Gospel Story Finder

It happened in the life of Sister Abie Turay, who lives in Sierra Leone. A civil war began in 1991. It ravaged the country for years. Sierra Leone was already one of the poorest countries in the world. “During the war, it was unclear who [controlled] the country—banks … closed, government offices were shuttered, police forces [were ineffective against rebel forces], … and there was chaos, killing and sorrow. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives and more than two million people were forced from their homes to avoid the slaughter.”6
Even in such times, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew.
One of the first branches was organized in the city where Sister Turay lived. Her husband was the first branch president. He served as a district president during the civil war.
“When guests visit Sister Turay’s home [now], she loves to show them two [treasures] from the war: a blue-and-white striped shirt [she got] from a bale of used clothing [given by members of the Church] and a blanket, now worn and riddled with holes.”7
She says, “This shirt is the first … clothing I [received]. … I used to wear it to go to work—it was so good. [It made me feel so beautiful.] I didn’t have other clothes.
“During the war, this blanket kept us warm, me and my children. When the rebels [would] come to attack us, this is the only thing I [could] lay [my] hands on [as we fled to the bush to hide]. So we [would] take the blanket with us. It would keep us warm and keep the mosquitos away from us.”8
“Sister Turay speaks of her gratitude for a mission president who would make his way into the war-torn country with [money] in his pocket.” Those funds, from the fast-offering donations of people like you, allowed the Saints to buy food that most Sierra Leoneans could not afford.9
Sister Turay, speaking of those who were generous enough to donate for them to survive, says, “When I think [of] the people who did this … I feel that [they were] sent by God, because ordinary human beings made this kind gesture for [us].”10
A visitor from the United States sat with Abie not along ago. During his time with her, he found his eyes “drawn to a set of scriptures that were on the table.” He could tell that they were a treasure, “well-marked with notes in the columns. The pages were [worn;] some were torn. The cover was detached from the binding.”
He held the scriptures in his “hand and gently turned the pages. As [he did, he found a] yellow copy of a tithing donation slip. [He] could see that, in a country where [a dollar was worth its] weight in gold, Abie Turay had paid one dollar as her tithing, one dollar to the missionary fund, and one dollar as a fast offering for those who, in her words, were ‘truly poor.’”
The visitor closed Sister Turay’s scriptures and thought, as he stood with this faithful African mother, that he was on sacred ground.11

I used to have nightmares every night after hearing a scary story at Scout camp. I was very scared—it was hard to go to sleep. I prayed every night for Heavenly Father to help me, but I still had nightmares. Then one night I told my dad. I was shaking a little when I told him because it scared me to talk about it. We said a prayer together. Dad suggested I sing a Church hymn to myself, because I share a room with my brother. My favorite hymn is “There Is a Green Hill Far Away” (Hymns, no. 194). Every night after that I wasn’t scared, and I stopped having nightmares. In my personal prayers every night I ask Heavenly Father to continue helping me with my fears, and I still sing my favorite hymn to myself every night.

There is great joy in doing our part as a missionary and great joy in doing our part in the redemption of the dead, turning the hearts of the fathers to the children and the children to the fathers. We should not think of these twin charges to every member of the Church as an onerous burden. They are two of the greatest blessings in earth life, to have a part to play in the work of the Father in bringing to pass the immortality and eternal life of man. I travel quite a bit, and I have made it a habit to always take a Book of Mormon with me to read on the airplane and to give to the person I happen to sit by. Last month, on the way back from Washington, D.C., I sat by a young woman from Detroit. She asked if I were a Mormon, and she told me about a wonderful man who works with her who is LDS. She said that she wanted to know more about the Church but that because they both work for the government he was not able to share literature about the Church with her. I asked her if she would like a Book of Mormon, and she said that she would and that she would read it. Because she seemed interested, I showed her many of my favorite passages in the book.

Let me share with you a story about a discouraged young college man. This young man couldn’t get enthusiastic about anything. He didn’t seem to have any sense of responsibility. He lacked motivation. I suppose there was no mission call, no engagement, nothing exciting on the horizon.
He had a mature friend who came to him and said, “I can help you. Let me accept full responsibility for you, for your worries.” He then told him, “I’m going to pay your tuition and I’m going to buy your clothes, and then I’ll give you an automobile with a credit card for gas.”
Does that sound like it would take a few of your worries away?
“And when you marry, I’ll look for a wife for you.” (I’ve heard of some cultures where they do that.) “And after you’re married, I’ll even buy a house for you, and I’ll furnish it. Now, what do you think of that? Do you like my offer?”
I can see some very thoughtful faces right now. And this young man became thoughtful. He looked sober for a few minutes and then replied, “Well, if you did that, what would there be for me to live for?”
“Exactly. That is what I wanted you to see,” said the man. “There is no joy without struggle and the exercise of one’s own abilities.”

It helps as we strive to move from one mindset to another to have someone at our side to guide us for a time.

MISSION MEDICALAs I mentioned earlier, it also helps when we get a loving nudge along the way. My wife, Julie, is blessed with a growth mindset. However, this doesn’t mean that learning for her, or anyone else, will always be pleasant or easy. When we were called as a mission president couple, we were told that Julie could be the first point of contact for our missionaries with medical issues OR we could find a member with a medical background to fill that role. Julie doesn't do well at the sight of blood. She has a hard time simply walking down the hallway of a hospital without feeling faint. The thought of taking the role of mission nurse had zero appeal for her. But I thought it would be a great way for her to serve the missionaries and get to know them better. I hesitatingly suggested she try it for three months, and if it didn’t work, we could find a member. She was not happy with my suggestion, but she agreed to give it a try. At the three-month mark, she decided to keep her mission nurse hat on. With the help of an area medical adviser, my wife provided a wonderful service to the 650+ missionaries who served with us in the Texas Dallas Mission. She learned so much and loved so much as she counseled many sick and sore missionaries for three years. She applied this familiar verse of scripture: “... I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them” (Ether 12:27).

As a side note, after our missionary service, I received a call from our 30-year-old daughter, Laura. She was experiencing a strong pain in her abdomen. I handed the phone to my wife. She asked Laura a few questions and had her do a pain test she learned in the mission field. She then diagnosed her over the phone as suffering from appendicitis and advised her to go immediately to the emergency room. Our daughter had her appendix removed later that night. You never know what blessing might come from having a growth mindset. My wife could have easily said to me, “I can’t do that. I have enough already.” But she didn’t.

The fickle wind can carry balloonists into some truly quixotic adventures. They flew over Tony’s house one day, and just then the wind died, so they hung there for a while. The milkman came by on his route and looked up and said, “Those guys must be insane!” “That’s my husband,” Sister Seymour replied. Tony had his kids come out, and he talked to them from the balloon, reminding them to brush their teeth. “They’re pretty obedient when you talk to them from the sky,” he says. His little daughter Amy thought quietly about it all day and finally asked, “Mommy, did Daddy die and go to heaven?”

“Dad was a hard worker in his business and in the Church. He tried to make his time at home with the children quality time, and he was a very good teacher. His method of teaching was to thoroughly explain something to us and then to have us do it, sink or swim. He used to say that he didn’t want to put an old head on young shoulders but that he wanted us to learn as quickly as we could.
“I remember once when Dad had my brother and me help him build a corral. After we had measured where the postholes would be, Dad suggested that we have a posthole-digging contest the next morning and that he would challenge us both. He would start digging in one direction, and we would start digging in the opposite direction. Whoever dug the most postholes would win.
“Unbeknownst to us, Dad slipped out that night, and at each place where he was going to dig the next day, he soaked the ground with water. The next morning Dad easily shoveled the dirt and rocks out of his holes while we struggled with digging bar, pick, and shovels. The lesson we learned was that there is often a better way to accomplish a task if you think about it carefully.

My family and I recently had a simple but impressive experience with one of God’s creations. I gave my wife, Barbara, a dozen roses for a valentine. They were a delicate shade of peach in color and had a rich scent. Barbara put them in a vase and placed them on the table in our family room. As the days passed, the family watched the blossoms unfold from buds to full flower.
As I watched this miracle, I became curious about roses. I was amazed to learn from a botanist friend that there are thousands of different varieties of roses. Inside each rose is a giant storehouse of genetic coding that develops a seed or a slip into roots, stems, thorns, leaves, colors, and blooms.
Each rose is a compact chemical-processing factory. Using sunlight, the green leaves take carbon dioxide from the air and replace it with oxygen, which we breathe. When other chemicals within the plant react with sunlight, it produces starch that becomes food. As you know, this process is called photosynthesis, and without it the earth’s atmosphere would soon be devoid of oxygen, and most living things would disappear from the earth. My friend told me that the chemical energy and the electrical energy our brains were using at that very moment were once sunlight that was absorbed by the chlorophyll in green vegetation we previously had eaten.
This experience led me to consider the myriad forms of plant and animal life that thrive in astounding balance upon the earth. My esteem for our little roses took on an element of wonder and reverence. I pondered the power of the creative genius who lovingly provided such marvels for his children. I thought then how important it is for every human soul to see and appreciate the glory and grandeur of God in everything about us. Into my mind came the words and message of a beautiful hymn:
When thru the woods and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees,
When I look down from lofty mountain grandeur
And hear the brook and feel the gentle breeze,
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to thee,
How great thou art! How great thou art!
(“How Great Thou Art,” Hymns, 1985, no. 86)
I felt a deep reverence for both the creation and the Creator. Reverence may be defined as a profound respect mingled with love and awe. Other words that add to our understanding of reverence include gratitude, honor, veneration, and admiration. The root word revere also implies an element of fear. Thus, reverence might be understood to mean an attitude of profound respect and love with a desire to honor and show gratitude, with a fear of breaking faith or offending.

My name is Rylan Smith, and I am six years old. I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I like all sports, but I like to ride my bike best. My story started in the spring, when I realized that my old bike was too small for me. It seemed like all the other children my age on our street were getting new, bigger bikes, and I really wanted a bigger bike too.
One day my mom and I were visiting our neighbor, Kathy. We were talking about bikes, and Kathy told us that they had a bike big enough for me that her son had outgrown. She said that I could try it out, and if I liked it, we could buy it. I took it for a test drive and really liked it. All it needed was a new seat and a new back tire. We decided to get it, and I helped pay for it with my own money.
One weekend the young men in our ward were doing a service project to help the Primary children fix up their bikes for summer. We were going to be gone that Saturday, but Royden, one of the young men, said he would come over to my house and fix my bike for me. He knew a lot about bikes. He changed the seat and tires. He even put a bell and a water bottle holder on my bike. Finally my nearly new bike was ready!
I rode over to my friend’s house to show it to him. Another boy was there, and I thought they would both be happy for me. To my surprise, they said unkind things to me and made fun of my bike. They really hurt my feelings. My friend even put a stick through the spokes of my tire so I couldn’t ride away. This made me angry. I wanted to call them names, to be mean to them, and to never play with them again. I felt very sad inside as I took the stick out of the spokes and rode home.
When I got home, I told my mom what had happened. She said that I had made a good choice in not being unkind to the boys. She said that when you are in a difficult situation, it is always best to think about what Jesus Christ would want you to do, and do that. She told me that sometimes when people are unkind to you, the best thing to do is just ride away, like I had.
But then I had another choice to make. Should I not be friends anymore because my feelings had been hurt, or should I try to be more like Jesus Christ by being kind, forgiving, and friendly to my friend? I chose to be kind and keep being a good friend.
The next day I rode my bike over to my friend’s house and asked him if he wanted to play and ride bikes. He said yes. We had fun together, and we are friends again. Making the right choice made me feel good inside.

But first, with regard to the basic principle, let me tell you of an experience in which I personally learned from a mistake.
The general lesson I learned from this mistake concerns the importance of preparation. More particularly, I learned that when you argue a case in the United States Supreme Court you can never prepare too much.
One of the customs in the Supreme Court is that lawyers arguing cases for the government always appear in formal attire called a morning suit, consisting of striped pants, a vest, and swallowtail coat. I bought such a suit from a fellow who left the solicitor general’s office at about the time I joined it. He was nearly my size but a little bigger around the middle. Following my first argument Janet told me she thought my argument was all right, but that my hair kept falling down in my eyes and my pants were baggy. She told me to bring the pants home so she could fix them.
My next argument a month later involved an important constitutional issue, citizen and taxpayer standing to bring constitutional challenges in federal courts. The morning of the argument, as I was changing into my government lawyer uniform, I tried to anticipate the questions that I might be asked. I remembered that Justice Harlan in a dissenting opinion in a case called Flast v. Cohen had suggested what he characterized as a possible Hohfeldian analysis that might be applicable to this citizen standing issue. I didn’t remember precisely what he had said, and my first inclination was to reread that opinion before I went to the Court. But then I said to myself, “No, it’s just an abstract theory in a dissenting opinion, no subsequent opinion has even acknowledged it, and the briefs don’t discuss it. No one is going to ask me about it, and, besides, I need the extra time to apply some safety pins to my pants and comb my hair just right and then spray it.” I had forgotten to take the pants home to Janet for alterations.
It was not until after my argument time had expired, and I was in the process of sitting down, that Justice Stevens said, “By the way, Mr. Solicitor General, what is your view of Justice Harlan’s theory in Flast v. Cohen that there may be a Hohfeldian analysis applicable to the citizen standing issue?”
Well, if you read the transcript of my answer to that question, it will remind you of a high foul ball hit back behind home plate and out of play. The batter was not put out, but no runners advanced. Then, when I returned to my office, the first thing I did, of course, was to read Justice Harlan’s opinion, something I should have done two hours earlier. You can imagine my dismay when I discovered that Justice Stevens’ question was a home run ball, which I should have hit out of the park. But all was not lost. Three separate people came up to me after that argument and told me how nice my hair looked and how well my pants fit.

Now, there are obviously some infantile inclinations we don’t encourage. Twenty-five years ago, my then-three-year-old grandson bit his five-year-old sister on the arm. My son-in-law, caring for the children that night, frantically taught his daughter all the lessons on forgiveness he could think of, concluding that her little brother probably didn’t even know what a bite on the arm felt like. That ill-conceived fatherly comment worked for about a minute, maybe a minute and a half, until there was a window-rattling cry from the children’s bedroom, where my granddaughter calmly called out, “He does now.”

Ten years had passed since I had been baptized into the Church, but I had been less active for about nine of them. During that time I had married and now had a seven-year-old daughter. My mother and siblings were living with us when a friend reintroduced them to the Church, and the missionaries started coming to our home. I had a testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, but the knowledge I had acquired of the Church had melted away.
My husband became friends with the elders and, almost without knowing it, started taking the discussions. Each discussion took about a week; it was hard for him to accept the divinity of Jesus Christ. Nine months after being taught the first discussion, my husband felt he was not receiving answers to his prayers.
One morning when the missionaries came to pray with me for my husband, I felt impressed that I needed to help him recognize the influence of the Holy Ghost. The missionaries had given us a family home evening manual, and the next Monday I sat down with my husband and daughter and began my first family home evening by giving a lesson on the Holy Ghost. My husband listened in silence as he pondered the subject. The influence of the Spirit was very strong that night, and I could feel the Holy Ghost confirming the truthfulness of the Church, something I had not felt for a long time. The next day my husband bore his testimony to me and told me that the Spirit had borne witness to him and he had recognized it. That night we lit in our hearts a fire that was eternal and inextinguishable.
One week later my husband was baptized, and one year later we were sealed in the São Paulo Brazil Temple. We feel that sacrament meeting is the most important meeting we go to, and next in line is family home evening.
Elizabeth Duce de Mernies, Lezica Ward, Montevideo Uruguay North Stake

Lee W. Johnson, who was at the time Cubmaster of Pack 218, rescued his brother from underneath a fallen haystack. “My brother was covered by a haystack four feet deep and about 20 feet square. Where do you dig? In my mind a voice said, ‘Over here.’ I dug to within six inches of my unconscious brother, and the voice said, ‘Throw the pitch fork away.’ And there he was. You have to give somebody besides myself credit for something like that.” Brother Johnson is in the Benson Ward, Benson Utah Stake.
Brent advised hikers to always travel with a partner and not to take shortcuts. “Stay on the trail or you’ll get in trouble,” he said. Daniel warned swimmers to know the water they’re swimming in and not to swim in conditions beyond their capability. Kristin advised everyone to learn how to swim and to become familiar with lifesaving techniques. Brother Crockett advised those who find themselves in an emergency to do something, rather than just watch, which complemented Brother Johnson’s advice to “be quick and alert, but think things out before you act. Keep calm and don’t panic. Move as quickly as possible and listen for guidance from the Lord.” Mike Poppleton said Scouts should pay attention during classes on lifesaving techniques so that when an emergency does arise, they’ll be able to think of what to do. And the entire group agreed that proper training is vital and that people should be careful about what they do if they have had no training.
But perhaps it was Brother Johnson who summed up the most common sentiment: “It was a spiritual experience,” he said, “but I wouldn’t want another one of this kind.”

Our stake includes a branch at a local assisted-living center because many of those who live in the center are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My husband, Cal, and I had been serving there for a few weeks when, one Sunday, I made an observation that strengthened my faith in Christ.
We were called to be a ministering couple, which means we do whatever is needed to share the love of the Lord with the residents. We set up and take down tables and chairs for sacrament meeting. And push wheelchairs. And weep and laugh. And encourage and listen. And minister. Minister. Minister. And we love it.
One of my new friends is 93-year-old Fay (names have been changed). She saves me a seat next to her in sacrament meeting. She uses a walker. She’s got a bit of dementia. But she has a hearty laugh and a tender spirit. She always comes to church dressed in her Sunday best.
Another new friend, John, is a World War II veteran. He is on oxygen. He’s in a wheelchair. But he blesses the sacrament every Sunday, and his voice is firm and strong. He always comes to church in a suit and white shirt, wearing a tie.
As I looked around the room today and saw Fay and John and six rows of other members of our branch, I observed their faith. Not one of them easily walks to the meeting. But they come.
It is not an easy, quick get-ready-for-church for any of them. But they come.
In dresses and skirts. In white shirts and ties. The priesthood holders bless the sacrament, unable to kneel but humble and exact in offering the sacrament prayers.
They sing. They pray. They bear testimony.
Life is ebbing away for them. And yet they have the gospel in their bones. They want to endure to the end in faith. It’s not easy for any of them to get up, get dressed, and come to church. But they do it. In their way, they are ministering too.
Serving in the assisted-living branch has been such a tender experience for me as I remember the Sundays I spent with my dad at his care center at the end of his life. Today, after Cal and I got home from our ministering, two scriptures came to my mind:
“He will take upon him their infirmities, that his bowels may be filled with mercy” (Alma 7:12).
“Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress?” (Romans 8:35).
My Sunday observation leads to my testimony that Jesus Christ knows everything. Everything. And I know that nothing—not age or location or difficulty—can separate us from His care, His love, His concern, and His Atonement.
For the closing hymn today, we sang “How Firm a Foundation.” We sang all the verses because our branch loves to sing the hymns. I was especially touched by this verse:
E’en down to old age, all my people shall prove
My sov’reign, eternal, unchangeable love;
And then, when gray hair shall their temples adorn,
Like lambs shall they still … in my bosom be borne.1
The author lives in Utah.

But wait, there’s more to the story.
Now let’s say you’re on the Skyline team, the team that always wins. You’re a free safety, and in the final play, you’re the guy who’s supposed to be covering Jake, to keep him from catching the winning pass. For some reason, you slow down, and you don’t cover him as well as you might. You see the ball coming for him. If he catches the pass, his team wins the state championship, and your team loses. If he drops the pass, it doesn’t matter how well you covered him, because your team will have won again.
He drops the pass.
What’s your first reaction? Do you breathe a sigh of relief, jump for joy, shout “Hooray,” and join your teammates in an exuberant dance of triumph, slapping each other on the back and carrying people off the field on your shoulders while singing, “We’re number one”?
Not if you’re Ryan Smith. Ryan had a different reaction. Naturally, he realized his team had just won the state championship. But then, “I turned around and saw him on the ground.”
After Jake dropped the pass, he dropped to the ground, tore off his helmet, and covered his head with his arms and hands to block out the deafening roar coming from the Skyline fans and players. Ryan Smith, whose team had just won, put off celebrating with his teammates for a few seconds. He leaned over Jake, put his hand on his back, and said, “You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. You’re the reason your team’s here. You had a great game.”
Would you have done that?
Ryan is from Sandy, Utah, and he says what he did “was just a natural reaction.” He credits his coaches for helping make him that way. “They don’t just teach us how to play the game of football,” he says. “They teach us how to be good men, and how to be good in life.” Then, sounding a lot like Jake in his humility, Ryan adds, “Anybody on our team probably would have done the same thing I did if they had been in the same situation.”
His parents were behind Ryan too. “They said they were more proud of me for what I did than for the state championship.”
In the perfect world, a friendship would have been formed between these two. Unfortunately, they had never met until this picture was taken. For that matter, Jake didn’t even hear what Ryan was saying because of the cheering. “I knew someone was there, but I didn’t see him,” Jake says.
But the angels noticed it, and so did many of the fans, particularly after footage of the game was shown on the local news. Like Jake, Ryan received several letters. One woman told Ryan in her letter that he had been “an inspiration for so many. You were the true hero.”
Ryan, of course, is rather embarrassed by all the attention he got just for doing what came naturally. He says, “It wasn’t until the next few days that I realized it was such a big deal to people.”
Is it important? Yes, because each action defines who we are and the supreme example we choose to follow. Yes, it’s important.
Both players remain humble despite all the attention. Both plan to serve missions. Both have learned that it’s more important to show true character than it is to win.
And you thought football was just a game.

Teresa was blessed to have a relationship with a fine returned missionary who promised marriage. These two loved each other in all the right ways. They planned to go to the temple. They qualified for this and they were anxious, but there was a snag in their plans. Teresa’s father hadn’t been active in the Church, so he didn’t have a temple recommend. She loved her father, the way girls do, and wanted him there when she was married. Through her love and encouragement, her tireless, tender conversations and prayers with him, her father finally came around.
I happened to be seated next to him at Teresa’s wedding in the temple. When the ceremony was over, Teresa turned at once to put her arms around her father, and with tears streaming, she whispered in his ear, “Oh, daddy, my daddy, my beloved first sweetheart. Thank you! Thank you!”
And her father, emotionally touched, replied, “Oh thank you, little girl. Thank you!”
Teresa was a voice of love!

After Viacheslav Efimov’s father died from injuries suffered in World War II, his mother worked hard to provide for her son’s physical and spiritual needs, instilling in him a love of God. To lessen his mother’s burdens, Viacheslav began working full time in a Leningrad factory when he was 15. To further his education, he attended evening school. Though busy, Viacheslav made time to pursue his spiritual yearnings.
“I read the journal Science and Religion, in which there were passages from the Bible,” he writes. “I sincerely wanted to acquire a knowledge of God. And there in the journal where they attacked religion, I found out about the Bible’s truth.”
After marrying his wife, Galina, in 1971, Viacheslav avoided discussing his spiritual feelings with his in-laws. He recalls, “No one in my wife’s family ever talked about God.”
When Viacheslav and Galina’s daughter, Tamara, turned five, she and Galina were baptized in the predominant church in Russia. “We began to attend services, … but we always had the feeling that God did not hear us, that we were hardly noticed,” Viacheslav writes. “We would go home disappointed, where we would sit down at the table and drink a glass of vodka and start to feel warmer.”
In the spring of 1990, Tamara met the full-time missionaries at a friend’s house. At first Viacheslav ignored the missionaries, who taught his daughter, “because I wondered what these young men could tell me about God. … But what I heard at the following discussions gave me the opportunity to receive answers to my own questions and, most important, to understand that God loves each of us. We are his children, and he has given us a Savior, his Son, Jesus Christ.
Life soon changed for the Efimovs. “Although we had lived in the same house, we had been involved in our own activities and spent little time together,” Viacheslav writes. “The cares of everyday life drew us apart. Then for the first time in 10 to 12 years we began to spend more time together. We began to read the Bible and the Book of Mormon. For three months we waited for an answer to our prayers and then made our decision to be baptized. On 9 June 1990, we were baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a family.”
The Efimovs began sharing their gospel joy on a full-time basis in July 1995, when Brother Efimov was called as president of the Russia Yekaterinburg Mission.

Trent and Carley each tried to be like Jesus Christ at a school carnival.
Carley played a game at the carnival in which if you threw a ball into a certain cup, you won a fish. She won “seven or a lot of fishes.” Another boy, about six years old, won only one fish, and he dropped it. Carley gave him one of hers “because it was the right thing to do.” The boy was very happy, which made Carley feel very good.

Let me share a story with you suggesting how soon and how unexpectedly those tomorrows can come and in some cases how little time you may have to make hasty, belated preparation.
On the afternoon of Wednesday, September 30, 1998, just two years ago last week, a Little League football team in Inkom, Idaho, was out on the field for its midweek practice. They had completed their warm-ups and were starting to run a few plays from scrimmage. Dark clouds were gathering, as they sometimes do in the fall, and it began to rain lightly, but that was of no concern to a group of boys who loved playing football.
Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, an absolutely deafening crack of thunder split the air, inseparable from the flash of lightning that illuminated, literally electrified, the entire scene.
At that very moment a young friend of mine, A. J. Edwards, then a deacon in the Portneuf Ward of the McCammon Idaho Stake, was ready for the ball on a handoff that was sure to be a touchdown in this little intersquad bit of horseplay. But the lightning that had illuminated earth and sky struck A. J. Edwards from the crown of his football helmet to the soles of his shoes.
The impact of the strike stunned all the players, knocking a few to the ground, leaving one player temporarily without his sight and virtually all the rest of the players dazed and shaken. Instinctively they started running for the concrete pavilion adjacent to the park. Some of the boys began to cry. Many of them fell to their knees and began to pray. Through it all, A. J. Edwards lay motionless on the field.
Brother David Johnson of the Rapid Creek Ward, McCammon Idaho Stake, rushed to the player’s side. He shouted to coach and fellow ward member Rex Shaffer, “I can’t get a pulse. He’s in cardiac arrest.” These two men, rather miraculously both trained emergency medical technicians, started a life-against-death effort in CPR.
Cradling A. J.’s head as the men worked was the young defensive coach of the team, 18-year-old Bryce Reynolds, a member of the Mountain View Ward, McCammon Idaho Stake. As he watched Brother Johnson and Brother Shaffer urgently applying CPR, he had an impression. I am confident it was a revelation from heaven in every sense of the word. He remembered vividly a priesthood blessing that the bishop had once given his grandfather following an equally tragic and equally life-threatening accident years earlier. Now, as he held this young deacon in his arms, he realized that for the first time in his life he needed to use his newly conferred Melchizedek Priesthood in a similar way. In anticipation of his 19th birthday and forthcoming call to serve a mission, young Bryce Reynolds had been ordained an elder just 39 days earlier.
Whether he audibly spoke the words or only uttered them under his breath, Elder Reynolds said: “A. J. Edwards, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the power and authority of the Melchizedek Priesthood which I hold, I bless you that you will be OK. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.” As Bryce Reynolds closed that brief but fervent blessing offered in the language of an 18-year-old, A. J. Edwards drew his first renewed breath.
The ongoing prayers, miracles, and additional priesthood blessings of that entire experience—including a high-speed ambulance drive to Pocatello and a near-hopeless LifeFlight to the burn center at the University of Utah—all of that the Edwards family can share with us at a later time. It is sufficient to say that a very healthy and very robust A. J. Edwards is in the audience tonight with his father as my special guests. I also recently talked on the telephone with Elder Bryce Reynolds, who has been serving faithfully in the Texas Dallas Mission for the past 17 months. I love these two wonderful young men.

Besides coming home on time, here’s a better way Susan could have dealt with this situation:
Dad: Where have you been, Susan?
Susan: Sorry I’m late, Dad. I lost track of time, and traffic was bad.
Dad: Your mom and I were worried.
Susan: Thanks for worrying about me, but I’m fine. I’ll try not to be late next time, and I’ll call if I am so you won’t be worried.
Dad: Thanks, but I don’t know if you should go to any more parties for a while.
Susan: Can we talk about this, Dad? I am getting older, and most of my friends have later curfews than I do. Can we discuss moving my curfew to a later time?
Susan and her dad stay up for a while working things out.
Notice the first thing Susan did was apologize. A smart move. Proverbs 15:1 says, “A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.” If her dad had been upset at her, Susan’s soft answers would probably make him less upset.
She also listened to what her dad was really saying—with his words and his actions. If he really didn’t care about her, he probably wouldn’t have waited up. She realized her dad wanted her to come home on time because he loves her and not because he wants to ruin her life.