Gospel Story Finder

Before another of my older brothers was baptized at the age of 27, he had no idea how to live. He was troubled and would drink and party. He caused his family and the people around him much grief. When this brother learned about the purpose of life through the gospel, he was baptized and confirmed and eventually married a wonderful woman in the Church. He found joy in life and began feeling a purpose in being alive. He shared the gospel with friends and was a good influence to many. My brothers who were on missions could hardly believe it when they heard that this brother had joined the Church.

A story is told of an encounter between the Prophet Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. In the presence of a rather large group of brethren, the Prophet severely chastised Brother Brigham for some failing in his duty. Everyone, I suppose, somewhat stunned, waited to see what Brigham's response would be. After all, Brigham, who later became known as the Lion of the Lord, was no shrinking violet by any means. Brigham slowly rose to his feet, and in words that truly reflected his character and his humility, he simply bowed his head and said, "Joseph, what do you want me to do?" The story goes that, sobbing, Joseph ran from the podium, threw his arms around Brigham, and said in effect, "You passed, Brother Brigham, you passed." [11] Brigham, one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century, the "Lion of the Lord," displayed his greatness through his humility.

The seventies led us to graduate school at the University of Iowa. Wouldn’t you know it – our babysitter for the three years there was a Primary President. Our son, Arthur, joined their then eight children (eventually ten) and became part of their family and part of their ward. We, the parents, were on the outside looking in on a wonderful transformation of the wards newest “Sunbeam.” Arthur would come home and tell us he was special and wanted a duty in the house! We did NOT know what to say or do … except be impressed. Remember the earlier quote from Richard L. Evans?
We are the sum of all our actions and attitudes and utterances,
of all things stored away in body and mind and memory.
We wanted these values in our little family. We were still experiencing turbulent times being on a college campus. We were just beginning as parents and didn’t have a clue how to continue. We watched and absorbed the Aamodt family’s activities. They eventually gave us a family home evening manual. We didn’t know what the D&C thing meant but we did sit down together on Sunday evening, pop some popcorn and watch “The Wonderful World of Disney” each week. Our babysitters became stability in a time if uncertainty.
We observed this family for three years. They took us to their daughter’s baptism, the yearly children’s sacrament program, a dessert auction, and to Nauvoo to see the “City of Joseph” pageant. We attended the ward so infrequently (once or twice a year) that we were introduced as “Arthur’s parents.”
While in Nauvoo, the testimonies of the missionary couples impressed Scarlett and questions arose as to how these couples could leave their families. “Don’t you miss your grandchildren? “You can’t go home and see them for how long?” “Why do they always end their speeches with ‘I know these things to be true…’” “Is this something they’ve memorized?” During the return trip to Iowa City, we asked, “So, where are those gold plates now?” WHERE? (we thought…) Well, that’s convenient! This trip was a definite turning point in our interest in the church even after we were told where those plates ended up.
Before graduating, I became ill and needed blood. Members of the ward donated blood while the Aamodt family moved us into their home.

My third great-grandmother Amanda Barnes Smith witnessed the terrible tragedy known as the Haun’s Mill Massacre on October 30, 1838. Just hours after arriving at the settlement in Missouri, Amanda’s husband, Warren, and her son Sardius were shot and killed along with 13 others by invading mobsters. Amanda, with her two daughters and two other sons, survived. Her six-year-old son, Alma, however, was critically wounded, his hip blown away by gunshot. As the grief-stricken wife and mother tried to deal with the shock and the horror of the situation, she later related:

We laid little Alma on a bed in our tent and I examined the wound. It was a ghastly sight. I knew not what to do. It was night now. . . . Yet was I there, all that long, dreadful night, with my dead and my wounded, and none but God as our physician and help. “Oh my Heavenly Father, I cried, what shall I do? Thou seest my poor wounded boy and knowest my inexperience. Oh, Heavenly Father, direct me what to do!” And then I was directed as by a voice speaking to me.

Amanda goes on to describe how she followed the promptings to repeatedly clean the wound with a cloth saturated with lye from the hickory ashes of their smoldering fire. She then placed a poultice made from the roots of a slippery-elm tree into the wound. After covering the wound with linen, she poured a bottle of balsam into the wound, which greatly soothed Alma’s pain. She then laid him on a bed, facedown, and instructed him: “Now you lie like that, and don’t move, and the Lord will make you another hip.”

In the desperate days and weeks that followed, she and a few other bereaved widows who could not flee stayed behind at the home of Brother David Evans. I continue, in Amanda’s words:

In our utter desolation, what could we women do but pray? Prayer was our only source of comfort; our Heavenly Father our only helper. . . . One day a mobber came from the mill with the captain’s fiat: “the captain says if you women don’t stop your d__d prayer he will send down a posse and kill every d__d one of you!” . . . Our prayers were hushed in terror. We dared not let our voices be heard in the house in supplication. I could pray in my bed or in silence, but I could not live thus long. This godless silence was more intolerable than had been that night of the massacre. I could bear it no longer. I pined to hear once more my own voice in petition to my Heavenly Father.

I stole down into a cornfield, and crawled into a “stout of corn.” It was a temple of the Lord to me at that moment. I prayed aloud and most fervently. When I emerged from the corn a voice spoke to me. It was a voice as plain as I ever heard one. It was . . . a voice, repeating a verse of the Saint’s hymn [as we sang today]:

“The soul who on Jesus hath leaned for repose
“I will not, I cannot desert to its foes;
“That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
“I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!”

From that moment I had no more fear. I felt that nothing could hurt me. [Journal of Amanda Barnes Smith, unpublished manuscript]

After five weeks Alma miraculously recovered. Amanda and her surviving children left Missouri for Quincy, Illinois, then Nauvoo. They later came west with the Saints, Alma driving a wagon the full distance. He later married, had a family, and served four missions for the Church. Amanda remained faithful and experienced the Lord’s promised blessing. Through the years Amanda’s example of faith and reliance upon the firm foundation of the Savior for strength has continued to inspire her many descendants.

This point struck me several years ago when I realized that my wife and I have done several things we never intended to do! These things were never part of our plans—short or long term. For example, we never planned to settle in Houston, Texas. I never intended to be a financial consultant or to start a business. We did not set out to have nine children. We never envisioned serving seven years in Brazil—as mission president and then in the Area Presidency. As a matter of fact, it was a surprise to be called as a stake president, then a mission president, an Area Seventy, and especially a General Authority.

On the other hand, we had firm plans that I would do the joint JD/MBA program after graduation from college. I had been accepted to Harvard Business School to start that four-year program. The new J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU was not even on the radar screen. But in the end I attended and graduated from BYU Law School! I have never done the JD/MBA program.

Once I was in the financial consulting business, I found it so flexible that my plan was to never retire but just slow down to an acceptable level. As it turned out, I retired at age fifty-nine. In that business I learned about the tax advantages of a mortgage. As a result, we decided never to pay off our house. But a few years ago, with the counsel of prophets reminding us, we asked the Lord for guidance, and He directed us to pay off the mortgage. We did it as quickly as possible.

So how did all of this happen?

Decision Points

Each time my wife and I came to a decision point, we would think it through, counsel together, and make a decision. Then we would pray to seek the Lord’s confirmation. We always followed the promptings of the Spirit. If the Lord was silent, we would do what seemed best to us in light of what we already knew.

On a daily basis we asked in our prayers for the Lord to guide and direct us. We emphasized, as did Jesus, not our will but Thine be done (see Luke 22:42). Sometimes direction would come when we didn’t even realize we were at a decision point—such as when we paid off our home mortgage.

Our experiences have taught us over and over again that God knows best. For example, we succeeded in paying off that mortgage in 1998. It was on January 21, 1999, that President James E. Faust telephoned us in Houston with the call to be a mission president in Brazil. Because our home was debt free, we had the option to keep it while we served. We much prefer to do things the Lord’s way.

When an earthquake struck Haiti in January 2010, Jean-Elie René raced home to make sure his family was safe. Upon arrival, he spotted one of his three sons crying in the street, and he could hear the screams of another son from beneath the rubble where the family’s home once stood.
The 32-year-old father followed the cries and dug through the rubble until he found his five-year-old son and the body of his pregnant wife, still sheltering their nine-month-old baby from the collapsed roof of their home.
Brother René serves as ward clerk in the Leogane Ward, Port-au-Prince Haiti Stake. Although he lost his wife, his unborn child, and his home, he doesn’t complain or get angry about his situation. Most days following the earthquake, Brother René could be found at the meetinghouse, with the baby on his lap and his two other boys at his side, helping the bishop coordinate relief to ward members and others who made the meetinghouse their temporary home.
The story of Brother René is touching, but it is not unique.

A college student who was a client of mine several years ago related this story about his perfectionism:
I set such high standards for the projects I did for class that when I thought about even starting a project I would feel anxious and nauseated. That would lead me to procrastinate beginning the project or doing even one section of it. Eventually it led to me feeling paralyzed. I remember staring at the instructions from the professor, getting anxious, then waiting until the last minute to quickly do the project and turn it in the next day. My perfectionism led to me getting less-than-perfect grades on projects.
When I asked this young man to make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of his perfectionism, he came up with four advantages (e.g., he thought he did a better job when he was perfectionistic, although his grades did not show it). He then listed 17 disadvantages to perfectionism, some of them just discussed. He then started reconsidering the value of perfectionism in his life!

If you will forgive another experience, a couple of years ago I had an assignment that took me to Germany. I had had a bout with the flu before I left, and I wasn’t sure if I ought to go or not; but I felt that I had better because of what had been planned and because of the many who were depending on me. After the flight from New York to Frankfurt, I was tired and not feeling well. I was alone, and I didn’t speak German, so I checked into the hotel at the airport. Before going to my room, however, I went to the pharmacy in the airport, and I got a throat spray to disinfect my throat. It was the kind of can that you push the button and the medication comes out through a finger-length piece of plastic tubing that you stick down into your throat.

I went to my room and prepared to rest for a while; but when I began to spray my throat, the plastic tube came loose and drove itself down my throat and into my chest. I couldn’t feel it, but I knew there was a three-inch piece of plastic somewhere, and I didn’t know what to do. I coughed. I did all that I could to get rid of it. Then I began to worry—not that I would die, for I knew that I wasn’t near death—but because I knew that there were people waiting for me in various countries where I was to be going for the next three weeks, and I knew that if something didn’t happen right away I would end up in the hospital to have the plastic pipe removed surgically. So I needed an immediate answer. I needed an immediate response. I knelt at my bed, and I told the Lord that I had no place to go, that I didn’t speak the language, that I didn’t know a doctor, that I didn’t know anyone, and that there were people waiting for me. And I asked Him to please remove this tubing. I got up from praying, and in two seconds it came out of my throat. You see, there are some answers to prayers that come immediately.

In a very small way, early on in my life I had a taste of this type of judgment. Some of you may have noticed that I came to this earth with a body that has a few odd parts. Fortunately, and at times unfortunately, the competitive spirit I came with far exceeds my physical capabilities. In the eighth grade I took a PE course, and I vowed to get an A in that course. Unfortunately, pull-ups were a problem for me, rope climbing was not good, and several other requirements of the class presented me with major challenges. At the end of the term I received a C for my achievement in the course. I was devastated and just a bit concerned about what my father would say.

When I got home, Dad looked at the grade and said, “Great! Straight A! I am proud of you.”

You see, the school reported two grades for every class: one grade for achievement (that was the C that I received) and one grade for effort. Dad only looked at the grade for effort. As long as my effort was an “A”-level effort, the level of achievement was not a concern to him. As long as we do the best we can with whatever we are given in this life, our efforts will be accepted by our Heavenly Father. We need not compare ourselves with others.

But first let me say that I hope you will take notice of any impressions that will surely come to you if you are listening with the Spirit as we talk about these things. In fact, I will tell you a quick story before we go on. When my nephew McKay was just a little boy, he had been playing with toys and had made a big mess. My brother asked McKay to clean up, but each time he went to check on McKay, he found him doing a lot of playing—but no cleaning. Dad was beginning to get exasperated, and McKay could tell.

Finally, my brother asked McKay to stop and ask himself the question What should I do?
McKay thought for a minute and said, “Dad, listen. It is the Holy Ghost, and the Holy Ghost is saying, ‘McKay, do nothing.’”

I have a testimony that when it comes to asking with real intent what we need to do to improve our discipleship and to use our time and talents in a way that our Father in Heaven wants, the Holy Ghost will always tell us to do something! So listen and resolve to do something.

Giovanni closed the front door softly so that he wouldn’t wake his family. Though early in the morning, it was already warm in Sicily, the large island at the “toe” of the Italy “boot.” The air felt heavy and moist like a damp blanket. The street was quiet except for the sound of the boy’s footsteps as thoughts of last night’s family home evening swirled in his head.
Mama had read from her new Book of Mormon that was already showing signs of wear, “‘Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house; and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of Hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.’”* She’d stopped reading and stared blankly at the page.
Giovanni had looked down at his hands and said quietly, “Ever since we were baptized and started paying tithing, it seems like we’ve just gotten more problems.” His mother turned toward him, a look of surprise in her eyes, but he could not keep the words inside any longer. “Paying tithing didn’t keep Papa from losing his job, and it hasn’t given us the money we need. What good is paying tithing?”
The room was silent for a long time. Finally Papa spoke. “Giovanni, what if every time you obeyed a commandment, someone gave you a reward?”
“It would be easy to choose the right.”
“Too easy,” Papa added.
“But Heavenly Father wants us to choose the right so we can live with Him again.”
“Yes, He does,” Papa said. “But we must want to live with Him again, too—enough to choose the right even if we aren’t rewarded right away. And enough to avoid evil, even if it seems profitable. Heavenly Father won’t solve all our problems for us. But He will help us as we work to solve them.”
A dog barked from behind a wood fence, startling Giovanni as he walked, interrupting his thoughts. “I wish this problem would have been solved before I had to spend my summer looking for work,” he muttered to himself.
Jobs were scarce, especially for a boy. Everyone he asked had answered the same: “No.” Only one person would hire him—Tomaso. He had a reputation for never smiling—and for never keeping a worker more than one day.
Giovanni heard the bell tower’s deep bong. It was six o’clock, and Tomaso had been very clear that he was to arrive by six o’clock. Giovanni ran the last block to the Mercato Aperto (open air market). He found Tomaso already setting up under the dusty canvas canopy. He was a short, wiry man, though what he lacked in height, he made up for in his hands. Giovanni had never seen bigger hands. Tomaso easily hefted two full crates onto the rickety table.
“Finish these,” he said, motioning with his head.
Giovanni unloaded the crate of sanguinelle (blood oranges). They looked like any other orange on the outside, but on the inside, the fruit was a beautiful ruby red. Giovanni took a deep breath. The sweet, tangy odor mingled with the aroma of pollo allo spiedo (roast chickens) across the street and the pungent smell of olives floating in vinegar in the booth next door. Already people were milling about and vendors were shouting their wares in noisy competition for customers.
“Arancie, mille lire (oranges, a thousand lira),” Giovanni joined in.
“Due chili” (two kilos), answered a woman.
Giovanni placed a bag on the scale and began to fill it. Suddenly his eye caught the glint of something shiny among the oranges. He picked it up. It was a 500-lire coin, with silver edges around a brass center. He glanced around quickly. The woman was searching her purse for money. Tomaso was busy helping another customer. Giovanni slipped the coin into his pocket. He finished filling the bag and handed it to the woman.
The customers came one after another all morning long. Giovanni forgot about the coin until another gleam caught his eye. This time it was two 500-lire coins! That made 1,500 lire, half of what Tomaso had promised to pay him for a day’s work! Giovanni remembered what his father had said at family night, “Heavenly Father will help us as we work to solve our problems.” This must beHeavenly Father’s way of blessing us for paying tithing, he thought. But as he slipped the coins into his pocket, he felt that something was not right.
“That’s all for today,” Tomaso said shortly. “Let’s clean up.”
Giovanni tried to ignore the knot in his stomach as he boxed the remaining oranges and helped collapse the tables. He wished Tomaso would pay him so that he could get away.
“Three thousand lire,” Tomaso said gruffly, holding out three bills in his hand.
Giovanni reached for the money, then stopped. His father’s words echoed in his mind, “… avoid evil, even if it seems profitable.”
He slid his hand into his pocket and pulled out the three coins. “I found these today among the oranges. I don’t know who they belong to, but they do not belong to me.”
Tomaso stared at the coins for a moment. Then a smile began to turn up the corners of his mouth. “Thank you, Giovanni,” he said, taking the coins from the boy’s small hand with his large one. “I thought I had lost them. They are part of my brother’s coin collection. They are not worth much beyond their face value, but they give my brother much pleasure. He is ill and has few pleasures, so I was distressed at losing them.”
Tomaso turned and put some oranges into a sack. He handed it to Giovanni with the lire bills. “You are not only a hard worker but honest. All the other boys I hired stole oranges from me. You not only returned my brother’s coins, but you also did not steal any fruit. I cannot afford to pay you more money, but I can give you this.”
Now it was Giovanni’s turn to smile. The terrible knot in his stomach had disappeared. He took the three bills and the sack Tomaso held out, and turned to go.
“Giovanni,” Tomaso said, “come again tomorrow—six o’clock sharp.”

Thanks so much for the article “Picture This” (Sept. 1994). I decided to put a picture of Christ in my locker too. It took me a few days to actually put it up, but when I did I noticed an instant change in myself, in the way I thought about and treated other people. Now every day at school I look at myself in my mirror, then at the picture of Christ, and it reminds me to be as Christlike as possible. Being one of only four members of the Church at my school, I feel like it’s an example, not only to my member friends, but to other people as well.
Cari RickabaughSturtevant, Wisconsin

At one difficult point in my life, I couldn’t discern answers to my heartfelt prayers for a long period of time. A dear friend of mine was going through some difficulties of her own. But as we played and sang hymns and gospel songs together, we often experienced overwhelming feelings of solace and testimony. I now recognize that the Lord was fulfilling His promise. He was answering the songs of my heart, again and again. And that really did help me lift up my heart and go on.

I am grateful for President Russell M. Nelson’s powerful prophetic call to missionary service and President M. Russell Ballard’s and Elder Marcos A. Aidukaitis’s inspiring missionary messages today.
A missionary assignment to Great Britain late last year allowed me to reflect on the precious spiritual events that were foundational to my decision to serve as a missionary. When I was 15 years old, my beloved older brother, Joe, was 20—the age of eligibility then to serve a mission. In the United States, because of the Korean conflict, very few were allowed to serve. Only one could be called from each ward per year. It was a surprise when our bishop asked Joe to explore this possibility with our father. Joe had been preparing applications for medical school. Our father, who was not active in the Church, had made financial preparations to help him and was not in favor of Joe going on a mission. Dad suggested that Joe could do more good by going to medical school. This was a huge issue in our family.
In a remarkable discussion with my wise and exemplary older brother, we concluded that his decision on whether to serve a mission and delay his education depended on three questions: (1) Is Jesus Christ divine? (2) Is the Book of Mormon the word of God? and (3) Is Joseph Smith the Prophet of the Restoration? If the answer to these questions was yes, it was clear that Joe could do more good taking the gospel of Jesus Christ to the world than becoming a doctor at an earlier date.
That night I prayed fervently and with real intent. The Spirit, in an undeniably powerful way, confirmed to me that the answer to all three of these questions was yes. This was a seminal event for me. I realized that every decision I would make for the rest of my life would be influenced by these truths. I also knew that I would serve a mission if given the opportunity. Over a lifetime of service and spiritual experiences, I have come to understand that true conversion is the result of the conscious acceptance of the will of God and that we can be guided in our actions by the Holy Ghost.
I already had a testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ as Savior of the world. That night I received a spiritual testimony of the Book of Mormon and the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Your testimony will be strengthened when you know in your heart through your prayers that the Prophet Joseph Smith was an instrument in the Lord’s hands. During the past eight years, one of my assignments in the Twelve Apostles was to review and read all the remarkable Joseph Smith papers and documents and the research that led to the publication of the Saints volumes. My testimony and admiration of the Prophet Joseph Smith have been greatly strengthened and enhanced after reading the inspiring details of his life and foreordained prophetic ministry.

My friend and colleague Ty Mansfield described a similar truth. As a man who experiences same-sex attraction, Ty witnessed the spiritual growth that can take place as we anchor our lives in Jesus Christ and willingly surrender our entire hearts to Him, allowing Him to consecrate all difficult experiences for our gain. For Ty, that began as the Spirit taught him “that whether I ever married, I was infinitely loved and accepted by God. My responsibility was to continue to live one day at a time while seeking and following the guidance of the Spirit.”5 And eventually, trusting God led Ty to enter into a joyful, beautiful, eternal marriage to his wife.

Years ago as a stake presidency, we felt impressed to call a good man as stake clerk. At the time he was temporarily struggling with regular Church attendance. We knew, however, that if he accepted the calling, he would do a marvelous job.
We extended the call, but he replied, “No, I don’t think I can do it.”
Then an impression came. I said, “Well, I guess the Glendale stake won’t have a stake clerk then.”
Shocked, he responded, “What are you talking about? You have to have a stake clerk.”
I replied, “Do you want us now to call someone else to serve as stake clerk when the Lord impressed us to call you?”
“OK,” he said, “I’ll do it.”
And do it he did. There are not only many men but also many boys who will respond to a call when they know the Lord is calling them and that the Lord needs them.

Way back in 1969, I was in South America. I flew from Argentina to Santiago, Chile. The Andes mountains were dry. There was no snow. The grass was burned. Chile was in the midst of a devastating drought.

The people pleaded for help in bringing moisture.

We dedicated two new buildings on that visit. In each of those dedicatory services we pleaded with the Lord for rain upon the land. I have the testimony of many who were in those meetings that the heavens were opened and the rains fell with such abundance that the people asked the Lord to shut them off.

Several years ago, as I began to prepare my Sunday School lesson for that week, I was surprised to find that it included ten sections from the Doctrine and Covenants. “We can’t cover that much in the short lesson time,” I thought. “We’ll have to skip over some of the sections.”
Early in the week I decided that section 111 was one that could be skipped. The words follies, treasure, gold and silver, ancient inhabitants didn’t communicate clearly to me. Frankly, I didn’t understand what it was all about, and it didn’t seem particularly significant.
Later in the week, I reread the section and wondered what was meant by the word follies. Maybe they had to do with what had taken the First Presidency to Salem, Massachusetts.
The “insignificant” scripture was becoming more and more intriguing to me. The manual indicated that Elder Snow had converted a number of people. But who were they? What contributions had they made?
Suddenly, I remembered something I’d seen in my family’s genealogical records. My great-great-grandfather, Nathaniel Ashby, was born in Salem in 1805. Perhaps he had been there when Elder Snow had preached the gospel. I searched for my history of the Ashby family, contained in a little brown book that I finally found at my brother’s home.
I put the little brown book down and returned to the scripture I had earlier thought insignificant. “I have much treasure in this city for you,” the Lord had said, “… many people … whom I will gather out in due time for the benefit of Zion” (D&C 111:2).
The Prophet and other Brethren had gone to Salem in search of gold and silver. But the treasure they found was converts. And through that “treasure,” my own life and the lives of my brothers, sisters, cousins, and countless other descendants of Nathaniel Ashby have been profoundly blessed.

I would like to share with you a story of my home life and my growing up years. To set the stage, you need to know that I am the youngest of three children. In fact, my siblings and I were separated in age by several years, so by the time I was a teenager, my parents had been married for several years and were well-seasoned in this thing called marriage. Growing up, I had never seen my parents argue or even raise their voices at each other, so you can imagine how I felt the first time my husband and I had a disagreement. Thoughts crossed my mind that I must be a poor wife, or that I may have picked the wrong guy to spend eternity with. After all, I was sure I was right and he was wrong.

It was not until later in life when I spent some tender time with my mother. This is when I learned how mad my dad had been when mom cut her long hair off. She said he wouldn’t even talk to her for days. I also came to the realization that all those times when my mom would go missing and I would find her sitting in an idle car out in the garage, this was her time spent communicating with her Father in Heaven, praying that He would help her get through those less than perfect days. It was then that I realized what I had hoped for at the beginning of my marriage was something my mother and father had worked many, many years to develop.

Scripture study was a welcome break for Angel, even if her friends didn’t understand why she’d take time away from her school classes to bother with religion. “A lot of them think it’s strange that I spend time with my church. Most of my classmates don’t have any religious beliefs,” says Angel, who was the only Church member in the Taipei First Girls’ School student body of 4,000-plus. “Some students will discuss religion with me, but most of the time they just think being LDS is strange because it takes me away from my schoolwork.”
One of those classmates is a friend Angel invited to church one Sunday. Angel says her friend had a generally positive experience at church, and even told Angel afterward that she felt religion was good, and that she might think about becoming religious herself—after she graduates from the university. “She just didn’t think she had the time for church,” Angel adds.
Even Angel’s father, Liu Chen Mei Yu, isn’t completely convinced the time his daughter spends learning the gospel is all that productive. He often questions if Angel’s time wouldn’t be better spent studying or going to the library. When Angel’s mother, Catherine, joined the Church in 1984, Angel was only seven. Although Liu Chen Mei Yu didn’t object to his wife’s baptism, he had no interest in joining the Church with her. However he did allow Angel to be baptized when she turned eight. “My father is interesting,” Angel adds. “Sometimes he will say, ‘Since you have an exam coming up, maybe you shouldn’t go to church.’ But there are other times when he’ll tell me to hurry up because he doesn’t want me to be late for church.
“My parents have high expectations of me. My father thinks I can have a great impact on our family by continuing my education and doing well,” Angel adds. Angel is also quick to point out she can have a great impact on her family by staying active in the Church too.
“In Taiwan, parents who are members of the Church set examples for their children,” says Kent Liang, a former regional representative and stake president. “They go to church and perform their callings, and the children are able to see this. But some kids whose parents aren’t members are often tempted to rest and not go to church on Sundays. And the school competition is so high that school is sometimes all they see. They think, Should I go to church or go to the library? Sometimes they don’t worry that much about church things because they don’t see that far into the future. Right now, many of the kids in Taiwan are only worried about school.”
And that’s what’s so amazing about Angel. School is important. But it’s not the only thing in her life. She graduated near the top of her high school class, yet she doubts she could have done it had she not had the gospel’s guiding influence in her life.
“The Church was especially helpful to me during my senior year of high school. I noticed a lot of my schoolmates were easily depressed because of school,” she says. “But I knew if I did my best, Heavenly Father would help me. Usually, my grades were better than I expected.”
Today, college life keeps Angel incredibly busy as she studies to become a doctor. As Angel returns home from a full day, she still takes time to read from the scriptures. When she closes her triple combination, it’s 10:30 P.M. Angel’s day is over—finally. She can close her eyes knowing she’s doing well in school, and, more importantly, she’s finding time to include the gospel in her busy life. In less than eight hours, her day will begin all over again. Angel will undoubtedly enjoy a very sound sleep.