Gospel Story Finder

Brothers and sisters, there is one final experience I would like to share with you today. It is a simple one and not nearly so dramatic as the first two. It is about what an old and wise man taught a young new missionary from a faraway land in an exchange that lasted only a moment or two.
Each morning as we left our fale we would pass this man sitting on the ground outside his home, always making something or working on something. I'm guessing he was in in 80s. We would greet him kindly as we passed by to go about our work. My companion had been in this area for several months before I arrived and had already shared with him a few gospel lessons. The man was pleasant and friendly, but he wasn’t really interested.
One morning as we passed by and said “hello” as we always did the man motioned me over to him. I looked at my companion and he nodded and walked on for a distance and then stopped to wait for me. The man patted the ground and asked me to sit by him. When I did he looked into my eyes for what seemed like a long time and then he asked, “Tell me young man, why are you always in such a hurry?” I smiled and explained that we were missionaries and we were anxious to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with as many people as we could. There was much work for us to do and so we needed to be about it.
His only response was a pause, and then to ask me again, “Tell me young man, why are you always in such a hurry?” I tried to answer him with the same basic message, but in a slightly different way.
Again, his only response was a pause and to ask me a third time, “Tell me young man, why are you always in such a hurry?”
By now I found myself wondering why he kept asking the same question. I wondered if I just wasn’t being clear enough in my explanation to him. As he looked and saw the confusion apparent on my face, there was a hint of a smile. He put one hand on my knee, leaned close to me and almost in a whisper, he said, “You better slow down or you will miss those things that are most important in life!”
I tried to be polite. I thanked him, wished him well, and then I caught up with my companion and together we commenced another day of missionary work.
At the time, I thought to myself, “He just doesn’t understand!”
What I learned during the rest of my time in those islands, with those people, and in all the years since was that I was the one who didn’t understand.
These loving, caring people became my teachers in a thousand ways and in their kindness they taught me that our relationship with God, the Father, and His son, Jesus Christ, were of paramount importance. They taught me that our relationships with each other were fundamental and critical to our earthly and eternal happiness.
They taught me that we must invest in these relationships as our highest priorities. Sometimes to do that in the most appropriate and effective of ways meant that we need to slow down enough, to ponder, to think, to pray, to worship, and to nurture friendships, to cultivate family time, and to enjoy the journey along the way.

Years ago we took our then-teenage daughters to the temple for the first time. My oldest daughter had then the privilege of participating in the baptism of her deceased great-grandmother. Days later we held our family home evening and invited the children to bear their testimonies about the experience in the house of the Lord. As our oldest daughter started to express her feelings, tears came down her face when she mentioned her great-grandmother’s name and tried to describe how and what she felt during the ordinance. We all realized that she was recognizing right then that a “swelling motion” moment was taking place. That strong impression has been an anchor for her testimony and conviction of the gospel.

I grew up on a farm outside of town. One evening, my parents were away at church meetings, and I was left in charge. One of my younger brothers ran into the house and told me the garage was on fire. The garage was only a few feet away from our house.
The one side of the garage where my father had been repairing a tractor was on fire, and flames had reached the car on the other side. I told my brothers to get far away from the garage so they wouldn’t be hurt. Then I grabbed a broom and started beating out the fire.
One of my brothers came to help, but he suddenly caught on fire and started to run. I yelled at him to stop and roll, but he just kept running. I chased after him and pulled him down to put out the flames. The thought came to me to have him stand in the canal near our home. I told him to do that while I put out the rest of the fire.
I know I had Heavenly Father’s help in knowing what I needed to do to put out the fire that day. The doctors said that if I hadn’t told my brother to stand in the cold water of the canal, he would have needed surgery from the burns. Instead he healed so well that there was only one small scar on his foot. It was a miracle.
I know that Heavenly Father listens to our prayers and that He watches over us. He stands ready to help us when we pray, listen, and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost.

When my seminary class discussed anything that had to do with the hereafter, from spirit prison to sealed couples being sorted into their degrees of glory together, my stomach started to do somersaults. I won’t lie—I do worry about where my family will fit in after death. I try to trust in the knowledge that God is good and that my dad is good, but right now, there’s a gap in our family’s eternal future. We simply don’t know what will happen.

Tip: Show empathy for others. Families with less-active members aren’t the only people who deal with this, but it can be emotionally taxing, especially in Church settings. When I share my concerns, I’m not looking for answers—I’m just looking for empathy, for someone to agree that this is hard sometimes.
I eventually realized that I could soften a negative discussion by piping up and saying, “Oh, I disagree. My dad is less active, and …” Almost immediately, people’s comments became kinder, and many even backtracked on their previous insensitive statements.

Tip: A good rule of thumb in Church discussions is to assume that no matter what you’re discussing, someone in your group has experienced it, is experiencing it, or will experience it—or they have a loved one who is going through it. Once people knew about my family situation, they were much gentler. They knew that, to me, this wasn’t just a conversation about less-active or disaffected members—this was about my father.

All of this boils down to what we already know and what we are taught: be empathetic and loving. Elder W. Craig Zwick, an emeritus General Authority Seventy, said: “The willingness to see through each other’s eyes will transform ‘corrupt communication’ into ‘minister[ing] grace.’ … It may not change or solve the problem, but the more important possibility may be whether ministering grace could change us.”1

Mortality means we all end up in unique circumstances. And whatever those circumstances are, we can always be accepting and kind to all. My family is a part of my unique mortal journey, and I love them as they are. But I do have hope that Heavenly Father will help everything work out for our eternal family in the end.

“I am fifteen years old and have been a member of the Church for four years. I was contacted by the lady missionaries and joined the Church. I was the only member of my family who joined, and at first my father wouldn’t let me attend church. But when I missed church, the members, leaders, and missionaries would come to my home to find out why I wasn’t there. This impressed my father, and finally he started letting me go to church. I am happy to say that three months ago the rest of my family joined the Church. It is so good to go to meetings together. Now my father is in the branch presidency.”
Jose Ricardo Martinez, 15Santa Ana, El Salvador

When David had enough cartoons for a portfolio, he began sending them to cartoon publishing syndicates, hoping to sell them to other newspapers. He got some good feedback, but no takers. That’s when David and his wife, Sage, decided to try syndicating his cartoons on their own. They had brochures printed up with some sample cartoons and mailed them out to hundreds of regional and college newspapers. So far, his cartoons are running in 17 newspapers. Not enough to make a living, but a start.

When I went into Young Women I was a little nervous, but then I got a visit from the Beehive presidency and the Beehive leaders and it calmed my nerves. They told me what we would be doing in Young Women and explained the Personal Progress program. They also told me what room we met in at church. I enjoyed getting to know some of the girls who would be in Young Women with me. Now I am the Beehive president in my ward. When a girl turns 12, my presidency, my Beehive leaders, and I go to her house and talk to her about Young Women and Personal Progress. So, if you are nervous, don’t be. Young Women is really fun and we learn a lot about the gospel. I hope you have fun in Young Women.
Victoria O., age 13, Utah

Several years ago Sister Oaks and I were traveling during an assignment in Europe. At the end of one month we received a $20,000 credit card bill after we had spent only about $35 in a particular city. Crooks had our numbers, and they threw them around with reckless abandon. That was our introduction to identity theft. The credit card company stood behind the debt, but it was frightening to see how helpless we were to prevent our identity from being stolen.

Theft of our numerical mortal identity can be costly and cause us a great deal of misery. But the theft of our eternal identity has much longer effects and more dire consequences. I am not talking about addresses, credit card security, or any other identifying numbers. I am talking about something much more basic and more important than who the world thinks you are. I am talking about who you think you are.

Let’s discuss briefly the possibility of you losing your eternal identity. We know we are sons and daughters of God with the potential to become like Him, as described in His plan of happiness. We know this potential is achieved through our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and through obedience to the eternal laws and principles embedded in His gospel. We also know that Satan is totally dedicated to thwarting and derailing all of this marvelous plan-of-happiness knowledge and process. We know that one of his primary tools is to entice us to forget who we really are—to fail to realize or to forget our divine potential. This is the cruelest form of identity theft.

How does Satan do it? He is quite straightforward and predictable. First, he attempts to prompt doubts in our minds about our divine potential. He even cultivates doctrine in the world implying we are much less than we really are. He undermines our faith—and thus our self-confidence in our ability to achieve our potential. Even if we do understand and accept it, he still cultivates this doubt. He strives to bring us to a mind-set in which we believe that we, individually, are not good enough to ever achieve our celestial goals.

In this same vein Satan seeks to convince us that we are so bad that even the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ is not sufficient to reach down to our lowly depths and draw us up unto our Savior. He tempts us into paths that seem to verify his cynicism about our grand and glorious potential.

He then hedges his bets by surrounding us with the gaudy, glitzy filth of pornography and other forms of immorality and thus precludes our being led in saintly paths by the Holy Spirit. He is a clever fellow with many clever tricks to make us forget who we really are: sons and daughters of God with divine potential.

Let’s summarize Satan’s basic method of operation: he strives to make us forget who we are. By cheap, temporary imitations of true and lasting joy he dims our memory and fogs our testimony. Through the false gods of expensive toys, unbridled passions, honors and praises of the world, and fleeting pleasures he leads us away from the divine promises of eternal, lasting fulness of joy.

We do not understand, we cannot comprehend completely the promised fulness of joy. We have to accept its wonder and its beauty on faith. The term is quite descriptive. Fulness implies that there is no room for more joy. The scriptural promises are breathtaking. Doctrine and Covenants 93:33 and 76:92, 94, and 95 are as explicit as I think we can expect:

For man is spirit. The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fulness of joy. [D&C 93:33]

And thus we saw the glory of the celestial, which excels in all things—where God, even the Father, reigns upon his throne forever and ever. . . .
They who dwell in his presence are the church of the Firstborn; and they see as they are seen, and know as they are known, having received of his fulness and of his grace;
And he makes them equal in power, and in might, and in dominion. [D&C 76:92, 94–95]

Satan does not want us to understand and focus on these marvelous descriptions and promises of our divine potential, but the Lord certainly does. He wants us to focus on them and to ponder their meaning in our lives. They are clearly worth some pondering time. If we will salt our pondering with scriptures such as we have just read, we can refresh our commitment to move forward and upward on our plan-of-happiness track.

Let’s take a moment and review what we have considered this morning. Our Eternal Father in Heaven has a plan of salvation and happiness for us. Jesus Christ, the Only Begotten Son of God in the flesh, is at the center of this plan by virtue of His atoning sacrifice. We have a central role in this plan of happiness by virtue of our divine parentage.

To fulfill our role in this plan it is important for us to come to understand ourselves, our strengths, our weaknesses, our gifts, and our talents and to learn to use them in building up the kingdom of God.

Satan will certainly try to derail us from this simple, straightforward, and supremely important course. He will attempt to make us forget who we are and what our divine potential is. And he will strive to this end until he is bound during Christ’s millennial reign.

The Lord has provided us with countless scriptures and prophetic promptings to help us counter and resist these satanic pulls. One of the most powerful of these promptings is found in the fifth chapter of Helaman. Here Helaman, under the Lord’s direction, counseled his sons, Nephi and Lehi, and he repeatedly admonished them to remember who they were and from whence their marvelous spiritual heritage came:

And now, my sons, remember, remember that it is upon the rock of our Redeemer, who is Christ, the Son of God, that ye must build your foundation; that when the devil shall send forth his mighty winds, yea, his shafts in the whirlwind, yea, when all his hail and his mighty storm shall beat upon you, it shall have no power over you to drag you down to the gulf of misery and endless wo, because of the rock upon which ye are built, which is a sure foundation, a foundation whereon if men build they cannot fall. [Helaman 5:12]

This remembering is a very important principle to help us keep in mind our true identity. This is why we partake of the sacrament each week: to renew our covenants we have made with the Lord in the waters of baptism; to remember Him and to keep His commandments; to refresh in our minds who we are and what our role is in God’s plan.

This is why we go back to the temple: to renew our covenants that we have made in those sacred halls and to remind ourselves of these covenants and obligations.

When we thus remember these sacred obligations, Satan’s storms and attacks will not turn us from our quest—from pursuing our divine potential. I pray that we may ever remember who we are: sons and daughters of a loving Father who have the potential to return to His side and dwell with Him as celestial beings.

I testify that these things are true. I testify that Jesus Christ is our Savior and our Redeemer and that He stands at the head of this Church, guiding it through a living prophet, even Gordon B. Hinckley. I offer this testimony in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Years ago, one of my daughters, who was about seven years old at the time, had a friend over at our home for a play date. The two of them were playing pretend.

When my wife went to check on them, she observed that they were pretending to shoot each other. She explained to them that she was thrilled that they were using their imaginations and playing pretend but that it was not a good idea to pretend to shoot each other. “We don’t shoot people in real life, and so we don’t pretend to shoot them either,” she said.

The children nodded, and my wife left them to resume playing.

A little while later she went to check on them again, and again they were shooting each other. Patiently, my wife said, “I thought I told you that we don’t pretend to shoot people.”

My daughter responded, “I know, but now we are pretending that you didn’t say that.”

Pretending—a form of playing—allows us the liberty to imagine and live in, even if only momentarily and subjunctively, someplace better and purer than our current reality. It is the lifeblood of creativity and invention, but it also provides us with the liberty to suspend authority, defy spiritual law, and practice sin. Playing can be dangerous.

Finally, nine years later, I knew how to become like those missionaries! The missionary age was now 18, but my adoption had not yet been finalized. I waited seven long months until my adoption was completed. Finally, my missionary papers could be submitted. Four days later I received my mission call. In just one week the Lord blessed me with final adoption papers and a mission call. I treasure both papers exceedingly! They are my seventh miracle. Yes, indeed, it took many miracles along the way from that mud hut in Ethiopia to my treasured mission.

One Monday when we were celebrating Washington’s birthday, I was down at my mother’s sawing a log in the backyard. She came out to give me some direction and see how I was doing it, and she wasn’t very pleased. She thought I ought to do it differently. She went back into the house and in a few minutes my younger brother arrived. She said to him, “I think you’d better go out in the backyard and give Bruce some help and see that he does this thing right.” And then she said to him, “Bruce isn’t very bright.” Well, so I’m not. So I start where I am, and I go forward from there. I start using such talent as I have, and I begin to apply the principles of eternal truth to my life. I consult and counsel with the Lord in the process, and no matter where I am, the gospel takes me forward and onward and upward, and blessings flow to me that will ennoble and sanctify and improve me in this life and eventually give me glory and honor and dignity in the life to come.

Just after midnight on September 22, 1827, a carriage quietly bumped along the countryside near Manchester, New York, USA. Joseph and Emma Smith were heading to a hill where an ancient record, written on gold plates, waited for them. An angel named Moroni had told Joseph to bring the right person with him to get the record. Through personal revelation, Joseph knew that his wife, Emma, was that person.
Emma waited as her husband-prophet received the plates and then hid them in a hollow log. The sun began to rise as the couple returned home.

Doug Goreas, member of the Royal Canadian Sea Cadets, recently completed a cruise aboard the HMCS (Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship) Mackenzie to Japan. Doug, 16, was selected along with 29 other cadets for this privilege.
Doug’s voyage first took him to Pearl Harbor and then on to Japan. After reaching the port of Kagoshima, Doug relates, “I would have to say that Kagoshima was one of the highlights of my trip. While on leave there, I happened to glance into a bookstore and saw two well-dressed, clean-shaven young men. They looked like Mormon missionaries. When they came out, I approached them, and they were just that. It was great to talk to them and find out about the Church in that area.
“They invited me to the youth group meeting the next night, and as I had leave I attended. I sat in on an English class and afterward played in a Ping-Pong tournament. Teenagers are the same wherever you travel. It was a wonderful experience.”
Doug’s next port of call was Kure, where he took a train trip to Hiroshima to visit the Hiroshima Peace Park, built as a reminder of the destructive potential of the atom bomb. After visiting the ports of Kobe and Yokuska, the HMCS Mackenzie cruised back to Canada.
A student at Kelowna Senior Secondary School, Doug is an assistant to the president of the priests quorum of the Kelowna Branch, in Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. During the past four years he has won numerous awards, including the Kelowna Citizenship and Achievement awards.
Doug plays nine instruments and presently plays the tuba with the Kelowna Senior Secondary Concert Band. He attributes his interest in music to “the fine example and inspiration of the members of the Church.” Doug is looking forward to serving a mission and completing a university degree in music.

Rain streaked like tears down the panes of the one glass window in the cabin. Elnora tried to peer between the streaks, hoping to see snow-covered peaks in the distance. But the slanting rain was like a filmy curtain, shutting out all but their little valley.
Suddenly figures approached out of the mist. It was Father and Thomas coming from the small log barn after their chores.
Elnora turned to finish breakfast preparations, while Mother took the bucket of milk and set about straining and pouring it into pans for the cream to rise.
“I wish it wouldn’t keep raining,” Elnora said to her father who had just come in. “At least not right now.”
Father looked at her and said, “You might not feel so now, but we can all be mighty grateful for storms.”
“But not rain!” Elnora exclaimed. “Not at Christmastime. It should be snowing. This constant, drizzly Oregon rain isn’t like Christmas at all.”
“Aw, Nora,” Thomas teased, “you’re a silly goose. You think that if everything isn’t just like it was in Vermont, it isn’t any good.”
“I can’t help being homesick,” Elnora defended, “especially when everything is so different. Here it is Christmastime, and that pesky rain keeps on and on.”
“Constant raining can get on a person’s nerves sometimes,” Father admitted. “But if you keep thinking about the good of the land, Nora, the rain won’t seem quite so bad.”
“And Christmas isn’t just snow and sleigh bells and outward things,” Mother reminded the family. “We have so much to be grateful for.”
“Oh well,” Elnora sighed. “At least we can have a Christmas tree, the way we always—”
“Tree?” Thomas questioned, looking at Father. “Where does she think she’s going to get a tree?”
“A tree, Nora?” Father asked more gently.
“Well—sure.” Elnora looked at the others hesitantly and then went on, “There’s that bunch on the west side of the homestead between our place and the Rigby’s. They’re a little scrubby, but one of those would be better than nothing.”
“Nora, I guess I haven’t told you about the agreement that I made with the other settlers in the valley,” Father said sympathetically. “It’s been agreed that no trees in the valley are to be cut for any purpose.”
“B-but they’re ours—partly. And there are lots of them,” Elnora interrupted.
“Not many, really,” Father said. “The valley was once full of trees, but man and nature have destroyed all but the few clusters that are now left.”
Father put his hand over hers on the table. “It’s sort of like a trust, Nora. We’ve eleven families in the valley now. If every family cut a tree each Christmas, in a very few years the valley would be barren of trees. What do you think the valley would be like without any trees?”
Elnora was quiet for a moment. She remembered the treeless desert wasteland they had crossed the year before. Then she said, “I can see what you mean, but without any snow or a tree it won’t seem at all like Christmas.” Tears moistened Elnora’s eyes. All these months she had counted on at least a Christmas tree like the ones they always had back home.
“Think how soon a tree would be dead and ugly,” Father reminded her. “It would bring only a brief pleasure. But if it’s left outside, it can keep right on growing and growing. Trees mean there will be birds in the valley. They’d go right on past if there weren’t trees in which to build their nests. And think of spring.”
Elnora swallowed her tears and nodded as an idea began to form in her mind. “Father, are there birds now, like the snowbirds back home?”
“I believe I saw some birds in the willows along the creek bank just yesterday,” Father said. “And I heard some chirping around the barn before this latest rain set in.”
“Then we could trim a live tree,” Elnora explained shyly, “and still keep it growing for later. We could make strings of popcorn and put them on a tree for the birds. Everybody else in the valley who wanted to could do the same. We could even make it like a party.”
Father kept nodding agreement as she talked. When her words ran out, he smiled.
“That we can, Nora. And this afternoon you can ride with Thomas to tell the other folks your idea. I know some will want to come.”
“And if they don’t,” Mother said, “we’ll have a party all by ourselves.”
Some of the families seemed surprised at the idea, but all the children were excited and anxious to string popcorn for the birds.
Soon after Father and Thomas had gone out to do the chores on the morning of Christmas Eve, the sun broke through the clouds. And at the grove a few hours later, Elnora could hardly believe what she saw. Every family in the valley was there.
One of the settlers, Mrs. Empey, said to Elnora and her mother, “My boys thought it was silly to celebrate on the frontier. But I told them we’d help the little lady keep Christmas if we had to wade through snow to our middles. It’s folks getting together in friendship and caring about each other that helps make Christmas. Where you happen to live at the time doesn’t really matter.”
Mrs. Empey said best what Christmas really means, Elnora thought. More than anything else Christmas means caring and sharing.
Each family chose a tree, and there was much talk and laughter and teasing as the popcorn strings were placed on the branches.
“Let’s do this every year!” said Thomas. “We could even keep the same trees.”
There were shouts of approval.
“And when the men go to the mountains to fetch wood,” Mother suggested, “they could be on the lookout for seedling trees to plant near our cabins. In a few years, the valley will be a lovely spot.”
Mrs. Empey came to stand beside Elnora and waved her arms to get everyone’s attention. “I think we should meet here at the grove every Christmas Eve,” she declared, “and Elnora should have the job of reminding us to be ready each year.”
“Oh, I will!” the happy girl promised. And everyone let out a cheer.
When they started toward the cabin, Elnora turned to look at the trees. Already two birds had found the popcorn. It’s good, she thought, to preserve the Christmas grove for other times.
Elnora reached for her father’s hand.
“I didn’t know that all of our neighbors were so nice,” she said, “but they are. Now our valley seems almost like home.”

“We have a surprise visitor for breakfast today,” Father said one morning. “Can anyone guess who it is?”
Lindy wiped the milk from her face and put her glass down. Mother and Father were sitting in their usual places, and her brother, Mike, was across the table eating a piece of toast.
“I don’t see anyone here but us,” Lindy said. “Is someone at the door?”
“No, no one is at the door,” Father answered. “Guess again.”
“Did someone come last night after we went to sleep? Is someone waiting upstairs to surprise us?” Mike asked.
“No, no one came after you went to sleep last night, and there isn’t anyone upstairs to surprise you. This visitor is here with us right now.”
Mike leaned back and looked under the table. “There’s no one under the table,” he said with a smile on his face.
Lindy looked all around. “I still don’t see anyone anywhere,” she said.
“We can’t see this visitor,” Father said. “We have to listen for him.”
The house was quiet as they all sat still and listened.
Once again they were all quiet while Lindy listened and listened. She couldn’t hear a visitor.
She shut her eyes tightly and listened again. “I still don’t hear anyone,” she said.
“Let’s give Lindy a hint,” Mother suggested. “Our visitor sounds like teedily, teedily, teedily, tee to me.”
“He sounds like wheedly, wheedly, wheedly, whee to me,” Father said.
“I hear him!” Mike suddenly said. “I hear him now.”
Father smiled. “Now let’s see if Lindy can hear him.”
“He sounds like chirpity, chirpity, chirpity, chirp to me,” Mike laughed.
Lindy listened once more. Then she smiled. “Now I hear our visitor,” she said. “It’s a bird and it’s come with a beautiful song.”
“Yes, Lindy,” Father replied. “A special bird called a wren has come to visit us at breakfast today.”
“I hope it comes again tomorrow,” Lindy said. “I think it’s a happy teedily, wheedly, chirpity visitor!”

I learned about the gospel together with my family in Barahona. One day, the missionaries came to our home. I was 11 years old. Somehow, I was delighted by what they taught us. Right now I do not remember all my feelings clearly, but what I can tell you is that I liked what they taught. We felt very good; they brought a very special spirit into our home. Thus, when the missionaries invited us to be baptized, I did not doubt; I accepted and entered the waters of baptism together with my mother. That was how I entered into the way and made my baptismal covenants with the Lord.

When Nickie and James go for a walk, I always want to go too. But they say, “You can’t keep up. You walk too slow.”
So I get sniffly, and Mom says, “Take him along.”
But by the time I get to the mailbox, they’re already climbing the tree. When I get to the tree, they’re throwing rocks in the creek. And when I get to the creek, they’re halfway up the hill. I guess they’re right—I walk too slow.
When Mom asks who wants to take our dog, Boris, for a walk, I say, “Me! Me!” She looks worried, but hands me the leash. Then Boris drags me down the stairs, and I slip on the grass, and I stub my toes on the rocks. I guess I walk too slow.
When Daddy says, “Who wants to walk to the post office with me?” I grab his hand. But Daddy’s legs are long, and I have to take three steps every time he takes one. Daddy goes for a walk, but I go for a run. I guess I walk too slow.
But when I walk with Grandpa, he takes small steps like mine. We have time to look for rocks, watch bugs, and touch the bark and moss on trees. And when I walk with Grandpa, we talk about things. I like to walk with Grandpa. He walks too slow—just like me!

Carolina Caetano began coming to Young Women class when her parents returned to church after years of inactivity. Although she’d enjoyed Primary as a child, Carolina had never been baptized and was now unfamiliar with the Church and its members. “When you come back, you feel really shy because you don’t know anyone anymore. So at first I didn’t go much,” she says.
But soon the missionaries and Sister Pimentel began to visit Carolina’s home to teach her the gospel. “Whenever [Sister Pimentel] prepared a lesson, she came to my house to explain it to me. And she always helped me read the Book of Mormon,” says Carolina.
Carolina also started to make friends. “The thing that helped me come back the most, and what helped me want to get baptized, was the strong friendships I made here. The girls were always around me, always calling me to say, ‘Hey, come to the activities. Come this Sunday.’ They were always reminding me.”

Let me close with one last, lengthy lesson on perseverance.
On July 28, 1847, four days after his arrival in that valley, Brigham Young stood upon the spot where now rises the magnificent Salt Lake Temple and exclaimed to his companions: “Here [we will build] the Temple of our God!” (James H. Anderson, “The Salt Lake Temple,” Contributor 14, no. 6, Apr. 1893: 243).
Its ground would cover an eighth of a square mile, and it would be built to stand through eternity. Who cared about the money or stone or timber or glass or gold they didn’t have? So what that only a handful of seeds had been planted and the Saints were yet without homes. Why worry that crickets would soon be coming? And so would the United States Army.
They just marched forth and broke ground for the most massive, permanent, inspiring edifice they could conceive. And they would spend 40 years of their lives to complete it.
The work seemed ill-fated from the start. The excavation for the basement required trenches 20 feet wide and 16 feet deep, much of it through solid gravel. Just digging for the foundation alone required 9,000 man-days of labor. Surely someone must have said, “We don’t need a temple this big.” But they kept on digging. Maybe they believed they were “laying the foundation of a great work.” In any case they worked on, “not weary in well-doing.”
And through it all Brigham Young had dreamed the dream and seen the vision. With the excavation complete and the cornerstone ceremony concluded, he said to the Saints assembled:
“I do not like to prophesy much, … But I will venture to guess that this day, and the work we have performed on it, will long be remembered by this people, and be sounded as with a trumpet’s voice throughout the world. …
“… five years ago last July I was here, and saw in the spirit the Temple. [I stood] not ten feet from where we have laid the chief corner stone. I have not inquired what kind of a Temple we should build. Why? Because it was [fully] represented before me” (Contributor, p. 257).
But as Brigham Young also said, “We never began to build [any] temple without the bells of hell beginning to ring” (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1961, p. 40). No sooner was the foundation work finished than Albert Sidney Johnston and his United States troops set out for the Salt Lake Valley intent on war with “the Mormons.” In response President Young made elaborate plans to evacuate and, if necessary, destroy the entire city behind them. But what to do about the temple whose massive excavation was already completed and its 8-by-16-feet foundational walls firmly in place? They did the only thing they could do: they filled it all back in again. Every shovelful. All that soil and gravel that had been so painstakingly removed with those 9,000 man-days of labor was filled back in. When they finished, those acres looked like nothing more interesting than a field that had been plowed up and left unplanted.
When the Utah war threat had been removed, the Saints returned to their homes and painfully worked again at uncovering the foundation and removing the material from the excavated basement structure.
But then the apparent masochism of all this seemed most evident when not adobe or sandstone but massive granite boulders were selected for the basic construction material. And they were 20 miles away in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Furthermore, the precise design and dimensions of every one of the thousands of stones to be used in that massive structure had to be marked out individually in the architect’s office and shaped accordingly. This was a suffocatingly slow process. Just to put one layer of the 600 hand-sketched, individually squared and precisely cut stones around the building took nearly three years. That progress was so slow that virtually no one walking by the temple block could ever see any progress at all.
And, of course, getting the stone from mountain to city center was a nightmare. A canal on which to convey the stone was begun and a great deal of labor and money expended on it, but it was finally aborted. Other means were tried, but before the railroad came in the 1870s oxen proved to be the only viable means of transportation. In the 1860s always four and often six oxen in a team could be seen almost any working day of the year, toiling and tugging and struggling to pull from the quarry one or, at most, two monstrous blocks of granite of medium size.
During that time, as if the United States Army hadn’t been enough, the Saints had plenty of other interruptions. The arrival of the railroad pulled almost all of the working force off the temple for nearly three years, and twice grasshopper invasions sent the workers into full-time summer combat with the pests. By mid-1871, fully two decades and untold misery after it had begun, the walls of the temple were barely visible above ground. Far more visible was the teamsters’ route from Cottonwood, strewn with the wreckage of wagons—and dreams—unable to bear the load placed on them. The journals and histories of these teamsters are filled with accounts of broken axles, mud-mired animals, broken sprockets, and shattered hopes. I do not know if these men swore, but surely they might have been seen turning a rather steely eye toward heaven. But they believed and kept pulling. And through all of this President Young seemed in no hurry. “The Temple will be built as soon as we are prepared to use it,” he said (Contributor, p. 266). Indeed his vision was so lofty and his hope so broad that right in the middle of this staggering effort requiring virtually all that the Saints could seem to bear, he announced the construction of the St. George, Manti, and Logan temples.
“Can you accomplish this work, you Latter-day Saints of these several counties?” he asked. And then in his own inimitable way he answered. “Yes; that is a question I can answer readily. You are perfectly able to do it. The question is, have you the necessary faith? Have you sufficient of the Spirit of God in your hearts to say, yes, by the help of God our Father we will erect these buildings to His name? Go to now, with your might and with your means, and finish this Temple” (Contributor, p. 267).
So they squared their shoulders and stiffened their backs and went forward with their might. But when President Young died in 1877, the temple was still scarcely 20 feet above the ground. Ten years later, his successor, President John Taylor, and the temple’s original architect, Truman O. Angell, were dead as well. The side walls were just up to the square. And now the infamous Edmunds-Tucker Act had already been passed by Congress disincorporating The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of the effects of this law was to put the Church into receivership whereby the U.S. Marshall, under a November court order, seized this temple the Saints had now spent just under 40 years of their lives dreaming of, working for, and praying fervently to enjoy. To all appearances, the still unfinished but increasingly magnificent structure was to be wrested at this last hour from its rightful owners and put into the hands of aliens and enemies, the very group who had often boasted that the Latter-day Saints would never be permitted to finish the building. It seemed those boasts were certain to be fulfilled. Schemes were immediately put forward to divert the intended use of the temple in ways that would desecrate its holy purpose and mock the staggering sacrifice of the Saints who had so faithfully tried to build it.
But God was with these modern children of Israel, as he always has been and always will be. The Red Sea parted before them, and they walked through on firm, dry ground. On April 6, 1892, the Saints as a body were nearly delirious. Now, finally, here in their own valley with their own hands they had cut out of the mountains a granite monument that was to mark, after all they had gone through, the safety of the Saints and the permanence of Christ’s true church on earth for this one last dispensation. The central symbol of all that was the completed house of their God. The streets were literally jammed with people. Forty thousand of them fought their way on to the temple grounds. Ten thousand more, unable to gain entrance, scrambled to the tops of nearby buildings in hopes that some glimpse of the activities might be had. Inside the Tabernacle, President Wilford Woodruff, visibly moved by the significance of the moment, said:
“If there is any scene on the face of this earth that will attract the attention of the God of heaven and the heavenly host, it is the one before us today—the assembling of this people, the shout of ‘Hosanna!’ the laying of the topstone of this Temple in honor to our God” (Contributor, p. 270). Then, moving outside, he laid the capstone in place exactly at high noon.
In the writing of one who was there, “The scene that followed is beyond the power of language to describe. The venerable President of the Twelve Apostles, Lorenzo Snow, came forward and led the forty thousand Saints in the Hosanna Shout. The eyes of thousands were moistened with tears in the fullness of their joy. The ground seemed to tremble with the volume of sound which sent forth its echoes to the surrounding hills. A grander or more imposing spectacle than this ceremony of laying the Temple capstone is not recorded in history,” he said (Contributor, p. 273).

When I was eight or nine years old, I wanted to build a derby car. There was a race coming up, so my dad helped me build a car to enter. We found some two-by-four wood planks and put one in the middle and two on each end. Then we put a little chair on it with ropes to steer. We just had a block of wood for a brake—I pushed it down with my foot, and the wood dragged on the ground. To finish the car off, I put some big, old plastic tires from a tricycle on it.
When we showed up at the race, the other kids had these really fancy derby cars. People were laughing when they saw us. But I wasn’t embarrassed, because my dad was by me. As long as he was there, I was good.
People stood all along the streets. The nice, shiny cars lined up at the start. We raced down the hill, and my car won! Then we went to the next race, and the next race, and I kept winning. A few in the crowd started chanting, “Go two-by-four!” They were cheering for me and my car. I won second place overall! I even got a trophy.
The race was really fun because my dad had helped me and let me make the car how I wanted. I had confidence because my dad was there. I knew who I was and that my dad supported me.