Gospel Story Finder

The timing of the new MTC’s dedication proved to be providential because during the Church’s 182nd Semiannual General Conference, President Thomas S. Monson announced the lowering of age requirements for missionary service. Churchwide, men could now begin serving at age eighteen and women at age nineteen.
In 1974, President Spencer W. Kimball looked forward to the day when the Filipino Saints would rise up and bring the gospel to their own people. He said “We should use their own young men as missionaries,” Gradually, President Kimball’s dream came true as more and more young Filipinos would “embark in the service of God” in a field so “white already to harvest”. From 2012 to 2014, the number of full-time missionaries in the Philippines increased from 2,380 to 4,482. Proudly, 2,383 of those were Filipinos.

Six years later as I lay in bed, my thoughts wandered aimlessly back to that quiet June night. I could almost hear my father’s voice telling us Grandma was dead. Grandma! Like lightning the door of the mind opened, and my fear was released. “No!” I screamed silently, turning over in bed and closing my eyes. Tears welled up in my eyes as I tried to imagine what death was like. There were no pictures to imagine, only darkness and emptiness. And again something inside me told me that darkness wasn’t right.
I arose, went to my window, and gazed into the night, concentrating on the shadowy forms of trees and distant sounds of crickets and cattle. Soon the fear was behind its door again. But for how long?

The Icelandic Mission was organized in 1894, but proselyting was discontinued in 1914.
Iceland became part of the Denmark Copenhagen Mission in 1975.

Valentine customs in other countries are also interesting. In Sicily a girl would sometimes stand at her window for half an hour before sunrise. If no man passed during that time, she would not plan to be married during the year. It is said that German girls tagged dry onions with the names of young men, then planted them in a container and placed them in a corner near the fireplace, believing that they would marry the man whose onion sprouted first.

Thank you so much for the article “Your Charge” by President Ezra Taft Benson in the September New Era. It brought light to many questions I have had concerning truth, knowledge, and progression. It also reassured me to know that my ideals and goals are not old-fashioned or out-of-date. Each article of every New Era is really terrific and has such an important message.
Barbara RexBrigham City, Utah

I received a patriarchal blessing when I was only eight years old. Among other things it said, “Thou hast not come here upon earth by chance, but in fulfillment of the decrees of the Almighty to accomplish a great work.” Then it went on in detail about what I could do. All my life as a boy, I prayed that if I did not come here by chance that the Lord would help me to live so that I would not be deprived of the privilege of doing the work that he sent me to do. I cannot imagine anything that would be more disappointing than to return after this life and have the Lord say, “Well, LeGrand, this is what we sent you to do, but you just wouldn’t do it. You got off on a detour, and we had to raise up someone else to do your work for you.”

There are many who will hear this message for the first time today. Ponder it carefully. Contact a member or a missionary of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you have heard the message before and the Spirit bears witness of its truthfulness and touches your heart, come back to activity and fellowship in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you are a young man or young woman or retired couple and the Spirit bears witness to you that you should go on a mission to declare this message to the world, make your commitment today. My mother and father went on a mission after retirement and are now the example for two sons, a daughter, eleven grandsons, and four great-grandchildren.

Everyone was doing something special for Mother’s Day.
Daddy was making Mother a wooden sewing cabinet. Jenny’s big sister, Chris, was painting a picture of their house.
“Everyone has something special to give,” sighed Jenny. “Everyone but me.”
“Jenny,” Mother called. “Your friends are at the door. When you are dressed, you may go out and play.”
Jenny picked up her shoes and carried them downstairs. Except for tying her shoes, she could get dressed by herself.
Mother was at the sink, washing the dishes.
“Will you tie my shoes, please?” asked Jenny.
Mother dried her hands. “Oh, Jenny,” she said, making the laces into bows, “I’ll be so happy when you can do this all by yourself. That will be a very special day, won’t it?” Mother asked, giving Jenny a hug.
Jenny nodded her head and smiled. “Thank you,” she said and ran outside.
“Let’s race!” she called to her friends.
The four of them took off, running almost as fast as the wind. But a moment later Jenny tripped and fell. And off came her left shoe.
“Oh no!” Jenny cried.
Luckily Chris was in the yard. “I’ll tie it,” she said.
While Chris was tying her shoe, Jenny thought of Mother’s words: “I’ll be so happy when you can do this all by yourself.”
Jenny looked at Chris. “Now I know,” she laughed. “I know what I can give to Mother.”
“And what’s that?” asked Chris.
“If you’ll help me, I can learn to tie my shoes all by myself,” said Jenny.
“That’s a good idea,” Chris agreed. “We’ll practice every night after supper until you can do it by yourself. Daddy will be surprised too.”
That night after supper, Jenny ran into Chris’s room.
“Close the door,” Chris said. “We want to keep your surprise a secret.”
Jenny closed the door and sat down. She untied her shoes.
“First,” said Chris, “you cross one lace over the other and put the bottom lace around and down through the hole—like this.”
Jenny watched closely and then she tried it.
“Good,” Chris said. “Now comes the hard part. Make a loop with one end of the lace, wrap the other end around it, and pull its loop through.”
“That looks easy,” Jenny said. “I can do that.” But when she tried, her fingers and thumbs got all mixed up in the laces. When she pulled one of the laces through, there was no bow!
“I’ll never learn!” Jenny said, pushing her shoes away. “It’s too hard.”
Chris picked up her little sister’s shoe. “Yes, you will,” she said, “if you try again and again. It’s not easy to learn and you’ll have to have a lot of patience and practice, but you can do it.”
So Jenny tried again. And again. And again.
Soon it was time for her to go to bed, but still her fingers hadn’t learned to tie her shoes.
“Don’t worry,” said Chris, putting her arm around Jenny. “You have plenty of time.”
Even though Jenny practiced every night for the next few days, she still couldn’t tie her shoes. But now her fingers and thumbs weren’t quite so clumsy.
Two days before Mother’s Day, Jenny was practicing by herself. I have to learn soon, she thought. What other present can I give Mommy? “Over and through,” she repeated. “Loop, over, around, and pull.” She tried to do it like Chris did, but it still didn’t come out right. Over and over she tried. Each time she thought that she was doing it right, but each time something went wrong.
“Over and through,” she said, trying again. “Loop, over, around, and pull.”
Jenny stared at her laces, wide-eyed. “I did it!” she cried. “I tied my shoes!”
She danced and hopped and skipped all over the room. Her shoe didn’t come off. She had tied it just as tightly as Chris and Mother could.
“What’s going on up there?” Mother called from the kitchen.
Jenny laughed. “I’m skipping because I’m happy,” she answered. She wanted to tell her secret now, but she knew she had to save it.
Mother’s Day finally came. Chris helped Jenny polish her shoes. “This polish will make them look nice for Sunday,” she told Jenny.
On Mother’s Day, Chris and Daddy gave their presents to Mother first. Jenny saved her surprise for last. She sat down on the floor between Mother and Daddy and untied her shoes.
“What are you doing?” Mother asked.
Jenny didn’t answer, but only grinned as she started to tie her laces. “Over and through. Loop, over, around, and pull.”
“Jenny,” cried Mother, “you can tie your shoes! What a wonderful, wonderful present! Thank you.” And she gave Jenny a great big hug.

As a young boy living on a small farm in Fielding, Utah, I always wanted a horse. When I was old enough to take care of one, my dad bought me a big black horse, and I named him Smokey.
I loved Smokey and took care of him the best I could. One morning when I went out to feed him, he was not in his corral. I hunted around and found him in the haystack, which was fenced off from the corral. He had been making a mess—tromping on the hay and ruining it. All the gates were closed; Smokey had obviously jumped over the fence. His manger had hay in it, so there was no reason for him to go into the haystack.
A few days later Smokey was gone again. This time I found him out in the pasture. Soon he started jumping out of both the corral and the pasture. I had to ride my bike all over town looking for him. Sometimes Dad and I drove for miles before finding him and bringing him back.
Dad decided to buy some hobbles for Smokey. Hobbles are like handcuffs for horses to keep them from running away. “That will fix old Smokey,” Dad said.
It didn’t even slow him down. Jumping fences became a game to him, and he wasn’t much fun anymore. He was wild. I couldn’t catch him, and I couldn’t ride him very much. Finally Dad said, “We’ll teach old Smokey a lesson.” We tied a heavy log-chain to Smokey’s hobbles so that wherever he went he would have to drag an eight-foot (2.5-m) log-chain between his legs. We thought surely this would stop him.
But that night Smokey tried to jump the fence again. The chain caught and tripped him. He fell into the fence and got cut up in the barbed wire. We got him out and called the veterinarian, who came and patched him up.
My home teacher, whom I called Uncle Claude, was a real horseman. He had an idea for Smokey, so he traded a gray horse to me for Smokey. Uncle Claude raced chariots, and he thought that if he could team Smokey with a horse that was a good chariot racer, he could break Smokey’s bad habits and they could win some races. So Uncle Claude hooked Smokey up to the chariot, and they practiced a few times. Smokey seemed to be doing just fine—until the race. All of a sudden he veered off to the right and tried to jump over the fence that ran alongside the track. It almost killed Uncle Claude, and Smokey hurt himself so badly that he had to be put to sleep.
I’ve thought about my old horse many times since then. He had no good reason to jump over the fence that first time he got into the haystack. He was like some young people who decide that they want to be disobedient. Once we jump that first fence, it becomes easier to jump other fences—breaking the commandments and the principles of the gospel—and before long we can destroy our lives through disobedience.

Relative to the role of the Son as Redeemer to this earth, the prophet Enoch received an explanation of Adam’s fall and also was told that “the Son of God hath atoned for original guilt” (Moses 6:54). He was further informed that, under the conditions of that atonement, mankind would be “cleansed by blood, even the blood of mine Only Begotten; that ye might be sanctified from all sin, and enjoy the words of eternal life in this world, and eternal life in the world to come, even immortal glory” (Moses 6:59). If redemption is the work of the Lord in this earth, what then is understood concerning his participation as a redeemer in the other worlds referred to? The Prophet Joseph Smith expanded our understanding of Christ’s relationship to those habitations. While at the John Johnson home in Hiram, Ohio, during 1832, he and Sidney Rigdon beheld what has been referred to as a “vision of glories.” Concerning this revelation they bore witness:
“And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!
“For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father—
“That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God” (D&C 76:22–24; italics added).

It was a beautiful, sunshiny, October morning, and everybody had a Saturday chore to do. Everyone except Annie. She was too short to help Jennifer clean the tub, too young to help Mother rinse the breakfast dishes, too little to help Dallin bring in the garbage cans.
Annie wanted to help too. Sadly she kicked a crackly red leaf off the porch just as Daddy came through the gate.
“You’re just who I was looking for,” he said, picking up the lawn rake and taking Annie’s hand. “I’m trying to find the Leaf Queen, and you’re just the right size to help me.”
They walked through the gate into the backyard, a wonderland of red, gold, brown, and purple leaves. Daddy showed Annie how to use the rake to make small piles of leaves.
“What does the Leaf Queen look like?” Annie asked.
“Oh, you’ll know her when you see her,” Daddy said.
Annie raked and cleared, pulled and piled. She peeked and poked and searched and searched, but there was no Leaf Queen to be seen. Before long, the lawn was green again, except where the leaves were heaped together in one high pile.
“Maybe we accidentally raked the Leaf Queen into the pile,” said Daddy, gathering Annie up into his arms. “You’d better look.” And with that he tossed her gently into the middle of a big, soft mountain of leaves.
Annie squealed and tumbled, scattering leaves all around. Then she stood up and laughed, “There’s nobody in here but me!”
“Who said that?” Daddy turned and stared. There stood Annie, colorful autumn leaves sticking to her from her hair to her toes, like the branches of the maple tree. “Why, if it isn’t the Leaf Queen herself!”
“I’m the Leaf Queen!” She giggled amid a flutter of leaves.
“And,” said Daddy, lifting her out of the leaves with a crunchy hug, “you’re a pretty good helper too.”

One evening just before Christmas, James H. went to the Giving Machines with his family. He chose to donate a primary school pack because he wanted to help someone have the essential things they need for school. “I’m grateful for the blessing of gaining an education,” James said. “It’s something I wish every child in the world could receive, as it opens doors for opportunities to bless their lives and the lives of others.”

During World War II, President James E. Faust, then a young enlisted man in the United States Army, applied for officer candidate school. He appeared before a board of inquiry composed of what he described as “hard-bitten career soldier[s].” After a while their questions turned to matters of religion. The final questions were these:
“In times of war should not the moral code be relaxed? Does not the stress of battle justify men in doing things that they would not do when at home under normal situations?”
President Faust relates:
“I recognized that here was a chance perhaps to make some points and look broad-minded. I knew perfectly well that the men who were asking me this question did not live by the standards that I had been taught. The thought flashed through my mind that perhaps I could say that I had my own beliefs but did not wish to impose them on others. But there seemed to flash before my mind the faces of the many people to whom I had taught the law of chastity as a missionary. In the end I simply said, ‘I do not believe there is a double standard of morality.’
“I left the hearing resigned to the fact that [they] would not like the answers I had given … and would surely score me very low. A few days later when the scores were posted, to my astonishment I had passed. I was in the first group taken for officer’s candidate school! …
“This was one of the critical crossroads of my life.”

Years before the Church entered Africa, the Lord was preparing the way. This was particularly so in West Africa. Some West Africans traveled to other countries, learned of the gospel while there, and then brought information back with them. Others learned from West Africans who already believed in the gospel. In these ways, congregations with testimonies of the Book of Mormon gathered in both Nigeria and Ghana. These individuals were not taught by full-time missionaries, and several of the congregations were unknown to each other.

The six years President Eyring spent in Rexburg proved to be a blessing to his family and the college. Wise counsel from a humble home teacher helped make those years memorable. The home teacher, a farmer with great faith, encouraged President Eyring to get out of his office so he could meet, encourage, and give gratitude to college faculty, staff, and students.
Hal prayed about the matter, felt prompted to follow that counsel, and began spending more time with the school’s faithful students and dedicated faculty and staff. With another instructor, he even taught religion classes. As he worked hard to shape the college’s spiritual and academic foundations, he and Kathleen grew to love the campus community and the people of Rexburg.

To help supplement the family income, young Joseph and others of the family went to work as day laborers from time to time. In October 1825 Joseph went to work for Josiah Stowell of Bainbridge, New York, who directed his employees to dig for treasure supposedly buried in the abandoned Spanish silver mine. Joseph finally convinced Stowell to give up the fruitless search, but the young man’s participation soon prompted rumors that he possessed psychic powers to locate buried treasure. The incident is significant because there resulted the first of a long line of legal challenges Joseph Smith faced at the hands of those who tried to discredit him.

I will always remember the sight of the temple the day I arrived to receive my endowment. I was filled with deep respect and reverence. I was humbled by the thought that I would go inside and make sacred covenants with my Father in Heaven.
I had arrived dressed in my Sunday best, knowing that my outward appearance reflected my inward respect for the house of the Lord.
“Welcome to the temple,” I was greeted as I showed my recommend and walked inside. Everything about the temple was beautiful. It felt like a piece of heaven on earth, and the friendly temple workers seemed like angels.
I remained in awe at the Spirit I felt. While I didn’t immediately understand everything that was taking place, I did realize the importance of the covenants I was making. It was clear to me why my bishop had spoken of the temple the way he had. The endowment I was receiving would extend not only far beyond the two years of my mission but even into the eternities. More meaningful to me than any of the advice I had received from various people was a scripture I had read as part of my preparation, “And that all people who shall enter upon the threshold of the Lord’s house may feel thy power, and feel constrained to acknowledge that thou hast sanctified it, and that it is thy house, a place of thy holiness” (D&C 109:13). I knew that the temple was the Lord’s house, sanctified and holy. I went expecting to feel God’s love, and I did.

My mother picked me up in front of the high school, and we headed for home. She asked, “Well, how did tryouts go?” I had talked about trying out as a kicker for the football team.

“They don’t start until four o’clock,” I answered slowly. “I’ve decided not to try out. I wouldn’t make it. I’m not good enough.” As I continued to give my reasons, my mom stopped the car, quickly turned around, and drove back towards town.

“Why don’t we get something to eat and talk this over? The only way to know for sure if you could have done it is to try out,” Mom said.

Fortified with my favorite fast-food meal and Mom’s encouragement, we drove back to the school. I had played soccer since I was five and had been told I had a good leg and a “big foot.” I had learned to kick fairly well that summer at an Explorer Scout tournament. I was nervous as tryouts began, especially when I saw all my old soccer teammates who also had strong legs.

My time came to kick, and I did amazingly well. I found out later that my mom and sister had been watching and cheering me on from the other side of the field as I sent footballs soaring through the uprights. I ended up playing for three years of high school and felt good about my participation and improved talent.

I also learned that day the meaning of Doctrine and Covenants 38:30, [D&C 38:30] “… if ye are prepared ye shall not fear.” It gave me the courage to try in other areas of my life. When I served my mission, I knew that if I prepared myself by studying and doing what I should, I need have no fear.

The Knights moved their family many times to stay with the Prophet, each time sacrificing home, farm, and belongings that they had worked hard to obtain. They moved to Ohio and then to Missouri. Joseph Knight’s wife, Polly, died just a few days after their arrival in Jackson County, Missouri. It has been reported that Knight and his son Newel slept in a chicken coop there while their home was being built. The Knights later moved to Illinois where they helped build the city of Nauvoo. A few years later they were forced to move again as the Saints began the trek across the plains to the Salt Lake Valley.
Joseph Knight died during that trek at Mt. Pisgah, Iowa, on February 3, 1847, at the age of seventy-four.

Gabriela F., age 8, Brazil
I feel happy this day. This picture shows me on the day I finished reading the Book of Mormon. I learned many things, like that Nephi was obedient in all that God commanded him and that Alma the Younger went about persecuting the Church. Later on he repented, thanks to the visit of an angel and the prayers of his parents, and he preached the gospel.
I am thankful to my parents for encouraging me each day to read the Book of Mormon and to my Primary leaders for helping me to fulfill this goal through the Faith in God notebook.