Gospel Story Finder

After much pondering and prayer, President Woodruff received a revelation that the Latter-day Saints should cease the practice of plural marriage. In 1890 he wrote the Manifesto, testifying that the Church had ceased teaching the practice of plural marriage. In addition to being the Lord’s mouthpiece for that revelation, President Woodruff also left a legacy that emphasized missionary and temple work.

In 1887 Patriarch John Smith said to a young man, age 13, “For the eye of the Lord is upon thee—the Lord has a work for thee to do, in which thou shalt see much of the world. It shall be thy lot to sit in council with thy brethren, and preside among the people, and exhort the saints to faithfulness.” (Llewelyn R. McKay, Highlights in the Life of President David O. McKay, Deseret Book Co., 1966, p. 38.) A confirmation of this took place in far-off Scotland, in a meeting high in spiritual manifestation, when a Latter-day Saint of Scotch ancestry spoke. Those who were there heard President James L. McMurrin address one of those present and prophesy that he would sit in the highest councils of the Church. That one sat in the highest councils of the Church in the person of President David O. McKay. (See Highlights in the Life of President David O. McKay, pp. 37–38.)

Primary children in the Virden Ward, Duncan Arizona Stake, New Mexico, USA, fill jars of pennies to buy copies of the Book of Mormon for the missionaries. Every Sunday, children who bring their scriptures get to put a penny into a jar. When it is filled, they put a child’s testimony in each Book of Mormon to share.

The missionary journey took great physical courage as well as faith. While jumping onto a ferryboat in New York, Brigham slipped and fell against an iron ring on the deck, severely dislocating his shoulder:
“I directed brothers Kimball and Hedlock to lay hold of my body, and Brother Pratt to take hold of my hand and pull, putting his foot against my side, while I guided the bone with my right hand back to its place. … When I came to a fire I fainted, and was not able to dress myself for several days.27

Illustration by Roger Motzkus
When I was young, my grandma often had get-togethers for my cousins and me. There were about 14 of us, and we were always excited when Grandma invited us over for dinners, sleepovers, game nights, and holidays. Grandma’s house was the place to be!
Every activity at Grandma’s house was fun. But I never thought about all of the time and work that went into each activity. I just thought that was what grandmas did, and I loved it!
After years of fun cousin memories at Grandma’s house, our family moved away. Later my grandma came to spend a special day with us in our new home. My family thought long and hard to find the perfect gift for her. She has more stuff than anyone I know. What could we get the grandma who has everything?
I asked my dad for ideas, and he told me the same thing he says every year: “Why don’t you write her a really nice letter?” I was out of ideas, and so early the next morning, before anyone else was awake, I sat at the kitchen table with my feet on the cold tile and wrote my grandma a special letter.
At first I wondered what I could write besides, “You are so wonderful. Thanks for everything.” As I looked out the kitchen window at the palm trees and the sky, I thought of the many things Grandma had done for us over the years. I remembered that I had never told my grandma how much those times spent together as a family meant to me.
In my letter, I told my grandma that I love her, and I thanked her for all of the special memories. I let her know how important they still were to me, even years later. Then I put the letter in an envelope and went back into my warm, carpeted room.
When the time came to give Grandma her gifts, I slowly pulled out my letter. I didn’t know how to feel about my gift to her.
She looked surprised when I gave her the envelope. I watched closely as she carefully tore off the end of the envelope and pulled out the letter on narrow pink paper. As she read it, she started to smile and tears filled her eyes. I had never seen my grandma cry before. She slowly looked up and turned toward me with warm, brown eyes. She whispered, “Thank you, thank you. I didn’t think anyone remembered.”
Grandma, who had done so much to build strong family relationships, had no idea that I remembered or was grateful for those times together. She wiped her eyes and said, “Kimberly, thank you. That was the best present anyone could ever give me.”
I gave Grandma a big hug, feeling her soft skin against my cheek and smelling her “grandma” smell that was a mix of baby powder and musk. I was so grateful for my dad’s idea to write her a letter. I didn’t know that words of gratitude and love would mean more to my grandma than all of the knickknacks, perfume, and gifts that money could buy.

Pretend You’re a Cat by Jean Marzollo “Can you climb? / Can you leap? / Can you stretch? / Can you sleep? / Can you hiss? / Can you scat? / Can you purr / Like a cat? / What else can you do like a cat?” Beautiful pictures of children, a cat, and twelve more familiar animals illustrate the verses.

On a warm day in July 2017, two elders knocked on a door in Cebu City, Philippines. Inside was a teenage boy named Lord Von Cedric (yes, his name actually is Lord), along with his family. The elders asked if they could teach the family the gospel of Jesus Christ. And while Lord’s parents said they weren’t interested, they were at least willing to listen to what the elders had to say. However, as the missionaries taught, Lord’s family realized they wanted to learn more.
After several lessons with the elders, Lord, his two sisters, and his father, Christopher, decided they wanted to join the Church. But there was a problem—only Lord would be able to be baptized. His sisters were still too young, and although Lord’s parents lived together as a family, they weren’t married—meaning Christopher wouldn’t be able to get baptized either.
It was difficult for Lord to decide to be baptized since he would be taking the step alone. However, as the elders taught him, he had faith that this decision would help him be able to share the gospel with his mom, who still wasn’t very interested in the Church. He says, “Before, I only knew a little about Jesus Christ. But then, I understood that He is our Savior and Redeemer. I knew He would help me if I followed His commandments.”
Lord kept working on obeying the commandments once he was baptized and started noticing a difference in himself. He was becoming, in his own words, a “good boy.” He decided to specifically work on listening to his parents more. He says, “Before, when Mother told me to do something, I didn’t always obey because it could be tiring. But now I do what my parents say.”
He also started making other goals as part of the Children and Youth program. He wanted to learn how to play the guitar, so he asked his dad to help him learn, since his dad already knew how to play. Lord also helped his younger sister, Nicole, set her own goals. She decided that she wanted to help out around the house more, so they worked together to do their chores each day.
As Lord tried to accomplish his goals, his parents noticed how hard he was working. His mom, Jeramie, says, “He has changed a lot. Now he is patient and very diligent. I am so happy that he has personally progressed.”
After a few months, Lord and his sister Nicole made a goal they wanted to work on together—they wanted to read the Book of Mormon as a family and finish it by the end of the year. The two kids hoped this would be a good opportunity to get their mom to participate in gospel activities with them.
But Jeramie was at work a lot, so Lord and Nicole came up with a plan— they would read the Book of Mormon and say family prayer after dinner when she was home.
Doing this each night helped Lord’s mom become more open to the gospel. Jeramie says, “As we read the Book of Mormon, I started to see how wonderful it was and how it teaches us about Christ.”
Soon Jeramie decided to make a change herself, just as Lord had—she quit her job, which would give her time to go to church. She attended for the first time in June 2019 and immediately could tell there was something good about it. She says, “I felt the presence of Jesus Christ while I was there.”
She also started participating in the missionary lessons, after many invitations from Lord and the others. “Before, my mother did not really want to listen to the missionaries,” Lord says. “She would even leave when they came to teach. My father, Nicole, and I told her to just try to listen, and maybe she would like it. And we were right—she listened, and she liked it.”
Lord’s mom learned more about the importance of marriage as she was taught the gospel, and realized she needed to make that commitment. She and Christopher got married as soon as they could and then started preparing for their baptism. Nicole happened to be turning eight around that same time, so she started preparing to be baptized at the same time as her parents.
In July of 2019, the baptism day finally came, and Christopher said that the timing made it even more special. “July is important to me because this month two years ago was the first time we went to church,” Christopher says.
Because Lord, Nicole, and Christopher had been waiting for almost two years for their whole family to be baptized, they all felt like their prayers were being answered.
Christopher says, “Since the elders started teaching us, I have seen how we have progressed and how our lives have changed because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. That’s why we will continue to endure to the end.” One way the family is planning to do that is by going to the temple to be sealed as a family in 2020.
Lord is particularly pleased with all the changes that have happened in his family. He says, “I’m so happy that my mother, father, and younger sister were finally baptized. I’m really glad that now all of us are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.”

The Church is important to Jeff. He was the only Church member in his high school, and the only seminary student in his ward. He graduated from seminary this year. The first year of high school he attended early-morning seminary with two other youth from the stake. “It was a nice way to wake up,” says Jeff. The next year his mom became his home-study teacher. “We’d get into discussions about the scriptures and learn along with each other.
“Ever since I can remember we’ve been studying the scriptures as a family together in the mornings. The scriptures have given me a lot of guidance in my life and helped me with my problems,” says Jeff.

It was a special mission conference: our president was being released, and he was sharing his testimony with us for the last time.
We felt a little sad in bidding this man good-bye. He had worked arduously to do the will of the Lord, and the years weighed upon him; but in spite of his weariness, he spoke with great assurance and enthusiasm.
In his talk, he shared a story with us that has since caused me to reflect many times on my service in the Church. He said that while returning from a conference in the city of Salto, Uruguay, he began wondering whether he had done all that the Lord had desired of him.
As he was meditating, he suddenly felt as if the Lord had placed a hand upon his shoulder and said to him: “My son, you have done all that I have commanded you to do. Return to your home in peace; you have been faithful, and I am pleased with your labors.” This brought him great relief and joy, for he had worried about his standing before God.
After a pause, he said, “The best missionaries are not the ones who have had the greatest number of baptisms, or who have given the most discussions, or who know the most doctrine; the best missionaries are those who, when they have finished their missions, feel as though the Lord could put his hand on their shoulders and say, ‘My son, you have done all that I have commanded you. I am pleased with your labors.’”

Some years ago, Brigham Young University honored with a presidential citation Sarah Bagley Shumway, a truly remarkable woman of our time. The citation contained the words: “It is often within our homes and among our own family members that the eternally significant—but usually unheralded—dramas of daily living occur. The people in these plain but important places bring stability to the present and promise to the future. Their lives are filled with struggle and deep feeling as they face circumstances that rarely fit neatly within the formulae of plays, films, and newscasts. But their victories, however slight, strengthen the boundaries through which the history of future generations must pass.”
Sarah married H. Smith Shumway, then her “friend and sweetheart of nine years,” in 1948. The courtship was longer than most because Smith, an infantry officer in World War II, had been blinded and severely wounded by a land-mine explosion in the advance on Paris, France. During his long rehabilitation, Sarah learned Braille so that she could correspond with him in privacy. She couldn’t tolerate the idea of others reading her letters aloud to the man she loved.
Something of the spirit of this young couple comes to us in the simple candor of Smith Shumway’s proposal of marriage. Finally home in Wyoming after the war, he told Sarah, “If you will drive the car and sort the socks and read the mail, I will do the rest.” She accepted the offer.
Years of study led to a successful career, eight accomplished children, a host of grandchildren, and lives of service. Along life’s pathway, the Shumways faced problems of a child with severe deafness, a missionary son developing cancer, and a twin granddaughter injured at birth.
My family and I had the privilege of meeting the entire Shumway clan at a summer vacation camp. Each wore an identifying T-shirt on which was a map depicting the location of each child and family, along with the names of all. Brother Shumway, with justifiable pride, pointed to the location on his shirt of his precious ones and beamed the smile of gladness. Only then did I ponder that he had never seen any of his children or grandchildren. Or had he? While his eyes had never beheld them, in his heart he knew them and he loved them.
At an evening of entertainment, the Shumway family was on the stage. The children were asked, “What was it like growing up in a household with a sightless father?” One daughter smiled and said, “When we were little, occasionally we felt Daddy should not have too much dessert at dinner, so without telling him, we would trade our smaller helping with his larger one. Maybe he knew, but he never complained.”
One child touched our hearts when she recounted, “When I was about five years old, I remember my father holding my hand and walking me around the neighborhood, and I never realized he was blind because he talked about the birds and other things. I always thought he held my hand because he loved me more than other fathers loved their children.”
Though she has passed away now, Sarah and Smith Shumway and their family offer examples of rising above adversity and sorrow, overcoming the tragedy of war-inflicted impairment, and walking bravely the higher roadway of life.

Some of my best reading has been done on Sunday, not to mention the piles of studies that I did because I played on Saturday. During my last year at college, I decided, to my own amazement, to abolish Sunday study. And I did—to the last degree. I still played on Saturday, but when Sunday arrived, I could not study, so I didn’t worry about tests and papers. I did just as well in school, and my mind was renewed and refreshed, a vital part of the Sabbath.

This very week, a young girl from Texas was telling of her struggle to be good. She spoke of the constant bombarding of evils made to appear appealing at school, on the television, in advertisements. There is hardly a corner protected from messages of immorality. “You simply can’t make it alone,” she said.

A few months ago I received a letter from a family friend whom we had not seen for many years. Her letter was an expression of hopelessness and a plea for help. After struggling to raise her children as a single mother, she was now remarried. Her nonmember husband was a rough outdoorsman who attempted to express his manhood through drinking, foul language, tough talk, and questionable behavior. Her great concern was that her husband’s example was teaching her son that these indeed were the traits of manhood. Her plea to me: Is there some way, even though separated by great distances, that I might speak to her son, whom we shall call Ben, about the characteristics of true manhood? In answer to that plea, tonight I shall attempt to respond. Thus I address my remarks to a faraway friend and to all the “Bens” in the Church attempting to measure up as a man.

As I become old enough to serve a mission, the idea of spending two years away from home as a missionary seems daunting. My entire life, I’ve heard mission stories from my family and ward members about how missions are incredible, testimony-building, life-defining experiences. I have no doubt that this is true, but serving a mission has always seemed far away. Now that it’s so close, the reality of it has sunk in.
I know that the Lord expects me and all able-bodied young men to serve missions. I know it is a duty and a commandment, but I wanted to learn more about why I needed to serve. I was struck by President Thomas S. Monson’s saying that a mission is an “obligation the Lord expects of us who have been given so very much” (“As We Meet Together Again,” Oct. 2010 general conference). With blessings comes responsibility, and serving a mission is one way that I can show gratitude to God for all that He has blessed me with—the gospel, my family and friends, an education, the people I’ll serve, and much more.
Even though I know this is true, I sometimes still have fears about leaving. But I just try to remember that God wants me to serve a mission, and He will help support me in the decision to serve. He will not leave me to do it alone and will be there every step of the way (see John 14:18).

Dad was in the bishopric for seventeen years, practically the whole time I was growing up. My sister and I would walk the three-quarters of a mile to church and sit in the congregation and watch Dad up on the stand. Then we’d walk home and tell Mother about what we’d learned. Mother’s health gradually improved, and from the time I finished high school, she lived a normal, active life.
Seeing Dad up on the stand is a fond memory because I knew that Dad was doing what Heavenly Father wanted him to do. As long as he was trying to do what was right and serving Heavenly Father, everything was OK. Nothing was lacking in our lives. I knew that Dad was doing his best. I knew that Heavenly Father was taking care of Mother. And I knew that all I had to do was do my best, and Heavenly Father would help us.

I was baptized in April 1992, the first member of my family to join the Church. As a single mother, I found that it was not always easy to face people’s negative reaction to my conversion. But my baptism was a glorious experience, and I have never regretted my decision to join the Church. It is wonderful to have the opportunity to help my four-year-old daughter develop her testimony.
I find spiritual support in a wonderful magazine, Lys over Norge (Norwegian). I read it from cover to cover. My daughter loves the children’s section. Whenever we go to our mailbox, she asks if the children’s magazine has arrived for her.
I share the magazine with my mother and sister, who are now members of the Church, and with my nonmember friends; they all enjoy it very much. I also place copies wherever I can—at my doctor’s office, on passenger ferry boats, and so on—so that others may read it.
Eldrid Helén AntonesenBergen 1st Branch, Stavanger Norway District

Looking in my bedroom mirror,
I see a playmate there.
He wears pajamas just like me
And has my color hair.
I clap my hands and show a smile,
Then get down on one knee.
I bob my head and touch my toes;
He does the same to me.
I say good-bye and walk away.
My friend is going too.
I think I know just where he went.
Don’t you?

A handsome farmer, so a legend says, accidently flung an old wagon wheel into his horse’s crib. The headstrong animal backed into a corner and reared. He kicked the wheel so hard that he chipped it, sending slivers flying through the air. The farmer quickly slipped into the stall, calmed the horse, and removed the wheel.

Most of us are modest enough to think that our small candle of example might be too dim to be noticed. But you and your family are watched more than you may realize. Some time ago I had the chance to attend and speak at meetings with nearly 300 ministers and leaders of other churches. I visited alone with as many as I could. I asked them why they had been so attentive to my message, which was to recount the origins of the Church, to tell of the young Joseph Smith’s First Vision and of living prophets. In every case, they gave essentially the same answer. They told a story of a person or a family—Church members they knew. Often I heard, “They were the finest family I have ever known.” Often they spoke of some community effort or disaster response in which Church members worked in a remarkable way.

The people I met at those meetings could not yet recognize the truth in the doctrine, but they had seen its fruit in members’ lives, and so they were ready to listen. They were ready to hear truths of the Restoration—that families can be sealed forever and that the gospel can change our very natures. They were ready because of your examples.

I truly believe that those who have the ability to reach out and to lift up have found the formula descriptive of Brother Walter Stover—a man who spent his entire life in service to others. At Brother Stover’s funeral, his son-in-law paid tribute to him in these words: “Walter Stover had the ability to see Christ in every face he encountered, and he treated each person accordingly.” Legendary are his acts of compassionate help and his talent to lift heavenward every person whom he met. His guiding light was the Master’s voice speaking, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these … , ye have done it unto me.”