Gospel Story Finder

“Christmas bells, ringing, singing,”* James sang out with gusto. Alan and his friends laughed, covering their mouths to smother their chuckles so that they wouldn’t get into trouble. Alan poked his friend Trevor to get his attention, then pretended that he was James. He held one hand in the air and dramatically mouthed the words to the Primary song as if he were an opera singer.
James was the loudest singer in Primary. That might not have been so bad, except that he could not sing on key. His voice wavered up and down like a sick bird, never matching the notes being played on the piano.
Even the Primary chorister had hinted that she wanted everyone to blend their voices as they prepared for their ward Christmas party. Every year, the Primary children dressed up like people in ancient Bethlehem and sang Christmas carols at the ward dinner.
“Mom,” Alan complained when he got home, “I’m tired of singing in Primary. I’m almost twelve, and I don’t want to stand in front of everybody with a piece of sheet on my head and pretend that I’m a shepherd.”
“This is the last time you’ll have an excuse to wear a sheet on your head,” Mother joked. “Besides, it’s supposed to be fun!” She grabbed her basket of clothes and hurried into the laundry room before Alan could complain any more.
“Fine. Just leave me here to suffer alone,” Alan moaned. “How can I get out of this?”
During the week, Alan came up with a plan. On Sunday morning, he found the Primary chorister setting up for Singing Time. “Sister Harmon, I was wondering if I could help with the Christmas party in another way.”
“Another way?” Sister Harmon asked, a little puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“Instead of singing, I thought that maybe I could open and close the curtains.”
“With all the musical preparations, I didn’t think about the curtains,” Sister Harmon admitted. “I think I’ll take you up on your offer.”
Alan was relieved. Now all he’d have to do was show up, pull some curtain ropes, and then dine on the Christmas feast.
Friday evening came, and the Primary children met an hour before the program. The Young Men and Young Women were busy preparing and decorating the tables, and the Relief Society sisters were finishing the food preparation. Alan entered the cultural hall in his school clothes as the other children fidgeted with their costumes. He found his place behind the tall, orange curtain and peeked out at all the bustle. He felt a little guilty that he wasn’t doing all that he could to contribute to the program. But at least I am helping out with the curtains, he thought.
Alan watched Sister Harmon arrange the Primary members according to height. His two buddies were placed between James and Stephen. Poor Trevor, Alan thought, he has to sing next to James. He should’ve brought earplugs. He chuckled out loud at the thought.
Then Alan noticed Stephen calling to Sister Harmon. Stephen was in their Valiant class, and even though he was blind, he could do almost everything the other Valiants did. Alan watched him talking to Sister Harmon now and wondered how he did everything so well.
Sister Harmon spoke to Stephen a moment and then started rearranging the line. She moved Trevor one spot over and placed Stephen next to James. What’s she doing? Alan wondered. Did she notice us laughing at James before?
Alan watched from behind the curtain as people filtered into the cultural hall. They shuffled down the rows of tables until all the seats were filled. When the lights dimmed, Sister Harmon motioned for Alan to open the curtains. He pulled on the cords, using the whole weight of his body until the curtains brushed to a stop at the end of the rail. That was a lot harder than I expected, he thought.
The Primary choir began singing. As usual, James was loud and out of tune. As the program continued, a few of the Primary children took turns going to the microphone between songs. They each shared something they had learned in Primary about the Savior during the year. From the side, Alan noticed that most of them were very nervous.
When Stephen, the oldest Valiant, went to the microphone, he wasn’t at all nervous. “This is my last year in Primary, and it’s been the best because I’ve learned more about the Savior than ever before,” he began. “I have learned that Jesus Christ suffered my pain, but that He also feels my happiness. I feel a kind of happiness that maybe no one with sight can feel. Others help me all the time. I can’t see these acts of service, and I know that other people usually aren’t watching and don’t see them, either. But that is how Jesus served others—without any thought of reward.
“Each year on Christmas day, we celebrate Jesus coming to the earth as a baby. But I especially celebrate and look forward to the day when He will come again. After He does, I will be perfected if I have lived righteously. And I will see Him.” Stephen almost whispered the last two words.
Alan watched Stephen walk to the back of the choir. As he reached his spot, James grasped Stephen’s hand. When Sister Harmon raised her arms to lead the children in singing, James gently squeezed Stephen’s fingers, telling him when to begin singing through touch, just as Sister Harmon told the rest of the children through sight.
Alan continued to watch. The older children read the song from papers. Stephen couldn’t read those kinds of papers—he stood next to James and “read” James’s voice. James’s loud singing guided Stephen’s own.
Alan, still crouched behind the curtain, began singing. Loudly.
Suddenly Alan stopped. He didn’t sound a bit like James. He sounded as if he were trying too hard to be heard.
He looked around. No one was laughing at James now. They were all watching Stephen and James sing together. Alan felt something warm inside him. James wasn’t just being loud; he was helping Stephen.
Alan thought of the times he had laughed at James. He remembered Stephen’s words about serving without any thought of reward. Then he opened his mouth and sang with all his heart, trying to blend his voice with the others.
By the end of the program, Alan felt different. He no longer cared that he had to sing in Primary. He had learned that everyone had something to offer, even James, whose voice could help Stephen sing. And he knew that next year, if he were asked to sing again, he would do it gladly.

Jamie was looking forward to the garage sale. She helped her mother sweep the driveway and set up the long folding tables. Then she printed a large GARAGE SALE sign to display at the end of their street.
“Do you think we’ll have lots of people?” Jamie asked.
“I hope so,” Mother answered. “The newspaper ad should help.”
A broken toaster, some mismatched dishes, and outgrown clothing lined the tables. Jamie was fascinated by the people who came to browse through the collection of old items.
“Why would anyone pay fifty cents for an old blue bottle?” Jamie asked after an elderly lady had left with her purchase.
“Why, she’ll put some pretty silk flowers in it and think it’s the world’s greatest treasure!” Jamie’s mother explained. “People like to have unusual things without having to pay a lot for them.”
“Do you think someone will want to buy my old high chair and crib?” Jamie asked.
“Yes, I’m sure someone will,” replied Mother. “They’re almost like new.”
“I don’t like to think of my things being in someone else’s house,” Jamie said with a frown.
“Well, we certainly can’t use them anymore!” Her mother laughed. “You’re a big girl now. I’ll bet if you looked through your room, you’d find some things to get rid of too.”
Jamie went to her room to look for something she could sell. Her bookshelf was lined with books about giants and kings and clowns. This one used to be my favorite, she thought as she looked through the pages of How to Tell Time. I can’t sell it! she decided.
Inside her desk she found a set of plastic letters and numbers that she’d used in first grade. One of the Cs was missing, and the 8 was bent. I might need these to play school the next time Andrea comes over, Jamie thought. Finally, after thinking about everything in her room, Jamie decided to sell her blocks. They had been stored in the farthest corner of her closet for a very long time.
Back outside, Jamie told her mother, “I’m going to sell my blocks for two dollars.”
“Two dollars is rather high,” Jamie’s mother said as Jamie placed the box of blocks on the table. “You may want to lower the price.”
None of the adults were interested in the two-dollar box of blocks. Jamie began to think she’d keep them after all. Then an old blue car pulled up in front of the house. A young woman, followed by three small children, walked up the driveway.
“Your ad said you had a high chair and crib for sale,” the woman said.
“Yes, we do,” replied Jamie’s mother. “They’re right over here on the lawn. As you can see, they’re in very good condition.”
“They are nice,” the woman said. “The ones we have at home are worn-out.”
“Yes, I can imagine,” Jamie’s mother said, smiling at the three active children.
Jamie noticed that the dress the little girl was wearing was much too small for her. One of the little boy’s shoes had a hole in the toe, and his shirt was too big. The baby wasn’t wearing shoes, and Jamie thought his feet must be cold.
“My name’s Anne,” the little girl told Jamie. “I’m going to be in first grade this year!”
“Oh, that’s nice,” Jamie said. “How old are your brothers?”
“Marty’s four, and Alex is almost two,” Anne told her. “We’re going to have a new baby pretty soon!”
Marty spied the box of colorful blocks sitting at the edge of the table. “They’re pretty!” he said. He picked up a purple block and turned it around and around, looking at all its sides. “Bet I could build a real high tower with all of these!” he boasted.
“How much are the blocks?” Anne asked.
“Two dollars,” Jamie said. “They’re really good blocks. I haven’t used them very much.”
“Oh.” Anne sighed. “We won’t be able to buy them, Marty.”
“I have some money!” Marty declared. “Eighteen cents from my piggy bank!”
“I know,” Anne whispered to him, “and I have thirty-five cents. But even together it won’t be enough.”
“Maybe we can ask Mother for the rest,” Marty suggested.
“No,” Anne said. “She only has enough for the baby furniture.”
Jamie watched Marty’s freckled face sag into a sad frown. She watched his little fingers place the purple block back into the box. Then she thought about how useless the blocks had been sitting in her closet.
“Two dollars is probably too much for them,” Jamie admitted. “They do have some scratches. I think eighteen cents is a fair price!”
“You do?” Marty grinned. “That’s great!”
Marty counted out his dime and eight pennies. Jamie put the coins into the money box.
“Thank you,” Marty said, clutching his new treasure.
“I have some other things I don’t need anymore,” Jamie said. “If you’ll wait a minute, I’ll bring them out!”
“I don’t think we have enough money to buy any more,” Anne said.
“Wait until you see if there’s anything you like before you decide,” Jamie said as she hurried inside.
Jamie got How to Tell Time from the shelf. One of the clock hands on the cover was slightly bent, but that wouldn’t matter. It could still help a six-year-old learn to tell time. She gathered all the letters and numbers from her desk, put them into a shoe box, and then hurried outside.
“I’m too old for these things now,” Jamie said with a smile as Anne looked at the toys. “And they’re only thirty-five cents.”
“But aren’t these worth more than that?” Anne asked.
“No, thirty-five cents is just right,” Jamie replied. “You’ll have a lot of fun playing school with them.”
“I can’t wait to tell time!” Anne cried. “Thank you!”
As the old blue car pulled away from the curb, Jamie could see three excited faces looking back at her. Jamie waved. The coins she clutched in her other hand were forgotten. Inside, Jamie had a zillion dollars’ worth of happiness.

A second lesson I learned was from Sister Amy A. Wright, First Counselor in the Primary General Presidency, who spoke immediately following Elder Christofferson. She taught:
“Oftentimes we can find ourselves, like the lame beggar at the gate of the temple, patiently—or sometimes impatiently—‘wait[ing] upon the Lord [Isaiah 40:31].’ Waiting to be healed physically or emotionally. Waiting for answers that penetrate the deepest part of our hearts. Waiting for a miracle.”8
My prayer going into that general conference had been for immediate results. I knew this wasn’t realistic, but I hadn’t anticipated learning lessons about the importance of waiting.
Sister Wright continued: “Waiting upon the Lord can be a sacred place—a place of polishing and refining where we can come to know the Savior in a deeply personal way. Waiting upon the Lord may also be a place where we find ourselves asking, ‘O God, where art thou?’ [Doctrine and Covenants 121:1]—a place where spiritual perseverance requires us to exercise faith in Christ by intentionally choosing Him again and again and again.”9
I have given this concept a lot of thought since that general conference. Learning to wait, to be patient with my children and their choices, and to trust that the Lord is ever seeking after them has required a lot of effort on my part. I wish it were as simple as making the choice one time to believe and then being filled with peace for the rest of my days, as I pray that my children will choose to reach out to the Savior and exercise faith in Him. But it has not been that way for me. Some days it has felt easier to give in to hopelessness and despair, to give up because it may seem like “the plan isn’t working.” It has required great effort and spiritual perseverance to exercise faith and maintain hope in Heavenly Father’s plan when I’m seeing my children make choices that don’t reflect the divine truths I taught them. Yet, every day that I choose hope over despair, I am choosing Him. Again and again and again.
This struggle has brought me closer to God. It has made me turn to Him through prayer. It has focused my scripture study. It has turned me to the temple. Most of all, it has made me immensely grateful for the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I am so grateful to know that He loves my children and that He gave His life for them.
Learning to wait upon the Lord has become a sacred place for me. It has become a refining experience. Studying these general conference talks and focusing my gospel study has deepened my understanding of doctrine and strengthened my faith. I am learning line upon line, precept upon precept to trust in the Lord and in Heavenly Father’s plan of redemption while still praying that my children will choose to follow Jesus Christ and His gospel. And I am looking forward to the next general conference to add to my learning and my testimony.

Lorenzo Snow first heard about the Church while he was still a young man. At first he had no desire to be baptized, even though his sister Eliza (the same Eliza R. Snow who wrote many Latter-day Saint hymns and served as the second general president of the Relief Society) had eagerly embraced the gospel. He did, however, find the Church’s doctrine very interesting. When Lorenzo began to attend college in Oberlin, Ohio, he would often share Church beliefs with the students who were training to become Protestant ministers. Although he hadn’t yet committed to be baptized, he presented the gospel so well that many of the students at Oberlin admitted the possible truth of the restored Church.
As strong a missionary as he was before he accepted the gospel, it’s no wonder that Lorenzo became even more dedicated to the work after he was baptized. During his early years as a member of the Church, he was called to serve several full-time missions. He first served in Ohio, followed by Missouri, Kentucky, and Illinois, USA. He was later sent to Great Britain to assist with the organization of the Church in England. While there, he even gave copies of the Book of Mormon to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He later served missions in Italy, Switzerland, and what would eventually become known as the Hawaiian Islands.
When Elder Snow left England to return to Nauvoo, Illinois, he brought a large group of newly baptized members with him. They all booked passage on the ship Swanton and prepared for the long journey to North America.
Although the captain of the Swanton was not unkind to the Latter-day Saints on his ship, he wasn’t exactly friendly either. He usually distanced himself from them. But after about two weeks at sea, something happened. The captain’s steward was badly injured in an accident. No one expected the steward to live through the night.
But one of the faithful sisters who had been attending to the dying sailor had a suggestion. She told the steward that Elder Lorenzo Snow could give him a blessing and that it might save his life. The steward—who was working to support his wife and two children back in Germany—eagerly agreed.
In the middle of the night, Elder Snow was awakened and asked to come to the dying man’s room. When he arrived, he met the captain of the ship. The captain thanked him for coming but expressed the hopelessness of the situation. Elder Snow could see that the captain had been crying.
He went into the room, laid his hands upon the steward’s head, and gave him a priesthood blessing. Immediately after Elder Snow finished the blessing, the man sat up and got out of bed. The steward was completely healed, and he returned to his duties the next day.
The healing of the steward changed things on board the Swanton. The captain began to spend as much time with the Saints as he could spare, and he even studied the gospel and attended Church meetings. The other sailors were just as impressed. When the ship reached its destination, the crew lovingly bid the Saints farewell. Through the power of the priesthood, not only was a man’s life saved, but several others were also given a glimpse of God’s power and love. The steward and many members of the crew were eventually baptized.
Many other amazing events occurred in the life of President Lorenzo Snow. So this year, while the adults are studying Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow, why not follow along? On Sundays or when you have some free time, you could read some of President Snow’s teachings. You’ll be able to contribute more to family gospel discussions, and in the process you’ll get to know an amazing man who became a prophet of God.

He had met Bathsheba and stayed at her home on an earlier mission in 1837. He was there when she was baptized at age 15, and the 20-year-old “made provisional arrangements … the Almighty preserving us, in three years from that time, we would be married.” At that location he also preached a two-and-a-half-hour sermon just to outlast hecklers. (See “Youngest Modern Apostle,” Church News, 1950–51.)
Three years from that time, the Almighty had indeed preserved them but on opposite sides of the Atlantic. In a letter to a relative, the recently called Apostle wrote: “Tell Sister Bathsheba I have not really forgotten her. … If she is married, wish her much joy for me, and if she is single, wish her much joy with me.”
He returned to the United States in 1841, visited his parents, then went straight to the Bigler home. He and Bathsheba were married 10 days later on July 25.

4. Another element that leads to success and happiness is to discover early in life that those things of most importance in life you cannot buy for money. They are priceless. To illustrate, let me tell you about an elder from Austria whom I met at the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah.

I noticed that he seemed to be a little older than the average elder. He and his mother had joined the Church when he was sixteen. His father, who was a successful banker, was not interested in religion, but he did not care if his wife and son joined the Church.

This elder’s problems began occurring, however, when he would be studying his seminary materials. He would have his scriptures and papers out on his desk, and his father would come in and say something like: “Don’t waste your time studying those things. Get back into your regular school studies so that you can be admitted to the university.” At times, his father would become so upset he would pick up his son’s scriptures or papers and throw them across the room.

At age eighteen, this young man began thinking more about a mission. In fact, one night he even dreamed that he had been called on a mission to Japan. It was such a warm and good feeling; but when he talked to his parents about it, his father said, “Oh no. You are not going to waste two years of your life in the mission field. You must go to the university.” The father wanted the son to become a banker and follow in his footsteps.

Realizing that he had better do what his father wished at that point, he chose to go to the university. I am not sure he made his father totally happy because he chose to come to the United States and enroll at Brigham Young University. He went through his program in business, received his bachelor’s degree, and then received a master of business administration degree. He was soon hired as a junior executive in an international banking firm in Munich, Germany.

By this time he was twenty-five years old, obviously old enough to make his own decisions. He still had a great desire to serve a mission. He went to his stake president and informed him of his desires. He even told him of his dream. The stake president laughed and said, “Well, I don’t think you will be called to Japan. Nobody is called to Japan from here. They may be called to other countries in Europe, but not to Japan.”

His father was very upset when he learned his son was thinking of leaving his position at the bank for two years. He came over from Vienna and did everything he could to convince his son not to go. His boss flew down from Frankfurt, Germany, and spent time with him, attempting to convince him that he should not leave his work for two years.

“My boy,” he said, “do you realize what this will cost you professionally in terms of salary loss as well as opportunity loss? Sit down and calculate what these two years will cost you.” The young elder did, and found that the mission would cost him a great sum of money.

But tears came to his eyes when he told me, “If it would have cost several times that amount, I would still be here, because I know this is where the Lord wants me to be.”

Well, he was called to Japan. He served a very successful mission, and I suppose there are many international banking firms that would be pleased to hire a well-trained junior executive who speaks German, English, and Japanese—the three major languages of the economic free world. But even if he didn’t earn any extra money as the result of this additional experience, it still would have been worth it. If you want to be happy and successful, you will come to a realization that there are some values in life you cannot purchase with money.

It’s Saturday morning, Shannon McNally is wide awake, and she’s still snoring. Listening to her and egging her on is Shannon’s younger sister, Landis. It looks strange, really. But it’s not. It’s what Landis likes. So Shannon indulges her mentally retarded sister.

“She likes for me to snore for her,” Shannon says with a shrug. Shannon doesn’t know why Landis likes that, or why she likes her big sis to play “The Wedding March” on the piano. “That’s just one of Landis’s things too.”

Shannon, 15, and Landis, 12, share a bedroom in their Union Bridge, Maryland, home. And despite Landis’s disability, the two sisters are just that. “We’re like regular sisters who have special things between them,” Shannon continues. That would explain the snoring and “The Wedding March.”

It would also explain why Shannon is such a big help to her mother when it comes to dealing with Landis. “Right now, Landis throws a lot of tantrums, she pulls hair, she spits, and she scratches. She’s also speech-disabled,” says the girls’ mom, Anjela McNally. “Shannon probably understands [Landis] a tad better than I do. I’ll say, ‘Shannon, what’s Landis trying to say?’ Shannon knows her sister very well and can usually tell me.”

That doesn’t mean it’s always easy for Shannon, a Mia Maid in the Westminster Ward of the Frederick Maryland Stake. When Landis gets upset, she’ll begin, as Shannon describes it, “trashing the house.” Once Shannon was heating up some leftover pizza, when Landis decided she wanted pudding instead. When Shannon told her she’d have to eat the pizza, Landis began throwing her food around the kitchen and knocking things off the counter.

“I get frustrated a lot over the things she does. I don’t mean to get mad but sometimes I do. Then I feel bad because I know she doesn’t quite understand why I’m yelling at her,” says Shannon. It’s at moments like these that Shannon will give Landis a hug, or sit with her in a chair, look at a magazine, and just rock back and forth. “It helps my anger to go away.”

“What is so incredible about Shannon is she’s able to not let what Landis does get her down too much. She has a great sense of humor about it,” says Sister McNally, a single parent who also has two sons, K. C. and Lucas, still at home. “Shannon is always willing to help, and she’s very kind to Landis. And Landis turns to Shannon for help as much as me or maybe even sometimes a little bit more than me.

“Shannon is a good role model for Landis,” Sister McNally continues. “But I think she’s more of a hero for Landis. Shannon has always been really pleasant and easygoing. I call her ‘my cheerful giver.’”

Even with all the help she provides her mother, Shannon still finds time for seminary, and school activities, which include her participation in color guard, a precision performing group that twirls flags. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, days Sister McNally is at school, Shannon is there to help Landis get off the bus. She also helps Landis get dressed, and will occasionally help with her bath.

There are moments when Shannon stops and considers her sister’s plight. She’ll think about times when Landis cries and doesn’t stop, and how hard it is to see her sister sad and not be able to find out what’s wrong. There are other times when Shannon will think about the gospel, and specifically about the Resurrection. “Landis has been this way for as long as I can remember. It’s hard for me to imagine her being perfect, her being able to speak,” Shannon explains. “I can’t really imagine her that way, but I know she will be someday.”

Sister McNally says, “I try to teach Shannon that she won’t always be recognized here for the help she’s given Landis, or for the way she’s been kind to Landis and helped make Landis’s life easier. But I also teach her that someday Landis will be able to come up to her and talk, and that this is not a permanent condition. As a family, we have had to do a lot of soul searching and a lot of studying of the purpose of life.”

For now, Shannon will continue caring for Landis. Like the nights when Shannon wakes up and makes sure her sister has blankets on her, or when she takes Landis outside to ride her bike. Those are the times when Landis will smile and so will Shannon. And one thing will be readily apparent. They’re sisters, and they love each other very much.

In my youth I gained a great respect for this power, especially as it was manifest in priesthood blessings. While serving as a young missionary in Chile, my companion and I were arrested and separated. We were never told why. It was a time of great political upheaval. Thousands of people were taken into custody by the military police and never heard from again.
After being interrogated, I sat alone in a jail cell, not knowing if I would ever see my loved ones again. I turned to my Heavenly Father, fervently pleading: “Father, I have always been taught that Thou watcheth over Thy missionaries. Please, Father, I am nothing special, but I have been obedient and I need Thy help tonight.”
The seeds of this help had been planted many years earlier. After my baptism, I was confirmed a member of the Church and given the gift of the Holy Ghost. As I prayed, alone, behind bars, the Holy Ghost immediately came to me and comforted me. He brought to my mind a very special passage from my patriarchal blessing, which is another blessing of the priesthood. In it, God promised me that through my faithfulness I would be able to be sealed in the temple for time and eternity to a woman full of beauty and virtue and love, that we would become the parents of precious sons and daughters, and that I would be blessed and magnified as a father in Israel.
Those inspired words about my future filled my soul with peace. I knew that they had come from my loving Heavenly Father, who always keeps His promises. In that moment, I had the assurance that I would be released and live to see those promises fulfilled.
About a year later, Heavenly Father did bless me with a wife who is full of beauty and virtue and love. Lynette and I were sealed in the temple. We were blessed with three precious sons and four precious daughters. I became a father, all according to God’s promises in the patriarchal blessing I received as a 17-year-old boy.

The Pukalani Ward, Kahului Hawaii Stake, has an early-morning seminary class eagerly participating in a genealogy project. The nine students were given family group sheets with names extracted from a ward member’s genealogical sketch. After an introduction and instructions, the group filled out individual and marriage entry forms. The class submitted 57 names to be cleared for temple work. The youth enjoyed the actual hands-on experience of learning about genealogy.

The story is told that toward the end of World War II an allied general came to the front lines one night to inspect his troops. As he walked along he would point out into no-man’s-land and say, “Can you see them? Can you see them?”
Finally, someone said, “General, we can see nothing. What do you mean?” He said, “Can’t you see them? They’re your buddies; they are the ones who gave their lives today, yesterday, and the day before. They’re out there alright, watching you, wondering what you are going to do; wondering if they have died in vain.”

As a Kenyan teenager, Jastus Suchi Obadiah once vowed to his friends that he would physically harm any white South African he happened to meet. “My friends and I often read in the newspapers about the injustices of apartheid, and we hated white South Africans,” he explains. Fortunately, Jastus forgot his hateful vow before he ever met a South African.
As a young man, Jastus was introduced to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by his cousin, a Church member. “I’ll never forget the first missionaries who taught me; one was a black African, and one was a white elder from the United States,” says Jastus. As Jastus observed these two young men working together in harmony, “I learned there were many good people no matter what their color.
“As they taught me, the principle of love came into my heart. I realized that to be like God, you really must be loving. My sense of love grew—even for my enemies.” Two years after his baptism, Jastus was himself a missionary, serving in the Kenya Nairobi Mission.
Jastus and his senior companion seemed to work particularly well together; they shared a strong mutual respect and quickly became the best of friends. One day, as Jastus was looking into the white face of his South African companion, the long-forgotten vow made in his teens came rushing back to him. “It really affected my heart when I remembered what I had said. Then I realized how wonderful the gospel is, because it brings people together, no matter who we are or where we come from.
“And I felt how wonderful it is to teach this gospel together with my white companion,” he says. “The gospel changed the course of my life.”

Annie sat on the floor of her closet, her arms wrapped around her knees. Every so often she picked up one of her shoes and tossed it into a corner.
She sighed slowly. The last time she’d hidden in her closet was when she had knocked Grandma’s cookie jar off the shelf and it had broken all over the kitchen floor. She had felt real bad then—kind of like now.
“Annie,” Mother called from the hallway, “are you working on your talk?”
Annie groaned and pulled the closet door shut. Almost as soon as she did, the door opened and Mother looked down at her. “Annie, what are you doing in the closet?”
“I’m just thinking. Maybe I should ask Sister Haslam to have somebody else give a talk about fathers.”
Mother sat down next to the closet and smiled at Annie. “Are you embarrassed because Daddy isn’t a member of the Church?”
Annie pressed her hands against her eyes and tried to swallow the lump in her throat. “No, I don’t think so. But Sister Haslam talks about us getting baptized by our dads, and when the kids talk about what their families did at the ward party, I feel left out.”
Mother stared out the window for a long time, then said, “Annie, the other kids just don’t know your dad very well. Why don’t you tell them about him in your talk?”
Annie sat up. “Should I talk about where Daddy works or about the games that we play?”
Mother smiled. “Annie, you talk about whatever makes your dad special to you.” Mother stood up and left Annie to think about it.
Annie leaned back against the closet wall. She pulled an old canvas shoe out from under her leg. As she tossed it in the corner, she saw the water stains on it and smiled, remembering that she had worn it the last time she and Dad had gone fishing.
“I know what I’ll talk about!” Annie exclaimed. She went to her desk and printed “My Dad’s Shoes” in big letters at the top of a sheet of paper. Then she hurried to her parents’ bedroom and opened the closet door. She dropped to her knees and studied the shoes scattered there, then picked up a pair of worn suede ones and carried them back to her bedroom.
On Sunday morning, when Annie woke up, she heard the birds chirping outside her window. She carefully dressed in the clothes that she had laid out the night before, then hurried downstairs to breakfast.
Dad was cooking pancakes and telling Mother about a book that he had read.
“Hi, hon,” Dad said when he saw Annie. “Your mom said that you’re going to give a talk today and that I should ask you what it’s about.”
Annie smiled. “My talk is called ‘My Dad’s Shoes.’”
Dad winked at Mother as he plopped a pancake onto Annie’s plate. “‘My Dad’s Shoes,’ huh? That sounds pretty interesting. Do you have time to tell me at least a part of it before you go to church?”
“Nope. I want you to hear it all at once.” Annie took a big bite of pancake covered with blueberry syrup.
“Well,” Dad responded with a smile, “I guess I’d better put on my tie and jacket and come with you then.”
As soon as Annie had finished her breakfast, it was time to go to church. She ran up to her room and carefully tucked her talk notes into a paper sack. Later, when it was her turn to talk in Primary, she carried her paper bag to the pulpit, smiled at Mom and Dad, and took out her notes—and Dad’s old leather shoes.
“This is a pair of my dad’s shoes,” Annie began. “They’re old now, but once they were new.
“My dad first wore these shoes to work at the hardware store. He helps people find the supplies that they need. He likes people, and he works very hard to help them get just the right things.”
Annie could see her mother smiling in the back row.
“As these shoes got older, Dad wore them around home and when he helped Mom and me shop for groceries. He wore them when he took Mom and me out for ice-cream cones on my birthday, and he wore them when he delivered cookies to our new neighbors.
“Then these shoes got even older.” Annie held the shoes up again for everyone to see.
“Now he mostly wears them to do chores. He wears them when he mows the lawn. But he doesn’t mow just our lawn—he mows the lawn of the lady across the street too. She’s an older lady who lives all alone. My dad really takes care of her. He mows her lawn during the summer and shovels her driveway in the winter.
“My dad wears these shoes when we go camping. He helps me toast my marsh-mallows just right. He lays out my sleeping bag. When Dad is around, I’m not afraid of the dark or of anything.”
Annie smiled as she turned the shoes around on the podium.
“My dad wears these shoes to my baseball games. He never misses one of my games. He always cheers when I hit the ball and get to a base. And if I don’t do very well, he pats me on the shoulder and tells me a funny joke on the way home.
“Best of all, Dad gives me hugs and kisses. I love him very much, and I’m thankful that Heavenly Father gave my dad to me.”
As Annie sat down, a glance at her dad’s face told her he felt exactly the same way about her.

I looked at the photograph of her in my mother’s scrapbook, pasted in next to Grandma’s certificate of blessing. She wore plaited hair wound in a crown above her oval face. Her eyes were fine and slanted.
“That’s your great-great-grandmother Totshauna.” My mother used to point her out to me when I was a child and the relatives first started saying I favored her. “She crossed the plains with the pioneers, pulling a handcart for more than a thousand miles.”
“Is a thousand miles farther away than Grandma’s house?” We lived in Salt Lake, and my grandmother Harris lived in Spanish Fork.
“Oh, lots farther, honey. A thousand miles is … is almost as far away as the moon.” Mom was proud of her pioneer heritage, and she wanted to be sure her children appreciated their ancestry sufficiently. I still remember at five years marveling over the woman with the funny hair who pulled a cart to Utah from as far away as the moon. Now I’m 20, and three nights ago when I looked at the photograph (faded, and taped in one corner), I remembered again, and marveled.
I was born in Salt Lake City, the city that she, and others like her, built more than a hundred years ago with adobe bricks and irrigation systems fed from the streams of the Wasatch. The call to gather to Zion brought tens of thousands of Saints from the East and converts from Europe, mostly England, to the Great Salt Lake Valley between 1846 and 1900. The Church in those days, struggling for its existence, desperately needed the strength found in unity, for a scattered church stood little chance of developing into the powerful organization that would be necessary to carry out the Lord’s latter-day work.
Twenty-three-year-old Totshauna Svenstrup, her husband, Christian, and their two small daughters were four of those who responded to the call. They came out of Denmark and, after sailing to the United States, joined one of two ill-fated handcart companies that headed westward to Zion. Totshauna’s daughter, Anna Karil, at that time only five, years later wrote briefly of the trek in her journal:
“Father died just outside of Florence [Nebraska] in a wagon accident. Mother pulled the cart, and she with child. We buried Gury in the snow by the Sweetwater [Wyoming]. She froze one night next to me and Mother in the tent. We reached the Salt Lake Valley in October. In December Mother delivered a son.”
In the old museum on Temple Square there used to be a statue of two pioneers, husband and wife, their cloaks windswept, standing together beside a small grave. My seminary class once took a tour of Temple Square. We stopped and looked at the statue, and one girl said, “Isn’t that so sad?” and the girl next to her solemnly agreed, “It’s awful. How did they ever stand it?” Then we continued on to the Assembly Hall to exclaim over how beautiful the stained glass windows are.
My seminary class saw the granite temple that day, too. Totshauna died three years before its completion. Every summer thousands of tourists park their heavily loaded automobiles in the spaces posted “Out-of-State Cars Only” that surround the temple block. They go inside and listen attentively to how the seagulls ate the crickets, then flick coins into the fountain. They file into the Tabernacle where once she, too, shifted her weight on the hard, narrow benches, and they lean a little forward in their seats to hear a pin drop. They snap photos of the spired temple and murmur with admiration: “Forty years to build. Imagine that!” Totshauna’s second husband, Samual Hoopes, was killed while quarrying granite for the temple up Little Cottonwood Canyon in June 1872.
Sometimes when I stand outside the temple, my fingers clutching the iron gate, my head thrown back as I stare at the golden words “Holiness to the Lord,” I remember a widow with eight children. Anna Karil, by that time married, wrote: “Mother embroiders linens for pay. Her fine Danish needlework is admired by many. The children work as they are able. Mother also takes in boarders and washing.”
The spires of the temple and Moroni sounding his trump no longer dominate the Salt Lake skyline. The modern Church Office Building across the street now holds that position of prominence. The office building, 28 stories high, took three years to build. The project was financed by the tithes and offerings of Church members. Totshauna, I think, would be proud to see the tall building. (I can picture her craning her neck toward the top: “Twenty-eight stories high. Imagine that!”) I am proud, too, but sometimes I think of the days when a temple cost 40 years, and even lives, to build. I will be careful not to forget.
After reaching the Salt Lake Valley, Totshauna settled in what is today known as Holladay. Not long after her arrival, she became the plural wife of Samual Hoopes. (I wonder if Samual was as enchanted as I am by her plain and lovely crown of plaits.) She had nine children by Samual; only seven lived past infancy. Her husband, at one time, was two and a half years absent from his family, which included three wives and numerous children, while serving a mission for the Church in the British Isles. Totshauna later sent three sons on missions after Samual’s death, with each son proving an added hardship, for her boys were among the eldest of her children and were depended upon to aid in the support of the entire family. Her own sketchy journal (now kept treasured in soft cloth in my grandmother’s bureau), which she kept for a brief period following Samual’s death, reads: “Hyrum left with elders Whitney and Williams in a wagon and went to take the rail to Canada. I packed him two beef tarts and two loaves bread with chokeberry jam, and Samual’s Book of Mormon, and an extra shirt and pair socks. He is seventeen.”
When my older brother, Jeff, left on his mission to Quebec, we stood in the airport terminal and watched the big jet take off. In his two large suitcases he carried a missionary Bible and leatherbound triple combination, three new suits, five white shirts, and a brand-new woolen coat that Mom saved for three months to buy. He had a notebook with the missionary discussions in it, and he’d already memorized them in French. I asked my mom if we could pack him beef tarts and bread with jam for his send-off, but she just smiled and said, “Oh, don’t be silly,” and baked him a shoebox full of tollhouse cookies instead.
As I reflect upon Totshauna’s life, I can’t help but contrast her harsh and simple life-style with my own. I attend Brigham Young University (named for the prophet-colonizer she followed and revered) where I study English and music and religion. Occasionally I may wash a pair of socks in the sink (she washed all her clothing with a scrub board and lye soap) or take a break from my daily routine by baking wheat bread, but these interruptions are rare. I often wonder while buzzing down the freeway in my Volkswagen or listening to the prophet at conference time on television or radio, what part of her remains in me.
Somewhere inside me I feel a bittersweet ache as I reflect upon those early days of Mormonism. There is in me a kind of wistful longing to return to the days of seagulls and crickets, days when temples took 40 years to build, days of missionaries who traveled on foot or by rail with neither purse or scrip, days of adobe bricks, and martyrs. Such days formed my roots and the roots of my church. They are a part of me in ways that I feel though do not fully understand.
Yet, despite my shadowy longings for past times and things, I am immersed in modern Mormonism—the organization she spent her life building a foundation for. That it is an exciting and marvelous age I live in I cannot deny. (Totshauna would thrill to hear about the 25,000 missionaries who now tract the earth. I thrill, too.) But as the modern church grows in strength and size, and I grow along with it—full of vast and varied possibilities for personal development and eager to discover what part in the growth and development of today’s church I might play—I will be careful to remember and strive to understand that part in me that is Totshauna, that part that is there because of her. I will go to Brigham Young University and exert my mind in the study of Faulkner, Hemingway, and Shakespeare. I’ll learn how to be a writer and maybe one day write for Church publications. I’ll practice my violin for at least one hour each day, and I’ll study the scriptures and struggle to comprehend, as well as live, the gospel of Jesus Christ. But in the mornings as I prepare to meet each day of work and study, I will plait my hair and sometimes even fashion it in a crown above my oval face.

I sat on our front steps and thought my very hardest. The Twenty-fourth of July parade was just a week away, and I still didn’t know how I could win the fifteen-dollar prize for the best-decorated bike. There just had to be a way.
“Alex,” Mom called, “are you going over to help Sister Wilson this morning?”
“Yeah,” I answered, getting to my feet. “If she calls, tell her I’m on my way.”
As I walked over to Sister Wilson’s, all I could think about was winning the bike prize. I was saving money to buy my own bike. In fact, I’d already saved twenty dollars, but I still didn’t have enough for a bike. I really needed one, too, so I was in a real jam.
“Hello, Alex,” Sister Wilson called as I went up her walk. “Are you ready to go to work?”
I nodded. Sister Wilson was down on her hands and knees, pulling weeds from her flower bed. She had on her old straw hat and brown cotton work gloves. I don’t know why she wore them. The glove fingers had holes in them, and the band on her hat was gone. The hat brim was so ragged around the edge that her face was always freckled with bits of sunshine.
Once I asked her why she didn’t get a new hat and new gloves. She chuckled and said, “Oh, these will do me just fine. Besides, new ones cost too much.”
Sister Wilson was a widow, and she didn’t have much money. That’s why she couldn’t pay me for working. I didn’t mind, though, because she always gave me cookies and punch and told me stories.
“Are we pulling weeds today?” I asked.
“I am,” she answered, “but I have another chore for you.” She took me around the side of the house and back to the garage. She didn’t have a car, so she used the garage to store things in. The sunshine poured in as she opened the garage door.
“I want to get rid of a lot of this stuff and straighten up what’s left,” she said. “And I need a big strong boy like you to help me. Just bring everything outside and set it in the driveway, and I’ll look it over and tell you what to throw away and what I want to keep.”
I couldn’t believe all the good stuff Sister Wilson had in her garage. I found a real old army helmet, one like they used in the army way back before Dad was born. There was a leather bag full of marbles—real old ones. They looked like they were made out of hard clay. There was even an old record player with a big wide horn on top that looked like a giant morning glory. I laughed when I saw that.
I’d emptied most of the garage when I saw some handlebars poking out from behind a pile of boxes. When I pulled the boxes out, I saw a huge red bike with a wire basket fastened to it right behind the seat. The bike had big thick tires and wide fenders. It was kind of old-fashioned looking, not like any of my friends’ bikes.
Just then Sister Wilson came around the corner of the house. “Looks like you found Old Red,” she said with a grin.
“Old Red?” I asked.
“That’s what my husband always called it,” she explained. “When we had the drugstore down on Main Street, Brother Wilson used it to deliver prescriptions and things to folks who couldn’t get to the store. That bike’s been all over town, and it’s almost as old as I am.”
“I’ve never seen a bike quite like this, Sister Wilson.”
She laughed again. “No, I don’t suppose you have. I’ll bet it’s a lot bigger than your bike, isn’t it?”
I shrugged my shoulders and said, “I don’t have a bike. I’m hoping to buy one, though, as soon as I make some more money. And I’m going to try to borrow a bike to ride in the parade and maybe win the prize for the best-decorated bike.”
Sister Wilson pressed her lips together and straightened her hat. “There should be a tire pump in all this junk,” she said. “Let’s find it and pump up those tires and see if Old Red has any get-up-and-go after all these years.”
The pump was hidden way back in the corner under some old hip boots, so by the time we found it, we’d cleaned out the whole garage. I pumped up those old fat tires, and they still held air!
We found a wrench and put the seat all the way down. Then we oiled the chain and everything and pushed Old Red into Sister Wilson’s backyard. I had to roll it over to the back step so I could climb on. As soon as I had my leg over the bar, I pushed away from the step. I thought I was going to ride across the lawn, but all I did was fall over.
I tried again, and I fell over again. I don’t know how many times that old bike fell on me, but I finally got so I could turn the pedals and hold onto the handlebars without tipping over. The only problem then was that I needed to look at my feet to pedal, and while I was looking at my feet, I ran right into Sister Wilson’s apple tree.
I pushed that old bike back to the step and tried again. One time I ran into the back fence and scratched my face on the rose bushes. My pants got caught in the chain a couple of times, too, but I didn’t quit until I could ride Old Red all over the back lawn without falling or bumping into something.
“I hope I didn’t bang Old Red up too much,” I said as I pushed the bike back to the garage.
“Oh, I’m not worried about that. Nothing will hurt Old Red. I just hope you didn’t hurt yourself.”
The rest of the day I worked with Sister Wilson. Everything she wanted to keep was put back into the garage, and the rest of it was carried out to the curb for the garbage truck. When we were finished, Sister Wilson gave me some molasses cookies and milk and told me about when Brother Wilson rode Old Red around town.
The night before the Twenty-fourth of July, I was sitting on the front porch feeling real sad because I still hadn’t found a bike to ride in the parade. Mom poked her head out the front door and said, “Sister Wilson wants you to go over to her place for a few minutes.”
I walked over and knocked on her door.
“Hello, Alex,” she said with a smile as she opened the door. “Are you ready for the parade tomorrow?”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t find a bike. Everyone is riding his own bike in the parade.”
“How would you like to ride Old Red?” she said with a twinkle in her eye.
I followed her to the garage. She opened the door and said, “Do you think Old Red will win you anything?”
I couldn’t believe my eyes. Right in the middle of the garage was Old Red. It was all cleaned and fixed up fancier than I’d ever seen a bike. The wire basket behind the seat was made into a little covered wagon with a sign on the back that said: CROSSING THE PLAINS ON OLD RED. The back wheel had colored paper on it that made it look like a wagon wheel. Right in front of the handlebars was a big paper ox head, and the handlebars kind of looked like its horns. Some paper legs were fixed on both sides of the front wheel so that when the wheel turned it looked like the ox was running. I’d never seen anything like it.
“Do you think this will win you a prize?” Sister Wilson asked again with a laugh.
“You mean it’s for me?” I gasped.
“I surely wasn’t planning to ride it,” she said, still chuckling. “You’ve been helping me so much that I thought maybe I could help you.”
The next morning I pushed Old Red down to Main Street where the parade started and where the judges were. As soon as I got there, I knew Old Red was going to win. The other bikes looked nice with their paper streamers and colored wheels, but not one of them was as fancy as Old Red.
Mr. Peters gave me the blue ribbon and a check for fifteen dollars. He said I should ride Old Red at the front of the parade, right behind the flags. I was sure proud. Everybody stood and clapped and talked about what a fancy bike I had.
After the parade I took my check down to Bob’s Market to cash it. Later, when I rode Old Red up to Sister Wilson’s house, she was out on her front porch snapping green beans. “Well, congratulations,” she said and smiled.
I climbed off Old Red, leaned it against the porch, and placed a big brown paper sack in Sister Wilson’s lap.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“It’s for you,” I said. “It’s your part of the prize.”
She reached into the sack and pulled out a pair of brown gloves and a yellow straw hat with a blue ribbon around it. “But, Alex, you were going to use the money to help buy your bike.”
“I know,” I said, “but I decided I could wait for my bike. You need the gloves and hat. Your old ones are worn-out. I still have enough money to pay my tithing and some left over that I can save for my bike. Besides, just winning and riding at the head of the parade was good enough for me.”
Sister Wilson shook her head and thought for a minute. “You know, Alex, I was proud to see someone riding Old Red again. That old bike’s been pretty lonely out there in the garage by itself. I sure hate to put it back there.”
“Well, where do you want me to put it then?” I asked.
“This bike needs someone to take care of it and ride it and keep its tires pumped up and keep it from squeaking. Would you like to have Old Red?”
My mouth dropped open. I didn’t know what to say. “But, Sister Wilson, won’t you need it?”
She laughed. “I don’t ride bikes anymore, and Brother Wilson surely doesn’t need it. In fact, I’m sure he’d want you to have the bike.”
“But I couldn’t just take it. I mean, it’s your bike.”
Sister Wilson nodded her head. “I’ll tell you what. I have a few chores around here that need doing. If you’ll help me with those for the next couple of weeks, I’m certain you’ll have earned Old Red. Is that fair?” I nodded my head. “And in the meantime, you take care of it for me.”
I was so excited that all I could do was nod my head again as I climbed on my very own bike and rode home.

Baptized in snowy weather during the early spring of 1832, Brigham Young was confirmed at the edge of the water and ordained an elder in his home two miles away before the clothes were dry on his back. And before that year was over—an important year involving the death of his first wife and his initial meeting with the Prophet Joseph Smith—Brigham Young was out in the snow again, this time in an effort to share his new-found orientation to life with his friends in Canada.

In the cold of December, Brigham Young and his brother Joseph set out on foot for Kingston, upper Canada. This journey was to take the two young elders over a distance of 400 kilometers in snow knee deep with a thick layer of mud under it. Only those who have trudged through snow into mud can really appreciate the arduous task that these two missionaries underwent. To add to their discomfort, nearly ten kilometers of this journey was on ice—ice so thin that it bent beneath their feet, allowing the water to seep in until it was “half a shoe deep.”

For two months the missionaries labored in that area and baptized forty-five souls. Anyone who has seen his own inadequacies will appreciate knowing that missionary work was not an easy task for Brigham Young. He considered himself “about as destitute of language as a man could well be. …

“How I have had the headache, when I had ideas to lay before the people, and not words to express them; but I was so gritty that I always tried my best” (in Journal of Discourses, 5:97).

Another year and another mission passed before Brigham Young could finally settle his little family in Kirtland, where he drew close to the Prophet Joseph Smith. Twenty more souls came into the kingdom through his efforts as a result of a second mission, and he then led them to Kirtland, much as he would later lead the westward trek of the Saints. Once he had settled in the quiet little town of Kirtland in northern Ohio, Brigham Young began to learn about Zion, the dwelling place of the pure in heart, from the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Another major sacrifice for the cause of Zion came in 1834, as Brigham accompanied Joseph Smith on the march of Zion’s Camp. Word was received in Kirtland that the Saints in Missouri had been driven from their homes by mobs and that help was needed. An appeal was made to the brethren in Kirtland. Joseph and 205 others answered this plea for help. Force would be met by force. Those who marched knew that death might await them on the other end of their 1600-kilometer trek.

Brigham’s generation was acquainted with long walks, but nothing like this march. President Young later talked about walking month after month with blood in his shoes as he worked as a missionary, but even missionary work was nothing compared to the intensity of this march, day after day, in the heat of the early summer.

As the march proceeded, exhaustion resulted, patience became short, and tempers flared. Finally, the dreaded cholera hit, with its terrifying cramping and sudden death. Two years before that time, North America had experienced a major epidemic of cholera, and its symptoms were well known—diarrhea, spasmodic vomiting, and painful cramps, followed by dehydration that left the face blue and pinched, the extremities cold and dark, and the skin on the hands and feet puckered.

Death could follow in a day, even in an hour, and sometimes the victim would just keel forward as if hewn down by an axe. Some members of Zion’s Camp attempted to flee, but Brigham Young remained. Joseph Smith listed Brigham’s name as one who was most active in caring for the sick and burying the dead.

Not long after his experience with Zion’s Camp, Brigham Young was called to be a member of the first modern Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, organized in 1835. With the new calling, Brigham experienced many changes and felt the weight of added responsibilities. But his goal in life remained constant: to continue the work that Joseph had commenced, until everything was prepared for the coming of the Son of Man.

Two scenes from Brigham Young’s apostolic years give an insight into his continuing dedication to this goal. Both are from the year 1839.

The first occurred in February. Joseph Smith was imprisoned in Liberty Jail, and Brigham Young was directing the affairs of the Church as President of the Quorum of the Twelve. The problem at hand was to move the Saints from Missouri to Illinois. Few persons were well equipped for the move; many were destitute, and in their haste to leave, the temptation to run for one’s own life was strong. But in Brigham Young’s mind, this was not a course of action for true Saints of God. Surely society would never endure unless men could learn love, compassion, and concern for each other.

Accordingly, a meeting was called and a covenant drawn up, stating in effect that the signers would never leave until they had aided all of the poor to leave with them. Brigham Young and his family, accompanied by the family of Heber C. Kimball (Elder Kimball having remained in Missouri), set out in the cold February climate, with their wagons aimed toward Illinois, in one of the strangest processions in the entire Mormon emigration experience.

After traveling as much as thirty-two kilometers across the frozen Missouri plains, Brigham would stop, establish a temporary shelter for his wife and five children, and then retrace his journey to its point of origin. There he would load up some of the poor and destitute Saints and return to his family. In this way he actually covered three times the distance of most of his fellow travelers. Later, at the ending of their journey—Quincy, Illinois—an impressive meeting was held. The Saints in Quincy learned that fifty families were still in Far West and were too poor to leave. They pulled together once more, offering to sell what little they had left—their hats, coats, and shoes—to raise funds for this movement. Brigham Young comments:
“We broke bread and partook of the Sacrament. At the close of the meeting $50 was collected in money and several teams were subscribed to go and bring out the brethren. Among the subscribers was Widow Warren Smith, whose husband and son had been killed at the massacre at Haun’s Mill. She sent her only team on this charitable mission.”

Through these experiences and many others like them, Brigham Young was buoyed up in his conviction that people can be drawn together in love, that they do have the ability to create a more Christian society founded on love and concern for others.

A second scene from that same year, which depicts the determination of Brigham Young to sacrifice everything to the upbuilding of the kingdom of God, took place between September 1839 and February 1840 and involves his mission to Great Britain.

Our focal point concerns his journey to New York. The time had arrived for the Twelve Apostles to leave for a special mission. But Brigham Young, like so many of his brethren, was sick with what appears to have been malaria. Aching in all the parts of his body, he managed somehow to struggle out of his bed in Montrose, Iowa, and to dress for his journey. Having no coat of his own, he used a quilt from the cradle as a makeshift wrapping. All of his children were feverishly ill in bed. His wife was also ill and in need of help with her little ten-day-old baby. The Mississippi River was only 165 yards away, but Brigham could not even walk to its banks. A neighbor drove up with a wagon, and President Young crawled in. Met at the river, he was rowed to the other side, where Israel Barlow transported him by horseback to the home of Heber C. Kimball in Nauvoo. There he collapsed and was not able to continue for four days.

Eventually the time for departing arrived, and the missionaries left, moving eastward as best they could. President Young rode in the back of a wagon. Those who have felt the discomfort of flu can well imagine how one might feel being jostled across the countryside between Illinois and Indiana. Four months later, Brigham arrived in New York City—well at last, but not beyond hardships. In Brooklyn, New York, while boarding a ferryboat, he fell somehow and, landing against a large iron ring, dislocated his left shoulder. While two of his brethren held him firmly against the deck, Parley P. Pratt took hold of his hand and pulled, with his foot against Brigham’s side. Agonizing though this ordeal was, Elder Young guided the bone back into the socket with his right hand. Then he passed out and was not able to dress himself for several days.

Others may have become discouraged and dropped out long before that point. But Brigham Young would never give up when the establishment of God’s kingdom was involved. He carried on, boarded the ship, and was seasick most of the way to Britain. So emaciated was he upon arriving in England that his own cousin, Willard Richards, did not even recognize him.

After months of strenuous missionary work, he returned home to his family. His sacrifice had been acceptable to the Lord. Upon arriving back in Nauvoo, Elder Young received this commendation:
“Dear and well-beloved brother, Brigham Young, verily thus saith the Lord unto you: My servant Brigham, it is no more required at your hand to leave your family as in times past, for your offering is acceptable to me.

“I have seen your labor and toil in journeyings for my name.

“I therefore command you to send my word abroad, and take especial care of your family from this time, henceforth and forever. Amen” (D&C 126:1–3).

For Rick Asur, letting the Lord and His gospel prevail in his life helped him to find faith amidst fear.
Rick’s Taiwan-based construction company had just won a coveted billion-peso contract to handle a building project in Subic, Zambales, and the firm’s president had flown in all the way from company headquarters to celebrate with the employees. The company held a lavish hotel party, with food in abundance and drinks—especially hard drinks— flowing.
As was customary, the president would give a toast, with all the employees joining in raising glasses filled with wine. During previous events, Rick had already informed his immediate superiors of his Latter-day Saint beliefs and they had understood when he would politely decline servings of alcohol.
But this time it was different, very different. How could he decline raising a glass of wine when etiquette required that the biggest boss of all should be given a toast?
In the midst of all the feasting, Rick was filled with fear—tremendous fear. “I felt fear—fear of men, fear of offending the president, fear of telling my wife who is eight months pregnant with our third child that I might lose my job because of my belief in our Church.”
When the much-feared time came, Rick raised his glass… of mango juice. The company president looked at him, his eyes glaring. “Why?! Why?!” he raised his voice in an irate tone, as his one single employee who refused alcohol froze in silent terror.
“I had offended the most important man in that celebratory occasion,” Rick recalls, “and our president turned around and talked to my local boss.” By then he was expecting to be fired and asked to leave the company.
But in a moment, the president turned around again, raised his glass in another toast, and now smiling, commended: “Good Mormon, good Mormon!” Rick’s fortitude was rewarded; his immediate superiors knew he always stood for his faith and they told the president about it, who had become impressed.
“I will never forget that experience of a lifetime,” Rick shares. “We should always possess an increased level of spiritual strength and courage to stand up for what is right. I’m glad I made the right choice at that moment.”
“I the LORD speak brighteousness, I declare things that are right,” Rick quotes Isaiah 45: 19. “We must never be afraid of men,” he sums up, “and we must be courageous and stand up for what is right.”

Mr. Gibson got up from his chair and walked over to Steve and Cathy. “You two come with me, and I’ll show you what life does to people and their ideas about forever.”
They followed him into a small back bedroom. The blinds were pulled, and there was only one bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. The room was filled with pictures and trophies and sports equipment.
“Go ahead, look around.”
As they examined each picture, it was as if they were viewing the growth of a small boy into a young man—pictures of a three-year-old being held on a quarter horse by his proud father, a seven-year-old standing beside his father displaying a string of fish, a thirteen-year-old wearing a 4-H jacket and showing a hereford steer he had raised, a boy kneeling beside a trophy elk he had shot, a seventeen-year-old beside a cute girl in a formal gown, a proud graduate in a black cap and gown, a nineteen-year-old in front of the small white house wearing an army uniform.
The last picture frame contained a telegram announcing the boy’s death in combat in Vietnam.
“It took us 19 years to raise him,” the man said bleakly, “but they killed him in one second with a land mine.”
“We’re both sorry,” Cathy said.
“I don’t need your sympathy,” the man said bitterly. He reached down and picked up a fishing reel in his hand, turning it over slowly, studying it. “He was a good boy, and if he’d lived, by now he’d be married and have children, and I’d have some grandchildren, and life would have some meaning.”
He put the reel down on the shelf and turned to confront them. “Who remembers my boy anymore?”
They didn’t know what to say.
“Nobody does. Not anymore. This is all that’s left of him. What you see in this room. A few pictures and some ribbons from a county fair. And when my wife and I die, somebody will buy the house and toss it all away.”
He took a step toward them, his face in agony. “Now you tell me, where is this forever you keep harping about? Where is forever for my boy?”
Cathy threw her arms around him as if he were her grandfather. Steve could hear her crying. At first the man stood there mutely, his arms at his side, untouchable in his grief. But then, seeing that she shared his sorrow, he put an arm around her to comfort her.
A moment later she stepped back and said, “God loves your son. His body is destroyed but his spirit is alive. Someday his body and his spirit will come back together, and he will stand on this earth with a perfect body. I know that is true.”
He examined her face, searching for any insincerity, but he found none.
She continued, “God has commanded that temples be built so that we can help those who have died to receive the rich blessings they might have had if they’d lived. Your boy will live again.”
Somehow the despair that had filled the room lifted. Steve felt the sweet influence of the Holy Ghost bear witness to Cathy’s words.
The man looked at her upturned face for a long time and then simply said, “Nobody’s ever told me that before.”
“Mr. Gibson,” Cathy said, “today I was in one of those temples. I’ve never been more certain that God loves all his children. He loves your son David.”
The man slowly nodded his head. “David was a good boy.” Then looking around and seeing for the first time that it was only a room, he said simply, “It’s cold in here, isn’t it? Let’s go in the living room and talk some more.”

“Hey, wake up,” someone says, poking you. Groggily, you look at the clock next to your bed. It’s 6:30 a.m.? What’s going on? Wait, that’s not your clock. And this isn’t your bed. Where are you?
“Hey,” the voice says, “you’re the one who wanted to follow us around. It’s time to get the day started.”
As you peer up at the missionary standing over your bed, you finally remember what’s going on. Church magazines offered you the opportunity to follow a missionary companionship around for a day, and you jumped at the chance to see what missionary life is really like.
You just didn’t realize it would start this early.
“Hi, I’m Elder Jesse Ward, from Utah,” the tall missionary says as you sit up. “Welcome to Spain. This is my companion, Elder Pierrick Triplet.”
Elder Triplet is from France, and he isn’t learning just Spanish but English too. Despite the challenge of having to learn two languages at once, Elder Triplet is grateful to be on a mission.
“I’m a convert,” he says. “I’ve had a great change in my life, and I’d like others to have it too. A mission can be hard work, but seeing someone change his or her life is worth it.”
They’ve got your attention. You’ve always heard that a mission can be the best two years of your life. Today you get a chance to find out why.
6:41 a.m.After taking time to pray, the missionaries spend some time working out. Push-ups, sit-ups, even a little light weight lifting are the usual for Elder Ward. Breakfast follows a shower and shave. Cold cereal is a favorite.
8:07 a.m.Missionaries spend a good deal of time studying individually and as a companionship so they can obtain the word before declaring it (see D&C 11:21). After language study and personal scripture study, it’s time for companionship study using Preach My Gospel.
9:55 a.m.Missionaries dedicate a lot of time to planning, at the beginning of the day, throughout the day, and at the end of the day. They talk not just about what they’re going to do but about what each investigator needs.
Today the elders are talking about a man from France, an investigator they’re going to invite to be baptized.
“He’s worried,” Elder Triplet says. “He doesn’t feel worthy.”
“Let’s talk about repentance and how God remembers sins no more,” Elder Ward suggests after the companions think it over. “Why don’t you teach it in French to make sure he understands?”
The last thing the elders do before leaving is pray—again. This is one of many prayers they’ll offer today. Missionary work requires a lot of heavenly help. Then it’s out the door and off to the bus stop in a hurry.
11:09 a.m. Missionaries talk to anyone anywhere anytime about the gospel, because they never know who is going to be interested. While waiting for the bus, the missionaries chat with a young man and give him a pamphlet with their phone number on it.
11:21 a.m. A 10-minute bus ride and a short walk later, the missionaries arrive at a rented meetinghouse at the same time as their investigator. The meeting begins well, but the investigator’s concerns push the 45-minute lesson they had planned on to more than an hour.
“That was the most frustrating lesson I’ve ever been in,” Elder Triplet says afterward. “He likes the Church. He thinks it’s true. He wants to pay tithing. But he doesn’t believe he needs to be baptized again. He was a little argumentative.”
“He’s a great guy,” Elder Ward says, shaking his head. “Maybe he’ll be ready to talk about baptism next time.”
2:06 p.m. The missionaries jump on another bus, this time to El Casco, the historic quarter of Toledo, Spain. They stop by an investigator’s business to invite him to an activity that night.
“You can get lost in here really quick if you aren’t paying attention,” Elder Ward says of the maze of narrow streets lined with buildings that seem to lean over those walking below.
2:24 p.m. While navigating the tight streets, the missionaries stop to offer help to a woman carrying a heavy load. They spend a moment explaining who they are and what they do, but the woman isn’t interested.
2:47 p.m. It’s siesta time in Spain, so the missionaries catch a bus back to their apartment, or piso, for lunch. “Everything shuts down between 2:00 and 4:00 p.m.,” Elder Ward explains. “Some people get mad if you knock on their doors.”
“This is chorizo, or sausage,” Elder Triplet says poking at lunch. “It’s typical food. We eat a lot of noodles and chorizo because it’s cheap and easy to make.”
“The mission is great preparation for marriage,” Elder Ward laughs as he mixes his Kool-Aid. “You have to learn to get along, cook, clean, do laundry, budget, and take care of yourself.”
4:24 p.m. Back in El Casco, the missionaries meet with a member of the mission presidency about current activation efforts.
“This is a great area,” says Elder Ward, who explains that Church attendance has gone from about 15 to 80 members each week because one family set the example of fellowshipping.
4:59 p.m. The elders end up with a little unexpected free time on their hands, but missionaries are used to doing some planning on the fly. Their backup plan was to do some tracting.
5:42 p.m. In El Casco, where so many people live above street level, knocking on doors often means carrying on conversations with people on their balconies. And even in historic tourist towns, a missionary has to look out for dogs.
The elders have some success: “We found some great people,” Elder Ward says. “There were some youth from Paraguay. They invited us back tomorrow.” And some failure: “We had a half-hour conversation with one man,” Elder Triplet says. “It was like talking to a wall.”
7:45 p.m. Two buses later the elders make it to the activity they had planned with the sister missionaries who work in the same city, Sister Kathleen Bonifay and Sister Brittany Hofman.
The people they were expecting to come didn’t. “That’s the way it goes sometimes,” Elder Ward says. But after a little footwork, the missionaries are able to gather a handful of other investigators living nearby. After a hymn and a video, you can feel the influence of the Holy Ghost as the missionaries bear testimony of the Book of Mormon as another witness of Jesus Christ. The activity is a success.
“The Lord takes care of you when you put forth your best planning and best effort,” says Sister Bonifay.
9:13 p.m. After a hike to the bus stop, the elders and sisters have made it back to their respective apartments, where they’ll call their leaders, review the day and their long-range plans, and make plans for the next day.
“Well, this is what we do,” Elder Ward tells you. “It doesn’t change much.”
Elder Triplet laughs. “We are the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow.”
Things didn’t go exactly as the elders had planned, but the day went well anyway. They made some good contacts, pulled off a powerful activity, bore testimony of Christ, and did their best to follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
“I’ve heard people say these are the best two years of their lives,” Elder Triplet says. “The two years are great, but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re the best 730 days of my life. There are some days I thought would never end. But I have loved being a missionary.”
Elder Ward agrees. He has mixed emotions about leaving. “I always thought I’d be excited to go home,” he says. “But I see life differently now. I love my life. I’m a missionary. I’m speaking to people about Christ every day. Leaving will be bittersweet.”
You’ve enjoyed getting a taste of missionary work as well. As exciting as it is, missionary work can be exhausting. Now it’s time to get some rest and prepare yourself for your day as a missionary. It has a way of coming faster than you think.

Dark clouds covered the Iowa sky. Loud claps of thunder echoed over the Des Moines River valley. Lightning flashed. Rain began to fall in torrents, slashing against the Shelley cottage.
That evening the five Shelley children clung to their mother as the storm continued. The wind bent the trees, pulled fence posts out of the ground, and tore gates from their hinges. From their cottage window, the family saw the waters of Honey Creek overflow and flood the barnyard.
“Mamma, I’m going to set the animals free,” said Kate. “They’ll drown if I don’t.” Throwing a shawl over her head, she waded through the farmyard to the barn and freed the horses, cows, and pigs. When Kate returned to the cottage, she was drenched.
Despite the raging storm, one by one the children fell asleep. Only Kate and her mother remained awake. Kate’s father had been a section foreman on the railroad before he died three years ago and so Kate knew the schedules, the locomotives, and the crewmen of the railway using the tracks that passed only a few feet from their house.
As the night wore on, the wind and rain continued to thrash against the cottage. Kate thought of the overflowing Honey Creek nearby and of the swollen Des Moines River that ran only a short distance from their cottage.
“Mamma, do you think the water will take down the bridge over Honey Creek?” Kate asked.
“I’m afraid it will, Kate,” her mother replied, her face etched with worry.
“Then it will wash away the railroad trestle too,” Kate said. She thought of the weak old wooden trestle over the Des Moines River as she strained to hear the sound of a locomotive slowly battling its way against the storm.
“Mamma, listen! It’s the pusher,” Kate whispered. “They’re checking to see if the tracks are safe.”
As Kate and her mother listened, they heard the bridge collapse, dropping the locomotive and the crew into the swiftly flowing swollen waters.
“The crew will drown,” Kate cried. Her face showed the horror of what could happen if the Midnight Express with all its passengers were to come later. “I’ve got to warn the Express,” she said.
Pulling on a coat and hat and grabbing an old lantern, Kate ran out into the storm. The water was deep and every step was a struggle.
When Kate reached Honey Creek, she saw two of the crewmen of the locomotive hanging onto a fallen tree while the river swirled around them. “Hold on,” she called. “I’m going for help.” But her words were lost in the sound of rushing waters.
Kate made her way along the tracks until she reached the trestle. The lightning flashes outlined the catwalk beside the tracks, revealing that the planks had been torn away and the bridge was left swaying in the raging wind.
Kate began to cross the catwalk. The wind blew out her lantern, leaving her in total darkness. She thought of the crewmen clinging to the tree in Honey Creek and the people on the Midnight Express. Falling to her knees, she began to creep from tie to tie across the 500-foot bridge. As the bridge swayed beneath her, she prayed for strength and guidance.
Lightning flashed, and a tremendous tree was uprooted by the wind and water, and came hurling through the air, headed for the exact section of bridge where Kate knelt. She waited for the crash to sweep her into the river. But it did not come. The tree swerved in the air and hit two piers.
Kate continued crawling from tie to tie until she reached the other side of the bridge. She ran the rest of the way to the railway station. Her clothing was torn and dripping with water. Gasping for breath, the words choking in her throat, she called out, “Stop the Express. The bridge is down!” Then she fell to the floor.
The agent grabbed a lantern and ran. He reached the tracks just in time to flag down the Midnight Express. A rescue train was quickly sent to help the men who still hung onto the fallen tree in Honey Creek.
The strain and terror of the night caused Kate to become ill. When she recovered, she found that stories and poems had been written about her. And when the new iron railroad bridge was built over the Des Moines River, it was named in honor of her.
When Kate Shelley grew up, she became the station agent at Moingona—the same station she rushed into that night in July 1881 to stop the Midnight Express.

Also, I feel there are unusual circumstances when cremation is preferable and in accordance with the mind and the will of the Lord. The experience of my mission president some twenty years ago in connection with the death of Mark Johnson Vest, an Indian member of the Cocoapas tribe, is a vivid and memorable example in point.

Brother Vest was branch president over an active group of Latter-day Saints at the time of his death. En route to Brother Vest’s funeral in Arizona the mission president prayed earnestly that the Lord would tell him why Brother Vest had been taken. As he prayed, he visualized Mark Johnson Vest standing in front of a large group of Indians, which he estimated to be about ten thousand. Mark was preaching the gospel to them. As he did so, one of the Indians in the middle of the group stood up and said, “Do not listen to this man. He is not a Lamanite. He is a Nephite!” After this, Mark Johnson Vest rose to his full stature and said, “I am not a Nephite! I am a Lamanite, and when I died I was cremated according to the custom of my people.”

When the mission president arrived at the town where the funeral was to be held, the stake president told him of a serious problem that had developed. Mark’s tribe, the Cocoapas, wanted him cremated according to their ancient customs. His wife’s tribe wanted him “properly buried.” The Cocoapas had said that if he were buried, they would dig him up so they could cremate him.

In his funeral talk the mission president related the vision he had had during the night. This settled the problem of cremation to the satisfaction of both tribes, and there was no more fighting among them over the matter. After the funeral service the mission president and his wife witnessed the cremation of Mark Johnson Vest.