Gospel Story Finder

When I was about seven years old, I asked my mother, “When you and I die and go to heaven, will you still be my mother?” She was not expecting such a question. But answering to the best of her knowledge, she said, “No, in heaven we are going to be brothers and sisters. I will not be your mother.” That was not the answer I was hoping for.
Sometime after that short interaction, two young men arrived at the gate of our home. By some miracle, my father allowed them to come in. They said they were missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
These elders, as we learned to call them, started to teach our family. I vividly remember our feelings of happiness and excitement every time they came to our home. They told us that a young man had gone to a grove to ask God which church was true and that he saw God and Jesus Christ. The elders showed us an illustration of that vision, and when I saw it, I knew that Joseph Smith had indeed seen God the Father and Jesus Christ. The missionaries said that because of this vision, the true Church of Jesus Christ was again upon the earth.
The missionaries also taught us God’s plan of happiness and answered our family’s questions about religion. They taught us that families truly can be together after this life as father, mother, and sons and daughters.
Our family was baptized. The road to changing old habits, giving up traditions, and becoming active members of the Church was at times bumpy. But because of the mercy and love of God and with the help of many leaders and members, we made it through the first challenging years.

At school, we were studying different religions. The teacher assigned me and my friend Andressa, who is also a member of the Church, to talk about Jesus Christ.
When we began our presentation, many of our fellow students laughed at us, but we did not weaken. We talked about His life—from His birth to His Resurrection. When we finished, many laughed and said annoying things. I became very sad. I thought about missionaries who have doors slammed in their faces, and I realized I was having a similar experience. I bore my testimony about Jesus Christ, that He gave His life and suffered for our sins.
At the end, many of the teachers, including our own, thanked us for having taught them some things they did not know.Cléa de Souza Lira, age 14,Potengi Ward, Natal Brazil Potengi Stake

As a missionary in France, Chris Ivie served in a small branch where no investigators had attended church in at least a year. Moreover, members couldn’t remember the last time someone had been baptized.
Elder Ivie and his companion prayed about what to do and felt prompted to make sure that each family in the branch had—and was using—a copy of Preach My Gospel. At that point in early 2006, the “Guide to Missionary Service” had been available for just over a year. Elder Ivie and his companion acted on their prompting and ordered and distributed copies of the book.
That was the beginning of big changes for the branch. Although Elder Ivie was in the branch for only two more months, he watched Preach My Gospel transform the attitudes of Church members—youth and adults alike—about missionary work.
“It was working!” remembers Chris. “Members were thinking about missionary work and trying to share the gospel and having great experiences. There was more missionary activity than the branch had seen in years.”
Members began reporting regularly to the missionaries about gospel conversations they were having with family members, friends, or colleagues. When those friends agreed to come to branch activities, other members welcomed them warmly. For Elder Ivie and his companion, that meant they were knocking on doors less and teaching the gospel more. One of the investigators they began teaching was later baptized.
“Sometimes we have this misperception in the Church that missionary work is only for missionaries to do,” says Chris. “But when the members of this branch were prepared through studying Preach My Gospel, they came to realize that they had a role in finding people to be taught. Preach My Gospel helped give them the missionary spirit.”
Chris has now been home in Medway, Massachusetts, for nearly three years, but he still uses Preach My Gospelin his daily study as a gateway to the scriptures. “It helped me be a better missionary. It has helped me be a better gospel teacher. And it is helping me be a better, more Christlike person,” he says.

We establish the Church in the hearts of our brothers and sisters when we minister properly. One day, while serving as the Lubumbashi Stake president, the Spirit of the Lord prompted me to call a friend from the Lubumbashi Second Ward. I had these promptings all day long, and I finally resolved to call him as I arrived at work. Here is what happened: He shouted, “President, I am surprised that you call me at this very moment! I have just had a discussion with a Protestant pastor who appeared to be convincing me! Your phone call has fortified me; this is a proof that we are in the true Church of the Lord.” I answered him: “My brother, we are members of the Church of the Lord; it is His Church, we need to stand fast in spite of all hardships we may be experiencing in life. We are from the Church of the Lord, no one can separate us from His love, and no one can change that.”
This phone call helped my brother to stand firm with an increasing faith in the Lord, since he had only been a member of the Church for two years.

Perhaps this story of the Queen Mary that I recently read is applicable.

When the Queen Mary was launched in 1935, she was the largest and most powerful sailing vessel ever to cross the oceans. She enjoyed a distinguished career—her decades of service included significant involvement in World War II. After her retirement, the Queen Mary was anchored in Long Beach, California, and converted into a hotel and museum. Sister Ballard and I spent a night in the captain’s cabin as guests of the owner.

Restoration crews removed three massive smokestacks in order to scrape and paint them. Once detached from their supported location, however, the stacks crumbled. The three-quarter-inch steel plate from which they had been constructed had completely disintegrated. All that remained of the Queen Mary’s stacks were the layers of paint that had been applied during the years. The Queen Mary suffered a condition that is also common to humankind. Polished and attractive exteriors crumble if not supported internally by enduring substance. Personally and professionally, our lives can break down, deteriorate, or even collapse if we lack a solid set of values and standards.

Sacrifice has always been required of missionaries. Brigham Young recorded: “In company with several of the Twelve I was sent to England in 1839. We started from home without purse or scrip, and most of the Twelve were sick; and those who were not sick when they started were sick on the way to Ohio; Brother Taylor was left to die by the roadside, by old Father Coltrin, though he did not die. I was not able to walk to the river, not so far as across this block, no, not more than half as far; I had to be helped to the river in order to get into a boat to cross it. This was about our situation. I had not even an overcoat; I took a small quilt from the trundle bed, and that served for my overcoat, while I was traveling to the State of New York, where I had a coarse satinette overcoat given to me. Thus we went to England, to a strange land to sojourn among strangers.” (Preston Nibley, Missionary Experiences, Bookcraft, 1975, p. 90.)

Last January, seven-year-old Sailor Gutzler and her family were flying from Florida to Illinois in a private airplane. Sailor’s father was at the controls. Just after nightfall, the aircraft developed mechanical problems and crashed in the pitch-dark hills of Kentucky, upside down in very rough terrain. Everyone but Sailor died in the accident. Her wrist was broken in the crash. She suffered cuts and scrapes and had lost her shoes. The temperature was 38 degrees Fahrenheit (or 3 degrees Celsius)—it was a cold, rainy Kentucky winter’s night—and Sailor was wearing only shorts, a T-shirt, and one sock.
She cried out for her mother and father, but no one answered. Summoning every ounce of courage, she set off barefoot across the countryside in search of help, wading through creeks, crossing ditches, and braving blackberry briars. From the top of one small hill, Sailor spotted a light in the distance, about a mile away. Stumbling through the darkness and brush toward that light, she eventually arrived at the home of a kind man she had never met before who sprang to her care. Sailor was safe. She would soon be taken to a hospital and helped on her way to recovery.1
Sailor survived because she saw a light in the distance and fought her way to it—notwithstanding the wild countryside, the depth of the tragedy she faced, and the injuries she had sustained. It is hard to imagine how Sailor managed to do what she did that night. But what we do know is that she recognized in the light of that distant house a chance for rescue. There was hope. She took courage in the fact that no matter how bad things were, her rescue would be found in that light.
Few of us will ever endure an experience as harrowing as Sailor’s. But all of us will, at some time or another, have to traverse our own spiritual wilderness and undertake our own rugged emotional journeys. In those moments, however dark or seemingly hopeless they may be, if we search for it, there will always be a spiritual light that beckons to us, giving us the hope of rescue and relief. That light shines from the Savior of all mankind, who is the Light of the World.
Perceiving spiritual light is different from seeing physical light. Recognizing the Savior’s spiritual light begins with our willingness to believe. God requires that initially we at least desire to believe. “If ye will awake and arouse your faculties … and exercise a particle of faith,” the prophet Alma teaches, “yea, even if ye can no more than desire to believe, let this desire work in you, even until ye believe in a manner that ye can give place for a portion of [the Savior’s] words.”2
Alma’s call for us to desire to believe and to “give place” in our hearts for the Savior’s words reminds us that belief and faith require our personal choice and action. We must “awake and arouse [our] faculties.” We ask before it is given unto us; we seek before we find; we knock before it is opened unto us. We are then given this promise: “For every one that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, findeth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened.”3
No more impassioned plea for us to believe has come than from the Savior Himself, during His earthly ministry, when He appealed to His disbelieving listeners:
“If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not.
“But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him.”4
Every day each of us faces a test. It is the test of our lifetimes: will we choose to believe in Him and allow the light of His gospel to grow within us, or will we refuse to believe and insist on traveling alone in the dark? The Savior provides His gospel as a light to guide those who choose to believe in and follow Him.
After the crash, Sailor had a choice. She could have chosen to stay by the airplane in the dark, alone and afraid. But there was a long night ahead, and it was just going to get colder. She chose another way. Sailor climbed up a hill, and there she saw a light on the horizon.
Gradually, as she made her way through the night toward the light, it grew brighter. Still, there must have been times when she could not see it. Perhaps it went out of view when she was in a ravine or behind trees or bushes, but she pressed on. Whenever she could see the light, Sailor had evidence that she was on the right path. She did not yet know precisely what that light was, but she kept walking toward it based on what she knew, trusting and hoping that she would see it again if she kept moving in the right direction. By so doing, she may have saved her life.
Our lives can be like that too. There may be times when we have been hurt, when we are tired, and when our lives seem dark and cold. There may be times when we cannot see any light on the horizon, and we may feel like giving up. If we are willing to believe, if we desire to believe, if we choose to believe, then the Savior’s teachings and example will show us the pathway forward.
Just as Sailor had to believe that she would find safety in that distant light, so we too must choose to open our hearts to the divine reality of the Savior—to His eternal light and His healing mercy. Prophets across the ages have encouraged us and even implored us to believe in Christ. Their exhortations reflect a fundamental fact: God does not force us to believe. Instead He invites us to believe by sending living prophets and apostles to teach us, by providing scriptures, and by beckoning to us through His Spirit. We are the ones who must choose to embrace those spiritual invitations, electing to see with inward eyes the spiritual light with which He calls us. The decision to believe is the most important choice we ever make. It shapes all our other decisions.
God does not compel us to believe any more than He compels us to keep any commandments, despite His perfect desire to bless us. Yet His call to us to believe in Him—to exercise that particle of faith and to give place for His words—remains in effect today. As the Savior said, “I bear record that the Father commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent and believe in me.”5
Belief and testimony and faith are not passive principles. They do not just happen to us. Belief is something we choose—we hope for it, we work for it, and we sacrifice for it. We will not accidentally come to believe in the Savior and His gospel any more than we will accidentally pray or pay tithing. We actively choose to believe, just like we choose to keep other commandments.
Sailor could not know at first if what she was doing as she pushed her way through the underbrush would actually work. She was lost and injured; it was dark and cold. But she left the crash site and ventured out in hope of rescue, crawling and scraping her way forward until she saw a light in the distance. Once she had seen it, she did her best to move toward it, remembering what she had seen.
We likewise must give place for the hope that we will find spiritual light by embracing belief rather than choosing to doubt. Our actions are the evidence of our belief and become the substance of our faith. We are choosing to believe when we pray and when we read the scriptures. We are choosing to believe when we fast, when we keep the Sabbath day holy, and when we worship in the temple. We are choosing to believe when we are baptized and when we partake of the sacrament. We are choosing to believe when we repent and seek divine forgiveness and healing love.
Sometimes progress in spiritual things can seem slow or intermittent. Sometimes we may feel that we have lost ground, that we have made mistakes, or that our best efforts to find the Savior are not working. If you feel this way, please do not give up—ever. Go right on believing in Him and in His gospel and His Church. Align your actions with that belief. In those moments when the light of your faith has dimmed, let your hope for the Savior’s love and grace, found in His gospel and His Church, overcome your doubt. I promise that He stands ready to receive you. Over time you will come to see that you have made the best choice you could possibly have made. Your courageous decision to believe in Him will bless you immeasurably and forever.
I have felt the merciful love of the Savior in my life. I have searched for Him in my own moments of darkness, and He has reached out to me with His healing light. One of the great joys of my life has been traveling with my wife, Kathy, to meet with members of the Church in many corners of the globe. These wonderful encounters have taught me and taught us about God’s love for His children. They have shown me the limitless potential for happiness that becomes the blessing of those who choose to follow the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. I have learned that believing in Him and in His redemptive power is the true path to “peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come.”6
I testify that Jesus Christ is the source of light and hope for all of us. I pray that we may all choose to believe in Him. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

I’m so thankful for the spirit my parents cultivated in our home. I thank both of them for the difference it has made in my life to have them share and nurture a sense of humor, a spirit of optimism, and a cheerful disposition. Another time I can share more about my father, but for now I have a few more things to say about my mother, who is close to 90 years old.

One of Mom’s most wonderful qualities is her ability to laugh at herself. Eleven years ago she suffered a major stroke. This affected her in many ways, including her speech, reading, and writing. Just four months after the stroke, she gave a talk right here in the Marriott Center at women’s conference. One of the things she said in her halting way was not to wait to have a stroke—that you could probably enjoy it more if you had it when you were younger. She felt she had waited too long.

One time in her hospital room, my brother Frank and I were watching as she went to the mirror to brush her teeth. She picked up the tube of toothpaste and stood looking at it. Then, very carefully, she put a little dab on her finger. We kept watching, not wanting to interrupt and trying not to laugh. She looked in the mirror and down at her finger, and then she began to rub the toothpaste on her nose. That did it. We started laughing, and she laughed harder than we did. Frank commented that she wouldn’t be getting any cavities on her nose!

When I was a boy, I was my mother’s most difficult young child to raise. I had an overabundance of energy. My mother tells me that her greatest fear was that I would not live to see adulthood. I was just too active.
I remember as a young boy sitting in one particular sacrament meeting with our family. My mother had just received a new set of scriptures. This new set combined the entire standard works into one bound edition, and in the very center was lined paper for note-taking.
During the meeting, I asked if I could hold her scriptures. With the hope of promoting my reverence, she handed them down the pew. As I perused her scriptures, I noticed that she had written a personal goal in the note section. To provide context for her goal, I must tell you that I am the second of six children and my name is Brett. My mother had written, in red, just one goal: “Patience with Brett!”
As further evidence to help you understand the challenge my parents faced in raising our family, let me tell you about our family scripture reading. Each morning, my mother read the Book of Mormon to us during breakfast. During this time, my older brother, Dave, and I would sit quietly but irreverently. To be completely honest, we weren’t listening. We were reading the print on the cereal boxes.
Finally, one morning, I decided to square up with my mother. I exclaimed, “Mom, why are you doing this to us? Why are you reading the Book of Mormon every morning?” I then made a statement that I am embarrassed to admit to. In fact, I can’t believe I actually said it. I told her, “Mom, I am not listening!”
Her loving response was a defining moment in my life. She said, “Son, I was at a meeting where President Marion G. Romney taught about the blessings of scripture reading. During this meeting, I received a promise that if I would read the Book of Mormon to my children every day, I would not lose them.” She then looked me straight in the eyes and, with absolute determination, said, “And I will not lose you!”
Her words pierced my heart. Notwithstanding my imperfections, I was worth saving! She taught me the eternal truth that I am a son of a loving Heavenly Father. I learned that no matter what the circumstance, I was worth it. This was a perfect moment for an imperfect little boy.

It was a gray, rainy day—very unusual for sunny southern California. My husband and I had just finished a full-to-overflowing endowment session as part of our stake temple day. My husband braved the driving rain to get the car while I waited inside the temple’s door.
As I quietly chatted with a member of my ward, a sister I did not recognize approached us. She was dripping wet, and it appeared she had been crying. She explained that she had inadvertently left her vehicle’s headlights on and was now unable to start the car. She recognized us from the temple session—she was the only patron in that session not from our stake—and wondered if we had battery jumper cables she could borrow.
As we talked she began looking intently at me and finally asked, “Aren’t you Cathy West?” (Names have been changed.)
Surprised, I exclaimed, “That was my maiden name!”
“I’m Diane Cody Hart,” she replied, “Anne Cody’s little sister.”
I embraced Diane and expressed my appreciation for her sister’s friendship and example. When my husband arrived with the car, he reported that we had no jumper cables but insisted that Diane accompany us to a nearby mall to buy a set.
Diane and I waited in the car while my husband went inside to search for jumper cables. I asked Diane about her family, and she replied that they had all attended simultaneous temple sessions that evening—Anne in Chicago, Diane in San Diego, and their parents in Reno—while sacred temple ordinances were performed by proxy for her younger brother, who had died the previous year. Diane had come to the temple alone to participate in the special session while her husband took care of their three children.
I squeezed Diane’s hand and asked how her brother had died. She began to weep and whispered that her brother—to whom she had been very close—had taken his own life. Through her tears Diane related how alone she had felt, even in the crowded endowment session, as she thought of the circumstances of her brother’s death.
I could see the Lord’s hand in bringing the two of us together that evening. To the gentle patter of the rain on the roof of the car, I told her about my sister’s suicide many years earlier and my family’s struggle to understand and cope. I held her hand and expressed my understanding and empathy until my husband arrived a short time later with jumper cables.
We returned to the temple, and my husband started Diane’s car. Before she drove away, Diane and I embraced as the rain fell softly upon us. “I don’t feel alone anymore,” she whispered.
As Diane disappeared into the rain, I marveled at Heavenly Father’s goodness. He had brought me together with one of His daughters who needed comfort I was uniquely prepared to provide. And He had granted me a priceless opportunity to repay in some small way the special service a dear friend had given me 30 years before.

Muhammad (Arabic, “praised”) was born in 570 C.E. in Mecca, a prosperous city that was a center of caravan trade and religious pilgrimage in the northwest Arabian peninsula. Orphaned in early childhood, he lived a life of poverty as a youth, working as a herdsman for his family and neighbors, an occupation that gave him ample time and solitude to contemplate the deeper questions of life. Muhammad gained a reputation in the community as a trusted arbiter and peacemaker as indicated in the following account:
“At one time the Quraish [Muhammad’s tribe] decided to rebuild the Ka’ba [sacred shrine], to re-set the stones above the foundations. In one of the corners they wanted to put the black stone, but could not decide who should have the honour of placing it there. They would have quarrelled violently if [Muhammad] the young man they all admired and trusted had not come by. They asked [him] … to settle the dispute. He told them to spread a large cloak and place the black stone in the middle. They did so. Then, he asked a man from each of the four clans who were in dispute to take hold of a corner of the cloak. In this way they all shared the honour of carrying the stone.”

An area president and I were in a land where, to our knowledge, not one member of the Church lived among the millions of that nation. We met a man who had been a longtime student of the Bible. He belonged to a Christian church but was not satisfied with it. He thought that he should belong to a church that carried the name of the Savior. In an old encyclopedia, he had found listed The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He wrote a letter to Salt Lake City and received an answer with a Book of Mormon. Other literature followed as he requested it.
By the time that we met him, he had read the Book of Mormon again and again and knew that it was true. He knew that the priesthood had been restored with all its gifts and powers. He knew of various Church ordinances and the procedures of our meetings. Did he believe Joseph Smith to be a prophet of God? Most assuredly.
Our friend asked for baptism and hoped to receive the priesthood so that he could teach and act with proper authority.
“But,” we said, “if we baptize you and then leave, you will be left alone. There will be no one to teach you and help you.”
He responded, “God will teach me and help me, and He will be my friend and support.”
I looked into the eyes of that good man and saw the light of faith and testimony. We baptized him, confirmed him a member of the Church, and bestowed upon him the gift of the Holy Ghost. We baptized his wife. We conferred upon him the Aaronic Priesthood and ordained him to the office of priest so that he and his wife could have the sacrament.
We held a sacrament and testimony meeting with them. When we said good-bye to one another, we embraced them. I shall never forget him. I know little of his circumstances now, but this I know: When we talked with him, the fire of faith burned in his heart, and our own faith was quickened also.

Raegan and Rylyn from Kentucky, USA, were grumpy, hungry, and tired. It had been a long day doing service with their family. But on the drive home they saw a sign on the side of the road that changed their attitude. It said, “Just Be Kind.”
“It made us less upset—and grateful we were able to serve,” Raegan says. “We started wondering if we could make signs like that,” Rylyn says.
After seeing the Just Be Kind sign, they had a home evening discussion with their family about being kind to their older sister Kendall, who had Down syndrome and was starting to get sick. Raegan and Rylyn decided to make their own Be Kind signs. “We thought it could help prevent bullying,” Raegan says.
They were also thinking about their other siblings, who each have Down syndrome too. Their older brother Kallen passed away as a baby, and they have two adopted siblings—Leena and Liam. “We wanted to raise awareness for kindness to them,” Rylyn says.

Ilnara Peixoto Marinho of Fortaleza, Brazil, had been sealed to her family in the temple. But for a long time the family had not been as active in church as they once were. Then one Sunday morning, Ilnara’s Young Women president showed up at her home, along with Sister Beck, who was in town and wanted to visit some young women. When Sister Beck asked Ilnara about her Personal Progress, Ilnara had to admit she had never worked on it at all. Then Sister Beck gave her a challenge. If she would find her book, finish one of the short experiences, and bring it to the fireside that night, Sister Beck would sign it off for her.

That day, Ilnara not only started working on Personal Progress; she also started helping turn her family’s life around. She began attending church. Then she and her sister began going with their mother. When Ilnara’s dad finally joined them, he was called to be in the bishopric. The whole family returned to the temple together. And it all started with Personal Progress.

Remember that those who climb to high places did not always have it easy. We are told that when Abraham Lincoln was a young man, he ran for the legislature in Illinois and was badly “swamped.”
He next entered business, failed, and spent 17 years of his life paying up the debts of a worthless partner. He fell in love with a beautiful young woman, to whom he became engaged, then she died. Entering politics, he ran for congress and was badly defeated. He tried to get an appointment to the U.S. land office but failed. He became a candidate for the U.S. Senate and was badly defeated. Then in 1856 he became a candidate for vice-president and was again defeated. In 1858 he was defeated by Douglas, but in the face of all this defeat and failure, he eventually achieved the highest success attainable in life and undying fame to the end of time. This was the Abraham Lincoln who was president of the United States. This was the Abraham Lincoln about whom numerous books have been written. This was the Abraham Lincoln who carved his own success out of the mountains of difficulty.

President Monson has told of an experience he had as a young bishop. A prompting came to go to the hospital and visit a member of his ward who was not doing well. President Monson was in a priesthood leadership meeting and he decided to delay going to the hospital until the meeting was over - a little more convenient and he wouldn't have to leave in the middle of the meeting. When he arrived at the hospital room, he was asked: "Are you Bishop Monson?" He said, indeed he was Bishop Monson. The doctor told him: "Brother Brown was asking for you just before he died." I've heard President Monson tenderly recount that experience and say: "I decided then and there that was the last time I would delay acting on a prompting." Since then, he has taught it and he has lived it!

One of my favorite prophets of my youth was President Boyd K. Packer. As a child, President Packer grew up surrounded by an orchard. One day he was working on irrigating the orchard. The rows were overgrown with weeds and soon the finite supply of water began to flood in every direction. He frantically worked in the puddles to shore up the bank, but just as soon as one was patched, another one broke. A neighbor came by, watched for a moment, and then with a few strokes of the shovel, cleared the ditch and allowed the water to course through the channel he made. The neighbor said, “If you want the water to stay in its course, you’ll have to make a place for it to go”. President Packer likened thoughts to the water. “Thoughts will stay on course if we make a place for them to go, otherwise thoughts follow the course of least resistance, always seeking the lower levels”. Learning to control your thoughts is easier said than done, probably one of the hardest things you’ll learn to do, but President Packer reminds us that as we learn to control our thoughts, we can overcome habits, gain courage, conquer fear, and have a happy life.

To frame some key principles, I want to relate a true story I heard a few years ago that still surprises me to this day.
The Cliff Young Story
In 1983 a sixty-one-year-old farmer contacted the organizers of a 544-mile ultramarathon from Sydney to Melbourne, Australia, and asked to be registered for the race.2 Since the other entrants were well-known and proven ultrarunners—with some holding records3 and others bearing sports sponsorships—this farmer’s request was met with skepticism.

“Do you know how long this race is?” the race officials asked. “What makes you think you can complete it?”4

The farmer insisted that he understood how long the race was and that he believed he could finish it because, being from a poor farm family who couldn’t afford horses or four-wheelers, he had often run in his knee-high gumboots to round up nearly 2,000 sheep over a very large area in advance of a storm, sometimes running for three days to round up the entire flock. He figured that if he could run for three days, he could also do it for five or six days and complete the race.

The race officials reluctantly allowed the farmer to register. On the morning of the race, the other runners showed up with experienced support teams in mobile homes with showers and nice beds for their runners. In contrast, this farmer drove up in a rusty old van, with an inexperienced road crew and one pair of running shoes.5 The starting gun went off, and the runners tore through the streets. Observers noted that this farmer’s stride looked more like a shuffle than a run, his pace being much slower than that of the others.6 The newspapers viewed this farmer who trained in gumboots as a novelty in the race,7 and almost no one took him seriously as a contender.

However, to the shock of the entire nation and the global racing world, this sixty-one-year-old farmer named Cliff Young not only won the ultramarathon but beat the previous record by two days, finishing the 544 miles in five days and fifteen hours.

How did this happen?

Based on my reading of Cliff’s biography and other articles detailing this astonishing result,8 a key reason Cliff Young won was that almost nothing went right for him the first day of the race.

So what went wrong?

First, during the initial hours of the race, due to a poorly marked section of the course, he got lost following another runner who didn’t know the way.9 This experience galvanized Cliff’s resolve not to mimic what other racers were doing, including their pacing and strategy, but rather to run this race by doing what felt right to him.

Second, to make up for getting lost and running slower than his competitors, Cliff ran a couple more hours on the first night than he had originally planned. When he finally finished running around midnight, certain members of his road crew had fallen asleep and didn’t do the one job they had been given: to have a warm dinner ready for him. Though frustrated, Cliff just ate something cold out of a can and then collapsed in exhausted sleep.10

At the time, it was common wisdom among racers that you had to sleep at least six hours a night during these multiday marathons in order to maintain enough energy to make it to the end, so Cliff’s crew chief, Wally, was responsible for waking Cliff up at six in the morning to get an early start.

But the third problem for Cliff and his team occurred when the alarm went off and Wally nodded back to sleep. He then awoke with a start and, without putting on his glasses, ran to the vehicle where Cliff was sleeping and said, “Cliff, get up. I’ve slept in. It’s past six!”

Cliff bolted upright, put on his shoes, and tore down the road, thinking his competitors were already running. But when the sun didn’t come up for what seemed like hours, Cliff finally asked Wally what time it was.

Embarrassed, Wally said it was four in the morning. He had accidently set the alarm for two thirty rather than six. Cliff had barely slept two hours that night.11 But instead of getting upset or calling it quits, he just kept moving forward one step at a time. He found that he could run all day just fine with two to three hours of sleep while eating very simple food out of a can. Doing so helped maximize his running time each day, which drastically changed the outcome of the race. The unanticipated difficulties he experienced during the first part of the race actually worked together for his good. His resilient response to unexpected challenges led to unexpected advantages.

On the fifth and final day of the race, it seemed that the courage and determination of this unlikely hero pulsed through the hearts of millions of Australians with every step Cliff took toward the finish line, uniting the country in a national celebration. That day Cliff became a symbol of Aussie grit and determination.

But let me digress a bit with an anecdote. At general conference, I had several relatives come from Sweden and Denmark to attend conference sessions. One of them was a precocious 10-year-old girl from Copenhagen named Emma Krylborn. Her Swedish is perfect; her English is perfect; and I’m told her Danish is perfect. She is only 10. She is my first cousin thrice removed.

About two months before conference, she started to pray for Lucifer that he would stop being as naughty as he was. Her father, Marcus, talked to her and suggested that that might not be an appropriate thing to do. So she stopped praying for Lucifer.

Then, in the Sunday morning session of general conference, President Dallin H. Oaks spoke about praying for our enemies. Emma elbowed Marcus in the side and said, “See! We’re supposed to pray for him!”

I reported this to President Oaks, and I said, “President Oaks, you need to give me an answer. Are we supposed to pray for Lucifer?”

He laughed through my whole recitation of the episode and then said, “Well, when you come up with an answer, let me know.”

Emma emailed me and said that she is going to continue praying for him because President Oaks said it was okay for her to do so. Anyway . . .

A couple I know about married later in life; the wife had been married before, but it was the husband’s first marriage. After several months of marital bliss, a serious disagreement erupted that so hurt the husband emotionally that he could not function at his daily tasks.
As he reeled from the impact of this confrontation, he stopped to analyze the problem and realized that at least a part of the problem had been his. He went to his bride and stammered awkwardly several times, “I’m sorry, Honey.” The wife burst into tears, confessing that much of the problem was hers and asked forgiveness. As they held each other, she confessed that in her experience those words of apology had not been used before, and she now knew that any of their future problems could be solved. She felt secure because she knew they both could say, “I’m sorry;” “I forgive.”