Gospel Story Finder

Primary children in Maharashtra, India, are excited a temple will be built in their country! Jason S., age 10, said, “It is very precious to have a house of God. Now going to the temple will be much easier!” Joel S., age 8, said, “I have never seen a temple. I want to live close to the temple so I can see it every day.” Abel A., age 8, said he and his family prayed for a temple to be built in India. They want to visit the temple every holiday!

During the night a little bird had been blown from its nest by the high winds in the storm. Apparently hatched just a few days earlier, it had few feathers, but enough to be identified as just a common sparrow.
As it lay there awaiting whatever fate would come, a young woman walking to her car in the parking lot saw the little sparrow and picked it up. Feeling sympathy for the helpless little bird, she took it home to care for it. She prepared a nest in a basket with soft tissues, which were changed often to keep a clean and comfortable bed for the little bird.
She fed it often each day, watching it gain strength, and within a few days it opened its eyes and could see for the first time. It saw the girl who fed it and the family who lived in the home. It heard and became accustomed to the sounds around it, and it was not afraid.
As the days passed, it was able to hop about, and it was taken from the basket and put into a clean birdcage.
The sparrow trusted the girl and the family, and when it wanted food, it would chirp and flutter its growing wings rapidly, and when the cage door was opened it would hop out onto the girl’s hand and sit there patiently while she fed it.
It would sit on her hand as she walked through the house and even when she went outside. To help it become accustomed to the outside world where it soon would have to live, she would take it out on the lawn where she and her sister would sit under the tree and visit while the bird would look and observe all around it.
It came time for the girl and her sister to go to girls’ camp, so the bird went with them and spent the week on Cedar Mountain with the girls. It was there that it tried to fly for the first time, flying from the girl’s hand to the low branches in a nearby tree.
The bird was glad to come back to the familiar hand and security of the girl’s love, and although it was learning to fly, it did not leave. When the girls’ camp was over, the bird came home with the girls and continued its flying lessons.
The girl, realizing the bird must soon join its own kind, took it out on the front lawn and encouraged it to fly away. It flew across the lawn to a small pine tree, where it perched and looked around. The girl left it there, assuming it would now join the other birds, and she returned into the home.
It wasn’t long before a chirping could be heard outside in front of the home, and when the girl went out to see what the bird was chirping about, it flew out of the tree and landed back on her hand, and she fed it.
For the first few nights the bird would come back to the house and want to come in with the family for the night. Soon, however, it began to stay out with newly found friends, living in the trees close by the home. When the girl would go outside and whistle, it would respond and return and land on her hand, and my daughter, Trinilee, would feed it.

There is a legend at Harvard that the late LeBaron Russell Briggs, long the beloved dean of the college, once asked a student why he had failed to complete an assignment.
“I wasn’t feeling very well, sir,” said the student.
“Mr. Smith,” said the dean, “I think in time you may perhaps find that most of the work in the world is done by people who aren’t feeling very well.”

And there are many, many other stories that the banners tell. LeeAnn Cox’s banner was in honor of her pioneer ancestors whose son was lost while they traveled across Nebraska. The mother pinned a red shawl on the shoulders of her husband who was to search along the trail for the lost son. The bright shawl waving in the evening sun let a mother, sick with worry, know that all was well.

Early in our marriage, my husband and I went running together—an activity I loved but he did not. When I ran alone, I would often play a game to help me push myself to run farther. I would tell myself, “You only have to run to that stop sign.” And once I would get there, I’d realize I could go a little farther and run to another checkpoint.
During our first run together, I thought this game could help my husband. I told him, “We have to run just to that stop sign, and then we can stop.” Once we got there, I pointed out how we still had some extra energy and could go a little farther. But he was not thrilled by the idea.
So, we stopped running.

Remember that Christ’s life was one of service to others. This Christmas season would be an ideal time to serve others in ways that shows our love for others as He showed His love for us. Imagine the excitement generated and the lessons learned as a child becomes a secret Santa to friends and neighbors. I can still hear the squeals of delight as my young children showed acts of secret service by placing cookies, fruit, or homemade cards at the door of someone in need of love.

After I joined the Church, my brother talked about missionary work almost every day. He always encouraged me to go on a mission. With his help, I filled out my mission application. I will never forget how happy my older brother and I were then.
One evening my brother called me to come and meet with him after work. He wanted to talk with me about some things relating to my mission. We set a time to meet at the central square.
Around this time parliamentary elections were happening in Mongolia. When we met at the central square, citizens were holding a demonstration because of the election. Police were there, but the demonstration was getting violent and scary, escalating into a riot. A big building and several cars were on fire, and people were screaming. It was frightening.
My brother and I had met far away from the demonstration, but he was worried. He gave me money for a taxi and told me to go straight home. He told me that I would see him the next day. He planned to go back to his home, which was close to where he worked. The taxi arrived, and we said a quick good-bye before I drove away.
I soon found out that the government had closed all the roads because of the rioting. Unable to get to my home, which was in the outskirts of the city, I spent the night at work instead. Armored cars and armed soldiers were everywhere. The fighting worsened, and that night a state of emergency was called. It lasted for four days.
When the state of emergency ended, my brother-in-law came to pick me up. We got to his home to find all our relatives waiting there. They were all crying. I learned that my older brother had been shot as he was walking home.
My heart felt like it was going to burst. My brother died when he was 24 because of that demonstration. The days following my brother’s death were among the most horrible of my life.

My favorite part was when President Monson said that it’s less important that you walk where Jesus walked, but it’s very important that you walk as He walked. I loved when he said that. It means to follow Jesus’s example. I want to walk like Jesus.
Alise N., age 9, Sweden

By the time the sun began to sparkle on the Bear River and warm the cattle on the Wyoming ranch, Minerva Teichert had been up for some time. There was breakfast to cook for her husband Herman, the five children, and a few ranch workers. Every morning there were milk bottles for the dairy that would take several hours to clean and sterilize. In addition, there were chickens to feed, clothes to wash and mend, a garden to weed. By the time the household began to quiet down for the evening, she had cooked two more meals and finished a variety of other chores that life on a ranch in the 1930s demanded.
But still Minerva’s day was not complete. It never was until she had picked up her brush and her “palette”—a long piece of wood dabbed with oil paints—and spent a few precious moments at her canvas.

The summer after high school graduation seemed almost magical. I had everything I could possibly want—except a tan. With a job, my social life, and the plans I was making to go away to school, I hadn’t taken the time to lie in the sun and bake my skin cells. Then came the chance to remedy this one imperfection in an otherwise unblemished existence in the form of an invitation to spend the Fourth of July at Bear Lake in northern Utah.
The weather at Bear Lake matched my nearly flawless life. The sun was bright, the sky clear, and the air just the right temperature. I lay on the beach all day and eagerly watched my anemic legs and arms turn a bright shade of pink which, I was sure, would turn into a golden tan. Everything, I thought, would be storybook perfect.
Bear Lake is cool and invigorating and can be literally smooth as glass. Its high elevation, though, means the atmosphere is thinner, providing less protection from the sun’s harmful rays. Anybody who has ever been there knows—usually from painful personal experience—that Bear Lake is one of the worst places for sunburn.
I knew it too, but chose to ignore that particular bit of truth. My thoughts that day went no farther than dreams of looking magazine-and-movie beautiful. Only it didn’t work out that way. My legs and arms (and back, feet, and face) didn’t go from rosy pink to gorgeous tan. Instead, they turned blazing red and blistered. And I hurt all over.
I don’t remember much about the return trip that evening except feeling awful and just hoping I wouldn’t throw up before we got home. Once home, I doused myself with vinegar (it’s supposed to help) and went straight to bed. Getting to sleep that night was a real pain. Getting dressed the next morning was even worse.
After a few “Don’t touch me!” days, the pain finally subsided, the blisters popped, and I began to peel. Yuck! Dead, flaky skin was everywhere. Instead of looking sophisticated and stunning, I looked splotchy. It wasn’t exactly what I had envisioned.
I often think about that episode, especially when I’m sitting in the shade wearing my wide-brimmed hat and slathered in sun block. I lost more than a few nights’ sleep from that experience; I also lost much of my body’s built-in protection against the sun’s harmful rays.
More important than what I lost, though, was what I gained. I realized that just as Heavenly Father provides an earthly atmosphere to protect our physical selves, he has also given us a spiritual “atmosphere”—the Holy Ghost—to shelter our spiritual selves. I always recall my day at the beach whenever I am tempted to leave that heavenly shelter to become more attractive according to the world’s standards. I remember the sleepless nights, painful days, and lasting physical consequences, and know there is no way I want to risk getting a spiritual “sunburn.”

“There has to be a better way!” I thought to myself at 11:30 on Sunday night. Here I was again, trying to cram a whole weekend’s worth of homework into Sunday evening.
Each weekend I would find excuses to postpone my homework until the very last minute—Sunday night. I realized that stressing over homework was not the best way to keep the Sabbath day holy, but what was I supposed to do? Homework was a part of life.
Then that night, I felt inspired that I would be blessed if I stopped doing homework on Sunday. I wasn’t sure how I would make it work; I felt like I was already busy with school and that giving up one day of studying would leave me even less prepared than I already felt. Then I thought of the scripture, “I, the Lord, am bound when ye do what I say; but when ye do not what I say, ye have no promise” (D&C 82:10), and since I’d felt prompted that changing my homework pattern could help me with my concerns, I decided to not do homework on Sunday.
The following weekend I finished my homework by Saturday afternoon. I spent the evening watching a movie with friends, and I found it even more fun than before, since I didn’t have homework hanging over my head.
Sunday was simply wonderful. I felt no stress from uncompleted assignments. I was able to enjoy my Church meetings and spend the day pondering the scriptures and spending time with family and friends. Best of all, I was able to get to bed at a reasonable time and was well rested in the morning.
Deciding to not do homework on Sunday allowed me to break my habit of procrastination, and my grades were better than ever. I know Heavenly Father blessed me for making a better effort to keep the Sabbath day holy.

The other visit was to the North Carbon stake in Price, Utah, also many years ago. I noted during my visit that they had rescued 86 men from the prospective elders in one year and had taken them and their wives to the Manti Temple. I said to Cecil Broadbent, the president, “How did you do it, President?”
He said, “I didn’t. My counselor, President Judd, did.”
President Judd was a large, ruddy-faced Welsh coal miner. I said to him, “President Judd, will you tell me how you were able to rescue 86 brethren in one year?”
I sat anticipating his answer, and he said, “No!”
I was stunned. I’d never had anyone say no so directly in my life. I asked, “Why not?”
He said, “Then you’ll tell the other stake presidents you visit, and we won’t lead the Church in reactivation.” He was smiling, though, so I knew it was half in jest. He said, “I’ll make a deal with you, Brother Monson. I’ll tell you how we rescued 86 men in one year if you’ll get me two tickets to general conference.”
I said, “You’re on!” And so he told me. What he didn’t tell me is that he intended to collect interest every conference for the next 10 years. He came faithfully every six months for his two tickets.

Elder Cordón was born on February 19, 1969, in Guatemala City, and spent his boyhood in Zacapa. His father went to Chicago, Illinois, in the United States to work. While there, he was influenced by Church members and received the message of the gospel from missionaries. The family was sealed in the Mesa Arizona Temple in 1972, when Valeri was three years old.

The Prophet’s natural disposition to do good was demonstrated during Zion’s Camp. In May 1834, the Prophet and his brethren were in the process of pitching their tents on the Illinois prairie when some of the brethren suddenly discovered three rattlesnakes and were about to kill them. The Prophet immediately intervened, teaching: “Let them alone—don’t hurt them! How will the serpent ever lose his venom, while the servants of God possess the same disposition, and continue to make war upon it? Men must become harmless, before the brute creation; and when men lose their vicious dispositions and cease to destroy the animal race, the lion and the lamb can dwell together, and the sucking child can play with the serpent in safety” (History of the Church, 2:71). The Prophet Joseph lived as he preached.

Ten cents is for capital. Put it somewhere where you cannot access it or use it. This could be for 10, 15, or more years. When I think of these ten cents, I am reminded of my mother. She would sift through very good ground nuts and maize and put some aside for seeds. She would fumigate them—or so we were made to believe, so that we would not be tempted to roast that maize and eat those groundnuts when we were hungry. Mother never used the seeds, even in dire situations. She would rather have us go without than to eat those seeds. They were to be planted in the following rainy season and have them multiply. She would do the same in each harvest. She was never dependent on government handouts.7

My name is Chrislaine Da Silva Brasil. I’m 12 years old. I live in a town called Itacoatiara in northern Brazil. (Yes, my family and my country share the same name.) Itacoatiara is on the Amazon River, just below the equator. It’s very hot and humid here in the summer, and it rains heavily in the winter.
The Amazon River is very important to people in my town. Some men make a living catching and selling the many different kinds of fish in the river. My mom cooks great fish dinners that we eat with rice, beans, and salads. We have a lot of fresh fruit to eat as well.
The river is also like a highway. People travel on it in boats of all sizes. My family planned to take a special boat ride on the river in December 1993. With other members of the Church, we were going south all the way to the temple in São Paulo. Mom and Dad were going for their own temple work and to be sealed together in marriage for time and eternity. Then, they, my younger sister, Joyce, and I were going to be sealed together as an eternal family.
We started planning for the trip many months ahead. It costs a lot of money to travel to the temple. We saved by not buying many of the things we like, even our favorite soda pop.
As the time came closer to leave, we became very excited.
And then I had to make a big decision!
I was in grade school and would soon graduate. But first I had to take final exams for the year—and when the dates for the exams were announced, they were for the same time that we were to go to the temple.
Mom told my teacher that I would be absent for ten days because our family was going to São Paulo. The teacher said that if I left school then, I would not be able to take the exams and graduate. I wanted to graduate, but I also wanted to go to the temple.
That night before dinner we had a family council. Mom explained what had happened and then said, “Chris, you need to make a decision. Either we stay while you take the exams and graduate, or we all go to the temple.”
I prayed to Heavenly Father to help me make the right choice. Tears ran down my cheeks as I said, “Let’s go to the temple.” At that moment I felt the warmth of the Spirit, and I knew that things would work out.
And they did!
For some reason, the final exams were held earlier than expected, and I was able to take them and graduate before we left on our trip.
We were on a boat for three days, then traveled by bus for another three days. We had meals on the boat and at special bus stops along the way. In São Paulo, we stayed at the Missionary Training Center, where we cooked our own meals. We spent a few days in São Paulo going to the temple and visiting the city, then made the long journey back home.
This wonderful experience helped me understand that Heavenly Father answers prayers when we try to do what is right. I’m grateful that I was able to graduate. But I’m even more grateful that we can be a family together forever.

Thirteen years ago, as a mission president in Japan, I received a call from a young serviceman’s wife who needed to see me. Her husband, an air force pilot, had just been shot down and had died in combat over Vietnam. As she was ushered into my office, I saw her hugging a large picture. We sat down to talk and she showed me the picture of her husband, a handsome pilot with his helmet in his hands, standing proudly beside his jet fighter plane.
She sobbingly said how much she loved him and couldn’t believe that he was gone. She continued by saying that she was a convert of nearly two years. She had met her husband while in college, and it was he who had introduced her to the gospel. Later she was baptized, and they were sealed in the temple for time and all eternity.
Her life with him had been beautiful and everything a person could ask for. She had looked toward the future with great joy and anticipation. But now, all too soon, it had come to a sudden, crashing halt.
She had a great adjustment to make in her life and wanted assurance that all would be well. What would your counsel be to her?

Emily M., 4, Utah, likes animals, dancing, and babies. With her older brother she set up a stand at a neighborhood farmers’ market and sold vegetables she had helped tend in her family’s garden.

As the funeral procession of cars turned onto the small road leading to the cemetery, memories ran through my mind. In my sadness over the untimely death of my father, I sought comfort in the gospel and the scriptures. Ecclesiastes 3:1 came to mind: “To every thing there is a season.”
My family did not attend a church regularly when I was young, but my parents manifested their faith in the Christlike way they helped those in need and in the way they let each of us children know we were loved. My parents had been a part of every season of my life except one, and that season brought great sorrow to them because they did not understand and would not listen to my testimony of what I had found.
When I was 17, some good friends introduced me to the Church. The restored gospel answered questions I had had for years, but my parents would have nothing to do with it. When I joined the Church at 18, only my grandmother attended my baptism. She was not a Latter-day Saint, but she seemed to understand my spiritual need, and she assured me that someday my parents would accept my decision.
I married shortly after my baptism and moved away with my husband. I shared news of my temple sealing a few years later in a letter to my parents, telling them of my joy and newfound faith. But I was unable to interest them in the gospel. Now my father was gone, and my mother and little sister were left alone.
My thoughts were interrupted as the cars came to a stop. Immediately to our left I noticed a monument covered with foliage. An engraving on the stone seemed to beckon us, but we went to the graveside service without inspecting it.
After the service had ended, we expressed our gratitude to friends and relatives and said our good-byes. My husband, mother, and I then walked to the monument. Inscribed on it was a scripture that would change my family forever: “For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).
For the first time, 14 years after my baptism and confirmation, my mother asked questions. Because of the restored gospel, I could provide answers. She and my sister were baptized and confirmed shortly thereafter. A little more than a year later, my father’s temple work was completed.
More than 30 years have passed since that day at the cemetery. During that time, members of our extended family have been sealed together in the temple. My mother became a Relief Society president and gave several years of devoted service. My sister married, had children, and served many years as a Laurel leader, president of the Young Women, and worker for LDS Family Services.
To everything there is a season—including a time of joy and a time of sorrow. I am thankful for the knowledge that prayers are answered in God’s own season and that the scriptures offer us words of life as we search, ponder, and share them with one another.

He was a very traditional Navajo, and he taught us many of the Navajo ways. I learned not to be so inquisitive, because this is considered bad form in the Navajo culture. When I stopped asking questions, and when the mood suited him, he would tell us about his life. He took us out to the river and his other favorite places. He showed us foxholes and where the coyotes had been. He taught us to herd sheep. He showed us how he built the tall, black-robed figures that had ended our first visit. They were not designed to terrify sister missionaries but to frighten away coyotes that might harm his flock.
He loved his sheep and would take them miles each day in search of the best grass. He took the lambs inside with him when the nights were cold. He was a very caring man.