Gospel Story Finder

Many years ago, before leaving to become president of the Canadian Mission, headquartered in Toronto, Ontario, I had developed a friendship with a man by the name of Shelley, who lived in my ward but did not embrace the gospel, irrespective of the fact that his wife and children had done so. Shelley had been known as the toughest man in town when he was young. He was quite a pugilist. His fights were rarely in the ring but rather elsewhere. Try as I might, I could not bring about a change in Shelley’s attitude. The task appeared hopeless. In time, Shelley and his family moved from our ward.

After I had returned from Canada and was called to the Twelve, I received a telephone call from Shelley. He said, “Will you seal my wife and me and our family in the Salt Lake Temple?”

I answered hesitatingly, “Shelley, you first must be a baptized member of the Church.”

He laughed and responded, “Oh, I took care of that while you were in Canada. My home teacher was a school crossing guard, and every weekday as he and I would visit at the crossing, we would discuss the gospel.”

The sealings were performed; a family was united; joy followed.

One of Lucy’s most poignant memories is her distress when she realized that they were going to lose the home that had been designed by her beloved Alvin for the express purpose of seeing that she and Joseph Sr. would be comfortable in their old age. “I was overcome and fell back into a chair almost deprived of sensibility,” she wrote. She asked Hyrum: “What can this mean? … How … is [it] that all which we have earned in the last 10 years is taken away from us in one instant?” Her feelings were natural, but when they had to move from the home three years later, she told Oliver Cowdery, who was boarding with them: “I now look around me upon all these things that have been gathered together for my happiness which have cost the toil of years. … I now give it all up for the sake of Christ and salvation, and I pray God to help me to do so without one murmur or a tear. … I will not cast one longing look upon anything which I leave behind me.”

In the Granite 12th Ward, Sandy Granite Stake, the girls combined a valuable lesson in sparing someone’s feelings with learning the art of quilting. Heidi Tuft explains that it all started at camp. “It was one girl’s birthday. Somebody called her a nickname that hurt her feelings. We all wanted to apologize, so we wrote a letter and each of us signed it with a nickname we didn’t care for. Our leader signed hers as ‘Frog Master.’ After that, frogs became our mascots.” The girls appliquéd comical pictures of frogs on a quilt top and learned to make the tiny, even stitches required in quilting. Heidi said, “It was hard learning to quilt. We had to keep starting over until we learned how.” When the quilt was completed, the girls presented it to a counselor in the bishopric. The quilt became a visual reminder of the lessons they had learned together. The gift of kindness had been added to their baskets.

After my mother passed away, life began to feel too much to bear. I finally turned to my bishop for advice. What he told me wasn’t exactly what I expected, but it changed my life. He invited me to rely on Heavenly Father by praying, reading the scriptures, and trusting that the Savior would be there for me—trusting Him so much that I would feel my burdens become lighter. Two and a half years later, I know that there is a constant peace available to all of us because of who our Savior is and what He did for us.
Whitney W., 19, Arizona, USA

“My blessing promised me that my husband and I would live with mutual respect and love for each other. But my husband distanced himself from the family and developed an addiction. I told the Lord that I would do everything in my power to make the promise in my blessing come true. But I told Him that He would have to guide my footsteps. It has taken years, but my husband and I have overcome the problems, grown closer, and remained faithful. I know Heavenly Father gave me that promise in my blessing to help me to survive.”

The members’ ability to receive, in their native tongue, that reassurance from modern-day prophets was thanks in large measure to a team of translators who suffered their own losses during the disaster.
Assigned to provide live interpretation from the islands for the first time rather than from Salt Lake City, the translation team had a choice to make after the disaster struck. The team could turn interpretation over to Salt Lake City on short notice so that they could tend to the needs of friends and family affected by the quake, or they could fulfill their assignment.
Aliitasi Talataina, the translation supervisor and interpretation coordinator, said she felt an impression that there were many who could tend to the physical needs of the people or bury the dead but that “this is what the Lord would have us do [for] the living and generations to come.”
Because a disaster management team took over the service center where the interpretation equipment had been set up, the team had to find a facility that had the digital telephone lines and other technical requirements necessary to provide remote, simultaneous translation.
Sister Talataina said the team’s faith was like Nephi’s in that they said, “Even if we [had] to do this under a tree, we [would] go and do” (see 1 Nephi 3:7).
With the Lord’s help they found a location, and the necessary equipment was transferred, set up, and tested in the few days prior to conference.
“We felt the hand of the Lord in accomplishing what we were commanded,” Sister Talataina said.
Because of the team’s efforts, when conference began, members who took time from the massive cleanup effort to participate in the proceedings were able to hear and understand the Lord’s message for them.

It was late at night, I was the only cashier on duty, and there wasn’t another soul in the entire grocery store. As I wiped down the checkout counters, I began humming.
My humming quickly turned into singing. I started singing “Come, Come, Ye Saints” (Hymns, no. 30). I don’t usually sing hymns for fun, but I sang energetically until the sight of someone stopped me.
An older man approached.
“I know that song,” he said. “How do you know it?”
“It is a hymn we sing in my church,” I said.
“Are you a Mormon?”
I responded that I was.
He told me his wife had been a Latter-day Saint and had passed away from cancer in 2011. He said “Come, Come, Ye Saints” was sung at her funeral. I expressed my condolences and told him my older brother passed away in 2011 while serving a mission in Chile. We also sang that hymn at his funeral. The Spirit touched our hearts as we marveled at this “coincidence.”
“So do you think you’ll see your brother again?” he asked.
I had asked myself the same question countless times. In the difficult months after my brother died, I struggled with doubts. Eventually, Heavenly Father blessed me with a sweet knowledge that families are forever. I still had questions, but I met the man’s gaze and declared, “Yes, I do!”
“You have a lot of faith,” the man said. “My wife used to say we should have ‘a perfect brightness of hope.’” I agreed and quoted the rest of 2 Nephi 31:20, that we should love God and all men, press forward, feast upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end.
“That’s it!” the man said with tears in his eyes. “That’s what she would say! How did you know that?”
I told him it was in the Book of Mormon. He asked me how he could get a copy. I told him how to do it online. The man shook my hand, thanked me by name, and left.

My mother picked me up in front of the high school, and we headed for home. She asked, “Well, how did tryouts go?” I had talked about trying out as a kicker for the football team.

“They don’t start until four o’clock,” I answered slowly. “I’ve decided not to try out. I wouldn’t make it. I’m not good enough.” As I continued to give my reasons, my mom stopped the car, quickly turned around, and drove back towards town.

“Why don’t we get something to eat and talk this over? The only way to know for sure if you could have done it is to try out,” Mom said.

Fortified with my favorite fast-food meal and Mom’s encouragement, we drove back to the school. I had played soccer since I was five and had been told I had a good leg and a “big foot.” I had learned to kick fairly well that summer at an Explorer Scout tournament. I was nervous as tryouts began, especially when I saw all my old soccer teammates who also had strong legs.

My time came to kick, and I did amazingly well. I found out later that my mom and sister had been watching and cheering me on from the other side of the field as I sent footballs soaring through the uprights. I ended up playing for three years of high school and felt good about my participation and improved talent.

I also learned that day the meaning of Doctrine and Covenants 38:30, [D&C 38:30] “… if ye are prepared ye shall not fear.” It gave me the courage to try in other areas of my life. When I served my mission, I knew that if I prepared myself by studying and doing what I should, I need have no fear.

Hard work and faithful, diligent service has always been a part of Elder and Sister Mutombo’s life together. Heartache and adversity have been as well. Four of the Mutombo’s first six children died while infants. The youngest died at one week old, the oldest died of sudden infant death, at 9 months old. In the face of the heartbreak of losing four children, Thierry and Nathalie’s faith in God and love for each other was undeterred. Today, they have six living children, Jason, Blessing, Ariel, Marvel, Harvest, and Ruby. Ruby, their tenth child and third daughter, was born while the Mutombos led the Maryland Baltimore mission. Despite the challenges they have faced, they are happy, cheerful, faithful people.

Santa missed my house last year. Not because the chimney was too small, or because we didn’t set out cookies and milk, or because we had been naughty. He just skipped over us. But Christmas without Santa wasn’t terrible.
I had known from the outset this wasn’t going to be a typical Christmas. One brother, Tim, was halfway around the world on a mission. My only sister was going to take advantage of the long vacation to have an operation and would be recuperating at my aunt’s in Salt Lake City. Medical bills and the expense of a missionary would not allow us to have a “normal” Christmas. Also, we had already celebrated our traditional family Christmas with my cousins, aunts, and uncles at Thanksgiving time because Grandma would be leaving to serve a mission in the middle of December.
With these factors, we looked forward to Christmas and wondered what we could do to make it special. Mom made a startling suggestion, “Why don’t we have Christmas without Santa this year?”
As a family, we talked about how we could have Christmas without Santa. The youngest in my family were ten-year-old twins, so we didn’t have to worry about destroying anyone’s belief in Santa. Mom liked the idea of no Santa because she said we were never sufficiently thrilled and delighted with our Christmas gifts to fulfill her expectations, and she usually felt a letdown on Christmas morning. Instead of gifts on Christmas, we would each get to choose something during the after-Christmas sales. We thought this was appropriate as Christ didn’t receive gifts on the day of his birth, but much later when the Wise Men came. Also, Christmas would be on Sunday this year, and all the excitement (and sometimes greed) that comes with gift opening didn’t seem appropriate for the Sabbath day. We decided it was time to put Christ back in Christmas.
It was “business as usual” with our other family traditions of cutting our own tree, making a gingerbread village, and baking goodies for our friends and neighbors. We also started a new tradition of stuffing each other’s stockings with small gifts. During December the stockings expanded steadily as we found small purchases or made gifts and secretly placed them in each other’s stockings. Through this service, our focus turned from the worldly idea of Christmas to our love for each other, and these small gifts meant more to me because they were carefully created for me personally.
On Christmas Eve, we went to the chapel, and my dad told us stories behind some of the Christmas carols and played them for us. Gathered around the organ with the most important people in my life, I felt an intense feeling of love for my family and for the Savior. The feeling that night was calm and peaceful. There was no wild anticipation about what tomorrow might bring. We were in no hurry to get up in the morning to open gifts. We read the story of Christ’s birth and went to bed.
The next morning, we didn’t dash to retrieve our gifts from under the tree as we usually did each Christmas morning. We had a relaxed breakfast and went to church. Attending my meetings, I felt an even deeper understanding of what Christmas should be. We had had Christmas with Santa before, and we would have it again. But for one day, Christmas wasn’t focused on gifts and commercialism, but on Christ. Celebrating the birth of Christ without the distraction of Santa helped me to realize why Christ came to earth and the sacrifice he made for me.
As we looked back on last year, we decided that it was one of the best Christmases ever. Last Christmas was filled with family, friends, love, and service. By focusing on the birth of the Savior we came to realize we could have Christmas without Santa. Celebrating Christmas this way, I found we had things money could not buy; we had family unity and love for the Savior, gifts that will last forever.

One evening my children and I were driving down a hill near our home. I noticed a boy about 12 years old wearing a backpack and walking up the hill. It was a strange time for him to be coming home from school, but I didn’t think too much of it.
Then I had a strong impression that I should turn around and help the boy. But I was worried it would frighten him if a strange car pulled up next to him at night, so I continued driving.
As I got to the bottom of the hill, the impression came again: “You need to go help that boy.”
I turned the car around and drove back to the boy. I rolled down the window and said, “Do you need help? I had a prompting that I should come back and help you.”
The boy looked at us with tears streaming down his face. He said, “Would you? I’ve been praying that someone would help me.”
He had stayed after school for an activity and had missed the last bus. He had walked several miles already. It was getting dark, and he was frightened. Because of the boy’s prayer and the Spirit’s prompting, we were able to help him find his way home.
We can all pray when we need help. I received a spiritual feeling that helped the boy return home. You too can receive promptings through the Spirit that will help guide you safely home to Heavenly Father.

She first heard the gospel preached in 1836 in Portage County, Ohio, about 40 miles (64 km) south of Kirtland. Cyrena took several months to decide to join the Church and was baptized in March 1837. In her autobiography, she noted that her siblings were “greatly mortified” at her choice and that as long as she lived at home, she “had to endure their persecutions.”2 Although she was the only member of her immediate family to join the Church, there was a small group of Latter-day Saints living nearby. She visited Kirtland that summer and received a patriarchal blessing from Joseph Smith Sr. in April 1838.3

Brenna was crying. She sat in a barber’s chair, hair pulled back, her ponytail just moments away from being cut off. The hairdresser holding the scissors was crying. Those watching the scene were also in tears.
Snip! Brenna’s long hair, which had taken years to grow out, was gone. Her ponytail would now become a gift, a donation to an organization called Locks of Love. It would be combined with other donated hair and made into wigs for children who had lost their hair because of cancer treatment or who suffer from alopecia, a permanent hair-loss condition.

W hen I was 12 years old, my father was in the bishopric. There were benefits, such as being able to give my tithing to my father, but there were also some unexpected downsides. For example, people expected more of me. And there was another downside that was much more treacherous.
One day, as I sat at the computer, typing up an assignment, my father sat down beside me and started asking about my day. Not seeing a trap, I answered his questions. Then, he asked a question no one had ever asked me before.
“Zachary, will you give a talk next Sunday?”
I felt the color drain from my face. I frantically searched for a reason to not be there, but my father knew that I would be. He rambled something about it being a short talk and that I needn’t worry, but my mind was moving too quickly to actually comprehend what he was saying.
I had stage fright. How could I give a talk? I had never given a public speech outside of the Primary room! Tears welled up as I felt the weight of a seemingly impossible task. My father wrapped his arms around me and told me that if I was too scared, I didn’t have to do it.
However, just then, I began to feel something that I had never felt, or maybe never noticed, before. All of a sudden, I had a small glimpse of myself, slightly older, giving a powerful speech in front of a large crowd. I felt the Spirit whisper that one day, I would have no stage fright and could become a public speaker.
Three years later, I was at my first speech and debate meet. I confidently gave a persuasive and powerful speech convincing people to vote for me.
God knows us. He knows our weaknesses and he knows our strengths. I know that the promise in Ether is true: If we simply believe, and act on that belief, God will turn our weakness into strength (see Ether 12:27).

When I was nine years old, I committed a crime. I made a decision to steal a comic book from the small town store which kept an old twirling black metal rack over in the corner by the stacked wooden cases of bottled soda pop. The owner did not catch me stealing, but at home my parents were suspicious, knowing that I had no money to purchase the comic book. Prying the truth out of me, my mother finally marched me back to the store, where I confessed my guilt to the owner. He let me decide how to make full restitution and how I was going to go about learning not to steal again.
The store’s floor was made of old-time hardwood, and each evening he would throw sawdust down and sweep it to get up all of the dust balls and grime from the foot traffic of the day. That chore was assigned to me. I was sure that I would only have to do it for a few days. As I came into the store each afternoon after school to do my sweeping, the proprietor would nod his greeting and motion toward the broom and cardboard box of sawdust in the back. It was weeks before he told me one night that he thought I had swept long enough.
I relate this particular incident, not to rehash the sin, but to point out that it is the sweeping and the price I had to pay that I remember vividly. I still have the memory of taking the comic book, but the feelings of guilt, heartsickness, distress, and deep sorrow are long gone because I was helped to repent. I remember those long hours of sweeping now to remind me of the price of stealing. That encourages me not to be dishonest again.

The Lord is constantly dealing with his children in terms of their needs, not their wants. This is pretty hard doctrine for any of us, and it was especially hard for our teenage daughter. Being elected to a leadership position at her high school seemed to be the most important need of her life. She had worked and prepared for several months. “Oh, Mother, I’m praying so hard to win. The Lord says you can ask for any righteous desire of your heart and this is mine.” It seemed a reasonable request to us too. She had a testimony of the gospel and was socially popular in a large high school. We thought she would be a good influence for the Church.
When the voting time finally arrived, it seemed certain that she would be one of the winners. She was absolutely crushed when she lost! It was only by a few votes—but she lost!
The very next month she was asked to be one of the high school seminary officers. All of the seminary council had made personal sacrifices to serve. The seminary president had been asked to give up running for student body president; this was a hard decision for him. They said they really needed our daughter’s creativity and missionary talents to attract people, and this year was a very important one for the growth and development of the seminary program.
That year she had many spiritual experiences. She developed deep, meaningful friendships and was helpful in bringing several people into Church activity.
Later she told me that she gradually came to an understanding of herself through prayer and study of the scriptures. “I wanted to win that election more than anything else, but the Lord knew I needed this other experience more. I needed more spiritual growth. It was a hard experience, but I know in my heart it was right.”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland told of a young man who was the brunt of his peers’ teasing during his school years. Some years later he moved away, joined the military, received an education, and became active in the Church. This period of his life was marked with wonderfully successful experiences.

After several years he returned to his hometown. However, the people refused to acknowledge his growth and improvement. To them, he was still just old “so-and-so,” and they treated him that way. Eventually, this good man faded away to a shadow of his former successful self without being able to use his marvelously developed talents to bless those who derided and rejected him once again.10 What a loss, both for him and the community!

One summer the Jacobsons—Dad, Mom (Barbara), Ginger, and sisters Kim (21), Melissa (19), Mary (17), Becky (15), Jessica (13), and Jackie (2)—were traveling home from a family vacation to Nauvoo, Illinois. When their car broke down, Ginger immediately suggested that they ask their Heavenly Father for help. They did, and just as they said, “Amen,” a man stopped and towed them first to his home and then to a junkyard where they found what they needed to repair their car.

Another memory from my boyhood was learning how to work. We had a big yard because my dad wanted to teach us how to work in it. So we all had assignments—mowing the lawn, weeding the vegetable and flower gardens, trimming the hedges, and so forth. My favorite job was working in our strawberry patch, because I’d eat the strawberries almost as fast as I picked them!
One job I had was mowing the lawn with our old push mower. My dad wouldn’t make me do it when I didn’t want to, but he would warn me, “It’s your job, and if you don’t do it today, the grass will only be longer tomorrow, and it’ll be harder to push the mower.” I remember procrastinating three or four days past the time when I should have mowed the lawn. Trying to push that mower through the long grass was really hard. I learned never to put off what you’re supposed to do, because it just gets harder the longer you wait. One of the happiest days of my youth was when my dad finally bought a power lawn mower!

Three weeks after our fifth child was born, my husband was called to be the bishop of our newly divided ward. Our stake president, in interviewing us, had expressed his concern about our young family, but he emphasized that Larry had been called by the Lord to this position. My own concerns diminished as we felt the Spirit’s confirmation.
The next few weeks were exhilarating and exhausting for all of us as we experienced what being a bishop’s family meant and as our new son Jeffrey assumed his role in our family life. After the excitement of being a new mother and a new bishop’s wife started to wear off, I realized how tired I was both physically and mentally, and I found myself not coping very well.
It was then that Sister Camilla Kimball helped me. That year Sister Kimball was scheduled to address a Brigham Young University stake Relief Society, and my sister-in-law, the stake Relief Society president, invited my mother-in-law and me to attend. Sister Kimball based her talk on questions members of the stake had submitted to her. Among many others, she responded to the question, “How do you manage your problem-solving effectively when your feelings get hurt, and how do you act instead of react?” Her honest reply was, “I have mostly learned to keep my mouth shut.”
My spirit tuned in on that remark. I knew I was listening to someone who had been where I was, that she too had known the gnawing feeling of loneliness and the bruised sensitivities that sometimes accompany being the wife of someone busily engaged in activities that largely excluded her.
Sister Kimball talked about how to overcome those feelings—the same feelings I was struggling with. She described how she learned to carry her own weight and how she had found that she had to get busy in the Church and simply be happy herself. Then she said, “There is no more demanding job in the Church than being a bishop,” adding that she had great empathy for the wives of bishops, especially those with young families.
After the meeting, my sister-in-law introduced her mother and me to Sister Kimball as she escorted this dear lady to her car. The crowd had waned, and we were standing face to face. I told Sister Kimball that I truly appreciated her remarks about pulling one’s own weight, that she had helped me immensely. I explained that my husband had been a bishop for just two months and that we had five children from ages three months to ten years.
At that point, Camilla Kimball drew me to her and embraced me. As I felt her spirit and her great love, I knew that I was as close to a celestial being as I ever had been in my life. Then as we parted, she stepped back and said, “And you’re every bit as important as he is, and don’t you forget it!”
I went home that night renewed. Somehow Sundays didn’t seem so long and lonely anymore, my task as a bishop’s wife didn’t seem quite so formidable, and I was thrilled to be married to this wonderful man whom the Lord had called to be bishop. My own identity had shed its fuzzy edges and become sharply defined in my own mind once again.