Gospel Story Finder

Four young LDS youth recently won top honors in the Idaho Farm Bureau talent competition.
The Benson sisters won first place in the junior division at both district and state competition. Laurie, Shannon, and Bonnie performed a variety act featuring a piano trio. Laurie plays violin and is concert mistress of her high school orchestra. She has served as Beehive and Mia Maid class president. She is also a seminary officer.
Shannon plays the flute and studies piano. She and Laurie both teach piano lessons. She is a counselor in her Mia Maid class and is an officer for her seminary class.
Bonnie enjoys singing and playing the piano and the oboe. She is a counselor in her Beehive class. All three sisters are members of the East Idaho Falls 41st Ward, where they sing in the ward choir.

I was in the Navy at the end of World War II when I was a very young man. My training took place near San Diego, California. Everyone in the Navy had to know how to swim, or they wouldn’t let him out of boot camp (training camp). I had learned to swim as a boy and could do it quite well.

One day an officer said, “All of you who can swim get to go to San Diego for the day. Those who can’t must have a full day of swimming lessons. So those of you who can swim, line up over here, and we’ll put you on a bus and take you into town.” I lined up with the swimmers—there were about 30 or 40 of us. But instead of having my group get on a bus, the officer marched us into the gym, where the swimming pool was.

I thought, You’re mixed up, fellow. We’re the ones who can swim. But, of course, I said nothing. We prepared for swimming and were ordered to jump into the deep end of the pool.

Most of us obeyed, but about 10 men in our group didn’t know how to swim. They had thought that they could go to San Diego without measuring up. The officer didn’t let them just stand there—he pushed them into the water. He let them go under the water, come up gasping for air, and then go down again. When they came up for the second time, a big bamboo pole was held out to them, and they were pulled to safety. Then the officer said sternly, “Don’t you ever lie to me again!” I tell you, I was glad I hadn’t tried that! The experience taught me the value of being honest and true to yourself at all times.

The coach’s decision paid off late that fall against the tough Bingham Miners. With a minute and a half to go in the scoreless game, Dene punched over a 37-yard field goal to win the game and catapult the Hawks into the state championship tournament. That year he scored 22 points with three field goals and 13 PATs (points after touchdown).

Li Hsiao-lung, 17, of the First Ward, said having a temple in Taipei continues a history of conversion in her life. “When my brother was baptized, he recognized that the gospel is precious. He decided to share this sweet fruit. He invited me to church, and I heard the missionary discussions. He got me excited about reading the scriptures. He taught me how to pray. Since I’ve been in the Church, I feel like my understanding keeps growing and growing. I think that when I go to the temple, it will help me to keep growing and understanding.”

Many converts had come from northern Europe during the Nauvoo years and this area continued to produce converts. But in the 1850s the elders began preaching in Latin America, the islands of the Pacific, Asia, India, and South Africa.
At the October general conference in 1849, President Young called missionaries to southern California, Tahiti, Italy, Switzerland, Denmark, Sweden, Iceland, France, Germany, and England. Elders Lorenzo Snow and John Taylor directed the efforts in central and southern Europe, Elder Erastus Snow in Scandinavia. The following year, Elder Parley P. Pratt headed a delegation to South America and George Q. Cannon led a small group to Hawaii. In 1851, missionaries began the work in Australia, New Zealand, and Tasmania. In 1852, a special conference in August sent elders to preach in Gibraltar, Malta, Prussia, South Africa, Jamaica, China, Thailand, Ceylon, and India. In virtually every instance, the missionaries met formidable opposition. Outside northern Europe, they made few converts. For most of the new missions of the 1850s, conditions were not yet right for preaching the gospel. Those that did succeed were among the European immigrants and Polynesian natives of Australia, New Zealand, and Hawaii.

Lizzie: My senior year of high school, I remember a teacher giving us some “advice.” She had married right out of high school, and it ended badly, so she basically told us that “there are a lot of fish in the sea.” She meant that there are a lot of things for us to try, a lot of candidates to try out. I remember being shocked that my teacher would say that. Since that time I have thought that, yes, there are a lot of people, but I don’t want a lot of people!

When the car horn honked, Ricky jumped to his feet, grabbed his sleeping bag and his pillow, banged the front door open, and ran outside. “Bye, Mom. See you tomorrow,” he called without even looking back.
Mrs. Oglethorpe’s green station wagon sat in the driveway. Steve pushed the back door open for Ricky. “Hey, Ricky!” Steve greeted him.
Ricky had always admired Steve, who was a year older and the best athlete in their school. Although they lived on the same street, they had not been good friends until this year, when they both played for the Dodgers. All spring and summer they’d practiced together, and Steve taught Ricky how to pitch. Steve was a great pitcher. Besides having a sharp-breaking curve and a sinker, he could throw the ball so hard that it would almost knock your glove off. All of Ricky’s pitches looked the same—slow balls.
“Hi, Stever! Hello, Mrs. O,” Ricky said as he climbed into the station wagon. “Oglethorpe” always seemed to get mixed up in his mouth and never came out right.
“Hi, Ricky. All ready?” Mrs. Oglethorpe asked.
“You bet!”
As Mrs. Oglethorpe was backing the station wagon out of the driveway, Ricky’s mom hurried out of the house. “Ricky!”
She caught up with the car, and asked, smiling at Ricky, “Didn’t you forget something?” “Something very important?” She held out Ricky’s baseball glove.
“Oh, wow! How’d I forget that?” “Thanks.”
“Don’t forget your promise, Ricky,” Mom said. “In bed and asleep by ten o’clock. No later.”
“OK. I will.”
“Remember what Dad said. ‘You don’t want to be tired for the big game tomorrow.’”
The Dodgers were in first place, and tomorrow’s game against the Giants was the last game of the season. If they won, they’d stay in first place, and with Steve pitching, they should win easily.
Because Steve’s family was leaving on vacation right after the game, Brad had decided to have a sleepover party tonight to celebrate the last game. It wasn’t a big party—just Brad, Steve, Jason, and Ricky.
The boys played catch in the backyard while Brad’s dad grilled hamburgers. The delicious-smelling barbeque smoke floated through the hot, summer-evening air. Even baseball couldn’t keep the boys’ minds off the sizzling hamburgers and the food on the picnic table. Everyone laughed as Brad grabbed his stomach and rolled on the ground, moaning about how hungry he was. Then Jason, who was getting a drink from the hose, decided to cool off Brad, Steve, and Ricky, and soon a water fight was going. It ended abruptly when Brad’s dad got soaked. It felt so good to be cool, though, that the boys didn’t mind the soggy hamburger buns and the limp chips. The coleslaw, pickles, corn on the cob, and lemonade tasted great too. Then there was watermelon—complete with a seed-spitting contest—and brownies and vanilla ice cream for dessert.
When it got dark outside, the boys went inside and started a game of Monopoly but didn’t finish it. Then they played video games for a little while. Mostly they talked baseball.
They were still talking baseball as they laid out their sleeping bags in front of the TV. Brad brought in a huge bowlful of popcorn and put a movie into the video recorder. That was when Ricky looked at the clock on the video recorder—9:59. Hey, he thought, how’d it get to be so late so early? There’s a movie and lots more fun coming. It just can’t stop now!
Ricky heard a grandfather clock chiming in another part of the house. Ten bongs. Rats! I wish I hadn’t promised to be in bed by ten. He looked at Brad and asked hesitantly, “Don’t you think it’s kind of late to start a movie?”
“Nah,” Brad replied. “Not for a sleepover party. I’ve stayed up lots later than this before.”
“But we have a game in the morning,” Ricky said, “and we can’t be tired.”
“That game’s no sweat,” Jason said. “We beat ‘em before when Steve pitched.”
“Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m going to bed.” Ricky changed into his pajamas, climbed into his sleeping bag, and fluffed up his pillow.
“Come on, Ricky. This is a great movie. It’ll scare your socks off,” Brad said.
Ricky sighed, casting a longing look at the popcorn and the VCR, but said, “No. I’m going to sleep. Good night, guys.”
Jason threw his pillow at Ricky. “Hey, how come you’re such a party pooper?”
“He promised his mom and dad that he’d be in bed by ten,” Steve said as he got out a big bag of candy.
“Ricky, they’ll never know what time you went to bed if you don’t tell them,” Jason said.
“Yeah,” Brad urged. “We won’t squeal on you.”
“Let him alone, you guys,” Steve said. “Have some candy.”
Brad got up. “Let’s go find some more stuff to eat before we start the movie.”
Ricky rolled over, away from the glare of the TV. He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. He thought it would be hard to fall asleep, but it was easy. He never even heard the rustling of cookie and candy wrappers, the opening of pop bottles, the joking and giggling, and the scary movie music.
The next day was a perfect day for baseball. The sun shone brightly on the green grass and tan dirt of the diamond.
Steve had pitched only part of the first inning before his stomachache had gotten so bad that he’d had to leave the game. Now it was the last inning. The Dodgers were ahead, 5–3, but the Giants had one more chance to bat. Jason was pitching. He walked the first four Giants, so the score became 5–4, the bases were still loaded, and there was still nobody out.
The coach walked out to the pitching mound and talked to Jason, then looked around at the other players. His eyes stopped on Ricky. He waved at Ricky, calling him in.
“Just throw strikes, Ricky,” the coach said, handing him the ball. “You’re playing well today. I know you can do it.”
Ricky threw some warm-up pitches, and the umpire asked if he was ready. Ricky nodded. The batter stepped up. Ricky looked around at his teammates and checked the runners. If he walked a single batter, the game would be tied. If two runners got in, the game would be over, and the Giants would win. Ricky looked in at the batter. The kid was grinning.
Ricky paused and said a silent prayer. Then he wound up and threw the baseball hard.
“Outside and low—ball one!” the umpire yelled.
Ricky tried another fastball.
“High! Ball two!”
The next pitch hit the dirt in front of the batter.
“Ball three!”
Ricky kicked at the dirt and looked in at the batter, who was grinning bigger than ever. Ricky could hear the Giants cheering. He thought of the times he and Steve had worked together on pitching. Steve had told him not to worry about the batter. Just think about the target. Get the ball into the catcher’s mitt.
Ricky looked at the catcher and his mitt. Then he wound up and threw.
“Steee-rike!”
Ricky threw another strike. The batter just watched it, expecting to stand there and be walked.
Ricky pitched again.
“Strike three! You’re out,” the umpire yelled.
The Dodger fans cheered, and Ricky heard Brad behind him yell, “Come on, Ricky! You can do it!”
The next batter swung at the first pitch and missed. He wasn’t going to just stand there. Ricky pitched again, and the batter hit it—right back to Ricky. Ricky grabbed the ball and threw it to the catcher for the force-out at the plate.
Two outs. But the bases were still loaded, and the Giants’ best hitter, Jay Cottrel, was coming up to bat. Jay was big. And he was swinging the bat like he was ready to hit the ball over the fence.
Ricky thought of the catcher’s mitt and pitched.
Crack! The ball sailed through the air.
“Foul ball!” shouted the umpire. “Strike one.”
The Giant fans yelled for Jay. The Dodger fans yelled for Ricky.
Ricky rolled the ball around in his glove. He couldn’t pitch fast enough to get the ball past Jay the way Steve could. Jay was going to hit it. No doubt about it. So don’t let him get a good hit, Ricky thought. Steve had taught him how to put spin on the ball, so Ricky grasped it on the seams the way Steve had showed him.
Ricky took a deep breath. Everyone else was standing and yelling with excitement.
Ricky wound up. He threw the ball, spinning it off his fingers.
Jay swung. The bat cracked against the ball. But the ball went straight up in the air. Ricky called for it and moved under it. Down it came—down, down and smacked into Ricky’s glove. The Giants were out! The Dodgers had won!
All the other Dodgers ran over to Ricky, patting him on the back and giving him high-fives.
“Ricky, you’re a hero!” Jason yelled.
Ricky looked over at his mom and dad in the stands. They were yelling and cheering with the other parents of the Dodgers. He couldn’t help smiling at them. He knew how proud they were of him, and he was glad to know that they could be proud of him even for things that they didn’t know about—like how he kept his promise to them at the sleepover. They might never know that he’d kept that promise. But Ricky would know. And that was even more important.

In the fall of 1920, 21-year-old Ezra Taft Benson traveled from his family’s farm in Whitney, Idaho, USA, to Logan, Utah, where he enrolled at the Utah Agricultural College (now Utah State University). One day when he was with some friends on the school’s campus, a young woman stole his attention. He later recalled:
“We were out by the dairy barns when a young woman—very attractive and beautiful—drove by in her little car on her way to the dairy to get some milk. As the boys waved at her, she waved back. I said, ‘Who is that girl?’ They said ‘That’s Flora Amussen.’
“I told them, ‘You know, I’ve just had the impression I’m going to marry her.’”
Ezra’s friends were amused by this announcement. They said, “She’s too popular for a farm boy.” His response? “That makes it all the more interesting.”3

One morning I was walking up a steep hill on the south side of the Brigham Young University campus when I heard a crash behind me. I turned around and saw a young man lying facedown on the pavement, his bike several yards away in pieces. I stood in shock until he weakly tried to lift his head. Then I hurried toward him, along with four other people who had been walking up the hill.
The student who reached the biker first carefully turned him over, revealing severe cuts on the biker’s lips, nose, chin, and eyebrow. Another student called for help on his cell phone. A young mother standing next to me offered a piece of cloth, and the first student stanched the biker’s bleeding lip with it. A second woman and I stood by, anxiously waiting for paramedics to come.
The injured man’s eyes flickered open, and he looked in confusion at the faces around him.
“Where am I?” he said. “What happened?”
The student holding the cloth to his lips answered, “You’re on the south side of campus. You crashed your bike.”
The biker groaned. “It hurts,” he said. “Help me.”
The student said that help was on the way and asked the young man his name.
“David,” he said, sobbing softly. “Where am I?” he asked again.
An older man in a suit—likely a professor—approached and asked David if he wanted a blessing. He nodded gratefully.
The professor paused. “I don’t have any oil, though,” he said, looking around. Those nearby shook their heads. The injured young man groaned and feebly gestured toward his pocket. The student next to him reached inside it and pulled out a large key ring with a small vial of consecrated oil attached.
“He has some!” exclaimed the student.
The biker calmed down as soon as the professor and the male students laid their hands on his head and gave him a blessing. A feeling of calm came over me too as the professor promised the young man that he would recover, be at peace, and draw nearer to the Savior through this experience.
Soon the paramedics came and took the biker away. As I walked to class, I realized that he carried consecrated oil with him so he could use the priesthood to bless someone in need. This day, however, he himself was blessed. I left with a deep feeling of love for faithful men who live ready to bless others and for the Lord, who also blesses them.

Just off the road on the far end of the island of Tubuai, Ronny Harevaa and his wife, Sandrine, tidy up the ground around a small stone monument. It is dedicated to the memory of Elder Addison Pratt, the first Latter-day Saint missionary to visit this island 450 miles (700 km) south of Tahiti. Addison Pratt grew up in New Hampshire in the United States of America, but at age 19 he became a seafarer. He traveled to what are now the Hawaiian Islands, then sailed the Pacific, Atlantic, Caribbean, and Mediterranean before marrying and settling in New York. In 1838 he and his wife joined the Church. By 1841 they had gathered with the Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois. In May 1843 Addison Pratt was called by the Prophet Joseph Smith to help begin missionary work in the Pacific. On April 30, 1844, he and two other elders, Noah Rogers and Benjamin Grouard, arrived on Tubuai.
The islanders were eager to have a missionary among them, and Elder Pratt remained. He began learning Tahitian and preaching. The first convert was his interpreter, another American. Six of seven sailors on the island were also baptized and confirmed. Then on July 22, 1844—three years before Latter-day Saint pioneers arrived in Utah—the first Polynesian converts were baptized. By February 1845, 60 of the 200 inhabitants of Tubuai had joined the Church. From these beginnings and from the work of Elder Rogers and Elder Grouard on other islands, the Church spread throughout what is now French Polynesia.

I was invited to a swimming birthday party. I was really excited until I read on the invitation that the party was on Sunday. My mom and dad said to think and pray about it, so I did. I called and told my friend that I couldn’t come, and instead I went to church. I felt good inside for keeping the Sabbath day holy.
Britanni Good, age 8La Grande, Oregon

Amanda Smith grabbed her two daughters and escaped across the millpond on a walkway. When the mob finally entered the blacksmith shop, seven-year-old Alma Smith saw them murder his father and brother. He himself was severely shot in the hip. His mother later found him, and through prayer and by following the instructions of the Spirit, he was healed. At least seventeen people were killed at Haun’s Mill and thirteen others were wounded.

The priesthood continued to strengthen me through a postoperative infection and a serious fever. One night during this time my brother-in-law came to the hospital and gave me a blessing. My temperature had been rising all day, but after the blessing it steadily declined. I was amazed but not surprised.

Once we found a crawfish hole. We tied chicken on a string.
We caught crawfish by the bunch. When they pinched us, we would scream.

As the Bible declares, the true Church of Jesus Christ is “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone” (Ephesians 2:20). I experienced an application of that fundamental principle of the restored gospel many years ago.
A member of the Church brought her neighbor to my office. The neighbor’s husband was a Protestant minister with a large congregation. For many years, this couple had served the Lord with great diligence in their Christian ministry. He had baptized many people into that church.
Now, through the influence of his Latter-day Saint neighbors, he had read the Book of Mormon and was converted to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was ready to resign his ministry and join the restored Church. But first, he and his wife needed an answer to their question regarding priesthood authority. Reminding me that her husband had baptized many people, his wife asked, “Are you telling me that my husband didn’t have any authority to baptize all the people that he baptized?”
The Spirit prompted my answer, as it will in these situations.
“No,” I said. “I’m sure your husband had authority to baptize all the people that he baptized. He had all the authority that his church could give him. He could perform marriages. He could make people members of the congregation. He could hire a contractor to put a new roof on your church. But that isn’t the kind of authority we’re discussing. The authority in your question is the authority that Jesus gave to Peter, that whatsoever he did on earth would be honored in heaven (see Matthew 16:19). And because that divine authority must be traceable to Apostles, it exists only in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

I have always known that Jesus Christ, the promised Messiah, came to earth 2,000 years ago and that we have a living prophet of God on the earth today. But my father, Roy Swartzberg, who was raised as a Jew, did not always know.
Growing up in an Orthodox Jewish home in South Africa, my dad knew about the Old Testament prophets, like Moses and Elijah, and he knew of the miracles they performed. When he heard about Moses parting the Red Sea or Elijah calling down fire from heaven, he marveled at the things these men could do for the people and wondered why there were no prophets on the earth today.
It was shortly after my dad’s bar mitzvah that he first heard about the Prophet Joseph Smith. At the time he was living with his Jewish grandparents. His mother had passed away, and his father had remarried and joined the Church.
One afternoon my dad’s older brother, Mark, sat down with him and told him that he had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He then told my dad about Joseph Smith, the First Vision, and the Restoration of the gospel and prophets to the earth. My dad says that something felt very right as he listened to his older brother bear testimony, and my dad already had faith in Heavenly Father and in prophets. To him, this was glorious news! There were prophets on the earth, and people once again spoke with God. He felt himself wishing it to be true.
After sharing his testimony with my dad, Mark invited him to pray about it. But as a Jewish boy, he had prayed only in Hebrew, standing up and facing in the direction of Jerusalem, the Holy City. Mark explained how Latter-day Saints pray: kneeling, with arms folded to show reverence. This was new to him. He knelt to offer his first personal prayer to Heavenly Father.
Although the news about prophets felt right to my dad and he had a good feeling after his prayer, he did not decide to listen to the missionaries right away.
Soon he and his brother were sent to live with their step-grandparents, who were members of the Church. On Sundays the family would attend their Sabbath meetings, but my dad continued to go to the synagogue every Friday night and Saturday morning to observe the Jewish Sabbath.
He began, however, to attend Mutual activities with his brother, and when the seminary program was introduced in South Africa, he went to that too. There he learned about the Book of Mormon. The first scripture he ever memorized that wasn’t in Hebrew was 1 Nephi 3:7: “I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.”
The missionaries were diligent in visiting him once a week, and after a while he started attending sacrament meeting in addition to his synagogue meetings. Finally, as he gained a testimony of Jesus Christ as the Messiah, he decided to listen to the missionary lessons. My dad was baptized on Christmas Day in 1973—the first time he celebrated the Savior’s birth.

The annual crop of sugar beets isn’t the only thing that makes Sugar City, Idaho, a sweet place to be. A small group of boys in the senior class at Salem High School in Sugar City, who are all priests in the Sugar City Idaho Stake, decided that they would make Valentine’s Day special for all the girls at their school.
The boys got a red rose for every woman and girl in the school and arranged with the principal to present them at a special Valentine’s Day assembly during the last hour of school on February 14. Not a single girl knew about the assembly ahead of time, since all the boys talked about their plans in code, calling it “Project A.”
It’s an idea that the girls fell in love with.

It seems that some among us have this same problem; they want bountiful harvests—both spiritual and temporal—without developing the root system that will yield them. There are far too few who are willing to pay the price, in discipline and work, to cultivate hardy roots. Such cultivation should begin in our youth. Little did I know as a boy that daily chores in the garden, feeding the cattle, carrying the water, chopping the wood, mending fences, and all the labor of a small farm was an important part of sending down roots, before being called on to send out branches. I’m so grateful that my parents understood the relationship between roots and branches. Let us each cultivate deep roots, so that we may secure the desired fruits of our welfare labors.

One group of young men built a canoe together and planned a trip in it one summer. In the process, they learned some valuable skills, had fun, and reached out to include less-active young men from their quorum.

As I was preparing this talk, I received an unexpected email from someone in the process of repenting and desiring to return to the Church. His former wife was still suffering from the loss “of [their] eternal marriage, [difficulties with the children], the loss of financial security, … not [being] quite able to keep up with expenses, [and] the deeply suffocating feelings of being betrayed.”

He shared with me how his priesthood leader “felt impressed to [ask him] to prayerfully consider what [more he could do for his former wife and children].” With permission, I share a part of his email:
“I [first] thought the [money] I gave up in the divorce decree was more than generous, but my branch president encouraged me to fast and pray about it. …
“Initially, I struggled with the idea of further restitution. Since my sins weren’t financial, I wondered what a ‘generous restitution’ truly meant … [but] I soon realized it wasn’t just about money.
“My priesthood leaders met with [my former wife] and my children and realized they were still struggling and hadn’t healed. …
“My new goal was to move forward with faith. … I simply expressed my desire to help with no strings attached. … I decided to [send my former wife a specific amount] per paycheck, which was a significant portion of my net pay. Just before making the first payment, the Lord [impressed upon my mind that I needed] to pay [twice that amount].
“I’ve learned that restitution isn’t just about money. It’s about humbly dedicating my life to the Lord. … The money is to help replace what I took from my family due to my poor choices. It’s about making and keeping promises without expecting anything in return and helping her not worry about bills so she can seek the Spirit.”