Gospel Story Finder

One evening I saw large masses of parents and children crossing an intersection in Salt Lake City en route to a large arena to see a production of Beauty and the Beast. I actually pulled my car over to the curb to watch the gleeful throng. Fathers, who I am certain were cajoled into going to the event, held tightly in their hands the small and clutching hands of their precious children. Here was love in action. Here was an unspoken sermon of caring. Here was a rearrangement of time as a God-given priority.

“One day Dad took me downtown and bought me a red coat—not a hand-me-down, but my very own new coat. I’ll never forget that.”

This story happened in Slovenia.
Maja sat on the steps of her house and rested her chin in her hands. The sun was shining bright, warm rays of light through the tall trees. The air smelled like fresh pine needles.
Mami came out and sat next to Maja. “What are you thinking about?”
“I’m supposed to share my favorite scripture in Primary,” Maja said. “But I don’t have a favorite. And I don’t know which one to pick.”
Mami nodded. “Choosing a favorite scripture is hard.” She looked out at the trees, then stood up. “I have an idea.”
Mami went back inside. When she came back, she was holding her scriptures. “Let’s start with a story. What’s your favorite scripture story?”
Maja thought about it. “I like when Jesus visited the Nephites.”
Mami flipped through the pages in the Book of Mormon. “That story starts in 3 Nephi.” She pointed to the page. “Let’s take turns reading and pick out verses we like.”
Maja nodded and listened as Mami read. She read about Jesus Christ calling His disciples. She read about peacemakers and prayer.
Then it was Maja’s turn. When she finished one of the verses, she paused. She felt like the sun was shining bright enough to fill her heart.
She looked up at Mami. “I like that one.”
“Me too. What do you like about it?” Mami asked.
Maja shrugged as a smile spread on her face. “It’s about Jesus. And it just makes me feel happy.”
Mami smiled back. “That’s a great way to know you’ve found a favorite scripture. Do you want to share that one in Primary?”
Maja nodded excitedly. “Will you help me learn it?”
“Of course!” Mami said.
Mami and Maja practiced one word at a time. While they worked, the birds chirped in the trees, like they were learning too.
All week, Maja kept practicing her new favorite scripture. On Sunday morning, she was a little nervous. She practiced saying her scripture on the long drive to church.
There were only a few kids in Maja’s Primary. But as she walked into the classroom, Maja felt like butterflies were flying around in her stomach.
When it was her turn to share, Maja stood and took a deep breath. “Behold, I am the law, and the light,” she said. “Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life.”
When Maja was done, she sat down and smiled. She did it! The nervous butterflies were gone, and the warm, sunshiny feeling was back. She knew her favorite scripture would bring that feeling whenever she needed it.
The scripture Maja learned for Primary still brings her feelings of sunshine and comfort today! What’s your favorite scripture?
Illustrations by Chloe Dominique

I would like to thank you for publishing the June 1998 special issue. I am the only LDS person in my group, and I was slowly being pushed out of relationships. I hurt, so I finally got down on my knees and prayed for help. Right after school that day, the special issue on friendship was on my dad’s desk, and the stories seemed to be directed at me.
Alissa SmithPark City, Utah

Since about 1400, writing valentines has played its part in the field of love poetry. The first known ones were written by Charles, Duke of Orleans, taken prisoner in 1415 at the battle of Agincourt. In the Tower of London, he composed beautiful valentines to his wife. Many were saved and are in the British Museum.

Steve Chamberlain of St. George, Utah, went to the temple often, pleading for help when he was struggling with depression. As he sat in the celestial room, a temple patron put an arm around his shoulder and whispered, “I love you.” They sat silently together. This unexpected personal touch seemed to Steve as if it came from the Savior. It was life-changing for Steve.

You will need:
table salt
black pepper
plastic spoon
towel
Pour some salt onto a plate. This represents how we are pure and clean before we sin.
Sprinkle a little pepper on top of the salt. This represents the wrong choices we make.
Now take the plastic spoon and rub it on a towel.
Move the spoon slowly above the salt and pepper. The pepper will stick to the spoon! This is like being forgiven when we repent.
Like the spoon taking away the pepper in this activity, repenting can make us clean from the wrong choices we make every day—big or small. Because of Jesus Christ and His Atonement, all of us have the opportunity to repent.

A little more than two years ago, shortly after my parents divorced, I found the Church.
Growing up, my brothers, sister, and I were taught to believe in God, and we said prayers at dinnertime, but that had been the extent of my religious education. My mother was raised in the LDS Church, but my father was not. I guess over the years they found it easier to avoid religion than to quarrel over it.
I was the youngest and the baby of the family in more ways than one. My brothers and sister were much older and very protective. I believed everything would always be easy.
School was a rude awakening for me. In the early years I wasn’t required to do much work and my grades were pretty good. But, as the years went by, my grades began to drop, and it certainly was not easy. Consequently, my parents began getting calls from my teachers, and we entered the era of “What to do about Dane?”
My parents tried a variety of methods to get me to do my assignments, but nothing worked. Teachers, counselors, school administrators, and my parents, all threatened a whole array of punishments. But my situation worsened with each year of school, and by the time I was in seventh grade, everything was falling apart. I hadn’t done much in class except goof around for six years, so I was totally unprepared for junior high.
The year I entered junior high was also the year our family fell apart. Two weeks after Christmas my parents separated, and later they divorced. My two oldest brothers and my sister had graduated and moved out on their own. That left my brother Lee and me at home with our mother, and Lee was a senior in high school. To make matters worse, we had big financial problems. From my mother’s perspective, we had hit rock bottom. But that’s when I think things began to look up.
One day my mom sat me down, and we had a serious talk. We talked about her upbringing in the Church, and she said that even though it seemed like things couldn’t get any worse, she knew she could turn to God for help. She also said she believed that if I went to church, it might turn me around in school. I had attended church a few times with an LDS friend, and I had also attended summertime Bible schools at other churches, but my family had not been to church since before I was born. My parents both smoked, and the coffeepot was always on. And now, my mom was suffering because of the divorce and the loss of income. I didn’t want to add to her problems, so I decided to give church a try and to have the missionary lessons.
Before I joined the Church, I had experimented with cigarettes and alcohol, and I hung around with the kids I felt most comfortable with—the kids who weren’t passing in school and who were with me so often in detention. But when the bishop interviewed me and I made the commitment to get baptized, I made a promise to obey the Word of Wisdom. I found that I enjoyed the feeling of responsibility that came with holding the priesthood, passing the sacrament, and getting praise for the things I was doing instead of always being in trouble. These positive feelings I was experiencing started to influence my life outside of church. And, as I shared my testimony with my friends, I started to see who my true friends were.
I made it to eighth grade and served in the Church as a deacons quorum president and now as teachers quorum president. I haven’t quite made the honor roll yet, but I’m on the school’s academic team and have stayed eligible to play sports. I’ve tried to remain friends with the guys I used to hang around with, but I don’t go out with them much anymore. We’re still on good terms, but we have different interests now. I’m involved in Scouting and have been concentrating on my schoolwork.

Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were first sustained by a congregation, including a fully organized priesthood. Brigham Young was sustained on March 27, 1846, and was “unanimously elected president over the whole Camp of Israel …” by the council. (B. H. Roberts, A Comprehensive History of the Church, vol. 3, p. 52.) Later he was sustained, and the Hosanna Shout was given.

There is a particular challenge we face as Latter-day Saints in establishing and maintaining friendships. Because our commitment to marriage, family, and the Church is so strong, we often feel challenged by constraints of time and energy in reaching out in friendship to others beyond that core group. I experienced this dilemma personally in recent days as I tried to steal a few moments at home to prepare this talk. Twice, friends from my past, whom I love dearly but see only occasionally, dropped in to visit. During what ought to have been choice times of reunion and reminiscence, I ironically found myself growing inwardly impatient for the visits to end so that I could get back to writing my talk about friendship!

I have since felt ashamed. How selfish we can be. How unwilling to be inconvenienced, to give, to bless and be blessed. What kind of parents or neighbors or servants of the Lord Jesus Christ can we be without being a friend? In this information age, is not friendship still the best technology for sharing the truths and way of life we cherish? Is not our reluctance voluntarily to reach out to others in friendship a significant obstacle to helping God accomplish His eternal purposes?

“I think he knew,” Mary Ann insisted. “Do you remember three weeks ago in the grove on Mulholland Street when the Prophet asked all the children to meet the next Sabbath for a Sunday School? Then he said, ‘I don’t know if I can be here. I will if I can, but Brother Stephen Goddard will be here to take charge.’ Don’t you think he knew, Mama?”

Christiana smiled as she counted the last of the coins. She carefully placed them in the small wooden box and closed the lid. “It is getting so heavy!” she thought as she slid the box into its hiding place under her bed. “Surely I am the richest girl in all of Denmark!” she exclaimed aloud.
Christiana Pedersen had been tending her father’s sheep for as long as she could remember, watching over them and keeping them safe from harm. She loved the green hills near her home in Oudrup in northern Denmark. She enjoyed spending her days in the open air with the gentle sheep.
Each time her father took the sheep to market or sheared their wool, he gave Christiana part of the money earned. Christiana always put her money into a special box, never spending any of it. Her father would put her on his knee and tease, “Whatever will you do with all that money? You are getting so much!”
“I will save it all,” Christiana would reply. “I don’t know why, but someday I will need it!” Her father would chuckle and shake his head. His daughter was so unlike all the other children her age who spent their coins as soon as they got them. He was proud of Christiana. What a good girl she was!
Christiana was about 20 years old when some men wearing dark suits and coats came to her little village. She heard them on the street corners, talking to passersby about the mysterious book they held in their hands. One day when Christiana and her mother were shopping in the village, they stopped to listen to the men. Christiana learned that they were missionaries from faraway America. They had come to share the restored gospel of Jesus Christ with the people of Denmark. The book was the Book of Mormon, the story of an ancient people who lived in the Americas. Part of the book recounted a visit of Jesus Christ to those people after His Resurrection.
Christiana’s family attended a church in her village, and she already knew about Jesus Christ from her study of the Bible. She had a warm feeling as she listened to the missionaries speak about the Savior. Her mother bought one of the books from the men and accepted a few tracts [pamphlets] that explained the beliefs taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Christiana’s father was angry when he heard that his wife and daughter had listened to the missionaries. He forbade them from joining “that American church.”
Her mother had a little wooden chest next to the bake oven where she placed the precious missionary tracts and the Book of Mormon. Christiana continued to read and study them. She was drawn to the sacred words and felt a growing testimony of their truthfulness, but she honored her father and did not meet with the missionaries nor join the Church.
At the age of 21, Christiana decided that she must follow the promptings of the Spirit and be baptized. Her father was furious! “I warn you, Christiana,” he shouted, “if you try to cross the ocean with those Mormons, you will surely be lost at sea. I will not help you with this foolishness.”
Christiana was not frightened by her father’s words; she had a strong testimony that the truth had been restored to the earth. Although she had to leave her home and family to join the Saints in Zion, she was baptized on October 25, 1856.
As Christiana counted the coins in her little treasure box, she knew why she had felt so strongly about saving all the money she had earned tending her father’s sheep. She had just enough to take her to join the Saints who were traveling west to the Great Salt Lake Valley. She was so grateful to her Heavenly Father. He had helped her to know that this money must be saved to help her obtain a treasure greater than all the money in the world—a testimony of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and a place with His Saints.
Christiana Pedersen left the Bol Farm in Oudrup, Denmark, in the winter of 1856, traveling to Copenhagen. She boarded the ship L. N. Hvidt to England on April 18, 1857. In Liverpool, England, she boarded the Westmoreland with 504 other Church converts on April 25, 1857. The ship arrived in Philadelphia on May 31, 1857, after a five-week voyage. She then traveled by train to Iowa City, arriving on July 9. She left three days later with the Seventh Handcart Company, beginning her long walk to Utah. She later married Christian Frederick Nelson Twede and was the mother of eight children. Her mother, Anna Marie, joined her daughter in America in 1878 after Christiana’s father’s death.

Recently Sister Cook and I attended a women’s conference in South Africa. After we listened to some inspiring messages on applying the Atonement in our lives, the stake Relief Society president invited everyone outside. We were each given a helium balloon. She explained that our balloon represented whatever burden, trial, or hardship was holding us back in our lives. On the count of three, we released our balloons, or our “burdens.” As we looked up and watched our burdens float away, there was an audible “Ahhhh.” That simple act of releasing our balloons provided a marvelous reminder of the indescribable joy that comes from looking up and thinking of Christ.

Susan flopped onto her bed. She lay back and looked at the poster on the ceiling of Meggen and her. Her mother had taken the picture of the two of them on their horses last summer and had surprised them with poster-size prints for Christmas.
Meggen had long, strawberry-blond hair that flowed over her shoulders. Susan’s own hair was black, curly, and cropped just below her ears. Meggen was thin and graceful. Susan was a little on the short side with round cheeks. Meggen had helped Susan’s family move into their new home. She had been riding her horse by their home when she saw the moving van and offered her help.
Meggen first introduced Susan to Pal, her palomino. Then she introduced her to the other children in the neighborhood. Sometimes Susan felt self-conscious around Meggen, who was exceptionally pretty. Today she had discovered that they differed in more than looks.
Closing her eyes, Susan relived every detail of their conversation as they walked home from school. Meggen wore her hair in a French braid down her back. Faded summer freckles framed her slender nose and brown eyes. …
“Are you entering the horse show in Middleton?” Meggen asked.
“No, I can’t this time—it’s on Sunday.”
“You go to church every Sunday,” Meggen complained. “It wouldn’t hurt to miss once. This is the biggest horse show of the year.”
“I know,” Susan replied wistfully, “but I want to be at church on Sunday.”
“What’s so exciting about church?”
“I don’t go to church because it’s exciting,” Susan tried to explain. “I go because … well, because I have a testimony.”
“What’s a testimony?”
Susan opened her mouth to answer and closed it again. “I don’t know how to explain it,” she admitted. …
Susan rolled over onto her stomach and buried her face in her pillow. “How do you explain what a testimony is?” she asked herself.
She knew that she had a testimony. Just last fast Sunday she had followed Sister Hawkins to the stand. As she waited her turn, she looked over the congregation. I hope Marianne or Jill comes up and sits with me, she thought.
Sister Hawkins’s voice broke as she spoke of the Atonement. Why does she always cry when she bears her testimony? Susan wondered.
“I know Jesus Christ is the Savior of us all,” Sister Hawkins testified. “When I miss my husband and others who have passed on, I pray to Heavenly Father for comfort, and through the Holy Ghost my heart is filled with the Savior’s love. Then I don’t feel lonely anymore.”
Susan felt peace filling her heart as she listened. Tears moistened her eyes. The words to a Primary song came into her mind. “I feel my Savior’s love In all the world around me.”*
She closed her eyes and thought of the mountains. Red and yellow patches covered their sides. She loved autumn. She especially liked the smell of the air. She often saddled Lightning and galloped up the mountain road, breathing deeply.
She imagined the Savior creating the mountains, filling the streams with crystal water, and planting the trees for her. The feeling inside her kept growing until a tear trickled down her right cheek. She wiped it away with her index finger as the chorus came to her: “He knows I will follow him, Give all my life to him. I feel my Savior’s love, The love he freely gives me.”
When she walked to the pulpit, for the first time she didn’t think about her friends or about how proud her parents would be. She offered a silent prayer before she spoke. Please, Heavenly Father, help me to feel my Savior’s love like Sister Hawkins does. She felt a sweet peace flow over her. Her prayer had been answered. Tears streamed down her face. All she could say was “I feel my Savior’s love too. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”
Those feelings returned as she lay on her bed, remembering. She knew how a testimony felt, but how could she explain it to Meggen?
On the way to school Friday, Meggen’s eyes flashed with excitement. “You’ll never believe what Dad gave me at breakfast, Susan—a new saddle! You just have to stop by after school and see it.”
Even though Susan felt good about her decision not to enter the Middleton horse show, it was hard to hear Meggen talking about it. They had gone to every horse show together since Uncle Gordon had given her Lightning for her eighth birthday. They’d taken a 4-H horsemanship class together and had learned about grooming and riding. Both girls had collected a wallful of ribbons and a few trophies in the years that followed.
“I hope Pal wins the trophy again this year!” Susan exclaimed, and she meant it. But she wished even more that she could answer Meggen’s question. Please help me to explain to Meggen about testimonies, she pleaded silently. She had offered this prayer many times this past week—sometimes aloud on her knees in her bedroom, and always in her heart when she and Meggen were together.
A new idea slipped into Susan’s mind. “Do you remember when Pal won the trophy last year?”
Meggen nodded. “It was the most exciting day of my life!”
“And when you remember, do you still feel the excitement?”
“Sometimes I lie on my bed, holding the trophy and reliving every moment,” Meggen admitted. “I brushed Pal’s hair carefully and braided it with blue and yellow ribbons. I was so nervous, my hands shook when the judges came by. And I screamed when they announced I had won.”
Susan winced. “I remember that part. You screamed into my ear.” They laughed together. “Remembering is wonderful, isn’t it?”
Meggen nodded again. “I’ll always remember that day, no matter how long I live. I’ll probably tell the story over and over to my grandchildren.”
“And you’ll always have special feelings each time you do,” Susan assured her. “That’s what a testimony is like, Meggen—remembering, and having wonderful feelings when you do.”
“Remembering what?”
“Remembering that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ love me.”
“Have you ever seen Heavenly Father and Jesus?” Meggen questioned seriously.
This is going to be the hard part, Susan thought. Heavenly Father, please help me, she prayed in her heart. “I haven’t seen Them with my eyes.”
“What other way is there to see someone?”
“Before we were born on earth, we were spirit children of Heavenly Father,” Susan explained. “So was Jesus. My spirit eyes saw Them. I don’t remember what They look like or what They said and did, but my spirit remembers. I don’t remember in pictures and words, but in feelings. I’ve felt Their love for me over and over in my heart. I know that what I’m learning in church is true, because I feel Their love when I’m there.”
They had reached the school grounds. Children were calling and chasing each other on bikes. “Do you really believe you have a spirit and a body?” Meggen asked.
“Yes, I do,” Susan said softly. “I know it’s true because I asked Heavenly Father if it was. And through the Holy Ghost, He answered me. I know that my spirit remembers places and people my body has never known. I’m learning to let my spirit teach my body.”
“Do you believe I was a spirit too?”
“Yes I do.”
“If that’s true,” Meggen reasoned, “then my spirit should be able to remember too.”
Susan nodded. “If you learn to listen, it will.”
“Will you teach me, Susan?”
Susan’s heart again filled with peace. She knew that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ loved Meggen even more than she did. “I can try,” she assured her friend, “but there are lots of other people to help you too. There are my parents and my Primary teacher. The missionaries can help too. Best of all, the Holy Ghost can help you. He’s a spirit, and He knows just how spirits remember.”
Meggen reached out and clasped Susan’s hand. “Do you feel that love now?” she whispered.
Susan nodded—she was too happy to speak right then. The school bell rang, and the girls broke into a run, still holding hands.

But, it is said, I don’t pray because I have doubts. I doubt things about myself, about the gospel, and even God. Truly doubt and faith do not coexist in the same person at the same time (see Lectures on Faith 6:12). But they can exist within a second of each other. Witness Heber C. Kimball’s standing by the door as Brigham Young was lying on what appeared to be his deathbed. “I do not think,” said Heber, “Brigham will ever rise from that bed.” But then after a moment of meditative prayer he lighted up and said, “He shall live,” and he prophesied several events to come (see Orson F. Whitney, Life of Heber C. Kimball, Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1945, p. 434). He was right the second time. From doubt to faith.

When the Americans had cleared the mountain and were gone, we left the house and marched on again toward home. A few days later, we were stopped once more by the Americans. At first I didn’t speak. I wanted to act like I didn’t know English. I heard them say, “Well, we’ll just let them sit here, and we’ll put them on the next truck that comes to transport them to a camp.” Trucks had been going by every two to three minutes.
We sat there waiting for a truck to come by any second. We waited and waited, for an hour or longer, but no truck came. I finally went up to the MP who was chewing gum. I had never seen anyone chew gum before—and he was talking at the same time.

I told him who we were, and he said, “Oh, all of a sudden you speak English.”
“Yes, I speak English. I learned it in school. I was just scared.”
“How old are you?” he asked me. I told him I was 17-and-a-half years old.
“Where have you been?”
I explained the whole thing—what we had done, why we had civilian clothes on, where we wanted to go—home. He called up on the phone and checked the outfits where we had been to see if the information I had given him was correct. Then he looked at me for a long time and said, “I have a boy about your age, and if he would say to someone, ‘I’d like to go home to Mother,’ I hope they’d give him the chance. If you take this road, there is an American headquarters; but if you take that road, they can’t see you. Good luck.”

Finally we were almost home. Everything was shut down. There was no train, no car, no bus, no telephone—nothing. So we continued crawling through the forest, following the creek. I knew that area well. We reached my neighborhood, and I just wanted to go through the gate of our neighbor’s backyard. I left the others and opened the gate. A little gun that had been put there to shoot the gophers went off. It scared the wits out of me and the neighbors, who quickly came running. But they were glad to see that I was home safely. I sent my sister back to the forest with some food for my friends before they continued on to their homes.

One participant asked about the nature of Christ’s perfection—did he have to overcome our weaknesses or was he better to begin with? The group determined that since Jesus was literally sired in the flesh by God the Father, it meant that he had it in him to be immortal as well as mortal, but that even in the premortal existence, there was one “that was like unto God.” (Abr. 3:24.) Even so, the New Testament says that “though he were a Son, yet learned he obedience by the things he suffered; And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation to all them that obey him.” (Heb. 5:8. Italics added.) The group agreed that Jesus faced all the temptations that we face, including temptations of mind, heart, body, and soul, and that he successfully applied his Father’s plan to withstand them.

“It was in the fall of the year 1857, as I remember, and a small group of Mormon pioneers were late starting across the plains. They got caught in an early snowstorm, and it slowed their travel. Many of them had become ill with colds, fevers, and pneumonia. They traveled as fast as they could, but because of the cold and sickness, they were just plain worn-out from pulling handcarts and carrying the smaller children.
“One day they came to a river that they had to cross. Everyone was so tired that the river seemed an impossible challenge. It seemed too wide, too deep, and too cold to the exhausted pioneers. One weary lady stood on the bank of the river, holding her baby as the tears silently streamed down her face. She didn’t have the strength to face one more trial that day. For a minute it looked like the journey might end right there for the small band of weary pioneers.
“Then, without saying a word, a young man waded into the cold river and made his way to the other side to see how deep it was. The icy water came up to his waist. He was certain that the handcarts were too small and too heavily loaded to carry children and those who were sick across safely. He knew what needed to be done, and he didn’t have to be asked. He knelt down with the rest of the pioneers and led a prayer, asking for strength to get everyone across safely. He was seventeen years old, and he was tall and strong, but he knew that he would need the help of the Lord to deal with the numbing cold of the river.
“The boy jumped up from the prayer and carried his sick mother across first, then his younger sister, and finally his three-year-old brother. When they were safe, he started carrying other children across. Another boy, a little younger but just as strong and nearly as tall, joined him in the cold river. The two youths carried across all the children and others who were too weak to make it through the icy water on their own. When everyone else was safely on the other side and the handcarts were across, the boys came out of the river to get dry and to warm themselves by the fire.
“Their legs and feet were blue from the cold. They got into dry clothes and wrapped up in blankets. Everyone thanked them for their help, but the boys said that they had just done what needed to be done. That night they sent everyone else to bed while they stayed by the fire to get warm. They talked about how things were going to be when they got to their new homes, but their conversation was often interrupted by muscle cramps and violent shivers. The cold water had chilled them more than they thought possible. The next morning they were still sitting there, wrapped in their blankets. When the leader of the group walked over to talk to them, he was saddened by what he found. During the night the boys had both died as they sat by the fire.
“The youths were buried right there on the edge of the river. They had lost their lives while helping others. The older boy, the one who had prayed for strength to get the others across safely, was one of your relatives. His name was Floyd. His three-year-old brother was your great-great-grandfather. When I was a little boy and Grandfather was in his nineties, he told me this story. That was when I learned that Floyd meant courage, relying on the Lord, and helping others.”

“I can’t express to you in words how important it is to be close to your family. My father just passed away. I now have a new outlook on life. I loved my dad. He was my hero, teacher, and best friend. Through Jesus Christ, I know I will see my dad again, and when I do I will cry out for joy and tell him again that I love him.”
Rishawn Newman, 15Las Vegas, Nevada

Rafael Mateo and his son, Whalincon (known as “Whally”), paused in the darkness of a stormy afternoon and eyed the rushing waters of the rain-swollen river. Rafael, first counselor in the branch presidency, and Whally, the branch elders quorum president, were returning home after a Sunday full of meetings at their chapel in San José de Ocoa in the Dominican Republic.
They were already drenched from trudging through the downpour and crossing the flooded Río Ocoa that created a dangerous barrier between the chapel and their home. During the dry season, the 6-kilometer (4-mile) hike descending from the chapel on one side of the valley then up to their home on the heights of the other side usually takes an hour. But when the river floods during the rainy season, Rafael and his family have to take a three-hour, 15-kilometer (9-mile) detour to find a place where they can ford the river with some degree of safety.
Rafael had completed the journey countless times before. He had crossed the river every day for 12 years to get to work. Being called two months after his baptism to serve as branch president, a calling he held for six years, only increased the number of trips. After that it was a call as elders quorum president. Then he was called back into the branch presidency.
But familiarity with the river didn’t diminish its danger, and the swift water of the flooded rivers could be as deadly as the wide river they fed. Not long before, an overflowing river had swept a neighbor off his feet, killing him in a mad rush down its narrow course.
Father and son hesitated at the water’s edge; then Rafael stepped in. The river was not wide, but because it channeled so much water, it was cut surprisingly deep. The cold, swift water first pulled at his knees, then his waist, and soon swirled about his chest.
Rafael knew he was in trouble. The streambed was slippery and uneven, and the powerful current threatened to steal his footing. Halfway across, he used all his strength to stay upright, and he found himself powerless to move forward or backward.
Just when he thought he was too weak to fight the flood any longer, he felt a push from behind that thrust him toward the opposite bank. It wasn’t until after he had reached the other side that he realized his savior hadn’t been Whally, who was still on the opposite side.
He attributes his rescue to the power of the same Savior who has helped him survive the threatening pull of other trials, both physical and spiritual.
“I’ve had to throw myself many times into the river up to my chest in the service of the Lord,” says Brother Mateo. “But I feel a great debt to the Lord. He has given me not only the opportunity to serve Him but the endurance.”
Like King David, Brother Mateo knows the Savior “took me, he drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy” (Psalm 18:16–17).
That testimony has carried him through trials more subtle than, but just as real as, crossing the river that stormy afternoon with Whally.