Gospel Story Finder

My son Phillip recently returned from serving a mission in Cape Town, South Africa. But before he was due home, I had a dream about his homecoming, like a revelation, that helped me better understand the wonderful ways of the Lord.
I dreamt that we had gone to pick up my son at Heathrow airport. He hadn’t slept all the way home, so when we saw him, he was so tired that his eyes were bloodshot, and he was so cold. We bought a big quilt and pillows and snuggled him up in the back of the car. He soon fell fast asleep with his head on a pillow against a window.
In my dream, we drove to the London England Temple where we had booked to stay a couple of nights so that we could attend together before setting off home to Cornwall. As we parked, my son was still sound asleep in the back of the car, so we unloaded the car and started taking our things into the accommodation centre. But as I stood at the driver’s door, a lady dressed in a white temple dress approached the car and going straight up to the window where she could see my son sleeping, she gasped and said, “It’s Elder Lawer!” She then started beckoning to others approaching from the temple to come and see. She kept saying excitedly, “It’s Elder Lawer!”
More and more people were coming over to see Elder Lawer. They seemed delighted to see him. They were all dressed in white temple dresses, but I noticed that they had hairstyles from different eras. As I studied them, I could suddenly ‘see’ that they were from the other side of the veil. Because Elder Lawer had taught people the gospel of Jesus Christ on this side of the veil, it had also benefited them! They had their temple ordinance work carried out by those whom Elder Lawer had taught, and so for them, Elder Lawer was their missionary too.
This dream touched me so much that I haven‘t been able to stop thinking about it; the joy these people had because Elder Lawer had served on the Lord’s mission. The ways of the Lord are marvellous indeed.

Nick Martindell shut off the engine of his pickup truck and grimly tromped down the dirty concrete steps leading to the basement apartment he shared with his best friend, Gordon. He pulled the screen door open. It whined and clattered shut behind him. He wrinkled his nose as he reluctantly took a breath of air. Even for late July the air was hot and humid and the heat in the kitchen was especially stifling, compounding the stale smell of pizza, chips, and unwashed dishes. The apartment was quiet except for the buzz of a dozen fat, lazy flies and the annoying drip of the water faucet.
Bread crumbs littered the table. The trash can in the corner was full and spilling over. A pair of his tennis shoes lay in the middle of the floor, which had not been mopped, and rarely swept, during the last two months that he and Gordon had been there.
He strolled to the refrigerator, pulled it open, and glared inside. A carton of milk, several slices of bread, a half bar of butter spotted with bread and jam, a half bottle of mustard, and several wilted vegetables were all he found. He grabbed the carton of milk, smelled it, grimaced and poured the contents down the sink.
“Gordon,” he called out after slamming the fridge door and kicking his tennis shoes under the table, “you home?”
There was no answer. Nick walked down the narrow hall leading from the kitchen to the bedroom. He pushed the door open. Two boxes and a suitcase partially blocked his way. Gordon sat on the edge of the bed, which was stripped bare to the mattress. He stared up at Nick without moving or speaking.
“What’s all this?” Nick blurted out, pointing down at the boxes and suitcase but making no attempt to enter the room.
“I’m leaving,” Gordon answered, getting up from the bed. He pulled a bulging canvas bag from the closet and set it on the floor next to the rest of his things. “I wanted to tell you before I left.”
Nick straightened up. “I thought we were in this together. This was your idea too.”
Gordon sighed. “It’s no good, Nick. Not for me.”
“It was good enough for you all last year when we planned it,” Nick flared, kicking the boxes aside and coming into the room. “Graduation night that’s all you talked about. You were going to break away from mommy and daddy and get completely away from all that family stuff. You were going to make it on your own as soon as you turned 18. Well, you’re 18.”
“It’s just not my kind of life.”
“It’s freedom. Here we live the way we want to. We come in when we want. We drink and eat when and what we want. Nobody’s telling us what to do. We live the way we want.”
“I guess I didn’t realize life away from home could be so glorious.”
“It’s freedom. That’s what we wanted.”
Gordon smiled wanly. “If this is freedom, slavery can’t be half bad.”
Nick sneered and began pacing the room shaking his head in disgust. “Wanted to be a big man on your own. I guess you found out that someone still had to tuck you in at night and help you say your prayers. All right, what really made you change your mind? I got a right to know. You’re copping out on me, leaving me holding the bag.”
Gordon stared at Nick for a moment, meeting his angry glare. “I was just trying to prove a point. That’s all we’ve ever been doing here—trying to prove a point. I decided the point wasn’t worth proving. We were wrong from the beginning.”
“And what made you decide that?”
Suddenly a crimson anger darkened Gordon’s cheeks and he grabbed at a pile of Nick’s soiled clothes lying in the corner. “I’m sick of this,” he growled, pushing the clothes under Nick’s nose. “I’m sick of yellow sheets that haven’t seen water for two months. I’m sick of dirty dishes in the sink. I’m tired of crumbs and pop spilled all over the kitchen floor. I’m sick of a greasy, grimy, dirty, putrified shower. I’m sick of this whole lousy place. What does living like a couple of pigs prove?”
“Clean it if you don’t like it.”
“It’s not that simple. It’s not like I thought it would be. I just want to …” He paused and added in a quiet voice, “I just want to get out of here. I’m going home.” He stooped and picked up a box and his pillow.
“What really made you change your mind?” Nick challenged. “So the place is a mess. You knew it would be. You told me so yourself when we moved in here. You said we’d probably let things get dirty. Well, we did. Now why are you complaining?”
Placing his box and pillow on the bed, Gordon faced his roommate. “All right. I’ll tell you.” He kicked the closet door closed and leaned against the dresser, looking down at the floor, avoiding Nick’s prying eyes. “You know when we used to plan all this, living away from home and all, I tried to figure out why we were going. You see, I needed a reason. I couldn’t just leave. At the time, finding a reason wasn’t hard. Mom and Dad were too strict. They didn’t understand things. They were always forcing me to do something. There were too many rules. There were lots of bad things about home, and I thought of all of them.”
Gordon glanced up at Nick, who wore a skeptical scowl. “When we came here,” Gordon continued, “I told myself how good it was. I think I believed it then. This was living. We had it made. But there was always something missing. I was kidding myself. Finally I tried to figure out what was missing. I thought about home.” He smiled and shook his head slowly. “I began to remember, not the bad things, not the things that convinced me to come here. No, I remembered the other things, and there were lots of them. Home isn’t so bad, Nick, not half as bad as we’ve tried to prove.”
“You’re quite the preacher. They’ll have you back in church before long,” Nick muttered, falling back on his bed and stuffing his pillow under his head.
“I’ve already gone, two weeks in a row, priesthood, sacrament meeting, the whole bit.”
Nick sat up slowly and swung his feet over the edge of the bed and stared. “I don’t believe it.”
“You know what, Nick? I liked it.” Nick groaned, turned over, and faced the wall. Gordon continued with added enthusiasm. “You know I found out something. I’ve never liked church. You know why? Because I never gave it a chance. I’ve never given a lot of things a chance. I’m not saying home and church and all that is for me, because I don’t know for sure. I just don’t know, not right now. But I tried this way, and this way sure isn’t what we cracked it up to be.” He waited for Nick to respond, but he remained silent. In an act of complete exasperation he slapped the wall with the flat of his hand. “Nick, we’re trying to prove the wrong point! What have we got to show for it?” He snatched the dirty laundry and flung it across the room. “All we got are some dirty jeans, some stale socks and a crumby, sticky, gummed up kitchen. Big deal! I want out. This is …”
“Gordon,” Nick interrupted, “you know what? You depress me. In fact, the last couple of weeks I’ve become depressed every time I’ve seen you.”
Gordon countered with a knowing smile. He shook his head and said, “Nick, you’re always depressed. I don’t have anything to do with it. You’re just mad at the whole world. One of these days you’re going to wake up and find that the world was never mad back and that all this other never proved anything.”
“You know where the door is, or do you want me to take you by the hand?” Nick asked, his face pinched with anger.
Gordon shrugged, bent over, and picked up two of his boxes and walked out of the bedroom. Several minutes later he was back for the rest of his things. As he picked them up, Nick rolled over and asked dryly, “And you’re leaving me holding the bag? What about the rent? Remember this was your idea too.”
Gordon nodded toward the dresser. “There’s an envelope on the dresser. It’s next month’s rent money, all of it, not just half.”
The two stared at each other. Neither spoke. Finally Gordon gathered up his remaining things and turned to go. “Soon they’ll be calling you on a mission,” Nick laughed sardonically. “Elder Patrick Gordon Crandell, all decked out in his white shirt and tie and his hair shaved to the skin.”
Without turning around, Gordon replied calmly, “You know, that doesn’t sound so bad.”
As soon as Nick heard the kitchen door close and Gordon’s departing footsteps, he reared up and hurled his pillow across the room where it slammed into the door, closing it with a reverberating bang.
For half an hour Nick lay on his bed. He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, attempting to block the entire day from his mind, but it was too early in the afternoon. Sleep eluded him.
He felt hungry. He sat up and stepped to his dresser where he kept a supply of candy bars, but he slammed the dresser drawer as soon as he had opened it. He didn’t want candy. He was tired of eating candy bars, chips, and cookies. He wanted some real food, something like … But he refused to think of that. That was over, in the past. He wouldn’t follow Gordon back. He opened the drawer again, snatched a candy bar, ripped off the wrapper and angrily crammed the candy into his mouth. No, he wouldn’t go back. He was free here.
He returned to his bed, but an enigmatic hunger persisted, not a mere pang but an annoying desire for something satisfying, something that didn’t really have anything to do with food. He had felt this pang before, but he had tried to hide it from himself.
Eventually he crawled from the bed and went to the kitchen, hoping to find relief. Instead, a flood of nauseating disgust swept over him.
He left the apartment, got into the pickup, and drove, nowhere in particular, just someplace, any place away from … Well, he just wanted to drive, he told himself. He was not running, just leaving for a time.
Soon he found himself out of town, driving into the country along the narrow country road that looped around the foot of the mountain and passed through the small farms. The road was familiar. He’d traveled it often. It frustrated him that he was even driving there now, but he continued. After all, it was just a drive, like any other drive. It didn’t mean anything.
Five miles out of town he stopped in front of a frame house set back a hundred feet from the road in a grove of elm and poplar trees. The station wagon that usually occupied a place under the giant elm tree was missing. No one was home. He could tell.
He sat in the truck for several minutes before finally opening the door and stepping out. He looked up and down the highway furtively and then walked across the road and up to the front door. The door opened. Of course, he knew it would. They never locked it. He swallowed hard and walked in.
A rich, tantalizing aroma of baked bread lingered in the air and soon enveloped him. Unconsciously he breathed deeply, feeding hungrily upon the aroma—and the memories it inspired.
The kitchen sink was clean, no piled dishes there. The floor was swept and mopped to a pleasant glow. The plastic garbage container was empty and free of foul odors. He breathed deeply of the clean air and moved about the house, touching the sink, opening the fridge, glancing into the bathroom, sitting momentarily on the sofa to thumb through magazines. He was unable to explain his behavior. It baffled him, and yet he felt compelled to linger.
In his reverie he almost forgot the time. Half an hour passed. They would be home soon. Suddenly he realized that he didn’t want them to find him here, coming back, even though it was just to see. They would misunderstand, see it as a surrender, a weakening.
As he got up from the living room sofa, he noticed his picture hanging on the wall with those of his parents and brothers and sisters. It startled him. He stared, confused. The picture’s presence seemed so incongruous. He had assumed that when he had walked away, coldly abandoning them, that they would naturally reject him. His picture loudly proclaimed otherwise.
He started for the front door. As he was about to leave, he saw the loaf of homemade bread lying on the table next to a jar of strawberry preserves, his favorite, some she had made. There was a note under the bottle. He pulled it out and read: “Nick, we went to the park for a picnic. Come and join us if you can. We would love to have you with us, but we will understand if you can’t. Take the bread and jam. We love you, Mom.”
The note fluttered to the floor. “How did she know?” he whispered angrily, feeling as though he had been observed during his surreptitious visit. He picked up the note and read it again. There was no rebuke, no mention of his weeks of silence, no mention of his absence, his rebellion, his complaining. There was merely a quiet, subtle invitation to … He was not coming back! He crumpled the note. He didn’t need them. He would not give them the satisfaction.
He started for the door, leaving the bread on the table, but he stopped before going out. The old hunger returned and coaxed him. He glanced back. Taking the bread didn’t mean anything, he thought. A loaf of bread was a loaf of bread. He could buy one at the store if he wanted to. A loaf of bread didn’t mean he had given up. So he did come back. It was just a visit. He didn’t have anything to do. What was wrong with taking a ride and stopping someplace? He was independent.
Amid his own personal debate, he returned to the table and roughly grabbed the bread and preserves. He held them in his hand, pondering. Finally he turned and left.
Almost an hour after he left, a station wagon pulled under the elm tree. Doors burst open and seven children tumbled out. The five younger ones raced for the house. The two older ones walked, loaded with blankets, a jug, and a picnic basket.
An older man and woman stepped from the car. Exhausted but satisfied smiles touched their lips as they watched the young ones storm into the house.
The woman was the first to enter the kitchen. As she did, her gaze went to the kitchen table, as it had done so many times during the last two months. At first she disbelieved, wondering whether she had forgotten in her rush to get away to the park. Then she saw the crumpled note. The bread and the preserves were gone!
Trembling, she sat down at the table and looked up at her husband who now stood behind her. “I knew it,” she whispered. “I knew he couldn’t forget forever.”
“It doesn’t mean he’s coming back,” he cautioned. He remembered too well the hurts she had suffered. He didn’t want her snatching at elusive hopes.
She smiled and nodded with maternal intuition. “I know,” she replied, “but he was here. For now that’s enough.”
When Nick arrived at his apartment, he tossed the bread and preserves on the table and looked in the fridge. It was as bare as when he had left. Ignoring the bread, he went into his bedroom, turned on the radio and tried to wash away the memory with music and disc jockey jabber, but his escape was a feeble attempt.
Angrily he jumped from the bed and began snatching sweaty, soiled shirts, pants and socks from the floor and stuffing them into a canvas bag in the closet. He folded his blanket and pulled the sheet on his bed tight. Grabbing a T-shirt from his drawer, he attacked the accumulation of dirt and dead flies on his dresser and on the windowsill.
He returned to the kitchen, determined to push the job to its completion. The dishes went first, and while they dried in the sink, he filled a bucket with water, found a brush and rag and fell to his knees on the kitchen floor.
With his jaw clamped tight, he attacked the loathsome floor, digging and gouging at the sticky pop stains, the ground-in catsup and honey spots, and the two months’ buildup of outside dirt and grease. He became oblivious to time. His thoughts and energy were riveted to one thing—the eradication of the suffocating filth.
It was late when he finally stopped. His knees were tender, his arm and shoulder ached, and his fingers were wrinkled. But the apartment was clean. A grim satisfaction was carved upon his brow as he wandered throughout the apartment, surveying his work. However, his satisfaction was short-lived. Though he had succeeded at imitation, there was a blatant absence of something impalpable but much more substantial. The old craving persisted.
He became desperate. He cut himself a slice of his mother’s bread and smothered it with strawberry preserves, but when he was finished he was still unsatisfied. There was no escape from the pervasive, lonely depression.
Once more he fled from the apartment. This time he didn’t encounter a single car as he drove along the old familiar country road. The whole while he ridiculed himself for returning, but he didn’t turn back. He lacked the will to rationalize, and his mind was bombarded with memories.
He remembered, not the seeming strict discipline, not the rules he had tried to escape or circumvent, not the arguments, not the usual memories he had conditioned himself to conjure when he was tormented by sentimental reminiscence. Instead he remembered the quiet visits with his father, before the contention had developed. He remembered how safe and secure he had felt as his father wrapped a strong arm around his shoulders and drew him close. He remembered his mother sitting by his hospital bed for days after his knee operation. There was little she could do, but she was there, wiping his brow, holding his hand and lending him stability in the midst of strange surroundings. He recalled the vocal cheering section that had followed him to all his football and baseball games. He had been embarrassed at the time, but now he yearned to hear those enthusiastic cheers again.
The pickup slowed to a crawl as he neared the house. The station wagon was parked under the giant elm. The house was completely dark. Except for the lone porch light!
“I wonder who’s still out?” Nick thought instinctively. He remembered that the porch light never dimmed as long as one of the family was out. Even when he worked past midnight at Ernie’s Cafe, he had come home to that beckoning porch light.
“And when you come home,” his mother had insisted gently, “stop by our room and tell us you’re in. I don’t sleep well while someone’s still out.”
Nick looked at his watch. “Almost 3:00 A.M.,” he muttered, bewildered. “Teresa can’t still be out on a date. Not this late. Midnight is as late as she can stay out. And Paul doesn’t work nights. And none of the little ones would be away.”
Suddenly the buried hunger exploded within him and he knew for whom the light burned and he knew that during the last two months the light had never been switched off.
Only then did he begin to comprehend the strange hunger that had plagued him. He knew it had nothing to do with tangibles—clean sheets, waxed floors, and fresh baked bread. With a little effort he could duplicate those. There was something else, something far more significant and fulfilling.
His fierce pride prevented him from making any bold concessions this night, but deep within him there was a quiet serenity. There was still a gap between him and them. Having grown and festered over a period of months, it was deep and wide, but as Nick stared at the porch’s enduring beacon, he sensed that the gap would be bridged and he could return.

At the height of his career, Dickens was the most famous person in the world—after Queen Victoria. He had been struggling to find a subject for a new book when the idea for A Christmas Carol came to him. He presented the idea for the book to his publishers, but they did not want it. Christmas had become a small occasion celebrated only by a holiday dinner, if celebrated at all. Dickens became so convinced of the importance of his story that he funded the publication himself. The publication was a great success, and the book is as popular today as it was over 179 years ago.

One day my English teacher was telling us how she thought Clinton Central didn’t welcome new students and left others out. A week later I received the October 1987 New Era. As I was glancing through it, the story “Everyone Belongs” caught my eye. While I was reading, all I could think about was how much this school in the story sounded like my own. Since I am a class officer, I felt I could try to do something.
I showed the story to my English teacher, who is also my freshman class adviser. While the class was doing the assigned homework, she read the story. I couldn’t help but notice a tear running down her face. When she had finished reading she said she thought we as a school needed to do something to make everyone feel as if they belonged. She had me take the story to Mrs. Pearson, who is in charge of the student council and to Mr. Thompson, who is in charge of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes at Clinton Central.
I know this article is going to affect many people at my school, and I can already see the efforts being made to include others by those who have read it.

I was in New York some time ago. I told the Saints I met with there that the president asked them all to be missionaries. I said, “Now, won’t you all stop and think for a minute of someone you know who isn’t a member of the Church—someone you work with, your neighbor, your friend, or a relative—someone you can bring to a knowledge of the truth? They will love you for it throughout the eternities. It would be worth more to them than if you would give them a million dollars.”

Not long after that I received a letter from a young man in Houston, Texas. He had been in New York attending a convention in his particular field and had attended our meeting. The letter went like this. He said, “Brother Richards, I heard you invite each one of us to be an instrument in the hands of the Lord in bringing someone to the knowledge of the truth. I wrote a letter to my wife and told her that I had a proposition to make to her when I came home.” When he got home he told her what I had said. He said, “There is a young man who works in the office with me. He knows I’m a Mormon, but I have never told him why. I would like to invite him over, with his wife, for supper some night. After supper we will have something to talk about.”

To make this story short, he wrote me a two-page letter telling me the joy he had in leading this man and his wife into the waters of baptism. I have since met them down in Houston. I believe he is now the stake Sunday School President.

Later on, we moved to Venezuela, where my dad is from. I lived there for two years, and we faced a lot of challenges. But there were good things too. I loved the food, and I had family there who were anxious to meet and talk to me. They were such humble people, and we all went to church together and felt the Spirit.
But even though we were going to church and I could feel the Spirit, I knew my family and I were missing something. One Sunday morning, the bishop invited everyone in the congregation to read the Book of Mormon before the end of the year. I knew this would help my parents and me more fully live the gospel of the Lord. Little by little, as we read the Book of Mormon, the Savior started giving us more knowledge and blessings, and we continued to read the scriptures regularly.
Soon, I got baptized. I could really feel the Spirit in my life, and my parents did too. My testimony started growing more. We moved to Orlando, Florida, and we had to make a lot of changes and sacrifices again, just like when we left Spain. But our testimonies were growing stronger and stronger every time we went to church. We went to church every week and kept reading the scriptures.
After a lot of effort and a lot of reading the scriptures, praying, and choosing the right, we wanted to get sealed as an eternal family. We talked to our bishop, and even though it took some time, the day finally arrived. We were so anxious to go inside the temple.
I got to do baptisms for the dead while I waited for my parents to complete temple work for themselves. I felt like I was getting baptized again. I was really happy I could help people beyond the veil. Now, my family and I go to the temple every week. I regularly do baptisms for the dead, because I love helping there. I am so glad I got to be sealed in the temple with my parents for eternity and have the opportunity to live forever with them.

In the early morning light of June 28, 1830, Newel Knight, Joseph Smith, and several other men quickly piled stones and logs in a small stream near Newel’s home in Colesville, Broome County, New York. The dam was to create a pond deep enough to perform baptisms. A similar dam had been built two days before so the visiting prophet could hold a baptism meeting, but in the night an angry mob that had been prompted by the local ministers destroyed it.
“Early on Monday morning we were on the alert, and before our enemies were aware of it, Oliver Cowdery proceeded to baptize Emma Smith …” [and 12 others, including many of the Knight family].
“But before the baptism was entirely finished, the mob began to collect again. We retired to my father’s house, and the mob, which numbered about fifty surrounded the house, raging with anger, and apparently wishing to commit violence against us,” Newel Knight wrote in his journal account of that day. Newel continued, “It was only by great providence on our part and help from our Heavenly Father that they were kept from laying violent hands on us.”
An evening meeting had been planned to confirm those who had been baptized that morning. Just as the new Saints of Colesville had gathered in one of the homes that night, Newel recorded, “The constable came and arrested Brother Joseph Smith, Jun. on a warrant charging him with being a disorderly person, and of setting the country in an uproar, by preaching the Book of Mormon.”
Brother Knight explained that when the constable saw the Prophet, he realized Joseph Smith was other than what he had been told by those demanding the arrest of the religious leader. Accordingly, the constable, who was a man of good conscience, told Joseph that a mob was not far away, waiting to ambush him. They eluded the mobbers, and Joseph Smith was taken about four miles away to an upper room in a tavern in South Bainbridge, Chenango County, to await trial, guarded all night by the constable.
Colesville had usually been a quiet farming community in lower New York state, and the Knights had been average citizens quite unaccustomed to public uproar.
The Knight family had become acquainted with Joseph Smith four years earlier in the fall of 1826. Joseph Knight, Sr., often hired seasonal workers on his farm, and his friend Josiah Stowell recommended to him a tall, young man named Joseph Smith as a good worker. Joseph was hired. He worked on the Knight farm and lived with the Knight family, and he developed a strong bond of trust and friendship with them. He roomed with Joseph Knight, Jr., who was close to his age, and he talked at length with the senior Mr. Knight. Newel Knight was married, but lived nearby and frequently worked and visited at his father’s farm. Over the harvest season and winter Joseph Smith shared confidences with the Knights. He told them of the visions he had seen and of the gold plates he was to receive in the coming months.
While at first a bit unsure about the amazing things he heard from Joseph Smith, Newel Knight became convinced of the truth of them and a very loyal friend as well. He wrote in his journal, “It is evident great things are about to transpire, that the Lord is about to do a marvelous work and wonder—that Joseph is to become an instrument in his hands to bring about this great and mighty work in the last days.”
Newel’s father was fascinated by what he had heard about an ancient record being buried in the hillside, and Mr. Knight, Sr., even drove his carriage up to Manchester, New York, to visit the Smith home for several days at the time in 1827 when Joseph Smith had told him he expected to receive the gold plates. Joseph and Emma Smith borrowed the carriage of Joseph Knight, Sr., to go to the Hill Cumorah to receive the gold plates.
Joseph Smith continued to visit the Knights in Colesville, to preach in their homes, and to share the Book of Mormon with them as it was translated. One day after a gospel discussion in Colesville with Joseph Smith, Newel Knight retired to the woods to pray. Newel found himself overtaken by an evil spirit that seemed to almost take control of his body. Distorted and distraught, Newel returned to his home and sent for Joseph. The Prophet came immediately and cast out the evil spirit, using the power of the priesthood. As a holy spirit filled Newel, he was literally lifted from the floor in a great spiritual experience. Many family members and neighbors witnessed this event that Joseph Smith referred to as the first miracle in the Church.
After such a long friendship with Joseph Smith, and on a day such as the one of his baptism, Joseph Knight could hardly stand by as his friend and his prophet was arrested and taken away on ridiculous charges.
As soon as the constable took Joseph Smith away, Joseph Knight, Sr., went out and hired two men, a Mr. James Davidson and a Mr. John S. Reid, who were “respectable farmers who were well versed in the laws of their country,” to help Joseph during his trial before Justice Joseph P. Chamberlain.
Newel wrote in his journal:
“On the following day a court was convened for the purpose of investigating the charges which had been made against Joseph Smith, Jun. On account of the many scandalous reports which had been put in circulation, a great excitement prevailed. …
“The trial commenced among a crowded multitude of spectators, who generally seemed to believe Joseph guilty of all that had been alleged against him, and, of course, were zealous to see him punished for his crimes.”
Many witnesses were called up against Joseph Smith, including Josiah Stowell, for whom he had worked, and Mr. Stowell’s daughters, whom Joseph had known socially. Despite many attempts to elicit something from them which could be held against Joseph, all of the witnesses reported that Joseph Smith had dealt with them fairly and kindly.
Joseph Smith was acquitted by the Chenango County court of all charges, and at the very moment he was released, officials from the neighboring Broome County presented another warrant for his arrest.
“The constable who served this second warrant upon Joseph had no sooner arrested him, than he began to abuse him,” Newel wrote. The constable refused Joseph food, even though Joseph had been in court all day with nothing to eat. Then Joseph was taken 15 miles to a tavern where men gathered to “abuse, ridicule, and insult him. They spit upon him, pointed their fingers at him, saying, ‘Prophesy! Prophesy!’” The only food Joseph received for the night at the tavern was crusts of bread and some water.
Joseph Smith was taken before the Magistrate’s Court in Colesville. Again, his friends, including the Knights and the counselors Mr. Knight had hired, were at his side.
Newel reported of the trial that many witnesses were called who swore to incredible falsehoods about Joseph Smith. Some of these witnesses contradicted themselves so plainly that the court would not allow their testimony. Others were zealous to convict Joseph but could only testify of things they had heard others say about him. Finally, Newel Knight himself was called as a witness by a prosecuting attorney, a Mr. Seymour, who had been sent for just for this occasion.
Newel faithfully recorded in his journal the interrogation given him by the lawyer Mr. Seymour:
“Mr. Seymour asked: ‘Did the prisoner, Joseph Smith, Jun., cast the devil out of you?’
“[Newel’s] Answer: ‘No, sir.’
“Question: ‘Why, have you not had the devil cast out of you?’
“Answer: ‘Yes, sir.’
“Question: ‘And had not Joseph Smith some hand in it being done?’
“Answer: ‘Yes, sir.’
“Question: ‘And did he not cast him out of you?’
“Answer: ‘No, sir, it was done by the power of God, and Joseph Smith was the instrument in the hands of God on this occasion. He commanded him to come out of me in the name of Jesus Christ.’
“Question: ‘And are you sure it was the devil?’
“Answer: ‘Yes, sir.’
“Question: ‘Did you see him after he was cast out of you?’
“Answer: ‘Yes, sir, I saw him.’
“Question: ‘Pray, what did he look like?’
“(Here one of the lawyers on the part of the defense told me I need not answer that question.) I replied:
“‘I believe I need not answer that question, but I will do it if I am allowed to ask you one, and you can answer it. Do you, Mr. Seymour, understand the things of the Spirit?’
“‘No,’ answered Mr. Seymour, ‘I do not pretend to such big things.’
“‘Well, then,’ I replied, ‘it will be of no use for me to tell you what the devil looked like, for it was a spiritual sight and spiritually discerned, and, of course, you would not understand it were I to tell you of it.’
“The lawyer dropped his head, while the loud laugh of the audience proclaimed his discomfiture.”
Following Newel’s testimony, the closing arguments were made. Mr. Seymour attacked the character of Joseph Smith in a violent harangue. The Colesville gentlemen Mr. Davidson and Mr. Reid followed on Joseph’s behalf, and even though they were not formally trained lawyers, they silenced all opposition and convinced the court that Joseph Smith was innocent. He was cleared in court of all charges and freed.
Even the second constable who had arrested Joseph Smith and treated him so cruelly came forward and apologized. The constable went so far as to warn the young prophet that a crowd was waiting to tar and feather him a short distance from the court, and the constable helped Joseph escape the mob.
This was just the beginning of the persecutions of Joseph Smith and of those who followed him, like Newel and Sally and Lydia Knight, and the families of the older and younger Joseph Knights. The Knights would follow Joseph Smith to Kirtland, Missouri, and Nauvoo; and finally both Newel Knight and Joseph Knight, Sr., lost their lives in the trek west to Salt Lake City. Their loyalty and faithfulness never wavered.
In 1842 in Nauvoo, Joseph Smith wrote about the Knights in his record book. He remembered well and listed the many kindly deeds where Joseph Knight, Sr., had helped him. About Newel and Joseph Knight, Jr., he wrote, “I record [their names] in the Book of the Law of the Lord with unspeakable delight, for they are my friends” (History of the Church, 5:125).

Almost forty years ago I received an invitation to meet with President J. Reuben Clark, Jr., a Counselor in the First Presidency of the Church, a statesman of towering stature, and a scholar of international renown. My profession then was in the field of printing and publishing. President Clark made me welcome in his office and then produced from his old rolltop desk a large sheaf of handwritten notes, many of them made when he was a law student long years before. He proceeded to outline for me his goal of producing a harmony of the Gospels. This goal was achieved with his monumental work Our Lord of the Gospels.
Recently I took down from my library shelf a personally inscribed, leather-bound copy of this classic treatment of the life of Jesus of Nazareth. As I perused the many pages, I paused at the section entitled “The Miracles of Jesus.” I remembered as though it were yesterday President Clark asking me to read to him several of these accounts while he sat back in his large leather chair and listened. This was a day in my life never to be forgotten.
President Clark asked me to read aloud the account found in Luke concerning the man filled with leprosy. I proceeded to read:
“And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
“And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him” (Luke 5:12–13).
He asked that I continue reading from Luke concerning the man afflicted with palsy and the enterprising manner in which he was presented for the attention of the Lord:
“And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy: and they sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him.
“And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through the tiling with his couch into the midst before Jesus.
“And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee” (Luke 5:18–20).
There followed snide comments from the Pharisees concerning who had the right to forgive sins. Jesus silenced their bickering by saying: “Whether [it] is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?
“But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house.
“And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God” (Luke 5:23–25).
President Clark removed from his pocket a handkerchief and wiped the tears from his eyes. He commented, “As we grow older, tears come more frequently.” After a few words of goodbye, I departed from his office, leaving him alone with his thoughts and his tears.

After she was no longer eligible for college competition, she decided to go on a national professional tour. Diane knew her gymnastics career was mostly over, but she just wanted to hold on to the thrill of the spotlight and the fun of the sport for as long as she could.

During training for the tour Diane was practicing a vault she’d done thousands of times. She ran toward the vault just like she had done every other time. She jumped on the springboard like all the other times and flew up and over the vault—just like all the other times. But this time was different. This time she turned her body just a little too far. This time when she landed, she broke her neck. The accident put her in the hospital for almost six months and in a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

That was on December 15, 1981. Diane spent that Christmas and the next five months in the hospital, trying to imagine her life without gymnastics. After so many years of loving the sport, it was difficult for Diane to adjust.

“I hated being in the hospital, and I felt like I was in prison,” says Diane. For one month of the five she was in the hospital, she was in traction and couldn’t move at all except when the nurses came in and turned her a few centimeters every two hours. Diane had no idea she’d be in the hospital for so long. “In fact, when I was first injured I thought for sure that in a month I’d be back on the tour. I thought, ‘If I have enough faith and believe in God and in myself, I’ll be okay.’ And I just knew it.”

Recovery wasn’t quite so easy though, and things seemed to get worse. “I was a horrible patient,” says Diane. “In the hospital I was really miserable because I was so restless. I was really impatient with people.” Finally Diane came to a turning point.

“One day I was in the depths of despair. I just felt like I couldn’t bear it anymore,” Diane says. She asked for a priesthood blessing. She knew the power to heal her was present, “but I only wanted that to happen if it was Heavenly Father’s will. I had this blessing and I felt the greatest sense of peace. It was like I knew that no matter what happened it would be okay. If I didn’t walk away from the hospital there would be a reason for it. I knew that I had always tried my best to live the gospel and do what I was supposed to do, so if anybody was worthy to have that blessing, I was. But from that point on I was a different person. I was totally comforted.”

Ironically, one of the biggest aids to her recovery was gymnastics. “I don’t know if I could’ve gotten up again if I hadn’t had that training in gymnastics,” she says. “I had a lot of serious injuries when I was a gymnast that I just had to deal with. It was always down, up, down, up in gymnastics and this was just one more down I had to get up from. Gymnastics taught me to get back up so I could be a champion again.”

On the day she finally realized she would never walk again, Diane made the decision to return to school to work for her degree. She was lying on her bed with all her scrapbooks filled with souvenirs and photos of her performances. Tears dripped down her face and splashed on the scrapbook pages. “I just realized right then that things weren’t going to get any better. As I lay there crying I thought, ‘I can either give up or get on with my life’ and that’s when I decided to go back to school and get my degree.”

Now Diane teaches a class full of seven-year-olds who are just the right height to look her in the eye. “The kids will do anything for her,” says Marie. “They just love her.”

Her students aren’t her only fans. Diane also gives fireside talks to teenagers who listen intently as she tells her story. And her message is one of hope and perseverance, without bitterness for what has happened.

Her personality hasn’t changed at all. Just listen to her speak and you’ll hear the exuberant, happy girl who used to charm arenas full of people. Now her charm is just aimed at another audience. Her voice seems to smile at every person in the room and her own laughter frequently interrupts her stories.

“I think telling my gymnastics stories and sharing my experiences opens up the communication between us. They soon forget that I’m in a wheelchair. When they do that, the youth can see that I’m just a regular person and we have a lot in common, even though, in a wheelchair, I look a lot different than they do,” Diane says.

Her main message is one for potential champions: don’t give up, no matter what happens. “When I was a young gymnast I met a girl, an athlete named Nancy Thies. Nancy was a member of the U.S. Olympic team and one of the finest gymnasts in the country. I have never forgotten some very important things that Nancy taught me. I remember the first thing she said was, ‘Don’t be afraid to lose.’ She said, ‘If you fall down and you stay down, you’re a quitter and a loser and you will never win. But if you get back up and you try one more time, it will be your turn to be the champion, so just don’t give up.’” Diane says she made a promise to herself that she would remember that advice and never give up, no matter how many times she fell.

Once she faced the hardest fall of her life, not giving up was difficult, especially because of her wheelchair. The entire time she was a gymnast, whether she was swinging high above the uneven parallel bars of just doing handstands for fun, her only fear was of being blind or paralyzed. “I had such uneasy feelings about wheelchairs that I would never talk to anybody in a wheelchair or go near a wheelchair. I would avoid people in wheelchairs. I was afraid that I’d end up in a wheelchair if I got too close to one. It was almost like having thought about it so much somehow prepared me for a wheelchair,” she says.

It was probably Diane’s unconquerable spirit that prepared her more than anything else. It’s a spirit that is evident in both her funny stories and her powerfully quiet testimony about the importance of an eternal perspective and God’s love for each of his children. It’s a spirit that Diane has always had. “I’ve never met anyone, except my father, who has a stronger testimony than she does,” says Marie. “There’s no doubt in her mind that what she’s doing is right and that the Church is true. She has always been a great example.”

The lights are turned down in the room as she finishes her message, and a slide show featuring Diane, the fun-lover and gymnast, lashes on the screen in time to some fast, contemporary music. When the presentation is over, young people surround her excitedly.

Diane says, “It makes me feel really good when people tell me they’re going to try harder after they’ve heard my talk. One girl came to me once and told me she’d heard me speak four different times. The first time, she decided not to commit suicide. The second time, she decided that she didn’t have to drop out of school. The third time, she made a goal to become one of the best students in her class, and the last time she was on her way to that goal.”

Diane just shrugs her shoulders and laughs a little when someone tells her she’s wonderful. She even looks a little embarrassed, which is rare for this experienced performer. “People always think, ‘You’re so amazing, you’re so incredible,’ but I’m not. People will say, ‘If that happened to me I could never handle the situation,’ and the thing I have to say is, ‘Either you handle the situation or you die.’ You have to take whatever life gives you and deal with it, even if you might not want to. You know, if somebody dies in your family, you have to live with it. If you break your neck you have to live with it, but you just learn and that’s what’s so great about time and the healing process. You don’t have to be miraculous.”

You just have to be as willing as Diane was to get up again, so that someday it will be your turn to be the champion. For Diane, the victory is especially sweet, because she has won back what she thought she’d lost.

She is a champion again.

You may have heard a report from Osaka, Japan, about the Kansai International Airport’s world record—something almost unbelievable. After 30 years of operation and processing hundreds of millions of pieces of cargo, carry-ons, and cases, this airport has not lost one item of luggage.
Not one single piece!
How is such a thing possible?
Tsuyoshi Habuta, the airport chief of baggage operations, believes losing luggage should never happen “because luggage is precious to passengers.” That attitude permeates through his entire staff. The airport’s success, he says, is all part of a commitment to “thoroughness and an attention to detail.”
The Japanese people have developed a reputation for such attention to detail. They have a principle, kaizen, that encapsulates a mindset of constantly searching for and implementing minor improvements. This practice requires a quiet discipline of always looking for small ways to make processes better. They take pride in the fact that these improvements almost always come from those doing the everyday work.
Over the years, the staff at Kansai Airport has developed a process that makes the goal of not losing passengers’ bags a reality. They train employees rigorously and constantly ensure that every bag is counted, tracked, and cared for. They make meticulous and multiple manual checks that complement a sophisticated automated system.
Fragile items such as musical instruments are often hand-delivered to passengers. Staff members do small things such as placing bags on conveyor belts with handles facing outward for easier retrieval by passengers.
When you hand off your luggage at Kansai Airport, you get a sense that they are saying to you, “We have your precious belongings. We are responsible for them now. We will return them to you.”

Also of utmost importance to Sister Whang was that the girls learn responsibility and be treated as equals. They were each assigned chores around the home—preparing food, washing clothes, and cleaning—and they were each expected to use the home’s resources wisely. Jessica remembers a time when one of the girls threw away a blouse that could have been repaired. When Sister Whang found it in the garbage, she lectured the girls on not wasting. Then, at the next home evening, she gave everyone a plastic sewing box full of needles and thread and taught them how to mend.

July 11. Our family got back this morning from a three-day trip to Buck’s Lake. I called Billy to see if we could get together, maybe go to a Saturday matinee or hike in the hills or something. His mother said he could not play … because he’d died two days ago. She began to cry, and Billy’s father got on the phone. He told me that Billy had seen a neighbor’s puppy in the street, and when he ran out to carry it to where it would be safe, he’d been hit by a car. It wasn’t the driver’s fault, Billy’s dad said. It wasn’t anybody’s fault. It just happened. I asked Dad if he could give me a blessing of comfort. I guess I’m having a hard time dealing with it.

Being alone in living the gospel did not break down his faith. When he determined to serve a mission, he was willing to give up the jujitsu practices and competitions he loved—something that had been part of his life from childhood—to work and save money for a mission. Jujitsu, he says, was an art form for him. “I felt like a painter painting a picture when I practiced.” But working left him no time to practice.
Before leaving his hometown of Mystowice to serve as a missionary, Elder Tomaszewski left a challenge for his younger brother Patryk, who was also deeply involved in jujitsu. “If you want to find out why I’m doing this, why I’m giving up my sport, read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.”
And what has been his best day as a missionary?
The day he learned that his younger brother had taken his challenge to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Patryk Tomaszewski also received a testimony. He was baptized in August 2004.
Now there are two Tomaszewskis to share the joy of the gospel.

Lisa is a little embarrassed to remember that she and her friends used to laugh a little at the filmstrips they watched in seminary. That made her want to perform so that her character was believable. “I wanted to make this character real so that at least one person who watched it would stop and say, What is she really saying? What is she really wondering about? The whole cast set that as a goal.
“I did make fun of the filmstrips when I was in seminary,” said Lisa. “We had little jokes about what they were wearing and their hairstyles. I can remember when the wardrobe lady was dressing me and doing my hair. I thought, Now I know why we laughed. I would laugh sometimes at myself while I was doing it. It was a humbling experience. There is a message behind what the characters are wearing and how their hair looks. There is a message or a mood behind it all.”

About this same time we had a neighbor who dominated and sometimes abused his wife. He roared like a lion, and she cowered like a lamb. When they walked to church, she always walked a few steps behind him. That made my mother mad. She was a strong woman who would not accept such domination, and she was angry to see another woman abused in that way. I think of her reaction whenever I see men misusing their authority to gratify their pride or exercise control or compulsion upon their wives in any degree of unrighteousness (see D&C 121:37).

When I was a boy, I used to ride my bicycle home from basketball practice at night. I would connect a small pear-shaped generator to my bicycle tire. Then as I pedaled, the tire would turn a tiny rotor, which produced electricity and emitted a single, welcome beam of light. It was a simple but effective mechanism. But I had to pedal to make it work! I learned quickly that if I stopped pedaling my bicycle, the light would go out. I also learned that when I was “anxiously engaged” in pedaling, the light would become brighter and the darkness in front of me would be dispelled.

A few years ago while we were in Sydney, Australia, my wife and I received a letter from one of our grandchildren. He wrote: “Dear Grandma and Grandpa, I just turned twelve years of age, and the bishop called me into the office, and he said, ‘I have some questions to ask of you, Bruce. Bruce, you’re twelve years of age now, and so I need to know if you love the Lord.’ I told him I do. ‘Do you say bad words, Bruce?’ ‘No, bishop, I never say bad words.’ ‘Do you love your mother and dad?’ ‘Yes, bishop, I do.’ ‘Do you pay your tithing, Bruce?’ ‘Yes I do, bishop.’

“You know, Grandpa and Grandma, the bishop said that I could receive the Aaronic Priesthood because I was twelve years of age, and he asked me if I knew what the Aaronic Priesthood was. I told him that I knew a little bit and that I could be ordained a deacon. You know, the next week the bishop asked who I would like to be ordained by. I said I would like to be ordained by my dad. So my dad put his hands upon my head, and the bishop stood around and so did my uncles, and my dad conferred the Aaronic Priesthood upon me and ordained me a deacon.

“Now, Grandma and Grandpa, you’re a long way away, but I know that you’re a General Authority and some day you’ll come home. You know, I can’t wait until you come home because I know you’ll sit on the stand, and then Grandpa, I can pass the sacrament to you.”
I think that is the true meaning of love, of families.

When I visit places I’ve never seen before, I try to find a small Nativity scene that reminds Rosana and me of the Savior. I’m building quite a collection.
While contemplating those humble Nativity scenes, my wife and I once pondered, “What is it that truly matters most in our lives?” The answer, of course, is the Savior, His gospel, and our family. To remind us of our Heavenly Father’s love for us and that it is through the Savior that the promise of eternal families becomes possible, before Christmas a few years ago we placed all our Nativities on two big shelves in our home—and left them up rather than put them away after the Christmas holidays. That tradition helps us keep the spirit of Christmas in our home year-round.
Every day as we look at those Nativity scenes, they gently remind us of the Savior’s central role in our lives. They remind us that peace on earth now (see Luke 2:14) and eternal happiness in the next world depend on the Savior and on honoring the covenants we have made with Him. And they remind us “that he came into the world, even Jesus, to be crucified for the world, and to bear the sins of the world, and to sanctify the world, and to cleanse it from all unrighteousness;
“That through him all might be saved whom the Father had put into his power and made by him” (Doctrine and Covenants 76:41–42).

One way to overcome difficulties is by serving the Lord. Service has connected me with the Lord and helped me listen to His voice and follow Him.
This past year, we had an FSY conference, and although I couldn’t attend in person, the couple directing the session invited me to make a video sharing my testimony.
In my video I shared about how no matter what is happening in my life, I have the desire to do my part and serve others. I received 571 letters from youth who saw my video and were encouraged.

As a new missionary serving in the Massachusetts Boston Mission, I realized that I could not simply testify of what my dear parents knew to be the truth. I had to have my own conviction of the truth of the gospel and the Book of Mormon.
I remember the day well. I was praying, and a fire filled my soul. Never before or since has the Holy Ghost warmed me to the same magnitude. I knew, without a doubt, that what I had been taught regarding the gospel and the Book of Mormon was indeed the truth. I could now go on with a firm resolve and conviction.