Gospel Story Finder

Once Joseph, Emma, and Oliver moved to Fayette, David’s mother had her hands full. Mary Whitmer and her husband, Peter, already had eight children between the ages of 15 and 30, and the few who did not still live at home resided nearby. Tending to their needs filled Mary’s days with work, and the three houseguests added more labor. Mary had faith in Joseph’s calling and did not complain, but she was getting tired.17
The heat in Fayette that summer was sweltering. As Mary washed clothes and prepared meals, Joseph dictated the translation in an upstairs room. Oliver usually wrote for him, but occasionally Emma or one of the Whitmers took a turn with the pen.18 Sometimes, when Joseph and Oliver tired of the strain of translating, they would walk out to a nearby pond and skip stones across the surface of the water.
Mary had little time to relax herself, and the added work and the strain placed on her were hard to bear.
One day, while she was out by the barn where the cows were milked, she saw a gray-haired man with a knapsack slung across his shoulder. His sudden appearance frightened her, but as he approached, he spoke to her in a kind voice that set her at ease.
“My name is Moroni,” he said. “You have become pretty tired with all the extra work you have to do.” He swung the knapsack off his shoulder, and Mary watched as he started to untie it.19
“You have been very faithful and diligent in your labors,” he continued. “It is proper, therefore, that you should receive a witness that your faith may be strengthened.”20
Moroni opened his knapsack and removed the gold plates. He held them in front of her and turned their pages so she could see the writings on them. After he turned the last page, he urged her to be patient and faithful as she carried the extra burden a little longer. He promised she would be blessed for it.21
The old man vanished a moment later, leaving Mary alone. She still had work to do, but that no longer troubled her.22

“I’d like to say that I grew up in the Church,” says Bert, “but I didn’t. I’m considered a convert by Church standards, because I wasn’t baptized until I was twelve, although I went to Primary. I came from a part-member family.”
Bert’s father, a tough, determined, highly-respected police officer, refused to give permission for his son’s baptism; then, “when I was twelve, I really got emphatic. He finally consented, and my brother and I were both baptized. I was ordained a deacon shortly after that.” Within a year, however, Bert was enrolled in a military boarding school, complete with its own non-denominational Protestant church. During the next five years, he recalls, the influence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints “just started fading away.”
Amanda was not a member of the Church when she and Bert met, nor was she a Latter-day Saint when they married a few years later. Bert had become somewhat active during his air force training in California; but, he says, “things were moving slowly for me.” Shortly after their marriage, however, “my life started to change because of her.
“We were married after I was commissioned as an officer in the air force.” (Amanda, by this time, had earned a degree in secondary education from the University of Hawaii.) “For a while we lived in California; then we moved to Kansas after some air force training in Texas. Two weeks after we arrived in Kansas, I think the Lord felt it was time that Amanda found out about the Church. Although we had been attending meetings, we hadn’t gotten really serious about the Church.
Bert was sent to Greenland for 109 days, and since the couple had not yet found an apartment in Kansas, Amanda stayed with Bert’s cousin and his wife. The relatives were active Church members, and they and the stake missionaries began encouraging Amanda to schedule her baptism for the same day as the cousin’s eight-year-old daughter’s.
Amanda was unhappy about the situation. “I didn’t think they should know when I was going to be ready; but they said they knew, and they had set the date.”
“I felt a little bad about that,” says Bert, remembering the letter Amanda sent him at the time. “I was a little embarrassed, because that was my church. But then the next week I got another letter saying, ‘I’m sorry, I can’t wait any longer. I’m being baptized Saturday.’”
“They did know,” smiles Amanda. “I was ready.”
Following Amanda’s conversion, Bert began to progress in the Church as well. He was ordained a priest, then an elder, and the DuPonts were soon sealed in the temple.
Still, Bert had questions. “I’m not ashamed to admit it—I had some doubts about the Church, and one of them concerned the reality of a modern-day prophet.” In time, Bert would receive that testimony in a very personal way—from a prophet of God himself.
Along with continuing spiritual growth came additional Church responsibilities, the adoption of two sons, and rapid professional advancement. As a colonel in the air force, Bert was known and respected for his integrity, willingness to work, and his ability to get the job done. Such a reputation made him a top candidate for assignment in Montevideo, Uruguay, in the early 1970s as an adviser to that country’s military services. He was offered the position, but the decision to accept or refuse it was his. “I looked at a Church directory to see if the Church was there,” he says. “There were two stakes, so I thought, ‘Well, we’ll go.’” Then he and Amanda went to Washington, D.C., where he took an intensive six-month course in Spanish language and culture.
But then came a telephone call for Bert from his superiors. “They said, ‘We need you more in Bogota, Colombia, than we do in Montevideo, so we are changing your assignment.’ I could find no Church listings for Colombia, so I refused, and there was nothing they could say to change my mind.
“Then one day I had another telephone call from an officer. I tried to explain to him that I was a member of the Church and why I didn’t want to go to Colombia. It turned out that he was a member of the Church, the senior president of the seventies in his stake, and he said, ‘Brother DuPont, have you ever thought that maybe the Lord has a job for you to do in Colombia?’ It was the first time we had thought of it like that. We decided that we would go.”
Once in Colombia, the DuPonts found that the Lord did indeed have a job for them—several jobs, in fact. “I really feel,” says Bert, “though I didn’t feel that way at the time, that we were sent there to help with the Church. When the Church moves into a new area, the people who are converted are not the bank presidents or the university professors; they are the humblest and the poorest people. And all we had there were missionaries from the United States, who often weren’t accepted by the people. I was somewhat different because of my rank in the air force; being in the military helped. And I wasn’t white; that helped, too. Missionaries would tell the people something, and they wouldn’t believe it; but if we walked in the door and said the same thing, they would listen.”
Soon after the DuPonts arrived in Bogota, Bert was called to be a counselor in the district presidency; later he served as a branch president in Bogota. Amanda, warmly interested in her Colombian sisters, learned the language and was called to assume leadership responsibilities in the Relief Society and Young Women organizations. Both the DuPonts were loved and honored for their commitment to the gospel and their daily acts of Christian service.
A good part of their service embraced the missionary effort; still developing in Colombia some twelve years ago, the Church needed all the strong testimonies and good examples it could get. One returned missionary who served in Colombia recalls that the DuPonts were “great examples for the Saints. They demonstrated what home teaching and visiting teaching really were; what home evening is all about, and what it means to love and serve each other.”
The DuPonts’ home was a much-loved gathering place for the elders and sisters. Bert remembers, “We’d sometimes have as many as sixty missionaries over for dinner for the big U.S. holidays—Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas.”
From their earliest days in Colombia, the matter of heritage played a significant role in the DuPonts’ remarkable success story. Consider, for example, their participation in the Church’s first youth conference in that country. Invited to provide some Hawaiian entertainment, they drove ten hours over a tortuous mountain road to attend the conference.
Once there, Bert was asked to speak. “As I looked out into that group—the leaders and the youth—I was struck by the impression that it was like I was in Hawaii. They all looked like my relatives; their Indian background matched up with the Hawaiians and the Polynesians. So I decided I would tell them about Hagoth, the Nephite shipbuilder; I started out talking about that, and about how they looked like my uncles and aunts back in Hawaii. Our relationship with them grew from that. I told them, ‘When I say hermanos y hermanas to you, I don’t mean brothers and sisters only in the gospel; I really mean that we have a blood relationship—the blood of Israel is here.’”
The “blood of Israel” image became still more personal when Bert and Amanda invited his parents to visit them in Bogota. It was a new beginning.
“My dad was a good man,” reflects Bert, “but we couldn’t convince him to join the Church—even though whenever he visited us, he would comment about the happiness we had in our family, and how he wished the other children could have it.”
Late one night during his parents’ visit, Bert was awakened. “I was prompted,” he recalls, “to go and challenge my dad—again—to be baptized, even though he had refused many times before. I woke Amanda (I always have to confer with her, because she’s got the Spirit!), told her my feeling, and she said, ‘Well, I guess you’d better go do it.’ So I went into his room … it was like Daniel going into the lions’ den.”
Bert woke his father, bore testimony, issued the challenge. The response? “My dad put his arms around me and hugged me and cried. He had been shot, stabbed, and injured many times during his life as a police officer, and he had never before shed a tear as far as I knew.”
Within weeks, Brother DuPont had fully embraced the gospel. “The missionaries from the U.S. could not teach him in English,” Bert explains, “because they only knew their discussions in Spanish. So I interpreted for them. My parents came to church with us every Sunday even though they couldn’t understand what was going on because everything was spoken in Spanish. But evidently my father could feel something—and I believe it was the spirit of the people. There was standing room only the day he was baptized.”
It wasn’t until 1975, after Bert and Amanda had returned to Hawaii, that Bert’s testimony of the living prophet was solidly confirmed. Bert had been asked to assist with security measures for President Spencer W. Kimball who was making a short visit to Bogota. Bert’s description of the experience is a moving testimony of the prophet’s influence:
“President Kimball shook my hand, and it felt like electricity going up my arm. He looked into my eyes, and that was it; I knew. We were together a good deal of the time, and it was the most wonderful experience.
“We had family home evening at the mission home, and I was the only one without my family. I sat right next to President Kimball, and he put his arm around me. Then we knelt down, and the mission president asked the President to give the family prayer. My whole life changed in those moments; I just knew he was a prophet. It was the full conversion.”
Meanwhile, Amanda recalls with a knowing smile, while Bert was with the President, “things weren’t going too well back home. I was in a car accident; I wasn’t hurt, but the car was damaged.”
“You have to understand,” adds Bert, “that I was a person who had to have everything neat and clean. You didn’t touch my car, because you might leave a fingerprint on it.”
Amanda says their two sons, “Duane and Doug, kept saying, ‘Oh, boy, wait until Dad comes home and sees the car.’ The day Bert arrived home, they wouldn’t even go to the airport with me to meet him, so I went by myself; there hadn’t been time to get the car fixed.”
But something had changed. “Bert came off that airplane, and I think he was walking above the ground. When he saw me, all he could talk about was what a great experience it was to be with the prophet. He went right past the damaged fender on the car and didn’t even see it.
“When we got home, the boys were peeking out from behind the drapes. Bert said, ‘Okay, when my boys are hiding, something’s happened.’ So I had to show him the damaged fender. He looked at it, turned to me, and said, ‘Oh, Mom, I’m really glad you didn’t get hurt.’ Then he gave me a big hug.”
The stories go on and on. The DuPonts have opened their arms and home to a procession of foster children, less-fortunate Colombian friends and fellow Saints, missionaries whose finances and confidence needed help, and anyone else who can use a warm Hawaiian greeting, a generous sampling of Amanda’s expert cooking, or a gentle but persuasive nudge in the general direction of truth and righteousness.
“We love people,” says Amanda, “and the gospel gives us direction in serving and helping them wherever we can.”

I swim on a winter swim team at the Lexington Aquatic Academy. Our team practices all winter and has weekend meets. Right at the beginning, I told my coach that I could compete in the meets that were held on Saturday but not those held on Sunday.
In March we had the last meet of the season, the Kentucky State Championship. The relay race was scheduled for Sunday. A couple of the team members who usually swim the relay were ruled ineligible. The coach asked my mom if I could swim just that one race on Sunday. Mom told him that it was my decision. When he asked me, I remembered something my dad had told me during a family home evening lesson. He had said that it is easier to decide how to handle a situation before you are actually faced with it. That way, when you have to make a decision, it will be easier to do the right thing. I had made the decision not to swim on Sunday before I joined my team. That made it easier for me to tell the coach that I couldn’t swim the relay.
I thought the coach would be mad at me. But at the end-of-the-year banquet, he presented me with a plaque engraved with the words “Christian Attitude Award—John Netherton 1999.” He told the team how proud he was of me for having standards and then sticking to them even when others tried to convince me to do something “just this once.” A couple of families called my mom to tell her about all the nice things that the coach had said about me. We weren’t at the banquet to hear him because it was on a Sunday! One mom even asked my mom where we went to church.
I am grateful for gospel standards and for the chance we have to be an example when we try to follow the teachings of Jesus.

In 1989, when Daniel and Thérèse Kola learned about the restored gospel, much of their income came from sales of coffee, tobacco, and alcohol at their café. After accepting the Word of Wisdom, though, they wondered if it was right to market things they wanted to avoid. They debated what to do until the day of their baptism. They decided to give up their old livelihood, like Christ’s ancient disciples.
“In the morning, the decision was made,” Daniel Kola recalled. They sold their shop and were baptised, confident they had done what the Lord would have them do. “We had that joy in our heart because we felt something.”

The night before Christmas had always been filled with wonder for my sister Phyllis and me. We spent hours guessing what surprises would await us in the morning. There were always two Christmas surprises that were the same—one for me and one for Phyllis.
“Ellie, do you remember how excited we were the year we found the baby dolls sitting in twin high chairs?” Phyllis asked. We were sitting in the bedroom we shared, too excited to sleep.
“Yours was wearing the blue outfit, mine was in pink,” I said.
“And wasn’t it fun the year we got those matching doll beds?” she asked.
What would our surprises be this year? Roller skates? Play dishes? Fancy dresses? We giggled with excitement.
“Listen!” Phyllis suddenly exclaimed. “I hear Dad’s car pulling into the driveway!”
We dashed to the window, pressed our faces against the cold glass, and peeked out into the darkness of Christmas Eve. From our second-story window we looked down onto the driveway and saw something in the back of Dad’s car. Something pink.
“Is it something for us?” Phyllis whispered.
“Well, something pink wouldn’t be for any of our brothers!” I said. We covered our mouths, trying to quiet our laughter.
“Then the something in the car has to be for us!” Phyllis said. “Our two somethings!”
We scurried back to bed and snuggled beneath our blankets, wrapped in warmth and anticipation. We scarcely slept all night.
When morning finally arrived, Phyllis and I, our three brothers, and our older sister lined up to go into the living room. When Mother gave the signal, we rushed in, then stood dazzled by the glowing tree. It sparkled with its colored lights, shimmering icicles, our homemade paper chains, and loved ornaments.
Phyllis and I stood entranced, ready to burst with excitement. At the same time, our eyes fell on the Something Pink. It was a dresser, about four feet high. We gazed at the piece of furniture, with its mirror and still smelling of pine and fresh paint. We loved it!
Then, slowly, our awe turned to puzzlement. We whispered to each other, “Where’s the other dresser? Which one of us is this for?”
Mother took us aside and gently told us, “Girls, there were two—one for each of you. But last night your father thought of a widow and her family. They don’t have much, and she has two daughters. Your father wondered what kind of Christmas they would have. He took the other dresser to their home last night. This one is for you girls to share.”* * *
That Christmas was long ago. Phyllis and I shared and loved that pink dresser through childhood until each of us married. The dresser went from holding mittens and pretty rocks to holding dance programs and our marriage announcements.
Now, with daughters, granddaughters, and great-granddaughters of our own, our Christmas surprise has been lovingly moved from one home to another and shared by many girls. Mothers have told their daughters the story of the pink dresser, and they have told their daughters.
If our little, worn pink treasure could speak, it might say that many girls have grown closer together because of a present two sisters shared, and a present they never received.

One day Julie Ann Christensen, 12, of Arcadia, California, went to visit her friend Lori Bontempo who had just moved across the street. The Bontempo family were sitting around the kitchen table talking about different religions, so Julie told them about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When everyone began to question her about the doctrines of the Church, Julie recited the Articles of Faith and explained something about each one. Everyone was amazed that such a young girl knew so much.
Julie later took them a copy of the Book of Mormon, and she explained that the missionaries would be glad to come and tell them more about the Church. On February 9, 1974, Paul, Carol, Lori, David, and their father and mother were baptized.
“Julie seemed to radiate something beautiful when she was talking to us about the Church,” Mr. Bontempo said. “She really has a special spirit about her.”

The room was small. Mirrored darkly in the panes of a tall china closet, it seemed even smaller. The deep afternoon hinted of spice, cedar, and old wool. The creak of a rocking chair and the ticking of a clock seemed quieter than mere silence.
Serious young men in the uniforms of two wars, flanked by snapshots of lacy babies and an embroidered rose, looked down out of their gilded frames onto a couch overflowing with pillows. The room was full of time-worn furniture and the dainty odds and ends a woman can accumulate in a lifetime.
Two windows spread sunlight through white curtains covered with moving leaf-shadows, highlighting here a ceramic ballerina on her crocheted doily, there a white pin jar, elsewhere a flight of plaster angels flapping up one wall toward a high ceiling.
In the best light a white-haired lady sat working, her knitting on her lap. She hummed softly to herself and glanced from time to time at the hands of the clock. When the door chimes sounded, she soon had the door open. “Come in,” she said warmly to the three smiling girls who stood outside, “I’ve been expecting you.”
She was expecting them because weeks earlier Laurel president Donna Muir had suggested that something should be done for the elderly. The young people of the Culver City and La Cienega wards, who meet together for activity night, agreed, and so they sought and received inspiration. The result was an innovative service project that would allow some of the widows and widowers in the area to give just as much as they received. Small groups of young people would visit selected oldsters and chat with them about their lives. The interviews would be recorded and preserved as a contribution to oral history. They decided that each group would take a small present to those they visited to show their love and appreciation.
And in other houses, other cassettes turned, other pens scratched, and warm, old voices escorted other young people into the heart of other times and other lives. It was a guided tour of history—not embalmed textbook history, but history still alive and breathing. Horizons of time, space, and personality were broadened, and everyone, young and old, knew that they were co-citizens of forever.
Several weeks after the last stop buttons had been pushed and the last goodbyes said, the young people hosted their elderly friends at a dinner where each of them was presented with a typed transcript of what he had said. It had nothing to do with a service project anymore. It was a get-together between friends.
The young men and women involved in the visits speak glowingly of the experience. Brother George Mitchell, an immigrant from Bulgaria, was visited by Alfred Griffith, Bruce Wright, Sandra Tong, and Myra-Lynn Jensen, who took an apple pie as a gift. Sandra later commented, “He talked for two hours, and when we left, he had just made it up to 1945. He has lived an interesting life. I never realized what a struggle immigrants to our country experience.” Myra-Lynn added, “The thing I remember is that he said that the apartment he lives in at the low-rent housing project is like a palace compared to the tar-paper shack he lived in when he first came to this country.”
Donna Muir, Mary Synold, and Diane Muir visited Sister Ruth Yancy, an elderly widow in poor health who devotes all the time she can to visiting disabled veterans at a veterans hospital. The young ladies, who took along a plate of cookies, were amazed at the amount of information Sister Yancy had given them. Diane said, “Older people seem so quiet, but they really have a story to tell. I didn’t know Sister Yancy at all, but I appreciate her as a person now. I can see the good she has done throughout her life.”
Sister Hazel Gotts, a widow who is a recent convert, was visited by Gerilynn Price and Mark Packard, the priests quorum group leader. They took her a cake. Mark reports, “I enjoyed talking with a person who has been around so long and seen so much. I think it’s a good way for the youth and older people to get to know and understand each other better. I had a very nice feeling when I left, knowing I had made someone happy, and I know she was very happy to know that someone cares about her. She enjoyed telling us about herself. I think it would be nice if the youth could establish a close relationship with the elderly people in the ward.”
The bishops of both wards suggested many people who would enjoy a visit, and five were chosen for the initial project. Youth leaders contacted each of these people to see if they would be willing to be visited. One elderly lady burst into tears and said, “Visit? With me? I’ve been so lonely.” Another replied, “The young people are so beautiful! I’d just love for them to come.” All five were eager to participate.
So the visits were scheduled, the preparations made.
Inside the house of the white curtains, the three young ladies complimented their hostess on her hand-painted china, broke the ice with a little small talk, and again explained their mission. Soon the tape recorder was set up, one young lady had her pen poised above a notebook ready to take notes, and the good sister started talking about her girlhood and her life. On the rare occasions when she ran dry momentarily, the girls were ready with well-conceived questions to start the flow again.
As they listened and the cassette turned, a wonderful thing happened. Years blurred and ran together, and the Laurels were no longer in the little house of sunlight and painted china. They were in Heber City, Utah, around the turn of the century, seeing life through the eyes of a young Mormon girl. They knew the bitterness of the winters, the headiness of mountain springs, the crushes, hopes, and secrets of being young. They met and loved all the old forgotten people, old and forgotten no more, who had filled a girl’s childhood. They visited a sawmill on the Utah-Wyoming border where she had spent some summers and smelled the sweetness of clean-sawed pine. They lived with her her first time away from home.
“It’s an awful thing to be homesick,” she said, closing her eyes and remembering, but with a smile. And then, in the present again for a moment, she leaned forward and asked, with a twinkle in her eyes, “Have you girls ever been homesick?”
Suddenly there was no generation gap—no time barrier between Utah then and California now—as the girls realized more fully than ever that people don’t stop being people just because they grow old. They forgot all about tape recorders and oral history for a while and talked friend to friend about homesickness, and family, and love, and all the other things that never stop mattering, and for a moment they glimpsed a more eternal perspective of existence and saw time as the sham it is.
Randy Tong, Gayle Allen, and Susan Langford visited Sister LaVern Brown who had suffered several severe falls and couldn’t get out much, and they presented her with a potted plant. The youth unanimously reported that it had been a delightful experience. Sister Brown later commented, “Oh, those young people were just so nice, but so quiet. I had to do all the talking.”
Sister Louella Norberg was visited by Kathy Peterson, Joele Chafant, Deanna Peterson, and Kiku Okauchi. Kathy said of the visit, “Joele, Deanna, Kiku, and I met outside her apartment and were standing there wondering how we should approach her when she stuck her head out and called, ‘Yoo-hoo, girls! Here I am!’ and invited us in to see her. It was fascinating. She told us things that happened over the years, and I really enjoyed it. I know she liked it a lot too because she kissed us all before we left.”
A kiss on the cheek in California—it’s a little thing, but it’s the sort of little thing that’s teaching youth all over the Church that service is truly its own reward.

A young sister with diabetes became blind during her pregnancy with her second child. Her loss was devastating—and irreversible. After a time of anguish and questioning, she turned to the Lord for comfort and answers about what was expected of her in these new circumstances. With patience she learned that the “pleasing word of God … healeth the wounded soul” (Jacob 2:8) and that she could use her disability to help others. Her cheerful, open attitude makes it easy for others to talk with her about her blindness and her long struggle to accept and benefit from it.

Youth in the Boston Massachusetts Stake shared their testimonies with heart and voice when they presented the program “From Cumorah’s Hill,” a musical presentation about the Book of Mormon. The program was originally scheduled for two performances, but was extended to three to accommodate everyone who wanted to attend.
The program gave the youth the opportunity to become better friends with each other, but the best part, says Laurel Maureen Maskell, was the audience reaction. “It was great to see their faces and see the people who had been touched by the Spirit.”

The other night when I announced to my family that I was taking my adorable wife to see a certain GP (rated general admittance with parental guidance) movie, my thirteen-year-old daughter firmly stated, “Oh, Daddy, I don’t think you’d better take Mother to that show. It has some bad things you shouldn’t see.”
“How do you know?” I asked.
“Because I’ve seen it, of course, and I just don’t think it’s the kind of show you ought to go to.”
“When did you see it?” I thundered.
Well, it seems that a neighbor had taken her daughter and mine to the GP-rated show.
After my family had given me my allotted time for stern words on the subject of permissive neighbors (my own children think I’m a strict neanderthal), my wife sweetly pointed out that I ought to be grateful that a thirteen-year-old girl would be concerned enough to warn me about a movie she’s seen that isn’t fit for her forty-eight-year-old father and his ageless wife.
That really set me off. If children are going to be that strict with their parents, how will we ever learn about life? Fortunately, in this age of tyrannical youth, my children still permit me to discuss such matters at family night, so the following Monday after our regular discussion I conducted a survey to find out just what my children think about today’s movies.
Meantime, in spite of occasional frustrations, I’m glad to have in this permissive age a strict thirteen-year-old daughter to regulate my own movie going. Other parents should be so lucky!

A wonderful example of forgiving comes from Church history. W. W. Phelps was a close friend of the Prophet Joseph Smith and sacrificed much for the gospel. In Missouri, however, he turned against the Prophet and the Church. His false testimony in 1838 helped put the Prophet and other Church leaders in jail, where they suffered terribly for many months.

By 1840, W. W. Phelps had recognized his sin, and he fervently asked Joseph Smith for forgiveness. The Prophet answered: “It is true, that we have suffered much in consequence of your behavior. … However, … we are yet alive, for which we thank the Lord. … Believing your confession to be real, and your repentance genuine, I shall be happy once again to give you the right hand of fellowship, and rejoice over the returning prodigal. … ‘Come on, dear brother, since the war is past, for friends at first, are friends again at last’” (History of the Church, 4:163–64).

I helped with a project at school to make “bottles of love,” which are plastic bottles filled with single-use plastics. These are items that are used once and thrown away, like plastic bags. Each family made bottles of love and took them to school. The bottles were sent to an organization that made them into plastic bricks. The bricks could be used to build outdoor benches and houses for people in need.
I realized that my family uses a lot of plastic daily, which is a real environmental problem. I wanted to start caring for the environment. But I couldn’t do it alone. So I decided to ask people at church to help too. I spoke with my leaders and the bishop of the ward. He asked me to talk about the project in a meeting. Many people joined the project. After a few months, we collected more than 100 bottles of love!
The project continues today. When I collect a lot of bottles, I go with my family and Primary friends to the drop-off area. We leave the bottles there to be turned into building materials.
I like this project. It makes me feel that I can really help this world that God created for us. It helps me value and respect nature and animals. Taking care of nature is one way I can follow the Savior. I also like that it’s a way to help others.
Sometimes it’s not easy to take the time to make the bottles of love. But I feel that we can change and choose to do small, good acts daily. I also learned that to do something “big” we need the help of others. We can impact others and help them join the change. I believe this is an important part of the gospel of Jesus Christ: to change, help others, and do good in the world.

The young women around the world have taught me so much about seeking Christ and gaining a daily, personal witness of Him. Let me share the wisdom of two of them:
Livvy has watched general conference her entire life. In fact, in her home they traditionally watch all five sessions as a family. In the past, conference for Livvy had meant doodling or drifting into the occasional unintended nap. But this past October general conference was different. It became personal.
This time, Livvy decided to be an active recipient. She silenced notifications on her phone and took notes of impressions from the Spirit. She was amazed as she felt specific things God wanted her to hear and do. This decision made a difference in her life almost immediately.
Just days later her friends invited her to an inappropriate movie. She reflected, “I felt the words and spirit of conference return into my heart, and I heard myself declining their invitation.” She also had the courage to share her testimony of the Savior in her ward.
After these events she stated, “The amazing thing is, when I heard myself testify that Jesus is the Christ, I felt the Holy Ghost confirm it again for me.”
Livvy did not skip like a stone over the surface of conference weekend; she dove in, mind and spirit, and found the Savior there.

Horace Mann, that great educator somewhere back in the time of Abraham Lincoln, told how he was the speaker at the dedication of a great boys’ school, and in his talk he said, “This school has cost hundreds of thousands of dollars; but if this school is able to save one boy, it is worth all that it cost.” One of his friends came up to him at the close of the meeting and said, “You let your enthusiasm get away with you, didn’t you? You don’t mean what you said that if this school, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, were to save just one boy, it was worth all that it cost? You surely don’t mean that.”
Horace Mann looked at him and said, “Yes, my friend. It would be worth it if that one boy were my son; it would be worth it.”

About 180 missionaries in the California Carlsbad Mission divided their time between proselyting and helping fire victims. For a month they shoveled ash and debris, hefted sandbags, and helped at evacuation centers.
One elder said, “My shoulders are sore, my back hurts, and my fingernails are dirty from dirt and ash, but my heart is full.”
The reputation of the missionaries’ hard work grew. An engineering official, assessing his needs for a sandbagging project, said with a smile, “We’ll need 195 men or 5 Mormon missionaries.”

One experience in particular strengthened Tina’s testimony of prayer. One day Tina and her younger siblings were playing in the church garden when they accidentally locked themselves inside. “We were just playing, and then we realized the door was locked, and we couldn’t get out. We started panicking because no one was inside the church to hear us,” Tina recalls. Her younger brother, knowing that they needed divine help, decided to pray. “He just said, ‘Heavenly Father, please help someone hear us and open the door.’ And then, not long after, the bishop just walked by and heard us!” she says. The bishop quickly unlocked the door, and they were freed. “That experience made me realize that Heavenly Father listens to us,” Tina reflects.
This experience deepened Tina’s understanding of the power of prayer. She realized that just as Heavenly Father helped them in that moment, He is always ready to provide guidance and comfort when she turns to Him. “That day, I learned that prayer isn’t just for big things. It’s for everything, even the small stuff. Heavenly Father listens,” she shares. Since then she has made prayer a more consistent part of her life, knowing that it is one of the greatest privileges of being a child of God.
Tina’s relationship with her younger brother also grew stronger through this experience. She saw his faith in action, and it inspired her to trust in God even more. “Seeing my brother pray with so much faith reminded me that we don’t have to go through challenges alone. We can always turn to the Lord,” she says. Their mutual encouragement has continued, especially in their efforts to stay active in the gospel. When one of them feels unmotivated to attend church or seminary, the other steps in to encourage and uplift. “If I don’t feel like going, my brother’s like, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ And if he doesn’t want to, I tell him the same thing,” she adds.

Doesn’t he realize he’s making us late for an appointment with the best family I’ve ever taught? my mind screamed as I turned my bike around. I was a missionary in the Taiwan Taipei Mission, and my new companion, Elder Loo, was lagging behind as usual.
I found him talking to a woman who was angrily holding a thick stick in one hand and clenching the arm of a small, whimpering boy with the other. I listened as Elder Loo tried to talk her out of beating the boy. She left without the stick.
When we finally arrived at our destination, my companion taught the family about “the first and great commandment,” to love the Lord. “And the second is like unto it,” he read, “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself” (Matt. 22:38–39).
I flinched. Although I had taught this discussion many times, it was as if I were hearing the scripture for the first time. I would have helped that little boy if we hadn’t been late, I rationalized. But I couldn’t convince myself.
Following a beautiful discussion on sacrifice and service, we made our way to our next appointment. But before we got far, I realized I was again alone. Elder Loo was helping a drunken man who had wrecked his motorcycle.
As we peddled slowly through the crowded market, my companion stopped again. I watched as he knelt by a crying child who appeared to be lost. The child’s eyes were red and puffy, and his face was streaked with tears. We didn’t leave until Elder Loo had assurances from people who said they would locate the boy’s parents.
I followed in silence, my mind racing. Why hadn’t I noticed the crying child? Or the motorcyclist? Why did he see things I missed?
Then it dawned on me. He saw opportunities to serve because he looked for them. He didn’t trail behind because he was just enjoying the scenery; he was looking for people in need.
I wondered what I would see if I really looked.
The next morning I didn’t race ahead of my companion. We rode side by side, looking, listening, and ready to serve.
Since then, whenever I think no one needs my help, I slow down and take another look. It’s amazing what I see.

Criticism is a necessary part of ballet, Melanie explained. That’s how you become good. The more the better, but it can be devastating to your self-image. “I’m amazed at how people survive without the gospel,” she said, “and without a close family. The second I walk into class I give it 100 percent, but the minute I walk out the door I’m somewhere else. The greatest strength we can have comes from the Lord. It would be difficult to imagine doing anything without his help. One night I was depressed. I was homesick. I wanted to go home and give up. I was too upset to sleep, so I pulled out my patriarchal blessing and read. It made me feel so incredibly good to know my Father had said something to me. We can accomplish anything we want that’s right, if we put our families and the gospel first.”

At our next stake high council meeting, a brother told us he had two sons eligible to serve missions. One had a desire to serve the Lord, the other did not. This son, Sione, had been living in the States, had a girlfriend, and said he had not received an answer to his prayers as to whether he should serve a mission.
In the same spirit as Alma, and with tears in his eyes, this father asked if we would pray for Sione to receive an answer from the Lord.
Like everyone, I continued to pray, and to fast for this young man.
I awoke early one Saturday morning and lay pondering when I had a most amazing and humbling experience. A vision of Sione came to my mind. I was instructed to visit with him the next day, after my daily duties were completed. The vision unfolded and I was given specific questions to ask Sione. And I heard what his answers would be, and how I was to respond to him. The message was clear and specific.
That evening, I opened my fast and prayed everything in the vision would remain clear so I could complete the assignment I had been given.
I attended a ward conference the following day, conducted some interviews then headed to my car. As I drove from the chapel, the Spirit reminded me of my assignment. In a strange but spiritual way, I saw again the vision I had received the day before.
Arriving at the family’s home, I knocked on the door and was told their dad was overseas, but that Mum was home. When Mum came to the door, I asked if I could meet with her and Sione. He was busy cooking dinner. Mum invited me in and the three of us sat in the lounge and talked.
I asked Sione to offer a prayer and immediately the vision unfolded as clearly as it had the previous day.
I asked Sione what he thought about serving a mission? Word for word, he answered as I saw in the vision. He explained he wasn’t sure if he should serve a mission; that he had pondered and prayed but didn’t think he’d received an answer. I enquired if he had a patriarchal blessing. He said, “yes”. I asked, “What does your patriarchal blessing say?” He replied, “I will serve a mission”.
Exactly as I had been instructed, I inquired, “How does the Lord answer prayers?” Sione struggled, but then shared his thoughts. Strengthened by the Spirit and in an emotional and humble attitude, I said, “I have been instructed by the Lord, Jesus Christ, through revelation, to come and visit with you today. I testify to you that prayers are answered by feelings, impressions, reading the scriptures and many other ways. Today I am here on behalf of the Saviour, Jesus Christ, in answer to your prayer and to remove all confusion and doubt. Sione, the Saviour invites you to serve a mission. He has a work for you to do and it is a work that only Elder Hala can do as there is someone special waiting for you to invite into the waters of baptism”. This is where the vision ended.
I asked how he felt. He bowed his head and cried, “My prayer has been answered and I want to serve a mission”.
Brother Hala will soon complete his medical and dental checks then submit his mission application. Modern miracles really do happen when we put our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The next stop was in Trinidad and Tobago, where both sisters comforted families in their homes and also trained the leaders of that country.

Devrani Barrios, a Church member from Trinidad and Tobago, remarked: “It was good, I enjoyed it. Their sense of humor and their interactions with the kids was amazing. The prayer they left with my family is unforgettable.”

Taramatie Kotiah, another sister from Trinidad manifested: “I truly enjoyed the home visits. The sisters were very friendly with us all, as if we knew each other. They have such a welcoming spirit. They taught me what ministering truly is.”