Gospel Story Finder

The seminary students in the Phoenix Park Ward of the Dublin Ireland Stake were a little worried. Their stake president and their bishop had approached them about something new. Would they be the first seminary class in all of Ireland to try meeting every day—early every day?
Elaine O’Farrell, age 15, remembers her first reaction: “I thought, if we see each other every day, we’ll get on each other’s nerves.” And there was that other obvious worry. Pamela Fagan, age 15, explains, “No way would they get me out of bed that early.” Farris Bukhatwa, age 17, and Louise Byrne, age 17, lived the farthest distance away. It was not going to be easy.
But not everyone was worried. Jenna Gallagher, age 15, was a little bit excited about the idea. “I had heard about early-morning seminary in other countries,” she says. “I always dreamed of going to seminary that way. I was really pleased that we were going to do it. I knew if I made a sacrifice, the Lord would bless me.”
Then things started to work out. Farris was able to use the family car in the mornings and could pick up Louise. Pamela agreed to get up extra early so she could leave on time with her brother Derek. Elaine changed her mind and said she liked seeing these people every morning. Jenna was happy just to be in seminary. Brett Crowther, age 18, and his brother Brandt, age 16, the mission president’s sons, were thrilled to be with other Church youth every day. And best of all, their teacher, Rosemary Richmond, was terrific.
All students in Ireland are required to take religion class. Even though they go to early-morning seminary, these Latter-day Saint students are not excused from their school religion requirement. But their study of the scriptures has paid off. Louise explains, “Franciscan friars visited our school. When they were asking questions, they would point to me and put their fingers to their lips as if to say, ‘Shhh, don’t answer the questions.’ They knew I could answer them.”
Elaine tells a similar story about religion class. “If my teacher asked what a word means, like covenant, I would answer,” she says. “He knew I would know the answer no matter what he asked.”
Derek Fagan, age 17, has excelled in both school and seminary, and he credits an experience he had just before he received his patriarchal blessing: “We had been talking about patriarchal blessings in seminary. I prayed and asked if I should get mine. Our stake did not have a patriarch at that time, but three days later, our new patriarch was called. I felt it was my answer. That’s when I decided for myself that the Church is true and that I would try harder to do well and choose the right. My patriarchal blessing was amazing. I carry it with me everywhere. Since early-morning seminary started, everything has been clearer. Even in school, I learn very quickly now.”
Derek became the first seminary student in Ireland to memorize all the scripture mastery scriptures. As an extra challenge, he memorized the account of the First Vision as found in Joseph Smith—History.
Brandt Crowther remembers an experience he had a few months after he and his family arrived in Ireland: “I had prayed almost every night of my life, but one night, I prayed with sincerity and asked the Lord what He wanted me to do here in Ireland. I needed to know in my heart that the Church is true. I found out that God does live and He loves me. I gained an understanding of what He wanted me to do. Since then, I’ve been happy being here. I’ve loved it. I’m closer to the Savior now.”
Brandt explains some of the things the Lord told him he needed to do: “I needed to read the scriptures every day and pray every night and keep the commandments. That night the Spirit was with me. I didn’t want to go to bed.”
Seminary class often helped Farris find answers: “I received a testimony of prayer and of tithing. I would pray about things I really needed to find out about—and then it would click in seminary. I would understand things better. What is it like when the Spirit gives you an answer? You’re calm, and you understand things. You’re not nervous. You know it’s true. You feel it in your heart.”
The students in this seminary class enjoy being together. And now every weekday morning isn’t enough. They get together every Saturday night, too.
It all started when Louise’s mother told Brett that Louise’s friends always ask her to go to the pub with them on Saturdays, but she never goes. “We decided to get the whole class together and go out and have some fun,” says Brett. “We’ve been getting together every Saturday night. It’s good fun.”
What do they do? The first week they went to the cinema, but that quickly became too expensive. So they started going to each other’s houses to play games or watch videos or just talk and talk and talk. Elaine explains, “We used to have nothing to talk about; now we don’t have enough time to talk.”
For Louise, having something else to do on Saturdays has strengthened her resolve to stay strong in the Church. “It’s a reason for me not to go with my friends from work every weekend,” she explains. “Sometimes I used to go along. I didn’t do anything I shouldn’t, but just being there didn’t feel good. It eventually wears out your spirit. I got so tired of trying to speak up for myself. But when I go with the seminary class, I can just be me. I feel accepted.”
And most of all, “Saturday nights are fun,” says Pamela. “My other friends’ standards are completely different from mine. I feel much better going to the seminary activity. We have great fun.”
Derek adds, “Early-morning seminary and our activities on Saturday evenings have brought us closer, and we’re better friends. I’ve gotten a lot closer to everyone in the class, even Pamela, my sister. I wouldn’t even consider going out and getting drunk and breaking the Word of Wisdom.”
Most of all, this year of seminary has taught these students the meaning of faith. Their teacher, Rosemary Richmond, helps them learn from Church history about the faith of the early prophets and members. Her husband, Brendan, suffers from an extremely rare and damaging lung disorder and is confined to a wheelchair. Although she has the constant worry of her husband’s care and health, she is eager to prepare lessons and have the seminary class come each morning.
“Members here are very faithful, especially Rosemary, with all the trials she’s been through,” Louise says. “It makes you realize how lucky you are. In seminary we read about the Prophet Joseph Smith and the pioneers. Joseph Smith is a great man. I love him. The testimony he had never faltered. Can you imagine living back in those days? The pioneers had to walk halfway across North America just to practice what they believed. I want that sort of faith because I love the Church.”
Louise is developing that kind of faith. Every day she stands up for her beliefs. And with her small group of valiant seminary friends, she doesn’t have to stand alone. None of them do. They have found a way to strengthen each other. And that has made all the difference.

One day the three of them took Old Brownie and Belle and went up City Creek Canyon for a jag of firewood. As soon as they’d found a good place to stop and load up, Pa had Jeremy unhitch the team so that they could graze while the wagon was loaded.
“There,” said Pa, when the wagon was full. “That’ll do it for this trip. Hitch the horses back to the wagon, Jeremy, while Brose and I fasten the chain around the load to keep any logs from falling off.”
“Let me hook up the horses, Pa!” cried Brose. “I can do it, honest! I watched you and Jere do it every day, coming across the plains! Let me hook ‘em up, Pa!”
Pa hesitated, then said, “All right, Brose. Don’t forget to fasten the crosslines, so you can drive the team together without their trying to go off in all directions.”
“So you can drive them!” That’s what Pa said! Maybe, if I hook ‘em up just right, thought Brose, Pa’ll let me drive all the way home!
Brose didn’t have any trouble leading the horses into place. Brownie stepped right over the wagon tongue into her place while Belle stood quietly waiting on the other side. Then, just as Pa had cautioned, Brose fastened the crosslines, snapping the one from Belle’s harness onto the ring on Brownie’s bit, and the other onto the ring on Belle’s bridle.
Next he took the wide leather strap on the front of Brownie’s harness, slipped it through the big ring on the end of the yoke, and fastened the snap to the ring on the other side of the harness. “There! That was just the way Jeremy would have done it,” Brose murmured, pleased. He fastened the strap on Belle’s harness to the yoke the same way. Then he took the driving line from where Jeremy had hung it on Brownie’s hame and threw it ever so gently over Belle’s back, just the way Pa would have done it—quiet, easy, so as not to frighten the team.
When he walked around to put Belle’s line with the other, Brose heard a bird call. It was a new sound, something like a meadowlark’s, yet different. It was more like that little brown bird he used to hear back in Connecticut before the family had come west. Maybe it was! Maybe that very same little brown bird had followed him, Ambrose Dodd, all the way to the Valley!
Brose didn’t know how long he had listened to the bird before he saw Pa and Jeremy. They had walked a little way down the canyon and had stopped, waiting for him.
Brose was to bring the team and wagon! He was going to drive! He climbed up onto the seat, picked up both of the lines, and slapped them against Brownie’s side, just as Pa would have done.
“Giddap!” he cried, loud enough for Pa and Jeremy and the horses to hear. The horses stepped forward. But the wagon did not move. Only the yoke went with the team, the ring on it sliding off the end of the wagon tongue and the lines slipping through Brose’s hands.
Jeremy ran toward him just as the wagon tongue banged to the ground. “Brose!” he called. “Hey, Brose! You forgot the wagon! It won’t move unless you hitch the tugs!”
Brose couldn’t move. How could he have been so dumb! How could he possibly have forgotten about the tugs?
Jeremy reached out and took the lines and drove the team around in a little circle, putting the team right in place. Brose came out of his daze and scurried around to pick up the end of the tongue and slip it through the ring of the yoke, which was still fastened to the horses.
Jeremy was just hooking the last tug to the doubletree when Pa came. Brose watched Pa climb over the front wheel and take his place on the front of the load. Pa reached for the lines, and Jeremy handed them up to him. Pa took them without a word, and Brose knew that he had lost another chance.
There wasn’t much talking during chores that night. When supper was over, Brose sat on the little stool beside the fire, listening to the crackling and hissing of the pine knot and watching the sparks it sometimes sent up with the smoke.
Jeremy took Pa’s fiddle from its case, and music began to fill the little cabin, then float away on the night air. Brose leaned back against the warm cabin wall near the fireplace and listened. He wished—oh, how he wished!—that he could play like Jere. Pa had been fair about it, though. He had tried to teach both of them. Brose still remembered Pa’s words: “Seems as though you’ve got ten thumbs, Brose, and they all want to go in different directions.”
Pa had quit trying to teach him soon after that, and at the time Brose had been relieved. But now every time he listened to the fiddle singing under Jere’s fingers, Brose wished Pa hadn’t given up quite so quickly.
He’d much rather be standing there by Pa’s chair, playing the fiddle, with Ma and Trudy and Willie giving him all the smiles Jeremy was getting, than do the job he was supposed to be doing. He saw Ma looking at him from time to time, but she didn’t interrupt the music with talking, and after a bit Brose made himself get started.
He knew someone had to straighten out the kinks in the wool so that Ma and Trudy could knit it into socks for winter. Brose hated to card. Mostly women and girls did it, but Ma said that Trudy was as fast at knitting as she was, herself. With both of them knitting, they could have twice as many socks ready when winter came. They could, that is, if Brose would just keep ahead of them with the carding.
Brose had his problems with this job too. Sometimes he got the wool so tangled up that Ma said it was worse for knitting when he got through with it than before he started. But she had more patience than Pa. Or maybe she needed the wool carded more than Pa needed another boy to play the fiddle.
Across the firelight Brose saw both Ma and Trudy knitting, each tapping a foot in time to the music. The only time either of them stopped was if one of them happened to drop a stitch. Then the stitch-dropper would move closer to the fire so that she could see to pick it up. Brose sighed as he pulled the big basket of wool closer to him and reached for the cards.
He laid one card close to the fire so that the wire brush would warm. He picked up a handful of wool and drew it across the other card. Then he took the card he had warmed and pulled it carefully across the wool, trying to get the strands straight.
“Learned that fiddle quicker’n I did,” said Pa, as Jeremy stopped for a moment. “Never did see a boy pick it up as fast as that.”
Pa will never be that proud of me, thought Brose, even if I did the carding perfectly! Ma would be pleased, but Pa and Jere wouldn’t care about it at all. Maybe … just maybe someday I’ll do something that they’ll think is important …
“Brose!” He was startled from his daydream by Ma’s voice. “The wool, Brose! I can smell it! You’ve got it too close to the fire!”
(To be concluded.)

In April 1990, Jakub and I hitchhiked to Austria. In Vienna we met two nice women standing on the sidewalk of a busy street. One of them was holding the Book of Mormon in Polish. She told us about Jesus’s visit to the people of ancient America and promised to mail the book to our homes if we gave her our addresses. We also opened our address books and copied addresses of many of our friends. We thought it would be a nice surprise for them to receive a gift.
A few months later the Poland Warsaw Mission was established, and four missionaries arrived in our city. Later, I learned that the large number of “referrals”—our friends’ addresses—played a key role in the decision to open our city for the missionaries. To my surprise a few months later, Jakub told me that two “Mormon” missionaries had visited him and that he had decided to join their church.

Born in Semarang, Indonesia, in 1914, Julie was one of six children. Her father died when she was eight, and her Chinese mother, who had been disowned by her family for marrying a Dutchman, was unable to take care of her children. Julie lived with a foster family for several years until the family was reunited.
Julie finished school, earning a degree in education, and worked as a secretary until she met Rudolf Jacobs, whom she married in 1938. When World War II started, Rudolf, an experienced pilot, was called into action and soon became a Japanese prisoner of war.
Julie, pregnant with twins, was left to care for her infant son. As she struggled for the next three years to provide for her children, she sold knitting and other handiwork, trading everything she could to obtain food.
Rudolf returned from the prisoner-of-war camp very sick and underweight, and the family decided to move to the Netherlands, where better medical help was available. So in 1947 Julie left Indonesia, not realizing she would never return to the land of her birth.
Six years later, Rudolf Jacobs was killed in a plane crash and Julie was again left to provide for her family—four children ranging in age from five to fourteen. She went to work teaching typing and shorthand. In 1960 Julie suffered another blow when her oldest son was killed in a car accident.
Reeling under the loss—“It felt like part of my body had been torn away”—Julie experienced a crisis of faith.
“I couldn’t understand why I had to go through this,” she says. “I struggled every morning and evening to bend my knees in prayer, as I was used to doing, but I found I could not pray.”
Even though Julie had never attended a church, she had a strong belief in God that pulled her through. “After a while I heard a voice that seemed to repeat, ‘And still God is love.’”
She began to pray once more. “In thankfulness to my Father in Heaven, I searched for a church where I could serve him.” One rainy evening in 1962, two Latter-day Saint missionaries knocked on the Jacobs’s door.
Not long after, one of Julie’s sons was baptized, followed by her sister and mother. But Julie was not yet convinced. The evening before her daughter was to be baptized, a missionary challenged her to pray in an effort to gain a testimony of the gospel.
“I did not promise the missionary anything,” Julie remembers.
“And when I said my prayers that night I did not mention the Church. But in the middle of the night I woke up with an urgent need to ask Father in Heaven if this was indeed the true church where I could serve him.
“Never had I prayed so sincerely or for so long. And never had I felt God’s love and strength as I did on that night. When my prayer was over, I saw the sun shining through the curtains at my bedroom window. As I gazed outside in the early morning hour, I felt a happiness and peace I had not known since before my son’s death,” she recalls, her face reflecting the wonder of that morning a quarter of a century ago. She was baptized that very day, along with her daughter.
For the next twenty-one years, Sister Jacobs served in the Relief Society. For five years she was Relief Society president of The Hague Netherlands Stake. “It wasn’t always easy, but during those years I learned to kneel in prayer often to receive the help and inspiration I needed.”
Three times a year a special week in the London Temple is organized for the Dutch members. “We usually leave at night, driving for several hours,” Sister Jacobs explains. “Then we take the night boat to England, and drive for three hours. Each day we are there, we arrive at the temple before 6 A.M. and stay until 6 P.M. When I get back to Holland I am tired, but happy that I was able to work in the house of the Lord.”
“Life isn’t always easy,” Sister Jacobs admits. “But our final reward will be that God will lovingly take us in his arms when we leave this world. Thinking about that gives me the courage to accept the things that happen in my life.”

On my street lives a little boy known as the Sidewalk King. This little boy cruises the neighborhood on his black and gold plastic racing tricycle, living in his own world of make-believe and heroic deeds. One of his favorite things to do is to back that little vehicle up against his house and then—gathering up all the power and energy at his command—shoot dangerously out onto the street. Then, pulling handlebars around hard, he pedals back again. Nearby neighbors can’t help but hear him.
His parents, understanding more than he does about the dangers involved, have warned him and pleaded with him. Not long ago, his father found it necessary to give his young son a strong chastising to help him understand how dangerous it is to ride out in the street. As he ran into the house he sobbed to his parents, “You just want to ruin all my fun.”
To the mind of a four-year-old, that is exactly what it appeared. But, oh, how wrong he was. His parents weren’t trying to ruin his fun; they were trying to keep him from harm, perhaps even death. Freedom to him was largely doing what he wanted without restraint and interference.
I know of another little boy who came home from school one day long ago to find a rented piano in the house. “What’s this piano here for?” he asked his mother.
“It’s for you,” she replied.
“For me?” he asked. “Why for me?”
“Because,” she said, “you are going to take piano lessons.”
He said he didn’t want to take piano lessons. But she had already arranged for a teacher.
Well, this little boy began to miss a few lessons. One day his mother asked, “How was your piano lesson?”
He said, “Fine. I’m doing pretty well.”
“That’s interesting,” she said. “I just talked to your teacher, and she hasn’t seen you for a while.” He had been caught. He didn’t know what the punishment would be, but he knew it would be bad. Then his mother said, “Just for that, you may not take piano lessons.”
He tried to look punished, but inside he was very happy with her decision. Mother, he thought, you have hit on the perfect punishment. I hope you use it often. Within his heart he felt that he had just been liberated. He was free from practice, free from lessons, free from discipline, routine, and regimentation—free from all that seemed to limit his freedom.
When he grew to be a man, he was sitting one day in a church meeting during which a woman was to sing a solo. When her time to perform came, she walked up to the podium and announced, “My accompanist could not come today. I need someone to accompany me.” Looking over the congregation, she saw a man who used to teach piano. “Will you accompany me?” she asked him. The man came forward, and she handed him the music.
As he watched this happen, my friend who had avoided music lessons thought, What would I have done if she had asked me? If she had asked me, I would have been free to do only one thing: to say no. Suddenly, he realized that what he had assumed to be one of the great liberating moments of his life—when his mother said, “You may not take lessons any more”—was in fact a moment of bondage, not freedom. As he sat in that church meeting, he might as well have been handcuffed, for he could not have played the piano if he had wanted to. The other man was free; he could choose to play or not to play. Ultimately, then, freedom is more a matter of capacity and ability than of permission.
Too often, we believe the myth that we are free to do whatever we want to do. True, most of us are free to develop any ability or skill we choose; but until we develop them, we remain in bondage to our own lack of capacity. Even in lands of great political freedom, I fear that many of us live in bondage. Misunderstanding the principle of freedom, we lead lives of limited capacity and, thus, diminished choice. We tell ourselves that the only mason we are not doing certain positive, productive things is that we don’t want to. If we don’t play the piano, for example, we like to think it’s because we don’t want to. Actually, we don’t play because we are not free to. Remember, if we are only free to choose one thing—that is, not to play—we are not really free.

Listen to the experiences of those couples who have gone forth to serve.Quoting a few lines from a letter recently received in the Missionary Department from the president of the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission, we read: “The Wilsons, who recently returned home, did an outstanding job in reactivating the membership. They were able to see two couples go to the temple, have eighteen baptisms, increase ward activity from an average of 136 to over 180 during just the year that they labored in the Nevada Ward. When they came into the mission field, they had just purchased a new truck. During their mission, they put 29,000 miles on the vehicle. This couple was truly dedicated to strengthening the Lord’s work in this area. Now they are retired, living in St. George, and would like to go on another mission in the near future.”

I remember one day when I was not willing to wake up early in the morning for our family prayer, I murmured to my sisters, “There is truly nothing else that we can do in this home, only pray, pray, pray.” My dad heard my comments. I remember his reaction as he lovingly but firmly taught me, “As long as you will be in this house, you will pray, pray, pray.”
My father’s words sounded in my ears daily. What do you think Sister Mutombo and I do with our children today? We pray, pray, and pray. This is our legacy.

Ruby didn’t like to put on her socks. She didn’t like to put on her shoes. She liked Mom to do it for her. But Mom couldn’t today. Mom was taking care of Ruby’s baby brother, Ezra.
It was Sunday. It was time for church. Ruby cried about putting on her socks. She cried about putting on her shoes. Her family was late for church.
On Monday night, it was time for family home evening. The family sang a song. Mom said a prayer. Ruby’s big brother, Danny, gave the lesson.
Danny read a story from the Bible. The story was about Noah. God asked Noah to build a ship. Other people made fun of Noah. But Noah did what God asked.
“When we choose the right, we feel happy,” Danny said. “When we choose the right, it makes Heavenly Father and Jesus happy too.”
Ruby thought about that. She didn’t feel happy when she cried about her socks and shoes. Maybe she could make a better choice.
The next day, Mom needed to go to the store. “Ruby, please put your socks and shoes on,” Mom said. “I’ll get Ezra dressed.”
Ruby started to cry. She didn’t want to put on her socks. Or her shoes. Then she remembered the story from family night. She could choose the right!
Ruby put on her socks and shoes. She brushed her hair. She put on her coat. “I’m ready,” she said.
Mom smiled. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re getting so grown up.”
Mom’s smile made Ruby happy.

“During the St. Petersburg concert,” said James B. Kennard, “I kept making eye contact with a man in the audience. I found him afterwards and invited him to the fireside the next evening. He and his two sons came to the fireside and then invited us to their apartment, where we held a gospel discussion. They happily agreed to read the Book of Mormon and visit with the missionaries. At the evening’s end, our wives embraced and hugged each other.”

Elsa Jacobsen had a problem. After years of working hard in school and excelling in the classroom, on the student council, and in the ballet studio, she had created a situation for herself that she didn’t quite know how to handle. Several top universities, including Stanford University located near Palo Alto, California, were vying to have Elsa as a student. All were great schools, some were offering attractive scholarship packages, and any of them would provide lots of great learning opportunities.
“I finally narrowed it down,” says 18-year-old Elsa, “and after a lot of fasting and prayer I received a peaceful confirmation about coming to Stanford. From the time I arrived here, I knew why. I love it here.”

Prison Warden Kenyon J. Scudder has told this story:
He happened to be sitting in a railroad coach next to a young man who was obviously depressed. Finally the man revealed that he was a convict returning from a distant prison. His imprisonment had brought shame on his family, and they had neither visited him nor written often. He hoped, however, that this was only because they were too poor to travel and too uneducated to write. He hoped, despite the evidence, that they had forgiven him.
To make it easy for them, however, he had written them to put up a signal for him when the train passed their little farm on the outskirts of town. If his family had forgiven him and felt that he could rebuild his life in his own home and own town, they were to put a white ribbon in the upper branch of the apple tree located in the lower pasture near the railroad tracks. If, however, they felt it would be best for him to rebuild his life in a new environment, in a new city, they were to do nothing, and he would remain on the train.
As the train neared his home town, the suspense became so great he couldn’t bear to look out of his window. His companion changed places with him and said he would watch for the apple tree. In a minute, he put his hand on the young convict’s arm. “I can see the tree,” he said.
The young man then asked, “Does it contain a white ribbon?”
The reply, “Not one white ribbon, but a white ribbon on every branch!”
In that instant, all the bitterness that had poisoned a life was dispelled. Warden Scudder said to the young man, “I feel as if I have witnessed a miracle.”
The young man responded, “Perhaps you have.”

Brad’s approach to football illustrates this attitude. The summer before his sophomore year he had the man who makes his artificial legs throw together a makeshift kicking leg out of a wooden block on the end of an old “fishing leg,” a sort of plastic peg leg that Brad uses for swimming and showering. He then hit the practice field with an armful of footballs, his family, and half the neighborhood kids to help retrieve balls. Then he kicked and kicked and kicked and kicked, and when the kids had become tired of it and gone home, he kicked some more while his father held for him. He kicked, and learned to allow for wind, and kicked, and got his timing down, and kicked some more. Even with the ad-libbed leg, his aim was deadly.

That fall he was suited up and kicking field goals and PAT’s for the sophomore team, with a brand-new, made-to-order kicking leg. This year, as a junior, he was the starting place kicker for both the varsity and junior varsity teams.

“He’s a real competitor,” his football coach says. “He’s always emotionally ready to play. He’s a hard worker, and he has a good positive attitude. Those things are important for any position.”

Brad’s entry into the football scene wasn’t an easy one. He had to miss several games his sophomore year because of a rule dispute about artificial limbs, and he had to earn his assignment in the face of some talented competition.

“The kids on the team don’t look at Brad as someone who’s handicapped; they just think of him as a valuable player,” his coach emphasizes. “He’s the best kicker on the team. He had to compete with another very fine kicker for the position, and Brad just plain beat him out. He’s the best kicker I’ve had in my years of coaching. I’ve always made it clear to Brad that he’s got to make the team on his own. He’s not going to play just because he’s handicapped. He’s got to be the best, and he is the best.”

This summer our cute red-headed, seven-year-old grandson, James, visited us at our home in Utah. James spent a lot of time playing with other grandchildren in our backyard. One of their projects, which lasted for days, involved digging in the backyard for bugs. We would often find old cottage cheese cartons on the back steps and patio filled with dirt, grass, and all kinds of crawling things. One day James showed us a to-do list he had written to organize the morning’s activities. Here it is.
Find Roly Polys BreackFind wearmsBreackFind AntsBreackGo inside
We all got a big chuckle out of James’s to-do list. What struck me, after I got over laughing, was how James was already learning the discipline of time management.

When my wife was a young girl, her grandpa took the grandchildren with him to the farm to put powder on the potatoes to kill the bugs. It was fun doing it together. What’s more, they got to ride the old workhorse after they were finished.
It was fun to help get the cows into the barn so they could be milked. Although the children didn’t do much milking themselves, they watched and heard the milk splatter into the bucket. Sometimes a well-aimed squirt would fill the open mouth of a waiting cat. The children laughed even more when Grandpa squirted the warm milk toward their open mouths, and the giggles increased when he missed and splashed their faces.
The children helped harvest the corn and, when canning started, they helped the adults cut off kernels. Everyone had a feeling of accomplishment and they felt secure just knowing that they were adding to their year’s supply of food.
After the children had helped with the picking and pickling of cucumbers, they received a reward of some large ripe ones to cut open, hollow out, and sail as boats down the ditches.

I have a friend down in Honolulu. He was called one day to the hospital by one of our native sisters who had a child there with polio. She said, “Bishop, hurry up to the hospital and give my child a blessing.”

That was one morning. He never showed up all day.

The next afternoon he went up, and she started giving him a tongue lashing. “You, my bishop, your own boss. I asked you to come and bless my child seriously ill, and you didn’t show up.”

He waited until she had finished, and then he said, “When I hung up the receiver yesterday, I started to fast. I’ve been fasting and praying. Now I’m ready.”

That was early in the afternoon. He blessed the child. The child went home that evening, released from the hospital. “This kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting.”

May I tell you of a few of the leaders of our Church in Russia in order for you to appreciate the strength they represent to members and missionaries. Boris Mokhov, now one of Moscow’s district presidents, came to the Church along a path many have followed. Growing up in an avowedly atheistic society and home, and, after the 1985 institution of Gorbachev’s glasnost, unable to respond to the appeal of the Russian Orthodox Church, he was surprised when his oldest daughter met LDS missionaries. Two young elders had visited her high school class and made a presentation about the Church, inviting any interested to attend church services with them the following Sunday. Several of the young students did visit the church, among them, Natasha Mokhov.

Natasha told her older brother about this church, and he agreed to attend meetings with her. In time the missionaries taught them the missionary discussions, secured permission from the Mokhov parents, and baptized the two oldest children. Eventually the two younger sisters in the family also began going each Sunday to the meetings and were baptized. The parents were pleased to note a very positive change in the children’s attitudes and behavior. They had worried earlier about some of their older children’s choices of friends and activities. Now they felt increasing admiration for their resolution and integrity.

On occasion the Mokhov father and mother also attended church services. The children, many missionaries, and Church members helped the parents gain an assurance that they belonged with the children in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Finally their baptismal day arrived, and church service and growth followed. Approximately two months ago, the Mokhov parents and their four children were among thirty-one Moscow members of the Church to visit the Stockholm Temple, where they were sealed as a family for time and for eternity.

Several years after I was married, I was called to teach a Sunday School class of 15-year-olds. It was a large class of enthusiastic and energetic students. I had to prepare well each week in order to stay ahead of them.
One Sunday after class a young man waited for the room to clear and then asked if we could talk privately for a moment. He poured out his heart to me about a moral transgression that he was involved in. He cried, and I could see that his heart was filled with great remorse.
I encouraged him to go see the bishop, and eventually I went with him to his appointment and waited outside. Of course, I was not privy to what happened from there, but almost immediately I saw the dark veil of sorrow, grief, evil, and contempt lift from this young man’s face. In time he was back to being the normal and fine young man that I had known him to be for some years previous. Repentance cleansed his soul and it cleansed his heart, mind, and even his face. His eyes were brighter, his smile broader, and his walk and the way he carried himself suggested happiness.

The experience of the converting power of the Book of Mormon did not end after my mission. In 2016, I was called to teach institute classes for adults. That year, we were studying the Book of Mormon. One day, as we studied King Benjamin’s powerful and inspired discourse in the book of Mosiah, two brothers in my class, carrying a secret burden of deep family problems, were moved to tears. Without saying a word, they left the classroom, and instinctively, I followed them. In the church courtyard, I found them talking, crying, and supporting each other. Respecting their privacy, I returned to the classroom, but concern tinged with hope accompanied me. At the end of the lesson, the two brothers returned, but this time, their presence was marked by peace. One of them spoke, sharing the miracle that had just occurred. He explained that thanks to the teachings of the Book of Mormon and the words of King Benjamin, they had found the strength to confront their family difficulties. In that testifying moment, I was reminded of Alma’s words, “The preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them.” (Alma 31:5).
That day, those brothers experienced the testimony of more than one in its fulness through the power of divine words, confirming the universal truth that the word of God can breathe life into the most wounded hearts.

The gift of time. When I read about the challenge, I immediately made the excuse that I was too busy to even attempt it. When I later began reading, I constantly reminded myself that if I didn’t finish, I could always say I was just too busy. But something amazing happened. On the days I read, time seemed to stand still and allow me the chance to get everything accomplished. This blessing was the remedy to my busy life. I was able to spend more time with my family and on my Church calling, while still being able to accomplish all I needed to in my job. I realized that Heavenly Father will provide what is necessary if I put Him first. Julie Major, Nibley, Utah, USA

Throughout my mission in Europe, a phrase in my patriarchal blessing about preaching the gospel in power reminded me I was on the Lord’s errand, and therefore I should speak with authority. When I returned home and began searching for a wife, I knew I must find someone who would help me be worthy. After all, my patriarchal blessing made reference to the joys of a righteous posterity. Today, I am thrilled to go to the temple with my six children and their companions, and I do find joy and rejoicing in my posterity.