Gospel Story Finder

Now there has been added another element. It began some years ago when drought in Africa brought hunger and death to uncounted numbers. Members of the Church were invited to contribute to a great humanitarian effort to meet the needs of those terribly impoverished people. Your contributions were numerous and generous. The work has continued because there are other serious needs in many places. The outreach of this aid has become a miracle. Millions of pounds of food, medical supplies, blankets, tents, clothing, and other materials have staved off famine and desolation in various parts of the world. Wells have been dug; crops have been planted; lives have been saved. Let me give you an example.
Neil Darlington is a chemical engineer who worked for a large industrial company in Ghana. Eventually he retired.
He and his wife were then called as a missionary couple. They were sent to Ghana. Brother Darlington says, “In areas of famine, disease, and social unrest, we were there as representatives of the Church, extending a helping hand to the destitute, the hungry, the distressed.”
In small villages they drilled new wells and repaired old ones. Those of us who have fresh, clean water in abundance can scarcely appreciate the circumstances of those who are without.
Can you picture this couple, devoted Latter-day Saint missionaries? They drill into the dry earth. Their drill reaches the water table below, and the miracle liquid comes to the surface and spills over the dry and thirsty soil. There is rejoicing. There are tears. There is now water to drink, water with which to wash, water to grow crops. There is nothing more treasured in a dry land than water. How absolutely beautiful is water pouring from a new well.
On one occasion, when the tribal chiefs and the elders of the village gathered to thank them, Brother Darlington asked the chief if he and Sister Darlington could sing a song for them. They looked into the eyes of the dark-skinned men and women before them and sang “I Am a Child of God” as an expression of their common brotherhood.
This one couple, through their efforts, have provided water for an estimated 190,000 people in remote villages and refugee camps. Contemplate, if you will, the miracle of this accomplishment.

In a previous general conference, Elder Benjamín De Hoyos spoke of such an event. He said:
“Some years ago while serving in the office of public affairs of the Church in Mexico, [a companion and I] were invited to participate in a radio talk show. … [One of the program directors] asked [us], ‘Why does the Church have such a long name? …’
“My companion and I smiled at such a magnificent question and then proceeded to explain that the name of the Church was not chosen by man. It was given by the Savior. … The program director immediately and respectfully responded, ‘We will thus repeat it with great pleasure.’”

An early-morning seminary student, Cameron K. was used to starting his day in a spiritual way. “Seminary gives me that spiritual boost for the day. I wanted to get that boost,” Cameron says. And summer vacation was no exception. When the temple baptistry opened each summer morning at 6:30 a.m., Cameron was there.
Every morning, Tuesday through Saturday, Cameron left his home before 6:00 a.m., his bike lights flashing in the dark as he pedaled the five-mile route to the temple. “The streets were quiet. It felt peaceful,” Cameron says. Since he was riding a single-speed bike, enduring the initial uphill climb was his biggest challenge. “Whenever I would crest the top of the hill, I would start looking to see where the temple was. I was able to see a glimpse of the angel Moroni,” he says. “It helped me focus on the temple.”
While doing baptisms for the dead, Cameron tried to focus on the people. “Sometimes I’d think about a person as I was doing an ordinance for him, trying to feel better connected with him. There were a few times when a certain name would be read for the baptism and I kind of knew that person was happy his work was being done.”
“One time when I was leaving the temple,” says Cameron, “the temple president was at the front door. He reached out to me and said, ‘Thank you for coming.’ It made me really want to come back. It made me realize that it really is a huge work that we do in the temple. It made me want to be even more a part of it.”
By summer’s end, Cameron had made over 40 round trips to the temple, biking over 400 miles.

As a young boy, George Albert Smith was very ill with typhoid fever, a disease that killed many people at that time. The doctor advised his mother to give him coffee to drink, but George refused it. Instead, he asked for a priesthood blessing from their ward (home) teacher. The next morning, when the doctor arrived, he found George Albert in the yard, playing. “I was grateful to the Lord for my recovery,” he said. “I was sure that He had healed me.”

Cape Town South Africa Stake
The youth from the Cape Town South Africa Stake read from Ephesians 5:9 [Eph. 5:9]: “For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth.” That was the theme of their youth conference. Then they began a two-day work project where they repaired and remodeled a wooden building that would be converted to a day-care center for five small settlements at Du Noon outside of Cape Town.
The youth straightened and reinforced a dilapidated wall and removed rotting boards so new ones could be installed. They landscaped the outside property, replaced and cleaned windows, and sanded and varnished the wood.
“I didn’t think work could be such fun,” said Siyabulela Mavula of the Guguletu Branch. “What made it more enjoyable than other work was the fact that we were all friends and we were helping these people who couldn’t help themselves.”

When Sister Limsukhon was living in Chiang Mai as a new member of the Church, one of the full-time missionaries was Anan Eldredge. Brother Eldredge’s life has almost spanned the history of the Church in Thailand.
Born Anan Tubtimta, he lived in a small village approximately five hundred kilometers north of Bangkok. When he was eight years old, Anan’s mother died—leaving him with questions about life and death. As he sought the answers to these questions, he also sought educational excellence and became one of the top students at his high school.
“When I was sixteen, I left home and went to Bangkok, where I worked as a busboy in a hotel,” he says. There he became friends with the teenage son of a U.S. State Department official, Louis Eldredge. Louis and his wife, June, were Latter-day Saints. When the Eldredges were assigned to a major military installation in Thailand, they invited Anan along.
“I met two Latter-day Saint servicemen who discussed the gospel with me. Through them, I finally found the answers to the questions I had on life and death. I discovered who I was, where I came from, and where I was going.”
Anan was baptized 24 December 1967, the first Thai male convert in Thailand. The following year, when the first six full-time missionaries were assigned to Thailand, Anan became their constant companion, teaching them the language and helping them translate Church pamphlets.
The Eldredges offered to adopt Anan and send him to college in the United States. Even though it meant giving up his family name, Anan’s father, a respected school principal, encouraged his son to accept the Eldredges’ offer.
But no sooner had Anan arrived in the United States than he was called to serve a mission in Thailand. After a thirty-month mission, Anan returned to the United States and entered college in California. There he met a Brigham Young University graduate named Margaret Brown, a convert from England. The couple was married five months later in the Los Angeles Temple.
“After my graduation in business management, Margaret and I went to Thailand so she could meet my family. During that visit, I was hired to establish the area distribution office for the Church.”
While there, he helped prepare a revised Thai-language version of the Book of Mormon, and he helped with translating and publishing the Thai Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price.
After he had worked for five years with the Church Distribution Center, Anan and Margaret returned to the United States, where he continued with gemology studies he had begun in Thailand. Eventually, he opened a jewelry business in Kansas City, Kansas, and later a store in Anchorage, Alaska.
When asked how a Thai, married to an English woman, decided to live in Alaska, he jokingly says, “I love the fishing there.”
But Anan, Margaret, and their growing family of three sons and two daughters, were to become fishers of men. In 1988, Anan was called to preside over the Thai Mission. (Before he completed his term as mission president in 1991, he greeted a new missionary couple from the United States—Louis and June Eldredge.)
Under President Anan Eldredge’s missionary leadership, Church membership in Thailand showed a steady increase. He constantly emphasized the need for members to fellowship and retain new converts, and to reactivate the less-active. He looks forward to the day when the first stake is created in Thailand.

I remember a day when I was only three years old and my family was living in a humble two-room home with a dirt roof. My father was in bed, delirious with scarlet fever. There was a heavy storm outside, and my mother, four-year-old brother, and I were putting out pans, cans, and buckets to catch the water dripping through the roof. My little sister slept in a cot near my father.
When the pans, cans, and buckets were in place, Mother called my brother and me to her side and had us kneel in prayer. I am sure she had helped me pray many times before, but on this occasion it was different. I remember her helping me with the words of the prayer. They went something like this: “Heavenly Father, we really need Thy help. We need our dad to be made better. Please bless him to get well. We need our roof to stop leaking so he doesn’t get wet and cold and become more ill. We love Thee, Heavenly Father, and we always want to serve Thee.”
There must have been more said in that prayer, but those words of faith from my dear mother in the tender childhood years of my life have never left my memory. I learned the principle of prayer and its value in the home through the example and teachings of my faithful, obedient parents.

The Prophet’s brother Hyrum understood this and testified fearlessly of divine truth as it had been revealed to his brother Joseph and confirmed in his own heart. His testimony blessed the lives of many, including Parley P. Pratt. When Parley first encountered the Book of Mormon, Hyrum took him into his own home and spent the night teaching and testifying to him. He bore witness of the prophetic mantle that rested upon Joseph and of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Shortly thereafter Hyrum set aside his own needs and went with Parley to honor his request for baptism (see Autobiography of Parley Parker Pratt, ed. Parley P. Pratt Jr. [1938], 35–42).
We may never fully comprehend or be able to measure the far-reaching effects of Hyrum’s one-on-one testimony to Parley P. Pratt. In addition to Parley’s faithful posterity, his apostolic witness and missionary service drew countless souls into the kingdom of God. Interestingly, included among those who joined the Church as a direct result of his ministry in Canada were Joseph Fielding and his sisters, Mary and Mercy. After his first wife, Jerusha, died, Hyrum met and married Mary Fielding, and from their marriage came President Joseph F. Smith and countless other members and Church leaders. Now I realize that not all testimonies will return such a blessing as Hyrum’s did.

Arriving home after a hard day’s work, I discovered that my wife had gone to visit some of our children who lived in a city some seventy-five kilometers away; she left me a note saying she would be back later in the evening.
I prepared something to eat and was just sitting down when, through the window, I saw my home teachers, Sven Jensen and L. D. Meyers, coming to the door. I greeted them without any real enthusiasm, explaining that I was sitting down to eat. Could they come back in a few minutes? They cheerfully replied, “We tried to call for an appointment, George, but there was no answer. So we took a chance on finding you home. We’ll visit another family and then come back.”
Half an hour later, they returned. After a few pleasant words of greeting, Sven smiled, and said, “George, we would like to read through an article written by President Benson.” It sounded interesting, but I was tired and my interest quickly faded when he added: “We will go over each of his twelve points on how to overcome depression.” (See “Do Not Despair,” Tambuli, March 1987.) I realized I was going to be there for quite a while.
“Number one,” Sven said, then he paused and looked up from the text into my eyes. At that instant we exchanged a wonderful, yet silent, communication. I thought of the many times I had met this faithful man at church. Sven would look for me, shake my hand, and say, “George, do you still know the gospel’s true?” Knowing the question was coming, I’d stand as straight and tall as I could and reply with all the dignity I could, “Yes, Sven, I know with all my heart that the gospel is true.”
He would smile as he seemed to look into my soul and say, “That’s good, George.”
As Sven began covering point number one in the article on how to overcome depression, he explained, “First, George, if you’re depressed you have to repent.”
Then he asked, “Why is it we have to repent?” I said, “Well, I remember the Book of Mormon says that ‘despair cometh because of iniquity.’” (Moro. 10:22.)
As Sven read each point in the article, he looked up from the magazine and right at me, saying, “This sounds just like you, George.” He continually made me feel good about myself with sincere compliments. As he got to point ten, I found myself no longer wanting him to finish. There was a comforting spirit in the room.
After Sven made the twelfth point, he closed the magazine and smiled at me. “What do you think of that, George?” I could scarcely speak. What I thought—what it seemed like—was that President Ezra Taft Benson had just come to my home and visited me. But because he couldn’t come himself, he had sent a special messenger to represent him. I knew I had heard the words of the prophet spoken by the mouth of my home teacher, and I knew the message had touched my heart.
Later, as we walked toward the front door, Sven sensed that something had happened during the visit, and his eyes were moist as we shook hands. Then my home teachers were gone, but their message was still with me. I had been a little depressed when they came, but not now. Now I had been spiritually refreshed and was ready to return to my duty.
Later that night, I decided there was a thirteenth way to overcome depression—and that way was to have home teachers come to love, teach, and bless you.

My boss, classmates, neighbors, and relatives thought it was absurd for me to abandon work, studies, and family to teach of Jesus Christ. They became even more concerned when they learned I would not be paid for doing this.

I asked the Lord for help. I began to ask people: “What is the purpose of life? Why are we here? Where are we going?” I bore my testimony of the plan of salvation. I explained that many children of God are waiting for answers to these questions.

Elder Carlos Eduardo Faria Boato,Brazil Maceió Mission

My career as Devin Durrant’s father began on October 20, exactly 29 years after my own birth. Marilyn and I rushed to the hospital. Our third child was about to be born. My wife went immediately to the delivery room and I to the waiting room.
I was startled after just a few minutes to hear the voice of our doctor, who said, “Hello, Mr. Durrant.”
Because he was there much sooner than I had expected, I wondered, “Is the baby born already?”
He spoke again: “Would you like to come in and be with Marilyn while she has the baby?”
I had never done that before, nor did I really desire to do so this time. I replied, “Well, I would but I am reading this Sports Illustrated magazine.”
He asked in a questioning tone, “Could you read that later?”
I gulped and replied, “I suppose that I could, but I’m right in the middle of an article.”
He was persistent, and I soon ran out of excuses. Soon I was at Marilyn’s side, and in a matter of several minutes the baby was born. I never did finish that Sports Illustrated, but that day the longest sports story I’ve ever been a personal part of began to be written in my heart.

I am an elder, serving a full-time mission. One day I picked up the New Era and read “Why Obey” (Nov. 2002) by Elder Athos M. Amorím. At that time, I wanted to return home, but I began to read this article with curiosity. When it mentioned the number of missionaries serving a mission and how they are sacrificing their time and money for the Lord, I thought about my selfishness. I read about how serving a mission is obeying our Father in Heaven and how sacrifice brings tremendous blessings. From reading this, I have decided to stay on my mission to help the Lord with this work. Thank you very much for this inspirational magazine.Name withheld(an elder who now “loves his mission!”)

Dad made each of us kids feel special. He loved us and would forgive easily. He did his best to make sure that each of us was happy, and he made it clear that he wanted the best for us. I loved him so much.
When I was in sixth grade, my dad died in a car accident. My family and I were totally devastated. There was a big hole in our family. Dad was the one I leaned on, the one I went to if I was having problems. Instead of seeking help, I let the anger and hurt stay. I finally decided it was God’s fault. I stopped reading my scriptures and saying prayers. I went to church only because Mom wanted me to. I tried to stay far away from my Heavenly Father.
Then I went to Young Women camp for the first time. I liked meeting new friends, but I still didn’t read my scriptures. On the last night, we had a testimony meeting. I felt something I hadn’t in a long time: the Spirit. I admired the girls who got up and bore their testimonies, but I stayed seated because I thought I didn’t have one. All of a sudden I felt like I had to get up. I opened my mouth, wondering what to say. So I said I was glad for Young Women camp. Then I found myself saying that I knew Jesus Christ died for me and that my Heavenly Father loved me and that the Church was true.
I was filled with a remarkable peace. Thanks to this experience I can say that I know I will see my dad again because of the Savior’s Atonement and Resurrection.

This has proven good counsel for our family. As my wife and I have made our children’s activities outside the home a matter of pondering and prayer, some of the things we had thought to be important turned out to be unnecessary. I was especially surprised when I asked our children if they wanted to participate on a basketball team with me as their coach. Their reply was, “I don’t think so,” along with, “Dad, we have a basket in the front yard, and we like when you play with us and we have games with the neighbors. We get the ball a lot more!”

Let me tell you about a young lady who charted her course ahead of time. A recently called member of a bishopric with his lovely wife at his side thankfully related this situation. He said, “She deserves much of the credit for my present course in life. When we were dating years ago, I took her for a ride in my car to a secluded area. We parked. As I started to make some intimate advances she felt were improper, she said, ‘All of my life I have planned on being married in the temple. Don’t you disqualify me!’” She had charted her course before she got into troubled waters.

“We started a tradition in our ward of helping each young man achieve his ‘triple crown’: Chief Scout Award, Queen’s Venturer Award, and full-time missionary,” Brother Molnar said. “One young man, Gordon Mitchell, got the ball rolling by doing a lot of things on his own. He persisted until he became the first young man in our ward to earn his Queen’s Venturer Award. He is now attending Brigham Young University, ready to go on his mission when he turns 19.

“His example encouraged his peers to strive for their ‘triple crown’ too. This year, our ward had six young men earn their Queen’s Venturer Award. This is an outstanding number for any one group, as there were only 33 recipients out of about 1,200 Venturers in the B.C.–Yukon Area. And, incidentally, out of the 33 recipients, 11 were Latter-day Saints.” Brother Molnar says he expects all seven of his Queen’s Venturers to go on missions.

Seven out of seven. Now that’s a record anyone in Scouting should understand.

Brother Juntratip met his wife, Kwanjai, a couple of years after his return from BYU. She had served a mission in Thailand.

The Juntratips were sealed in the Manila Philippines Temple in June 1990 by the temple president, Floyd Hogan, who had been Kwanjai’s mission president. Their son, Pituporn, was born in August 1991. “His name means patriarchal blessing,” explains Brother Juntratip. “We hope he grows up to be a good missionary like his mother.

“I remember that when the missionaries presented the discussions to me, I felt the gospel message they taught me was true, was good,” he says. “By striving to live my life according to the gospel, I have come to know for a certainty that it is true and it is good.”

The next few weeks were busy ones. School started again, and then my eighth birthday came along almost before I realized it. After my baptism and confirmation, a few things began to change. I started getting up a little earlier each morning to read the Book of Mormon before I headed off to school. That was tough because I hate getting up in the morning, but I was determined to make it all the way through that book.
I also started fasting each month on fast Sunday. There aren’t many things I like to do more than eat, so I slipped up sometimes, but even so, I started noticing a difference in how I felt about testimony meeting.
I began paying more attention to what each speaker was saying, and that made the meeting a lot more interesting. I found out that Sister Johnson had joined the Church when she was twenty-six years old. I thought she’d been a member all her life! And I loved it when old Brother Badger bore his testimony. He had exciting stories to tell about his life and about miracles he had witnessed.
I finished the Book of Mormon early the next summer. There were great stories and teachings in it, and I was happy that I’d reached my goal. But Moroni had written in the last chapter that if you read the Book of Mormon and want to know if it’s true, you should ponder it in your heart and pray to Heavenly Father about it. He promised that if you do that with faith in Jesus Christ and with a sincere heart, the Holy Ghost will help you know that it’s true. I decided to try it out for myself.
The rest of that week I prayed every morning and night. Sometimes I even said a quick prayer in my head when I was at school, but I never saw a vision or even heard a voice that told me the Book of Mormon was true. I felt like giving up, but I really wanted to know, so I just kept on praying.
The next fast Sunday, I fasted to know if the Book of Mormon was true. I spent a lot of time on my knees, and I reread some of my favorite parts. It was amazing how seldom I thought about food.
Testimony meeting was going along great that day. I was even happy for Molly Prentiss when she went up and bore her testimony. Then Brother Badger went to the front to speak. His quiet voice trembled as he spoke of his great love for the scriptures and how he knew of the truth of the gospel.
As he spoke, a strange feeling started in a little spot in my chest. It got warmer and bigger until my whole body was filled with glowing, tingly warmth. When he finished, that warmth seemed to pick me up and carry me right to the pulpit. The lump in my throat loosened into a few words that came right from my soul: “I know that the Book of Mormon is true. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.”

Husbands and wives, learn to listen, and listen to learn from one another. I was amused to read of an experience recorded by Elder F. Burton Howard in his biography of President Marion G. Romney: “His good-humored love for Ida was manifested in many ways. He delighted in telling of her hearing loss. ‘I once went to see a doctor about her hearing,’ he would say. ‘He asked me how bad it was, and I said I didn’t know. He told me to go home and find out. The doctor instructed me to go into a far room and speak to her. Then I should move nearer and nearer until she does hear. Following the doctor’s instructions, I spoke to her from the bedroom while she was in the kitchen—no answer. I moved nearer and spoke again—no answer. So I went right up to the door of the kitchen and said, “Ida, can you hear me?” She responded, “What is it, Marion—I’ve answered you three times.”’”

It was at the height of his career as an orthodontist that Randall Kay Bennett and his wife, Shelley, felt “a distinct impression” to prepare to serve missions. This meant that they would need to sell their home right away.
The reason for the prompting didn’t become immediately apparent—it took three years for their home to sell, a process that “took a lot of patience” and required that they “show the Lord that we were really committed,” Elder Bennett says. “We continued to trust in the Lord and tried to stay close to Him through frequent temple attendance, daily scripture study, prayer, fasting, and service to others.”
Shortly after their home finally sold, Elder Bennett was called to serve at the Provo Missionary Training Center and then as president of the Russia Samara Mission.
“It was wonderful—and very humbling—to know that the Lord had been mindful of us and had been preparing us,” Elder Bennett said. “We have come to know that the Lord is aware of the thoughts of our minds and the feelings of our hearts. We have learned to trust that He knows better than we do, that He knows more than we do, and that He loves us.”