Gospel Story Finder

As Easter time approaches, let me share with you the tender story of an eleven-year-old boy named Philip, a Down’s syndrome child who was in a Sunday School class with eight other children.
Easter Sunday the teacher brought an empty plastic egg for each child. They were instructed to go out of the church building onto the grounds and put into the egg something that would remind them of the meaning of Easter.
All returned joyfully. As each egg was opened there were exclamations of delight at a butterfly, a twig, a flower, a blade of grass. Then the last egg was opened. It was Philip’s, and it was empty!
Some of the children made fun of Philip. “But, teacher,” he said, “teacher, the tomb was empty.”
A newspaper article announcing Philip’s death a few months later noted that at the conclusion of the funeral eight children marched forward and put a large empty egg on the small casket. On it was a banner that said, “The tomb was empty.”

BOOM! BOOM!
It was three o’clock in the morning, and the city was being bombed. One minute Grace had been asleep in her bed, and the next, Dad was telling everyone to get under cover. Now Grace was huddled under the kitchen table with her dad, mom, and younger brothers, Heber and Alvin. She could hear the rumble of explosions and glass shattering outside. It was so loud!
“What’s going to happen to us?” Grace asked Dad.
Dad stroked her hair. “I don’t know,” he said. “But let’s say a prayer.”
The Vlam family held each other close.
“Dear Heavenly Father,” Dad prayed, “please keep our family safe.”
After a while, the noise quieted down. There were no more explosions. They were safe!
Mom took Grace’s hand and smiled at her. “Remember when we were sealed in the temple?”
Grace nodded. When they had moved from Indonesia to Holland, they were able to stop in Utah and be sealed in the Salt Lake Temple.
“Whatever happens, God will take care of our family,” Mom said.
The next day, Grace heard air-raid sirens when she was outside on the city plaza. She looked up and saw planes above her head, with little black things falling from them. She stood there, staring, her mouth wide open.
A man started shouting at her. “Run! Those are bombs!”
Grace raced home, her heart pounding as she finally made it safely through the front door.
A few days later, the Nazis—who were the government leaders of Germany—officially took over Holland. Sometimes they took people who had been military officers as prisoners. Because Dad had been an officer in the Dutch military, the Nazi officers watched him carefully.
“But that won’t happen to Dad,” Grace thought. “We’re members of the Church, and Dad is a leader in the mission presidency. God will protect him.”
After the bombings, the Vlam family had to leave their city. One day at her new school, Grace heard other students whispering.
“Some people were taken prisoner today!”
“Will they ever come back?”
Grace was scared. Was Dad OK? She ran home as fast she could. As she burst through the door, she saw Mom in the hallway.
“Is it true?” Grace asked. “Is Dad gone?”
Mom didn’t say anything, but Grace knew from Mom’s sad eyes that Dad had been taken away. He was a prisoner of war. Grace leaned against the wall. She was too afraid to even cry.
“What do we do now?” she thought.
At that moment, Grace heard a voice say, “You will see your father again.” The voice was calm and clear. Grace knew it was the voice of the Holy Ghost. It made her feel a little better.
She didn’t know exactly what would happen, but she did know that Heavenly Father would take care of her and her family.
To be continued …

I remember vividly my first exposure to computer programming which taught me a great lesson. We were to computerize a swing at a golf ball and direct it toward a hole. We had to take into account all the factors to be certain our golf ball was programmed to reach the hole safely. We had to program the length of the stroke, the power of the swing, the type of ball we were using, the angle at which we struck the ball, the atmospheric conditions in which the ball would take flight, and the type of terrain on which it would land.

I remember how I struggled with this problem. The first time I tried out my program on the computer, there was a swing at the ball, the ball took off into space and never landed again! I had to turn the computer off to get the ball back into the atmosphere. It was headed in a direction entirely out of control and away from its objective. I had to go back and, piece by piece, reconstruct the steps until I found the error and could change the course of the ball toward the hole.

Yet we had still another problem: no podium. As we prayed to know how to get one, I learned that a local elementary school had some wood we could use. For days I searched for a carpenter who could build a podium from the wood, but I couldn’t find one. Finally, on a Saturday, I decided to build it myself. I had never carried such heavy objects, and I would never have believed I could finish the podium in one day, but God helped me. The podium was ready for church the next day. All the members were amazed, but not as amazed as I was. It seemed a miracle to me.

I had another exceptional teacher while attending Ricks College many years ago. I was preparing to serve a mission and thought it would be helpful to attend a missionary preparation class. What I experienced changed my life.
From the first day of class, I realized I was in the presence of a master teacher. The teacher was Brother F. Melvin Hammond. I knew Brother Hammond loved the Lord and he loved me. I could see it in his face and hear it in his voice. When he taught, the Spirit enlightened my mind. He taught doctrine, but he also invited me to learn it on my own. That invitation helped me clearly see my responsibility to learn the Lord’s doctrine for myself. That experience changed me forever. Thank you, Brother Hammond, for teaching in the Savior’s way.

It was a blind man who helped me understand a principle of leadership in a way that I will never forget. It happened one day on the Eagle Gate corner in Salt Lake City. I had arrived at the intersection at the same time as a blind man (I later learned his name was Jim Ganski) with his Seeing Eye dog. As the signal changed, the dog hesitated because a bus stopped at the curb was blocking his vision and he was not sure it was safe to cross. Desiring to be helpful, I grasped the blind man’s arm and started him across the street. As we walked, I explained the reason for the dog’s hesitation. By the time I completed my explanation, we had reached the middle of the street and the dog had already turned and looked at me several times and then inquiringly at his master. The twist of the dog’s harness no doubt signaled his concern to his master. It was then that the blind man thanked me courteously for the explanation and then said firmly. “Now, if you would please let go of my arm, my dog doesn’t like people taking over his job.”
What a great lesson! Once you have delegated a job, do not take it over again.

I want to read you one more if I might. This is by Ed Bartley who is an English professor back east. He has written several articles in syndicated magazines.

He was working frantically trying to prepare a test on Melville for his English students the next day when his 22-month-old child, Meghan, came up with a pile of storybooks and a pleading look.

The Poky Little Puppy, The Magic Bus, The Cat in the Hat, even that ancient copy of National Geographic with the penguin on the cover . . . she had them all.

With her free hand, she tugs at my sleeve.

“No Meghan,” I snap irritably, “not now. Go away and leave me alone. And take your library with you.”

That does it; she leaves. She makes no further attempt to bother me. I can finish the test easily now without interference. No one trying to climb onto my lap, no extra fingers helping me type.

[Have you ever been typing along and a mystery key flied right in the middle of what you’re doing? You look down and there’s a very small finger on a typewriter key.]

I see her standing quietly with her back against the sofa, tears running down her cheeks. She has two fingers of her right hand in her mouth. She holds the tragic [doll] Dumpty in her left. She watches me type and slowly brushes the tip of Dumpty’s anemic arm across her nose to comfort her.

At this moment, only for a moment, I see things as God must—in perspective, with all the pieces fitting. I see a little girl cry because I haven’t time for her. Imagine ever being that important to another human being! I see the day when it won’t mean so much to a tiny soul to have me sit next to her and read a story, one that means little to either of us, realizing somehow that it is the sitting next to each other that means everything. [Have you ever had anybody badger you for half an hour to read a book, and, when you start to read, you make mistakes and they can correct you? They know it by heart, but they have got to have a book read.]

And I see the day when the frail, loyal, and lovable doll Dumpty will vanish from the life of a little girl who has outgrown him.

I resent Dumpty for an instant. He is consoling my girl, and that is my concern, not his. She and I have few enough days like this to share. So the paper slips gently into the top drawer, the hood slides over the typewriter. The test will get done somehow. Tests always get done.

“Meghan, I feel like taking a walk down to the park. I was wondering if you . . . would care to join me. I thought maybe you’d like to go on the swings for a while. Bring Dumpty—and your red sweater too. It might be windy down there.”

At the word “park” the fingers leave the mouth. She laughs excitedly and begins a frantic search for her shoes and socks. [Have you ever had anybody badger you for half an hour to go with you, and then, you say yes, you have to spend fifteen minutes looking for shoes? When that happens, you know everything is right on schedule. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.]

Melville will have to wait, but he won’t mind. He waited most of his life for someone to discover the miracle of Moby Dick—and died 30 years before anyone did. No, he won’t mind.

Besides, he’d understand why I must go right now, while [birds] still spark wonder and before dandelions become weeds, and while a little girl thinks that a leaf from her father is a gift beyond measure.

As President Uchtdorf spoke, my mind drifted to a time I met an unassuming member of the Church who was willing to lift wherever he was standing.
In 1985, I was stationed as a U.S. Army officer in a small town in Germany. I had served a mission in Germany 10 years previously. Upon arriving in 1983 as a soldier with my wife, Debra, and two young daughters, we began attending a serviceman’s branch of about 100 members strong. After two years, we decided to immerse ourselves fully into the German culture and began attending the small Bad Kreuznach Branch, which had about 12 members.
About the second week after we began attending, we noticed a new man there. He was in his mid-40s, and we learned that he was the high councilor assigned to our branch. He wasn’t there to conduct stake business, just to visit. We spoke for some time after church, and when we said goodbye, I figured we would next see him again in perhaps six months.
The next week, the high councilor was there again. I learned he lived about an hour away from our small town. During the remainder of his calling as a high councilor, he came to our branch two or three times a month. He was friendly, low-keyed, and encouraging. He always spoke with each member of the branch. And, with a branch that small, he was often asked to speak from the pulpit. Impressed with his dedication, in my mind I nicknamed him “the Faithful High Councilor.”
One Sunday he came to the branch services in the morning and then returned at 6:00 p.m. to attend a baptism. In between, he had gone to another branch. I have to admit that the thought actually crossed my mind, “What did he do to upset the stake president? Why else would he have been assigned to the smallest and most remote branch in the stake?” Maybe he wasn’t really the intelligent, humble, and likeable man I thought him to be. Maybe he didn’t like his home ward and used this assignment to get away. I couldn’t figure it out, so I just accepted it.
Several weeks after this baptism, I returned home after midnight on a Sunday morning. I had been training near the border between East and West Germany, and it had taken me three and a half hours to get home. I was exhausted when I walked in the door. My wife, Debra, was still up. She told me that “the Faithful High Councilor” had called. He wanted to meet with me. I asked, “Before or after church?” Church started at 10:00 a.m. I was hoping it was after church so I could sleep until 8:30.
“Before,” she said.
“9:30?”
“No. He has to go somewhere else on stake business. He wants you to meet him at his office in Frankfurt. He said to go to Gate 5.”
“What time?” I asked.
“Six,” she responded.
Now I was upset. It was already 12:30 a.m. In order to make the appointment at 6:00, I would have to get up at 4:30. That meant less than four hours of sleep. What was I going to do? I didn’t even have a phone number to call him the next morning to tell him I wouldn’t be meeting him. I dropped my clothes next to the bed and lay down without setting the alarm clock. As I lay there, these thoughts went through my mind:
If I didn’t meet “the Faithful High Councilor,” what would happen? If I didn’t show up at his office, I was sure he would make productive use of his time. The next time I spoke to him and explained why I hadn’t met him, he would respond, “Of course you made the right decision. I would never have asked you to come if I had known you were getting home so late. We can take care of that business now.” And besides, I wasn’t really a member of the branch. Sure, our records were there and we attended every week, but we were foreigners, spoke some pretty atrocious German, and would be moving in five or six months.
My conscience was almost clear. A few more minutes and I could drift off to sleep. Then I remembered the nickname I had given him and all the times “the Faithful High Councilor” had come to the branch since we had been attending. He came to that baptism late on a Sunday night. He came to a branch activity in the middle of the week. He always spoke to all the members and encouraged and inspired them. He never seemed judgmental or indifferent. He was respectful of the branch president and of his efforts. If he was disappointed in being assigned to this little branch, he certainly never showed it.
I got up and walked over to the dresser where my alarm clock sat. I set the alarm for 4:30 a.m. In deciding to meet “the Faithful High Councilor,” I was not concerned about what he would say or think if I did not. After all, I would probably never see or hear of him again after we moved. I decided to get up in less than four hours and drive 50 miles (80 km) to his office because I truly respected him for what he was, “the Faithful High Councilor.” I decided to follow his example.
I pulled my car up to Gate 5 at 6:00 a.m. that Sunday morning to be greeted by a security guard with a machine gun. He eyed my American Armed Forces license plate. He may have wondered if I was lost. Had “the Faithful High Councilor” decided not to show up? Not more than two minutes later, though, his car pulled up next to mine. He said, “Good morning, Don. Let’s go into my office.” The guard opened the gate and let us pass.
After some small talk and showing me around his office building, he came to the point of the meeting. He said he was calling me to serve as the councilor to the branch president. Not the first or second counselor—the only counselor. Before my arrival, there had been only two priesthood holders in the branch, and they had traded off every few years between being branch president and elders quorum president.
I accepted the call and served until I left three months later to attend a two-month training in the United States.
My memories of that time in my life faded as I leaned forward in my seat and refocused my attention on President Uchtdorf’s voice coming over the speaker system. I was truly impressed by the implications of his message. Unlike other times when I’ve wondered about the correlation between a speaker’s words and the speaker’s personal actions (in business, in the military, and, yes, even some talks I have heard in church), I had no doubt about President Uchtdorf‘s message. It wasn’t just the fact that President Uchtdorf’s accent reminded me of Germany and my experience with “the Faithful High Councilor.” It was the fact that President Uchtdorf was “the Faithful High Councilor.” The industrial complex we met at that early Sunday morning was the Frankfurt International Airport, where he was Chief Pilot for Lufthansa German Airlines.

Missionary work was also the emphasis in camp. Chris Johnson had been instrumental in introducing the gospel to her best friend and her friend’s family. Chris had yearned for her friend to grow in the gospel until she could bear her testimony to a group. In a small testimony meeting with the Adventurers, Chris said, “I do have a strong testimony. I love the Book of Mormon with all my heart. Missionary work strengthens you so much. “Then Chris heard her friend bear her testimony for the first time. “She told me that she loved me, and she trusted me. She said she knew she is a child of God. I’ve waited so long to hear that.”

David O. McKay was the prophet of my youth. When I was born, President McKay had served as the President and Prophet of the Church for four years. I was 13 years old when President McKay passed away. I have a very clear memory of my parents taking my siblings and me to Salt Lake City on a cold January evening for the public viewing of President McKay. We stood in a long, winding line, slowly moving forward in order to quietly walk past his casket and have one final look at him. That is a powerful memory for me.

The Prophet Joseph Smith had a most remarkable way of handling a problem between himself and his wife. David Whitmer tells of an incident in the lives of Joseph and Emma Smith as follows:
“One morning when [Joseph Smith] was getting ready to continue the translation, something went wrong about the house and he was put out about it. Something that Emma, his wife, had done. Oliver and I went upstairs and Joseph came up soon after to continue the translation but he could not do anything. He could not translate a single syllable. He went downstairs, out into the orchard, and made supplication to the Lord; [he] was gone about an hour—came back to the house, and asked Emma’s forgiveness and then came upstairs where we were and then the translation went on all right.” (B. H. Roberts, Comprehensive History of the Church, 1:131.)

May I share some experiences of people who have obtained a remarkable felicity in their lives. For well over fifty years our family has been close to little Ella Hoover, who sits down in front of me in a wheelchair with her red cape over her shoulders. She is presently living with a favorite aunt in Delta, Utah. Delta is quite a place. I was born there. It’s near Hinckley. It takes Brother Gordon B. Hinckley and all his eloquence to do justice to either Delta or Hinckley. Brother Hinckley says he can’t understand why certain Utah towns like Faust, Utah, and Hinckley, Utah, have not prospered as well as some others like Murray and Ogden.

Ella is a remarkably happy and outgoing woman who is only a little over two feet tall. While still an infant, she was playfully thrown in the air by someone who failed to catch her properly, so that she fell to the ground and suffered injuries which resulted in a permanent deformity to her back and her arms and her legs. Despite these crippling physical deformities, she grew up, went to school, and attended Brigham Young University for a time. Because of the sweetness of her spirit, her great personal charm, her fine intelligence, and her happy disposition, she won the love of and married a completely normal, full-sized man. Through a miracle as great as any miracle that ever happened, she was able to conceive and carry and bear a normal child, whom they named Billy, after his father, and who is also here with us tonight.

One day before Billy was three, the Bill Hoover family was riding in their car in west Salt Lake County and the tire went flat. The father, Bill Hoover, pulled his car over to the side of the road and got out to check the wheels. In the process, a driver drunk with wine came along and struck the Hoover car and killed Bill Hoover instantly. Somehow this young widow, who never walked a step in her life without pain and without a crutch, raised this son to be an exemplary man. He in turn married and in time became a father in his own right and raised up four grandchildren to the great joy and delight of little Ella Hoover. This remarkable woman, despite all these obstacles, difficulties, and heartaches, is and has been an extremely faithful, well-adjusted, noble woman. Now in her seventies, she blesses the lives of all who meet and know her because she gives so very much of one commodity—herself. Hers has been an odyssey of faith without bitterness, in which she has found great happiness through tears and pain and sorrow.

Joshua propped his spelling book against the box of cereal and slurped a spoonful from his bowl. He wrinkled his forehead and studied the list of words. Today he couldn’t hesitate or make mistakes. After all, he was the captain of his Spelling Baseball Team, and Mrs. Larsen had announced that the winning team would get pizza for lunch the next day.
Josh and Michael were the two captains. They were the best of friends, but they were always competing against each other. Josh’s soccer team had won the tournament, but Michael had earned the highest grade on the science test. Joshua really wanted to win the spelling contest. He mentally listed the best spellers in the class—Marcy, Tom, Alex, Jenny, and Kathy. Then he listed the worst spellers—Drew, Trevor, and Terry. He wouldn’t pick any more of them than he had to.
Joshua finished his cereal with a gulp and grabbed his backpack. “I’m leaving, Mom,” he called.
His mom hurried into the kitchen. “Time for prayer,” she reminded him.
Joshua rolled his eyes and groaned.
“You have time,” she said with an understanding smile.
Suddenly the kitchen was filled with his sister, two brothers, and father. They knelt around the table, as they did every morning, while his sister, Susan, prayed. Josh’s mind was not on the prayer. He was planning the lineup of his team so that the strongest speller could hit everyone home when the bases were loaded. “And,” said Susan in a louder voice, which interrupted Joshua’s planning, “help everyone on Josh’s team to spell his best.”
Josh winked a thank-you to Susan as he rushed for the door. He hopped on his bike and pedaled to school. Kneeling on the ground to lock his bike to the rack, he noticed Terry scrunched against the brick wall of the school. Josh couldn’t believe what he saw: Terry was reading his speller! He was so dumb that Josh didn’t think he’d ever studied in his life. He looked up, but Josh avoided looking into his eyes. He didn’t want Terry on his team. And he knew Michael wouldn’t want him either.
The bell rang, and the students rushed into the classroom. Mrs. Larsen announced that the baseball game would begin at two o’clock. A groan rose from the class, but Mrs. Larsen just smiled and told the class to take out their arithmetic books.
After lunch, Josh raced out to the playground.
“My team will slaughter you this afternoon,” Michael yelled to Joshua.
Josh laughed. “We’re going to cream you. I have first pick, remember?” He swung by his arms across the horizontal ladder. As he dropped to the ground, he spotted Terry huddled against the building, reading his speller again. “Look,” he shouted to Michael. “Look at Terry over there.”
“Hey,” jeered Michael, “if it isn’t Terry! When did you learn how to read?”
Terry looked up when he heard his name.
“You sure aren’t going to be on my team,” Michael snorted. “Josh is going to get stuck with you.”
Terry looked at Joshua quickly, then hid behind the spelling book. Joshua pretended he hadn’t heard Michael’s words.
After lunch, Josh kept thinking about Terry. Why was he studying so hard? Nobody wanted him on his team, anyway—he was a rotten speller. He would strike out at first bat. But Joshua kept watching Terry. At the end of science he noticed that Terry had again slipped his spelling book open to the review unit.
Two o’clock finally came.
Mrs. Larsen said, “Class, line up along the back wall. Michael, please line your team along the right wall; Josh, please line your team along the left wall.”
Joshua’s first pick was the best speller in the class. “Marcy,” he called. Marcy left the back wall to line up beside him. Michael quickly picked Tom. Joshua picked Jenny, but he was watching Terry.
Terry was trying to appear as though he didn’t care if he were chosen or not. He wore a blank expression on his face as he stared at his shoes. Josh wondered if he minded always being the last kid picked for teams, and he wondered how he would feel if he were picked last for everything. He pushed the thought out of his mind and concentrated on choosing his team.
Michael had chosen Peter, a very good speller. Josh was ready to call out Alex’s name, when Terry suddenly lifted his eyes and looked straight at him.
Joshua hesitated, the words of his sister’s prayer coming into his mind—“And help everyone on Josh’s team to spell his best.” Terry had been studying. He had been studying hard all day—and maybe on other days, for all Josh knew. Surely that was “his best.”
Joshua grinned and called out in a loud voice, “I choose Terry.” Terry’s face broke out in a matching grin as he marched across the room to Josh’s team. As the two crowded together along the chalkboard, both missed the look of happy surprise on Mrs. Larsen’s face.
When the game began, words were pitched to each team. If the player spelled his pitched word correctly, he moved to first base and then on around the field. It was late in the first inning when Terry came up to bat.
“Friend,” said Mrs. Larsen. Terry looked her straight in the eyes, spelled out, “f-r-i-e-n-d,” and went proudly to first base, moving Kathy from third base to home plate.
Joshua, now on second base, whooped, “That pizza is going to taste great tomorrow!”

Once in Utah, Dan Jones settled in Manti, where he was elected the first mayor in 1851. A year later, however, he was called to serve a second mission in his native land. Again he responded without hesitation. With a few others, he began the long trek east. When about eighty miles out of Salt Lake City, he met a group of Welsh Saints coming to the Valley. They had been baptized during his first mission, and they could scarcely contain their feelings when they met their beloved leader, they on their way to the valleys of the West, and he on his way to the valleys of Wales. They sang; they wept; they spoke with words of true affection. They spent a happy day together before parting. As they were separating, Elder Jones gave William Morgan a letter to be delivered to the Presiding Bishop of the Church, Edward Hunter. It breathes the spirit of this remarkable man and his love for his Welsh brethren and sisters:
“Esteemed Bishop Hunter.—Many of my compatriots are coming across in the 13th Company; I do not know their condition; perhaps their money and their provisions are scarce. If so, when they reach the Valley, I shall be grateful to you for furnishing them their needs, through the hand of [Brother Morgan], and I shall pay you in Manti, San Pete Valley.”7

I saw that happen when I was a young man. I was the first assistant in a priests quorum. The bishop called me one day at my home. He said that he wanted me to go with him to visit a widow in great need. He said he needed me.
As I waited for him to pick me up at my home, I was troubled. I knew the bishop had strong and wise counselors. One was a famous judge. The other ran a large company and would later become a General Authority. The bishop himself would someday serve as a General Authority. Why was the bishop saying to an inexperienced priest, “I need your help”?
Well, I know better now what he might have said to me: “The Lord needs to bless you.” At the home of the widow, I saw him, to my amazement, tell the woman that she could get no help from the Church until she filled out the budget form he had left with her earlier. On the way home, as he saw how shocked I was, he chuckled at my surprise and said, “Hal, when she gets control of her spending, she will be able to help others.”

This story happened in Australia.
“Bye, Saría! I know you’ll do great today,” Mom said.
Saría hopped out of the car. “Thanks!”
Today Saría wanted to invite her friends to her baptism. Mom had helped her practice inviting them on the way to school.
Saría skipped to the big double doors to her classroom. She went to a Christian school. That meant they all learned about Jesus Christ together even though not everyone went to the same church. Her teacher had put different names for Jesus on the classroom doors. They said things like “Miracle Worker” and “My God.” Today, Saría noticed the one that said “Promise Keeper.”
Saría grinned with excitement. When she got baptized, she would be a promise keeper too!
At lunchtime, Saría sat by Katy and Jenny on the stairs outside the classroom. As they ate, Saría thought now would be a good time to do what she had practiced.
Saría took a deep breath. “I’m going to be baptized soon. Would you like to come?”
“Why are you getting baptized now?” Katy asked.
Saría tried to remember the things she’d practiced with Mom. “Because I want to make a covenant. A covenant is a promise with God. After I am baptized, I will get the gift of the Holy Ghost.”
Katy reached for her sandwich. “I was baptized when I was a baby.”
“Me too,” Jenny said. “I thought everyone was baptized when they were babies.”
Saría felt confused. She didn’t know what to say.
After school, Saría told Mom what happened. “Why did Katy and Jenny get baptized when they were babies?”
Mom sat beside her. “Other churches do things differently. In some churches, babies are baptized by sprinkling water on them. But we believe that when we’re baptized, we make a sacred covenant. And we need to be old enough to understand the promises we make.”
Saría thought about the other differences she’d noticed at school. Her friends worshipped in many ways that were different from what she was used to.
Mom hugged her. “You did a good job today.”
Saría felt better. She hadn’t known how to answer her friend’s questions, but she had done her best. She still wanted to invite them to her baptism.
The next day, Saría and Katy walked to class together. Katy dropped something, and Saría picked it up for her. It was a necklace with a cross on it.
“Thank you!” Katy took the necklace. “I’d be really sad if I lost this. It reminds me of Jesus.”
Saría grinned and held up her CTR ring. “This reminds me of Jesus too! It stands for ‘choose the right.’ It reminds me to do the things that Jesus would do.”
“I like that,” Katy said.
Saría and Katy reached their classroom door. Katy pointed to the name for Jesus on the door that said “Way Maker.”
“That one is my favorite!” Katy said.
“I love it too.”
A happy feeling spread through Saría’s chest. Her teacher had told her that “Way Maker” meant Jesus made a way for things to happen. Jesus had made a way for Saría to make friends with kids from many different churches! They had differences, but one thing was the same. They all loved Jesus and wanted to follow Him. Saría knew that made Jesus happy.

Heavenly Father never intended for us as parents to sit on the sidelines as spectators, watching the spiritual lives of our children unfold. Let me illustrate this idea of intentional parenting with a personal experience. When I was attending Primary in a small branch in Guatemala, my parents began to teach me about the value of patriarchal blessings. My mother took the time to share her experience of receiving her treasured patriarchal blessing. She taught me the doctrine related to patriarchal blessings, and she testified of promised blessings. Her intentional parenting inspired me to have the desire to receive my patriarchal blessing.

When I was 12, my parents helped me navigate the search for a patriarch. This was necessary because there was no patriarch in the district where we lived. I traveled to a patriarch that was in a stake 156 kilometers (97 miles) away. I distinctly remember when the patriarch laid his hands upon my head to bless me. I knew by powerful spiritual confirmation, without a doubt, that my Heavenly Father knew me.

For a 12-year-old boy from a small town, that meant everything to me. My heart turned to my Heavenly Father that day because of my mother and father’s intentional parenting, and I will be forever grateful to them.

It is through the power of the priesthood that marriage and the family unit can extend into and continue throughout all eternity. The conscientious women of this Church wish to have such a righteous influence in abundance in their homes.

Just a few weeks ago, in a stake conference, one gracious mother joyously recounted a marvelous experience of being in one of the temples with her husband and with all of her children but one and being sealed together as husband and wife and family for time and all eternity. Her husband, newly involved in the priesthood, sat in the conference audience a few rows back. For a moment she seemed to forget all of the rest of us and spoke only to him. Over the pulpit, and through the loudspeaker, with over 1,000 people in tears watching and listening, she said, “John, the children and I don’t know how to tell you what you mean to us. Until you honored the priesthood, the greatest blessings of eternity would not open up for us. Now they have. We all love you very much and we thank you with all our hearts for what you have made possible for us.”

Henry Eyring, a leading scientist and a great teacher who recently passed away, would have contests with his students. Even in his mid-sixties he could standing broad jump to the top of his desk. He challenged university students to a thirty- or forty-yard foot race.
One day just a few short years before he died, he was in the Church Administration Building. His brother-in-law, President Spencer W. Kimball, came out of his office and saw Henry Eyring standing there with a cane. He said, “Henry, what is the cane for?”
And Henry Eyring said, “Style, President, style.”
No wonder he had such an influence on the minds of young men all over the Church. He had “style.”

When it comes to community service projects, the young men and women from the Reno Nevada North Stake are always willing to pitch in. They recently helped on two separate projects and are making quite a name for LDS youth among local community leaders.
One project involved participation in Reno’s annual “Adopt a Park Day.” The LDS youth selected Idlewild Park, the city’s largest, and spent the day painting picnic tables, varnishing bleachers, weeding, picking up trash, sweeping parking lots, and spreading sand on the playground.
The other project involved the stake Young Women. They spent a day helping the Committee to Aid Abused Women, and the children of those women. They made toys for the children and provided a party for them. They also collected items needed by the mothers, such as blankets, dishes, and clothing.