Gospel Story Finder

I remember a cold winter evening as I was on radio car patrol on the east side of Salt Lake. Suddenly the silence was broken by the beep, beep, beep of an emergency radio call. “Car 16,” came the dispatcher’s voice. “Such and such an address, 9–40.” Nine-forty was a police code meaning unknown trouble. It might be a cat in a tree, family fight, lost child, or even a homicide. Calls like this were always tense because you just didn’t know what to expect.
I arrived at the address, an old two-story home surrounded by a rickety picket fence. I made my way toward the front porch along a broken and weed-choked sidewalk. The paint was peeling off the house, and it looked like it could have been the scene for a good Halloween movie. I knocked on the door, and as I did, it came partially ajar. There was no sound. I pushed the door open a little wider and cautiously poked my head inside. “Hello. Did anyone here call the police?” No answer. I opened the door wider and stepped inside.
I found myself in a small vestibule, no more than four feet square. It was nearly dark inside and smelled of a strange and musty odor. To my left was a narrow and steep stairway going to the second floor. “Hello,” I called again. “Is anybody there?” This time I heard a sound. It wasn’t much of a sound, just a quiet sound like a sob. The beam of my flashlight cut through the gloom as I pointed it up the stairway toward the sound.
There, huddled miserably on the bare wooden stair, was a young girl. She was barefoot and poorly dressed, with long, straggly hair. Her eyes were red, and I could see she had been crying hard. Her breath came in gasps, and I inquired again concerning the call for help. “Did you call the police?” All she could do was sob and point through the open doorway at the top of the stairs.
I made my way past the girl and entered into a scene of true desolation and tragedy. The room was small. No carpet covered the bare wooden floor. It was littered with the obvious signs of drugs and alcohol. Empty beer cans were strewn about, and evidence of marijuana was everywhere. Lying in the center of the floor was a young man. A dark pool of blood surrounded his head, and near his lifeless fingers lay a small, shiny revolver. I was heartsick as I called for assistance and began the investigation of a terrible tragedy.
I share this experience to emphasize again the fickle nature of the friends that Satan might send to tempt you to take part in such parties as these. We learned from our investigation that there had been 20 to 30 young people at the party. The gun was a plaything, and a game of Russian roulette seemed exciting to those using drugs and alcohol. No one expected to be hurt, yet tragedy struck and a young man’s life was lost. No friends stayed behind to help. No friends even did anything to comfort the one who did stay—the sister of the poor dead boy.

Originally from Fiji, Reena Naidu’s family moved to Sydney, Australia, when she was young.
She discovered her gift for art in high school when an assignment required her to submit a self-portrait. “At about the same time, I read a Church talk about developing our talents and I felt inspired to develop my artistic skills,” Reena says.
She followed that inspiration to the National Art School in Dalinghurst, Sydney, where she earned a master’s in fine arts. Today she is a manager for an art supplies company where she helps others select the right materials for their art projects.

How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? by Margaret McNamara, illustrated by G. Brian Karas. The biggest pumpkin always has the most seeds, right? Maybe not. Find out what Mr. Tiffin’s class discovers in their messy experiment.

My freshman year at university, I was sitting in Relief Society when someone shared an experience where she felt impressed to write down how she thought God felt about her.
This struck me.
When I got home, I felt impressed to do the same thing. But after 10 minutes of sitting there with nothing written down, I burst into tears. I felt like a fraud. So much of my testimony was based on God and His perfect love for us. And yet I couldn’t even write anything down.
I knew that God loves all His children, but for some reason I felt like the exception.
How could that be?

I was 16 and playing my new rock-and-roll album for the first time. Unfortunately, as I listened, I was disappointed to hear a vulgar word in the last song. I was embarrassed. I knew my parents would not approve—the record didn’t meet our family’s standards. But I liked the rest of the songs, so whenever I played the record, I turned down the volume just before the offensive word was sung.
My well-meaning sister told my father about my album. Later, when he and I were in the dining room, he shared his concern about the inappropriate word. Although his comment was said in a kind manner, I dug in and stubbornly defended my position.
I used every argument I could think of to convince my dad that I should keep the record. “I didn’t know that word was on the album when I bought it,” I said, “and when that song plays, I turn it down.”
When he said I should still get rid of the record, I said, “If you think that, then I should quit school too! I hear that word—and worse ones—every day at school!”
He began to get frustrated. He reemphasized that we shouldn’t have vulgar music in our home. The argument escalated as I said there were worse sins I could commit and that I never used that word.
I tried to turn the tables: “I try so hard to be good, and then you focus on this one little thing and think I’m an evil sinner!”
Even so, my father wouldn’t back down. Neither would I. I marched upstairs to my room, slammed the door, and lay on my bed, seething. I rehearsed my argument over and over in my head, entrenching myself deeper in my flawed logic and convincing myself I was right.
Ten minutes later, there was a soft knock at the door. It was Dad. His countenance had changed. He wasn’t there to argue. “I’m sorry I got angry,” he said. “Will you forgive me?” He told me how much he loved me and that he thought highly of me. He didn’t preach. He didn’t give me counsel. Then he turned and quietly left the room.
A thousand sermons on humility could never have been more powerful to me. I was no longer angry with him, just with myself for being so stubborn and difficult. I fetched the record, snapped it in two, and threw it away. I don’t know if I ever told Dad what I did, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was that I had learned that my dad valued our relationship more than his own pride, even when he had been in the right.

Once, when I was twelve, my parents allowed my friends and me to spend a few days in a cabin in the mountains not far from my home. We spent time hiking and exploring the forest, and we even cooked our own food.
After a few days, we got tired of our own cooking and decided to go to the store, which was about three miles away. With several dollars between us, we hiked there under the hot sun, dreaming of the frozen fudge bars and other treats that we would buy.
Finally we arrived at the store. What a welcome sight it was! Inside was a pinball machine that cost one nickel to play. After playing a game, a person might get his nickel back, or he might not. Soon my friends and I had spent all our money on the pinball machine, and we had to go back to the cabin with nothing but growling stomachs and tired legs to show for our trip. I learned from that experience to never gamble again. I also learned that sometimes we have to put off what we want right now for what is really more important.

In addition to Joseph Smith, several other men and women saw the plates and testified of their existence. Eleven men in particular, known as the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses, recorded their testimonies of seeing the plates and, in the case of the Eight Witnesses, of holding the plates. Their testimonies are included at the front of each copy of the Book of Mormon.

These men stand as powerful witnesses of the Book of Mormon, perhaps even more so because some of them became “for a time hostile to Joseph,” affirms Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. Nevertheless, they “testified to their death that they had seen an angel and had handled the plates. ‘They have been shown unto us by the power of God, and not of man,’ they declared. ‘Wherefore we know of a surety that the work is true.’”4

“I was very proud when my father became a state senator. He was the only Mormon bishop serving in the Idaho legislature. When someone asked me what relation I was to Bishop Haight or Senator Haight, I would proudly say, ‘I’m his son!’

The binding and strengthening power of covenants in our lives became very real to me recently as our dear friends experienced a tragic loss in their family. While Catherine and Kimball Herrod and their four young children, ages nine months to seven years, were driving home from a family dinner at their grandparents’ place, a double wheel from a huge semitruck on the opposite side of the freeway suddenly sprang loose, flew across the median, and pounded into the driver’s side of the family van. Kimball, the driver, husband, and father, was severely injured and unconscious. Catherine somehow guided the car to the shoulder and called for emergency help. While she watched the paramedics work on her husband and two older children, she sat in a police car with her two little ones on her lap and prayed vocally, “Heavenly Father, we know that Thou hast the power to heal Kimball if it is Thy will, but if not, we have faith that somehow Thou wilt sustain us through this.” Kimball was life-flighted to the hospital, but he did not make it there alive.

After the children were treated for cuts, bruises, and other minor injuries, dismissed from the hospital, and safely home in bed, Catherine returned to the hospital to say her final earthly good-bye to her husband. As difficult as it was, she declared to her parents, who were with her, “I know that Kimball and I are sealed by our temple covenants, and we will be together again someday.” In the most terrible trial of a young mother’s life, her covenants sustained her.

At the funeral, we were reminded of the power of covenants to sustain us in moments of distress and grief. As we joined in the closing song, we all heard above the crowd the voice of Taylor, the five-year-old son, loudly singing, “Families Can Be Together Forever” (Hymns, no. 300). It was joyous for the congregation to know that a child had been taught of the sealing covenants that would bind him to his father and mother.

We were also taught the power of covenants in the sermon offered by Catherine’s father. He quoted a scripture from the precious record that Moroni had sealed up and then brought forth to the Prophet Joseph, reminding us that the gospel promises us a rock in the storms and whirlwinds, not an umbrella:
“Remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, … it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery … , because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation” (Hel. 5:12).

The profound strength the family exhibited comes from the knowledge that they are eternally bound to each other as a family, and they are bound to Heavenly Father and cannot be separated from Him.

“My family loves to travel, so I have been to our church meetings in many different countries. Even though I don’t understand all they say, I can feel the Holy Ghost testifying to me that it is the Lord’s church. I am so thankful to Jesus. He is my Savior and Redeemer. I am thankful that the Lord restored the Church through Joseph Smith. I know this Church is true.”
Lauren Fredrickson, 14Brussels, Belgium

Now, the story I promised to tell you began before the October 1856 general conference, but that is where we will begin. President Brigham Young stood at the Old Tabernacle pulpit on this square and issued a call to go rescue the Willie and Martin Handcart Companies. Two days later, about 30 faithful brethren with good mule teams were dispatched to go bring in the handcarters stranded several hundred miles east. Dan W. Jones, a convert of about five years, volunteered.
After arduous effort, the Willie Company finally was found. Caught in the storms of early winter, the Saints were freezing and starving to death. The relief party did all they could to improve conditions, but for some it was simply too late. The morning after the rescuers’ arrival, nine of the company were buried in a common grave.
Some of the rescuers were assigned to escort the handcarters to the Salt Lake Valley, but others pushed further eastward in an effort to find the Martin Company. Finally they were found, along with the Hodgett and Hunt Wagon Companies, bogged down and helpless in the snow east of Devil’s Gate, Wyoming.
Members of the Martin Company were in dire straits. Their food rations had been cut to a few ounces of flour per day. Only a third of them could walk, and deaths were recorded daily.
The leaders of the rescue party wisely decided to spare no effort in getting the suffering survivors to safety in the Salt Lake Valley. Because of the shortage of space in the wagons, it was necessary to leave most of the handcarters’ possessions in storage at Devil’s Gate till spring.
Brother Dan W. Jones and two others from the relief party, along with 17 young men from the wagon companies, were called to stay behind to guard the property. They were left to face five winter months in Wyoming, hundreds of miles from help, with scarcely anything to eat, and under conditions of extreme privation. Imagine the sacrifice! Offers were made to each man to join the wagons bound for the valley, but every one of them chose to stay behind, obedient to the call to serve.
That winter was recorded as one of the most severe ever. The intrepid watchmen struggled to repair the cabins at Devil’s Gate; killed the remaining cattle; stored the tough, stringy beef for food; and reconditioned and stacked the goods they were left to protect.
They killed a few buffalo, but the hunting became bad. Soon they were reduced to living on animal hides, from which they scraped off the hair, then boiled the leather. They ate the leather wrappings off the wagon tongues, old moccasin soles, and a well-worn buffalo hide that had been used as a foot mat for two months. At one point Dan Jones was literally preparing to eat his own saddle!
In February of that extreme winter, a member of the Snake Indian tribe visited and helped them. That first night he and two scouts came to camp loaded with good buffalo meat.
The winter passed, and finally, early in May, the relief wagons began to roll in. Of the various communications Brother Jones had received, one critical letter from Brigham Young had not arrived. Loading and shipping of the stored goods could not commence without it.

Russ Holt, the director and screenwriter, explains how the project was initiated. “It started with President Benson’s call to the membership of the Church to increase their study of, interest in, and use of the Book of Mormon. It really originated with that.”

Oh, hey, Dad. Mom can’t talk on the phone right now ’cause she’s making a surprise birthday cake for you.
Michael!!!

Robert Rightenour, a 14-year-old teacher from the Seattle (Washington) First Ward, spent six months at a special sports training school in Trencin, Slovakia, one of the first Americans ever to attend the school. While he was there, Robert attended the tiny branch, which consisted of seven members and two missionaries.

When Robert wasn’t training with world champions in canoe racing and kayaking, he spent time as a home-teaching companion with the missionaries.

Robert also helped his family do their genealogy. Many of his ancestors came from Slovakia, and he has met several relatives in the nearby town of Svidnik.

When I was a boy of eleven, I used to go over to the old Richards Ward every Tuesday night. The Scouts would be having their troop meeting. I would lie on the ground and watch through the basement window. The Scouts would have patrol contests, build a fire using flint and steel, practice first aid, drill, and play games. I could hardly wait to become a deacon and a Scout.
When I was ordained a deacon I also registered in Scouting. Bruford Reynolds was the deacons quorum adviser for a period of time and also was the Scoutmaster.
Two months after I joined the troop I went to Brother Reynolds’s home to pass off the Second Class requirements. When I had done this, Bruford Reynolds said to me: “Vaughn, you have a lot of leadership ability, but we cannot use you because you are rowdy in troop meeting. When you get squared away, we need you.”
Having come from a large inactive family that was poor, I had little personal attention. My father had never told me that I could be anything. I gave a great deal of thought to my conduct. I decided to change. The following Tuesday I hardly moved an eyeball. I was as near perfect as I knew how to be.
Bruford Reynolds was true to his word. I became an assistant patrol leader, a patrol leader, assistant senior patrol leader, then senior patrol leader. He believed in me and had a profound impact on my life.

Recently, the Relief Society General Presidency and members of the Seventy met in council to discuss how counseling invites revelation, increases unity, and brings power. They offer the following principles, knowing that you will build on these ideas as you discover solutions that are right for you, your ward or branch, and your quorum or Relief Society.

This magnificent choir gives inspiring sermons. In fact, “some of the greatest sermons are preached by the singing of hymns.” My testimony and conversion to the restored gospel were strongly influenced by singing the hymns of Zion as a young boy. I grew up in the small town of Mapleton, Utah, and attended meetings in what is known today as the “old white church.” My 95-year-old mother still lives in Mapleton. When I visit her, I drive past the old white church, and a flood of sweet memories fills my mind. Among them is the converting power of the hymns we sang in priesthood, Sunday School, and sacrament meetings. My experiences were similar to that of President Hinckley when, as a deacon, he attended a stake priesthood meeting with his father. They sang “Praise to the Man.” Later he would say, “I had an impression that has never left that Joseph Smith was indeed a prophet of God.” I believe that many of our Saints experience this again and again. Hymns play an essential role in spirituality, revelation, and conversion.

The third temple to be topped with an angel Moroni statue was the Washington D.C. Temple, dedicated in 1974. Avard Fairbanks sculpted a graceful angel holding a trumpet to his lips and a replica of the gold plates in his left arm. Brother Fairbanks’s one-meter model was taken to Italy, enlarged, cast in bronze, and covered with gold leaf.

When the clay enlargement was finished, Brother Fairbanks invited the temple architects to Italy to see it. One of the architects, Keith W. Wilcox (who later became a member of the Seventy), mentioned that the angel looked as though he were drinking from the horn rather than blowing it. Brother Wilcox demonstrated how a trombone player “buzzes” with his or her lips to make a tone. With Brother Wilcox posing, Brother Fairbanks changed the angel’s mouth.7

I visited the hospital the other evening to see my desperately ill sister. Her husband and family were surrounding her bed, holding their family home evening, led by their fourth missionary son just returned from foreign fields. I joined them, and then went home rejoicing and thanking God for that kind of example, and met my own family who were waiting, and prayed that we might do a better job of practicing what we preach.

I visited her this morning and talked with her to the Lord, and in the spirit of that sobering experience offer my testimony this morning.

At 10 years of age, he read all 16 volumes of the family’s illustrated Book of Mormon and Church history stories and decided to follow Joseph Smith’s example. Sneaking into a grove of trees across the road from his home, he knelt, prayed, and received a confirmation from the Holy Ghost that Jesus Christ is his Savior, Joseph Smith was a true prophet, and the Book of Mormon is true.
That conviction has spurred a lifetime of dedicated service in the Church, including as an Area Seventy, stake president, and president of the Utah Orem Mission. At the time of his call, Elder Evanson was serving as a Valiant activity leader in his ward in Lethbridge.