Gospel Story Finder

A few weeks ago, Ruby and I were up in Oakley, Idaho, for a couple of days, restoring our old family home. I had a phone call from Lenore Romney in Detroit, Michigan. Lenore is the wife of George Romney. She said, “George died this morning.” She wanted to know if I could arrange to attend the funeral. I told her I would be honored to come but that I would need to arrange it with those who are my superiors in the Church.
After I hung up the phone, I walked up the street from our old family home. I walked across the canal over to the area where the Romneys used to live. George’s father’s name was Gaskell Romney. My father was their bishop. I looked at the area. The house wasn’t there anymore. Then I walked along the old irrigation canal bank. I looked at the area where my father baptized me. I looked at where George and I used to swim. Swimming suits in those days were a pair of bib overalls, not the high-fashioned kind you see today but the real denim, old-fashioned bib overalls. We cut the legs off and cut the pockets out so we wouldn’t drown. That’s all we had for swimming suits. We used to sit on the canal bank in a little bit of sunshine and shiver because it was so cold. But swimming was our main recreation. George and I were about the same age. He was my friend. He was my pal.
As I walked along the canal bank, thinking about George, I thought of a poem by Rosemary and Stephen Vincent Benét that they had written about Nancy Hanks, the mother of Abraham Lincoln. Abraham Lincoln was only seven when Nancy Hanks died, and they loved each other very much. But in that tender poem, the Benéts reflected that if Nancy Hanks came back today, she might ask, Whatever happened to my boy, Abe? Did he get to town? Did he learn to read? Did he ever amount to anything? (See “Nancy Hanks,” in Edwin Markham, comp., The Book of American Poetry [New York: Wm. H. Wise and Co., 1936], pp. 791–92).
George’s mother had died while he was a teenager. She didn’t get to see what he became. At the funeral, I was honored to be there with the governor of the state of Michigan—a state of some nine million people, where George had been elected governor three times. The governor said George Romney was a great man who never allowed service to man to obscure service to God. The Detroit News said George Romney used his religion as a compass to chart his public life.

A friend related this experience her husband had while attending medical school. “Getting into medical school is pretty competitive, and the desire to do well and be successful puts a great deal of pressure on the new incoming freshmen. My husband had worked hard on his studies and went to attend his first examination. The honor system was expected behavior at the medical school. The professor passed out the examination and left the room. Within a short time, students started to pull little cheat papers out from under their papers or from their pockets. My husband recalled his heart beginning to pound as he realized it is pretty hard to compete against cheaters. About that time a tall, lanky student stood up in the back of the room and stated, ‘I left my hometown and put my wife and three little babies in an upstairs apartment and worked very hard to get into medical school. And I’ll turn in the first one of you who cheats, and you better believe it!’ They believed it. There were many sheepish expressions, and those cheat papers started to disappear as fast as they had appeared. He set a standard for the class which eventually graduated the largest group in the school’s history.”
The young, lanky medical student who challenged the cheaters was J Ballard Washburn, who became a respected physician and in later years received special recognition from the Utah Medical Association for his outstanding service as a medical doctor. He also served as a General Authority and is now the president of the Las Vegas Nevada Temple.

Have you ever felt truly seen? There is powerful motivation that comes when someone really sees you, loves you, and believes in you. I became an artist because my mother thought I was talented. She didn’t just believe in me only when I did good work. When I made a mistake, she still saw the good in me.

When I received the news that my brother, Sergio, had died, I was in my room studying and Mom was reading emails he had written us just the day before. He told us that he was happy to be serving a mission in Chiclayo, Peru, and to be a representative of Jesus Christ. He told us of his love with so much enthusiasm that our smiles were inevitable.
Moments before receiving the call from his mission president who gave us the devastating news, my mother and I listened to a song my brother loved. Suddenly a strong feeling of peace flooded the whole room. The Spirit was so intense. We even shed tears because the warmth and the feeling that overcame us were so real that no words can describe it. And just 10 minutes later, the phone rang.
Mother and I listened to my father respond to all the questions that he was asked. We knew if the mission president was calling, something serious was happening. Then we heard Father respond, “There must be some mistake. This cannot be happening.”
I asked what was happening. That was when Dad answered us, his eyes full of tears, his voice hoarse: “Little Sergio has died.”
I cried bitterly, asking myself again and again, “Why, Heavenly Father? Why do we have to go through this? Isn’t a mission supposed to be the safest place in the world?!”
In spite of having the gospel in our life and knowing the plan of happiness, there seemed to be no consolation for our anguish. I knew that only our Heavenly Father could help us in our circumstances.
That night, in a moment of clarity, I ran to find my scriptures because a passage from the book of Alma came to mind that my brother had shared with us several weeks before he passed away. It says, “O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak. … I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption. … But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; … I ought not to harrow up in my desires the firm decree of a just God, for I know that he granteth unto men according to their desire, whether it be unto death or unto life” (Alma 29:1–4).
I understood then that my brother wanted us to know that he was alive and was with us in spirit, but that he had left this life because he had been called to preach in the spirit world. He wanted us to know that his absence would be like an extension of his mission calling—just another transfer, because he loved being a missionary, and the most profound desires of his heart had been fulfilled: to be “an angel” of the Lord. He could dedicate himself completely to the work of the Lord, to declare unto every soul “repentance and the plan of redemption,” the plan of happiness.
Although he is not physically with me, I still feel my brother’s presence. I no longer ask, “Why, Heavenly Father?” because the answer is clear and profound: “the Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he?” (Doctrine and Covenants 122:8).
As a family, we have poured out our hearts to God, and we have found consolation thanks to the gospel. We know that this is a life of probation and that our spirits are eternal.
Through the hope of the infinite love of our Savior Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father, we know that all things are possible. Thus, even though our understanding is still incomplete and in this life we cannot yet see all those whom we profoundly love, thanks to His life, we know that this is but a momentary, temporal circumstance.
It’s been just over four years since Sergio passed away. I admit that even now the sad days and the tears continue to appear from time to time, because I miss the presence of my beloved brother. But my heart overflows with gratitude when I remember that this is but a temporary situation. My hope is that finally, one day, we will meet again and reunite with our eternally happy family, forever and ever. This is greater than any pain I have to bear now.

My testimony that this is the true Church began in my childhood. One of my earliest memories is of a conference meeting. A man was speaking whom I did not know. I knew only that he was someone sent to our little district in the mission field by someone who held the priesthood. I do not know what he said. But I received a powerful, certain witness before I was eight, even before I was baptized, that I was hearing a servant of God in the true Church of Jesus Christ.

Then I met the missionaries. They gave me a Book of Mormon, and I started to read it. When I read 3 Nephi 17, I was truly impressed by the way Jesus took the little children and prayed for them. I knew that this was the right way to pray.
I decided to read all the scriptures about Jesus Christ praying. In Luke 3:21, after John baptized Him, Jesus prayed to Heavenly Father and the heavens were opened. When I read that, I knew that I wanted to pray in a way that would open the heavens too.

I will be forever grateful to my mother, who taught me the importance of the temple. For years, she prepared us for the temple by having pictures of many beautiful temples hanging in our home. We also had family home evening lessons about temples. All of this was in anticipation of the long-promised visit to the temple after reaching the age of 12.
The words of the song my mother sang, often at the breakfast table before family prayers, still ring in my ears.
I love to see the temple.
I’m going there someday
To feel the Holy Spirit,
To listen and to pray.
For the temple is a house of God,
A place of love and beauty.
I’ll prepare myself while I am young;
This is my sacred duty.
(Children’s Songbook, 95)
For each of us five children, Mother’s present for our 12th birthday was a trip to the temple. The closest temple—Johannesburg—was a long trip, a 16-hour, nonstop drive, and it cost a lot of money. It meant leaving at 4:00 A.M. and arriving after 8:00 P.M.—tired, hot, and sticky.
Yet my mother always made sure money for the temple trip was first in the budget, along with tithing. Each year, we made the journey to the temple to do work for the dead. By sacrificing so much, my mother helped me understand the beauty of the temple and the importance of the work done there.
When I think of my mother, beaming proudly, as she presented her two children, my sister and me, to the temple president and showed him our recommends, I am reminded of Hannah bringing Samuel to Eli in the temple and dedicating her son to the Lord. Although I didn’t fully understand the importance of the temple at first, each successive temple trip left an indelible impression on me. My love for the temple grew each year as my mother sacrificed so much for our experiences there. To see her children in the temple, dressed in white and doing the Lord’s work, meant more to my mother than anything she could have bought with the money she saved.

When I was in high school, many of my friends started smoking. I was the only member of the Church who belonged to that group of friends. They knew that I am a member of the Church. One time they asked me why I didn’t smoke. I just smiled and humbly answered, “We know that the Bible says our body is a temple, and it is a special gift given to us. Therefore, we need to love and care for the gift given to us because it comes from God.” They responded by saying that maybe I was right and that we need to care for our bodies. I shared my testimony about the Word of Wisdom with them. If we show care for our bodies, we will be blessed with good health and knowledge. I knew because of the expressions on their faces that they believed what I had shared with them. Since that day I have seen an improvement in them. Sharing your testimony with those who struggle with smoking can help them to choose the right.
Michael T., 18, Palawan, Philippines

From the time I was a young girl in Venezuela I wanted a Bible of my own. But it wasn’t until I became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ and felt a great need to get to know my Savior that I promised myself to buy a Bible the next chance I had.
The Church was new in our area, and orders for books could be filled only when someone traveled in person to mission headquarters. My branch president, who was a full-time missionary, was aware of my need. One day he told me that he would be traveling to the mission office in three days. I explained to him that even though the Bible cost very little, at that moment I did not have any money. I told him I would get it before he left, and he agreed to stop by my home on his way to the mission office.
The day of his trip arrived. I still did not have the money, so I appealed to the Lord in prayer. When I finished praying, my worry disappeared and I felt a great peace. I had barely arisen from my knees when someone knocked at the door. I opened it and saw a young mother with a baby in her arms.
“I live just behind your house,” she said with a smile. “I don’t know you, but I need a favor, and for some reason I decided to come here.” She asked me to watch her baby for a short time, saying that she would pay me. I agreed to do it.
By the time she returned, I had decided that I wouldn’t take her money. But she placed in my hand the exact amount I needed for the Bible. What tender emotions I felt at that moment! I knew that the Lord had answered my prayer. My heart overflowed with gratitude.

Several years ago, I approached one of my daughters and said, “My dear, it’s time for an interview.” Her response was less than enthusiastic, and I determined within my own mind that I was boring her terribly. So instead of subjecting her to a formal conversation, I invited her into the car and drove to the Dairy Queen where we both enjoyed a root beer float. All the way to and from the store, I asked questions, and she freely responded. She didn’t even realize that she was being interviewed—or at least that is what I thought. A few weeks later, I announced once again that I wanted to interview her. This time she promptly asked, “Wet or dry?”

The local chiefs of Samoa, grieving for their friend who had died the day before, worked through the night to cut a trail to the top of Mt. Vaea where Robert Louis Stevenson had asked to be buried. The tombstone marking this place has one of his own poems engraved on it:
Here he lies where he longed to be; Home is the sailor, home from the sea, And the hunter, home from the hill.

“Did anyone work problem number 12?” Mr. Bentley asked the class.
The students all shook their heads.
Except Jeff. He raised his hand. “I did.”
“Oh?” Mr. Bentley said with raised eyebrows. “What did you get for your answer?”
“(X-Y)/(X + Y).”
Mr. Bentley looked at him strangely. “That’s what I got too. Did anyone else work it?”
Silence.
Mr. Bentley looked at Jeff with newfound respect. “It’s a hard problem. Did it take you very long?”
He modestly shrugged his shoulders. “Not really.”
“Would you like to show the class how you got your answer?”
“No, that’s all right. You go ahead.”
He was a senior in high school. His family had just moved to town because his father was the new superintendent of schools. The reason he appeared so bright in math was because he’d used his dad’s stationery and written the publisher for the teacher’s supplement that had all the problems worked out.
After putting the problem on the board, Mr. Bentley turned to Jeff and asked, “Is that how you did it?”
Jeff casually nodded his head. “More or less.”
The class bell rang, and it was time for lunch.
He ate alone. He didn’t care. There was nobody in this town he wanted to know anyway.
When school was over he went downtown and continued to look for a job.
A week later he found a job at an expensive men’s clothing store. He worked after school and on Saturdays. They didn’t actually let him sell anything; he unpacked clothing, cleaned the rest rooms, dusted, and ran errands.
Upstairs the store was mahogany and marble, but in the store’s basement there was no need for a good impression because no customers ever ventured that far. Alterations were made in the basement, and there was a large steam press which hissed clouds of steam. The two women who worked there were grumpy and were always complaining about everyone else.
Beyond the alterations room was an entire area full of mannequin parts—a bin for heads, and another for arms. And scattered along the dimly lit hall stood headless, armless bronzed torsos on the roughened cement floor.
Another section was filled with remnants of past window displays—signs which define for us what the “Man of Action” is wearing. But the “Man of Action” changes every season, and the signs were for last year, so the signs lay in stacks gathering dust, waiting for the window man to finally decide what to keep and what to throw away.
Jeff spent much of his workday in the basement. Starting from cardboard slabs he made up suit and tie and sock boxes. He also mailed altered suits to out-of-town customers. Also it was in the basement where they kept the supplies for polishing and dusting the mahogany upstairs.
One day he walked to the end of the dreary hallway. The lighting was bad and the clutter more evident as he proceeded.
What a mess, he thought. He moved aside a sign and saw a stack of men’s magazines. He was embarrassed by the cover on top. Making sure nobody was around, he opened it up and quickly thumbed through its pages. There was a centerfold picture.
I’ve got no business looking at this, he thought, closing it and walking away.
Four days passed, and he never returned to the magazines. He congratulated himself on his self-control.
But one day he returned. It was a day when it seemed as if the world was against him. At breakfast his parents scolded him for driving the car but never putting any gas in it. His dad warned him that he’d better spend more time studying if he ever expected to get a college scholarship. At school he said hello to a girl, but she looked coolly at him as if he weren’t even there.
He forgot the combination to his locker and had to go to the principal’s office to ask for it. The girl working there smirked and suggested he write it on his hand so he wouldn’t forget it. He flunked a world history exam. After school his boss yelled at him as soon as he walked in because two days ago he’d switched two suits and sent an old suit to a state senator who’d bought one especially for a press conference.
On that day, when the world seemed to be tumbling down on him, he found himself in the basement lifting up the old signs to again gaze at the stack of magazines.
Life was the same dull routine day after day. Besides that, nobody really cared about him anyway. What good did it do to try to live right when things just turn out rotten anyway?
He picked one of the magazines from the bottom of the stack and quickly stuffed it in his school notebook and walked away.
Later that night, at home, after family prayer, when his mom had embarrassed him by insisting on a good night kiss, he went to his room and closed the door and read the magazine from cover to cover.
The next day at work he returned it to the bottom of the stack, and nobody was any the wiser. It was his little secret.
Over the course of the next two weeks, in the same way he read every magazine in the stack.
It doesn’t matter, he thought. I’m still the same. It hasn’t affected me at all.
Shortly after, he met Holly. She was from a small branch in a town 50 miles away. She was a sophomore and he was a senior, and they met at a seminary Super Saturday. She had blonde hair and blue-green eyes. Her high cheekbones made everything about her face seem more dramatic. Her laughter reminded him of wind chimes.
After the first scripture chase, he sat behind her so he could watch her every move.
After the lesson, they all went to the gym to play volleyball. He stood next to her. Before the game started, she turned to him, smiled, and said, “You’re new here, aren’t you?”
They talked. He couldn’t remember what he said, because he was so anxious to have her like him. The game started and they lost, but he didn’t care because she said she enjoyed getting to know him and that she hoped to see him again sometime.
When it was all over, he walked her outside to her parents’ car, he asked her if he could come up and visit her sometime, and she said she’d like that.
“Do you think we’ll be good friends?” she asked.
“I hope so.”
“I do too.”
He asked her for a picture, and she said she’d mail one to him.
On Monday of the next week, his math teacher asked him to sign up for the special college preparatory exam because if he did really well he could get a scholarship next year and anyone as bright as he was should be able to get a full-ride scholarship anywhere in the country.
“I’m not that smart,” Jeff said.
“I think you’re too modest. I’ve noticed the way you do all the homework. You’re the best student I’ve ever had. I insist you take the exam.”
Monday afternoon Holly’s picture came in the mail. He sat at his desk and looked at it and dreamed that they’d fall in love and that someday she’d let him kiss her.
He phoned and thanked her for the picture.
“I hope we can be good friends,” she said.
“Me too.”
“Can I tell you something? Last summer I met this guy and we really got along well and it was the first guy I’d every really dated. But after the second date he just quit. He didn’t ever call me or say what was wrong. I figured it was probably something that I’d said. Of course my parents said not to worry, but that’s what they say about everything.”
“He was a fool to quit dating you,” Jeff said. She smiled. “Thanks. I needed that.”
He took the standardized math exam, but he didn’t do as well as people expected. “I think I had the flu that day,” he explained to Mr. Bentley when the results came in.
He checked the magazine pile every week. Another new issue appeared on top of the pile. He told himself he wouldn’t read it, but after a few days he broke down and did.
He always promised himself it was the last. Somehow promising himself made him feel better.
Another Super Saturday rolled around again. He sat next to Holly in class. Afterwards everyone went roller skating. He skated with her the whole time.
He asked her if she’d go with him to the junior-senior prom, and she said yes.
The next week Mr. Bentley asked to speak with him privately. “I don’t understand how you can do so well on homework and so poorly on the hour exams.”
“I get nervous taking exams,” Jeff said.
“Is that the real reason?” he asked.
The junior-senior prom came. Holly had made arrangements to stay with Church members in town.
After the dance he drove out to a country lane and parked. He kissed her for the first time.
He kissed her again. Suddenly, uninvited, came a flood of images from the magazines. He didn’t like the thoughts racing through his mind. He tried to make them go away, but they wouldn’t.
Suddenly he was afraid of himself around Holly. He started the car and drove to where she was staying that night.
“Is anything wrong?” she asked.
He felt terrible. He realized that if she knew what he’d been thinking, she would hate him. “I’d better go now. Good night.”
“What did I do wrong?” she asked him.
“Nothing,” he said.
“You won’t ever call me again, will you? What’s wrong with me? At least tell me that.”
“It’s me. There’s something wrong with me.”
As he drove home, he hated himself. He decided not to date her anymore because of what he might do if he listened to the thoughts put there from the magazines.
He promised himself not to read the magazines anymore, but he did. They didn’t demand much from him except that he turn the pages.
One day Mr. Bentley called him in after class. “I think you’ve been cheating on the homework, but I can’t prove it. For your own sake, if you have, then admit it. No class is worth damaging your integrity over. Just confess what you’ve been doing, and I won’t flunk you. I’ll give you a C—a good, clean, honestly earned C.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Mr. Bentley had to give him a B because there was no proof.
Graduation day finally came. Jeff came down with the flu and asked to be excused from commencement. It was better that way.
Throughout the summer his father kept asking him to apply for college, but he didn’t feel like it.
One Sunday his Sunday School teacher told him he’d been chosen in the premortal existence to be alive at this time to help prepare for the second coming of the Savior.
She doesn’t know me, he thought. She doesn’t know the way I really am. Nobody does.
His bishop asked him to get ready for a mission, but Jeff knew he wasn’t that kind of guy.
He had no plans.
One Sunday in July, his bishop asked to speak to him in his office.
The bishop talked about being made an elder. Rather than having to explain why he didn’t want to be an elder, Jeff went along with the idea.
The bishop gave Jeff an interview. It started out easy enough, but before Jeff knew it the bishop was in deep waters.
Jeff wasn’t ready to confess. So he lied.
Perhaps because he had no reason to suspect any misconduct, the bishop wasn’t as penetrating with his questions as he should have been. When it was over, he told Jeff he’d passed the interview. “Stake conference is next Sunday. We’ll see you then. Your parents will be proud of you. Now the only thing you have to do is go see the stake president.”
“What for?” he asked.
“He needs to interview you too.”
The executive secretary had set up all the interviews on Sunday after church, but he’d set them too close together, so there was a line of people waiting to get in. Two of the guys from his ward, also graduating seniors, were also in line.
Holly and her father showed up in the hallway too because her father had a meeting to go to.
“Is it all right if I stand next to you in line?” she asked.
“I guess so.”
He looked at her. She was more beautiful than he’d remembered.
“What are your plans now that you’ve graduated?” she asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“I hope you go on a mission,” she said.
“Why?”
“I know you’d be a great missionary.”
He shook his head. “I doubt it.”
She touched him on the sleeve. “You’ve got to have faith in yourself. I think you’re … special.”
He shook his head. “No I’m not.”
“There you go again.”
He couldn’t look her in the face because she reminded him of what could have been.
“You quit coming to Super Saturday.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Why?”
“I got busy.”
“I wished you hadn’t been so busy,” she said quietly. “But I learned from it.”
“What did you learn?”
“That you can’t depend on other people to make you feel good about yourself. It’s got to be inside you.”
For a moment he allowed himself the luxury of looking into her eyes. She was not afraid anymore. He looked away.
The next person in line went into the stake president’s office.
“Did you pass?” someone asked the one coming out.
“What do you think?”
“I doubt it, but hey, if you can pass, anybody can.”
They all laughed.
His face turned crimson red because he was next in line.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“No, why?”
“Your face is so red. Do you have a fever?”
“Yeah, I guess I do. You’d better stay away from me.”
She smiled. “I’ll take the chance it’s not contagious.”
“I hope it isn’t.”
Several minutes passed. He turned to her and said quietly, “I have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“You need to tell someone. You can’t keep a problem to yourself.”
The door opened again. President Rossiter came out and shook Jeff’s hand and asked him in.
They went through the same questions again, and again he lied just as he had to the bishop.
When they were finished, President Rossiter looked uneasy.
“Is something wrong?” Jeff asked.
“I’m not sure. Maybe you’d better tell me.”
“What?”
“I just don’t feel good about what you’ve said.” Jeff wiped his forehead.
“Let me explain something, Jeff. You could probably lie to me or your bishop and get away with it. We’re only human, and we might never know the difference. But when I ask these questions, I represent the Lord as if he were asking them, and if you don’t tell the truth, then it’s as if you were lying to the Lord. Now let’s go over some of the questions one more time.”
They went over the questions one by one. Again Jeff lied, but by the time the questions were over his face was dripping with sweat.
President Rossiter shook his head. “I’m sorry, but there’s something wrong. Would you like to talk about it?”
Jeff shook his head. “There’s all those people waiting in the hall. If you take too much time with me, they’ll know there’s something wrong.”
“Telling the truth doesn’t take any longer than lying does.”
Jeff sat there stone faced.
“God knows what the problem is. Let me know too, so I can help you with whatever it is. You are important in his eyes. He reserved you to come to earth at this time to help bring about the Second Coming.”
Jeff shook his head. “I wish people would quit saying that. It’s not true about me. You don’t know me. Nobody knows what I’m really like.”
“Then why don’t you tell me,” President Rossiter said quietly.
“All right, I will. I lied to my bishop, and I lied to you. I’ve cheated in school, and I’ve read magazines. Bad magazines. Don’t tell me to stop. I’ve tried that, but no matter how hard I try, I’m just not strong enough anymore. It’s like it’s got control over me, and no matter how hard I say to myself I won’t ever do it again, I can’t stop. How can you possibly know what it’s like? I’m not like any of the people waiting in the hall out there. I’ve got a dirty mind.”
He tried to make the shame come out quietly, but it didn’t. It was the first time he’d cried since he was six years old. So now, he thought bitterly, on top of everything else, I’m not even a man, and everyone in the hall knows it because they can hear me crying.
President Rossiter put his arm around his shoulder. Jeff wondered if he’d talk about this in stake conference, and if after that people would stand in the halls of church and secretly smirk as he walked by.
He asked President Rossiter about it. “I don’t tell anyone, Jeff, not anyone.”
Jeff finally opened up and told it all—about the magazines and the thoughts that wouldn’t go away, and about cheating on homework, and about all the lying he’d done to cover it all up. He told every secret thing he’d done until it was all out in the open, and there was nothing left to hide. When he was finished, he asked, “Will you excommunicate me now?”
“Jeff, your bishop and I are going to work with you to help you repent, so you can wipe the slate clean again.”
Jeff looked up. “I can start over?”
“If you repent, you can. Your bishop will outline some steps to follow.”
“But I’ve disappointed the Lord.”
“Yes, you have.”
“But how can he forgive me for what I’ve done?”
“Because he loves you.”
“And if I do, someday will I be able to be an elder and go on a mission?”
“Yes, but it’s up to you. You can be forgiven if you turn from your sins and repent.”
“But what about the bad thoughts?”
“Replace them with good ones.”
Half an hour later he walked out into the hall again.
“It’s about time,” one of his high school friends complained. “What were you two talking about in there?”
President Rossiter smiled. “Bob, come on in and find out for yourself.”
Jeff started down the hall. He walked past Holly. He turned away. He didn’t want her to see his eyes because they were bloodshot from crying.
“Are you all right?” she called out after him.
He stopped walking and turned around to face her. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
“Can I walk with you?” she asked.
He smiled at her. “I’d really like that.”
The next day at work he put all the magazines into a box and lugged it up to the floor with the mahogany and marble.
The store was momentarily without customers.
“Hey, do these magazines belong to anyone?” he announced loudly.
All the salesmen came up to the counter where he’d set the box. They looked at the box full of tattered, dusty magazines. One by one they all denied that the magazines belonged to them.
“If they don’t belong to anyone, I guess nobody will mind if I just toss ’em out, right?”
Nobody objected.
He went outside and dumped them in a trash can just in time to see the garbage truck coming down the alley.
The hydraulic ram on the garbage truck crushed the box and mixed it with other garbage collected on that block wilted brown lettuce and old potato and carrot peelings and a large pail of darkened, deep-fat grease from the restaurant next door.
On his way inside again, he started whistling a hymn to himself. He decided he’d call Holly after work and ask if she’d go with their family on a picnic next week out at the lake. Maybe he could teach her how to water-ski.
Inside again, he passed a mirror customers used to look at themselves when they tried out clothes for the “Man of Action.”
He smiled at his reflection in the mirror. He liked what he saw.

On Sunday morning, December 9, 1849, at eight o’clock, about 30 children between the ages of 8 and 13 arrived in a small classroom that had been built in a home. They stamped their feet on the threshold, shook the snow off their coats and hats, then took their places on simple benches. They waited expectantly for the class to begin. It was a cold, snowy day outside, but the fireplace radiated a warm and friendly glow. Richard Ballantyne’s eyes shone brightly as he called the Sunday School to order. He led the boys and girls in a song, and then he gave a quiet but fervent prayer, dedicating this room in his home for teaching children the gospel of Jesus Christ. His voice was rich, and his words rolled forth as words do under the spell of reverence and emotion. Thus we have the founding of the first Sunday School in the Salt Lake Valley.
Organizing a Sunday School was not foreign to him. In his native Scotland he had organized a Sunday School in the Relief Presbyterian Church, of which he was an active member. It was natural for him to have a great desire to educate young people in the knowledge of the gospel. He had been reared in a home where his father was fond of repeating from memory whole chapters of the Bible and then reciting them to his children. It was a home where they would not even take a sip of water without first taking off their hats and saying grace, as was also the custom before they would eat a meal.
Rumors were spreading around the Scottish home that a new prophet had been raised up in America. At first Richard paid little attention to these rumors, but as his religious questions became more perplexing, he openly sought further light and knowledge. It was in 1841 that Elder Orson Pratt appeared in Edinburgh. Richard listened to his message and investigated the Church for a year. Finally he was converted and was baptized in the North Sea. He said, “I was so convinced that Joseph Smith was a prophet and the Book of Mormon was the word of God, and that if I did not accept it I would be damned.” As was the case of many of those early converts to the Church, he sold his business and emigrated to America, taking with him his mother and some of his brothers and sisters. They arrived in Nauvoo on November 11, 1843, at a time when there was great turmoil in the city. They eventually left Illinois and made the trek to Winter Quarters. There he was married and soon made preparation for the long journey west. They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in September of 1848 and immediately commenced building a home. It was in this home that the first Sunday School in the valley was held. When the chapel—the old 14th Ward—was completed, the Sunday School moved to the new meetinghouse.
Brother Ballantyne had a fervent desire to teach young people the gospel of our Lord and Savior throughout his entire life. Thanks be to the late Conway Ballantyne Sonne, a cousin of mine, for this history of the first Sunday School (see Conway B. Sonne, Knight of the Kingdom: The Story of Richard Ballantyne [1949], 8–49).

Although the Mormonettes Dance Team in the Huddersfield England Stake have only been dancing together for two years, they have performed at the celebration of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee and for the mayor and mayoress of Huddersfield and have appeared in a film showing the activities of Church members in England. The girls in the Huddersfield Ward became excited about forming a dance team after watching a performance by the Ricks College Valhalla Dancers, who were on tour in England in 1976.
The young women approached Sister Jean Ford, an experienced dancer and a member of the Huddersfield Ward, with their idea and asked her to become their trainer. Her enthusiastic acceptance resulted in a dance team of 18 girls, only three of whom had had any previous dance training. The team spent a year rehearsing (about 15 numbers at two rehearsals per week), designing and making costumes, and perfecting their routines in preparation for the introductory show. It was held May 6, 1977, with over half the audience consisting of nonmembers.
Sister Ford expressed the following goal the team has set: “Our aim is to use the Mormonettes Dance Team as a missionary tool, to break down barriers and open doors for the missionaries, as well as to give the girls a wholesome and healthy outlet for their youthful energies.” The team performs ballet, tap, and exhibition dancing.

From my first days in this Church, the organization and the order of the Church by which each task or responsibility is accomplished captured my attention. Seeing a young women’s class with teachers and advisers with planned lessons was amazing to me. I will always remember my Young Women President, the first one who mentored me, Sister Sunguza Kyu, a thoughtful teacher who increased my desire to participate in all Church meetings and activities with topics that were appropriate for young women of my age.

“The old steam-powered threshing machine would usually come in midsummer, and it was quite a spectacle—like having the circus come. We kids had a goal to work on it someday, and when I was older, I spent two summers working on the threshing machine.”

I remember once taking a 45-minute taxi ride in New York City. Having had a warm gospel conversation with the driver for the duration of my ride to the airport, I paid her and prepared to exit the taxi. Then I realized I had not offered a testimony of what I had shared. Pausing, I shared a simple, short testimony, inviting the Spirit and bringing tears to both our eyes.

Third, sleep. Even this basic desire can be temporarily overridden by an even more important desire. As a young soldier in the Utah National Guard, I learned an example of this from a combat-seasoned officer.

In the early months of the Korean War, a Richfield Utah National Guard field artillery battery was called into active service. This battery, commanded by Captain Ray Cox, consisted of about 40 Mormon men. After additional training and reinforcement by reservists from elsewhere, they were sent to Korea, where they experienced some of the fiercest combat of that war. In one battle they had to repel a direct assault by hundreds of enemy infantry, the kind of attack that overran and destroyed other field artillery batteries.

What does this have to do with overcoming the desire for sleep? During one critical night, when enemy infantry had poured through the front lines and into the rear areas occupied by the artillery, the captain had the field telephone lines wired into his tent and ordered his numerous perimeter guards to phone him personally each hour on the hour all night long. This kept the guards awake, but it also meant that Captain Cox had scores of interruptions to his sleep. “How could you do that?” I asked him. His answer shows the power of an overriding desire.

“I knew that if we ever got home, I would be meeting the parents of those boys on the streets in our small town, and I didn’t want to face any of them if their son didn’t make it home because of anything I failed to do as his commander.”

What an example of the power of an overriding desire on priorities and on actions! What a powerful example for all of us who are responsible for the welfare of others—parents, Church leaders, and teachers!

As a conclusion to that illustration, early in the morning following his nearly sleepless night, Captain Cox led his men in a counterattack on the enemy infantry. They took over 800 prisoners and suffered only two wounded. Cox was decorated for bravery, and his battery received a Presidential Unit Citation for its extraordinary heroism. And, like Helaman’s stripling warriors (see Alma 57:25–26), they all made it home.

Some years ago, I spoke at this pulpit and entitled my talk “The Balm of Gilead.” The response was surprising. That very day two lawsuits were settled. One or both of the litigants decided that what they might gain materially was not worth the cost spiritually.

Obedience to the commandments of the Lord, including the important commandment of tithing, brings many blessings. We do not always know how the Lord will bless us. For example, possibly the following experience common to most of us may serve to illustrate.
Have you ever been following a slowpoke car that is doddering along with the driver looking at everything along the way, and you know that if he doesn’t speed up you are never going to get through on that green light? But then he does speed up—just enough to get through on the yellow light—and you have to stop. This has a great tendency to test the patience. Sometimes we even start thinking rather derogatorily about him as he drives away. However, it just may be that the Lord is protecting us from an accident two miles down the road because we stopped at that light, even though we did it reluctantly. If you entertain these kinds of thoughts, it may have a tendency to make you thankful instead of irate or angry, which is much better for your digestion.