Gospel Story Finder

Remember my great-grandfather, Samuel Bennett? His call to abandon other plans and serve a mission working on the St. George Temple was not the only time he was available to sacrifice at the call of the Lord. In 1902, when Samuel was 49 years old, married with 11 children, the youngest of whom was 4 years old, he was surprised to receive a letter from the President of the Church calling him to serve another mission. Without any advance warning, Samuel was asked to leave his farm and family and serve as a missionary for two years in Great Britain. Can you imagine? The letter calling Samuel to serve has not survived, but we do have Samuel’s letter of response. I think you will find it interesting and a little amusing. Here it is in full:

Holden City UtahJune 23, 1902Dear Br[ethre]n,
In your letter Dated June 20, Inquiring as to my feelings in regard to being called on a mission to Great Britain to preach the Gospel, I feel to try and comply with any and every call under the direction of the Holy Priesthood.
I have no money on hand at Present. But with the Blessings of the Lord, I believe I will be able to raise the necessary amount that it will require. I would rather my Brethren Set the date and I will try to work to that end or to that Date.
My Health at Present is Pretty fare. And I believe as my Day my Strength Shall be.
I do not keep the word of wisdom in every Particular. But believe I can live nearer to that principle from time to time.
I am unacquainted with any other Language. I hope that this letter will meet the approval of my Brethren.
I am your Bro[ther] in the Gospel.Samuel Bennett

My heart swells with joy when I read this letter. My gratitude for my grgreat-grandfatherills the cup of my heart and runs over. As you heard, Samuel developed a little problem with the Word of Wisdom, which he resolved through repentance. But the overriding truth of Samuel’s life is that he was available to the Lord.

Samuel served for two years. This caused great hardship to his wife and family, but never did they falter and never did their faith fail. On one occasion, a well-meaning bishop, recognizing the financial hardship which had come to the family as a result of Samuel’s service, offered to relieve her temporarily of the obligation to pay tithing. “Aunt Martha,” he said, I don’t believe the Lord expects you to pay tithing while Sam is in the mission field.” In response, she was a bit indignant in refusing the bishop’s offer. She said, “Bishop, nobody must keep me from receiving that blessing.” Like the widow woman of Zarephath, who in faith gave her last morsel of bread to the prophet Elijah, the Lord kept the promise of His prophet that the “barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail.” [47]

Such are the eternal blessings that come to those who make themselves available to the Lord, who say when the Spirit calls, “Here am I, send me.”

We have seen Brenda's kind of faith and miracle reversed. About eight years ago we were informed that Eric Anderson, who had suffered since babyhood from Cystic Fibrosis, was in the hospital, his lung capacity almost gone and had only days, perhaps hours to live. Carolyn and I thought we must go see this living miracle once more before the miracle yielded up the ghost.
You see Eric was told when he was little that he would never participate in sports, never go a mission, never go to college, never get married or raise a family. He survived on priesthood blessings. When Eric first went to college his doctor wrote on his application to BYU-Provo that he was living on borrowed time. But Eric's faith and the faith of others sustained him. He went on a mission to Florida South Mission, but fell desperately ill and was given 72 hours to live. He recovered miraculously because of faith and the help of a world renowned Cystic Fibrosis specialist who treated him very aggressively. He completed a successful mission, married Arlene in 1986 in the Manti Temple, and became the proud father of four beautiful children all the while literally fighting for life and breath from day to day.
I shall never forget going into the hospital room. Eric was sitting on the bed, emaciated and struggling for breath, albeit he was serene, almost heavenly. He said to us "I'm so glad you came because I have just at this moment reached a milestone in my life."
"What milestone is that?" I asked.
Just this morning in my prayers I was able for the first time in my life to say to Heavenly Father, "Thy will be done" and really mean it. I have always held back that complete and final offering to the Lord, that He take my life if it is his will. I was completely and totally eager to do what He willed.His will was my will. I am free and at peace now.
Carolyn and I felt like we were on sacred ground when we walked out. We were sure we would never Eric Anderson alive again. How delighted and surprised we were when we heard that Eric was sustained in his effort to go back to the doctor in Florida that had saved his life on a mission. When he went to Florida he was only 108 pounds and was on four liters of oxygen. Three months later, he returned home running down the concourse, weighing 130 pounds and totally off the oxygen. He is truly a walking miracle. Eric is still walking and has served in several Church positions, continuing to be a light and an example wherever he goes.

Right after I was baptized and confirmed, my grandmother said, “You have the Holy Ghost now, and it’s important that you have a testimony of the prophet.” Soon I went to general conference for the first time—the October conference of 1949.
It was quite an adventure. I slept over at my grandparents’ house. I remember getting up very early on Saturday morning and riding the bus to downtown Salt Lake City with my grandmother. We walked over to Temple Square and stood in a line for a long, long time. When we got to the Tabernacle, we sat in the back corner.
Just before the meeting started, there was a hush and everybody stood up. Then President George Albert Smith (1870–1951) walked in. I could see President Smith and his counselors. I’ve never forgotten how I felt when I first saw the prophet. I felt something very, very special. I knew he was the Lord’s prophet.
That was a very important event. I feel the same way when I see the President of the Church now. I have served as a General Authority now with three Presidents of the Church. And when the President walks in, I still have that testimony: “He’s the prophet.”

Knock, knock, knock. Bleary-eyed, I looked at the alarm clock next to the bed. 5:55 a.m. Pound, pound, pound. It sounded like a mallet was being used to beat down the front door of our condo in downtown Nashville. My husband stirred next to me but was too tired from our late night assembling toys and stuffing stockings to get up. It was early Christmas morning, and the warm lights on the tree in the corner greeted me as I stumbled, still half asleep, to the door.
I opened it to see two young police officers with alarm on their faces. They quickly informed me that there was a public safety threat in the area, and we needed to evacuate immediately. Shocked and a bit exasperated, I said, “It’s 20 degrees outside, it’s Christmas, and we have kids—is this really necessary?”
At the mention of my children, one of the officers froze. “You have kids? Please, get them and leave as quickly as you can.” I could see the fear in her eyes.
Right then the Holy Ghost delivered a very clear, stern warning to my heart, and I knew we needed to get out immediately. I hurried to inform my sleeping husband that we had to leave. I was met with the same questions and groggy reluctance I had just expressed myself, when the Holy Ghost’s warning returned to my heart more urgently than before. I began to panic. I had no idea what threat my family was facing, but I knew we were in real danger.
I pulled my four-year-old from his bed while my husband went to get the baby from the crib. Carrying my confused, sleepy son down the hall in my arms, I covered his eyes to preserve the surprise of what Santa had left for him—the scene I thought we would be running toward as soon as we opened our eyes, not running from. As we hurried to the front door, I glanced back with longing at that scene adorning our condominium: Christmas presents glittering under the tree, backed by hanging stockings; gingerbread houses proudly decorated and on display; the kitchen full of our favorite holiday foods, ready for a Christmas feast. All the makings of a joyful celebration for our family.
Still in our pajamas, we bundled our children in whatever coats and shoes were in the entryway; then I grabbed the scantily prepared diaper bag and walked out. I closed the door, expecting to be gone only a short time and eager to return to the magical morning we had planned with our boys.
Moments later, we were in the car pulling away from our building. As we drove down the street, we noticed the flashing lights on emergency vehicles illuminating downtown and looking almost festive against the unusual Christmas snow that had fallen overnight.
Suddenly … boom! In stunned terror, we turned to watch as a blazing fireball engulfed our street and filled the sky. A bomb had detonated in front of our building.
I took this photo of our street moments after the explosion. The bomb detonated 30 feet from the front door of our building.
There were flames, smoke, and hundreds of broken windows, alarms blaring, cars exploding, water pouring out of unknown places, and our beautiful row of historic brick buildings crumbling to the ground.
In an instant, we were left homeless.
Our only physical possessions were now reduced to the clothes on our backs, the diaper bag, and the car we were driving.
The hours that followed were a blur—our phones constantly ringing with calls or pinging with texts from concerned friends and family, most of which we were unable to answer.
In the midst of it all, I felt an urgent need to call my aunt, whom I’ve probably called five times in my entire life. But every time I see her, she always seems to say something that my soul needs.
When she answered, I was surprised by her upbeat and confident response. “Noelle,” she said, “this is a miracle! You got out!” She continued, “This is only the first of many miracles. Watch and see what the Lord has in store for you. He will lead you to where you need to be.”
I wanted to believe my aunt—to believe in Him. But the grief was real, and the tears were many. The problems seemed too complex to solve, and our hearts seemed too broken to mend. There were times when I would crumble beneath the weight of trying to rebuild an entire life from scratch. I wondered quietly, and desperately, “Will He really lead us now? What will we do if He doesn’t come?” But during the weeks and months following the explosion, we watched in amazement as my aunt’s faithful prediction proved true, and our broken hearts were bound up again and again. I did not know that extreme grief and profound gratitude could co-exist.
Although our hands were empty of the gifts we left under the tree that devastating morning, we were comforted by the words of Moroni that the gifts Christ gives us “never will be done away, even as long as the world shall stand” (Moroni 10:19). Our home was no longer standing, but the Spirit of the Lord stood firmly by our side. In exchange for gifts in wrappings and ribbons, we were blessed with the gift of “the beholding of angels and ministering spirits” (Moroni 10:14).
It is my belief that most of the miracles we see in our lives come through the helping hands of others. We are the workers of many of God’s miracles on the earth. We can often recognize these miracles—these tender mercies—by their timing.
The officers who knocked on our door woke us with just enough time to get our family out.
We drove away to safety—just in time.
In the immediate aftermath, we needed to replace the basic necessities to live, but I was in shock, overwhelmed, and unable to respond to the many wonderful inquiries that came to us of “What do you need? How can we help?” Then came the rescuing phone call from a friend. She said, “I’m standing in the middle of Walmart. I am just going to start saying items that you might need; all you have to do is say yes or no. Shampoo, deodorant, diapers, baby food … ” Her call was inspired, and her list was extensive—and we needed every item.
We had to find a temporary place to live while we looked for a new home. Just as we began our search, a complete stranger reached out to us on Facebook and offered their beautiful guesthouse for us to live in for two months, rent free.
In a blistering real estate market, a couple getting ready to list their home offered it to us, off market, entertaining no other bids. It fit the needs of our family perfectly. Our closing date was set for the day that our temporary housing was ending.
Our friends tirelessly showed up when we needed them, over and over again, to carry us through the endless and complex challenges we faced. They came no matter what time of day or how long we needed them.
I began writing down each of these occurrences, and caught myself questioning some of them: “Are these really miracles? Are these just your garden-variety blessings? Are they even just mere coincidences?”
And then I remembered, it’s all about timing—my timing, your timing, and most important, the Lord’s timing.
Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles said of tender mercies: “I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are real and that they do not occur randomly or merely by coincidence. Often, the Lord’s timing of His tender mercies helps us to both discern and acknowledge them.”1
Timing was the common thread that connected many of these events. We had been carried through that difficult day and the many that followed by scores of earthly angels—who received specific promptings and promptly acted, performing miracles and tender mercies of every kind.
My aunt promised, “Watch and see what the Lord has in store for you. He will lead you to where you need to be.”
Through a series of miraculous events, He did lead us to where we needed to be, when we needed to be there, and to who we needed to become.
My precious family is alive today because miracles happen.
I hope that as we have witnessed and continue to witness miracles, we will become instruments in the Lord’s hands to deliver His miracles to our brothers and sisters—to be His angels of warning, His arms of comfort, His hands of shelter, His eyes of hope, His voice of love.
The author lives in Tennessee.

The next speaker took his time getting to the podium. He was close to a hundred years old. He had been Grandma’s bishop when she was first married and was still her bishop when she sent her first son on a mission. Even now, everyone still called him Bishop Jensen.
“I loved Annie when she was a teenager,” he said hoarsely, his brown hands trembling. Then he chuckled. “Oh, she wasn’t my girlfriend, mind you. She had pluck. When it was haying time, she’d offer to help us and everyone else in the valley. And I remember the day she came racing over to our house on that chestnut horse. She wanted us to be the first to see the saddle she won at the rodeo.”
Grandma had won a saddle? I shook my head incredulously. Maybe old Bishop Jensen wasn’t remembering quite right.
I left the funeral feeling as if I had forgotten something. One sentence by the last speaker had caught me, as if Grandma were speaking to me. But now his words were gone from my mind. It’s no use anyway, I thought. There’s nothing I can do for Grandma now. I can never wipe away last Saturday at the corral.
“I never knew Grandma had a chestnut horse,” I said to Dad as we drove to the cemetery.
“I think I only heard her talk about that horse once,” he said.
“And the saddle?” I asked.
“That was news to me. With me being the youngest of seven boys, I guess she was tired of telling the same stories by the time I came along.”
Several horses were dozing against the pasture fence as we turned into the cemetery. A stylish palomino raised its head. It looked like the horse owned by that blonde down in Glenville.
“You better not let her beat you at the barrels,” Grandma had said.
There is something I can do for Grandma, I thought. I can beat the rodeo queen in the barrel racing competition.
I was next. Ginger knew it too. She kept prancing sideways and tugging on the reins.
“Easy, girl. Don’t get all worked up before we get out there.”
The afternoon was warm. Sweat was already seeping from under Ginger’s saddle blanket. The reins felt sticky in my fingers.
The crowd roared as last year’s rodeo queen zoomed out for her turn at the barrels. I could see her blonde braids streaming behind her. She zipped sleekly around the first barrel and bolted for the next.
This blonde and I were the last two barrel racers. The other competitors’ times had been mediocre, so I felt Ginger and I still had a chance.
The rodeo queen circled the second barrel without a hitch. Uneasily, I eyed the last barrel. Maybe she would tip it over and get disqualified.
I could see the girl and her horse lean together around the third barrel. It was too close. The barrel rocked wildly. But it didn’t go over. At least it might have knocked a couple of seconds off her time. The crowd thundered as she spurted toward the finish.
I’ll show them, I thought, as I positioned Ginger for a run into the arena. But I was scared.
I charged out. The flag dropped at the starting line as Ginger and I flashed past. I hadn’t thought of Grandma until that very second. Suddenly I had a feeling that beating this rodeo queen was not what Grandma had in mind.
Ginger’s black mane flew in my face as I reined her low around the right barrel. She veered around it smooth and tight—just like a pro. I didn’t feel as much like a pro. I was slightly off balance and bumpy as we raced down the arena to the far barrel. Ginger went a little wide on this barrel, but we were still on target.
Now for the last barrel. I was in her rhythm again, so my confidence rose. “Dig, Ginger, dig,” I whispered, leaning over her neck.
She flicked her ear back briefly. I felt the tremble before blastoff.
Then we were hurtling toward the last barrel. Too fast. I tried to check her, but we were already swerving steeply around the barrel. I was off balance, askew in my stirrups. Ginger was sliding. Too far. We were falling. In slow motion, we were crashing into the barrel. Grandma’s sad gray eyes flashed before me. “You can do it,” she was saying.
“I’m sorry, Grandma. I thought I could beat her.”
I was falling.
“I was never too good with words,” said Grandma. “But you are.”
“No, my words hurt you.”
Falling. Falling.
“It’s okay,” whispered Grandma. “I know you can write it.”
“Write what?” I muttered.
Then I hit the barrel.
When I came to, I was deep in rodeo arena dirt, and Ginger’s hot breath was in my face. But I knew what I needed to do.
A cowboy was leaning over me. “Write what?” he said.
“Did I say something?” I asked.
“You keep saying you need to write something.”
I rolled to my feet. “That’s right. I do need to write it.”
“You all right?” he asked.
“I’m just fine.”
I started by interviewing Grandma’s seven sons. They each gave me a different view of Grandma’s life.
“Mom was the only widow I knew who could get seven kids ready for church and still be five minutes early,” said Uncle Orvil.
“Mom would feed every hobo who’d come along the tracks,” said Uncle Russ. “I was scared of them and would hide behind her skirts. But she wasn’t scared. She’d just put them to work chopping wood.”
“I remember Mom telling me that she wanted to be Annie Oakley when she was little,” said Uncle Rolfe, “so she took her stick horse and ran away. She was gone for most of the day. Half the county was looking for her. They finally found her fast asleep in a pasture full of unbroken mustangs.”
“Long before anyone had heard of family home evening, Mom had what she called family time once a week,” said Uncle Matt. “There was no getting around it. We had to be there.”
None of my uncles knew much about the chestnut horse or the rodeo saddle.
“Mom kept pretty silent on some things,” said Sid, my oldest uncle. “All I know is that she didn’t have that horse very long.”
He motioned to several boxes of scrapbooks and letters. “But you might find something there. You’re welcome to take them home with you.”
Digging through the scrapbooks, I finally found a small picture of Grandma on her chestnut horse. “Me and Flash, 1930” was scrawled on the back. I was surprised how much Grandma looked like me sitting on that horse. Straight brown hair and freckles.
When my great-uncle Al came to town, I asked him, “Do you know any other stories about Grandma besides the ones you told at the funeral?”
“Oh, I’m chock-full of tales about my sister,” he said. “I remember her first date with your Grandpa.”
Date? It had never occurred to me that someone would actually remember Grandma going on a date.
“To be honest, I remember her second date better. It was almost the last. Her first date was kind of normal. She came home with this goofy smile on her face and walked past me like I didn’t exist. But on her second date, she came home scratching like a hen in the barnyard. I thought she must have fleas. She kept yelling, ‘I can’t stand it,’ all the while yanking at her clothes and peeling down her socks. Come to find out, Harry’s old Plymouth also served as a truck. He’d forgotten to take the chicken feed sacks out in time for his date. Harry and Annie got covered with chicken mites. They were scratching like a couple of dogs all night and didn’t dare say a word to each other. Luckily, chicken mites would rather be on chickens than people, so Annie got over it quick. But it took a few weeks for her and Harry to get back together.”
Uncle Al and my dad were laughing so hard tears were running down their cheeks. Suddenly I remembered the words from the funeral. “Whoever does Annie’s life story is in for a few laughs.”
Uncle Al knew a little more about her chestnut horse. “Oh, yes, how she loved that little mare. Annie’s dream was to become a trick rider and ride in rodeos and wild west shows.”
“A trick rider?”
“Yep, she got pretty good at it too, considering she didn’t have that horse very long. I did watch her fall a few times in the pasture.”
“Did she barrel race too?”
“Oh, no, that was before the days of barrel racing,” he said. “But she did enter some sort of horsemanship event at the rodeo. Maybe you’ve heard about the saddle she won?”
I nodded.
Uncle Al shook his head. “It’s too bad about that saddle. I don’t think she ever got to use it.”
“She didn’t?” I said.
“Nope. She sold Flash right after that.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I have my suspicions. But the person who might know is my brother Bill.”
I hugged my notebook as I entered the rest home. Uncle Bill, Grandma’s next oldest brother, always made me a little nervous. He tended to get confused when he talked. But today he seemed sharp.
“Why did Annie sell her horse?” he repeated, leaning forward in his wheelchair. “Well, the Depression was coming on. I told her it didn’t matter; I could earn the money myself. But she had already made up her mind. Maybe you know how bullheaded she could be. She wanted to do her part for my mission. She said she couldn’t stand watching Flash eat hay in the barn while I might be hungry in England.”
“And she sold her new rodeo saddle too?” I said.
“Well, I don’t recollect that she did,” replied Uncle Bill, scratching the top of his head. “I think she kept that saddle a long time, hoping to buy another horse so she could be a trick rider. Then later on she hoped to have a daughter to give it to. To be honest, I don’t know what happened to that saddle.”
I had almost completed Grandma’s history by the time I found out what happened to her prize saddle. I ran across a letter from Bishop Jensen in the box of papers Uncle Sid had given me.
“Dear Annie: I know how you like your gifts to be anonymous. But I just wanted to tell you how thrilled the Hansens are with your saddle. They were afraid of paralysis after the accident, but now their little Marie seems determined to put that saddle on a horse. I knew you wanted your saddle to go to a girl who loves horses, and there’s no doubt Marie loves horses.”
I finished Grandma’s history and made copies for my family. Everyone was thrilled, including Bishop Jensen, who turned 100 years old the day I gave him his copy.
By the way, I never did beat that sassy blonde from Glenville in the barrels. She got married that summer and moved away. But the next year, I shortened my stirrups a notch like Grandma said and won second place. First place went to Rebecca Williams, who happened to be “little” Marie Hansen’s daughter.
Grandma’s saddle deserved to win first.

First, be your own best self. An eighteen-year-old young woman I know recently got up her courage to ask a mighty senior, a guy she’d had a crush on for weeks, to a big preference dance. The day before the dance she came to her mother in obvious frustration.

“Mom, what am I going to do?” she asked, her brow furrowed. “My face looks terrible. Look at these zits! You could do a dot-to-dot. Besides that, what am I going to talk about? I don’t know what to say. He’ll think I’m stupid.”

Her mother tried not just to comfort her but to teach her: “Just be yourself. Maybe it would help to look at the conversation from his point of view. Talk about things in which you both have some interest. That way you can be yourself and still be interested in him. Don’t worry so much about him being a ‘date.’ Think of him first as a friend.”

Last April, Sister Rasband and I had the honor of joining our beloved prophet and Sister Nelson for the rededication of the Manti Utah Temple.

President Nelson surprised everyone when he entered the room. Only a very few of us knew he was coming. In his presence, I immediately felt the light and prophetic mantle he carries. The look of joy on the faces of the people personally seeing the prophet will stay with me forever.

In the prayer of rededication, President Nelson petitioned the Lord that His holy house would essentially hold up all who entered the temple, “that they may receive sacred blessings and remain worthy and faithful to their covenants … that this may be a house of peace, a house of comfort, and a house of personal revelation for all who enter these doors worthily.”

Before the service, we stood outside in the sun with President and Sister Nelson to view the beautiful setting. President Nelson’s ancestral ties to the area run deep. His eight great-grandparents settled in the valleys surrounding the temple, as did some of mine. My great-grandfather Andrew Anderson served on the construction crew of early pioneers who labored 11 years to complete the Manti Temple, the third in the Rocky Mountains.

As we stood with President Nelson, we had the opportunity to hold up and support the prophet of God in celebration of the rededication of the Lord’s holy house. It was a day I will never forget.

“We build temples to honor the Lord,” President Nelson said that sacred day. “They are built for worship and not for show. We make sacred covenants of eternal significance inside these sacred walls.” We are gathering Israel.

Reflecting on my own life, I am certain that Heavenly Father was helping me develop at a relatively young age those characteristics that would later benefit my understanding of how the gospel provides valuable insights into secular learning. I had the privilege of being raised in the Church, and therefore discussions regarding such questions were a frequent occurrence in my youth. And since debates were, and continue to be, a favorite part of all my family’s get-togethers, there was ample opportunity to express opinions. One very significant episode in my journey, however, came when I was a senior in high school. I was taking a sociology class, and because we had to complete a final group project and presentation on personal and social roles, I proudly volunteered my dad, then a psychology professor at BYU, to come speak to the class.

When the day arrived for his presentation, I was very excited that friends and classmates were going to see what an intelligent father I had. Because it was a rather unique experience at the high school, we all listened intently to everything he had to say. He addressed the several roles of high school students—including child, sibling, friend, etc.—but he particularly focused on our role as student. He told the class that he had always encouraged his own children from a very young age to challenge and question the ideas that were dispensed at school. He asserted that such interaction would bring about a fuller understanding of the topic at hand, and real learning could thus take place. This assertion in his talk, in particular, greatly astounded the students, and I remember one of the rather bold boys in the class asking in amazement, “You mean you really tell your kids to question what the teacher says?”

My father looked over at me for confirmation and said, “Yes, I do. Don’t I, Martha?” I rather timidly nodded yes, even as I realized that I certainly had not significantly lived up to my father’s dictum to that point in my education. I also committed to myself at that moment that I would no longer accept as truth what every seeming authority had to say on a subject, and I would more thoroughly, albeit respectfully, question the ideas put forward and search out answers for myself.

Marci dropped her sleeping bag on the kitchen floor. “I was trapped!” she wailed to her mother. “Just trapped. What else could I do?”
“You really had no choice,” said Mother. “Anyway, I agree with Hoa and her parents. If you had Hoa spend the night with you, then you should be willing to spend a night with her.”
“But, Mom,” groaned Marci. “That’s different. They live in a one-bedroom apartment. Hoa, her little sister, and I will be sleeping in the front room. And that’s part of the kitchen!”
Marci didn’t expect an answer. She could hear the car in the driveway and knew Dad was waiting. Sighing, she picked up her sleeping bag. “Well, I guess I have to go. Hoa would be very hurt if I didn’t.”
As Marci entered the apartment where her friend Hoa lived, Hoa’s mother turned from the stove. “We are most glad you came, Marci. We thank you.”
Marci smiled and put her sleeping bag under the kitchen table. Hoa was pouring rice into a pot. “What are you doing,” Marci asked.
“I always fix the rice for dinner,” answered Hoa. A small face peeked from behind her legs. “This is my little sister, Truc.”
Marci knelt down and touched the little girl on the arm. “Hello, Truc,” she said. “I’ve wanted to meet you.”
Truc waved a few fingers at Marci, and Marci reached for her hand.
“She’s cute,” said Marci. “I would baby-sit her any day.”
Hoa’s mother turned around and asked, “What is ‘baby-sit?’”
“I would watch Truc for you,” answered Marci.
The mother smiled. “No need,” she said. “Where I go, Truc goes or Hoa watches her.”
“Vietnamese do not use baby-sitters,” explained Hoa. She winked at Marci. “But you baby-sit me. I always have to ask you what to do.”
Marci laughed. That was true. She had been explaining different things to her new friend for six months now, ever since Hoa had come to her school.
When the father came home, they sat down for dinner. Marci thought it was very quiet, not like dinner at her house. Everyone spoke softly, and Marci could feel her voice become quieter.
“Does your name have a meaning, Marci?” asked Hoa’s father.
“I don’t understand,” said Marci.
“Vietnamese names have another meaning,” explained Hoa. “Mine means flower. Truc means bamboo.”
Marci studied Hoa. She does look like a flower. Marci looked at Truc. She wasn’t sure she resembled bamboo. “I wish my name did have another meaning, but I don’t think the names of many people in the United States do.”
After dinner, Hoa’s mother began cooking again.
“What are you making, Mother?” asked Hoa.
“For Marci I would like to make pho,” she replied. “We will eat it in the morning.”
“Oh, good!” Hoa smiled and turned to Marci. “Pho is like a soup. It is made with beef and egg noodles. You will like it.”
Marci nodded. She was sitting on the floor and Truc was on her lap. Marci looked around the room. There were no toys. A small television set was perched on a low table, but no one seemed interested in turning it on.
“Truc, have you ever heard the story of Peter Rabbit?” asked Marci.
Truc shook her head, and Marci began the story. Then she told her the story of Cinderella. After that, she related some tales about Daniel Boone and Paul Revere. Hoa and her parents listened too. They had never heard the stories either. When Truc fell asleep, Marci looked at her watch. It was ten o’clock! Hoa’s mother took Truc away to get her ready for bed.
Hoa’s father stood up and bowed. “You are most welcome, Marci. We liked the stories. I hope you have a good time here. Goodnight.”
Marci stood up and made a slight bow back to Hoa’s father. “This is one of the best times I have ever had,” she said.
Hoa yawned and brought out a mat to spread on the floor. Marci pulled her sleeping bag from under the table and put it next to Hoa’s mat. After the girls were ready for bed, Marci crawled into her sleeping bag and looked at Hoa. The warm smell of pho filled the room. “Thank you for asking me,” she whispered. “I’m really glad I came.”

Brother Khanakam served in the Thailand Bangkok Mission, where he had “many good experiences.” One of these experiences involved his mother and his sister. They were visiting in Bangkok, and Brother Khanakam invited them to a fireside where Elder Jacob de Jager of the Seventy was speaking.
“I was asked to be his interpreter. I knelt with him and prayed for my family. In his talk, Elder de Jager made some complimentary comments about my family. I looked at my mother, and she was crying. Even my sister, who had been so opposed to my joining the Church that she almost shot me, was crying, too. After the fireside my mother said if there was anything she could do to support me on my mission I was to let her know. I know that she was touched that day by the Spirit.
“My relationship with my family is good now. They love me, and they love my wife and children. My mother lives in a house close to us.”

On October 5, 2017, a year and two months into my mission was the day I received news from my mission president that my mom had passed on the day before. The pain I felt was beyond explanation, I was tempted to tell my mission president that I wanted to go home. My mission president and wife, being the loving parents they are, asked that I stay with them a few days at the mission home with hopes that I would be comforted.
In the course of my stay, my mission president gave me a priesthood blessing and I was prompted to revisit some of the scriptures my mission president had expounded during one of our zone conferences on the plan of salvation and so I did. I read Alma 42:6 that reminded me that death is inevitable and that “it was appointed unto man to die.” I also read Alma 40:11–12 where it teaches that a righteous soul who crosses the veil will be in a state of rest and peace.
As I read, I felt my pain waning gradually and I continued to read it repeatedly. I was reminded that my mom was a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who had gone through the ordinances of baptism and receiving the Holy Ghost by my hand two years before her passing. That reminder kept me going and I left the mission home the next day to return to proselyting.
As I kept teaching the plan of salvation to my investigators from the Book of Mormon, my joy knew no bounds. Thanks to the Book of Mormon, I have moved on and am almost done with my mission. I am more than grateful for the principles taught in the Book of Mormon indeed, it contains the fullness of the gospel, for I have received a witness of its truthfulness.

Third, we can recount meaningful moments. Here is a brief story written by my father about a moment in his childhood. When he retired, instead of sitting on a rocking chair and watching TV, he learned to type, took college writing classes, and read his stories over the radio. He is now working on a series of novels. Notice how he tenderly picks up the voice of himself as a child in this story, and how the child, in his own tender way, comes to feel the concerns of his parents.
Mama told me not to go upstairs in that bedroom—the one across from mine. She told me that, but I was only three, and she didn’t tell me why. I wanted to see. I knew baby Carter was in that room, so why couldn’t I go see?
Dee and Beth were on the living room floor [looking] at toys in the Christmas catalog. They kept the book all for them because they were older and bigger. They made it so I couldn’t see, and I didn’t like them. I went to the end of the room to get away, and I sat where the stairs turn to go up, and I watched them. Cleo couldn’t see the pictures good either. She was bigger than me, but she cried more, and she went for Mama to hold her. Mama always had something to sew, but this time she was on a rocker chair, by the barrel stove, just to be warm and look at the wall across the room. Cleo wanted Mama to hold her and squeak the rocking chair, so that she could stop crying and suck her thumb. Papa got a chunk of coal and put it in the barrel stove to keep the fire going.
When no one looked, I sneaked up to the room. It was cold in the room. There was nothing there but a dresser at the side of the door, with a wood box that Papa made sitting on top of it. I pulled the drawers out to make steps to go up like a ladder, and I climbed my way up. I reached up and held on the edge of the box so I could stand on a drawer and be tall enough to reach in.
I put my hand way down in. And my fingers touched something like skin, but it was cold and I jerked back. I knew it was baby Carter. I was sure it was. There was no other place in the room for him to be. But he was cold. Why was he so cold? And why wasn’t he crying?
I climbed down fast. I almost fell over the drawers. I ran out the door and down the stairs, but I hung onto the rail so I wouldn’t fall. Then I went slow so they wouldn’t know I was gone. I sat on a step to look through the spindles at Papa and Mama, so I could think.
Why isn’t Carter crying? Carter didn’t cry all day. Why isn’t Papa playing with Carter? Papa always plays with Carter in the evening. Why doesn’t Mama get Carter and nurse him like before? Why doesn’t Mama get Carter and bring him down here where it’s warm, and hold him and kiss him?
Do they know he’s cold?

Brother Misalucha told about sharing the gospel with a friend, Larry Yumul. “He asked me why I became a Latter-day Saint,” Brother Misalucha said. “I told him that I had been looking for a church with more answers, a church that practiced what it preached, a church that could teach us things we hadn’t known before.”

Two and one-half months later, Brother Yumul joined the Church. He had a neighbor who used to profane, gamble, and dump his trash in front of the Yumuls’ house. Brother Yumul’s attitude toward him changed. “He began treating him like a good neighbor and tried to be a good Christian to him,” Brother Misalucha explained. “The formerly lousy neighbor cleaned up his act and joined the Church! Now he’s shared the gospel with another family, and they’ve been baptized, and they’ve helped introduce the missionaries to another family that also joined the Church!”

Gus German is only 17 years old, but he cannot remember a time when he wasn’t visiting Church members with his father. In Delaware, members are spread out in different directions and in many cases they’re miles away from one another. With that in mind, members try to check up on each other. Of course, Gus didn’t become a home teacher until age 12, when he received the Aaronic Priesthood and was assigned by his bishop to be his father’s companion. But he’d already learned a lot about caring for people and about preparing and presenting meaningful lessons, so he stepped right into his home teaching role.
“Scripture stories were my staple home teaching lessons,” says Gus, a priest who grew up in the Wilmington (Delaware) West Ward. “I’d studied them in story books from the time I was five, so I knew those stories cold. Some people wonder who Nebuchadnezzar is. I know who he is.”
Over the years, Gus and his father regularly visited Sister Joyce Miller, at the time a less-active member of the Church who was battling cancer.
“The thing I remember most about Gus as a young boy was that whenever I asked him to say a prayer, he would stand up and do it,” Sister Miller says. “A lot of young boys and girls roll their eyes when you ask them to do something like praying. Not Gus.”
Now the young man who stopped by was a deacon with a priesthood responsibility. “I wasn’t active when they first started visiting me,” Sister Miller continues, “but their visits meant everything. I wanted to come back to church, but I was smoking and didn’t want to go because I was afraid people would smell the smoke on me.”
“All I knew is we always went to Sister Miller’s house and had fun when we home-taught her. I didn’t think any different of her when I found out she smoked because we were already really good friends,” says Gus. “I was pretty impressed and proud of her when she did stop smoking because I have heard how tough it is to quit.”
When she did stop smoking, Sister Miller began going to church again. “I was so glad because I liked seeing her. I would be able to see a smile on her face and be able to tell she really liked being at church,” Gus adds.
When Gus turned 16 and got his driver’s license, he was able to see that smile more and more. As her condition worsened, Sister Miller was unable to drive. Gus happily volunteered to pick her up and take her to church. “Sometimes she couldn’t stay past the sacrament in sacrament meeting so I would take her home.” Now, other ward members pick up Sister Miller when she’s able to go to church. And when she wasn’t, guess who went to her house to take her the sacrament.
“Sometimes I went with my dad, and sometimes I went with the Young Men president or one of the guys from my quorum,” explains Gus. “It’s something I did that helped her out. I liked doing it.”
Something else he did to help her out: Gus and his dad took Sister Miller to receive her patriarchal blessing.
“When we went for my blessing, Jack (Gus’s dad) took us in his car, the hot rod (a Chevy Nova). We laughed all the way down there. Gus was in the backseat laughing, and my face hurt from laughing,” Sister Miller remembers. “When I had my blessing, Jack and Gus were as quiet as church mice. After all that laughing we did on our way down, it was pretty quiet on the trip back. That is very memorable. We always have a good time, the three of us.”
Last September, Gus left Delaware to attend BYU. He saw Sister Miller at Christmas when he went home, and he still stays in touch, even though she’s living at one end of the country and he’s 3,000 miles away. She misses his visits, but is happy Gus is going to college. In Gus’s place as Jack German’s home-teaching companion is Lance, Gus’s 12-year-old brother.
As for Gus, some things never change. No sooner had he settled in his new ward in Provo than he was called to be a home teacher.

The 1890s were not easy years to be a missionary in England. Some people there were telling false stories about the Mormons and stirring up trouble for the missionaries.
One night Sister Knight was out teaching a family with her new companion, Sister Chipman. A group of rowdies saw them and stirred up so much trouble with the neighbors by telling lies about the Mormons that a mob followed the sisters through the streets, calling them names and throwing rocks at windows and trash at the young ladies. Elder Ray Knight had been sent to walk them home, but the situation became so dangerous that three policemen had to escort the missionaries to the police station for their safety. Even though they were bruised and soiled with garbage, the sisters were not ready to give up. Instead, while they waited inside the police station for the crowd to go away, they discussed the gospel with the policemen. Later the chief of police helped the missionaries slip out the back door so that they could walk home safely.

It’s funny how you never really appreciate something until it’s gone. At least, that’s how I felt the day I realized that my reputation had become quite ugly. I guess I better back up a bit and tell you how I came to that point.
I’ve been LDS my whole life, and I was always a basically good kid. Then I entered ninth grade. Everything went downhill from there. I was so tired of being teased about being a goody-goody. I never intended to ever do anything really wrong. I just didn’t want to be hassled anymore. So I came up with what seemed like a great plan. Looking back I realize it was pretty stupid.
I decided I would lead a double life. When I was at church or with LDS friends, I would act the part of a perfect Mormon. When I was with my nonmember friends, I would go wherever they went, talk like them, and try to seem like one of them. I figured that as long as I didn’t drink their beer or smoke their pot I was still okay. Unfortunately, I was living a lie with both groups of friends. You can’t get away with a lie for very long. It wasn’t long before my LDS friends started to keep their distance. One girl told me that her mother had told her she couldn’t hang around with me anymore because I smoked pot and drank. She didn’t want her daughter being influenced by me. It just wasn’t true! But how do you convince someone of that when all of your actions point to a different conclusion?
My friends from school started seeing the lie too. My first kiss was in the backseat of a stranger’s car with a boy whose name I didn’t even know. He wanted to go farther than I was willing to. Later, his friend told me it was time I started following through on the life I was claiming to live. My partying friends decided that it was time to prove I was one of them, so they planned a little pot party in my honor for the last day of school. I didn’t go to school that day. It was the coward’s way out, but deep down inside I knew they weren’t really my friends.
That was when I realized how foolish I’d been. I had destroyed my reputation in six short months! My LDS friends didn’t believe a thing I said, and my nonmember friends thought I was a jerk—all talk and no play.
What took a short six months to destroy took years to rebuild. For the next full year I worked very hard to prove to the good kids that I was one of them. Every time I thought I had succeeded my past would come back to haunt me.
The summer after I was in tenth grade our girls’ church basketball team won the regional play-offs. We would be going to the area play-offs 1,000 miles away. We would be traveling with the boys’ team that won the regionals. I couldn’t believe what my coach said about me after that trip. She said that when we left home she had been sure she’d be sending me home early. After all she’d heard about me, she was just sure that I would get into some kind of trouble. She said she was surprised and pleased to discover that I was the best-behaved girl on the trip. I couldn’t believe it! I realized people were still judging me by the friends I’d had over a year ago. I’d never done any of the things people were saying I’d done in the past, but because of the people I’d associated with, the places I’d been seen, and the way I had dressed, everyone assumed I’d done the same awful things my friends had! I was guilty by association. Everywhere I went people were watching, testing me, judging me—all because of some choices I’d made in the past. It was so unfair, yet something I had to live with. You can’t fix a ruined reputation overnight.
Even in my senior year I had to defend my reputation! I met a boy that I really wanted to go out with. Finally, things clicked and we were really talking, the kind of talk where you feel so good and so close to someone. Then he shocked me into reality. I couldn’t believe I was actually sitting there hearing him tell me that he really liked me, but that he couldn’t date me because his standards were different than mine! He wouldn’t date someone who didn’t live the gospel. I was totally speechless. He had heard about things that I had supposedly done over three years ago. It took me several months to prove to him that the stories from my past were rumors and falsehoods. I am amazed to this day that a ruined reputation could have such far-reaching effects. You never know how the things you are doing—or even just pretending to be doing—are going to affect your tomorrows! It’s so much better to keep your reputation clean and intact than to play games with such a valuable possession.
I’d like to be able to say that the story ends there, that I went to college and left my blemished reputation behind me. But there is one more unfortunate chapter. What did my six months of spoiling my reputation do for me? Four years later, it nearly had disastrous consequences. A boy who knew me in ninth grade had moved away from our town to a different state just after ninth grade. He ended up at the same college I did, and when we bumped into each other one day, he introduced me to a friend. I’ll never know what he told him about me, but somehow his friend decided that he had found himself an “easy” pickup. One night, after going out with the friend I’d assumed was a good guy, I found myself trapped in a car with a person who was not prepared to take no for an answer. He actually had the gall to tell me that he “knew all about me” and he wasn’t going to let me go without “his share of the goodies”! I will forever be grateful to a loving Heavenly Father who inspired a campus policeman to patrol the stadium parking lot, “just one more time.”
Please, oh please, learn from my mistake. No number of “friends” or invitations to parties, no degree of “popularity” is worth the years of heartache a ruined reputation can cause you. However, if you find that your reputation is worse than you are, remember that Heavenly Father knows you very well and his judgment is always fair. If you sincerely try, you can eventually reclaim your good name. But how much richer and fuller your life can be if you never let your reputation slip. The value of the gospel in your life is far greater than the cheap, temporary thrill of a moment of being “in.”

Perhaps an example would be helpful. Procrastination is truly a thief of time—especially when it comes to downright hard work. I speak of the need to study diligently as you prepare for the tests of school and, indeed, the tests of life.
I know of a university student who was so busy with the joys of student life that preparation for an exam was postponed. The night before, she realized the hour was late and the preparation was not done. She rationalized, “Now what is more important—my health, which requires that I must sleep, or the drudgery of study?” Well, you can probably guess the outcome. Sleep won, study failed, and the test was a personal disaster. Work we must.

Some of you old sports fans remember Babe Ruth; most of you would have to read about him. He’s still revered today as one of the great sluggers of all time. Seven hundred and fourteen home runs was the standing record until Hank Aaron came and broke it with a few more. But did you know that while Babe Ruth was making all those records he struck out twice as many times as he hit a home run? I remember reading about the incident that happened in Scheib Park in Philadelphia late in the season in 1927 when the Yankees were trying to secure another pennant. On the mound that day for the Athletics was perhaps one of the greatest left-handed pitchers the game had ever produced, Lefty Grove. He had fanned Babe Ruth on two successive tries at the plate; and, of course, the Philadelphia fans were overjoyed. Every time that Babe would come up to bat they would jeer at him, and he was such a colorful player he would take off his cap and wave back to the crowd. In the eighth inning, he came to bat for the third time, and this time the situation was extremely critical. The Athletics were ahead of the Yankees three to one, and the bases were loaded with two outs. He could win or lose the game for the Yankees as he went to bat. He selected his favorite bat, strolled out to the batter’s box as only he could do it, and faced Lefty Grove. Now it all depended on him—the man who had just struck out twice, the man who had earned the insults of the crowd. The excitement was tremendous. All eyes were upon him. The pitcher threw the first pitch across the plate, and with all his power Babe swung and missed. The next pitch was equally good, and Babe swung so hard that he fell down, creating a cloud of dust. The crowd went crazy. But the third time Babe swung, he connected with a loud explosion that sent the ball hurtling out of the park, beyond the houses, and across the street; and it was recorded later as one of the longest hits in the history of baseball. You see, brothers and sisters, Babe Ruth had a basic ingredient that produces winners. We call it “staying power.” He stayed in there and wouldn’t give up. He didn’t measure and remeasure his failures, as we sometimes do. He didn’t declare himself a loser and curl up and die in the dugout. The great slugger kept trying, putting his whole heart into the effort until he succeeded.

I had just started college when I decided to learn to snowboard. There wasn’t snow on the ground yet, and I had no idea how I would learn, but I had recently acquired the gear and had the desire. What I didn’t realize then was how learning to snowboard would become an important metaphor for later lessons.
When my friends found out about my recently acquired equipment, they promised to help me learn how to ride my board. We began planning a boarding trip as soon as the local resort opened. I was already envisioning the speed with which I would race down the slopes and the heights I would reach from launching off the jumps.
Finally, the slopes opened, and we loaded up our gear in the back of my Jeep and drove along the slushy roads to the resort. When we arrived, I was immediately impressed by how large everything was. Looking at a map of the runs and being aware of my lack of experience, I determined to learn quickly.
My friends didn’t want me to learn on the “bunny hill”—the green run. They reasoned that there wasn’t enough of a slope to get any speed, and without speed I wouldn’t learn to board. I went along with their plan and rode the ski lift to a blue run. I listened to the advice of my two buddies and then started down the hill, squatting in a tuck to get more speed.
Speed was one thing I understood. It was simple to go fast down that slope. Unfortunately that was all I could do. I soon caught an edge and face-planted in the snow. There was at least a foot of fresh snow everywhere on the hill, so there wasn’t much of a consequence to crashing. That was how I spent the day: racing down the hill as fast as I could go, trying to achieve that flying feeling I had imagined, crashing because I didn’t know how to stop, and then jumping back up and starting again. Pretty soon my friends left me and went to tackle the advanced runs—the black diamonds. I had more fun than I expected that day. I didn’t mind eating snow frequently if it meant I could zip down the mountain full-tilt.
The next week my family took a weeklong vacation at a different resort with very different snow conditions. The area hadn’t received fresh snow in a week, and the entire mountain was covered in a thick layer of icy man-made snow. There were even areas where the snow was so compacted it would have been possible to glide across on skates.
I continued my method of boarding, but it didn’t take long before an ice patch surprised me, causing me to lose control of the board and to land so hard on my tailbone that I couldn’t walk normally for two weeks. I limped and slid my way down the hill and went to our room. I thought I would be stuck inside for the rest of the vacation, lying on my side because it hurt too much to sit.
Eventually my stubborn nature got the better of me, and I went back out to the hill before it grew dark—this time with a different attitude. I rode up to the top, slid partway down the hill, knelt down, and watched every boarder who passed by, analyzing their every move and technique. The pointers my friends had originally given me became clear as I watched other boarders implement them. When I felt like I understood a particular technique, I would try it out myself, taking particular care not to crash. I spent hours watching and practicing. It was very slow work, and I definitely didn’t have the feeling of flying, but I followed this pattern that entire week.
After that week I had learned the necessary skills to ride a snowboard effectively. My friends couldn’t believe the difference when I rode with them again.
It has been several years since that first season. Now I am a very competent snowboarder. I traverse double black diamonds without batting an eye, hit jumps, and zoom down the mountain at incredible speeds, and I finally feel like I can fly. All of this is because I learned to use restraint and realized the need to learn from those who had come before me.
Sometimes in life it seems easier to do things on our own, heedless of the consequences. That doesn’t mean that the consequences don’t exist or that they won’t catch up to us. If we exercise restraint and take the time to learn from those with more experience in life, like our parents and Church leaders, then we can eventually be ready to venture out on our own and take on life’s challenges. We can learn to fly.

In addition to learning about family history and temple work, the young women also learned how to embroider. They each embroidered their family’s last name onto a tree, and each leaf on the family tree has the name of a family member on it. At first, Tahna T., 13, resisted this part of the project because it wasn’t a skill she felt she was good at, but she learned to enjoy it so much that she continues to develop her talent with needlework.