Gospel Story Finder

I went through a time when I began to wonder if the Church was really the only true church on the earth. My friends all seemed to believe that their churches were true, and they are good people with high standards.
I set a goal to gain a testimony. I knew it would take time. I prayed, studied the scriptures, and made sure I attended all my Church meetings and activities. I really listened and asked questions, and I thought about all my parents had taught me. After I truly understood the gospel, I began to learn more about my friends’ churches. As I talked with my friends, I realized how fulfilling the gospel is in my life. As I shared with them my beliefs, I realized that I did know that the Church is true. A feeling came over me that was so great.
Don’t ever give up. A desire to gain a testimony is a sign that you are building one already.
Kerianna Copeland, 14Franklin, Pennsylvania

Through my experience in Church service, I have witnessed great miracles and cherished memories that have helped me recognize the Father’s love and guidance. A few years ago, as a young bishop, I remember planning to visit some of my ward members with the stake presidency. On this particular occasion, I had a powerful impression to visit the home of a young man I had not met yet. I had just been called as bishop, and his family had not been previously attending.

When we arrived at the family home, the mother was overjoyed to see us. This was a family of two good parents, two daughters, and a son, who was a future Aaronic Priesthood holder. We introduced ourselves and told her that her son was a member of the quorum I presided over. After that visit, the family began attending church and following the covenant path.

As a family, they made covenants in the temple, the three children served full-time missions, and they continued to strive to live the gospel. I know that Heavenly Father knew them, loved them, and cared enough about them to send inspiration to a young, inexperienced bishop to find them and invite them back to the fold.

The aftereffects of cheating are vividly described in a letter I received last week from a former BYU student who wrote to apologize for cheating on several examinations at BYU ten years ago. I quote from her letter:

How paltry the false reward of a slightly higher grade compared to the pangs of conscience I have felt as a result of my dishonesty. Let no one scoff at “a little” cheating as being a minor offense of no account, for the conscience of anyone who knows the commandments of God and the truths of the Gospel of Jesus Christ will prove him gravely mistaken, as I have learned most painfully.

The writer of this letter was seeking to confess her wrong and complete the repentance she needs to clear her mind of this matter. As I read her letter, I thought of the teaching in the Doctrine and Covenants:

By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold he will confess them and forsake them. [D&C 58:43]

I also thought of the cleansing miracle of forgiveness, which promises that when we have truly repented of our sins we will be forgiven and the Lord will “remember them no more” (D&C 58:42). In contrast, if we are unrepentant and rebellious, the Lord has decreed that in time to come our “iniquities shall be spoken upon the housetops, and [our] secret acts shall be revealed” (D&C 1:3).

I also often spent time in the homes of my two uncles as I played with my cousins. I especially liked being there when it was time for family prayer. Uncle Carl was a farmer. When he prayed, he concentrated on really talking to Heavenly Father, thanking Him for his many blessings and humbly pleading for moisture for the crops. Uncle Angus was the father of six lively boys, and he prayed for the guidance and protection of his sons. When these two men prayed, I knew that Heavenly Father was listening. I got the same warm feeling while kneeling in family prayer with them that I did while on my grandpa’s lap listening to scripture stories.

“When will Uncle Cory be here?” Michael asked his mother for at least the tenth time.
Earlier that afternoon the mailman had delivered a letter addressed to him, but when he opened it he couldn’t read what it said. Michael’s mother told him that the letter was written in Italian, and all she could read was the closing and signature at the bottom:
Arrivederci,Mario
Michael knew that arrivederci meant till we meet again, because that was how Uncle Cory’s letters were always signed when he was in Italy on a mission. Michael had called his uncle and told him about the letter. Now he was waiting impatiently for him to come and interpret what the letter said.
A few months before Uncle Cory had returned from Italy, he had written and asked Michael and his family to write their feelings about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in letters to individual members of a certain Italian family and send them back to him. He said he would put the letters in a Book of Mormon and give them to the family.
Michael had written—
Dear Mario,
I am eight years old. I was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last month. My father baptized me and confirmed me and said that I now have the Holy Ghost to guide me and to help me choose right from wrong. I go to Primary each week. I’m in the CTR class. CTR means CHOOSE THE RIGHT. Last week my Primary teacher taught us about Jesus healing sick children. Jesus loves children everywhere. He loves me and He loves you. I, hope you can soon go to Primary, too.
Your friend, Michael
Michael hadn’t expected to receive a letter in return, but now that one had come, he could hardly wait to know what it said.
Soon he heard the sound of a car in the driveway. Running to the window, he looked out and saw Uncle Cory coming up the walk. Michael ran and opened the door and gave his uncle a big hug.
Michael listened quietly as Uncle Cory read the letter.
Dear Michael,
I am nine years old. Today I was baptized a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My father and mother were baptized too. Thank you for telling me about your Church. My father and mother read your Book of Mormon, and now we are all happy to be members of the true Church. Write to me again soon.
Arrivederci, Mario
Michael was so excited to know that he had helped bring the gospel to someone that he thought his heart would pound right out of his chest. He took the letter from his uncle and looked at it for a long time. Then he folded the letter neatly. “I will save this,” he said, “to remind me that it’s fun to tell others about our church. Maybe some day I’ll go on a mission to Italy and meet my new friend Mario.”

I had a similar experience as a young boy on my grandparents’ farm. They taught me about tithing with examples of one egg or one bushel of peaches out of ten. Years later I used those same kinds of examples to try to teach the principles of tithing to our own children.

Parents are always looking for better ways to teach, and the results of their efforts are sometimes unexpected. Attempting to teach tithing to our young son, I explained the principle of a tenth and how it would apply to the eggs gathered in a chicken farm and the young calves or horses born in a breeding herd. When I finished what I was sure was a clear explanation, I wanted to test whether our seven-year-old had understood. I asked him to imagine that he was a farmer with a harvest of eggs and young animals. I supplied the figures and then asked our little boy what he would give to the bishop as tithing. He thought deeply for a moment and then said, “I would give him a very old horse.”

We obviously had some further conversations on the principle of tithing, and I am proud of the way he and his brother and sisters learned and practiced that principle. But I have often thought of that little boy’s words as I have observed how some adult Church members relate to the law of tithing. I think we still have some whose attitude and performance consist of giving the bishop something like “a very old horse.”

Saturday morning, when Dad said he had to cut Brother Ballard’s hay, I told him that I could take care of things at home. Ever since I had turned nine, I had been bragging that I was almost a man and could handle things on the farm about as well as Dad could. “I’ll be all right,” I insisted as Dad headed for the tractor. “Just let me look after the farm.”
“What about taking the cows and the General to the meadow?” Dad asked. “Can you do that all by yourself?”
I swallowed hard. The cows were no problem, but I’d forgotten all about ornery old General.
“I can help Jacob drive the General down the lane to the meadow,” Mom spoke up from the steps. She knew I was a little afraid of our big roan steer, and she’d always been the one to drive him to the meadow when Dad wasn’t around.
“I don’t need any help,” I insisted. “A man doesn’t need his mom herding the cows for him.”
“The General isn’t mean or anything,” Dad pointed out, “but he does have a mind of his own.”
I nodded. I knew all about the General. I was the one who had practically raised him. I’d fed him from a bottle and later taught him to drink out of a bucket. And when he got older, I brought him lots of grass and grain. What he liked best, though, was carrots, so I often got a handful of carrots from the cellar and let him eat out of my hand. He’d close his eyes and munch on those long, crisp carrots like they were orange candy bars.
When the General was still a calf, he even let me ride him. But then he grew to be almost a thousand pounds. …
I still liked him, but I liked him from a distance, and I always wanted a fence between him and me. Even so, I said, “I’ll be able to handle the General.”
Dad nodded. “I know you can do it. You’re a good worker.” He started the tractor, then called to me, “Now, remember, Jacob, after you take the cows to the meadow, make sure that you close the gate at the top of the lane. I don’t want those cows in the alfalfa. They’d bloat for sure from eating it, and we could lose every one of them.”
“I know,” I said.
I fed the calves their grain and hay. I carried slop to our three pigs, Dandy, Pandy, and Mandy. I gathered the eggs from the chicken coop and gave the chickens their grain. I scattered fresh straw in the shed so that the cows would have a soft bed that night. Then I opened the corral gate so that I could herd our seven milk cows and the General to the meadow.
About that time the General decided that he wanted a drink from the water trough, so every one of those old cows decided she wanted a drink too.
Those cows always did everything he did. I yelled at them and waved a stick and threatened to throw a rock at them, but they didn’t care. They just followed the General. I had to just wait until that stubborn old steer decided he wanted to go to the meadow.
He sniffed at every clump of grass, every fence post, and every rock between the corral and the lane. And what did the cows do? Why, they sniffed at every clump of grass, every fence post, and every rock too.
Since I couldn’t hurry those cows and the General along, I started day-dreaming. Then a big old green frog came jumping through the tall grass and landed right in front of me. Well, I never let a good frog get away, so before long I had it in my hands.
I was looking for something to put my frog in, when right there, sunning itself on a flat rock, was the biggest water snake I’d ever seen. I dropped the frog and grabbed the snake right behind its head. It wrapped itself around my arm and stuck its red forked tongue out at me, but I just smiled and headed back to the barn for a bucket to put it in. The General and the cows were starting down the lane toward the meadow, so I decided to look after my snake then and close the gate later.
I didn’t think I was gone very long. I did stop for a drink at the water trough and let my snake take a swim, and I checked on our cat and her four kittens. That just took a few minutes, though. But when I got back, that ornery old steer had decided that he didn’t want to go to the meadow after all. Partway down the lane he’d turned around and headed toward the alfalfa field, and the seven cows had followed.
When I saw the General out wandering, I dropped the bucket. My snake slithered out of it and off through the grass, but by then I was galloping for the gate.
I was too late. The General and the cows were through it and wandering along the ditch bank that led to the alfalfa field. Luckily he wasn’t in a big hurry. He’d sniff at fence posts, munch clumps of grass, and swish the flies from his back with his tail. I knew, though, that if he ever made it to the alfalfa field, he’d never leave. He’d stay until his belly was clear full; then he’d lie down and bloat. And those silly cows would eat and bloat right with him.
I found a big stick and filled my pockets with rocks. Then I circled around in front of the General. I waved the stick over my head and stomped my feet. I tried to shout to get his attention, but my throat was so tight that all I could do was squeak.
Digging into my pocket, I pulled out a good throwing rock, reared back, and let it fly. It hit that old steer right on the nose. His head jerked up, and he shook his stubby horns and blew angrily through his wet nose.
I didn’t figure there was any need to get myself killed trying to keep those crazy cows out of the alfalfa. I dropped my stick, jumped the ditch, sprinted to the fence, flopped on my belly, and scrambled underneath the bottom strand of barbed wire.
When I finally opened my eyes, I expected to see the General on the other side of the fence, snorting and pawing. But he wasn’t anywhere around! He was still along the ditch bank, ambling closer and closer to the alfalfa field.
I thought of running to the house to ask Mom to help me, but after telling Dad that I was man enough to take care of things around the place, there was no way I could do that.
Then I thought about praying. Heavenly Father would help me out! I dropped right to my knees and asked Heavenly Father to get that stubborn steer straightened out and headed back to the meadow so that he and the cows wouldn’t bloat in the alfalfa field.
When I finished my prayer, I figured I’d just wait until Heavenly Father had a chance to get the job done. When I thought I’d waited long enough, I looked toward the meadow. There wasn’t a single cow in it. I looked up and down the lane. No cows. I looked along the ditch bank. And there they were, moseying along toward the alfalfa field behind that ornery steer.
I couldn’t believe it. Hadn’t Heavenly Father heard me? Wasn’t He going to help me out? Maybe I prayed for the wrong thing, I thought. I dropped to my knees again. This time I prayed that Dad would finish Brother Ballard’s hay and get home before the cows were bloated and dead.
It was a pretty long prayer. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t leave anything out. When I finished, I waited on my knees and counted to two hundred to give Heavenly Father plenty of time to get the message to Dad.
As I got to my feet, I listened for the growl of Dad’s tractor, but I couldn’t hear anything. And all I could see coming down the road was a truck. I waited and waited, but Dad didn’t come. And the General and the cows were almost to the alfalfa field.
Tears were running down my cheeks as I ran past the barn, looking for a place to hide so that I wouldn’t have to watch the General kill himself. There was only one place I could go—I dashed down the cellar steps.
Once more I knelt down. This time, though, I just prayed that Heavenly Father would help me to know what to do and to be brave enough to do it.
When I finished praying, I sat down on a sack of carrots to think. I pulled one of the carrots out of the sack and absent-mindedly wiped it off on my pants and started chewing on it. Then it came to me—I could turn the General around with carrots!
I hurriedly emptied the rocks from my pockets and stuffed carrots in their place. With my arms full of carrots, too, I raced up the cellar steps, past the barn, and over to the ditch. The General was still munching along the ditch bank a little way from the alfalfa, and the cows were munching right behind him.
I said one more quick prayer, then marched right up to the General and dropped the biggest, fattest, orangiest carrot under his nose. That old steer didn’t even look up at me. His big long pink tongue just wrapped around the carrot and popped it into his mouth. That carrot gone, he looked to me for another one. I held one out and started walking backward toward the gate in the distance. The General watched me slowly walk away. At first he didn’t move. Then he took a long look at the alfalfa field and a long look at me, and then he came.
My heart was thumping a hundred miles an hour, but I kept moving closer to the open gate and dropping a carrot every few steps or so. Like always, those silly cows stayed right behind the General.
I don’t know how long it took me to get to the lane, but by the time I got there, I was so worn out that I could hardly walk. As soon as the seventh cow went through the gate, I dropped the last two carrots and ran and closed it and even tied it with a piece of wire. Then I knelt right there and thanked Heavenly Father.
That night at suppertime, I didn’t brag about being the man of the house and taking care of everything. In fact, I just sat quietly and ate. When Dad asked me how things had gone that day, I mumbled something about getting along pretty well, then asked for another slice of bread to change the subject.

As my junior year in high school was about to come to a close, going on a mission was not one of my great desires. I had been associating with the wrong kind of friends and had done some things that were not right.
My parents had always encouraged me to go on a mission, but I felt that my friends and the things I was doing were more important. This feeling kept me from planning on a mission. The thought which continually ran through my mind was, “There is no way the Lord would want someone like me as his representative.” This thought only discouraged me more.
On May 17th, my life changed. I was at a party with a club from our high school at a nearby boat dock. I had arrived early so I could help set up tables and unload the grills and food. About 20 minutes later, people started to come and began playing volleyball and throwing Frisbees. After a while the food was ready. The weather was starting to turn bad, and the wind was blowing fairly hard. While I was eating, some guys playing volleyball hit the ball into the river. Someone yelled at me to go get it. Why they shouted my name, I don’t know. Foolishly I hurried from the table, ran as fast as I could, and jumped into the river, clothes and all.
The wind was causing waves which pushed the ball further and further away from me, and I kept going after it. The water was getting cold, and my strength started to give out. Before long the ball was out of reach, and I couldn’t swim any longer. I started yelling for help as loud as I could, but if anyone had jumped in from the dock to save me, they could never have reached me in time.
Gradually, things became blurry, and I couldn’t hear. I felt myself sinking, and as soon as my head was underwater, I felt someone grasp my hand. I was lifted into a boat. I had no idea where the boat came from. I had not seen it previously, but it was there when I needed it. I was taken to the dock, where I became oriented again after about 10 minutes.
Two days later, I received a call from the owner of the boat. He said he was at his house trying to get his boat ready for a trip when he felt he should take it out for a test drive even though the wind was blowing and the river was rough. Why did he go? I hadn’t realized it at the time, but it was to save a future missionary.
My close call made me think. If I was saved from drowning in that river, there had to be some purpose in store for me. That thought stayed in my mind. Then one day as I sat gazing over the river that nearly claimed my life, it occurred to me—a mission! I wonder if I am supposed to fulfill a mission.
I soon received my patriarchal blessing, which said that I had been spared for a special mission. That confirmed the answer to my question.
I served in the Ohio Columbus Mission. I had never before had such a peaceful feeling about doing something right in my life. Yes, the Lord did want me as one of his representatives.
I realized you don’t have to wait for an experience such as the one I had to decide whether to go on a mission. Decide ahead of time and do everything in your power to be prepared when the time comes.
Missionary work is a great work. It is an experience we all should share.

That difference also characterized several hundred members from the Riverton Utah North Stake, who averaged more than fifteen ordinances per family for their ancestors in the Jordan River (Utah) Temple in two days.

For the Riverton Utah North Stake, the challenge to take an ancestor to the temple came from the Jordan River Temple presidency. The stake presidency decided to use two days for the work—the youth would come on 29 December 1987 to be baptized for their ancestors, and the adults would come the following day for initiatory work, endowments, and sealings. That way, the temple would not be overly congested. The goal: that every temple recommend holder in the stake would do work for their kindred dead by the end of the year.

President Duane B. Williams says that they were actually fairly well prepared. “The main reason we were able to undertake this challenge successfully was because the stake and wards were already participating in the Church family history program. A couple were serving as stake family history specialists, and each ward had a couple as ward family history consultants. Furthermore, the ward Sunday Schools offered the family history class.”

The high priests group leaders and family history consultants attended priesthood quorum, Relief Society, and Young Men and Young Women meetings to discuss the challenge and to describe the program: how to fill out the records, when to submit them, and what the schedule would be on the stake ancestral temple days. The consultants also kept up personal contact with ward members, visiting them in their homes to help with the work.

The stake also held a family-history clinic one Saturday. The purpose was to provide hands-on experience in finding information and filling out forms.

The results were astounding. More than 160 families attended the temple on December 29 and 30. Stake members completed over 2,500 ordinances in two days—all for their kindred dead. The outpouring of the Spirit was immeasurable. Many Saints felt their ancestors’ presence during the ordinances. One woman, for example, recounted that she had felt the arm of one of her ancestors encircling her; she was nearly overwhelmed by a great outpouring of love. Many testified that they had never felt such complete peace before.

Because of the experience, many other members in the stake began to prepare to go to the temple. One bishop reported that at tithing settlement, one day after the temple excursion, two couples who had not had temple recommends for some time paid their tithing in full so they could once again attend the temple. They said they did not want to be excluded from the temple work they had heard so much about.

There was to be one great final lesson before his mortal life ended. He was incarcerated in Carthage Jail with his brother Hyrum, with John Taylor, and with Willard Richards. The angry mob stormed the jail; they came up the stairway, blasphemous in their cursing, heavily armed, and began to fire at will. Hyrum was hit and died. John Taylor took several balls of fire within his bosom. The Prophet Joseph, with his pistol in hand, was attempting to defend his life and that of his brethren, and yet he could tell from the pounding on the door that this mob would storm that door and would kill John Taylor and Willard Richards in an attempt to kill him.
And so his last great act here upon the earth was to leave the door and lead Willard Richards to safety, throw the gun on the floor, and go to the window, that they might see him, that the attention of this ruthless mob might be focused upon him rather than the others. Joseph Smith gave his life. Willard Richards was spared, and John Taylor recovered from his wounds. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). The Prophet Joseph Smith taught us love—by example.

Then, suddenly, Pedrito became ill again. His temperature was dangerously high, and his parents took him back to Guayaquil. The doctors told them that he would have to remain in the hospital at least five days. They also told the Cantos that if Pedrito were to live, he would have to undergo open-heart surgery right away.

But to everyone’s surprise, Pedrito was well enough to leave the hospital the next day.

Back in Quevedo, the welfare services missionaries helped the Cantos apply for help with the cost of the surgery. The doctors told the Cantos that they would have to go to the United States or Brazil for the surgery. But a member of the Church, who had recently had a family member operated on for a similar problem, told them about another doctor—Dr. Oswald Bonilla, a heart specialist in nearby Quito.

Although his calendar was full for several months, Dr. Bonilla agreed to see Pedrito in two weeks. But complications kept Dr. Bonilla from seeing Pedrito immediately. Sister Cantos had been taking a tailoring class so that she could earn money to help pay some of their medical bills. As the day for the appointment with Dr. Bonilla approached, she learned that her final examination was scheduled for the same day.

Dr. Bonilla graciously postponed the appointment for another two weeks. This time, a bus strike kept them from meeting with him. Finally, after six weeks, they stood before Dr. Bonilla.

Electrocardiograms, x-rays, and many other tests revealed that Pedrito was too weak to endure surgery. “It will take at least eight or nine months to build him up sufficiently,” Dr. Bonilla told the worried parents. The doctor ordered another series of tests.

Three days later, just before Pedrito was taken in for the new tests, two young men in white shirts and dark suits told Dr. Bonilla, “We would like to give the child a blessing.” “You have five minutes,” the doctor said, and he left the room.

Later that afternoon he whistled in amazement. The test results showed such a remarkable improvement in Pedrito that Dr. Bonilla decided to schedule the surgery immediately.

“It was worse than we thought,” Dr. Bonilla told the parents and the elders and sisters who had waited with them during the five anguish-filled hours of the surgery. “You keep praying, though, and Pedrito will live.”

Pedrito did live. He recovered rapidly. Soon he was running and playing like any other little boy. And Pedrito’s struggle for life has wrought other miracles. Dr. Bonilla and his assistant, Dr. Lopez, were touched by this display of faith and by the miracle they saw when the elders administered to Pedrito. They decided not to charge for the surgery.

Many of Sister Cantos’s family have accepted the gospel, and members of Brother Cantos’s family are anxiously waiting for the missionaries to come to a remote area where they live so that they, too, can be taught the gospel.

Paulina M., age 18, Podlasie, Poland
Likes to play the violin, play the piano, and read novels.
In middle school I struggled a lot with self-image and trying to fit in. I would try to exercise to look a certain way, but I just didn’t feel happy with the image in the mirror.
Then my older sister got her patriarchal blessing, and I started thinking about getting mine. I was 12 years old, and at first I thought I might be too young. But I prayed and talked to my bishop, and it felt right.
My patriarchal blessing reminded me that Heavenly Father is aware of me and that He knows the struggles I go through. He knows my name personally. He is there to help me if I’m just willing to ask for His help.
Sometimes you might look at yourself and think you’re not pretty enough by the world’s standards. But I learned for myself that God’s view of me is more important than anyone else’s. And if I know that God sees me as His daughter, then that’s all I need.

I once read a story about a boy named Jack who grew up in the hills of Virginia in the United States. Every day, his family sat around the table for dinner. His father would ask each one of them, “What did you do for someone today?” The children wanted to do a good deed every day so they could tell their father they had helped someone. As they grew up, they felt a desire in their hearts to help others.
Jack became a successful doctor. Then he created more than 70 clinics across the country to help people who needed medical care. We can’t all create medical clinics, but each of us can do something to help others.

One night after contemplating the upcoming change, I dreamed about my great-great-grandfather Joseph Skeen. I knew from his journal that when he and his wife, Maria, moved to Nauvoo, he desired to serve, so he sought out the Prophet Joseph Smith and asked how he could help. The Prophet sent him to work on the prairie and told him to do the best he could, so he did. He worked on the Smiths’ farm.8
Fulfilling callings requires faith. Shortly after Joseph began working on the farm, he and Maria became very sick. They had no money and were among strangers. It was a difficult time for them. In his journal, Joseph wrote, “We worked along [and] hung on to the Church with what little faith we had, though the devil tried to destroy us and turn us back.”10
I, along with hundreds of other descendants, will be eternally grateful that Joseph and Maria did not turn back. Blessings come as we persevere in our callings and responsibilities and hang on with all the faith we have.

Elder Sandino Roman was introduced to the gospel of Jesus Christ as a child. Each Sunday a friend of his mother brought him and his sister to meet with the 15 other members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a small meetinghouse in Mexico.
The five-year-old prayed every day that his family would become converted to the gospel. Two years later, his mother and father were baptized. One year after that, his father baptized him. “For that reason, I know that the Lord hears children’s prayers,” Elder Roman said.

But he wasn’t always so well known. Reared by his grandparents on Kuria, a small dot of land south of Tarawa, Tune didn’t come to the capital island until he was 13 or 14 years old. He had been taught traditional skills, but his grandmother felt he needed a good secondary education. So they came to Tarawa, where a few private schools, one run by a religious group, were located.
His grandmother enrolled him in the religious school. “But then just before school started,” Tune says, “I dislocated my hip playing soccer. I was admitted to the hospital on Tarawa. Unfortunately, a lady using traditional medicine tried to heal me by massaging the hip. Instead, she destroyed it. And then it got infected. I became very sick.
“When the doctors told my grandmother I might die, she called my family to Tarawa. I heard them talking to the doctors one day outside the curtain around my bed. The doctors said, ‘We don’t have any hope. This infection in his hip is very bad, and now it’s getting into the rest of his body.’
“When I heard that, I thought, ‘Wow! They think I’m going to die!’ I was raised a Christian, so I started praying. I said, ‘God, my only hope is You. If You spare my life, I promise to be a missionary. I will spend my whole life serving You.’ Of course, what I had in mind was the kind of missionary you see in the Protestant and Catholic churches. This was in 1972, before the LDS Church came to Kiribati.
“I was flat on my back in bed and couldn’t even sit up. But as I continued to pray, one day I found I could sit. After a while I could stand, then walk. I was in the hospital for two years.” Tune left with a bad limp, but he had survived.
“When I was released, for some reason I didn’t want to go to the Protestant school anymore. I wanted to go to another school called AKAS. So my grandmother enrolled me in 1974. During that year, Eb Davis, the LDS mission president in Fiji, came to our school to select 10 students to attend Liahona High School on Tonga. Attending high school is a great opportunity. Only two groups had gone before. I was older than most and had been out of school for two years, so I didn’t have much hope I would be selected. But I was.
“The big problem for my family was finding the money to purchase the required round-trip airfare. I asked my father, ‘How will you get the money? We don’t have any.’ My father had a terminal illness that left him unable to work, but he said, ‘We’ll get the money.’ My mother sewed for the hospital and had some money saved. My uncle and other relatives also helped. It seemed a miracle, but we came up with the money.
“So there I was in 1975 at Liahona High School. When I came to the campus, I thought I was in heaven. The people were clean, the school was clean, and the men were wearing ties. And then I discovered this was a church school, run by Mormons. I had no idea what a Mormon was, so I asked.
“That first Sunday I started the missionary discussions. Grant Howlett, one of my teachers, taught me. I was really excited. I had promised the Lord I would be a missionary if He healed me, and I knew I couldn’t be a missionary until I joined the Church. I was baptized on 22 June 1975—the first from our group. When my friends asked why I joined the Church so quickly, I said, ‘I couldn’t reject anything they taught. I just felt it was what my Father in Heaven wanted me to do.’
“Two months after I was baptized, the students from Kiribati were asked if anyone was interested in going home to introduce the Church there. I gave them my name. But when they learned I was 17, they told me I was too young.” Six young men accepted the call to take the gospel to Kiribati. They began in late 1975.
“Before they left, I asked them to talk to my parents. They agreed. I also sent many letters to my family bearing my testimony. They accepted the gospel and were baptized.” His grandmother, Tebwebwenikai Ribauea Tune, was the first person in the family to join.
“I finished school in 1978 and still wanted to be a missionary. By then I had also met my future wife, Maii. We decided I would serve a mission; then we would meet in Hawaii and be married in the temple. But I wasn’t sure how I was going to get to Hawaii or finance a mission.”
Tune considers what happened to him over the next few years miraculous. After graduation he stayed in Tonga translating for the Church. A family from the high school helped him go to the New Zealand temple, where he received his endowment in 1979. Within a few months he was serving a mission in Kiribati. After his mission he was able to attend BYU—Hawaii to further his education (he was the first person from Kiribati to graduate from BYU), and it was there he and Maii were married (the first couple from Kiribati to be sealed in the temple). An impression to return to Kiribati instead of accepting a job in the United States led to an encounter at the airport in Fiji with the Area President, Elder John Sonnenberg. A few days later Elder Sonnenberg called Tune to be Kiribati’s district president. President Tune’s ecclesiastic duties took him to Salt Lake City, where he had hip-replacement surgery. Limping no longer, he now outwalks most of those who attempt to keep up with him.
While serving as district president on Tarawa, Tune also filled an appointment as principal of Moroni High School, an LDS high school that resulted from the missionary work of Grant Howlett and his wife, Pat. When the Howletts came to Tarawa in 1976, the AKAS school was having financial and leadership problems. The Howletts supplied the leadership and petitioned the Church to buy the school. Eventually, the Church agreed.
Unfortunately, there was some opposition from people in the government. But the Lord had an agent in place. Baitika Toun, a member of the Church elected to parliament, helped convince several key lawmakers that a school run by the Church would be of great benefit to the I-Kiribati. The Church purchased the school and called the campus Moroni Community School (now Moroni High School).
The school has indeed proved a blessing, not only to the I-Kiribati but to the Church as well. “Moroni High School is seen as the model school in Kiribati,” Tune says. “Our graduates are skilled and have high moral values. They are sought out for responsible positions. And the Church is seen as the model church—in terms of morals, standards, and the focus on the family.”
The Church didn’t always enjoy such a reputation in Kiribati. “When it was first introduced, we were accused of being non-Christian,” Tune says. “We were even tried in parliament. But that just gave us a chance to preach the gospel to the leaders of our country. We cleared up the confusion.”
The school is now educating a new generation of Latter-day Saints who have strong testimonies and are eager to share the gospel. That is one reason the Church is growing so fast in Kiribati. Another is the gospel light that shines in the lives of Kiribati’s Latter-day Saints. “We have high standards and strong families,” Tune says. “People are attracted to that. When I started my mission, there were between 50 and 100 members of the Church in Kiribati. When I finished, we had 500. We now have close to 6,000. That’s about six percent of the population. After only 20 years, the Church had become the third largest denomination in Kiribati.” When Tune was released in 1996 after serving nine years as district president, the district was reorganized as a stake, and he was called as bishop of the Eita Ward (now the Eita First Ward).
It is now near sunset. Tarawa lies somewhere off the bow of Tune’s boat. A few terns and noddies fly past on their way to roost. Tune’s eyes follow them instinctively. The birds fly directly to land at dusk; by following them, a seafarer can always find home. Behind the birds, the sky has turned gold, tinting the sea gold as well. The light reveals a smile on Tune’s face. In the large cooler at his feet are four tuna that decided to join him during the trip home from Abaiang.
“The members here are like the seabirds,” he says. “The Great Fisherman has many fish to catch. We members are the birds showing the missionaries where those people are. And by the lives we live, we show our friends and relatives the way to eternal life.”
At the same time, the members of the Church in Kiribati are themselves among those gathered by the gospel net. If at times they soar in joyful anticipation of heaven’s joys, at other times they dive into the depths of mortal experience. Yet always there is the Light—and the leap of faith into it. At such times, for that brief moment, sea and sky become one.

In my youth I learned an important lesson about how our actions may limit our freedom. One day my father assigned me to varnish a wooden floor. I made the choice to begin at the door and work my way into the room. When I was almost finished, I realized I had left myself no way to get out. There was no window or door on the other side. I had literally painted myself into a corner. I had no place to go. I was stuck.
Whenever we disobey, we spiritually paint ourselves into a corner and are captive to our choices. Though we are spiritually stuck, there is always a way back. Like repentance, turning around and walking across a newly varnished floor means more work—a lot of resanding and refinishing! Returning to the Lord isn’t easy, but it is worth it.

Sometimes we view problems in the world around us with a sense of fatalism. “That’s just how things are,” we reason. “How could I possibly change them?” Yet through even the humblest of us acting in our own small sphere, the Lord can accomplish great things. Consider the life of a 78-year-old woman in Norway. Her name is Rigmor Heistø, and her experiences are proof of the power one person can have—one person who has given her life to the Lord.
Rigmor Heistø was already 43 years old when this story begins. It was 1963, and in many ways Rigmor was leading a comfortable life. She was married to a prominent physician and had three much-loved children. Like most Norwegians, she belonged to the Lutheran Church, the state church of Norway. She also took part in two Bible study groups.
Yet all was not well. Members of her family were struggling with health problems, and her marriage was troubled.
When Elder John Storheim and Elder John Marshall came to her door, Rigmor was immediately touched. She found their message fascinating; then she began to feel it was true. Her conversations with them answered some questions she had always had—and raised some new ones. She took her questions to her Bible study groups. Disturbed by Rigmor’s new questions, the leaders of one of the groups asked her to stop coming to the group’s meetings. Other friends begged her to stop seeing the missionaries. Her husband opposed her conversion. So intense was the pressure, in fact, that Rigmor told the missionaries not to come back, privately determining to remember the truths she had learned from them.
For several months, Rigmor prayed that she would forget the Church if—as her friends had told her—it really were the devil’s church. But the more she prayed, the more she was reminded of the Church. Finally, she went to a meeting at her church where two hymns that she had heard on a Tabernacle Choir album were played. When the pastor rose and exhorted the congregation to “remember them … who have spoken unto you the word of God” (Heb. 13:7), Rigmor knew in her heart that it was the missionaries who had spoken the word of God to her. She decided to follow her new faith, whatever the cost.
Rigmor’s husband had been influenced by an inaccurate, negative description of the Church in a book by a respected Norwegian theologian, Einar Molland. So he first withheld and then grudgingly gave his permission for Rigmor to be baptized. Rigmor was baptized in 1964; three years later, she and her husband were divorced.
Now Rigmor faced an overwhelming set of circumstances. She left her comfortable home and moved to a small apartment. Needing to support herself financially, she had to seek employment for the first time since the birth of her oldest child. But, as the Prophet Joseph Smith wrote, a very small helm working determinedly can keep a very large ship safe “in the time of a storm.” And if we will “cheerfully do all things that lie in our power,” we can trust “with the utmost assurance” that his mighty, saving power will ultimately be manifest in our lives (see D&C 123:16–17).
With intelligence, energy, and determination, Rigmor did what lay in her power to do. She worked briefly as a clerk and then got a job as a substitute teacher in a youth school. The Nazi occupation of Norway in 1940 had ended her university studies. Now Rigmor enrolled in college to get the training to be a full-time teacher. And it was here that a remarkable lifelong mission as a goodwill ambassador for the Church began.
One day in an ethics class in 1967, a young professor of theology, Inge Lønning, who later became rector of Oslo University and editor of Church and Culture, stated that people in Norway enjoyed total freedom of choice regarding religion. Rigmor quickly spoke up. “That applies only to members of the state church,” she told him. “Just try and believe some other religion.”
Later, during a class break, she explained to Professor Lønning that her former husband had been misled by misinformation about the Church in a book written by Einar Molland. When Professor Lønning mentioned that he often had lunch with Einar Molland, Rigmor asked him to arrange an interview for her.
And so it was that Rigmor Heistø, a convert of just a few years, found herself in the office of Norway’s leading theologian. “Good morning, Mrs. Heistø,” he greeted her. “I can understand people converting to Catholicism, to Methodism, or to Baptistism. But how can anyone convert to Mormonism?”
With her typical disarming and good-humored candor, Rigmor replied, “If I hadn’t known any more about the Church than you do, it would be the last thing I would have done.” She then asked, “Where did you get this nonsense in your book?” When Professor Molland explained he had found it in books in the university library, she told him that he could have easily received correct information from the mission president, whose office was just a hundred meters down the road. Then she explained the damage that misinformation had done in her home.
Professor Molland was saddened and promised to correct the section about the Church in the next edition. In 1977, true to his word, Professor Molland allowed mission president John Langeland, Sister Heistø, and others to check the section on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in a revised edition, which was published in 1978. “I have never felt the Spirit move me so much,”remembers Sister Heistø of that important meeting. “When I left Professor Molland’s office, we were the best of friends.”
Rigmor finished teachers’ college and taught full-time at a youth school. Then she completed a three-year course in special education, specializing in teaching people with dyslexia. In 1980, she was assigned to create a social science course for eighth and ninth graders. She traveled to Brigham Young University to research and write a workbook on developmental psychology. Then, in 1988, at age 68, she received a degree in Christianity from Norway’s state seminary school, where most Lutheran priests receive their education.
Education about the LDS Church is especially needed in Norway, where, for many years, only the official state church was legally recognized. In 1845, a so-called dissenter law allowed some other Christian churches to be recognized as “dissenting” faiths. But, because of some key doctrines, the Church was judged not to qualify for recognition until the 1960s. Then it was not until 1988 that the Church was officially registered. “The Church is now recognized as existing,” says Sister Heistø, “but many people still do not consider Latter-day Saints to be Christians.”
So when one of her teachers at the seminary, philosophy professor Guttorm Fløistad, asked his students to suggest topics for study, Rigmor saw another opportunity to educate people about the Church. She suggested that the class study the philosophical basis of Mormonism. The professor agreed, and Latter-day Saint scholar Truman Madsen, then director of the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Center, was invited to visit and give lectures at Oslo University. After Dr. Madsen’s visit to Norway in 1986, a regular exchange program with Norwegian and BYU professors was established. Guttorm Fløistad was the first Norwegian professor to visit Utah on the exchange program. And Inge Lønning (now rector of Oslo University), who had arranged for Rigmor to meet Professor Molland, was the second. The third professor from Oslo University to visit BYU was Francis Sejersted, chairman of the Nobel Peace Prize committee. The fourth was Gudmund Hernes, cabinet minister of Education, Research, and Church Affairs in Norway.
And so began a circle of friendship that continually expands. When she learned that a Norwegian Bible Association brochure was recommending that all schoolchildren view a film defamatory to the Church, Rigmor called the association’s general secretary. She asked him to review the film and to read a book by Church members refuting the film’s claims. The man had met Truman Madsen and was so impressed with his dedication that he was happy to comply with Rigmor’s request. Several months later, he removed the film from the association’s catalog and helped get it removed entirely from Norwegian schools.
Throughout her career, Rigmor has introduced many young people to the Church through comparative religion courses. When students were assigned to present reports on the Church, she invited them to her home and taught them over waffles and jam. For eight years, she set up a display about the Church at a curriculum conference attended by thousands of teachers.
Perhaps one of Rigmor’s most far-reaching contributions has been compiling and editing a book on comparative religions called This We Believe, published in 1994. Rigmor heads a group made up of representatives from 37 faiths; she assigned a representative of each of the religious groups to write a chapter about their religion for the book. “They appreciated very much the opportunity to write about what they believed in,” says Sister Heistø. “Like me, they were saddened by all the misinformation in print regarding their respective churches.”
Rigmor also represented minority faiths at a seminar in 1994 on teaching religion in Norwegian schools. There she addressed the importance of using only accurate information about different religions in the classroom. This topic currently holds great interest because of a 1997 law requiring Norwegian schoolchildren to learn about other religions.
Sister Heistø’s strong confidence is born of conviction. “The gospel is the best message on earth,” she says. “No one is with me more than five minutes before they know who I am.”
But Rigmor does not see her willingness to speak up as especially courageous. “I don’t really need courage,” says Sister Heistø. “I just think, ‘Oh, here is something I can do.’” One day, for example, she picked up the newspaper and read an interesting article in which Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn, the attorney general of Norway, lamented the state of family life and cultural values in Norway. He warned that the pursuit of materialism could destroy the country and called for the state church to teach values with authority.
Sister Heistø thought the attorney general needed to know that a church is already doing the very things he advocated and that its name is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So she wrote a letter to him.
A week later, the attorney general himself called, asking Sister Heistø to meet with him. As a result, she spent several hours explaining the Church to Mr. Rieber-Mohn. “I think the Lord knows two things about me,” says Sister Heistø. “He knows I am not afraid of other people. Why should I be? … And,” she adds, smiling, “he knows I can talk.”
Now Rigmor becomes reflective: “My children are married and have children of their own. [One daughter and some grandchildren eventually joined the Church.] I can choose what I use my time for. So it is the Church. It is nothing to boast about. Think of all the fantastic experiences I have all the time. It is difficult to be alone—so the more lonely I feel, the more challenges I take on.”
Then she refers to a picture hanging in her sitting room, a picture of Christ wearing a crown of thorns. “Self-pity is a feeling I do not allow to come into my home,” she says. “When I feel it start, I just look at my picture of Christ. ‘Excuse me,’ I say. ‘You have hurt much more for me than I do for you.’”
And so, at age 78, Rigmor Heistø continues on, steadfastly doing what lies in her power to do, cheerfully helping the Lord bring about his purposes in Norway.

Many years ago, in company with the mission president from Hong Kong, it was my opportunity to initiate formally the work in the Philippines. On 28 April 1961, we held a meeting that will never be forgotten by those of us who were present. We had no hall then in which to meet. We made a request of the United States Embassy for permission to meet on the beautiful porch of the marble memorial in the American military cemetery at what was then known as Fort McKinley, on the outskirts of Manila. We convened at 6:30 in the morning. In that hallowed and sacred place, where are remembered the tragedies of war, we commenced the work of teaching the gospel of peace.
We called upon the only native Filipino member we had been able to locate. He recounted a story which I remember as follows:
When he was a boy he found in a garbage can an old, tattered copy of the Reader’s Digest. It contained a condensation of a book giving the story of the Mormon people. It spoke of Joseph Smith and described him as a prophet. The word prophet did something to that boy. Could there actually be a prophet upon the earth? he wondered. The magazine was lost, but concern over the presence of a living prophet never left him during the long, dark years of war and oppression when the Philippines were occupied. Finally the forces of liberation came, and with them the reopening of Clark Air Base. David Lagman found employment there. His supervisor, he learned, was a Mormon, an Air Force officer. He wanted to ask him if he believed in a prophet, but was afraid to do so. Finally, after much inner turmoil, he mustered the courage to inquire.
“Are you a Mormon, sir?” the young man asked.
“Yes, I am,” was the forthright reply.
“Do you believe in a prophet? Do you have a prophet in your church?” came the anxious question.
“We do have a prophet, a living prophet, who presides in this church and who teaches the will of the Lord.”
David asked the officer to tell him more, and out of that teaching came his baptism. He was the first native elder ordained in the Philippines.

My father’s patriarchal blessing was brief, and at first he felt it was somewhat generic. However, he later realized the significance of one of the promises. He was told he would play a key role in bringing the gospel to many countries. As a young man he served in the Germany Frankfurt Mission, so he initially thought that promise referred to just two countries: the United States and Germany. But in 1990 he was called to preside over the Austria Vienna Mission. In 1991, Slovenia, Croatia, and Serbia were added to his mission, and in 1992 he brought the first missionaries into Albania. Since then, my parents have served in Salzburg, Austria, the Johannesburg South Africa MTC, and Thailand. As a young man, my dad didn’t know what God had planned for him, but God did—and it was all foretold in his patriarchal blessing.