Gospel Story Finder

That is a question that a lot of us would like to know the answer to. Scientists also are searching for the answer to such a strange phenomenon. To find out what they are learning, two of my sons and I took a trip to Scripps Institution of Oceanography last March. While visiting the aquarium there, we picked up a pamphlet that listed the times of high and low tides for the area around San Diego. Sandwiched in the center of the booklet was an article called “The Grunion Story.” It described the strange habits of a small silvery fish called the grunion that beaches itself upon the sand in very large numbers about twice each month at certain times of the year. These “runs,” as they are called, can be predicted fairly accurately from a knowledge of the tides. The booklet indicated that a grunion run was expected to begin about one o’clock the following morning. Well, you can probably guess what happened when my boys read that!

In the dead of night, Keith’s wristwatch alarm rang to wake us up. We got dressed and headed outside, where we were greeted by a fog so thick that we could only see a few feet in front of us. Undaunted, we climbed into our car and inched our way down the winding street to the ocean’s edge.

Except for us and a couple of sleepy-looking birds, the beach was deserted. Where is everyone? we wondered. We watched wave after wave roll in and break upon the sand and then recede, but no grunion appeared. I stood watch on a rock a little farther out, where a large wave broke over my feet and filled my shoes with water. But still no grunion. After an hour of fruitless waiting, we gave up and wended our way through the heavy fog back to the motel, where we lapsed into sleep.

Suddenly Keith’s alarm rang again, and we saw that it was light outside. It was almost time for the aquarium to open, so we hustled off without eating breakfast. When we got there, however, the aquarium was still closed. Puzzled, we peered through the glass door to see a large clock on the wall with its big hand on six and its little hand between seven and eight. Keith’s watch also had its big hand on six, but its little hand was between eight and nine. Then we realized the reason for the absence of people and grunion at the beach that night. Keith’s watch was an hour fast. We had arrived an hour early and left just before the grunion run was supposed to start!

May I share with you brethren my personal experience as a teachers quorum president? The member of the bishopric who had responsibility for us invited the new presidency and secretary to come to his home for leadership training. He wanted our ideas concerning how we should go about our newly given duties. We obliged—on condition that he would invite his wife, Nettie, to serve us some of the meat pies for which she was famous. This he agreed to do. Brethren, isn’t it remarkable how we men will obligate our wives to do things—often without notice? The resulting meeting was one of the best I have ever attended. We were taught to the level of our understanding and inspired to look after our quorum members.
After a delicious meat pie smothered with gravy, we asked the bishop’s counselor and his wife to join in a game of Monopoly®. I am certain they had other things to do, but they willingly complied with our request.
I don’t remember who won the Monopoly game, but I have never forgotten the lessons learned that night in Church government and in the administration of a priesthood quorum.

As a skinny 12-year-old, I watched through a chain-link fence as my two older brothers earned all-state baseball honors.
Life was exciting because they were my brothers. The guy wearing number eight and striking out three batters in a row, and the player hitting home runs over the centerfielder’s head were the same guys I shared a basement bedroom with. They were the ones who first taught me about putting gel in my hair and how to start a campfire. We were good friends.
The feelings of inadequacy kicked in because as a five-foot-three, 98-pound weakling, I could not understand how I would ever be able to fire an 80-mile-per-hour fastball or hit towering home runs.
On one hot summer afternoon, my oldest brother could see something was bothering me. After he encouraged me to tell him what was on my mind, I said in muffled tones, “How will I ever become a great baseball player like you?”
“Matt,” he said in his usual cheerful voice, “you’ve just got to do the things that great baseball players do.” After thinking about this, I came to realize that great baseball players aren’t only naturally talented, but they make themselves skilled through hours of practice. I committed myself to do all I could.
Three broken noses and six years later, I was a starter on the varsity baseball team and had just signed a national letter of intent to play college baseball.

Many years after that experience, when I was approaching age nineteen, my bishop, A. Palmer Holt, asked me to serve a mission. I told him that I couldn’t go. When he asked me why, I said, “I can’t go out and teach the gospel because my testimony isn’t strong enough. I like what I hear at church, but I don’t think that I could tell people to join if I don’t know for myself that it’s true.”
Bishop Holt did not criticize my lack of faith. He simply asked, “How long are you going to stay in this condition? Are you just going to continue because of your parents’ or your friends’ testimonies, or are you going to find out for yourself? You have to pay the price. I suggest that you pray about it and spend time seriously studying the scriptures.
The bishop’s counsel gave me much to think about. I had been attending the University of Utah at the time, but I didn’t register for the next quarter of school. Instead, I stayed home and for the first time made an honest attempt to truly study the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants. I prayed to Heavenly Father often, asking Him to bless me with a testimony.
About two months went by, and nothing happened. Then one Sunday I came late to testimony meeting and slipped quietly into the chapel to sit on the back row. As I listened to the ward members bearing their testimonies, I remember one sister in particular saying she knew that the Book of Mormon was true and that Joseph Smith was a prophet. I thought, I wish I could say that.
Suddenly I found myself on my feet, expressing my feelings about the gospel and saying that I knew it was true. I felt as though I were on fire. There was no doubt in my mind about the gospel’s truthfulness.
That testimony meeting was a turning point for me. It was an overwhelming experience, and ever since that day, I have known that Jesus is the Christ and that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is His Church upon the earth today.
I know that the promise given in Moroni 10:4–5 [Moro. 10:4–5] is true, that if you pay the price by spending time studying the scriptures and praying sincerely to Heavenly Father, you can receive a witness of the Holy Ghost. It happened to me, and my testimony has remained firm ever since.
Soon after that meeting, I was in Denmark, preaching the gospel as a missionary. It was wonderful to be able to promise people that if they would read the Book of Mormon and pray with sincere hearts, the Holy Ghost would witness to them of the truthfulness of the gospel. For me, that witness has returned again and again. I have learned that the Spirit comes in different ways. I had felt the Spirit before my experience in testimony meeting, but I simply hadn’t recognized it.

A recent nationwide survey found that nearly 8 in 10 Americans “believe that miracles still occur today as [they did] in ancient times.” A third of those surveyed said they had “experienced or witnessed a divine healing.”4 Many Latter-day Saints have experienced the power of faith in healing the sick. We also hear examples of this among people of faith in other churches. A Texas newspaperman described such a miracle. When a five-year-old girl breathed with difficulty and became feverish, her parents rushed her to the hospital. By the time she arrived there, her kidneys and lungs had shut down, her fever was 107 degrees, and her body was bright red and covered with purple lesions. The doctors said she was dying of toxic shock syndrome, cause unknown. As word spread to family and friends, God-fearing people began praying for her, and a special prayer service was held in their Protestant congregation in Waco, Texas. Miraculously, she suddenly returned from the brink of death and was released from the hospital in a little over a week. Her grandfather wrote, “She is living proof that God does answer prayers and work miracles.”5

Daniel and his brother Joseph were perched on a bluff, looking down at an old abandoned fort. It was September 1846, and the wind blew in their faces. If they had been home in Nauvoo, Illinois, they would be able to go inside the thick, warm walls of their red-brick home. They would have something good to eat for supper. But they were not at home.
With the rest of the Saints, Daniel and Joseph’s family had been forced to leave Nauvoo by the mobs that had killed the Prophet Joseph Smith. Now they were living in a sod hut in Winter Quarters, Nebraska. It was cold, and they had very little food to eat.
“Come on, Joseph, let’s go look around,” Daniel said.
Inside the old fort, the boys saw pieces of wood on the ground and bits of iron gleaming in the dirt.
“Maybe some of these things can be useful,” Daniel said. “Let’s find something to carry them in.”
Daniel poked around in corners and looked behind old doors. He didn’t want to go back to the sod house. Their mother was pale, and she coughed more every day. It made him scared to watch her. Other people were getting sick as well.
“Over here!” Joseph called. He pulled at the end of a flat log jutting out of the ground. “We can use this to carry things on.”
“Good idea!” Daniel said, hurrying over to help pull.
With a great heave the log flew out of the ground, throwing both boys to the ground and spraying dirt everywhere. The boys laughed as they got up and brushed themselves off. Then they looked down into the hole where the log had been.
“Potatoes!” Daniel cried. “Let’s take some back to Father. He will know if they’re good to eat.”
After the boys had picked all the potatoes from the first plant, they moved on to the next one.
“Let’s try to just pull this plant out,” Daniel said.
They grabbed the base of the stalk but the plant did not budge. Joseph pulled hard but his hands slipped. He stumbled back, crushing some tall plants behind him.
“Ew,” Daniel said, pinching his nose closed. “What did you step on?” A strong smell was coming from the broken plant under Joseph’s foot.
“What is this plant?” Joseph asked.
“I don’t know, but it stinks!” Daniel said. “Let’s get away from it.”
“But onions have a strong smell, and they are good to eat.”
“Yes, I guess so. But you take it home.”
“All right,” Joseph said. He dug up the root and took the whole plant.
The boys headed home with the potatoes and the mysterious plant. When they showed the plants to their father, he was very happy. He held up the smelly plant. “This is horseradish,” Father said. “It can be used as medicine. You’ve brought us not only food to fill our stomachs but medicine to help your mother get well.”
Then the boys and their father walked back to the old fort to harvest all the potatoes and horseradish they could find.
The potatoes made nourishing soup that night, more than Joseph and Daniel had eaten in a while. The horseradish was ground down and mixed with vinegar and fed to the sick. The boys’ mother made a face when she took the medicine, but she got better.
When winter was over, the pioneers were glad to be on their way to the Salt Lake Valley and their new home.

A new convert to the Church recently shared this story. “I was in and out of enforced confinement most of my teen years. It wasn’t so bad being there because the food was pretty good, and we were treated all right. But it did get boring, so when anyone had any reading material, funny books, magazines, or anything, we would trade our food for a chance to borrow those items. One day I saw a fellow with a nice, thick book. I knew it would take a long time to read, so I offered him my pork chops, my potatoes, and all my main course food items for a week. He accepted my offer and loaned me the book. As I read it, I knew I was reading something very special and very true. The book for which I had sacrificed my food was titled the Book of Mormon. When I had a chance, I found the missionaries, changed my habits, and am now finding a new way of life. I love that book for which I traded my food.”
Here was an unusual but worthwhile sacrifice with rewarding results. This convert indicated that the more time he spends with this book, the greater his love becomes for the truths he is finding between its covers.

I was hurt by his announcement. I had tried for years to interest him in religion but with no success. How could strangers from a different country suddenly convert him? I was determined to face them and show Jakub they had no chance in a debate with me.
When I saw the two young, smiling missionaries standing in the doorway of my parents’ apartment, I forgot about my goal to prove them wrong. They were happy and funny. They asked me lots of questions about myself and my beliefs. They respected my convictions. Later they told me that during that first meeting with the arrogant guy with long hair and ripped jeans who was smoking cigarettes, they had a hard time imagining I would ever be interested in becoming a follower of Jesus Christ. But I felt something special in their presence, and I was intrigued that their Church was the only Christian denomination I knew of that believed in a premortal existence.
I was also impressed with their testimonies and the strong convictions of Jakub and Robert ?elewski, his new friend from the Church. Robert was a psychologist, an intelligent but down-to-earth man whose insights and experiences strengthened my interest in the religion of the Latter-day Saints.
Everything the elders, Jakub, and Robert told me was fascinating, especially the doctrine of the plan of salvation, starting with premortality and ending with the three degrees of glory. But I didn’t see any point in joining the Church until I was able to grasp more fully their unique beliefs. My understanding of Christianity was that anciently, God performed miracles, sent angels, and called prophets, but all those things belonged to biblical times. Once the Bible was completed, humanity no longer needed miracles and revelation because scripture contains all we need to know.
A breakthrough came during our discussion about the Great Apostasy and the Restoration of the fulness of the gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith. I realized that their beliefs were more consistent with the Bible than the claim that the Bible had replaced prophets and revelation. I felt real joy when I realized I might be living in modern “biblical times.”
I was ready to ask God sincerely for personal revelation, but an answer did not come. Finally, I said, “Heavenly Father, if You called Joseph Smith as Your prophet, I will obey every commandment You revealed through him.” Then the answer came to my heart and mind with surety, and I knew that God had restored the fulness of the gospel and that it is found in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

One day my father, who was bishop of our ward, left my brother and me to do some work. We thought he would be gone for some time doing his church work. But he returned sooner than we had expected and found us riding calves.
When he called us over, I will never forget how he looked at me and said, “My boy, I thought I could depend on you!”
That was a great lesson, a severe punishment, to me. I made up my mind then that neither he nor anyone else would ever have reason to say that again to me as long as I lived.

All of us must speak and act in the name of God in moments when our unaided judgment will not be enough without inspiration. Those moments can come upon us when there is not time to make preparation. That has happened to me often. It did many years ago in a hospital when a father told me and my companion that the doctors had told him that his critically injured three-year-old daughter would die within minutes. As I placed my hands on the one spot on her head not covered with bandages, I had to know, as God’s servant, what He would do and say.

The words came to my mind and my lips that she would live. The doctor standing by me snorted in disgust and asked me to get out of the way. I walked out of that hospital room with a feeling of peace and love. The little girl lived and walked down the aisle into a sacrament meeting on my last day in that city. I still remember the joy and satisfaction I felt from what I had said and done in the Lord’s service for that little girl and her family.

Five cubs had been born to Red and Vixen only nine days ago. These young ones were still completely helpless, and their eyes were just beginning to open. Two of the cubs were the typical red color of their father; two were more of a cross like Vixen—reddish brown with a smoky stripe down the back and across the shoulders; and one had silver black fur sprinkled with white.
Red was now on his way back to his family, feeling rather smug after stealing some leftover meat that a wolf had cached for a future meal. Hunting was not usually so easy. As a matter of fact, when the snowshoe hare population was low and the marmots and ground squirrels were still in hibernation, death from starvation was a constant threat. As if that problem were not enough, a desperate lynx that depended on the hare for most of its diet might anytime add a red fox to its menu. But in recent years snowshoe hares had been plentiful in the north country, so Red had not noticed any extra attention from his lynx neighbors.
Another resident of the wilderness, however, lurked nearby. The clucking alarm and whirring wings of a willow ptarmigan were warning signals to Red. He stopped abruptly, forepaw in the air. His body was arrow straight, tense, ready to spring into action. Something was edging through the lodgepole pines. Suddenly a giant grizzly bear appeared. Its massive hump-shouldered body weighed almost a thousand pounds. The grizzly was one of the most ferocious of all wild animals.
The bear was headed toward the den of Red and his new family. Red couldn’t tell if the bear were aware of the den. But he knew that if the grizzly were not diverted before he had the scent of the cubs, they would be devoured.
Red was one of the smaller predators of the north country, but his intelligence, speed, and courage made up for his size. In a red blur of motion, the fox dashed out to meet the grizzly. He circled around the bear and then rushed in to nip at his heels. The bear turned and snarled. Red circled again and again, darting in and out as he went, teasing, taunting, challenging. He knew that he must draw the bear away from the den, so each time Red retreated from the savage claws of the grizzly, he backed a little farther away from Vixen and their cubs.
In one unguarded moment before the grizzly had completely turned, Red made a rushing leap and bit the bear on the rump. Snarling with rage, the grizzly lunged toward the little fox. The whole forest shuddered with the sound. But the agile fox dodged the lashing paw just in time, backing away in an effort to draw the grizzly still farther from the den.
By now the bear was breathing in hoarse huffs. He was rapidly losing his appetite for a red fox dinner. What may have once seemed like a good idea had become a painful, frustrating ordeal. With a resigned grunt, the grizzly turned and lumbered off into the pines.

Many years ago John Burroughs, a naturalist, one summer evening was walking through a crowded park. Above the sounds of city life he heard the song of a bird.
He stopped and listened! Those with him had not heard it. He looked around. No one else had noticed it.
It bothered him that everyone should miss something so beautiful.
He took a coin from his pocket and flipped it into the air. It struck the pavement with a ring, no louder than the song of the bird. Everyone turned; they could hear that!
It is difficult to separate from all the sounds of city traffic the song of a bird. But you can hear it. You can hear it plainly if you train yourself to listen for it.

Matthew is a very good example of Christlike love. He is very loving to his family, and he is a good example to the teachers and other students in his kindergarten class. His teacher says that he has no enemies, and he sticks up for others if he thinks that they are unfairly treated. He isn’t afraid to stand up for the right. Last year when terrorists attacked, Matthew raised his hand and said, “We need to remember that they have babies, too. Just because some of them do something bad to us doesn’t mean that we need to do something bad back.”

Tashia Wood, from the Lazona Ward, was paired with a 10-year-old girl named Angelica. Tashia, 16, was nervous at first, but soon discovered that she had more in common with Angelica than she thought. “It was really cool because they were just like us,” Tashia said. “They just wanted to have fun.”
After Angelica won a prize at one game, she gave it to Tashia and said, “I want you to have this because I don’t want you to forget me.”
“She wasn’t selfish at all,” Tashia said. “She taught me not to take for granted what I have, because I have a lot of stuff and I’m usually whining about things I can’t have. Instead she gave to me, and she hardly has anything. She usually doesn’t even have a home to go to at night.”

Alan Ashton, 18Bountiful, Utah
“I felt the love of Christ when I was really depressed and the Spirit just came. School was a wreck. I was getting a lot of verbal abuse from kids about being a Mormon. One night I was really depressed. I hadn’t read my scriptures, almost out of spite, for a long time, and that night I just got a warm feeling. I knew Christ loved me. It was great. From then on, I tried harder.”

Payton opened the pickup truck door and stepped out into the snow. Snowflakes fluttered through the air. Payton and her family had just gotten home from visiting Grandpa and Grandma.
Dad looked into the back of the truck. “Where’s Tessa?” Their six-month-old black lab wasn’t on her blanket. “She must have jumped out. No one will know who she belongs to because the tags fell off her collar last week.” Dad climbed back into the truck. “I’ll go look for her.”
Payton imagined Tessa alone in the cold night, and tears spilled down her cheeks. “Mom, what will happen to Tessa?”
Mom hugged Payton. “Don’t worry. Dad will find her.”
Even when Payton put on her warm pajamas, she felt cold inside. The wind blew outside, and a branch scraped against her window.
Payton knelt down and asked Heavenly Father to help her puppy. The knot in her stomach loosened, and she felt warm and calm.
“How are you doing?” Mom asked when she came to tuck Payton in.
“I feel better. I know Tessa is OK.”
“How do you know?”
“I prayed, and then I wasn’t scared anymore.”
“I’m glad you chose to pray and listen,” Mom said as she kissed Payton goodnight.
The next morning, Payton jumped out of bed and went to find Tessa, certain her prayer had been answered.
“Where is she?” Payton asked.
“I don’t know,” Dad said. “I looked for hours, but there were no tracks in the snow.”
“But I said a prayer. Why can’t it be answered now?”
“It doesn’t always work that way,” Dad said. “Heavenly Father answers our prayers, but not always the way we want them answered. We have to be patient.”
“Being patient is hard,” Payton said.
“Yes, it is,” Dad said. Then he smiled. “Why don’t we make some signs with Tessa’s picture and our phone number?”
“That’s a great idea!” Payton said.
Dad and Payton made the signs, and they posted them on the roads between Grandpa’s house and their own.
A week went by. Payton and her family prayed for Tessa every day. Whenever they went out, Payton watched for a black puppy with a red collar. When Payton was sad, she thought of the feelings she’d had when she first prayed for Tessa.
Then one afternoon, the phone rang. It was someone saying they had found a black lab puppy with a red collar.
“Let’s go get her!” Payton exclaimed.
“Slow down,” Dad said. “We’re not sure it’s Tessa yet.”
The short drive seemed to take forever. Finally they drove down a long driveway to a red farmhouse. When Dad opened the front gate, a black streak bounded through the snow and knocked Payton off her feet. She giggled as Tessa licked her face.
“It’s definitely Tessa,” Mom said.
On the way home Dad told Payton, “Now we know why there were no tracks in the snow. That family was behind us when Tessa jumped out of our truck. They put her in their car and tried to follow us, but we were too far ahead.”
Mom smiled at Payton. “You were right. Your prayer was answered. Someone was taking care of Tessa the whole time.”
Warmth spread through Payton. She pressed her cheek against Tessa’s fur.
“Heavenly Father was taking care of her, just like He took care of me.”

The shipping industry is a major employer, and it would have employed Richardt Andersen, Copenhagen’s stake president, if his commitment to the Lord had not changed his plans.

“I had served in the Danish Navy and wanted to be trained as a navigator,” President Andersen recalls. But after completing his mission in Denmark in 1970, he married Helmi, and they had the first of their six sons. Instead of Esbjerg and a life on the sea, he was called as bishop of the Copenhagen Second Ward and became a policeman. For the past nine years he has been the stake president.

For the past three years the number of convert baptism in the Copenhagen stake has doubled, growing from twenty-seven in 1988 to one hundred in 1990. “We stand on the shoulders of those who’ve gone before. We’re working to finish the building on the foundation they laid,” he says. His work includes Saturday jobs with his sons, who are earning money for their missions; whatever he earns while working with them goes into the fund.

In the Philippines, there are science high schools for academically gifted students. Students in these schools take more subjects, spend more hours in class, and devote more effort to schoolwork.
This kind of environment was toxic for me. I gave up so many things upon entering this school. I stopped learning how to play instruments. I almost never attended Church activities, and I would occasionally miss Church services on Sundays for interschool competitions. I struggled attending seminary, although the classes were conveniently offered during weekends.
One Saturday, my seminary teacher told us about how busy she was in high school, and yet she managed to still do her seminary assignments and study the scripture mastery scriptures. She challenged us to do the same.
Challenges enliven me, so I took this one. I carried my scripture mastery cards with me everywhere. I prayed for help to manage it with my school demands. I used every window of time I had. I memorized scriptures while commuting to school. I chatted less and would take the cards out of my pocket. My friends noticed; shuffling the scripture cards became our new activity during breaks and lunchtime. They enjoyed quizzing me. Some started to bring their scriptures—even those who belonged to other denominations. They shared about activities at their own churches. I felt the atmosphere around me change, and school felt lighter and better.
My three younger sisters followed that lead, and now my family reaps the blessings of the scriptures in our relationships at home. It was more than just memorizing words; my seminary teacher taught me the difference the scriptures would make in me and in the people around me. I know that whatever challenge or trial comes to my family and friends, we will always find strength, guidance, and repose in the words of our loving Savior.

“At first, Sam was hesitant and quite dependent upon the other deacons when passing the sacrament. But the quorum members rallied around him and gave him a lot of help—a hand on his shoulder, a gentle nudge. Now, due to the supportive attitude of the other deacons, Sam is very eager and confident about passing the sacrament and fulfilling his other duties.” This was the comment made by Dale Peterson, second counselor in the bishopric of the Camarillo Second Ward, Camarillo California Stake.

President Kimball always reaches out with love to touch the “one.”

We were preparing for an area conference briefing, and as I entered President Kimball’s office, he was seated at a typewriter, his back toward the door. He finished typing and spun around in his chair to greet me. In one hand was a thirty-two-page letter from a young man who had read his book The Miracle of Forgiveness and, in the other, his personally typed reply to answer the special needs of a young man who wanted and needed his help to repent. The message was a clear one to me: No matter how busy you are, never forget those who need your help.