Gospel Story Finder

Mrs. Higgins never missed a piano lesson. Every Tuesday afternoon at precisely 3:30 P.M. her big, white sedan would round the corner and come to a halt in front of our house.
She’d march up the driveway in her grandma shoes with that leather clasp purse hanging from her arm and her hair pulled neatly into a bun. I’d hear her firm knock, the front door opening and footsteps in the hallway. Then my mother’s sweet voice would summon me to my doom.
Mrs. Higgins was convinced I was one of her most talented students. Of course, she never knew how little effort I put into my practices because I always performed to her satisfaction.
Each lesson began with a recital of the pieces I had practiced that week. I’d play; and if the music had words, she’d sing in her loud, clear opera voice. If there were no words, she’d count out loud. Occasionally she was silent as I performed a piece particularly well.
I wasn’t the only child in the neighborhood whose parents employed Mrs. Higgins. There were Lisa and Brian Baccus and Charlie, Beverly, and Jenny Bradley. I felt especially sorry for the Bradleys because Mrs. Higgins was at their house for almost two hours each week.
The older I got the more intensely I begged my mother to let me quit. After seven years of complaining, I finally convinced her to cancel the lessons. I was free.
Several years later my mother asked if I would accompany her to a piano concert at an art gallery in Sacramento where Jenny Bradley would be performing. I remembered her as the funny little girl who always forgot her piano pieces at the yearly recitals. She never was very good.
When Jenny came out on stage, I was surprised to see that the little freckle-faced girl was all grown-up. She seated herself at the grand piano and began to play. The piano sang out and sounded like the work of three pianists. I’d never witnessed such energy, such concentration.
As I listened, I glanced around the room at the small crowd of people. Then I saw her—Mrs. Higgins—leaning against a marble pillar near the back of the room. She looked older, but her eyes sparkled and she glowed with true happiness.
“Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord” (James 5:11).
Suddenly, my eyes filled with tears. Though I should have been happy to see someone perform to the best of her ability, I wasn’t. I was jealous. Why wasn’t I sitting at that piano? After all, I had been more talented than Jenny. Deep down inside, I knew I’d failed because I’d given up.
“Behold, I am the law, and the light. Look unto me, and endure to the end, and ye shall live; for unto him that endureth to the end will I give eternal life” (3 Ne. 15:9).
Two people who had paid the price were getting their reward. Jenny was playing brilliantly and Mrs. Higgins, who never missed a lesson, glowed with the knowledge that she had made a pianist.

I have a cross-stitched picture of two pinto ponies that I worked on for about a year. It was almost completed when I discovered I’d made a mistake in the color of one of the ponies. Since it was a possible color for a horse’s hide, I didn’t realize my mistake until I saw that the color of the pony clashed with the adjacent colors on the canvas.
I was devastated. I had spent all that time working on the picture, and the thought of taking out all the stitches of the wrong color was almost overwhelming. With tears in my eyes, I opened the trash can and threw the picture in.
I sat down at the table where I kept my sewing supplies to mourn the loss of my pretty pony picture and move on to other projects. But I couldn’t do it—I couldn’t just let go of the project I had worked so hard on. I opened the trash and retrieved the cloth. I found a knot on the back of the offending color and snipped it carefully. Turning the picture over, I began removing the thread.
Sometimes the removal went quickly. Other times I found it wasn’t so easy. I wasn’t sure how to undo what I had done. Sometimes I had to cut the thread one stitch at a time. My son remarked that he was impressed that I would go to all that work to make it right. It was only a cross-stitched picture, after all.
As I removed the stitches, I began to think of repentance and how hard it has been to correct some of the errors I have made. True repentance requires intense desire, labor, and suffering, but it is worth the effort.
As I restitched the horse, I was reminded that repentance allows Jesus’s Atonement to remove the stain of sin from my life and help me begin anew. My “repentance ponies” hang in my home, a gentle but vivid reminder to do what is right, never give up when I fall short, and remember that through repentance, the Atonement will make up the difference.

A young college student found herself almost overwhelmed by personal and family difficulties. “It was a time of grief and loneliness,” she recalls. “Then, Lila, a young woman who served with me in a ward calling, began stopping by my apartment to visit with me. Again and again her visits came at the very moments when I felt nearest despair. Her friendship gave me the courage to go on—not only because it lifted me—but because it showed me that my Heavenly Father knew my need.”

In 2019 during an assignment in Jerusalem, I visited an upper room which may have been near the site where the Savior washed His Apostles’ feet prior to His Crucifixion. I was spiritually touched and thought of how He commanded His Apostles to love one another.
I recalled the Savior’s pleading Intercessory Prayer in our behalf. This prayer occurred in literally the closing hours of His mortal life as recorded in the Gospel of John.
This prayer was directed to followers of Christ, including all of us. In the Savior’s petition to His Father, He pleaded “that they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us.” The Savior then continues, “And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one.” Oneness is what Christ prayed for prior to His betrayal and Crucifixion. Oneness with Christ and our Heavenly Father can be obtained through the Savior’s Atonement.

“My dad was a farmer at heart. He had eighty acres that he farmed, although we lived in town. Dad and I used to spend a lot of time together, and we understood each other very well. He was very, very strong on obedience and felt that it was the most important principle. He never questioned any instruction or guidance that was given by Church leaders. He obeyed any directive they gave, and he instilled that desire to obey in his family. I remember Dad as being a strong disciplinarian, but he always tempered his discipline with love and concern. Once when he spanked me, he cried. But he felt that he had to execute the discipline in order to teach me obedience. I remember thinking then that it hurt him worse than it hurt me.”

We are working here in the newest Belgian city to receive the message of the restored gospel. We would like to express our gratitude to the New Era for helping us to become better missionaries. One of the more difficult days in the life of a missionary is preparation day. On this day we don’t have the opportunity of being with the people and bearing our testimonies of the divinity of the gospel. However, we have found that reading the New Era not only provides us with an enjoyable pastime, but it also builds us up and keeps our thoughts centered on the work. At the moment our young branch consists of only four members, but they too have enjoyed the spirit of the New Era, as we have given them our translated versions of the various articles. They also send their thanks. Keep up the great work.
Elders Blickenstaff, Chambers, Christensen, and JamesNetherlands Mission

At the afternoon session, Elder George Q. Cannon read the names of persons called to leave their homes and families and go into the world as missionaries. There were 105 of them. In those days missionaries were called by reading their names from the podium of this tabernacle in the general conferences. Later the practice was changed as the number of missionaries increased and calls were ultimately made by a communication from the President of the Church. If the practice were still followed of calling missionaries by reading their names at a general conference, it would have been necessary to read the names of 7,923 persons at this present conference, which alone would take about one-half of the total time of this three-day assembly. That is the number of missionaries called since we were last assembled in a general conference six months ago, and incidentally, about the number that are presently seated here today.

At about this time, a German priest and professor named Martin Luther identified 95 points of error in the church of his day, which he boldly sent in a letter to his superiors. In Switzerland, Huldrych Zwingli printed 67 articles of reform. John Calvin in Switzerland, John Knox in Scotland, and many others assisted in this effort. A reformation had begun.

At the time, I was working and taking a full schedule of classes. My wife and I also had a small baby to care for. With all these demands on my schedule, I didn’t have much time for studying. I prayed every day for the companionship of Holy Ghost. I needed guidance to help me make the most of my time. I needed assistance understanding the material as well as remembering it later during exams.
One day during class, a professor was writing sets of advanced equations on the whiteboard to illustrate a point. These complex equations didn’t relate to that class, but he wanted to talk about them briefly. After a few minutes the professor erased the board.
My next class was computer science, and we had an exam that day. Those exact equations from the board in my previous class were on the test! What’s truly remarkable is that we had never studied these before in our computer science class. All that memory came back to me from the other class I had attended, and I was able to answer the problem.
When the computer science professor graded the tests, he was so sure nobody answered that specific problem correctly that he automatically marked it wrong for every student. But when I got my paper back, I showed him that the answer I wrote on the paper was correct. It was wonderful.
The Holy Ghost helped me make the most of all my studying opportunities throughout college. I was able to achieve high grades and earn scholarships, which helped me pay for school.

In South America, a father sobs. A sparkle in his life, his young daughter, has died. “I would give anything to see her again,” he cries in my arms. I cry too.

I recall my surprise when visiting ancient pagan temples and tombs to discover the main “blessings” for which the idol worshippers repeatedly asked their gods: immortality, reproduction of life, and fertility for flocks, herds, and farms. These blessings were asked for in carnal and sensual rituals which appealed to the Israelites’ natural appetites, in contrast to the austere, moral, and spiritually motivated codes of behavior asked by Israel’s God for the same blessings.

“The Prophet Joseph Smith said, ‘The greatest responsibility in this world that God has laid upon us is to seek after our dead’ (History of the Church, 6:313). From the beginning, Relief Society sisters have supported this great work. In Nauvoo in 1842, Sarah M. Kimball’s desire to help the temple construction workers prompted a group of sisters to organize themselves so that they could serve more effectively. As they began to meet, the Prophet … organized the first Relief Society after the pattern of the priesthood. From that time on, the Relief Society sisters helped further the work on the Nauvoo Temple. …”

I used to feel totally left out at church. It was the worst feeling. The way I overcame it was to make a point to talk to everyone at church. Eventually they started coming up and talking to me first. It will take awhile, but those people who just care about looks and clothes will start caring deeply for you if you make the first and hardest move.
Brenda Hardy, 15Olean, New York

After our return to the hotel, I became quite ill during the night. The next morning my traveling companions came to my bedroom to see why I had not come to breakfast. I told them I was too ill to get out of bed. They said that they would eat breakfast and then go down to the airstrip and look at the plane to see that everything was all right.
They soon returned and informed me that clouds had settled down on the airstrip and on Tuxtla so heavily that we would not be able to get out. We were fogged in, and they had been informed that the airstrip would probably be fogged in for a considerable time because the rainy season was beginning. They asked me what should be done.
After thinking for a few moments I was impressed by the Holy Spirit to say, “Give me a blessing and we will fly out today.” At first they replied, “President Hunter, you are too ill to fly.” But I insisted on being blessed. President Strong anointed and his son Bert sealed the anointing and gave me a blessing. I immediately got up out of bed, went in and ate breakfast, and felt completely healed.
We took our luggage and went down to the airstrip. Shortly after, the clouds lifted sufficiently for us to fly out. We heard later from the archaeological workman that several days passed before the fog and clouds lifted again. Therefore, that particular day was our time to fly out of Tuxtla.

The music screamed from the radio, jerking me from my peaceful sleep. “Turn the radio down, Eric!” I bellowed.
I cracked open my eyes and watched my brother dance insanely in front of his dresser. His good left hand was clenched around an imaginary microphone, and his partially crippled right hand flapped as he twisted to the music.
“Eric!” I yelled again, and he turned toward me, gave me his sheepish grin—and turned up the radio. I lunged after him, and he bolted out the bedroom door, laughing as he ran. His straw-colored blond hair flapped as he ran, exhibiting more energy than I could ever match. I shut the door and climbed back in bed.

The influence of these girls reaches beyond the circle of their immediate friends. “We went to the temple last year,” Melissa said. “We had a testimony meeting after going to the temple, and our bus drivers came in and listened. The Spirit was so strong. It touched one of the drivers, and he asked for a copy of the Book of Mormon. He later joined the Church.”

Prior to the martyrdom, no doubt with a sense of foreboding, the Prophet Joseph prepared for his death. President Joseph Fielding Smith states:
“The Prophet declared that he knew not why, but the Lord commanded him to endow the Twelve with these keys and priesthood, and after it was done, he rejoiced very much, saying in substance, ‘Now, if they kill me, you have all the keys and all the ordinances and you can confer them upon others, and the powers of Satan will not be able to tear down the kingdom as fast as you will be able to build it up, and upon your shoulders will the responsibility of leading this people rest.’”

Do you remember the first time you knew there was a God and could feel His love? As a boy, I used to gaze into the starry sky and ponder and feel His presence. I thrilled to explore the magnificent beauties of God’s creations—from tiny insects to towering trees. As I recognized the beauty of this earth, I knew that Heavenly Father loved me. I knew that I was a literal spiritual offspring, that we are all sons and daughters of God.

How did I know this? you might ask. The scriptures teach, “To some it is given by the Holy Ghost to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and … to others it is given to believe on their words, that they also might have eternal life if they continue faithful.”3 From my perspective, this does not mean that some people will forever be dependent upon the testimonies of others.

My own testimony grew as I learned about Heavenly Father and the Savior from the teachings and testimony of my parents, teachers, the scriptures—which I read diligently—and especially the Holy Ghost. As I exercised faith and obeyed the commandments, the Holy Ghost testified that what I was learning was true. This is how I came to know for myself.

Before my eighth birthday, I sought to know more about baptism. I read the scriptures and prayed. I learned that I would receive the gift of the Holy Ghost when I was confirmed. I also began to understand that God and Christ are literally a Father and a Son—separate, distinct, individual beings who are wholly unified in Their purpose. “We love [Them], because [They] first loved us.”5 And over and over again I observed how They love one another and work together for our good.

3. The Savior marks the path for me;
He shows me how to live.
And if I stray or wander,
I know He will forgive.
So I will heed the Savior’s voice;
I’ll turn away from sin,
And He will fill my heart with joy
When I return to Him.

Just as his hearing loss hasn’t held him back from his work in construction, it hasn’t hindered his desire to learn and preach the gospel.
“While growing up, I barely understood 10 percent of what was said from the pulpit,” Callan says. He wanted to serve a full-time mission but didn’t qualify because of his hearing. However, he prayed and trusted that the Lord’s will would be done. Then something unexpected happened: Callan’s hearing worsened.
“When I was 18, I was completely deaf for six long months. I went to church for the feelings, because that’s all I got out of it,” he explains.
During this time, Callan built his testimony and relied on the Spirit. But what initially seemed to be a larger trial turned out to be the answer to his prayers. Because of the sudden drop in his hearing ability, he qualified for a cochlear implant, which improved his hearing enough to qualify him for a full-time mission. Callan soon left to serve in Perth, Australia.