Gospel Story Finder

It was a normal Sunday, just like any other. As usual, my family and I arrived at church just before sacrament meeting started. And as usual, as I sat there, my mind wandered. It felt good to be with my family, and I had a warm feeling of comfort. The sacrament hymn that day was “I Stand All Amazed.”
I began singing:
I stand all amazed at the love Jesus offers me,
Confused at the grace that so fully he proffers me.
I tremble to know that for me he was crucified,
That for me, a sinner, he suffered, he bled and died.
(Hymns, number 193)
When we came to the chorus, I started crying. My lips trembled, and tears ran down my face.
Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me enough to die for me!
Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!
I couldn’t finish the hymn; I put my head down as silent sobs shook my body.
And then, all of a sudden, I felt something I had never felt before. It was complete happiness and gratitude for my Savior. I looked at the sacrament table and realized how wonderful the sacrament really is.
It had become real to me. Jesus died for me! He suffered for my sins in the Garden of Gethsemane. He suffered for every one of us. He suffered so much pain that He bled from every pore—and He did it willingly. Through all of His suffering, His heart was filled with love for us, even for those who wronged Him. What a great and perfect example!
He did all of this because He loves us. And then the thought came—He loves me! He knows me! I had not been really sure if the Savior loved me or knew me. But all at once I knew.
Oh, it is wonderful that he should care for me enough to die for me!
Oh, it is wonderful, wonderful to me!

I read the entire Book of Mormon for the first time when I was a young seminary student. As recommended by my teachers, I started reading it beginning with its introduction pages. The promise contained in the first pages of the Book of Mormon still echoes in my mind: “Ponder in [your] hearts … , and then … ask God [in faith] … in the name of Christ if the book is true. Those who pursue this course … will gain a testimony of its truth and divinity by the power of the Holy Ghost.”
With that promise in mind, earnestly seeking to know more about the truth of it, and in a spirit of prayer, I studied the Book of Mormon, little by little, as I completed the weekly assigned seminary lessons. I remember, like it was yesterday, that a warm feeling gradually began swelling in my soul and filling my heart, enlightening my understanding, and becoming more and more delightful, as described by Alma in his preaching the word of God to his people. That feeling eventually turned into knowledge that took root in my heart and became the foundation of my testimony of the significant events and teachings found in this sacred book.
Through these and other priceless personal experiences, the Book of Mormon indeed became the keystone that sustains my faith in Jesus Christ and my testimony of the doctrine of His gospel. It became one of the pillars that testifies to me of Christ’s divine atoning sacrifice. It became a shield throughout my life against the adversary’s attempts to weaken my faith and instill disbelief in my mind and gives me courage to boldly declare my testimony of the Savior to the world.
My dear friends, my testimony of the Book of Mormon came line upon line as a miracle to my heart. To this day, this testimony continues to grow as I continuously search, with a sincere heart, to more fully understand the word of God as contained in this extraordinary book of scripture.

“We’re going to church tomorrow,” Mom announced as she laid out Piper’s dress on her bed.
“Which church?” Piper asked. She had been to different churches a few times with friends, but she had never been to church with Mom.
“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” Mom said. “The Mormon church.”
“Oh.” Mom had been baptized in that church before Piper was born, but she hadn’t gone since Piper could remember.
“You’ll like it,” Mom said. “They have a class especially for kids. It’s called Primary. You don’t need to be nervous.”
But Piper was nervous. She wouldn’t know anyone at church. Who would she sit by? Would she get lost all on her own? Piper stared at the dress on the bed, her stomach twisting up into knots.
Her stomach was still in knots the next day when she and Mom walked to the Primary room after sacrament meeting. The room was decorated with bright pictures, and children and adults sat in rows while a lady played music quietly on the piano. Piper stood uncertainly in the doorway.
“Piper?” Piper turned. A freckled girl coming down the hallway waved at her. “I’m Amy,” the girl said. “I remember you from school. Do you want to sit with me?”
“OK,” Piper said. She followed Amy to a row near the back of the room.
“Sister Davis, this is Piper,” Amy said to the woman sitting at the end of the row. “Sister Davis is our Primary teacher.”
“Welcome, Piper!” Sister Davis smiled. “If you girls will take your seats, I think singing time is about to start.”
Piper sat down and folded her arms just like Amy. She didn’t know the words to the songs, but Amy didn’t make fun of her or even look at her weird. Later, the woman teaching held up a picture of a man in an old-fashioned suit, and everyone nodded like they knew who he was. Piper didn’t know who he was, but Amy leaned over and whispered, “That’s Joseph Smith, the first prophet of our church.”
“A prophet like Moses?” Piper asked.
“Yes,” Amy said. “But Joseph Smith is a modern prophet. He lived in the 1800s.”
Piper smiled. She could understand the lesson thanks to Amy’s help.
“Follow me!” Amy said when they split into smaller classes. Piper followed her to a classroom with four other children, all Piper’s age.
“Who brought their scriptures today?” Sister Davis asked. Piper looked around. All the other children had heavy books on their laps, but she didn’t have any.
“You can share with me,” Amy whispered. She opened her scriptures and pointed so Piper could follow along as the class took turns reading. Piper even got a turn to read aloud. When she came to a name she didn’t know, Piper stopped. Then Amy prompted her softly, “Nephi.” When Piper finished reading the verse, Amy gave her a thumbs up.
When class ended and Piper’s mom came to pick her up, Amy gave her a hug. “See you next week!” she said. “I’ll save a spot for you!”
Piper couldn’t stop smiling as she and Mom walked out to the parking lot. “How was it?” Mom asked.
“Great!” Piper said. “I think I really like this church.”
“Me too,” Mom said. “Want to come back next week?”
“Definitely,” Piper said. She might not know the words to the songs or have her own scriptures, but she knew that everything would be OK because of Amy, her Primary friend.

Years after my baptism, I spoke with Sister Smallcomb and thanked her for still being willing to address my questions. I also expressed that I hoped I wasn’t bothering her.
“Marcus,” she said, laughing, “you can send me questions about the gospel for the rest of forever.”
It was so comforting to know that I had someone I could turn to for answers. In a way, Sister Neff and Sister Smallcomb were my mentors in the gospel, helping to guide me along my path of conversion and helping me understand what it means to be a member of the Church.
But they wouldn’t be the only ones to guide me.

Eighteen-year-old Keri Ainge of Sutton Coldfield, England, barely caught her breath after baptism before she was totally immersed in missionary work, both for the living and for the dead.
Keri helped the missionaries teach her own mother, and then together she and her mother started sorting out their family history. They’ve researched six generations back into the 1700s. “We searched one graveyard at Hockley, Birmingham, for three days hunting for one great-grandparent’s grave,” said Keri. “It was amazing when we found the right one.”
Keri has also spent several weeks helping the sister missionaries in Coventry and Northampton. This helped her love the work so much she’s determined to serve a full-time mission of her own just as soon as she turns 21.

Marilee Caldwell, a member of the troupe, tells another use: “I have a very close friend who is deaf. With mime, I am able to better convey my thoughts and to understand his. Your body can’t lie, and since mime is a form of body language, it can be used when spoken language is a barrier.”

I just finished reading “Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon” [February] by John W. Welch and want to thank Brother Welch for writing it and you for printing it. I didn’t even know there was such a thing as chiasmus, let alone that it was contained in the Bible and Book of Mormon. This article has really helped me understand and appreciate the Book of Mormon even more than I did before.
Chad PharisMoscow, Idaho

LDS Charities were a great support throughout: Elder and Sister Miller, and then Elder and Sister Clegg, helped to get grants for various items of equipment. This included laptops to help with the educational courses, and kitchen equipment to help with the hands-on training for cooks, and for cooking the meals, throughout the pandemic.

A young woman named Brooke writes: “This past summer I had the opportunity of attending a leadership conference. It only took a couple of hours to find out that the LDS kids were in the minority there. I ended up [rooming] with two girls who were very nice but definitely didn’t have the same standards. At night when I read my scriptures they stared at me like I was some kind of weirdo. While they were talking about their drinking parties, I was talking about [parties] with punch and cookies. They laughed but were always curious.
“Although I was scared sometimes, I never failed to stand up for what I believe in. At the end of the conference, one of my roommates [said], ‘I guess Mormons can be cool,’ and that she would think about our religion and maybe even learn about it. I [learned] that I could make a difference by simply standing up for what I believe.”

In a very memorable sacrament meeting, I felt the truly universal nature of the gospel. The sacrament was administered in French and German. Talks were given in Italian, English, and Portuguese. A verse of “I Am a Child of God,” was sung in ten languages—Japanese, Korean, German, Spanish, Italian, French, Tongan, Samoan, Dutch, and English. The whole congregation was touched through the spiritual language of the soul.

Shortly after I was baptized, I married a man who was not a member of the Church. He controlled all the money I earned and never let me pay tithing.
I suffered for 10 long, unhappy years, during which I could not progress. Eventually I was divorced and began to support my daughter and myself. However, what I earned was insufficient to pay for our rent, bills, food, clothes, and the other things we needed. If I had enough for one thing, I could not afford another.
One day I started to pay tithing anyway. As always I continued to plan my budget. And I began to realize that I had enough money for everything, even with the same salary. At first I couldn’t believe what was happening. Then I read the passage in the Bible where the Lord says, “Prove me now herewith … if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Mal. 3:10). I knelt down and cried unto the Lord in gratitude. He has never forsaken me.

In August of the next year, 1837, the Prophet Joseph Smith, with Sidney Rigdon and Thomas B. Marsh, then President of the Twelve Apostles, visited Toronto. Riding in a carriage and holding evening meetings by candlelight, they visited the churches. Elder Taylor accompanied them. He said: “This was as great a treat to me as I ever enjoyed. I had daily opportunities of conversing with them, of listening to their instructions, and in participating in the rich stores of intelligence that flowed continually from the Prophet Joseph.”

A group of 30 young women from a ward in Arizona, USA, climbed a mountain of sorts together when they spent a year encouraging and helping one another work on their Personal Progress and earn their Young Womanhood Recognition.
During that time, among other accomplishments the young women put in a seriously impressive 1,200 hours of service. Think of that! That’s like one person working a full-time job for over seven months. In addition to donating their own time, the young women also invited others in their ward and community to participate.
Their projects included tying quilts for women’s shelters, decorating placemats for a hospice (a health-care facility for people who are nearing death), singing at care centers, sewing pillowcase dresses for children, cleaning school grounds, painting lines and shapes on playgrounds, and much more. They even started dedicating one Wednesday a month to family history.
One of their big projects was a drive for backpacks and school supplies. They collected 70 backpacks and hundreds of school supplies for local school kids who needed a helping hand. “I felt really happy knowing I helped those children who couldn’t afford the things they needed,” said Katie S., a Beehive.
The service they gave was only part of what made this adventure so cool. The funny thing about service is how much it helps you in the end too. The young women say they picked up useful skills along the way. “Personal Progress has made me more comfortable sharing the gospel and standing up for what I believe,” said Jessica R., a Mia Maid. “It’s also helped me develop good habits, such as reading my scriptures and saying my prayers daily.”
In the end, their “climb” was successful. With medallions around their necks, the young women celebrated their progress with a trip to the Snowflake Arizona Temple.
They discovered that climbing through life is a lot easier when you don’t have to go it alone.

A few weeks ago, I was in Santiago, Chile, participating in priesthood training meetings. In the Saturday meeting, we had a discussion about the importance of brethren receiving the priesthood after baptism. Early Sunday morning I was awakened with a moving testimony of the power of the priesthood in our lives. For a few hours before dawn, I reflected and pondered upon what the priesthood means to me, to my family, and to all the world.
Since those early-morning hours in Santiago, I have reflected and pondered much upon the priesthood and what it means to all the world. Let me share my deepest feelings in a sonnet testimony of the blessings of the priesthood.

A short time after returning from his mission, Elder Alvarado stopped by the local Church distribution center in Puerto Rico to pick up a few items. The employee who assisted him was Cari Lu Rios, a fellow Ponce resident. They knew each other vaguely from past Church activities.
The young returned missionary was immediately smitten. “When I looked into her eyes, I knew she would be my wife.”
The feeling was not mutual, said Sister Alvarado, laughing—at least not initially.
But they had fun with one another. Soon they were spending most of their time together and realized they had become a couple. They married in the Washington D.C. Temple six days before Christmas in 1992.

Now Rigmor faced an overwhelming set of circumstances. She left her comfortable home and moved to a small apartment. Needing to support herself financially, she had to seek employment for the first time since the birth of her oldest child. But, as the Prophet Joseph Smith wrote, a very small helm working determinedly can keep a very large ship safe “in the time of a storm.” And if we will “cheerfully do all things that lie in our power,” we can trust “with the utmost assurance” that his mighty, saving power will ultimately be manifest in our lives (see D&C 123:16–17).
With intelligence, energy, and determination, Rigmor did what lay in her power to do. She worked briefly as a clerk and then got a job as a substitute teacher in a youth school. The Nazi occupation of Norway in 1940 had ended her university studies. Now Rigmor enrolled in college to get the training to be a full-time teacher. And it was here that a remarkable lifelong mission as a goodwill ambassador for the Church began.

When a young convert found herself without home or family, the missionaries brought her to our daughter’s house. We have taken her in as our own and look on her as one of us. This delightful young convert said, “I have learned that even when I’m scared, I can do hard things with Heavenly Father’s help.” She blesses us with her loving, cheerful attitude.

Ryan and his family were so happy to arrive at their new home. They had been traveling for three days and were tired of being in the car. The moving van was soon unloaded, and the family worked hard together to get all of their things unpacked.
Ryan and his brother, Anthony, would be sharing a room. They carefully put away all of their clothes and toys. Ryan hung his favorite picture of Jesus over his dresser, where he could see it. The house was starting to feel like home.
A few days later, Ryan heard a strange sound coming from the kitchen. The old refrigerator they had brought with them was making a strange grinding noise. It smelled funny too.
“What’s the matter with our fridge, Mom?” Anthony asked.
“I think the motor is burning out,” Mom said.
By the time Dad got home from work that evening, the food in the freezer was starting to thaw.
Ryan could tell from the look on Dad’s face that he was worried.
“Dad, let’s just buy a new fridge,” Ryan suggested.
“That’s a great idea, but refrigerators are expensive,” Dad said. “We don’t have the money right now to buy a new one.”
“We could ask Heavenly Father to buy us a new one,” Ryan said.
Dad smiled and hugged Ryan.
“Ryan, why don’t we say a prayer and ask Heavenly Father for His help?” Mom said.
The family bowed their heads, and Ryan thanked Heavenly Father for their new home. He told Heavenly Father that their refrigerator was broken and asked Him for help to fix the problem.
In the morning, the refrigerator was not making strange noises or smelling funny anymore.
“Maybe Heavenly Father fixed our fridge,” Anthony said.
“Heavenly Father answers our prayers in different ways,” Mom said. “Maybe this is His answer.”
But by Friday the refrigerator sounded like it was about to stop working completely. Mom and Dad were worried, but Ryan said, “Heavenly Father always answers prayers.”
On Saturday the family was busy getting ready for Sunday. Mom folded clothes as the boys cleaned their room. Suddenly Dad announced that he was going to take the children for a walk. The children put on their shoes and left with Dad.
Fifteen minutes later, the children burst through the front door. “Mom!” Ryan shouted, “Dad bought a new fridge.”
Dad walked through the door with a big smile on his face. He explained to Mom that the neighbors up the street were having a yard sale and they were selling a nearly brand-new refrigerator—at a price Dad could afford. Dad had bought the refrigerator.
The neighbor helped Dad move the old refrigerator out and the new one in.
“Ryan, Heavenly Father answered our prayers,” Dad said. “He helped our old fridge run for a few more days. Then He helped us find a new refrigerator nearby. And He helped me earn just enough money to pay for it.”
“I know, Dad,” Ryan said. “Heavenly Father always answers our prayers.”
Ryan asked Dad if he could say another prayer. This time he wanted to thank Heavenly Father for the new refrigerator.

To reinforce the principles our children were reading and learning in scripture study, I often used scripture stories as bedtime stories. In later years my daughter shared how influential this was. She said, “I think stories that were told over and over again became favorites for us. You sat beside our beds and shared the stories from the scriptures. We loved them and asked to hear them again and again because even at that young age we could feel the spirit of the message they carried and knew the people you were telling us about were valiant and faithful. We wanted to be like them.”

Yet there are those who do not hear, who will not obey, who listen to the enticings of the evil one, who grasp those maka-fekes until they cannot let go, until all is lost. I think of that person of power, that cardinal of the cloth, even Cardinal Wolsey. The prolific pen of William Shakespeare described the majestic heights, the pinnacle of power to which Cardinal Wolsey ascended. That same pen told how principle was eroded by vain ambition, by expediency, by a clamor for prominence and prestige. Then came the tragic descent, the painful lament of one who had gained everything, then lost it all.
To Cromwell, his faithful servant, Cardinal Wolsey speaks:
O Cromwell, Cromwell!
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, He would not in mine age
Have left me naked to mine enemies.
That inspired mandate which would have led Cardinal Wolsey to safety was ruined by the pursuit of power and prominence, the quest for wealth and position. Like others before him and many more yet to follow, Cardinal Wolsey fell.