Gospel Story Finder

Frequently the profound influence one life has on the lives of others is never spoken and, occasionally, little known. Such was the experience of a teacher of girls, even twelve-year-olds in the Beehive class of Mutual. She had no children of her own, though she and her husband dearly longed for children. Her love was expressed through the devotion to her special girls as she taught them eternal truths and lessons of life. Then came illness, followed by death. She was but twenty-seven.
Each year, on Memorial Day, her girls made a pilgrimage of prayer to the graveside of their teacher. First there were seven, then four, then two, and eventually just one, who continued the annual visit, always placing on the grave a bouquet of irises—a symbol of heartfelt gratitude. This year marked her twenty-fifth visit to the resting place of her teacher. Today she herself is a teacher of girls. Little wonder she is so successful. She mirrors the reflection of the teacher from whom came her inspiration. The life that teacher lived, the lessons that teacher taught, are not buried beneath the headstone which marks her grave, but live on in the personalities she helped to shape and the lives she so selflessly enriched. One is reminded of another master teacher, even the Lord. Once, with His finger, He wrote in the sand a message. (See John 8:6.) The winds of time erased forever the words He wrote, but not the life He lived.

The Otara Stake organised around its stake centre in heart of South Auckland, home for many Polynesians. SouthSeas Healthcare provided the vaccination services in cooperation with the NRHCC. The chapel is located on a very busy road, so a group of volunteers went out to the sidewalk and waved colorful Polynesian flags at the passing vehicles. Many stopped in to queue up for vaccination.
Aupito William Sio, the minister for Pacific peoples, minister for courts and a member of the New Zealand Parliament, joined the event. He offered his congratulations on a great turnout and on the level of collaboration between government, community, and religious organizations.
“I appeal to all in our community to come together around our traditional values to protect our families and loved ones so that we can endure into the future,” he said. “In the villages of Auckland, we have the power of the chiefs who can use their voices to persuade others to do the right thing. While this is a remarkable work, this effort must go on.”

When Elder Abrea was president of the Argentina Rosario Mission, his daughters noted that he regularly interviewed all the missionaries under his direction. They asked him for the same one-on-one opportunity. Through these interviews, he has often provided exactly the counsel his daughters needed to handle problems. His technique is not to tell them just what to do; instead, they talk about the problems and arrive at a solution together. “Things that seem really difficult for me seem easy for him,” Claudia comments.

My parents joined the Church when I was young. We were in a small branch in Australia. My mother played the piano at church. But she could play only a few of the hymns. I was learning the piano too. When I was seven, the branch president asked me to play at church.
When I played the piano, I made mistakes. And when I made a mistake, I used to cry. I was very shy and nervous. But I kept practicing. I wanted to play the hymns well. Now I love to play the piano! I can play all the hymns. On my mission in New Zealand, I served in another small branch. They didn’t have anyone to play the piano. So I played the organ and the piano for a year. Working through my fear was a blessing for me. It allowed me to bless others.

It all started with the surprise gift Dad brought home to his three daughters. Peering inside a chirping cardboard box, we girls squealed with delight. Baby ducklings! We couldn’t wait to reach in and grab one. We jostled Dad so much, he almost dropped the box.
“Take it easy, girls!” he chuckled. “There’s one for each of you!”
I was surprised at how tiny that little duckling felt in my hand. In my gentle clasp, its warm body felt like the size of a quarter, and it weighed about as much too.
“Wow, it’s so light!” I exclaimed. “No wonder baby ducks can float!”
Dad laughed again as he walked off to join Mom in the kitchen. Dad was big on surprises, especially the ones that made his family smile. That’s when I remembered the wading pool. It would be the perfect home for our new ducks.
“Nora, get that old plastic pool out of the garage,” I ordered my sister.
With our backyard hose pumping clear, cool water into the pool, we began to examine our ducks and set about to name them. Mine had a little speck of brown on his rounded bill and ridiculously giant webbed feet.
Suddenly I remembered my friends. They would laugh at how enthusiastic I was over these new pets. Then I realized my friends wouldn’t be by for the next few days. Their parents had given them permission to go camping in the nearby mountains. Bike riding on an old dirt trail, choosing a campsite, pitching a tent. They’d have a ton of fun and be home the next day, laughing and talking about their campout. My mom hadn’t given me permission. She said I was too young!
With the wading pool full, we girls gathered around, greatly anticipating this moment. We set our flapping, quacking birds on the water and ZOOM, right to the bottom. All three sank!
We plunged our hands into the pool and rescued the poor choking birds. What had gone wrong? We weren’t asking them to do something difficult, like swim. All they had to do was float. Isn’t that easy for a duck?
“What happened?” my sister wondered.
“Maybe we surprised them!”
We all agreed it was like babies when they learn how to walk. They just have to fall sometimes. We agreed to give it another try.
“One, two, three, go!”
Plunk! Plunk! Plunk! straight down like balls of lead.
Fortunately for the ducklings, none of us had the heart to follow through on our theory that they just needed practice. When Nora suggested we use the blow dryer on their feathers, we all scrambled into the house. Gently, my two sisters aired out the poor birds with my pink blow dryer while I looked up the phone number from the name on the cardboard box.
“Hello, sir? We’re the ones that just bought—well, our dad just bought—three little ducklings. Yes, sir. Well, there is a problem with our ducks. You see, we prefer our ducks to float.”
What this man had to say was an eye-opener for me. I didn’t realize I had learned quite so much until I heard myself explain it to Nora and Suzy: “You see, the downy feathers do not repel water. They soak it right up. We have to wait another week or two for their bodies to make the waxy oil that will waterproof their feathers.”
“But that’s not true,” Nora argued. “I’ve seen baby ducks follow their mother on the river. They were just a few days old.”
“The man explained that to me. When ducks are born, the mother wraps her wings around the babies to keep them warm. The oil from the mother’s wings rubs off onto her babies. With their mother, they can stay afloat. On their own, they need to get a little older before they’re safe in the water.”
That’s when my brain trailed off to the mountains somewhere, thinking about my friends in their tent. Maybe Mom just wanted to keep me under her wings for a little while longer. I stroked my duckling’s tiny back with one finger.
“We’ll keep you out of the pool for now, little one,” I promised him. Then, as an afterthought, I added, “Do you miss your mom?”

A speaker was trying to demonstrate the evils of alcohol. On a table in front of him were two glasses full of clear liquid. He explained that one of the glasses was full of water and the other full of pure alcohol. He put a worm in the glass of water, and it swam happily. Then he put the same worm in the alcohol, and it died.
“What conclusion do you reach?” he asked.
A voice from the back of the room cried, “If you drink alcohol, you’ll never get worms.”
The conclusion to be drawn from this story, of course, is that you can hear or see—you can perceive—exactly what you want to perceive, according to your own prejudices.

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.

I received the other day a very interesting letter. It was written by a woman who joined the Church a year ago. She writes:
“My journey into the Church was unique and quite challenging. This past year has been the hardest year that I have ever lived in my life. It has also been the most rewarding. As a new member, I continue to be challenged every day.”
She goes on to say that when she joined the Church she did not feel support from the leadership in her ward. Her bishop seemed indifferent to her as a new member. Rebuffed, as she felt, she turned back to her mission president, who opened opportunities for her.
She states that “Church members don’t know what it is like to be a new member of the Church. Therefore, it’s almost impossible for them to know how to support us.”
I challenge you, my brothers and sisters, that if you do not know what it is like, you try to imagine what it is like. It can be terribly lonely. It can be disappointing. It can be frightening. We of this Church are far more different from the world than we are prone to think we are. This woman goes on: “When we as investigators become members of the Church, we are surprised to discover that we have entered into a completely foreign world, a world that has its own traditions, culture, and language. We discover that there is no one person or no one place of reference that we can turn to for guidance in our trip into this new world. At first the trip is exciting, our mistakes even amusing, then it becomes frustrating and eventually, the frustration turns into anger. And it’s at these stages of frustration and anger that we leave. We go back to the world from which we came, where we knew who we were, where we contributed, and where we could speak the language.”

Elder Woodhouse and I were called to serve in the Dominican Republic as humanitarian missionaries from April 2019–2021. It was a dream come true for me and a complete surprise. There are no coincidences, and as Elder Gavarret reminded us during an interview, God is in the details.
My mother was born of Puerto Rican parents working in the sugar industry in La Romana, Dominican Republic in 1913. Both of her parents died in 1916 within months of one another when she was almost three years old. Puerto Rican neighbors raised her until she married and moved to Puerto Rico with her little family in 1930. My mother never found any paperwork on the birth or death of her parents or where they were buried. I felt this was my chance to do some digging and find what my mother could not find.
One Sunday we decided to visit a ward in La Romana. It happened to be Mother’s Day. I shared my story with the sisters in Relief Society with hopes that someone could help. A kind sister who happened to work in the civil registry of the town said she would research the archives for me. A few weeks later she said she could not find anything. An official registry was not kept, by law, until the 1930s. Some records were destroyed by floods or fire or just stored under poor conditions causing them to deteriorate. I gave her my sisters’ names and birth dates and the towns in which they were born. No records found. I was devastated. What do I do now?
With nowhere to turn I immersed myself in FamilySearch. I had found documentation on my grandmother in Puerto Rico before she left to La Romana in a census. I found a ship manifest that listed my grandmother traveling with a newborn (my mother) to Puerto Rico twice. The last time was within the year she had passed. I now knew the town she was from, my mother’s real birthday and who they visited. This was a real treasure. My mother was an orphan with no real information, and now I had a place to start.
Although I had not found what I was looking for, we took the time to visit all the places my mother talked about. I was able to get a feel for what life must have been like in the early days of the twentieth century living in a sugar cane industry town. This gave me renewed faith in continuing my search for more information.
As I continued to search further back through my grandparents’ lines, I found many wonderful treasures. I found that my family line in Puerto Rico dates to early explorers in the Caribbean. Some had served as governors in the Dominican Republic. Some were sea captains, farmers, and businessmen. Some were maids, seamstresses, and some of nobility. I was able to do the temple work for many there in the Santo Domingo Dominican Republic Temple where we volunteered as ordinance workers once a week. I was beginning to feel a closeness to my ancestors that I thought I would never experience. My excitement and joy in the work I was doing carried me through times of disappointments. I knew that if I kept looking, I would be able to find many more, and I did.
My time in the Dominican Republic was cut short because of the pandemic, but not before finding my family and learning more about my rich Caribbean roots. The tapestry of my family lines is rich with stories of courage and faith. At one time, I thought I would not be able to complete my four generations with temple work, at least not in this life. But now I have gone well beyond four generations. Elder and Sister Soares said in the last RootsTech that one purpose of temple work was to unite the past with the present and the future. I have felt this each time as my grandchildren enter the temple to do the work for these sweet people I never knew existed. I can honestly say I now know them and love them. They are my family.

Waimate and Heeni Anaru yearned to be part of the first group to travel to the temple. Yet the task seemed impossible because of the family’s poverty and the required cost of 1,200 New Zealand pounds for the trip—a hefty sum. They would need a miracle.
For years, the Anaru family followed the prophet’s counsel and gathered their genealogical records. Those records then sat in stacks while the Anarus waited for a miracle to occur. Their son, Wiwini, knew of his parents’ faith: “Mother never ever despaired that she would [not] someday kneel with Father at a temple altar.”
A miracle did occur. Waimate won a contract from the New Zealand government for a large land-development project. His income from this project provided sufficient cash paid in advance to cover the cost of the trip to Hawaii. Waimate and Heeni overcame their fear of ocean travel and journeyed to Hawaii with a group of 14 Saints in May 1920. They received their endowments and were sealed. The impossible had happened.

An elderly widow struggled with the pain of arthritis. When she came to live with her daughter, the mother retreated into her own uncomfortable world. She had to be assisted up and down the steps as she went in and out the door.
Hoping to give her mother a positive experience, the daughter suggested that her mother might read to a blind neighbor. Reluctantly, the suffering widow agreed.
Moaning faintly at the effort, the widow allowed her daughter to help her down the steps. Then she hobbled up the street to make the dutiful visit.
An hour passed. Two hours. At last, her family saw her returning, coming happily down the street. Amazingly, she came up the steps and into the house without assistance.
“Well,” she told her daughter, “I sure did her a lot of good.”

These early seeds of faith sprouted still further when, as a young Aaronic Priesthood boy, I received a firsthand confirmation of the remarkable testimony of the Three Witnesses concerning the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. My stake president was President Henry D. Moyle, and his father was James H. Moyle. In the summertime Brother James H. Moyle would visit his family, and he would worship with us in our little ward in the southeast of the Salt Lake Valley.

One Sunday, Brother James H. Moyle shared with us a singular experience. As a young man he went to the University of Michigan to study law. As he was finishing his studies, his father told him that David Whitmer, one of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, was still alive. The father suggested to his son that he stop on his way back to Salt Lake City to visit with David Whitmer face-to-face. Brother Moyle’s purpose was to ask him about his testimony concerning the golden plates and the Book of Mormon.

During that visit, Brother Moyle said to David Whitmer: “Sir, you are an old man, and I’m a young man. I have been studying about witnesses and testimonies. Please tell me the truth concerning your testimony as one of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon.” David Whitmer then told this young man: “Yes, I held the golden plates in my hands, and they were shown to us by an angel. My testimony concerning the Book of Mormon is true.” David Whitmer was out of the Church, but he never denied his testimony of the angel’s visitation, of handling the golden plates, or of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Hearing with my own ears this remarkable experience directly from Brother Moyle’s lips had a powerful, confirming effect upon my growing testimony. Having heard it, I felt it was binding upon me.

While I was serving as a full-time missionary in my homeland of Ecuador, one day I had a definite feeling that someone special was waiting for us—someone who would accept the gospel.
As my companion and I walked, we came to a humble house. An elderly lady, perhaps 80 years of age, smiled sweetly at me. I smiled at her in return. I was ready to keep walking, but the woman looked so happy to see us. Something told me to stop right there.
Many people in that little town were illiterate, so I asked her if she could read. Her answer was an enthusiastic yes. I was suddenly filled with excitement. I felt that she was the person the Lord wanted us to teach. I took a Book of Mormon from my bag and showed it to her. I was surprised when she began to read aloud from the first page without needing glasses. I asked her if she would like to have the book, and again she answered yes. Happiness glowed in her tired eyes—eyes that had long been seeking a better life.
We began to teach her the gospel, and the Spirit bore witness to her of its truthfulness. Such tender feelings filled my heart.
As we concluded our lesson, I showed her chapter 11 of 3 Nephi, which tells about the visit of Jesus Christ to the Americas. She promised to read it. She marked the page herself and kissed the book, beaming with an unspeakable joy.
We made other visits to our new investigator, and we were delighted to find she read everything we assigned her. After completing her daily work, she would read the Book of Mormon late into the night. She also started attending church, although it took two hours for her to walk slowly to the meetinghouse. Her feelings about the Book of Mormon and Jesus Christ grew rapidly and deeply. After hearing all of the missionary lessons, she wanted to be baptized and pay tithing.
What great blessings this dear woman received! Her heart was ready to follow the Lord, and His Spirit guided us to her. She taught us about love, courage, sacrifice, joy, and obedience. Above all else she taught us that it is never too late to change.

A third thought that needs to be thought about is this: If you do not respond properly to a challenge, maybe no one will. I remember a young lady at my high school who had a number of problems. She was very poor. She could not dress like the other students, and she was insecure and frightened. But a young man who knew her would take time to greet her when he saw her. One day they were to take a test in history, and he said to her, “Let’s sit down and study together.” They did; she could tell that he knew she had value as a fellow human being.

The weeks came and went. One day she told that young man that he had saved her life. “What do you mean, I’ve save your life?” he asked.

“Do you remember the day we had that history test?”

“Yes.”

“I was going to take my life that day. I knew no one cared, that no one loved me. People ridiculed the way I dressed, the things I said, and the way I looked. But you cared, and because of that I’m still alive.” She is now a nurse, ministering to the needs of others.

This advice was found and followed by Joe, who had been asked to get up at 6:00 in the morning and drive a crippled child 50 miles to the hospital. He didn’t want to do it, but he didn’t know how to say no. A woman carried the child out to the car and set him next to the driver’s seat, mumbling thanks through her tears. Joe said everything would be all right and drove off quickly.

After a mile or so, the child inquired shyly, “You’re God, aren’t you?”
“I’m afraid not, little fellow,” replied Joe.
“I thought you must be God,” said the child. “I heard Mother praying next to my bed and asking God to help me get to the hospital so I could get well and play with the other boys. Do you work for God?”
“Sometimes, I guess,” said Joe, “but not regularly. I think I’m going to work for him a lot more from now on.”

In my school class I have become friends with a boy who is often teased because of the way he looks. One afternoon we were getting ready for our third-grade musical. All the boys were left in the classroom while the teacher and the girls went to change. Some of the boys in the class started picking on my friend until all the boys were gathered around him, teasing him. I stood up and told them to stop and to leave my friend alone. They all stopped. Even though it was hard to stand up and say what I did, it made me feel good. I think this is what Jesus wanted me to do.

Max McDonald and the Aaronic Priesthood boys in his Scout troop from Hooper, Utah, know about the strong ice, about the water and the fish beneath. They know that in the depths, down in the realms where the mythical Bear Lake monster roams, the cisco congregate all winter. But during the January thaw the small fish pull in close to shore and spawn. The cisco run lasts one week, maybe two. Then the fish retreat deep into the turquoise once again.
Now it was the last week of January, and the cisco were coming in.
Chris, 12, and Kevin Chase, 13, of the Hooper First Ward, Hooper Utah Stake, cracked open the front door of their parents’ home and headed for the chapel. Their breath puffed up white around them, lingering, then mingling in the gray air. There was still sleep in their eyes, but the biting chill was enough to make them alert. So was the walking. Chris pulled his orange hat down tighter so it met the collar of his blue parka.
It was 4 A.M. It was cold. It was a crazy time to leave a warm bed and go outside. It was an adventure.
Max, the Scoutmaster, and Kent Summers, a fisheries biologist who serves as the ward Scouting coordinator, had already endured the morning ritual of scraping windshields, shivering under the blast of cold air before the car heater warmed up, unbending their frozen fingers from around the steering wheel, and maintaining calm as the boys loaded into their station wagons. Kevin and Chris arrived just in time to make the passenger list complete.
They nodded to friends inside the car: David Kite, 14, and Shawn Park, Jon Housley, and John Summers, all 13 years old. Max’s sons, Travis, 9, and Cordell, 8, love to fish, and the night before they had begged to tag along. Max loves to fish almost as much as they do. And he loves to spend time with his sons even more. So his boys had claim on the back seat.
On the freeway, headlights stabbed through the darkness. The heater purred. Static on the radio interrupted agricultural news of soy bean prices and pork belly futures. The Scouts started out joking and teasing each other. Some talked about the weather, about the awful fog that had been trapped in the valley for weeks now. Some found a few doughnuts to munch on. But it wasn’t long before everyone but the drivers fell asleep.
It seemed only minutes later when the boys sat up to a startling sensation. It was bright. The fog—the dingy gray curtain hanging over Salt Lake and Ogden—was gone. Climbing through the mountains, they had risen above the temperature inversions. A clear, clean day full of light was dawning with not a cloud in sight. “It made me feel like shouting hurray,” said John. “We’d been in the fog so long, every day for weeks and weeks. I’d forgotten what it was like to see the sun.”
The cars pulled through a deep canyon, out onto the flat around the shore, and turned off the highway. Already dozens of fishermen were out on the ice, silhouetted in the rising sun.
The cars turned off the beach road and onto some gravel, then stopped. The Scouts were instantly alive. Within five minutes the cars were empty. Fishing poles, tackle boxes, blankets, folding chairs, firewood, food, and hatchets were all stacked on the shore or carried out on the ice. Kelly Lucas, 14, even strapped on ice skates and raced back and forth, helping speed up the transportation of equipment.
The best cisco fishing on Bear Lake is often along the east shore, about the same place where scuba divers practice in the summer. “That’s why we’re on this side,” Max said. “We’re next to the hills, and the sun won’t hit the water for a while. That makes the fish crowd around.”
“Last Saturday is when you should have been here,” Brother Summers added. “That’s when they were really running.”
The leaders checked each boy to make sure he had a fishing license. They warned them not to leave their poles unattended and cautioned them about accidentally stepping through old holes not yet frozen over, which are easy to spot by their color. Max talked a little about how to use a dip net close to shore for cisco and a rod and reel further out for trout and whitefish. They reminded everyone to stay in the same general area. And then they turned the group loose on the ice.
A hatchet makes a strange sound when it hits ice, a kind of echoing “chunk.” It also sends up a spray of chips and splinters. Kevin soon had them all over his coat. But he had also opened up an old hole and was ready to fish.
“You can only make a new hole with an auger,” Kevin explained. “It’s like a giant drill.”
And Brother Summers just happened to have one along.
Grunting with the effort, he and Max took turns drilling a new hole in a place where the ice was nearly two feet thick. They twisted the auger around and around and let some of the young men have a try. Eventually the blade cut through, and some water bubbled up, black like india ink. Then Brother Summers pumped the auger up and down in the hole for a minute to clean it out. The water melted the frost off the ice and turned it clear. Sure enough, there was the turquoise, deep underneath.
“It’s an eerie thing to look down and realize you’re standing on something solid that’s made out of water,” said Roy Fowers, 12, “and then to look through it to the water underneath. It’s almost spooky. It feels so solid, but it looks fragile.”
Max reassured him that even trucks have driven on the Bear Lake ice without going through.
That was little comfort a minute later, however, when there was a groaning sound, followed by a quiet snap and a pop. Everyone looked around, then ran to find the crack and see how far it reached into the thickness of the ice.
Then they laughed.
“Hey Cordell,” Chris said. “Did you hear something?” And with theatrical fear and trembling, Chris put his hatchet down and said, “I’m not chopping anymore.”
Those who had been ice fishing before knew that any patch of ice shifts and adjusts when sun hits it and temperatures change. But for newcomers and those with tender nerves, the occasional cracking sounds were a bit unsettling.
And so was the cold.
Dave kept complaining about the line freezing in the top of his pole. Jon looked a quarter mile out, where the trout fishermen were dropping lines through the ice.
“The only thing they’re catching out there is a cold,” he said.
Shawn was shivering. “Right now I’m just freezing,” he said. “I wish I was home!”
“It’s only five miles to the other side of the lake,” Max replied. “Run over there and back. That’ll warm you up.”
Then, all of a sudden, the fish arrived.
It looked like catching cisco would be easy. The small fish were swimming in schools at shallow depths, close to shore. Dip nets are legal when fishing for cisco, so all that’s necessary is to sneak the net near them, move it quickly, then snatch them out of the water. Simple, right?
Well, not quite. For one thing, the fish are wary, and they’re quick. They dart away when something else moves in the water. And the long pole of a dip net creates a lot of resistance when pushed or pulled through the water. Cisco will swim into the net and back out before they get lifted out of the water. It’s fair to say they have at least a fighting chance.
Just the same, once the Scouts got used to the technique, they managed to catch a few fish at a time, until small piles of silver at their feet gave evidence of success.
And toward the center of the lake, the trout fishermen were having their day, too.
“Take a look at that one,” Roy said, pointing to a small, pale cutthroat he’d caught in a nearby hole. “Isn’t it beautiful? In the winter they aren’t quite as colorful as in the summer. Maybe they lose color when they get cold.”
Actually, the fish was just above the limit for size. But Roy couldn’t have been prouder. And when the next one he caught was even bigger, that was all right, too.
“Isn’t fishing great?” he said, untangling a lure in his tackle box. “And up here, we can do it in the middle of the winter.”
Over on the shore, Max had started a fire and called Kevin and Chris in to start frying some bacon. Within minutes they also had potatoes and onions, with just the right touch of pepper, steaming in a dutch oven. Undisturbed by the makeshift kitchen around them, Travis and Cordell sat together on the same folding chair. Huddled under an old sleeping bag, they propped their stocking feet on a log by the fire, thawing out slowly.
The sun topped the hill. Its rays beat down, pure and hot, chasing the cisco and trout to deeper, colder water. One by one the fishermen meandered in to eat.
The freshly caught cisco were cleaned and wrapped in foil, then buried deep in the coals.
“We’ll save the trout to eat at home tonight,” Jon said. “But the cisco are best if you cook ‘em fresh out of the water.”
In truth, though they have a troutlike flavor, cisco are quite bony. But half the fun of an adventure is bragging. And as far as the young men of the Hooper First Ward were concerned, at the moment there weren’t any better tasting fish in the world. Well fed and happy, the Scouts and their leaders took a moment to chat.
“I love coming out on stuff like this,” Kevin said. “It’s fun. I get to be in a troop with my friends and share everything with my brother, too.”
“It seems weird that a whole lake could freeze over,” Dave said. “Just imagine where we’d be, trying to fish from the same spot in the summer. You’d have to have a boat.”
“I love to look down through the hole and see the trout,” Shawn said. “You can see them green against the rocks on the bottom.”
He also talked about previous Scout activities, mostly camp-outs in the mountains. “This is my first time ice fishing,” he said.
And Kelly remembered another activity, one that had been a lot of fun.
“We played ice hockey at a place in Hooper, but only two of us knew how to skate very well, so the others took off their skates and played with shoes on.”
And that was how the hockey game at Bear Lake got started. A couple of old coats served as goal markers, feet served as sticks, and a pop can became a puck. Up and down, up and down along the ice, the battle for points raced with a fury. No need to check opponents—the ice took care of that. As soon as anyone got running well enough to gain an advantage, he’d hit a slick spot and tumble, leaving the can behind. Conveniently, the score was tied when Shawn spotted deer on the slope above the lake, and suddenly nature became more important than hockey.
“Look at them run!” John said, watching a buck zigzag from rock to rock. “There’s been a lot of snow. It’s forced them down low this year.”
While they were all busy looking at the slope, Max took a minute to talk about his “boys.”
“We’re real proud of them,” he said. “They’ve all progressed at least two ranks this year. But it isn’t the ranks that count. It’s the boys.” Then he told a story about one young man who’d had a problem with littering.
“We were up here in the summer, and he threw a can in the lake after he’d promised not to. I made him wade out and bring it in. Later, we had a demonstration from the forest service about the effects of littering. People don’t usually think of littering as pollution, but it’s one of the most visible kinds.”
Caring enough to go beyond just saying no, to help young men understand why they need to be responsible for their actions—that’s what Max is all about. But he shrugs off such praise lightly.
“I just want to help them have some good experiences, to help them have some fun. If one of them ever got lost in the winter and needed food, maybe ice fishing would be one of many skills that could help him survive. If one of them needs to know he has some friends, he can always come join with us. And that might also help him to survive.”
The deer eventually disappeared from sight. With a slight amount of prodding Kelly, Shawn, Dave, John, and the others returned to help gather up cooking gear and fishing equipment and load it back into the cars. Even though it was still early in the afternoon, it was time to head back to town.
And even though that meant they would soon descend back into the haze and fog, the young men from Hooper were content. They had a good supply of fish for the days to come. Their spirits had been buoyed up by fresh air and bright light. They had enjoyed being together and learning from their leaders. They had stories to share with their mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. They had gazed deep into turquoise waters and walked on crystal ice. Without spending lots of money and without driving far, they had enjoyed their day in the sun.

My dad was the home teacher to an older, single man in our ward named Tom. He was very quiet, and the only time you would see him was when he was walking to the post office or the store.
One day my dad suggested that one way we could be better home teachers would be to take dinner to Tom every Sunday. He suggested that I be the one to deliver the dinner to him. At first, I didn’t want to because I didn’t know what to say or what he might say in return. I knew I had to, so I took a deep breath and walked to his door and handed him the plate of food.
For the first couple of months, he didn’t say anything. That was five years ago. We still take him dinner every Sunday and on holidays. He is still quiet, but he talks to us and says thank you and waves every time we see him.
Since then, my dad has been called as bishop. He has tried to teach the whole ward to serve others. I now have the privilege of taking dinner not only to Tom but also to five other people in the ward. My dad taught me the meaning of the scripture in Matthew 25:40: “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

In West Africa, where we are currently serving, we feel His Spirit being poured out in rich abundance upon the faithful Saints. In 1989 a storm hit Ghana—not a storm of wind or rain, but a storm of persecution, slander, and misunderstandings. It was a trying time; the Church was new there. All of our non-African missionaries were required to leave the country. Our meetinghouses were locked and guarded so that they could not be used by the members. The Saints could not gather together, so they worshiped as families in their own homes. Some members were arrested and even imprisoned. This period of time is referred to as “the freeze.” Members had little contact or support from the outside Church, but they were not left on their own to weather the storm. They had the scriptures and the words of the prophets; they put their trust and faith in the Lord, and He poured out His Spirit upon them. One member of the Church said: “We had the Spirit of the Lord with us; we could feel Him guiding and directing us. We drew closer to one another, and we drew nearer to the Savior.”
For 18 months the Saints fasted and prayed for the day when the freeze would end. In November of 1990, the ban was lifted. The worst of the storm had passed, but it had taken its toll. There were those who had fallen away. Their roots had been shallow and their foundation weak. The foundation of the Church in Ghana today is built on the faith of those who weathered the storm. They were deeply rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

When I was a teenager, my dad and I enjoyed challenging each other to see who had the strongest grip. We would squeeze the other’s hand as tightly as possible in an effort to make the other grimace in pain. It doesn’t seem like much fun now, but somehow it was at the time. After one such battle, Dad looked me in the eyes and said, “You have strong hands, Son. I hope your hands always have the strength to never touch a young lady inappropriately.” He then invited me to stay morally clean and help others do the same.