Gospel Story Finder

When I was called to the Relief Society general presidency six years ago this month, President Hinckley counseled me: “You bring a peculiar quality to this presidency. You will be recognized as one who represents those beyond the borders of the United States and Canada and, as it were, an outreach across the world to members of the Church in many, many lands. They will see in you a representation of their oneness with the Church.” He gave me a blessing that my tongue might be loosed as I spoke to the people.
President Hinckley, I want to bear witness to the Lord before you and this congregation that your counsel and your blessing have been literally fulfilled.
I do not speak Korean or Spanish or Tongan. But when I received my assignment to go among the Relief Society sisters and their priesthood leaders in lands where those languages were spoken, I was filled with a great desire to speak to them in their own language. I drew strength from President Hinckley’s words of comfort and blessing. With the help of the Church Translation Department and good coaches who spent hours working with me, I was blessed to deliver my addresses in Spanish, Korean, and Tongan as I went among those people. I could feel the Spirit carrying my words to their hearts, and I could feel “the fruit of the Spirit” (Gal. 5:22) bringing back to me their love, their joy, and their faith. I could feel the Spirit making us one.

In a school yard game young boys form a circle, and one hits another on the shoulder and says, “Pass it on.” The one who receives the blow transmits it to the next in line and says, “Pass it on.” The third promptly punches a fourth, and so on, as each in succession, by “passing it on,” tries to rid himself of his pain, and the responsibility for it, by inflicting it on another.

The End of the Beginning: Being the Adventures of a Small Snail (and an Even Smaller Ant), by Avi. Join the adventure as Avon the snail and Edward the ant set out to find a happy life. Along the way they meet new friends (a caterpillar, a cricket, and a salamander, to name a few), and discover things about the world as well as themselves.

My dad is nice. He takes me fishing. He taught me how to put the worm on the hook. He taught me how to cast the line. And he takes me to hobby stores on Saturday.
Kirk F. Sorensen, age 6Farmington, Utah

Petey didn’t want to be a Sunbeam. I knew because I sat on the row behind the little chairs. At first they were empty. Then, one by one, the new Sunbeam class walked in.
I nudged my friend Ryan. “Hey, there’s your little sister Maggie!”
He shrugged, but I could tell by his smile that he was proud to be a big brother in Primary now.
I knew some other Sunbeams, too. There was Ralph’s little brother Jakey and Caitlyn’s little sister Ashley. The only one I didn’t know very well was the boy with the wild brown hair—Petey. His hair stuck out all over the place like a bird’s nest.
The bishop had introduced Petey’s family to the ward during sacrament meeting just last week. I’d turned around to see if they had a boy I could play with, but the only names he announced were the parents’ names and “Peter Alexander.” Petey didn’t have any brothers or sisters. Maybe if he’d had a brother or sister, he wouldn’t have been so scared.
As soon as the Sunbeams walked to their chairs in front of the whole Primary, Petey started to cry—loud. Sister Evans tried to make him feel better by holding him on her lap and showing him her happy/sad-face puppets, but it didn’t do any good. He sucked in big gulps of air and cried even louder. Finally, Sister Evans carried him out.
Some of the children giggled when they could still hear him bawling in the hallway, but I felt sorry for him. I remembered going to a friend’s birthday party once. There must have been 20 children there who I’d never seen before. It was scary being around a bunch of people I didn’t know, but at least I knew my friend and his parents.
Petey probably didn’t know anybody at Primary. That’s when I got an idea—what if I wrote him a letter? I could draw him some pictures and tell him that I’d be his Primary buddy if he wanted. I was so happy with my idea that I didn’t even mind when Janice kept kicking the back of my chair or when my brother took my favorite spot on the bench during sacrament meeting.
With Mom’s help, I wrote my letter that night. It was fun! I told Petey he’d learn a bunch of neat songs in Primary. And I told him about the Primary talent show that was coming up. Maybe he’d get to hear me sing with my brothers and sisters. Then I drew a picture of Nephi shooting an arrow and my remote-control monster car racing another car. I figured if I liked those things, then maybe he did, too. I signed my name and asked Mom to help me find his address. Then, at the last minute, I cut out one of my school pictures and dropped it in the envelope so he’d recognize me at church. Mom mailed it for me the next day.
I got so busy at school that week I forgot I’d even sent the letter—until Sunday! After we arrived at church, I hurried to the Primary room and waited for him to come in. That’s when my stomach started doing flip-flops. The longer I waited, the more I wondered. Had he gotten my letter? What if sending it had been a really bad idea? What if he didn’t like it? What if he didn’t want a Primary buddy? What if he didn’t want to come back to Primary at all?
Then I saw him! He trudged in behind Sister Evans and slid onto the little chair right in front of me.
“Hi, Petey!” I said, but he must not have heard me because he didn’t turn around or say “hi.”
I could tell he still didn’t want to be a Sunbeam because he sat really close to his teacher and stared down at his lap. “At least he’s not crying,” I thought hopefully.
Then disaster struck!
“Peter, would you please come up front so we can sing you a welcome song?” Sister Peterson asked. She hadn’t been at church last week, so she didn’t know that Petey was shy.
I held my breath.
“Come on up, Peter,” she said with a smile. “Don’t you want to hear our welcome song?”
Petey shook his head, clutching his teacher’s arm even tighter.
All the other children were waiting for Petey to burst out crying. And maybe he would have. His chin was already trembling, and his eyes were wide like a frightened rabbit’s.
That’s when I surprised myself. “I’ll go up with you, Petey,” I heard myself say.
Petey switched from looking at all the children to looking at just me. Did he recognize me from my picture? I guess he did, because a tiny smile crept across his face.
“OK,” he said quietly.
He held my hand really tight as we stood in front of the whole Primary. They sang the welcome song nice and loud like they did every time they welcomed someone new.
“Way to go!” I whispered when I took him back to his seat.
He grinned and waved at me.
And that’s when I knew—Petey was going to like being a Sunbeam after all.

One day my cousin Jeff came over to play. We played under the back porch. Jeff had a little dump truck and I had a windup tractor. Mom gave us an empty cereal box and we made houses and roads.
I wanted to make another road. Jeff was using the shovel, so I took Woody out of my pocket and started to dig. Woody dug nice roads. I kept making the road longer and longer until I hit a rock and then SNAP! I picked up the piece that had broken off and tried to fix Woody, but it was no use. I felt like crying, but Jeff was there.
“It’s just a dumb stick,” Jeff said.
I put Woody’s broken pieces under the porch steps and kept on playing. When Jeff went home, I crawled under the porch and got the pieces.
“I’m sorry, Woody,” I whispered.
He didn’t say anything. I put him in the cereal box and carried him down to where we planted the flower and made a hole. Then I put Woody in the hole and covered him up.
He was a good stick and I miss him a lot.

Acting as Joseph’s scribe thrilled Oliver. Day after day, he listened as his friend dictated the complex history of two large civilizations, the Nephites and the Lamanites. He learned of righteous and wicked kings, of people who fell into captivity and were delivered from it, of an ancient prophet who used seer stones to translate records recovered from fields filled with bones. Like Joseph, that prophet was a revelator and seer blessed with the gift and power of God.28
The record testified again and again of Jesus Christ, and Oliver saw how prophets led an ancient church and how ordinary men and women did the work of God.
Yet Oliver still had many questions about the Lord’s work, and he hungered for answers. Joseph sought a revelation for him through the Urim and Thummim, and the Lord responded. “If you will ask of me you shall receive,” He declared. “If thou wilt inquire, thou shalt know mysteries which are great and marvelous.”
The Lord also urged Oliver to remember the witness he had received before coming to Harmony, which Oliver had kept to himself. “Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?” the Lord asked. “If I have told you things which no man knoweth have you not received a witness?”29
Oliver was astonished. He immediately told Joseph about his secret prayer and the divine witness he had received. No one could have known about it except God, he said, and he now knew the work was true.

History tells us, for example, of a great council held in A.D. 325 in Nicaea. By this time Christianity had emerged from the dank dungeons of Rome to become the state religion of the Roman Empire, but the church still had problems—chiefly the inability of Christians to agree among themselves on basic points of doctrine. To resolve differences, Emperor Constantine called together a group of Christian bishops to establish once and for all the official doctrines of the church.
Consensus did not come easily. Opinions on such basic subjects as the nature of God were diverse and deeply felt, and debate was spirited. Decisions were not made by inspiration or revelation, but by majority vote, and some disagreeing factions split off and formed new churches. Similar doctrinal councils were held later in A.D. 451, 787, and 1545, with similarly divisive results.

President Harold B. Lee had a marked influence on Sister Monson and me and our three children. On rather brief occasions he commented to each of our children in a tone which reflected deep spirituality, genuine interest, and inspired counsel.
Our youngest son, Clark, was about to turn twelve when we chanced to meet Brother Lee in the parking lot of the Church Office Building. He asked Clark how old he was. Clark answered, “Soon to be twelve.”
Came the question: “What happens to you when you turn twelve?”
The response: “I’ll receive the Aaronic Priesthood and be ordained a deacon.”
With a warm smile and the clasp of his hand, Brother Lee said, “Bless you, my boy.”
Our daughter, Ann, as a young teenager was with her mother and me when we encountered Brother Lee, and proper introductions were made. Brother Lee took our daughter’s hand in his and, with a lovely smile, said to her, “You, my dear one, are beautiful inside as well as outside. What a choice young lady you are.”
In a more solemn setting, Brother Lee met me one evening on the steps of the LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City. By appointment we were to give a blessing to my eldest son, Tom, who was then in his later teens. Surgery awaited which could be of a most serious nature. Brother Lee took my hand before we ascended the stairs and, looking me straight in the eye, said, “Tom, there is no place I would rather be at this moment than by your side to participate with you in providing a sacred priesthood blessing to your son.”
We then went to the room, where he said to Tom, “We are about to give you a blessing, even to provide a priesthood ordinance. We approach this privilege in humility, for we remember the counsel of the Prophet Joseph Smith, who said that when those who hold the priesthood place their hands on the head of a person in this sacred ordinance, it is as though the hands of the Lord are placed thereon.” The blessing was given; the surgery turned out to be minor. But lessons were learned, spirituality of a great leader was observed, and a model to follow was provided.

In March 1984, the International Special Olympics, in which only handicapped skaters compete, were held in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the Salt Palace. Trent was only nine years old then and too young to compete, but he did perform a solo exhibition number before an audience of thousands—and he had been skating only five months!

Micah looked down, trying to find the right words. “A few years ago it was me that people like you stared at and laughed at.”
“How come?” Matthew asked. “I never saw you wear a brace.” He and Jason stopped limping and listened.
Micah shook his head. “I never did, but I did have an accident. I guess you’ve forgotten.”
Matthew looked puzzled. “How old were you?”
“I was six.”
“Matthew wasn’t living here then, Micah,” Jason reminded him. “But I remember now—it was at the rodeo.”
Micah nodded. “Yep. One minute I was just sitting there on the fence, watching the rodeo. The next, I was flat on my face, eating dirt.”
Matthew stifled a laugh. “What happened?”
“I was getting down to ask my dad for a hamburger, but my feet somehow got tangled up in the fence slats. I just flipped over and landed on my face.”
“What did it do to you?” Matthew asked, still trying to not laugh.
“Nothing, as far as I could tell. I just got up, ran over to where my Dad was sitting, and asked him for a hamburger. He kept staring at my face, and then he started asking me to smile and frown and stuff. When I fell down, I must have hit an important nerve in my cheek, because the whole left side of my face wasn’t moving.”
“Weird!” Matthew exclaimed.
“It was pretty funny at first,” Micah said. “But when we went to the doctor, he said that the nerve probably wouldn’t heal for six months and that it might not heal completely at all.”
“I remember when it happened,” Jason put in. “My mom sat me down and told me to not make fun of Micah. It was hard sometimes, because he really did look weird.”
Micah nodded. “I probably would have laughed at someone else, but there were a lot of things about it that weren’t funny. I couldn’t close my eye. I had to tape it shut at night so I could sleep. The doctor was afraid I might get an ulcer on my eye, so I had to keep putting eye drops in. I couldn’t use my mouth and tongue right, so I said some things funny, and anything I drank spilled out of the side of my mouth.”
Matthew pulled a face. “Gross! How embarrassing! But did any of the kids laugh at you?”
Micah’s face reddened. “Lots of them. Not everyone was like Jason and his mom. Most of the kids laughed and mimicked me. Even when I cried, some kids kept right on making fun of me.”
“I guess that would be pretty hard,” Matthew admitted. “But you look OK now.”
“Yeah,” Jason added, “I’d forgotten it even happened.”
Micah shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll ever forget how it felt to want to be just like everyone else and to not be able to. The hurt from people laughing at you is pretty tough to get over, too. I don’t like to make fun of people—even if they can’t see it. It’s just wrong.”

It was a hot summer day in Japan. I was 10 months into my mission and had finished packing my luggage and getting ready to transfer to another area. Now I was leaving the apartment to catch a train to a new city.
More than anything, I remember the look my companion and I gave each other then. Usually farewells like these are marked by words of thanks and well-wishing. But I remember my companion’s simply glancing down the hall at me with no hint of friendliness. I did the same to him and then walked out the door.
The previous five weeks of my mission had been bitter and contentious. I had been in the city for several months when this companion had arrived. From day one we started fighting. We found we had different attitudes and ideas. When we had disagreements, instead of cooperating, we blamed each other and insisted that the other one change.
Some nights we came home frustrated and barely talked to each other. Most mornings we almost dreaded having to leave the apartment. The work in the area suffered as contention and selfishness drove away the Spirit.
When I transferred, I moved on to new places and experiences, but I often found myself thinking back on the unpleasant memories of those five weeks. As I gained maturity and experience, I felt regret. I began to recognize the good things my companion had done and realized how foolish our arguments had been. Sometimes I would hear other missionaries say complimentary things about him. Deep down, I felt guilty that I had nothing good to say.
Months later, I was reading back through my journal entries from that month. As I thought back on my mistakes and the way I had left, I resolved to do something. I knew I might never see him again, but I followed an impression I had and wrote him a long letter, apologizing and expressing my desire to reconcile.
Three weeks later my zone leader called. I was being transferred to another new city. To my surprise, he told me that I had been assigned to work again with that same missionary.
Having the same companion twice was very rare in my mission, and I knew it wasn’t happening by chance. The day we met again, he thanked me for sending the letter, and we spent a long time that night talking and making amends.
Our second time together was the opposite of the first. This time we put aside our arguments and turned to cooperation and respect. As the days flew by, we became close friends and would come home at night talking and laughing about how the day had gone. We were always eager to go out again the next morning. We had the Spirit with us as we worked and taught, and we had much more success as a result.
After a few weeks my companion was transferred. The day he left, we gave each other a warm embrace. This time, I experienced the bittersweet feeling of saying good-bye to a friend.
A few years have passed, but I still remember the valuable lessons I learned about friendship, forgiveness, and second chances. We don’t always get another chance the way my companion and I did, and I learned that it’s best to make amends before it’s too late.

My husband and I were struggling financially due to a recent career change. He had joined the United States Army to further his education and had taken a huge pay cut to do so. We were barely making ends meet and were deeply in debt. We had cut up our credit cards to avoid more debt, had used up all our savings, and were living on our year’s supply of food.
I have always had a testimony of the gospel, but I was literally living on faith. After an incredibly difficult month I was daunted by our pile of bills and knew we just weren’t going to make it. For the first time in my adult life I was tempted not to pay tithing. I thought, “I need the money more than the Lord does. The amount I’m going to pay won’t even pay the electric bill for the stake center, but it would make a huge difference to me.”
After selfishly considering the many places the money could go, I had a scripture come to mind: “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings” (Mal. 3:8). I knew I had to pay tithing. Somehow things would work out. I wrote the tithing check, placed a stamp on the envelope, and put it in the mail.
The next morning I had to run a few errands. I walked to my car and to my utter despair realized one of the tires was almost completely flat. Frustrated, I drove to a nearby repair shop.
A flat would cost a few dollars to repair. I sat in the waiting room and prayed that Heavenly Father would watch over us. A few minutes later the attendant called me to the cash register. He told me the tire had a nail in it, but the nail was positioned in such a way that the tire could not be repaired. It would have to be replaced, costing even more than I had mentally prepared myself for. I said, “I want to see it.” The attendant patiently showed me the nail and explained why it would be impossible to repair the tire. With tears in my eyes I asked him to please replace my tire with the cheapest one possible.
I went back to the waiting room and pleaded silently with Heavenly Father for help. We could not afford a new tire, but we had to have the car.
A few minutes later the attendant called me to the register again. He explained that my tires had locking lug nuts and without the key the tire would not come off. I told him I didn’t have the key. He apologized and explained that their shop did not have the proper tools to remove my tire. He recommended another shop. He then put air in my tire free of charge and sent me on my way.
I climbed back into the car and broke down in tears. Why was this happening? We had done everything right. We paid our tithing; we had a year’s supply; we were trying to get out of debt; we were going to church every week. Why would the Lord allow this to happen?
I drove to the other shop and quickly explained my situation to the attendant. We picked the cheapest tire, and I proceeded to the waiting room. After what seemed like forever my name was called. I walked slowly to the register, dreading what I was about to hear.
“We have run your tire through the water about five times,” the attendant told me. “Three of us have searched for the nail. There is nothing. You still have a lot of wear left on your tires. There is absolutely no reason to replace any of them.” I stared blankly at the attendant. I had seen the nail with my own eyes. I knew it had been there. I thanked him, and he sent me on my way, again free of charge.
We have since been transferred to a new duty station and have driven about 8,000 miles (13,000 km) on that tire. I know the Lord blesses us and there is safety in obedience.

The samurai were the military nobility of medieval and early-modern Japan. The Japanese still talk about one of them, Ry?ma Sakamoto, who died in 1867. One of the reasons he is still so popular is because he always kept a positive attitude. He did not fear anyone or anything. He went anywhere he was needed. Inspired by the ideal that all men are created equal, he made every effort to establish a new government. But he was assassinated, and even as he was stabbed many times by another samurai’s sword, he didn’t give up. He tried to stand up and walk forward. This is a very famous story in Japan.

The day dawned bright, hot, breathless. Perfect weather for planting, John thought as he jumped out of bed and dressed in his work clothes. It was the time of year he loved most. Days were getting longer, full of sunshine, and new things were beginning to grow.
John struggled to fasten the clumsy metal buttons on his overalls. “I have to hurry—I hear Grandpa outside,” he said to himself. His sleepy fingers finally managed to nudge the last stubborn button through the buttonhole. John was Grandpa’s helper now that his big brother, Mark, was serving a mission.
Today he and Grandpa were going to get the small south field ready to plant in wheat. After that, there would be weeks of work ahead for them—wonderful weeks of fertilizing, weeding, waiting. Then would come the biggest event of all, the harvest.
After a quick breakfast, a whoop of sheer joy, and a kiss on Mom’s cheek, seven-year-old John grabbed the knapsack his mother had prepared and bounded out the back door and across the yard. He scrambled excitedly up onto the well-worn metal tractor seat and settled down next to Grandpa. He surveyed the waiting field, then grinned his mile-wide, I’m-ready-to-get-down-to-work grin.
Today was a big day for John. Grandpa was going to let him steer the tractor all by himself for the first time. Grandpa trusted him to help with even the toughest jobs around the farm, and that made him feel grown-up.
John anxiously double-checked his gear. Yep, everything was there. Mom had sent along one man-sized lunch, a thermos of ice water, a hat to help keep the sun away, and. … Thrusting his hand deep down into his pocket, John fingered the coins he had brought along so that he could surprise Grandpa by taking him to town for an ice-cream cone after their work was done.
“Why, John!” Grandpa exclaimed over the noisy tractor engine, “I do believe you’ve forgotten something.”
“What, Grandpa?”
“You’ve forgotten your two front teeth,” Grandpa chuckled, tousling John’s hair and smiling into his freckle-splashed face.
Now both of them were laughing, and John, reaching up, gave Grandpa a mighty hug.
“You’ll be glad I lost those teeth, Grandpa, because the tooth fairy left me just enough money for …”
“Enough money for what?” Grandpa’s voice boomed over the rattle and roar of the tractor.
“You’ll see when we’re finished here, Grandpa,” John teased as they headed the tractor down to the field.
After forty years of farming, Grandpa had retired and John’s dad had taken over the farm. All of it, that is, except this one small parcel of land. “I won’t ever quit working this field,” Grandpa told John as they chugged along on the trusty old tractor. “This is our mission field.”
“Oh, Grandpa,” John giggled. “When Mark writes letters to me about being in the mission field, he isn’t talking about being out in a field of wheat.”
“John, I can see it’s time I tell you the story.” Grandpa reached over to shut the engine off. “When your dad was ready to go on a mission, almost twenty-five years ago now, your grandmother and I couldn’t afford to send him. We’d always tried our best to live the gospel, and we knew we could depend on the Lord, so we prayed that He would help us make enough money to send our boy on a mission.”
“Were your prayers answered, Grandpa?”
“Yes, John. Heavenly Father answered them in a surprising way. This little piece of land came up for sale, and your grandma and I felt inspired to buy it. It was a small field, nothing to rave about. But we had read in the scriptures that from small things great blessings come. So Grandma and I hoped that if we remained faithful and hard-working, the Lord might see fit to turn this small field into a great blessing.”
“Did you get your blessing, Grandpa?” John asked.
“Did we ever!” Grandpa answered, beaming. “We received enough money from our first crop to send your dad on his mission, and for as long as he was serving in England, we had a bumper crop. When he came home from England, the field’s production returned to normal, but as each of our three sons served missions, it thrived again. To this day, Grandma and I call it our mission field. Why, this very field is helping support Mark on his mission right now.” Grandpa smiled, giving John’s shoulder a healthy squeeze.
“And someday,” John whispered, “do you think that someday, Grandpa … ?”
“Yes, John, someday you’ll reap the rewards of our mission field too.”
It was time to work now. John and Grandpa dug right in, grateful for the fertile soil beneath them.
Under Grandpa’s watchful eye, John steered the tractor around the field, carefully overturning the hard soil. He tried hard to set his sights so that the rows would be straight and to concentrate on Grandpa’s instructions. He wanted to do his best, now more than ever before.
Dust swirled behind the tractor as John steered it, row by row, up and down the field. After the field had been plowed, they put the disk harrow onto the tractor and went over the field again to break up any large clumps of earth. Gophers, rabbits, and grasshoppers scurried ahead to avoid the harrow’s sharp disks. Seagulls swooped down from above in hopes of nabbing a succulent cricket or grasshopper as John and Grandpa made their rounds. Beneath him, John felt the soil break up, ready for them to plant the next day.
John imagined how it would be in early autumn, when the field would be beautiful with tall, golden wheat, ripe for harvest. Grandpa would pull a handful of wheat from the stalk, as he always did, and rub it hard between his strong, rough hands to separate the kernels from the chaff. Then he and John would stand together in the field, the breeze blowing waves of grain around them, while they tasted the wheat. Grandpa would chew slowly, deliberately, checking for texture and flavor. John would chew his handful of wheat until it turned to gum in his mouth. At last Grandpa would nod with satisfaction and say, “It’s ready, John,” and together they would harvest the crop.
John sighed contentedly as he and Grandpa climbed down off the tractor that day. This was going to be a most wonderful summer. John just knew it. There would be ice-cream cones to eat, laughter to share, and stories to tell. Best of all, he thought as he gazed out over the newly plowed mission field, this summer there will be a bumper crop!

On August 1, 1965, the Central American Mission was divided and a new mission was formed, the Guatemala-El Salvador Mission. That same year ninety-two faithful members from the mission went by bus on a temple excursion to the Arizona Temple at Mesa.

Sometimes, two of the Potters are up for the same part. A while back Triskin landed a part as a veejay on Kidsongs, a Disney show that both she and Tarrish had tried out for. But there aren’t hard feelings. “You don’t get jealous; you just get sad,” says Tarrish. “It’s not your sister’s fault she got the part. You don’t hate her for it. It’s better that one of us gets it than none of us.”

In addition to the badges, there are other projects a Scout must complete to earn his Springbok. One of these is a construction project. Rocco chose to build a bridge. He had to first design and build a scale model of the bridge. Then, with a team of six other Scouts, Rocco had to build it full size, about 20 feet tall (6 m) and 30 feet long (9 m). It took nearly nine hours to build the bridge and then disassemble it.

“Aren’t you the ones who were singing the other night? Come in!”

That’s the reaction some of the elders and sisters of the Wellington Zone, New Zealand Wellington Mission, are receiving when they’re tracting because of a musical approach to missionary work.

It started when the Wellington Zone decided to share their talents by preaching the gospel by singing. “I Am a Child of God” was their theme song, and it was enthusiastically sung along with other Church songs at a mall in the city of Wellington. Other missionaries were standing off to the side of the singers, talking to people who were curious about why the group was singing and what the Church is about.

“It was a successful way to contact people and tell them about the gospel,” said Elder Scott Latimer of the New Zealand Wellington Mission. “It also helped create fine public relations.”

“You’re going where?” The Mexican official seemed genuinely amused.
“Quitovac.”
“But nobody goes to Quitovac,” he laughed. “There’s nothing there.”
“We’re going to the school. To see friends.”
“Okay,” he said, shaking his head. “Go ahead. But if I were you, I’d go to the beach instead.” He was still chuckling as we left.
Americans do come down this way from Tucson, Arizona, across the Tohono O’odham Nation (Papago) Indian Reservation to the Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, through Lukeville, then over the border into Sonoita. Mostly the Americans are tourists or university students on break, looking for the sun. They find it on the beaches of the Gulf of California, which aren’t far away.
But nobody goes to Quitovac. Nobody.
That is, of course, unless you have friends there. And the LDS youth of Tucson have friends in Quitovac, more than 70 of them.
And now, here we were.
We turned from one dirt road to another, came over a small hill, and there, in the middle of nowhere, was the village. Now, months after Christmas, would the children even remember the earlier visit? Now, when the sun was hot and winds calm, would the friendship still be there?
The answer was quick in coming. The dust from our arriving vehicles had hardly settled when we were mobbed by children. Yes, we brought some supplies, some candy, some food. But again what mattered was the sharing. Children who didn’t speak English guided teenagers who didn’t speak Spanish around their school, their classrooms, their playground. Kids watched Brian, who brought along a tool kit, fix a broken swing and re-attach fiberglass panels on the pavilion.
Michael and Susanne organized volleyball and basketball games. Danyel gave piggyback rides. Crystal Smith, 15, of the Sonora 18th Ward, Tucson Stake, became an instant celebrity with school officials because she speaks Spanish and could act as an interpreter.
We were shown the school’s new hand-operated mimeograph machine. A flag ceremony and school assembly were held in our honor. And the principal presented a letter of thanks to the LDS youth.
But it was Walt Stone, a seminary teacher who accompanied the group, who summarized what meeting with the children of Alberque School taught us. “These kids have dignity,” he said. “Everything they own fits on the half of the bed they sleep in. But they share whatever they have.”
An example: “One boy brought out his bag of marbles—the only marbles in the school,” Walt said. “A bunch of us joined him in a game. Nobody argued about winning anything; they just had fun. And when the game was over, the marbles went back in the bag, and he put them back on his bed. He knew they would be safe.”
Many times we saw older children looking out for others, making sure the youngest (some are little more than one year old) weren’t neglected. If anyone tripped and skinned a knee, others were instantly there to help. When teachers asked students to do something, it was immediately taken care of. Students marched, stood at attention, posed with us for a school photo, hugged us over and over again, and literally clung to the teenagers when it was finally time to leave.
All the way home, the youth talked about their day in the sun.
“That was great, even better than Christmas,” Brian said.
“What you never forget are their faces,” Danyel added. “There’s such joy in their faces. Designer jeans and worldly things don’t really matter down here. What’s important is to enjoy life, and to share your joy with others.”
Nobody goes to Quitovac, the Mexican official said. But he was absolutely wrong. Friends come to Quitovac. And their friendship shines all the brighter when they leave. The tourists and the students who drive to the beach seeking the sun take the wrong road. The brightest light is found where people help each other. It’s the light of Christlike service, and it’s a light that shines brighter than any sun.