Gospel Story Finder

I witnessed commitment when I visited with a sister in her home in the Philippines. She had nothing by the standards of the world. Her family of eight children lived clustered in a two-room nipa hut that stood on stilts. After climbing the ladder to the door, I was taken immediately to a corner where on a small table sat a portable sewing machine. This was not a new model with 320 stitches, bells, whistles, and a serger. It was a machine older than my mother’s! But she was not showing off a possession; she was sharing her commitment. For two years, she had sewn for others on that simple machine to earn the money to take her family to the temple so that they would be sealed together. The last child, she said with a smile, was born under the covenant.

Just the year before, the family had been living in Colorado, and Ryan had injured his shoulder in an accident at school. When the local doctor checked the shoulder, he found evidence of cancer in Ryan’s arm. Ryan and his mom drove for five and a half hours to the hospital in Denver, taking with them only enough for a stay of one or two days. They were in Denver for three and a half weeks.
During the following year, as Ryan went through chemotherapy, surgery to replace the diseased bone in his left arm with a donor bone, and chemotherapy again, the family, Church members, and community friends drew close together. The family came to understand what things are most important. “We almost lost him a couple of times,” said Mom. “He’s here because of priesthood blessings and prayer.”
“I got comfort from the whole ward,” Ryan remembered. “The Young Women in our ward put on a carnival. Afterwards they had a bake auction, and they raised nine hundred dollars for us.” His Primary teacher sent him messages each week, a special fast was held for him, and ward members tended the other Foster children when Ryan and his mom had to be away. His home teacher gave him a special blessing before every trip to Denver. Friends at school raised six hundred dollars, and the principal brought the money to Denver. So Ryan learned to take serious things seriously, and the next year, after the family had moved to South Carolina and Hugo came, all that Ryan and his family had learned during his experience in Colorado was reinforced. Prayers were offered. Priesthood blessings were given to many. Members in areas not hit by the hurricane sent items from their emergency supplies to those in areas that were hurt. Church distribution centers sent stoves and lanterns and food. And teams of members, from Scouts to grandmas, came to help with the cleanup. The goodness and unselfishness of the community at large was also seen.

A television commercial inspired Matt Bryant, 12, to make a light that could be turned on by the sound of a voice. In the commercial, Matt saw a light that turned on by the sound of hands clapping, and he thought he could produce a similar light and enter it in his school’s “invention convention.” Matt’s light that responded to the sound of a voice attracted a lot of attention.
Matt was chosen as one of 55 finalists in the statewide contest. He was selected to attend a reception with the governor, and his light was then put on display at the New York State Museum in Albany.
Matt is a deacon in the Fairport Ward, Rochester New York Palmyra Stake.

When I was 16 years old, my oldest brother, Ivan, who was 22 at that time, came home one day and shared some news with the family. He had decided to get baptized in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Our parents looked at him somewhat skeptically, and I remember not completely understanding what was going on. A year or so later, he gave us more surprising news: he had decided to serve as a missionary of the Church, which meant that we were not going to see him for two years. My parents were not thrilled with this news; however, I saw in him a clear determination that increased my admiration for him and the decision he had made.

I was born in Rigby, Idaho, a farming community of about 2,000 people. About four miles outside of town was a small junkyard. Rigby had a junkyard man, a little old Danish immigrant who couldn’t speak English. He didn’t have a name that I can remember; we just called him the “junkyard man.”
He not only ran the junkyard; he lived there. His home was made of plywood scraps and other junk he had gathered from the yard. He didn’t have any electricity and he lived all alone, except for some dogs to keep him company.
A few times each year he walked four miles into town for groceries. Most people respected him because he worked hard and did a good job. My dad’s mother was a Danish immigrant, so Dad always had a soft spot in his heart for the old man. Whenever we went to the dump, Dad would take him groceries, cookies, or other goodies.
Well, I remember one day when I acted like a real chicken toward the junkyard man; it was a Sunday in 1965. Somehow Dad, who was the bishop, got the junkyard man to come to church that day. I was about 13 years old. I felt real cool sitting there in church in my turtleneck shirt and 100 percent polyester suit, but then it happened. Dad brought the junkyard man to the bench where my family was and sat him down right next to me! I could hear my friends laughing. I was so embarrassed I didn’t even look at the man during sacrament meeting.
After the meeting, I left as fast as I could. Outside, my friends and I really started pecking at the junkyard man, and I was the worst. I told the boys that as the old man sat there I saw “cooties” crawling out of his clothes. I told them he smelled like trash, that his weird wool pants had moth holes in them, and all sorts of other insulting things. The more my friends laughed, the bigger I felt, and the more I “pecked” at him in our conversation.
Of course, he didn’t hear any of this. But about three weeks later, on a particularly cold Idaho night, the pipe of the old man’s coal-burning stove in his house broke. The house filled with thick, sooty smoke and he died in his sleep.
I don’t tell you this story to make you feel sorry for the old man, because his life was not really sad. He was a good man who contributed something to his community and made his own way. The sad part is that I remembered the mean things I said, and it was too late to apologize. I had picked on the old man only because he was different.

One experience preeminent in my mind is the Suva Fiji Temple open house and dedication. There had been political upheaval resulting in rebels burning and looting downtown Suva, occupying the houses of Parliament and holding legislators hostage. The country was under martial law. The Fiji military gave the Church limited permission to assemble people for the open house and a very small group for the dedication. The members as a whole were uninvited due to concerns for their safety. It was the only temple dedication since the original Nauvoo Temple that was held under very difficult circumstances.

One person invited to the open house was a lovely Hindu woman of Indian descent, a member of Parliament who was initially held hostage but was released because she was female.

In the celestial room, free from the turmoil of the world, she dissolved in tears as she expressed feelings of peace that overwhelmed her. She felt the Holy Ghost comforting and bearing witness of the sacred nature of the temple.

Trying new things and stepping outside our comfort zone can be scary. My first full day in the Dominican Republic as a missionary was downright terrifying. I was dropped on an island in the middle of the ocean, with no internet, no email, and no cell phone. The only communication from family and friends would come in the form of handwritten letters that took 6 weeks to arrive from the US. The drive to my first area felt more like a game of chicken than a traditional commute. The smells alternated between fried street food and rotting garbage. I heard the street vendors yelling back and forth, yet the language didn’t sound anything like the Spanish I studied in the MTC for the previous 10 weeks. The sum of all my fears hit me at once and I felt hopeless and alone. But the Spirit of the Lord ministered to me. Helped me to see one small step ahead at a time rather than the entire mountain all at once. I took it one day at a time. By stacking one small win on top of another, I grew to have a bit more courage.

Not far from here are some nuclear facilities that include prototypes for nuclear submarines. A nuclear prototype is a place that looks exactly like the real thing, only it is in a controlled environment so people can be taught without life-threatening danger. In those facilities, the individuals who man the nuclear fleet are trained to respond to emergencies automatically.

One day during the shakedown cruise of a real submarine, an accident occurred. The testing was almost over, and the ship was at full submergence depth at flank speed, the fastest it could advance in the water. The helmsman noticed they were at a slight up-angle, so he tilted the bow planes down. In that moment, the power went out. The boat locked in a down dive, and everyone knew that shortly they would be at a depth that would crush the hull. There was panic on board. But one engineer began to pull himself along the floor of the engine room to a compartment. He reached in, turned some switches, and reserve power came on. The emergency was over.

Later he was asked, “How did you know what to do? How did you know how to respond?”

The simple reply was, “I don’t know. I just did it.” Can you imagine him scrambling through the manual trying to find out what to do under that kind of pressure? He had learned in a prototype environment like your homes, like this campus with its classes and church environment. When the pressure came, he was ready. You will be ready because of the quiet resolve and determination in your life to live worthily as you learn from this prototype experience.

The airplane’s engine made a final sputtering sound, and then there was nothing but a dreadful silence. Andrew sat stiffly, pale and frightened. While his father worked frantically to restart the engine, the plane glided earthward in ever-descending circles. Suddenly the engine roared back to life, and Andrew’s father quickly nosed the plane up to gain altitude. But again the engine stopped, and nothing his father could do would make it start.
“Are we going to crash?” Andrew asked.
“No, son, don’t worry. This little plane can practically fly itself, even without power,” his father answered. “Look ahead there; we can glide far enough to land in that snowfield.”
Through the haze Andrew could see the mainland snow and ice at the edge of the Arctic Ocean. And as they glided closer and lower he could see the mouth of a large river.
“That must be the Mackenzie River,” his father said. Then motioning behind them he added, “We have plenty of emergency food back in the cabin—enough to last until someone comes looking for us.”
Andrew’s father had intended to land in the Canadian town of Inuvik within the Arctic Circle, but he had taken a detour and flown the oil company’s plane over the Arctic Ocean so that his son could see it.
Soon they were gliding low over the snow and ice. “Look!” Andrew cried. “There are two igloos and some Eskimos down there!”
“Some dogs too,” his father added. “I hope they have a sled. I’m going to land this ‘bird’ close to the igloos.”
Under his father’s steady hand, the plane landed about fifty feet from the Eskimo homes. Immediately its passengers were greeted by the smiling faces of two women, two men, and a boy about Andrew’s age.
“Kabluna,” the older man said.
“That means ‘men with bushy eyebrows,’ and that’s how they think of all white men,” Andrew’s father explained. “Before knowing about our race, they believed that they were the only people in the world and called themselves Inuit, meaning The People.”
The Eskimo boy said, “Akshunai, pikatigikpugut,” and then he translated for Andrew. “I said, ‘Hello, we are friends.’”
“Nakorami (Thank you),” Andrew’s father answered, and then he turned to examine the plane’s faulty engine.
“Where did you learn to speak English?” Andrew asked the boy.
“At the government school in Inuvik. My name is Ootah.”
While the boys talked, Andrew’s father made arrangements with one of the men for transportation to the closest settlement. A sled with a walrus-hide harness was soon pulled around in front of one of the igloos and the dogs hustled into place.
“I’ll have to get a mechanic, son. This young man is going to drive me into Inuvik; it’s about seventy miles from here,” Andrew’s father explained. “You stay with the plane, and I’ll be back in six days.”
Andrew was a little apprehensive, but he smiled. “OK, Dad,” he said. “I’ll be all right. But I’ll miss you.” Feeling lonely and a little hungry, he waved good-bye as his father left on the sled.
“Come to my father’s igloo,” Ootah invited Andrew. “My mother will give us something to eat.”
When the boys were close to Ootah’s home, Andrew saw an old man and Ootah’s mother crawl out of the low entrance and struggle over a bag of flour. The old man won and marched to his igloo with the flour, muttering to himself.
Ootah was deeply upset. His face flushed and he looked down at his feet. “My grandfather is taking charge of all the food,” he explained. “We’ve had a bad hunting and trapping season and we haven’t had much to exchange at the trading post. We’re short of food.”
“That’s OK,” Andrew said. “I have some food and I can eat in the plane.”
Andrew turned back and climbed into the airplane’s small cabin. Although his father had taken some of the food on the sled, there was still a lot of canned goods left—much more than he would need. As he ate, Andrew thought of taking some food to the Eskimos, but he decided against it. If his father were delayed for some reason, the boy would need the food for himself.
When he left the plane, Andrew found Ootah waiting for him. “Come and see what my grandfather has,” Ootah said.
Ootah led him into his grandfather’s igloo. The old man grunted at the boys, and the old lady smiled. The first thing Andrew noticed was the smell of dried fish and meat and burned seal oil. Then he followed Ootah to a large box against the snow wall. In it were five Husky puppies, climbing all over each other.
Andrew fell in love with a little brown and white one. “Do you think your grandfather would sell it?” he asked. “Maybe my father will buy it for me when he gets back.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Ootah said. “My grandfather will never sell any of his dogs.”
The old man left the igloo. “He’s going to set snares for the Arctic hare,” Ootah told Andrew. “Do you want to go fishing?”
Andrew loved to fish, so Ootah got fishing lines and hooks for both of them, a hatchet, some bait, and a coil of rope.
As the boys walked toward the Mackenzie River, Ootah looked like a bear in his karlik, attigis, mukluks, and puelluks (fur trousers, parka, high boots, and mittens). Andrew was warm in his modern thermal underwear and outer clothes.
“What’s the rope for?” Andrew asked.
“Just in case,” was all Ootah would tell him.
Near the river the Eskimo boy chopped two holes through the ice. After fishing for several hours Ootah finally caught three small fish. He offered one to Andrew. “For your supper,” he said.
“Thank you, but I have food in the cabin of the plane,” Andrew reminded him.
On their way back to the igloos the boys’ talk was suddenly interrupted by the sound of muffled shouts, and they both began running toward the noise.
“Grandfather has fallen through a snowbridge into a crevasse!” Ootah shouted. “He can’t see too well.”
They found the old man floundering in soft snow at the bottom of a fairly deep hole in the ice, but he appeared to be unhurt. Ootah threw one end of the rope down to him, and together the boys pulled the old man out of the hole.
“Nakorami, Nakorami,” he kept repeating.
Andrew felt terribly lonely when he returned to the plane and fixed something to eat. Before eating he prayed for his father’s safety and quick return. And as he prayed he remembered that his father had taught him to treat others as he would like to be treated. Guiltily he thought of the kindness of the Eskimo who had offered to share his fish even though they were all short of food.
Andrew flung open the cabin door and shouted for Ootah. When he came running, Andrew began throwing cans of food down to him.
On the sixth day an airplane mechanic flew in with Andrew’s father. While the mechanic repaired the plane, Andrew said good-bye to his Eskimo friends. He and Ootah solemnly promised to keep in touch with each other.
As the plane soared above the igloos, Andrew felt something pushing against his leg. He reached down and with a rush of joy picked up the little brown and white Husky puppy Ootah and his grandfather had left in the plane for Andrew to take home.

Justina sat extra tall in her seat. She placed her new pencils at the top of her desk. Today was the first day of school. She’d met her classmates and drawn a fun picture. So far, so good.
Then Mrs. Werner said, “Time to work on writing!” Mrs. Werner handed out papers to the class. “You have 30 minutes to work on this. Then we’ll go to recess.”
Justina gulped. Oh no. Writing already? she thought.
Last year Justina had a hard time with reading and writing. All of her friends seemed to like it. It wasn’t so hard for them. What if this year was like last year all over again?
Justina picked up her pencil. She looked at her paper. Her stomach sank. All the other students were already writing. Except for her.
She wanted to talk to Mrs. Werner. Would she be mad that Justina was having trouble? Even if she was, that still sounded better than writing.
Justina walked to her teacher’s desk. “Mrs. Werner? This is harder than what I did last year. I don’t think I can do it.”
Mrs. Werner didn’t look upset. She smiled at Justina. “Do what you can. You might be surprised at what you can do! You can’t always choose what you’re good at. But you can always choose how hard you try.”
Justina walked back to her desk. She thought about what Mrs. Werner said. I can choose to try. That was like what she learned in Primary. Her class read a scripture that said we are “free to choose.”
Could school be different this year? Justina wondered. Maybe she could choose to make it different! Justina picked up her pencil. She looked at her paper. She took a deep breath. OK. I’m going to try, she thought.
The recess bell rang. Justina wasn’t finished yet. But she was more than halfway done! She raised her hand. “Can I stay and keep working? I’m so close to being done!”
Mrs. Werner smiled and nodded.
Justina finally handed in her paper. Her hand ached a little bit. Even her brain hurt! But she was smiling. She had never worked so hard on writing before.
The next day the class worked on reading. Mrs. Werner asked everyone to read for 20 minutes. Justina tried again. She opened her book and sounded out the words.
Justina started making new choices every day. She chose to read. She chose to write. Maybe reading and writing weren’t so bad!
She even chose to go to the library. She checked out books. Last year she would have never done that. Soon she was reading all the time. It was actually fun! And the more she read, the better she got at writing.
And soon, reading and writing became some of her favorite things to do!

Monica Chavez lived with her mother and father, her sisters Maria and Linda, and her baby brother, Tomas. Her grandmother lived next door. Just around the bend in the road lived her Aunt Juanita and her family, and her Uncle Esteban and his family. Uncle Roberto lived with his family in town, a few miles away. Her grandmother, aunts, uncles, and father were all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But none of them went to Church very often. Monica’s mother belonged to a different church, but she didn’t go to her church very often, either.
Sometimes Grandmother would take Monica and some of the other grandchildren to church. The children liked to go, but everyone else there spoke only English. Although Monica and the other grandchildren spoke both English and Spanish, Grandmother spoke only Spanish, and she didn’t understand the speakers at church, so she didn’t go very often. When Grandmother wasn’t going, Monica asked her father to take her, but he always said that he and her uncles were too tired from working so hard all week. They wanted to stay home and rest on Sunday.
Then something happened that changed everything. Two sister missionaries came to visit Monica’s grandmother. Missionaries had visited before, but these two sisters were different—they spoke both English and Spanish! The missionaries talked with Monica’s grandmother about her family. They made plans to visit all the aunts and uncles and their children. Then they encouraged Grandmother Chavez to come to church with her grandchildren.
That Sunday Grandmother Chavez did take the grandchildren to church. The missionaries helped her understand what was being said. The people at church shook the Chavezes’ hands and smiled at them, and some even learned to say “Buenos dias (Good morning)” and “Bienvenida (Welcome)” to Grandmother.
When church was over, Monica heard Grandmother talking with the missionaries in Spanish. “Monica is eight years old,” she said. “She is old enough and wants to be baptized. But I don’t know how to tell the branch president.”
“Baptism is an important step,” Sister Farmer said. “The branch president knows that Monica is old enough to be baptized, but he wants to be sure that Monica is ready for it and also that her parents are ready to help her keep the promises that she will make when she is baptized.”
“In fact, that’s why we’re here,” Sister Johnson added. “Because we speak Spanish, the branch president asked us to help Monica and her family get ready for this important step.”
“Would you like to learn more about the Church, Monica?” Sister Farmer asked her in English, because she knew that Monica understood English better than Spanish.
“Oh yes! I like to come to church, and I want to be baptized.” Monica was very excited. She had wanted to be baptized for a long time.
The missionaries arranged to meet with Monica and her parents at Grandmother Chavez’s house. When they had all arrived, the missionaries taught Monica a lesson about Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. They told her about Joseph Smith’s vision and about how he translated the Book of Mormon, and they gave her a Book of Mormon. When the missionaries taught her, they spoke in English to her, then in Spanish to her grandmother. It made Monica feel very good when the sisters explained things to her in a way that she could understand.
Sister Johnson gave a Book of Mormon in Spanish to Monica’s mother and father and invited them to come to church.
Grandmother Chavez invited the sisters to a family barbeque to meet all of Monica’s aunts and uncles and cousins. In the following weeks the missionaries came many times to teach Monica and her relatives. Grandmother, Monica, and some of the other grandchildren started going to church every week, and sometimes Monica’s parents went with them.
Once, when Monica’s mother went, someone said to her in a friendly way, “If you think that the Church is good for Monica, don’t you think that it would be good for you too? Why don’t you prepare to be baptized with Monica?”
Monica’s mother didn’t understand everything that the man had said, so Sister Farmer explained in Spanish. Monica’s mother had listened to the missionary lessons many years before, but because they were in English, she hadn’t really understood them. She knew that these missionaries would help her understand the gospel in her own language, so she agreed to have them teach her.
One day the sisters asked Monica’s mother to pray to know if she should be baptized, and she did. She read the scriptures every day, too, and one night she had a dream. In the dream she was looking for white clothes to wear to her baptism. She felt very happy and peaceful. When she woke up, she knew that Heavenly Father had answered her prayer.
The day before Monica’s ninth birthday, Monica and her mother were baptized. Her aunts and uncles and cousins and father and grandmother came—so did many people from the branch. It was a very happy day for everyone, but most of all for Monica and her mother.
There were some people in the branch who thought that the Chavez family wouldn’t attend church regularly. “Wait and see,” Sister Johnson and Sister Farmer said.
Monica’s family went to church every Sunday with her grandmother. Aunt Juanita and her family, and Uncle Roberto’s family went too. After Sister Johnson and Sister Farmer left, other Spanish-speaking missionaries came, and all the Chavez relatives helped the missionaries teach other Spanish-speaking families about the Church. Soon there were Sunday School classes in both English and Spanish, and the tiny branch began to grow. Many people came to know how happy the gospel could make them. And it all started with Monica.

As a new missionary, I stayed in the Salt Lake Mission Home prior to going to Ireland. One night, the elders in my room talked of their reasons for serving missions. One elder said he almost didn’t come on his mission because he couldn’t bear to leave his car—the most important thing in his life. Then one day he smelled smoke and rushed to his garage, only to see the car’s engine on fire. The loss prompted him to evaluate his priorities.

Years later, on April 19, 1893, a special meeting was held for all General Authorities and stake presidencies in the recently dedicated Salt Lake Temple. By this time, Brigham Young had long since passed away, and Wilford Woodruff was president of the Church. In this meeting, President Woodruff spoke of seeing Brigham Young and Heber Kimball in a vision. They were riding to a conference in a carriage, and they invited Wilford to join with them. Wilford got in the carriage and asked Brigham Young to speak.

Brigham stated, “I am through with my preaching on earth, but I have come to impress upon your mind what Joseph had told me at Winter Quarters, and that is: seek always to have the Spirit of God, and it will direct you aright.”15

President Woodruff passed the same message to those in the meeting: “Teach the people to get the Holy Ghost and the Spirit of the Lord, and keep it with you, and you will prosper.”16

It was a simple stick of chewing gum that ultimately brought Harriet Reich to the gospel and later to the love of her life, Dieter F. Uchtdorf. When Harriet was a four-year-old girl living in Frankfurt near the end of the war, a handsome American serviceman who passed her on the street kindly offered her a stick of chewing gum. She took it hesitantly and never forgot that friendly gesture or the pleasant look on the young man’s face. Roughly a decade later two LDS missionaries knocked on the Reichs’ door, which Harriet opened while her mother called out to forbid them entrance. Seeing the same kind look on the face of the missionaries, she remembered the compassionate serviceman of earlier years and pleaded, “Oh, please, Mother. Just for a moment.”

The missionaries left a copy of the Book of Mormon with certain passages marked for emphasis. That night, Harriet’s mother started to read. (Harriet’s father had died just eight months earlier.) Harriet recalls, “I couldn’t tell you exactly what my mother read, but I watched her face and noticed something remarkable happening to her countenance.” This little family had been living with the same terrible aftermath of the war that everyone else was living with. The newly widowed mother of two young girls was pale and depressed, unhappy and unclear about what their future could be. But as her mother read from the pages of the Book of Mormon, Harriet says, “I saw joy return to my mother’s life before my very eyes! I saw light come back into her eyes. I saw hope find a place in her soul.”

When the missionaries returned they asked, “Did you read the marked scriptures?”

“I read it all,” Sister Reich said. “Come in. I have questions I want you to answer.”

Harriet, her mother, and her sister were baptized four weeks later.

“Life changed for us that day,” Harriet Uchtdorf says. “Once again we laughed and ran and found happiness in our home. I owe it all to the gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Perhaps a story from my own life can best exemplify how impactful a forgiving heart can be on others. For some background, please note that this story takes place before the wide-spread use of scanners and the ubiquitous cell phone.

Following law school, I took a job as a litigation associate in the San Francisco office of a major national law firm. This job was very demanding and it was not uncommon for me to have late night, or all night or all weekend work assignments. Becky and I and our oldest daughter, Cozi (who was one at the time), lived in the East Bay and I would commute with public transportation into the City for work. If I worked too late, I would often miss the last bus and either need to call and ask my wife for a ride home or take a taxi (which I generally only did when authorized for payment by a client).

On one particular late night I had missed the bus, and was not authorized to take a taxi, so I called Becky to come and pick me up. It was about 11:45 PM. She told me she would come and get me, but that she needed to wake up Cozi, get her ready and in the car, and expected to be to my office in about 45 minutes. I continued to work until about 12:15 AM, was shutting down my computer and gathering my take-home work into my bag, when I received a call. It was a partner in the firm’s Washington DC office. He said he was so happy to find me still there. He was preparing for trial later that morning and desperately needed a document that could be found in the San Francisco office file room. He asked if I could retrieve the document and fax it to him immediately.

I told him that I, of course, would. I rushed to the file room and realized I had no idea how I was going to find this document. We had file room staff that did this work during normal hours and I had never searched for a file in the room before. I began rolling the large filing shelves looking for the client and matter number. Ultimately finding it, I began searching through the several thousand documents of the case to find the one that the partner needed. Finally, the document was found.

I immediately rushed to the fax machine to send it to our Washington DC office and realized that I did not know how to operate the fax machine. We had staff during normal hours that sent all the faxes and I had never used the fax in the office before. It required some sort of code in order to unlock its operation so that the cost of sending the fax could be billed to the proper client. I riffled through the drawers around the fax machine to see if there was a code that was written down that I could use to get this fax out. I was able to track down an administrative code, entered it into the machine and was able to get the fax to send.

The relief in having been able to accomplish this task was quickly replaced by a realization that this whole process had taken me well over an hour to complete and that my wife and child had been waiting that whole time for me in the wee hours of the morning on a dark street in downtown San Francisco.

I rushed to my office, grabbed my bag and headed to wait for the interminably slow elevator to reach the 24th floor of the building. I could hear my wife’s certain words in my head, “How could you do this to us? You know that I am uncomfortable being alone in the City? Why did you call us if it was going to take you another couple of hours to be done with work?”

As the elevator arrived and I stepped in, I began doing what most good attorneys do – prepare the defense. “What was I supposed to do, tell the partner in Washington DC that he was just not going to be getting his document. You know that would get me fired. I have to provide for our family. Who’s going to put the food on the table?”

As I hurried out to the car and looked into the windows, I froze. In her car seat in the back of the car I saw my daughter, her face red and wet from tears, my wife reaching back to comfort her, lines of exhaustion and concern on her face. Clearly she had anticipated for some time that I would be down any minute.

I opened the car door and slid into the driver seat, and steeled myself for what she would say. Then I heard Becky’s voice, “Oh dear, you look so tired, would you like me to drive home?” Immediately, I was faced with the reality of what I had done. Those words have done more to change my life than any others uttered by a human being to me. I have cried many times over my insensitivity on that night. I still find in that moment of my life the courage to be a better man.

Every bishop needs a sacred grove to which he can retire to meditate and to pray for guidance. Mine was our old ward chapel. I could not begin to count the occasions when on a dark night at a late hour I would make my way to the stand of this building where I was blessed, confirmed, ordained, taught, and eventually called to preside. The chapel was dimly lighted by the street light in front; not a sound would be heard, no intruder to disturb. With my hand on the pulpit I would kneel and share with Him above my thoughts, my concerns, my problems.
On one occasion, a year of drought, the commodities at the storehouse had not been their usual quality, nor had they been found in abundance. Many products were missing, especially fresh fruit. My prayer that night is sacred to me. I pleaded that these widows were the finest women I knew in mortality, that their needs were simple and conservative, that they had no resources on which they might rely. The next morning I received a call from a ward member, a proprietor of a produce business. “Bishop,” he said, “I would like to send a semitrailer filled with oranges, grapefruit, and bananas to the bishops’ storehouse to be given to those in need. Could you make arrangements?” Could I make arrangements! The storehouse was alerted. Then each bishop was telephoned and the entire shipment distributed. Bishop Jesse M. Drury, that beloved welfare pioneer and storekeeper, said he had never witnessed a day like it before. He described the occasion with one word—“Wonderful!”

I did not appreciate fully memories and self until I, with the help of others, compiled my oral history. I gave my wife a rough copy of my life story and asked her to edit it. My instructions were: “You know me better than I know myself, so please read it carefully and polish the manuscript.” A half hour later, when I returned to see how she was doing, she was crying. I said, “My goodness, is it that bad?” “No,” she answered. “It is that good!” “Have you made any changes?” I asked. “No,” she replied. “It is you speaking, and I don’t want to erase or edit you out of the record.”

Later, we gave bound copies of my history to our children. Both of us knew that the thing would probably be placed on a shelf and read only sometime. A few weeks ago, however, one of our daughters said to me: “Dad, I love you so very much.” I wondered what was wrong and I asked: “What brought this on?” She explained, “It was your oral history; I have been reading about your life.” She added: “I did not realize that you had done. … I didn’t know that you had experiences such as. …”

What a pity it would be if your children and grandchildren were denied that part of you that really should be recorded. Make certain that you are transmitting to your posterity, along with other graces of life, your innermost thoughts, your poignant feelings, and your sincere testimonies. You owe the rising generation this blessing and more.

Mother taught me the gospel. One time we had a cloudburst, and the ditch out back overflowed its banks. Our house was on a little rise, but there were at least three feet of water around it. Father was farming at a place called Dry Lake. I remember kneeling with Mother and praying that we would not be flooded and that Father would get home. About four or five hours later, the downpour stopped and Father came home. It had flooded where he was too. Water had been up to his waist, but he’d been preserved. I was very impressed with the power of prayer.

“I used to go hunting sometimes with my father. After he died I went alone, but quickly realized that I hadn’t enjoyed hunting much—what I had really enjoyed was being with him. Dad was the kind of father who, when his two sons were hoeing weeds and knew they were going to die if they didn’t stop to get a drink, would say, ‘One more row, boys.’ And when we made ice cream he’d encourage, ‘Only ten more cranks, son.’ He taught me to be self-disciplined and to go to bed early and get up early. He always helped me ‘stretch’ my efforts.”

Elder Lynn Robbins of the Seventy tells this story of a stake president from Panama.
As a young man recently returned from his mission, he found the girl he wanted to marry. They were happy, but very poor.
Then came a particularly difficult time when their food and money ran out. It was a Saturday, and the cupboard was literally bare. Rene felt distraught that his young wife was hungry. He decided he had no other choice than to use their tithing money and go purchase food.
As he was leaving the house, his wife stopped him and asked him where he was going. He told her he was going to buy food. She asked him where he got the money. He told her that it was the tithing money. She said, “That is the Lord’s money—you will not use that to buy food.” Her faith was stronger than his. He put the money back, and they went to bed hungry that night.
The next morning they had no breakfast, and they went to church fasting. Rene gave the tithing money to the bishop, but he was too proud to tell the bishop that they were in need.
After the meetings he and his wife left the chapel and started to walk home. They hadn’t gone very far when a new member called to them from his house. This man was a fisherman and told them he had more fish than he could use. He wrapped five little fish in a newspaper for them, and they thanked him. As they continued to walk home, they were stopped by another member who gave them tortillas; then someone else stopped them and gave them rice; another member saw them and gave them beans.
When they arrived home, they had enough food for two weeks. They were even more surprised when they unwrapped the package of fish and found two very large fish and not the five smaller ones they thought they had seen. They cut the fish in portions and stored it in their neighbor’s freezer.
They have repeatedly testified that never since then have they gone hungry.