Gospel Story Finder

“Okay, here are the trash bags,” the bishop said. “Let’s get to work.”
This year for our yearly stake service project we were cleaning up a middle school by our stake center. When we arrived at the school, we saw that the fairly small campus was covered in trash. The wind had blown piles of garbage along a chain link fence. The grass was yellow and dying in patches. Flowers and plants had been planted in an obvious effort to beautify the school, but they had not been maintained, and a field of weeds grew as high as my elbows. The paint in the bathrooms was peeling away from the walls, and spitballs covered the ceiling. I held my nose in disgust as I looked around.
I started picking up garbage along the fence. “This is gross,” I thought. “Why should I pick up someone else’s mess?” I turned to a girl who was working next to me and said, “I have never seen so much trash before. Yuck!”
After a few minutes of filling my trash bag, I thought, “It’s so hot out here. My back hurts, and my hands are getting dirty. I’m sure there are germs all over them! Maybe I can paint the bathroom instead. That would be easier, and I could get out of picking up trash.”
But there were enough volunteers painting already. I walked as slowly as I could back to the hot asphalt near the fence.
Then, as I looked around, I thought, “If this were my school I would be so happy to know that people were cleaning it. I wonder if the students will be surprised on Monday? I bet they’ve never seen this chain link fence completely free of trash.”
I began working harder, making sure I picked up every piece of garbage around the fence and all the trash stuck in the links. My dad mowed the field of elbow-high weeds, and I helped trim bushes and paint an exterior wall.
When we were finished, I looked back at the school and the clean area along the fence and thought, “These students will be so happy!” Then I thought of what I had accomplished and how I had changed. Alma was right: “By small and simple things are great things brought to pass” (Alma 37:6).

It was a hot summer night in August, and my husband, Lynn, and our six children were asleep in the car. I had taken over driving just outside of Rocks Springs, Wyoming, so that my husband might rest. We could be at his parents’ home by midnight, he said, so it was best we go on. We were en route to Idaho from St. Louis, Missouri, where Lynn studied dentistry.

Soon after turning off Highway 30 and taking 30 North toward Bear Lake (on the Utah-Idaho border), I came to a detour sign that sent me to the right on a dirt road. I drove for quite some time, thinking I would soon see a sign to put me back on the main road. But the road got rougher and rougher. Suddenly out of the stillness came a very clear voice which said “Stop!”

I stepped on the brakes, and since I had been driving very slowly was able to stop almost instantly. Seven sleepy heads popped up to inquire: “Where are we? What’s the matter? Why did we stop here?”

All I could say was, “A voice told me to stop. Something must be wrong.” My husband took the flashlight and got out of the car—and found the front wheels on the edge of a canal.

By this time I was shaking, so Lynn took over driving and our older son guided him back. As we retraced our path, we noticed a very small sign that pointed back to the main highway—so small I had missed it in the darkness. Eight heads bowed in grateful thanks.

Once every five years, the magic happens. All the children in the Centerville Utah Fifth Ward come to the meetinghouse a few days before Christmas. They stand outside the cultural hall, almost jumping with excitement as they wait to be ushered into the most remarkable store in the world.
Inside the store there are tables filled with toys, dolls, books games and trains. There are bikes and trikes by the walls, shiny and clean. There are bracelets and necklaces, neckties and stuffed animals, roller skates and ice skates, even a record player or two.
Yes, everything’s for sale. And nothing, except the bicycles, costs more than 25 cents. But the real magic of the Christmas store is that it isn’t run to make money. It’s run to help children share in the joy of giving.
For the first hour, only Primary-age children are allowed to shop in the store. The teenagers in the ward accompany them and help them think through what would make good presents for fathers, mothers, sisters, and brothers. Parents aren’t allowed to see what the children choose. One grandmother was surprised when the very salt shakers she had donated were given to her as a gift!
The basic idea of the Christmas store is that nobody—especially children—should have to spend a lot of money buying gifts. After all, the purpose of Christmas is to celebrate Christ’s birth. And the gifts are to remind us of the presents he was given as a baby, of the teachings he gave us to be kind and to share, and especially to remind us of the gift he gave—his life—so that we might live. No one should be excluded from the wonderful feeling that comes from giving, from thinking of others before ourselves.
Everything available at the store has been donated. Some things are homemade, some are brand-new, some are used but in good condition, some have been reconditioned and repaired.
Of course, the store wouldn’t succeed without the support of everyone in the ward. But the youth play a particularly important part. Last year, for example, they canvassed the ward in October, letting everyone know they were looking for anything a child could give as a gift. The response, as always, was overwhelming. Some people donated brand-new toys. Some cleaned out the toy box from their children’s younger days. Some of the high priests got out their woodworking tools and fashioned rocking horses or wooden trains, or used mechanical tools to repair bicycles.
Once a week starting in late November, the youth went with the elders quorum in trucks to gather up the donations. Soon Grant and Helen Keddington’s basement was so full it wouldn’t hold any more, and the surplus stacked up in the bishop’s office for five weeks. High priests and deacons worked side by side, fixing things that were broken. Youth service nights were spent in putting jigsaw puzzles together to check for missing pieces, in cleaning dirty toys, in sewing torn doll clothing, in stacking toys according to the age group that would use them, in attaching price stickers, and in making publicity posters.
The Relief Society and the Young Women joined to host a bake shop, where cakes, candy, doughnuts, and cookies were for sale. Again, proceeds went for the needy. Norm Beers, the Scoutmaster and his son Matthew, 11, ran a projector showing rented cartoons, to keep older children entertained while the younger kids got to shop first. And even Santa Claus heard about the store, taking a break from his work at the North Pole to visit the children and give them a treat.
This latest store, like others before it, was a great success. We filled the entire cultural hall—first with things to buy, then with children, then with teenagers wrapping the gifts. When the children were finished, adults were allowed to shop, too. What money we raised was turned over to the bishop to help people in distress have a little bit merrier Christmas. And when everyone was through, we still took two boxes of toys, books, and clothing to Deseret Industries, so we kept on sharing the spirit of giving.
But most important, we helped the children to learn to think of others, to enjoy the excitement of finding something someone else would like, without spending lots of hard-earned money to get it. Now, we can hardly wait until we have the Christmas store again.

Several months ago, when my wife and I were visiting another country for various Church assignments, I woke up early one morning and looked blearily outside our hotel window. Down below on the busy street, I saw that a roadblock had been set up with a policeman stationed nearby to turn cars around as they reached the barrier. At first, only a few cars traveled along the road and were turned back. But as time went by and traffic increased, queues of cars began to build up.
From the window above, I watched as the policeman seemed to take satisfaction in his power to block the flow of traffic and turn people away. In fact, he seemed to develop a spring in his step, as if he might start doing a little jig, as each car approached the barrier. If a driver got frustrated about the roadblock, the policeman did not appear helpful or sympathetic. He just shook his head repeatedly and pointed in the opposite direction.
My friends, my fellow disciples on the road of mortal life, our Father’s beautiful plan, even His “fabulous” plan, is designed to bring you home, not to keep you out. No one has built a roadblock and stationed someone there to turn you around and send you away. In fact, it is the exact opposite. God is in relentless pursuit of you. He “wants all of His children to choose to return to Him,” and He employs every possible measure to bring you back.
Our loving Father oversaw the Creation of this very earth for the express purpose of providing an opportunity for you and for me to have the stretching and refining experiences of mortality, the chance to use our God-given moral agency to choose Him, to learn and grow, to make mistakes, to repent, to love God and our neighbour, and to one day return home to Him.
He sent His precious Beloved Son to this fallen world to live the full range of the human experience, to provide an example for the rest of His children to follow, and to atone and redeem. Christ’s great atoning gift removes every roadblock of physical and spiritual death that would separate us from our eternal home.
Everything about the Father’s plan for His beloved children is designed to bring everyone home.
What do God’s messengers, His prophets, call this plan in Restoration scripture? They call it the plan of redemption, the plan of mercy, the great plan of happiness, and the plan of salvation, which is unto all, “through the blood of mine Only Begotten.”
The intent of the Father’s great plan of happiness is your happiness, right here, right now, and in the eternities. It is not to prevent your happiness and cause you instead worry and fear.
The intent of the Father’s plan of redemption is in fact your redemption, your being rescued through the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, freed from the captivity of sin and death. It is not to leave you as you are.
The intent of the Father’s plan of mercy is to extend mercy as you turn back to Him and honour your covenant of fidelity to Him. It is not to deny mercy and inflict pain and sorrow.
The intent of the Father’s plan of salvation is in fact your salvation in the celestial kingdom of glory as you receive “the testimony of Jesus” and offer your whole soul to Him. It is not to keep you out.
Does this mean anything goes with regard to how we live our lives? That the way we choose to use our agency doesn’t matter? That we can take or leave God’s commandments? No, of course not. Surely one of Jesus’s most consistent invitations and pleas during His mortal ministry was that we change and repent and come unto Him. Fundamentally implicit in all of His teachings to live on a higher plane of moral conduct is a call to personal progression, to transformative faith in Christ, to a mighty change of heart.
God wants for us a radical reorientation of our selfish and prideful impulses, the eviction of the natural man, for us to “go, and sin no more.”
If we believe the intent of the Father’s all-reaching plan is to save us, redeem us, extend mercy to us, and thereby bring us happiness, what is the intent of the Son through whom this great plan is brought about?
The Son tells us Himself: “For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.”
Jesus’s will is the benevolent Father’s will! He wants to make it possible for every last one of His Father’s children to receive the end goal of the plan—eternal life with Them. None is excluded from this divine potential.
If you are prone to worry that you will never measure up, or that the loving reach of Christ’s infinite Atonement mercifully covers everyone else but not you, then you misunderstand. Infinite means infinite. Infinite covers you and those you love.
Nephi explains this beautiful truth: “He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.”
The Saviour, the Good Shepherd, goes in search of His lost sheep until He finds them. He is “not willing that any should perish.”
“Mine arm of mercy is extended towards you, and whosoever will come, him will I receive.”
“Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you.”
He did not cast away the woman with the issue of blood; He did not recoil from the leper; He did not reject the woman taken in adultery; He did not refuse the penitent—no matter their sin. And He will not refuse you or those you love when you bring to Him your broken hearts and contrite spirits. That is not His intent or His design, nor His plan, purpose, wish, or hope.
No, He does not put up roadblocks and barriers; He removes them. He does not keep you out; He welcomes you in. His entire ministry was a living declaration of this intent.
Then of course there is His atoning sacrifice itself, which is harder for us to understand, beyond our mortal capacity to comprehend. But, and this is an important “but,” we do understand, can comprehend, the holy, saving intent of His atoning sacrifice.
The veil of the temple was rent in twain when Jesus died upon the cross, symbolising that access back to the presence of the Father had been ripped wide open—to all who will turn to Him, trust Him, cast their burdens on Him, and take His yoke upon them in a covenant bond.
In other words, the Father’s plan is not about roadblocks. It never was; it never will be. Are there things we need to do, commandments to keep, aspects of our natures to change? Yes. But with His grace, those are within our reach, not beyond our grasp.
This is the good news! I am unspeakably grateful for these simple truths. The Father’s design, His plan, His purpose, His intent, His wish, and His hope are all to heal you, all to give you peace, all to bring you, and those you love, home. Of this I am a witness in the name of Jesus Christ, His Son, amen.

When I was 12 years old, my father took me hunting in the mountains. We woke up at 3:00 in the morning, saddled our horses, and set out up the forested mountainside in total darkness. As much as I loved hunting with my dad, at that moment I felt a little nervous. I had never been in these mountains before, and I couldn’t see the trail—or much of anything else, for that matter! The only thing I could see was the small flashlight my dad was carrying as it cast a faint light on the pine trees ahead of us. What if my horse slipped and fell—could he even see where he was going? But this thought comforted me: “Dad knows where he’s going. If I follow him, everything will be OK.”
And everything was OK. Eventually the sun came out, and we had a wonderful day together. As we started toward home, my dad pointed to a majestic, sloping peak that stood out among the others. “That’s Windy Ridge,” he said. “That’s where the good hunting is.” Instantly, I knew that I wanted to come back and climb to Windy Ridge someday.
In the years that followed, I would often hear my father talk about Windy Ridge, but we never went back—until one day, 20 years later, I called my dad and said, “Let’s go to Windy.” Once again we saddled our horses and started up the mountainside. I was now an experienced rider in my 30s, yet I was surprised to feel the same nervousness I had felt as a 12-year-old boy. But my dad knew the way, and I followed him.
Finally we made it to the top of Windy. The view was exhilarating, and the overwhelming feeling I had was that I wanted to come back—not for me this time but for my wife and my children. I wanted them to experience what I had experienced.
Over the years, I’ve had many opportunities to lead my sons and other young men to mountaintops, just as my father led me. These experiences have prompted me to ponder what it means to lead—and what it means to follow.

Summertime is family reunion time. Last year everyone gathered at the Jacobson home. Over forty came, and tents were set up all over the yard. Ginger and a cousin slept on the trampoline. At every reunion the family goes for a bike ride or a walk. This time they went along a nearby river trail. On the path is a large tree with lots of branches. Everyone climbed the “family tree” and a picture was taken that now holds a place of honor in the well-filled family album.

Every morning Zach looked outside to see if it had snowed. “Will it snow today, Mommy?” he asked.
“I’m afraid not—the first snow is late this year.” Mommy hugged him sympathetically. She knew that Zach wanted to play in the snow.
It hadn’t snowed in November or so far in December. A week before Christmas, Zach looked out the window and sighed. He wanted to build a snowman and run all over the backyard and leave his footprints in the snow before he went to bed. “But there still isn’t any snow,” he said sadly to himself.
Mommy heard him. She thought about the dishes in the sink and the ironing she had planned to do. Zach is more important, she decided. “Let’s pretend that there is snow and go out and play in the backyard,” she said. She got out their coats and boots and mittens.
Zach and Mommy stomped all over the backyard, pretending to make footprints in the snow. “What big feet you have!” Mommy exclaimed. That made Zach laugh.
They rolled invisible snowballs around the yard and put them together to make a make-believe snowman. Then they went inside to drink hot cocoa and admire their snowman through the kitchen window.
Just as Mommy asked, “Did you have fun today?” a snowflake drifted past the window. Soon there were lots and lots of snowflakes falling faster and faster.
Zach said, “It’s fun to pretend, but”—he gave Mommy a big smile—“it will be even more fun tomorrow, when we make a real snowman!”
Mommy looked at the dishes in the sink and the pile of ironing. Then she looked out the window at the snow and smiled back. “You know,” she said, “I think so too!”

Even so, Kate faces some hard situations when it comes to the party atmosphere that accompanies sports. It seems that drinking can become a stumbling point, especially when the team goes to Europe to compete. “After races, it’s party time. Everyone I met would drink. At first, I felt like the loner in the hotel. But I got over that feeling. My teammates knew better than to ask me to drink with them. After I won the worlds, my competitors would say, ‘Kate, you have to drink tonight.’ But I’d say no. My teammates would say, ‘No, she doesn’t drink. Don’t even ask.’”

It seems that people are indeed watching Kate and what she chooses to do. At the end of the season, two of her teammates said they had stopped drinking because of her. “It was the biggest reward I have ever received,” says Kate.

“I got started in eighth grade in Tucson, Arizona,” Richard Olson said. “I was in a math class with four friends. One day one of them brought a maze he had made and started a contest to see who could make the best maze. After a while the other four stopped making them, but I haven’t yet.
“I would make mazes at home and take them to school. Some of my friends got excited about them and started copying them, and that kept me excited about them.
“When I feel like doing a maze, I sit down and think of movies I’ve seen, books I’ve read, anything that might bring me an idea. I’ve taken art classes all through school, but I don’t have any particular tricks I use in drawing mazes, though I do like to continue a particular path a long way and then end it before I finally create the one good path. Usually, I just sit down and start drawing, and the idea works itself out as I go along.”
It was Richard’s father who first thought of publishing the mazes in a book to earn money for his mission. “I promised the Lord that all the money would go into my mission fund,” Richard said. “The books weren’t selling too well to begin with, but then we got more orders than books and had to have some more printed.” They have now published more than 1,000 copies.
Now Richard is serving in the Texas San Antonio Mission, and mazes have become less important. “In the mission field,” he says, “I don’t have time to draw one, because it takes about two or three hours. Besides, there are more important things to do.” When he returns home, though, he’ll probably go back to the drawing board again.

In October 2011, while serving a full-time mission in South Africa, I received a phone call from Sister Catherine Wood, our mission president’s wife. All merry and bright, she told me that President Thomas S. Monson had just announced the construction of a temple in my home town, Kinshasa. I remember shouting—with joy with tears flowing down my cheeks—in gratitude to the Most High for the blessing of having a temple in my country.
Eight years later, having married and been sealed to Rachel Tshimungu in the Johannesburg South Africa Temple in 2014, I am the father of two children. Together as a family we have witnessed the fulfillment of this great miracle—not only in our country, but also and especially in our own lives. We watched as the temple rose from ground level until, finally, the Kinshasa Democratic Republic of the Congo Temple was dedicated on Sunday, April 14, 2019 by Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
My family and I are very blessed for having participated in the events preceding the dedication of the temple. We felt the Spirit of the Lord in abundance. At the temple open house, my mother, Mary Noël Kona Bukasa—currently a less active member of the Church—testified: “This temple is truly a House of God, I felt like I was in paradise.” Our neighbors who also attended the open house, said: “It is a perfect house—as if we were in heaven.”

I grew up in a home where my father was not a member of the Church and my mother was less active. That all changed later, and they spent much of their life as temple workers. With that background I didn’t know much about the Church, even though I thought I did. When I was about to graduate from the university, the Lord brought an angel into my life. Her name was Jeanene Watkins. She was a beautiful girl. It took me a long time to date her because so many others recognized her wonderful qualities. As we began to date, I discovered that she was all I had ever dreamed of finding. I fell completely in love with her. I could tell she had deep feelings for me also. One night when we were talking about the future, she carefully wove into the conversation an important comment. She said, “When I marry, it will be to a returned missionary in the temple.” I don’t remember anything else she said. I hadn’t thought much about a mission and didn’t understand much about temple marriage. I went home and couldn’t think of anything else. I was awake all night. I couldn’t do anything at the university the next day. Soon I was at the bishop’s office, having prayed about the importance of a mission. Jeanene and I both went on missions and when we returned were sealed in the temple. Much later I came to realize that she would have left me had I not made the right choices. Jeanene’s courage in standing up for her dream of a temple marriage to a returned missionary, regardless of her love for me, has made all of the difference in our lives together. I will never be able to thank her adequately for not compromising her righteous dreams.

The shrill cry of a car’s horn broke into my thoughts. I had been sitting in my car at the stop sign for several minutes crying. I slowly pulled to the side of the road. The car behind me drove by, and I was again by myself as tears blurred my vision.
The process of repentance had never been more real to me. An hour had passed since I had gone to see the bishop. I had cried as I listened to his counsel and came to realize that I had offended the Lord and was not worthy to bless or pass the sacrament or attend the temple.
This scared me. What would the people in the ward think when they did not see me blessing the sacrament? At that moment, it did not really seem to matter. I was ready to fall at the Lord’s feet. Or so I thought.
I crept in the front door more than an hour after I should have been home from the interview. I tried to decide how to tell my parents why I was late. As I sat in the dark, I tried to hold in my tears. Then I felt an arm on my shoulder. I looked through the haze of tears and saw my mom’s gentle eyes. She said, “Have you been gone this entire time?”
“Yes,” I said, as I told her the bishop and I had a lot to talk about. I hid my face.
She wrapped her arm around me in a gentle embrace. “No matter what you have done, your father and I will always love you,” she said.
The tears rained into my hands. She left, and for the first time I think I truly prayed from my heart.
For the next few days, I felt like I could do no wrong. The bishop’s words seemed easy to follow, and the road back didn’t seem hard. But then I started to hang out with my old friends again, and slowly Satan’s wedge began to pry at me. I started to wonder why things were so hard. I was angry with the Lord and questioned why things couldn’t be easier.
I was feeling guilty and haunted by the things I had done, and I wasn’t going to let myself forget them. I started to fall into the same traps again. I thought I had cast my troubles upon the Lord, and He was to take care of the rest. But things didn’t seem any better, and I was ready to give up. I hadn’t realized yet that I had not really thrown myself at the Lord’s feet. I was being stubborn. I was a lost sheep, unwilling to cry for help. I was still trying to free myself from Satan’s snare all alone.
That all began to change a few weeks later when my family and I moved. I was forced to do what I should have done in the first place. I left my old friends and life behind. In my new home no one knew me, and they saw me for what I could be.
As I made new friends with high standards, I tried to convince them that I was a lost cause and that they should give up on me. But they wouldn’t. They showed the same love my parents had shown. Their love finally led me to believe that, someday perhaps, I could love myself too.
I turned to the scriptures and to prayer. I prayed every night with tears in my eyes and with pain in my heart. Often I felt hopeless, but my prayers and my scripture reading uplifted me. Slowly, I began to regain my self-respect. It was a long and difficult process. Along the way I even discovered the joy of writing in a journal, which helped me focus my thoughts and say more sincere prayers.
One night while reading the scriptures, I felt something no words can describe. I found the peace that I had longed for as forgiveness came. The Lord healed my soul. I felt His love wrap around me. I felt free from my sins. I felt forgiven.
Days later I read Doctrine and Covenants 6:22–23: “If you desire a further witness, cast your mind upon the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these things.
“Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?”
The feeling of peace I had truly was from the Lord. He left the “ninety and nine” to rescue me (Matt. 18:12).

On my last attempt in 1981, I was with about twenty people, waiting at the Vung-Tau beach at night for a boat. The security guards saw us and gave chase. Two women and I began to climb a hill fearfully. After about an hour, we came to a small deserted enclosure and remained there until morning.
When the sun rose, we could see we were in a cave that had been converted into a shelter complete with doors that were still in good condition. The floor was concrete, and the cave contained some used cooking utensils and pieces of broken furniture. We felt hungry, so we went out to search for food. To our surprise, we found that we were in a large, deserted orchard with trees filled with mangoes, apples, and other fruits. It was a still, quiet place, with a small pagoda nearby.
In the evening, the two women prepared to leave, but I was so weary from the fears of the past years and so despairing that I didn’t want to move anymore. I chose to stay.
The first night alone, I became afraid of my lonely, deserted situation. I left the cave and knelt down on a rock to pray. Through my tears and my loneliness, I asked Father in Heaven to give me the courage and strength to survive this ordeal. A peace and calm came upon me, and I knew that I could remain there.
This is my testimony of prayer. Whenever I have been upset or have struggled with particular challenges, I have prayed. Heavenly Father always hears and answers my prayers. He always listens to his children.
My life as a hermit began. Shaving my head, I disguised myself as an old, poor Buddhist nun. Occasionally, I went to the market down the hill to exchange ripened fruit for things I needed. I learned that the cave was called the Tiger Den—because a tiger used to live there before the villagers drove it out and made the cave into a shelter.
Each day at sunset, I sat on a rock looking out over the Pacific Ocean. I often imagined that on the other side of the water was our Heavenly Father’s temple, near which many of my brothers and sisters were living in happiness. I couldn’t help but weep, remembering the wonderful times I had had with my fellow Saints in the Saigon chapel.
Four years passed by slowly. I pondered and prayed. I wrote songs, poems, and books and tended a garden. No one knew who I was. Two of my children were still in Viet Nam, and I was able to send them letters. But I could not receive any—I didn’t have an address. Besides, I could not visit or receive visits from anyone because I felt I would bring trouble to them.
One morning, after working very hard in the garden, I felt unusually tired and decided to go to the hospital. In the office, I put my identification card on the desk; it was the only document I had with my real name on it. A woman close by saw it and asked, “Are you Mrs. Cong Ton Nu Tuong-Vy?”
I backed away and said, “Why do you ask?” She gestured for me to follow her to where she had her bag. From it she took out a letter, removed one page and allowed me to read this paragraph: “My dear Sister Thuy, you should try to find Mrs. Cong Ton Nu Tuong-Vy, who we think is living somewhere near the Vung-Tau seashore. The Church of Jesus Christ at Salt Lake City wants to contact her. Signed Quoc-Phong.”
When I saw the name of the Church, I burst into tears. Through my new-found friend, I was able to contact the remaining members in Saigon. It was 1985, ten years since I had lost contact with the Church.
Christmas that year was a memorable one. I took the bus to Saigon, where the members met together for the first time in ten years in Viet Nam. The meeting was in a park. There were nearly one hundred people there. We had ice cream and cake. Later, at our table, brethren holding the priesthood broke bread and poured water into small glasses for the sacrament. We bowed our heads and prayed silently. Our joy was full.
From that day forth, our small branch awakened as if from a deep sleep. A presiding elder was chosen to lead us. We were able to communicate sometimes with the Church and other members through VASAA (Veterans Assisting Saints Abroad Association). I was finally given permission to leave Viet Nam. VASAA had helped to arrange with the Canadian and Vietnamese governments for my exit visa. My oldest son living in Toronto, Ontario, sponsored me.
Less than a year later, in March and April 1988, I was finally able to visit Salt Lake City for ten days and attend general conference. I met many friends, missionaries, and General Authorities. The first time I saw Temple Square I could not help but weep for my blessings. In the Tiger’s Den, it had been my greatest wish to see the temple. At last, I was able to receive my endowment in the Lord’s House.
Although I am now in the United States, the memory of my experiences in Viet Nam stays with me. I pray that our Lord will bless all my brothers and sisters who remain in Viet Nam. I know by personal experience that nothing can destroy the gospel our Heavenly Father has given us.

Shortly after Brother Watabe joined the Church, his commitment to his faith cost him his job at the Japanese foreign office in Sendai. As a new convert, Brother Watabe stopped attending office parties, where drinking wine and pouring wine for others to drink was customary. His superior officer warned him several times that he must attend these parties and that he must stop taking part in missionary street meetings. But Brother Watabe remained steadfast. Finally his superior called him in and said, “You would rather go to your church than work here; we don’t need you anymore.” Soon Brother Watabe was offered a job in a U.S. Army camp. After working there for five years, Brother Watabe was called to the mission home in Tokyo to work as a translator for the Church.

After World War II ended a few years later, my grandparents were still living in Czechoslovakia when two young missionaries knocked on their door. After attending the small branch and taking the discussions, they received a witness of the truthfulness of the gospel and decided to be baptized. The evening of the baptismal interviews, however, the missionaries and Church leader did not arrive. At the next branch meeting, my grandparents learned that due to political upheaval, all of the missionaries had been required to leave the country. Any further religious practice would now also be prohibited. Nevertheless, the small group of Saints in the area kept their faith, now directed through local leadership and priesthood keys. My grandparents and my aunt were baptized in secrecy in 1950.

“Several years ago, Sister Pearson and I were called to preside over the Washington Tacoma Mission. The call was a complete surprise. With some trepidation I met with the chairman and the CEO of the company where I was employed and informed them of my mission call. They were visibly upset with my decision to leave the firm. ‘When did you make this decision, and why didn’t you discuss it with us earlier?’ they demanded.
“In a moment of clarity, a profound answer came into my mind. I said, ‘I made this decision as a 19-year-old boy, when I made sacred covenants with God in the temple to follow the Savior. I’ve built my entire life on those covenants, and I fully intend to keep them now.’”
Elder Kevin W. Pearson of the Seventy

As I have reflected on my friends and my life experience, I have concluded that there was not just one special friend that made a difference. Rather, my life has been lifted and sustained by relatively large numbers of people. As I mention one particular friend, I would wish for no one to be confused that he was any more my “best friend” than were all my other “best friends.” He was just one of the guys in my ward and school “gang” (when that was a positive term!). Whatever else we did, or whatever else our other divergent activities, we were always good friends.
Jim was more than a year older than I and a year ahead in school. One of the things I appreciated about him is that age or school grade didn’t seem to make any difference to him. Jim was not necessarily always the best behaved until his later teens. He did, however, constantly have a good heart.
Jim is a talented musician and his natural aptitudes declared themselves quite early. He was a skilled saxophonist who did things seemingly much easier than did I, who also tried to play, but in a very ordinary way. Even when we were young boys, Jim was always patient with my musical deficiencies and those of others and built our self-esteem with his tolerance and good-natured support. One interesting observation about Jim is that as a teenager, he had more than a few people who were sure that he was their “best friend.”
One of Jim’s greatest accomplishments, in my judgment, was his dramatic change for the good when he entered the army after high school graduation. Recognizing that for perhaps the first time in his life his behavior would reflect not only on himself but on his family and the Church, he quickly became exemplary to his mainly non-LDS associates and qualified to serve a mission.
After his release from military service, he was called on a mission, which he successfully served. He then graduated from the university and married in the temple. He has served with distinction in the Church as a bishop, teacher, and in other assignments.
In all of this he continues to be a great friend to many and to me.

Our family has not been spared the adversities of life. Growing up, I admired large families. Such families felt appealing to me, especially when I found the Church in my teens through my maternal uncle, Sarfo, and his wife in Takoradi, Ghana.
When Hannah and I were married, we desired the fulfillment of our patriarchal blessings, which indicated that we would be blessed with many children. However, prior to the birth of our third boy, it became medically clear that Hannah would not be able to have another baby. Gratefully, though Kenneth was born in a life-threatening situation to both him and his mother, he arrived safely, and his mother recovered. He was able to begin to fully participate in our family life—including Church attendance, daily family prayers, scripture study, home evening, and wholesome recreational activities.
Though we had to adjust our expectations of a large family, it was a joy to put into practice the teachings from “The Family: A Proclamation to the World” with our three beloved children. Following those teachings added much meaning to my growing faith.
As the proclamation states: “Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Children are entitled to birth within the bonds of matrimony, and to be reared by a father and a mother who honor marital vows with complete fidelity.” As we put these principles into practice, we were blessed.
However, one weekend during my service as a stake president, we experienced perhaps the worst trial parents can face. Our family returned from a Church activity and gathered for lunch. Then our three boys went out within our compound to play.
My wife felt repeated impressions that something might be wrong. She asked me to check on the children while we were washing the dishes. I felt they were safe since we could hear their voices of excitement from their play.
When we both finally went to check on our sons, to our dismay we found little 18-month-old Kenneth helpless in a bucket of water, unseen by his brothers. We rushed him to the hospital, but all attempts to revive him proved futile.
We were devastated that we would not have the opportunity to raise our precious child during this mortal life. Though we knew Kenneth would be part of our family eternally, I found myself questioning why God would let this tragedy happen to me when I was doing all I could to magnify my calling. I had just come home from fulfilling one of my duties in ministering to the Saints. Why couldn’t God look upon my service and save our son and our family from this tragedy? The more I thought about it, the more bitter I became.
My wife never blamed me for not responding to her promptings, but I learned a life-changing lesson and made two rules, never to be broken:
Rule 1: Listen to and heed the promptings of your wife.
Rule 2: If you are not sure for any reason, refer to rule number 1.
Though the experience was shattering and we continue to grieve, our overwhelming burden was eventually eased. My wife and I learned specific lessons from our loss. We came to feel united and bound by our temple covenants; we know we can claim Kenneth as ours in the next world because he was born in the covenant. We also gained experience necessary to minister to others and empathize with their pain. I testify that our bitterness has since dispersed as we exercised faith in the Lord. Our experience continues to be hard, but we have learned with the Apostle Paul that we “can do all things through Christ which [strengthens us]” if we focus on Him.

Salmon, Idaho, may have the friendliest fireplugs of any town in the U.S. As a community service project the Aaronic Priesthood youths and Young Women of the Salmon Idaho Stake volunteered to paint city fireplugs a shiny yellow with red caps. Once they got started the young people decided to add a little zest to the project, and several fireplugs wound up with “Have a Happy Day,” “Smile,” or “Howdy Do” painted on them.
Wayne Van Hoose, president of the Salmon First Ward youth committee, said the young volunteers, ages 12 to 17, divided into groups for the project, with the city furnishing the paint and the young people the brushes and the elbow grease.

Once upon a time there was a little Slobovian boy named Gorb who lived in a little boardinghouse with 10,000 Slobovians. Every morning all 10,001 of them were served the most nutritious breakfast cereal available anywhere—Captain Steadfast’s Forthright Whole Wheat Crunchies. Now federal agencies and senate hearings had proven not only that Captain Steadfast’s was the best breakfast food known to man but also that it was, spoonful for spoonful, the most economical cereal on the market. And it tasted great.
One morning just at breakfast time a stranger walked into the boardinghouse and casually tossed a new cereal onto the table that, he said, was groovy, outasight, and everyone was eating. It was called Gurgle, Twaddle, and Sop. Some of the guys said they had heard it was pretty bad, but 10,000 hands nevertheless reached for the box and heaped their bowls high because, after all, it obviously was the thing to do. However, when the box came to Gorb he kindly said, “No, thank you,” and he poured himself a bowl of Forthright Whole Wheat Crunchies.
“Comment!”* roared a chorus of 10,000 Slobovian voices.
“Well, it isn’t any great mystery,” replied Gorb. “I just read on the box here that Gurgle, Twaddle, and Sop has no vitamins, no proteins, none of the good stuff Captain Steadfast’s has, and it even admits to having some real junk in it. The price looks pretty expensive, and I’ve heard it can really taste gross. Besides—I like these Crunchies.”
At that point 10,000 fists hit Gorb on the jaw. “What gall,” mused Gorb as he shrugged his shoulders and went on eating his Captain Steadfast’s.
But even as Gorb was taking his lonely stand, some strange things began to happen around the table. Many of the 10,000 said they were sick; some said they were seeing strange things; a few said they couldn’t see anything at all. Several fell face first into their Gurgle, Twaddle, and Sop, and at least one just cried and cried. But those who were still able kept forcing down the G, T, & S because, after all, somebody had said it was groovy and outasight and everybody was eating it.
It wasn’t long before just one person remained sitting at the table; 10,000 others were screaming around the room or sobbing at their benches or just retching on the floor. The place was a bad scene that didn’t look either groovy or outasight, but at least everybody was doing it—except Gorb. He just quietly finished his Whole Wheat Crunchies and wondered why new always meant better to so many people.
Moral: 10,000 Slobovians can be wrong.