frog came jumping through the tall grass and landed right in front of me. Well, I never let a good frog get away, so before long I had it in my hands.
I was looking for something to put my frog in, when right there, sunning itself on a flat rock, was the biggest water snake I’d ever seen. I dropped the frog and grabbed the snake right behind its head. It wrapped itself around my arm and stuck its red forked tongue out at me, but I just smiled and headed back to the barn for a bucket to put it in. The General and the cows were starting down the lane toward the meadow, so I decided to look after my snake then and close the gate later.
I didn’t think I was gone very long. I did stop for a drink at the water trough and let my snake take a swim, and I checked on our cat and her four kittens. That just took a few minutes, though. But when I got back, that ornery old steer had decided that he didn’t want to go to the meadow after all. Partway down the lane he’d turned around and headed toward the alfalfa field, and the seven cows had followed.
When I saw the General out wandering, I dropped the bucket. My snake slithered out of it and off through the grass, but by then I was galloping for the gate.
I was too late. The General and the cows were through it and wandering along the ditch bank that led to the alfalfa field. Luckily he wasn’t in a big hurry. He’d sniff at fence posts, munch clumps of grass, and swish the flies from his back with his tail. I knew, though, that if he ever made it to the alfalfa field, he’d never leave. He’d stay until his belly was clear full; then he’d lie down and bloat. And those silly cows would eat and bloat right with him.
I found a big stick and filled my pockets with rocks. Then I circled around in front of the General. I waved the stick over my head and stomped my feet. I tried to shout to get his attention, but my throat was so tight that all I could do was squeak.
Digging into my pocket, I pulled out a good throwing rock, reared back, and let it fly. It hit that old steer right on the nose. His head jerked up, and he shook his stubby horns and blew angrily through his wet nose.
I didn’t figure there was any need to get myself killed trying to keep those crazy cows out of the alfalfa. I dropped my stick, jumped the ditch, sprinted to the fence, flopped on my belly, and scrambled underneath the bottom strand of barbed wire.
When I finally opened my eyes, I expected to see the General on the other side of the fence, snorting and pawing. But he wasn’t anywhere around! He was still along the ditch bank, ambling closer and closer to the alfalfa field.
I thought of running to the house to ask Mom to help me, but after telling Dad that I was man enough to take care of things around the place, there was no way I could do that.
Then I thought about praying. Heavenly Father would help me out! I dropped right to my knees and asked Heavenly Father to get that stubborn steer straightened out and headed back to the meadow so that he and the cows wouldn’t bloat in the alfalfa field.
When I finished my prayer, I figured I’d just wait until Heavenly Father had a chance to get the job done. When I thought I’d waited long enough, I looked toward the meadow. There wasn’t a single cow in it. I looked up and down the lane. No cows. I looked along the ditch bank. And there they were, moseying along toward the alfalfa field behind that ornery steer.
I couldn’t believe it. Hadn’t Heavenly Father heard me? Wasn’t He going to help me out? Maybe I prayed for the wrong thing, I thought. I dropped to my knees again. This time I prayed that Dad would finish Brother Ballard’s hay and get home before the cows were bloated and dead.
It was a pretty long prayer. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t leave anything out. When I finished, I waited on my knees and counted to two hundred to give Heavenly Father plenty of time to get the message to Dad.
As I got to my feet, I listened for the growl of Dad’s tractor, but I couldn’t hear anything. And all I could see coming down the road was a truck. I waited and waited, but Dad didn’t come. And the General and the cows were almost to the alfalfa field.
Tears were running down my cheeks as I ran past the barn, looking for a place to hide so that I wouldn’t have to watch the General kill himself. There was only one place I could go—I dashed down the cellar steps.
Once more I knelt down. This time, though, I just prayed that Heavenly Father would help me to know what to do and to be brave enough to do it.
When I finished praying, I sat down on a sack of carrots to think. I pulled one of the carrots out of the sack and absent-mindedly wiped it off on my pants and started chewing on it. Then it came to me—I could turn the General around with carrots!
I hurriedly emptied the rocks from my pockets and stuffed carrots in their place. With my arms full of carrots, too, I raced up the cellar steps, past the barn, and over to the ditch. The General was still munching along the ditch bank a little way from the alfalfa, and the cows were munching right behind him.
I said one more quick prayer, then marched right up to the General and dropped the biggest, fattest, orangiest carrot under his nose. That old steer didn’t even look up at me. His big long pink tongue just wrapped around the carrot and popped it into his mouth. That carrot gone, he looked to me for another one. I held one out and started walking backward toward the gate in the distance. The General watched me slowly walk away. At first he didn’t move. Then he took a long look at the alfalfa field and a long look at me, and then he came.
My heart was thumping a hundred miles an hour, but I kept moving closer to the open gate and dropping a carrot every few steps or so. Like always, those silly cows stayed right behind the General.
I don’t know how long it took me to get to the lane, but by the time I got there, I was so worn out that I could hardly walk. As soon as the seventh cow went through the gate, I dropped the last two carrots and ran and closed it and even tied it with a piece of wire. Then I knelt right there and thanked Heavenly Father.
That night at suppertime, I didn’t brag about being the man of the house and taking care of everything. In fact, I just sat quietly and ate. When Dad asked me how things had gone that day, I mumbled something about getting along pretty well, then asked for another slice of bread to change the subject.

Ned Winder, a lifelong friend and formerly the executive secretary of the Missionary Department, tells of an amusing and humbling encounter which he experienced.

Two of the General Authorities, accompanied by Brother Winder, were walking down a staircase in view of a mother and her son, who were sitting on a couch facing the staircase. Seeing the brethren approach, the boy said to his mother, “Who is that first man?”

She replied, “He is Elder Marvin J. Ashton, a member of the Council of the Twelve Apostles.”

The boy continued, “Who is the man next to him?”

Mother replied, “He is Elder Loren Dunn, of the First Quorum of the Seventy.”

Then the boy concluded, “Who is the other man?”

The mother spoke more softly, yet she was still audible to Brother Winder: “Oh, he’s nobody.”

After some time, I heard that the man who assaulted me had been released from prison again and had assaulted another woman. I thought, “This can’t keep going on.” I decided I needed to do something to try to change the law to have harsher sentences for repeat sex offenders. I came up with a proposal for Ireland’s minister for justice to implement. Officials from the minister’s office declined my proposal. They said the laws at the time were adequate.

I decided to start a media campaign to gain support for my proposal. I’m grateful for the past 30 years of Church membership because I have given many talks and lessons, which gave me skills for public speaking and the confidence to write the emails, make the phone calls, and knock on doors for the campaign. I worked with journalists on television, radio, and newspapers. They were great. They ran the story and did it justice. They were true to the story and true to the campaign, and this kept the issue in the public eye.

I also worked with a local politician who helped me formulate another proposal that gained enough support. After much work, the bill finally passed on January 16, 2019.

While campaigning for this new law, I became emotionally exhausted at times. I had to tell my story so many times and try to hold it together during TV, radio, and newspaper interviews. It wore me down, and I could feel at times the weight of everything coming in on me. I could feel a kind of darkness around me and dark thoughts come into my mind. I felt like I could not make a difference and sometimes asked myself why I was even trying. At those times, prayer, scripture reading, and ministering to others helped me so much. I have such a strong testimony that prayer works. If it weren’t for prayer, I would have collapsed mentally years ago. I also went to my branch president for priesthood blessings. I’m grateful to Heavenly Father for putting the right people in my path to help me.

Whatever country you live in, it takes a lot of effort to earn the top award in Scouting. So imagine the effort required to earn the award three times. Rocco du Plessis is the first Springbok Scout in the 26-year history of the First Edgemead Troop in South Africa. So becoming a three-time Springbok Scout is a huge accomplishment.
However, there’s another award Rocco earned last year that is equally important to him. “Earning the Duty to God has helped me achieve even more for my personal and spiritual growth,” he says. “It’s about your relationship with your Father in Heaven.”
“The Scouting program here is very demanding,” says Rocco, who is a member of the Panorama Ward in the Cape Town South Africa Stake. It’s hard to earn the Springbok. Sure, the Scout leaders are there to help you. But it’s still tough. “If you don’t work very hard, if you don’t pull your weight, you’re not going to get it,” Rocco adds. A lot of time, planning, and effort goes into every award as you advance in the Scouting program, which in South Africa is not Church sponsored.
For the Duty to God Award, Rocco says the support of his parents and his Young Men leaders has made a big difference. “They want you to earn your Duty to God,” he says, “and so many of the requirements are things you’re doing daily already.” Then it’s just a matter of working with your parents and leaders to record your progress in those areas. “Most of the normal Mormon aspects of your life fill Duty to God requirements—if you do them.” In other words, if a young man is attending Church meetings, praying regularly, studying the scriptures, and fulfilling his priesthood responsibilities, he is on the right track.
Only about one or two percent of all Scouts nationwide receive South Africa’s top Scouting award. And then only about one or two percent of these Springbok Scouts complete more than one of the three possible Explorer challenges. Rocco completed all three challenge awards, becoming only the third Scout in South African history to accomplish the feat.
A South African Scout advances through the program from Pathfinder to Adventurer to First Class then to Explorer. The Explorer badge is split into three different sections: Land Scouts, Air Scouts, and Sea Scouts. Usually a Scout will choose one of these sections to focus on as he works toward his final advancement—Springbok. Rocco focused on all three.
Along with the other badges and requirements, there are compulsory badges specific to each type of Explorer: The Land Explorer earns his Backwoodsman and Mapping badges. The Air Explorer earns his Air Navigator and Air Traffic Controller badges. And the Sea Explorer earns his Helmsman and Boatsman badges for sailing and rowing.
Rocco explains that it usually takes about two weekends at a badge course to earn each award. There are the white badges—the theory behind a skill. And then there are the green badges—the practical application of the skill. For example, to earn your Backwoodsman badge, first you’ll learn things like wilderness survival, navigating with the stars, and making fires without matches. Then comes the practical application. You get dropped off in the bush for 48 hours, and you’re on your own.
So Rocco has been pretty busy with Scouting for several years now. From February until December last year, for example, he was away many weekends. “It seemed I was up permanently on badge courses,” he says. Plus, for the past five years, Rocco has been the troop leader. That means he’s been in charge of organizing all the troop camps. He’s had to plan meals, do the shopping, coordinate troop meetings, type up consent forms for the other Scouts and their parents to sign, and oversee each of the campouts.
One valuable trait Rocco has learned along the way is persistence. “At least half of my badges I didn’t pass the first time on the course,” he says. “Within six months you can go back and do it again or have an adult who has done the badge test you on it.” For instance, one of the requirements for First Aid is bandaging. “I failed bandaging because part of the knot on one of my bandages stuck out,” Rocco says. “So I had to redo the bandaging portion in order to earn my level-two First Aid.”
In addition to the badges, there are other projects a Scout must complete to earn his Springbok. One of these is a construction project. Rocco chose to build a bridge. He had to first design and build a scale model of the bridge. Then, with a team of six other Scouts, Rocco had to build it full size, about 20 feet tall (6 m) and 30 feet long (9 m). It took nearly nine hours to build the bridge and then disassemble it.
Then there’s community service, which is a big part of earning both the Springbok and the Duty to God Award. For his Springbok service requirement, Rocco visited more than 40 homes of seniors to help them with various chores and repairs. “The only big thing that overlapped was the 40-hour service project I was able to use for both Scouts and the Duty to God Award,” says Rocco.
Of all the requirements Rocco has fulfilled to earn his various awards, he points to one in particular as most valuable for his personal growth: “Reading the Book of Mormon,” Rocco says without hesitation. “That was the biggest and most rewarding challenge.”
“I had read the Book of Mormon once already, a year or so ago, but I was just reading to get it done,” Rocco explains. “When I started reading it again, I really wanted to learn and gain a testimony of it.” He approached reading the Book of Mormon in a completely different way his second time through. “Every time I read now, I pray before to ask Heavenly Father’s Spirit to be with me as I read.”
Rocco’s already begun on his next big project—to more actively share his testimony with others as he prepares to serve a full-time mission. His Scouting experiences and earning the Duty to God Award have helped him in his personal development and in becoming a missionary. “To spread the gospel, I needed to know what is in the Book of Mormon, and I needed to know that it is true,” he says. “After reading the Book of Mormon for the second time, I received a testimony of it.”
Even if there was not a Duty to God Award to earn, Rocco says he would have fulfilled most of the requirements simply because he wanted to prepare for missionary service. Attending church, reading the scriptures, praying daily, and giving service are just part of who Rocco is, of being what a Latter-day Saint is supposed to be.
Now that he has received his call to serve as a full-time missionary, the testimony Elder du Plessis has built is proving much more useful than the rope-and-log bridge he built for his Springbok construction project. However, some of the backwoodsman skills he learned as a Scout may come in handy as he serves in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi.

The Primary of the Prospect Ward, Adelaide Australia Firle Stake wanted to work on bringing their scriptures to church. They decided to put a “fuzzy” in a jar every time they did, because the scriptures give us a warm, fuzzy feeling inside. At the end of the year, they joined the fuzzies together. Their fuzzy “snake” was 6½ meters (21 feet) long! All the children enjoyed this activity, and some days every one of them had their scriptures with them at Primary.

When I came home from my mission, I began to study and to help others in my branch during the Sunday School lesson and and to help those preparing to go on a mission. My first calling after my mission was as the Sunday School president. I enjoyed this calling because I was able to study as I did when I was on my mission, applying the lessons to myself as I taught every Sunday.
I learned a lot from my branch members, and seeing them every Sunday smiling and looking good was my desire and my prayer to God, because I saw them as my responsibility, to minister and always remember them in my prayers as I was doing to my investigators on my mission. Honestly doing so, I came to realize that Heavenly Father has been with me every step of the way to magnify my calling as a Sunday School president.

“Mom!” Jeni wailed as she searched through the house for her mother. She finally found her in the living room, changing the baby’s diaper. “Mom, Shanna found my diary and she wrote in it!”
Shanna, Jeni’s younger sister, sheepishly looked up from where she was coloring in a coloring book.
“Shanna,” Mother said calmly as she closed the lid to the diaper wipes, “did you write in Jeni’s book?”
“Yes, but just a little bit.” Shanna didn’t look at Jeni. Instead she carefully put each crayon back into the box.
Mother’s eyebrows pulled together and her mouth was stern. “Shanna, you know you shouldn’t use Jeni’s things without asking first.”
“Besides, it wasn’t just a little bit,” Jeni told Mom. “She wrote on practically every page!”
“Let me look at it.” Mother flipped through the pages one by one. “It’s not too bad. I think Shanna just wants to try to be like you and do the same things you’re doing.”
“It’s totally wrecked!” Jeni cried.
“OK. Let’s try to think of something that we can do to fix the problem,” Mother suggested. “Shanna didn’t mean to ruin your diary.”
“Nothing can fix it. I’ll never forgive her!”
Shanna picked up her crayon box and coloring book and walked quietly out of the room, not looking at Jeni.
“I don’t think you really meant that, Jeni,” Mother said quietly. Jeni was so angry that she wouldn’t listen to her mother. She threw her diary onto the floor and ran outside.
Mother put the baby down on his blanket with a toy and was beginning to prepare dinner when she heard Jeni crying again. This time it was not an angry wail, but a hurt cry.
Mother sighed and opened the back door. Jeni was crying and rubbing her face.
“What happened?” Mother asked.
Sobbing, Jeni pointed at a soccer ball on the lawn. “I was so mad at Shanna, I threw my ball down really hard and it bounced up and hit me in the face.”
“Oh, dear.” Mother sat down on the steps and pulled Jeni onto her lap. “I think there’s a good lesson in this. I once heard a story about a man who was bitten by a rattlesnake. What would you do if you were bitten by a rattlesnake?”
“I don’t know,” Jeni replied.
“You’re supposed to stay still until help comes,” said Jeni’s older brother, who had just ridden up on his bike.
“Well, in this case, the man was so angry at the snake that he ran after it and chased it until he killed it. The problem,” Mother continued, “was that running caused the poison from the snake to spread faster through his body, and so he died quickly. If he had remained calm, the poison would not have done as much damage, and he could have received help and lived.”
Jeni rubbed her red cheek. “So are you saying that when we get mad, we only hurt ourselves?”
Mother nodded. “Why do you think Heavenly Father wants us to forgive others when they do something to hurt us or make us mad?”
“So we can show love to them?” Jeni asked.
“That’s part of it. Heavenly Father wants us to do everything we can to help others grow and improve. But He also wants us to forgive others because He knows that if we don’t, it hurts us the most. It hurts us deep inside, like poison, and the wound just keeps getting bigger if we don’t stop it. Sometimes people get so hurt and angry inside that it makes them do bad things they wouldn’t normally do.”
“Like me banging the ball really hard,” Jeni said.
“That’s right. And sometimes the hurt inside keeps people from doing good things they would normally do. It keeps them from being close to Heavenly Father,” Mother said.
Jeni was thinking hard now. “Maybe I’m ready to think about a solution for the diary,” she said.
“I’m glad,” Mother replied. “I know Heavenly Father loves you very much. He wants you to be happy!”
Jeni’s face brightened. With a big smile, she hurried off to look for her sister.

Illustration by Brad Teare; The Lord Jesus Christ, by Del Parson © IRI
Emma tightened her grip on her backpack as she walked into her new classroom. It was the first day of school. She had her favorite dress on, and Mom had packed a special treat with lunch—animal crackers.
“Today is going to be great,” Emma thought to herself. “As long as—”
Emma stopped and stared across the classroom. There she was. Violet.
Last year, Violet had hogged the monkey bars every recess. She had called Emma names. She had even stolen Emma’s best friend!
Violet saw Emma and stuck out her tongue. Emma glared back, gripping her backpack even harder. Violet had been unfriendly all last year, and it seemed this year wouldn’t be any different.
“Welcome to a new year, class!” Miss Caldwell said from the front of the room. “Let’s assign seats.”
The desks were lined up in twos across the classroom. Miss Caldwell ran her finger down the roll; then she pointed at a pair of desks in the back. “Emma. You will sit back there.”
Emma sat down in one of the back desks. She hoped Liselle would sit next to her. Or Jaime. Or—
“Violet.”
Emma’s head jerked up. Did she hear that right?
Yes. Miss Caldwell was still pointing at the desk beside hers. “You will be Emma’s neighbor, Violet,” she said.
Violet trudged toward Emma with a frown. Emma put her head on her desk and stared at the wall. It was going to be a long year.
At math time, Miss Caldwell wrote some problems on the board for the class to solve. “You may work alone or with your neighbor,” she said.
Emma quickly hunched over her paper, pretending like she was busy. The problems were pretty easy. She was just trying to avoid Violet. She hadn’t looked at her once all morning.
Something poked her shoulder. It felt like a pencil. Emma ignored it.
Another poke. Violet was poking her! Emma kept working stubbornly.
Violet’s third poke was hard enough to hurt. Emma could feel herself boiling up inside. Was the whole year going to be like this? She thought about raising her hand to tell Miss Caldwell. Or maybe she’d just give Violet another glare.
Then Emma heard a sniffle. Was someone crying? The pencil poked her again. She looked over and saw Violet staring at her. Her pencil was in her hand, and there were tears in her eyes. Her paper was covered in eraser smudges.
Violet twisted the pencil in her hands. “Can you help me?” she asked quietly.
Emma looked at her for a minute, shocked. Violet wanted her to help? After how mean she had always been? Emma turned back to her own paper. Violet could work alone. She didn’t deserve Emma’s help, even if she was …
… her neighbor?
Emma silently faced forward. She could hear Violet crying softly next to her. The scriptures always said to love her neighbor—but Violet was different! Emma was only sitting next to her in class!
Emma went back to her own work. Then she stopped. Maybe Violet wasn’t different. Maybe when the scriptures said to love your neighbor, they meant everyone. Even the mean ones. Even if it was hard.
Emma sighed and slowly put her pencil down. She turned to Violet and tried her best to smile. “Can I help?” she asked.
Violet nodded, wiping her tears away with her hand.
Emma leaned over Violet’s paper and started helping with the first problem. She already had a warm feeling inside her. She wondered if Violet liked animal crackers.

Jackson Payne’s life is busy and wouldn’t seem to leave much room for early-morning seminary or priesthood responsibilities, but he knows where his priorities are. Hailing from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 18-year-old Jackson started participating in artistic gymnastics when he was 6 or 7 and has since made it to several national and international championships. The high bar is his best event, but he’s decided to reach for something even higher.
Instead of spending his time before school at the gym squeezing in extra practice time, Jackson attends early-morning seminary. This daily routine is just as important to him as his gym routines. “I think if I disrupted my routine by not going to seminary for a couple of days, it would really mess up my day. It’s important for me to stick to that routine.” He observes that “if you keep messing up your gymnastics routine, you don’t gain any confidence or consistency for competition. In the same way, if you don’t go to seminary or church, you’re more likely to fail in the real world.”
When it comes to gymnastics, precision is key. “You’re judged on everything you do; everything affects your score,” Jackson says. He also says that the better you perform a routine or skill, the easier it is to execute and the more it becomes second nature. No one can perform a perfect routine in gymnastics, just as none of us lives a perfect life in mortality. But Jackson says that unlike in gymnastics, we have a perfect example to strive toward: Jesus Christ. And in our paths to perfection we’re given commandments like tithing, the law of chastity, and the Word of Wisdom, commandments we can execute with exactness right now.
Gymnastics teaches Jackson about dedication and faith, principles he can directly apply to the gospel. “I go into the gym every day and have certain things I have to do. It gives me a test of my dedication and faith in knowing that if I do all the things I’m supposed to do, I can get better at gymnastics. In the same way, if I do things I’m supposed to do with church and Mutual and fulfilling my priesthood duties, my testimony will strengthen and I’ll learn more about the gospel.”

Illustrated by Mike Eagle
Elder David O. McKay had many pets, including a boar named Caesar.
Son: Father, you must really love animals to care for an ugly creature like that!
One day as Elder McKay was leaving to catch a train, he noticed that Caesar had broken out of his pen and was wandering away.
David: No, you don’t! We’ll keep you in the chicken coop for now. I’ll have to repair the pen when I get back.
But Elder McKay forgot to tell the rest of the family where Caesar was, so no one could feed or water him.
At 2:00 a.m., the telephone rang at the McKay house.
Operator: There’s a telegram for Mr. Lawrence McKay.
Lawrence: This is Lawrence. Please read the telegram.
Son: At this hour it can mean only bad news! I hope Father is all right.
Elder McKay’s son Lawrence scribbled down the words as the operator read them: “Caesar in chicken coop! Water him!”
Lawrence thanked the operator and hung up. Relieved, everyone laughed.
Son: That’s all the telegram said? Father must really love that ugly old boar!

A woman wondered how a friend living in a foreign country had helped her young children adjust so well to a different culture. She commented that she and her husband had been trying to teach their children to be tolerant and to value differences in others by inviting children from the community to play in their home. But their children were still judgmental and critical of the other children. “What more can we do to teach our children tolerance?” she asked her friend. The friend answered that she and her husband invited not only children into their home but also the parents of the children.

We can encourage our children to play with a variety of children, hoping the experience will enlarge their circles of friendships. But if in our own socialization we friendship only those similar to ourselves, all the encouraging and teaching we do will fall on deaf ears. The children will hear what is being said but will not be sure of what it means.

“Serving a mission in Brazil was a great turning point in my life,” declared Elder Sorensen. “When I was twenty and had just completed two years of college at the University of Chicago on an academic/athletic scholarship, I had doubts about my going on a mission. When I returned home that summer, Mom said to me, ‘Well, now you can prepare for your mission.’”
Elder Sorensen told his mother that he had changed his mind and didn’t think that he would serve a mission. “I’ll never forget the hurt look on Mom’s face,” he recalled, “after I told her my decision. She didn’t scold me, but afterward she privately cried and prayed.
“I didn’t go back to school in Chicago that fall. With the help of Mom and Dad and a wise and understanding bishop, I accepted a mission call to Brazil and left for South America in 1940.
“It wasn’t very long after I arrived in the mission field and began studying the scriptures regularly that my testimony really began to grow. Since then it has never wavered but has grown stronger. I’m grateful to the Lord and my parents for guiding me at that very important crossroad.
“Children, listen to your parents. They love you more than anyone else does, except your Father in Heaven, who has an even greater capacity to love. If you follow their good teachings and example, you will always be happy that you did. And remember to follow the counsel and guidance of Church leaders, particularly your bishop.”