Gospel Story Finder

In Civil War days a performer named Blondin astonished the country by crossing the Niagara River on a tightrope. On one occasion President Abraham Lincoln faced a delegation of critics and said:

Gentlemen, suppose all the property you possessed were in gold, and you had placed it in the hands of a Blondin to carry across the Niagara River on a rope. With slow, cautious steps he walks the rope, bearing your all. Would you shake the cable and keep shouting at him, “Blondin stand up a little straighter; Blondin, stoop a little more; go a little faster; lean more to the South; now lean a little more to the North?” Would that be your behavior in such an emergency? No, you would hold your breath, every one of you, as well as your tongues. You would keep your hands off until he was safe on the other side.

This government, gentlemen, is carrying an immense weight. Untold treasures are in its hands. The persons managing the ship of state in this storm are doing the best they can. Don’t worry them with needless warnings and complaints. Keep silence; be patient, and we will get you safe across. [John Wesley Hill, Abraham Lincoln: Man of God (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons), p. 402]

I’ll start with a small confession. I had never read the entire Book of Mormon until I was in the Missionary Training Center. Oh, I had made valiant efforts before—even using the seminary student manual to guide me. But I always lost interest or got bogged down by mid-Alma.
But in the MTC, I caught on fire when it came to the Book of Mormon. I used every free moment I had to read—sometimes 20 pages a day. For me it was all new and exciting. My patriarchal blessing had promised me that I would be “surprised at the satisfaction” I could gain from reading the scriptures, and I was beginning to see the fulfillment of that promise.
Several weeks later, I was in Penns Grove, New Jersey, with my first companion, Elder Rumsey. We had been teaching an older, single woman who always had the most unusual concerns, worries they don’t teach you about in the MTC. For instance, she wondered that if men changed and corrupted the Bible as they translated it, couldn’t Joseph Smith have done the same thing with the Book of Mormon? Her questions always kept us on our toes.
One day, she had been reading toward the end of 2 Nephi when she became disturbed by some of Nephi’s statements. In 2 Nephi 30:18 and 31:1 [2 Ne. 30:18; 2 Ne. 31:1], she had noticed Nephi had used phrases like “my sayings” and “my prophesying.” To our investigator, it sounded like Nephi was taking the credit for the marvelous things he had written instead of acknowledging that the Lord had inspired him. She declared that Nephi, therefore, must not be a true prophet.
“Let’s look at the end of 2 Nephi,” I said.
If you had asked me right then what was at the end of 2 Nephi, I couldn’t have told you. I had read 2 Nephi 33, of course, but not in several weeks, and I certainly hadn’t memorized any verses from it. I stepped out on a limb, but with amazing confidence. I wasn’t the least bit afraid that I wouldn’t be able to find an answer to our investigator’s problem. I know it was the Spirit that caused me to suggest looking there because I certainly wouldn’t have thought of it on my own.
As soon as we turned to chapter 33, a verse I had previously marked caught my attention. I read aloud the second half of verse 10. [2 Ne. 33:10]
“And if ye shall believe in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me.”
There! Pow! Nephi gave credit to the Lord exactly as our investigator thought he should.
Doctrine and Covenants 84:85 [D&C 84:85] sayss to “treasure up in your minds continually the words of life, and it shall be given you in the very hour that portion that shall be meted unto every man.”
I know that through my study of the scriptures the Lord was able to bless me with the perfect answer to our investigator’s question. That day I was able to say, with Nephi, that my words were “the words of Christ, and he hath given them unto me.”

Before each game at BYU the captains of the two teams meet at the center circle with the referees and go through a meaningless ritual where nothing of real significance is said. But on the day we played Notre Dame, a referee friend of mine said something during that meeting that really hit home with me. He said, “Men, we referees are going to work hard tonight. We’re going to make some mistakes, but you work hard too.”
I remembered his words, and the game began. During the last few minutes, I went up for a rebound, and a bigger Notre Dame player knocked me to the floor. As I lay there, I looked up, and the referee pointed down and indicated that the foul was on me. Surprised at his decision, I got up off the floor. I smiled at the referee and said, “You know, you were right in what you said before the game.” He looked at me with a puzzled expression. I continued, “You said you were going to make some mistakes tonight, and you just made a big one.” We looked at each other, and we both had a good laugh and continued to play.

I used to find it difficult to use my beliefs as a response to a question as simple as “Why don’t you drink coffee?” In the past I came up with excuses like “It’s too bitter” or “I don’t like the taste.”
Why was I embarrassed? Why was I so afraid to stand up for what I believe? Looking back now, I don’t understand exactly what I feared. But I do remember exactly when I stopped hiding behind excuses.
One day in my high school English class, the teacher announced that we’d be viewing an episode of a TV show I knew I shouldn’t watch. While other students cheered in excitement, my classmate Sarah raised her hand and asked if she could leave.
When the teacher asked why, Sarah responded matter-of-factly, “Because I’m Mormon and I don’t watch shows with profanity.”
Her courage to stand up in front of the class was amazing. Thanks to Sarah, I too stood up and waited outside with a clear conscience for the show to finish.
I was forever changed. I started explaining my beliefs instead of avoiding the subject. And as a result, I found confidence in myself and participated even more in Church and school activities.
I never told Sarah how much her example meant to me, but I try to emulate her example of confidence. I now realize that being a member of God’s wonderful, sacred Church is absolutely nothing to be ashamed about. I hope that I can, through my example, be someone else’s Sarah.

Here is an example from our own experience. When our twins were born, they were children numbers six and seven.
We had hired a contractor to add bedrooms to our house. The plan was for the bedrooms to be done before the twins were born. Well, the twins arrived on time in September, but the new bedrooms weren't finished until the following February. We lived in the middle of a construction project with two brand new babies. We put the two baby girls in a tiny bedroom just big enough for two cribs and a place on the floor for Sue and me to sit while we fed the babies in the middle of every night.
In that experience and many others, Sue and I learned that when parents bring to the Lord the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit, He blesses them.
When they act with faith in Christ to sacrifice for their children, the Lord blesses parents with strength and spiritual gifts, including His pure and perfect love.
Because they sacrifice in faith, parents can teach, guide, and nurture their children with Christ-like love.
The children are not only sealed to their parents forever, but those sacred bonds of love grow and strengthen because the Savior sanctifies the sacrifice of faithful parents.

My soccer team went to a tournament on a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. My mom asked me what I was going to do about Sunday’s game. I said I didn’t know what to do. My dad encouraged me to pray, so I prayed about it. That night, the song “Nephi’s Courage” got stuck in my head. I knew Heavenly Father answered my prayers through that song so I would remember to have courage to obey His commandments. On Sunday after church, I knew my team was playing. I was a little sad that I couldn’t help my team, but I knew I was doing the right thing. I am glad that Heavenly Father helped me make the right choice, even though it was hard to make.

The stake coordinated days and times with the temple presidency so the youth could do baptisms and confirmations during a three-day school break. Baptisms were scheduled among the wards so they went nonstop all day and into the evening. At one point the boiler in the temple broke down and the water in the font was getting cold. The temple president considered postponing the baptisms, but the young men and women wanted to keep going. After offering a prayer, they kept doing baptisms, and the boiler was fixed about six hours later.

By now our children had joined with us in the discussions, and the two sisters who had originally knocked on our door had been replaced by another pair of lady missionaries. I would put the baby in his playpen, and then we’d start bombarding the missionaries with question after question. We found that the two sticks mentioned in prophecy were the Bible and the Book of Mormon. “Do we get to see the Book of Mormon? When? When can I read it? Next discussion?” This was going to be a long week—I could hardly wait.
The week was long. I kept thinking about the Book of Mormon and could hardly wait to get my hands on it. The day finally arrived, and I hoped in my heart they wouldn’t forget the Book of Mormon. I even thought they might finally have a cup of coffee with us.
As we discussed the Book of Mormon, they told me of a wonderful promise contained in it. Yes, we’d give it a try. We’d pray about it.
It took only a few pages of the Book of Mormon to convince me that it was true. It’s true! This is the word of God! And so, each morning at 6:00 I would take my cup of coffee out on the back steps of the house in the cool morning air and read until the children woke up. How forceful were the words! Who could ever deny, after reading this book, that it was the word of God? It is the word of God! What a feeling of excitement, of discovery, of awe, of warmth, of wonder.

When 21-year-old Gisela Silva moved with her family from Mendoza, Argentina, to the nation’s southernmost city of Ushuaia, she wondered whether she’d left behind her chances of marrying in the temple. Mendoza, after all, has a stake filled with wards of Latter-day Saints, while isolated Ushuaia—located on the island of Tierra del Fuego—has only about 600 members attending three small branches.
“My parents had married in the temple, and I wanted this blessing for myself—to marry a faithful member of the Church, someone with whom I could form an eternal family,” she recalls. “But when I arrived in Ushuaia, there were so few young adults here that I wondered whether that would happen.”
Lucas Romano had the same concerns as Gisela. During his mission to Uruguay, his family had moved to Ushuaia. When he joined them after completing his mission, he quickly noticed that young single adult men outnumbered young single adult women. He was determined, nevertheless, to obey the counsel of local leaders to date only members of the Church.
That counsel became easier to follow after Lucas met Gisela at church and she enrolled in English classes at a school where he teaches. He began walking her home after class, and they soon began dating. As they prayed individually about their growing relationship, they say that confirmation came “line upon line, precept upon precept” (2 Nephi 28:30; D&C 98:12).
In April 2005, Lucas and Gisela married civilly, as required by Argentine law, and then were sealed in the Buenos Aires Argentina Temple. Their sealing was significant for the young Church membership in Ushuaia: it was the first of 17 temple marriages in less than four years.

Great Bushfire Danger Today!
That was the headline in the newspaper that Ross read as he buttered his toast. It was only eight o’clock, and the heat was already thick.
Ross looked outside the screen door at the paddocks and the peach orchard. It was early January in southeastern Australia, and the land was brown from the heat of a summer drought. Across the fields and all the way to the dam the grass shimmered in a hot wind. “It’s going to be a scorcher, Mum,” Ross said. “May we go to the beach?”
“No, Ross,” his mother answered. “I must run to town to do some shopping, and I want you to be here while I’m gone. I don’t like the feel of that north wind.”
“All the men are on fire alert,” Ross told her. Then he asked hopefully, “Will Dad take me with him if there’s a fire?”
Mum ignored his question and eyed five-year-old Colin, who was teasing the dog in the yard. “I’ll be back sooner if I leave Colin with you and your older sister,” she said. The bleat and blare of a radio announced Marion’s whereabouts deep inside the house. “Anyway,” Mum added, “your father’s already left for the day.”
Ross grunted as he bit into his toast. This vacation is so boring that I might as well be at school, he thought. With a long sigh, he picked up his plate and took it to the sink. Then he started outside to the chicken house.
Caring for the chooks (chickens) was his chore. Ross gathered the eggs and sorted them for sale. Then he cleaned the coops and refilled the water containers. He filled cans with feed and let the chooks squawk at his ankles as he tossed the grain into their feeding trays outside.
Dust flew up in the yard as the quarreling chickens pecked away. A few scuttled under the shade of a eucalyptus tree at the end of the enclosure. It was getting hotter and hotter.
His shirt was sticking to his back as Ross climbed the ladder to inspect the water tank.
Ross’s father had placed a huge corrugated iron tank on the roof of the chicken house, from which pipes led to the watering trays. There was another, larger tank next to the main house, for every drop of rain that fell in this parched country was precious.
Ross peered into the tank. When he holloed into its dark, warm interior, an echo holloed back. Not much water, Ross thought. The surface of the water must be two-thirds of the way down the tank.
From his perch Ross looked across at the dam. Even browner than the surrounding landscape, the water hole had shrunk from its normal half-acre size and had exposed its cracked earthen bank. Ross guessed that at its center the water behind the dam was not more than six feet deep now.
Swiveling around to face the northern hills before descending, Ross noticed something. Is it smoke? he wondered.
Ross was scrambling down the ladder when Marion burst from the house, shouting, “Ross, quick! It’s on the radio. A bushfire’s started in the ranges, and it’s getting bigger.”
Ross felt a surge of excitement and fear. Dad would be among the firefighters if the bushfire spread closer. And in this heat, with the drought and the wind, it surely would.
Ross and Marion ran inside. With Mum in town, what should we do? Ross worried. Save the house? the chooks? ourselves? But how?
Marion was already pulling blankets off the beds. “Colin, help me!” she directed as she dragged the blankets through the door into the dust of the yard and across the paddock to the dam, where their best chance of safety lay.
Ross dashed outside. The north wind was like a foul breath. He could smell the fire now, although it was still miles away in the hills. Bits of soot and singed leaves whirled past.
Marion was back. “I left Colin by the dam,” she said.
Ross glanced over and saw his brother playing on the blankets.
“Ross, help me with the sandbags, please,” Marion said.
They ran to the woodshed and dragged out several heavy burlap sandbags. Ross hauled his to the chook house. Marion pulled hers under the water tank at the main house.
Turning on the spigots, they soaked each bag, careful to turn off the water in between soaks. Then Ross piled the bags side by side around the outside of the wire chicken runs.
“It won’t help if the sun dries the bags before the fire comes,” Ross told Marion when he came over to help her with the harder job of protecting the house. To save time, he piled dry bags around the back of the house, then turned on the hose.
Only a trickle came out. Ross followed the hose back to the faucet, flattening out its kinks, but only a little more water came through.
At the back of his mind he worried about Mum. He hoped she had not already left town for home. If she had, she could be cut off on the road by the fire. Here at least was the dam.
Suddenly Marion yelled, “The radio says the fire’s out of control now. It’s heading south. That’s us!”
Time to go. The children stumbled hand in hand over the field and across the rise to the dam. There was their safety. But where was Colin?
There was no sign of the five-year-old. Ross felt panic rising. Could he have drowned? They scanned the water but could see nothing.
Marion and Ross spread out, searching. Up to the house they ran, around to the dog-house, then to the orchard. Colin’s toy cart filled with peaches was there. He had obviously tried to save the crop. But where was he?
All of a sudden there was a terrific cackling from the chook house, and a barking dog ran out.
Hens flew and scurried in all directions. The dog yapped, nudging the terrified birds toward the dam. Then Ross saw a tow-headed figure chasing the chickens with a stick and yelling. It was Colin.
“The chooks! The chooks! Don’t let them burn!” the little boy cried, as his brother and sister half dragged him to the water’s edge.
The three almost fell down the bank, carrying the blankets with them. After soaking the blankets, they covered themselves with them and crawled into the shallow water with the dog, while the screeching chickens crammed over the banks and scrabbled for perches above them.
Just in time! Huge red flames spread over the grass paddocks to their right. Soot flew into their faces, and the children coughed and buried their smarting eyes in the blankets. There was a popping noise as the eucalyptus tree by the chicken run exploded.
The children waited, terrified, for another explosion to tell them that the house had gone. There was none. The roar of the giant flames swept beyond them.
Colin put his head up first. “Fire’s gone!” he yelled. It was true. The fire, finding little but dust and wire in the chicken house and guided by a changing wind, had veered off to the east. Behind it the fields were charred, the orchard was half-gone, the chook house was totally gutted—but the house was still standing!
As the children stared at the devastation, they heard shouts, which quickly grew louder. The volunteer firefighters—including Dad—came roaring up on a fire truck. And Mum was with them, happy tears streaming down her face at seeing the children safe.
“You kids were your own fire department,” Dad said, hugging each of them.
“And we’ve no roast chooks, thanks to Colin,” Ross said happily.

I listened not long ago to an example of one who surely seemed to lack this inner courage. A friend told of a spiritual and faith-promoting sacrament meeting she and her husband had attended in their ward. A young man who held the office of priest in the Aaronic Priesthood touched the hearts of the entire congregation as he spoke of gospel truths and of the joys of keeping the commandments. He bore a fervent, touching testimony as he stood at the pulpit, appearing clean and neat in his white shirt and tie.

Later that same day, as this woman and her husband drove out of their neighborhood, they saw this same young man who had so inspired them just a few hours earlier. Now, however, he presented a completely different picture as he walked down the sidewalk dressed in scruffy clothes—and smoking a cigarette. My friend and her husband were not only greatly disappointed and saddened, but they were also confused by how he could so convincingly seem to be one person in sacrament meeting and then so quickly seem to be someone else entirely.

Brethren, are you the same person wherever you are and whatever you are doing—the person our Heavenly Father wants you to be and the person you know you should be?

In an interview published in a national magazine, well-known American NCAA basketball player Jabari Parker, a member of the Church, was asked to share the best advice he had received from his father. Replied Jabari, “[My father] said, Just be the same person you are in the dark that you are in the light.” Important advice, brethren, for all of us.

She was my best friend, the one I had grown up with and known since that first frightful day of first grade. Since then we had shared everything from doll cradles and humpty-dumpty cookies to high school classes and slumber parties. There was only one big difference between us. You see, she did not yet know the truth and I did.
It took me 12 long years to realize that the gospel belonged not only to me but to her too and that it was through me that she might be able to find it.
I took my problem to our missionaries, thinking I would give the job to them; but I was fooled.
“You ask her and we’ll teach her,” they said.
Teaching her seemed to be no problem. I had the most difficult job of all.
I called her on the phone.
“Hey, how would you like to come and see a movie at my house tonight?” I said. “The new missionaries in our ward are showing it.”
She came. She saw the film and left without saying much about it.
A week later the elders dropped by. “Have you set up a time when she can hear the gospel?” they asked.
“Well, she hasn’t really said much about the movie. I didn’t know whether to ask her again or not.”
“Call her and ask her,” said one. He was the type who hated wasting time. Well, I couldn’t argue with an elder, so hesitantly, shakily, I picked up the receiver and dialed. I’ve always wondered why things like this are so hard.
“Hi, Cheryl,” I said. “I was wondering … well, the elders are here now and … well, I was just wondering if sometime you’d like to come and … learn some more about the Church?”
There was a long pause.
“Well, yeah, I guess so.”
I breathed a sigh of relief. “When can you come?”
“Anytime you want me to, I guess.”
“Tomorrow night?”
“Yeah, that’s all right.”
I turned to the elders. “Is tomorrow night all right?”
They nodded enthusiastically. “You bet!”
“Hey thanks, Cheryl,” I said as I started to hang up.
“Just a minute, Patti.” she said. “I want you to know that I’m not going to agree with what they say.”
“Oh, that’s okay. Just come!”
“But I might argue with them, and I don’t want to.”
“If you want to disagree with them, it’s all right. They don’t mind.”
The second step was taken. By the end of the fourth visit she hadn’t argued once. In fact, she had agreed wholeheartedly with everything the elders had told her. That night the younger elder was speaking, and as he closed he looked at her and said, “We would like to set up a baptism for you on Saturday. How about it?”
The older elder gasped. He hadn’t expected it to come so soon. My heart beat faster, and all I could do was hold my breath. There was silence for a moment.
Cheryl nodded and said, “Yes.”
I did not move, but I started to tremble when they asked her to pray.
She prayed, a very simple and beautiful prayer.
I kept my head bowed. I could not look up. The missionaries left in silence.
Then I felt her arms around me, and we both wept together.
“Patti,” she said, smiling through her tears, “thank you.”
She was thanking me for something she could only give herself, thanking me, when she had given me the greatest gift I could ever hope to receive—her acceptance of my most precious possession, the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Robert was in third grade when he designed his first website and has since been teaching himself more about computers and programming.
How did you learn about programming and computer design? My older brother Steven, who is in college now, was into computers, and I saw him programming and making websites, and I thought that was pretty cool. So he probably got me interested in computers and programming, and from there I just taught myself.

May brings Teacher Appreciation Week, and youth of the Jurupa California Stake did not let their teachers be forgotten. Each student invited the best teacher he or she had ever had to a teacher appreciation dinner held at the stake center.
During the dinner, the young men and young women provided musical entertainment, and Bishop David Hanson of the Jurupa Fourth Ward spoke about Christ as the Master Teacher. Many of the 50 teachers who attended the dinner wrote thank-you notes commenting on how impressed they are with the youth of the Church and with the Church’s emphasis on education.

Angela Vildor, a Laurel, moved to the Bahamas from Haiti a few years ago with her family. With the move came many changes, including learning English—a real challenge since she had spent her entire life speaking Haitian Creole. One afternoon a friend of hers invited her to a free English class sponsored by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Angela readily accepted the invitation.
“I met the missionaries in English class,” she says. “They gave me a Book of Mormon and later they talked to me about it. I told them that when I read the Book of Mormon, I felt very strong; it was a very different feeling. They explained that what I was feeling was the Spirit.”
Soon after Angela told the missionaries about her feelings, she was taught the missionary discussions and was baptized. A few weeks later, Angela’s younger sister, Annette, was also baptized. Together, the two of them help each other learn more about the gospel and share it with the rest of their family and their friends.

Marty was excited. Marty was scared. Today was his first day of real school. Not preschool at the little school down the street.
“This school is miles away,” Marty told his stuffed bear, Chipper, as he pulled on his socks.
“Hundreds—maybe thousands—of kids go to real school,” Marty told Chipper as he zipped his new jeans.
“Maybe I won’t find one friend at the real school,” he said as he buttoned his shirt. “I wish you could go to school with me. Then I’d have at least one friend.”
Slowly, Marty picked up his new backpack. It felt light in his hands.
“I only have crayons and pencils and my new drawing tablet in the backpack,” Marty thought. He smiled. “Yes! You’ll fit right inside too,” he said, and tucked Chipper inside before pulling the pack over one shoulder.
The school looked even bigger when Mother helped Marty find his classroom. It looked like there were hundreds—maybe millions—of kids inside. He didn’t know one of them! But at least he had Chipper with him.
Marty watched the children in his classroom hanging their backpacks on the hooks against the wall. One girl put her backpack on a table, unzipped her bag, and pulled out her crayons and pencils and drawing paper before hanging it up.
“Oh no!” Marty thought. He’d have to unzip his backpack right in front of everyone. Suddenly, having Chipper along didn’t seem like such a good idea. All the children would call him a baby!
Marty stood at the back of the room. He put his backpack on the table and wished he could unzip it just a little bit so no one could see Chipper. But the drawing tablet was large. It would never come out.
A boy just his size stood beside him. He stood with his hand on the zipper of his backpack too. He wasn’t pulling it either.
“Please hang up your backpacks and bring your tablets, pencils, and crayons to your seats, boys,” the teacher said. “We will all draw pictures about our story today.”
Marty moved the zipper on his backpack down just a bit. The boy beside him did the very same thing. Marty pulled his zipper down a tiny bit more. Just enough for one of Chipper’s fuzzy brown arms to pop right out!
Marty’s face grew hot. He looked at his feet.
“Boys!” the teacher called. Marty looked back at his backpack.
The boy beside him did the very same thing. Marty looked at the other boy’s backpack. There was a fuzzy brown arm sticking out of his backpack too!
Marty looked at the boy. “I’m Marty,” he said.
“I’m Hank,” the boy said.
Marty unzipped his backpack and took out his tablet, pencils, and crayons. Then he hung up his bag. Hank did the same. Somehow, Marty didn’t think either of them would need to bring their stuffed bear friends to school again.

My mother was born of Puerto Rican parents working in the sugar industry in La Romana, Dominican Republic in 1913. Both of her parents died in 1916 within months of one another when she was almost three years old. Puerto Rican neighbors raised her until she married and moved to Puerto Rico with her little family in 1930. My mother never found any paperwork on the birth or death of her parents or where they were buried. I felt this was my chance to do some digging and find what my mother could not find.
One Sunday we decided to visit a ward in La Romana. It happened to be Mother’s Day. I shared my story with the sisters in Relief Society with hopes that someone could help. A kind sister who happened to work in the civil registry of the town said she would research the archives for me. A few weeks later she said she could not find anything. An official registry was not kept, by law, until the 1930s. Some records were destroyed by floods or fire or just stored under poor conditions causing them to deteriorate. I gave her my sisters’ names and birth dates and the towns in which they were born. No records found. I was devastated. What do I do now?
With nowhere to turn I immersed myself in FamilySearch. I had found documentation on my grandmother in Puerto Rico before she left to La Romana in a census. I found a ship manifest that listed my grandmother traveling with a newborn (my mother) to Puerto Rico twice. The last time was within the year she had passed. I now knew the town she was from, my mother’s real birthday and who they visited. This was a real treasure. My mother was an orphan with no real information, and now I had a place to start.
Although I had not found what I was looking for, we took the time to visit all the places my mother talked about. I was able to get a feel for what life must have been like in the early days of the twentieth century living in a sugar cane industry town. This gave me renewed faith in continuing my search for more information.
As I continued to search further back through my grandparents’ lines, I found many wonderful treasures. I found that my family line in Puerto Rico dates to early explorers in the Caribbean. Some had served as governors in the Dominican Republic. Some were sea captains, farmers, and businessmen. Some were maids, seamstresses, and some of nobility. I was able to do the temple work for many there in the Santo Domingo Dominican Republic Temple where we volunteered as ordinance workers once a week. I was beginning to feel a closeness to my ancestors that I thought I would never experience. My excitement and joy in the work I was doing carried me through times of disappointments. I knew that if I kept looking, I would be able to find many more, and I did.
My time in the Dominican Republic was cut short because of the pandemic, but not before finding my family and learning more about my rich Caribbean roots. The tapestry of my family lines is rich with stories of courage and faith. At one time, I thought I would not be able to complete my four generations with temple work, at least not in this life. But now I have gone well beyond four generations. Elder and Sister Soares said in the last RootsTech that one purpose of temple work was to unite the past with the present and the future. I have felt this each time as my grandchildren enter the temple to do the work for these sweet people I never knew existed. I can honestly say I now know them and love them. They are my family.

Like many of you, I am frequently before those who are not of our faith, and the challenge is great and wonderful. Not long ago I was given a little honor before a great group of non-Latter-day Saint athletes. In the proceedings of the convention, one of my great idols, a Hall of Famer, was to take the rostrum and speak to us. Being the great athlete that he was, respected by many, I was shocked to hear his language as he repeatedly took the name of the Lord in vain. As I sat there, I wondered, “What do you do as a Latter-day Saint in these kinds of social situations?” And then I remembered—again, a great influence in my life—the counsel from a prophet and an experience that he had had one time coming out of surgery. An orderly who was wheeling the prophet back to his hospital room on a little metal cart caught his hand between the door and the cart in the elevator and, not thinking, let go with a few adjectives, taking the name of the Lord in vain in the process. And a prophet, sick as he was physically but very well spiritually, lifted his head and said, “Please don’t talk that way—that’s my best friend.”
Those thoughts went through my mind as I listened to my idol. As he concluded and sat down, I put my hand on his knee and said to him, “You’re terrific! Did you know that when I was growing up I had you on a high pedestal? But, if I might level with you, tonight you fell off that pedestal.”
He said, “Didn’t you like my workshop?”
I said, “I loved it. But every time you opened your mouth, you offended me and a lot of other people out there. I’m going to challenge you tonight, as your friend, to clean up your language.”
I thought of the apostle Paul and Joseph Smith and particularly of a prophet today, Spencer W. Kimball; and I learned on that occasion, as I have on many others, that people really want what you and I have, if we have the courage to give it.

In the fall of 1911, Alma Richards returned to Brigham Young University with the goal of going to the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden. Alma was a twenty-one-year-old high jumper from Parowan, a small town in southern Utah. Before going to BYU the previous year, he had known next to nothing about the Olympics. Then his coach told him he had a shot at competing in the games.
“If you will train consistently for a year and a half,” he said, “you will make the team.”1
At first, Alma thought his coach was joking. He was naturally athletic, but he was taller and heavier than most high jumpers. And he did not have much experience or training in the sport. Rather than scissor kicking or rolling his body horizontally over the high jump bar, as most jumpers did, he would launch himself awkwardly into the air, curling up in a ball as he flew.
But he put his coach’s words to the test. He trained regularly and began excelling in local athletic competitions.2
His desire to excel in his sport led him to keep the Word of Wisdom at a time when the principle was encouraged but not strictly required in the Church. In abstaining from alcohol and tobacco, he trusted the Lord’s promise that those who followed the Word of Wisdom would “run and not be weary” and “walk and not faint.”3
In the spring of 1912, his coach told Alma that he was ready for the Olympic tryouts. “You are one of the fifteen best high jumpers in the world,” he said, “and one of the seven best in the United States.”
Alma Richards stands in the Stockholm stadium at the 1912 Olympic Games.
Alma Richards’s eyes hurt as he peered at the high jump bar. It was the third day of the 1912 Olympics. The sun over Stockholm’s new brown-brick stadium was unbearably bright, irritating an eye infection that had plagued Alma for weeks. When he was not jumping, he wore an old, droopy hat to shade his eyes. But now that his turn had come again, he stepped to the side of the field and tossed his hat into the grass.4
As Alma prepared to jump, his mind raced. There he was, representing his country at the greatest athletic competition in the world. Yet he felt weak, as if the whole world were resting on his shoulders. He thought of Utah, his family, and his hometown. He thought of BYU and the Saints. Bowing his head, he silently asked God to give him strength. “If it is right that I should win,” he prayed, “I will do my best to set a good example all the days of my life.”5
Raising his head, he felt his weakness slip away. He threw his shoulders back, walked up to the starting line, and crouched into position. He then skipped forward in a burst of energy and leapt into the air, tucking his knees beneath his chin. His body barreled forward and sailed over the bar with inches to spare.
After returning from the 1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm, Sweden, Alma Richards was honored in a parade.
On the sidelines, Hans Liesche suddenly looked nervous as he warmed up for his jump. Alma ran in circles to keep his legs limber. If Hans cleared the bar, as Alma was sure he would, the bar would be raised even higher, and Alma would have to jump again.
When Hans launched into his first jump, he fell on the bar and sent it crashing to the ground. Frustrated, he returned to the field and made a second jump. Once again, he knocked the bar off its pegs.
Alma could see that his competitor was losing composure. Just as Hans squared up for his final attempt, a pistol fired nearby, signaling the start of a race. Hans waited for the runners to cross the finish line and then prepared to jump. Before he could, though, a band began playing, and he refused to start. Finally, after nine minutes, an official prodded him to hurry along. With nothing left to do but jump, Hans bounded forward and threw himself into the air.
Once again, he failed to clear the bar.6
Joy washed over Alma. The competition was over. He had won the gold medal and set an Olympic record. Hans came over and heartily congratulated him. Others soon joined in the praise. “You have put Utah on the map,” one man said.
James Sullivan, an official on the American Olympic team, was especially impressed with Alma’s coolness under pressure and wholesome lifestyle. “I wish we had a hundred clean fellows like you on our team,” he said.7
Within days, newspapers across the United States praised Alma’s victory, crediting his success in part to his religion. “They call the winner of the great jump ‘the Mormon giant,’ and he deserves the title,” one reporter wrote. “He is a self-made athlete, and his winning of world renown comes after years of endeavor and a determination inherited from the men who established the Mormon religion and made the desert blossom.”8
One of Alma’s friends, meanwhile, teased him about praying before his winning jump. “I wish you wouldn’t laugh,” Alma quietly responded. “I prayed to the Lord to give me strength to go over that bar, and I went over.”9

Returning from a mission to Hawaii at the age of eighteen, Joseph F. Smith was stopped by drunken men threatening to kill any Mormon they could find. “Are you a ‘Mormon’?” one man demanded of Joseph F. in a loud, angry voice. Without hesitating, Joseph F. looked the man in the eyes and answered boldly, “Yes, siree; dyed in the wool; true blue, through and through!” Surprised, the man took Joseph F.’s hand and said, “Well, you are the … pleasantest man I ever met! Shake, young fellow, I am glad to see a man that stands up for his convictions.” Then he and the other men rode off.