Gospel Story Finder

It is also very important for you to obey your parents. I had an experience that taught me the importance of obedience. I love horses, and I love to train them to jump. As a young man, I was invited to compete in the Pan-American Games, which are something like the Olympic Games for the countries of North, Central, and South America. For two years I worked very hard to train for this competition. Then one day not long before the games, I disobeyed my coach. I had just finished my training session, and he had told me it was time to stop. But I decided to make a few more jumps. As I did, I fell with my horse and was seriously injured. After all my hard work, I was not able to take part in the competition. We must all learn to be obedient to our trainers—our parents, our leaders, and our teachers. They know how to help us avoid dangers and problems.

About five years ago I called Bruford Reynolds on the phone. He was bishop at the time. I said, “May I be invited to speak at your sacrament meeting sometime in the near future?”
He said, “We are not supposed to ask General Authorities.”
“You aren’t,” I said. “I am asking you.”
He then said, “I would love to have you come on Easter.” So I prepared a talk on the Savior’s life.
When I began to speak, I first told the people in his ward what a wonderful man their bishop had been in my life. I told them how I used to go over and lie down on the ground and watch through the window. I shared with them examples of great lessons he taught me. I told them of the influence he had on my life and how he had told me I had leadership abilities. Then I shared with them how much I loved him. After brief comments about the bishop, I then spoke about the Savior.
At the conclusion of my talk, Bishop Reynolds stood. “We are not supposed to speak after General Authorities,” he said, “but I want to share this additional part of the story that Elder Featherstone does not know.
“During part of the time I was deacons adviser and Scoutmaster, I also served another youth group. Both groups met on Tuesday, the Scouts at 7:30 and the other group at 8:00. I would get Scout meeting started and then I would leave to go over to the Lincoln Ward where the second group met. At 8:30 I would return to conclude the last half hour of Scout meeting. Elder Featherstone was my senior patrol leader, and I would leave him in charge of the troop. He isn’t the only one who has lain on the ground and watched through the basement window! I used to do that when I would come back from Lincoln Ward. I wanted to see what was going on.
“One night I had a problem and could not make it back to the Scout troop until just before 9:00 p.m. I did not stop to look in the window, but just hurried down the hall to the Scout room. You can learn a lot about what is going on in a youth meeting by listening at the door. I listened at the door. Elder Featherstone had called the troop together for a Scoutmaster’s Minute. I could hear what was being said.
“All of a sudden I heard footsteps behind me. I looked back, and here were four district commissioners from the Boy Scouts who had come to visit our troop. I wondered what they thought when they saw the Scoutmaster standing outside the Scout room, listening at the door. I didn’t know what to say, so I put my finger to my lips in a hushing signal, and then I motioned them to listen at the door. They all leaned over and listened. In a minute one of the men said, ‘That boy will be a fine leader out in the world some day.’”
And Bru Reynolds said, “No, one day he will lead in high places in this Church.”

Some time ago, I was assigned to preside over a regional conference in La Paz, Bolivia. La Paz is high in the Andes mountains, at an elevation of approximately 12,000 feet. Members came to the conference from small towns and villages scattered throughout the area of La Paz and the Altiplano.

Great sacrifice and commitment were required for some of these members to attend the meetings. Prior to the leadership training session, I stood in front of the stake center and greeted the brethren as they gathered. I greeted one older brother who told me through an interpreter that he lived a long way from La Paz. I noticed that his shirt was a different color from about the middle of his chest down. The upper portion of his shirt was white, while the lower portion was a brownish-red color.

I learned that he and three of his companions, all Melchizedek Priesthood holders, had taken more than eight hours to travel to these meetings. They had walked most of the way and had to ford two rivers where the brownish-red water came up to their chests. When they came to the main road to La Paz, they flagged down a truck and stood in the back of it for the last two hours to the stake center.

I could hardly believe that anyone would have such commitment, faith, and courage. When I expressed my deep concern for this dear brother, he said, “Brother Ballard, you are an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ. I would walk as long as required, ford as many streams as required, to come and hear from you what the Lord wants me to do as a priesthood leader in the Church.”

This response brought tears to my eyes. We embraced one another in the special brotherhood of the priesthood of God. I also learned that they had not had anything to eat, nor did they have any place to stay that night. Through the goodness of the Saints of La Paz, they were taken care of during the conference weekend.

I had been in Barcelona, Spain, compiling the data collected by an eighteenth-century ancestor of my nonmember husband. I had obtained almost two hundred names. They came principally from diaries written in Catalan, my native tongue. I knew that, in addition to this information, my husband’s family had available about three hundred parchment scrolls of genealogy, all written in Latin and in fifteenth-century script.
Family circumstances allowed me to stay only a very short time in which to work with this Latin material, but I wasn’t able to decipher the writings. I had no money to make photocopies, and with such limited time, I commented to a friend that I worried for the souls who would have to wait longer for their work to be done.
She suggested that I get a priesthood blessing. I did, after a period of fasting, and through the blessing felt a surge of spiritual strength. But the monumental task still discouraged me, and I set aside the scrolls for a while.
Finally, when I only had one week left in which to translate, I fell to my knees in prayer, pleading for help. If it be the Lord’s will, I asked, please permit me to be an instrument in helping to redeem these people from their prison.
From that time on, my understanding of the writings became clearer. I was even able to translate without a dictionary. Each scroll became easier, and I read more and more quickly. I somehow obtained the privacy I needed and, though I worked nights with only a few hours of sleep, I wasn’t tired. I seemed to sense the presence of those I was working for, and that gave me much-needed spiritual support.
I found that rats had nibbled away at the documents over the centuries, taking away some of the data. However, in nearly every case, I located the missing information elsewhere in the documents. When I had forgotten to write down something, I sensed that I needed to reread the scroll. As I unrolled it, the information I needed fell before my eyes immediately. Whenever the translation became difficult, I prayed sincerely for help, and always received it.
I finished the translation in four days, just before I was to leave. The information I had gleaned went as far back as A.D. 1212. I saw no angels nor visions, but I had experienced a miracle every day—a miracle as natural as the sun rising.
I will always be grateful to my Father in Heaven for helping me. Now, more than ever, I have a testimony that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has the spirit of Elijah, which enables us to redeem the dead out of their prison. I know that through that spirit, “the prisoners shall go free” (D&C 128:22).

In my home I learned to work hard. My family used a system we called the “diligence list.” At the beginning of the month, we received a list of various chores, such as doing the dishes, caring for the horses, and so on. We checked off the chores as we completed them, and then at the end of the month, we were given an amount of money for our diligent work based on how many check marks we had on the chart. From this I have learned to work diligently and to be careful with money.

It took one year to build concrete steps down a volcanic cliffside to the swimming hole and the beautiful waterfall below. Four boys worked on this project. They had two picks, two crowbars, and one sledgehammer, and they worked every night after school and every Saturday for six months. Little by little, they chipped the rock away until they had a pathway wide enough to support some concrete clear to the bottom of the waterfall. It took them another six months of backbreaking labor to make the steps. They hauled sand from the beach in an old pickup truck. They added cement and took gravel from the river and mixed the concrete by hand in a shallow pocket hollowed out of a large stone. Then they shoveled the wet concrete into buckets and lowered them down the cliff with ropes attached to a long bamboo pole. One step at a time they worked until the trail was completed.

Three Christmas trees stand out in the memory of Elder Gary B. Sabin.
The first was a beautiful Christmas tree of his youth. When Gary scaled the tree trying to reach a candy cane, the entire tree crashed to the ground.
The second was an evergreen branch he found as a missionary while serving in Belgium and the Netherlands from 1973 to 1975. Elder Sabin and his companion took the branch home to their apartment and propped it up around the Christmas cards they had received from home.
The third was a tree made of Christmas lights strung on the IV stand next to his daughter’s hospital bed. One of three Sabin children to suffer from cystic fibrosis, his daughter had received a double-lung transplant one year after the death of her brother from the same disease.
“We have learned a lot more from our children than they have learned from us,” says Elder Sabin.
As a General Authority he will remember the Christmas trees and the lessons he learned from them. Each tree highlights portions of his journey—from a young boy wanting a candy cane to a missionary teaching the plan of salvation to a father who relied on the plan and the Savior’s love to sustain his family through mortal trials.
Gary Byron Sabin was born in Provo, Utah, USA, on April 7, 1954, to Marvin E. and Sylvia W. Sabin. He married Valerie Purdy in August 1976. They are the parents of five children; a sixth child was stillborn.
After graduating from Brigham Young University in Provo, Elder Sabin earned a master’s degree in management from Stanford University.
Elder Sabin has served in numerous Church callings, including as bishop, stake president, and Area Seventy. He has worked as a founder, chairman, and CEO of several companies, including Excel Realty Trust, Price Legacy, Excel Realty Holdings, and Excel Trust.
In 1993, Elder and Sister Sabin formed Sabin Children’s Foundation, an organization dedicated to addressing the medical needs of children.

Every Saturday Dad takes one of us kids—Courtney, Megan, Zara, or me—out for breakfast.
Sometimes we eat at a restaurant, and sometimes we buy milk, juice, and doughnuts and eat in the park.
I really like eating breakfast alone with Dad. The food’s always good, but even better is getting to talk to Dad and have fun with him, just me, with no interruptions. Some Saturdays we don’t get home from breakfast until lunchtime. Then Mom laughs and asks us, “Does it take you three hours to eat breakfast?” and Dad hugs me, winks, and says, “Oh, Paul and I had a lot to talk about. With all the women around here we don’t get much chance for man-to-man conversation.”
Dad and I have never missed having breakfast together when it’s been my turn. Even when he was sick with a cold one Saturday, we still ate together. Mom helped me fix up a tray, and I took it to his room, and we sat on the big bed and ate and talked and laughed.
Then one day Grandma fell and broke her arm, and Dad went to Olmsted for a while to help her.
“When will you be back?” I asked on Monday morning as he got ready to go. I was a little worried, because the next Saturday was my turn to have breakfast with him, and I didn’t want to miss it.
Dad must have known what I was thinking, because he mussed up my hair and said, “I’ll try my best to be back by Saturday, Paul. But”—Dad hesitated and looked at me seriously—“I’m not sure how things will work out with Grandma, and I don’t want to leave until she’s OK.”
“I understand,” I said. I knew that Grandma was important to Dad too.
During the week Dad phoned several times, and I talked to him, but he still wasn’t certain when he’d be back.
Friday night when I went to bed, I thought, When I wake up in the morning, Dad will be here! And then I started wondering where we’d eat. But Saturday morning when I got up, Dad wasn’t home.
“Dad called late last night,” Mom told me. “He expects to be home sometime today, but he’s not sure when. Have some cereal.”
I ate the cereal, but it wasn’t very good. I felt angry. I had a lot to tell Dad, even more than usual because he’d been away all week. Then I felt guilty, because Grandma needed him too.
I kept looking out the window for Dad. It got later and later, and we ate lunch and then dinner. Finally Mom said, “It’s time for bed, Paul.”
I got my pajamas on but didn’t get into bed. I thought that the longer I stayed awake, the better the chance I’d have of getting to see Dad when he got home. I was yawning and struggling to keep my eyes open when I heard the car horn honk. Then Dad yelled, “Paul!”
“Dad!” I ran down the stairs and hugged him.
“Why, what are you doing in your pajamas? Run and get dressed. We’re supposed to have breakfast together!”
“But it’s late! How can we eat breakfast at night?”
Dad laughed. “Oh, I know a special place. Hurry! Mom doesn’t want you to be up until midnight.”
I ran upstairs and got my clothes on as fast as I could. It wasn’t until Dad and I were in the car and going down the road that I remembered to ask about Grandma.
“Oh, she’s doing really well,” Dad said. “And she’s just as energetic as ever. Except instead of doing all the housework herself, she sat and watched while I did it!”
We both laughed. Dad stopped in front of a restaurant and asked, “How do pancakes sound?”
“Mmmm, good!”
It felt strange to be eating pancakes late at night, but I was so happy to be with Dad that I didn’t mind. We talked and told jokes and laughed and made funny faces, and it was the best breakfast Dad and I ever had.

Years ago, when our six children were young, we decided we wanted to make general conference more meaningful to us. We talked about how important it is to watch conference with clear minds and rested bodies. Conference is an important time to receive instruction from our current prophets. So we set a goal not to plan anything extra for a few days before conference or during conference weekend. We blocked out those days on our calendar, and each of us committed not to schedule extra activities on those days.
If you choose to take a similar approach, it will be unique to your family and your situation, but our family defined “extra activities” as attending school activities, having neighborhood children come over, doing things with friends away from the house, having parties or dinners with friends or relatives, doing projects or yard work in between or during conference sessions, saving school projects until the last minute, and accepting extra assignments at work.
When the week before general conference arrived, it was sometimes hard to say no to these activities, but most of the time our family members cheerfully made the right choices to meet our goal. We found that our younger children wanted to be part of general conference. I think it was because we talked about the importance of conference over and over throughout the week before.
I am happy to report that keeping our schedule simple the days before and during general conference completely changed our family’s experience. Our hearts and minds were prepared for conference. Our time was not cluttered with extra activities, so we could feel the Spirit as we sat and listened to the words of counsel from our leaders.
We have stuck to our goal conference after conference because it fills our home with peace. Though several of our children no longer live at home, we encourage them to still clear their calendar the few days before and during conference, as we do at home. We also try to schedule a time to watch a session of conference together as an entire family. I am hoping that as our children marry and have children of their own, they will continue to place a high importance on protecting their conference experience by clearing their calendars.

Elder Norman Seibold leaned forward in his seat. He was anxious to hear what his mission president would say at the emergency meeting in Frankfurt, Germany.
In 1939, German soldiers were marching in the streets and it looked like war would break out at any moment. Elder Seibold knew that the First Presidency had ordered all missionaries to evacuate from Germany and Czechoslovakia. His mission president, President Wood, had told the missionaries to go to the Netherlands.
But now President Wood said there was a big problem. The Netherlands had just closed its border to people leaving Germany, and the missionaries needed to evacuate to Denmark instead. But since the telephone lines were clogged with emergency calls, President Wood couldn’t contact the missionaries throughout Germany to tell them about the change in plans.
Even if the mission president could contact the missionaries, there was another problem. The military would not allow anyone fleeing Germany to travel with more than 10 marks (about $2). The missionaries had already bought train tickets for the Netherlands and had spent most of their money to be obedient to the law. Now they wouldn’t have enough money to buy new train tickets for Denmark. They were stranded!
“Thirty-one missionaries are stranded between here and the border of the Netherlands with no way of contacting me,” President Wood said. “Someone needs to find them and bring them safely to Denmark.”
Elder Seibold volunteered.
President Wood gave the brave elder 500 marks and train tickets to Copenhagen, Denmark. His special assignment was to ride the railway lines between Frankfurt and the border of the Netherlands, searching for the stranded missionaries. The direction of the Spirit would be his only guide.
After four hours on the train, Elder Seibold reached Cologne, Germany. He felt impressed to get off the train there. The busy station was filled with thousands of people anxious to flee Germany. How could he find any missionaries in such an enormous crowd?
Elder Seibold climbed onto a baggage cart and whistled the hymn “Do What Is Right,” which was a well-known signal to gather missionaries. Eight missionaries in the station heard that whistle, and Elder Seibold sent them safely to Denmark.
At some stops, Elder Seibold stayed on the train. At others, he was prompted by the Spirit to get off and whistle for stranded elders. At every station, Elder Seibold risked that the military would find him and put him in jail for travelling with so much money.
At a station in one small village, Elder Seibold didn’t think he would find any missionaries. But the Spirit told him to get off the train and walk into town. He went inside a restaurant and found two elders who had just spent their last pennies on lemonade. Elder Seibold knew he had been guided there, just as surely as if someone had taken him by the hand.
Eventually Elder Seibold rescued 17 missionaries. The other 14 had reached the Netherlands before the border was closed, but Elder Seibold continued searching until he received a spiritual confirmation that his assignment was complete. Because Elder Seibold obeyed the promptings of the Spirit, all 31 missionaries were safe.

Water. It was always water for him. Once, when he was ten, he had tried to walk on the lake water. Lying on his back on the dock near his parents’ old cabin on the lake, he had become curious with the possibilities of faith. He had heard the story countless times in his Methodist Sunday School of the Savior walking on the water, but now his wondering made him restless. If he had enough faith, would the substanceless substance become firm beneath him? He stepped confidently out, then fell clumsily into the water.

One time I went on a first date with a girl in my ward. The next morning we were the only two who showed up for our ward’s temple trip. We offered to help with whatever ordinance needed the most patrons … which turned out to be sealings.
I was so nervous, but to my surprise, doing vicarious sealings with a girl less than 12 hours after our first date wasn’t nearly as awkward as I thought it would be. If anything, that experience gave me more perspective on how important each aspect of temple work is—including sealings (read more in my digital article).

History provides us a vivid example of the importance of the Lord’s servants being in tune with the Spirit. The young Prophet Joseph Smith could not translate when he was angry or upset.
David Whitmer recalled: “One morning when he was getting ready to continue the translation, something went wrong about the house and he was put out about it. Something that Emma, his wife, had done. Oliver and I went up stairs, and Joseph came up soon after to continue the translation, but he could not do anything. He could not translate a single syllable. He went down stairs, out into the orchard and made supplication to the Lord; was gone about an hour—came back to the house, asked Emma’s forgiveness and then came up stairs where we were and the translation went on all right. He could do nothing save he was humble and faithful.”1

David was coloring a beautiful picture. He was very careful and stayed inside the lines. He used bright yellow for the sun, blue for the sky, green for the trees, and red for the barn.
Mother came into the room, carrying his little sister, Allison. She set Allison next to him at the table and got a coloring book for her. “Allison is going to color with you while I make dinner,” she said. “Please give her a crayon to color with.”
David didn’t want to share his pretty crayons, but he did what his mother asked. He gave his sister the brown crayon. It was a dark color that he didn’t like much. “You can use this one,” he said to her.
Allison didn’t care what color the crayon was. She clenched it in her chubby fist and started making clumsy lines all over the page. She couldn’t color like David could. She just made scribbles.
Pretty soon David was almost finished with his picture. All he had left to color was the horse that was standing beside the barn. “I need the brown,” he said to Allison, but she didn’t stop scribbling. David reached over and tried to take the crayon from her hand. “I want the brown to color my horse,” he said.
Allison pulled her arm away and started to cry. She wanted to color too.
David liked his little sister. He felt sad when he saw the tears in her eyes. She was just trying to color like him. He looked at all the crayons beside his coloring book. There were lots of them, certainly enough for both him and his sister. “Do you want another color?” he asked her as he pushed his crayons to the middle of the table.
Allison looked at all the colors. She put down the brown crayon she was using and picked up a purple one. Happily she started to scribble over the top of the brown jumble she’d already made. David smiled. He picked up the brown crayon and carefully started coloring the horse’s mane. “Someday I’ll teach you to color inside the lines,” he said.

Lizzie wiggled and squirmed as she sat watching the deacons pass the sacrament bread. She thought, It’s sure hard to sit still and be reverent while the deacons pass the bread and the water. I wonder if all my friends will be in Primary today. I want to tell them about the presents Grandma and Grandpa sent from Portugal. I can’t wait to see Grandma and Grandpa when they come home from their mission!
In a few minutes, a deacon reached their row. When Lizzie took a piece of bread, Mom leaned over and whispered, “This is to help us remember Jesus.”
Lizzie tried to think about all the things she knew about Jesus. She thought of the story of Jesus visiting the Nephites after he was resurrected. He had blessed each child; then angels had come down from heaven. If only she could have been there!
Then Lizzie remembered a bedtime song Mom sometimes sang to her and her younger brother, Paul:
I think when I read that sweet story of old,
When Jesus was here among men,
How he called little children like lambs to his fold;
I should like to have been with him then.
I wish that his hands had been placed on my head,
That his arms had been thrown around me,
That I might have seen his kind look when he said,
“Let the little ones come unto me.”
(Children’s Songbook, 56)
Lizzie smiled quietly to herself and thought, I wish I could have been with Jesus then.
While she bowed her head for the prayer on the water, Lizzie listened carefully to the words. When she heard the priest say, “that they may always have his Spirit to be with them,” she wondered how she could have his Spirit with her.
The deacon passed the water to the family, and again Mom whispered to Lizzie, “This is to help us remember Jesus.”
Lizzie had a new thought. I didn’t live when Jesus was on earth, but he loves me just as much as he loved the children then. The sacrament prayer says that I can have his Spirit with me always if I remember him and am obedient. That’s great!
Lizzie snuggled up against Mom and smiled as the young men finished passing the sacrament. Thinking about Jesus had helped her be reverent during the sacrament, and she had such a good feeling inside that she knew she had done the right thing.

My father was like that. He was a scientist. He lectured to audiences in countries around the world. Once I read a talk he had given to a large scientific convention. In it, he referred to creation and a Creator as he talked about his science. I knew that few, if any, in that audience would have shared his faith. So I said to him with wonder and admiration, “Dad, you bore your testimony.” He looked at me with surprise on his face and said, “Did I?”
He had not even known that he was being brave. He simply said what he knew was true. When he bore testimony, even those who rejected it knew it came not by design but because it was part of him. He was what he was, wherever he was.

I love my family and try hard to help them when I can. I feel sad when I see families or parents who are struggling. I want to help them learn how to be a better and happier family. My dad is a lawyer and sometimes he has cases about families who are not choosing the right and that makes them very unhappy.
My idea was to help make a program to teach mothers and fathers and children to love each other better. I even wrote a letter to the president of the United States to ask what is being done to help families. Then yesterday I was reading “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.” I felt so happy that President Hinckley and the Apostles also want families to have love and do things that are right. I think if families will live the gospel every day they will be a lot happier.

Many teenagers have trouble getting along with their parents at some stage during their teen years. As a 16-year-old, I started to think that my mom and I would never have a conversation that didn’t end with tears and slammed doors.
During one particular argument, I shouted some angry words, stormed into my bedroom, and slammed the door as hard as I could. I threw myself onto my bed with hot, angry tears streaming down my cheeks. Thoughts ran through my head: “How can I fix this? What can I do to stop this constant arguing?”
Then as clear as if the Mormon Tabernacle Choir were in my room, I heard these words: “He lives to comfort me when faint. He lives to hear my soul’s complaint. … He lives to calm my troubled heart. He lives all blessings to impart” (“I Know That My Redeemer Lives,” Hymns, no. 136). I felt the Holy Ghost’s presence and the love of my Heavenly Father encircling me, and I knew that everything would work out.
That day was a turning point for me. Heavenly Father knew what I needed. Music is a huge part of my life, and I was blessed by listening to and learning the words of the hymns. They gave me comfort and strength when I really needed it, and they can help us through hard times.
Today my mom and I are the best of friends. We are both serving in the Primary in our ward, and I love that we can work together in our callings as well as at home.

“Here’s that video I was telling you about,” Jordan said, handing his friend a plastic case. “It’s got some cool stuff on it. Guns and stuff.”
“What’s the rating?” Blaine asked, opening the case and looking inside.
“Who cares? My mom lets me watch anything.” Jordan pulled on his roller blades. “Come on—put it in your backpack and let’s get to the park.”
As Blaine laced up his own roller blades, an uneasy feeling grew inside him. His family had often talked in family home evening about choosing good music, books, and videos. He had promised to not listen to or watch anything that he wouldn’t if Jesus were beside him. But if he didn’t take the video, Jordan would think that he was a wimp and might not want to be his friend any longer.
“Jordan?” Blaine kept his eyes on his roller blades. “I don’t think I’d better take the video. I know my mom wouldn’t like me to watch it.”
“So hide it and watch it when your mom isn’t home. Or is mommy’s little boy scared?”
The feeling inside Blaine had grown very strong, telling him to not take the video. He tried to ignore it as he tucked the video case inside his pack and raced after his friend. The feeling sank to a sick ache in his stomach.
Three other boys joined Blaine and Jordan at the park to play tag, race through a maze of giant cottonwood trees, and search for minnows in tiny, scattered pools fed by a winding stream. Blaine didn’t have much fun, though. He was trying to think of a way to give the video back without being teased by the other boys.
Soon it was time to go home.
“Hey, Chris,” Jordan said, “want to watch my video after Blaine’s done with it?”
“What’s it called?”
“Deathblaster. You should see how they kill off the bad guys.”
“Hey, cool! Blaine, when will you be finished?”
Now was his chance to give back the video, but somehow Blaine couldn’t make his mouth work. He shrugged, mumbled something about being late, and roller-bladed away, the video like a load of bricks on his back.
At home, he hid the plastic case at the bottom of his closet. I’ll just keep it for a few days and then give it back, he thought. Jordan will never know I didn’t watch it. But the sick feeling didn’t go away.
After dinner, the home teachers arrived with smiles and warm handshakes. Blaine loved to visit with Brother Jensen, who always had a story to tell, and with Brother Carter, who always asked Blaine how he was doing and gave him a peppermint.
Tonight, Brother Jensen told a story from the Old Testament. It was about Daniel and his three friends who were taken from their home in Israel, along with many other children, to the palace of King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar ordered them to be fed rich food and drink, but Daniel refused, asking instead for simple, healthy food for himself and his three friends. The king’s servant didn’t want to agree, but Daniel persuaded him to grant them a ten-day trial period. Ten days later, the servant saw that they were by far the healthiest of all the young people, and he quickly ordered the same food and drink for everyone. Because of their courage and faith, Heavenly Father blessed the four young men, and they became favorites of King Nebuchadnezzar.
“There are many around us who are trying to get us to make wrong choices,” Brother Jensen continued. “If we are as courageous as Daniel and his friends were, and stand for the right, Heavenly Father will bless us. We never have to go along with what everyone else is doing when we know it is wrong. To help us, we are given the gift of the Holy Ghost to tell us whether a choice is right or wrong.”
Brother Carter looked at Blaine. “Have you ever had to choose the right, Blaine, when all your friends wanted to choose wrong?”
Blaine felt his face get red as he thought of the video in his closet. “Y-yes,” he stammered, looking at his feet.
Brother Carter smiled. “I’m sure you made the right choice. You are the kind of person who would listen to the Holy Ghost.”
As the home teachers left, Blaine excused himself and ran to his bedroom. He knelt by his bed, asking Heavenly Father for forgiveness and courage. Then he put the video in his backpack and went to ask his mother if he could go to Jordan’s house. “I need to return something that belongs to him,” he explained.
“Hurry back home,” Mom said. “It will be dark soon.”
As Blaine skated up to Jordan’s driveway, he was dismayed to see him playing basketball with the other three boys. They saw Blaine and ran over to greet him.
“Want to shoot hoops with us?” Jordan asked.
Blaine shook his head. “I can’t. I just need to give you this.” He pulled the video from his pack and handed it to his friend.
“You saw it already? Hey, what did you think? Pretty gross, huh?”
There was silence as all eyes turned to Blaine. He looked right at Jordan. “I didn’t watch it. I don’t think it’s a family-rated video, and that’s what I watch. I’m going to rent a new video, though. Do you guys want to come watch it tomorrow? I’ll make popcorn.” He looked each in the eye, then turned back to Jordan.
There was another long silence.
“Yeah, sure, why not?” Jordan agreed. “Chris, you want this one?”
“Naw—my mom wouldn’t let me. I’ll watch Blaine’s with you. I’d better get going home.”
As the boys headed in separate directions, Blaine imagined Daniel beside him, a hand on his shoulder, smiling and nodding his approval. Blaine felt strong and courageous. A gentle warmth growing within told him that Heavenly Father was pleased with his choice, too.

In the first of what will be an annual event, the youth of the Bristol England Stake held a super raft race on a marine lake.
The group gathered at Weston-Super-Mare on a sunny but brisk day in June. The rules were simple. Each group had to make their own raft and using manpower take it across the lake and back. But it was easier said than done. The eight rafts gave the word unstable a new meaning. But through team effort the Weston Ward won.
After everyone dried off, the group held a barbecue and dance to complete the activity. Although the water was cold and the wind brisk, the glow of good fellowship added a special warmth to the day.