Gospel Story Finder

I was far from home on my mission in San Francisco, California, and I thought everything was great. Every day that I got a letter became a great day, until I received one I did not want. I had lived in four states already, and the thought of my family moving to another was almost more than I could bear. Nonetheless, I knew that my parents would soon move our family again.
“I applied for a new job,” my father wrote. They would be moving to Virginia.
When the day came that I would leave my mission, I felt awkward going to a “home” I had never been to. When the airplane pilot announced five minutes until arrival, I felt like I was at the circus on opening night. I stepped off the plane, and for the first time in two years I saw my family.
“Justin!” came a shout down the hallway.
Stories were shared. We rambled nonstop as we drove down the strange streets and unfamiliar country. I felt at ease knowing my family was there.
I realized it was not the location that made my home but where my heart would return. And my heart was with my family. Like a flash of lightning, many questions were answered. My family was close because our home was with each other. It was not a house or location that made it home; it was the love of our family.

Rosa Clara was born in 1837 on the island of Guernsey, located in the English Channel between France and Britain. But she was taken first to England and then to New South Wales, Australia, after her father died. By 1849, when Rosa Clara arrived with her mother, Eliza Friedlander, and younger brother, James, Sydney was a large, prosperous city. Two years after their arrival, Rosa Clara’s mother married George W. Watson.
Just six weeks after the marriage, Elder John Murdock and Elder Charles W. Wandell arrived to open the Australian Mission of the Church. By Christmas they had baptized twelve converts, and on the first Sunday of 1852, Elder Wandell organized the Sydney Branch.
Eliza Watson, her husband, and her children accepted the gospel and were all baptized within a few weeks of the branch’s organization. George Watson was ordained a priest, and the whole family was active in the newly formed branch. Frequently, they hosted cottage meetings in their home, and when the elders needed someone to move to Melbourne and serve as a part-time missionary there, George Watson volunteered.
Rosa Clara was devastated. At fifteen, she enjoyed working in the little branch and had become close friends with another young member, Mary Clines. Although she loved her mother, Rosa Clara apparently did not get along well with her stepfather. So, with her parents’ consent, when the rest of the family sailed for Melbourne, Rosa Clara remained in Sydney under the guardianship of successive mission presidents.
Rosa Clara lived with her newly married friend Mary and Mary’s husband, Robert Evans, at Kissing Point on the Parramatta River. Every Sunday she walked twelve miles into the city to attend meetings in the Old Assembly Rooms opposite the law courts in King Street. These rooms in the upper story of a school building had been used some years previously as a temporary meeting-place for the Presbyterian church. Latter-day Saint missionaries now rented them for the Sydney Branch services.
Rosa Clara attended singing practice on Thursday evenings and sang in the choir on Sundays. She helped distribute Church tracts and did all she could to further missionary work in Sydney.
On 21 May 1853, sixteen-year-old Rosa Clara Friedlander married Charles Joseph Gordon Loge, a recent convert, in the Scots Church. The Reverend James Fullerton performed the ceremony because Latter-day Saint elders were not then approved to perform marriages in Australia; but the new mission president, Elder Augustus Farnham, and another of Rosa Clara’s Latter-day Saint friends, Mary Ann Gingell, attended the ceremony and signed the register as witnesses. “Attended the wedding of Brother Loge and Sister Rose Friedlander at Parson Fullerton’s,” wrote President Farnham in his journal. “Returned to Brother Gingell’s and married them over again. Spent the evening very happily … in good spirits, peace and harmony.”
Rosa Clara and Charles Loge set up house and continued their work in the branch. One of the new missionaries, Elder John Hyde, was ill with cancer of the mouth. His health worsened, and the only place he could be cared for was in a public institution. Rosa Clara Loge worried about the lonely, ill, and pain-wracked missionary. Finally, she and Charles arranged for Elder Hyde to be taken from the institution to the Loge home, where the courageous sixteen-year-old girl nursed him until his death.
On 27 June 1854, Rosa Clara had her first baby, a little girl, named Annie Augusta after President Farnham. When little Annie Augusta was fourteen months old, the family sailed from Sydney with a company of Saints on the Julia Ann, bound for California. Disaster struck four weeks later.
On the evening of 3 October 1855, Rosa Clara put her baby to bed while some of the pioneering Church members sang hymns on the deck. Suddenly the vessel struck a coral reef. For a little while, confusion reigned. Then, one of the ship’s crew swam to the reef and managed to fasten a rope. With a sling, the captain prepared to ferry the women and children one at a time to the reef.
No one knew what lay ahead in the pitch-black night. The women were afraid. Finally Rosa Clara, not yet eighteen, volunteered to be the first. Hurriedly, she helped tie baby Ann securely to Charles’s back in a brown woolen shawl and readied herself to be taken to the reef. But then, before Rosa Clara’s horrified eyes, her husband and baby were swept overboard by the huge seas. One of the sailors rescued them unharmed.
With enormous courage, then, in leaving her family on the wreck, Rosa Clara climbed onto the captain’s lap and was pulled, hand over hand, to the reef. Here the captain left her standing barefoot on the sharp coral, chest-deep in the sea, with the surf breaking on the reef. She stayed alone and in darkness while he returned for the other women. Gradually, most of the company, including Charles and baby Ann, arrived safely. But not all were so fortunate. Two little girls were washed off the deck and were lost; two women and a small baby drowned in their cabin.
When daylight arrived, the crew made a raft from timber and nails salvaged from the wreck. They managed to get the passengers from the reef to a small island, which became their home for the next eight weeks.
A barrel of hard biscuits and a chest of tea retrieved from the ship, as well as coconuts, fish, turtle meat, and eggs sustained everyone. They formed coconut shells into drinking vessels. With a large silk skirt also salvaged from the wreck, Charles Loge fashioned a tent for Rosa Clara, who was ill, and baby Ann crawled around playing happily in the sand. After repairing the ship’s boat, some of the crew rowed more than 300 kilometers to the Society islands (Tahiti) for help.
The Loge family and others were taken off the island two months after the wreck, finally arriving in San Francisco. There, Elder George Q. Cannon presented Rosa Clara with a small pewter teapot in recognition of her bravery in being the first to go to the reef. The teapot is a treasured family heirloom today, together with a carved coconut-shell drinking vessel and a handmade nail from the Julia Ann.
Charles and Rosa Clara Loge eventually settled in American Fork, Utah, where Rosa Clara raised twelve children. But although she served the Lord to the end of her days, the service she gave as a young girl in the first Sydney Branch of the Church has not been forgotten. “There are several large and flourishing Colonies [in Australia] each containing many thousands of British inhabitants,” wrote Charles Wandell to Franklin D. Richards in 1852, “and the little branch in Sydney is the nucleus of the Kingdom which must spread through them all.”
Today, more than seventy thousand Australian members in eighteen stakes and five missions are a lasting memorial to the pioneer spirit of missionaries like Charles W. Wandell and stalwart members like Rosa Clara Friedlander Loge.

On a rainy Saturday morning prior to a Kolwezi district conference in 2013, President Ellie Monga, Counselor in the Lubumbashi Democratic Republic of the Congo Mission and Elder Jeffrey Wright, the mission finance secretary, welcomed two strangers at the mission office. Their clothes were muddy, and they were exhausted. They arrived pushing a single, beat-up bicycle and carrying a parcel that was wrapped in a torn and dirty plastic.
President Monga and Elder Wright inquired about their journey and learned that these two tired pilgrims, Brothers Yumba Muzimba Paul and Muba Wa Umbalo Delphin, had arrived from Kinkondja, a city located 600 kilometers (375 miles) north of Kolwezi. They had departed eight days earlier as part of a larger group that was traveling to attend the district conference. En route, most of the group fell sick and decided to return to their homes—but these two brothers were determined to complete the journey by themselves, taking turns between pedaling the bicycle and riding on the back. They said that they had travelled the last three days continuously through the night without stopping and without food—and after a tire went flat, they pushed the bicycle through the rain along the muddy roads. Their bicycle was broken, and these brothers had no money for tools or parts. They had not eaten for three days. They did not know how they would fund a return to their homes.
Brother Paul and Brother Delphin explained that they represented the roughly 60 Saints living in the Kinkondja area and had come to bring tithing from those Saints and to attend the district conference. This came as a surprise to President Monga and Elder Wright as there was no officially organized Kinkondja branch of the Church. Elder Wright recorded in his journal, “It was my honor to receive [the tithing envelopes]. It was my honor to process them.” Elder Wright continued, “I have never felt like I had handled such sacred money before in my whole lifetime.”
Brother Paul related that he was one of three men from Kinkondja who had begun writing to then-Church President Spencer W. Kimball in 1975, asking for missionaries to be sent to the DRC—known as Zaire at the time—and especially to their own village. Brother Delphin added that his deceased father was one of those same three men. (This was well before the Church had been formally organized in the country and before the first missionaries arrived in 1986.) These brothers said that years before, both had been baptized and ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood. But in earlier instructions from Church leaders, they were told that they could not be ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood because at that time they lived too far away from an organized Church unit.
For the next two days, President Monga and Elder Wright taught and trained Brother Paul and Brother Delphin in the duties and obligations of the Melchizedek Priesthood. During his interview with Brother Paul, Elder Wright stressed the obligations associated with priesthood ordination, and reminded Brother Paul that “the priesthood is an irreversible event with heavy consequences based on the oath and covenant of the priesthood.” Speaking through President Monga as translator from Kiluba, his native language, Brother Paul replied, “I have waited for this event for 38 years, anticipating this happening for me. Do you think I will fall away? I will never turn away.”
Both brothers were sustained to receive the Melchizedek Priesthood in the district conference, and afterward ordained by Elder Wright with President Monga translating his words into Kiluba. After their ordinations, they were further authorized by President Monga to baptize their wives and children and to administer the sacrament to the Saints upon their return to Kinkondja. Brother Delphin, the younger of the two brothers, was given an additional instruction to dedicate the grave of his father to “honor him as one of the original converts and pioneers of the great work in the Congo.”
Elder Wright recorded in his journal: “I told the mission president [President Phillip McMullin] that night about the condition of their bike and mentioned that I was going to recondition it, buy them [a second] bike and buy them some tools to fix the bikes.” He and President McMullin also funded a ride home for them along with their bikes in one of the big trucks that travel the route to Kinkondja. Before departing, the brothers were given Church materials to take back to their village—among those materials were a sacrament tray and cups so that these newly-ordained and authorized priesthood holders would be able to conduct the ordinance of the sacrament each week.
That Kolwezi district conference in 2013 was memorable for all involved. The district president asked the Kinkondja brethren, to share their powerful testimonies in priesthood meeting and in the Sunday session of conference. They had arrived very tired and very early on Saturday morning. By the end of the conference, they—and all who heard their stories and their testimonies—left refreshed, fulfilled, and feeling God’s love in their hearts.

Ashley, a sister I minister to, and I both have cookbooks from our grandmothers. Hers is from her great-grandmother, and mine is a book I put together when I inherited my Grandma Greenwood’s recipe box after she passed away.
Ashley and I both chose a recipe from our cookbooks, and we got together after work one night to try them out. She chose a blondie dessert recipe, so we made it first and put it in the oven. I chose “pink chip dip”—a staple at every Greenwood family party. Ashley’s daughter Alice helped us taste test the food. Then, because Ashley didn’t want her kids to eat all the blondies, she cut them up and delivered them to the sisters to whom she ministers.
The thing I loved most about our recipe night is that as we cooked and baked, we talked about all the regular ministering topics—her struggles and mine. But we also talked about our grandmothers and moms, which was tender for both of us.
Jenifer Greenwood, Utah, USA

One day, when Sister Gurney and Sister Sasaki came to teach a lesson to Andrea, they told her that Theresa was going to be baptized and asked her if she would also want to get baptized. Andrea told the sisters that she would pray about it. She had experienced the influence of the Holy Spirit in the past and said that if she had that same feeling when she prayed about joining the Church, then she would be baptized. If not, then the answer was “No.”
She later shared her experience, “When I prayed about baptism, I had this eagerness; I became so anxious to do it. I discussed it with my husband because he was waiting for me to be ready, so we could get baptized together. I said, ‘Let’s continue to pray.’ So, we did, and I kept having the eagerness.”
Andrea’s husband, Wusu, was going to be leaving in two months, so when they attended Theresa’s baptism, they told the missionaries that they wanted to be baptized right away. The whole family spent the next three weeks learning about the gospel, and on June 4, Wusu, Andrea, and Patricia, their oldest daughter, were all baptized, and then confirmed members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

However, I recently felt my trust in God’s peace falter when a horrible war broke out in the country where my best friend lives. I felt helpless. Hot anger like I had never experienced before bubbled up inside me. I didn’t know what I could do to help my friend or the other people being affected by this violence and hatred. The whole world felt dark, and I became fixated on the evil that was spreading chaos in so many places.
How could I feel peace knowing that so many people, including my closest friend, were suffering?
I recognized that the anger I felt was starting to consume me. I needed to find peace again. So I went to Heavenly Father as I always had before. I poured out my heart in prayer and told Him that I felt helpless because there was so much violence going on in the world. I asked Him if there was anything I could do to find peace again.
I received a simple prompting from the Spirit:
Read the Book of Mormon.
I was already reading my scriptures often, so I wasn’t sure why Heavenly Father would tell me to do something I was already doing. But I decided to trust the prompting. I began to pay closer attention to what I was reading in the Book of Mormon. I noticed how many times followers of Jesus Christ faced violence, wars, and evil and felt helpless against their challenges. But I also noticed that when they centered their lives on Jesus Christ during those turbulent moments, they seemed to feel peace—no matter what. (See 2 Nephi 4:16–35; Mosiah 24:8–25.) This scenario happens repeatedly in the Book of Mormon. The promises of finding peace in Christ are everywhere.
As I read truths like this during my study, I began to feel the peace of Christ again. And I understood that His peace is always available to all those who seek it, even those living through wars and conflicts.

I had the same problem of trying to get away from friends who smoked and used foul language. I soon realized that if I didn’t stop hanging around them, they might influence me to be like them. I got into youth groups, did service projects, and talked to other people. By doing this, people realized how friendly I was and wanted to become friends with me. My old friends seemed mad at me and called me a traitor. I told them what my beliefs were and why I didn’t want to be with them. Surprisingly, they understood and respected me for it. I think you need to understand who you are, and if you stay around these people who do things you don’t like, the only one you’re offending is yourself.
Sarah Sansom, 15Hilbert, Wisconsin

This past summer at Aspen Grove Family Camp, I observed a mother patiently feeding a teenage daughter injured at birth and totally dependent upon Mother. Mother administered each spoonful of food, each swallow of water while holding steady the head and neck of her daughter. Silently I thought to myself, “For seventeen years, Mother has provided this service and all others to her daughter, never thinking of her own comfort, her own pleasure, her own food.” May God bless such mothers, such fathers, such children. And He will.

Matthew Rancie of Eaglehawk, Victoria, Australia, has a rich LDS heritage, and he is setting an example for his eight younger brothers.
At school, Matthew has been taunted and teased to try to get him to swear, but he refuses to do so. His classmates also tried to bribe him with money to try a cigarette saying, “I suppose you won’t even do it now.” They were right.
Matthew’s father, uncles, and grandfathers have served as bishops, in high councils, in stake presidencies, and in mission presidencies. He has 32 cousins, all active in the Church. As the oldest, he plans to set an example by being the first to serve a mission. In his ward, he serves as pianist for the priesthood.

Some people thought the girls were a little off their rockers, but five Beehive girls from the South Cottonwood Tenth Ward, Salt Lake South Cottonwood Stake, decided to help raise money for the Cambodians by staging a rockathon. After getting pledges from friends (paid according to the number of hours rocked), the girls mounted their rockers, made sure they were well stocked with food and blankets, and kept rocking for 24 hours straight. Their mothers took turns staying with the girls, supplying encouragement and meals. At the end of the rockathon, the Beehives had raised $150, which they donated to the Utah Cambodian Fund—and they found that they’d grown to be even closer friends than before!

One of the most pleasant and productive experiences in my life happened in 1943 as the Japanese war was taking place. I heard Dr. Adam S. Bennion give a lecture on the value of great literature. You can sell the idea of the value of great ideas to anyone. That is, we all believe that we should be acquainted with great human thought. But almost everyone gets away from its benefit by saying that he doesn’t have time to read. To get away from this objection of not having time, Dr. Bennion said, “Suppose that you were going to be a prisoner in a Japanese concentration camp for the next four years and you could take with you the works of any ten authors. Which would you take, and what would you expect to get out of them?” That is, what are the values of great ideas, of great literature? His idea was to take the ten authors you would most like to resemble and then exhaust each one in turn. That is, you would read every thought and consider every idea that a particular author had ever recorded; you would rethink his every idea. The psychologists say that when you run an idea through your brain, it makes a little groove or engram. If you run through your mind the kind of ideas that went through the mind of Shakespeare or Emerson or the apostle Paul or Moses or Jesus of Nazareth, then your brain will tend to respond as their brains did.
From someplace I got the courage to make the start. I guess Shakespeare comes fairly close to the top of most people’s lists of great authors. So I got out Shakespeare’s 37 plays, his sonnets, and his poems and went to work. Reading them was pretty difficult at first. I read very slowly and perhaps not very comprehendingly. Shakespeare wrote a long time ago, and there were many things that I did not understand. I had to reread some things several times, look up their meanings, and ask people about them. But finally the clouds began to part, a little bit of the sunlight began to come through, and I had a tremendous experience with Shakespeare. Shakespeare looked with clearer insight into human life than do most men. He said his purpose in writing was to hold the mirror up to life, to show virtue her own image and scorn her own likeness. He said, “I your looking-glass will be and will modestly discover to yourself qualities which you yourself know not of.” I had a great uplift as I read his speeches and his arguments for success. And as he pictured life in miniature with his great characters acting and reacting upon each other, I was intellectually born again—a great many times. Each time we discover some inspiring thought, we can be changed, and changed for the better.
I always read with my pen, marking every idea, every phrase, every quote, and every other thing that I think will help me. And then I put these thoughts into my notebooks. One of my most valuable possessions in the world is my collection of 25 notebooks. They are just regular 8 1/2-by-11-inch page size, three-ring binders, with about 300 pages in each one; so I have 7,500 pages of notes. I think of my reading as a combine harvester sweeping across a field of wheat. It cuts everything before it, but throws out the weeds and the chaff and the straw and puts the wheat in the sack. If I were now going to read something that would be particularly exciting to me, it wouldn’t be Shakespeare, it wouldn’t be Emerson, it wouldn’t even be the scriptures. It would be my notes, because I have selected for my notes those things that particularly inspire me.
I have always felt a little bit cheated in my life that no one has ever tried to talk me out of my faith. I have heard many people say that they got into the wrong crowd or listened to the wrong professor or were influenced by the wrong philosophy. But everywhere I have gone, people have encouraged me to live my religion. Once I thought that maybe I believed as I did just because I didn’t know any better, so I got the complete works of Robert G. Ingersoll. In my opinion Robert G. Ingersoll was the greatest atheist, if you could use that term, that ever lived in the world. I don’t know how convincing other people’s atheism is, but Robert G. Ingersoll was a great salesman. He was a great orator. He was a great architect of speech. He knew how to put ideas together. If anybody could persuade me about something, I think maybe it would have been Robert G. Ingersoll. His complete works are made up of 19,900 pages. There are 214 pages in my New Testament, so I read 90 new testaments of atheism. I didn’t read his works to try to out-argue him or to find fault with them. I read them actually to try to help him persuade me that there was something better than those things that I believed. I read him very carefully. I don’t skip read. I don’t jump over things or just read things that I think will be interesting. If something is important enough for him to write down, it is important enough for me to study and to try to find out the right answer to the subject discussed. And in all of my experiences in reading his work, he hasn’t shaken my faith in the smallest degree. Since that time I have read 987 of the great books, and I have had some tremendous experiences in a lot of different directions with what I have read. These great new philosophies have enabled me to have an “intellectual rebirth.”

In March of 1967, early in my service as a member of the Council of the Twelve, I was attending a conference of the Monument Park West Stake in Salt Lake City. My companion for the conference was a member of the General Church Welfare Committee, Paul C. Child. President Child was a student of the scriptures. He had been my stake president during my Aaronic Priesthood years. Now we were together as conference visitors.
When it was his opportunity to participate, President Child took in hand the Doctrine and Covenants and left the pulpit to stand among the priesthood brethren to whom he was directing his message. He turned to section 18 and began to read:
“Remember the worth of souls is great in the sight of God. …
“And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!”
President Child then raised his eyes from the scriptures and asked the brethren, “What is the worth of a human soul?” He avoided calling on a bishop, a stake president, or a high councilor for a response. Instead he selected the president of an elders quorum, a brother who had been a bit drowsy and had missed the significance of the question.
The startled man responded, “Brother Child, could you please repeat the question?”
The question was repeated: “What is the worth of a human soul?”
I knew President Child’s style. I prayed fervently for that quorum president. He remained silent for what seemed like an eternity and then declared, “Brother Child, the worth of a human soul is its capacity to become as God.”
All present pondered that reply. Brother Child returned to the stand, leaned over to me, and said, “A profound reply; a profound reply!” He proceeded with his message, but I continued to reflect on that inspired response.

Michael ran straight toward the huge maple tree. He needed to work up a little speed if he wanted to reach the bottom branch.
Step … step … jump! GRAB!
His fingers curled around the branch. Michael swung his legs up to hook an ankle over the limb.
Soon he was perched on the branch. Just like a panther! he thought with a smile. This was the perfect hide-and-seek spot! Why hadn’t he used it before?
“Ready or not, here I come!” his friend William yelled from down the street.
Michael grinned again. William wouldn’t find him for a long time.
“HEY!” a voice yelled. “Get out of my tree!”
Michael jumped and nearly fell out of the tree. He looked down. His stomach flip-flopped when he saw Mr. Gates. He was holding a rake and hurrying toward the tree.
“I’m sorry!” Michael said, scrambling down as fast as he could. The rough bark scraped his arms.
“STAY OFF my property!” Mr. Gates shouted.
Michael dropped and hit the ground hard. He didn’t stop running until he got home.
The next day, as Sister Stiles was giving the Primary lesson, Michael couldn’t stop thinking about mean Mr. Gates. He was the grumpiest person Michael knew. Michael leaned back in his chair and sighed.
Suddenly something Sister Stiles was saying caught Michael’s attention.
“We can usually love people who are nice to us,” she said. “But Jesus was kind even to those who hated Him.”
Michael let the front legs of his chair drop back down on the floor. Did that mean Jesus would be nice even to Mr. Gates?
Yes, He would, Michael thought. Suddenly he had an idea. He couldn’t wait to tell his family.
“You want to do what?!” his sister Molly asked after they got home.
“I want to make some cookies and take them to Mr. Gates,” Michael said.
His sister Wendy looked at him like he’d said he wanted to eat worms for dinner. “Why? He’ll just chase you away!”
“We’re supposed to be nice to people,” Michael said. “Even the ones who are mean.”
Even Mom and Dad looked a little unsure. “Well, yes,” Mom said. “But Mr. Gates might not like the gift, just to warn you.”
Michael still knew it was a good idea. All week he kept asking his family to help him make cookies. But nobody did. Finally, on Sunday, Michael was done waiting. He was going to figure out how to make cookies, all by himself, and deliver them today!
“Hold on,” Wendy said when she saw him getting out the chocolate chips. “I’ll help. But I still say it’s a bad idea.”
After the cookies came out of the oven, Dad offered to go with him to deliver them.
Michael was excited. He was doing what Jesus would do! As they walked under the big maple tree, though, Michael started feeling nervous. Maybe he should just forget the whole thing.
No, he decided. This is what Jesus would do. Michael stepped up to the door and knocked.
As the door opened, Michael quickly said, “Hello, sir. I made these for you.” He held out the cookies. Mr. Gates looked down at them. Then at Michael. And then his whole face lit up.
Michael almost fell over. Mr. Gates could smile?
“Well, thank you, young man!” he said. “But tell me … how on earth did you know that today is my 80th birthday?”
Michael smiled back at Mr. Gates. He thought Jesus would have smiled too.

It had been hard work cleaning up the yard, and it had taken me most of the morning to finish the job. After I put the rake away, Dad gave me the dollar that we had agreed on before I started to work.
I sat down in the shade of an apricot tree and looked at the finely etched lines that made up the face of George Washington on the dollar bill. I couldn’t imagine anybody drawing such a fine picture. The bill had that funny smell of money, and holding the dollar close to my face, I could see the colored threads in the paper.
A whole dollar! I thought. My dollar! One that I earned. I have a dollar to do with as I please. Then the thought came to me that I owed tithing on it. I felt a little bit ashamed of myself because I didn’t have a giving and happy feeling about paying my tithing. Instead, I tried to convince myself that the dollar was all mine because I had earned it.
If I paid my tithing, I would have only ninety cents left. Besides, Jesus wouldn’t miss ten cents. How could He? This is His world, and He can have anything He wants. That thought made me feel better.
As far as I was concerned, I had solved my problem about paying tithing, and I lay back on the grass to relax. The warm day seemed just right under the shade of the tree, and I watched the sun through the fluttering leaves.
The dollar was still on my mind. There were so many things I could buy. A chocolate candy bar with nuts would taste good. I could almost see the almonds making lumps in the smooth surface of the bar. Or I could get a butterfly yo-yo—they’re the best kind. Or maybe there was a movie in town I’d like to see. I’d have to look in the newspaper to see if anything looked good.
Then tithing popped into my head again. I knew that only ninety cents was really mine and that ten cents was the Lord’s, but I still wasn’t happy about it. Then I had a new thought: How does Jesus get the money?
This new thought stayed in my mind, and I mapped out a plan. I would pay tithing on my dollar and then watch the bishop to see how he gave it to Jesus. I could hardly wait for Sunday morning to come.
My father helped me fill out the receipt that went into the tithing envelope. He was so happy that I was paying tithing that it made me feel bad because I knew my reason for paying it was not the right one. But I was paying tithing.
Finally Sunday came. I decided I’d give my tithing to the bishop after Primary when he was in his office. I figured that that must be where he gave the money to the Lord.
The bishop was glad I was paying tithing and said that the Lord would bless me for it.
After the bishop thanked me, he turned and gave the envelope with my tithing in it to the ward clerk. I could hardly believe my eyes when the clerk opened my envelope. I just stood there. Is he going to give my money to the Lord? I wondered. I guess the bishop saw my look of dismay because he asked me if anything was wrong.
“How does Jesus get the money?” I asked. He must have thought that was a funny question because he laughed a little, then stopped. He said, “Jesus doesn’t come personally to get the money. It’s sent to Church headquarters to help with missionary work, with the building of temples and meetinghouses, with genealogy work, and with other necessary things. For instance, some tithing money is used to help pay for the operation of our meetinghouse.”
The bishop took me by the hand, and we walked through the building. At different places he stopped and asked me how much I thought certain things cost, such as chalkboards in the classrooms. He pointed out how much carpet there was in the building and how many chairs and tables and things. By the time we were through, I had a good idea that it takes a lot of money to run a meetinghouse. The bishop pointed out that repairs and upkeep are expensive too. Then he said, “You know, because I pay my tithing, I feel like I own a tiny part of our meetinghouse—and any other meetinghouse or temple I go to. It’s a good feeling.”
As I walked home from church I thought, Maybe tithing is a good thing. I felt proud that I was helping to do good with my tithing, even though I still felt a little disappointed that I had not seen the Lord.
But I didn’t think much more about it that day. Monday was coming, and I had ninety cents to spend.

Some time ago, I was asked to escort a group of visitors through the Church Office Building in Salt Lake City. They wanted to know something more about the doctrines of the Church, the functions of Church leadership, and the organization of the Church. They seemed very interested, and we had a pleasant discussion period.
During the tour, one young woman held up her hand and asked, “Brother Sill, have you ever seen God?” I was a little bit startled, as I had not expected this kind of a question. I said to her, “If you don’t mind, I would like to give you three answers to that question.
“Answer Number One, which I am sure comes closest to the spirit of your question, is no, I have not. But that answer by itself is not complete, nor is it altogether accurate. So I will add a second answer and say, I have not seen Him since the day of my birth on March 31, 1903. But I saw Him many times prior to that time.”
The scriptures are very clear about the fact that we lived with God in heaven before our earth-life began. He is our Eternal Father. Each of us has seen and heard Him many times.
The great philosopher Socrates contended that all learning is merely remembering. God is our teacher, and much of what we are we brought with us from His presence in heaven.
“Now for the third answer: While it is true that I have not seen God during my mortality, it is also true that I have not seen my own spirit since my mortal birth, and yet I am sure I have one.”
While I have not seen the Lord personally during this life, I have read very carefully several times the four great volumes of scripture He has caused to be written. I know how He thinks. I know what He wants me to do. I know from the testimony of people who have seen Him what He looks like. And I know many other things about Him.
For example, the resurrected Jesus appeared to John the Revelator on the Isle of Patmos. John says that he was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day when he heard behind him a great voice, as of a trumpet. John turned to see who had spoken to him, and he saw “one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about … with a golden girdle.
“His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire.” (Rev. 1:13–14.)
When the Prophet Joseph Smith had his vision of the Father and the Son, he said that their “brightness and glory defy all description.” (JS—H 1:17.)
There are some experiences, even in this life, that we have trouble describing. For example, if I were to attempt to describe the look in my little granddaughter’s eyes when she is happy, I might have a little trouble in doing so. I might try by saying “her eyes sparkled,” or “her face was aglow.” In actuality, neither of these are so. My granddaughter’s eyes are always the same size, the same shape, the same color. But when she is happy, something is shining out through her face that I can understand but may have difficulty describing.
In describing the resurrected Jesus, John said His eyes were as a flame of fire. This quality of radiance and glory is magnified many times. John tried to describe the voice of the resurrected Lord by saying it was a great voice, as of a trumpet. I have a very good friend who has one of these “trumpet” kind of voices. It has a clear, harmonious resonance that is easily understood and beautiful to listen to. His enunciation is near perfect.
Some speakers have another kind of trumpet which Paul described by saying, “For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” (1 Cor. 14:8.) Some speakers have a trumpet that is not loud enough to be heard nor clear enough to be understood nor interesting enough to hold attention.
I imagine the voice of the resurrected Jesus to be as far above my friend’s voice in resonance and beauty as the glow in the Lord’s face excels that of my granddaughter.
The Prophet Joseph Smith also saw the Lord face-to-face after the dedication of the Kirtland Temple. In describing what He looked like, the Prophet said, “His eyes were as a flame of fire; the hair of his head was white like the pure snow; his countenance shone above the brightness of the sun.” (D&C 110:3.) That is very bright!
But these are qualities that other of God’s children may possess in some degree. For example, the resurrected Moroni also appeared to Joseph Smith, and the Prophet gave us a detailed description as follows: “His whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightning.” (JS—H 1:32.)
Not only was his person glorious, but even his clothing was brilliant. The Prophet said: “He had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen; nor do I believe that any earthly thing could be made to appear so exceedingly white and brilliant.” (JS—H 1:31.)
Socrates was said to be a very homely man; but he prayed to God and said, “Make me beautiful within.” We have all seen plain people who have become beautiful by the working of a radiant spirituality. A godly spirit can make the plainest body beautiful.
Although I have not seen the Lord in this life, yet I know His word. I know of the great Atonement made on behalf of all of God’s children. I know about the Lord’s glorious, celestial resurrection, a resurrection similar to that which He has promised to all of those who keep His commandments. I know the course of that strait and narrow way and how to follow it so that we might qualify for the celestial kingdom.
On one occasion the Lord said to Thomas, “Because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: [more] blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” (John 20:29.) The Lord himself promised, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.” (Matt. 5:48.) With all of these advantages, I should be able to make it on my own until He comes in clouds of glory for His millennial reign upon the earth when every eye shall see Him and every heart shall rejoice in His blessings.
In preparation for that great event, let us strive to get a more radiant light in our eyes, a greater glow in our hearts, and a finer fire in our souls. Then at that day, when we do see Him for ourselves, we too can be made glorious.

There was a tiny glow of growing yellow light just above the mountains to the east as I crept across our front lawn and headed for Buddy’s place next door.
“Well, good morning, Aaron,” Buddy greeted me in a soft, surprised voice. “I would have bet my best fishing pole that you’d never get that mattress unstuck from your back at this time of day.”
“And you would have lost that fishing pole,” I teased back.
Buddy chuckled. “It’s rare for a ten-year-old boy to get himself out of bed at four o’clock just to help his neighbor irrigate his yard.”
Buddy was old enough to be my grandpa. I used to call him Mr. Chambers or Brother Chambers until he told me that his name was just plain old Buddy. Mister, he said, made him sound too old, and Brother made him sound like a preacher.
I’d been helping him with his yard, in his shop, or around his house for as long as I could remember. When I helped him work on his truck or car, he explained how everything worked and why he had to change the oil or the spark plugs or pour in antifreeze. When we planted his garden, he asked me where we should put the carrots and the tomatoes and the other vegetables like I was the expert and had to be the one to decide. He usually planted them right where I suggested.
When I arrived that morning, the irrigation water was gurgling into Buddy’s backyard because he had already pulled up the headgate that let the water in from behind his backyard fence.
For the next hour, Buddy and I sloshed around in the cool brown water as we irrigated the garden, the fruit trees, the lawn, and the flowers.
“We have to be careful that we don’t let in too much water back here,” he told me, “or it will overflow the patio and run into the basement. It happened once, and it took Marva and me a week to pump all the water out and get things cleaned up. We had to replace the carpet and almost everything else downstairs. Marva hasn’t let me forget that boo-boo. That’s why I needed you out here today to keep me on my toes. Another accident like that, and I’ll be sleeping in the shed for the next two years.”
When we finished, he said, “I’m hungry. What do you say we drive down to Burt’s cafe?”
I had eggs and bacon alongside a stack of pancakes floating in blueberry syrup. Soon I was so stuffed that I could hardly move. “Buddy,” I asked, “would you come to Primary with me on Sunday?”
“I’m afraid I’m too old for Primary. They ran me out of Primary years ago. I don’t think they’d let me back now.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t mean that, and you know it. I’m going to give a talk this Sunday. I thought you’d like to hear me give it.”
“I’d love to hear you preach, Aaron. I’ll tell you what, you get your talk all polished and practiced, then come over and give it to Marva and me.”
“But I want you to hear me give it in Primary.”
Buddy wagged a finger at me. “You’re a sneaky guy, but I know your tricks. You’re just trying to get me to go to church. I already told you that it’s been so long since I went to church that the whole building would fall down if I walk through the door.”
“That’s not true,” I came back. “You were there when I got baptized, and it’s still standing.”
Buddy smiled. “That was a special occasion. Special occasions don’t count.”
“Sundays are special occasions,” I pestered. “Marva would love to have you there. She hates always going to church alone. Why did you stop going to church, anyway?”
Buddy set his fork down. “Oh, somebody hurt my feelings. It doesn’t seem like a big thing now, but it seemed pretty important back then. I decided I’d stop going, and I just got out of the habit. Now I’m in the habit of staying home, and it’s a tough habit to break. Besides, I’m too old to go back. And nobody cares, anyway.”
“That’s not true. I care. So does Marva.”
“Aaron, it would take a miracle to get me back inside the church.”
“What kind of miracle?”
“Oh, a little one would do fine, but I don’t think anybody’s passing out miracles these days. But when you get your talk ready, you come over and practice on Marva and me.”
“Mom, do you believe in miracles?” I asked my mother later that morning as I helped her clean the family room.
“Of course. Why do you ask?”
“What do you think a miracle is?”
Mom thought for a moment. “I suppose a miracle is something that doesn’t normally happen, and when it does happen, it’s because the Lord helps it happen that way. For example, when you had an earache in the middle of the night last year and there was no way to get you to the doctor, Dad gave you a priesthood blessing. Right away the pain stopped, and you went to sleep. That wasn’t a huge miracle, but it was a miracle.”
“Do you think it would be all right for us to pray for a miracle for Buddy? He says he won’t go to church unless he has a miracle.”
“Well, Aaron, the scriptures tell us that we aren’t to ask for signs. A miracle might be considered a sign. We could pray that Buddy would decide to go to church, but I’m not sure asking for a miracle for him would be the right thing to do.”
I worked on my Primary talk. I decided to talk about how the Lord answers prayers. I included the story about my earache. When I finally had the talk as good as I could get it, I went over to Buddy’s house and practiced on him and Marva.
“It’s a mighty fine speech, Aaron,” Buddy said.
“So will you come to Primary and listen to me give it there?” I coaxed.
Buddy laughed. “You don’t ever stop pestering me, do you? Besides, Marva and I are going to be out of town for three or four days, including Sunday. In fact, I need you to keep an eye on things while we’re gone. Will you water the flowers and pick the green beans and cucumbers?”
I was disappointed, but I didn’t stop praying for Buddy.
Monday morning I watered Buddy’s flowers. I picked the green beans and cucumbers. I even pulled the weeds. Then I checked all around the yard to make sure everything was all right before going home.
On Monday afternoon as I was reading a mystery book, I got to wondering about Buddy’s place again. I went back to my book, but I couldn’t concentrate. I kept thinking of Buddy’s place. I’d done more than he’d asked me to do, but something kept pestering my mind.
Finally I set my book down and muttered to myself, “I’ll go back and check again.” I wandered around Buddy’s front yard, making sure all the flowers had received water. I looked through the front window. Everything was all right in there. The rose bushes on the side of the house were all fine.
I was starting to feel kind of silly. Then I went through the gate. The backyard was a huge pond, and the water was just a few inches from running into Buddy’s basement! Someone had taken the headgate from the irrigation ditch when it was empty. But now it was full, and the water was gushing into Buddy’s yard.
Without stopping to pull off my shoes and socks, I sloshed over to the ditch and pushed the headgate into place. The water stopped rushing into Buddy’s yard. It had started trickling into the window wells, but it didn’t look like it would flood the basement.
When Buddy and Sister Chambers came home, one glance at his backyard told him what had happened. “Well, Aaron,” he said, “I owe you a great big thanks. As soon as I walked back there, I remembered taking that headgate out to clean the ditch. I forgot to put it back. I almost thought I’d had a miracle.” He grinned. “But it wasn’t a miracle at all—you look out for me all the time. I’m sure glad that I’d asked you to keep an eye on things.”
“But, Buddy,” I said seriously, “I think it really was a miracle. I’d already checked on your place once today, and everything was fine. I’d done everything you’d asked me to do. I had no reason to go back and check on anything. But this afternoon something in my brain kept insisting that I needed to check again. That’s why I went back.
“The other day you said that nobody cared about what you do. That’s not true. The Lord was watching out for you. He was the one who sent me over here to check up. I don’t know everything about miracles, but if you ask me, that’s a miracle. It might be just a little one, but it’s still a miracle.” I hesitated. “Maybe you’ve had more miracles than you know about. Maybe you just haven’t recognized what they were.”
The next morning I went over to help Buddy clean up his backyard. We didn’t say very much at first, but when we took a short rest, he said, “I’ve been doing some serious thinking since last night. You were right. Even though I’ve stayed away from church so long, the Lord hasn’t forgotten me. He still knows where I live. I didn’t think He did.
“And He doesn’t even mind sending a miracle or two my way, even when I don’t deserve them. I guess I’m going to have to break an old habit—staying home Sundays.” He took a deep breath. “It’s been a long time since I’ve walked through those church doors, but if you’ll walk beside me and take me by the hand, I’m going to see if I can do it without the whole building falling down.”
I smiled. “You missed my Primary talk,” I teased him, “but that’s OK, because more than anything, I want you to come back to church. For good. Next Sunday will be best of all, because I’ll know that you’re not there for a special occasion. You’ll be there because you’re finally changing a bad habit for a good one.”

After weeks of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, 14-year-old Kuhio Maraetefau, from Tahiti, decided to organise a camp for his friends, for their first post-quarantine activity.
“I chose this camp project because it was an opportunity for young people to get out of their comfort zone, to get away from the city and get closer to nature,” he said.
“I oversaw planning the project, establishing the activities and menus, and assigning the tasks and responsibilities to involve each young participant.”
Kuhio came up against many challenges as he planned the camp. But, he says, he learned a lot along the way.
“Frankly, there is a lot to plan and think about when setting up a camp project,” he says.
“I couldn’t handle everything about organising the outing. Fortunately, with the help of my parents, we worked out all the important details. And my bishop, Louis Sandford, was there to help me make this camp happen.”
The workshops he arranged helped campers learn camping techniques such as cooking over a wood fire, tying knots, and building camp tables.
But even when everything is planned to perfection, unexpected difficulties sometimes arise, like rain—which came, beginning on the first night.
“What moved me most is that even though I am young, I can achieve great things through prayer,” Kuhio reflected.
“We were united in prayer morning and evening to show our gratitude to our Heavenly Father. I learned to better appreciate the creations of God and enjoyed getting to know the young people and adults who participated.”

“If you took a look at my books, you might not be quite so anxious to open your store on Sunday! I can show you mathematically that we did not make any profit on Sunday during the years our business was open on Sunday!”
As a young couple, my wife and I worked for several years in Idaho Falls in eating establishments which were open on Sunday. During that time, we noticed that on Sunday, the business often lost money. The machinery always seemed to break down, and then we could not serve the customers. Repairmen charged twice as much on that day. Good hired help was hard to find. We vowed that if we were ever able to buy a business of our own, we would make some changes.
The opportunity finally came one year with the purchase of a drive-in restaurant. The loan we took out to buy the business was large, and the finance people and the other owners of surrounding food establishments, assured us that we did not have the slightest chance of paying off our loan if we did not compete on the biggest sales day of the week—Sunday. Because we had already paid the down payment and wanted to make a success of our enterprise we felt trapped. We stayed open.
As predicted, Sunday proved to be our biggest day. Having made the decision to stay open on Sunday, we couldn’t change. We were afraid of the business we would lose. Eventually, in the back of our minds, grew the fear that if we did not serve people on Sunday, we would lose our customers and be unable to raise the large sum we needed to make the business ours.
We had almost reached our goal when I had a heart attack. Because good Sunday help was hard to find, we agreed to close on Sunday through the winter months.
My doctor was pleased with our decision, happy that I could get some much needed rest. But as the months passed, I became worried about the low volume of business we had on our books. One day I told my wife that we should again open on Sunday. She looked at me in silence for several seconds, then said, “First, go look in the mirror and see if you look like a man who could stand seven days of work each week!”
“I guess I don’t have to look,” I answered slowly. “We’d better forget the whole idea.”
Later, as we sat down together to review and evaluate our business year, our fears were confirmed—our gross sales were over $17,000 lower than the previous years! But in spite of our low volume, our balance showed only $10.00 less profit! We were amazed. Pleased with such figures, we agreed to keep the drive-in closed on Sunday for another year. Again, the volume was way down but the profit was no less. Our drive-in was a success without opening on Sunday!
When I think of the poor effect on my health and all the work I did for nothing on those Sundays, I am surprised it took me as long to learn the lesson that obedience to the law of the Sabbath carries its own reward. The Sabbath is the Lord’s day. Wc will all be blessed for honoring it.

The young people listened intently as Don explained that although even as a child he had been a Buck Rogers fan and dreamed of going to the moon, he would never have been an astronaut except for an experience that seemed at the time no more than a fluke. Only years later did he realize that the Lord had reached out and touched his life.
“When I was at Officer Candidate School,” he said, “the section leader came around and we were supposed to sign up for the, physical examination for any of the specialty programs such as underwater demolition or submarines. We were in the study hall, and he walked up behind me and said, ‘Okay, Lind, what shall I sign you up for?’ and I said, ‘Oh, by all means sign me up for flight training.’ He said, ‘Okay,’ and I said, ‘I’m joking!’ He said, ‘I already marked it down,’ and I said ‘Well, erase it!’ He said, ‘I marked it in pen, and this is the only copy I’ve got.’ If he had marked it in pencil he would have just erased it. I said, ‘What am I going to do now?’ He said, ‘Just go take the physical. You don’t really have to apply for it.’ ‘All right, fine.’ So I took the physical, and by golly I passed it! So I thought, well, you can always go down and just try out for flight training, and if you like it … I did try it, and I did like it, and eventually I began flying off aircraft carriers. But if that guy had had a pencil in his hand instead of a pen, I never would have been an astronaut, because flight skills are one of the requirements.
“I learned from this experience that sometimes we don’t realize what the really critical decisions are, and so we’ve got to have the Lord’s help in guiding us. Choosing a wife or husband is an obviously important decision, but taking that physical didn’t seem very important at all. One reason you pray regularly is so that these seemingly insignificant decisions can be the right ones.”

I was called to serve in the New Zealand Wellington Mission. When I knew I needed to go home early, I felt like I had let Heavenly Father and my parents down.
I’ve learned so much from my mission and from this situation. I never needed to rely on Heavenly Father and the Savior’s Atonement like I did when I came home early. I needed to trust God and accept whatever He wanted me to go through and learn. I cannot deny the power of the Atonement and how I’ve truly come to know that Jesus Christ is my Savior. I’ve learned that God humbles me and teaches me through my weaknesses and hard times.
No matter where I am, or whether I have a name tag on my chest, I’m still a disciple of Jesus Christ. I know that the Lord still loves me and is with me, and He wants me to keep serving others. And even though I’m home, I know I’m not a failure because He’s helped me become a better person through this experience.
Natasha Krisanalome, Thailand