Gospel Story Finder

When I started my mission, I decided to develop better habits which—I planned—would stick with me throughout the course of my missionary service and even after my mission was over.
Among those things was a habit of fasting.
Before my mission, I fasted just by obedience. I did not truly understand the importance of this commandment. But once on my mission, I decided to increase my knowledge of the fast. I wanted to live a real fasting experience—one that would help me to stay strong. I knew the fast could give me spiritual power and also help me teach with power and authority. And I wanted to be an example to all the people that I was serving or that I was serving with. As I fasted, I really felt all the promises related to the fast.
Over the next few months, as I was beginning to understand the very meaning of fasting, I found myself overwhelmed with trials. Life was hard for me. Not finding any easy solution, I had a strong sense that I needed to fast and pray. But that feeling also prompted me that I should also improve my way of fasting and praying. That sounded so strange to me because I was certain I had already understood how.
So, I started pondering because I really wanted to follow that feeling. I was convinced it would bring me closer to God and allow me to find an answer to my afflictions. Ultimately, I had an idea to develop a fasting plan, which would include all that I would do throughout my fasting day.
It looked like this:
1.Before starting the fast, put myself in a quiet and clean place.
2.Focus while singing three hymns—especially those about the sacrament—and meditate on the words contained in those hymns.
3.Read the Book of Mormon. I felt especially prompted to read 3 Nephi 11:10, 11, and 14 and would read these verses quietly while thinking as though it was Christ speaking directly to me and that I was on my knees in front of Him. I tried to fill myself with that joy as if I were in the presence of the Saviour.
4.Pray to mark the beginning of my fast.
5.Sing hymns throughout the day.
6.Read scriptures which speak about the Atonement.
7.Meditate on these scriptures in order to be taught.
8.End my 24 hours of fasting with a prayer.
As I followed my plan, I really felt the Spirit and I drew closer to Heavenly Father. I understood that we can always improve our spiritual experiences, but only if we rely on the Spirit and follow all the promptings.
Now that I have matured my understanding of the fast, I am very happy—and I know personally that the Lord answers my prayers.
I feel His presence by my side and a deep sense of peace. I truly love the fast because it brings me closer to God and it helps me feed my spirit as well as my soul.
I always pray that God gives me the strength and determination to fast.

President George Albert Smith’s mother knew the Lord’s will; he told this touching incident of being taught to pray: “I was trained at the knee of a Latter-day Saint mother. One of the first things I remember was when she took me by the hand and led me upstairs to the bedroom. In the room there were two beds, the bed in which my parents slept, and a little trundle bed over on the other side. I can remember it as if it were yesterday. When we got upstairs she sat down by my little trundle bed. She had me kneel in front of her. She folded my hands and took them in hers and taught me my first prayers. I shall never forget it. I do not want to forget it. It is one of the loveliest memories that I have in life: an angelic mother sitting down by my bedside and teaching me to pray … That prayer opened for me the window of heaven. That prayer extended to me the hand of my Father in Heaven, for she had explained to me what it all meant, as far as a little child could understand …” (Sharing the Gospel with Others (Deseret Book Co., 1950) pp. 147–48.)

As prophet, President David O. McKay traveled with his son Llewelyn to Europe. He dedicated temple sites and tried to greet as many Church members as possible.
Llewelyn: Father, you don’t have time to greet all these children. Aren’t you tired?
President McKay: Son, never hurt a child. I can take time to meet these youngsters—I wouldn’t disappoint them for anything.
Girl: President McKay, could you sign my autograph book?
President McKay: Do you think I can write plainly enough for you to read it?
Just then, someone tapped President McKay on the shoulder and whispered to him for a moment. When he turned back to sign the little girl’s book, she was gone.
President McKay: Llewelyn! Please find the little girl in the blue dress. I’m afraid she thinks I didn’t want to sign her book.
Others helped Llewelyn search, but the little girl was nowhere to be found. On their way to London, Llewelyn and President McKay traveled with a group of missionaries. President McKay told them about the little girl in the blue dress.
President McKay: I wish we could have found her.
Missionary: President McKay, we think we know who she is. We’ll talk to her branch president, and he’ll phone you this evening.
President McKay: Wonderful!
President McKay talked to the little girl’s branch president, apologized for what had happened, and arranged for the autograph book to be sent to his office in Salt Lake City. When it arrived, he eagerly signed it and mailed it back.

Lynne Hoet, co-founder of The Stables with her husband, Pastor Sonny, shared the history and mission of the centre with the volunteers.
The couple saw a need to provide a facility that would bring people together to develop strong families through skill training programs aimed at breaking the cycle of poverty.
They purchased the 37-acre property in 1993, renovated the horse stables, and held church for six years in the building. The current building opened in 2000. After Sonny’s stroke in 2016, running the property and programs has become more and more difficult.
“We appreciate that your Church has joined us in this clean-up,” Lynne said, “as the work is quite extensive. We are well on the way to restoring the site so that we can invite families, vulnerable people and people with disabilities to enjoy our unique property that we see as the Lord’s place and a place of blessing.”

Sister Donna Packer, wife of President Boyd K. Packer, had similar promptings. She diligently researched and wrote the history of the Packer family into a colorful and moving story, which reads much like a historical novel. The book details a rich legacy of pioneer spirit and faith.

During the course of her research, Sister Packer became acquainted with those who own Groombridge Place, the family estate in England. President and Sister Packer were invited to stay at the estate. President Packer put his thoughts and feelings to poetry. I would like to share the closing verse of that poem:
Our heritage, like life itself,
We keep and yet pass on.
In doing so, we pay the debt
We owe to those now gone.
What came from them, we hold in trust—
Stored treasure that will last.
Like Groombridge Place, our lives are built
On footings from the past.

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

Imagine that you’re expecting an incredibly important phone call. Pretend, for example, that you’ve applied to a dozen colleges and your top choice wanted to call you on Thursday night to let you know whether you were accepted. But there’s a slight catch: they have a long list of people to call and will have to automatically reject you if you aren’t available to talk through the details.

If college is too far down the road to imagine, picture instead something else that you’d be waiting for impatiently. Maybe somebody is calling to let you know whether you’ve been accepted on a sports team, dance class, or the school musical—whatever would be truly important to you.

Now, here’s the question: would you stay close to your phone for that expected call?

Chances are, if it were important enough to you, you wouldn’t want to be out of earshot of that phone! You wouldn’t want to miss the call.

Back to that important phone call. If you knew such a call were coming, you most likely wouldn’t stray from your phone unless it were absolutely necessary. With general conference, then, does it make sense to skip a session or two because you’d rather do other things for part of the weekend? What if you decided to go hiking Saturday morning—missing “only” that first session—but it happened to be the exact session you most needed to hear?

After all, you never know when the phone is going to ring.

These tools allow organizations and individuals to completely bypass the news media and publish or broadcast their messages in their entirety to the intended audiences. For instance, last year the Church Public Affairs Department conducted an interview with Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and Elder Lance B. Wickman of the Seventy regarding the Church’s position on same-gender attraction. In the old days, to communicate our message to the public on an issue like this we would have had to rely on the news media. But this probing interview was conducted by Church Public Affairs staff and posted in its entirety on the Church’s Web site, unfiltered by the news media.

The Lord said to his own, “O ye of little faith.” (Matt. 6:30.) Aren’t we all? Once when far away from home, after three days of quite intense suffering, I finally admitted to my companion, Brother Harold B. Lee, that I was in distress. He gave me a sleeping pill he had, then knelt by my bed and blessed me. Though I had gone through three nights in pain and almost without sleep (it was then 3:00 A.M.), I was fast asleep moments after the blessing. I am now ashamed to confess that the next morning when I awakened, my first thought was of the potency of the pill. Then, as hours passed and I knew the effect of the pill must have passed, the distress did not return, and I fell on my knees in remorse to ask forgiveness of the Lord for having given credit to the medicine rather than to him. Months passed and still there was no return of pain or distress. I am ashamed, but I probably represent numerous people who have done likewise. O we of little faith! “Brother A. was not healed.” “Sister B. got well, but it was a long process.” “Brother C. would have gotten well anyway.”

Included in this program of self-discipline is a weekly half hour of torture. I walk into my piano teacher’s home. The piano teacher motions me to the piano, and I begin playing. In the middle of a stirring rendition of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” I suddenly stop, staring wildly at the black-and-white page before me. Where is the next note? Where? Where? Vaguely, through the haze of pressure, I hear a faraway voice: “You are on the wrong note. Name the notes.”
“Oh … I don’t know … A, B, C, D, E, F, G.”
“That’s right. Which one is this note?”
Suddenly self-discipline emerges.
“A!” I cry.
The sun breaks; the piano teacher smiles; and I realize that with the discipline gained through piano lessons, I can now do anything. Well … almost.

There was a boy who was being mean at school. I talked about it with my family. I prayed to Heavenly Father for the boy to find friends and to stop bullying. We soon became friends!
Matias M., age 7, Lithuania

… When I was called to the Relief Society General Presidency, President [Gordon B.] Hinckley counseled me: “You bring a peculiar quality to this presidency. You will be recognized as one who represents those beyond the borders of the United States and Canada. … They will see in you a representation of their oneness with the Church.” He gave me a blessing that my tongue might be loosed as I spoke to the people.4

I especially remember feeling the love of Heavenly Father as a youth participating in the sacrament. In my ward there were only a few young men, so every Sunday I passed the sacrament. When I served as a teacher, every Sunday I prepared the bread and the water. At that time we used glass cups, which I had to wash one by one.

When I passed the sacrament, I could see the eyes of the people. Old people, young people, children—each had a special feeling while taking the bread and water. I could see that they felt the love of Heavenly Father personally. Those experiences with the sacrament marked my life forever. Every week I remember the Lord, who died for us. I remember that if we are worthy, we can be together as a family eternally.

While discussing how to approach our friends, my wife and I decided that our friends would more likely agree to the lessons if other non-Mormon couples were in attendance. They would be more relaxed in a group, less the center of attention. Furthermore, we had been impressed with Wilford Woodruff’s success in teaching people in large groups. Apparently, during those occasions, the Spirit was very intense, so strong that listeners sometimes received a testimony strong enough to motivate them to request baptism on the spot.
Having gone this far, we contacted one of the district leaders in our mission, Elder Bruce Chadwick, whom we knew, and told him our plans. He was enthusiastic and even offered to do the teaching, with the help of one of the zone leaders, Elder Dennis Stoddard.
A day or so later, Elder Chadwick and Elder Stoddard visited our home to discuss the matter further. We decided to serve dessert each time, to break the ice while everyone visited for fifteen or twenty minutes before the lessons started. In this way we would not interfere with the spiritual influence the elders wanted the investigators to carry home.
The teaching elder would periodically ask for our comments, a signal to us, if we felt inspired, to bear our testimony on the point just discussed. We would also help answer questions. The elders decided to postpone the baptismal and Word of Wisdom challenges until the end when we could meet with each investigator individually. This avoided any hint of pressure during the group meetings without hindering the conversion process: the baptismal and long-term activity rates turned out to be higher than usual.
Before each lesson, the elders were supposed to come early, to kneel with us as we asked for the help of the Spirit. Also, I was to ask a member to open with prayer and another to close the lessons with prayer.
Finally we were ready to arrange the meetings with our friends. We hoped we could get two groups of four or five investigators each if we invited all forty on our list. One group would meet on Friday evenings and the other on Saturday evenings.
When we first used this approach, we were very surprised. About two-thirds of our friends accepted. After merely asking just sixteen couples on the original list, we had two groups of six investigators each. So together with three or four spouses who were members, the missionaries, and ourselves, each group consisted of about thirteen or fourteen people.
As we hoped, the Spirit of those meetings was very strong. Overwhelmed by the experience, most of the nonmembers were visibly moved.
Usually, one of the elders led the first half of a discussion and the other the second half, encouraging questions throughout. Sometimes the investigators were asked if it might be possible to wait until next week for an answer to a question. They always agreed, and we always returned to the question as promised. Answers to most questions, however, were generally immediate, competent, and inspired. The investigators almost always were satisfied.
We were careful and patient in answering questions, usually from the Bible, but sometimes from latter-day scriptures. The Spirit converts, but people also need to be convinced intellectually that the Church is true. This they can do by hearing the lessons, by reading the Book of Mormon and other Church literature, and by having their questions answered. As they do this with sincere intent, they usually are much more able to distinguish between purely emotional reaction and the influence of the spirit. Consequently, we never tired of answering their questions and always tried to do so competently, clearly, and under the influence of the Spirit. Each question was answered, but not always immediately. Some questions raised issues the investigators were not ready to discuss yet, and others would have led the discussion away from the main point being stressed. In such instances, we gave the reason why we were postponing the answer and tried to give the investigator an idea when it would be answered.
When all of the lessons were completed, we thanked everyone for participating and told them we would be visiting them at their homes. Within two or three days, with the elders, we visited each couple, answered any remaining questions, and then simply invited them to join the Church. To our surprise, in the first group about two-thirds of the investigators accepted the invitation.

At the Primary for handicapped children, girls needed to work with the young people on a one-to-one basis. “We love to go,” said Carrie Nielson of the First Ward, “because you feel so secure and wanted. You come out feeling like they did a service for you.”

My first Sunday as a student in Paris, France, I marveled at the diversity of my new ward. Conducting Relief Society was a lovely woman from Eastern Europe. Some sisters from West Africa graciously lent me their hymnbook. An Asian woman who had painstakingly translated her lesson into French led one of the most heartfelt lessons I had ever heard. Although I was a young American living 5,000 miles (8,045 km) from my hometown, I felt at home among the good women of the Church. We came from France, Cambodia, Ivory Coast, Ukraine, and the United States—but differences in age and culture didn’t matter. A spirit of sisterhood united us.

Back to the scrapbooks. There’s a picture of Holly during her first time at Nationals. At 14, she was still competing in the junior division. Just like the picture when she was six, she’s standing on the riser in third place. But this time, her eyes are straight ahead. There is no sidelong glance at the first-place trophy. The smile is bright, and the look is still determined. She obviously knows she has done as well as she could and better than nearly everyone expected.

Dad was invited to participate in the ward choir and made to feel he was a valued addition. At age 84, he was called to work in the Young Men organization as a specialist with the deacons, gaining a feeling of relevance and contribution.

When I was a Beehive, I always went to church on Sundays, but I didn’t always go to Mutual. I had a good friend my own age, but I felt like I didn’t really fit in with the older girls, especially at combined Young Women activities. On top of that, I was frequently busy with homework and other responsibilities. Sometimes I would go for several weeks without attending Mutual.
Then one day I got a card in the mail. It was from Danielle, the Laurel class president. I opened the card and read the note inside. It said:
Dear Diane,
I hope you’re doing well. You are an amazing girl, and I’ve had so much fun getting to know you at camp and at church. I’ve missed seeing you at Young Women activities. I hope you will be able to come to more activities soon. You have so much to share. Good luck with everything!
Love, Danielle
Wow. One of the other girls—a Laurel, no less—actually cared that I hadn’t been going to Mutual. I was a little embarrassed that she had taken the trouble to write me a note, but more than that, I was grateful that she had shown me Christlike love in such a thoughtful way. Danielle was trying to help me realize that I could contribute something to Mutual activities and that she was truly interested in getting to know me.
It had an effect on me. I started going to activities more frequently—and I started enjoying them too. As I got to know the other girls, we learned more about each other and became friends. I learned to enjoy spending time with people who have different interests than I have as we learned about the gospel, served others, and participated in lots of fun activities together.
Years later, when I was called to be the Laurel class president, I remembered Danielle’s example and tried to help everyone feel welcome and included. I know that reaching out to others can be difficult, especially if you don’t know them very well. However, I also know that extending a hand of friendship can be exactly what someone else needs to feel valued and included.

I am now in my 95th year. I never dreamed that I would live this long. My life reminds me of a sign that hung by a rusty staple to a run-down barbed-wire fence in Texas. It read:
Burned out by drought,
Drowned out by flud waters,
Et out by jackrabbits,
Sold out by sheriff,
Still here!